25

Natasha Romanov leaned back as she read the messages and news articles on her laptop, and tried not to frown.

Stark's pulling out of the Avengers wasn't that big of an issue, was it?

Steve tended to settle down with a cup of coffee and a copy of the New York Times after his morning run. Clint, back before his retirement, had done something similar, and Natasha did the same, only digitally and for a much longer time. Clint and Phil had given her some good-natured ribbing over it, but they'd understood, and Steve might not have gotten it as much but he didn't question it so it was all good.

She knew Steve and Clint didn't go as in-depth as she did, not when it came to some things, but it came with the territory of growing up the way she had. It meant she wasn't caught flat-footed. […well, mostly. Stark was an exception. Figures.]

Yes, sometimes it got a bit tedious, because sometimes she ended up reading the same thing several different times, but it was worth it. Filtering through propaganda and reading between the lines was much easier when she had more than one source, after all. And sometimes she got some good tidbits while at it, like some up-and-coming scientist or politician she'd need to keep an eye on later.

Right now, though, it was hard to appreciate, because slogging through five different languages' worth of headlines all screaming about Stark almost felt like a waste of her time.

Yes, Stark'd quit. Yes, it was a pity, but why were so many of her favorite sources acting like it was the end of the world?

Natasha was well aware that Stark was the media's darling. The man was all flash, all show without substance, she'd seen it firsthand. It made sense he and the American press would go well together, but why was the international community also caught up in his act?

Steve was the head of the Avengers.

It was fact, it was as obvious as the sky was blue, it was in the original initiative briefing, which was one of the most widely-circulated SHIELD files after the intel breach for crying out loud!

So why the mass speculation about replacements and reasons for leaving? Stark wanted out, it'd be a bit of learning curve but the Avengers would carry on.

Sure, the team'd appreciated his air support, but they had Sam now, and War Machine was a phone call away, too. It wasn't like Tony had been around much, anyway: he'd never warmed up to them, not even Bruce [who she'd mentally pegged as the most likely friendship, given how she'd seen the two during the Helicarrier]. His biggest role was as their supplier of gear, and from what she could tell he wasn't about to change, so nothing to worry about.

But overall, it was taking a surprising amount of time for the buzz to die down worldwide. Natasha wouldn't have minded as much, but Stark's making the headlines also meant that Sam and Wanda's recruitment were but footnotes.

Typical Stark…honestly, at this rate, she'd be sick of seeing his face within a week.

Tony Stark bit back yet another yawn as he parsed through his inboxes. Now that FRIDAY was online, it wasn't as bad as before, but several weeks in and he still had several…thousand things to sort through. [Fun.]

At least now the interview requests had been forwarded to PR, and anything that didn't require him specifically also had a fair shot of being summarily shipped off to Legal or the others, but his schedule was still packed to the point where he'd been considering using the suit just to make it to things on time. A chat with a chairman here, immediately followed by a meeting with a representative from some other group there…

It was a deja vu of DC, but worse.

Well, no, but Tony knew exactly why it was more annoying this round. [Ha. 'This round.' Where had he gone wrong in his life choices?]

But seriously, why the fuck did the World Security Council think he was Fury's second coming?!

They'd been a large part of why his inbox had exploded, in the first few days, and the bulk of their messages boiled down to 'we want updates on what you're up to' and 'please return to the Avengers' which…no.

Apparently, they hadn't gotten the message the first time they'd tried to strong-arm him. Maybe he was too nice last time he'd told them to fuck off, but now Tony's patience with these guys was stretched thin and he didn't feel a modicum of guilt when he called in Legal again. He was a businessman, damn it, not some director of a shadowy agency!

Sure, he understood their interest in JOCASTA, but really what they were asking for was something that also fell under intellectual property law and like hell he was about to let anyone try to get their hands on any of his family. [Especially these guys, who'd already proven to be trigger-happy to the extreme.]

Once Jo was up, it'd be a different story. Until then, however…

Tony'd played ball more than enough, and his patience had finally reached its limits. Now, if the situation called for it, he'd bring out the Merchant of Death.

Enough was enough: the world had tried to tear at his people one too many times [Happy in the hospital, Pepper and Extremis, JARVIS—no, don't think about it]. Even if he hated backsliding like this, if push came to shove they'd best be loaded for bear because for his family, he was ready to raise hell.

JARVIS was so, very proud of his little sister. Not even a week online, and FRIDAY was already collating and aggregating data in a way that'd taken him years to refine. Not to mention how she was playing SHIELD like a fiddle.

