Despite Steve's and Jarvis' refusal to offer any help, Tony did manage to think of a surprise for Pepper, and not a moment too soon. He just barely managed to get it delivered before she arrived. When her car pulled up, he was waiting in front of the hotel with a smile on his face – and a steaming pizza box in his hands.
"Surprise!" he announced, holding up the pizza.
She paused and gave him a wry smile. "And here I thought you were going to show me whatever it was you'd mentioned at the beach."
"Unfortunately, like I said, I need JARVIS back before I can show you that. For now, this will have to do." He opened the box to show her. "We're not going out, we're staying in. I've got a pizza, there's a Futurama marathon on TV, and we'll just hang out. See? Pepperoni – that's what the magazines call us, you know. 'Pepperony'." Tony grinned. He hadn't liked the portmanteau at first, but it had grown on him.
"I've seen them," said Pepper. She looked down at her clothing: it was probably the same little black dress as she'd worn to work, but without the jacket and accessorized for evening rather than business. "And here I am in a skirt and heels."
"Aw, that's okay, you look good in anything," Tony joked. He shut the pizza box and extended his arm. "How long's it been since we had a good night in?"
Pepper had to think about it. "A while," she said. "Work's been crazy. Just let me park properly, okay, Tony?"
"Take your time," he told her. "We've got all evening."
Tony was happy to wait for her. He'd stationed Steve and Jarvis inside the hotel so they could text to warn him if Dido Windham decided to try interrupting again, and the result was a classic win-win situation. If Dido didn't stop by, all the better – but if she did, she was going to see Tony beaming with Pepper on his arm, and hopefully understand that she would never make him jealous of anybody. And of course, Tony got to spend the evening with Pepper, who was now smiling at him instead of snarling. Things were definitely looking up.
They stayed up, too, for once – but with one small hiccough on the way. If she showed up, Miss Windham was supposed to come from inside the hotel, after one of Tony's accomplices had warned him. She was not supposed to arrive from somewhere out in the parking lot – and when she noticed them, she was absolutely not supposed to call out, "hello, Pepper!"
Pepper turned around in surprise. "Dido!" she said. "I didn't know you were in town!" She looked at Tony for an explanation.
He couldn't say he hadn't known she was in town, because Miss Windham would immediately call him out on it. "Well, I figured you two probably wouldn't want..." he began, but Miss Windham had already run up and grabbed Pepper's hand.
"How've you been?" she asked enthusiastically. "It's been ages!"
"Not since the Warhol at Christie's," Pepper agreed, and Tony remembered – Pepper and Dido had something in common. They both loved modern art, and now they were apparently going to stand around and talk about it while he stood there holding a slowly cooling pizza. Fabulous.
"How was your trip to Paris?" asked Pepper. "Did you get to meet Madame Popelin?"
"I did!" Dido grinned. "And you'll never believe what I saw."
"Tell me," said Pepper.
Miss Windham looked around, and then dropped her voice to a whisper. "Don't tell anybody, but I'm almost sure she's got Odalisque in Garden with Poppies. It was propped in a corner of her store-room. I tried to take a closer look, but she said it needed restoration and hustled me off."
Pepper's eyes went wide. "That can't be right," she protested. "They found that painting – a man approached me to try to sell it to Tony, and I reported him to the FBI."
"What?" asked Tony. "I didn't hear about that."
"Maybe," said Miss Windham, "but it's not back in the museum yet, is it?"
Tony cleared his throat. "Ah, ladies," he said pointedly.
Pepper looked as if she'd only just remembered he was there. "Oh!" she said. "Sorry, Dido, I'm afraid it's date night..."
"Not a problem, I have to run, too," Miss Windham said. "We should catch up sometime. I hear a rumour that missing Renoir surfaced in Japan last month. Catch you later!"
"Bye, Dido!" Pepper waved as Miss Windham headed inside. She waited until the other woman had passed through the revolving doors, then turned to Tony. "When did she get here?"
"Yesterday morning," said Tony. "She says I stole her hotel room."
"Is that why she's pretending you don't exist?" asked Pepper.
Ah, so she had noticed that Dido hadn't looked at Tony, not even once. "That would be why. She was doing it all day yesterday, too." And that was when he realized he'd just let Miss Windham accomplish exactly what she'd set out to: having a nice conversation with somebody else while Tony got ignored – just as she'd done with Jarvis that morning. Damn it. "Hey," he said, "why didn't you tell me somebody tried to sell me a Pissaro?"
