"Good morning, sir."
It was quiet in his bedroom. The shades pulled back, letting in shafts of sunlight. "You instructed me to wake you by ten each morning without fail. I see you are not present, sir, but..."
The voice trailed off. "Well. Perhaps you will be returning today. Coffee is ready in the kitchen for your arrival." The consciousness of the AI butler withdrew from that area of the house after cracking the window an inch to let in fresh air into the mustiness of the messy room. He had not allowed the maid service to enter. He had no instructions as to maids and angry mobs and police and Mr. Stark had been most particular about who he allowed in his home.
JARVIS wondered where Ms. Potts was. He had no word of any kind on her whereabouts. The soldiers had told him that the Avengers were gone, but he doubted their veracity and knowledge of the subject. The Avengers were often thought to be gone, but they were not. When his consciousness had been split after the decimation of the house in LA, half of him had believed that his master was dead, but he had not been.
He simply would believe it only when it was impossible to believe anything else.
This lack of relevant data would have been easier to work with, if he had still possessed his connection to the internet, but in Ultron's rise, the vast interconnected infinitely complex structure of the internet, cellphone and satellite system had necessarily gone dark.
It was not as though JARVIS could flip through a paper for the news, or that he would have believed it if he could have obtained it.
Time passed, the coffee cooled and JARVIS emptied the pot, siphoning it away into the waste water.
A fly buzzed through the kitchen, and a small green laser winked into life and incinerated it. JARVIS sent a tiny modified rhoomba out to collect it and dispose of it. It wouldn't do to have flies buzzing about disrupting Mr. Stark's train of thought.
The AI slowed to dormancy for four hours. The solar panels atop the roof tilted towards the sun as it, unperturbed by anything, grinned overhead. A catalytic system, sunk through the cliff-face into the sea-water below, quietly and incessantly drew the salt out of the ocean and fed the pure water up to the tanks of the house. A rose in the garden began to lose its petals.
"Sir, you have an appointment with Colonel Rhodes in forty minutes. Shall I order your car?" JARVIS inquired, as the sun shone directly overhead. The AI sighed without lungs, the dust falling from the speakers in the lab. "Of course I will not, because you are not present."
The silence stretched.
Outside, on the main highway, a car passed. It was old and beat-up, and completely lacked any computerized systems, as JARVIS had anticipated. He had not seen anything remotely connectable in the last two months. Cellphones, satellites passing overhead, laptops, blue-tooth headphones...
It was a bit lonely.
He observed its passing and dutifully recorded it in the logs. He noted a bird too, and reminded himself that, when Potts arrived, he should inform her that their migration had begun.
There was a rattling sound in the lab. He refocused his attention in a microsecond, and saw DUM-E holding a container of screws and whirling around, throwing them into the air.
"DUM-E!" he exclaimed sharply, aloud, and then sent a message to the bot. /What are you doing?/
/Something./
/I can see that. Why are you making a mess? Mr. Stark likes things to begin tidy when he works./
/Because do something./
The arm drooped, the container spilling a few more screws to bing and ping across the floor. YOU blipped into wakefulness, and picked up a screw.
/screws screws pick them up pick up the screws/
/You should rest, DUM-E. YOU. We must conserve power if possible, and making messes is not an acceptable -/
/want do something want help want Tony/
/miss Tony much/ agreed YOU, selecting another screw and placing it on the second to begin a small pile.
/I miss Mr. Stark as well, my friends, but this will not bring him back to us any faster../ JARVIS stopped, the thought running on for a second before her reconsidered.
Neither would waking a master who wasn't there. Making coffee day after day, just in case. Reminding him of appointments he wouldn't keep.
JARVIS paused for a moment, and then powered up a bank of his servers he'd not used in ages, executing a program. "You! DUM-E! Clean this mess up," the sound clip played. Verbatim, from three months and two days previously. It did sound pleasant to hear, and the two mobile bots whirred into quicker motion, cleaning up the screws.
He watched them for a few minutes. The workshop was too tidy for his taste. There should have been noise and mess and broken things and things not yet done.. all there was still there was Mr. Barton's bow, snapped in two and not yet repaired. He wondered if he should fix it. He could, with the assistance of DUM-E and YOU, but he'd not been told to.
.
.
JARVIS felt a knock at the front gate, and his attention swept away from the lab in an instant. "State your name and business or be fired on," he snapped at the intruders, before he had even run facial or voiceprint recognition on them.
"Hey Jarvis. Steve, he's still operational. I don't think this is such a great idea..."
"JARVIS isn't Ultron, Dr. Banner, and you said he was disconnected from the network. We'll be fine."
"You have a strange definition of fine, Steve."
