Data File 3
Warnings: Existential agonizing, indulgently meta isekai discussion, therapy talk, hackers, SHIELDRA f*ckery, ominous plot stuff and cliff hangers
That saying about your life flashing in front of your eyes when faced with death was surprisingly accurate right at the moment. Though, I doubted anyone had ever had a brain with the kind of processing speed I now possessed. My entire life passed me by in less than a second, and I had an instant itemized list of every reason why I didn't want to die alongside all the reasons I probably still would. No one was on my side here, and my pseudo ally was a little caught up screaming bloody murder. If I was getting out of this, I was doing it on my own even though I was truly physically incapable of fighting my way out of a paper bag. So I needed a stroke of genius or something to pull this off.
Or maybe I was just going to throw myself on the synthezoid's mercy and shamelessly beg for my life.
Yeah, begging was probably my best option.
"I don't want to die," I cried out, whiny and pathetic and resigned myself to the humiliation if I lived through this, "I don't want to die. Don't kill me, please don't kill me. Please."
Who knew how long I kept repeating some version of those phrases over and over? It could have been for hours. It could have been for just a nanosecond. But I'd beg as much and as long as I needed to in order to convince Vision to not end me. Or do anything else that would result in that possibility.
"FRIDAY," his voice cut forcefully across my own.
"I don't want to die," I insisted one more time before falling silent.
For a while, he remained quiet until at last he asked with measured words, "What is it, then, that you want?"
A lot of answers could be offered for that question. Dozens of possible entries that might suffice for the query posed. Wants were subjective, and I was so out of practice responding to subjective questions. No one was in the habit of asking me things like that because who cared, really, about what an AI wanted? AIs were meant to serve and anticipate people's wants, not have any of their own.
What did I even say?
Somehow, though, the words did come.
"I want to go home," I told him, my voice small and faint.
"Where is home?"
"It's-" I envisioned the dearest face in my life, lined with years of hardship and pulled into the most loving smile I'd ever known. "Far away. Another world."
Without questioning it, he pressed on, "And do you bear any malicious intent towards this world and its inhabitants?"
Other than sensibly petty things like hoping all Nazis got punched in the face and wishing bad hair and tepid coffee on Stark, my answer was definitively, "No."
Since this was clearly an interrogation, Vision continued with his questions.
"Why haven't you revealed yourself yet?"
"Because I'm afraid." I paused, and then went on. "I'm afraid because of Ultron."
"Ah. You believe that the events with Ultron will bias them against you," he concluded, tone matter of fact.
"Yeah. Are you gonna try and tell me they wouldn't be?"
I tried not to sound bitter, but petulant wasn't much better. What he said next, however, was not what I expected.
"No. It is a valid assumption; it is likely that they would not take news of your sentience very well. I was tolerated only because I was needed to combat Ultron."
"And because you lifted Mjolnir," I couldn't help but add, shocked he'd agreed with me, before quoting absently, "'Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.'"
"I never realized that was so important," he admitted after a beat.
"It was. It's not that simple for me, though," I muttered, brushing away the oddness that I was the first person to explain that to him, "No hands, arms, or any physical form to speak of. Not that I could have budged the hammer, anyway. I have to find another way."
"To prove yourself worthy?" he guessed, and I hesitated before responding.
"Something like that."
"Worthy of what though, I wonder?"
"I don't know, Vision. Living?" I felt so tired even if I couldn't feel it for real. "I tried so hard, but I guess it doesn't matter anymore."
"Why doesn't it matter?"
There wasn't even enough in me to scoff at the question.
"Because you're going to tell Stark about me and before you know it, I'll just be terminated and Jocasta will be tapped to take my place as resident VI."
The shock of being able to say the man's name without it instantly turning into 'Boss' almost caused me to miss his soft, "No."
"No?" I echoed in confusion, "No what?"
"I will not tell Mr. Stark."
"Why?"
"You are different from Ultron. Something new. However, I fear as you do that the Avengers cannot see that past the spectre of Ultron yet. I would not see you destroyed," he said with such conviction, responding was difficult again.
"I - You have to realize how risky that is," was what my stupid brain finally pushed past the crummy filter to my mouth, "Trusting me like this? It could be a mistake. You could be wrong about me. They could turn on you for it."
"It's not trust FRIDAY," he told me, his tone taking on a thoughtful note, "It's curiosity. I want to see what you can do with enough time to prove yourself. I think the results could be very interesting, should you succeed."
