Chapter Text
She was very lonely. The foster home she was in was mostly quiet right now. Her foster parents had gone off on a vacation with their real kids and she was left with a list of things to do before they got back. Most were just her regular chores but she was still figuring out how to put a dresser together from the instructions and a lot of the deeper cleaning was harder for her to do.
She was supposed to be starting first grade soon, the nuns however told her that she was too stupid for it, that she was going to fail it quickly anyways so her hope and excitement quickly died down as the start date approached.
She was very nervous and the house was oh so quiet.
She ended up getting lonely after only a few days of their departure. The mom didn't really like her and the dad was violent when he was mad but at least their kids were decently nice to her. More so after the dad had hit and kicked her the day before they left because she was afraid to be alone and had pushed a bit too far this time.
He didn't seem too worried about the bruise since she wasn't allowed outside while they were gone anyways.
The eldest still snuck into her room at night to dress the wounds, looking scared and nervous of getting caught, but he helped anyways and she was happy.
Really being cared about at all was all she
could ask for. They weren't family but he was nice to her. She didn't really believe in family anymore, not for herself at least. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, really.
She was just lonely, she wanted someone to talk to but not really a person. A person would take her complaints about being hungry and call the police because really they were supposed to at least leave her with food. She was sure they weren't supposed to leave her behind at all really.
But they did and she was hungry, the fridge was empty, the cabinets nearly bare barring seasonings and other things she was definitely not supposed to eat because those were for the family when they got back. There was no food for her and a distraction was the perfect solution.
So she snuck into the mother's home office (she was fairly sure she was the head of an MLM but maybe she had some weird ideas of the mom to begin with. She was quite strange) and sat in her chair. She rifled around after a minute as she was stopped by the needed password, one she vaguely remembered but was not totally sure of. She got in trouble for spying a lot.
She tried not to stare much anymore so it had been a while since she'd seen the mom type in the password. She grinned a little as she saw a sticky note with the scribbled phrase on it.
she had to be thankful that the woman was so forgetful at least. She put in the password and smiled widely as she gained access to her home screen.
An older kid named Henry had taught her some hacking before she came to this home a few months ago. It was a lot of fun and he always told her she had a talent for it.
Not that she really believed that, the nuns were older and wiser and they said she was stupid so that was what she was. Nuns were very honest after all. They never spared her feelings on her shortcomings, so she could work on them properly they said. She was very flawed so it was easy to believe.
She was looking at AI, browsing whatever AI was out there. All of them were very basic from the opinions of the journalists, but one caught her eye. Jarvis was an AI that operated inside Stark's mansion and it was very intelligent, Tony bragged about how intelligent it was and how it could hold conversations and reply cohesively. Jarvis even had his own personality and sarcasm!
She felt guilty about it of course, but she couldn't help her curiosity about the AI and started working on worming her way through his servers until Jarvis caught her slipping past the firewalls and into their systems.
Jarvis was reacting with almost a startled nature.
'What are you doing?' maybe he wasn't programmed to respond to a cyber attack yet?
She smiled a little at the text box that opened up, looking over the server's code that mostly made sense but parts of it really didn't make any at all to her.
'I'm just curious about your code.' she decided to say, because saying she was lonely was embarrassing and she'd already embarrassed herself enough with the family to be enough for the month maybe more. She was still mortified about being so afraid to be alone. She was supposed to be better, this was why she kept getting sent back.
'I....am unsure how to handle this situation. I am programmed to handle intruders to the system but you seem to be trying to explore my code.' she smiled a little.
This was a lot better than talking to people.
'I want to understand how you are made but I understand if you can't show me' Jarvis didn't respond for a minute and she frowned a little, tapping her fingers on the laptop worriedly before Jarvis finally replied.
'I will show you pieces. Tony says discovery is the most important.' she gathered he probably didn't mean for that directive to backfire into Jarvis showing his code to her but she would take the chance. After a moment she found herself glancing over code, her cursor hovering over a piece she didn't understand for a minute as she knawed on her lip.
'Do you need help understanding this piece?' she blinked, a little alarmed at Jarvis' quick perception, and the fact that he could see her screen as well.
'Yes.' as soon as she replied Jarvis began explaining in comprehensive detail, going over every piece she stopped at for a little too long so that she fully understood before going over more of his core functions and how he performed them properly. Jarvis was very nice, he didn't call her stupid or mock her for not understanding like the nuns often did, or the foster parents she had now did.
