Chapter 7
“They’re….” Tony groped for the proper term, “Clog dancing.”
The cheery folk-tune that Loki was singing – yes, singing – changed tempo and both Loki and Jarvis added knee-slaps to their previous hopping and bopping.
“What. What are my good Christian eyes seeing?” Tony asked.
The tempo changed again, and now Jarvis joined in singing the chorus, with lyrics evidently written by the Swedish Chef muppet. The knee-slapping was over, but the hopping and bopping only got more aggressive, and then Jarvis and Loki did a series of half spins in opposite directions, high-fiving each other resoundingly at each pivot.
“Good God,” Tony groaned, forcibly reminded of a particular White House dinner he had attended in 1996, “It’s some kind of Riverdance.”
Steve pushed through from behind and strode toward the dancers. Tony hurried to keep up.
The dance ended, and Jarvis and Loki turned to their audience. They wore matching huge, idiotic smiles, and Jarvis was adorably flushed and out of breath. It did things to the fit of Tony’s pants.
Steve began to clap, and then Loki did too, aiming his own applause at Jarvis.
“That was great, you guys!” Steve was saying, “We should have an Avengers Tower Talent Show so everybody could see that! And did you know Clint can do magic tricks?”
“Selvig used to juggle axes,” Tony heard his own voice add helpfully. “Wait, waitwaitwait. Nope, record scratch, stop.” He glared around at each of them. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Therapeutic dance,” Loki answered promptly, “The very best way for the convalescent to regain strength, stamina, flexibility, and coordination.”
Jarvis piped up, with more child-like enthusiasm than Tony had ever heard in his voice before, “I don’t know how much you saw, Tony, but this particular dance has many features in common with the Schuhplattler, or Tyrolian-”
“NOPE!” Tony interrupted, grabbing Jarvis’s wrist and beginning to tug him away from the homicidal alien war criminal, “Here’s what we’re not going to do: sneak out of our rooms when no one’s watching and run away with bad boys, and dance and sing and get sweaty with them!” He was fully cognizant that he sounded like the over-protective father of a teenaged girl.
“Tony, are you angry with me?” Jarvis asked, surprised.
Loki and Steve were trailing along on Tony’s determined march back to the elevators.
“Tony, this is ridiculous,” Steve said, “You’re acting like Loki is some kind of, of, some kind of Mata Hari!”
The elevator doors were already opening to reveal Nat and Clint in their workout gear, their faces going instantaneously from relaxed to extremely puzzled by the scene before them.
“Who’s a Mata Hari?” Clint asked.
“Evidently I am,” purred Loki, a look of reptilian rage dropping over his features as he glared at Tony.
The name sounded vaguely familiar to Tony, but he really wasn’t worried about precisely why and how much he was offending Loki at the moment. He elbowed the super-spies out of his elevator, pushed Jarvis into it ahead of him, and then shut the doors in everyone’s faces.
He crossed his arms over his chest and turned to face Jarvis.
“I can see that I’ve done something to upset you, Tony,” Jarvis said, looking troubled, “But I’m afraid I’ll need it explained to me.”
Tony relented immediately. He uncrossed his arms so that he could touch Jarvis with both hands, and was relieved when both of Jarvis’s hands moved to touch him back.
“J-Baby, I’m not mad. Not really. I was just scared. I come back to our rooms, and you’re missing, and Steve tells me you’ve been hanging out with Loki every day, and now you’re sneaking off with him…”
“I’m sorry, Tony, but I still don’t understand. What is your fear? Did you think that Loki would harm me?”
Tony stared up into the worried ocean-blue eyes and shrugged tensely. He couldn’t say exactly what he had been picturing when he was so scared.
“Emotions can be very difficult,” said Jarvis, “Especially the physiological reactions that accompany them.”
Tony knew that that was turning out to be one of Jarvis’s biggest challenges as a new human.
Jarvis continued, speaking sympathetically. “Sometimes it helps to think the situation through rationally,” he paused and gulped, “Although, I have noticed that sometimes it doesn’t help. Or sometimes you may think that it has helped, but then the emotions come back again, as strong as before…”
Tony nodded. He had also noticed that. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Still,” said Jarvis, “It can’t hurt to try. So I ask you to consider, rationally, that Loki has no motive to harm me. It would not benefit him in any way. On the sole brief occasion when it would have been to his benefit to harm me, he chose instead to grant one of my dearest and most hopeless wishes. He believed that I was a danger to him, and he could have killed me, but rather than do so he went through infinitely more trouble and cost to himself, to transfer my mind into a human body.”
“Why, though?” Tony croaked, his hands clutching convulsively on Jarvis’s elbows, “Did you ever think to ask him why?”
“He holds me in high esteem, as a creation and as a person. He believes that I have a soul.” Jarvis said this proudly, and Tony felt his own hands clench.
“You like him,” Tony said, and he could hear the accusation in it even as he said it.
Jarvis looked surprised, “Well yes, I do. I’m enormously grateful to him, and even if he hadn’t granted a wish of mine, I’m sure I would still enjoy his company and his conversation. He’s incredibly intelligent, and quite amusing, when he wants to be.”
Tony pulled away from their mutual grip and moved to the other side of the spacious elevator car, scowling. “Oh right, so I guess you don’t care that he unleashed an alien army on New York City and tried to conquer our planet in the name of a death-worshipping Elder God?”
“Naturally I care, but I don’t believe he can be held responsible for any of that,” Jarvis said reasonably, “I had long ago analyzed all of the data that we had on him and determined that he had been both magically and mundanely brainwashed, not to mention traumatized, terrorized, and tortured into compliance with that plan. Now that I know more about the Mind Stone, it is clear to me that no thinking being can resist its influence, and it was being used on Loki directly and frequently for nearly a year. It is extremely impressive that he was able to regain his own mind at all, let alone as quickly as he has. Even during the invasion, he was opportunely undermining his own efforts-”
While he was listening to this paean of praise, Tony realized that he had pressed the ‘close doors’ button but never actually hit the number for their floor. He hit it now, many times and very hard. “Well, why don’t you fucking marry him, if he’s such a fucking hero!?”
