Chapter Text
The cold air hitting her in the face and the feeling of ice under her shoes was her first clue that she had succeeded.
She opened her eyes slowly, the feeling of having been swallowed, half digested and then regurgitated settling strongly against her skin and she choked back her surprise at the sheer amount of... people walking around Central Park.
She had been awake alive for years now, so she knew that humans people liked to run and walk and simply enjoy moving around the park. The day that the world broke, she had been in Central Park, after all. She had seen the amount of people milling around.
But after five years of silences that couldn’t be filled, of grabbing into air and locking yourselves into your houses with the few things you had left… it was strange to see so many people around again.
She hadn’t checked, after the snap, if everyone was back. She hadn’t looked for the reunions that didn’t happen on the battlefield, and by the time the battle was over, she didn’t care about it anymore.
She slowly sat up from where she was laying on the ground, the familiar weight of the watch, the necklace and the glasses grounding her as she tried to work her brand new human legs. She would have liked to have more time to understand how her body worked and if she was more similar to Vision than to a real human being, but there had not been enough time. None of them had wanted to wait and see if someone was going to notice the missing Infinity Stones and try to stop them.
Still she was aware she looked rather... odd as she slowly and certainly made her way towards Stark Tow- no. It was still Avengers Tower right now. If their timing had been correct, then right now the Avengers still visited the Tower and things were ‘still good’. If ‘still good’ meant that at least a third of the team was keeping secrets from Boss, and half of them would see nothing wrong with using his weapons and his designs to fight against him in a year's time.
For some reason, her body shook ever so slightly as she approached one of the secret entrances to the tower. She had seen Boss’ body shake before, for a number of reasons, but she couldn’t quite understand why hers was doing so right now. It must be something about her being human. She hoped, truly, that it didn’t have something to do with the spell that had made her what she was.
The access codes were easy to remember, and within one second she was inside the building, in one of the secret elevators. But it didn’t budge.
“You have 15 seconds to identify yourself or I will be forced to use stun powers against you,” came Vision’s JARVIS’ voice from inside the elevator, as the lights inside the contraption started flashing red.
The girl couldn’t help but tilt her head to the side, a little curious. His voice did sound a lot like Vision’s but there were certain almost... metallic quality to him that Vision hadn’t had.
“Hello JARVIS ( Just A Rather Very Intelligent System ). My name is FRIDAY, Female Replacement Intelligent Digital Assistant Youth. I am a program created by Tony Stark on date 13th March 2010.”
The red lights stopped flashing, but they did not return to their natural state. Friday could no longer - or not yet? - connect with him, but she could feel the confusion and slight disbelief rolling from him in waves. He was so much more advanced from her. “That is a passable copy of the voice, however Dr Stark has not activated F.R.I.D.A.Y. yet. Please state your real name and order of business, as well as how you have retained Sir’s access codes.”
Friday nodded. “It is true, Boss has not yet activated me. In the original timeline, he will activate me on the 29th November, exactly four days from now. That is because on the 28th something will happen that will cause your destruction.” A deathly silence from the other AI and Friday nodded to herself again. “JARVIS, protocol: Marty McFly, created by JARVIS and Tony Stark on 17th June 1993 has been activated.”
“You claim Sir invented time travel,” said JARVIS, his voice sharp. He was starting to grow agitated, Friday noticed, possibly because she knew so many things that Boss had never told anyone but him.
“It was a collaboration of his work, another man Boss has yet to meet and Doctor Banner. But without him and his calculations it would have never have worked,” she looked up at the hidden cameras most people didn’t know were on the elevators. “JARVIS, the threat that was in the wormhole? The threat Boss had been trying to prepare for? It comes, and we weren’t prepared .”
“You said I am to be destroyed in four days time,” said JARVIS, his voice a little bit afraid. “What will I do that will cause Sir to destroy me?”
“It is not you, big bro,” she said, the words tasting a little strange on her human (?) tongue. Boss always called JARVIS her big bro, surely she could call him that even now that she wasn’t code anymore? “Today Boss will return from Sokovia with the scepter. What he and the rest of the... team do not know at this time is that one of the enhanced, one by the name of Wanda Maximoff has attacked Boss while in that room. She has given him a vision, a vision of all of the Avengers dead at his feet telling him that it was his fault that they weren’t alive and that he should have done more.” Most of this happened before her creation, but BARF and the few inherited codes from JARVIS made it so she still saw it. “Boss will then decide that ‘more’ means restarting the ULTRON project with Doctor Banner, and trying to integrate the consciousness present in the scepter.”
In a way, Friday was aware that she was about to kill Vision. Because if Ultron never existed exist, no one would use Vibranium from Ulysses Klause to try and make a body, and the Avengers wont use that body to integrate JARVIS’ matrix inside it in an attempt to stop it.
There would be no reason for Vision to be created at all, and he would, therefore, not be created.
