Chapter 6
Anthony Edwards Too Much Stark was familiar with the attraction of a bad idea. He himself had often been the attractive bad idea for other people, so he had nothing against the concept. But to watch its rapid hostile takeover of poor innocent Steve was – what was the word? Saddening? Sickening? Very, very uncool and gross?
Of course, everyone had known about Steve’s little villain-crush on Loki. Having a villain-crush was a normal part of the caped crusader job. You were just exposed to so many villains, and sometimes they were good looking and charismatic. Tony himself made no secret of the fact that he found Dr. Doom pretty hot, when the man illusioned his human face on over his metal mask.
But that was supposed to be the limit of a villain-crush; you thought they were hot. The end.
You were most definitely not supposed to bring them home and introduce them to Fury, and then sit next to them at dinner and team movie nights, and take them back to your room afterwards.
Tony was laying out his thoughts on this subject, in full, to Dr. Levitt in her office.
“Do you think they’re boinking?” he asked, from his position flat on his back on the wine-red couch. Tony had helped himself to a viewing of the video footage from Steve’s bedroom – so sue him, but Loki was a dangerous predator and Steve was their precious boy scout – but without JARVIS to analyze the hours upon hours of it, Tony could only spot-check and hope he wasn’t missing anything.
“Have you asked Steve or Loki that question?” Leona replied.
“Of course,” said Tony, “But Steve didn’t know what I was talking about, and when I explained he walked away. And Loki just gave me this horrible Medusa-stare, like a crazy owl, and he kept it up for a solid five minutes while I tried to change the subject and then apologize. No blinking, no saying anything. Just staring. I thought he was going to stare a hole through my skull. What a creep.”
“I mean, you were the one asking him about his sex life, Tony. You must have kind of sensed that you two, ah, aren’t that close yet.”
“Well, there’s no harm in asking,” Tony said defensively, “Asking questions is how great discoveries are made. Speaking of great discoveries, do you think Steve is a virgin? Has he said?”
“You know, since this is your appointment, Tony,” Leona replied, her professional patience just beginning to fray, “I’m actually more interested in talking about you.”
“Sure, that’s fair. I am much more interesting than Steve,” Tony nodded to himself. “So, what do you want to know?”
“I’m happy to listen to anything you want to tell me, as you know, but I have been wondering if you’re still troubled by those nightmares you mentioned to me last time.”
Tony had to stop and try to remember what she was talking about. The last appointment he had bothered to keep with Leona had been several weeks ago, and he recalled that he had mentioned his recurring dreams of the darkness of space. The suit dying, the way home closing, JARVIS’s voice fading out. That glimpse of utter aloneness…
The dreams had woken him up three nights out of seven for the past two years, though he had only thought to bring it up to Leona recently. Really, it wasn’t like she could do anything about it. And they had helped him to get more work done, since there could be no falling back to sleep after one of those dreams.
But, actually, now that she asked, Tony came to a startling realization. That particular nightmare wasn’t bothering him anymore. Oh, he still had it, and nearly as often as ever. Only it wasn’t really a nightmare anymore. Nowadays it was just a harmless sort of myoclonic jerk, and he was able to roll over in Jarvis’s warm, sturdy arms and go right back to sleep afterwards.
“Huh,” he said aloud, as all this poured through his mind.
“Something you want to share with the class, Stark?” Leona asked.
“Nope,” Tony sat up, “Actually nope. There’s someone I need to talk to right now.” He hoisted himself to his feet and left the room, ignoring Leona’s questions about a next appointment or whatever.
The person he needed to talk to was Jarvis. Ever since that first day in the hospital, when Jarvis had seemed worried about being useless, Tony had made a point of keeping a careful eye out for anything Jarvis did that might be considered ‘useful’ and telling Jarvis about it. Not that Jarvis had to be useful – Tony only cared about him being happy - but until Tony succeeded in getting that idea through Jarvis’s brand-new skull, he would make sure that Jarvis felt useful if he wanted to feel useful.
And, really, it was surprising how useful Jarvis was proving to be, in spite of no longer being an omnipresent, omniscient, light-years-ahead-of-the-competition AI. He had already fully written a new operating system for the building which, Tony had to admit, included certain innovations and efficiencies that never would have occurred to someone who hadn’t once been an operating system themselves. He was helping out Jane and Selvig in their research, and Jane had already gushed to Tony that Jarvis was “one of the great minds of the century” before telling Tony off for not introducing them sooner. Tony had made sure to tell Jarvis all about that encounter. And there was the fact, soon discovered by everyone, that Jarvis had lost none of his soothing presence or diplomatic skill in the body-swap. Tony was constantly coming back to what he now thought of as “our rooms” to find someone engaged in a long, quiet, serious sort of talk with Jarvis, a very English-looking tea service laid out on the coffee table between them. Tony had caught Bruce, Steve, Clint, and once even Hill taking advantage of Jarvis’s calm demeanor and thoughtful advice.
Cheerfully selfish, Tony would chase them all away as soon as he came “home.” Jarvis was his and nobody else’s.
Jarvis seemed to agree. As soon as his eyes landed on Tony, no matter how brief their separation, Jarvis’s face would light up and a lovely pink blush would appear behind his freckles. It was Tony’s favorite sight of each day. He had actually started taking breaks for meals, and even for snacks, just so he could come upstairs and see that beautiful face smiling and pinkening just for him.
