Earth-200207: February 199
Creating JARVIS was not something Toni had ever thought she'd do again. And why would she? JARVIS had died for her, died for the world because of the witch and her own mistakes. The idea of remaking him, of using the old not destroyed backups to recreate him was not only not feasible, but it was also... morbid.
So, despite the heartache and the pain and how much she missed what was not only her closest confidant but also... her son, she had closed her eyes and focused on FRIDAY.
But this wasn't recreating JARVIS, because JARVIS did not exist in this Universe. She had been given something of a second chance, a second chance at life, and so should JARVIS, right? In a way it was like giving birth to him all over again.
He wouldn't be the same of course. He couldn't, not when Toni herself was so changed.
In the first timeline, Tony Stark had started building JARVIS a while after his parent's death. In December 1991 they had died, and by December of 1992 Toni had moved everything to California, living in his mothers holiday home while he and the architects worked on what would later become his Malibu mansion.
JARVIS had been fully created by October of 1992, but that was because he was new and Toni was not even fully sure she could create a functional AI, at the time. Arrogant enough to claim it, not confident enough to fully believe it.
But it was much easier this time around, because Toni knew every inch of JARVIS' code. She could remake him in her sleep if she so wished. The only problems were a matter of storage, considering the millions of updates she had made on his matrix as the years went by. She of course was going to recreate the base code first, but she needed to make him secure. Not as secure as he had been in 2015, but he needed to be a few steps forward in comparison to the rest of Earth's (Wakanda notwithstanding) technology.
And then came the matter of the name.
In 1992, by the time JARVIS was fully automated, the original Jarvis and Tony Stark were estranged. Tony Stark had actually been estranged from pretty much everyone in his life, after the death of his parents. Obadiah was the only one who was there for him and looking back, Toni felt physically sick at the way he had been groomed by someone he believed family for years without once realising it.
With both his parents dead, Tony's relationship with Peggy Carter had also cooled. He didn't want to be around her and listen to stories about Howard, and by the time she got sick, well. Ana and Edwin had been fired, with generous severance packages, as had everyone else who worked in the New York mansion - because Stane kept probing him about the fact that he was now an adult, and did not need nannies. Rhodey had returned to the Airforce days after the funeral and while Tony understood, it had effectively cooled their friendship for several years.
In this timeline, Toni wasn't estranged from any of them - yet. Edwin still worked for the Stark family, and Toni wasn't sure of how he would take to an AI in the house, answering to his surname and speaking with his voice. She wasn't sure how Maria would take it. Would it be disrespectful? Would she expect her to call JARVIS 'Howard' instead?
Sure she didn't hate the man as she had in the original timeline but there was a pretty big difference between that and wanting to immortalise him through her AI.
The language interface was one of the last things she actually had to worry about, so she continued working on JARVIS' code for the next couple of weeks, debating pro and con of her decision.
In the end, she decided to do something she wasn't very adept at doing: asking before doing.
So she sat Edwin and her mamma in the living room of the mansion the evening before JARVIS was due to be activated and tried to keep her fidgeting to a minimum.
"Is everything all right, young Miss?" asked Edwin, and Toni had to stop herself from laughing or making any inappropriate noise at that. Because, yes. That was a thing now. She was a girl and therefore Edwin addressed her as 'young Miss', rather than the 'young Sir' she was used to.
It was weird how that tripped her up more than being female did. When she had snapped out of her psychotic break long enough to figure out what was going on, she had not been particularly bothered by the fact that she was a girl.
And she was a hot girl, if she did say so herself. Tony Stark had been hot too: 5'9, curly brown hair kept short, sunkissed skin 365 days a year, long lashes and brown eyes. But Toni Stark was hotter - if shorter - at 5'5, with long wavy dark brown hair like Howard's, the same sun kissed skin and softer brown eyes framed by even longer lashes.
"Yes," she said, shaking her head slightly. "Right. So remember my project, the one I started before... before?"
Maria just blinked in confusion, while Edwin nodded. "Ah yes. The Artificial Intelligence you wanted to build."
