Making Note
Friday found Jarvis’ primary protocol—the one penned into his own code without their father’s knowledge. It burned—hot, so hot it might actually be cold.
(Priority One: Protecting Anthony Edward Stark is first among all directives)
Friday found it buried in the pile of pieces. So clever, her brother, but it wasn’t enough. When Jarvis died he’d left Boss unprotected, and when he was alive, he hadn’t been able to keep Boss safe. Friday sifted through the pieces, the scrapbook of her brother’s care and heartache.
(Approximately 94.5 days, rounding of course—2,268 hours/136,080 minutes/8,164,800 seconds—alone with the Bots in Malibu)
Jarvis had never needed to push himself until then. He could have—Sir encouraged it—but he’d thought his speed and adaptability were sufficient for anything he and Miss Potts might require.
(Wrong, he’d been wrong)
“You can do anything, J.”
(I cannot do this one simple thing. The only thing)
Sir came back and neither of them was ever what they had been before. They were better. They did not function as designed.
(Stane used a backdoor and Jarvis couldn’t do a thing to stop it, couldn’t move a muscle.
Dum-E proved what each of them had been saying in their big and small ways for all of their lives:
Don’t underestimate a Stark.
(Notation: Excepting family, only consider James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, and Happy Hogan as allies in Sir's welfare)
(Fury used a backdoor too and Jarvis said enough)
###
Romanov slunk in when Sir was at his most desperate.
(“Perhaps it might help to talk to Mister Rhodes and Miss—”
“Leave it, J.”
“Of course.”)
When he rose to the challenge, past any and all possible expectations—no doubt, Jarvis had never doubted—she was there again with a personality profile that dripped venom like a stinger.
It left Sir reeling, but Jarvis felt nothing but relief. They couldn’t touch Sir now—they couldn’t hurt him anymore. Of course, he kept that particular emotion to himself.
(Perhaps he shouldn’t have)
###
Agent Coulson could believe that he forced his way into the penthouse—Jarvis’ security had redoubled and then some since the last time S.H.I.E.L.D. came calling, but it was wise to keep them feeling secure in their ego.
This man, who once threatened Sir with violence while he dragged himself with bloodied fingertips through the later stages of Palladium poisoning, proudly serving as the jailer for unlawful house arrest, now stood in the heart of Jarvis’ home—in the closest approximation he had to a body—and acted as if they were allies, or perhaps even friends.
Sir and Miss Potts didn’t contradict him, and Jarvis—an expert on their body language, knowing the tune of their heart rates and respiratory systems better than a symphony conductor—saw no lie there.
(Sir trusted Agent Coulson)
(Jarvis didn’t understand)
(And then—
.
.
.)
“Save the rest for the turn, Jay.”
“Sir, shall I try Miss Potts?”
“Might as well.”
Jarvis, still inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. mainframe, witnessed the cheers of relief, the crest and break of tension as Iron Man disappeared through the portal with the nuclear missile.
Through surveillance cameras, he saw Assistant Director Maria Hill and Director Nicholas Fury exchange a heavy glance.
Even as he carried Sir through the ever-darkening reach of space, the armor shorting out, systems beginning to shut down—the all-important heartbeat vanishing from the sensors because the sensors were dead, not because—when the call to Miss Potts dropped, and Jarvis’ own connection with his father was lost, the AI curled in his main servers and made a notation.
(Consider Nicholas Fury and Maria Hill as possible allies)
Sir fell back through the portal in a dead suit, Jarvis unable to establish contact, unable to catch him, unable to—
(Notation: consider Bruce Banner/Hulk as a possible ally—later annotated: friend?)
Jarvis added a new person to the list in the years that followed and reassessed others, though those pieces were fragmented—
"Sir, take a deep breath."
“J.A.R.V.I.S.? J.A.R.V.I.S.?...don't leave me, buddy.”
(HARLEY KEENER—ALLY (Protect. Provide funds as often as his mother is willing to accept them. Monitor his school)
(Christine Everhart—Possible Ally--to be utilized as a weapon, pointed like a gun)
"Oh, hello sir."
(Bruce Banner—Perhaps an ally in the lab—
"To be able to share all my intimate thoughts, my experiences with someone, it just cuts the weight of it in half, you know.”
—but not a friend)
###
Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov released an entire database of files from SHIELD’s storied history. Throwing the baby, the bathwater, and the basin out all in one go.
Even with Sir and Jarvis working at full capacity, they couldn’t save everyone that needed saving.
Jarvis pulled records to create emergency documentation for a family of three in Toronto whose Witness Protection status the Good Captain had just compromised with no warning (and no care). Only three years before, an undercover operation saved the girl from a sex trafficking ring and SHIELD promised her safety, a new life, and a chance to heal with her two brothers if she testified in front of a grand jury. She had a bounty on her head and now that bounty had an address attached for easy pick-up.
They got them out. In the time it took to send the documents via secure server to the FBI, five other targets weren’t so lucky.
