Look. Sweetheart. [Tony looks at her little face, his own eyes crinkling in distinct amusement at the little quirks of annoyance in her face.] I wasn't trying to trigger your weird genre insecurity. Believe it or not, taking an interest in things outside your immediate understanding is kind of how a lot of conversations get started. No crime in learning something. Even at a party at the end of the world.

[He does have the decided luxury of saying that, being a playboy billionaire inventor blah blah. And that luxury makes him-- decidedly not good at talking to people who are less cool about the gaps in their own expertise.] 'Intelligent design' probably fits Mothercrystal, if she's a sentient being. The 'maker' of your universe.

And water and trees are a pretty big get for habitable universes. Mothercrystal or no. [Another wad of pie comes off and all is left is the crust, which he doesn't feel like! So he sets down the emptied plate on another one nearby, ditching his fork next to it, his armor moving with surprising delicacy for all that.] I'm not interested in fiction. I'm interested in breaking down the components of reality-- our mutual reality. And making it work for us. World like this, magic and science are synonyms.