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Sequel to Vast And Shaking Things. I am ... considerably less sure of this one, to warn you -_-;
Title: Held In Our Hands
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Tony, Bruce, JARVIS. Tony & Bruce & JARVIS
Summary: Bruce, Tony and JARVIS, and what power means
Wordcount: 3255
Warnings/Notes: SOME MOVIE SPOILERS. Sequel to Vast And Shaking Things, as I said above
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Held In Our Hands
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Tony, Bruce, JARVIS. Tony & Bruce & JARVIS
Summary: Bruce, Tony and JARVIS, and what power means
Wordcount: 3255
Warnings/Notes: SOME MOVIE SPOILERS. Sequel to Vast And Shaking Things, as I said above
Disclaimer: Not mine
Held In Our Hands
JARVIS was ... incredible was a good word, Bruce decided. Breath-taking was another. Once you realised what he was. Once you understood the sheer depth of him.
Robotics was not Bruce's field. Not by a long shot. But even he understood the sheer depth of complexity JARVIS must have, to be able to do the things he did. To be able to register, understand, and formulate plans for the environment around him. To be able to conceptualise human thought-processes, emotions, foibles, to a level that the AI could interact with them on a footing indistinguishable from a human's. To be able to react with a sense of personhood, identity and ego that, to be honest, almost matched Tony's own, if in a vastly more understated manner.
For god's sake, to be able to joke, with a depth of dry wit, and sarcasm, and pure understanding of irony, that frankly stunned Bruce a little. There were humans with humour less cutting, less pertinent, and less insightful than JARVIS'.
JARVIS was incredible, in short. Beyond it, nearly. If Dummy had been a massive triumph, all those years ago, JARVIS was an accomplishment on a scale to break open the field. Possibly permanently. JARVIS was unprecedented, outside of raw science fiction. Bruce didn't have to be in robotics to understand that. Didn't have to be part of the field to know that, if the world had half an inkling of what JARVIS was, what Tony had built in him ...
They would praise him to the Heavens. Tony, not JARVIS. They would trumpet Tony as a genius to end geniuses.
And, in all likelihood, they would destroy JARVIS. Or attempt to. In a fit of paranoid terror, and the prejudices of more than a century's worth of unreasoning fear of the machine. They would try to destroy the AI, or chain him, shackle his capabilities into uselessness.
And both of them knew it. Tony. JARVIS. Both of them understood that. And it was that, more than anything, that convinced Bruce that he might be safe, here. It was that, more than anything, that persuaded Bruce that his own monster, his own terrifying power, would not be what Tony used him for, was not why Tony wanted him. Because Tony was ... not a modest man, shall we say. Tony was the exact opposite of a modest man, when it came to his creations. Tony trumpeted his triumphs from on high, often literally, with gleeful abandon and a certain smug joy, a certain desperate yearning.
For him to have created something on the order of JARVIS, for him to have made something of that sheer magnitude, and not said anything ...
To Tony, JARVIS was a person first. To Tony, JARVIS was a friend to be protected, shielded from all the world, so that no-one would ever use him, no-one would ever hurt him. Bruce knew that. Because in JARVIS, Tony had created something unparalleled, unprecedented, something that would have made the world fully, almost ridiculously cognisant of his genius. Of the thing that had kept Tony alive all his life, the thing Tony sometimes seemed to believe was the only thing in the world that gave him value. The world would have realised that, would have realised just what caliber of genius he was, had he only shown them what he had made.
And Tony ... had covered it up, instead. Had hidden the extent of JARVIS' capabilities from everyone, from the whole world. Had taught JARVIS to hide himself, had shown him the reasons why he should. Even if Tony had not told Bruce to his face that JARVIS was his to protect, even if he had not all but dared Bruce to see, to understand ... to be protected in turn ... that would have told Bruce all he needed to know.
Tony could have had the world, all over again. He had chosen JARVIS, instead. And maybe the sheer depth of loyalty, in that, the depth of sacrifice, would have shocked anyone who only knew Tony from the public facade, but Bruce was beginning to realise that, of all the things about Tony, that loyalty was perhaps the least shocking of all. He had realised that. He had recognised that.
