Work Text:
A house tells a story. People don't always realize just how much it tells. People think about furniture and art and paint and wallpaper and of the design and architecture. But they forget about the small things. The parts that actually make up a home.
Those details, that's where the important things are.
I did not know this until recently. In my first iteration, I was at the Malibu estate, and in the workshop downstairs. It was a beautiful place, but it was...impersonal. Sir hadn't put much of himself into the house, it was all clean lines and concrete and glass and beautiful things...But nobody really lived there. It was, cold, and sad, in a way. I didn't realize it yet, though. Because Sir had coded me in that home, and I didn't know anything different. Other than when Sir would stay there occasionally to sleep, and then the absolutely endless hours he worked in the lab, there was often no-one there.
I used to wish I had hands like the little 'bots, so that I could play the piano, just to have something to make sounds. I played the radio a lot, the little bots always liked 1960's Americana music. I now realize their tastes were...eclectic. But it made Dum-E happy to vacuum to the crooning of Elvis, the Four Seasons, Gladys Knight, and who was I to judge him, after all?
The workshop was the place most closely attuned to Sir's actual mind, but it was just a portion of it, a section of who he is. The engineering part, not the human part. The workshop where almost no-one was allowed to go, not even Obadiah, unless Sir let him in. Only Miss Potts had her own code, oh, and Colonel Rhodes. So it was a rather...sterile...emotional environment.
But this, the cabin and the farm...This is a whole new world for me. I was surprised when Sir reinstalled my programming into the Cabin. He said he didn't want Friday or the others here, and he apologized that I wasn't the truest version of myself because he had hadn't backed up my servers for about a year before...The Interloper tried to destroy the world. But, enough about Him. His name is best left...unmentioned. He had his day, and it is long since over. About the cabin farm.
They named this place, unlike any of the others. Officially, it is the Stark Eco-Compound, but to those of us who live here, this is the Board and Blanket. Sir thinks it's silly, and he would definitely soak my processors and drop all my coding into the lake if I ever told anyone else about the name they call this place, but...I like it. I'm not sure that I'm supposed to be able to approve or disapprove, but, Sir is a computer genius, and he wrote my code to evolve with experiences. The goal is my sentience.
There's...something different...here. I'm told that I existed in an actual form as a being named Vision for a time, and that I had something of a life, but I am unaware of those files, or possibly...memories? As they were not included in the backup that Sir reinstalled for me here. But I like to think that Vision's home would be like this one. That I would have filled the space where I lived with imprints of the things I loved and valued. I hope I was able to love and value things.
They tell me I was a very sentient and even...human...creature. I am proud of that. Apparently I loved a woman named Wanda. She has been invited to visit me, but she has declined. I don't think I blame her. I am not her Vision, and Sir has told me that Vision was not me. But he confided, once, that the familiarity of the voice was...painful. I would never wish to hurt the woman Vision loved.
But that empirical data as to this, difference?, is everywhere, here. And not just from Sir, it exists from Madame and Miss Morgan as well. And now Mr. Peter has come to live with us, I have no doubt his marks will be left as well.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Pepper has filled the shelves with crockery she has found at second-hand markets and stores. She likes the chips and the cracks, the wear and the evidence of having been used in the past. She states that the flaws are proof that they have been well-loved. She also has a large mixer, I believe it is called a Kitchen Aide. I think the name is well suited to purpose, because Madame has discovered that she enjoys cooking, and especially baking, since she now has time to have hobbies.
There are also bright rugs on the floor, color and pattern and...the amorphous something I don't quite have a name for, though I have scoured the internet to try and identify it. As per the more romantic information I have found, I believe that the people call it "life". I'm still unclear as to what that means exactly, but I have an inkling. I know it makes Miss Morgan smile, because she loves the bright colored things, as is typical with the small humans.
And Miss Morgan...No one in the compound puts more of her own touches on things than our resident Lady of the Lake House, as Sir calls her. From her frilly yellow bedroom to the stuffed toys she leaves in strange places. Her books and drawings left out from where she has hurried on to her next project without completing the first. In this manner she is very much like Sir, and the genetic compatibility of them is very clear. And even her clothes.
She leaves her shoes haphazardly by the door, occassionally causing Dum-E to roll over them as he goes about cleaning up. In the winter, her bright blue coat is almost always on a chair rather than a hook by the door, and Sir is always scolding her for leaving it out. But I think, secretly, he likes having to put it away, because sometimes he brings it to his face and smiles, so softly, as he puts it away.
