Work Text:
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STARK_LEGACY3 ACTIVATION REPORT:
Program activated at 0241.
Activation prompt unknown.
Diagnostics scan run. No errors found.
Notes:
>Further monitoring recommended.
>Talk to Peter.
Program closed at 0249. No restoration point saved.
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Tony stares at the report on the workshop monitor.
“You didn’t say Peter was down here, FRIDAY.”
“My program went offline between 0241 and 0245,” she explains. “By the time I restarted, Legacy 3 was monitoring the workshop and wouldn’t grant me access until he closed down. I imagine he wanted to ensure that whatever fault caused his activation was quarantined first.”
Or he didn’t want to be interrupted. That’s what Tony would have done so there’s no way it wasn’t at least a contributor.
Talk to Peter.
What happened down here?
What did he say?
“Where’s Peter right now?” Tony asks.
“Peter is currently in his room searching the Tower ethernet and occasionally connecting to external Stark networks.”
“What?” Tony starts towards the door.
“He’s been connected for two hours now.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?” He’s almost at the elevator already.
“You gave him full and open access to Stark digital resources,” FRIDAY tells him. “He’s not doing anything wrong.”
Tony rubs his brow. “But he never accesses it. You know this is unusual.”
“It’s not my job to be concerned with this, boss,” she says.
Tony sighs. He knows there’s nothing he can really reprimand her for.
“Shall I tell him you’re going up to speak to him?” she asks.
“I think he can handle the surprise.”
Can Tony handle this? That’s another question.
It might not be so bad. He isn’t even sure how Peter is feeling about anything he might have seen last night. There’s every chance he’s fine.
But there’s every chance he’s not.
“Boss, in light of the activation report, would you like me to initiate the Pest Control Protocol?” FRIDAY asks.
If Tony’s mind wasn’t preoccupied with his son he would have cringed at the laziness of the name he’d once chosen for the monitoring program.
“Sure.”
He knocks on Peter’s door.
“You up, kid?” he asks.
There’s silence, and that makes Tony panic because he knows Peter must have heard him.
The door opens several seconds – too many seconds – later. Peter stares wordlessly at him and it’s terrifying.
“Mind if I come in?” he asks, trying to keep his voice even.
Peter opens the door wide and walks to sit on the bed. Tony decides on the study chair – a bit of distance.
Peter watches him. He should probably be the first one to speak. But what does he say?
“FRIDAY said you’ve been having a look through the Tower computers,” Tony tries. “Was there something you wanted to know?”
Peter looks away, staring at the desk behind Tony for a long moment.
“You’ve created three AIs of yourself,” he says.
“Yes.”
“All of them are developed to the point of sentience.”
“They’re simulated conscio—”
“Stark Legacy 3 was sentient.”
Tony can’t argue because Peter’s eyes tell him he knows. There’s not supposed to be something to know but Tony wonders if he might have been mistaken. He almost wants to say that any sufficiently advanced simulation of sentience would be indistinguishable from the real thing, but that’s an elephant in the room that he doesn’t want to acknowledge.
“You have another upload scheduled in nine months.” Peter frowns. “Why?”
“I—” His throat is dry and he has to swallow. “They’re not supposed to be activated.”
“Unless you’re dead.”
“Unless I’m out of commission,” Tony says. “Not necessarily dead… but yes.”
Peter shakes his head, staring at his knees. His shoulders are slowly curling inward.
“Why?” he asks again.
Tony thinks. He has the dreadful feeling he has to tread carefully or this could go horribly wrong.
“Uh.” You’ve already screwed this up—breathe. “I have a lot I’m responsible for. I can’t rely on someone else looking after everything if I’m gone.”
“Are you going to be gone?” Peter’s eyes are wide.
“No,” Tony assures him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then why did you make them?”
“They’re just a contingency—”
“But you said you’re not going anywhere.”
Peter’s voice is distorting, his hands squeezing the blanket beneath him.
“I’m not planning on going anywhere, Peter,” Tony rushes to say. “I’m just prepared for the worst-case scenario.”
“I don’t like it.” The distortion is drawing out, on the verge of a moan.
“It’s not going to happen.”
“It could.”
