Another kind of in-between the action story. (At least half of the series is going to be that, since those parts fascinate me more than the A-plot, hands-down)
"FRIDAY, can I get a read-out on where we're at with all the wiring at both sites?"
"Boss, you've already checked those."
"Humor me."
FRIDAY's lack of verbal response was equivalent to an AI's sigh.
"Sir, while I appreciate your attention to detail, I believe it's overkill at this point."
"Thanks for your opinion, J," Tony said. "I just want to make sure everything's as it should be before we transfer all the permissions and make the priority protocols live."
"Mr. Parker has entered the building," FRIDAY stated.
Tony glanced at the clock; it was nearly noon.
"About time. That kid is taking the whole 'summer vacation' thing and running with it," he grumbled without any real annoyance.
"I heard that," Peter protested, as he walked in, dumping an over-full backpack and disengaging his spider-suit almost in one motion.
"You swung over?" Tony asked with a frown. "Why didn't you call Happy for a ride?"
"Happy's visiting his uncle and cousins today and tomorrow, remember?" Peter reminded him patiently as he balled up the suit and stuffed it in a cupboard. Usually he'd just stick it in his bag, but it didn't look like there was any room. "May said she could drop me on her way to the airport, but I didn't feel like getting up at the crack of dawn."
After patrolling half the night , Tony added in his head. He really needed to talk to the kid about a decent sleep schedule even though school was out.
"So I already sent my suitcase last night, and just crammed any last minute stuff in my bag." He'd headed straight for the fridge and now he came back with his arms full of snacks, DUM-E and U trailing happily behind him.
"Hey guys!" he said, patting them once he'd set his sandwiches and Twizzlers down. Then with a shy smile towards a camera in the corner, "Hi FRI, JARVIS." The kid was still a little inhibited around his original assistant, which was cute. Tony had seen him argue with FRIDAY often enough that the difference was obvious.
"Hello, Peter," FRIDAY said.
"It's nice to see you again, young sir" JARVIS followed.
"Oh, it's today , right?" Peter said, almost jumping up off the couch as he turned to Tony accusingly. "You didn't do it yet, did you?"
"Boss was stalling until you got here," FRIDAY said dryly. "All systems are go."
Tony rolled his eyes and muttered something about insolent AI's under his breath. Peter smiled brightly.
"We're ready then? To make AI assignments, basically?" Peter practically bounced in place.
"Yep. Do you remember who's going where?"
"Uh, yeah . FRIDAY's keeping all of the SI locations, both administration and security, especially since you've just expanded her duties, as well as the Compound's day-to-day stuff. And all the charities that she was already handling," he said, ticking things off on his fingers.
Karen was mostly running Peter's charity, Rise Up , but FRIDAY had added several more to her plate recently as well. The rediscovery of Tony's original AI couldn't have come at a better time. With a slight split in jurisdictions, FRIDAY wouldn't actually need the extra memory and additional processors he'd been planning for. Of course, he was going to get them in place anyway, but now he had more time to implement those changes.
"JARVIS is taking over in your labs here and at the Compound, and you're going to be putting him in that cabin by the lake that you just bought, right?"
Tony nodded. "And he's spearheading the Malibu rebuild. I'll want you to work with him and Pepper on rehashed plans though, and he'll have some assignments for you. He'll eventually take full priority there, as well."
Peter's eyes were wide, but he smiled, and gave a short nod.
"But both of them have the shared knowledge base, and we can talk to either of them wherever we are, right?"
"Right. But we're mostly keeping JARVIS on the down-low, especially since he'll now serve as a back-up if someone deliberately tries to disable FRIDAY. He's gonna keep a low profile. You still okay with that, J?"
"Are you asking if I mind getting to ignore the interns and security personnel, Sir?" JARVIS asked. "Many thanks to FRIDAY on that front."
"They're not so bad," she said with amusement. "I just have to be very clear and firm when I actually need to speak to them."
"Ah. Maybe those departments have improved in my absence, then."
Peter had his face buried in one of the hoodies they usually left on the couch (it got chilly in here occasionally) but Tony could tell from his quivering shoulders that he was laughing at their interchange.