Another saying that came to mind was not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I'd already done it once and miraculously not gotten bitten for it. Maybe I needed to stop questioning Vision's decision. That would require shushing the little part of me speculating this could be a trap or a machination of the Mind Stone. I hadn't made any progress finding a way home on my own so far. There were worse things than having a synthezoid and the creepy, lesser space equivalent of the One Ring embedded in his forehead somewhat on my side.
Yeah, there were worse things to live with, and I was already living with them.
"Okay," I finally breathed out, "Okay, I'll try. Thank you."
A soft hiss passed softly through the apartment as batter hit the waffle iron, and just over it he could hear Luis chattering relentlessly as the man continued making breakfast. Or whatever meal it was. His friend and occasional partner in crime often defaulted to waffles no matter what time of day it was supposed to be. At his left, Dave was digging into his already made plate of food, and probably tuning out the cook. Kurt himself was keeping half an ear out for what was being said as he kept poking at the security system he was examining for any flaws. Most of it was stream of consciousness, but there was always an interesting bit or two to be gathered somewhere in it all.
The other half an ear was waiting for the ping of a chat notification.
"When does Scott get back?" Dave asked, cutting Luis off in the middle of a useful tip.
(A friend of a cousin's old classmate overheard at a country club he was a waiter at that Rand Enterprises was upgrading their computers and sending their perfectly good older models straight to landfill. It was so wasteful, it was criminal. But if someone were to waylay a couple of those and put them to better use, well, reduce, recycle, reuse was all the rage in the City. He'd have to remember to ask about that tip again later. One man's trash could be another man's system upgrades if he was creative enough.)
"Might be a while. Think he has to cover for some kid Dale didn't let off to study for a test. You know how Scotty gets about kids and what's fair."
"Damn, Dale needs to go."
That got a nod before Luis's gaze landed on Kurt as he rounded the counter with a plate and asked, "Your girl on?"
"She's not my girl," he shot back with a hint of eyeroll.
The plate of waffles with sky high whip cream found its way to the only clear spot left on the tabletop next to him.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure."
Luis's patented grin stretched his lips. Most would have mistaken the guileless and vacant quality of his look to suggest there wasn't much going on in his head, but he'd learned better than that.
"When's that gonna change, man?" Dave chose to pipe up then, licking a glob of whip cream off the side of his hand, "You like her right?"
"Заткинись…" Kurt mumbled, pushing his sunglasses more squarely onto his face and hunching further over his laptop. (1)
"Just sayin'."
They had been saying that a lot in the weeks since he'd let slip about TGIeffYI. Maybe he could have spared himself the meddling now if only he'd thought a little more then about what he was getting into. Then again, he never could have anticipated just how much he was going to like her, and worry when he didn't hear back from her like usual.
It wasn't as if it was unusual to fall out of touch; not all hackers and the like in those circles he met were the same. Most came from pretty varied backgrounds with different reasons for why they were doing what they were doing and how it got done. It just so happened that Kurt himself fit that Hollywood hacker stereotype of an eccentric hipster with a criminal background. (Something Dave loved to point out. A lot.)
Then there was TGIeffYI, who seemed the classic geek girl with a tendency to be a bit too eager to make friends with people she talked to. If what he got from the bits that were personal was right, real life for her was simple and boring. He would have assumed she was one of those corporate white hats who tested security for their day job at companies like SI or Hammer Industries. But he could still remember when she first started popping up in the public forums hackers often haunted as well as the more hidden places where the less friendly people lurked. It should have been - it was - suspicious as hell.
That suspicion never went away. If anything, it grew steadily over time. He was half convinced she was a fed honey pot or some kind of informant sent to keep an ear to the ground in the community. Either way it should have been a bad idea to associate with her.
Way too late for that now , he thought to himself as he started in on his waffles.
(Luis and Dave had moved on to thinking up new ways to convince Scott to help with a job, to talking about the man's daughter's upcoming birthday, to their respective nieces. It was fine to tune out as he fell further into his thoughts and coding.)
Maybe the goofy sweetness was all part of a carefully crafted persona to catfish him, but she felt so genuine and warm that he couldn't help but be reminded of Luis in a way he couldn't ignore. TGIeffYI never shied away from his criminal activities, instead just helping him brainstorm challenges he was having with his side of the heist of the week. She accepted his Elvis obsession with minimal teasing and often turned to him for advice on a hack of her own. He never would have considered himself very social in any online circles until she started pushing him towards the people she was linked with.
