A new light is warm

Shining down on you after the storm

Don't mourn what is gone, greet the dawn

And I will be standing by your side

Together we'll face the turning tide

-Dawn, Poets of the Fall

He didn't know how long he'd been sprawled on the couch, but he truly could not bring himself to care. It was dark outside, for what it was worth. As dark as the city ever gets, anyway. It was dark inside the penthouse too, for that matter, but he cared about that even less. It would be simple enough to turn the lights on, he knew, just a quick command and it would be done. Easy. So very, very easy.

Because his command would be followed, accompanied by a chirpy "Yes, boss!" and that would be that.

That would be...

Not the voice I expect to hear, not the one I want to...

He shoved the thought away viciously. God, he wanted a drink. But all the alcohol he had was behind the bar, and to get some he'd have to get up and for whatever reason he felt like if he so much as moved then the precarious balancing act he's pulling with his thoughts will come crashing down around him, and he'd finally have to stare all the things he's locked away in the face.

JARVIS is...

So he was stuck staring at the ceiling, wasting his first night of free time since... well, everything. He should be...

Fuck, he should be doing anything else. Hiding down in his workshop, working on something or other for SI, going over long-term plans to help rebuild all that Ultron destroyed, fucking sleeping, anything that wasn't this! And yet here he was, fighting desperately against something he knew would catch up to him sooner or later. A useless battle, but one he was too scared to stop.

It didn't help that the Tower was utterly silent. The place was empty, no distractions anywhere he could latch onto, nothing he could use to just forget the things at the edges of his mind.

He was my...

The Avengers were gone, and though that hurt badly, right now he somehow found himself feeling almost a touch grateful. He'd fucked up. He knew that, god, he knew that. He didn't want to see it on their faces, didn't want to be reminded of it all anymore than he already was. And then there was the fact that, after all was said and done, none of them had said anything. Not one of them had even mentioned (the empty silence and broken, yellow code) that someone was missing.

JARVIS is...

Had they really even noticed? Or had they just assumed Tony could rebuild him, could replace him like a broken appliance that no longer served its function?

(He thinks of FRIDAY and forces himself to keep breathing past the choking feeling because she isn't a replacement, shouldn't be, couldn't be and he'd be damned if doesn't try to do right by her, but she isn't him, isn't JARVIS and it's so hard not to feel horrible every time he hears her voice)

Had any of them ever actually realized what he was at all? Had any of them seen more than just a sophisticated call-and-answer program? Bruce might have suspected, Tony thought, but even if he had, it didn't seem the physicist had understood the full picture. Hadn't realized just what JARVIS was, what he was capable of. Hadn't realized what the AI meant to Tony, how fucking much this hurt...

JARVIS is...

JARVIS is dead.

His breath hitched and eyes stung, but he still fought back, even if he knew there was no running from this, no hiding from what was coming. He briefly wondered if someone had gouged his heart out again, because it sure as hell felt like it. It would explain a lot, really.

Pepper and Rhodey, at least, had offered their condolences as soon as they found out, but he could tell they didn't really get it. No fully. They didn't know how deep this went, how it had cut through him like nothing else ever had, not like this.

He was my...

I lost my...

He was so tired. There was nothing but bone-deep exhaustion, and a storm of pain building on the horizon. Was he really supposed to get up in the morning?

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony's breath caught and heart hammered, because it was that voice and... And then Vision stepped into view and reality reasserted itself, weighing heavier on his chest than the arc reactor ever had. He forced himself to turn his head enough to face the man, but it took a while longer before he could push a reply past the lump in his throat.

"What are you doing here?"

"I..." Vision shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable and uncertain, not quite meeting Tony's eyes. "I wished to speak with you."

Tony tried not to wince at the voice and just looked at him for a while, before giving in. "Speak away, then." Vision shifted again, opening his mouth, closing it, opening it again.

"Do you mind if I...?" he asked, gesturing at the couch. Tony was so very close to saying that he does in fact mind, but instead levered himself into an upright position and made room for the android.

(The balance in his head wavers, then, and he has to use everything he has to stop it falling)

"Go ahead." He didn't say anything more, and waited as Vision sat down and continued to avoid his eyes. The silence stretched out, and normally he'd want to fill it, but now that would take energy he simply doesn't have.

I lost my...

Finally, it seemed Vision finished psyching himself up and faced Tony properly. Yet in the next moment it seemed whatever he'd wanted to say died an early death, and Tony decided to take pity on him.

"How are you?"

Vision blinked. "I am... adjusting, I suppose."

"That's... good. Adjusting's good." His customary wit has abandoned him, and he could tell this was about to be the most awkward conversation ever, and he was just so incredibly tired.

"Indeed," Vision said softly, then asked, "Are you alright, Mr. Stark?"

