Vardas Stiv - Prologue: Birth of a Stark

Prologue – Creation

Switzerland
The small private plane touched down in the remote airport and the three people got off; two males dressed in dark suits, one taller with blonde hair and blue eyes, the other shorter with dark hair and eyes shrouded by sunglasses. The third was wrapped in a thick coat and sat in a wheelchair, appearing to hardly notice the world around them. Upon a closer look, it was possible to tell that this person was female, with long, reddish-blonde hair, and blue eyes with a haunted look that didn't go away.
This trio of people, along with their luggage, moved away from the airport towards a sleek car parked out front – a car with tinted windows making it impossible to both see in or take pictures through the glass, just in case. While the blonde man dealt with arranging the luggage in the trunk, the dark-haired man opened one of the car's passenger doors, gently lifted the woman from her chair and placed her inside, as carefully as if she were made of glass. Before getting in beside her, he turned to the blonde and said, "Jarvis, make sure to let us know when we pass Interlaken. Other than that, I'm counting on you to make sure this trip is as smooth as possible."
The blonde, who in no way betrayed that he was actually a form of artificial intelligence, nodded to his creator and employer. "Of course, Mr. Stark."
                                         ***
It had been roughly a month since the incident...a bungled burglary attempt had left Pepper Potts Stark critically injured. She'd lost the baby she was carrying. Doctors said the damage was too severe for her ever to have more. The whole thing shattered Pepper. And of course, there was no peace for her back at home, with the constant machine of the media dogging her and her celebrity husband's footsteps at every turn. Her depression and pain were getting the better of her, to the point that even Tony - who never generally worried about much besides himself - began to worry very much that the woman he loved was slipping away from him and might never recover.
Frantic, he'd combed through the archives of companies who were doing research on anything to help couples who could have no children...until he came across one very obscure report regarding a technology invented by a husband and wife team of scientists employed by a company called Felding Labs. There was very little about it, but enough that Tony was convinced they were on the right track. He put Jarvis to work locating the research data he wanted and 'liberating' it from Felding. Then, he arranged for all of them to fly to the chalet he owned in the little village of Grindelwald, Switzerland. Here, Pepper could rest and recover far from prying eyes and here – if luck were on their side – he would make a son for them with Felding's unwitting help.
Tony looked out the window of the car at the scenery flying by, seeing none of it, thinking only of his plan. Thinking of Pepper caused him to turn and check on her, however. She hadn't said a word since they left, but then that was normal for the heavy medications she was on. He still had to admit her blank staring eyes and her silence scared him.
"Pepper...you feeling well?"
Pepper only moaned slightly in pain, and leaned a little closer to him. He put his arm around her and pulled her nearer to him as the lights of the city of Bern faded into the deep darkness of the mountain highways around them. In this darkness where she couldn't see his face and mark the worry and guilt and regret upon it, he whispered, "Peppy...I'm...so sorry I wasn't there...when you needed me...I'm so sorry."
Pepper whimpered in response, huddling close against him. He could feel her tears wet his shirt and knew she was crying with the memory of what happened. He would never admit that his own eyes weren't exactly dry either. "Sir, you requested I warn you as we passed Interlaken. We are currently passing through. We should arrive in Grindelwald in 30 minutes." Though Jarvis' clipped British accent had interrupted the thoughts of the couple in the back, they did nothing to dispel the gloom, as even the android's voice sounded slightly sad when he spoke.
Pepper suddenly broke into openly weeping, for though her thoughts were clouded with medication, she could still remember looking at her beautiful, dark-haired son and knowing he would never now have a chance to live, and that she would never be a mother. Tony could guess at what she was thinking as he took out a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped her tears. "Peppy, rest. We'll be there soon."
But he knew Pepper couldn't be comforted that easily. He remembered the horrors of that night all too well himself. He'd been off fighting some dumb kid whose name escaped him right now...a kid who manipulated metal like modeling clay. In hindsight, the kid was probably one of Felding's genetic experiments sent out on a test run, but fighting him had taken just long enough. When he arrived home, the place was a mess...and Pepper was laying in a pool of blood. He'd been just too late to save her...and their unborn child.
"Sir, we have arrived at the destination." Jarvis again interrupted Tony's thoughts, as he pulled the car smoothly into the chalet's garage, and his systems activated all within the chalet's walls. As Edwin Godfrey Jarvis - the name of the blonde android according to his driver's license – took care of the luggage and started a fire in the chalet's large central fireplace, Tony lifted Pepper in his arms and brought her to a large, white couch...her favorite spot in the chalet since their honeymoon. Tony sighed and rubbed his temples a bit, thinking of that time...did they really ever honeymoon in this same place? It seemed like a lifetime ago. He sat down beside Pepper on the couch, tucking a thick, woolen blanket around her legs, then taking her hand, trying to get her to focus. "Pepper, I'm here, okay? I'm right here."
But Pepper wouldn't stop crying, which meant per her doctor's instruction, a sedative must be administered to allow her to rest peacefully. Noticing her distress, Jarvis locked eyes with his maker. Tony gave him a small nod, then hugged Pepper close to him, kissing her tear-stained cheeks softly, one at a time, followed by a gentle kiss on the lips. "Shhh, calm down sweetheart...everything's going to be... all right." As he said the last two words, Tony injected Pepper with the sedative Jarvis had prepared in a spot where she wouldn't feel it. Slowly, Pepper relaxed in his arms, the sedative doing its work. Once she was asleep, Tony set Jarvis's systems to monitor Pepper while he and Edwin retreated quietly to the lower floor's workshop.