"Alright, enough, guys. Did you make a decision on the suit?"
"It would have been easier if you'd been willing to just assign that one, Boss," FRIDAY said testily.
"I know, but I felt like you guys have equal claim and usefulness there. It's good for you to have to work on compromising and all that junk, too," he said dismissively, pretending not to be interested in what they'd decided. He peered carefully at some read-outs on JARVIS's hardwire junction sites, which he'd been working double time on installing in some parts of the Tower over the last few days since they'd found out about JARVIS.
Pepper's reaction had been amazing. She'd come down, (somewhat grumpily due to sleep deprivation and too many politicians over the weekend) and once she'd been standing next to Tony, JARVIS had spoken to her. After clutching wildly at his shoulder and making searching eye contact for confirmation, his usually-stoic fiancée had broken down crying. He'd pulled her into his lap as she regained her composure, and he realized that other than him, Pepper was the one who'd had the most interaction with JARVIS over the years. After recovering her equilibrium, she'd quickly asked for him to have access to the penthouse if possible, so she could talk to him. Somehow Tony hadn't realized how hard his loss had hit her. Or maybe she'd hidden her pain, since she knew his was so much greater, and since there was so much fall-out from Sokovia at the time.
Focus, Tony. His thoughts darted back to the task at hand. Adding in a separate pathway for JARVIS, along with him having access to FRIDAY's pre-existing hardware, gave them another level of bypass if anything happened to her system. And he'd only trusted two other technicians (and a very overwhelmed Daren, who'd never run a wire in his life) to help him put it all in. Come to think of it, he was probably due for a nap. The Compound, being much smaller, had been much simpler, and Vision had been happy to handle it on that end.
"So who's in the suit?" Tony asked again, eyes glancing up at the AIs' sensors.
"We both are," answered FRIDAY levelly.
What?
"Um, how's that gonna work, honey?"
"We feel that each of us bring a different set of reactions and experiences that might be useful. I'll be handling primary communication and function, but JARVIS can jump in when needed or requested, and he'll act as a back-up system as well, with his own emergency power supply and beacon."
"Do we have the infrastructure for that?" Tony asked, thinking mostly of the older suits. The nanotech shouldn't be too hard to code. Now that they'd suggested it, he was pretty excited about the idea, especially thinking about how he'd lost JARVIS's help when he crash-landed in Tennessee. It wasn't until that experience that he realized how grateful he was for his AI, and honestly how dependent he was on him.
It had been such a relief to get him functional again. Tony had learned early on that it was foolish to trust. He was usually surrounded by people, but except for a select few, everyone had their own agenda, and everything wanted something from him. Few were truly in his corner, and he'd been hurt and betrayed more often than he liked to admit. As much as he appreciated, and yes, trusted FRIDAY, losing JARVIS had been a huge blow.
"I've prepared slight modifications to be installed in the last several Marks, but Peter can handle it," FRIDAY said calmly. Wow, she really was serious about this.
"Well, I'm not about to say 'no' to having you both there. Just no chatter during missions, okay?" he teased, wincing slightly as soon as he made the joke. That was Rogers' line.
"That's so cool," Peter said, pulling him back to their conversation.
"Are we good to go, then?" Tony asked FRIDAY.
"I believe I already communicated that," she responded.
Currently JARVIS could speak to them, and access all sensors and databases, but couldn't actually affect anything yet. This transfer would fix that, giving him primary stewardship over the labs, and secondary over the Tower. That was enough for now. As great as FRIDAY was, Tony was honestly thrilled at the idea of having JARVIS assist in the lab again. She'd been good at all the technical help he needed, but didn't have the years of insight and even instinct JARVIS seemed to have developed, even if this instance of him was a couple years behind the version Tony had lost to Ultron. The AI had been working diligently at getting caught up on, well… everything , and Tony felt that he was definitely ready to jump in. FRIDAY did so well at managing everything else, it was a no-brainer to split things up the way they did.
"Do it."
The actual process was anticlimactic. A few lights blinked, mostly.