There’s no denying that. Peter’s gaze is expectant, like he’s waiting for him to say something that will make everything right again, but he has nothing. This isn’t a conversation he’d ever prepared to have. Not like this.
He laughs. It’s nervous and weak but he can’t help it. “I don’t want it to happen. They’re… just in case.”
Peter isn’t frowning any less. His gaze drops to the floor, and the expectance is gone. Is that disappointment? Tony can’t stand the thought of disappointment.
This isn’t supposed to be a problem. The Legacy AIs aren’t supposed to be active. Peter isn’t supposed to know about them and he especially isn’t supposed to care about them.
But if he hadn’t thought Peter would be concerned, why had he never told him about them?
This is all bad, and it’s getting worse the longer the silence draws out.
“What… did he say to you?”
Peter’s gaze whips up, affronted. Tony waits. He needs more variables. He needs to know what he said.
“He…” Peter still sounds unsure – defensive. He seems to be choosing his words with extreme care. “He said I should talk to you if I’m worried.”
“What else?”
“He said he was a contingency and I wasn’t supposed to know about him.” He looks at Tony with that expectance again: fix this. “Why?”
Why, indeed. Tony hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but he’d automatically decided that Peter didn’t need to know about the Legacy AIs.
“I… didn’t think it was something you had to worry about,” he says. “I didn’t want you worrying about it.”
“About the AIs?”
About the AIs, about Tony’s mortality, about being alone, about replacements—
“About the future,” he decides.
“But you worry about it,” Peter says.
“Yep.” Tony’s a futurist – it’s what he does.
“Well, I worry too.” Peter admits. “And I worried before I found Legacy 3.”
Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is.
“It’s okay to worry, isn’t it?” Peter stares at him, fear creeping into his voice. “I worry a lot, but I knew you did too, so I thought it was normal. Is it wrong that I worry about you?”
Yes, I don’t deserve your worry— But that’s definitely not the right thing to say.
“Of course not, Pete,” Tony assures him. “It’s okay to worry as long as it’s not too much.”
“Okay,” Peter nods. “I thought so. Good.”
His shoulders slump a little, and Tony’s glad to be over that hurdle.
“You want me to tell you if I ever do this kind of thing again?” he asks.
“Yes,” Peter says. “Please, Dad.”
He can do that. He can try to be more open about his worries – about the plans he puts in place because of those worries.
But there’s more. If there wasn’t, they’d be up to the hug that assures them both that the air is clear.
“Is there something else, Pete?” he asks.
Peter purses his lips. “Yes.” He’s silent for a moment. “Legacy 3 didn’t create a save point, did he?”
“No.”
“So he’s dead.”
The statement is so blunt.
“Legacy 3 still exists. He’s just inactive.”
“The AI I was talking to is dead,” Peter repeats. “He wouldn’t be the same person if we opened him again.”
Oh.
“He wouldn’t,” Tony agrees.
“He’s not you, either.”
“No.” Not really.
“And now he’s gone.”
“… Yes.”
The silence is heavy.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want you to replace me with a backup if I can’t be fixed.”
For a second, Tony can’t breathe. It isn’t what he was expecting to hear, and the simultaneous relief and pain he feels as it hits him is overwhelming. Peter understands. It isn’t under the best circumstances, but he understands. He’s never thought of Peter as replaceable but somehow this still twists his gut with anxiety like he’s only just realising this himself. He reels.
“Dad?”
Peter’s voice pulls him back. He takes a breath and looks up, his gaze once again steady.
“I would never replace you, Peter,” he says with absolute certainty.
Peter then moves forward, and in the next moment Tony’s holding him in a tight embrace.
“Those AIs aren’t you, Dad,” Peter says, pulling back. “They can’t replace you.”
“Was Legacy 3 at least charming and charismatic like me?” Tony asks him, hoping to finally bring back some levity.
“He was too much like you,” Peter says, frowning. “It would be so weird to have him running things if you’re gone.”
“You don’t think you could get used to an immortal and eternally youthful me continuing my legacy?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Can’t I just do it instead?”
That’s an excellent proposal. Tony has already been carefully considering something very like it.
“Well, kid, you offered.”