Do I Have One?
by Lacrimula Falsa
Summary: Building a body for JARVIS has technical implications...and philosophical ones. {For genprompt_bingo round 13, "The Eyes are the Window of [sic] the Soul". AU, complete.}
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and/or any other Marvel franchise. I write for fun, not for profit.
A/N: I feel like I should mention that despite the fact that I am currently writing one-shots and the non-existent updates, none of my fics are actually abandoned unless clearly marked as such. I'm still working on those WIPs, I promise!
My card for round thirteen of Genprompt Bingo (and all stories written for it) can be found here: lacrimula-falsa DOT dreamwidth DOT org SLASH 3176 DOT html
As usual, comments are beloved.
Look, when your AI – whom you owe your life several times over, who's been your truest and most selfless friend for years and who's always had your back –
asks you to build him a humanoid body, you don't say no.
That's how Tony finds himself literally neck-deep in tech, ensconced inside what will hopefully one day become JARVIS body and new mainframe.
"Ugh. Jarvis, buddy, this might take longer than expected. If I'd known shrinking your servers enough to fit your core programming into something human-sized would be this hard, I might have opted for the easier option of making all humans bigger using genetic engineering."
"I doubt Miss Potts would appreciate it if you tried to make 'better' humans, Sir."
"Yeah, yeah, spoilsport. Now, where did– Ow, damn it, Dum-E!"
The bot beeped at him.
"Okay, okay, don't try to be cute, you're helping, I get it. Useless little scrap pile."
Dum-E whirred.
"Ugh. Jarvis, save progress and shut it down. This is getting us nowhere. Jesus, you'd think building the armour was hard."
"Indeed, Sir. It appears your initial time-frame might have been somewhat overly optimistic."
"Bah. I'm only building the world's first sentient android, no big deal."
Tony tapped his lip with a finger, looking around the workshop in search of something less frustrating to work on. His gaze snagged on one of the powered-down work areas towards the back wall.
"You know what, let's work on your eyes for a bit."
A previously inactive area of the workshop lit up, illuminating a steel table containing various tools and a padded metal case.
"As you wish, Sir."
Tony walked over towards the newly illuminated workstation, shooing Dum-E away when the bot tried to force a greasy rag on him.
"No, no, no, as you wish, Jarvis. You haven't even decided on a colour yet. These need to be functional and pretty."
He picked up one of the miniaturized cameras, casting a critical eye on a welding seam, running his thumb over it. Hm.Not quite smooth enough yet.
"I find that to be a very human sentiment, Sir."
Tony hm-ed distractedly.
"What's that?"
"Making my eyes 'pretty'. From a solely technical point of view, a set of cameras would both suffice and grant me better-than-human vision. If more than two were to be employed, perhaps spread out evenly about the circumference of my future head, even superhuman feats such as a three-hundred and sixty-degree view and perfect night vision could be achieved."
Tony looked up from the holo-display he'd pulled up.
"Jarvis, light of my life, my most trusted co-pilot, you can't be serious! Eyes are the window to the soul! You can't face humanity with a face full of cameras, that is just...no. Seriously, buddy. Bad idea. Very bad. Not in a humanoid body, I'm not building that. That is beyond the Uncanny Valley and right into Creepytown."
Jarvis' speakers produced a sound suspiciously close to a sniff.
"Well, given that you appear to have some deep-set objections to using 'normal' cameras as the visible part of my visual apparatus, might I enquire; do I have one?"
Tony frowned, feeling like he'd lost the thread of the conversation somewhere.
"A what?"
Jarvis actually sighed.
"A soul, Sir."
Tony's entire thought-process screeched to a halt.
"Err, what."
Jarvis made some undefinable crinkly sound that might have worried the inventor at a time when he was less astonished.
"You postulated but a moment ago that 'the eyes are the window to the soul'. Given that you were referring to my prospective eyes at the time, I feel like a different question logically needs to follow; the question being whether or not I possess something that might reasonably be described as 'a soul'. Hence my apparently quite unexpected line of inquiry."
"Well, isn't that a sucker punch."
Jarvis made that crinkly sound again. It sounded like someone was balling a large amount of aluminium foil together. Tony made a mental note to examine that later.
"I apologise if this topic of discussion causes you distress. That was not my intention."
"If it causes me distress? I'm not the one who's been wondering if I have a soul. Well, recently."
"So you did wonder in the past?"
"About what?"
"Whether or not you possess a soul."
Tony put down the eye prototype and sat down on a stool, sensing that if he let it continue, this could – and likely would – be a lengthier discussion. Those had been getting more frequent as of late. He'd thought building his body would distract Jarvis, but apparently not.
"See, Jarvis, this is why I like hard sciences. Facts, data, clear solutions to clearly defined problems. This whole soul thing? Waaay to wishy-washy for me."
"Please define 'wishy-washy'."
Tony made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat.
"Wishy-washy. Err, metaphysical. Ambiguous. Undefined. Speculative. Not clearly categ–"
"I understand."
Tony cleared his throat.
"Great. Now, despite all past claims to the contrary, I am, at the most basic level, human. And us humans have wondered for pretty much all of our existence – our sentient existence, anyway – whether or not there's some undefinable quality that makes us, well, us. Something that sets us apart from– Okay, see, that's a whole other can of worms, not touching that with a ten-foot pole, ask Steve about that, way more qualified. Or Bruce. He's had lots of time to meditate on these things in the middle of nowhere. Now, what I'm getting at is: Of course I've wondered, in my rare philosophical moments. It's human to wonder. But, philosophy being very far from my preferred fields of study, I am, on this one thing, content to occasionally, very occasionally, speculate. Let the philosophers figure it out. If one day they can point at some speck of data on some chart and go 'There, that's your soul!'? Good for them. Fantastic. I'll be all over that. But until that happens, I try not to think about it too hard or outside of the occasional musing."
"I do not understand."
Tony sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"To be honest, Jarvis, I don't either. I guess that's human too. Or maybe I'm secretly afraid of the answer, who knows? Maybe we all are. All I know is that to me, you're as alive as the next guy. And that next guy should not look at your eyes and see cameras, let alone look at your head and see multiple ones because that way lays Terminator-panic and mass hysteria. Hence giving you a pair of pretty and preferably human-style peepers too look out of."
"Ah."
There was a rather long pause where the only sound was Dum-E wheeling about aimlessly before Jarvis spoke up again.
"For what it is worth, Sir, this discussion has been very illuminating. Setting aside the philosophical aspect, I do follow your reasoning in attempting to make my future eyes 'human-style'. Might I suggest trying out that new polymer Doctor Banner helped you design?"
Tony let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding, a smile stealing over his face.
"Now Jarvis, buddy, that sounds like something we'd both enjoy. Let's do it. Dum-E, heel! And bring that smoothie you're holding. Project Pretty Peepers is a go."
A/N: I was briefly tempted to name this "Project Pretty Peepers" but in the end, my desire to hit a more serious note with this fic prevailed. (Also, yes, I am aware that the grammatically correct phrasing is "window to the soul". The prompt disagreed.)