"Not now, Tony. I'll check on you when I get back."
A tiny, dark-haired boy in pajamas stands in the doorway of his father's room, watching him spray on cologne and button his powder blue shirt. After a last look in the mirror, Howard takes a long drink from his metal flask and leaves the room, ruffling the little boy's hair in passing. Tony wishes he could run to his mother, but she's visiting his aunt in a city far away, and even when she's home, she's usually busy. The little boy goes out into the middle of the hallway and stands there, staring down at his sock-clad feet and feeling empty.
"There you are, Master Tony." The voice is deep and English. "It's nearly your bedtime."
"Ok, Jarvis," the boy answers listlessly, looking up into the face of his tall butler. Jarvis puts out a hand, and the little boy takes it, walking with him across the house and to the wing that contains his bedroom.
Tony's room is huge, like most of the rooms in the Stark house, and it contains a myriad of every kind of toy in existence. Sometimes he spends the last few minutes before bed sitting on the thick blue carpet and imagining that he's a train or an airplane, but this night he doesn't feel like playing, and Jarvis doesn' t even ask. That's the funny thing about Jarvis. He always seems to know how the little boy feels, even if Tony doesn't tell him.
The butler sits down on Tony's bed with his back against the wall. "I was thinking a bedtime story might be in order," he says. The little boy nods and clambers up into his lap. Immediately, like always, Jarvis's arms wrap around him tightly.
Tony snuggles into the soft wool of his butler's vest and listens as Jarvis's deep voice begins. "Once upon a time, there was a king named George and a huge, scaly dragon." The story is Tony's favorite, and it's always the same. That's why it's so comforting. King George is always scared and always brave, and he inevitably picks up his sword and kills the hideous beast that's terrorizing his kingdom.
By the time Jarvis is finished, Tony is nearly asleep, but when the soft voice finally finishes with "The End," he opens his eyes wide and looks up at the butler.
"Jarvis," he says, "I wish you were my dad."
"Your father loves you very much," is the reply.
The little boy answers sleepily, his head drooping onto his butler's chest. "But you're the one who's always here." The butler holds him until he drifts toward sleep, and he barely feels it when he's placed in bed with a thick quit over him.
"Good night, Jarvis," he says, practically in his sleep.
"Good night, Master Tony."
—-
A dark-haired man in dirt-stained clothes lies prone on a hard slab, scared and in pain. His every sense is alert to the sounds around him and the fears that ricochet around his mind. There is no comfort in the cave where his captors keep him. All he wants is sleep.
He closes his eyes, trying to find an image to quiet his consciousness. He thinks of home and family, but the thought of his parents only agitates him more. He lets his mind wonder through his boyhood home, as if he's all of six years old again, until he lights on a sound he remembers well—the soft clapping of leather shoe soles against the hard floor. Jarvis's shoes.
In his imagination, he stops in the middle of the hallway and waits for the butler to come into view. "It's time for bed, Master Tony." The comforting voice is easy to recall.
"Will you tell me the story of King George and the Dragon?" he asks.
"Of course." In his mind, Jarvis smiles and takes his hand, leading him to bed.
Tony feels his breathing slow as he focuses on the feeling of his hand in the butler's. He'd always felt like nothing bad could ever happen to him when Jarvis was near.
They enter his bedroom, and he recalls it as it was when he was very young, with his telescope and his toy box. His imagination has always been vivid, but he's suddenly afraid he'll lose the image.
"Come." Jarvis's voice quiets him, as kind as it had always been. Even the man's scoldings had been gentle. In his mind, he forces himself to focus on the remembered sensation of the butler's strong arms lifting him onto his knee.
The prisoner, broken and alone, begins to feel his fears lessen as he recalls the soothing familiarity of the story he's heard a thousands times, the story of a terrified young king and the dragon he had to vanquish.
"I can't kill the dragon," he says to Jarvis. He'd never said that as a boy, but he feels it vehemently now.
In Tony's imagination, the butler smiles down at his child self and hugs him tightly. "I believe in you, Master Tony." He can't recall if Jarvis every actually said that to him in real life, but it calms him to his core.
He stops the memory there, not wanting to lose the recollection of the feeling of his butler's safe arms around him, shielding and strengthening him. He finally drifts off to sleep in the middle of the recollection of the sound of Jarvis's heart beating under his ear.
The next morning, Tony Stark awakens in a dank cave, with dirty clothes and a body in pain. He opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling, and he smiles. This is the day George picks up his sword. This is the day the battle will begin.
