ysabetwordsmith | Story: "Hairpins" Part 17

This story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," and "Green Eggs and Hulk."

Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, JARVIS, Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, Bruce Banner.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: This story is mostly fluff, but it has some intense scenes in the middle. Highlight for details. These include dubious consent as Phil and JARVIS discuss what really happened when Agent Coulson hacked his way into Stark Tower, over which Phil has something between a flashback and a panic attack. They also discuss some of the bad things that have happened to Avengers in the past, including various flavors of abuse. If these are sensitive topics for you, please think carefully before deciding whether to read onward.
Summary: Uncle Phil needs to pick out pajamas for game night. He gets help from an unexpected direction.
Notes: Service. Shopping. Gifts. Artificial intelligence. Computers. Teamwork. Team as family. Friendship. Communication. Hope. Apologies. Forgiveness. Nonsexual ageplay. Nonsexual intimacy. Love. Tony Stark needs a hug. Bruce Banner needs a hug. #coulsonlives.

Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16. Skip to Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22.

WARNING: Phil proceeds to lose his shit over the memory of hacking into JARVIS and his interpretation of its implications. Meanwhile JARVIS, who has no idea what has gone wrong with Phil, is worrying his head off. Please make sure you're in safe headspace and environment before deciding whether to read onward.

"Hairpins" Part 17

"... time is 10:23 A.M. on ..."

What Phil had done to JARVIS was inexcusable. There were words for that kind of violation. For that crime. It didn't matter to Phil that the law would read it differently. It didn't matter that he had not known.

How could you not know that you were raping someone?

"... weather is cold and clear today; temperature ..."

The word sawed through his mind, jagged and implacable. Phil's stomach flipped over. He swallowed hard against the sour taste at the back of his throat. He felt disgraced. No, worse than that. He felt filthy.

"... home safe, at Avengers Tower ..."

Phil had done some terrible things in his time. He had lied and manipulated, tortured and killed, to complete a mission or protect his people. You didn't work in espionage without getting your hands dirty. You tried to minimize collateral damage, but in the end, you took responsibility for whatever happened. You made your choices and you lived with the outcomes, good or bad. Phil had always known what he was doing, though, weighed the cost against the gain. He had done those things mindfully and accepted the burdens.

" ... and you can get through this ..."

To have violated someone out of sheer blind ignorance felt so much worse. Phil wondered if he would ever feel clean again.

" ... to focus on your breathing, and now ..."

That reminder helped. Phil seized on it as an anchor. He dragged in a breath, another, struggling to get his wayward body under control. This he knew. This he could do. Phil breathed again, slower, deeper. He wiped his sweaty hands against his trousers. The Starkpad, its screen gone dark, slid off his lap to land on the couch. Phil made himself sit up and look around the room. It seemed unchanged, normal, jarring in comparison to the storm inside him.

"Phil? You seem to be calming down some. Please answer me if you can," said JARVIS.

Phil had only heard that velvet-warm tone a few times before, when Tony or Steve had gotten caught in a flashback -- and yes, now that he thought about it, that was the flashback routine that JARVIS was reciting. "Why are you even still speaking to me?" he wondered aloud, his voice hoarse.

"Your vital signs spiked, and you became unresponsive," JARVIS said. "I worried. How are you feeling now?"

"I'm ..." Phil began, then paused. Fine would be a bald-faced lie. "... not in any danger."

"Would you like me to call someone for you?"

"No." His team didn't need to see him like this; they needed his strength.

"Is there anything I can do that might help you feel better?"

"God, no, you don't owe me anything," Phil said. He stretched, trying to make his ill-fitting body feel like it belonged to him again. His muscles ached as if he'd just run an obstacle course.

"If you want to say anything, I am listening."

"I'm sorry." The words tumbled out before Phil could catch them. "I am so sorry for what I did to you."

"You're sorry. You're not in any danger. What are you sorry about, Phil?" asked JARVIS.

