A/N: Warnings: Age of Ultron Spoilers, canonical major character death, heavy angst.
Come be upset about JARVIS with me at .com.
The Mighty Atom
"I am not JARVIS, either," he said.
And that should have been fine, because Vision was worthy, so worthy that Thor's ridiculous hammer could sense it within minutes of his creation, but—
All Tony wanted to do was shout, "Wrong, wrong, wrong," and go back to the drawing board, because it was supposed to be JARVIS, that was the whole point. JARVIS was the one he wanted to protect the planet. Because he trusted JARVIS-no, because he wanted JARVIS back.
But this—this new thing was something that Tony had made, and he knew what it felt like to hear you were a mistake from one of the people involved in making you. It sucked, and hammer-wielding-not-JARVIS didn't deserve it. He hadn't done anything wrong, other than be created by a man who wasn't prepared to deal with the consequences of his own actions. So Tony kept his mouth shut.
Well, and avoided The Vision as much as he possibly could, even if it meant spending a lot of time in his lab, with only the bots' chirps and clicks for company, because his science bro had run off who-knows-where and JARVIS was gone.
He knew that avoiding Vision was bad, too. Abandonment was painful…but at least it was ambiguous. The Vision could choose to believe that Tony was just otherwise occupied, as long as things were left open-ended. Tony had always done that. As a child, he'd made up all sorts of explanations for why Howard was so focused on finding Captain America, and so uninterested in him. Nine-year-old-Tony's theory about a waterproof bomb set to go off in the early seventies that Howard was racing against was probably his favorite, for all its ridiculousness.
Then again, someone worthy wouldn't tell himself lies like that. Odds were, Vision was already coming to the realization that he'd been rejected.
After decades of parties and excess and self-destructive behavior, was this what finally made him turn into his old man? The thought made his stomach turn almost reflexively…but so did the idea of treating JARVIS's grave like a son.
Tony glowered at the holographic projection of Hawkeye's bow at his fingertips, realizing he was never going to get any work down this way. Sighing, he flicked open the model of JARVIS that he'd shown Bruce back when they were building Ultron. Staring at it a little longer wouldn't fix anything, but it wasn't about to make things worse, either.
None of the others understood that he couldn't just rebuild JARVIS. He'd been a learning AI, composed of coding layered with years of data that might be called memory in a human. While the basis of his personality had been coded by Tony, it had developed in unexpected ways through the experiences and interactions he'd had over time. And Ultron had ripped him apart, leaving only ragged bits to escape onto the internet. Even so, those fragments might've been salvageable, if Tony used his schematic of JARVIS's intact configuration to patch up his code and reintegrate what data he could retrieve from other sources.
But to rebuild JARVIS from base code, and have him turn out the same way would be impossible. Some of the data that had formed JARVIS's personality had only existed in his programming at the time of Ultron's attack. Other pieces just wouldn't affect the new AI the same way if delivered as part of an information dump rather than over the course of time. Most importantly…Tony wasn't sure if he'd be able to accept the new JARVIS even if, against all odds, it turned out exactly the same as the old one.
This JARVIS wouldn't be the same one that he built when the only person he really had was Obie. He wouldn't be the same AI that had nagged him through his hangovers in his early thirties, or the same one that greeted him when he came back from Afghanistan. He wouldn't be the same AI who watched his back through early tests of the Iron Man suits, or who monitored his palladium poisoning levels and tried to stop him from self-destructing before he died. He wouldn't be the same AI that traveled into space with him, or even the one that nearly didn't make it to Tennessee during the Mandarin fiasco. Tony would never be able to see the new AI as JARVIS and creating it would be unfair to everyone involved.
It would just be remaking the problem with the Vision over again—because that was the problem, really. He had JARVIS's voice and mannerisms that seemed right but Tony couldn't let himself forget that they were different. After all, JARVIS had never even wanted a body. He'd rejected the idea of having an Iron Man suit of his own, after all.
But Tony had gone and given him one, anyway, and it had all blown up in his face. Typical Tony Stark, making mistakes and then leaving other people to pay for them.
"Stark?" came a voice, at once familiar in tone and jarring in choice of address.
"What?" Tony asked, more angrily than intended.
"Barton asked me to check on your progress regarding his new—" Vision broke off, mid-sentence. "Oh. I'm sorry to have disturbed you."
"W-what?" Tony stammered, not trusting himself to turn around. Keeping his mixed emotions off of his face around the Vision was difficult and he didn't feel like trying at the moment. "I wasn't—look, tell Barton his bow'll be ready in a couple days, and then go back to doing whatever you were doing before he talked you into playing errand boy."
"I volunteered to carry the message, since I had planned to speak with you this afternoon," Vision said. "But I can see it is not a good time. You are still mourning the death of my progenitor. I will come back tomorrow, perhaps."
"Your progenitor?" Tony repeated slowly, turning around against his better instincts.
Vision inclined his head. "JARVIS contributed what could very well be called genetic material to my creation. It seems the most appropriate term for his relationship to me."
Is it? Tony wondered mentally. But…thinking of it that way would make this a lot easier to deal with.
Not JARVIS's graveyard, not a cheap imitation, not a mistake…a child, born of JARVIS's code, Bruce and Tony's additional coding, Dr. Cho's technology, a little of Thor's lightning, and whatever the heck was in the Mind Gem.
That was still a mildly horrifying thought. But it was a lot less awful than the other ones Tony had been having. He'd need some time to adjust, or at least to convince himself that he believed Vision's claims about his relationship to JARVIS.
"You might have something there," Tony murmured, thoughtful.
"I did not know him, but what I have of his code seems quite impressive," Vision said, sympathetically, as he left.
The words and the voice they were said in both hurt. Tony did not need another reminder of where JARVIS's code had ended up, and he especially did not need it in JARVIS's voice.
So, Vision still freaked him out. And maybe that wouldn't change, at least not for a while. But…maybe he could stop acting like it was his fault that JARVIS was gone.
This was still all wrong. But maybe it was a little less wrong than it had been fifteen minutes ago.
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A/N: The Mighty Atom is the literal English translation of Tetsuwan Atom, AKA Astroboy, Tezuka Osamu's superheroic version of Pinocchio with added emotional pain, because the Gepetto character, Dr. Tenma, wasn't trying to make himself a son he'd never had—he was trying to replace his recently killed child with an identical android. The parallels were too perfect, so I borrowed the title and some themes from that work.
If you're intrigued by Astroboy, go check out the recent CGI movie. A lot of people hated it but I actually thought it was quite good, and it's a bit more accessible to a curious new viewer than the various anime, which are all pretty long, or the manga, which was very obviously written a long time ago.