"You there, JARVIS?" Tony asked.
"Indeed, sir. I can access all primary permissions both in this lab and in the new Compound," JARVIS said, his voice sounding distracted. Since he'd never "been" to the Compound until this moment, Tony was sure he was already busy exploring. DUM-E and U also seemed to react, since they both started trundling happily around the room, swinging their cameras from side to side.
"Careful, guys!" Peter said, quickly running ahead of the bots to move anything delicate out of their way.
Since he had Peter to deal with them, Tony leaned back in his chair and smiled at their antics. Finally, all the whirlwind work of the last few days had paid off.
"DUM-E? U? Cease your antics. Look, you've knocked into that holo-table. You're going to decalibrate it."
Both robots stopped rolling, and U's camera drooped apologetically. DUM-E beeped rudely. JARVIS must have been talking to them over the network, because the resulting conversation left Peter looking a little confused.
"No, it is not the same as when Sir knocks into it. Your mass is much higher than his, your body is harder, and your center of gravity is lower. The forces involved when he does it are negligible. Either of you might easily damage it."
The bots' cameras bent to the table to inspect the spot DUM-E had bumped roughly against.
"Yes, it's okay for now, but much harder and you might have injured something. Please do be more careful."
Tony grinned. He'd missed these one-way conversations. He didn't often need to have a text conversation with DUM-E, because the little robot understood (or at least got the gist) of whatever he said, and didn't often need or want to communicate further than he did already. But it was nice to know they'd have JARVIS to chat with again, when Tony wasn't in the lab or they didn't have tasks to keep their attention. They'd never really hit it off with FRIDAY for some reason.
"Hey, it's okay!" Peter assured the bots, patting U on the chassis and cupping the back of DUM-E's camera. "He said you didn't break it. But there is a lot of important equipment in here. You're supposed to help take care of it, right? Not break stuff. Maybe you guys could dust the countertops around the edges? I'm pretty sure I saw some spiderwebs in one of the corners."
DUM-E ducked his camera down and pushed it into Peter's chest.
"Nuh- uh ! They're not from me! Mine dissolve; you know that!"
"Hey kid, you ready for some lunch?" Tony interrupted. "Rhodey and Bruce should be here in about twenty minutes, so I figured we'd eat upstairs."
"Really?" Peter asked, interest coloring his expression. "I didn't know they were coming!"
"Yeah, unfortunately we need to talk out some details about some Accords decisions that went down this weekend."
"Oh. Uh, do you need me to be somewhere else? Cause I can hang out down here, or in my room, or even go out patrolling if you need."
"Nope. You're affected by all this. You need to know what's happening. I would have taken you with me if it wasn't a risk for exposing your secret, plus letting everyone know you were close to me."
He tried to hide it, but Peter's pleased smile peeked through anyway. "Oh, okay then. Cool," he said, straightening his posture. "Hey, do they know about JARVIS yet?" he asked excitedly.
"They do not," Tony said with a smug grin. "So we'll cover that, too."
"Sick."
Tony looked askance at his kid. Most of the time he sounded almost like an adult, but every once in a while Tony was reminded he was about two generations removed…
"Hey, Tones," Rhodey greeted tiredly. He hadn't even had a chance to change out of his uniform. It had been a long week for him already, with a whole slew of meetings with his chain of command following the Accords tribunal or whatever-it-was. Tony really needed to convince him to retire and join them full-time instead.
"Honeybear," he greeted fondly. "You hungry? How about you, Bruce? We've got sesame chicken, broccoli beef, vegetable dumplings, and chow mein. Oh, and those really good little eggrolls. Just the ratio of everything."
"When have I ever turned down Chinese food?" his oldest friend asked, settling down into a chair.
"What's the occasion?" Bruce asked, smiling at all the containers in front of them.
"Um, it's Thursday?" Peter joked, walking in with cups and plates. Tony was glad he was starting to feel comfortable enough to let loose a little in front of Bruce.
"Funny guy," Tony said, cocking an eyebrow at him. He turned back to Rhodey and Bruce.