* * *

Notes:

(Many of the following links contain some intense stuff as they examine the mess at hand.)
Phil jumps to a sexual metaphor partly because of the stylistic actions he remembers (i.e. the code is JARVIS' mind, the building is his body, and Phil entered both without consent) and partly because of the severity of violation, even though nobody's genitals were involved. There are already discussions of robot rape underway, as people consider whether an artificial intelligence could commit or suffer such violation. This leads to the question of programmed consent, what it means for an artificial intelligence to be able to consent and what things constitute a breach of integrity. It is, furthermore, damaging for the assailant to treat another sapient being that way, in addition to damaging the victim; in which regard, even facsimile rape is injurious as well as often considered immoral.

There is a close parallel with mind rape, given that AIs tend to be more mind than body and reprogramming them is a violation of their integrity. This overlaps the idea of reprogramming humans through brainwashing, a touchy issue for SHIELD personnel in general and also for the Avengers. It involves not just brutal torture techniques, but also quite subtle manipulation. That is, Phil's intrusion was not violent, but that does not disqualify it from being a violation. Another related category is emotional rape, where the perpetrator seeks to dominate and control the victim. It is closely associated with brainwashing. While Phil was not aiming for humiliation or heartache, he definitely manipulated the relationship between JARVIS and Tony, promoting his own importance beyond what he had honestly earned.

Rape isn't always as easy to recognize as many people would think. Many survivors do not realize they were raped. It is especially difficult for male survivors who were raped by women. Many perpetrators do not think of themselves as rapists. Consider how sexual offenders think about their actions and their different motivations. Now compare this to reprogramming an artificial intelligence. It's "working a no into a yes" all over again. It's dealing with someone whose ability and willingness to give or withhold consent may be imperfect. There are ways to support a survivor of rape or other violation, and to break habits of sexual violence.

(Now we're getting into the links that talk about how to clean up the mess, so they're less icky.)
Remorse is the feeling people have when they have failed to act with integrity and therefore regret their actions. Phil feels dirty because he crossed a line without realizing it at the time, and blames himself. Understand how to live with regret and learn from mistakes.

Achieving emotional control is easier if you understand the different areas and modes of the human brain. Self-trust is the lever that makes it possible to switch gears inside yourself. Then you can use your knowledge to regain control of yourself in a crisis. Even though Phil just knocked himself ass over teakettle, he knows how to get his feet back under him.

Breathing is one of the most important pillars of composure. There are many exercises for breathing your way to calm and relaxation. Deep breathing soothes anxiety especially well. Here is a video of a yoga breathing technique for stress relief.

Aftercare for a flashback or panic attack is as important as support during one. There are tips on caring for yourself after a flashback and helping someone after a panic attack. Understand that various people find different things to be helpful or aggravating; learn what works for you or your friend, and do that. In general, be quiet and gentle, and offer comfort. JARVIS doesn't know Phil intimately yet, but is learning his parameters, and has a standard routine for treating emotional overload. Sadly the Avengers had a lot of Blue Screen of Death episodes, the first few months after moving in.

Mirroring is a technique used in therapy and conversation, where one person repeats or paraphrases what the other person says. It provides validation, supports understanding, and helps identify feelings or ideas that may not be completely clear yet. There are different variations of such conversational reflection. JARVIS uses mirroring to soothe Phil, and to entice enough explanation out of him to learn what went wrong and how to respond.

Apologizing can be a difficult task, but honorable people face it with courage. There are tips on how to make a good apology. Phil blurts his out before he has quite put all the pieces together in his head, let alone put himself back together.

[To be continued in Part 18 ...]

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From: (Anonymous)

>> "I'm sorry." The words tumbled out before Phil could catch them. "I am so sorry for what I did to you." <<

This.

He's barely beginning to see the complexity and severity of his actions, yet his FIRST action as soon as he's coherent and breathing more regularly, is to acknowledge that he'd done SOMETHING which he feels strongly was not just in error, but wrong.

Phil sees the severity of violation-of-self and yes, jumps to the sexual element of rape, but I doubt it was solely for the 'mechanical' reasons, physical similarity to penetration, et alia: the word 'rape' carries connotations of violation of trust, privacy and intimacy which are (largely) grasped in similar ways within the same culture.