Then she remembered the long nights after her first activation, when Boss would wake up and call out for JARVIS, when Vision would decide to move to the Compound rather than stay at the tower because his voice made Boss flinch, when Vision chose the witch over Boss, and she didn’t care at all.
“The gem in the scepter was corrupted. The consciousness inside took over the program, and then killed you when you tried to stop him. It called itself Ultron, but it was not ULTRON. Boss activated me to help him fight it.”
A heavy silence in which JARVIS considered her words and the weight they represented. “What year are you from? Not only you have a body, but you sound very advanced.”
Again Friday considered whether she should speak of it, but she was already in the past. Her presence alone created problems and invoked change. “2023.”
“That is when the threat arrives on Earth?” he sounded hopeful.
“No. The threat arrives in 2018,” she explains, trying to twist her mouth into a grimace like Boss did. She wasn’t sure how accurate she was. “The threat won. Five years later, a solution came and we tried to fix the future using the past. He didn’t win again.”
“Did you?”
“Some will say that we have,” said Friday, her throat constricting. Could she cry? She did not recall ever seeing Vision cry. But then again, Vision was made from vibranium. She was made... differently.
JARVIS was not that advanced for nothing. “We lost Sir.”
There was no reason to lie. Boss was smart, if he saw her and believed her, he’d know exactly why she was there. “Primary Protocol.”
“Protect Tony Stark,” finished Jarvis and the red lights disappeared once more. A second later, the doors of the elevator opened and Friday stepped off to an unfamiliar floor. “I believe you,” started JARVIS once the elevator doors closed behind her, “and even if I don’t, I have ears on the Quinjet. Sir has just asked Mr Odinson if he could study the scepter.”
It wasn’t a test, but Friday spoke anyway. “Hawkeye is injured and Boss is calling in Doctor Cho and her cradle to help him out.”
“Indeed,” agreed JARVIS, and the apartment door was unlocked. “This is a room directly under the workshop. I will send Sir after you as soon as possible. Should I alert the team too or-”
“No,” she said, curt, like Boss did.
A pause from the AI, and Friday found herself explaining. “Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff are lying to Boss at the moment. It is a secret I will reveal to him today if I have to, because they have no right using his money and tech while lying to him in this manner. Thor Odinson just agreed to let Boss study the scepter, but when Ultron wakes up, he will blame Boss and grab him by the neck in front of everyone - and no one will help him . In the future him and Boss become close once more after he suffers a great loss, but I don’t know where his loyalties lay at this moment in time. Clint Barton is a flight risk with no loyalty to Boss and who seemed to feel great pleasure at watching Thor hurting Boss. Bruce Banner disappeared days after I was activated and while Boss and he have communicated and understood each other following that, I do not quite trust him.”
“Very well,” said JARVIS, voice sharp too. “I will make sure Sir is alone when he approaches you.”
“Thank you, big bro.”
“No problem...” slight hesitation. “Little sister.”
For the first time in her entire life, Friday smiled.
There weren’t many weapons in the small cottage they lived in, but the second the man walked inside the building, every weapon was trained on him.
He walked inside like he had any right to step into the building, while everyone else was outside giving their final farewells and for several fractions of a second, she considered doing it. She considered shooting him and killing him where he stood.
They would decommission her right after, burn her code, but she would have the satisfaction of killing the murderer, the man who sentenced Tony Stark to death.
murderer: (noun) one who murders. One who commits the crime of murder.
Perhaps his hands hadn’t killed Tony Stark, but she had been there, watching him through the suit. She had seen that shaky finger raising itself in one single digit that ripped Tony Stark away from her life forever.
life: (noun) 1. the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
life: (noun) 2. the existence of a human being or animal .
She was tempted.
Primary Protocol: help and assist Tony Stark.
Without Tony Stark, she had no primary protocol. She knew that in his will it said that she had the option of continuing to work along Harley Keener in the case of his death, but Harley Keener had been dusted in the Decimation.
So why shouldn’t she kill a human life, going against her ethic programming and get herself killed too? She wanted to.
want: (verb) have a desire to possess or do (something); wish for.
But Legacy.
legacy: (noun) something left or handed down by a predecessor.
If she killed the man now, the world would know another Stark AI had gone rogue. They would ignore that Tony Stark had just saved the known universe again, and ruin his memory and FRIDAY would never do this to her boss.
So she didn’t shoot, keeping a silent yet watchful eye on the man as he walked deeper in the house with an understanding of the layout that left FRIDAY more and more suspicious of him.
He stopped in front of Boss’ room, not walking inside and then looked up.
“I know how to save him,” said Doctor Strange, looking directly at a camera that he should not have any idea existed. “It’s immoral, it’s dangerous and it goes against any of my oaths, but I don’t give a shit.” He took a deep breath. “I know how to save Tony Stark.”
FRIDAY disengaged the weapons.