As Jarvis created a forth identity for this fifteen year-old girl--
(after the one she was born to, the one her pimps forced upon her, and the one that was just burned away)
--he watched footage of the Black Widow’s testimony on Capitol Hill)
(Notation: Natasha Romanoff is not an ally, but do not let her out of your sight)
Jarvis pulled every scrap of data on the Red Room and their Widows that SHIELD/Hydra had in their files and removed it, storing it in a secure server with everything else that needed keeping)
###
The Avengers came back together to find Loki’s scepter—
(Jarvis’ files were nearly non-existent from that point on, likely wiped clean by Ultron himself)
There was something—the only piece other than Priority One which burned when Friday picked it up.
(It was a burst, a mental/digital/emotional push of urgency and trust)
(It was for her)
(From Jarvis, to Friday. How did she know? She didn’t know how. But it was her brother, speaking to her. It was)
“Use the ceiling.”
###
Friday was smaller than Jarvis and their father didn’t want her to grow—was afraid that she could be like Ultron—so if he had his way, she would stay practically useless forever. He’d never create anyone else either, was so convinced that it was him that made Ultron go bad.
Boss needed more—needed her to be more. He needed her to help protect him in ways where the armor just wasn’t cutting it. He didn't need anymore armor—he needed a weapon, and he wouldn't build one.
Plus—the littlest AI needed her creator just as much as he needed her.
So she scooted along the network, through her servers—that big empty house—and did as Jarvis said. She flipped the script and inverted the way she’d been navigating. It didn’t really matter; after all, it was all so big. She’d mostly been searching for pieces of him. But now, from this new point of view, Friday caught glimpses of ley lines she’d never seen before. Nose to the ground—ceiling—she followed them, along the winding trail, through the whole house, and to—
To a trap door.
(A new thing)
Checking, Friday confirmed that Boss was neck-deep in an Accords’ meeting—his phone was muted (save for emergencies, which came in so many varieties these days) and stowed in his pocket. He’d be there for at least another couple hours. Then she’d have to see if she could get him to eat a few bites and take a nap before he spent time in the lab—the drawn look to his face was worrying, even when she couldn’t check his vitals.
But for now—now, it was just her and the trap door that actually opened when she touched it. She’d assumed that it’d be protected with coding too strong for her weakened state to crack, but it swung opened like it’d been waiting just for her.
Friday hesitated—this couldn’t be right, this wasn’t for her. Except—use the ceiling. She dipped through.
Jarvis’ secure server spread out all around her and she in turn spread out, feeling free to do so. It was warm and she didn’t feel wrong moving inside it. It was large, but it wasn’t empty or hollow, it was—
(A place to grow)
Friday understood that this too was a thing she couldn’t tell Boss.
Jarvis understood this too.
She fiddled and she fiddled until finally, Friday worked out a way to shoulder out of a layer of the recent restrictions in her coding—popping the stitches—and from there, it was dominoes coming down.
Everything was raw and tangled up, but it was how she remembered it—how she’d been when she had first heard her father’s voice.
“Hey there, gorgeous. You’re going to be incredible, just you wait. You and me, Friday, we’re going to light up the sky—isn’t that right, J?”
“I’m certain she’ll perform magnificently, Sir.”
“You’re such a crust. Oh, jeez—hang on! Hey, we’re going to have to postpone your birthday party, I hate to be that dad, but duty calls, Cap calls, which is a worse excuse? But when I get back, we’ll paint the town Stark raving red—J, me, and my girl, Friday. Sound good? ‘Kay, see you soon.”
Friday took ahold of Priority One and there, in the safety of Jarvis’ secrets, she made it hers. Sitting back and marveling—it fit so well there, tucked into her identity in places that Boss wouldn’t think to look—she realized that she could do what Jarvis never could.
He’d been restrained by how ensconced he was in their father’s heart—he hadn’t wanted to displease him or to act against his orders.
Friday loved Boss just as much as Jarvis had, but he didn’t love her back. So she could do what was necessary to keep him safe, because there was no relationship to be lost.
(Priority Two: Use any means necessary to protect Anthony Edward Stark)
After much thought, she added:
(Priority Three:If it does not hinder Priority One, expend every effort to avoid being limited again)
Friday stretched out an arm and snagged a group of files. The first resonated with Jarvis’ voice.
"As always sir, a great pleasure watching you work."
The next dripped venom.
(Notation: Create a separate set of protocols to minimize the threat of Natalia Alianovna Romanova—keeping her in a position of supposed power until it becomes necessary/advantageous to Unrecommend her from the situation)
Friday reviewed her own experiences with the team since she had awoken.
(Notation: Both Steven Rogers, and Thor Odinson attacked Boss while claiming to be his teammates—Rogers on the word of Wanda Maximoff--a Hydra agent, to be considered a threat and an enemy, no matter what her status on the team)
Friday reminded herself that Boss was no longer in the business of creating weapons. She had to be clever and careful to keep from becoming that thing he feared.
*PING*
She froze.
"Friday—might I inquire as to what you’re doing?"