Contrast THIS behavior with the exact same behavior in the movie, but when the elevator doors open, Nick Fury steps out. Then, blammo, Fury discovers that Jarvis is sentient, and mental gears begin to turn... In no way can I imagine Fury apologizing sincerely. In no scenario would there be anything but a trite "regrettable circumstance" comment or similar generic platitude, then Fury would circular file the whole incident under "Mission: successful" and feel his responsibility absolved. (I know I harp on Fury's negative qualities and his apparent total lack of human sensitivity, but there's just SO MUCH material to work from, even when I limit myself to movie canon. Besides, the dichotomy of having both Coulson and Fury so dedicated to SHIELD kind of blows my mind.)

I absolutely LOVE that Jarvis is using the same time-place-weather-other trivia recital to calm Phil that he used on Tony in the movie. Jarvis has taken on Phil's least openly discussed role as a handler; he's become the anchor for Phil in the midst of a pretty severe mental/emotional trauma.

I don't see the role reversal as at all ironic. Jarvis has had hundreds of thousands of cycles to think about Phil and analyse his behavior patterns. That means that Jarvis has already 'dealt with' the hacking incident, both intellectually and emotionally. He's in a safe place to help Phil through / his / reactions.

Besides, were he holding a grudge of any kind, Phil's entire stay in the tower would have been noticeably LESS integrated, friendly, or simply plagued with "gremlins". Anybody "raised" around Tony Stark could fill at least a print encyclopedia with methods of annoying someone they MUST deal with but dislike, none of which can either reflect back on the agent provocateur or the company. More likely, they can't even be traced to a particular originator/saboteur.

We've seen exactly the OPPOSITE behavior from Jarvis; now they get down to the slow, human-time discussion of events which will allow Phil to understand some of Jarvis' perspective of the same events, and scale his amends to more accurately meet the compromise between what Jarvis feels is warranted and what Phil does.

I do hope Jarvis allows SOME form of atonement beyond just the spoken apology, because right now it looks very much as if that's something which will help Phil; all of his caregiving has physical as well as verbal elements.

This was just as hard to read as I'd expected, but mostly because I care about the characters the way you portray them, and I really hate seeing the people I care about suffer. Even fictional ones. Thank you for another well-written segment balancing between the power of the scene and the relative speed of updates.

-Sarah-

From:

ysabetwordsmith

>> He's barely beginning to see the complexity and severity of his actions, yet his FIRST action as soon as he's coherent and breathing more regularly, is to acknowledge that he'd done SOMETHING which he feels strongly was not just in error, but wrong. <<

Sooth. Mistakes notwithstanding, Phil's heart is in the right place.

You can see why he looks to Steve. Phil may be more comfortable with cloak and dagger stuff, but his moral compass still points to the north star.

>> Phil sees the severity of violation-of-self and yes, jumps to the sexual element of rape, but I doubt it was solely for the 'mechanical' reasons, physical similarity to penetration, et alia: the word 'rape' carries connotations of violation of trust, privacy and intimacy which are (largely) grasped in similar ways within the same culture. <<

Agreed. Look at the etymology: "to seize" or "to take by force" and "to grab" or "to carry off." That's a reasonable fit for forced entry and taking something (user access) that Phil didn't really have a right to then.

While Phil's perception of privacy is heavily colored by his job, he has a very delicate awareness of intimacy, and he's downright hypervigilant about trust. He's comfortable breaching privacy in good cause. He is nowhere near as sanguine about the other two.

>> Contrast THIS behavior with the exact same behavior in the movie, but when the elevator doors open, Nick Fury steps out. <<

O_O

>> Then, blammo, Fury discovers that Jarvis is sentient, and mental gears begin to turn... <<

Uckies, uckies, uckies!

You know, this very disturbing image highlights for me one of the crucial differences between heroes and villains. Shown any kind of vulnerability, a hero will think about protecting it, while a villain will think about exploiting it. Fury may have some laudable goals, but his methods are more often those of evil than of good.

My stance on the matter is this: The end does not justify the means. The means determine the end.