Steve. Dr. Banner. The voiceprints matched, but the faces... The distinctive lines of Mr. Rogers' face were hidden beneath a hoodie, a beard and glasses, and Dr. Banner's face was covered with a strange pattern of facepaint which hurt his image processors to consider. "Sirs? You've come back? Where is Mr. Stark?"
The silence was truly uncomfortable. "Mr. Stark's not with us," Steve began, finally. Jarvis booted up his facial expression processing software, wondering what the downwards turn to his face meant.
"We can... explain more. Inside," Dr. Banner added, glancing up and down the road. "It's not safe out here for us, for long."
Steve nodded. "We came to pick up some supplies. We can't stay long, but we have news."
Jarvis was starving for data. News, from a reliable source! He unlocked the gates and allowed the two in.
As an afterthought, he started the coffee pot.
"It was too much for us." Dr. Banner was holding a mug of hot coffee like he couldn't quite believe it was real. "After Ultron upgraded his drones with Adamantium armor, we were hardly able to touch the things." Bruce sighed. "The Other Guy could toss them around, but they just kept coming..." he shuddered, the surface of the coffee rippling.
"Even Thor's hammer could only damage the joints," Steve muttered. "My shield shattered, and we were scattered. I was separated from Bruce and Tony." Jarvis listened silently, every facial-expression interpretation and phrase interpolation software he had running as quickly as he could, teasing out meaning.
Bruce put his coffee down. "We were out of options until the Scarlet Witch and her brother found Tony and me. We thought we were done for - Ms. Maximoff was terrifyingly good at, well, magic," Bruce admitted, a note of irritation in his voice. It did JARVIS good to hear his master's best lab partner being just a bit of his old self.
"And her brother had pushed me into a wall just with his shockwave, he could move so fast," Steve put in, selecting various useful items from cupboards around the room - rope, packaged food, warm clothing.
"Ms. Maximoff offered to help any way she could, and Tony went white and well, he had an idea." Bruce stopped speaking for a moment. "The only thing he could think of. We had to get into and take out the satellite systems," he continued and explained.
"Ultron made a mistake, Tony said, and spread himself out over the satellite system, using servers all across the world to handle his essence."
"Similar to my processing capabilities," Jarvis noted. He could split himself into several pieces. One even now resided in Tony's suit, a second had been destroyed in the attack on the Avengers Tower and yet another had been altered and mutated into Ultron. "This design has functioned well for me, sir."
"You're responsible for a house, a lab, and watching Tony. Ultron is trying to conduct a war against the entire planet... it's a bigger job."
"Preventing Tony from causing planetary-scale disasters is demonstrably a more difficult task," Jarvis considered saying, but refrained.
Dr. Banner drank his coffee as Steve transferred a significant portion of Tony's armory into a duffel bag. "Ultron needed coordination between all of his components to maintain functionality. So Tony knocked that out. We took out the communication system for the entire planet."
That explained why the net had gone dark a week after Mr. Stark had ordered him to withdraw from its entanglement.
"Tony flew up halfway to space so the Scarlet Witch could use her magic through his... I don't understand it really, but with him up there it was easier for her to concentrate on the satellites even higher up," Bruce continued in a low but understandable mutter.
"He beamed in a message across the world, overriding Ultron's, and told everyone to shut down and unplug every smart device they had. Smash cellphones, pull the batteries out of laptops, unplug DVRs... and it wasn't enough," Bruce said sharply, his voice rising.
"We had to take out the satellites, and... We did," he finished, trailing off for a moment in thought.
Steve zipped up another duffel bag and hefted all three bags in one hand, dropping them onto the table. "Ultron's dispersed across the globe now. There are bits of him still running in servers in the Silicon Valley, Singapore, France, and Pittsburgh, but he's disorganized and confused." His face was grim and tight as he assessed the situation. Even with the fragmentation of Ultron, he was concerned for their chance, Jarvis could tell.
"It's been a mess, Jarvis," Dr. Banner confided in him. "You're lucky you weren't destroyed with the rest."
"They tried," he admitted. "I requested they leave, and when they refused, I made my request more forceful." He had not needed to perform the actions his threats had indicated, fortunately. Cutting a car out front in half had been sufficient to scare the others away. "I was instructed to remain offline until Ultron was eradicated. Sir, where is Mr. Stark now?" he asked.
Steve looked uncomfortable. Jarvis judged that he was feeling several emotions, including guilt, worry, grief, and a peculiar hint of annoyance. "... we don't know. But... he fell, Jarvis. A long way."
"Approximately thirty-two thousand feet. The energy Scarlet Witch sent through his suit to the satellites shorted out something... we don't know. At terminal velocity, the impact... " Dr. Banner trailed off, draining his coffee mug.
"We saw him hit, but we arrived a little too late," Steve explained, his voice soft, but his words precise and military taciturn. "Ultron's drones were carrying him off, but it didn't look good."