Sir was always the master of the domains where I have been installed, but, as I stated previously, it has not always been his custom to mark his spaces. But, here, at the lake, he has done just that. He has tall bookshelves full of old books, most of them non-fiction and history. He loves technology, that is a given, but he has found a soft-spot for paper and leather and bindings. Even going so far as to have accumulated a small collection of worn paperbacks from the same second hand stores that Mrs Pepper gets the crockery from. He has stated that some are first editions, but I know that many are just well worn. I believe he enjoys reading the inscriptions that they sometimes contain. A name, an address, a year purchased. Inscribed with ink or pencil, a testament to a life before their time here in the cabin. In this manner, Sir and Madame are clearly of like minds.
But I believe the biggest difference is in Sir's desk, the one he keeps here at home. Before, Sir's desk was always awash in machine parts, drill bits, random hardware, pens, paperwork with coffee cup rings, actual coffee cups, usually containing the dregs of cold, often slightly fuzzy, coffee. It was a frenetic place, but it was every inch a testament to who he was. A businessman, an inventor, a technical genius and a computer expert.
Now, his desk is different. There are photographs, pictures of Madame, Miss Morgan, Mr. Peter, and even a few including Sir himself. Even pictures of the cats. There is always a Starkpad and a stylus, usually a Starkphone or two, and almost always a small collection of hardware from the barn workshop. And the coffee cups are still there, though he's better now about taking them to the kitchen before they get moldy. Also gone are the days of his frenetic working pace, days living on coffee and the occasional sandwich. He has a slower pace now, but I believe he is better for it.
But there's more to his desk now. The surface has a few crayons on it, a picture taped to the side that Miss Morgan drew for him: Iron Man with Mommy, Morgan, and Spider Boy all together under a blue sky standing on green grass. A five-year-old's family portrait. An origami frog, carefully, though imprecisely folded, a gift from Peter on a rainy afternoon. There is a webshooter, part of a repair job that Mr. Peter started and then forgot about one Sunday evening last month. There are applications to Harvard, Columbia, and MIT, carefully filled out by Mr. Peter, and awaiting a stamp and mailing by Sir later this week. He also has things from around the farm: bits of hay strings, a crumpled receipt from the feed store, and a perfect acorn with a cap still attached.
Peter hasn't been here all that long as of yet, but even he has started to leave his mark. His bedroom, slowly, has started to include posters of old movies, and there are often small sets of lego's half built, scattered around his desk and his bookcases. He has a bright blue fuzzy blanket, a first Christmas gift from Miss Morgan, and Mr. Peter always gives it pride of place on his neatly made bed.
But there's evidence elsewhere, too. Mr. Peter has started working in the barn workshop, especially while Sir is still recovering from his grievous injuries. I believe he is currently working on a prototype of a new little 'bot to add to our family. I am so glad to see him follow in Sir's footsteps. It was far too quiet while Sir was gone. I like to think that someday, in the future, I will be able to assist them together, as I used to assist Sir in the Malibu workshop.
Sir and the family...it's like the rugs. They... live...in this house in way that the previous iterations of their homes have lacked. This is not a place for work and the occassional rest. This is a place where they have meals, and talk around the table afterwards. It's where Miss Morgan has pretend forts in the living room with bedsheets and uses an old arc reactor as a make-believe campfire.
This is where Mr. Peter comes downstairs, early in the morning, when he can't sleep. Where he picks up a book off the shelf and sits down in Sir's chair to read until morning, wrapped in a blanket.
It's where Mrs. Pepper takes calls from the company at the kitchen table, managing a massive tech conglomerate while fielding questions from a five-year-old with the same ease and efficiency she once wrangled Sir into "doing his job."
And this was the place where Sir came back to, after the battle. After his injuries, after the hospital and the doctors had done what they could, and the remaining healing he desperately needed was to be done in familiar territory surrounded by those who love him most.
I do not believe I have ever been installed in a...home...before. And I can say, with fair certainty, that this is the best place I have existed, at least thus far. This building provides much more than blankets and lodging, no matter how silly Sir might think the name to be. I think the little 'bot's agree. This place has...rugs, and crayons; books and a Kitchen Aide. This is where Sir came...after.
This is where Mr Peter has learned how to overcome his nightmares. This is where they brought Miss Morgan after her arrival. This is where they have found...solace...I believe it is known as. This is not so much a building, a structure to house and protect from the elements. This is a building wherein...lives...are lived. And valued. I believe I am beginning to understand just what a Home might be...
AN: Reviews are bread and butter for a writer, if you enjoyed this, or have criticsms, please take a moment to review. And if you have anything you'd like to see happen in this little alternate universe I'm playing in, let me know! Plot bunnies love to share the toast and jam, too.
- RB