Lightning Scars & Metal Hearts

Friday, June 17

“Is he still not talking to you?”

Tony sat at one of the barstools with his elbow on his knees and his chin on his hand. “He told me to go fuck myself yesterday, does that count?”

Pepper grimaced and squeezed Tony’s shoulder gently from her seat beside him. “Do you want me to try?”

Tony sighed and rolled his neck. “No. Not until I leave, anyway. It’s me he hates, mostly, I think he might hate Natasha too, thankfully. Just… try and get the kid to eat. I think he’s fasting in protest.”

“Have you not fed him since Wednesday?” Pepper asked, sounding just disapproving enough to be really annoying.

“I tried shoving food down his throat, obviously, but for some reason the kid didn’t like it,” Tony rolled his eyes. “I’ve been leaving food by his door, he eats a little when he takes the dog outside.”

“Oh, thank god for that,” Pepper laughed lightly. “I thought maybe he was letting poor little Asshole potty in his bedroom.”

“It’s ‘Arsehole’, you really have to emphasize the British accent,” Tony corrected her. He checked his watch and kneaded his forehead for a moment. “I have to go.”

Tony got up, feeling his actual age (not the one he claimed), and checked the text from Sirius Black again.

17 June, 2p, Godric’s Hallow cemetery. Wear sunglasses. Try to not be seen. Is H. okay?

He had gotten the text Wednesday night, less than an hour after he broke his amazing news to his actual, legal, biological, son. Or, contrarily, Tony got the text less than an hour after hearing Harry scream like his chest had been cracked open and promptly told Tony to ‘piss off’.

So, yeah, parenthood was going excellent so far.

“Are you taking anyone with you? Happy or Clint?” Pepper asked hesitantly when Tony pulled a jacket on and snagged his favorite sunglasses off the kitchen counter.

“Nope. When you go confront terrorists who have an active warrant, it’s usually best to go alone,” Tony winked before he slid his sunglasses on his face. “Keep my kid alive, I’m going to try and bring him back a souvenir.”

Some kids wanted t-shirts or snowglobes, of course Tony’s son had to be special and want a terrorist.

“Good luck, try not to die,” Pepper called to his back as Tony strode from the room. “Tony, for the love of god, be careful!”

Tony grinned over his shoulder, “I am always careful.”

He wasn’t, but this wasn’t the time to start.

And…

Tony read over the messages between Sirius Black and Harry during the flight…

He didn’t actually think Sirius Black was going to try and hurt him. Call him an optimist, but the guy seemed to mostly care about Harry.

I won’t apologize. This is what’s best.

Harry, don’t ignore me, please.

Just tell me you’re okay.

Stay away from ledges or I’ll call your dad and have him put you in a bubble.

I love you.

Hedwig misses you. I miss you.

So apparently Sirius Black could communicate in more than just emojis and apparently Harry was as angry with him as he was Tony, since he didn’t respond even once. Which was nice, when someone desperately hated you, it was always better to have a partner to share that hatred with, really lightens the load.

Tony caught a cab from the private airport to ‘Godric’s Hollow’. He tried to think about what he would say to Sirius when he saw him, then he tried to not plan it out since his most brilliant ideas were usually done on a whim.

When the cab dropped him off in a quaint little town, Tony had his sunglasses on and the hood of his jacket pulled up. There was a tiny little sign, plain wood with lettering burnt into it, that pointed toward ‘Churchyard’, so Tony trekked off to find the terrorist his kid was so fond of.

He passed through a simple metal gate and entered the cemetery that Sirius guided him to. He walked slowly, his hands in his pockets and his eyes alert. Personally, Tony hated cemeteries. They were gloomy, depressing, and reminded him of his parents’ funerals. He bypassed an old war memorial, set in the center of the graveyard, and called out to the empty field, growing impatient.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

“You bloody suck at being inconspicuous, don’t you, mate?”

Tony turned and saw someone with their hip propped against a gleaming white headstone. They had their back to Tony, but there could only be one person there speaking with him.

“I’m excellent at being inconspicuous. In fact, when I’m a wanted terrorist, I’m really quiet and sneaky,” Tony said casually as he walked toward the tall thin man.

The man turned, and, even despite the gauntness of his cheeks, the length of his hair, and the lines of time, that smirk was the same one he wore back when Tony met him.

“You’re still a cheeky bastard, aren’t you?” Sirius asked. He backed up some, turning his attention to the engraving on the headstone.