What he hadn't perhaps realised, until some time later, was the depth to which JARVIS was loyal, in his turn. The depth to which JARVIS would choose Tony.
Or, perhaps, the depth to which he would.
It started, perhaps oddly, to anyone but them, with Tony and JARVIS bickering over a movie. Apparently, they felt Bruce needed to watch the classics too. So ... here he was. Watching Terminator with them. And blinking, a little, at JARVIS' ... well. At JARVIS.
Once JARVIS had accepted Bruce into the lab, into their circle, the AI had relaxed his guard. Something Bruce could not help but feel ... rather proud of. He understood, he did understand, the depth of trust, there. However, it quickly became obvious that JARVIS, when relaxed, was a sarcastic son of a bitch, to quote Tony. And a heckler on a level with Statler and Waldorf, if more polite about it. (Yes, he'd watched the Muppet Show. Admittedly, mostly in Portuguese, but what can you do?)
And Tony ... Tony was gleefully complicit in it. Tony snipped and snapped back, interspersed at worryingly random intervals with an instruction to take notes, or a request for an opinion, or a muttered apology. Tony all but set the lines up for JARVIS to knock them down, grinning casually the whole time.
Actually, no. Bruce was pretty sure Tony did deliberately set the lines up for JARVIS. He had an idea, a creeping suspicion, that JARVIS' humour was as highly developed as it was because that -the ability to quip back and laugh down a verbal attack- had been the first thing Tony taught him. That a glittering verbal defense was the first thing Tony had thought JARVIS would need.
That ... did not say nice things, about the people Tony dealt with. That did not say nice things about the first things Tony had learned he would need. Not at all.
Bruce had tapped the little bubble of anger that had emerged, at that thought. Had held it, trapped it, subsumed it back into the white sea that hummed inside him. Always. He had coiled that little burst of anger back, just like all the others.
But he had felt it first.
And then felt something else entirely, something not unakin to fear, when Tony came out casually with: "By the way, buddy? Do you want some Terminators?" Said to JARVIS, and apparently in all seriousness. "Well, not terminators, obviously. But, you want some drones? You know, some extra hands?"
Bruce tried not to splutter. It was ... somewhat difficult.
JARVIS had accepted the question with considerably more aplomb, and perhaps more than a hint of derision. "Why would I need them, sir? Most of my assembly arrays are in perfect order, and Dummy and the others manage the lab space."
"Yeah," Tony argued, sitting up a little. Apparently not realising that when your AI turned down some killer robot drones, you weren't supposed to argue with him about it. "But I mean, for you. Not to run the lab, but ... to do stuff?" He waved a hand, drawing nonsense shapes in the air. "You know. Affect the world, shape things to your will. That stuff?"
There was a long pause. Bruce suspected that if JARVIS had had a face, he'd have been blinking. If only because Bruce was.
"I'm not sure what you mean, sir," JARVIS said, carefully. With a note of trepidation in his voice that suggested he did, in fact, have a vague idea what Tony meant, and didn't find the thought reassuring. Of the two people Bruce expected to be sensible about an AI-controlled drone army, the AI hadn't been his first choice.
Then again, considering this was Tony, probably it should have been.
But Tony ... wasn't talking about world domination, suddenly. Bruce, looking at him, recognised the tilt of his chin, the darker look in his eyes. Tony was ... talking about something more serious, he realised. With a vague, sourceless thrill, a leap, somewhere in his chest.
"The armours have the backup batteries," Tony said, only faux-casual now. "So you can use them on your own for a short space, before you need me and the arc reactor to do the rest of the powering. But ... I could do you up something of your own, maybe? In case ... In case you ever needed ..."
This pause was long, too. But it wasn't surprised. It was ... considering. Oddly gentle. And Bruce ... had no idea when he'd started to characterise JARVIS' silences, when he'd started to recognise moods in spite of a complete lack of a visual reference, but ...
"I don't believe that will be necessary, sir," JARVIS said, and yes, this was gentle. "I wouldn't say no to increased hardware around the house, integrated defenses, particularly if we are likely to be invaded again. But in battle ..." The AI hesitated, for a second. And then: "In battle, sir, I would prefer to keep my attention with the Iron Man itself."
