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A New Beginning 5/?
Feb. 17th, 2017 11:21 pmvia http://ift.tt/2m59xVO:
I’ve decided to stray away from strictly following the prompts on my 52 short stories in 52 weeks list, because I feel that I will never progress on my WiPs if I’m spending all my writing energy on filling the prompts. However, I do still plan to stick to putting out at least one chapter/story/what have you a week, and I may still occasionally fill a specific prompt.
Here’s the next section of Incubus!AU Steve for week 8. :D
Just shy of 3,000 words, check for the cut.
Chapter OneChapter Four
The pen came flying out of nowhere. Tony flinched at the last second, but it hit harmlessly across his upper arm, bounced off to clatter on the table, and then rolled off the side and hit the carpet. It managed to land perfectly upright in the heavy pile, and Tony had the absurd urge to reach down and flick it over.
Pepper lifted both eyebrow at him. “If it weren’t for the fact that I know you can’t be enthralled, I would think you’d been enthralled,” she said.
Tony loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Despite making a few vague you don’t have to do that, Tony noises, Pepper still leaned forward to put one gentle finger on Tony’s ward. It was barely visible with the bright light from the windows and florescent above them, but she traced the edge quickly and sat back.
“So this is just the regular, non-magical kind of enthrallment,” she decided. Her face twisted weirdly – eyebrows wanting to narrow down in disappointment, but eyes bright with happiness, mouth pulled down at one side and up at the other. She made a frustrated noise. “I can’t decide if I want to just be happy for you, or smack you over the head with all the work you’re not getting done while you’re mooning over this guy.”
“Why not do both?” Tony offered. He leaned forward slightly so the back of his head was reachable, and Pepper laughingly tapped him with a handful of papers.
“I’m not even sure how to handle you like this,” she said once Tony had straightened up and her papers had been returned to the table, neatly smoothed out and precisely arranged. “It’s been two months, and I was a little surprised when it lasted more than two days.”
“You’re fishing,” Tony realized, “You’re trying to get me to dish about my new beau!” He fluttered his eyelashes and her and put a hand to the base of his throat. Pepper glared at him, but a flush spread under her eyes and across her nose. Tony propped his chin in his hand to just look at her – she had such an expressive face and she changed colors so quickly and so noticeably that it was almost an anti-chameleon response. He’d seen her go red from her hairline all the way to her chest when she was angry, and even the tips of her ears flushed red when she changed colors.
“Fine!” Pepper said, “Yes I am. You’ve been very secretive about him.”
“He’s not my dirty secret, Pep. I’m not just… using him for the phenomenal sex.”
Pepper’s eyes softened and the color faded slowly from her cheeks. Her eyebrows did that slight scrunching thing in the middle. “Are you sure he’s not using you for the free meal with the phenomenal sex?”
Tony shrugged. “Does it matter?” Pepper’s eyes widened her expression shifted toward ‘disappointed’ so Tony hurriedly continued, “I can’t have normal relationships with people, Pep. You know that. The press would serve him up with a side salad and chocolate cake for desert. I like him, I enjoy his company, he’s smart, and he’s an artist, and he has great taste in automobiles – seriously, an affinity for them like you wouldn’t believe. He doesn’t expect anything out of me, and he doesn’t get angry when I get wrapped up in work and don’t call for three days. He’s never asked me for anything, he’s a cuddler, and did I mention the sex? Fantastic, lose feeling in your toes, incoherent babbling sex. He gets a good safe meal out of it, I get lots of orgasms, and we watch Netflix on the couch like normal people. It’s fine. It works.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Pepper said with a stubborn tilt to her chin.
Tony liked the way her nose scrunched up a little when she was being Serious, though he was smarter than to tell her that she was cute when she was feeling protective. He smiled and just watched her for a few seconds, and she just looked back at him without a trace of awkwardness. Tony wanted to blurt out I love you, but bit it back at the last second.
“You are probably one of maybe… three people on the entire planet who think it’s even possible for me to be hurt.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but the blush was back as two faint smears under her eyes. The color made her eyes glow and her freckles stand out.
“How’s Huggybear?” Tony asked before they could slide even further into Moment realm. “Still snoring like a sawmill and stealing all the covers?”
