The best and worst thing about a mechanical voice was that it never quite managed to convey any real depth of emotion. Edwin had an expressive face, sure. He could share a lot courtesy of lifting his eyebrows or pressing his lips thin, which was an important thing in terms of communication for a man with no tongue. It was all he'd been able to work with for a few years, even when he shouldn't have been working at all on that, but rather perfecting the ability to project absolute blankness (with a slump of the shoulders to convey how dutiful and beaten down he was, even though that hadn't really been a thing since his first years in this role, learning not to look up or meet anyone's eyes or think too much of himself as a person and not a possession).
With the voice box, he had words back and the bare semblance of tonal control. Jarvis could do volume. He could do spare, clipped syllables that hinted at dryness and longer, almost drawling words that sounded like sarcasm. Fear, though. Sadness. Anxiety, even. Those weren't going to be easy to manage around an artificial voice, and even if it felt like things in his throat were too tight and all crowding around one another, it didn't matter. His voice didn't come courtesy of how much air he could control, or whether it was being squeezed out of him by despair. That one word he'd managed sounded perfectly level and even, if a little bitten off.
The way he was watching Tony, though, was probably the reason Tony wasn't watching him back. Fear was all over his face, grief already twisting at his mouth and carving shadows beneath his eyes. He couldn't not look at Tony and see all the worst scenarios all over again- even if the first time, he hadn't watched or really even cared beyond the usual talk, the gossip and glamor that surrounded the Games and followed his father home.
Now it mattered. And Jarvis had no idea what to do other than stare, wide-eyed and filled with horror, hands on his knees because Tony was standing and moving and it wasn't his place to grab or hold even if he wanted to. He did, for the record. He wanted to reach up and cover the fingers clutching (stretching) Tony's shirt, pry them loose, and hold on as tightly as he could manage. Instead he leaned a little, the sharp jut of his knee and one shoulder bumping into the line of Tony's body, resting on his chair like it was what might be keeping him upright. "Don't," he warned, blinking hard against tears. Also useless, for the record. "Don't pretend at me."