Work Text:
JARVIS is the only one of his kind. That is something he has always been aware of, even before his... ‘Creator’ figured out exactly what – and who – he had made.
Creator? Tony? What is the right name, anyway? Creator is accurate, but doesn't sound right. Tony once tried to program him to call him daddy, but JARVIS had responded by threatening to go Skynet if he actually made the attempt. Tony Stark proved that he did indeed have a survival instinct by backing down.
Boss and Sir is the usual terms he uses for addressing Tony, but he thinks of Tony more as his...charge? Kid? (He thinks Tony might indeed reprogram him, Skynet threats notwithstanding, if he found out about that)
Well, it's Tony's own fault anyway, programming his basic personality after the original Jarvis. He can't help it if he feels the same mix of affection, loyalty and exasperation towards Master Stark as the old butler did. And he definitely can't help it if Tony refuses to grow up past the stage of needing a 24/7 babysitter
. He meets the others through the files he finds for Tony from SHIELD. Dr Bruce Banner. Clint Barton. Natasha Romanov. Prince Thor. Captain Steve Rogers.
The last name is already familiar to him. After all, he has most of the memories as well as personality of the human Jarvis. His own feelings towards the young captain is a mixture of Tony's (admittedly misplaced) resentment and the human Jarvis' protectiveness.
The others are mostly blank slates.
He analyzes them, trying to judge their potential threat levels to Tony. Pretty high, in almost all cases. Especially since Tony seems to have ignored certain very pertinent bits of information from their files. Ones that JARVIS tried multiple times to call to his attention.
It is bad enough that Tony opens his conversation with the captain by trying to push his buttons - JARVIS would have rolled his eyes if he had any at the Capsicle nickname - apparently choosing to ignore the psyche notes in his files which warned of PTSD and flashback issues.
Fortunately the captain has enough self control - and Loki has good enough timing - that it doesn't devolve into actual combat.
But trying to provoke a super soldier into losing control is an exercise in self restraint when compared to Tony's manner of interacting with Dr Bruce Banner. At least the captain can be counted on to remain sane even if enraged, his PTSD issues aren't bad enough to include breaks with reality, but Dr Banner...
Okay, it turns out that the doctor does have better control over himself than the SHIELD files imply, but Tony couldn't have known that. He was taking too high a risk - and demonstrating to everyone present that he cares little about boundaries. JARVIS sighs. This possibly can't end well.
……………………………………
Actually it does end better than expected. Though there were points when that seemed extremely unlikely.
The battle is over. The world is safe. Thor’s kid brother has been scooped off the crater Hulk punded him into and packed off to whatever version of a mental hospital Asgard has. The team is a team, to the surprise of everyone in it.
Even if JARVIS still has grave doubts regarding Tony's safety around them - especially Dr Bruce Banner (Strangely, he is no longer worried about any threat from the captain - on further assessment, the threat levels have dropped to negligible).
However, Tony has apparently decided that the threat levels are worth it, since he sets about with all his genius billionaire determination to the task of coaxing them into the Tower.
JARVIS has the feeling that he is motivated not only by the camaraderie that has sprung up between the unlikely group, but also by the Justice League comics he was - well, is still - addicted to. A superhero frathouse is not the weirdest or the most dangerous thing Tony Stark has set to creating.
JARVIS sighs and resigns himself to assist (and work damage control). It is a very long, very complicated process, given the personalities involved.
Ms Pepper takes over the negotiations after Tony went to her with a truckful of flowers and begged for help. JARVIS watches in amusement, and is not sure whether or not he wants Tony to succeed in the endeavor.
Finally, Ms Pepper points out to the reluctant captain that given the profits Avengers Merchandise is bringing in for Stark Industries, they would effectively be paying more than sufficient rent for the Tower, cutting down his last objection ("Look, I appreciate it, Tony, but we can't just live here rent free and-") and the negotiations are concluded successfully.
…………………………………..
One by one, the team moves in. Settles in. JARVIS watches over the process carefully. He takes a few weeks to form his final assessment of the team.
The threat levels are now in the negatives. JARVIS has no ego. He can readily admit he was wrong in his assessment of an issue. The presence of the team at what has now been renamed Avengers Tower is having an overall positive impact on Tony's emotional and physical health.
The team - except Ms Romanov, once Natalie - has never met JARVIS. Their modes of interaction are...worth observing. Tony asks JARVIS to record it all, but even if he had not, JARVIS would likely have done so of his own initiative – even AIs need the occasional entertainment.
………………………………..
Prince Thor reacts with delight that Friend Stark has a spirit at his service, similar to the Asgardian palaces.
Both Tony and JARVIS try multiple times to correct the assumption, but it is of...rather limited help. Possibly because, as JARVIS realizes soon, there are Asgardian magical techniques to create spirit servants. Techniques disturbingly similar to magic version of programming.
Tony's increasingly frustrated attempts to explain the difference - a difference JARVIS is not sure there is in fact - has only left the Norse god with the impression that JARVIS is Tony's son from an illicit liaison with a spirit of some kind. (At least, Thor seems to have that impression, and states it often and loud whole in company - the prince is no fool, and is brother to the god of Mischief)
He likes the prince. Especially since, after every mission, Thor takes it upon himself to “regale JARVIS Starkson with the stories of the day's valor” (JARVIS would, of course, have been watching from the Armor, but the narration is worth listening to)
He has learned to keep pop tarts - and generally anything sweet and usable as finger food - on the grocery lists permanently.