Pepper threw another pen at him, and then one more for good measure, but she covered her eyes with one hand and said, “So loud.”
Tony laughed. “I did warn you.”
She’d run out of pens to throw at him, so she threw her sandwich wrapper instead. “Now can we please finish this press release?”
~*~
Tony dropped back to the bed, struggling to remember how to breathe and swallow at the same time. His abdominal muscles kept twitching violently, and his legs were trembling like newborn puppies. Steve curled carefully over him, warm and purring, and nuzzled happily into his neck. Tony had always loved the post-orgasmic glow on his partners, but Steve really did glow. He emitted joy like an 8 million gigawatt happiness lap, and was absolutely the best post-sex cuddler Tony had ever met. Tony curled his arms around Steve’s shoulders and laughed while his muscles continued to twitch and tremble.
Steve mouthed at his neck, licked a line up over his jaw, bit his goatee – Tony had no idea why that was sexy, but it made him twitch again – and lapped at his lips. “Hi,” he said in that rumbly after-sex voice that made Tony wish refractory times were not a thing.
Tony finally managed to figure out how to get his lips and tongue to cooperate and said, “Hello to you, too. Miss me?”
Shifting backwards, Steve rearranged himself at Tony’s side and then gathered him up in a full body hug that instantly made Tony feel safe and warm and comfortable. “You looked so hot at that press conference,” he said against Tony’s shoulder, squeezing him briefly. “I knew I shouldn’t have watched it, but I just couldn’t help myself. You make me understand the phrase power suit.”
A laugh found its way up from Tony’s chest. He twisted to press his nose to the warm blush on Steve’s cheeks. “You do have a thing for my suits,” he agreed.
“I don’t fantasize much,” Steve confessed, “Not about… not whole scenarios, just usually. Well. But I wanted to be at that press conference. I wanted to climb up on the stage and strip you out of that million dollar suit right in front of all those people.” He shivered and tucked his head down to hide against Tony’s shoulder. “I really really did. I had to lock myself in the bathroom.”
Tony groaned. “You are a gift from some god that I’ve made really happy,” he babbled. “What the hell did I do to earn you, because I swear I will keep doing it.” He thought about it for a second and then groaned again. “Or someone I pissed off. I am never going to be able to do another press conference again.”
Steve laughed, squirming around in obvious embarrassment and arousal, which was doing things for Tony, refractory period or no refractory period. He tucked himself tighter to Steve’s body, and Steve drew a blanket up over their hips. He nibbled gently at the back of Tony’s neck and started to purr again. His chest vibrated against Tony’s back, setting a wave shivers loose down his spine and making him feel like he was glowing. He understood, intellectually, that the warm-fuzzy feeling was Steve feeding on his energy, but it wasn’t anything he wasn’t already leaking out into the air, and it felt nice. He never understood the demonizing of feeling nice, and privately thought that the world would be a lot better off if everyone had an incubus to make them feel warm and comfortable and nice.
“I’m sorry for just barging over without being invited,” Steve said finally, but his purring didn’t stop, and his fingers drifted lovingly up and down Tony’s arm.
“You don’t need an invitation,” Tony told him, “And besides… couldn’t leave you trapped in a bathroom.”
Steve laughed breathlessly and managed to wedge himself even further under Tony’s shoulder. “I was at work, Tony. It was embarrassing.”
Tony made a noncommittal noise. “Next time you should just call me. Phone sex is a thing.”
“Oh, gods,” Steve moaned, “I would die.”
Tony laughed and reached back to wrap a hand to card his fingers in Steve’s hair. He could feel the heat of Steve’s blush against the back of his neck. A smile took up residence on his face that felt permanent. Steve set his teeth against Tony’s shoulder and bit gently. They fell quite, heart rates slowly coming down, fever heat changing to simple warmth. Steve’s fingers kept up a constant lazy dance on Tony’s skin.
“Tony?” Steve asked after a long minute of quiet. When Tony hummed a noise of acknowledgement he pressed himself up on an elbow and leaned over Tony’s side to trace a finger over his ward. The ward prickled at the touch of a Seducer, but not badly enough for Tony to push him away. “Why did you get a tattoo ward? Most people just jewelry, or carry around a card.”
