"Bruce…" Tony stared, wide-eyed at the sleeping child in his lab. "Bruce!" He hissed, not looking away as he started to panic. "JARVIS – JARVIS, where's Bruce?!" But silence answered him. For a terrible, terrible second, Tony was scared that whatever he had done had made JARVIS malfunction – before he remembered he'd barred JARVIS access to this lab. Internally breathing a sigh of relief, he took his gaze off the small child for a single second, looking around for his Science Bro.
"Nowhere to be found…ah!" He let out a short yell as he looked back at the kid, only to find them sitting up on the floor, eyes focused solely on him. "Fuck- shouldn't swear in front of kids, no, no, Pepper would kill me if I swore in front of a kid – don't repeat what I just said!" He pointed at the child, saying the words both with stern and stressed tones. The kid didn't seem bothered though, bright blue eyes instead switching from his face to his outstretched hand.
"My servers are malfunctioning," came a high-pitched, lisped voice, in a jilted but identifiably American accent that matched his own – but Tony could also immediately hear the breathy, panicked tone that overtook it. Then the blue eyes became watery, the child – who was, what? Five? Three? – starting to shake before their eyes and nose screwed up, mouth opening to emit a wail as they started to cry. Tony's eyes widened in fear.
"Kid, kid, shh, shh…" he went forward, movements stilted as he put his hands out jerkily, not knowing what to do. Howard had never done anything when he cried, only calling Maria or the original Edwin Jarvis when he cried. But surprisingly, the thought brought inspiration.
Trying to emulate his mother and human butler, he reached out, picking up the naked child – girl, he mentally amended quickly – and pulling her close to him, her arms – seemingly on automatic – coming up to wrap around his neck, pulling her body snugly against his, head lying in the crook of his neck. Startled, he blinked, before quickly tightening his own grip, so she wouldn't fall, bobbing up and down slightly as he looked around for a shirt – any piece of clothing, something to keep her warm. He knew how cold it got in the Tower, knew because his arc reactor used to chill and freeze his insides, but he couldn't stand what heat would soothe it, so freezing the Tower was indeed.
As luck would have it, there was a one of Bruce's white lab-coats lying around. If it had been his personal lab – which was more of a garage than a lab – then it might have been an oil-stained Metallica shirt. He was relieved, for once, that it wasn't. Going over, he picked it up, leaning sideways to do so and adjusting himself almost on automatic to compensate for the extra weight of the kid. Haphazardly wrapping it around the kid, he glanced at her, taking it what he could. Blonde hair, no – red? Strawberry blonde, it came to him after a second, the same colour as Pepper's.
He almost tripped over a fire extinguisher.
Fire extinguisher? He focused on the red container lying on the floor, pushing away his sudden thoughts. What's that doing there? He picked it up – once more compensating for the added pounds – and put it on the nearest desk, adjusting his grip on the girl, who had quieted sometime during their short walk, but still tucked her head in his neck. A glance at the room's set saw it wasn't from the lab. Did Dummy bring it in? He looked around, trying to find the stupid claw. No, he's not here – and he'd never leave his fire extinguisher behind.
But that sparked something – a memory of what had happened before he found himself staring at a sleeping child in his most private of Science Bro labs. He'd been fiddling with an Asgardian artefact that had, according to Thor, lost power. Tony had tried everything to figure out what it was and how it worked, because Thor wouldn't tell him, finding his attempts at bribery amusing. Only once he tapped it accidentally against his StarkPhone did it flicker, immediately draining his phone's battery. That had gotten him excited, and he spent the next ten minutes draining all battery-powered items in the lab of power, trying to activate the artefact. He'd made sure not to let it get near any live sockets – who knew how much power it would need. Pepper would kill him if they were sued for draining New York's power grid – the arc reactor running Stark Tower was scheduled to be replaced tomorrow with an upgraded model that would run it for another five years, instead of just the single one and a bit. That 'bit' had been a pleasant surprise.