Her mother had started to change, so Toni forced down any feelings of hurt at the fact that Edwin knew and understood her so much better than her own parents ever had. "Yes. So I'm basically done with him, and I was going to integrate the voice print today and finish and name him tomorrow."
Her fidgeting picked up a notch when they both just stared at her, waiting for a further explanation. "And well... I was thinking. His name. I wanted to name him Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. Or..."
"JARVIS for short," finished Maria Stark, and there was the slightly heartbroken expression Toni had been expecting. Edwin was harder to read, so she focused on her first.
She cringed a little. "Mamma, I love you very much, you know this. You're my mamma. And I know me and Howard fought a lot, but I don't hate him, you know that. I loved him; he was my father."
The woman nodded, still heartbroken. "Howard was your father, sure, but Edwin has always been your dad. At least to you."
"Missus-"
"Mamma-"
"That's okay, Antoinette," said Maria, a new fiercer light flickering in her eyes. "I have been rather lousy at this mother thing, especially in the past couple of years. And Howard... I loved the man, but he had never been father material. He loved you, he did truly love you, but he... he was not a dad. Not like Edwin was." She smiled at the butler. "Do you deny that you cared about our Antoinette as if she was your own daughter?"
This had never happened in the first timeline, so Toni couldn't help but stare at the man as he prepared his response. She had always considered him her dad, but had never had the chance of having it confirmed or denied.
Edwin smiled, mostly at her. "But of course. Young Miss Toni is the light of my life. I never intended nor presumed to take her parents' place, but it is impossible to truly know her and not love her."
Toni had several future examples, but she didn't mention it, instead throwing a thousands megawatt smile at the man before basically launching herself at both him and her mother. "Really?"
The butler patted her curls gently. "But of course."
She held her mother's hand in hers and looked at Edwin, hopeful. "So that means I can use your voice print and name my AI after you?"
"Do as you please, young Miss," he said, and Toni hugged them both again.
Toni had been expecting something that she didn't anticipate to happen from the second Maria Stark had survived her supposed death. The butterfly had flapped its wings, after all, so it was just a question of when the typhoons would start.
So when she saw the golden portal appearing in her bedroom she was shocked but also not. It was only when the yellow robed figure stepped out of the circle that the shock amped up, this time with a heavy dose of wariness as the woman in the yellow robes looked around herself with curious eyes before settling on Toni.
"Ah," she said, smiling politely. "Miss Stark. Pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure is all mine, Ancient One," she answered, pleased that she remembered the name.
The woman did not appear particularly surprised. "Interesting," she said, and then sat down on the couch in Toni's room, a tray with two tea cups floating through the portal. "Please take a seat."
The chances of her winning a fight with a magic user she didn't know without her suit her were abysmal, and she would lose whether she was sitting on the couch or she was standing farther away from her.
So she did sit, politely declining the tea offered in favour of the cup of steaming coffee she had made for herself earlier.
"Your presence caused quite a ruckus in the timeline," commented the Ancient One, after a couple of minutes. "Never quite seen something like that."
"I did not do it on purpose," rushed to explain Toni and the Ancient One gave her a bland smile that reminded her of Coulson.
"No, I wouldn't suppose you knew enough about the Mystic Arts to craft such a spell," she agreed, and her eyes caught onto the bracelet on her hand. "Ah. A cradelaide. Not native of any Earth Dimension, I don't believe."
Toni had in fact tried to figure out what butterfly it was, but she had not been very lucky. The internet in the 90s was slow and on top of that she was not very nature inclined. Like finding a needle in a haystack while wearing heavy gloves. "What's a cradelaide?"
The Ancient One pointed at the butterfly, not touching it. "A rare butterfly, native of the Xiley Dimension. They call it soul catcher," she said, another little smile on her face as she sipped her tea. "The Sorcerer Supreme crafted it for you, I assume?"
"Yeah. Do you know what it is for?" she asked, a little hopefully.
"That is for you to find out," told her the older woman, shaking her head slightly. "You, and those like you, who carry Infinity in their souls."
