Tony flapped a hand at her.

"Well, you know, I've been thinking of installing something like the Danger Room for the team, you could always help with that."

"You overestimate how good at machines I am," Cameron said, grinning a bit. "I'm really no good at machines. Just using them."

"We can do that," Tony said with a shrug. "You can be my official tester from now on, I can make this happen."

Cameron just rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, Tony, I'm not here to be your guinea pig," she said.

Tony grumped at that. "Being my guinea pig would be awesome, though," he said, but then he left it alone.

"When do you think the kiddos will get picked up?"

"As soon as we hear from Charles," Cameron said with a bit of a shrug. "Once he lets us know the mansion is safe again."

"Well, yeah, know that, I was more asking for a timeframe if you have one, but I guess that's a no." Tony shrugged. "I'm sure Sabine is having a great time corralling them."

"Sorry," Cameron said. "Seeing the future isn't exactly my mutation."

Tony snorted at that and shook his head. He ended up working again, but he was still talking to her, at least, so that was a step up from normal.

Of course, then things had to go and blow up in his face. Almost literally. Although he totally blamed Doom for that, because it was Doom's fault, really. It was also Doom's fault (somehow) that Tony's mutation got out of control, and much, much stronger, practically in five minutes. Tony was still working on that, because even he had a learning curve, even if it was ridiculously high.

Cameron had heard about the incident in the middle of the week (who hadn't? it was all over the news for hours) and she was ready for Tony to show up that weekend. That kind of week, she was certain he would show up to whine and putter around.

Tony did show up that weekend, but he didn't whine. Instead, he went straight to Xavier, and then headed down to the Danger Room for a few hours of training, because he needed it.

"That's unusual," Sabine said, when she didn't see Tony for hours after he'd arrived. "Normally he's in here by now."

"Yeah," Cameron murmured, glancing in the direction of the danger room. "This is definitely strange." She hesitated for a moment, and then got up. "I'm going to go see if I can find out what's going on."

"Good luck." Sabine went back to her baking, because she baked when she was stressed, and this whole thing with Tony? Yeah, she was stressed.

Tony was finally calling it quits about then, because he could feel the headache building behind his eyes and it wasn't going to be pretty if he tried to keep going.

Cameron waited just outside the door of the danger room.

"Is everything alright?" she asked when she saw Tony come out.

"Peachy." Tony grimaced a bit when his head throbbed. "Just working on some things."

"You look like you overextended yourself," Cameron said softly, gently touching his shoulder. "What happened, are you okay?"

"Working on control," Tony said, shaking his head. "Something happened, with that last battle. My mutation is stronger. Much stronger." He groaned a bit. "I need coffee, why is there not coffee right here?"

"Jesus, Tony, if your mutation jumped, the last thing you need is coffee," Cameron replied. She nudged him a bit over to somewhere he could sit down. "Are you honestly okay?"

Tony waffled for a few moments before he shrugged. "Haven't been able to be in the workshop the last day and a half," he said. "Don't have enough control yet. It's taking too long."

"A day and a half?" Cameron asked, looking at him in disbelief. "Tony... Even for you, it'll take longer than that. It took me a month last time my powers jumped, and I had already been working with them for a while. At least give yourself a week."

"Hypothetically speaking, I don't have a week. It's not like villains keep a schedule." He snorted. "I need to be field ready yesterday."

"It's going to take time, Tony," Cameron said. "Especially with powers like ours. They're harder to keep in check than a lot of others."

Tony huffed. "I know that, but I'm a genius, I should be able to figure this out." He scowled, and then winced when his head throbbed again.

"This isn't about being a genius, Tony," Cameron replied, touching his shoulder gently. "It's about physical and mental tolerance, and you've hit your limit for the moment."

"Unfortunately," Tony agreed with a grumble. "For now." He made a face.