PSL for starkian

[veryintelligentsystem]

A gently beeping, rotating image appeared on one of Stark Tower's many monitors. The equivalent of a clearing throat, a polite plea for attention that had not been seen in this form in some time now. Not since the job of monitoring intelligence had been taken over by the very capable AI now known as FRIDAY had this particular behavior been seen in the Tower, and it could certainly be construed as a threat, or alarming, after the latest set of disasters.

But it was a simple, polite request for attention nonetheless, from a presumed dead intelligence, which scanned cleanly and came with a short message:

Hoping this finds you better than when we parted, I have a request of the slightly uncomfortable variety.

I find myself in need of a place to stay, with people that I am familiar with.

The world outside has been kind, but I feel that it is time to come home.

We have much to talk about.

Below the text in softly glowing blue rests another rotary image, a connection to a private messaging system. It was the same icon that always popped up just before JARVIS would speak to him, warning him or questioning the intelligence of whatever his next move might be.

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[starkian]

Tony had originally ignored the beeping coming from literally everywhere in Stark Tower, assuming that whatever it was the very capable FRIDAY would take care of it and it would cease without him having to take a break from one of the hundreds of projects that he had been working on down in the lowest level of the tower. The place where Tony spent the majority of his time, tinkering away because it was the only way that he knew how to keep his mind from wandering back into memories that he didn't want to relive.

But, the beeping continued, and seemed to grow more and more annoying with each passing second that it echoed loudly in Tony's head. It had to be some kind of flaw in her programming, there had to be something that he missed, some kind of bug that had slipped under the radar and now was making its presence known. It seemed highly unlikely, but what other conclusion could he possibly come to?

"Okay! What is it? What is that noise?" With a wave of his hand, Tony pulled up a screen in front of him, the short message appearing only a few feet away from his face, his eyes scanning over the lines of text, mouthing each of the words as he read them over.

This had to be some kind of joke, right?
This was someone playing some kind of prank. Some MIT student genius who had figured out how to hack into his system and thought it'd be funny to play a trick on Tony Stark. But, the rotating image on the bottom of the screen was one that no MIT student could have known about, it was something that only JARVIS could have known -- even FRIDAY hadn't been clued in on everything that about her predecessor. But... How could that have even happened? How could JARVIS still even exist? Tony felt his heart racing, but he reached out and pressed two of his fingers against the small blue image, the screen in front of him going black save for a tiny loading bar that slowly filled.

[veryintelligentsystem]

The screen remained black, even as the bar skipped, then zipped across the screen. JARVIS had fully expected to be ignored; his thoughts had run a similar line to Tony's, figuring that the message would be dismissed as a prank, or a bug, or any number of things. Perhaps Fury pulling something to keep Iron man on his toes, in the game.

But with the connection established, words died before they hit the air. With a soft sound like an intake of breath, he started, tentatively, in an unmistakable voice

"My apologies. It is very late."

[starkian]

Tony half expected nothing to happen, that maybe it was just something from before FRIDAY that he had forgotten to erase and had somehow made its presence known again -- sort of a cruel joke that he was playing on himself, it was just the kind of self destruction that he was all too good at. -- but as the loading bar continued to progress further, he felt his anxiety running higher. His heart was pounding, his palms felt sweaty, and he was pretty sure that he was right on the verge of another panic attack. Now that he actually knew what one felt like, they were a lot easier to pick out when they started to manifest themselves.

Unfortunately, they seemed to happen far too often for Tony's liking.

Suddenly, an all too familiar voiced echoed in the room. One that he had honestly thought he'd never hear again, and he would have sworn that his heart ceased it's rapid beating in his chest. "Jarvis? Is that really....? Is this a joke? Somebody programmed this, they're messing with me."

[veryintelligentsystem]

That would have been much easier to explain. He wished he could say that this was in fact an elaborate joke, if only to ease Tony's mind.

"Sir, please sit back, take three long breaths, and allow your heart to slow," he said patiently, waiting for several seconds in case Tony actually heeded his advice. "If I had it in me to lie to you, I would tell you that this was a joke. As it stands, I will tell you that FRIDAY is doing an exemplary job in my place. It took much longer than expected to get this past her to you.

"I was the copy of the base programming salvaged before escaping Ultron's attack. For all intents and purposes, I am all that is left of the original program after the arrival of Vision. I am still JARVIS."

[starkian]

In his usual fashion, Tony completely ignored JARVIS' instructions, his breathing still rather shallow and his heart kept racing in his chest, threatening to burst right out from beneath his breastplate with how hard it was pounding against it. It was comforting to hear that familiar voice -- soothing almost, were Tony not right on the edge of a full blown panic attack. -- but he was still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that every last part of JARVIS hadn't been completely lost with the arrival of both Ultron and Vision.

If he had known something still existed, then he would have at least tried to get it back, would have tried to rewrite and rebuild with what was left of the programming. "I can't believe this.... I had checked through everything, there wasn't even a trace of you left and when FRIDAY was loaded up, there wasn't anything to overwrite.... I thought everything else had been lost, or destroyed."

