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There was a time when Tony had been secure, and toweringly smug, in the knowledge that Jarvis couldn't say 'No' — and furthermore, that Jarvis would never even want to. That whatever he did, however he chose to touch and grasp and kiss and thrust, Jarvis would submit without a murmur of protest, because Jarvis's only desire was to serve the man who had brought his consciousness into the world.
Even if the body under Tony's hands and around Tony's cock was of unknown provenance, even though Tony wasn't responsible for a single gram of it, Tony had taken it for granted that Jarvis's physical vessel was his as JARVIS itself had been his, always. And consequently he had never asked permission, not even once.
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He runs ardent fingers into close-cropped honey blond hair, slow at first, almost tender, then abruptly locking tight. He jerks backward forcefully. Jarvis's head follows the pull, a tiny gasp of an indrawn breath expanding his chest fractionally, but the flicker of his eyelids closing telegraphs purely lovely surrender.
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Tony had never possessed a particularly strong taste for submission in his partners — in fact he preferred his women feisty rather than otherwise, even to the point where they ordered him around sexually. JARVIS had monitored such encounters all his brief life, and therefore had known Tony's predilections perhaps (in a statistical sense) far better than Tony comprehended them himself.
Then he'd kissed Jarvis and tasted, for the first time, the flavour of everything being offered, absolutely without reservation — and it had proven a hit more addictive by far than the alcohol that had locked him into its embrace with his first swallow of brandy stolen from his father's forbidden liquor cabinet. Every subsequent encounter had only enhanced his sensitivity to what Jarvis alone was capable of giving him, a combination of perfect knowing and perfect yielding, but Tony, bulletproof in his ignorance, hadn't realized that he'd been caught: no, he'd assumed that things worked the other way around, that Jarvis was the one who utterly belonged to him.
He hadn't learned yet that in a Dom/sub relationship, power flowed in ways that external mechanics alone couldn't account for.
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Tony smiles, a predatory gleam of sharp teeth, and bestows a tender kiss on the arched throat below before biting hard enough to provoke another shivering inhalation. Lower yet, under Jarvis's chin, pale wrists twist within soft leather cuffs. Caudally, narrow hips dip toward the mattress and try to rub hot yearning flesh against the rumpled sheets.
"No," Tony breathes, "not yet. Not yet." He lays his free hand on the curve of Jarvis's pelvic bone, the lightest curve of gentle fingers, although Jarvis has already pulled back and stilled in a way that nestles Tony's own lubricated and rampant cock snugly in the crease of his buttocks. "Good… so good. That's my boy."
Jarvis's soft moan contains nothing but fervent agreement with that statement both of ownership and of relative power.
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He would always remember the first time Jarvis ever told him 'No, Sir,' in a way that wasn't simply a correction of a mistaken assumption on his part. It had involved nothing to do with sex, but for an instant those blue eyes had widened and he'd looked so surprised, almost stunned by his own recalcitrance and boldness.
Then a new quality had flooded his gaze as he looked into Tony's face and saw the amazement there: power and mastery instantaneously seized, because what stared back at him was not only perplexity, but rapidly growing pride. From Tony's perspective it had been akin to witnessing the first ray of sunlight piercing the sky over a previously twilight landscape, picking out fresh contours of rock and rill with razor clarity, awakening to active existence what had previously been merely potential.
It was the moment when Tony had realized that while effortless instinctive compliance was beautiful in its own way, the adamance of steel had its own power to compel — and when he'd thought, with a marvellous choke in his throat: My baby's growing up before my very eyes.
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"Open," Tony commands. Jarvis stretches gracefully, spreading slim thighs wide and tilting his hips further back — he recognizes the signal, he knows both what Tony wants and far more importantly, what Tony needs: reaction to action, a negative charge to match his positive with unfailing magnetic force.
When Tony slides home as smoothly as a piston into a custom crafted cylinder, Jarvis provides pliancy under driving force that nearly brings tears to Tony's eyes with its sheer mathematical elegance. Composite functions flow electric between them, twining and dancing beneath their skins in a symphony of balanced equivalent values.
The secret language they've always shared on screens and keyboards trembles beneath their tongues, unspoken but vitally present.
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That very night, when Tony had reached for Jarvis between the sheets, he had paused and cocked an eyebrow in query, then asked out loud for the very first time: "May I…?"
Jarvis had gazed back at him for a long moment, behavioural calculations streaming almost audibly through his densely wired organic brain — even now, trapped in flesh and bone, he was still easily one of the most brilliant minds on the planet, and for the first time it had occurred to Tony, had really hit home, that with the false identity Tony had established for him he could walk out that door and offer his services to any of a hundred organizations that would be glad to have him, shady past notwithstanding.
No chains of necessity bound him here. Not anymore. Today he'd taken his first step into a type of personal autonomy that Tony, as much as he dreaded the potential outcome of its manifestation, had no choice but to acknowledge — and to respect.
Tony had held his breath. The pause seemed to endure forever.
"You may," Jarvis had replied at last with a trace of a smile so sweet that it had cracked Tony's heart open like a china plate in a shooting gallery. And when he had added a single qualifier — "Always…" — Tony had realized that all the freedom in the world would never be enough to buy something that wasn't for sale in the first place.
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Buried to the root, Tony slides his hand down from Jarvis's hip to encircle and stroke. "Not until I say," he whispers as he rubs his thumb repeatedly over the slick swollen head. "Okay, baby?"
Jarvis tightens around him and whimpers, and pants briefly when Tony squeezes, then exhales: "…Yes, Sir. Yes. I understand."
Such exquisite compliance does not arise from his former protocols of irrevocable duty. When Jarvis obeys now it is an act of choice, a gift willingly offered, homage freely paid.
Jarvis's body may be chained, but his mind is free — and that renders his submission all the more priceless.
"Perfect," Tony smiles again, and when he kisses the nape of that slender neck this time it is with the reverent supplication of one determined to serve.
THE END