His Jarvis sense was tingling.
For lack of a better word he had started to call it that. This time it was even strong enough to rise him from his deep meditation, a meditation sorely needed after one of their roughest missions so far. The Captain had been badly hurt and hat lost a fair amount of blood from a wound to his abdomen. Doctor Banner had stitched him up as soon as his hulked down state had allowed for delicate surgery and the good Captain had been resting for the last three hours. He would no doubt make a full recovery until the end of the week and most likely be able to walk out of the jet unassisted but it had still put a damper on the exhausted team's mood. Everyone had retreated to their own little corner on the Quinjet as soon as it became clear that Steve was out of the woods.
A sense of peace had overcome them all and most of them had gone to sleep while Stark steered them away from the combat zone to the safety of their tower. So what had shaken him out of his own rest?
It had taken him a few times at first to depict the origin of this weird intuition that always narrowed down on the strange and sometimes unpredictable actions of one Anthony Stark.
He had paid it no mind at first, too involved with finding out which intuitions and feelings derived from which part of his personality and trying to fathom how to prioritize these impulses and whether or not to act on them. For a long time he had pushed this particular sense, this Jarvis sense, to the back of his mind.
Regarding the bigger picture, which was the protection of life on this planet, he had figured that the mercurial engineer wasn't in imminent and constant demand of his attention. On planet earth Tony Stark was after all considered an adult and from what Vision had learned so far about humans, this meant that he should be quite capable of taking care of himself.
That however was before he had had the time to study the team's dynamics and he realized rather sooner than later, that genius didn't necessarily come with reason. In the end he had felt the urgency to follow up enough Jarvis tingles to realize that there was more to the man than met the eye. The stoic facade he always put up to mask every true emotion and the various roles he played in order to keep people at a safe distance had been perfected to a point where no one, not even his teammates, were able to see through them.
The Vision however, being the super perceptive creature that he was and an individual essentially created from a program whose primary coding saw to Tony Stark's wellbeing, could not be fooled so easily.
He was still unsure about his feelings towards the mercurial genius. He wasn't sure if it was in his place to intrude in the engineer's privacy when following up on these Jarvis impulses, knowing how much he valued it. After all he had only known him for around five months and had gotten to know him along with his other teammates. He had learned about all of their individual strengths and weaknesses and he had learned to accommodate to them, their needs and their habits.
But with Stark it was different.
It always felt like whenever he learned something new about the engineer, it was already old news to him. With Stark it felt like slots falling into places and he sometimes knew instinctively what the man would do before he knew it himself, which was quite a feat considering his knack for getting himself in trouble and his general lack of self-preservation.
So when his Jarvis sense was tingling, he would usually send a member of the team to rescue Stark from his man cave, or during battle inconspicuously appear at the right place at the right time to safe him from a fatal blow.
He had to admit that he had come to like the obnoxious and often loud man that could get a rise out of everyone with a few choice words and always provided much needed comic relief, even to the most somber situations.
This is why, at this point of time, he suddenly became very aware of the definite lack of said vibrant presence in the post-battle gloom that had spread throughout the Quinjet. Why was Stark still stubbornly seated in the pilot's seat? He was sure that Friday was quite capable of piloting the quinjet to New York herself. Stark had never showed up after take off, knowing about the Captain's state, which in itself was uncharacteristic enough.
"Friday?" he asked in a low voice anxious not to stir his exhausted team. "What is Mr. Stark doing?"
The question was innocent enough, but the slight hesitation in the AIs answer had him kicking up his gear immediately.
"He is in the pilot's seat."
Vision didn't miss the implication. Tony was not piloting or maintaining, he was simply in the pilot's seat.
He approached the cockpit and it took him less than a second to locate the engineer slumped in his seat, chin resting uncomfortably on his chest.
His Jarvis sense had once again been spot on.
"Dr. Banner!" he called out sharply behind is back. As he bent down he noticed a light sheen of sweat on Tony's brow, he also noiced that his breathing was quite fast and shallow.
"Tony?" he asked cautiously, not wanting to scare the man out of his sleep. There was no reaction though and he tried to rise him by gently shaking his shoulder. "Tony?"
The engineer's head lolled limpy backwards against his seat and even with his limited knowledge of human physiology Vision knew, that this wasn't a particularly good sign.
"Come on, Tony Stark! Wake up!" he said, still unsure what to call him sometimes. His first impulse always seemed to be "Sir", but since their relationship as teammates didn't dictate a formal salute he was often left with "Tony" which seemed odd and not quite right to him, or a even less fitting "Tony Stark".
"J..Jarvis?" the engineer suddenly mumbled, his eyes still closed.
Vision wasn't quite sure what to answer the delirious man and was relieved to see Doctor Banner approaching quickly.
"What's the matter?" he asked nonchalantely and immediately blanched when he saw the disgruntled state his labpartner was in. He nonchalentely grabbed hold of the unconscious man's head, his palms cupping his face and thumbs forcing Tony's eyes open to take a quick look at the state of his retinas.
Vision took a step back and let the Doctor work.
"What is it, Doctor Banner?" he asked after a short while when the Doctor finally let go of his friend's face and pressed two fingers to his carotid pulse.
"Not good.." he mumbled. He stood up and turned around to talk to Vision when out of the corner of his eyes he noticed Tony's head limply falling to the left side. He immediately jumped, catching him before he slipped off the chair completely.
To his horror Bruce noticed a small trickle of blood escaping from the corner of Tony's mouth.
"Vision, pick him up. Quickly! He needs to lie down immediately."
"Very well" Vision said and effortlessly scooped the limp man up in his arms, careful not to jostle him further. All the while Bruce was cursing under his breath "Damn idiot... like a child. Some genius he is. Dammit..."
"Where to, Doctor?" the Vision interrupted.
"I think we need to wake the Captain."