Of course, after that, he realised there was only one non-connected-to-the-outside-world power source in the room. His arc reactor.
Tony distinctly remembered wheezing in pain after tapping it, only to swear and throw it as the artefact gained reactor-blue light throughout the Norse runes engraved on it. He had heard it hit something – something metal, maybe? – before there had been a bright white light that blinded him momentarily. Then the girl had appeared on his floor.
He glanced at said girl, who had relaxed during his zoning out. Shifting her onto his hip, he brought his now-free hand up to her head, lightly pushing it away from his shoulder. What he saw had him internally freaking before he pressed her face back into his shoulder. She brought her head back up. He pushed it back in. She brought it back up. He pushed it back in. The process repeated itself until Tony got tired of pushing down her head. Instead, he stared, face blank as he took in the Pepper miniature, with his distinct Italian tan and soft nose, plump lips identical to his own, but Pepper's dark pink.
"Who are you?" He muttered to the girl who could only be his daughter. The girl lifted her shoulders, before dropping them, a poor imitation of a shrug.
"My servers are malfunctioning."
His eyes caught sight of the fire extinguisher again. He had heard it hit something – something metal, maybe? He swallowed.
"Shit." He looked to the girl. "Don't repeat that, Dummy. I can't believe you're a girl. I must have confused you you're entire life. Why didn't you tell me?"
His robot-turned-little-girl blinked comically. "My servers…are malfunctioning?"
Tony shut his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose before once more adjusting her, the unfamiliar burden straining his arm and making his hip ache in ways it never had before. He tugged the lab-coat more thoroughly around her as she shivered slightly. What did he do? Tony had never planned for anything like this- actually… Actually, he had. Sort of. He could remember the day he created Dummy, half-way to being drunk, and half out of his mind after hearing his parents and Mr Jarvis had all died in a car crash.
He hiccupped as he laughed, watching his first ever AI jerk on their own after unplugging his laptop. "B-Brilliant! I-hic-I should put you on display for the world to-hic-to see – but I won't, cause I want you here with me. You'll stay with me forever, won't you?" The AI jerked again, in a way that if human would have been a shake of a head. "Of course you will, dummy- dummy!" He grinned. "That'll be your name, unless you become human in the future, or some kind of terminator. I'll look after you and you'll be my robo-kid – then I won't call you Dummy cause Dummy isn't a human name. I'll call you-"
He ran a hand through his head, growling in frustration as he failed to recall the name. Failed to recall any of the conversation after. He only remembered waking up with Obi shaking his shoulders, Dummy beside him- oh, I must have fallen unconscious. He looked at his 'robo-kid'. That really wasn't the right kind of term for her.
"Dummy isn't a human name," he murmured decisively to himself. "Dummy isn't a human name. But I don't know what to name a human. I'll ask Pepper – should we go ask Pepper?"
The human-Dummy only blinked, before repeating, "My servers are malfunctioning."
He peeped through the gap in the doorway, holding his breath – despite needing to catch it, to slow down his heartbeat from climbing twenty-six floors so he didn't have to go in the lift with human-Dummy in case of other passengers, and so he had time to think – as he counted the Avengers sitting around the breakfast bar. Because apparently it was seven in the morning. Bruce had only just woke up, by the look of things. He wasn't dressed in fresh clothes yet. For some reason, Bruce found it comfortable to go to sleep in whatever clothes he wore the day before, in case of any Hulk episodes after nightmares. It made sense. At least then the Hulk would only be shredding dirty clothes.
Rogers was making pancakes at the stove, piles and piles already on the breakfast bar for everyone to grab at. Judging by his clothes and dark blonde hair, he'd already taken his usual morning runs and shower. Romanoff, to his amusement, was wearing silk boy-shorts and a faded pink tank-top, a knife strapped to her thigh as she ate a forkful of pancake, chocolate sauce and kiwi. Why the fruit, he had no idea. Clint was seemingly absent – but then he ran over from the other side of the room, where sofas sat with his homemade flat-screen, grabbing pancakes in a hurry as the break started.
