It wouldn't have occurred to Tony to think that Jarvis might be worried about his job security. In fact, he hadn't given much thought to what might be going on in Jarvis' head at all: Tony was not in the habit of anthropomorphizing his machines, even when Dr. Strange had seen fit to do so in a far more literal sense than Tony would ever have imagined. Instead, his attention was focused on fixing the problem.

Unfortunately, it was becoming more and more clear that there wouldn't be an easy fix for this. Pepper hadn't known where Strange had gone, and neither had Steve. The next – and last – entry on Tony's list of people who might was Fury, but Nick Fury was an extremely difficult man to get in touch with. You did not contact Nick Fury. Nick Fury contacted you, if and when he needed to. Otherwise, he might as well not exist.

"Who did you say you were?" the agent on the phone asked.

"Tony Stark," he replied, increasingly annoyed. "Iron Man! Did Dr. Strange cast another spell and make everybody forget about me? Don't tell me you've never heard of Nick Fury. I just talked to him yesterday morning, so how about we skip the Top Secret bullshit and just put me through, okay? I don't care if aliens built the pyramids or where you guys are keeping Bigfoot, I just want to make a damn phone call!"

"I'll see what I can do," the agent promised dubiously. There was a shuffling sound, and Tony heard the man's muffled voice say, "he says he's Iron Man."

"Where's he calling from?" somebody else asked.

There was another knock on the hotel room door – the fifth that morning. The first had been Steve, the second the doctor, the third the tailors, and the fourth had been the woman with the breakfast cart. That left only two things Tony had asked for and not yet received, and he was pretty sure Pepper wasn't coming.

"That must be my stuff," he decided. He hung up on the SHIELD agents – if word somehow managed to trudge through the swamp of bureaucracy, Fury would call back – and moved towards the door. However, Jarvis had already seized the opportunity to escape the tailors and was there ahead of him.

"I'll get it, Sir," he said, and though he was still rather wet and his robe was coming untied, he opened the door. "May we help you, Miss Windham?" he asked.

Tony's spirits, already low, sank right through the floor. If someone had asked him to make a list of people he really, really didn't want to deal with today, Dido Windham would not have been on it, but only because he never would have imagined there was a chance in hell she'd show up. But when he stood up straight to peek over Jarvis' freckled shoulder, sure enough, there she was: a dark-haired woman in thick-rimmed Prada eyeglasses and her trademark cherry red pants suit. She was looking at Jarvis in obvious startlement, but then she noticed Tony. Her eyes narrowed, and her face passed momentarily through furious indignation before settling into a hard-edged, self-conscious neutrality.

"Stark," she greeted him. She tried to duck under Jarvis' arm, but he moved to stop her. "Do you mind?" she asked.

"Not at all," said Jarvis, without getting out of her way.

"Let her go, Jarvis," said Tony, but moved into the doorway himself – there was no way he was letting Miss Windham into this room. "Is there a problem, Windham?" he asked, imitating her forced politeness.

"I believe, Mr. Stark, that you are in my hotel room," she said frostily.

"I believe, Miss Windham," he replied, "that I was here first."

"I made my reservations a month ago," she told him.

"Yeah? Well, I was here at eleven and you didn't make it until..." Tony checked his watch. "Nearly two. You snooze, you lose."

She bit her lip, inhaling through her nose, and Tony could almost see the gears in her head turning as she decided what she was going to say next. Dido Windham had never liked being the first to get angry, and Tony had never been able to resist pushing on that, seeing how far she could go before her forced calm cracked. Even though it had been years, that was still his first reaction – hold a contest of wills until one of them broke down and shouted.

Under slightly more normal circumstances, Tony would have not-so-secretly enjoyed it. As things were, however, he didn't have the time or the patience, and didn't really want to get in a shouting match with an ex-girlfriend in front of all these other people. "Dido," he said, "I know what you're thinking, and I promise you, I had no idea you'd reserved this room. I'm having technical difficulties at home and I need a place to stay for a day or two. Once I've sorted that out, you can move right in and spend Daddy's money any old how you want."