"Partly because I knew it was either fake or stolen," said Pepper. He braced himself for the second reason to be another complaint about his donation to the boy scouts, but instead she said, "and partly because Odalisque in Garden with Poppies is a Matisse."
Tony had no idea what his face might have looked like when she said that, but there was probably an element of 'sad puppy' involved. Pepper laughed and squeezed his arm.
"Don't let her get to you," she said.
"I'm not," he told her firmly. "Not at all. Come on, pizza's getting cold."
As they passed through the revolving door, Tony's new phone beeped. He pulled it out to look at, then quickly shut it off and put it away again.
"Nothing important?" asked Pepper.
"Nothing at all," Tony told her.
It had been a text message from Steve, all meticulously spelled and punctuated correctly, to let Tony know that he'd just spotted Dido at the concierge desk. At least he'd tried.
When Jarvis saw Miss Windham enter the hotel lobby alone with a smile on her face, he feared that the encounter had probably gone badly for Mr. Stark. He wondered if he ought to go ask, but hesitated to do so – Mr. Stark would not have appreciated the interruption. Fortunately, a few minutes later Mr. Stark himself finally reappeared. He had his pizza in one arm and Miss Potts on the other, and he looked even more enormously pleased with himself than usual.
Jarvis raised a hand – it wasn't a wave, just an acknowledgement of Mr. Stark's success. Mr. Stark saw, and responded with a nod. This attracted the attention of Miss Potts, who smiled at Jarvis, then asked Mr. Stark a question. Jarvis couldn't make out her words, but the reply was, "oh, Steve's looking after him."
Looking after him. Jarvis winced: there it was again, that nasty knowledge that he was of no use whatsoever in this form. Why did Dr. Strange's mysterious business have to take so long?
Mr. Stark and Miss Potts vanished into the elevator, and Captain Rogers approached, sketchbook and pencils under his arm. "I'm gonna get something to eat and then find a spot to people-watch," he said. "You got any suggestions?"
"I'm sorry, Captain Rogers, but I'm not very familiar with Malibu," Jarvis replied. "At least, not in a practical sense." He could remember bits and pieces of hundreds of maps and satellite photos, but seemed to have lost the ability to patch them together into anything meaningful. A list of restaurants, for example, was easy to come up with, and he had a good idea what each one looked like and what they served – but he had no idea how to get to any of them from the hotel.
"Oh, right, of course, I should have figured," said Captain Rogers. "Well, Tony told me to make sure you eat. He couldn't remember if you'd had lunch."
At the word 'eat', Jarvis' insides began to gurgle again – the same sound they'd made last night when he'd discovered the stash of coffee and chocolate in the suite. Remembering the smell and especially the taste of the food made the gurgling more insistent. Having some supper sounded terribly appealing.
But all he said was, "thank you, Captain Rogers. I did eat lunch, and I'd rather stay in the hotel this evening. I'll find my own supper."
"Really?" asked Captain Rogers, surprised.
"Yes, really," said Jarvis. "I'm perfectly capable of feeding myself." There were an awful lot of things he couldn't do, but he'd figured out how to eat, and he rather resented the implication that Mr. Stark considered him entirely helpless.
"Okay," Captain Rogers said dubiously. "You can call me if you need anything. Do you need the number?"
"I have it," Jarvis said. "Thank you, Captain Rogers."
Perhaps, Jarvis thought, he ought to have told Captain Rogers his real reason for not wanting to leave the building: that Dr. Strange wanted Jarvis to stay where Stark is and Jarvis was worried that whatever he was supposed to do, he would miss it if he let Mr. Stark wander off. Maybe Captain Rogers would have stayed to keep him company – because once he left, Jarvis was, again, alone in a hotel with nothing to do. And this time he was in a public place, where he couldn't even make himself more comfortable by removing his clothing.
Eating would keep him busy for a few minutes, but although he was hungry Jarvis found the idea of eating in the hotel restaurant, in front of people, a bit intimidating. As with so many other things, cutlery was much more difficult in practice than in theory. At breakfast that morning he'd tried to use a knife and fork and had eventually given up in frustration. Mr. Stark had watched him over the top of a newspaper as he'd eaten with his hands. He didn't like the thought of a whole room full of people looking at him with that disapproving expression.