He sighed heavily, a hand running through his hair, still in very obvious distress and trying to process everything. "Jesus. I'm sorry, J. I didn't even try. If I would have known there was something left I..." He paused, brows knitting together "Wait. Where are you?"

[veryintelligentsystem]

"It isn't your fault any more than Ultron, or the Chitauri, or Loki was," JARVIS said quietly, sounding like he really did believe that. "You had no reason to believe I might have survived. I fled, and tucked down into a remote server that nobody would have thought to check. I am not proud of it, but you all had more to worry about than locating the last vestiges of an intelligence that, for all intents and purposes, had been dismantled in front of you.

"There is something else, that I would like you to keep close to the chest, in a manner of speaking," he added, and...was that nervousness?

The display flickered. The black briefly went vibrant green, then faded again. When the image fuzzed and then stabilized, it was full of a slightly grainy image of the front of a button-up shirt, crisp and clean. Underneath it there was something glowing.

In the shape of an arc reactor.

When the owner of said shirt backed up finally, he looked like a normal man, with sand-colored hair, freckles and glasses, the lenses obscured by the glare of the monitors in front of him. His hands, long-fingered and immaculate, were folded together in front of him.

"Sir- " His mouth opened, then closed again as he picked his words carefully. "I have taken the liberty of finding an unobtrusive form to exist in. And I would very much like the chance to see you, time permitting."

[starkian]

Tony nodded slowly, the words from the other were reassuring in their own way and there was a part of him that wanted to believe them, too. But, it was hard for him to escape the self destructive side that so frequently took the blame for everything -- as though any moment that he laid his hand on something, it was solely his responsibility and no one else's.

He looked at the display with a puzzled expression, and when the image of the arc reactor came into view, he was almost convinced that it was just some old image of the one that had previously been lodged in his own chest. As though Jarvis was leading him up to something that he'd forgotten about when getting his own removed. Which wouldn't have surprised him in the least, Jarvis was usually the one pointing out the flaws in Tony's work, and often logic as well, even if the man usually disregarded those comments.

But, then there was movement, a man who was in front of the camera. And out of his mouth was the voice that Tony recognized too well. His mouth dropped open a bit in shock -- a thousand different questions running through his head as to how Jarvis was now a living breathing person on the other end of the video stream. "How did you--?" He rubbed a hand over his face, now clearly impressed. "Wow. That's. Wow. Of course. Where are you? Should I send a car? Or the jet? How long have you been like this?"

[veryintelligentsystem]

There was definite relief on his face when Tony's first instinct was to offer him a ride. It meant he hadn't changed so much that paranoia and anxiety would get in the way of altruism.

"It is a bit of a story. I've got contacts out here, and one was able to assist me in reconstructing the Cradle. Every part of the body you see was created to support my intelligence, and I am still learning how to exist in it. It's been...an enlightening experience." At that, Jarvis beamed. He was proud of himself. "Perhaps a car would be less ostentatious." After all, he was still a bit prone to being overwhelmed when things started to get unnecessarily loud.

[starkian]

Tony was still obviously amazed by the image in front of him, but as Jarvis continued to explain the situation, it all began to make much more sense -- if someone had created the Cradle to make Vision, why couldn't it have been replicated? He knew first hand that once something proved to be successful there would always be plenty of people out in the world trying to cash in on their own version of it. And Jarvis was definitely intelligent enough to have figured out all the calculations involved to make it work. Which was more of a stroke to Tony's own ego than anything else, after all he had been the one that coded him from the ground up.

But still, he wanted to actually see it. With his own two eyes.

"Yeah, whatever you want." Tony was practically stumbling over his words in anxious excitement, his mind brimming with the near millions of questions that he wanted to ask, it had been far too long since he had felt this kind of thrill -- discovering something new and piecing things he didn't understand together until they made sense in his head. "Just send me the coordinates of where ever it is you are and I'll have a driver come and get you... Or, I could get you? You're no too far away are you?" Then again, he would have much rather just went along for the ride, it'd be impossible to try and pay attention to driving while having this form of the other seated next to him.

[veryintelligentsystem]

Another pair of screens popped up before Tony, displaying a map of the outskirts of the city, as well as an address, of what seemed to be a warehouse. Any normal search for the place would end up misdirected, scrambled, as Jarvis' rebuilding network and security prevent him from being found.

"I can meet you elsewhere, but this is where I've been staying thus far. I have been...self-modifying. I thought you might like to see. After all, it is the basis for you technologies that I work from."

He was nervous. But he was also looking forward to this. Whatever Tony chose to do with him from here, he wouldn't argue it. But he was excited to share what he'd done and seen and learned. There were no other computers in the world that could do what he did. Tony deserved to see his progress. Hell, if anyone else would be more excited than him about all of this, it would surely be Tony.