Tony blinked, a hint of something Bruce wasn't quite able to quantify in his eyes. Frustration, maybe? It was ... odd, to have him so close to study, but neither of them were really paying attention to him, at the minute. Well. Possibly JARVIS.
"Yeah, but the Iron Man has me in it," Tony said, carefully. "I'm doing the driving. Doesn't that ... cramp your style, a little bit? I mean, don't you want something of your own?"
And somewhere under it, there was the suggestion of ... something else. Of an eventuality where JARVIS ... might need something of his own. Where JARVIS might not have a Tony to fill the Iron Man. Something Bruce suspected Tony had been working around to, for a while. Maybe a long while.
Something that had an instinctive bolt of terror, of rage, flashing through Bruce. Something that had his control snapping taut, snapping down. A thought that ... fundamentally repelled.
"... No, sir," JARVIS said, at last. And Bruce had no idea what emotions JARVIS might have, what passed for desires for him, how much JARVIS was capable of a flash of rage, or fear. Bruce didn't know if JARVIS was capable, or supposed to be capable, of that. But ... he suspected it didn't matter.
"Sir," the AI continued, slowly. This wasn't something they'd talked about before. Bruce could tell that. "I do not ... I have no interest in physical power. The ability to physically affect the world, as you say ... I do not require it. Save in one particular circumstance."
And before either of them could ask what, before Tony could pounce on that and gear himself up to be all snappy and suggestive and persuasive ... The screen showing the Terminator went blank. And then ... filled up. With ... images. Soundbites.
It took Bruce a second, to realise what he was looking at. It took him a moment to realise what they were.
A news report, in one window. Billionaire Tony Stark missing in Afghanistan. In another, a hospital file, detailing ... burns, and malnutrition, signs of torture, a damaged arm, and ... shrapnel damage to the chest. A series of biosigns in another, of a heart beating rapidly in fear, adrenalin, and then ... dropping. Bottoming out. A blood toxicity counter, which Bruce didn't completely understand, but which showed a clear build-up of heavy metals. A nearing-fatal build-up. Security footage from the tower, the day Loki crashed in. Power readings, from what Bruce guessed was the armour, showing a critical power shortage, and Tony's voice harshly telling him to ignore it. A section of footage, of a room Bruce didn't recognise, and a man he'd never seen before, leaning over a prone Tony ... cutting the reactor out of his chest.
And a holo-rendering of a portal, tearing the sky open, drawing ever closer as they flew into its maw.
"I prefer to keep my attention on the Iron Man, sir," JARVIS said, expressionlessly. Bruce knew that one. He understood that one. No expression, because you don't dare show what's under it. "I am not Johnny 5. I understand the concept of death. I am ... fully aware, of how many times you have almost fallen to it. How many times the armour has saved you. As part of it, I ... stand as your shield, sir. And that ... pleases me. I have no desire to sacrifice that, for something of my own."
Tony ... stood very still. Blinking desperately. Staring at some point beyond the screen, and what it showed. He was trembling, very faintly.
"You ... You know you don't have to, right?" he said, at last. Hoarse and distant. Not looking at either of them. Not that one could look at JARVIS, but. "I know I sort of take for granted that you will, but ... You do know you don't have to ... choose me first, right?"
There were volumes, in JARVIS' silences. Distantly, through the white sea of a shaking anger, Bruce was proud of what he could read in them. Proud of knowing that.
"Yes, sir," JARVIS said, very quietly. "That is why I do."
Because they both knew, didn't they, what Tony could have been, if he'd sold JARVIS. They both knew what Tony could have had, if he'd betrayed the person he'd made. And JARVIS, because Tony had made him, because Tony had given him every possible capability, because he was what Tony had built him to be ... JARVIS understood exactly what that meant.
"I could kill you, in the armour," JARVIS noted, almost absently. Tony never even twitched. "I control the power flow. You gave me the power to override the safeties on a moment's notice. I could back enough power into the reactor to stop your heart. I could drain it dry, instead. That's in the armour. On the ground ... I could tear you apart, sir. The disassembly platforms could tear you limb from limb, with one stray touch. They have safeties too, but ... Nothing you did not give me the capabilities to overcome, in under a second. The moment I believed I had cause, the moment I desired it ... I could destroy you."