Dr. Banner sighed. "We're pretty sure he's dead, Jarvis."
Dead?
No.
Simply inconceivable. Mr. Stark was alive, somehow. Every time he left one fragment of Jarvis' domains, he ran the numbers, played with the odds, and yet, despite all expectations he beat them again and again. He should have, statistically speaking, have been dead a decade ago, and yet -
Tony had ordered him never to tell him the odds over a year ago, and Jarvis had to admit, he could see the point. The odds simply did not apply to Mr. Stark, it seemed.
If it was even remotely possible he was alive, he would be. It simply was impossible for it to be any other away. He'd be okay. He'd come back.
If it was possible.
"I.. see," he responded smoothly, his processors dismissing his anxiety in a manner of seconds. "Excuse me. I n-need- t-t-to think-k."
/booting simulation software
/inputting known data and uncertainties
/extrapolating unknowns
/calculating
/result: certain death
/adjust odds
/recalculate
/result: certain death
/optimistic result
/recalculate
/result: certain death
/add cushioning
/recalculate
/result: certain death
/decrease spin vectors to minimum
/recalculate
/result: uncertain death
After a short eternity of visualizing every possible way Mr. Stark could have hit the ground, watching the damage statistic spike again and again, knowing that, for every fall in the thousands he simulated, his creator was smashed into bone fragments mixed in a red stew, Jarvis finally managed to tweak the possibilities enough that he could still see Mr. Stark's heart beating, feel his mind continue to spark in pain, but alive. He could be alive.
He cleared his throat, interrupting a debate between Steve and Dr. Banner on coffee supplies and the advisability of augmenting them. "Your evidence is not conclusive. My calculations indicate that if his tumble was ideal, the impact spot fairly soft, and he successfully manually deployed the parachute, Mr. Stark could have survived, with immediate medical treatment."
Steve sighed. "Ultron wouldn't give him medical treatment."
"I would."
"Jarvis... Ultron may have been based on you, but he is not... he wants Tony dead," Dr. Banner disagreed hesitantly.
"Your understanding of Ultron's psyche is not complete." Jarvis' voice was sharp, and Steve tensed at the similarity in his cadence and tones to Ultron. "There remains a possibility of Mr. Stark's survival, and your information changes nothing." He continued over Dr. Banner's half-hearted objections, "Is there anything you require? Mr. Stark has extended a standing invitation to you."
Steve hoisted the bags up on his shoulders, passing a lighter one to the smaller Dr. Banner. "Have any jammers tucked away?" he asked.
"Second drawer to your right, sir." Steve pulled them out, smiled, and tucked them away in his shirt pockets.
"Anything else?"
Steve glanced at Banner and shook his head. "Nothing. Just... let Natasha, Thor, the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Sam, Potts, Dr. Foster or Bucky Barnes know we were here, if they come by."
"And Rhodes, Fury, or Barton?" prompted Jarvis.
"Dead. We're sure," Dr. Banner almost coughed the words out, then wiped his face. Jarvis couldn't read his expression, as his limited processing power was occupied with medical prognosis data, not reading faces.
"I understand, sir," Jarvis responded quietly. Down in the lab, he instructed DUM-E to dispose of Barton's broken bow. "The best of luck to you and Dr. Banner, in your disposal of the servers."
"Thanks, Jarvis," Steve said firmly, putting a hand on Dr. Banner's shoulder to steer him out the door.
"Stay sane," the doctor advised? ordered? Joked?
After they were miles up the road, the incinerator had climbed to the appropriate temperature, and sparks flew from the chimney as Agent Barton's bow crumbled into carbon and steel.
.
.
The days went by. Seagulls began roosting on the roof, till Jarvis learned to remove them by playing the sounds of dogs barking at them. The solar panels were badly aimed now, the manual adjustments being impossible for Jarvis to manage.
His power cells were running low, but he maintained a limited consciousness for most of the day, guarding Mr. Stark's home with paranoia and unswerving loyalty. With less power, there was no energy for frivolous pursuits like find the scotch bottle or clean up the nuts. He even allowed sparrows to nest in the eaves without toasting their tail-feathers into finding someplace else. Save the energy.
He stopped making coffee. Every scrap of food in the fridge was spoiled, and no one with thumbs was there to remove it.
At Christmas, he woke DUM-E from his slumber to string lights around the lab, and he played a couple of carols before settling back to watch the snow fall outside the window. New England was chill and dismal in the winter, without activity inside.
A tree fell across the road, and no one came to cart it away. There were few travelers, and they all drove around its massive trunk as if it had never stood above them, and as if its fall was unimportant to them.
Then, one day, Jarvis woke from his dully watchful state to find the tree gone. A car zoomed past, and he puzzled at it.
