Just A Normal Kid

Chapter 12

Rosie was cleared to get back to her normal schedule within the next three days by Dr. Banner. The first time she'd met him, it had taken a full five minutes for her to confirm the fact that Dr. Bruce Banner was actually standing in front of her and he was the one who'd bandaged her head. She just stared, jaw open, as he held out a hand for her to shake. "Hello, Miss Rhodes, it's nice to meet you. Tony's talked a lot about your brilliance, and I must say that I'm quite looking forward to working with you."

That managed to bring her back to reality. "Work... with me?"

"Tony offered to let me stay with all of you in the Tower, and I accepted a couple of days ago. I understand if you don't-"

"That's amazing! I've always wanted to work with a real scientist!"

There was a shout from the next room. "Hey! What am I, chopped liver?" It was Tony.

"You're family! You don't count!" She retorted. "I've been working on getting A.I into the medical field for ages, and once I'm done with my degree, people will take my work seriously. Can you please help with such projects?"

"Of course, Miss Rhodes."

"Please don't call me that. As much as I love Dad, he's the only Rhodes around here. I'm just Rosie."

Tony walked in at that exact moment. "Well then, Just Rosie, want some toast?"

She had introduced Dr. Banner, who insisted she called him Bruce, to MARLENE, and he had been fascinated by how realistic she was. The two of them had persuaded Tony to let them open a new line of StarkBots, specially targeted at Children's Hospitals. Rosie had remembered how lonely the kids at the Pediatric Ward were during her short time at the Hospital. Their parents couldn't spend all their time entertaining the kids, and reading books soon got old when you were stuck in the same room all day, everyday.

She remembered how happily they had greeted her when she'd been in her wheelchair and some of the long-term patients had been so excited when she had let them draw on her cast. Many of them were too weak to play around or even have very long conversations and the nurses couldn't afford to spend all day with such kids. This was where the idea of building companion robots came in.

They could keep the kids company and monitor their vitals, allowing the staff to tend to other patients. Within three weeks of them working together, Rosie, Tony and Bruce had managed to produce their first prototypes. Investors had loved the idea, and they were on trial basis at a few of the Stark-owned hospitals in the area.

Rosie had created an A.I system in each robot and programmed them to respond to whatever name each individual child had given. The kids all had a great time giving the bots silly names and giggling each time they called the bots that. Officially, the bots were given serial numbers for names, but no one other than the manufacturing division used those. The cute little bots were a big hit and she'd already begun searching for ways to make them cheaper and easier to mass-produce.

Just one day before Rosie was scheduled to return to MIT, there was a Code Green. She had been working in the lab with Bruce and Tony was doing something in his garage when the robot he was tinkering with suddenly short-circuited and exploded, startling Bruce and raising his heart-rate sufficiently enough to bring out the other guy. Code green had been activated and the lab was shut down, but Rosie couldn't leave within the set time limit. She was trapped in the room with Bruce who was hulking out.

Rosie had seen the footage of how Natasha had almost calmed down the Hulk back at the Helicarrier and started to speak to him. Tony had shown her that video when she had asked for his help in finding a solution to help Dr. Banner.