st_arkintern | (no subject)

"Like KITT from that old show, Knight Rider?" Peter's not sure if Tony knows it, but Tony seems to get a lot of his old references, so maybe he's watched it.

Especially since Tony really seems to like AI too.

"All the personality with none of the bells and whistles--yet. You can cope, right?" Tony tousled Peter's hair affectionately. "Any AI we've got around can interface with it."

Peter smiles at the gesture of affection. Tony had been more generous with those displays since he got here, but it didn't stop Peter from appreciating it anyway.

"I like Karen," Peter says, because he does. It'd be embarrassing for him to admit that he considers her a friend, even though he's sure Vision and Tony are friends. Karen doesn't really have a body, though. "Do you think she can exist in two places at once?"

"Any of them could, technically. J.A.R.V.I.S. ran the whole business after Pepper, after all." Tony's finger traced over the speaker area, where the AI of choice could project its voice from.

Peter dampens his lips.

"Where'd the name Jarvis come from?" Peter has reasons for the name he chose for Karen. He wonders if maybe it was the same for Tony.

"My butler." Tony glanced sideways at Peter, a small smile tugging at his lips. "My lifelong friend."

"Is he still around?"

Tony's shoulders fell in a soft sigh. "If he was, I wouldn't have needed the AI."

Peter's not sure how he feels about basing AIs off of actual people, but Tony doesn't seem to have any problems with it. He hasn't quite decided what that means yet.

"Do you know Spongebob Squarepants?"

A third arm emerged from Tony's back, uncapping a pen with the aid of Tony's teeth. "Yeah?" He said through his small mouthful, setting about jotting down a few more notes onto the schematics.

"I named Karen after Karen. The supercomputer? My Karen is a lot less evil, though." It's true. "I don't know if it was a good name for her, but it was the second name that came to mind when I was naming her."

"And the first?" A number wrong, on second glance. Tony jotted it out, and adjusted the curvature of the hood while he was at it.

"Um," Peter says, watching Tony at work. That pause lasts a few seconds longer than it probably should, but the name itself is embarrassing. "Liz."

Squinting, Tony's brows popped up in remembrance. Their Liz wasn't the first Liz--that was right--Peter had confided about another in their video chats. "Good call. Naming an AI's as permanent as getting a tattoo with someone else's name."

"Yeah," Peter agrees. If he hadn't met this Liz, he's not sure he'd want to be reminded of the other-Liz every time he talked to his AI. Now, the name Liz had different associations.

"Did you name Vision too?"

"Vision named himself." His hand swept over the the paper, mind moving rapidly to make little corrections here and there. The page was his initial draft, after all, but he was confident in its overall accuracy.

Peter wonders if Tony considered himself Vision's father. He always thought he was, which is why he thought maybe Tony had named him.

"Do you know how he chose it?" Typically, people didn't choose their own names. Not unless they chose another for themselves later on. And definitely not soon after their birth.

"He's the philosophical type. Whatever reason he's got, I'm sure it's a good one." Tony swept his tongue along the roof of his teeth, swallowing a small pang of emotion. Vision was a continuation of Jarvis in many regards, and now...

Tony laid his pen down, cupping his mouth as it rose back up.

The sudden rise of emotion doesn't go unnoticed by Peter, who'd been watching Tony carefully for most of the conversation.

"Everything okay, Dad?"

Swallowing the lump and letting it settle in his stomach, Tony opened his mouth through his fingers--

'Whatever you tell him, at least let it be the truth.' Tony closed it, took a breath, and lowered his hand back to the paper. "I miss him, Pete. That's all."

"I miss May and MJ and all my friends from school," he says, hoping it helps Tony to hear this. "I miss Delmar's sandwiches. If Karen weren't here, I'd miss her, too."

It's true. For a long time, Karen was the only person he knew. One of very few reminders of home. And the only one that could talk.

Tony's armor receded, and he pulled Peter into a side hug without much thought, giving him a good squeeze.

Peter's smile is brief, but it's genuine.

"You sure you're okay?"

"It comes and goes." Tony tousled Peter's hair back, a ghost of a smile flitting across his face. "It's a process."