“I think I love my son!”
Thursday, June 23
“What’s the plan for the day, kid?” Tony asked when he breezed in the kitchen and saw his son sitting at the counter, fidgeting with the new and improved StarkPhone he had.
Harry scowled down at the counter. “Depends, am I still on fucking suicide watch?”
Apparently Harry thought that he was just going to go bungee jumping without any cords and Tony was going to act as if it never happened. No offense to him, but Tony was surprised that it took Harry until the day before to realize he was purposefully not being left alone at any given moment.
“Depends, are you going to go see the therapist that Pepper worked so very hard to find for you?” Tony asked him. He opened the fridge and grabbed a gallon of milk that passed the sniff-test before snagging a box of cereal from the pantry.
“I said it was an accident and I don’t need a bloody therapist,” Harry said. He got up and grabbed two bowls and two spoons before sitting back down.
“That’s called denial, my feisty friend,” Tony told him. He poured himself a bowl of cereal and slid the cereal and milk to Harry’s preferred spot on the opposite side of the bar. “You call your godfather yet?”
Tony knew he hadn’t. In between learning all he could about magic, being told stories about the insane life his son led, and getting bitched at for Harry’s stunt on the roof, Sirius had also spent a lot of their recent phone calls wishing Harry would talk to him again.
“I’m not sure that’s your business,” Harry said in his little snappy way.
“Wrong again,” Tony sang. He took a few bites of his breakfast while Harry made himself some. “Write back to your friends?”
“Again, I think that’s my business.”
“Are you going to decorate your bedroom?”
“Am I being blackmailed?” Harry snapped, throwing his hands in the air. “I can’t be left alone until I follow some mad checklist you’ve built for me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tony said around a mouthful of marshmallows, “you can’t be left alone until you do things that make me think you want to live your life.”
“That still sounds like blackmail,” Harry said with adorably angry eyes.
Tony shrugged, perfectly content to blackmail his kid into doing things that Pepper insisted were ‘healthy habits’. God bless that woman, she’d been a godsend the last few days. As soon as Tony was certain that the wizard government wasn’t going to try and interfere with his kid, he’d caught Pepper up on everything she missed since Saturday afternoon and she jumped straight into planning mode.
She’d been at their place by the time they got back home on Monday, a stack of books in her bag, a list of child therapists in her pocket. She told Tony that Harry probably had depression, that he didn’t have any ‘meaningful connections to give him reasons to want to live’, or some other psychological mumbo-jumbo that meant Harry needed more support in his life or he was going to end up in a lightweight coffin before he hit college.
In Tony’s opinion, everyone needed a Pepper Potts in their life.
“It’s emotional blackmail,” Tony said cheerfully. “I’m willing to remove your protective detail (Happy and Pepper when Tony had to leave his kid alone) as soon as you’re willing to work with me.”
Harry glared at the counter as he angrily chewed, a hilarious reaction, really, Tony didn’t even realize someone could chew Lucky Charms so angrily.
“I can’t write back to my friends because they might tell Dumbledore where I am. I’m not calling Sirius because he’s a traitor. And I’d like to go to a mall with Gwen and Peter today, but I’m not going to drag along a babysitter,” Harry said with a sneer.
All fair points. Even if Sirius had worked in Harry’s favor, done the right thing and sent him to safety knowing he couldn’t follow him, Tony could see why Harry felt betrayed by him. From what Sirius said, Harry had been on his own since the day Lily and James died until Sirius tried to insert himself in his life. And, according to Sirius, he’d had to work nearly as hard as Tony currently was, to get the kid to accept him. So, yeah, Tony could see why a kid would be upset by the rational decisions of an adult.
“You can definitely go to a mall with your friends without a babysitter, IF you take your credit card, buy stuff you like, and promise to decorate your room,” Tony told Harry.
“Excellent, because as you know, since you’re an expert in magic now, I definitely have a credit card linked to my bank account,” Harry drawled sarcastically. “Best Buy accepts galleons, right?”
Tony grinned and pulled a card from his shirt pocket with a dramatic flourish. “This is yours, actually, here,” he flipped the card across the counter to Harry. “Go buy stupid teenage shit with your friends.”
“This is your money and I don’t want it,” Harry said, flipping the card back to Tony. “I told you I’m not suicidal, I don’t need bribed or blackmailed into living.”
“You’re my kid, so it’s our money,” Tony insisted, flipping the card right back. “I’m not bribing you. Kids get allowances, right?”
Harry scoffed and toyed with the card before giving it back. “No.”
“Quit being stubborn.”
“Says the stubborn git insisting I spend his money on ‘stupid teenage shit’.”
“Touché,” Toby grinned. “Look, it’s up to you. You can spend the day with Happy while I go deal with our dramatic tower-mates, or you can take the damn card, buy one thing that makes me think you’re putting down roots here, and ‘hang out’ with your new friends.”
Tony smiled as Harry looked like he was grinding his teeth to dust. Poor kid was going to need to see an orthodontist at some point.
… and probably a pediatrician. Kids were a lot of work, actually. And weren’t they supposed to be prone to germs and disease?
“This is blackmail and bullshit,” Harry said through his clenched jaw. He got to his feet and pocketed the card that Tony had ordered for him. He stormed over to the sink, washed his bowl and spoon, and stormed to his room. “I am going to pay you back when I get access to my account,” he yelled before dutifully leaving his door partially opened.
“If you try then I’ll cry,” Tony called at his back. “Hey, do you want a ride?”
“No. I do not ‘want a ride’, I want one bloody normal day!” Harry yelled back.