Miss Windham's brow furrowed and her lips parted, and Tony realized too late that the 'Daddy's money' quip had not been the best way to avoid an argument. To his surprise, Jarvis came to his rescue.

"Good day, Miss Windham," he said. "I will be sure to inform you the moment Mr. Stark checks out." He began to shut the door, and for a moment Tony smiled, thinking that a Jarvis with a body wasn't a bad thing to have around. Then Miss Windham put out an arm to hold the door open.

"Who are you?" she asked, frowning at Jarvis. "You're familiar."

"This is... Edward Jarvis," said Tony. "My, uh..." what was the title he'd made up for him? "Senior Technologies Assistant."

"We may have met when you were at Mr. Stark's home," Jarvis added.

Tony wasn't sure that was the smartest thing to say – not that he was exactly batting a thousand today, himself – but Miss Windham didn't seem to make the connection. Why should she? Pepper hadn't believed this, and she'd met Dr. Strange. Miss Windham had no idea Tony had been consorting with sorcerers, so there was no reason why she should connect this man with the house computer.

"Yeah," she said slowly, "that must be it." She was still frowning as she took a step back. Jarvis shut the door after her.

"Slam it harder next time," Tony said. He went and sat down on the sofa next to Steve, while the tailors rearranged themselves around Jarvis. "This is just going to be one of those weeks, isn't it?" he asked the universe in general.

"Who was that?" Steve wanted to know.

It was Jarvis who answered him. "Miss Windham's father owns the Windham Aerospace company," he explained. "They picked up a number of Stark Industries contracts after Mr. Stark decided to close the weapons manufacture division. She is also..."

"Ex-girlfriend," Tony grumbled. That was what Steve had really been asking, and Tony didn't particularly want to hear how Jarvis might try to describe the relationship. "It wasn't a great breakup."

"To put it mildly," said Jarvis. "I would like to congratulate you, Sir, on having had an unusually civil encounter with her."

"Jarvis," Tony said, "just... mute." He grabbed a danish out of a basket and helped himself to sausages and potatoes. That was the other problem with sleeping in: not only had he missed whatever it was Pepper had scheduled for him to do that morning, he'd also skipped breakfast and it was getting to be well past lunchtime. He was starving. He had the danish halfway to his mouth when for the sixth time, somebody knocked on the door.

Tony threw the pastry back on his plate. "Now what?" he demanded, then added, "no," as Jarvis made for the door again, "I'll..."

Once again, it was too late: Jarvis was already there. "Can I help you, Miss?" he asked, then stepped back and looked at Tony. "Sir," he said, "I believe your things have arrived."

"Well, something's going right, anyway," Tony said.

Now that he had clean clothes to change into, Tony left breakfast – or brunch or afternoon tea or whatever it was at this point – and took a short shower of his own. The bathroom was a terrible mess. All the towels and washcloths were sitting neatly folded and untouched, but the metal bar they were supposed to be hung on had broken free from the wall at one end. That was the clank he'd heard while on the phone with Pepper, Tony realized: Jarvis must have grabbed the bar to try and keep himself from falling, only to find that it couldn't support his weight. There were puddles of cold water on the tile, and when Tony opened the shower door he discovered a ring of grime in the bottom that looked like something out of a cartoon. Tony smiled a little at the thought that maybe the reason Jarvis hadn't dried himself off was because he didn't want to get the nice white towels dirty.

A chance to wash and shave helped Tony unwind a little, and when he returned to the sitting room he found to his relief that the tailors had given Jarvis a shirt and trousers to wear while they worked on his suit. These didn't fit very well – an inch of wrist stuck out of the shirt sleeves – but it was a lot better than everybody having to avert their eyes while Jarvis wandered around in a bathrobe that wouldn't stay closed.

Tony sat down again, and this time actually managed to bite into his breakfast without any more interruptions. Good – maybe things would calm down from here.

"I'm glad this amuses you," he said with his mouth full, noticing Steve's small smile.

Steve quickly straightened his face. "Sorry," he said. "I'm sure he likes it even less than you do..."