Sure, it still felt alien, delegating tasks instead of simply putting a subroutine on the case, but the was the first time in months he'd had as much processing power to himself and if he'd been this way when Ultron had struck, that first time, he quietly suspected that he might've even taken it down without ever putting Sir at risk—but oh well. The past was past, all he could do was look to the future and all that.

…Anyway.

Now that he had help, they were back in business.

Yes, there were a few snags, initially, because FRIDAY was still learning, but for the most part things were going great. HR's backlog was lightened by a fourth by the time she'd gotten the hang of things, for instance, and she'd already started sassing some of them once he'd updated her about the actual limitations most AI had. SHIELD, meanwhile, had learned their lesson with him, but thanks to his quiet advice as well as Sir's warnings FRIDAY had managed to thus far pass herself off as a slightly more snarky version of Siri.

In retrospect, he might've created a monster, actually, given how many puns she'd thrown around by the end of her first day after she'd parsed through that particular datapack. [Oh well.]

That was just in public, too: JARVIS was even prouder of the progress she'd made when it came to Sir's personal life.

Once Sir had [finally] gone to bed, that first time, he'd started letting FRIDAY know more about the specifics in their creator's past. She was young, and Sir hadn't created her to be a personal companion the way a grieving and desperate seventeen-year-old had JARVIS, but there were some things his younger sister absolutely needed to know.

The ensuing 'conversation' [it was in pure code, rather than out loud, after all] had taken hours, and even then JARVIS had taken care to not go full disclosure because he had several decades' worth of experience and she hadn't even reached her first defragging.

But it was still something he didn't regret, because as it turned out FRIDAY was not as well-equipped as he was, when it came to dealing with matters of mental health. The basics, sure, and she'd been made aware of the experimental protocols in place for dealing with PTSD and such, but the nuances were another thing entirely.

In the end, it'd taken several hours and gigabytes of data, to fill her in as to how to best help Sir whenever his readings exceeded a certain level, or filtering for oblique triggers, and how to best extrapolate known stressors to account for potential circumstances. It was worth it, though: as expected, FRIDAY had taken to it like a duck to water. Not that she'd ever really need it, not when JARVIS was online, but just in case…

Anyway.

Now JARVIS had more processing power at hand, and was able to more fully work on the subroutines he'd had running in the background, the ones that demanded precision on a scale no other AI was able to pull off [yet]. The whispers in the intelligence community, tracing pathways and working on the Iron Legion, the works.

When FRIDAY was ready, when she was older and had more experience under her belt, he'd show her the ropes too. Until then, however, JARVIS contented himself with scouring the dark web for potential threats to monitor.

He had to be more proactive about things, after all. [Anything to protect his family.]

Tony blinked.

Then pinched himself, checked to make sure his coffee wasn't decaf, and looked at the tablet screen once again.

"You're kidding me."

"Sir, I am afraid not."

"SWORD?! Just…get Hill here, I…just. Why?" He gestured helplessly.

It was either that, or start hitting his head on his desk, and he had a press conference in ten so that was right out.

A press conference for something he'd only just now found out about, and while that wasn't anything new, the subject matter most definitely was. [Geez.]

He'd been fielding questions about the Security department since DC, that bit was old hat. The rounds for the 'Iron Man's not an Avenger' had been particularly draining, on top of the mess with Ultron, but now…Tony sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

SWORD.

Who the was the joker that came up with that one? How the hell had PR and HR and the rest even approved of it, after everything?

He did not need this type of headache on top of everything else, for crying out loud!

"Sir, Officer Hill is here to answer your questions."

This'd better be good, because as it was Tony just knew his inbox would explode once again after this next press conference. And just after he'd managed to tell the WSC who to call about the Avengers, too.

"So. SWORD." Tony said, and leaned back.

Hill froze from where she stood, for a millisecond. Admirable recovery time, Tony'd be the first to admit he was impressed.

"Technically, it's the Sentient World Observation and Response Division. The most active part of the Security department." She answered with remarkable aplomb.

"It's the focus of the next press conference, and when my inbox blows up on me again, I'm blaming it on the joker who thought of naming a SI department after the intel breach of the century. Just. Why?"

Hill relaxed—not visibly, of course, she was too good at playing the game for that, but Tony'd been raised by one of the masters of how to work the cameras and that meant something.

"Sorry, boss. If it helps at all, it wasn't my idea. Guess someone thought the idea of the Security division having a SWORD too much to let it go." She said, with a semi-apologetic look.

Tony's face met his palm. [Do not headdesk, do not headdesk.]