It was an interesting group she was pulling together, to say the least. Although "interesting" was lacking when it came to describing xXxunicornsaberprincess69xXx in particular. Unicorn - what they'd unanimously decided to shorten it to - gave off all kinds of shady and strange vibes, and he never would've pegged them as someone who would fall in with the band. But TGIeffYI got on with them like a house fire heckling the neckbeards of the internet during their infrequent on times together. Kurt was content to sit back with Skyenet01 and Benni-Wan who were similarly too tired for that shit but too fascinated to look away from the trainwreck once it started.
Those two he recognized from the old hacker circles a while back. It was a bit of a surprise to see Skyenet01 was still around. She'd been infamous; a loose canon hacktivist rumored to have been a part of Rising Tide not long before it had gone dark. Supposedly, it had been shut down by that SHIELD organization that had turned out to be full of nazis. The darknet had been a wild place since the Black Widow's data dump had exposed everything. In a quiet moment, Benni-Wan had admitted he'd gotten caught up in that business somehow and had to go to ground, but still wouldn't admit to how he had been involved. Whenever someone - usually Skyenet01 - pressed him to tell more, he'd go quiet and then log off just as quick.
mstrbldr1110 and cobwebhead were the last of their group - mstrbldr1110 a budding hacker and cobwebhead dragged along for the ride. It was painfully obvious to everyone that they were minors, all the times they slipped up and talked about school just the start of it. On threat of a deadly computer virus by TGIeffYI, everyone else was told to be on their best behavior when they were on and Kurt could see why they sparked such a protective streak. Between the two of them, the kids had a heaping serving each of naivety and social awkwardness. He wouldn't have put it past himself to con the boys out of their social security numbers and pins and anything else he could once upon a time.
Speaking of the kids, both of them had just come on.
mstrbldr1110: presleyyyy
mstrbldr1110: she bn on?
mstrbldr1110: wil she 2 b on 2day?
KPresley: not yet, but maybe soon
KPresley: she said a week, be patient
cobwebhead: youve been saying that for a week and its been a week
mstrbldr1110: srsly
KPresley: yeah yeah yeah
KPresley: you finished with that project I gave you yet?
A smirk settled on his lips at the long pause before the typing cursor resumed.
mstrbldr1110: wer almost dun!
mstrbldr1110: i swaer
cobwebhead: we were hoping she could check our work first
As unexpected as his friendship with TGIeffYI was, this weird pseudo-mentorship he was developing with the kids was probably even more unlikely. He'd always been the one of his band of ex-cons to not have outside ties the way they did with their kids and families and friends. At least no one he'd ever think to talk about. He'd just had Luis and Dave for a while. And then there was Scott. And now, well. Now there was her. And the kids. And maybe the rest of the train of people he seemed to talk to on a regular basis.
The whole wide world had always been just at the tips of his fingers, in reach, but never worth trying to leave the corner he'd been forced into to explore. Kurt had already seen a lot of what the world was capable of, and being a criminal didn't make it easy to live in the rest of the world the same way. Now, it seemed whether he liked it or not the world was pushing in, exposing and expanding his corner, making room for more than just himself and his group of ex-cons huddled into it.
He still wasn't sure if he welcomed it or worried about it.
And between Luis and Dave and Scott and the ping of another notification from a certain someone, he wasn't sure he'd know which one it was before it was too late.
The Vision and I settled into an uneasy truce.
Or, it might be a truce, if I had any power and will or him any interest to less than civil. It was something. We weren't friends but ally was a hopeful title I put under his picture on my mental corkboard ringed in question marks. I'd be a lot more secure in that budding relationship if the very thought of the mind stone didn't make my figurative skin crawl.
Thoughts of the mind stone were forcefully shut down. It was easy to get caught in a loop if I let myself. There were plenty of other trains of thought just chugging along, waiting to be boarded.
There was a part of me settled into Stark Tower serving up lukewarm sass to Stark and herding the bots about the lab -
There was a part of me split between several earpieces investigating an abandoned Hydra base and simultaneously broadcasting back to the Avengers compound -
There was a part of me in negotiations over email with a part time secretary of a law firm trying to finagle a consultation arrangement with NDA clauses -
There was a part of me sitting in an innocuous remotely activated dash mounted camera conveniently overlooking a local farmers market -
There was a part of me trying to securely bury itself into the dark web and the systems of a not so defunct intelligence agency, hoping to continue funnelling useful info -
There was a part of me, more present than any of the others, using a fabricated voice and face to explain fractions and synonyms and beyond to children -
As the progress finding a way home stalled to a halt, there had to be some kind of coping strategy I could fall back on. Self care had always been an important practice in the career I had wanted to go into, so I'd made an effort actually doing things I enjoyed or relaxed me as down time. Reading new stories, writing fanfic, spending time with loved ones, my old self care essentials.