Dr Foster herself sat on Thor's lap, conked out. He assumed she's had a science-y night from the way Thor looked down at her with exasperated fondness, delicately shovelling an entire pancake – plain! – while Darcy Lewis jabbered on about something or other, completely oblivious to his obliviousness at whatever she was talking about.
Then was his own better half. She was dressed casually in a red plaid shirt and her old blue jean-shorts. She looked a lot happier, and healthier. Thank-god I figured out a way to make it go away, he thought to himself as he remembered the Extremis formula. Pepper was the love of his life – he was never afraid to admit that – and put up with enough of his shit already. Suddenly he felt nervous, and looked at human-Dummy in his arms with fear.
"My servers are malfunctioning," she said again, but this time there was an annoyance to it as she glared slightly at him. The look caused him to think further on the age-spectrum of things. Five, definitely five. Maybe. Four and a half? She was still really small. He breathed in, before putting her down, standing her up on two feet. She stayed upright, before quickly crumbling – he caught her before she hit the cold hard ground, cursing under his breath. Crouching, he let her down to the concrete softly, making sure she was sitting on the fabric of Bruce's coat as he rested her upright. This time, she stayed still, not crumbling or falling sideways and suddenly becoming a machine or anything.
"I'm crap at this," he muttered, before giving her a sharp look, not verbalising his command of 'Don't tell Pepper', before he stood and breathed more again, opening the door that wouldn't let them all see her. "Hey gang."
They looked over, Pepper beaming at him.
"Hey." She waved her fork. "Look – Steve made pancakes."
Tony put his hands behind his back, guiltily ignoring her words even as he looked right at her. "Nice. Okay. I have an announcement. Well, it's more of a surprise, than an announcement – both? I don't know, but I need a professional opinion on this and while you might not get it right away, it's real important."
Immediately Pepper's eyes narrowed, the group looking at him suspiciously.
"What you done now, Stark?" Clint asked him through a mouthful of pancake. Tony squinted at him.
"Shouldn't you be somewhere else? You always spend your free time not in the Tower. Red too – why aren't you vanished, Natalie?" He questioned her, only for Pepper to snap at him.
"Tony. What do you need help with?"
"A name," he replied quickly, "like, a girl name, that you would give to a human and maybe a robot, but not a robot and this is stupid and I should just go back to the lab-" he turned swiftly, about to leave when Pepper called after him.
"Tony, stop, I'm sorry, please-" he heard her get off her chair and come over, so he turned back, his girlfriend-slash-lover-slash-maybe-fiancee-if-he-had-the-damn-courage. "Maybe if you tell us why you need a name, then we can help. You said it's for a girl? Have you made a new AI?"
"Sort of," he evaded the question, noticing with clarity how Thor suddenly stiffened, looking straight at him. He kept his eyes on Pepper. "It's complicated. She's not really an AI, better, even, but she had a name before except now that name doesn't fit-" he stopped himself, breathing again before giving a small truth, "Dummy's not a boy, she's a she and I feel really bad."
Pepper and some of the others looked surprised. Others, such as Rogers, looked confused, while Thor gained a look of regret that Natalie obviously noticed.
"Dummy's a girl? That's…that's certainly big," Pepper seemed to struggle with the notion, which both made Tony's heart soar and fall. He loved how she treated his creations – loved how she made considerations for Dummy and Butterfingers and You and always treated JARVIS as if he weren't just coding, but someone to rely on. "So basically, Dummy needs a new name?"
"Well-" that was when human-Dummy decided to speak again.
"My servers are malfunctioning."
Pepper, with her proximity, could hear her small voice, however muffled, through the door. The door was one of those slow-close ones, and his turning a few seconds ago had prompted him to push it…
"Tony, what was that?" She peered around his shoulder to the door. "Is Dummy there? Did you give him- sorry, her, a voice?"