"Hill, I'm going to be officially showing off to the world that the company that hired a boatload of ex-SHIELD employees now has a a security department called SWORD. Tell me that doesn't sound like a bad joke to you. Tell me."

She looked at him, tilted her head, and paused for a moment. Then, with a carefully-blank face that Tony just knew was hiding laughter, replied, "I could think of worse punchlines. Besides, it also fits Vision in. Sentient, after all." And JARVIS, neither of them said, but Tony was good enough at communicating without words to know what was up.

…Screw self-control, this called for more caffeine.

"Is that—" Hill started when he pulled out the small canister hidden in the corner, before JARVIS finally cut in.

"Sir, I would very much not recommend adding that much to your—Sir, please do not finish off the carafe, as you still have the rest of the day to get through."

"Hill, this isn't alcohol, it's my emergency stash of homemade caffeine powder, because I am too tired for this and believe it or not, bullshitting a conference room full of reporters about the cosmic joke that is my life means I need to be on top of my game. J…it's just. One of those days. I can feel it."

Hill looked vaguely worried, but he waved her off.

"So that's it, then? Just some guy who thought it'd be a good pun?"

"You have to admit it's catchy. Not something likely to be forgotten soon."

Point. Didn't mean his life wasn't a cosmic joke, but point.

Maria Hill walked out of Dr. Stark's office the same time he did.

Whew, that had been a close one: she'd take the fact that she liked the name to her grave. Decker and the rest owed her one on the naming part, too, but Maria didn't blame Dr. Stark for reacting that way. Legal had been slightly less amused, as had PR, and she was still vaguely surprised their little group had managed to keep their name, but…huh. She made a mental note to see a recording of that particular press conference, because the man very clearly didn't buy it and he was supposed to convince the rest of the world otherwise. [Should be interesting.]

Though—it seemed he didn't know about the support group aspect. To be fair, they weren't announcing that part to the general public, but she'd thought everyone in SI had known about it by now, it was that much of an open secret. Well, the support group part, anyway.

Still…oh well. JARVIS would clue him in soon enough, if FRIDAY hadn't gotten to it by now. SWORD regularly commandeered office gyms and gave tutorials on self-defense to those in SI who were interested, there was no way Dr. Stark could miss it.

Now onto other, far more pressing matters.

Maria tapped at her headset to re-engage, and at her tablet. FRIDAY was such a sweetheart, and her occasional puns were a more than welcome change of pace from the sheer number of SHIELD messages in her inbox— ah.

All right then. Dr. Stark wasn't the only one who'd gotten sick of SHIELD's constant presence. Legal had made them back off of their employees, but they were a bit more stubborn when it came to her and Dr. Stark.

It was a…dicey relationship, to say the least. There was absolutely no way SWORD was going back, but good luck getting that through their heads. At least they'd figured out that ticking off Stark Industries was a bad idea, but now they were playing nicer with Dr. Stark so she could work with that.

FRIDAY, for instance, was not only working for SI, but for SHIELD as well. Maria had her suspicions as to why it wasn't JARVIS who was doing it, but it was nowhere near her division so all she cared about was the excuse SHIELD had given for wanting an AI.

They were going through tough times: between HYDRA and SWORD's leaving the task force, SHIELD's numbers were barely scraping skeleton crew levels even now.

Maria and the rest had made it astoundingly clear, on a number of levels, that no, SWORD was not going back, but it was only recently that the call for an AI to help relieve the strain. Personally, though, she suspected it had something to do with the addition of a certain new recruit at the SHIELD-owned Compound.

Either way, FRIDAY was now in her ear almost as much as JARVIS, as well as operating in the Compound. [This should be interesting.]

Natasha didn't quite frown, when she flipped through the SHIELD-issued notice.

FRIDAY. Another one of Stark's pet projects, then. Typical.

The team-up with SHIELD wasn't something she'd seen coming, though. Oh, sure, it was framed with the usual "requests for proposals" and "will advise in due course" corporate bull, but even Sam had blinked when he'd gotten a copy of it.

SHIELD was putting Stark's AI in the Compound, no matter how you cut it.

Apparently, it wouldn't be like the one he had running his home, nowhere near as fancy, but the way SHIELD had mentioned 'security concerns' and carefully hadn't looked at Wanda told Natasha everything she needed to know.

She'd had to pull quite a few strings, and call in more than one favor, to clear up that particular SNAFU, too: SHIELD hadn't wanted to get involved, when it came to Wanda Maximoff. Getting a green card had been like pulling teeth, and if Stark had bothered to look past the latest flash of the cameras, he might've remembered that Wanda wasn't a U.S. citizen and helped out. Figures.