“I do my best,” Tony said modestly. He stepped up beside Sirius and glanced at the headstone. “Oh. This is where they were buried?”

On the white tombstone, engraved in an elegant font, it stated:

Beneath their dates of birth and death, an odd little inscription:

The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed is Death

“Yeah, almost fourteen years ago now,” Sirius said. His voice was hoarse, but Tony had no way of knowing if it was emotions or just a general hoarseness. Or, he didn’t, until Sirius cleared his throat and turned to him, all business now. “How’s the kid whose name you shouldn’t say out loud?”

Tony narrowed his eyes and catalogued that little comment carefully to think over later. “Great question, easy answer: why are you in contact with my son, why shouldn’t I turn you in to the police right now, and, oh yeah, why does your mourning style include bombs?”

Sirius glanced around the cemetery and then visibly relaxed once he realized the wind was the only thing present aside from the two of them. “Your son is my godson,” he said slowly.

“Figured that out for myself, funnily enough,” Tony said airily. “So you broke out of prison and what? Just thought ‘oh I should see what my godson is up to?’”

“Something like that,” Sirius gave him a half-assed grin, more mocking than genuine. “And now I’m wondering how my godson is?”

“My son is great, really, all formally declared as my kid, refusing to come out of his room. Super sweet really,” said Tony. “There’s a little snag with him hating me, but all teenagers hate the parent they didn’t know and didn’t want, so I figure we’ll work through it.”

Sirius scoffed and raised a brow, somehow looking like a condescending dick despite the fact that he was the wanted murderer. “He’s a… well, he’s himself. He’s never had a parent make decisions for him before, and he’s had- well… a rough go of it.”

“You don’t say,” Tony deadpanned. “Here I thought he had a charming life, outside of the whole dead parents, shit relatives, murderous godfather, and the pedophile he befriended.”

“So you found the Dursleys?” Sirius’ grey eyes were suddenly crystal clear and sharp. “Are they dead?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Tony said. “My turn now and I’d like to start with, what the fuck is going on here?”

Sirius laughed, his face looking younger as he did. “Long story short? I was framed. But I don’t care about that, I care about my godson. He’s not talking to me anymore.”

“Yeah? You add your name to his birth certificate and piss him off too?”

“No. I sent him to you.”

“Did you?” Tony asked with as much surprise as he could muster. “I could have sworn I saw a convicted child molester drop him off at the airport. Prison friend of yours?”

He wasn’t. Tony checked. There was no inmate in any of the jails or prisons that Ramsey had been in that even resembled Sirius Black.

“Don’t be bloody disgusting.” Sirius’ face twisted up in the same distaste Tony felt every time he thought of Ramsey. “That bloke just- er- he just gave H- your kid a ride to the airport. I don’t think they ever had contact before then.”

“Yeah? They seemed pretty chummy on the videos I watched.”

Sirius shifted and looked up to the grey sky for a long moment, clearly thinking something over.

“Has your kid talked much at all about his life?” Sirius finally asked, still contemplating the sky, as he obviously decided to dodge the damning question.

“He mentioned a few friends from ‘school’—”

Friends who, like Harry, had birth certificates and no real lives past eleven. The girl, Hermione Granger, had parents who were dentists in Essex, and she had more of a trail than Harry or Ronald Weasley, but not much. Hermione Granger went to Saint Catherine’s Primary, a private school for ‘bright and gifted young ladies,’ until the fall after she turned eleven.

Where Hermione Granger essentially disappeared the same as Harry, the same as Ron.

And it had been a pain in the ass to find what little he could about Ronald Weasley too. He wasn’t even entirely certain that he was the right ‘Ron’ except he was another kid born in the United Kingdom, a few months older than Harry, who was born and lived entirely off the grid alongside his many siblings and parents. No rental leases, no deeds in their name, not so much as a shopping receipt from their local grocery store. There had also been almost daily phone calls to the Granger’s phone line last summer from a phone booth in the same town as Ronald Weasley’s birth certificate listed.

Other than that? The kids were all ghosts. Dead men had more paper trails than most of the people in Harry’s life.

“—and that’s it,” Tony told Sirius. “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”

Sirius tilted his head down to face Tony and looked amused, “Yeah? You think the kid’ll be happy if I tell you things about him? That’s how you want to win his trust?”