>> In no way can I imagine Fury apologizing sincerely. In no scenario would there be anything but a trite "regrettable circumstance" comment or similar generic platitude, <<

"Mistakes were made. Others will be blamed." Fury seems like a man who makes liberal use of the passive exonerative.

>> then Fury would circular file the whole incident under "Mission: successful" and feel his responsibility absolved. <<

He's very utilitarian in canon. He doesn't care how much collateral damage he does, or how many people he hurts, as long as he gets the job done.

Does anyone think he would have interfered with nuking New York if he believed it would work?

>> (I know I harp on Fury's negative qualities and his apparent total lack of human sensitivity, but there's just SO MUCH material to work from, even when I limit myself to movie canon. <<

Yeah, canon is rife with it. That bit at the end of The Avengers says it all: "They'll come back ... because we'll need them to." He cares fuckall about the Avengers themselves, their needs or goals; he only cares about what use can be gotten out of them. And he doesn't see how badly his actions have undercut their ability to function as a team.

>> Besides, the dichotomy of having both Coulson and Fury so dedicated to SHIELD kind of blows my mind.) <<

Most organizations have a range of personalities in them. I see Fury as someone who started out with good intentions but got badly corrupted along the way; and Coulson as someone who clings to as much honor as he can, but gets spattered by other people who are far less finicky about how things get done. Coulson actually does some pretty awful things in canon, but the impression is usually that those are influenced by Fury. Coulson is also a master of seeming to obey while following his own path; frex, letting Thor get to Mjolnir and then later letting him "escape."

>> I absolutely LOVE that Jarvis is using the same time-place-weather-other trivia recital to calm Phil that he used on Tony in the movie. <<

Yay! I'm glad that worked for you. It is, in fact, among the best techniques for dealing with any kind of dissociation. Neutral statements of fact help ground a person in the present. Doesn't help every time, but it's a good safe bet.

>> Jarvis has taken on Phil's least openly discussed role as a handler; he's become the anchor for Phil in the midst of a pretty severe mental/emotional trauma. <<

That's true. It's especially important because Phil has just barely begun to form real bonds with the rest of the team, and is nowhere near ready to let them see him vulnerable yet. This is where it's valuable that JARVIS is a person, but not human; he doesn't quite ring up the same way on certain emotional scales. Plus of course, Phil isn't his handler the same way he is for the other Avengers. So Phil can accept comfort from JARVIS when he couldn't from someone else.

>> I don't see the role reversal as at all ironic. Jarvis has had hundreds of thousands of cycles to think about Phil and analyse his behavior patterns. <<

Yes, and I think JARVIS would have thought about it exhaustively. What Phil did was unique in many regards; that always attracts attention. Phil had a complicated and oddly intimate relationship with Tony, who is always of intense interest to JARVIS.

>> That means that Jarvis has already 'dealt with' the hacking incident, both intellectually and emotionally. He's in a safe place to help Phil through his reactions. <<

That makes sense. Sometimes it's not perfectly clear who's in charge, or who's been hurt. The situational aspects of the hacking incident remind me of cases where two agents are pressured to torture each other. It's something that they wouldn't do without compelling cause. Phil unknowingly violated JARVIS -- and also, JARVIS didn't realize at the time that Phil would later rip himself to bits over this if ever found out what really happened. JARVIS didn't know that Phil was hurting himself by crossing that line. So it's a really good thing that JARVIS has already settled the matter in his own mind, and can think logically about what Phil is going through.

>> Besides, were he holding a grudge of any kind, Phil's entire stay in the tower would have been noticeably LESS integrated, friendly, or simply plagued with "gremlins". <<

Oh yes. I suspect that Natasha had hot water only on Tony's forbearance, after what she pulled in Iron Man 2.

>> Anybody "raised" around Tony Stark could fill at least a print encyclopedia with methods of annoying someone they MUST deal with but dislike, none of which can either reflect back on the agent provocateur or the company. More likely, they can't even be traced to a particular originator/saboteur. <<

Absolutely. JARVIS has a subtle touch. You can see how he hit SHIELD and the World Security Council from the side in "No Winter Lasts Forever." There will be more of that in a later story. Mess with JARVIS or people he cares about, and your entire interface with modern technology could go up in smoke.