"Nffff!" Tony held up a hand to make him stop, then quickly chewed and swallowed. "That wasn't sarcasm. We made you laugh. That's good."

"I wasn't laughing," said Steve.

Tony rolled his eyes and helped himself to more food. "Anyway, this has derailed your morning, too. Pepper said you were looking for me?"

"Yeah," said Steve awkwardly. He picked up a tangerine and dug his thumb into the rind to start peeling it. "Fury told me to take a vacation."

"Wise man," Tony said. He could just imagine what might have precipitated that order. Tony had wondered what Steve would do with himself once the fighting was over. This was a man whose identity was completely wrapped up in his hero complex – so, for that matter, was Tony, but the difference between them was that Tony knew how to take a day off and have a little fun. He could picture Steve puttering around SHIELD driving everybody crazy until Fury finally got fed up and ordered him out. "Where were you thinking of going?"

"I'm here," said Steve. "I didn't have any better ideas."

"Good choice," Tony said, with a satisfied nod. "Do you surf? I didn't think so. I'll teach you – just as soon as I've dealt with my little hardware problem."

Both men glanced up at Jarvis. The tailors appeared to be finishing up for now – one of them helped Jarvis out of a blazer, while the one called Greg rolled up his measuring tape. "There we go, Mr. Jarvis," he said. "We'll need you again in half an hour or so, but in the mean time you can join Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers for breakfast."

Jarvis looked startled by this suggestion. "Eat?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Tony, gesturing to the food spread out on the coffee table. "Dig in, there's plenty for everybody." He had no idea what he was going to do with this version of Jarvis, but he certainly wasn't going to let the poor guy starve.

Jarvis hadn't quite figured out how sitting down worked yet. When he dropped himself into the armchair across from Steve and Tony, it looked as if his legs had simply collapsed out from under him and it was only through sheer good luck that he happened to land on something soft. He sat there a moment looking at the food as if it were something potentially dangerous, an unknown creature that might bite him if he got too close.

"Try the eggs benedict," Tony suggested.

Jarvis licked his lips uncertainly. "I'm not sure I like the idea of eating an egg."

"Don't tell me you're going to be a vegetarian," said Tony. "I will sell your code to Microsoft, Jarvis, I swear I will."

After looking at each dish in turn, Jarvis put out a tentative hand and selected a carrot muffin. From this he pulled off a very small piece, which he studied a moment before putting it in his mouth as if afraid it would explode. Multiple expressions flitted across his face as he chewed – many of these were unreadable, but surprise, doubt, and disgust each made an appearance before Jarvis finally swallowed in a way that reminded Tony of a bird gulping down an entire fish.

"What do you think?" asked Tony. He had to admit, he was honestly curious: what would food be like to somebody who'd never eaten before?

Jarvis cleared his throat loudly, then began to cough. Steve quickly got up to hand him a glass of water, but he didn't know what to do with it – Steve had to show him, but that just made it worse, as Jarvis sputtered on the liquid. Tony began to be honestly afraid Jarvis would choke to death, but Steve thumped him on the back a couple of times and the coughing finally subsided.

"It's more challenging than it looks," Jarvis wheezed when he could speak again.

"Practice makes perfect," said Tony, trying to sound encouraging.

Jarvis pulled a second, even smaller piece off the muffin and tried again. He chewed this one more thoroughly, and it seemed to go down easier.

"There you go," Tony said. "You're doing great." He could see that the tailors were trying very hard not to stare, but he ignored them completely. Tony had found that if he went around acting as if everything were perfectly normal, most other people wouldn't question it no matter how weird a situation became. Nobody ever wanted to be the first to point out the naked emperor.

The telephone rang.

"That had better be Fury," Tony grumbled as he reached to answer it. "Hello?"

It was Fury, and rather than a greeting, the first thing he said was a question: "what did you do to Dr. Strange?"

"I didn't do anything!" said Tony. "I am not at fault here. I let this man into my home, into my workshop..."

"I told you not to piss him off," Fury interrupted.

