Tony barely glanced up when he heard the door open.

"What, did you stop for coffee or something?" he asked. "What took you?"

"Almost," Leandra replied without missing a beat. "I was thinking about stopping to explore, but I figured I can do that after we're finished."

Tony studied her for a moment, although he mentally approved. She had more backbone than his usual flunkies.

"Well, get over here," he said. "I'm just about done with this upgrade."

Leandra seated herself next to him, her eyes widening a bit at the computer set up there. Okay, now she was jealous. Really, really jealous. Being a multi-billionaire had its benefits apparently.

Tony turned back to the screen and finished the last few lines of code. The whole screen was already full of code, and by the looks of the scroll bar, the code went up quite a ways. Anybody not Tony Stark would be impressed.

Lea was impressed, but she was also busy ignoring the urge to go poke and prod at the computers and get specs of things and play around. Because, seriously, this lab? Candyland.

"Quit fidgeting," Tony said without looking at her. "You're distracting me, and you don't want me distracted."

"I can't help it, you have lots of pretty shiny tech." Lea picked up a tablet to distract herself, since she hadn't been able to get her hands on a StarkPad before this.

"Fantasize about it later," Tony said as he put the last few bits of code in and finished. "I want to know how the hell you keep managing to break into my systems."

It took Lea a few moments to respond; she was busy looking through the specs of the StarkPad, and she was just itching to take it apart.

"Hmm? Oh, right." She moved back to the screen next to his, getting quickly to his defenses and testing them again. This time, though, instead of waiting to find a weakness (because she knew those would be fewer and farther between now that he kept updating the damn thing), she "numbed" a section of the firewall and made a crack so she could get in.

Tony watched as a section of code just crumbled away.

"The hell?" he muttered. "How'd you manage that? That isn't possible."

"It can't be impossible because I just managed it." Lea shrugged. "Well, you've got this kill code going through your firewalls, right? I just have to section off a little bit so it doesn't try to kill me instantly, and once it's separated I can make a little crack. From that crack, I get in." She shrugged again. She'd known how to do that for years.

"It's not built in sections," Tony said as he tried to sort through what he'd just seen her do. "What you just did shouldn't be possible." He huffed. "This must be how Chuckles feels when I play around with SHIELD's systems," he muttered to himself. "Not kosher."

Leandra snorted and went back to playing with the StarkPad. And now she wanted one. He had too much fun tech to play with.

Grumbling under his breath, Tony fixed the defenses again and layered on as much power as he dared. Protection on top of protection on top of protection now metaphorically stood between the wild internet and his databases.

Lea, by that point, was too busy playing with other tech to try to get into the databases again. She'd wandered a little bit away to start inspecting everything else in the lab.

Finally, Tony stopped with the defenses for the day. Sort of the coding equivalent of an atomic bomb, nothing was getting through anytime soon, so he felt comfortable enough to leave it be. Getting up, he stretched a bit and looked around for Leandra.

By that point, Leandra had found a few different little devices that were designed to work on or with the human mind, and she was busy investigating those to see how he'd put them together and how they worked.

Tony definitely noticed what she was studying when he found her, and his eyes narrowed a bit. Those bits of tech definitely correlated with the information he'd caught her stealing, but what did she need them for? He still had a woeful lack of information, and that annoyed him.

Leandra didn't notice him yet, too engrossed in examining his tech. She was fairly sure she could replicate these back at the apartment with the parts she had, she just needed to figure out the code to make it work. That was going to be the hardest part.

Tony leaned against the table, watching her.

"So who sent you?" he asked casually. "No, really, who was it? Was it Hammer? I bet it was Hammer, he's always trying to get his grubby mits on my work."

"Sent me?" Leandra glanced over at him before she went back to examining things. "No one sent me. I mean, I've been wanting to get in here for years, it's a techie's paradise in here, but no one sent me here."

"Someone had to have sent you," Tony replied. "You may as well tell me. CIA? FBI? The government's usually drooling over possible mind-control tech. Though how they got their hands on a code-monkey like you before I did is something I should look into."

Leandra blinked and actually turned to look at him. "Um, no. I try not to attract government attention, like ever. I haven't even gotten a parking ticket." She shook her head.

"Nobody just randomly decides to go fishing for such incredibly specific information," Tony pointed out. "Mental influence? Anxiety therapy?" He paused, watching for her reaction. "The Extremis virus?"