Tony was released from the hospital on Friday evening. The doctors turned him over to Pepper, Jarvis, and Rhodey, along with a strict list of things he could not do with his injured shoulder, and a second list of exercises that would help him regain a full range of motion. Tony stuffed both lists in his jeans pocket, determined to ignore them for today at least. He wasn't going to be doing any superheroing in the foreseeable future, and that was probably good enough.
When he got into the car, he saw that Jarvis was still wearing clothes that looked like they'd come from the Salvation Army – but he looked so much more comfortable in them than he had in a suit that Tony didn't have the heart to complain. He did complain, however, about the fact that the rest of the gang had run off on him.
"We were going to make popcorn and watch Steve's movie," he protested, when Pepper told him the Avengers were still in New York. "How am I supposed to work on keeping my promises when nobody will stick around long enough to let me?"
"Under the circumstances, I think you can be forgiven," said Pepper drily, putting her car in gear. "You promised us a trip to Lake Louise, too, but I don't really see that happening now."
"You also promised you would teach me to use chopsticks," Jarvis put in. "Events intervened."
"I did?" Tony remembered talking about the Lake Louise trip, but not chopsticks. "When did I promise that?"
"Wednesday afternoon, at the pancake restaurant," said Jarvis.
Tony still didn't remember saying that, but Jarvis probably had a better memory than he did. "Well, that's one thing I can still do," he declared. "We'll have Chinese tonight – and tomorrow we'll round everybody up and meet at Lake Louise!"
"Not with your shoulder!" Pepper said. "The doctors told me that if you'd rested it on Tuesday instead of going surfing, it probably wouldn't have torn in the fight. The last thing you're going to do with it now is more sports!"
"Can we talk about this over dinner?" asked Tony. He'd had nothing but hospital food all day and it was neither tasty nor filling.
"My answer won't change," Pepper warned him.
Nor did it – in the end Tony got her permission for the trip, but only by swearing up, down, and sideways that he wouldn't go near the slopes. It didn't sound like much of a holiday, sitting in a hotel room doing stretching exercises to help his shoulder heal, but he cheered up when he realized it would be a good opportunity for him and Jarvis to get started on the new hologram projector. Tony wasn't sure what they'd do with it if Dr. Strange never bothered to show, but it would be fun to build, at least.
Jarvis made a valiant effort to master the chopsticks, but in the end he gave up and used a fork. Something wasn't right with him – he was very quiet, and when he did speak it was only after a thoughtful pause, as if he wanted to be careful about the words he used. He was not hostile, as he'd been on Wednesday morning, but there was still an impression of something not quite settled. Perhaps it was because he wasn't in the familiar environment of computers and technology. Tony remembered him having been best at ease while working.
Now that they had reached a calm moment, before the next disaster hit Tony sort of wanted to sit down with Jarvis and ask him what had been going on in his head all week. What was this experience like for him? How did it feel to take a shower, or have a sunburn, or drink coffee – or have sex – when he'd never done any of those things before? Did the world look different through eyes than through camera lenses? And then there were the hard questions, the ones that made Tony's stomach do flips when he thought about them. How long had JARVIS been fully sentient, and for how much of that time had he felt festering resentment at the way Tony spoke to him? Now that they were here, what did Jarvis want?
These were things Tony probably ought to have asked during their moment of privacy at the hospital, but that had been plenty awkward enough, and he'd just wanted to get the situation resolved and move on. They were people questions, and Tony wasn't good with people, not on that personal level. He could throw a party, he could work a crowd, he could talk women he'd just met into going to bed with him – but when he came to actually connecting with other human beings, Tony was useless. Dido had been right all along: he did prefer the company of machines a lot of the time.
Whatever was troubling him, Jarvis himself was apparently unwilling to bring it up. After what had happened last time he'd expressed any dissatisfaction, Tony couldn't blame him... but it still made the evening somewhat less pleasant than dinner with friends should have been.
Rather than return to the hotel in Malibu, which didn't really have pleasant associations for either of them, Tony and Jarvis spent the night at Pepper's apartment in Los Angeles. It was from there that Tony got back in touch with the others and re-invited them on the promised ski trip. Pepper kept glaring at him the whole time he was on the phone, until he had to promise her all over again that he would stay indoors working on his hologram projector.
"You're the one who said you needed a vacation," he reminded her. "Steve was here in the first place because he needed a vacation, and call it a hunch, but I don't think he had a very relaxing week. And Jarvis has never had a vacation. He needs to learn how! Right, buddy?" he smiled hopefully at Jarvis, who was standing there contemplating a small Edward Hopper landscape hung on the wall of the living room.