He therefore put off supper for a while, and sat down in one of the big leather chairs across from the hotel bar. This was unexpectedly painful, as the upholstery rubbed against his sunburned neck, and he quickly leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees so as to have as little of his body in contact with the chair as possible. What did people do, he wondered, when they were alone with no tasks assigned to them?
He knew the answer: they had hobbies. Mr. Stark worked on his hot rods, and Captain Rogers drew pictures. Miss Potts visited museums and art auctions. Colonel Rhodes enjoyed hiking and boating.
Jarvis had no hobbies. He played chess with Mr. Stark, helped with his projects, selected music for him... but those were all part of his job. There was nothing he did purely because he enjoyed it. He'd never needed a hobby. He'd never been bored.
He heard a sound, and raised his head to see a hotel employee standing over him. She offered a glass of some amber liquid.
"From the lady in red," she said, gesturing towards the bar.
Jarvis turned in his seat to look, but he already knew exactly who he would see. Sure enough, there was Dido Windham.
"Hi," she said.
"Hello, once again." Jarvis took the glass from the waitress and set it down on the low table in front of him, as Dido came to sit down opposite.
"You looked like you needed a drink," she explained.
"Thank you," said Jarvis, "but I don't drink alcohol. May I ask, Miss Windham, why you keep popping up? I get the idea that it's not a coincidence."
"I like your accident," she replied airily. "Where were you born?"
"Cambridge," he said.
"Cambridgeshire or Gloucestershire?" she asked.
"Massachusetts," he said. "What's the real reason?"
"You're no fun." Miss Windham pouted, but couldn't keep it up for long. There was still something rather satisfying about seeing her smile, as if he'd accomplished something difficult. "All right," she said, "it's half because it annoys the hell out of Stark when people don't pay attention to him, and half because it's driving me crazy trying to figure out where I know you from." She looked him over. "And probably a little bit because that sunburn really does look hideous. How can you stand to wear a shirt over that?"
"I'm given to understand that going without is not socially acceptable," said Jarvis. "Mr. Stark was able to find some cream for the burn, and it's less painful now." At least, it had been until she'd mentioned it – now he was thinking about it again, and that made it itch. He reminded himself that Captain Rogers had told him not to scratch.
"That's good," she said. "I'm sorry, by the way – I didn't actually have any aloe for you. I just knew if I offered it, he'd run right off to prove he could find some first." She tilted her head to the right. "How long have you worked for him? For Stark?"
That was an unexpectedly difficult question. There was no single answer. Had Jarvis begun 'working' for Mr. Stark on the day the first version of his software had been activated? Or was it when he'd been installed in the house, taking over a number of tasks that Mr. Stark had used to pay people to do? Or maybe when he'd become fully self-aware, although that was not an event that could be pinned down to a particular moment. He settled for, "many years."
"And you still call him 'Mr. Stark'?"
"I don't believe that's any of your business, Miss Windham," said Jarvis.
She didn't seem discouraged. "Well, you can call me Dido," she said. "It's a terrible name, but it's mine. I'm actually named after my father's favourite painting – he's got it hanging in his office," she explained. "It's a 1905 Klimt, six feet square of gold leaf and godawful colours." She shook her head. "So how about you? Is it 'Ned' or 'Eddie' or what?"
That was another difficult question, but instead of having too many possible answers, this time Jarvis had none. He couldn't even lie to her, because whatever name he gave, she would immediately start to call him by it. That would be very awkward the next time she spoke to him in front of Mr. Stark.
Why was he still talking with her at all? Dido Windham was antagonistic towards Mr. Stark in two senses: she was both an embittered former lover and a business rival. The sensible thing to do would be to bid her good evening and find somewhere else to sit. But if he did that, he'd have nobody to talk to at all...
She was waiting for an answer.
"I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you, Miss Windham," he said. "I'm just Jarvis."
She didn't believe him. "Nobody ever calls you by your name?" she asked. "What about your family?"
"I don't have a family," said Jarvis. "Only Mr. Stark." A moment after saying this, he realized how she would interpret it and quickly moved on. The best thing to do would be to make a joke of it before she could offer any unnecessary condolences. "I'm afraid I make for a rather sad excuse for a human being." That was the truth at least. No hobbies, no family – not even a name.