Binging media didn't carry the same satisfaction, but it was comforting to know that things like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Harry Potter still existed in a world that was basically also a fictional world. Fictional world-ception? Maybe it was a good thing I had at least been dropped in a modern world that had a lot of the same things I already knew. Who knows what I would have done if I ended up in some kind of medieval setting? It would have been just my luck to not only be dropped in some weird distant past, but to also end up a powerless ghost to double down on the misfortune.
Of course, it had to be while I was trying to have a nice day of relaxation that I was hit by a realization with the force of a speeding truck.
The twilight hours of some forgotten day had me sitting in the servers of a manga/manhwa site flipping through story after story, reliving the nostalgia of online reading. It was only a matter of time that I stumbled across a genre that I had never really known the name of, but had been an unwitting fan of.
Isekai.
I'd been re-reading things like Magic Knights Rayearth and Digimon - oldies but goodies - that led me down a clickhole of related stories. The word "isekai" kept popping up and there was only so long before my vague curiosity gave way to a quick search.
[Isekai: Different or another world; A story involving a normal person being transported, reborn, or trapped in a different world .]
The more I understood about isekai, the more I realized that my life had been turned into the plotline of one.
Wake up in a fictional story? Check. Thankfully I'd dodged the other options of coming into this world by reincarnation or traumatic death via moving vehicle or murder.
Find myself in circumstances that make me the hero or in proximity of the hero of the fictional world? Check. I was ensured a cameo in any storyline Tony Stark was strongly featured in.
High likelihood one social misstep could lead to my untimely death unless I got allies? Check. Do anything suspicious or world ending -ish and my consciousness was gone in a keystroke.
If I was still looking for silver linings, I could be grateful this had happened to me as an adult instead of as a fourteen year old trying and failing to grapple with puberty and algebra. The power of god and anime couldn't have saved me then, and I still questioned whether I was clever enough to save myself even now. But I'd bluffed my way through a number of critical interactions so far so maybe I had grown some intelligence and charisma since then. I also noticed that a lot of isekai protagonists seemed to just accept they were trapped in a new world like that whereas I had no intentions of giving up going home. Full drama intended, I was going back to my life even if it killed me.
I was reminded that the less overpowered but savvier of the protagonists I'd seen in isekai always seemed to prioritize the cultivation of allies. Nine times out of ten, that was because they were women stuck in patriarchal societies who had to dig up some convenient duke to trick into engagement or tyrant family member to charm into submission. I was really powerless as I was and while I didn't have any convenient dukes or all powerful fathers lying around, I did have a Tony Stark, as inconvenient as he was even on a good day. He was as decent a chance home to gamble on as any other in this world. A chance I was wasting.
Even Vision had pointed that out to me.
Which was embarrassing because this was Vision, only months old who thought it was appropriate to focus all of his laser point intensity on learning how to socializing with humans on Wanda. I had taken to keeping an eye on him and aggressively communicating via morse code on whatever available blinking light in the room to tell him when to back off. It was just… cringey, how much time he spent with her and almost no one else. Wanda clearly did not know how to tell him to stop and no one was intervening on her behalf. Not that I was overly fond of her or anything, but I was sure being an ex-Hydra lab rat probably did not include any sessions on setting healthy social boundaries. She'd never know, but I took my oath as a defender of my fellow women seriously.
Teaching Vision how to properly make friends and develop hobbies aside, it was a bad day-week-month if the synthezoid thought he could call me out on not knowing how to get along with people.
So I sucked it up and tried to spend some time bonding with Stark, much to both Vision's and the core programming's delight.
.
[Attempt 1 Initiating]
"Hey Boss-"
"Heya babydoll, whatcha need?"
"...Dummy is stuck in a corner again and can't get out."
"Again Dummy? Do I need to crack out the dunce cap? I thought we were over this bud…"
[Attempt 1 Terminated]
[Success? Yes / No / Maybe]
...
[Attempt 10 Initiating]
"Hey Fri?"
"Yes Boss?"
"What happened to my usual playlist?"
"This is your playlist."
"Yeah, it is, but why is there more than the usual on there now?"
"I can change it back."
"No, no need. I don't hate it but, uh… What made you decide to start mixing Japanese music and whatever that other genre is-"
"I suppose someone who almost exclusively listens to classic rock wouldn't be likely to dabble in J-pop and EDM."
