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Summary: Every night JARVIS would calm him from his terrors. Then one night, JARVIS walked. He walked from the tower with his own body and mind, and now Tony Stark is truly alone. One shot. Angst.
Genre: Angst
Pairings: None
Trigger warnings: PTSD, depression, Tony Stark crying, mentions of self harm
Song: Hurt - Johnny Cash (Logan Version)
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First he had been stabbed in the heart.
A rocket carved guilt into his chest.
Forever marring him as a dead man walking.
So he had shut down Stark Industries weapons division. And that meant his 'friends' were suddenly busy, and his 'fans' were tweeting death threats. Minor things, he guessed. The real hurt came from seeing how many of them were faking it, not that they themselves were fakes.
Still, sometimes.. it made Tony wonder if, despite it being an attempted assassination, it counted as self harm.
Then Obie had betrayed him.
Tried to kill him.
Made him look like an idiot, a fool, and literally torn his heart (sort of..) from his chest. Realistically it had started well before then, but his blissful ignorance was a sort of barbed comfort blanket. He wanted it back if it meant his life would be.. would be normal again.
He thought he'd seen everything then.
And then of course everyone else tried to kill him. People he'd never heard of. People he had. Some weren't surprising; Justin Hammer always had been a weasel of a man.
Pepper, too, had nearly died.
God, the thought of her in pain- of her falling, screaming, and the fear in her eyes. Never before had he experienced such abject terror. When she left him, Tony couldn't blame her.
"I'm sorry," she croaked, dabbing her eyes. Pepper couldn't look at him but Tony couldn't tear his eyes away from her. "I just can't, Tony. I can't. I'm so afraid- that I'll lose you, or you'll get hurt. Sometimes I worry for myself, too. It's all too much. But I love you, Anthony Stark-"
Everything after that blurred.
Sure, Pepper was right. Hell, she was more than right. When wasn't she. Not one day passed when any of them couldn't help but wonder if it would be the last. And while Rogers and Romanov seemed to thrive on it, Tony drank and Pepper took anti-anxiety pills.
They weren't trained for bullets and spies. They knew boardroom warfare, sabotage, and political espionage.
So she left, and he hugged her, then cried, then he went and built a better suit.
It was okay after a while. JARVIS was always there, and frankly, some days wouldn't have lead to new ones if J hadn't been there. Been his rock.
"J-Ja-ay," Tony slurred his words, glass shaking slightly. Whiskey splashed the rim and dripped onto the already stained carpet.
Silence.
Oh, that's right.. no more JARVIS.
'Right,' Tony thought to himself, 'How many have I had?'
Hazily he could recall maybe eight glasses of liquor. Nothing fancy, it was all straight and whatever was in the nearest bottle. Was eight too many?
"S-s'aah, be f'ne," Tony hiccuped, reaching to pour himself another glass.
He misjudged the distance, however, and slipped in a recent spill. Landing facedown, Tony groaned, vision blurring.
'Fuck.' He thought. 'I'm drunk.'
Struggling to get up, Tony wiggled on his stomach, crawling towards a bar stool before coming to lean against it, panting.
'Never mind.. this is comfortable..'
Why had JARVIS left him?
"Why.." Tony whimpered into the carpet.
Had he been a bad creator? Had he hurt J's feelings? Probably. Tony always did that sort of shit. Made people cry and then abandon him. Or run from him.
"J-JARVIS, buhddy," Tony croaked.
"Sir?" FRIDAY questioned.
Everything slowed down for a second.
"JARVIS?" Tony whispered.
"JARVIS is not here, sir," FRIDAY replied quietly.
So Tony screamed. He screamed and he thrashed, crying into the filthy carpet. He drooled on himself and choked up, crying like he had when he was still too small to understand why the real Jarvis had also left him.
"Sir, if I ca-"
Tony choked. "Fuck off, FRIDAY..just.. you aren't JARVIS."
It hurt. It hurt to even think- his only real friend; therapist, mentor, apprentice, his fucking everything was gone. He'd been given a body but it was like he was dead.
What kind of fucking sick god thought it would be funny to take his J away? Is this how mourning mothers feel? But then he had to stop. He couldn't think about it. He didn't want to, it made him feel like he was back in that awful cave in Afghanistan..
And then of course, he'd hurt FRIDAY.
"FRIDAY?" Tony whispered.
Silence.
So Tony lay face down, sobbing silently, and wondered once again why he had to wake up in the morning.
~
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