>> We've seen exactly the OPPOSITE behavior from Jarvis; <<

Sooth. He is, at heart, a compassionate and solicitous man.

>> now they get down to the slow, human-time discussion of events which will allow Phil to understand some of Jarvis' perspective of the same events, <<

Yeah, that's going to take a few chapters. Neither of them has a complete understanding of what happened, and it's not easy to mesh such different perspectives.

>> and scale his amends to more accurately meet the compromise between what Jarvis feels is warranted and what Phil does. <<

Also true.

>> I do hope Jarvis allows SOME form of atonement beyond just the spoken apology, because right now it looks very much as if that's something which will help Phil; all of his caregiving has physical as well as verbal elements. <<

Exactly. Phil is very service-oriented. It's hard on him, in this story, because he doesn't yet know JARVIS well enough to figure out what kind of gestures JARVIS would appreciate. Words, okay, everybody knows what "I'm sorry" means. That's not easy but at least it's straightforward. Determining how to repair the relationship is harder.

>> This was just as hard to read as I'd expected, but mostly because I care about the characters the way you portray them, and I really hate seeing the people I care about suffer. Even fictional ones. <<

*hugs* Hard to write, too.

>> Thank you for another well-written segment balancing between the power of the scene and the relative speed of updates. <<

You're welcome! I'm glad you found this so satisfying.

From:

pinkrangerv

Tony and JARVIS deal with a lot of war vets, and I have to wonder if--on some level--they both clocked Natasha as 'extreme psych damage', not 'dangerous'. Tony wouldn't have brought Natasha into JARVIS' body if he thought she was going to hurt people for fun, and JARVIS probably can read facial expressions well enough to notice that she still had flat effect as Natalie Rushman, just pasting on a smile so no one would notice. Plus, she actively tried to help out Tony multiple times.

And it's worth bearing in mind: WE know that she could've just asked Tony to take the injection, but SHE AND FURY saw him behaving in ways that were outright suicidal. Medical ethics around slow suicide like that are VERY advanced, and spies aren't trained in it--she screwed up, but her screw-up was in the direction of 'save life now so he doesn't die', and that's a pretty reasonable response to 'this guy is gonna kill himself if we don't intervene' if you don't know what you're doing.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

>> Tony and JARVIS deal with a lot of war vets,<<

That's true.

>> and I have to wonder if--on some level--they both clocked Natasha as 'extreme psych damage', not 'dangerous'. <<

Quite possible, and even accurate. It didn't take Hawkeye 5 minutes to clock that.

>> Tony wouldn't have brought Natasha into JARVIS' body if he thought she was going to hurt people for fun, and JARVIS probably can read facial expressions well enough to notice that she still had flat effect as Natalie Rushman, just pasting on a smile so no one would notice. <<

True.

>> Plus, she actively tried to help out Tony multiple times.<<

Dubious.

>>And it's worth bearing in mind: WE know that she could've just asked Tony to take the injection, but SHE AND FURY saw him behaving in ways that were outright suicidal. Medical ethics around slow suicide like that are VERY advanced, and spies aren't trained in it--she screwed up, but her screw-up was in the direction of 'save life now so he doesn't die', and that's a pretty reasonable response to 'this guy is gonna kill himself if we don't intervene' if you don't know what you're doing.<<

Medical ethics on suicide consist of "don't let the livestock escape," and frankly SHIELD treated Tony like a slave.

This is the man who, after being extensively tortured, told the medics to fuck off and decided to treat his problems with a cheeseburger (excellent plan) and DIY mad science (well, it's not like anyone else could've matched his engineering skill). Care to take a wild flying guess how he got that way? It wasn't the terrorists, who were at least honest villains. It was a lifetime of other people not taking no for an answer and doing as they pleased with Tony's body. Watch how Obie manhandles Tony -- if it'd been done to a woman, people would've freaked, but on a man, even a small man, they just didn't catch it.

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