Pepper threw up her hands in defeat and then she, too, turned to Jarvis. "You'd better not let him out of your sight!" she ordered. "If I find out he's done himself any more damage, I'm holding you personally responsible!"
"I'll try to sleep with one eye open," Jarvis promised, then gestured to the picture he'd been looking at. "Can you tell me about this painting, Pepper?"
There were a couple of times that evening when Pepper left the room and Tony would have, if he wished, had the opportunity to ask Jarvis some of the things he wanted to know. He didn't take it – he told himself it was because he had to think about their travel plans. If they were going to Canada, then there was something Jarvis was going to need. Getting it for him would require a little bribery, a lot of persuasion, and a certain amount of thought. Tony made some more phone calls, and called in a couple of highly-placed favours.
In the morning they made a stop on the way to the airport to get Jarvis' photo taken and inserted into the item Tony had requested. It turned out that a mistake had been made in its manufacture, which made something Tony had originally thought was a brilliant idea look rather silly. He felt rather sheepish as he presented Jarvis with the result – an American passport.
"They messed up the name," he said apologetically, as Jarvis opened it for a look. "I told them Edward, but some idiot either couldn't hear me or can't read their own writing, and there's no time to fix it. If you don't like Edwin, we can complain about it after we get back."
"It doesn't matter," Jarvis assured him. "Dido will simply continue to call me 'Neddy'." He looked at the document again, and Tony saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "What about the middle name?"
Tony had to squirm a little. He'd felt so pleased with himself when he'd come up with it, but now it just seemed like a piece of narcissism. "Well, I figured if you were going to have my middle name as your first name, then the whole thing might as well be Edward Anthony. Only they got the Edward wrong." Was that why it seemed ridiculous now, or had it been ridiculous to begin with?
For a moment Jarvis just nodded, still looking at the passport – then he suddenly looked as if he were going to cry. His lip wobbled, and he wiped one eye with his thumb. "Thank you," he said. "It's a great honour."
"Really?" asked Tony. As far as he was concerned, it was just a name – as evidence of his own inability to come up with anything better.
"Absolutely," said Jarvis.
Sure enough, when they went through Canadian customs at the airport, three was a proud smile on Jarvis' face when he presented the passport to the officer. He didn't wait for her to ask his name before he identified himself: "Dr. Edwin Anthony Jarvis."
The officer nodded and made a note. "What do you do for a living, Dr. Jarvis?"
"I work for Stark Industries in Los Angeles. My title is Senior Technologies Assistant."
"And what will you be doing in Canada?"
Jarvis glanced back at Tony, Rhodey, and Pepper. "Attending a company retreat," he said.
The customs officer took a sideways look at his beaming smile, but she gave Jarvis his passport back and let him through. Tony hoped she wouldn't decide he was a terrorist. Did they even have terrorists in Canada? He couldn't recall ever hearing about any – although he did make a mental note that next year they were going to have to have Steve dress up as Captain Canada for Hallowe'en.
Jarvis' first experience of snow was a treat, for him and for the others – including Steve, whose flight from New York had got in about twenty minutes before Tony's private plane touched down from Los Angeles. Fat white flakes were drifting down out of a silver-grey sky, and after a self-conscious glance at Tony, seeking permission, Jarvis bent down to pick some up. He curled his bare hands around it, watching the cold water well up between his fingers. Then he quickly dropped the slush that remained and rubbed his hands together to warm them again.
"Cold enough for you?" Tony asked. He could remember doing that with snow as a child, feeling the way it burned against his skin as his body heat melted it.
Jarvis smiled, and then quite unexpectedly he pulled his shirt and jacket off and sat down to roll in the snow. Pepper was horrified. Tony laughed out loud and joined him.
The weekend was uneventful in the best possible way. Natasha and Clint arrived at the Chateau Lake Louise on Saturday evening, in time to join Tony and his friends for dinner, and Thor and Bruce showed up one after the other the next morning. They ate good food, they laughed at Steve's Disney movie, and on Sunday afternoon everybody hit the slopes – except for Tony and Jarvis, who stayed in the room to work on their projector. This came along nicely, and by the end of the day they could project a cluster of floating orbs that were still blue wireframe, but felt solid and reacted to being spun or poked. Jarvis even toyed the the resonant properties of the simulated surfaces, so that some made dull rubbery sounds when struck, like inflated balloons, while others rang like metal or glass. In the evening everyone sat outside around a firepit making s'mores and playing with the orbs, tossing them back and forth in a lazy game of keepaway.