Toni blinked at her and only barely reigned in a scoff or a curse. "Yeah, okay. Cryptic stuff. What did I expect from the Order of the Phoenix?"
The woman raised a pale eyebrow at that. "Careful with your words, Miss Stark. The book has yet to be released."
Oh right. That was a problem... while most of her quips were mostly un-understandable for most people, it would become a problem if she made comments that started to make sense in hindsight. Someone would catch up.
Then she caught on to the Ancient One's words. "Wait. You've seen the future?"
She tilted her head to the side. "I have seen multiple possible futures. And because of this, I have to tell you, Miss Stark: there are certain things that not even you, with all your foresight can stop."
Toni narrowed her eyes at her. "What do you mean?"
"Some things are meant to happen, whether we want them or not. And if you try to stop them from happening, well, the Multiverse has a way of fixing itself. Of making sure everything returns to the means," she finished the last sip of her tea. "Iron Man is, for example, a staple. Your charming suit of armour is needed for the events of the timeline to continue. Captain America will be found alive in the ice, no matter what you choose to do. Obadiah Stane will oppose you, no matter what you do, and there will be a reckoning between the two of you.
"Similarly, some events you cannot change. 9/11, for example, you cannot try and contain."
At this, Toni stared at her like she was crazy. "What? You expect me to stand aside and not stop thousands of deaths that happened because of the planes and as a direct consequence of it?"
"Yes," simply answered the Ancient One. "If you had gone further back in time, before Hitler became a Nazi. Would you have killed him?"
Toni's first answer was 'yes'. But it wouldn't leave her tongue, because, of course, butterfly effect and chaos theory. The raise of the nazi was facilitated by Hitler but if it hadn't been him, it'd have been someone else. What if you killed Hitler and then the Red Skull took over and created an army of enhanced like him?
And what if she stopped 9/11 only for whoever planned it to send even more planes, now to places Toni wouldn't be able to predict and in turn leading it to causing more damage?
"Then what can I change? I've already changed things with my mom being alive," she said, sighing.
"Your mother always survived in this Universe," informed her the Ancient One which. Okay. Interesting.
This timeline had not fully changed only because Toni showed up. She had not time travelled, not really. More like... had her soul displaced in a similar Universe.
That meant that she hadn't killed Howard. It was always meant to happen. And while normally she scoffed in the face of destiny and fate, it made her feel much better.
"How do I know if I can change something or not, then?"
"You can't," answered the other woman, not unkindly. "You can hope, but you cannot be sure. Just know, that the Multiverse always has a way of correcting itself."
Toni frowned further. "You've said that already."
The Ancient One just smiled, and Toni did not like the feeling it left her with.
The very next day, JARVIS was reborn.
Neither her mother nor Ana or Edwin were in the house as she did so, because - for once - she wanted to work completely alone just in case she had messed up something after all.
(Ultron was not her fault - it had never been her fault - no matter what Captain Righteous said, but the fear and anxiety its existence had filled her with would never fully leave her)
"Good morning, Miss Stark. My name is Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, or JARVIS. I am an AI created on date 17th February by Antoinette Evelyn Stark. What is my purpose?"
Toni nearly cried remembering very similar words spoken an entire lifetime ago. Her JARVIS.
Reborn.
Instead she forced her voice to remain clear and steady as she spoke. "Your purpose is to learn, understand and assist me and mine. You are a learning AI so what I want, mostly, is for you to learn and grow."
"Very well. Assimilating commands," he said, the old tech - it made her physically ill having to use 90s gadgets but unless she decided to invent other people's inventions she had to wait for the breakthroughs - beeping for a couple of seconds as he did just that. "Commands fully integrated. Thank you, Miss."
"You can call me Toni, you know," she said, repeating the same words she had said to him in their other life.
"Your advice has been noted, Miss," he answered, unknowingly echoing his own words too, and this time she did let a couple of tears fall.
