Whatever funhouse mirror this Iron Man had stepped out of, it was getting stranger by the second. Everything he was saying was backwards, or misaligned--"Malibu? The--no, Palos Verdes, that's the place we had in California. That was, jesus, a century ago, long before..." Tony's hands were up to try to illustrate, but every detail was getting harder to pin down, especially the ones that seemed specifically designed for him to hate hearing. Like Pepper getting dosed with Extremis.

Extremis might have been a sticking point for both of them. There were some things about Tony that could have been universal constants, but a quick scan would reveal a few remarkable distinctions in this one; that the suit he wore itself was run on the program that he called Extremis, connected directly to a transhuman upgrade in his brain and a web of nanomachines that covered his skin. And he was a few inches taller, he would want to have noted.

"Hold on, let's--backup, reset. I feel like you're asking me what I want for breakfast, and I don't even remember having the date. Hi, Tony Stark," he said, delicate hand to his glowing chest, unforgiving faceplate hiding the disarming smile that would have made his delivery far more convincing. "Unbearably rich, we should get coffee."