Tony Stark was eleven years old when he lost his dæmon.
"We aren't allowed in here."
"We're just gonna look around."
"We'll be caught."
"Dad won't be back for a while."
"He'll be here in half an hour."
"Plenty of time to explore."
"He'll be very cross with us—"
"Jarvis." The child turned his head to give the weasel dæmon draped over his shoulders a withering look. "Calm down. We'll be in and out in no time, it'll be fine. Stop worrying so much."
"If I didn't worry so much, you'd get into twice the amount of trouble you usually do." Jarvis said with an air of exasperation. "If you would listen more, you wouldn't get into trouble at all."
"Trouble is exciting." Tony countered, resuming his exploration of his father's lab—or, as he fondly referred to it as, his 'evil lair', kept for all sorts of morbid experiments and chemical explosions and a concoction that sometimes turned his father into Mr. Hyde—poking at vials and running his fingers along every surface he could reach. It wasn't nearly as dark or scary-looking as he'd always imagined, but that didn't stop him. It was the number one rule for all evil lairs: there had to be Frankenstein-esque experiments and dismembered hands in jars somewhere.
Like that high-up shelf, perhaps.
"Hey, hey, Jar, fly up there and see if there's anything cool."
Making a show of reluctance despite his own curiosity, Jarvis shifted into a small bird, flying up to see what mysteries the shelves contained. It was mostly what appeared to them as meaningless clutter; a couple of small books and notes and empty bottles and trinkets they didn't recognize. Things that may be of use to adults, but to an eleven-year-old child, they were nothing more than a bore.
There was, however, one peculiar thing amongst the junk. A large bottle with a thick, dark substance in it. Intrigued, Jarvis hovered closer, his small beak nearly touching the glass. It had no labels or markings of any kind, but it screamed 'do not touch' just as well as any sign—exactly the kind of thing Tony was looking for.
"Did you find something?" Tony asked, standing up on his tip-toes as if the extra half-inch would help him see.
"I think—"
It all happened very quickly.
The door to the lab swung open, revealing a tired-looking Howard (who was not supposed to be home yet oh god Tony was going to be in so much trouble), Jarvis whipped around at the same time Tony did, and the ominous bottle was knocked off the shelf.
After that, the only thing child and dæmon knew was pain. Horrible, burning pain that had both of them screaming in agony. Jarvis fell and shifted again and again, trying to shake burning stuff off his back, and Tony clung to him desperately, panting and whimpering and oh god what was in that bottle.
From somewhere far off, he heard the screech of a bird and a horrified shout, and Tony was lifted into someone's arms. He didn't have the presence of mind to figure out who and he didn't care. He held Jarvis tightly against him as he was carried away, and realized that something was wrong. Something was so very, very wrong, and the feeling settled itself in his gut. It wasn't just the pain, it was something else. Something was wrong with Jarvis, and it terrified him.
The last coherent thought that ran through their minds before they blacked out was one simple, terrible question:
Are we going to die...?
There were two things that Tony noticed when he woke up. One, the pain was nearly gone. The only thing left of it was the dull, phantom sensation of burning across his back; hardly more than a minor nuisance. Two...
Jarvis wasn't there.
Frantically, Tony sat up, looking all around him, underneath the sheets and the pillows and inside the pillow cases. He rolled onto the floor, ignoring the pull of the IV in his hand, and looked under and behind the bed, around the machinery, the window sill, under the chairs and even between the cushions, but there was no Jarvis.
Heart racing in his chest, he called out, "Jarvis? Jar, where are you? Jarvis!"
I'm here.
The child jumped, looking around desperately. "Where? I don't see you...why are you hiding? Are you mad at me? I'm sorry, I didn't know that would happen—"
I'm not hiding...and I'm not angry.
"Well, then, where are you?"
In...I'm in the computer.
Tony was silent for a long moment.
"Wha...what? You've gotta be joking. You are joking, right?"
No, I'm not. Dad put me in the computer. I'm inside the system.
"But that's..." He was at a loss for words. "That's crazy! You can't be in the computer! How'd he do that?"
I don't know, but he did.
"But...but you're not supposed to be in a computer. You're supposed to be next to me! Right beside me, just like always." He could feel tears start to form in his eyes, but he stubbornly blinked them away. "I need you."
Before Jarvis had a chance to respond, the door opened, and a nurse walked in, a dæmon in the shape of a Welsh Corgi trotting beside her. She looked up from the chart she was holding, and started when she realized he was up. "Tony, what are you—"
"Fix him!" Tony demanded, glaring up at the nurse as if it was her fault everything was wrong. "Fix Jarvis!"
"Tony, I can't—"
"Yes you can! You've got to!"