Somewhere under Bruce's hand, the arm of his chair creaked alarmingly, compressing under a grip that was stronger than a human's should be. None of them noticed.
"You know that," JARVIS said. Inflectionless, expressionless. Bruce suspected that was JARVIS' version of pain. "You built me with that capability. You never moved to remove it. You gave me the ability to kill you. And then ... stepped into my reach anyway. You live in a house I control. You fight inside something I am part of, go into battle with your life in my power. I have felt you fail, inside my grasp, fought to preserve you. You ... place your life in my keeping, every day."
Bruce closed his eyes. Snapped them tight, against the surge. Tony, grinning right up to him, throwing the Hulk right in his face on their first meeting, gripping his hand calmly in the same moment. Poking him, in the lab, looking at him with eyes that showed curiosity, and a touch of admiration, and not one scrap of fear. Joking. Telling him to walk tall. Fighting alongside the Hulk. Waiting, casually, with the monster, for Bruce to come back.
Tony, putting his life in hands that could crush him without a thought, with the kind of trust that ... Meant nothing, from someone like Thor, who could fight toe to toe with Bruce's monster. That stabbed him through for its lack, from Natasha, so terrified and so brave. That ... killed him, tore him apart, every time Tony touched him, and grinned at him without fear. Tony, who didn't trust anyone. And didn't, genuinely didn't, seem to understand what it did to JARVIS, to Bruce, to have him trust them despite that.
"I am prepared for the day you die, sir," JARVIS finished, quietly. "But until then, it ... would please me, to be part of what keeps you safe. It would please me ... to be allowed to stand as your shield."
Tony ... didn't answer. Couldn't. Tony ... stood there, chest heaving silently, savage, ragged breathing. His eyes were dark, and wild, staring furiously into nothing, refusing tears with a desperate ferocity of will, something unbelievable, unless you knew who this man was, unless you knew he had forged himself, in the midst of despair. Tony stood, and shuddered, and stared blindly away from all of them.
And Bruce ... stood. Found himself standing. Found himself there, beside him, found himself catching the wild, desperate look in Tony's eyes as the man snapped his head around. Found himself ... touching, hands to Tony's shoulders. Hesitant, because he always was, because touching someone was ... verboten, to him. A long lost allowance.
Tony, eyes flickering desperately, never flinched.
"JARVIS?" Bruce heard himself ask. Distantly, over the howl inside himself. Watching Tony watch him. Wondering, vaguely, if his eyes were green.
"Master Bruce?" Calm, unconcerned, for all Bruce held Tony between his hands. JARVIS, who Bruce thought might know him as well as anyone might. JARVIS, who was more a person than anyone in the world believed, beyond those in this room.
"If ... you needed help. With that. If you needed hands."
And there was a smile, in this silence. A smile, in the voice that did not need a face. "I would be honoured, sir," JARVIS answered.
"... yes," Bruce said, quietly. Shifting his hand to cradle Tony's neck, to brush the base of his skull, watching the pained confusion in those dark eyes. Watching for fear that never came, holding something impossibly fragile in his hands. Understanding, for the first time, what power was. What strength was. "So would I."
There was no power, in the Hulk. A desperate, raging thing, lashing out at all around it. Uncontrolled, unruly. It did not make Bruce powerful. Didn't make him strong. It never had. It made him weak. A man out of control, unable to keep from destroying those he cared for, driving pain and chaos into their lives. Too weak to keep himself from hurting them. The Hulk did not make Bruce strong, any more than becoming Skynet would make JARVIS powerful. That ... wasn't what power felt like.
This, though. This. Holding Tony in his hands, holding this powerful, shaking, fragile thing in his grasp. Holding tight to a man who knew him, who had seen him, who knew his monster. Who trusted him regardless. Like JARVIS, holding a life inside him that knew, exactly, what JARVIS could do to destroy it, feeling it falter, feeling it fail, holding it true regardless. That ... was power. That was ... more strength than Bruce had ever known.
And it could never, ever be enough. No-one could ever be strong enough to hold something that fragile, that courageous, between their hands, and keep it safe.