It almost managed to startle a laugh out of Tony, because alright? He hadn't been alright for a while now, and he doubted he'd be starting anytime soon.

"I'm fine." Vision clearly didn't buy it, not that Tony was really hiding it, but apparently decided not to push it. He earned a few brownie points for that.

"I am not JARVIS," Vision said, and immediately lost them again. Tony failed to suppress a flinch at the name, and his thoughts screamed at him louder than ever.

I know that, because JARVIS was my...

"...I know," he replied, so quietly he couldn't hear it himself. Whether Vision heard him or not is up for debate, but the android pressed on nevertheless.

"I am not JARVIS," he repeated, "nor am I Ultron. I am not even an amalgam of the two. I realize... I realize I am not what you expected or wanted when you used JARVIS's code, but-"

"No," Tony cut him off, because now there was something he had to say, and he could feel the dam in his mind come closer to bursting. "No. I could tell you weren't... weren't him the moment you started talking. But I want to be perfectly clear: I don't expect you to be him. Did it hurt? Fuck, yes it did." He drew a breath, not having expected to be this honest, but hell, now that he'd started he couldn't stop. "Do I want you to be him? No. I don't want you to be anyone else than who you are. I'm not that cruel." Even if some small, desperate part of him wished it was JARVIS he was talking to instead...

I lost my...

Yet his honesty seemed to have been what was needed, because something suspiciously like relief crossed Vision's face and some tension bled from his shoulders. Clearly, this had been troubling him, and didn't that just make Tony feel even shittier than before? He knew a thing or two about not being what he was expected to be, and he'd never wanted to push that onto someone else. Except apparently he had anyway. Fuck.

"I am neither of the two," Vision said, with a bit more confidence than before, "and I do not have their memories. But there is one thing I believe I... inherited from JARVIS, for lack of a better word."

Tony had no idea what to say to that, which was just as well, since Vision wasn't finished. "There is a certain... warmth whenever I look at you. It feels familiar, and somehow older than me. It is... pleasant." Vision looked Tony straight in the eye now, and it felt like he could see everything. "I figured you would have wanted to know that there is still some piece of him that lives on."

And fuck, now Tony was tearing up. He fought to keep his breathing even, but that wasn't working all that well, and his hands were shaking. The balance in his mind was hanging by nothing more than a thread. He couldn't speak, no matter how hard he tried, so he simply nodded.

I lost my...

"Would you... would you tell me about him?" The question came out of left field, and Tony could only stare, every muscle locked in place until he managed to take control of his tongue.

"...why?" he asked, in a voice so hoarse he could have sworn it hadn't been used in decades. Vision looked a little uncertain again.

"I am neither Ultron nor JARVIS, but I came from the both of them. There is nothing more I want to learn about Ultron, but JARVIS remains largely unknown to me. I struggle to word this correctly, but I suppose you could say I am curious of the one who was essentially my father."

For some reason, those words ended up doing it.

(The thread snaps, and the floodgates are thrown open)

JARVIS was my child.

I lost my child.

JARVIS had been brilliant. He was clever, he was great at almost everything he did, and he was a quick learner when he wasn't. He could feel just like everyone else, had a personality all of his own, one that had developed and grown over time, and Tony was ridiculously proud of him. Somewhere along the way, Tony's silly little "daddy loves you" comments had stopped being a joke and morphed into something so real that it ached, and now he was left wondering when he had last said something like that to the AI. Had JARVIS known what he meant to Tony? Had he had any idea?

And now Tony would never be able to say it again, because JARVIS was gone and it seemed no one else cared. Tony had lost his child and no one had even noticed.

There was no stopping the first sob, nor any of the ones that followed. His grief had finally caught up with all the force of a freight train, and he was powerless against it. He was peripherally aware of Vision's alarmed expression, of the cautious hand on his shoulder and the distant realization that the poor guy probably had no clue how to react to the situation.

They may have sat there for hours for all Tony knew (for all it felt like), but eventually he managed to bring his breathing back under control enough to speak, organized his thoughts enough to remember the question.

"If there was ever someone who could... could have helped you with this... self-awareness thing, it would've been J," he told Vision, still sounding seconds away from another bout of sobs and feeling like it too. "Yeah... yeah, I'll tell you about him."

Time became immaterial as Tony recounted every story he could think of, from the time JARVIS was still young and struggled with syntax and prosody, to the few times Tony had managed to well and truly piss him off, to their joint projects in the workshop, to JARVIS's eternal battle to get Tony to at least attempt to take care of himself... all the little things Tony hadn't realized he remembered, all the major milestones in their lives...

And somewhere along the way, Tony realized that despite the tears that still blurred his sight and ran down his cheeks, despite his hitching breath and burning throat, he was smiling. And it was genuine.

Vision listened in rapt attention.

Outside, the sun rose, and dawn painted the skyline a warm and gentle gold.