"He is downstairs. Shall I direct him to meet you in the kitchen?"

"Yeah! Thanks." In Soph saunters. She did not actually prearrange this activity, but she's pretty sure it will meet with approval.

"It's no trouble," he says modestly.

Soph pats a wall affectionately on her way to the kitchen and hums to herself and starts unpacking gingerbread and icing and candy onto the kitchen table.

Hugs! "I didn't! Did Jarvis say it? I deny it completely!"

"The evidence is against you," Tony informs her, letting go.

"Pff, you sound like Sherlock. So, yes on the housemaking idea?"

"Hell yes!"

"Fantastic. I baked it, even! I mean, and I burned it and had to fix it with magic, but baking happened."

Soph is more about the cosmetic features, which makes them a fine team. She makes tiny candy cameras and tucks them into corners.

"That is the most adorable thing I've ever seen," Tony declares when he realizes what she's doing.

Soph giggles. "Well, why not, right?"

"Totally! Think the ground floor's ready for a ceiling yet?"

"Yeah, go for it," she grins.

Soph busies herself with more candy cameras and wee gingerbread furniture. "You up to anything lately?"

"Nah, not much. You?"

"I met Bella's weird gardener minions! They're friendly. One of them gave me a flower."

"Awww, that's adorable," says Tony. "Was it a nice flower?"

"It was some kinda demon flower. It was big and yellow and it smelled like lemon curd and it looked awesome in my hair."

"That is maybe even cuter than you turning our gingerbread house into Gingerbread Jarvis."

"I think," says Soph, "that every time you see a cute thing your potential to appreciate cute things grows, so that every cute thing you see can be the cutest thing you have ever seen."

"Is that a general philosophical statement, or specifically about me and how everything I see is apparently the cutest thing?"

"Specifically you," giggles Soph.

"That is probably true," says Tony. "Or maybe you just have some kind of cuteness multiplying effect."

"That is also possible!"

"It would explain a lot!"

"Also, it would be a fair way to make up for my supposed magic immunity being fictional." She makes a little gingerbread bed and starts weaving a quilt out of bubblegum strips.

"Is that a gingerbread bed? A gingerbed," he giggles.

"Gingerbed!" giggles Soph gleefully.

Soph looks at him and laughs helplessly.

"What?"

She's laughing too hard to answer.

"Whaaaaat?"

"You've got - got a little -" She gestures vaguely and collapses into giggles again.

Soph may be in danger of falling off her chair laughing.

Tony is giggling pretty hard himself, in between the exceptionally silly faces he makes as he tries to bring his tongue and the icing into contact.

"I don't think you can reach, Tony."

"I cannot reach," he agrees mournfully.

Tony cracks up all over again.

Yep. Still giggling.

Soph recovers enough to add a kitkat headboard to the gingerbed.

"Gingerbed," says Tony, which sets him off yet again.

He is funny and he is cute and he is both of those things at the same time and Soph laughs with utter helplessness.

Tony is in pretty much the same boat here! Pffffffff gingerbed.

Eventually Soph gets up and giggles her way to the dish cupboard and gets herself a glass of water, which serves to calm her down with only a little accidental inhalation and coughing.

"The very best!" agrees Soph. "Like no one ever was."

He sporfles.

"If you could have Pokémon what ones would you want?"

"Probably a Charizard," he says. "Charizard is awesome."

"I'd want that fluffy sheep kind."

"Mareep? Yeah, they're pretty adorable."

"Yeah, those! They look soft."

"Very huggable. Unless they decide to electrocute you."

"Well, obviously if I had a Mareep it'd love me and never zap me," says Soph.

"Obviously. Because you are naturally lovable."

"I'd be like Pokémon catnip. Sheepnip? Mareepnip? I'd be very popular, is my point."

Tony giggles.

"All of the other Mareeps would be jealous of my one."

"...I'm just having this mental image," he says, "of you being surrounded by electric sheep who are, like, eating your hair and getting really stoned - oh my god, a Mareep is an electric sheep, I just got that."

"What's to get?" asks Soph.

"There's this famous sci-fi story called 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?'," he explains. "Blade Runner was based off it, have you seen Blade Runner?"

"I think I saw, like, one scene of it, but not the whole thing? We should watch it after we are done with Gingerbread Jarvis."

"Totally! How's the gingerbed coming?"

Soph lays the gum quilt on the bed. "All made nice and neat."

"D'awww."

She likes the bubblegum weaving effect and repeats it to make a little rug.

"You are the best at gingerbread interior decorating," Tony declares.

"I should major in it."

"Totally."

"And then I can have my work showcased in glossy gingerbread decorating magazines."

"Tastiest career ever."

"Definitely. Just don't tell anyone that I burnt the gingerbread I made this morning. The gingerbread tabloids will have a field day and my reputation will be ruined."

"Not a peep," he promises.

"Of course, now you have blackmail on me and I will have to do all your gingerbread decorating for free to make sure you don't decide to squeal on me. So I guess we do this again next year," she hums merrily.

"Yep. I'm ruthless," Tony agrees. "Think we can stick the second-floor walls on?"

"Yeah, go ahead," she says, adjusting the rug's angle slightly relative to the gingerbed. She starts trimming the downstairs windows.

On they go! He spends a triangle to make the icing dry when he's sure it's all stuck on right.

"How many floors d'you suppose Gingerbread Jarvis should have?" Soph asks, starting another batch of candy cameras for the second floor.

"Good question. Three might be pushing it. Wouldn't want him to collapse under his own weight."

"Yeah, that'd be bad. So I guess the roof is next. And a chimney, let's give him a chimney."

"Got it!"

"And a skylight."

"Sure."

