pepper potts / rescue. (inspiteofitall) wrote in blackpoint, @ 2014-10-05 16:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | antonia "toni" stark, pep potts / rescue, virgil 'pepper' potts |
WHO: Toni, Pep & Virgil.
WHERE: NYC; Toni's labs in the Stark building.
WHEN: October 1, ‘14; after Pepper's arrival.
WHAT: Curing what ails J.A.R.V.I.S.
RATING: Low.
STATUS: log; complete.
The body of the Rescue armor was standing neatly at attention, no worse for wear in travelling across worlds and soaking in the ocean, and Pepper was comfortably attired (at least one advantage of Toni apparently being compatibly-sized as a woman) as she hovered near the woman who was Tony's alternate-self's alternate-reality female self. Normally, she wouldn't have hovered over anything in the lab quite so close, but right now, the project on the table was the helmet of her suit, which housed J.A.R.V.I.S., and for all her near-calm in accepting the realities of this place, she knew if she lost the only connection to her home reality, lost her freedom and autonomy as someone who could make the world better, she was going to stop calmly accepting all of this. At least Toni's reactions to her hovering had been spot-on, even coming from a beautiful woman, so that was one thing to ease the situation. Movement off to the side caught her attention and she looked up to find Virgil (who, narcissistically, she had to say was a very handsome man - apparently a world of changed genders and race had been kind to them) holding two drinks, with a stack of paperclipped bundles under his arm. He held out one to her, one eyebrow slightly lifted, and she took the mug without acknowledging the amused judgement. "Thank you," she said, immediately taking a drink, where she was pleased to note the coffee was a palatable temperature for such haste on her part. She then watched as he placed the other near Toni, so obviously mindful (or perhaps it was only obvious to her) of the woman's habits to weight the placement of the beverage to keep it within reach of his Stark without it being in the way of an array of tools. Hands emptied, his stack of papers joined the contents of the table, the artwork on the first page drawing her in immediately. "Is this all of the comics on J.A.R.V.I.S.'s situation?" Of course it was, he was a Potts, and her expression must have reflected a bit of her chagrin after voicing the question, because the man reigned in a smile and just nodded. "Ms. Potts, I must insist-" "J.A.R.V.I.S., I know you haven't done anything wrong, but you admitted yourself that the first course of action in compromising you would be to sabotage the diagnostics. We need to look at every possibility." Silence greeted her and Pepper sighed. Now J.A.R.V.I.S. was sulking. This was ridiculous. Unable to stop herself, the reaction was so accustomed, she shot a Look at Toni - then dropped her face into her hand when she realized what she was doing. It might not have been her tech exactly, but it was a product of a Stark, which meant Toni felt responsible for the current state of Pepper’s J.A.R.V.I.S., including the need me, want me, have no one else in your life but me edge to the words that came out whenever Pepper seemed to move too far away or it didn’t like the prodding. Brow furrowed, hair gathered up in a clip that was more appropriate for the items scattered on the workbench than hair, Toni stared at the helmet as if she could will it to confess the problem outright. It was J.A.R.V.I.S. though. It wouldn’t have survived long enough if it didn’t have an extremely stubborn coding written into it. Without taking her eyes off the interaction between Pepper and the helmet, she reached for the coffee. She and Virgil had developed such an ease of doing things around the shop that her fingers slipped easily around the mug and she brought it to her lips without having to check that it would hit target. An eyebrow arched as the helmet fell into silence, followed by a soft snort. “You know, they say lapsing into silence like that is a step towards admitting guilt,” she pointed out. “An anecdote I’m sure you’ve heard many times in your youth, Ms. Stark,” her J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed in dryly. Toni took another sip and rolled her eyes, muttering something unrepeatable. Setting the mug down, she picked up the pages and leaned back against the workbench, flipping through them. Again, Virgil’s work was impeccable. “Obviously the first step is going to be to find a diagnostic program to run that this won’t be prepared for, so it won’t - “ Toni frowned at one of the pages. “Wow, J.A.R.V.I.S. Just...wow.” After a small shake of her head, she continued with the train of thought. “ - derail it to make it appear normal. Then isolate the piece of coding that’s been tampered with.” She scowled and looked up at Virgil over the edge of the papers in hand. “It’s not my coding, but it’s still my coding and I’m taking this personally.” A smile tugged the corner of Pepper's mouth at the exchange between creator and creation, but it quickly fell as her fingers closed around one neatly bound print copy of the comic books that told of, but were not entirely about, parts of her