"You don't have to," Tony said. Watching them. Shaking, pained and confused. Tony, who'd all but sworn to throw himself between them and the world. Who had sold a future to protect one of them, and sworn the same, silently, to the other. "You don't have to," Tony said.
"We know," Bruce answered, in a voice that didn't shake. In a voice that so carefully didn't shake. "That's why we want to."
That was why, against all the forces of the world, to the very last moment they were allowed, they would.
Continued/Completed in: Richard of York
JARVIS was ... incredible was a good word, Bruce decided. Breath-taking was another. Once you realised what he was. Once you understood the sheer depth of him.
Robotics was not Bruce's field. Not by a long shot. But even he understood the sheer depth of complexity JARVIS must have, to be able to do the things he did. To be able to register, understand, and formulate plans for the environment around him. To be able to conceptualise human thought-processes, emotions, foibles, to a level that the AI could interact with them on a footing indistinguishable from a human's. To be able to react with a sense of personhood, identity and ego that, to be honest, almost matched Tony's own, if in a vastly more understated manner.
For god's sake, to be able to joke, with a depth of dry wit, and sarcasm, and pure understanding of irony, that frankly stunned Bruce a little. There were humans with humour less cutting, less pertinent, and less insightful than JARVIS'.
JARVIS was incredible, in short. Beyond it, nearly. If Dummy had been a massive triumph, all those years ago, JARVIS was an accomplishment on a scale to break open the field. Possibly permanently. JARVIS was unprecedented, outside of raw science fiction. Bruce didn't have to be in robotics to understand that. Didn't have to be part of the field to know that, if the world had half an inkling of what JARVIS was, what Tony had built in him ...
They would praise him to the Heavens. Tony, not JARVIS. They would trumpet Tony as a genius to end geniuses.
And, in all likelihood, they would destroy JARVIS. Or attempt to. In a fit of paranoid terror, and the prejudices of more than a century's worth of unreasoning fear of the machine. They would try to destroy the AI, or chain him, shackle his capabilities into uselessness.
And both of them knew it. Tony. JARVIS. Both of them understood that. And it was that, more than anything, that convinced Bruce that he might be safe, here. It was that, more than anything, that persuaded Bruce that his own monster, his own terrifying power, would not be what Tony used him for, was not why Tony wanted him. Because Tony was ... not a modest man, shall we say. Tony was the exact opposite of a modest man, when it came to his creations. Tony trumpeted his triumphs from on high, often literally, with gleeful abandon and a certain smug joy, a certain desperate yearning.
For him to have created something on the order of JARVIS, for him to have made something of that sheer magnitude, and not said anything ...
To Tony, JARVIS was a person first. To Tony, JARVIS was a friend to be protected, shielded from all the world, so that no-one would ever use him, no-one would ever hurt him. Bruce knew that. Because in JARVIS, Tony had created something unparalleled, unprecedented, something that would have made the world fully, almost ridiculously cognisant of his genius. Of the thing that had kept Tony alive all his life, the thing Tony sometimes seemed to believe was the only thing in the world that gave him value. The world would have realised that, would have realised just what caliber of genius he was, had he only shown them what he had made.
And Tony ... had covered it up, instead. Had hidden the extent of JARVIS' capabilities from everyone, from the whole world. Had taught JARVIS to hide himself, had shown him the reasons why he should. Even if Tony had not told Bruce to his face that JARVIS was his to protect, even if he had not all but dared Bruce to see, to understand ... to be protected in turn ... that would have told Bruce all he needed to know.
Tony could have had the world, all over again. He had chosen JARVIS, instead. And maybe the sheer depth of loyalty, in that, the depth of sacrifice, would have shocked anyone who only knew Tony from the public facade, but Bruce was beginning to realise that, of all the things about Tony, that loyalty was perhaps the least shocking of all. He had realised that. He had recognised that.
What he hadn't perhaps realised, until some time later, was the depth to which JARVIS was loyal, in his turn. The depth to which JARVIS would choose Tony.
Or, perhaps, the depth to which he would.
It started, perhaps oddly, to anyone but them, with Tony and JARVIS bickering over a movie. Apparently, they felt Bruce needed to watch the classics too. So ... here he was. Watching Terminator with them. And blinking, a little, at JARVIS' ... well. At JARVIS.
