Younger than his owner- younger than the rest of the household staff, when they’d been around for the sake of comparison and easy to hide behind- Jarvis only shrugged again, because what was time, really? This was it. There was no room to grow or change, to learn new things, to find a job he liked and maybe meet a nice girl. Jarvis had been around the Starks the whole of his life, free before to ignore them even when his father talked about Howard like some kind of great, innovative sage, and now stuck in servitude to the last remaining member of the family. They were both lasts, though, at least for now. Master Stark would find a girl. It was inevitable.
Jarvis had seen more than a few come and go already at parties, but those were dalliances. He knew the difference like he knew most other things; innate knowledge, the kind that came from exposure and understanding what was normal versus what meant more than window dressing. Everything here was flash and surface and it wasn’t his place to do more than wait for the instruction to clean the place up for the next party or visit or dinner or cocktail hour.
He wasn’t even twenty yet, but generally felt assured now he’d make it that far. It had been a question, for a while. See if the cruelty stuck. See if the whole structure came down or not. With a Stark as the center of one’s universe, nothing really felt stable. Adaptability was always going to be the name of the game.
Giving that piece of wisdom a dubious look- twitch of eyebrows, sharply down as a pair before one went winging up over eyes that had strayed, again, to measure movement and expression that would hopefully warn him before that glass came flying this direction- Jarvis shook his head. Gamemaking was nothing he could see Master Stark doing. Sure, his father had. Both of their fathers had, but Jarvis couldn’t remember being interested and he couldn’t recall thinking the other cared at all either; not in a genuine way, not because of some real interest instead of fleeting impulse to show a knack for creativity better served elsewhere. He cocked his head after a beat, fingers straying up to tap against his left temple. Too smart. That was the problem. One of the problems.