“Sure would be easier to win a game if I understood the damn rules,” Tony said. He worked to keep his voice even, but Sirius stood there, knowing shit about Tony’s son, and clearly wasn’t going to tell him a damn thing. “You know, I came here to bring you back, help get you a whole new identity in America, give my kid the adult he clearly prefers in his life, an uncle or whatever you want to be, but I can’t do a damn thing if I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!”

“Shut the hell up,” Sirius hissed. His eyes flicked to a hill covered in headstones where a bird cawed and shot away at Tony’s fury filled rant. “Bloody hell, mate. I’d rather not get caught having this little chat.”

“I’m starting to wonder why I don’t just turn you in,” Tony spat.

Sirius kept his composure a hell of a lot better than Tony was. “Aside from the whole ‘not guilty’ bit, my godson will forgive me eventually, when he realizes I was right, and I’m not blackmailing you, because I do want him to be happy with you, but I promise he won’t be if you try and turn me in.”

Tony let out a heaving breath and tried to calm down the frustration he’d been boiling in practically since the minute his son appeared in his office.

“Every criminal says they’re innocent,” Tony pointed out, his shoulders relaxing as he could see that Sirius truly did seem to want Harry to be happy. If they had that single mutual goal, then perhaps they could figure out the rest. “What makes you special?”

“Aside from my charm, good looks, and sunny personality? The fact I didn’t do it,” Sirius snorted. “Listen, that’s a problem for me to solve. I’ve got to catch a rat and then maybe I’ll get my name cleared and I can eventually come see the kid, eh?”

“Or I help you and we can have this silly conviction all bundled up and disappeared in time to make it to my place tonight for dinner. Do you like Italian? There’s a great restaurant near my place.”

Sirius stilled, “What?”

“I’m speaking English, right? I have a bad habit of slipping into French on occasion.”

“Parlez la langue que vous préférez,” Sirius drawled in perfect French with a smirk.

Tony let out a startled laugh and relaxed further. “You must have spent a lot of time with the kid, he’s a smartass too.”

Sirius was the one who laughed then and his shoulders were loose and he stuffed his hands in his leather jacket pockets. “Nah, I’m an arse, he’s just… defensive.”

“Yeah, he’s great, really.” Tony huffed and moved his hands to his pockets as well. “What do you say then? Wanna become the Scooby-Doo gang? I can be the hot one and you can be the dog, we can solve the mystery of why someone framed you and take you to see the kid? I’ll warn you now, he’s got a little attack dog, but I think with a few hot meals you could take him.”

The wistful look on Sirius’ face was plain as day, so his refusal of Tony’s totally altruistic offer made no logical sense.

“Maybe I’m not making myself clear.” Tony pulled a hand out and offered it to Sirius, “Hi, Tony Stark, give me thirty seconds and a decent internet connection and I can have your entire life erased and rebuilt. Prison sentence? What prison sentence?”

Sirius shook his head and kept his hands firmly in his pockets. “For your government, maybe, but it’s more complicated than that.”

“Then explain it,” Tony said through grit teeth. Was this where Harry picked up his complete reticence from? If so, Tony didn’t exactly appreciate it. He appreciated it even less when Sirius cryptically said, “Ask the kid.”

“What does he know about something you may or may not have done fourteen years ago?” Tony demanded.

Sirius smiled softly, “Everything. He knows everything. You just need to get him to tell you. As soon as he tells you the big bit, I’ll fill in the blanks.”

“With cryptic little emojis?”

Sirius threw his head back then and laughed as loudly and hard as he ever had. “Oh, god, that’s really bothering you, isn’t it? Mate, I’m just screwing with my godson. He doesn’t want to even ask you to buy him bloody toothpaste, so I pretend I can’t understand him when he asks for money.”

“You’re refusing to send Harry mon—”

Crack!

“God damnit,” Sirius interrupted Tony with a snarl after a nearby tree branch broke. “Go, get the fuck out, now.” He pushed Tony away, causing him to stumble from the force on his chest. “I have to go. I’ll contact you, just go.”

“What the f—”

Sirius darted away, ducking around graves and hiding behind trees.Tony grabbed a laser, a replica of the one he gave Harry, and tried to follow him, but he almost immediately lost track of Sirius after the surprisingly quick man darted behind a large oak tree.

“What the fuck just happened?” Tony looked around the empty cemetery blankly. He pulled his phone from his pocket, rolled his eyes that the little hick town had less than stellar signal, and the frowned at the new message he had:

H’s had a hard time. Be patient with him.