Once JARVIS had accepted Bruce into the lab, into their circle, the AI had relaxed his guard. Something Bruce could not help but feel ... rather proud of. He understood, he did understand, the depth of trust, there. However, it quickly became obvious that JARVIS, when relaxed, was a sarcastic son of a bitch, to quote Tony. And a heckler on a level with Statler and Waldorf, if more polite about it. (Yes, he'd watched the Muppet Show. Admittedly, mostly in Portuguese, but what can you do?)
And Tony ... Tony was gleefully complicit in it. Tony snipped and snapped back, interspersed at worryingly random intervals with an instruction to take notes, or a request for an opinion, or a muttered apology. Tony all but set the lines up for JARVIS to knock them down, grinning casually the whole time.
Actually, no. Bruce was pretty sure Tony did deliberately set the lines up for JARVIS. He had an idea, a creeping suspicion, that JARVIS' humour was as highly developed as it was because that -the ability to quip back and laugh down a verbal attack- had been the first thing Tony taught him. That a glittering verbal defense was the first thing Tony had thought JARVIS would need.
That ... did not say nice things, about the people Tony dealt with. That did not say nice things about the first things Tony had learned he would need. Not at all.
Bruce had tapped the little bubble of anger that had emerged, at that thought. Had held it, trapped it, subsumed it back into the white sea that hummed inside him. Always. He had coiled that little burst of anger back, just like all the others.
But he had felt it first.
And then felt something else entirely, something not unakin to fear, when Tony came out casually with: "By the way, buddy? Do you want some Terminators?" Said to JARVIS, and apparently in all seriousness. "Well, not terminators, obviously. But, you want some drones? You know, some extra hands?"
Bruce tried not to splutter. It was ... somewhat difficult.
JARVIS had accepted the question with considerably more aplomb, and perhaps more than a hint of derision. "Why would I need them, sir? Most of my assembly arrays are in perfect order, and Dummy and the others manage the lab space."
"Yeah," Tony argued, sitting up a little. Apparently not realising that when your AI turned down some killer robot drones, you weren't supposed to argue with him about it. "But I mean, for you. Not to run the lab, but ... to do stuff?" He waved a hand, drawing nonsense shapes in the air. "You know. Affect the world, shape things to your will. That stuff?"
There was a long pause. Bruce suspected that if JARVIS had had a face, he'd have been blinking. If only because Bruce was.
"I'm not sure what you mean, sir," JARVIS said, carefully. With a note of trepidation in his voice that suggested he did, in fact, have a vague idea what Tony meant, and didn't find the thought reassuring. Of the two people Bruce expected to be sensible about an AI-controlled drone army, the AI hadn't been his first choice.
Then again, considering this was Tony, probably it should have been.
But Tony ... wasn't talking about world domination, suddenly. Bruce, looking at him, recognised the tilt of his chin, the darker look in his eyes. Tony was ... talking about something more serious, he realised. With a vague, sourceless thrill, a leap, somewhere in his chest.
"The armours have the backup batteries," Tony said, only faux-casual now. "So you can use them on your own for a short space, before you need me and the arc reactor to do the rest of the powering. But ... I could do you up something of your own, maybe? In case ... In case you ever needed ..."
This pause was long, too. But it wasn't surprised. It was ... considering. Oddly gentle. And Bruce ... had no idea when he'd started to characterise JARVIS' silences, when he'd started to recognise moods in spite of a complete lack of a visual reference, but ...
"I don't believe that will be necessary, sir," JARVIS said, and yes, this was gentle. "I wouldn't say no to increased hardware around the house, integrated defenses, particularly if we are likely to be invaded again. But in battle ..." The AI hesitated, for a second. And then: "In battle, sir, I would prefer to keep my attention with the Iron Man itself."
Tony blinked, a hint of something Bruce wasn't quite able to quantify in his eyes. Frustration, maybe? It was ... odd, to have him so close to study, but neither of them were really paying attention to him, at the minute. Well. Possibly JARVIS.
"Yeah, but the Iron Man has me in it," Tony said, carefully. "I'm doing the driving. Doesn't that ... cramp your style, a little bit? I mean, don't you want something of your own?"
