Chapter 2
Tony hurried through the halls of the hospital at the heels of an officious little woman in scrubs. He hadn’t been wearing shoes when he got into the God-Killer (currently parked on the roof), and so he wasn’t wearing shoes now, but being barefoot in a hospital, which would have horrified him at any other time, was not even an afterthought at the moment. The only thought he could entertain was Jarvis, oh God, please let it really be Jarvis.
They came to the right door, and the woman turned to give Tony some sort of cautionary speech.
“Okay, you have to understand, his muscles will be atrophied after so long in a coma, and he’ll be disoriented by the lost time. Don’t try to get him to remember the accident-”
Tony put his hand right over hers on the door handle, turned it, and let himself in, ignoring her surprised protests.
“Jarv?” he called softly, stepping into the dim room. There was a privacy curtain hiding the bed, and Tony hesitantly rounded the corner of it.
A man sat in the bed, gazing down at his own hands in his lap. He looked up at Tony’s arrival. Their eyes met and locked.
Tony couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Long-limbed, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, blue-eyed, freckled perfection looked back at him. “Jeezuss,” he whispered. He was royally fucked.
“Sir,” the vision said uncertainly. Even in one brief syllable, there could be no mistaking that voice.
“J-Baby, is it really you?” Tony eased himself slowly onto the edge of the bed, his eyes never leaving that unbelievable chiseled face.
“I…think so,” said the man. “Sir, I believe that Loki has done this by some magical means. It is the only explanation that seems at all plausible, although I find that I cannot calculate the probability with any degree of accuracy, and I cannot call up the relevant data, and I… I don’t have the - I…” the man began to gasp through his nose between words, and his already small mouth tightened and twisted.
Tony put his hands carefully on the man’s shoulders (that is to say; ridiculously far apart). “Jarv, look at me. Just look at me.” He waited for the ocean-blue eyes to meet his again. “Yes, Loki did this. I don’t need you to calculate probabilities, or call up any data, okay? That’s somebody else’s job now.” He couldn’t stand to see distress on that incredible face.
“Sir,” said the man, his voice low, as if imparting some absolutely dire news, “I can’t do anything. I can’t even walk.”
He looked as if he thought Tony might scrap him for parts, like a broken machine.
“Sweetheart,” Whoa, where did that come from? “That’s totally alright. That’ll probably pass,” (and now Tony wished he had listened to the lady in scrubs – was this body paralyzed, damaged in some way, or just atrophied?) “And if it doesn’t, that’s totally okay too.”
The man’s mouth only tightened further, “Sir. What will I do? What can I do? What use have I now?” His breathing was still erratic.
This was his own fault, Tony realized. He had always treated JARVIS as a tool first and foremost, and now that he was a flesh and blood person he had no concept of being valuable without being useful.
The scowl of self-recrimination on Tony’s face was misunderstood by this brand new human, though, and Jarvis began to shake under Tony’s hands, and his erratic breathing turned into hyperventilation.
“I’m sorry, sir, I seem to be experiencing a – physiological reaction – I don’t understand – I can’t stop it-”
Tony knew all about that particular physiological reaction.
“Okay, you know what sometimes helps?” He scooched closer and pulled Jarvis into a hug, rubbing his back soothingly.
Jarvis’s (new? repurposed? borrowed?) body seemed to remember how to hug, and clung to Tony tightly, burying his face in Tony’s shoulder.
After a while, the huge, heaving breaths evened out a bit, and Jarvis asked into Tony’s shirt, “Sir, is this… smelling?”
“What?” Tony asked, before he realized what Jarvis was asking. He rapidly added up how many hours he had been wearing this shirt, and winced. He would have pulled away, except that Jarvis’s long arms, even atrophied, made it very clear that that wasn’t what they wanted.
“Yeaahh. Uh, sorry about that. It’s been kind of a rough day; couple of fights, couple of panic attacks, lotta sweating. I guess I must be pretty ripe. Sucks that this is your first smelling experience.”
“No, sir,” said Jarvis hesitantly, “I think I like it.”
They stayed tightly hugged together for some time.
“This is a hug, isn’t it, sir?” Jarvis asked quietly.
Tony huffed a laugh and confirmed, “Yup.”
“I have seen hugs many times, sir.” Jarvis clutched Tony even tighter. “I never could have anticipated what it would feel like to execute one.”
“Oh yeah? And how does it feel?” Tony, of course, couldn’t remember his own first hug.
There was a long pause, and then Jarvis whispered, “Good. Sir.”
“Good,” said Tony, “Hey, Jarv…now that you’re here, you know, in the flesh, I’m actually starting to feel a little weird about having an adult human calling me ‘sir’ all the time.”
Jarvis pulled back to look at him worriedly, “Shall I stop?”
“Yeah, could you?”
“Of course. As you wish, Mr. Stark.”
Tony actually jerked. Why did that suddenly sound so wrong? “No no no, I mean, go ahead and call me Tony. Don’t you think? Or, you know, Tone, Toners, T-Cat, Iron Muffin, whatever you want.”
Jarvis looked at him as if Tony had just proposed on bended knee. His face was so open, so readable. He hasn’t learned to hide behind it yet, Tony thought, God, I love that. - Wait, what?
Jarvis was still looking at Tony as if Tony had proposed – and Jarvis was thinking of saying yes. “Tony,” Jarvis whispered the name carefully, his eyes on Tony’s.
Oh Jeezus Christ in a juice-box, Tony thought, staring right back into those wonderful blue eyes, What is my life?
*****
The hospital staff wanted to make a big fuss about Tony discharging Jarvis; whether he had any right to do so, whether Jarvis was ready to be discharged, whether Tony could adequately care for him, whether the police would have to be informed that a John Doe had been identified, etc., etc. Tony finally put a stop to it by having his army of lawyers all call the hospital at once.
He wrapped Jarvis in several blankets, took him tenderly and securely into the enormous arms of the God-Killer, and flew them home at a sedate pace and low altitude.
“You doin’ alright there, Jarv?”
“Yes - Tony,” Jarvis replied, looking avidly around at everything. “You needn’t go slow on my account. I have flown in one of your suits as many times as you have.”
That was perfectly true, but Tony went slow anyway.
Noticing how curiously Jarvis was looking at all the colorful lights of the nighttime city, though he must have seen them a thousand times before, Tony had to ask, “Do things look different through human eyes?”
“Oh yes, extremely,” Jarvis replied, “The amount of information available to me visually is woefully less…and yet, the appeal of things seen this way is somehow much, much greater. It’s as if eyes…like to see.”
“So what about yours truly?” Tony wondered, “Seen through your new meat eyeballs, how’s my visual appeal?” Why am I asking this?
The blue eyes turned and looked directly and deeply into his.
“Far beyond my human brain’s ability to quantify - Tony” Jarvis said, with devastating sincerity.
That’s why. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I am in so much trouble.