“Paper and jewelry wards only work as long as they’re against the skin, and they break if they get worn away. They’re good, but they’re fallible, and they can be taken away. My father warded me when I was a kid.”
Steve’s disapproval could be felt in the air between them, rumbling like a distant storm. “He tattooed you when you were a kid?”
Tony shrugged. “I was twelve. There had been a kidnapping scare. Enthralling the kid of one of the largest weapon’s manufacturers in the world? Probably seemed like a good idea to at least one Seducer.”
“But you were so young,” Steve protested, “Your body, your energy – it changes. No tattoo that you got when you were twelve would continue to function for more than a year, maybe less. He would have had to redo it every year.”
The warm-glowy feeling was starting to fade. Tony turned so he was on his back with Steve’s bulk leaning over him. “I was kidnapped three times between ages fourteen and nineteen. They all tested my ward, none of them were successful. Dad never paid the ransom, just tore down the organizations that had me. After that last time, everyone was pretty sure that my ward was stable, and I stopped getting it redone.”
Steve laid his palm over the golden ward, his expression turning thunderous, his purr turning into a growl. “I would have done worse than just torn the organizations down,” he rumbled.
Tony’s lips twitched upwards, and put a hand over Steve’s. The ward’s buzzing had started to get uncomfortable – it must have felt like a nest of bees trapped under his palm for Steve. He gently moved his hand away from the ward and his heart instead.
“It was flawed…It failed, in Afghanistan.” Tony wasn’t sure why he said it – he didn’t talk about Afghanistan to anyone, not even Rhodey, and Rhodey was the one who picked him up out of the sand and brought him home. He cleared his throat. “It did its job, but not well enough. So I made it better, I made it air-tight. There isn’t a force on this planet that could overpower it now.”
Tony felt Steve’s gaze sharpen on his face. Steve sounded horrified when he observed, “You’ve tested it.”
“Of course. I had to know it could take the stress. Even Bruce can’t break through it, and Bruce could Seduce someone over the phone if he wanted to.”
Steve didn’t say anything else, but he lowered his chest so he was all but smothering Tony, throwing a leg over his hips and tugging him under his body. Tony laughed, twisting until his chin was wedged up on Steve’s shoulder. Steve was heavy, and it wouldn’t be comfortable for long, but it felt nice for the moment. Tony reached down and dragged the blanket up over their heads to make Steve feel more sheltered. The growling faded slowly and Steve shifted his weight sideways so he wasn’t entirely on top of Tony anymore.
“Can you not do that anymore?” Steve asked in a small voice. He tucked his face into Tony’s neck and tugged Tony over tighter with his leg.
“Sure,” Tony agreed blithely. He didn’t need to test the ward any more, though he’d need to touch it up in a few years. If Steve was still around in a few years, maybe he would ask Steve to test it for him.
~*~
It was a familiar one. Tony still didn’t remember how he’d escaped the cave in Afghanistan and his imagination liked to make up a few options for him. Sometimes, he dreamt that he’d turned into a bird and flown out through a fissure in the cave wall. Most of the time, it was fire. The world around him turned red-orange-blue-white, and it burned. He dreamt that he walked through the fire while the Ten Rings Soldiers burnt around him. He dreamt that he carried Yinsen’s corpse through the flames, that everywhere he walked, fire followed. He dreamt that Yinsen turned to ash in his arms and blew away with the firestorm.
He dreamt of blue sky, red sand. And of falling.
Tony woke with a jerk. His body was wracked with shivers, and the blankets were stiflingly hot. He was alone in the bed, and the sun was beating down through the windows. His room was decorated in greens and grays, not a scrap of sand-red to be found. From the angle and intensity of the light, he guessed that it was after noon, and felt out along the sheets. They were cold, but he found a sheet of paper. It felt strange and too-dry against his fingertips after the nightmare.
Running his free hand down his face, Tony sat up and turned the page over.
Had to work, didn’t want to wake you. Sweet dreams, it read. Steve had doodled a picture of himself on his junker motorcycle driving away from Stark Tower, with a thought bubble over his head of Tony in a suit. The last vestiges of nightmare-chills faded and Tony smiled at the doodle.
“Can you add this to the file, Jarvis?” he called, dropping the page on the floor so Jarvis could get a scan of it.