Jarvis' android form entered his criotank, his consciousness joining with the main system as his body entered stasis. His consciousness no longer divided between the system and his android body, Jarvis began bringing up the data he had retrieved, and suddenly a woman's face took over all computer interfaces in the workshop...fuzzy and out of focus, all that could be truly made out was that she had red hair and wore glasses. "Please enter your access code," the woman's voice said. Tony began to work on the code, but after an hour of getting nowhere, Jarvis replaced him and was able to crack it in half the time.
"Access granted," said the woman's voice. "Please note that you have precisely one hour to copy the data you need before it will destroy itself. We do not intend this data to fall into the wrong hands."
"Jarvis, you heard the lady," Tony said. "Start copying the entire project. You have less than one hour."
"As you wish, sir," the computer replied, beginning the download. 55 minutes later, the project was completely copied and Tony was frantically trying to find a way to stop the countdown and prevent the files from self-destructing.
"Five minutes and counting. Please be advised the data will be destroyed once the timer reaches zero," the woman's voice said. Unable to discover another way, Tony swore under his breath and logged out of the data, hoping to pause the timer where it was.
"Jarvis, you have everything?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. Am I to begin the preparations?" The computer voice queried.
"Yes, get started," Tony ordered.
The computer complied, splitting its focus between assembling a robotic replica of Tony and Pepper's son, per the research they had gathered, and finding a reset code for the timer on the data. A moment later, however, the computer halted. "Sir, I am picking up movement upstairs. It appears Ms. Pepper may be having a nightmare."
"All right, I'll be back. You, keep going," Tony said as he bolted upstairs.
Pepper was indeed in the grips of a nightmare, thrashing and moaning in her sleep. Tony, without a second thought, took Pepper into his arms, kissing her softly. "Hey, shh, shh. It's okay. It's okay, Peppy. I'm here."
Pepper relaxed a bit in his presence, clinging to her husband in her sleep. Once she had relaxed enough, Tony gently settled her back on the couch again and rushed downstairs, ready to work on the appearance settings for his mechanical 'son'. Clearly distracted by worry over Pepper's worsening condition, he rushed the process and left the finishing touches to Jarvis. "You can finish up here."
"Yes, sir."
Tony ran back upstairs and took his place next to Pepper, laying beside her on the couch and pulling her into his arms. He fell asleep like this, only waking a few times to Pepper's whimpers in the night, and in the morning to Jarvis' mechanical voice saying, "Sir, the project is complete."
"Thank you, Jarvis," he murmured, then turned to Pepper and gently started to wake her. "Sweetie...wake up. Jarvis and I have a surprise for you."
Pepper's eyes opened slowly, looking dead and dull. She looked as if she'd much rather go back to sleep. Tony took a deep breath. "Pepper...Jarvis and I...we found a way to give life to our son. But it's you that has to wake him up." As soon as Tony finished speaking, Edwin – Jarvis' android form – walked into the room with a tiny, baby form in his arms. He laid the child gently in Pepper's own arms, the spitting image of her little dark-haired child, but with hair like snow instead. A completely stunned look entered her eyes. "Pepper, all you have to do is warm your son...and he'll wake up," Tony whispered.
Pepper sat silently for a few moments, staring at the infant in her arms. Slowly, she began to stroke the baby's soft, downy hair with one hand as she peered at his tiny face. Then slowly, she held one of his tiny hands...and burst into tears. She held the little baby to her heart, smiling through the tears, and wrapped her own blankets around him, trying to warm him. The baby instantly took a deep breath and began to cry. Looking at Tony, Pepper opened her mouth and spoke for the first time since that terrible night. "But...how?"
Tony settled in beside her, smiling at the sight of his wife and baby son. "I had Jarvis take over a 3-year-old project from Felding Labs. It was designed by two scientists who couldn't have children...like us. They created an android so perfect it even eats for the same reasons humans do, and has a fully self-replicating system designed to mimic the human biological system perfectly. They disappeared some time back, the android was lost and the project was abandoned so we 'borrowed' it to create our son," he kissed her cheek, "And speaking of whom, I think he's hungry."
Pepper smiled at the crying infant, bringing him to her own breasts to nurse, since her body still was in preparation for a child being born. She couldn't stop crying for joy as the baby began to suckle. "He's...beautiful. He's perfect. Tony...thank you."
Tony kissed her softly on the lips, happy to see Pepper recovering. "Well...I did make a bit of a slip-up with the coding. I was worried about you last night, so I rushed it...he's an albino, Peppy. But I think he's still good-looking...like his mom."
Pepper laughed a little as she kissed the top of her baby's head. "I don't care. He's our boy. I...love him," she said the last two words slowly, with realization that they were true. She had bonded to him as any mother would her newborn. "So...what's his name?" She slowly asked.
"You know in this family, it's a tradition that we pass the father's middle name on to the son as the given name."
"Edward," Pepper wrinkled her nose in distaste.
"Hey now, the middle name's chosen by the mother," Tony said, his hands raised as if in defense, "so what would you call him?"
Pepper looked at her son a moment, then turned back to Tony. "Alexander. I like Alexander." She stood up to burp the baby as he finally stopped suckling, and she rocked him gently as she held him. "He's so...soft...so perfect. I can't believe he's an android," she murmured, marveling still at the tiny form in her arms, which was now playing with one of her thumbs.
Tony got up and walked over to the two of them. "Alexander it is...our little Alex." He kissed his wife, who for the first time in months, kissed happily back.
"Alex...Stark." she repeated.