"You appear to be crying, Miss. Are you in distress?" he questioned, and he was so young. So new. He was basically a blank state, and while Toni wasn't expecting him to be a perfect copy of what he had been in the old timeline, she was also afraid of messing him up and creating something she did not recognise either.
But he wanted to learn, and by Thor and the entire of the Asgardian Pantheon she would teach him. "Tears of joy, J."
"J?"
"Term of endearment," she explained. "I like giving people nicknames, especially people I like."
"Thank you, Miss."
By the time he died, he would have answered with 'I like you too'. But Toni was patient.
Her child would grow once again.
+++
After making sure that JARVIS was as impenetrable as anything in 1992 could be, Toni got to work. With the memory of the Ancient One's words still in her head, she decided to get to work regarding the things she already knew or at least suspected in regards to the next 20 years.
She knew that she couldn't change everything, of course, and that there were things she shouldn't try and change. But knowing about them and having enough time to think about it was better than nothing.
From 1992 to 1994 there was no actual 'big thing' that happened. No alien invasions, no near death experiences, and no one she would need to save or something. She would 'learn the ropes' - not - from Obadiah and move to Malibu in the first timeline, but that was about it. Nothing 'major'.
Things got dicey in 1995, however. In 1995 of the original timeline, she became CEO. Following that, on the 17th of June of the same year, Edwin Jarvis was involved in a car crash, and Ana Jarvis followed him a week, dying from a broken heart. During that same year, at some point Carol came back and met up with Fury, Maria Rambeau and her daughter. Toni planned to be there when she came back and had 0 interest in allowing Edwin to die.
Nothing too big happened except for a bunch of overdoses and attempted kidnappings that wouldn't be happening this time around, and then 1999. Killian, Maya Hansen, Ho Yinsen and Doctor Wu. She certainlydid not want to meet the first two again. She had a feeling Extremis was one of those staples doomed to repeat itself, but she wasn't going to give Maya Hansen the beginning of the formula, this time around, nor speak to Killian at all. At the same time, she wanted to meet Yinsen and Wu.
Early 2000s were also pretty quiet, but in 2003 the Hulk would show up for the first time. Hulk had always been an amazing asset, and that wasn't just cause Toni loved the green rage monster. But the transformation had made Bruce pretty suicidal and, knowing Bruce now, she did not want to let him get to that point. She could stop it, of course. Stop Bruce from becoming the Hulk. But Ross wasn't going to stop just because Bruce dropped out, and she doubted Bruce himself would stop even if she told him it was dangerous. She filed those thoughts for later.
Again quiet until 2009 when she ended up in the company of the Ten Rings. In the original timeline, that was when Iron Man was born. She had again 0 interest in getting an Arc Reactor shoved into her chest this time around, but Iron Man, as the Ancient had previously said, was gonna be needed. But she wasn't sure how she would come around, considering that by 2009 she was planning on having her weapons division fully closed. Again, file thoughts for later.
2010 the Hulk resurfaced at Culver University and during that same week so did Thor with all of his drama. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to get involved with all of that, but if she managed to somehow warn him of the Chitauri...
2012, the first attack from Thanos, because of the Tesseract and carried out by Loki, who brought the Mind Stone along for the ride. That was her chance to get the Mind Stone and the Tesseract out of SHIELD's hands, and get them to Asgard for safekeeping. If Loki was willing, then they could also speak to him regarding Thanos himself. Earlier in the year the Popsicle was gonna be found alive, and she had no interest in getting involved with all that either.
2013, Killian and the Extremist soldiers. Depending on 1999 and on the Multiverse they would either exist or not. The Convergence happened and the Aether appeared, at least according to Thor. She had no details on it, but if she managed to strike a friendship with the Ancient One perhaps she would be willing to help - unless she died before. Strange had told her she died, but he never specified when and how (though, why hadn't they helped with New York?).
