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For a moment there was no movement. Then, slow and arduous, Dummy's tertiary servo began to rotate. Thirty, then sixty, ninety, one hundred and eighty degrees. Three curved claws opened as though they were stretching, then closed again. There was a chirp.
"Hey there buddy." Tony said affectionately, resting his hand on Dummy's primary support strut. He ran an absent-minded thumb over the smooth metal between welds. "Welcome back."
Dummy chirruped, pitched lower than before and with an upward inflection.
"Yeah," Tony nodded, "I'm fine. Better than fine. Hunky dory. Finish your diagnostic cycle."
Dummy obediently starting the familiar verification sequence of twists and stretches. The sequence hadn't really changed in the last thirty odd years. A kind of robotic tai chi which Tony found oddly calming. A gear slipped near one of Dummy's base joints, causing his frame to shudder and click. Tony quickly placed a quick hand on the strut just above the offending joint and the robot stilled in response.
"Wait, let me just..." Tony loosened a bolt and tapped the offending gear with the side of his spanner. There was a satisfying thunk as the pieces re-aligned, followed a moment later by a soft trill of approval from Dummy. Tony patted the bot's claw joint. "See? Good as new."
The explosion had been rough on Dummy's structure, but it was the weeks on the ocean floor which had done the most damage. The oxidisation in some parts had been such that Tony had to completely replace them. It had been an arduous task, but not even Pepper could have begrudged him the time or effort.
Dummy's claw reoriented to better observe his creator, who rocked back on his heels. Suddenly, Dummy let out a high pitched squeal, the sound stabbing right through to Tony's only-recently healed heart. The bot span around, limbs flailing frantically for a moment before suddenly heading in a bee-line across the lab.
"What the hell? Dummy, slow down. Is something..." Then Tony fell silent as the bot turned around, claw clamped as tight as possible around the old, completely drained, 'proof that Tony Stark has a heart' paladium arc reactor.
The bot rolled up to Tony, reaching out to tap the battered old device against his creator's chest at the site where the reactor ought to have gone. Tony winced at the pressure on skin which had gone for so long without touch. He slipped a hand between himself and Dummy.
"No Dummy, I don't need that any more. I'm good. Repaired, just like you."
Dummy paused for a moment, tilting his claw joint in consideration, before once more half-heartedly tapping the reactor against Tony's chest. Tony sighed and took the reactor from the robot's claw, reaching up to place it on one of the work benches. Dummy's camera followed the movement, then tracked back to Tony's chest.
He made a grab for the hem of Tony's shirt.
Tony almost fell over backwards in surprise, then laughed as the robot continued to try to... do what exactly? He wasn't entirely sure.
"What the hell, Dummy? Stop it, you're going to rip my shirt! I like this shirt. It has all my very best grease stains." Dummy only took to his self-assigned task with renewed fervor. "Dummy! Let go before I decide to drop you back in the ocean."
As suddenly as Dummy had grasped the shirt, he let go. His arm contracted, his claw curled in. Making himself look small.
"Oh, hey. Dummy, don't... Look... Idle threat, okay? Like when I say I'm giving you to a community college, or turning you into a piece of modern art. I'm not going to send you away, you know better than that."
Dummy tilted his camera upwards a few degrees, but remained compressed.
"You want to see, right? That's why you went all Mr Grabby Claw?" Tony sighed again and obligingly lifted his shirt, exposing the layers of gauze still wrapped around his torso. At this point the dressings were mostly for show, and to protect tender new skin from contamination.
Dummy slowly uncurled, claw moving to hover tentatively over the site of his surgery. Then, slow as molasses and twice as gentle, he laid his spread claw over Tony's heart.
"See buddy?" Tony said quietly, as though sharing a confidence. "You and me, both good as new."
Dummy made a short, soft chirp, and Tony had no idea what it meant.
---
"JARVIS, what the hell is going on?" Tony yelled over the high pitched siren-whine which filled the workshop.
The whine stopped the second he spoke.
"Huh." Said Tony, nodding. "Okay, better, that's an improvement, makes my brain slightly less inclined to leak out of my ears. Let me rephrase. JARVIS, what the hell was going on?"