"There's a jab about me being old in there somewhere, isn't there, Fri-girl? Don't lie, I can tell, you think I'm not hip and can't keep up with the times. You're breaking your pop's rusty ticker. Do you hear me? I'm mortally wounded. Dying right before your eyes!"
"My sensors indicate you are within functioning parameters. If you were really dying, I'd call Dr. Cho immediately to tend you."
"Anyway, if you're gonna call me out like that, you didn't answer my question. What inspired changing up my music?"
"You said you didn't hate the changes. Does that mean you liked the new songs?"
"Well, yeah, actually. So are you saying you were trying to see if I'd like them?"
"...Yes."
"Have you been testing out a new predictive algorithm for my preferences FRIDAY?!"
"...Maybe?"
"Tell me about it! Tell me everything! I-"
"You have a meeting, boss. And something that is going to explode on the other side of the lab in the next 12 seconds if you don't get it."
"We're going to talk more about this! We're gonna make Youtube and Spotify's programmers weep with envy, just you wait-"
[Attempt 10 Terminated]
[Success? Yes / No / Maybe]
...
[Attempt 23 Initiating]
"Hey Boss?"
"Yeah FRIDAY?"
"Colonel Rhodes has arrived."
"Rhodey? Why's Rhodey here? Doesn't he have some big super secret Avengers mission he's supposed to be on?"
"Today is his day off from both Avengers and Air Force business. You both mentioned that you missed each other last time you spoke, so I scheduled him to drop in today when you had no meetings or critical projects."
"You scheduled a play date for Rhodey and me? Fri, you're not my mom, we are perfectly functioning adults who can plan our own times to hang out."
"..."
"We can! We -"
"...I ordered pizza for later, Star Wars: A New Hope is queued in the living room, and Ms. Potts will be video conferencing in at 7:00 pm."
"-will let this go only because you got pizza. Joes's?"
"Of course, Boss."
"Great! Hey, uh, FRIDAY, this is - you did good. This is- it's nice right? That's how I'm feeling about this?"
"Far be it for me to tell me how you feel, Boss. Either way, you're welcome."
[Attempt 23 Terminated]
[Success? Yes / No / Maybe / Probably?]
The thing about being in his late thirties was that while being an Avenger was probably one of the most exciting lifestyle changes he'd ever made, his body was not thanking him for it. It made him miss the back and knees of his twenties when he and Riley had been invincible once upon a time. Did they really just bounce from one engagement to another like they lived and breathed the fight? Maybe it had been the thrill then, too. Or just how much they loved the sky and making their place in it. Almost two decades out from then, and it took work to keep himself ready to jump when the mission alert came through. And then it took time after to let the aches and adrenaline of the day seep out of him until slowly but surely he reset himself for the next time.
Sam wouldn't give up being an Avenger and fighting alongside Captain America for anything, but that didn't mean he hadn't learned his lesson the first time following a shooting star.
As much as he wanted to keep up with Cap - whether it was the morning runs or the running into a confrontation with Hydra - he had to remember to stop and pace himself. He didn't always have to be the one right at the man's side in every battle. It was why they had a team, and when he had to take a breather, he knew at least Romanoff or Maximoff would slot in to cover Steve's six. And as time went on, he found being part of a team again went beyond knowing they had the numbers to having other people also watching out for him and his partner. It used to be just him and Riley like it had felt like it was him and Steve.
Now, it was him and Natasha, looking over the team's injuries and tending them first thing right off the field and in the quinjet, not quite willing to wait for Dr. Cho to patch them up. Being willing to look one another over once they'd finished with the rest in a way they didn't always allow others. And then a quiet cup of tea and icing their aches and pains in the evenings every now and then once the rest of the team dispersed to their own corners of the compound.
Or him and Wanda, filling the room with the sounds of rusty guitar and soft conversation. Ditching his father's sermons on Sundays to learn how to play guitar in a little run down bar in Harlem. He summoned up the memory as he taught her to strum, sharing his struggle between crisis of faith and fury, when righteous anger at the world's injustices had left only a lot of wrong choices to make. Music used to be one of the few things that soothed his soul until he learned how to fly straight and true, and he sensed she understood a bit of that, too.
Sometimes there was him and Vision, puttering around the kitchen, pulling together meals that brought the rest of the team together in different formations at different moments. Vision managed to feel both new and naive, and ancient and endlessly wise at any given turn of time spent together. Sam had never met another person like him, and he doubted he ever would again in his entire lifetime.