It was the weirdest, and by far (like, millions of miles) the most innocent relationship Tony had ever been in. Though he and Jarvis continued to sleep in the same bed every night, and cuddle like a couple of prize-winning cuttlefish, they had not kissed or done anything of a sexual nature. Tony didn’t know if it was a matter of not-yet, or if Jarvis was asexual (having been a computer for most of his life), or what exactly was going on. But, weirdly, wonderfully, he found that he didn’t really care.
It had been a week now since Jarvis had been magicked into a human body, and sure, Tony had wanted to kiss him, well, pretty much constantly. But even more, he wanted to do things right for Jarvis. What that meant exactly, Tony didn’t know. The truth was that he had never actually “done it right” in his life. But he would figure it out for Jarvis, and he was pretty sure that the first steps were; taking his time, letting Jarvis adjust to all the drastic changes, and then offering without any pressure…? Right? He should probably talk to Steve about this.
Speak of the angel, Steve popped into view as Tony rounded the corner to his own suite.
“What’s up, Cap? Looking for me?”
Steve turned around, his hand lifted to knock on Tony’s door.
“Well, no, actually,” he said, “I just got back from a run a little while ago, and I asked ATHENA where Loki was, and she said he was in your rooms talking to Jarvis. I didn’t want to cut their conversation short, so I took a shower and got dressed, and then came up here. But now it seems like no one’s home.”
Something cold and unpleasant trickled up Tony’s spine. “Wait. Why would Loki be here? What would he want with Jarvis?”
Steve looked at him blankly. “Tony, he comes here every day.”
“What?” Tony definitely would have remembered if someone had mentioned that to him. For fuck’s sake, it was bad enough that the magical little creep had fully seduced Captain America. It was even worse that he was allowed to run around like an unhindered guest in Tony’s own tower, the very tower from which the slimy whackjob had tried to take over Tony’s own planet. But now Tony was supposed to just accept that Loki was waltzing in and out of Tony’s own rooms, and saying God-knows-what insidious, poisonous malarkey to Tony’s own…whatever Jarvis was? Oh no. Oh, nonononono.
“I thought you knew,” Steve said, disturbingly undisturbed.
“ATHENA!” Tony barked at the new operating system, ignoring Steve, “Where is Jarvis?”
“Jarvis is in the Avenger’s gym,” ATHENA replied calmly. For some reason, Jarvis had given her the voice of Counselor Troi from Star Trek Next Gen. It was a real problem. Three quarters of the male persons working in the building, and about one third of everyone else, were badly in love with her, and Tony had already deleted over a hundred emails requesting a version of her that could be put onto personal Starkphones. After that, he had made an algorithm that deleted such emails automatically.
Right now, her lovely soothing voice was grating on Tony’s nerves. To the best of his knowledge, Jarvis had never before left their shared rooms except with Tony by his side.
“Is anyone there with him?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Mr. Laufeysson is with him,” ATHENA said.
Tony started back towards the elevators at a power-walk that quickly turned into a run. “Shitshitshitshitshit,” he was saying as Steve easily caught up to him.
“Tony,” Steve called out, “Loki won’t hurt him. He likes Jarvis.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tony huffed, giving Steve a vicious but distracted side-eye, “I heard he liked Thor too, for about a thousand-odd years. Until he tried to have him killed by a giant fire-breathing automaton for no goddamn reason – and that’s before he really went crazy!”
They had reached the elevators, and Tony tapped in the secret combination of buttons that would override any previous requests on other floors and speed a car to him.
“Let’s be real real with ourselves, Stevie ol’ pal; your boyfriend is the literal worst.”
Steve followed him into the elevator, “Tony, I need you to calm down,” he was saying, as Tony punched a number with trembling fingers. “Loki is not hurting Jarvis, everything is okay right now.”
Tony looked down at his traitorous hands, not even sure why they were shaking so much. Was he scared? Was he angry? Was he just unpleasantly surprised? He couldn’t put a precise name to what he was feeling, he just knew that it was reminding him a little too much of the day he had woken up to find JARVIS gone, and Loki responsible.
“You don’t know that,” he snapped, “You’re just guessing, you’re just hoping. You think because you play a little kissy-wissy with Loki that you know him, you know anything about him? Ever ask yourself how many other people have thought that, over the past fifteen hundred years? And where they are now?”
Tony could recognize that he was talking too fast, and possibly being an asshole, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
“Why do you think he’s been snuggling up to you, Steve? Just because of your cute butt? You know he thinks of us as insects – do you ever snuggle up to a cockroach? You wouldn’t unless you wanted something, right? What other reason could he possibly have for putting the moves on a ‘mortal’? Were you thinking it was love? He’s not the god of love, Steve, he’s the god of lies, always has been. So you tell me what I should think when suddenly the god of lies is in bed with his enemies, whispering sweet nothings in their ears. I bet he’s good at it too, huh? C’mon, Steve, what does he say to you when the two of you are spooning every night? What does he call you between the sheets? How’s that famous silver tongue working on you? Has he got into your panties yet?”
Tony found himself very abruptly shoved face-first into the mirrored doors of the elevator and held there with a strong hand on the back of his neck.
“I know you’re scared right now, Tony,” Steve said near his ear, in a Captain-America-is-sick-of-your-shit kind of voice, “But when you realize you have no reason to be, I’m going to expect an apology.”
Just then the elevator came to a smooth halt and the door slid open against Tony’s skin. He rushed away from the hand that had been gripping him, and toward the doors of the gym.
As soon as he pushed them open, a strange sound met his ears. Then an even stranger sight met his eyes. Steve came up behind him, and they both stood with their mouths open, staring.