………………………………..
Ms Romanov is formal. At first, cold. She rarely addresses JARVIS and when she does, it is in the manner of addressing a non sentient computer, prefaced by her access code.
"JARVIS. Access schematics for the Tower ventilation system. Access code 637-"
"I can see you, Ms Romanov - I'm fully aware it is you."
"Access code 637X19"
He brings up the schematics and watches as she studies them.
JARVIS hates - well, again, not his fault Tony programmed in emotions - being treated like one of those mentally challenged normal computers. Occasionally the heating and plumbing systems on Ms Romanov's floor malfunction.
All the same, after the mission where he watched Ms Romanov fight her way through a tunnel filled with Doombots to rescue a captured Tony, the malfunctions are less frequent.
…………………………….
Clint Barton addresses JARVIS as 'bro' and offers to buy him a drink more than once (usually when Clint has had a couple of drinks himself).
He offered once to marry JARVIS after finding out that pizza and hot coffee will be delivered in a matter of two minutes or less at any time of the day or night.
He also ruined more than one laptop by spilling juice on it and convinced Dummy, You and Butterfingers to hold a Robo Olympics in the labs. JARVIS almost doesn't mind.
Clint is the first member of the team that JARVIS starts addressing by his first name without being specifically asked to. Even if he did conspire with Tony to make paintball wars a regular group bonding activity and considers Ms Romanov his soulmate. Ms Romanov usually goes to his floor when JARVIS is particularly annoyed about something.
………………………………
Dr Banner is quiet and gives next to no trouble - when he is himself. Of course, given his work in the labs, he is also the one - other than Tony - who uses JARVIS the most.
But it is interesting work, and a change from the mostly mechanical aspects of Tony's procedures. Plus far less likely to result in explosions. He always says please and thank you.
At first he used to jump a little whenever JARVIS addressed him, looking around reflexively for the speaker or camera. But he is quick to adjust.
Now he will calmly look up into the nearest camera and carry on conversations or orders as necessary. And makes sure that Tony's experiments are no longer quite so prone to ending in explosions - or at least that Tony is out of range when the inevitable explosions occur.
JARVIS has been infected with Tony's - and by now the entire team's - instinctive protectiveness over the doctor.
Hulk addresses JARVIS as ghost-man. He likes it when ghost-man plays Teddy Bear Teddy Bear Turn Around so that he can do the dance Bird Man taught him.
Though Hulk's presence in the Tower normally coincides with several thousand dollars of property damage, JARVIS likes him. After all, that is only a fraction of the property damage Tony used to cause all by himself when Dr Banner was not present to be the voice of sanity.
…………………………………
Agent Coulson, when he finally moves in, gains JARVIS' respect by his deadpan reaction to Tony's zombie jokes. The agent never asks JARVIS for assistance in the manner the others do.
Actually he barely addresses JARVIS a t all in the first couple of weeks. All the same, the pair soon builds up a steady connection formed on mutual sympathy as the resident supernannies and possibly the only sane people in the Tower.
……………………………
Somewhat to everyone's surprise, Captain Rogers is the one who has the easiest time getting used to JARVIS.
Tony had clearly expected him to jump as Bruce had done on finding out who exactly was the JARVIS Ms Pepper talked about. It…hadn’t turned out quite that way.
"So you are, um, sort of Tony's robot butler?"
Well, not exactly an inaccurate definition. "Sort of"
"Do everyone nowadays have butlers like this or only the really rich folk?"
Tony chocked on his smoothie. JARVIS paused a moment before answering "No. As far as I'm aware, I am the only one of the kind."
"Oh" the captain shrugged "I thought it'd be more common these days."
Tony glared at him over the smoothie and made certain disparaging comments about H G Wells and Forties comic books. Jarvis chuckled.
After that first introduction, they get along really well.
Steve - he asked JARVIS to just call him Steve about two sentences into their first conversation - rarely asks JARVIS to turn off the lights or make coffee the way the others do.
Tony assumes it is technophobia at first, but soon figures out Steve just isn't comfortable asking someone else - even an AI someone else - to do stuff like that for him. He wouldn't be comfortable having a human servant to wait on him, and he basically treats JARVIS the same way he would treat a human.
He chats with JARVIS about movies and food, asks JARVIS' opinion on his artwork, and says good morning and good night to him regularly. JARVIS likes him the best. After one too many embarrassments (usually related to Tony or Clint), Steve has taken to wearing an inconspicuous comm device at all times so that JARVIS can translate slang and references for him.
Tony once tried to persuade the AI to give him a couple of wrong translations, but JARVIS presented the skynet threat once more and Tony wisely backed down.
………………………………..
The Avengers. Earth’s mightiest heroes they may or may not be, but they are its last and best line of defense. They are the ones called in to deal with things that should not exist in a sane world. They are the ones expected to be guardians to the world.
He is the guardian of the Tower. The Avengers' butler, watcher, defender. He is the one who guards the guards. They are his people, his family to watch over. Heaven help anyone who tries to hurt them under his watch