My right hand AI
But first things first.
There was one person, and one person only, Tony could trust with the whole truth.
"Welcome home..." The lab lit up with screening upon screening of his own body "... Sir"
"You doubted it, JARVIS? You should have said something." Tony sat down and patted DUM-E and U claws, eliciting excited beeps.
"You were not doing anything susceptible to harm Sir, even if... You weren't you. Those decisions were not reflective of the Tony Stark I know, however."
"JARVIS, I do have a VERY long story to tell you."
And it was indeed a long story. Eidetic memory, people. Tony had, in fact, trouble forgetting things.
Not that he hadn't tried other the years.PTSDD was not easy to cure for anyone, but for somebody who was able to recall every. single. thing. and in excruciating details? Funsies.
NOT.
It took Tony almost two days to tell Jarvis everything. The AI asked very few questions, storing the data instead. And Tony was not idle while he talked either, calling up his personal keyboard and boosting JARVIS security to the latest he'd given FRI before going to the fated German airport.
"I see." JARVIS said at last "What is the plan, sir? Since you already changed things from what you told me happened."
"And I'll keep doing it. I may lose the hindsight at some point, but I'm not so fond of how things turned out last time. Not fond enough to relive it, at any rate. And well, I have changed, but I don't think anybody else did. So, we can expect Fury & co to show up at some point, invited or not.
Speaking of which, JAR, whatever happens, do take the time to up and secure your backing servers. I will NOT lose you again."
There was a brief moment of silence, then the AI sort of coughed "I will endeavor not to disappoint, Sir."
"You never did, JARVIS. But Vision... I know it wasn't his fault, but hearing your voice while..."
"He betrayed you."
Tony sighed "I guess so, in a way. His love story with a psycho who was fond of saying she wanted me dead was not something I enjoyed. Mind you, I'm not angry at him. He was a child, in many ways... And let's face it, the least you can say about the Avengers is that they were not a healthy environment to grow up in."
There was a moment of silence, then the genius clapped his hands together.
"But priorities! One, got to synthesize Starkium, since nobody will let me call it Badassium, a vastly superior name..."
"That is a point where we differ, I'm afraid, Sir. And how are we going to proceed?"
"As fast as possible, for one. Last time was..." There was another moment of silence the AI hurried to break.
"I think the term you are looking for, Sir, is *courting disaster*"
"The sass, JARVIS, the sass! ... Even if you're not wrong. At least I only have to write down the research this time. Do we have a particle accelerator at SI R&D yet?"
"Actually, Sir, you ordered one just before you left for Afghanistan, and it has been build. It is in the upstate NY facility."
"Perfect! Allrighty, JARVIS. We're going to revive the Stark expo like last time, hopefully with less Hammer and Russian interference. THAT will give me the opportunity to study that old model again, if anyone asks question later on how I came about the new element. Anyway, perfect occasion to contact some people about branching out: I have a hunch putting Maya Hansen and Helen Cho in the same lab could lead to great things... I want to get SI to expand into medicine in a big way, Jarv."
"Prosthetics as you said, Sir?"
"Well, the Iron man tech would be invaluable, for those... And once we get into nanites... Yes, this does have wonderful prospects, not even mentioning a way to pull the rug under Killian's feet. The man won't get saner, so we'll have to keep an eye on him, but people are lest likely to turn themselves into living bombs if there is an alternative... One should hope."
"And SHIELD, Sir?
"Well, we do have some time. We didn't need Agent this time to deal with Obie, so they don't have their foot in the door. I have no doubt Fury knows about the palladium core and will reach his own conclusions, but like last time, he's likely to wait for me to become desperate before showing his face. Likely to send his pet spider nosing around, but the Stane thing gives us all sorts of marvelous reasons to tighten security and new applicants review, don't you think?"
"It certainly would be reason enough, considering the joint internal and FBI audit of SI, Sir."
I'm certain they're bound to find ALL SORTS of interesting things, JARVIS. In any case, if anything resembling a Natalie Rushman as I described her to you show up at SI, just have her go through the process with a female HR employee.
Contrary to what the dear Widow thinks, she's not infallible, and about three quarters of her tricks are of the honeypot variety. Bound to go south quite quickly with another female... of the straight variety, that is.
And JARVIS?"
"Yes Sir?"
"We do have Captain America's giant Frisbee in storage. Have it melted."