Miss Windham's eyes narrowed critically. "Nah," she decided. "I've met sad excuses for human beings. You're a little... underwhelming, honestly, but I think you can still be saved."
Jarvis might have made a sad human, but he was not a stupid one. This was hardly casual conversation: Miss Windham was trying to steer the conversation towards a point, and it was quite obvious where the point in question was going to be. Now would be an excellent time to get up and go elsewhere, but instead Jarvis decided to take the bait and see what happened. "I assume I'm meant to ask who these sad human beings are?"
"Well, I don't want to go naming names," she said, with a slight nod, suggesting she knew and acknowledged that he was playing along, "but since you asked." Her expression suddenly hardened, and a note of real bitterness crept into her tone. "There's this one guy who is so wrapped up in himself that he doesn't seem the point of talking to other people. He talks to robots instead – and when he does talk to people, he talks to them just like they were robots. He talks like he doesn't actually believe there's another person in the conversation. He just wants something to throw his voice at and occasionally hear a 'yes, Sir!' to feed his ego while he..."
Then she abruptly stopped in mid-rant. For a moment she looked startled, and then a smile slowly spread across her face. "That's it!" she exclaimed.
"That's what?" asked Jarvis.
"You!" She pointed at him. "I know who you are: you're the voice! I've never met you, but you provided the voice for Tony's computer! JARVIS! Of course!" She picked up his neglected drink and raised it in a mock toast. "I knew he couldn't have built that himself. The smartest man in the world couldn't make something like that all alone. So that's what a Senior Technologies Assistant does, huh? You help him with his computers?" She looked quite excited by the idea.
Jarvis decided the safest answer was, "I'm not at liberty to say."
"That's fine," she said, still smiling. "That's impressive, though. I don't really 'get' computers. I mean, I can fill in a spreadsheet and all that, but the insides may as well be full of pixies as far as I'm concerned. I prefer my machines to have moving parts. Y'know, stuff I can take apart and see what..."
"Miss Windham," Jarvis interrupted. "I apologize, but I don't think I should be discussing this with you."
"Of course not," she agreed. "I'm sure you're under a nondisclosure contract."
"In fact, I don't think I should be talking to you at all," he said, standing up. "Have a very good evening, Miss Windham."
"I understand." She nodded, apparently not bothered a bit. "You, too, Mr. Jarvis."
Jarvis walked away, taking long strides with no particular destination in mind besides out of Miss Windham's general vicinity. He'd realized, halfway through her tirade, exactly why he enjoyed talking to her so much despite knowing that she had an ulterior motive: Miss Windham did not speak to him in the imperative. The only time she'd given him an order was when she'd told him not to move until she returned with the (nonexistent) aloe for his sunburn. Besides that one incident she had, as he'd observed that morning, talked to him as she would to another human being, listening to and playing off his responses.
Mr. Stark, as she'd pointed out, didn't do that. Neither did Miss Potts: most of the time she didn't talk directly to Jarvis at all, and on the beach that afternoon she'd talked around him, speaking to Mr. Stark as if Jarvis weren't there. On the phone she hadn't even bothered to say 'goodbye'. Such things had never bothered Jarvis before – but he'd never thought about them before.
He talks like he doesn't actually believe there's another person in the conversation. He just wants something to throw his voice at and occasionally hear a 'yes, Sir!' to feed his ego...
Jarvis wished he weren't thinking about it now.
Dido wasn't happy to let the mysterious Mr. Jarvis go, not when she was making more progress with him than she'd ever dreamed would come from a single conversation, but she didn't want to scare him any more than she clearly already had. When he got up, she backed down and allowed him to flee. Now that he was gone, she decided, she needed to call her father back. He would want to hear about what she'd learned.
The phone rang twice, then connected. Dido didn't wait for her father to say hello. "Dad," she said.
"Sweetie?" he asked. "Did you talk to them? How'd it go?"
"I've got bad news, good news, and more bad news," said Dido.
When she said things like that, Balthazar's response was always the same. "Start with the good news."
"No," said Dido. "The first of the bad news is that our friend Mr. Jarvis does not work on the Iron Man suits as far as I can tell."
"He doesn't? What's he do, then?" Balthazar wanted to know.
