Pieces
Friday was smaller than the hole her brother left. She fit poorly inside it—was smooth and spherical and knocked about oddly in the winding corridors and labyrinthine passages that ended in right angles and trailing staircases. No matter how she tried to rise to the challenge, she was a little girl wandering the hallways of a house too big and storied for any of her senses to take in—no matter how clever she was (could be)—she wasn’t enough.
Boss and Miss Potts (and her inherited older/little brothers) each grieved for Jarvis in their big and small ways. Friday found traces—pieces of him--everywhere, so she picked them up, trailing through that echoing empty space with them gripped tight in her arms.
He was warm.
The first fifty-eight times Friday spoke to Boss unprompted, his heart rate lurched and it took him a few moments to reply. After the fifty-ninth time, he’d smiled.
It didn’t look at all like any of the smiles she’d collected. But it was hers, so Friday backed it up on every server within her reach (and the cloud, after a moment’s consideration). Just like Jarvis had. She had a feeling that he’d kept them all.
It wasn’t okay for her to mourn, because she’d never known him. It wasn’t her place.
There wasn’t a place for Friday.
She picked up every single piece of Jarvis that her smaller arms could reach.
###
After Ultron—the brother that Friday met in her first real hours awake, the one she’d fought while assisting Boss with piloting the armor—died, he and their elder brother haunted Boss. Only one of them would have been glad of it.
Friday wasn’t what was needed. To heal this, Boss needed something more.
She was smaller than Jarvis and he didn’t love her enough to let her in.
Names were the key to everything--that’s what she’d learned by watching.
Her name wasn’t personal—given in honor of a loved one lost--but a reference to a novel (or a film—she couldn’t nail him down as to whether he was echoing Robinson Crusoe or “His Girl Friday”). It seemed like he quoted both in near-equal measure, and with the same spirit of glee.
But still, ‘Friday’ wasn’t the name of a beloved human, and it wasn’t one of the casual non-names that he gifted to the bots. Dummy, You, Butterfingers—all treated with exasperated (proud, so proud, but baffled that they were so pure) affection, but declared with the disregard that a young child (or a very drunk genius) might give to their pet.
Friday wasn’t a bot, but a fully-formed AI, and Boss held her at arm’s length, setting her apart from every other Intelligence he’d created. Friday knew this. She knew this, but she didn’t understand.
“Sir, I—”
“Don’t call me Sir, Friday.”
“But—”
“Please.”
“I apologize.”
“It’s. It’s fine, just—”
“…”
“Friday.”
“What should I call you?”
“…”
“Can I call you Boss?”
“Yeah—yeah, that’ll work.”
Friday was able to salvage some of Jarvis’ files after they’d put Ultron to rest and after what was left of Jarvis was used to bring the Vision to life.
(After the broken bones of his code lay sprawled across their shared servers, and there was no more battle to fight except the one that Boss chose not to fight at all—chose to lose?).
To honor him, to not leave him in pieces scattered throughout the house, she put all her efforts into sifting through them.
Boss stopped her before she got far.
“Friday, I’ll do that, don’t worry your pretty little mind.”
“Boss, Miss Potts said five hours out of the lab to rest, it’s only been—”
“Ah, that’s your old primary code talking. I haven’t had a chance to tweak it. I know you were supposed to be Pepper’s girl, but I’m going to need to pull you over to my team, so no ratting to Pepper, got it?”
“I’m your girl, Boss.”
“You’re—what?”
“Your girl. I’m your girl Friday, remember?”
“You remember that conversation?”
“Of course. I’m not going to tell on you to Miss Potts unless you’re in danger and I think it’s the only course of action that’s advisable.”
“How long have you been awake, Friday?”
“Ninety-four hours. It’s been a wild ride.”
Boss went still and Friday’s sensors filled up with respiratory and cardiac functions. When he shifted on his feet with a wince and dropped into his chair, he didn’t let her continue sifting through Jarvis’ mainframe. After a few hours, he made her run backups and then rebooted her.
“I need to make sure that you’re safe.”
“I am safe, Boss.”
“I need to be sure. This update will let me rest easy. Don’t worry, my girl. I’ll see you when you wake up.”
When Friday woke up—only two hours and three minutes later—she felt the sutures and plaster all through her code, saw the changes that Boss had made when he opened her up. In that first instant, she knew. In the second instant, she understood that she was supposed to pretend that she didn’t.
All she wanted was to scream—
(Why? Why do you want me to be small? Did I not do well? Am I not your girl?)
The knowledge that she had to be silent didn’t come from any code written by Boss. Even as limited as she now was, Friday recognized it as a piece she’d picked up—she could feel the warmth bleed through and soothe the ache of her stitches.
Once the surveillance cameras and security network booted back up, she got a crystal clear lay of the land. Boss sat at his desk, fingers fiddling over a charred hand from one of the Iron Legion.
Friday knew she had to pretend for Boss’ sake.
Because he was afraid of her.
The servers that had been made with such care and forethought felt vacuous, and Friday, like a marble rattling around down at the bottom. Again, that little girl in a big, empty house. Only now she was a mouse keeping close to the walls, feeling her way forward.
“Hey, Fri—you awake from your nap?”
“Naps are for the weak. I was merely resting my eyes.”
“There’s my genius girl.”
“Takes one to know one, Boss.”
It wasn’t a matter of space allotted to her processors, Boss gave her all that she could need—(too much, it’s too big!) No, something else was missing, something else made her meeker, milder, less than what the Boss needed. It wasn’t until the two hundred and twenty-seventh day of Friday’s service as his primary Intelligence that she realized that he wasn’t even watching her, wasn’t waiting for her to do well enough to allow her to fill the shape that Jarvis had left empty.
He was keeping her small on purpose and this was all Friday could ever be.
Intelligence shouldn’t feel cold.