daylight_darknight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
daylight_darknight) wrote2015-04-30 09:16 pm
daylight_darknight) wrote2015-04-30 09:16 pm
Entry tags:
[Avengers Fic] Just A Rather Very Intelligent System: Chapter 5/6
No way am I getting the next chapter up tomorrow but at least I got the first five up before the new movie premiered.
Title: Just A Rather Very Intelligent System
Characters: Tony, Jarvis, Thor, Steve, Bruce, Clint, Natasha
Rating/Warnings: PG
Genre: Action, Angst, Humour, Family
Word Count: 2182 (this chapter)
Spoilers: The Iron Man movies and the first Avengers movie
Summary: Five times Jarvis took control of the Iron Man armour without the other Avengers finding out and one time they did.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
It was just a cave, a plain, ordinary cave, a path in the rock probably carved by some ancient underground river several millennia ago. It certainly wasn't The Cave. It was nothing like The Cave. It was made out of a completely different type of rock and much too damp. Moss was even growing up one side of the entrance. This wasn't the desert. This was a nice temperate climate with lots of trees. No miles of sand. No burning hot days and freezing cold nights. Nothing like Afghanistan. This was a completely different cave.
And yet...
Tony stared at the dark entrance in the mountain side.
“Stark,” Natasha called out breaking him from his thoughts. “Are we heading in or not?”
“Huh?” said Tony turning to look at her.
Agent Romanov raised an enquiring eyebrow at him. She was wearing her usual black, skin-tight suit and had a large assault rifle slung over her right shoulder, one of undoubtedly many weapons currently on her person.
Tony cleared his throat. “Yeah, of course,” he said.
“It sure doesn't look like we're heading in,” she said, the corner of her mouth twisting upward in a teasing smile.
Tony scowled back not that she'd be able to see it under his helmet. “I just think this is going to be a huge waste of our time.”
“According to Thor this is exactly the sort of place this creature likes to hang out.”
“According to Thor the creature we're looking for is a freaking troll, an actual, live, straight-from-a-storybook troll. We should be looking under bridges and possibly investing in some goats to use as bait.”
Natasha snorted. “And how is a troll any weirder than any of the other things we've fought recently?”
“Good point.”
Tony gazed at the cave once more. Everything was fine, he told himself. He could do this. No problem. It would be a walk in the park, a very dark, rocky, enclosed park.
He suppressed a shiver.
“Alright,” he said taking a deep breath. “Let's go.”
He started heading forward, armour joints creaking as he walked. The cave mouth loomed ominously ahead of him slowly growing bigger. When he was only a couple steps from the entrance, he stopped again.
“On second thoughts,” he said, “why don't we just stay here and I'll have Jarvis run a thermal imaging scan of the cave. Save us a bunch of time and effort.”
Natasha frowned. “Will Jarvis' sensors penetrate all the way through the rock? It's a pretty big cave.”
“Of course, they will,” Tony said with confident enthusiasm.
“Actually, sir,” said Jarvis speaking over the com-link so both of them could hear. “The composition of the mountain does effectively insulate against infrared emissions. Thermal imaging would be ineffective.”
“Traitor,” Tony grumbled under his breath.
Natasha adjusted the rifle hanging from her shoulder and gave him a look.
“What?” Tony demanded disliking the intense stare. He shifted uncomfortably, the armour giving another metallic creak.
“You know you could stay out here if you want,” she said. “Shouldn't take me too long to check out the cave.”
Tony crossed his armoured arms across his chest. “What exactly are you implying?”
“I'm not implying anything,” she replied shaking her head, the same inscrutable look on her face.
“Good,” Tony snapped at her. “Because you're an idiot if you think you're going in there alone. Cap would kill me if I went and let you get eaten by a damn troll.”
“Great,” said Natasha. “Then let's go.”
“Fine,” said Tony peevishly.
Together they headed into the cave.
“You know you should really patent that stare of yours. It would make a very effective lethal weapon. You could call it the Black Widow Death Glare.”
“Shut up, Stark.”
It was unsurprisingly dark in the cave, dark and rocky, and not much else. The reactor on Tony's chest illuminated the way ahead showing rough gray walls and a stone strewn floor.
“This is cozy,” Tony said as they gazed around.
There was no sign of the troll so they continued on going deeper into the cave. The entrance had been about as tall as an average doorway and three times as wide but inside the shape of the cave constantly changed. Sometimes the ceiling became so low they had to stoop to avoid bumping their heads. Sometimes it was big enough to fly the Qunijet through. The path the cave led them down twisted in various directions and soon the way they'd entered was hidden from view leaving not even the tiniest ray of sunlight visible.