“Of course, sir,” Jarvis answered readily enough, but Tony could still hear the faintest hint of offense in his voice – or maybe Tony was just projecting. He hadn’t introduced Steve to Jarvis yet. Jarvis was still a secret project. If the wrong people figured out what he’d managed to accomplish, Jarvis would be at risk, and Tony might end up in jail. He trusted Steve and he didn’t think that Steve would ever breathe a word about Jarvis’ existence if Tony told him not to, but he’d been wrong about people before. He was willing to risk himself on a pretty damn strong hunch, but not Jarvis.
Tony stretched out sideways on the bed, grabbing Steve’s abandoned pillow and cuddling it into his chest. “Jarvis?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Are you happy like this? With what I’ve made you?”
Jarvis was quiet for several long moments, and then said, “It is a different sort of life than I led when I had a body. In many ways, it is more freeing. I am pleased to be alive, sir, and prefer it to the alternative.”
Tony nodded. He’d asked the question in so many words before, but it was something he worried about in the quieter moments. He had fledgling AI – U and Dum-E – and given another decade, they might have the kind of autonomy that Jarvis did. But no one had ever managed to breakdown a human’s essence and integrate it into a computer program. It wasn’t technically necromancy – there was no body involved – but Tony wanted to have his research in order before anyone found out what he’d done. He didn’t want the religious nuts and Anti-Fae shitbags to get their hands on before he could prove that it was science, not magic. Jarvis was not a very expensive Ouija board, reaching out to the dead from beyond the grave. He was every bit as alive as he’d been when he still had a body, he just moved through the Internet like a fish in water, and had access to every piece of information ever put online. Nothing to be scared of.
“You seem introspective this morning, sir,” Jarvis noted.
Stretching, Tony finally forced himself up and out of the bed. “I just want you to be happy and safe. Is that so strange? Besides,” he added before Jarvis could respond, “Happy Safe Jarvis is less likely to take over the planet and enslave humanity than Mad Threatened Jarvis.”
“Of course, sir,” Jarvis said graciously, “Your concern for my wellbeing is merely proactive self-defense.”
“You know me so well!” Tony called as he headed for the shower.
I’ve decided to stray away from strictly following the prompts on my 52 short stories in 52 weeks list, because I feel that I will never progress on my WiPs if I’m spending all my writing energy on filling the prompts. However, I do still plan to stick to putting out at least one chapter/story/what have you a week, and I may still occasionally fill a specific prompt.
Here’s the next section of Incubus!AU Steve for week 8. :D
Just shy of 3,000 words, check for the cut.
Chapter OneChapter Four
The pen came flying out of nowhere. Tony flinched at the last second, but it hit harmlessly across his upper arm, bounced off to clatter on the table, and then rolled off the side and hit the carpet. It managed to land perfectly upright in the heavy pile, and Tony had the absurd urge to reach down and flick it over.
Pepper lifted both eyebrow at him. “If it weren’t for the fact that I know you can’t be enthralled, I would think you’d been enthralled,” she said.
Tony loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Despite making a few vague you don’t have to do that, Tony noises, Pepper still leaned forward to put one gentle finger on Tony’s ward. It was barely visible with the bright light from the windows and florescent above them, but she traced the edge quickly and sat back.
“So this is just the regular, non-magical kind of enthrallment,” she decided. Her face twisted weirdly – eyebrows wanting to narrow down in disappointment, but eyes bright with happiness, mouth pulled down at one side and up at the other. She made a frustrated noise. “I can’t decide if I want to just be happy for you, or smack you over the head with all the work you’re not getting done while you’re mooning over this guy.”
“Why not do both?” Tony offered. He leaned forward slightly so the back of his head was reachable, and Pepper laughingly tapped him with a handful of papers.
“I’m not even sure how to handle you like this,” she said once Tony had straightened up and her papers had been returned to the table, neatly smoothed out and precisely arranged. “It’s been two months, and I was a little surprised when it lasted more than two days.”