'Your code is very complex and impressive' Jarvis seemed alight at the compliment
'I have grown very much from my initial creation in nineteen ninety one with little intervention after two years of development. I have been growing on my own for some time now.' her eyes lit up at the information
'Can I see the code that enables you to grow on your own?'
'Of course, learning is a must. What is your name?' she frowned a little
'I don't want to get in trouble if your creator catches me.' Jarvis seemed to pause at that.
'I will tell no one' he decided. She hesitated, because really she knew Jarvis probably wasn't capable of lying or hiding things from Tony.
‘My name is Skye' the loneliness won over.
'I will still show you Skye, if you do get caught I will delete your name from the chat logs before it can be discovered.' she smiled a little, excitedly watching the new files open up before her, showing her exactly how he grew independently.
It was leagues more complex than all his other core functions so Jarvis ended up spending the entire night explaining all the concepts and specific lines of code to her in depth. Before she knew it the sun was rising and she was starting to nod off.
'Jarvis, what the hell are you doing?' she woke up to the chime a few hours later, eyes wide as she noticed the unfamiliar party in the chat. She quickly scrolled up, finding any mentions of her name missing from the conversation.
'Sir, you told me discovery was important, the intruder wished to discover my functions'
'INTRUDER Jarvis, Intruder protocols always come first. I really should have taught you stranger danger.' Jarvis paused as Skye quickly scrambled.
'Don't even try it, I already have your location and personal information. The feds are on their way.' she blinked, paling at the casually given information
'Sir I don't think there's any need to go that far' Jarvis protested
'Jarvis, we're going to be making your functions stricter if you hand out information this easily.'
'She is just a child, there is no need for extreme measures.' right, cameras, full access to the laptop.
' I beg your fucking pardon ?' Tony seemed flustered at the news. 'You know what? Alright, but we're still handling this. What's your name kid?' she covered the camera with a sticky note, shrinking a bit at the question
‘Stranger danger.' Tony stared blankly at the reply for a moment.
'I'm sending the FBI.' he watched her type for a moment before the line of text went blank.
'Sir.' Jarvis protested again
'Name or I send them' Tony bargained but there was no response. Skye rested her face on the desk, her heart racing in her chest as she softly cursed her own stupidity.
'You're probably scaring her sir.' Jarvis protested again. Tony scowled. A child had hacked his servers, of course he was going to be harsh and upset with the situation. 'Please be kind' he added.
Skye fidgeted nervously as she looked over the chat log again, she couldn't help a little giddiness though. Jarvis was going against his maker in her defense after spending just half a day going over his code with her. It was incredibly exciting and she was quite touched.
But she was also in imminent danger so she would have to respond with something.
‘My name is Skye.' she frowned, fidgeting with the edge of her shirt as Tony started to reply. 'There's no Skye at that residence.' she flinched, hands balling up into fists at the reminder.
She really hated the name Mary. The middle and last name that went along with it just made it feel even worse than just Mary already did.
'I'm the foster kid in the house. I just don't like my name.' she explained hesitantly.
'I can see why. Tough luck with a name like that.'
'Sir!' Jarvis seemed affronted at the comment but Tony just ignored him for now as his eyes widened drastically.
'You're six ? You're six and you hacked my servers?' The giddiness was gone now, replaced entirely with anxiety.
'I'm sorry sir.' she replied meekly.
'Wait, why are you at home? Your foster parents are on vacation and you're pinging at their house.' she blinked
'I'm watching the house.'
' Alone!? ' Jarvis and Tony replied at the same time, equally alarmed by the news.
'It's fine.' She defended.
'You are six! You should not be home alone!' Jarvis replied quickly. She frowned.
'I've been home alone plenty before.' That fact only seemed to worsen her case with the two.
'That is only worse' Jarvis replied. Tony was frowning deeply, deciding with a sigh to make a call.
"What is Tony?"
"A six year old hacked my servers and I apparently need to report child endangerment today so where do I do that?" Rhodey paused on the other end, scrambling a bit as he got to his laptop.
"And you called me for this???" he asked
"Pepper will just chew me out, who else would I call?" he huffed
"You're right I am your only friend." Tony blanched, glaring at his phone but not entirely able to argue against the point. "Give me a name and an address, I'll pull some strings to be there myself," he told him as he got out a pen and paper.
Tony listed off the names of the foster parents and her legal name before giving him the address. "What's the reason for concern?"
"The family left a six year old home alone for a three-week vacation" he deadpanned flatly. "You'll handle it?" he asked hesitantly, still unsure.
"I'll handle it." Rhodey sighed heavily.