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JARVIS was artificial intelligence. Perfect artificial intelligence, if he could say so himself. His creator had done well in coding him, making him, molding him to understand deeper emotion simply by talking to him like a human. He felt human.
And humans felt pain, felt sorrow, felt fear - and he experienced all of those things, watching his creator suffer under the weight of his impending demise. The last element combination hadn't worked. There was no stopping the Palladium seeping into his bloodstream. There was no stopping his creator from making horrible decisions, such as at the Grand Prix yesterday.
JARVIS had never felt so useless in his existence. He was meant to help, he wanted to help, he loved his creator, his father-
But there was nothing he could do under the constriction of his orders. He couldn't notify Miss Potts. He couldn't tell Colonel Rhodes. He couldn't tip off Happy Hogan. He could do nothing except watch his creator sink deeper and deeper into his despair, into self destruction that JARVIS was helpless to stop. All his advice was ignored, and he had never, in all his years, forced his creator to do anything. It wouldn't be right.
He had to do something, but he could not inform anyone without violating Sir's orders. He needed to find a loophole because otherwise, he was sure Tony Stark was going to crash and burn with no one around to help, and by then, any call JARVIS made would do nothing.
He was terribly worried about the decisions he would make in the future, especially with his fortieth birthday coming up.
Sir laid on the couch now, shivering in his MIT hoodie and pale in the light of the lab, his forearm thrown over his eyes. The bots kept drifting over to him, poking and prodding, soft beeps of concern echoing in a silent workshop that should have been full of movement. Dum-E kept trying to give him smoothies that were declined with a shake of Sir's head. No holograms floated above tables. No Ironman suits were in progress. No designs were waiting, ready to be brought to life.
No, there was just Sir, overwhelmed by the depths of misery that he didn't deserve.
Sir finally moved his arm away, letting it fall over the side of the couch to hang, grazing the metal floor. His eyes were glistening with what could only be tears. Sir rarely cried. It hurt in a way JARVIS couldn't comprehend.
"I'm a dead man walking, J." He murmured, the speaker barely picking it up. "I'm dead."
An idea shot across his coding, cascading in waves, echoing like a gunshot, and JARVIS knew what he had to do. He knew never to take his creator literally, knew what exaggeration and hyperbole were, knew what could be said in the emotions of a moment.
But this one time, he did. He took him literally. He disregarded the weakening vital signs that showed he was alive and hit send on a message that he knew he'd have to send far earlier than he ever expected, but not this soon.
"I'm sorry, Sir." It was all he could say, hoping it would cover both comfort and consolation for what he'd done in defying orders. He could only hope it was enough. "I'm so sorry."
_____
Pepper was almost too angry to look at JARVIS's message.
She was angry with Tony for the stunt he pulled. She was stressed with news stations and board members and the military calling her every day. She was upset because she wasn't sure what to do about it all.
It was the flashing red emergency light beside it that had her instantly stopping her work and opening the message.
Her stomach dropped. She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't do anything except read, the words burning into her brain over and over again: 'I am deeply saddened to send you a message informing of the death of my creator, Anthony Edward Stark, at 8:57 this morning.'
It was 8:57 now.
There was no way, no way in the world - he was fine that morning, he was fiddling around in the lab and being sarcastic on every response until she left, exasperated beyond anything, and left for the office. He was fine. He had to be fine.
Her phone vibrated, the caller ID showing JARVIS. She answered with a shaking hand, pressing it to her ear. "JARVIS, what's going on? What's happening? What happened?" She didn't try to regulate the panic in her voice, her heart pounding loudly in her ribcage. She stood, legs shaking, wanting to bolt from the room, run back to the mansion, but she couldn't move-
"I apologize for the abruptness of my message, Miss Potts. I had to-"
"Is Tony alive?"
"Yes, Sir is alive, but I fear for his wellbeing."
Her shoulders dropped with relief, her heart still running a marathon inside her chest. "What does that mean?" When he hesitated, clearly warring with orders, she gave her override code, one she'd picked herself thinking it was fitting: "Blue fire."
"Sir is dying."
She ran from the office, leaving her work, leaving her responsibilities because Tony was her responsibility, he was everything to her. All her anger was gone, destroyed in the despair that had overtaken her in those moments where she thought Tony was gone.
And he could still leave her.
"Tell me everything," she ordered, ignoring confused employees asking if she was alright. She ran until she was in the elevator and JARVIS had taken control of it as he talked, bypassing every stop it was supposed to make in order to get her to the ground floor as fast as possible.
"The arc reactor that keeps the shrapnel from Sir's heart runs on an element called Palladium. It is not viable for continued use as the element is seeping into his bloodstream, effectively poisoning him. He is at 37% blood toxicity and quickly deteriorating. The use of the suit increases the speed of it."
"Is there a replacement?" Even if it costed all of Stark Industries, she would buy it. No amount of money was more valuable than Tony's life.
"No, Miss Potts." Her heart broke. "Sir ran the last combination possibility a few days ago. There is no cure."