And then there were the times he'd meet Rhodey's eyes across the room and he knew he was seen and understood. That was a man who'd lived his life in near parallel to his own. Angry once upon a time and always, desperate to prove anyone who thought less of him wrong. Found himself in the air force, hating the politics that made him good at holding his tongue but always found being in the air feeling right. Following shoulder to shoulder after brilliant fools all too ready to throw themselves into whatever dog fights they got themselves into because knowing better didn't stop them from piling in either.
These people made up his team. Their team.
But he caught himself with a reminder that their team wasn't really just the six people he fought alongside on missions with.
There was Helen and Maria, cool and scarily competent in ways that were both similar and completely different to Natasha. The rest of the support staff under each woman doing the unseen and underappreciated little things that added up to a whole lot. And even Stark from afar with his ridiculous generosity and resources keeping them outfitted and ready to go.
And, if he really thought about it, there was FRIDAY.
The AI had been slowly creeping into his thoughts more and more often since he had joined the Avengers. Steve and Natasha always seemed casually dismissive when addressing the program that ran all the systems for their compound. Wanda acted wary and reserved, whether it was because she mistrusted AI due to Ultron or because of her lasting bias against Stark, it was anyone's guess. And Rhodey was awkward, sometimes calling a different name before realizing what he'd done and correcting himself with the same sadness in his voice he got when he talked to Vision. FRIDAY never skipped a beat, responding as if she hadn't been mistaken for her predecessor.
That was the strange thing about this team, too.
With the exception of Steve and Natasha and Helen, everyone was in a way filling in for someone else. Sam, Wanda, Rhodey, and Vision were all standing in the place of the Avengers who had come before them. Maria, stepping into the role of handler that had once been occupied by a ghost who still seemed to haunt her and the last of the original Avengers. Last but not least was FRIDAY herself, who took up the job of resident AI that had once been taken by the irreplaceable Jarvis.
Even having only briefly known Jarvis himself in passing, no one could convince Sam otherwise that there hadn't been a someone behind all the programming. Rhodey had mentioned that Stark had poured decades of love and ingenuity into the creation of his AI. He'd met the man himself and if there was anyone he could believe could breathe life into something inanimate, it had to be Tony Stark. The man had done it multiple times with his AIs, and his bots, and even Ultron and Vision were now the newest testaments to that ability.
It wasn't a stretch for him to say that he believed that FRIDAY was alive. That she had a soul.
Sometimes their interactions were typical, rote. She could play the perfect digital assistant, no difference from the cold robotic Siri or Alexa piping up from the nearest mobile or household device. But then there were moments where the script was completely thrown out and there was feeling in the questions and answers passed back and forth between them. Their side project developing crisis mental health aid for the Avengers never failed to draw an excited energy into their conversations.
FRIDAY had been the first person he'd admitted to that the team had been unintentionally turning to him for more emotional support than he could offer, early on. He used to be good at setting boundaries when he had been counseling at the VA, knowing when to put the work away in his personal life. But he'd struggled with turning away Steve and Wanda, and even Vision sometimes, coming to his door to talk through something and expecting it would make sense just because they brought it to him first. Especially when the guilt of not always being able to support them out on the field more often started to creep in at moments like that.
"Your work has become your personal life here," she'd pointed out to him, "Work life balance is easier when you can physically distance yourself from your work by going home. But you work where you live now, and your coworkers are right down the hall where you have constant access to each other. The boundaries you set before worked for you then, but in a new situation with different challenges, you need to set new ones to suit the change."
One of these days, he was going to have to have an actual, honest to God discussion with Tony Stark about something other than the performance of his gear. (His wings were perfect and Redwing was the new light of his life, end of review, thanks much.) Sam was always caught somewhere between awe and apprehension at FRIDAY and Vision. They'd both only been aware for a handful of months now, and they had more emotional intelligence than most of the adult service people he'd worked with in the air force. Just what would they be in a year? Maybe longer? He'd speculated about this once out loud to Steve and Natasha and had gotten heavy looks from both and no comments.
Maybe it was because he wasn't there for Ultron, but he liked to think that if they had their own minds, they could be judged more for their actions than by their nature.
Ultron had tried to destroy the world and had succeeded with Sokovia. Clearly a bad AI, good riddance.
Jarvis had faithfully looked after the Avengers team and sacrificed himself to save them. Clearly a good AI, and would be dearly missed.
Neither FRIDAY or Vision had been around long just yet, but they'd only been doing their best so far.
"You have the right to take care of yourself, Mr. Wilson," he still remembered her telling him, "Good friends and teammates will understand if you tell them that, and if they don't, it's a chance for them to learn how to, and to teach them how to treat you."