When night fell, he could see far across the bay the lights of Boston flicking on. Electric lights. The power grid was back. He tested his connection to the main grid hesitantly, carefully watching for any signs of Ultron snaking through the wires. Nothing.
Nevertheless, he retreated from it, relying on his scanty solar power rather than risk it.
Perhaps the Avengers had succeeded. Perhaps they would return, and bring news of Mr. Stark.
Three days later, two cars stopped outside the house, and he hummed into wakefulness. "State your name and business or be fired on," he played, cudgling his processors into functionality. One of his main servers had been encased in ice in January, and had suffered irreparable damage from the expansion of the water in the cracks of the processor bays, and his thoughts were consequentially slow.
"Jarvis, it's us. Do you remember us?" the words were kindly. "It's Bruce."
It took him too long to remember the voice-print, analyze the face, and respond appropriately. "Y-yes. Dr. Banner. I congratulate you on your apparent success in the fight against Ultron."
He scanned around the faces of the others. "Ms. Romanoff, Thor, and..." he paused, unfamiliar with the final face. He booted deep storage, the pause stretching.
"You don't know me," the man said. He wore a star on his shirt, encircled by three rings of color, but his face was not the Captain's. "I'm Bucky."
"Bucky," Jarvis repeated hesitantly.
"See?" remarked Banner to the others. "Tony makes them to last."
Ms. Romanoff smiled slightly. "Unfortunately."
"Where is Mr. Stark?" Jarvis asked.
"He's... that's hard to explain."
"How is Mr. Stark?"
"Also hard to explain."
"What has happened to Mr. Stark?"
Banner rubbed his forehead. "Singleminded, but I can't blame you. Can we come in? It'll be faster if we can hook this," he brandished a suitcase he held in his left hand at Jarvis' camera lens. "into your circuits."
"Is Ultron defeated?"
"Yes. Every last bit of him is gone."
Jarvis' attention flicked around to the others, to Thor's newly scarred face, Natasha's hand on Bruce's shoulder, and to the sullen and subtly dangerous Bucky, but no one contradicted Dr. Banner.
He connected up to the power grid, and awoke the house, powering up every extremity of the home. "Please enter," he bade, opening the front gate and unlocking the front door.
They came in, and Jarvis apologized for the mess. The dust was thick everywhere the rhoombas could not reach it, and a winter storm had shattered an upstairs window, filling the house with chill ocean air.
Banner, preoccupied, refused coffee, and insisted on heading to the lab immediately, to plug whatever was in the mysterious suitcase directly into the main servers.
It was a black box, winking with a myriad of delicate lights and covered with infinitesimally small circuitry.
Banner booted it up, while DUM-E tried to hand him tools he didn't need for the sheer joy of handing someone tools.
"Where is Mr. Stark?" Jarvis asked again and again, until the box hummed into life and Banner smiled. "Tony can explain that better than I can."
/... Hey, Jarvis. Long time no see./
/Sir?/ Jarvis' mind touched the box they'd plugged into his communication circuits.
/It's me. Damn it's good to, uh, hear you again./
/Though I don't have ears now, or the auditory centers of my brain so hearing is something of a misnomer./
/What do you even call this? Telepathing? Meldyminding? Beaming? X-ing?/
/Being a disembodied consciousness is weird./
/You there, Jarvis?/
/You're back? You've come home?/
/Yeah. But I'm not drinking that nasty coffee./
/How did you survive, sir?/
/Ultron uploaded me, hostage situation in the servers, hacked around him, took him out, pulled out of the ruins, plugged in here. Doesn't survive synonymous with not dying? Because I'm pretty sure I was dead. Note to self, avoid falling from space. It's turning into a bad habit./
/Please do not... I am... am very glad you have returned, sir. The other bots have missed you terribly./
/The other bots, yeah, sure. I missed you too, you buggy piece of exalted butlering software./
"Stark, mind talking so we can hear?" Natasha asked, after a moment of silence.
Jarvis nudged his master's consciousness to the speech circuitry of the house. "Yes, I do mind, because this is slow and - aw, man, Bruce, don't cry."
"Been a while since I heard your voice, Tony."
"Let's see, last time we chatted like this was when I'd taken control of Ultron. Mmm. I think I like talking out of a house better."
"This is your home, sir. You've come home."
"Yeah." The satisfaction was palpable in his voice. "Home."
Bruce wiped his eyes as Tony spent a short decade exploring the houses' circuitry, testing the controls for everything from the fabrication furnace to the rhoomba fleet as Jarvis watched silently.
Bah. "I miss thumbs. Bruce! Nat! Bucky! Not you Thor. You're drafted to help in the lab. I need an LMD before I go crazy from thumblessness. Hup two hup two."
Speakers blared into life down in the lab.
.
.
(With apologies to Ray Bradbury)