“You’re fishing,” Tony realized, “You’re trying to get me to dish about my new beau!” He fluttered his eyelashes and her and put a hand to the base of his throat. Pepper glared at him, but a flush spread under her eyes and across her nose. Tony propped his chin in his hand to just look at her – she had such an expressive face and she changed colors so quickly and so noticeably that it was almost an anti-chameleon response. He’d seen her go red from her hairline all the way to her chest when she was angry, and even the tips of her ears flushed red when she changed colors.
“Fine!” Pepper said, “Yes I am. You’ve been very secretive about him.”
“He’s not my dirty secret, Pep. I’m not just… using him for the phenomenal sex.”
Pepper’s eyes softened and the color faded slowly from her cheeks. Her eyebrows did that slight scrunching thing in the middle. “Are you sure he’s not using you for the free meal with the phenomenal sex?”
Tony shrugged. “Does it matter?” Pepper’s eyes widened her expression shifted toward ‘disappointed’ so Tony hurriedly continued, “I can’t have normal relationships with people, Pep. You know that. The press would serve him up with a side salad and chocolate cake for desert. I like him, I enjoy his company, he’s smart, and he’s an artist, and he has great taste in automobiles – seriously, an affinity for them like you wouldn’t believe. He doesn’t expect anything out of me, and he doesn’t get angry when I get wrapped up in work and don’t call for three days. He’s never asked me for anything, he’s a cuddler, and did I mention the sex? Fantastic, lose feeling in your toes, incoherent babbling sex. He gets a good safe meal out of it, I get lots of orgasms, and we watch Netflix on the couch like normal people. It’s fine. It works.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Pepper said with a stubborn tilt to her chin.
Tony liked the way her nose scrunched up a little when she was being Serious, though he was smarter than to tell her that she was cute when she was feeling protective. He smiled and just watched her for a few seconds, and she just looked back at him without a trace of awkwardness. Tony wanted to blurt out I love you, but bit it back at the last second.
“You are probably one of maybe… three people on the entire planet who think it’s even possible for me to be hurt.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but the blush was back as two faint smears under her eyes. The color made her eyes glow and her freckles stand out.
“How’s Huggybear?” Tony asked before they could slide even further into Moment realm. “Still snoring like a sawmill and stealing all the covers?”
Pepper threw another pen at him, and then one more for good measure, but she covered her eyes with one hand and said, “So loud.”
Tony laughed. “I did warn you.”
She’d run out of pens to throw at him, so she threw her sandwich wrapper instead. “Now can we please finish this press release?”
~*~
Tony dropped back to the bed, struggling to remember how to breathe and swallow at the same time. His abdominal muscles kept twitching violently, and his legs were trembling like newborn puppies. Steve curled carefully over him, warm and purring, and nuzzled happily into his neck. Tony had always loved the post-orgasmic glow on his partners, but Steve really did glow. He emitted joy like an 8 million gigawatt happiness lap, and was absolutely the best post-sex cuddler Tony had ever met. Tony curled his arms around Steve’s shoulders and laughed while his muscles continued to twitch and tremble.
Steve mouthed at his neck, licked a line up over his jaw, bit his goatee – Tony had no idea why that was sexy, but it made him twitch again – and lapped at his lips. “Hi,” he said in that rumbly after-sex voice that made Tony wish refractory times were not a thing.
Tony finally managed to figure out how to get his lips and tongue to cooperate and said, “Hello to you, too. Miss me?”
Shifting backwards, Steve rearranged himself at Tony’s side and then gathered him up in a full body hug that instantly made Tony feel safe and warm and comfortable. “You looked so hot at that press conference,” he said against Tony’s shoulder, squeezing him briefly. “I knew I shouldn’t have watched it, but I just couldn’t help myself. You make me understand the phrase power suit.”
A laugh found its way up from Tony’s chest. He twisted to press his nose to the warm blush on Steve’s cheeks. “You do have a thing for my suits,” he agreed.
“I don’t fantasize much,” Steve confessed, “Not about… not whole scenarios, just usually. Well. But I wanted to be at that press conference. I wanted to climb up on the stage and strip you out of that million dollar suit right in front of all those people.” He shivered and tucked his head down to hide against Tony’s shoulder. “I really really did. I had to lock myself in the bathroom.”
Tony groaned. “You are a gift from some god that I’ve made really happy,” he babbled. “What the hell did I do to earn you, because I swear I will keep doing it.” He thought about it for a second and then groaned again. “Or someone I pissed off. I am never going to be able to do another press conference again.”