"I didn't piss him off!" Tony protested. "I made every effort to be a good host. I trusted him not to go messing around with my stuff, and he betrayed that trust."

Fury didn't sound like he believed that for a second. "What happened?"

For the third time that day, Tony explained.

Pepper's first reaction to the story had been to ask whether Tony were drunk. Steve's had been to say he'd believe it when he saw it – which he had. Nick Fury listened and then asked, "why did you program your computer to be a smartass in the first place?"

"It makes me keep thinking instead of just talking to myself," said Tony. "So Strange pulled this and then vanished sometime between six and seven this morning." If it had been any earlier Pepper wouldn't have been able to overhear him talking to JARVIS before she left, and if it had been any later Tony wouldn't have missed his wake-up call. "Without the central AI none of my suits will work, most of my house won't work, and I'm not going to have a lot of spare time to entertain the red, white, and blue boy scout here. I could use some help."

"What do you expect me to do about it?" Fury asked.

Tony's stomach sank. "You don't know where Dr. Strange went?"

"No. Why would I? I'm not his babysitter. He's not on a leash." The words unlike some people remained unspoken but were nevertheless implicit. "He's not officially part of SHIELD and even if he were, how am I supposed to keep tabs on a man who can bend time and space?"

"Oh." Tony was now officially out of ideas. He hated being out of ideas. "Will you at least call me if he turns up?"

"Yes," said Fury. "I'll also have a note made that Iron Man will be unavailable for the foreseeable future. Was there anything else, Stark?"

Tony couldn't resist. "Yeah. You're awfully optimistic telling Rogers to take a vacation. I don't think he knows what the word means."

"Goodbye, Stark," said Fury, and hung up.

"Nice talking to you, too," Tony grumbled, putting the phone back on the charge. He was going to need more coffee for this – he poured another cup and considered adding some whiskey.

While Tony spoke with Fury, Jarvis had eaten a few more bites of muffin and taken a few sips of water before seeming to decide that eating was something he would have to ease himself into. He was now wandering around the hotel room, poking at objects that were unfamiliar to him. He opened and shut the microwave for some reason, then moved Greg's briefcase to look in the cupboard below.

He was clearly fidgeting, which struck Tony as a bit odd. He'd never programmed JARVIS to get bored. It simply wasn't a trait that would do an artificial intelligence any good. Maybe that was the entire problem: having never been bored before, Jarvis now had no idea what to do about it. And while Tony pondered that, Jarvis reached up to scratch at the place where the tag on his shirt touched the back of his neck, then grimaced and pulled the shirt off over his head without bothering to unbutton it.

Tony groaned. "Jarvis, do you want to keep your clothes on, please?"

"They're not comfortable, Sir," said Jarvis, looking at the cloth in his hands.

"Well, if you don't wear them then we'll be very uncomfortable," Tony told him. God damn it, what was he going to do about this? For the last several years Tony had avoided making backups of anything on his home and workshop computers: the whole fiasco with Obadiah had left him paranoid about ever letting anybody else see his work. JARVIS himself had reminded Tony several times that backups were a good idea, and Tony had ignored him. If he'd had something, maybe he could have just rebooted the computer and gotten back to work... or maybe not. When he thought about it, it didn't seem likely that Strange would have made it that easy.

Tony scowled to himself. He knew he was a smart and resourceful person. He'd managed to turn being kidnapped by terrorists into a way to fight them: surely he could work with this mess, too. There had to be some way to turn the situation to his advantage – but if there were, he couldn't see it from here.

"Shirt," he ordered Jarvis. "This is not negotiable."

"Of course, Sir," Jarvis sighed.

Meanwhile, one floor down and a few rooms over, Dido Windham had barely settled into the hotel's second best suite when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out and flipped it open. "Windham," she said.

"Hi, Sweetie," said her father. "I heard Stark stole your room."

Dido frowned. "Dad, that was less than an hour ago. Are you having me followed again?"

"The world is a dangerous place," he told her.

"I'm thirty-five," Dido reminded him.