"Oh, hey, how about an actual attic? Not a whole floor, just, under the roof there can be more candy things." Soph starts making more candy things.

Soph crafts and places candy junk in the attic. And empties a Pixie Stik into it to represent dust.

"The gingerbread people are very negligent of their attic," explains Soph loftily.

"Hence all the - pixie dust."

"Also it used to be a cocaine den?" suggests Soph.

"...Pffffffffffffffff," says Tony.

"You are just totally great," he declares, giggling.

"I am made of seventy percent great and thirty percent mystical key energy."

"Eighty-twenty."

"Flatterer."

"I call it like I see it."

"What are you made of, then, besides your share of great?"

"I'm made of Tony," he snorts. "I am, like, the least varying template in the multiverse."

"I only barely met the other one who visited here," muses Soph. "Is it bad? That you're a lot alike?"

"Nah. Well, it made picking the nicknames a headache."

"I wonder if there'll ever be another Soph. A - I don't wanna say a real Soph, but one who was, like, born."

"Maybe," he says. "Can you leave the world now? You could go to the next Bellparty and ask Glass if you're templatey."

"Yeah, I went into Milliways, nothing happened, I didn't bounce off like an unwelcome vampire or anything. I think I will do that. When Jane's back."

"With a hole in it for the chimney and everything, awesome."

The brick of the chimney is represented by red jellybeans, carefully cut in half lengthwise to reduce their profile.

Soph giggles and hugs him back, careful not to get the frosting on her hands onto him.

Hugs.

Soph peers at the completed chimney, critically, rummages through her supplies, and finally bites her hand for a puff of white cotton candy to tuck in the end by way of smoke.

"Best gingerbread house," Tony declares.

"Yes. None of the others are tiny Jarvises. All the best houses are Jarvises."

"Stop it, I'm blushing."

Tony giggles.

Soph also giggles.

"Okay, now who's gonna help us eat it?"

"I could probably get Bella to take, like, a wall, but basically nobody, we could just let it stand around being pretty till it gets stale and eat the spare bits?" She points at the window cutouts and remaining frosting.

"Aww, but demolishing it and eating the wreckage is half the fun!"

Soph laughs. "Okay, we can eat it, but I dunno if we can finish it just the two of us with Bella maybe eating one wall."

"I bet we can."

"It's a pity it's not in Sherlock's diet all the same." She inspects the house, looking for the best part to break off first. "Any last words?" she asks it.

Tony allows the gingerbread house a moment to respond, and then says, "Guess not," and breaks off the chimney.

"Rawr," says Soph theatrically, and she takes a roof-half.

Nomty nomty nom!

Soph runs out of steam before they've even broken into the first floor, and pauses in her demolishing, chewing the gingerbed gum quilt and the gum rug. "You'll have to go on without me," she says, laying her hand on her forehead. "I'm done for."

Tony giggles.

Soph blows a bubble at him.

He pokes it with his finger.

It has admirable resilience and does not pop all over her face. He does successfully make her giggle, though.

He giggles right back!

Soph retrieves her bubble. Chew, chew. "You wanna watch Blade Runner now while you eat the rest of the house?"

He laughs. "Sure, why not."

To the TV! Soph carries the stray candy and extra gingerbread in with them. She may become peckish at some point during the movie.

Tony carries the house. Very carefully.

They are her favorites! She takes them happily. She incorporated lots of them in anticipation of having leftovers and eating them, since she didn't know Tony would want to eat Jarvis-in-effigy, but she is glad to eat these slightly frosted ones too.

Nom nom cuddle nom!

Nom Hug nom. Cozy.

"Mm?" She can't well ask any more complex question, she's turning a shrinking candy over and over in her mouth.

...Soph has no immediate answer to this question except to choke slightly on her Hug.

"Sorry!" says Tony. "I should learn not to combine awkward questions with candy, it never ends well, you okay?"

Soph manages to arrest the small coughing fit. "I'm fine I'm fine - uh - do you want us to have been dating for like a week?"

"I don't know, yeah, maybe, kind of, do you?"

"...Yeah maybe kind of?"

"I just thought of it thirty seconds ago! I have not had time to catch up with my feelings!"

"I - I dunno, I like you, I wasn't thinking it all methodically through, that's Bella's circus act."

"I like you too!" says Tony. "But I don't wanna make everything horrifically awkward if it turns out that we are just really good cuddlebuddies? But I think maybe we are not just really good cuddlebuddies. There. Those are my feelings."

"Okay, well, let's just - not be awkward," says Soph with a decisive nod. "If awkward tries to happen we can have it escorted off the premises."

Tony giggles.

"So um, now that there are metaphorical hulking security guards ready to shoo incipient awkward," says Soph, "cuddling is good and should keep happening and I like you? Like, like you."

"Cuddling is good!" says Tony. "Cuddling is awesome. And you are awesome. And I like-like you too."

"Aww," says Tony.

Soph smiles and blushes more when he does that.

"Awwwwwwww," he says, and hugs her.

Hugs! Snuggly hugs.

Snuggy hugs!

"So, we can have been dating for a week, if you want."

"Cool," says Tony. "Hey, we've been dating for a week! We should celebrate. With, like - candy?" He eyes the remains of the gingerbread house. "No, if I have any more candy I might actually explode. Kisses?"

"Mmmmaybe?" Soph squirms in his arms. "I'm probably terrible, I don't even have, like, implanted memories of kissing anybody."

"So?" shrugs Tony. "First time for everything, right?"

Soph nods tentatively.

Mmmmokaythiswasafantasticidea. Kissing Tony is utterly the best thing. Kissing Tony kissing Tony kissing Tony there should be a song about it.

Kisses are Soph's new very favorite thing. Yaaaaay!