Steve laughed, squirming around in obvious embarrassment and arousal, which was doing things for Tony, refractory period or no refractory period. He tucked himself tighter to Steve’s body, and Steve drew a blanket up over their hips. He nibbled gently at the back of Tony’s neck and started to purr again. His chest vibrated against Tony’s back, setting a wave shivers loose down his spine and making him feel like he was glowing. He understood, intellectually, that the warm-fuzzy feeling was Steve feeding on his energy, but it wasn’t anything he wasn’t already leaking out into the air, and it felt nice. He never understood the demonizing of feeling nice, and privately thought that the world would be a lot better off if everyone had an incubus to make them feel warm and comfortable and nice.
“I’m sorry for just barging over without being invited,” Steve said finally, but his purring didn’t stop, and his fingers drifted lovingly up and down Tony’s arm.
“You don’t need an invitation,” Tony told him, “And besides… couldn’t leave you trapped in a bathroom.”
Steve laughed breathlessly and managed to wedge himself even further under Tony’s shoulder. “I was at work, Tony. It was embarrassing.”
Tony made a noncommittal noise. “Next time you should just call me. Phone sex is a thing.”
“Oh, gods,” Steve moaned, “I would die.”
Tony laughed and reached back to wrap a hand to card his fingers in Steve’s hair. He could feel the heat of Steve’s blush against the back of his neck. A smile took up residence on his face that felt permanent. Steve set his teeth against Tony’s shoulder and bit gently. They fell quite, heart rates slowly coming down, fever heat changing to simple warmth. Steve’s fingers kept up a constant lazy dance on Tony’s skin.
“Tony?” Steve asked after a long minute of quiet. When Tony hummed a noise of acknowledgement he pressed himself up on an elbow and leaned over Tony’s side to trace a finger over his ward. The ward prickled at the touch of a Seducer, but not badly enough for Tony to push him away. “Why did you get a tattoo ward? Most people just jewelry, or carry around a card.”
“Paper and jewelry wards only work as long as they’re against the skin, and they break if they get worn away. They’re good, but they’re fallible, and they can be taken away. My father warded me when I was a kid.”
Steve’s disapproval could be felt in the air between them, rumbling like a distant storm. “He tattooed you when you were a kid?”
Tony shrugged. “I was twelve. There had been a kidnapping scare. Enthralling the kid of one of the largest weapon’s manufacturers in the world? Probably seemed like a good idea to at least one Seducer.”
“But you were so young,” Steve protested, “Your body, your energy – it changes. No tattoo that you got when you were twelve would continue to function for more than a year, maybe less. He would have had to redo it every year.”
The warm-glowy feeling was starting to fade. Tony turned so he was on his back with Steve’s bulk leaning over him. “I was kidnapped three times between ages fourteen and nineteen. They all tested my ward, none of them were successful. Dad never paid the ransom, just tore down the organizations that had me. After that last time, everyone was pretty sure that my ward was stable, and I stopped getting it redone.”
Steve laid his palm over the golden ward, his expression turning thunderous, his purr turning into a growl. “I would have done worse than just torn the organizations down,” he rumbled.
Tony’s lips twitched upwards, and put a hand over Steve’s. The ward’s buzzing had started to get uncomfortable – it must have felt like a nest of bees trapped under his palm for Steve. He gently moved his hand away from the ward and his heart instead.
“It was flawed…It failed, in Afghanistan.” Tony wasn’t sure why he said it – he didn’t talk about Afghanistan to anyone, not even Rhodey, and Rhodey was the one who picked him up out of the sand and brought him home. He cleared his throat. “It did its job, but not well enough. So I made it better, I made it air-tight. There isn’t a force on this planet that could overpower it now.”
Tony felt Steve’s gaze sharpen on his face. Steve sounded horrified when he observed, “You’ve tested it.”
“Of course. I had to know it could take the stress. Even Bruce can’t break through it, and Bruce could Seduce someone over the phone if he wanted to.”