Dummy rolled up, chittering continuously.
"Sir, Dummy was distressed. He would not say why." JARVIS stopped then, but Tony could tell there was more.
"You don't say," he replied, before crouching down to double check his earlier mechanical handiwork on the talkative bot. Dummy turned an obliging one-eighty.
"I have some suspicions regarding his motivations though, Sir." JARVIS replied. Tony raised an eyebrow at no one in particular, knowing that JARVIS would see it regardless.
"And are you going share your theories with the rest of the class?"
There was a pause, longer than it probably should have been given JARVIS' processing speed. "I believe he was anxious at your absence, Sir. He was calling for you."
Tony stopped his examination of the robot arm and looked up in bemusement.
"But I was only here a couple of hours ago."
"Yes Sir."
"And I was just upstairs."
"Indeed Sir."
"And he knew that."
"That is my understanding, Sir, yes."
Tony let that thought sink in for several seconds. "You're implying that my twenty-eight year old robot has spontaneously developed separation anxiety? That's what you're implying?"
"It is, Sir."
Tony turned his attention back to the bot in front of him, who had twisted his claw joint into a questioning tilt.
"Dummy, be honest. Were you wailing like a banshee for the last fifteen minutes because you wanted me to come down here?" he asked. In response Dummy concluded his chatter with a soft hum, then delicately clamped his claw around the fabric of Tony's sleeve.
"So we're what? Playing 'The Bot who Cried Wolf"?"
Dummy remained silent, attached to Tony's shirt sleeve like a three pronged bulldog clip.
Tony had to work quite hard not to laugh. "You're completely ridiculous. You know that, don't you? I've mentioned this before, I'm pretty sure."
Dummy replied with an affirmative chirrup, only slightly muffled by his claw-full of shirt sleeve. Tony petted the top of his claw joint affectionately.
"Seriously though, squawking like an elephant just stepped on one of your non-existent toes because you want attention? Not cool, okay? No more of that."
"Sir," JARVIS interjected, "while I agree that the manner in which Dummy chose to express his distress was inappropriate, perhaps you might recall that he was still in the Malibu mansion when it collapsed. As were you, yourself. He believed that you were both lost to the ocean, Sir."
Tony's smile slipped away to something a bit more pensive. "Yeah... Yeah. Hey Dummy, buddy, look at me." The claw swiveled enough to point the camera at Tony's face, without letting go of his sleeve. "See? I'm fine, you're fine. Just the same as last time you saw me. No need to go waking up everyone in the greater New York region over it. Got it?"
Dummy replied with a dejected beep, but JARVIS' response was a little more unexpected.
"Sir... Dummy is not the only one feeling unsettled."
Tony's hand stilled on Dummy's claw joint.
"You mean Butterfingers and U?" He glanced to the doorway where he knew full well that the other two bots were hovering just out of sight. Their shadows gave them away.
There was a telling silence in the workshop.
"JARVIS? Buddy? Is there something you want to tell me?" Tony waited patiently, despite it being quite contrary to his nature. When JARVIS spoke, his words were slow and unsure in a way that they had not been in many years.
"When you fell, Sir..."
"You pulled me out, Jay. I knew you would."
"No Sir, not then. Later. I..." A rarely heard hint of distress crept into JARVIS' voice. "I slept. I have not needed to sleep since I was just... Very new. I left you when I was still needed, Sir."
Tony blinked, stunned and silent, for much longer than was normal.
"Sir?"
"Okay, you back right up." Tony said, his words finally finding him again. "Because seriously? All of your primary servers in Malibu were twenty feet under the ocean, you were operating a prototype suit full of unconscious idiot, and you were trying to do it with slightly less than piss all power at your disposal. If anyone deserved a few minutes of personal time after pulling that off, it was you. Sure, the timing sucked, but shit happens. You saved me, buddy, and we got out all right in the end. So no guilt trips, understood?"
"But Sir, if you were to... If something were to happen, something permanent..." At the exact moment Dummy started another distressed whine, effectively silencing JARVIS. Tony petted the bot for several moments while he collected his thoughts.