Tony shot a quick text to Pepper, checking on Harry, then sent a response to Sirius.

You care a lot about a kid you won’t come see.

He got a baseball and a watermelon in reply.

It was probably a good thing that Sirius seemed to be Harry’s all-time favorite person, because he was also a dick and gave Tony a headache.

Tony made it back to the tower in record time that night, most of the flight spent in silent contemplation on the building mystery of his son’s life and his relationships.

“I need an entire bottle of aspirin and a massage with a happy ending,” Tony groaned as he saw Pepper was the only occupant in the place after he walked in. He flung himself across the couch and covered his face with his arm, “Where’s Harry?”

“He took the dog for a walk.”

“You are truly a goddess,” Tony said reverently. “How’d you convince him to do that?”

“Guilt,” Pepper said without an ounce of shame. “The same way I get you to do things when you’re stuck in one of your moods.”

Tony moved his arm so he could lift his head and grin at the smug, irritating, woman sitting in his favorite recliner. “I do not have mood swings, I’m a delight, Pep,” he said with a pouty lip that did nothing but cause Pepper to roll her eyes.

“You do,” she told him, “but his are worse. He’s- he’s really upset. He thinks ‘his friend’,” Pepper even did the air quotes with her fingers, “doesn’t want him in his life. I think he feels abandoned.”

Tony flung his arm back over his face in defeat. “Well I couldn’t get ‘the friend’ to come back with me.”

Tony had sent him a dozen texts between Godric’s Hollow and the airport, all explaining that he could have Sirius at his place that same day to see Harry. And what did the prick send back? Strings of emojis until Tony got pissed and muted his messages.

He wasn’t an idiot. He could tell that Sirius cared about Harry, hell, loved him even, but he couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t come back with Tony. The best theory he had was that Sirius didn’t trust Tony enough to not turn him in, despite eight of Tony’s texts saying he wouldn’t (one of them said he would, but it had been an empty threat, really).

“What do I do, Pep?” Tony groaned. “He can’t just spend the next four years miserable.”

“You could start by letting him go to a party with his friend tomorrow?”

Tony sat up instantly, “A party? With what friend? Where? How?”

“Calm down,” Pepper laughed. “His friend from the animal shelter called him earlier. He didn’t answer, then I teased him until he called him back, and he got invited to a party at one of Peter’s friends’ houses.”

“What friend?”

“I don’t—”

“Jarvis! Check all social media for students that attend the same school as Peter Parker, find out who’s having a party this weekend.”

“Very good, sir. Results are being sent. Miss Potts, young Mister Stark is back in the building.”

“Thank you, Jarvis,” Pepper said warmly. She raised a brow when Tony gave her a look, “What? If he was gone for more than fifteen minutes then I was going to track his jacket and find him.”

“His jacket??”

Pepper gave Tony a sly smile- a damn sexy look on her face -and coyly lowered her eyes. “I might have slipped one of those trackers you stick on everything in his jacket earlier. I figured if he ran, he’d ditch the phone, but he loves that jacket.”

Tony let out a delighted laugh and appreciated Pepper’s craftiness much more when it was aimed at Harry and not himself. “Aw, Pepper, look at you, playing overprotective stepmom before we’ve even had our first kiss. Awfully bold of you,” he winked.

Pepper rolled her eyes, “You’re the one running social media analysis over a party with teenagers.”

“That’s because I, unlike a certain little geek girl, have actually been to a party as a teenager and I need to know if I should send Clint as backup or not,” Tony pointed out, entirely logically.

Pepper looked poised to argue, as she always was, but the elevator dinged and Harry joined them after a moment.

“Hey, kid,” Tony gave him a hopeful smile. “How was your day?”

Harry breezed right past him with the dog squirming in his arms, “Brilliant.”

Tony didn’t plan on blurting out his activity for the day, but he just said something to keep Harry from storming in his room again.

“I met an old buddy of mine today, Sirius Black, he said to tell you hi.”

Pepper muttered something that distinctly sounded like ‘you idiot’ before swiftly getting up and leaving the apartment.

Harry froze with a hand outstretched for his doorknob. He slowly turned and fixed those piercing eyes of his on Tony, “What?”

“Yeah, we had a nice chat. I think I’m going to clear his name, help him not be a whole ‘escaped convict’ anymore. You want in? We’re calling ourselves the Scooby-Doo gang, I’m the hot one, he’s the dog, but you could be Velma if you want?”