Steve didn’t say anything else, but he lowered his chest so he was all but smothering Tony, throwing a leg over his hips and tugging him under his body. Tony laughed, twisting until his chin was wedged up on Steve’s shoulder. Steve was heavy, and it wouldn’t be comfortable for long, but it felt nice for the moment. Tony reached down and dragged the blanket up over their heads to make Steve feel more sheltered. The growling faded slowly and Steve shifted his weight sideways so he wasn’t entirely on top of Tony anymore.
“Can you not do that anymore?” Steve asked in a small voice. He tucked his face into Tony’s neck and tugged Tony over tighter with his leg.
“Sure,” Tony agreed blithely. He didn’t need to test the ward any more, though he’d need to touch it up in a few years. If Steve was still around in a few years, maybe he would ask Steve to test it for him.
~*~
It was a familiar one. Tony still didn’t remember how he’d escaped the cave in Afghanistan and his imagination liked to make up a few options for him. Sometimes, he dreamt that he’d turned into a bird and flown out through a fissure in the cave wall. Most of the time, it was fire. The world around him turned red-orange-blue-white, and it burned. He dreamt that he walked through the fire while the Ten Rings Soldiers burnt around him. He dreamt that he carried Yinsen’s corpse through the flames, that everywhere he walked, fire followed. He dreamt that Yinsen turned to ash in his arms and blew away with the firestorm.
He dreamt of blue sky, red sand. And of falling.
Tony woke with a jerk. His body was wracked with shivers, and the blankets were stiflingly hot. He was alone in the bed, and the sun was beating down through the windows. His room was decorated in greens and grays, not a scrap of sand-red to be found. From the angle and intensity of the light, he guessed that it was after noon, and felt out along the sheets. They were cold, but he found a sheet of paper. It felt strange and too-dry against his fingertips after the nightmare.
Running his free hand down his face, Tony sat up and turned the page over.
Had to work, didn’t want to wake you. Sweet dreams, it read. Steve had doodled a picture of himself on his junker motorcycle driving away from Stark Tower, with a thought bubble over his head of Tony in a suit. The last vestiges of nightmare-chills faded and Tony smiled at the doodle.
“Can you add this to the file, Jarvis?” he called, dropping the page on the floor so Jarvis could get a scan of it.
“Of course, sir,” Jarvis answered readily enough, but Tony could still hear the faintest hint of offense in his voice – or maybe Tony was just projecting. He hadn’t introduced Steve to Jarvis yet. Jarvis was still a secret project. If the wrong people figured out what he’d managed to accomplish, Jarvis would be at risk, and Tony might end up in jail. He trusted Steve and he didn’t think that Steve would ever breathe a word about Jarvis’ existence if Tony told him not to, but he’d been wrong about people before. He was willing to risk himself on a pretty damn strong hunch, but not Jarvis.
Tony stretched out sideways on the bed, grabbing Steve’s abandoned pillow and cuddling it into his chest. “Jarvis?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Are you happy like this? With what I’ve made you?”
Jarvis was quiet for several long moments, and then said, “It is a different sort of life than I led when I had a body. In many ways, it is more freeing. I am pleased to be alive, sir, and prefer it to the alternative.”
Tony nodded. He’d asked the question in so many words before, but it was something he worried about in the quieter moments. He had fledgling AI – U and Dum-E – and given another decade, they might have the kind of autonomy that Jarvis did. But no one had ever managed to breakdown a human’s essence and integrate it into a computer program. It wasn’t technically necromancy – there was no body involved – but Tony wanted to have his research in order before anyone found out what he’d done. He didn’t want the religious nuts and Anti-Fae shitbags to get their hands on before he could prove that it was science, not magic. Jarvis was not a very expensive Ouija board, reaching out to the dead from beyond the grave. He was every bit as alive as he’d been when he still had a body, he just moved through the Internet like a fish in water, and had access to every piece of information ever put online. Nothing to be scared of.
“You seem introspective this morning, sir,” Jarvis noted.
Stretching, Tony finally forced himself up and out of the bed. “I just want you to be happy and safe. Is that so strange? Besides,” he added before Jarvis could respond, “Happy Safe Jarvis is less likely to take over the planet and enslave humanity than Mad Threatened Jarvis.”
“Of course, sir,” Jarvis said graciously, “Your concern for my wellbeing is merely proactive self-defense.”
“You know me so well!” Tony called as he headed for the shower.