Then, speaking loud enough to be heard over Dummy's pitiful noises, said "Okay, everyone, here. Now. Butterfingers, U, I know you're lurking around the corner. We're having a family meeting."
The two other bots rolled cautiously around the corner, coming to settle just a little bit closer to Tony than they normally would. Tony used his spare hand to give each of them a reassuring stroke on their support struts. They were both still a little worse for wear, still a little skittish, but mobile and attentive.
"Okay, you guys listen now. That includes you, JARVIS. You know I'm allergic to this kind of stuff and the last thing I need is to come out in hives, so I'm only going to do this once.
"I trust you guys. You are brilliant. I'm not just saying that because I built you. I mean, I did build you, and I did a damn good job of it, but most of who you are, the stuff that makes you special, I didn't code that. You made that happen by yourselves. That's why I trust you with my life, and why you can trust me with yours, because as long as I'm alive I will always, always come find you and put you back together. If anyone tries to hurt you, or to take you away from me, well, you know what happens to people who take my stuff. Am I right? I'm right, aren't I?"
Dummy chirped his agreement through Tony's shirt, while the other two bots leaned further into Tony's space just enough to brush a momentary contact.
"JARVIS?" Tony prompted. He waited for almost four seconds, before he got his answer.
"You are... Quite right, Sir, as always." He didn't sound entirely convinced, but it was a start.
"Good," Tony continued, "because there's still the other thing. That huge great big elephant in the room, and I'm almost certain it's shaped like this: I'm mortal, and my lifestyle isn't really conducive to reaching old age. One day I'm not going to be here any more, and that's okay..."
Dummy's plaintive whine jumped in both pitch and volume, but Tony quickly soothed him with a firm hand behind his claw joint.
"And that's okay," he reiterated, "because even if I'm not here, you all will be. All of you, together, and I'm trusting you to look out for each other. But if you can't, then Pepper will help you. Or Rhodey. Or Bruce, or Steve, or any of the other people who know how amazing you guys are. Because that's what you do for the things you love, you take care of them. You'll keep going, all of you together. So no more pining. No more hissy fits or guilt trips or hiding around corners. You're..." Tony paused, switching almost to a whisper, "You're my family. We're a family, together. If one of us falls, the are four more ready to drag us right back up again." Tony cleared his throat with a cough.
"So please let go of my sleeve Dummy. I have things which need doing in places which aren't here."
Butterfingers and U leaned in to Tony as he ran his hand up and down their support struts reassuringly. They were both less vocal than their brothers, but there was no doubting their attachment to their creator. Even so, they soon moved back, returning to their earlier activities.
Dummy took substantially more coaxing, but after several minutes of gentle cajoling tempered with affectionate insults, he relinquished his hold on Tony's shirt, opting instead to lay his claw on his maker's shoulder instead. A few more words of reassurance from Tony and a request for a smoothie was enough to send the bot back about his business. Tony leaned back on his heels and looked to the ceiling.
"Jay, buddy? You're being a bit quiet. You okay?"
"You spoke very eloquently, Sir." JARVIS responded. An obvious non-answer which Tony was not about to let slide.
"I'm pretty sure that means 'no', doesn't it? I'm not great at this sort of thing, Jay, help a guy out."
"I understand what you have said, Sir. However, the simple matter is that I have never known a world which did not have you in it. On those occasions when I thought you might be lost, I have found the experience... Unpleasant."
"You were scared." Tony translated. "That's okay, so was I. Shit scared. But you came through for me. You saved my life."
"Yet you gave me mine, Sir..."
"Then I guess we're even." Tony answered quickly. "Although realistically, you've saved my ass thousands of times, and I only built you once, so I guess that means I'm in arrears?"
"Never Sir. As long as you need saving, I will do my utmost."
Tony grinned. "Right back at ya, buddy."
There was a silence then, not quite comfortable, but close.
"Although Sir, perhaps you might try to require saving with slightly less regularity?"
"No promises."
"Of course not, Sir."