life. The paper itself had been soothing in a way she was fully prepared to admit was a quirk of nature born of working for and then alongside Tony Stark, because right now, she knew the damned paper copy before her wouldn't go rogue and a holotable just might now that anything was possible. It was the contents that unnerved her, seeing things that had not happened (and might not, her timeline had deviated as so many did in this world), but worse, seeing those that had in bright, well-drawn captures. She set the offending literature back on the table and pinched the bridge of her nose. "There is nothing wrong with my coding, Ms. Stark," the AI said, and if one could accuse an artificial construction of a pacifying tone, it would be now, "and any attempts to alter it would be premature at best. I function within the exact parameters defined by Mr. Stark." "Which may be part of the issue," Virgil murmured, looking back at Toni rather than the helmet on the table, before he folded open one of the earlier issues of the comic and showed it to her. His hand rested easily at her back as he pointed to a reference to J.A.R.V.I.S. presumably being created to take care of this Pepper, and he pretended not to notice the interest the redhead took in both of them at that point. "You can't take it personally, unless you're saying you left room for our J.A.R.V.I.S. to fall in love with me," he said, arching a brow at Toni, a warning that if his joke was serious, there would be Words. "So you need to think like the Tonys do, with the gender dynamic of man protects woman, but also like all of you do, with the Stark factor of needing to protect a loved one without admitting to either protection or feeling." He squeezed her hip to hold her attention for a minute. "What would you put in the code, and where would you put it, to design a system that would never fail to protect the most important person in your life?" It likely sounded arrogant, but Virgil also knew it to be true across a score of represented realities, so there was no use shying from it. "Find that, and I have a feeling you'll find what shouldn't be." “It’s strange, isn’t it?” she asked, catching Pepper looking the comic over. On arrival, she’d been surprised to learn that the Tony Stark this world was familiar with happened to be very much male and her Potts very much female. Attractive both but it also felt like she’d stepped into a life that wasn’t entirely hers. It had taken a few weeks for her to come to terms with the unsettled feeling and establish herself among the Starks present. “They’re almost entertaining when you can bypass the elements that hit close to home.” There was one saving grace to the comics being present though and that was in moments like these. Research. Toni reached back to place a finger on the helmet’s lips (or what passed for lips anyway) and made a soft shushing sound. “If that’s true, then we’ll find nothing wrong, won’t we?” As she’d said to Pepper, she trusted her to know if there was something off about her J.A.R.V.I.S. Having seen it for herself and with the comics to back it up, the AI’s words didn’t sit well. She leaned into the touch to see the comic he held, her shoulder brushing against his side. In moments like these, the physical proximity was an added bonus to whatever Virgil had for her at that time. Tilting her head to look up at him, she gave him a Look. “You know how I feel about competition. Protector or no, J.A.R.V.I.S. better be keeping his wooing program to himself or he’s going to feel my wrath,” she stated dryly. Falling silent, she bit her lip and listened closely as Virgil spoke. The expression became a 100-yard stare just past the top of the papers, the wheels turning as she mulled over the way he’d framed the problem. One of the many reasons his importance to her couldn’t be measured, he knew how to focus her when there were a million ideas she wanted to pursue all at once. Not until later would she have thought to invert the gender dynamic while pursuing her own deeply ingrained need to protect those close to her. Leaving the comfort of his proximity, she picked up the tablet sitting on the workbench and flicked a finger over the screen, bringing up the jumble of letters, numbers and symbols that had become as easy for her to read as “See Spot Run”. Toni held up a finger. “J.A.R.V.I.S., this version, is coded to respond to your every need,” she said, nodding to Pepper, “and I would add in a failsafe that if something were to happen to leave you impaired, the suit would take over making decisions for you until you were safe. However, if the code was tampered with, that would explain why J.A.R.V.I.S. is trying to make more decisions for you than it should be.” She twisted to look back at the helmet. “The situational evaluation algorithm. If that was hijacked, it could also be used to decide which information to send to our mysterious ISP.” Pepper continue to pinch her nose tightly, willing away the tension building there, but she acknowledged Toni when the woman addressed her. "I can see where it would be entertaining," she said, and objectively, she could. There had been many a memorable moment that eventually, after time, become amusing in