"That doesn't matter to your old dad. You'll always be my baby girl."

Dido sat down on the end of the bed, rolling her eyes at her father's indulgent tone. She'd never tried to keep track of how often she had to remind him that she was an adult now – the result would just have been depressing. It never did any good anyway, because the real problem was not his perception of her, but the fact that Balthazar Windham had always been a bit paranoid and was getting worse as he got older. If he knew about Stark, then he'd probably jumped to the same conclusion as Dido initially had: that he'd stolen the room on purpose to spite her.

Sure enough: "what's Stark doing there, anyway?" Balthazar asked. "You don't think he's meeting Huang, too, do you? Because if he is..."

"I doubt it," said Dido with a snort. "They were in their pajamas when I talked to them. He told me they were having 'technical difficulties' at his place and he just got here before me. I was two hours early, but nope, Stark comes first!" Now that she'd had time to cool down a bit, Dido knew that the idea of Stark taking her room to annoy her was pretty silly. After all this time, she probably ought to be surprised he'd even remembered her name.

"Ha!" Balthazar said. "Good to know that Tony Stark has problems with technology, too." He paused. "Who's 'they'? Somebody's with him?"

"Some employee. He called him the 'Senior Technologies Assistant' or some bullshit." Dido shook her head. "I could swear I've met the man before. His accent rings bells, but I can't remember where I know him from." This was bothering her – Dido usually had a good memory for people. "Ed Jarvis. He's tall and skinny, kind of strawberry-blond. I couldn't tell you where he's from, exactly, his accent's perfect BBC." Her father had dealt with Tony Stark on a more professional level than she had – maybe he knew the man.

His interest, however, was in something else. "Senior Technologies Assistant," he said, rolling the vague title around in his mouth.

"That's what he said," Dido affirmed, and for once she agreed with her father for being suspicious. 'Senior Technologies Assistant' wasn't a job description – it was the sort of position you made up in order to give a cushy job to your incompetent brother-in-law. The only problem with that theory was that Stark was an only child. He didn't have any family to nepotize.

She sat up straight. "Dad!"

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, sweetie?" asked Balthazar.

"I'm thinking about the kinds of 'technologies' even Tony Stark might need 'assisting' with," said Dido. "Things nobody else has, and which he can't do alone but doesn't want anybody knowing he needs help with."

Her father was thousands of miles away – he was in Montreal for the week – but Dido could almost see his thoughtful chin-stroking as he considered the implications. Could they really have stumbled across somebody who helped Tony Stark build and maintain his Iron Man suits?

"I want him, Dido," Balthazar decided. "You get me this man. I don't care if you stand up Huang to do it."

"I'm not gonna stand up Huang, Dad," said Dido. The relationship between Windham Aerospace and Ao Guang Enterprises was strained enough already. If she failed to show after Huang had come all the way from Hong Kong, they'd never be able to patch things up.

"We know when Huang's going to be in California," Balthazar said. "We don't know how long this opportunity is going to last. I want this guy. Get him alone, find out if he does what we think he does, and then reel him in. I don't care what it takes. Promise him a mansion on the moon if you have to."

"I'll give it a shot." Dido didn't feel comfortable promising anything more. If Stark needed help with a project like that, it would have to come from somebody he'd trust with his life – she shuddered to imagine what one tiny failure in the Iron Man suit could do to the wearer. It wasn't going to be easy to persuade such a person to jump ship, particularly when she didn't know how much time she had, and some of that time was going to have to be spent schmoozing a supplier.

"That's my girl," Balthazar said proudly.

From there the conversation went on to more mundane topics, such as the lousy wine the airline had offered to Dido, and how Balthazar's budget meetings in Montreal were going. Dido spoke, but she was only half-listening to her father's replies – in the back of her brain she was already trying to figure out a strategy. She was pretty sure it wouldn't be a financial reward that would convince the oddly familiar Mr. Jarvis to leave Stark: Tony Stark knew all about people's prices and was too smart to trust somebody who could be bought.

This wouldn't be accomplished with a bribe. This was going to require psychology.