And somewhere under it, there was the suggestion of ... something else. Of an eventuality where JARVIS ... might need something of his own. Where JARVIS might not have a Tony to fill the Iron Man. Something Bruce suspected Tony had been working around to, for a while. Maybe a long while.
Something that had an instinctive bolt of terror, of rage, flashing through Bruce. Something that had his control snapping taut, snapping down. A thought that ... fundamentally repelled.
"... No, sir," JARVIS said, at last. And Bruce had no idea what emotions JARVIS might have, what passed for desires for him, how much JARVIS was capable of a flash of rage, or fear. Bruce didn't know if JARVIS was capable, or supposed to be capable, of that. But ... he suspected it didn't matter.
"Sir," the AI continued, slowly. This wasn't something they'd talked about before. Bruce could tell that. "I do not ... I have no interest in physical power. The ability to physically affect the world, as you say ... I do not require it. Save in one particular circumstance."
And before either of them could ask what, before Tony could pounce on that and gear himself up to be all snappy and suggestive and persuasive ... The screen showing the Terminator went blank. And then ... filled up. With ... images. Soundbites.
It took Bruce a second, to realise what he was looking at. It took him a moment to realise what they were.
A news report, in one window. Billionaire Tony Stark missing in Afghanistan. In another, a hospital file, detailing ... burns, and malnutrition, signs of torture, a damaged arm, and ... shrapnel damage to the chest. A series of biosigns in another, of a heart beating rapidly in fear, adrenalin, and then ... dropping. Bottoming out. A blood toxicity counter, which Bruce didn't completely understand, but which showed a clear build-up of heavy metals. A nearing-fatal build-up. Security footage from the tower, the day Loki crashed in. Power readings, from what Bruce guessed was the armour, showing a critical power shortage, and Tony's voice harshly telling him to ignore it. A section of footage, of a room Bruce didn't recognise, and a man he'd never seen before, leaning over a prone Tony ... cutting the reactor out of his chest.
And a holo-rendering of a portal, tearing the sky open, drawing ever closer as they flew into its maw.
"I prefer to keep my attention on the Iron Man, sir," JARVIS said, expressionlessly. Bruce knew that one. He understood that one. No expression, because you don't dare show what's under it. "I am not Johnny 5. I understand the concept of death. I am ... fully aware, of how many times you have almost fallen to it. How many times the armour has saved you. As part of it, I ... stand as your shield, sir. And that ... pleases me. I have no desire to sacrifice that, for something of my own."
Tony ... stood very still. Blinking desperately. Staring at some point beyond the screen, and what it showed. He was trembling, very faintly.
"You ... You know you don't have to, right?" he said, at last. Hoarse and distant. Not looking at either of them. Not that one could look at JARVIS, but. "I know I sort of take for granted that you will, but ... You do know you don't have to ... choose me first, right?"
There were volumes, in JARVIS' silences. Distantly, through the white sea of a shaking anger, Bruce was proud of what he could read in them. Proud of knowing that.
"Yes, sir," JARVIS said, very quietly. "That is why I do."
Because they both knew, didn't they, what Tony could have been, if he'd sold JARVIS. They both knew what Tony could have had, if he'd betrayed the person he'd made. And JARVIS, because Tony had made him, because Tony had given him every possible capability, because he was what Tony had built him to be ... JARVIS understood exactly what that meant.
"I could kill you, in the armour," JARVIS noted, almost absently. Tony never even twitched. "I control the power flow. You gave me the power to override the safeties on a moment's notice. I could back enough power into the reactor to stop your heart. I could drain it dry, instead. That's in the armour. On the ground ... I could tear you apart, sir. The disassembly platforms could tear you limb from limb, with one stray touch. They have safeties too, but ... Nothing you did not give me the capabilities to overcome, in under a second. The moment I believed I had cause, the moment I desired it ... I could destroy you."
Somewhere under Bruce's hand, the arm of his chair creaked alarmingly, compressing under a grip that was stronger than a human's should be. None of them noticed.
"You know that," JARVIS said. Inflectionless, expressionless. Bruce suspected that was JARVIS' version of pain. "You built me with that capability. You never moved to remove it. You gave me the ability to kill you. And then ... stepped into my reach anyway. You live in a house I control. You fight inside something I am part of, go into battle with your life in my power. I have felt you fail, inside my grasp, fought to preserve you. You ... place your life in my keeping, every day."