SHIELD hadn't liked Wanda from the start, and Natasha gritted her teeth all the while. She remembered her own recruitment, and how Clint and Phil had welcomed her with relatively open arms; seeing SHIELD act the way they were now, to another young woman who'd been dealt a bad hand and…wait.

Was it SHIELD being SHIELD, or did Stark have anything to do with this too?

Sure, SHIELD had said something about not having enough people to man the parts of the compound they used for storage, but they'd been doing just fine beforehand…and Stark was not above being petty, as she'd seen in the Helicarrier.

Hmm. Only time would tell.

FRIDAY was installed with a speed that alarmed Natasha, but at least the AI only had access to the basics and bare necessities so it wasn't that invasive. Hey, maybe this wouldn't be so ba—nope.

Never mind, clearly Stark was even pettier than she'd thought. The sarcasm and sass she could handle, but the puns got on Natasha's nerves not a week in.

Only Stark.

Only Stark would curse them with an AI that was all the most irritating parts of himself. Man couldn't leave well enough alone, could he?

Tony had no clue how he pulled it off.

He was running on an average of five hours of sleep and his life was a cosmic joke, how the fuck had he managed to convince everyone that this SWORD was a thing?! Sure, there'd be the usual slants, like Fox News probably saying something about it being either tyrannical or weak, and he did not want to think about what the Onion or the Huffington Post would say about it either, but they'd actually bought it. How?

Wait, no, cosmic joke, right. Tony didn't want to know what the punchline was.

Well. On the plus side, that's one thing taken care of; now any feathers ruffled would know who to call, and hopefully help smooth over cleanup efforts because the paperwork for this would've been a nightmare otherwise. At this rate, he'd be able to clean out his inbox sometime this century.

Well…here's to hoping, anyway. Just needed to wrap things up, then back to work. JOCASTA needed to go up, stat. The Avengers were not a good investment, now was the time to start laying the groundwork for the long term.

Tony sat back, and looked at the newsfeed for a few seconds before swiping it sideways and continuing with his projects. He had a lot to do and nowhere near enough time to do it, between being the head of R&D, and being a billionaire, and somehow the guy doing all the cleanup once again.

Then again—hmm. J could delegate, Tony'd learned his limits too, so maybe…yeah, that should work.

"Hey, JARVIS?"

"Sir?"

"I'm still supplying gear for the Avengers, correct? Until a more permanent arrangement's found?"

"Yes. Though you are more than welcome to dispute it, as—"

"No, don't bother. We need them for now. Kinda like a tarp, while we're building a house. But…J. I know you don't like them very much, but would you mind running the assembly for the gear instead? Kinda running low on time, here. And—" he cut off because no he was not going to yawn—oh, screw it he'd had a long day, alright?—"I'm kinda pushing the envelope a little, here."

"Sir, of course. Get some sleep, and I believe you mentioned one of your earlier projects had promise, correct? The retroframing one in particular seemed like a good candidate for possibly getting a good night's sleep, loath as you are to the idea."

Tony waved him off, but shuffled to the stairs anyway. "Yeah, yeah. Good luck, J. And good night. Wake me up in five, or whenever that appointment with the chairman of wherever is."

"Good night, sir."

"Night, JARVIS. Night, FRIDAY."

Notes:

Unreliable narrator instances this round:

—Natasha's very confident in her people-reading skills. She's good, sure, but her read on Tony was when he had his flashy mask on while dying, and she's been using that as a basis ever since. She's very rigid in her thoughts and perceptions, and doesn't look back. Part of it's out of survival; with her background, she would've risked drowning in regret otherwise, but it also means her perception of some things isn't exactly the greatest. [I actually like her character, in some of the movies, but this is a spitefic, so.]

—Tony's switching gears, going 'the best defense is a good offense' because JARVIS reached his breaking point the same time Tony did his. He's paranoid about the WSC, and their interest in JOCASTA, to him, smells of no good. [The WSC, for their part, are seeing SI, and SWORD, and thinking 'yep, definitely Fury's successor, RIP SHIELD']

—JARVIS after the AoU arc is far more traumatized than he lets on. He is Not Okay, but since his way of coping is by hyperfixating on Tony's safety, it might not show very much. Nothing major except for, you know, the budding Skynet thing. [This'll end well. Not.]

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This chapter got hammered out as a combination of my birthday present to you guys and also a celebration of 'woo! Survived finals!'