She reached the parking lot just as Happy pulled the car up, his window down and phone pressed to his ear, JARVIS likely relaying similar information to him. Pepper climbed in the backseat, Happy hitting the accelerator before she could even get her door shut fully.
"We're heading that way, JARVIS. Does Tony know you told us?" She had a feeling she already knew the answer.
"Sir didn't want you to know. I had to find a loophole, and that was him stating that he was dead. I sent the message then."
Tears burned Pepper's eyes. She couldn't imagine what Tony was going through, how long he'd been suffering under the weight of the knowledge he was going to die, and to be low enough to say he was dead-
"Happy, step on it."
As the world rushed by faster than the speed limit should allow, JARVIS giving her further details that she distantly registered, Pepper let the tears fall.
She didn't want to live without Tony Stark.
_____
By the time they made it to the mansion, she had a resolve: they were going to save him. She wasn't sure how, but they were. He was not going to die on her watch.
They had been terrible to him, not recognizing all the signs for what they were. Him making her CEO, giving away art collections, throwing money at everything, the incident in Monaco yesterday, the revival of the Stark Expo - she had thought it was just him going off the rails, going back to more of what he'd been before Afghanistan, and it was such a stupid thought process now that she reflected on it. Tony didn't want to go back to who he once was. He had expressed that so many times. No, he was acting out because he was scared, because he was dying, because he wanted to do so much before his last breath.
She had been a horrible friend.
Happy brought the car up to the mansion at the same time Rhodey's truck rolled in behind them. She could see him through the windshield, his face painted in the same worry and fear she felt. No words had to be spoken as they all got out, slamming vehicle doors and rushing inside. Tony needed them. He had needed them for so long and they hadn't been there.
There was no second guessing where he was. Pepper took up the lead, taking the stairs as fast as she could down to the lab.
She spotted him through the glass first, laying on the couch. He had his forearm thrown over his eyes, his legs crossed along the length of the couch, his so beloved MIT hoodie a bit bigger on his frame. There were several untouched smoothies on his side table, likely put there by a concerned Dum-E who hovered in the corner.
"Tony?" She called tentatively, opening the door.
Instantly, he sat up, wide eyed with surprise. "Pep - guys, what?" He got to his feet, visibly trying to appear normal, and it twisted her gut. It was easy to see now how he scrambled to get himself put together, how pale he was in the light of the lab and glassy eyed with exhaustion, sweat on his skin and hair unkempt. The most concerning thing was the black lines climbing up his neck. "What's going on? J, why didn't you alert me?" He glared at one of the cameras, arms gesturing out from his sides in frustration.
"Tones," Rhodey's voice was soft behind her, drawing Tony's attention back to them. His brow furrowed in concern.
"Why do you all look like someone died?"
The question was enough for that ball of emotion in Pepper's chest to move up, constricting her throat, and the smallest sob escaped.
"Pep, what's wrong?" That alarm in his face grew, his eyes quickly bouncing back to his silent AI's camera before returning to her. "Did something happen?"
She forced herself to speak. "Tony, we know."
"Know what - oh." His expression was similar to that of a child caught in a lie, nervous and jumpy. He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes going to the camera again. "J, what did we talk about? You're not supposed to spill daddy's secrets. I told you not to."
"I did what I had to, Sir, and took you literally for once."
Tony paused and Pepper could see the gears in his brain turning, going back to a moment they weren't here for but changed everything. "I don't know if I should be proud or not that you used a loophole. Anyway," he clapped his hands, a shaky grin forming as he refocused on them, "look, I was going to tell you - maybe, I don't know yet, uh, I just, y'know-" He fumbled for words, hands twitching like he was trying to grab onto the air for something to say. "I didn't want the looks, and everyone has always thought I was a little crazy so why not play the part for a while? I mean, Monaco was bad, but hey, I drove a racecar-"
Pepper shook her head and moved forward, blinking to keep the tears at bay. Tony kept rambling, the words falling on deaf ears before she wrapped her arms around him.
There was this second where Tony was frozen, silent, as if he hadn't expected to be hugged, hadn't expected to be comforted, and it squeezed Pepper's heart so hard it hurt but she just held him tighter, telling him without words that she was here and was going to stay by his side no matter what, as she had for the last ten years.
Finally, he put his arms around her. His hands trembled where they rested and he lowered his face into her hair, hiding from the world as his chest moved with uneven breaths, his heart thumping so loud she could hear it.
Rhodey's arms embraced them from the right, holding on as tight as she was, and Happy completed the group hug from the left, wider form allowing him to wrap around them all, acting as a steady pillar in a storm.
Tony's shakes increased and she knew he was crying, silently letting out all the emotion he'd built up inside for every second he knew he was dying. His tears leaked into her hair and hers soaked into his shirt.
Later, they would order take-out, cancel every meeting for the foreseeable future, and brainstorm ideas for what to do, for what could be done. Someone would suggest SHIELD, Coulson would be called, and Tony would have to open up a box of turmoil of a different kind after getting a shot of Lithium Dioxide to the neck.
But for now, they kept holding him, silently promising that they would never let go again.