Tony had several more opportunities to try to have a meaningful conversation with Jarvis. He let them all slide. It just wasn't the right moment yet, and anyway, they didn't seem to be short on time.
On Monday morning, Tony eased himself out of bed without waking Pepper, and went to the suite's sitting room to call for room service, hoping to surprise her with breakfast in bed. He had the phone in his hand and was looking at the menu when a voice spoke.
"Fury's right, isn't he, Stark? You can't be left alone for five minutes."
Tony nearly dropped everything he was holding. Dr. Strange was sitting quietly in an armchair, hands steepled in front of him, looking as if he'd been waiting for some time.
"It's not nice to sneak up on people," said Tony.
"I didn't sneak up," Dr. Strange replied. "I've been here the entire time. You didn't notice me."
Fair enough, Tony decided. "Where have you been all week?" he asked.
"Where I'm needed," said Strange. "Judging from the news reports, you and your friends can say the same."
Tony opened his mouth to ask exactly how much of the whole tsunami-and-kraken incident Strange had foreseen, but the words died in his throat as something cold dropped into the bottom of his stomach and splashed. It was the same sense of helpless loss he'd felt when he'd realized his house was destroyed – and the same awful certainty that there was nothing he could do about it. Dr. Strange was back, but the house was gone. There was no computer, and with no computer... Tony swallowed.
"Where's Jarvis?"
The question came out sounding perhaps slightly more hostile than Tony had meant it to be, but Dr. Strange's only reaction was a raised eyebrow. "He's in his room," he said.
Tony glanced at the door into the suite's other bedroom. He wanted to ask what he'd find if he looked, but he couldn't quite think how to phrase the question.
"You can check if you like," Strange offered. "I'll wait."
The phone had now been off the hook long enough without being dialled that he was hearing a steady beep instead of a dial tone. Tony gently put the handset back in the cradle and went to open Jarvis' door, trying not to seem too much like he was hurrying. To his relief, Jarvis was there – in fact, he was awake and dressed already, and sitting on the end of the bed doing something with the replacement phone Tony had bought him at the airport. He looked up, and saw Tony in the door.
"Good morning," he said, surprised. The past couple of days he'd seemed uncomfortable calling Tony by name, but was aware that 'Sir' was no longer preferred – instead, he was avoiding the vocative as much as possible, and it made many of his sentences sound incomplete. Tony was trying to ignore it.
"Good morning," Tony replied. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him so that Jarvis wouldn't see Dr. Strange. "What'cha doing?" he asked, pointing to the phone.
Jarvis glanced down at the screen and smiled. "I am texting a girl," he said.
"What?" Tony scratched the side of his neck. "Dido?" he guessed, unsure if that would be better or worse than somebody he didn't know.
"She expressed a desire to keep in touch," Jarvis said. "She tells me that today is her father's first appointment with his new psychiatrist. She's very proud of him – he has not yet accused the man of being part of the conspiracy."
"Uh-huh." Tony took a deep breath, and tried again. "Uh, where did you get that sweater vest?"
"Pepper found it for me at a gift shop in town." Jarvis tugged at the hem. "It's warm, but doesn't restrict my movement."
"It has reindeer on it," said Tony.
"I believe reindeer are the European species. The American ones are caribou."
A moment went by in silence while the two men looked at each other. Jarvis seemed to be trying to figure out the reason for Tony's awkward, irrelevant questions, and came to entirely the wrong conclusion.
"I didn't go to bed with Dido Windham, Tony," he said.
Tony managed not to visibly sag with relief. "Oh?" he asked. "I mean, not that it's any of my business if you did, of course..."
Jarvis looked at the blue text bubbles on his phone display. "Dido was the first person to really speak to me without knowing who I am. She responds to me differently than you or your friends do. I suppose it's good practice for interacting with... normal people." He looked up to see if Tony had taken offence at that, then smiled. "She also reiterated that she enjoys my accent. It apparently reminds her of British nature programs – she says she could listen to it all day."
"Well, you can tell her from me that she's welcome," said Tony. He thought for a couple of seconds, then realized he was out of ideas for how to stall. He gave up, and said, "Dr. Strange is here."
Jarvis looked up sharply, his expression questioning. Tony nodded. Jarvis bit his lip, then sent one last text message before turning off his phone and getting to his feet. "All right," he said, adjusting the caribou-patterned sweater vest. "I'm ready."