Harry didn’t say anything for at least two minutes, he just stood there, his dog squirming and licking his face, while he stared at Tony in shock. Finally, he swallowed, licked his lips, tightened his hold on the dog, and asked, “Why?”

Tony could have made a joke, but since it was the most conversation he had with the kid since he broke the news that Russia wasn’t happening on Wednesday, he figured it wasn’t the time.

“You like him, there’s plenty of floors with empty living spaces here, and…” Tony cursed his father mentally as he struggled through a heavy wave of discomfort to say what needed to be said. “And I care about your happiness,” he said in a rush, pushing the words out and mentally patting himself on the back for it. “So if Sirius Black being here makes you happy, and he swears not to blow my building up, then I’m going to do what I can to make it happen.”

He wasn’t going to tell the kid about Sirius’ outright refusal to come. He wasn’t an idiot, despite what Pepper may believe. There was no way that Harry wouldn’t take that news pretty damn badly.

Harry blinked at him a few times, then nodded slowly. “Do you, er, d’you have any extra toothpaste? I’m out.”

Unexpected question, but not a bad one either.

“Sure, kid, I’ll get it.”

Tony worked harder than he ever had to not actual skip as he went to his bathroom, snagged an extra tube of toothpaste and took it to his son. “Ta da, extra fresh breath in case you play spin the bottle tomorrow.”

Harry accepted the toothpaste, but his forehead crinkled at Tony’s comment. “What’s spin the bottle?”

Tony stopped and stared at him. He knew the kid was sheltered, never even played video games, but…

“Have you ever been to a party before?”

Harry frowned, his default expression. “Did Pepper tell you about that? I, er… I told her I’m probably not going. She’s just bloody annoying.”

And since Harry sounded almost as fond of Pepper as Tony was, he figured that Pepper must just be a magnet for Stark’s.

“You should go,” Tony said firmly. He checked his inbox while he got the toothpaste and saw that Jarvis found one classmate of Peter Parker’s, Gwendolyne Stacy, was holding a party at her parents home in SoHo. Her family checked out alright, her dad was a captain for the New York police department, mom stayed at home with the four kids. Tony saw they had a room booked in Maine for the weekend and since the entire family didn’t have so much as a parking ticket, he figured it would be a chance for Harry to start making ties in New York.

Harry ducked his head and shuffled his foot. “You- you don’t want me to stay here? Stay in my room… or… or something?”

“Nope.” Tony kept his tone casual and friendly. He wasn’t going to punish the kid for being a kid. “Harry, we’re going to fight. I’m new to this whole parenting business, I’m going to fuck it up and you’re going to react to my fuck ups. Vice versa, probably. I figure if you aren’t hiding the coffee from me or letting Arsehole shit in my bed, then no harm, no foul. Go have fun tomorrow. I’ll still be here to glare at when you get back.”

Harry picked his head up and gave him a curious look. “I told you to go fuck yourself and you’re going to clear Sirius’ name, let him move in, and let me go to a party?”

“I’m going to try and get your godfather here,” Tony stressed. “It might be more helpful if he knew you didn’t hate him,” he added as a single bit of goodwill for the guy who sent him his son.

Tony then sighed dramatically and sat backwards on the armrest of the couch. “And, you’re right. Since I have certainly never been told to go fuck myself before, I should do some sort of parent thing now, right? How about this… for the obscene crime of being a teenager, you are hereby sentenced to eating meals with me again.”

It wasn’t a real smile, more of a twitch of Harry’s upper lip, but the kid nodded all the same.

“If I get a barrister, can I have my sentence reduced?”

“Nope. The judge is a real prick.”

Harry huffed, a sound suspiciously close to a laugh, and turned to his door once more. “Alright then, I’ll, er… just see you in the morning.”

“Sleep tight, don’t let the fleas bite!”

Tony fell backward on the couch, his legs dangling over the armrest, and smiled smugly when Harry’s door closed softly.

Sure, he had a mysterious bombing to investigate, he had to find a way to drag Sirius Black to New York, preferably by his hair, his kid had a whole life full of secrets he wasn’t ready to share yet, and he had to convince Clint or Natasha to go spy on a high school party, but…

But Tony thought that it was still worth it. If he were Sirius Black, he would have broken out of prison for the kid too.

Or, more accurately, Tony would have framed someone else if he’d been the bomber, had them sentenced on his behalf, and never stepped foot in a prison. But Sirius Black just wasn’t as smart as Tony was, apparently.