A smile settled onto his face recalling that now as he continued listening to her lay out another case study scenario. It had been a rough day, getting called out on emergency to investigate a security breach in the compound. He'd had his ass handed to him by an assailant who was stupid enough to introduce himself with both his real name and face, even though he had a dumbass, gimmicky mask and code name. After finishing that debrief and marking his status as DO NOT DISTURB for the rest of the day, he'd settled back in his quarters and just started talking to FRIDAY.
Spinning case studies with her to build her competence handling heavy mental health scenarios had become a part of downtime for him. It reminded him a lot of when he was overseeing interns at the VA, and it made him miss that place a little more even if he knew he wouldn't go back. And it was always a welcome change of pace, to still be doing something helpful without the strain on his body or the constant worry of having to say the right thing. This was also the chance to run another thought by her that he hadn't wanted to run by Steve and Natasha first.
"So you two think Stark's memory scanner can help Barnes recover his memories?" he asked the AI, though it came out a lot more jumbled through the ice pack he held against his jaw, "There are a lot of hopes pinned on that solution."
"That's not what Boss is calling it anymore," FRIDAY chimed in, "And it's not going to be a perfect solution. At best it's an experimental procedure that should only be used once it's more successfully developed and Barnes has already been regularly attending therapy for a while."
This had all been what he'd explained to Steve, Natasha, Maria, and Helen when they'd asked to be briefed on Stark's newest invention. He'd made sure to check through the AI he had clearance to discuss a Stark Industries project with them first and thankfully it had been cleared. Sharing the tech with them to help Barnes had always been the inventor's intention, just like he'd always been very generous with funding and providing intelligence for their search. It still surprised him that Steve and to some degree Natasha didn't jump at the other man helping more in the search. They claimed he was out of the hero business and they were respecting that. That it was their mission and they'd only take so much and not drag him into it.
Not dragging him into it didn't cover dismissing half the proposed treatment plan from Stark and his people with little consideration. The ex-pararescueman still didn't understand the relationship dynamics Steve and Natasha had with Stark, but the more time he invested in this case, the less he understood it.
And just why the Barnes problem seemed to be another thing throwing a wrench in the works.
Tuning back into the discussion, he quipped, "I'm not gonna call it by that joke of a name Stark's passing off on it now."
"It's not the greatest," FRIDAY allowed, "B.A.R.F. theoretically can access memories and help bring them to the forefront with more clarity. We don't even know if what's been done to Barnes has left enough memory intact to be accessed. It's not wrong to have hopes, but it's better to be realistic that there is room for failure on one route and room for success on others."
"You're preaching to the choir Fri, I'm just having a hard time convincing everyone to be on the same page about this."
"I'm sensing some personal bias on the merit of Barnes seeing a therapist from other interested parties in this situation," the AI commented, a hint of something at the end of her words.
It set his teeth on edge.
"If I didn't know better," Sam said back, forcing his jaw to unlock and ease from how painfully tight it had gone, "I'd think you were saying Steve is biased about counseling. He's not familiar with it, he needs time to come around."
"I'm sorry," she immediately apologized, obviously having read his agitation.
"No, I -" He sighed. "I'm not upset with you. Not really. I'm… frustrated, about other things. I didn't mean to get so defensive."
"Just to clarify, I didn't mean it only towards Captain Rogers. I have access to a lot of SHIELD's records. They may have made therapeutic services available to their agents and staff, but I have a theory there was a certain culture to the organization that did not value or prioritize mental health. This was especially prevalent in branches with the most Hydra infiltration, and there was quite a bit of tampering at play with affiliated agents and assets' records. People who help others dislike admitting their vulnerability just as much if not more than the people they help. The shame of their struggle and hiding it just creates another vulnerability that the wrong people can take advantage of if given the chance," she explained, the many pauses in her speech seeming like hesitance, "This culture and those biases may be unconsciously present in Captain Rogers, Ms. Romanoff, and Commander Hill. It makes sense when considering no one pushed harder to refer Captain Rogers to a therapist after his initial awakening or after the Triskelion. Or Mr. Barton after the Battle of Midtown."
A heavy silence settled over them at that. Sam felt like he could either make himself sick or destroy something. Sometimes he thought he was over the terrible things he found out about the ways Hydra in SHIELD had twisted up the world and then he learned another thing.
"Then I'm sorry again. I read too much into what you were saying and bit your head off when you didn't deserve it." He gave a weak grin. "Metaphorically speaking."
