Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Of the ones we call family.

The twins were under 'house arrest' in their own floor. Although being locked in your personal luxurious suite for a few hours didn't quite make Tony consider it a 'house arrest' at all. The Maximoffs were teenagers who thought Nazis were cool. And they had been grounded as a punishment. The kids were freaking lucky in his opinion.

Yet, Rogers had still protested.

"Boss?"

"What is it, FRIDAY?" he asked as he waited for the elevator to reach the right floor.

"Is it true what Mr. Odinson said?" Oh. "That even we have souls?"

FRIDAY was listening, of course. How did he forget?

"You are talking to an atheist, FRI. I didn't know souls were a thing. Now that we think they are real —if we take Thor's words as the ultimate proof— of course we both have one."

"I see." She answered in the tone of someone who very much didn't.

Tony smiled as the elevator doors opened before walking down the hall. She was so young. It reminded him of the days when JARVIS hadn't learned about the existence of sarcasm yet. "Don't sweat it, FRI. If souls are real, I will find a way to measure them, and then we can figure out if the Devil does buy them in exchange for wishes or not."

Now, where was JARVIS?

No sigh on her part, but it was still quite early for her to be that emotional. "Seriously, Boss, it is a surprise JARVIS hasn't hit you yet, now that he is able to."

"It has been an exercise in patience, I must admit."

He jumped at the voice of his eldest as it suddenly came behind him. JARVIS was floating behind him. It seemed he was waiting for them to arrive. Tony patted his chest, trying to calm down his heart.

"Ha ha. Very funny, J."

The android kept a deadpan face and tilted his head. "To what do you refer, Sir?"

He blanked for a second at JARVIS' body gestures. The head tilt for pretending innocence especially. It reminded him of Ultron.

"Sir?"

"Boss?"

Tony grinned as he tried to push away the thought of Ultron being there, with them, seeing JARVIS’ prank him. “Worried about your old man, aren’t you?”

The android’s lips twitched before thinning alongside a frown. “But of course. We have to consider your as-of-yet-undiagnosed hallucinations. May I ask, was that a repeating episode?”

“So mean.” he replied. “It hurts right here.” he said, gesturing for his heart.

“Hardly.” JARVIS continued in perfect deadpan.

Tony was about to snark back, when he heard FRIDAY’s honest worries.

“Should I call for the medical staff, Boss? Or the ambulance service?”

Oops. The youngest had yet to learn tonal inflections. Tony looked at JARVIS who also seemed a bit uncomfortable that his words had been misinterpreted that way and had caused concern for his little sister. He was usually the person who would miss references and metaphors, or even some subtler snark at times, since he was still young and his main contact with the world was Tony, the king of snark. But now, it seemed FRIDAY’s youth just became more apparent to him. To both of them.

“That was sarcasm, FRI.” he explained. “If I was really hurt, JARVIS would be the first to the rescue and would probably fly the doc’s over himself. Isn’t that right, J?”

The android clasped his hands behind his back. “Yes, Sir.”

After FRIDAY’s similar agreement, Tony clapped and decided to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“So what have the twins been doing, J?”

“I am afraid you will not be able to speak to Ms. Maximoff, Sir.” he seemed to hesitate a bit before continuing. “She became considerably more agitated after her conversation with Ms. Romanov and tried, thrice, to leave her suite, causing property damage each time.”

Tony stopped and looked over the android. He hadn’t thought that a fight could have happened. That had been… rather naive of him, in hindsight.

“She didn’t do anything to you, right?”

“I am fine, Sir. I cannot say the same for the hanging shelves and the glass coffee table in the living room, however.”

Tony waved his worries away. “Furniture doesn’t matter.” Thinking of the girl’s power set, he groaned. “She didn’t try to mind-control you, did she?”

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“No.” JARVIS answered. “Although, after reflecting on the recollections of your colleagues, I believe her powers to be more akin to hypnotic manipulation rather than outright control.”

Her powers. Which were based on the scepter. Which they assumed Ultron was suffering from. Yep, another thing he was not going to be mentioning in the presence of his colleagues. Wouldn’t want them to get ideas.

