A/N:

1)Sincere thanks for reviews and all the encouragement goes to: CookieGirlLOL, LightNote16, Wolfy, Zuzanny, cm, Life's a dream, Avrice the Demigod, Daldi, Gaaraxluvr, TheGoldenTrioLivesOn, Katherine, ShadowDragonPhoenix, and MaraudingSnitch1314. As usual, I'll respond via PM to anyone I can.

Also, thanks for all the faves, alerts, etc, it is most encouraging.

2) Anyone who loves Tony/JARVIS interaction might want to check out my fic "Too Late", which has quite a bit of that.

I know it's a bit of shameless self-promotion here, but "Too Late" is one of my favorite two fics that I ever wrote (the other being "Stark Realizations") though to be fair it is also the single most miserably depressing thing I've ever written (which paradoxically also makes me sometimes hate myself for ever writing it in the first place).

3) I made the mistake of showing my collected writings to my family... and erm, well, lets just synposize by saying that my muse (and my ego) was thoroughly trampled underfoot... though its possible that a major problem was the fandom not my writing itself... I think... I hope. Either way...Youch!

Anyway, thanks a milion for all your support, dear readers... you certainly have a way of brightening crappy days and without you all this would not be possible.

4) Wolfy and Daldi (since I can't PM you), thank you for the suggestions... I'm working on them (whether or not I can find a way to fit them into this particular fic is another story) but you're right, both would be scenes worth writing, so check back on occasion if you'd like, sooner or later I'll come up with something!

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"You're going to kill yourself Tony. I'm not going to be a part of it."

JARVIS is grateful to Pepper for having put into words emotions that he has been feeling but does not even know how to identify, even if he cannot truly agree with all of that statement because while he wishes his creator would abandon this deadly path, he also doesn't want him to have to walk it alone….. but it is his creator's next words that drive all thought from him as for perhaps the first time, he experiences undiluted pain.

"I shouldn't be alive….. unless it was for a reason."

This is not a lie – this is not another one of his creator's deflections. This is the truth as Tony sees it – the unspoken and unnoticed collapse of his creator beneath the sufferings of a wrecked world which somehow all seem to rest on Tony's shoulders.

Though his creator goes no further, JARVIS understands the unspoken meaning, knows that a large and very dominant part of his theoretically self-absorbed creator feels that his very existence has been a burden to a world with too many problems already to need another – feels that the lives lost because of decisions that he'd never sanctioned are blood on his hands which nothing can ever truly absolve him of, and that if he cannot do something…. if he cannot do everything in his power to make things right and save the future since he cannot change the past, it would have been better if he was dead.

And yet – though it's not a lie – it is also not a truth, because Tony Stark deserves to live…. and deserves to know that he should live.

How? How can he not see that?

"I'm not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know…. what I have to do…. and I know in my heart that it's right."

Pepper does not argue with Tony this time, and for all JARVIS's fears, neither does he…. because if there is anything at all for his creator to live for now it is this – this choice he has made – and JARVIS will not be the one to try and take that from him.

Still, JARVIS cannot help but think of the lies, reminding himself of the fact that to the world, Tony Stark may just be the most irresponsible self-absorbed man on the planet …. and yet the painful truth on display in front of him is the opposite of all those descriptions, because he can see that his creator is hurting inside - breaking beneath the weight of everything he chooses to be responsible for - and holding it together only because of everyone who needs him now, everyone he chooses to rise up and fight for, not caring that this choice may very well end up costing Tony everything including his life.

He is not wishing for Tony to be anything and anyone other than who he is…. really how can he? But he cannot quell the small …. frightened …. part within him that knows that were the lies true – were his creator truly irresponsible and self-obsessed - this would be so much simpler.

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