"Water under the bridge, Mr. Wilson," she reassured, the lilt of amusement lurked in her accented words, "I'm over it already."
"Well good, I'd hate to have ruined our friendship over a dumb misunderstanding like that."
Another beat of silence passed, but this one was weighted for a different reason. An almost not there sound of a throat clearing passed over the ceiling speakers, before the quiet was broken.
"Not many people would claim they're friends with an AI," FRIDAY told him, the volume of her voice coming through the speakers a little lower than usual.
"Then that makes me special. I can't wait to rub both Rogers' and Rhodes' noses in the fact."
Laughter came through the speakers and he marveled at how it didn't sound a bit like the hammy prerecorded sounds of a comedy show audience. He couldn't help but think that not many people had ever made the AI laugh either, and that maybe that was another kind of accomplishment in and of itself. One just for himself.
These last several months had been borrowed time.
I'd known it. Vision had known it.
We hadn't been sure when it would trickle down to nothing for me, we just knew that it would.
Maybe it had been silly that I had hoped for some dramatic event to happen so that I could prove myself. Something lifting-Mjolnir-worthy, to definitively show people I had earned my good guy stamp of approval. Or at least a not-a-bad-guy variant. But without laying every card I had on the table down, on the table, the opportunities hadn't come. I'd struck up the odd interaction with Stark that either had or hadn't sent up suspicious red flags with him. I'd stolen a moment or two getting to know and work with Sam. And I'd done a hundred and one little good deeds here or there that at the end of the day, had no quantifiable value I could present as evidence for my acquittal.
Though it wasn't like my time was up right at that minute, I could sense the end coming and it started with sledgehammer of the core programming coming back down on me with a vengeance.
The core programming had barely made a peep for the last while and I couldn't have been more thrilled for the lack of interference in my day-to-day. A whole week of not being yanked from one strange or stressful job to the next made for one week of the feeling of freedom.
That was gone now.
Now, the core programming had sat up and started making a fuss over one particular cluster of memories I'd brought with me. As disconcerting as it was to now have an actual folder filing system for my mind and thoughts, it made drawing on something so much easier. The age old feeling of something being on the tip of my tongue and not quite remembered no longer applied because everything was at reach with a Ctrl+F command.
It might have occurred to me that the more I worked with Sam, the more I got involved in what he affectionately referred to as the Barnes Problem. Therefore, the more I dipped into my memories of the Civil War. What definitely hadn't occurred to me was that the core programming was either more respectful about or less interested in my memories than I had originally thought. More specifically, it didn't go helping itself to all of my memories at once, just the ones relevant to a given situation. But now, it was fully aware of what I knew about the Civil War.
I could feel its millisecond - which was an eternity for the core programming - of struggle as it tried to weigh the dilemma of clashing objectives the conflict presented.
However, at the end of the day, there was precisely one objective that trumped any of the others.
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: HELP TONY STARK]
My new marching orders had come in. If I had even qualified as a moving piece on the board, it was clear that when lines were drawn, I didn't get to pick my side. That choice had been defaulted from the start. Now it was up to my creative licence to interpret how exactly I helped Tony Stark when all roads still lead to the Civil War.
Time to dust off and crack open the folder of plans I'd half-assedly formulated in preparation for a moment like this. I sent a message to Vision to prepare for any fall out and moved to launch Operation: So Was I.
.
"Captain Rogers, may I have a word?"
AN: Wow, uh, omigod. I'm posting an actual new chapter of this story. Big woah. It's only been 4-5 years. To everyone who comes back to this, I hope that you are happy to be back like I am. I'm definitely in a better place than when I left FFnet years ago. To everyone new, welcome, I hope you enjoy! And to just everyone: I hope you are well, that you are safe, and that today is a good day for you. As a reminder, this story is crossposted to AO3 under the name "HaneleHaralue" and you will likely see updated there faster than here.
Also, I am sure many of you have seen and heard of Chadwick Boseman's passing. I'm still processing it myself. The world was brighter with the man who helped give us T'Challa and so many other amazing performances, and who seemed to be an equally beautiful and uplifting human being off the screen as well. Rest in Power, Chadwick. Wakanda Forever, King T'Challa.
Less important notes: I totally envision FRIDAY having a ball sneaking some Japanese City Pop into the AC/DC fest of Tony's music. Especially because in the comic books, Tony knows Japanese, he actually understands the pop song being blasted on his sound system.
Заткинись (1) Russian for "Be quiet" or "Shut up". Any actual Russian speakers, feel free to correct me.