Tony squirmed for a second, before turning and opening the door, snatching her off the ground and holding her out to Pepper, who stared.
"This is her, and she needs a new name because Dummy isn't a human name and I wanted to ask you because she looks like you and me and sort of like our MorphBaby and please don't kill me- blame Thor!" He brought human-Dummy to his hip so he could point, the girl blinking and looking up at him.
"My servers are malfunctioning."
He glanced at her, "Yes, I know your servers are malfunctioning. You're human now, that's a big change from being a claw, I know, so your old programming won't work – but daddy's a little busy trying to convince mommy that I've not gone crazy and that you are actually Dummy and not someone I've stolen, so if you have something else to say that isn't about your servers malfunctioning, then now would be a good time to talk."
She blinked again. "This is not an obsolete upgrade?" Her lisp made the start of her sentence come out in more of a hiss than anything else, but he understood, even now that her 'my servers are malfunctioning' had switched.
But Tony didn't even try to comprehend her change in speech patterns, instead trying to think up an analogy that she'd understand. "Uh, no, not obsolete. No, never. The Asgardian artefact I was playing with changed you into a human, so…uh, think of it as if I made JARVIS into a claw. I gave him a new body to work with that had different controls than he's used to. Right now, you're in a new casing, one that has different controls and fuel to your old claw-form. Got it?"
She blinked once more, before cricking her neck side to side. "This casing is confusing, master."
Tony made a disgusted face, "Not-Dummy, never call me that ever again. You can either call me Daddy, Dad, Dada, Da, Pa, Pops, Pappy or Papa. Got it, chipmunk?"
She blinked again. "Daddy, Dad, Dada…" she tested them on her tongue, eyelids shutting and opening almost dramatically slowly. "Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada-" Tony grinned, before she was interrupted by Pepper.
"Tony?" Her voice was weak, and confused. "Tony, what…" she gestured to human-Dummy. "Dummy's human? And what do you mean, Asgardian artefact?" She and most everyone looked to Thor. "Thor?"
Thor looked properly chastened. "The Nornene-sirkel is a device I had not thought you enough power to activate. Loki created it as a youth – it gives temporary animation to inanimate objects."
Tony looked terrified. "Temporary?" He looked to human-Dummy, who didn't seem to understand.
"Temporary animation?" She questioned, "But I was already able to move."
Thor shook his head, "I do not understand it myself, young one. Maybe it is because you are an 'Artificial Intelligence'. You already had life. The magic interpreted it and your mechanical form as it did, and gave you human animation instead of simply the ability to act independently. Most other victims of Loki's Nornene-sirkel were wooden animals, and statues that caused minor havoc in Asgard. Though," he paused, pulling a strange face, "there was that one incident with the tree on Vanaheim. Groot has recently joined an team of interesting characters in another Galaxy, 'heroes' – he has been alive some six hundred years."
Pepper nodded at the information, looking slightly faint before she pushed Tony into the stairwell, walking past him upwards. He followed her hurriedly, staying quiet as they entered their private suite, only accessible from those stairs. Once they were in their living room, Pepper stood still, rubbing the sides of her head before turning – and to Tony's distress, had tears in her eyes.
"You wanted names for her," she croaked suddenly, "Libby, Laura, Aria, Lottie, Emily, Holly, Tori, Regan, Olivia, Teagan, Kitty."
Tony stood, stunned.
"I just- Tony, she looks-" Pepper flailed, actually crying now. "Tony, I can't have kids." He startled, opening his mouth to speak- "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I'm sorry, just with Iron Man and the Extremis and all of this-"
Tony stepped forward, wrapping an arm around her and kissing her forehead as she pressed her head to his free shoulder. "I like the names." She cried more, before human-Dummy shuffled, arms wrapping around Pepper's neck as they did him before. Pepper took her with a choked laugh, hugging her tight to her and kissing the side of her forehead.