Tony really wished he'd brought a better light source. The arc reactor left dark shadows in every corner. Natasha, of course, seemed quite at home as she strode through them. Tony was nowhere near as comfortable.
After a few minutes treading carefully through the darkness, his foot hit something that clinked loudly as it rolled across the ground. He almost jumped out of his suit. Recovering, thankfully before Natasha noticed, he bent down to pick the object up and turned it over in the light.
It was a beer bottle.
“Well, if the troll is here,” he said as he examined the label, “he's got a lousy taste in beer.”
Natasha just sent him one of her unpatented death glares and held a finger to her lips.
Tony opened his mouth to say something else but then thought better of it.
They continued along passing jagged rock wall after jagged rock wall. Geology wasn't one of Tony's strong suits. If he wanted, he could have had Jarvis identify what kind of rock the walls were made of, but he had no clue. To him, all rock looked the same, and they all reminded him of...
He shook his head, tried to think of something else. Restless, he tapped his fingers against his thigh, metal clunking against metal, but stopped when Natasha glared at him again. He didn't understand why she was being such a fuss about noise. It wasn't like the Iron Man armour was that quiet in the first place. Anyone could probably hear the heavy steps he made from one end of the cave to the other. He really needed to make a stealth armour. He tried designing one in his head but found it hard to concentrate.
The cave seemed to go on forever.
He shivered.
“Hey, Jarvis,” he said, making sure both the com and the armour's speakers were off so Natasha didn't glare at him again. “Could you up the suit temperature a bit. It's getting a bit nippy in here.”
“My gauges indicate that the temperature has not changed significantly since entering the cave,” Jarvis replied.
“Well, up the temperature anyway.”
“As you wish.”
People tended to assume Afghanistan was always hot. They saw pictures of desert and thought heat wave, but it could get fucking cold there too. The Cave would become freezing at night if they didn't keep the fires going, if he and Yinsen...
He pushed the memories away again but it was harder this time. Troll, he reminded himself, remember you're supposed to be looking for a troll. He focused on his surroundings once more. The last thing he needed was to get killed by a damn fairy tale creature because he was distracted.
They came to another low part of the ceiling. Natasha ducked underneath and he followed behind her. As he did so, he suddenly felt it, the whole weight of the mountain, thousands of tons of rock bearing down on him.
Sweat prickled against Tony's forehead.
This was stupid. He wasn't claustrophobic. At least, he'd never been claustrophobic before.
“Detecting increased respiratory and heart rate,” said Jarvis. “Are you alright, sir?”
“I'm fine,” Tony replied breathlessly. “I'm fine. I'm fine.”
He tried to focus on Natasha ahead of him but she disappeared merging with the shadows. He took a deep breath trying to rid himself of the jittery feeling that was consuming him but it didn't help.
Was that dust in the air? The armour was supposed to filter out pretty much everything but he was sure he could smell dust. Or was it sand? Sand and stone, and metal, and fire, and...
His heart already going at a fair pace began to race and his breathing became ragged. The world shifted around him. Gray rock walls became sandy brown. Florescent lights flickered in the corner of his eye. The sound of foreign voices drifted in from the distance.
And then suddenly they were there grabbing him and yelling in his ear. Angry faces pushed into his. They shook him, shook him so violently he thought he could feel his brain knocking back and forth against his skull. When that didn't get them what they wanted, the bag was shoved over his head again and they began dragging him through the cave. All he could see was moving shadows and pinpoints of light as he was pulled along. Eventually, they made it to their destination and they forced him to his knees.
It was going to start up again. He knew it. The cold water stealing the air from his lungs. When would it end? Hadn't he agreed to do what they wanted already? It was hard to think, hard to breathe.
Fingers dug painfully into his arms as they held him down. The voices grew louder screaming at him in words he couldn't understand. He could feel the fresh, raw ache in his chest, feel the solid weight of a car battery in his arms. There was a bitter taste of metal on his tongue, and he could smell... trees, cedar trees.
Slowly, he became aware of another voice speaking, a familiar voice repeating a calm litany.
“...is 63.7 degrees Fahrenheit. It is Wednesday, May 7th. You are on Mount Lago in Washington State. The current temperature is 63.7 degrees Fahrenheit. It is Wednesday...”
“Jarvis?” Tony said uncertainly.
The litany stopped. “Sir?”
“What...?”
