The JARVIS Variations, Part I

[icarus_chained]

Part one of a series of ficlets, exploring the Tonys and JARVISes of various universes, one universe per fic. A man and a machine, in infinite variation.

Title: The JARVIS Variations
Chapter Title: Part I, Ghosts of Weyland
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse, Steampunk/Lovecraftian AU
Characters/Pairings: Tony, JARVIS, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Dummy, You. Tony & JARVIS
Summary: Tony and JARVIS through a steampunk, lovecraftian lens
Wordcount: 1205
Warnings/Notes: Ghosts of Weyland is set in the same universe as Order of the Shield: Engines of Light. Basically a Steampunk/Lovecraft hybrid with some Dark Materials influences.
Disclaimer: Not mine

Ghosts of Weyland

The hall was immense, a cavernous void where pillars of concrete stretched up into the darkness towards the invisible ceiling, an echoing chasm where distant anbaric lights played and the hulking forms of vast machines chittered in the darkness between pillars. The path through to the central space was lighted, a thread of warm yellow through the darkness, and it was fortunate, for without it they would have been lost. Or, perhaps, simply have chosen not to venture forth.

"Stark?" Romanov called, calm and confident as she stepped through the darkness and the mechanical muttering of invisible machines, her hair a rusted halo limned in yellow, the others a few paces behind her. "Lord Anthony!"

There was no answer, at least not from Stark. But as they drew closer to the open space at the center of the hall, there came a different form of answer. A rather eerie one.

Music. Tinny and distant yet, but gradually growing in volume, floating along the ribbon of light towards them, echoing hollowly from the pillars. A loud, triumphal tune, brass and percussion, a succession of crash, rise and crash as they moved ever closer. There was no band in sight, but the sound, though crackling in places, did not carry the distinctive scratch of a gramophone.

It was, Steven thought, exactly as brash and eerie as one would expect of Lord Anthony Stark, master of the cursed Engines, and maker of devices to challenge gods.

"Stark!" Romanov repeated, as they cleared the circle of light and found the man, clad only on heavy canvas trousers and a leather coverall, squirming beneath a glittering, carnivorous-looking pile of brass and steel. She stood behind him, hand on hip, and simultaneously raised both eyebrow and voice. "If you wouldn't mind!"

The music, suddenly and completely, by no discernable means, crashed to a stop. In the midst of the rise of trumpets, suddenly silence slammed down, complete and ringing with the contrast, and Stark, beneath his engine, surged upwards with a startled oath.

"Ghost of Weyland!" the man snarled, scrambling back from beneath his machine, his face emerging dark and thunderous, and liberally smeared with oil. His chest, emerging before it, shone with the pallid blue glow of his Engine. "Romanov, are you trying to kill me?"

Romanov, in answer, simply raised her other eyebrow, a small smirk gracing her features. "If I were," she demurred lightly, "I most certainly would not warn you, Lord Stark."

Stark blinked, and then snorted, apparently accepting this. He reached up, rubbing his palm absently over his face and up into his hair, oblivious to the stains thus spread upwards. "All right, all right," he grumbled, tilting sideways to reach back under the machine with one arm, rummaging in the shadows beneath it for something. "JARVIS? Small note, we need to up the gear ratio, and the tensile strength on the lower spindles is too low. Got that?"

Steven blinked, looking briefly around for another person, but then ...

"Certainly, sir," came a tinny voice in the silence, everywhere and nowhere, much as the music before it. "Might I suggest comparison with the Tulbrecht Machine? Probability of suitable gears is high."

Stark, oblivious to the wild staring of at least three of the visiting party, finally fished a wrench out from beneath his machine, and used the head of it to scratch absently at his temple. "Huh," he murmured, thoughtfully. "Yes, that might actually work. Good job, JARVIS!" He heaved himself to his feet, slapping at the rear of his trousers in a small rain of dust and metal shavings. "Send Dummy down to Hall Three to have a look, will you?"

There was a slight pause, only noticeable when all three of them, Steven, Banner and Barton, were straining their ears to find the source of the sound. Romanov, alone of them, had kept her eyes fixed upon Stark instead. And then:

"Dummy does not ... Sir. Dummy does not enjoy the darkness. Hall Three is ..."

Stark blinked, and then cursed faintly. "Yes, sorry," he apologised, waving a hand at ... nothing at all, as far as any of them could see. "Send You with him? And run up the anbaric lights along their path, the tannoy with them, make sure they don't get lost?"

The mechanical voice, tinny and echoing though it was, seemed for some reason warmer on the answer. "Yes, sir. I will see to their safety, sir. Thank you."

Stark, Anthony, smiled slightly at that, soft and perhaps a little rueful. "You do that," he said, softly. There was something in his expression, as he said it, a certain smudged softness that Steven hadn't often seen on the sharp-edged, embittered man. Something that stopped him in his search for the voice, and narrowed his gaze once more onto Stark himself. "JARVIS?" A small pause. "Thanks for taking care of them, my friend."

"... Always, sir." Echoing, a thin voice whispering out into the darkness and the clicking of distant machines, light and warm as an anbaric glow. "It is my pleasure."

And Steven watched, distantly fascinated, as Lord Anthony smiled for that, a deep, soft smile, smudged dark into his face. A look that Steven had, in truth, never once seen upon him, a distant, expansive joy, simmering gently like anbaricity beneath his skin. His head was tipped to the ring of sound around them, the echoes through the pillars, and it was something like love on his features.

"Mine too," he whispered, almost inaudible into the silence, and Steven wondered then if he even knew he'd spoken aloud. "Mine too."

Then Romanov, with a faint quirk of her lips and a look in her eyes that was not unsympathetic, stepped forward to bring Lord Stark's attention back to them. "Anthony," she said, bizarrely informal, and gentle for her. "If we might distract you from your companion for a moment?"

Stark blinked, refocused on them, looking vaguely startled to remember their presence. Then, his eyes meeting hers with a faint, laughing crease, he shook his head once, and the sharp, lazy cloak of the Lord Anthony Stark fell back around him.

"All right," he said, smiling sharp and glittering, sketching for them a quick bow. "What can I do for you gentlemen -and, excuse me, lady- today?" He laughed into Romanov's answering smirk, the mask of the insouciant engineer firmly back in place, and Steven almost wondered if he had truly seen what he thought he had.

But yes, he found later. Slowly, by gradual inches, as he learned the nature of JARVIS, the vast, chittering engine with a soul, whose machine body had loomed rank on rank about them as they walked the ribbon of light through Vulcan's cavern. Slowly, Steven came to believe in what he had seen.

JARVIS was a blasphemous machine, he and his smaller brethren both, an engine beyond the pale. And the Lord Anthony Stark, soft and mad in the darkness, with the remnant of Odin's cursed jewel in his chest, did love him with all the warm passion of suns, as they rested in shared orbit about each other.

And in the end, he thought, it wasn't so terrible a thing to bear witness to, was it?


Series continues in Part II: Gods and Geists (Cyberpunk)