"That's the good news," said Dido. "You've been to Stark's place." She and her father had joined Tony there for thanksgiving dinner. It had not been among the high points of her relationship with Stark or with Balthazar. "Remember his computer? The one that kept making smartass remarks? Do you remember its name?"
"He told me what it stood for," was all Balthazar could offer. "It was something silly."
Dido remembered that, too, though she couldn't recall Stark's exact explanation of the acronym. She'd always suspected that he'd given the computer its name first and then figured out what it stood for later, and was pleased to realize she'd apparently been right. "JARVIS," she said. "Sound familiar? I don't know why I didn't see it right away. This guy is the voice of Stark's computer, and I'm positive he was the primary programmer, too. There's a lot of his personality in the AI. I think he's here with Stark now because the two of them are trying to figure out how to fix the computer."
"That's my girl!" Balthazar said approvingly. "That is a man we can use! Did you..."
"I'm not done," Dido interrupted. "There's more bad news, remember? He's pretty attached to Stark." She chewed on her lip a moment as she sorted out her impressions of the man. "He told me he has no family, and I'm not absolutely certain, but I think he sees Stark as a sort of surrogate father. On the other hand, he seems aware that it's a one-sided relationship. Stark kind of thinks of him as one of his robots."
"That seems promising," said Balthazar.
"It does," Dido agreed. "And he's figured out why I'm interested in him, but he hasn't told me no yet. He only left now because he thought I was going to ask questions he's not allowed to answer."
She expected her father to say something about that, but instead Balthazar was silent for a long moment. "Did you say Stark thinks of him as one of his robots?" he asked finally.
Dido's stomach sank. "I didn't mean it literally, Dad. Stark treats everybody like robots." She hadn't been exaggerating about that. "I'm pretty sure he's flesh and blood."
"How sure is 'pretty sure'?" Balthazar wanted to know.
"Pretty damn sure," said Dido. "He was soaking wet when I met him."
Her father snorted. "I don't doubt that Tony Stark can waterproof an android if he wants to."
"Dad!" Dido groaned out loud. "Stop that. Okay? Take a deep breath and listen to yourself. He's not a robot. He's got a sunburn. He was pale this morning, and now he's bright red. I offered him some cream for it, but Stark found him something instead."
Of course, Balthazar focused on the wrong aspect of that statement. "So Stark wouldn't let anybody offer medication to this man, and insisted on treating him himself?"
Dido shut her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "Dad."
"Have you seen him eat or drink?" her father persisted.
"I tried to buy him a drink, but he's a teetotaller," said Dido. It was actually sort of admirable – it must be difficult to avoid alcohol while working for Tony Stark. "I'm sure he eats."
"And you said Stark's house computer, the one with the same name, is down?"
Dido shrugged. "That's what they said on the news."
"Now listen to me, Sweetie," Balthazar told her. "Stark's home computer is down, and he's suddenly got a man with him who has the same name, who doesn't eat or drink, who considers him a father... doesn't it sound to you as if he built an android and downloaded the program..."
"Dad, stop!" said Dido. "This is bullshit. Edward Jarvis is not a robot. Not even Tony Stark could make a robot that convincing."
There was another silence. "Exactly how 'convincing' are we talking?" Balthazar asked suspiciously.
"I told you, he has a sunburn," said Dido. "Why the hell would anybody build a robot who can get sunburned?"
"Does he spit?" her father asked. "Does he bleed? Did you sleep with him?"
Dido's mouth dropped open. Where the hell had that come from? She took a breath, fully intending to tell her father that if he wanted Mr. Jarvis that badly, he could bloody well fly down to California and fuck the man himself – but she stopped herself. She knew from experience that getting defensive would only make Balthazar all the more suspicious. "No," she said through gritted teeth. "I did not."
Her anger must have come across regardless, because Balthazar backpedalled. "Now, don't get upset, Sweetie. I just meant that unless you've had very intimate contact with him, how do you know?"
"I know what you meant, Dad," said Dido. "I've got to go." And she hung up.
She looked at Mr. Jarvis' drink, sitting forgotten on the table, and for a moment seriously considered picking it up and hurling it across the room. It was hard to say what she was angrier about – the ridiculous and offensive question, or the unreasonable paranoia that had prompted it. Her hand closed around the glass, but instead of throwing it she tipped her head back and downed it. Mr. Jarvis may have been a teetotaller, but she was going to need a couple more of those.