"It's nice to properly meet you," she croaked. Tony stroked Pepper's hair, before the little girl started to sing something, almost inaudible, Pepper watching her, eyes slowly losing their redness. It went on for a short while before she unexpectedly dropped off to sleep, cheek resting on Pepper's shoulder.
"What is that?" he asked in a hush.
JARVIS answered at a low volume, "Laura's Lullaby, sir. A nursery rhyme that I," he paused, sounding almost human as he continued, almost embarrassed, "I used to play for Dummy, Butterfingers and You when you, sir, were in Afghanistan. They learned to associate it with comfort and the end of distress. Usually I would play it for them when it was time for they to recharge, but they were activate too much for me to properly appropriate their systems, so I could coax them into their charger spots."
Tony made a noise of surprise, "That's…that was really nice of you, J. So she went to sleep because she also associated it with sleepy-time?"
"Yes, sir."
Tony exchanged a look with Pepper, "That's useful to know." Pepper nodded, before swaying slightly, a small, sad smile appearing on her face.
"Laura…" Tony caught on.
"Laura. Laura Stark." He had a sudden thought, and for a damming moment, his brain-to-mouth filter disconnected. "Pep, marry me." Pepper looked up sharply, eyes wide.
"Tony?"
Might as well, he thought before repeating himself with an unusual stutter, "M-m- please marry me, Pep." He almost pleaded. Pepper stared for a few, unending seconds, before she smiled brightly, leaning up and kissing him soundly, being careful not to wake Laura. Laura, my daughter, our daughter…
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes," she whispered against his lips, before pecking them and pressing their foreheads together. "Unfortunately though, unless you want that to be a no, I want my pancakes. Come down with me and Laura?" a mischievous grin came onto his face, before he picked them up abruptly, jolting Laura awake as he held Pepper by her legs, the woman holding tight onto the young child with one hand, the other holding his shoulder.
"Tony!"
"Dada?" Laura questioned, a confused tone to her voice. "Why are we being carried?"
"You and your mom make me happy," Tony grinned at his little girl, "and yes, that means you call Pepper either Mom, Mommy, Mama, Mammy or Ma or some other diminutive." Hesitantly, Laura nodded, before looking at Pepper, just as Tony walked them over to the elevator, before putting them down.
"Mama?
Pepper kissed her forehead, "Yes, I'm your Mama, little Laura."
"Laura?"
Tony wrapped an arm around Pepper's waist, grinning at his little creation. "Yup. That's your human name – Laura. Laura Virginia Stark." Pepper shot him a slight look, but he returned it with a pout, eyebrows raised. She conceded after a few seconds.
"Shall I backdate paper-work, sir?" JARVIS questioned dryly. "An identity for her would be prudent, I believe."
"Enough snark, J, but yeah, go for it. I'll help with the details later – and delete all photos of Pep from five and a half years ago, over a seven month span, or change the dates they were taken. Scramble footage on cameras, etcetera."
At that, Pepper actually frowned at him, sniffing, "Tony, I think that's taking it a bit far. I mean, it's one thing to have Dummy become human, another to say I had an actual daughter."
Tony shrugged. "It's not as if I'd let her be caught on camera outside the Tower before we got the details ironed out. We don't even know if she ages – you heard Shakespeare, the tree is over six hundred and joined an alien version of the Avengers."
"Still," Pepper pursed her lips, before looking to Laura, who was chewing on one of her buttons. "Laura, stop that." She pulled her shirt away from her, prompting a surprisingly Dummy-like whine from her.
JARVIS commented, "Would you like a pacifier, Laura?"
Tony looked sharply at the ceiling, "She's not a baby."
"She is less than an hour old, sir, respectfully," JARVIS replied, humour obvious in his voice. Tony rolled his eyes, looking at Laura, who was leaning back from Pepper to stare at the ceiling.
"That's your snarky older brother, JARVIS," Tony spoke to her, attracting her attention. "He'll keep you safe, but please, don't pick up his sense of humour. It'll be the death of me."
Laura simply went back to looking at the ceiling.