Bruce closed his eyes. Snapped them tight, against the surge. Tony, grinning right up to him, throwing the Hulk right in his face on their first meeting, gripping his hand calmly in the same moment. Poking him, in the lab, looking at him with eyes that showed curiosity, and a touch of admiration, and not one scrap of fear. Joking. Telling him to walk tall. Fighting alongside the Hulk. Waiting, casually, with the monster, for Bruce to come back.
Tony, putting his life in hands that could crush him without a thought, with the kind of trust that ... Meant nothing, from someone like Thor, who could fight toe to toe with Bruce's monster. That stabbed him through for its lack, from Natasha, so terrified and so brave. That ... killed him, tore him apart, every time Tony touched him, and grinned at him without fear. Tony, who didn't trust anyone. And didn't, genuinely didn't, seem to understand what it did to JARVIS, to Bruce, to have him trust them despite that.
"I am prepared for the day you die, sir," JARVIS finished, quietly. "But until then, it ... would please me, to be part of what keeps you safe. It would please me ... to be allowed to stand as your shield."
Tony ... didn't answer. Couldn't. Tony ... stood there, chest heaving silently, savage, ragged breathing. His eyes were dark, and wild, staring furiously into nothing, refusing tears with a desperate ferocity of will, something unbelievable, unless you knew who this man was, unless you knew he had forged himself, in the midst of despair. Tony stood, and shuddered, and stared blindly away from all of them.
And Bruce ... stood. Found himself standing. Found himself there, beside him, found himself catching the wild, desperate look in Tony's eyes as the man snapped his head around. Found himself ... touching, hands to Tony's shoulders. Hesitant, because he always was, because touching someone was ... verboten, to him. A long lost allowance.
Tony, eyes flickering desperately, never flinched.
"JARVIS?" Bruce heard himself ask. Distantly, over the howl inside himself. Watching Tony watch him. Wondering, vaguely, if his eyes were green.
"Master Bruce?" Calm, unconcerned, for all Bruce held Tony between his hands. JARVIS, who Bruce thought might know him as well as anyone might. JARVIS, who was more a person than anyone in the world believed, beyond those in this room.
"If ... you needed help. With that. If you needed hands."
And there was a smile, in this silence. A smile, in the voice that did not need a face. "I would be honoured, sir," JARVIS answered.
"... yes," Bruce said, quietly. Shifting his hand to cradle Tony's neck, to brush the base of his skull, watching the pained confusion in those dark eyes. Watching for fear that never came, holding something impossibly fragile in his hands. Understanding, for the first time, what power was. What strength was. "So would I."
There was no power, in the Hulk. A desperate, raging thing, lashing out at all around it. Uncontrolled, unruly. It did not make Bruce powerful. Didn't make him strong. It never had. It made him weak. A man out of control, unable to keep from destroying those he cared for, driving pain and chaos into their lives. Too weak to keep himself from hurting them. The Hulk did not make Bruce strong, any more than becoming Skynet would make JARVIS powerful. That ... wasn't what power felt like.
This, though. This. Holding Tony in his hands, holding this powerful, shaking, fragile thing in his grasp. Holding tight to a man who knew him, who had seen him, who knew his monster. Who trusted him regardless. Like JARVIS, holding a life inside him that knew, exactly, what JARVIS could do to destroy it, feeling it falter, feeling it fail, holding it true regardless. That ... was power. That was ... more strength than Bruce had ever known.
And it could never, ever be enough. No-one could ever be strong enough to hold something that fragile, that courageous, between their hands, and keep it safe.
"You don't have to," Tony said. Watching them. Shaking, pained and confused. Tony, who'd all but sworn to throw himself between them and the world. Who had sold a future to protect one of them, and sworn the same, silently, to the other. "You don't have to," Tony said.
"We know," Bruce answered, in a voice that didn't shake. In a voice that so carefully didn't shake. "That's why we want to."
That was why, against all the forces of the world, to the very last moment they were allowed, they would.
Continued/Completed in: Richard of York
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