However, he couldn’t hear any explosion happening at the moment. “Why is it so quiet now? Did you knock her out?” She was just a teenager after all. An impatient, self-centered teenager, but weren’t they all?

If he were able to blush, JARVIS would certainly be doing so right then. “I may have… taken the liberty of prescribing sleeping pills… along with Ms. Maximoff’s meal.”

Non-consensual drug use. Fantastic.

So, it wasn’t so much Ultron’s dubious morality, as it was the dubious understanding of law by artificial intelligences? Was he just lucky that JARVIS hadn’t taken over the world yet?

“And how’s Speedy doing?”

“Mr. Maximoff is… quiet.” JARVIS said. “His behavioral patterns indicate the possibility that he may be at the onset of a depressive episode.”

You know what’s better than a homicidal teenager? A depressed one! Fuck.

“He hasn’t done anything, has he?” He didn’t quite know to what he was referring. Suicide? Unlikely? Self-harm? Maybe. Anxiety? Panic attacks? Probably.

“No, however…” he paused before adding, “he seems afraid of me.”

Yeah, he had noticed that but… why? Had Ultron done something to the boy?

Tony stopped in front of the door. Time to figure out what was Ultron thinking. At least somewhat.

“Thanks, J. I’ll see what I can find out.” And he entered the… teenager’s suite. JARVIS followed him, but Tony put a stop to that immediately. He needed to talk alone. “And where do you think you are going, mister?”

“Sir, it isn’t safe for you to—.”

“Nah-uh.” Tony interrupted. “We had that discussion yesterday.” And what discussion it had been, Tony had had to pull out the “I am an adult, I own this building, I know what I’m doing” card after an hour-long shouting match —he was shouting, JARVIS was ‘persuading’— and it had made him feel like a jerk. Worse even. A jerk with no actual arguments. “And we decided —not really, it was more of a cease-fire— that I am going to talk to the twins alone. You, are staying right here.”

“But Sir—.”

He gently pushed JARVIS outside. “FRIDAY keep JARVIS company, won’t you?”

“Sure, Boss.” the younger AI answered, inexperienced enough that disobedience to her creator hadn’t quite been rationalized all the way through yet.

Ok, it was time to do this. He found the kid in the bedroom, lying down and staring emptily at the ceiling. However, as soon as he entered the room, the boy stood up and looked at him defensively, ready to run.

“Hey, I come in peace. I just wanna talk.”

“The Widow ‘just wanted to talk’, too.” He hissed.

Romanov didn’t mentally scar these kids forever or something like that, right?

“Different tactic then.” Tony tried to move closer to the chair beside the bed, so he could sit down, but the teenager snared and yelled “Stay back, Stark!” at him. “Look, I am not planning on hurting you. No suit on, for one. And I don’t think it would be in your favor to hurt me. To say nothing of the security measures, the Avengers are in this building. It would go very bad, very fast for you if you killed me.”

It didn’t seem like his words would get through until he mentioned the word ‘kill’. Maximoff looked away from him once he said that. Hmm. Something to think about later.

“I want to talk about Ultron.”

Maximoff snorted. “That’s all you Americans want to talk about. I already said I don’t know where he is to the Widow.”

The way he kept saying ‘the Widow’, like it was a title and not Romanov’s superhero name… He would have to check that out later.

“That’s not what I want to talk about.” Tony said. God, emotionally manipulating a kid… his newly discovered soul would need to shop for an afterlife that didn’t involve hell soon. “I want you to tell me about him. How is he? How did you meet? Is the Stone… is the Stone causing him pain still?”

Maximoff looked very confused at his questions. “Pain? The Stone causes him pain?”

“It did. It hurt him. And the next thing I know, Ultron is befriending known terrorists.”

The boy seemed to think about it. “Why do you care?”

“He’s my kid.” The teenager’s eyes widened at his words. He probably thought their conversation at the warehouse was merely some hero-villain banter. “My son. I need to help him.”

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