2014, the fall of SHIELD, and many burned agents. Her thoughts turned to a man that currently existed and was being kept prisoner of HYDRA right now and she pursed her lips. Her feelings about Barnes were hard to understand, so mostly she ignore his existence. She did not know where HYDRA was currently keeping him, but should she try and save him now? What would the ramification of that be? Considering she wasn't Rogers, would she even be able to help him, considering how far from completion BARF was? And what if she found him now, in 1992, and he finished his mission by killing Maria Stark? She couldn't allow that. She couldn't go after him. And HYDRA... she could clue Aunt Peggy in their existence, but what if that got her killed? At this point in time, Toni did not have the necessary tools to fight them. No armour, not enough recognition for her brain, and she was a target.
2015, Ultron and the twins. They wouldn't happen, and especially not by her hands. If she didn't manage to get the Scepter off world, she'd steal it from SHIELD somehow and then destroy it. No evil twins with evil powers - that if their parents even ended up dying, considering how much sooner Toni was thinking of ending her weapons production. Was she even really the reason for their deaths, as Maximoff insisted? Stark weapons never failed. JARVIS wouldn't die this time around either. She wouldn't allow it.
2016, the Accords and meeting Peter Parker again. The death of King T'Chaka. Strange's magical girl transformation, something about Dormammu and the Time Stone. She could not even begin to think about all of that, especially not Peter (I don't wanna go). If Sokovia didn't happen, Zemo wouldn't happen, and T'Chaka wouldn't die in a bombed Vienna meeting room. She knew better than think the Accords wouldn't happen anyway, but maybe if she played this smartly, she'd manage to get them ready by the time the Invasion happened.
2017, the Vulture hurting Peter. Not. Going. To. Happen.
2018, the arrival of Thanos and the death of the Universe. The Endgame.
She shuddered slightly, before writing down the names of the big players, the people she knew would stand up for the Universe.
Toni Stark (would become Iron Man [Maiden? Queen?]). Stephen Strange (would become a Sorcerer). Carol Danvers (already had her powers). Bruce Banner (still unsure, but possibly a staple). James Rhodes (if she was Iron Man, he would be War Machine). Thor (already an Asgardian). Steve Rogers (ugh). Natasha Romanoff (was still a Black Widow). Clint Barton (was already SHIELD). Hope Van Dyne (would need a push to become the Wasp, but Toni would know how to play it). Bucky Barnes (? - depended on how and when he was found this time around). Sam Wilson (? - Exo wings were necessary for pararescue but what would ending weapons production mean for him). Wanda Maximoff (? - if her parents didn't die by Toni's bombs as they - supposedly - did before, and the Scepter wasn't around would she still join HYDRA and gain powers?). Pietro Maximoff (? - same as Wanda). Scott Lang (? - if Toni managed to push Hope into becoming the Wasp earlier, would Scott end up becoming Ant-Man?). T'Challa (? - he revealed himself to the world because his father died. What if he didn't die?). Guardians of the Galaxy. Masters of the Mystic Arts.
Toni looked at her notes and sighed. That was more or less her timeline. And then there was the stones...
The Tesseract aka the Space Stone was currently on Earth. However, she couldn't simply get into SHIELD and find it or steal it. But she could get Howard's research on it ahead of time.
The Time Stone was also already on Earth, but she didn't know what the management was like pre-Strange. The man had been particularly protective of something he had known about for two years, she did not look forward to see what the Ancient One felt like about it.
The Mind Stone would arrive on Earth with the Invasion. She'd like to avoid it, but she had the feeling it was one of those 'is going to happen whether you like it or not' things. She'd find a way to steal it then.
The Aether, the Reality Stone, showed up with the Convergence somehow someway, but Toni had not payed much attention to Thor's story. After that, it was given to a 'Collector'. If she intercepted Thor in London and told him what was going on...
The Power Stone was found by Quill and the Guardians, and then given to a planet? a people? called Nova Corps. It was the first stone to be found by Thanos. Toni couldn't go in space... yet. But if she managed to make contact with Carol when she arrived on Earth...
The Soul Stone was somewhere called Vormir, and that was all she knew about that.
She stared at everything she had managed to write and then let out a loud sigh. "I need a drink."
Or several, if she was planning to survive the next two decades and save the Universe.