The sun was shinning in his eyes. He blinked squinting at the brightness as it slowly sank in that he was no longer in The Cave. He was, in fact, standing on the side of a mountain. He was wearing his armour but the faceplate was up giving him an unobstructed view of cedar covered slopes and snow capped mountain peaks. He took a deep breath and smelt fresh fragrant air.
“How...?” The residue of panic was still with him and every nerve felt as if it had been fried by a few thousand volts. He swallowed and tried again. “Wasn't I just...?”
He'd been in Afghanistan, in The Cave. No, that wasn't right. He shook his head. He'd been in a cave, but a cave here, in Washington. He turned and looked behind him. There was the cave entrance and there was Natasha jogging out of it, an angry look on her face.
“I know you don't like caves,” she said as she jogged up to him, “but next time warn me when you're planning to take off.”
“Um... right,” he said still feeling somewhat disoriented.
She gazed at him with that penetrating stare once more.
“So, no troll?” he said mostly in hopes that she would stop looking at him like that.
“No, troll,” she repeated. “If there had been, it would have probably attacked the moment we stepped inside what with all the noise you were making.” For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something else but seemed to change her mind. “We should meet up with the others,” she said instead. “Maybe they had better luck.”
“Or maybe this whole troll hunt is just a big mother goose chase,” Tony replied unable to keep the somewhat manic tone from his voice. “I mean what's next? Evil leprechauns? Villainous fairies? The Loch Ness Monster? Next thing you know we'll be heading to the North Pole to rescue Santa Clause. You know he never did get me the life-sized spaceship I asked for when I was six.” He was babbling. He knew he was babbling but he couldn't seem to stop himself.
Natsaha sighed. “Shut up, Stark,” she said with something that might have actually been fondness.
The agent wrapped an arm around his side. Letting his faceplate close once more, Tony did the same with her ensuring she was secure before firing his repulsors and soaring off into the mountains.
Making sure the com was off, Tony addressed the A.I. as they flew. “Jarvis? What exactly happened?”
“You were unresponsive, sir, and since your heartbeat and breathing had greatly increased, I thought it prudent to remove you from your current surroundings,” Jarvis replied.
“Huh,” said Tony. The dark memories lingered still but they were fading out there in the open air. “Good call.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And Jarvis.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let's not go into any more caves anytime soon.”
“I will do my best to remind you of that, sir.”
A grin spread across Tony's tired features. “What would I do without you, J?”
“I believe that is something best not thought about,” replied the A.I.
Chapter 6
Title: Just A Rather Very Intelligent System
Characters: Tony, Jarvis, Thor, Steve, Bruce, Clint, Natasha
Rating/Warnings: PG
Genre: Action, Angst, Humour, Family
Word Count: 2182 (this chapter)
Spoilers: The Iron Man movies and the first Avengers movie
Summary: Five times Jarvis took control of the Iron Man armour without the other Avengers finding out and one time they did.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
It was just a cave, a plain, ordinary cave, a path in the rock probably carved by some ancient underground river several millennia ago. It certainly wasn't The Cave. It was nothing like The Cave. It was made out of a completely different type of rock and much too damp. Moss was even growing up one side of the entrance. This wasn't the desert. This was a nice temperate climate with lots of trees. No miles of sand. No burning hot days and freezing cold nights. Nothing like Afghanistan. This was a completely different cave.
And yet...
Tony stared at the dark entrance in the mountain side.
“Stark,” Natasha called out breaking him from his thoughts. “Are we heading in or not?”
“Huh?” said Tony turning to look at her.
Agent Romanov raised an enquiring eyebrow at him. She was wearing her usual black, skin-tight suit and had a large assault rifle slung over her right shoulder, one of undoubtedly many weapons currently on her person.
Tony cleared his throat. “Yeah, of course,” he said.
“It sure doesn't look like we're heading in,” she said, the corner of her mouth twisting upward in a teasing smile.
Tony scowled back not that she'd be able to see it under his helmet. “I just think this is going to be a huge waste of our time.”
“According to Thor this is exactly the sort of place this creature likes to hang out.”
“According to Thor the creature we're looking for is a freaking troll, an actual, live, straight-from-a-storybook troll. We should be looking under bridges and possibly investing in some goats to use as bait.”
Natasha snorted. “And how is a troll any weirder than any of the other things we've fought recently?”
“Good point.”
Tony gazed at the cave once more. Everything was fine, he told himself. He could do this. No problem. It would be a walk in the park, a very dark, rocky, enclosed park.
He suppressed a shiver.
“Alright,” he said taking a deep breath. “Let's go.”