"Well, as a matter of fact, we do have a cause for celebration. Thanks to Peter and FRIDAY, I recently got a new lab assistant. Well, an old lab assistant."
"Hello, Colonel Rhodes, Dr. Banner," JARVIS said from the ceiling. Tony would have to ask FRIDAY for a picture of their faces later, because the confusion there was fantastic.
"Vision?" asked Rhodey, looking around in confusion for the synthezoid.
"Not quite," Tony said. "Apparently something went wrong and cut off the complete transfer of J's consciousness from the Malibu servers to New York when the mansion was blown up. And because of all the power and programming issues he had with the suit during the whole Tennessee thing, his base in New York didn't even realize it had happened." Bruce's eyes were wide, and Rhodey was still looking for Vision while his processor caught up.
"FRIDAY and Peter found him on one of the old burnt-up servers this weekend while we were partying it up in Switzerland." Tony couldn't stop the giant grin on his face from stretching even more. It still felt like a dream.
Rhodey swore, grabbing onto the table for support. He understood what this meant to Tony, personally, and had seen how his friend had quietly grieved JARVIS' loss in the aftermath of Ultron.
"So this 'version' of JARVIS is from right before the Malibu attack?"
"Yep. He's been catching up. FRIDAY and Peter were great tutors," he said, shooting another grateful look at his kid, who was smiling down into his broccoli beef.
"This is amazing news, Tony!" Bruce said, a real smile on his face. He'd been far too burdened, as well, since he came back from Sakaar and Asgard. Tony knew JARVIS's loss had hit him hard, as well, since he felt some responsibility in the whole fiasco. Even though Ultron was definitely Tony's fault, not Bruce's. He'd basically pushed his friend into it, fueled by his paranoia. A pinch of headache threatened between his eyes. Not something to dwell on right now, though.
"J, it's so good to have you back, buddy!" Rhodey said.
"I am quite pleased to have returned, as well," the AI replied. "And I'm quite eager to hear what you're able to share about the Accords discussions."
"Jumping right in, huh?" Rhodey asked, sighing. "Yeah, we should probably talk about that." He eyed Peter. "You want him to stay for this stuff, huh, Tones?"
Tony reached over to settle an arm across the back of Peter's chair. He felt him lean back into it slightly. "Yeah. I'd like him to know what the stakes are, and how it can and will affect him going forward. Especially the part about some of the previously "rogue" Avengers who are going to be moving back into the Compound soon."
Peter startled against his arm. "Wait, what?"
Bruce also looked surprised. "Why does Peter need to hear about the Accords?"
"Just a few of them, Pete. Nat, Wilson, Rogers. Possibly Barnes."
"You agreed to that?" Peter jumped up out of his chair and started pacing. "How is that okay? How can you trust them? Barnes , really?"
"Tony. What do you mean the Accords affect your 'intern'?"
Peter stopped pacing. "Oh, right." He looked at Tony, his expression questioning.
Tony shrugged his shoulders. It really was up to Peter how he shared this information, but Bruce knowing he was enhanced was inevitable.
Rhodey looked on in interest, and Tony saw Peter glance at him, as well. Rhodey smiled at the teen and tilted his head slightly.
Peter took a deep breath. "It affects me because I'm one of the minors Mr. Stark has been worried about protecting," he said, flexing his knees and leaping lightly to the ceiling, holding on with one hand.
Bruce's eyes bulged. "Holy…" Bruce's hand came up to cover his mouth, and Tony watched the gears turning in the genius' head. "Your kid is Spider-man?" he finally exclaimed.
Peter dropped down, smiling, but with nervousness in his face and posture. "Surprised?"
Bruce settled back in his chair, a hand rubbing at his chin. "Honestly? Now that I think about it, not really. But I have so, so many questions!"
Peter glanced at Tony, a shy smile on his face at Bruce's apparent enthusiasm.
Tony raised an eyebrow, and Peter nodded.
"Have it it, Jolly Green. You've got fifteen minutes before we need to get busy."
Bruce lit up. "I read that your powers come from an experimental spider, that bit you?"
Peter nodded.
"Tell me everything."