hindsight. Honestly, so much of Tony's life had been for public consumption that some of these things didn't surprise her at all. Less entertaining might end up applying to the movies she'd been told about, though, if the closeness in action and word she was witnessing carried over in all movie-adjacent realities. She was honest enough with herself to recognize what the quick clench in her gut was, envy that these two had somehow made work what never had for her and Tony, even though she had decided to move on from what was now a memory to her and the finality of the memory wipe for him. Despite that feeling, she continued to pay attention, and what she heard was reassuring, for more than one reason. "So J.A.R.V.I.S. just thinks he's in love, because this tampered failsafe is demanding I be protected at all costs and aspects of his programming that deconstruct human behavior to anticipate needs, like H.O.M.E.R., our equivalent of your J.A.R.V.I.S., is telling him that X and Y mean love, and it's all colliding and confusing him." She slumped against Toni's table with palpable relief. "It's puppy love." "Ms. Potts, it most assuredly is not-" "J.A.R.V.I.S., don't start digging this hole deeper," she said, and it was no longer strange to note the weary affection in her own voice. This was just how things were in her world, including becoming attached to her AI. “I think I look dashing with a goatee.” The moment seemed right for one of her spontaneous one liners then quickly forgotten as she moved on to the next topic like the previous had never existed. Not that the previous topic was uncomfortable, Toni just had a thousand thoughts cycling through at any time and staying on one was a task she only occasionally worked for. Toni snapped her fingers and pointed at Pepper. “That is exactly it. The failsafe is one of the coding parts that you want to tamper with as little as possible because that is the last defense. You don’t want to risk puncturing your life raft,” she explained, her arms moving animatedly as the excitement of the chase kicked in. She did manage to stop herself just before she delivered a solid knock to Virgil’s shoulder with the tablet though. After his assistance, she didn’t want to split his reward with apologies. “But this is Stark coding that I know like the back of my hand and by taking it out, that should restore it back to the J.A.R.V.I.S. you know and love and loves you back in a platonic, protective, not stalkerish way.” Whoever had tampered with Tony Stark’s code was good. Toni Stark was even better. Dropping the tablet on the table, her expression softened just in the slightest as she looked to Pepper. Maybe concern, a hint of affection reserved for all Potts that had to wrangle a Stark or two in their time, reassurance. “You’ll be complete in no time.” Despite the save, Pepper had to smile at the near collision of tablet and Potts, and especially so at Toni's frenetic energy about the process. It wasn't a shock, at all, but it was a nice, familiar feeling building at seeing and hearing it. Maybe the contrast of genders should still be jarring her out of all of this, but some things were just too obviously the same. Though she knew she had the other woman's attention, it was still habit to reach out and initiate contact to assure the Stark level of attention was briefly on her so her words had impact. "Thank you, Toni," she said, hand resting on her wrist long enough to express the gratitude that went far deeper than the words could convey. The beginning of another protest from J.A.R.V.I.S., no doubt in response to being called obsessed to the level of criminal activity, drew Virgil's attention and he reached out, giving the helmet a sharp flick, which seemed to get across the right message, because the AI's speech cut off sharply. His attention return to the two women in time to witness A Moment, and it was a little surreal to see it, just as watching the movies or reading the comics could be to a man whose life was fictional in an alternate reality and otherwise unknown here. But it wasn't a bad thing. With a gentle squeeze to herald his brief departure, Virgil backed away from the two and made his way out of the lab to retrieve the food he had set JARVIS to making. A game plan was not also the execution, and he suspected there would be a significant stretch of distracted hours to come. Better to feed the genius now, rather than force-feed her later. There were a lot of things Toni said that people blew off as her being full of it, but one thing that always remained true was her loyalty to a Potts, regardless of what details changed. It was an exception to the rule since one Potts had worked his way into her heart, by no means an easy feat, and she planned on keeping him there for a while. She was getting used to caring. It was a work in progress but she’d come this far. Her hand covered Pepper’s briefly, a short nod and a soft smile in lieu of a spoken ‘you’re welcome’. The sentiment was just as strong though. She was vaguely aware of Virgil leaving as she turned back to the workbench. “So,” she said, poking the helmet with the end of a stylus she’d idly picked up from the mess there, “shall we de-obsess JARVIS?” |