He started heading forward, armour joints creaking as he walked. The cave mouth loomed ominously ahead of him slowly growing bigger. When he was only a couple steps from the entrance, he stopped again.
“On second thoughts,” he said, “why don't we just stay here and I'll have Jarvis run a thermal imaging scan of the cave. Save us a bunch of time and effort.”
Natasha frowned. “Will Jarvis' sensors penetrate all the way through the rock? It's a pretty big cave.”
“Of course, they will,” Tony said with confident enthusiasm.
“Actually, sir,” said Jarvis speaking over the com-link so both of them could hear. “The composition of the mountain does effectively insulate against infrared emissions. Thermal imaging would be ineffective.”
“Traitor,” Tony grumbled under his breath.
Natasha adjusted the rifle hanging from her shoulder and gave him a look.
“What?” Tony demanded disliking the intense stare. He shifted uncomfortably, the armour giving another metallic creak.
“You know you could stay out here if you want,” she said. “Shouldn't take me too long to check out the cave.”
Tony crossed his armoured arms across his chest. “What exactly are you implying?”
“I'm not implying anything,” she replied shaking her head, the same inscrutable look on her face.
“Good,” Tony snapped at her. “Because you're an idiot if you think you're going in there alone. Cap would kill me if I went and let you get eaten by a damn troll.”
“Great,” said Natasha. “Then let's go.”
“Fine,” said Tony peevishly.
Together they headed into the cave.
“You know you should really patent that stare of yours. It would make a very effective lethal weapon. You could call it the Black Widow Death Glare.”
“Shut up, Stark.”
It was unsurprisingly dark in the cave, dark and rocky, and not much else. The reactor on Tony's chest illuminated the way ahead showing rough gray walls and a stone strewn floor.
“This is cozy,” Tony said as they gazed around.
There was no sign of the troll so they continued on going deeper into the cave. The entrance had been about as tall as an average doorway and three times as wide but inside the shape of the cave constantly changed. Sometimes the ceiling became so low they had to stoop to avoid bumping their heads. Sometimes it was big enough to fly the Qunijet through. The path the cave led them down twisted in various directions and soon the way they'd entered was hidden from view leaving not even the tiniest ray of sunlight visible.
Tony really wished he'd brought a better light source. The arc reactor left dark shadows in every corner. Natasha, of course, seemed quite at home as she strode through them. Tony was nowhere near as comfortable.
After a few minutes treading carefully through the darkness, his foot hit something that clinked loudly as it rolled across the ground. He almost jumped out of his suit. Recovering, thankfully before Natasha noticed, he bent down to pick the object up and turned it over in the light.
It was a beer bottle.
“Well, if the troll is here,” he said as he examined the label, “he's got a lousy taste in beer.”
Natasha just sent him one of her unpatented death glares and held a finger to her lips.
Tony opened his mouth to say something else but then thought better of it.
They continued along passing jagged rock wall after jagged rock wall. Geology wasn't one of Tony's strong suits. If he wanted, he could have had Jarvis identify what kind of rock the walls were made of, but he had no clue. To him, all rock looked the same, and they all reminded him of...
He shook his head, tried to think of something else. Restless, he tapped his fingers against his thigh, metal clunking against metal, but stopped when Natasha glared at him again. He didn't understand why she was being such a fuss about noise. It wasn't like the Iron Man armour was that quiet in the first place. Anyone could probably hear the heavy steps he made from one end of the cave to the other. He really needed to make a stealth armour. He tried designing one in his head but found it hard to concentrate.
The cave seemed to go on forever.
He shivered.
“Hey, Jarvis,” he said, making sure both the com and the armour's speakers were off so Natasha didn't glare at him again. “Could you up the suit temperature a bit. It's getting a bit nippy in here.”
“My gauges indicate that the temperature has not changed significantly since entering the cave,” Jarvis replied.
“Well, up the temperature anyway.”
“As you wish.”
People tended to assume Afghanistan was always hot. They saw pictures of desert and thought heat wave, but it could get fucking cold there too. The Cave would become freezing at night if they didn't keep the fires going, if he and Yinsen...
He pushed the memories away again but it was harder this time. Troll, he reminded himself, remember you're supposed to be looking for a troll. He focused on his surroundings once more. The last thing he needed was to get killed by a damn fairy tale creature because he was distracted.
They came to another low part of the ceiling. Natasha ducked underneath and he followed behind her. As he did so, he suddenly felt it, the whole weight of the mountain, thousands of tons of rock bearing down on him.