"Tony—"
"My Jarvis is stuck in a computer and you have to fix him!"
"Tony, stop it."
Both child and nurse looked over to find Howard Stark standing in the doorway, fixing his son with a stern look that was shared, albeit less convincingly, by his osprey dæmon, who was settled regally on his shoulder. "Jarvis is fixed. Now stop throwing a tantrum and let the nurse look you over."
"But he's not fixed." Tony insisted, balling his small hands into fists. "He's all wrong! He's in the computer, Dad, that's not right!"
"If he wasn't in the computer, he'd be dead." Howard deadpanned in that no-nonsense way of his that told Tony he wouldn't be tolerating this much longer. The osprey on his shoulder shifted. "Be thankful that I managed to save him in time. Get back on the bed."
"But Dad—"
And there went his last shred of patience. "Do as I say, Tony. Bed. Now."
With an angry glare, Tony did as he was told.
It took Tony and Jarvis a long time to get used to the new...arrangements. It was very different, Jarvis being stuck in the computer system. Such a thing was unprecedented, as far as Tony knew, and there was no telling what new limitations, if there were any, there would be. They adjusted as best they could, seeing as they had no choice—if anyone tried to take Jarvis out, he could very well die, and that was a risk no one was willing to take—but neither of them were happy.
Tony hated it. He hated that Jarvis was no longer right beside him, hated that he couldn't cuddle up with Jarvis at night, hated that he couldn't just reach over and stroke his fur to assure himself that he wasn't alone. He hated that he couldn't show off with him, that Jarvis could no longer take the form of ridiculous and intimidating creatures to scare off the bullies, that he couldn't curl around his neck when they were cold or nervous. And Jarvis hated that Tony hated it. And that hatred caused tension between the two that never really went away.
Tony may not have really lost his dæmon that day, but for the longest time, it certainly felt like he had.
But he tried to deal with it. They both did. Jarvis would send himself through the system into Tony's phone, and Tony would always keep it with him. People whispered amongst themselves as he went by, muttering things like where has he been, and why is he acting so weird, and the one that turned the most heads, where is his dæmon?
He ignored them all.
And it got easier, after a while. They got used to the strangeness of being so close, yet unable to really touch or share a look, or anything they'd always done before. They tested what Jarvis could do, moving from device to device with ease as long as they were connected to the same system. They discovered that they still couldn't get very far away from each other, even though Jarvis, in all technicality, wasn't physically there. But the more the system improved and was added to, the more Jarvis could do.
After Tony inherited the company, he began introducing Jarvis as his A.I. Neither of them wanted to explain what he truly was, and it gave Tony something to brag about. The only ones who knew the truth were Obadiah, Pepper, and Rhodey. Somewhere down the road, Tony became known to many as "the man with no soul," among other things; something that he found both amusing and maybe just a teensy bit true. Jarvis never commented on the matter.
And then, there was Afghanistan.
Tony had almost forgotten how much it hurt to be away from Jarvis. For two months, he was locked away in a cave with no phone, no technology, no anything to connect him to his dæmon. The only company he had was Yinsen and his Genet dæmon, Issa. And as fond of them as he became...it wasn't enough. It wasn't the same. He needed Jarvis.
It began to hurt less as time wore on, but it still felt horribly, gut-wrenchingly wrong. More wrong, even, than when he first realized Jarvis would no longer be by his side. Because even after that, Jarvis had still been there. But now, he was alone. More alone than he'd ever been. Even as he worked, there was only one thing running through his mind.
Jarvis. Need Jarvis, find Jarvis, where is Jarvis, need to get home to Jarvis, my Jarvis, JarvisJarvisJarvis...
I'm sorry...
And as he watched Yinsen take his last breath, as Issa disappeared in a pitiful burst of golden Dust, Tony knew what he had to do.
Several explosions, guns firing, and one bad landing later, Tony could honestly say that he had never been more relieved to see Rhodey than he was just then. He was helped, stumbling, starving, and overheated, into the helicopter by firm but careful arms, and the first words out of his mouth were, "where's my phone?"
Knowingly, Rhodey picked up Tony's phone, as if just holding it the wrong way might cause it to break. Tony couldn't get his hands on it fast enough, and, once he'd settled himself into a corner, muttered, "Jarvis?"
I'm here.
Relief was too weak a word to describe how he felt hearing that voice again. He leaned against the wall. "You know what, Jar? Next time, remind me to ride with Rhodey. Screw the 'fun vee.'"
Duly noted. Jarvis sounded amused.
And it was during his ride home, as he was cleaned and bandaged up, that he decided maybe Jarvis being a computer wasn't so bad after all.