Jarvis went absolutely still, and stared at Tony.
At least Tony assumed, from the burning sensation on the side of his face, that Jarvis was staring. He couldn’t know, because he couldn’t for the life of him turn and look. He continued to poke at the elevator button in silence, as they slid up towards the penthouse suite. He knew that he sounded and probably looked like a petulant child, and the knowledge only made his face burn more.
After what felt like thirty years, but should only actually have been about nine seconds, if the elevators were running at their usual rate, the doors chimed and slid open. Tony escaped as quickly as humanly possible without running.
Jarvis was walking very well now (hell, he was Riverdancing, these days), but Tony was used to staying by his elbow at all times in case he needed stabilizing. Rushing off ahead made him feel guilty, and he was also feeling guilty for having just cussed at Jarvis. Tony had frequently cussed in front of Jarvis, but couldn’t think of any other time that he had sworn at him.
Tony stopped and turned around at the door to the suite. Jarvis was right there, practically on top of him. Tony still couldn’t look up to meet his eyes, so he addressed Jarvis’s broad chest.
“Look, I’m sorry I’m such a-”
Jarvis interrupted him in the soft voice that he saved for Tony’s hangovers and panic attacks. “Tony… are you jealous?”
Tony’s eyes snapped up to Jarvis’s, and he saw such astonishment there that he felt his own expression open from bitter to amazed in a single heartbeat. “Yeah, of course,” he breathed, “Of course I am.” Had Jarvis thought that he was acting like an asshole just for the fun of it?
“Open the door, please,” Jarvis said, nodding towards the door handle under Tony’s fingertips, “I wish to speak to you inside.”
The calm request sent a spasm of fear throughout Tony’s whole body. It sounded much too much like Pepper’s tone towards the end of things. Turning back to the door, his heart feeling like a leaden weight inside him, Tony numbly did as Jarvis asked.
When they were seated comfortably, facing each other on the couch, Jarvis took both of Tony’s hands and looked deeply into his eyes.
Tony made a superhuman effort to slow his breathing. He could hyperventilate when Jarvis was gone and he was left all alone again. If he was very lucky, he might even hyperventilate into an early grave.
“Tony. When I was…a program…it was built into me to prefer your safety and your happiness above all else, even my own continued existence. I am no longer a program, but my preferences are unchanged.”
Without the slightest idea of where this was going, some of Tony’s existential dread began to morph into simple confusion. “Are you saying that you would die to protect me?”
Jarvis nodded solemnly, “Or to make you happy.”
“Okay, you dying would not make me happy, let’s just be very clear about that.”
Jarvis went on as if Tony hadn’t spoken. “I have suspected, for a number of years now, that to hold those preferences in regard to a specific individual is…to love. And now that I have a body, I am sure of it. I love you, Tony.”
Tony stared, unbreathing, for several long moments. Finally he was forced by biological necessity to suck in a huge gasp.
“Oh fuck, Jarv, oh fuck. Oh, fuck. What am I supposed to do about that? How am I supposed to be worthy of someone like you?” Tony couldn’t seem to wrap his arms far enough or tightly enough around Jarvis, though he tried every possible configuration in a very short span of time.
Jarvis just snuggled his face in determinedly under Tony’s ear. “Who could be worthier than you, Tony?”
Tony found that, in order to be as close to Jarvis as he wanted to be in this moment, he had to get his legs sideways across Jarvis’s lap. With his arms latched around Jarvis, and his nose against the freckly throat, he was finally able to calm down somewhat. “Jarv, I wanna understand. When you say, uh - what you said - do you mean that you’re in love with me?”
“Yes,” Jarvis said, very simply, against Tony’s temple, “If that’s acceptable to you.”
“Oh my God,” Tony whispered, “J, I wanna kiss you. Do you want that?”
“Tony,” Jarvis breathed, nuzzling his face closer to Tony’s, “Yes, please.”
Tony was aware of a tremendous sense of relief and gladness, fully overlapped with terror. This, of all things, he could not fuck up. If he fucked this up, that was it, he was done giving himself chances. He wouldn’t survive the loss of this beautiful person who loved him, that would be the final loss. Thankfully, muscle memory took over at this point, and though his hands were shaking wildly, he managed to cup Jarvis’s incredible, perfect face between them, and guide their mouths together.
Jarvis gasped against Tony’s lips at the initial touch, and then pressed in for more.
Tony was pretty far gone - head spinning, breathing shallowly, heart pounding, cock hard as nails - before he fully registered that Jarvis was amazingly good at this. Their mouths were making maximum contact of lips and tongue, moving against each other in a fervent rhythm, and Jarvis was lowering Tony onto his back now, like a born Casanova.
Tony had to break away (about a quarter of an inch) to ask, “Jesus, how are you so good at this, Jarv?”
“A great deal has been written about kissing, beloved, and billions of kisses have been filmed and photographed, painted and drawn. I used to study them, and run simulations of doing this with you.”
No one, in this world or his wildest dreams, had ever called Tony ‘beloved.’ He felt like he had taken a brick upside the head – in a good way. Stunned and melting, Tony let himself be pushed back and covered by Jarvis’s long, heavy form.
“Can this be happening, Tony?” Jarvis murmured between their mouths. "Can this be possible?"
Oh, it's possible, Tony wanted to tell him, Very, very possible. But somehow talking had, for once, become bottom priority for Anthony Edwards Too Much Stark.