Sweat prickled against Tony's forehead.
This was stupid. He wasn't claustrophobic. At least, he'd never been claustrophobic before.
“Detecting increased respiratory and heart rate,” said Jarvis. “Are you alright, sir?”
“I'm fine,” Tony replied breathlessly. “I'm fine. I'm fine.”
He tried to focus on Natasha ahead of him but she disappeared merging with the shadows. He took a deep breath trying to rid himself of the jittery feeling that was consuming him but it didn't help.
Was that dust in the air? The armour was supposed to filter out pretty much everything but he was sure he could smell dust. Or was it sand? Sand and stone, and metal, and fire, and...
His heart already going at a fair pace began to race and his breathing became ragged. The world shifted around him. Gray rock walls became sandy brown. Florescent lights flickered in the corner of his eye. The sound of foreign voices drifted in from the distance.
And then suddenly they were there grabbing him and yelling in his ear. Angry faces pushed into his. They shook him, shook him so violently he thought he could feel his brain knocking back and forth against his skull. When that didn't get them what they wanted, the bag was shoved over his head again and they began dragging him through the cave. All he could see was moving shadows and pinpoints of light as he was pulled along. Eventually, they made it to their destination and they forced him to his knees.
It was going to start up again. He knew it. The cold water stealing the air from his lungs. When would it end? Hadn't he agreed to do what they wanted already? It was hard to think, hard to breathe.
Fingers dug painfully into his arms as they held him down. The voices grew louder screaming at him in words he couldn't understand. He could feel the fresh, raw ache in his chest, feel the solid weight of a car battery in his arms. There was a bitter taste of metal on his tongue, and he could smell... trees, cedar trees.
Slowly, he became aware of another voice speaking, a familiar voice repeating a calm litany.
“...is 63.7 degrees Fahrenheit. It is Wednesday, May 7th. You are on Mount Lago in Washington State. The current temperature is 63.7 degrees Fahrenheit. It is Wednesday...”
“Jarvis?” Tony said uncertainly.
The litany stopped. “Sir?”
“What...?”
The sun was shinning in his eyes. He blinked squinting at the brightness as it slowly sank in that he was no longer in The Cave. He was, in fact, standing on the side of a mountain. He was wearing his armour but the faceplate was up giving him an unobstructed view of cedar covered slopes and snow capped mountain peaks. He took a deep breath and smelt fresh fragrant air.
“How...?” The residue of panic was still with him and every nerve felt as if it had been fried by a few thousand volts. He swallowed and tried again. “Wasn't I just...?”
He'd been in Afghanistan, in The Cave. No, that wasn't right. He shook his head. He'd been in a cave, but a cave here, in Washington. He turned and looked behind him. There was the cave entrance and there was Natasha jogging out of it, an angry look on her face.
“I know you don't like caves,” she said as she jogged up to him, “but next time warn me when you're planning to take off.”
“Um... right,” he said still feeling somewhat disoriented.
She gazed at him with that penetrating stare once more.
“So, no troll?” he said mostly in hopes that she would stop looking at him like that.
“No, troll,” she repeated. “If there had been, it would have probably attacked the moment we stepped inside what with all the noise you were making.” For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something else but seemed to change her mind. “We should meet up with the others,” she said instead. “Maybe they had better luck.”
“Or maybe this whole troll hunt is just a big mother goose chase,” Tony replied unable to keep the somewhat manic tone from his voice. “I mean what's next? Evil leprechauns? Villainous fairies? The Loch Ness Monster? Next thing you know we'll be heading to the North Pole to rescue Santa Clause. You know he never did get me the life-sized spaceship I asked for when I was six.” He was babbling. He knew he was babbling but he couldn't seem to stop himself.
Natsaha sighed. “Shut up, Stark,” she said with something that might have actually been fondness.
The agent wrapped an arm around his side. Letting his faceplate close once more, Tony did the same with her ensuring she was secure before firing his repulsors and soaring off into the mountains.
Making sure the com was off, Tony addressed the A.I. as they flew. “Jarvis? What exactly happened?”
“You were unresponsive, sir, and since your heartbeat and breathing had greatly increased, I thought it prudent to remove you from your current surroundings,” Jarvis replied.
“Huh,” said Tony. The dark memories lingered still but they were fading out there in the open air. “Good call.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And Jarvis.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let's not go into any more caves anytime soon.”
“I will do my best to remind you of that, sir.”
A grin spread across Tony's tired features. “What would I do without you, J?”
“I believe that is something best not thought about,” replied the A.I.
Chapter 6