Tony laughed and finished off his own bowl of cereal. It wasn’t actually funny, that Harry couldn’t see the irony, but Tony had been pretty certain that teenagers arguing with their parents was about as normal as anything.
The ping he got on his watch, reminding him that he had a meeting with his team in an hour regarding ‘recent developments’ was not so normal. Well, Clint being a drama queen was normal, but calling a whole meeting for it wasn’t.
After verifying Harry’s plans with him (‘We’re going to the mall and perhaps finding insane ways to waste your money’, as if Tony was worried about how much money Harry spent, he’d be lucky if the kid spent $5), Tony set off to Steve’s floor for a ‘team meeting’.
“Hello, my favorite team,” Tony cried as he joined them, ten minutes late and the last to arrive. He looked around Steve’s boring and plain apartment with a wide smile, “Love what you’ve done with the place, I can really get a sense of your character here, Steve.”
Bruce chuckled, but he was the only one at the round table that they all sat at who did. Clint had his head bowed just enough to hide his face, Natasha looked bored by his side, and Steve had on his ‘serious face’.
“Have a seat, Tony,” Steve said, ever the chivalrous hero.
“Mm, I’ll stand, thanks,” Tony said. He leaned against the archway that separated the dining/meeting area from the living room and attempted to look as bored and unimpressed as Natasha did. “If you’ve got ridiculous concerns or baseless accusations, get them out now.”
He knew they did. He knew it since Fury must have woke up Sunday morning and told Clint or Natasha, who told the rest of the team, that Harry was a wizard. As soon as he started getting a flurry of messages from the rest of them, he knew that they would see it as ‘a problem’.
“Can he control minds?” Clint asked immediately, causing Tony to roll his eyes as hard as he could.
“Does my fourteen year old kid who doesn’t even carry a wand have the same level of mind-fuckery powers as a God with a tesseract?” Tony scoffed and crossed his arms, “Yeah, Clint, clearly. Next.”
“Now wait a minute, that’s a fair question, Tony,” Steve said calmly. “He knocked Nick out cold, how do we know he’s not dangerous?”
“Have you seen the kid? He looks like a scared kitten half the time,” Natasha said, which was both insulting and totally accurate.
“Why did he attack Fury?” Bruce asked Tony. “All Fury told Clint was that he tried talking to Harry, finding out what the situation was, and that Harry ‘attacked him’.”
“First off, Harry didn’t ‘attack him’, it was accidental magic because of high stress levels,” Tony said, repeating the words of the wizard President. “Fury broke in my place, middle of the night, and threatened to tell me Harry’s secrets. And since the last people the kid lived with hated magic, the kid got panicked and stunned Fury before he took off.”
“So he’s just going to be shooting magic at everyone the moment he feels stressed?” Clint asked, glaring at Tony like a pissed off little kid.
Tony rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache building between his eyes. “Did he ‘shoot magic’ at Natasha when she shook him? No. It was an accident, Clint, he’s not any more dangerous now that you know about his magic than he was before.”
“What about this…” Steve rifled through an actual folder in front of him to snag a sheet of paper from it. “This Voldemort character? Fury said that it’s almost a guarantee that he’s going to come for the kid.”
“He shows up, I blast him to bits, we all go out for ice cream to celebrate,” Tony shrugged. “I’m not seeing the problem here, guys. We took on Loki, and won, I didn’t think Earth’s mightiest heroes would be scared of a little fourteen year old wizard.”
“We can’t fight magic,” Clint said stubbornly. “If the kid goes dark side, then he’s just got inner access to all of us. He can fuck with our minds, mess with whatever he wants, and- and—”
“And try and take over the world?” Tony asked innocently. “That was Pinky and the Brain’s gambit, Clint. Harry’s too busy cuddling puppies, feeding bacon to owls, and you know, dealing with all his trauma to really take over the world anytime soon.”
Once again, Bruce was the only one who chuckled. Bruce was a good guy, better than the rest of the stick-up-the-ass teammates they had. Not nearly as fun to banter with as Harry was, but Tony doubted if many people outside of himself could match the kid for levels of sarcastic wit.
“How’s he doing, anyway?” Natasha asked. She kicked her feet up on the table, smirking at Steve’s little exasperated sigh, and turned to Tony. “Heard he took a short dive off a tall building Sunday morning.”
Tony wasn’t even surprised that Natasha already knew about it. It wasn’t that Tony was keeping it a secret, necessarily, he just didn’t feel the need to tell his team while he, Happy, and Pepper had it handled.
“He what?!” Clint’s eyes bulged and he turned toward Tony so quick that his own neck muscles winced in sympathy. “What happened?”
Tony raised his eyebrows at Clint mockingly. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you worried about my evil little wizard son? I thought you’d be happy if he’d hit the ground and was no longer a threat to you.”
“He jumped off a building?” Steve asked with shocked eyes while Clint sputtered a denial. “Jesus, Tony, what happened?”
“Fury happened,” Tony snapped. “He showed up after Harry’s perfectly awkward date, provoked Harry into using accidental magic, then the kid panicked and took off. He thought I’d kick him out or beat him or something else fucked up if I knew he was a wizard, maybe even accuse him of being evil,” he added with a pointed look to Clint. “He got upset, found himself at the top of a tall building, and wanted to be done with shit. And I’d think that all of you,” he swung his finger at the four of them, “could be a little more sympathetic and less accusatory.”
Bruce nodded, his eyes reflecting true sorrow for Harry in the way that only Bruce could. Steve looked appropriately embarrassed as he hopefully realized what a sham it was to call a meeting over the threat level of Tony’s own son. Natasha picked at her nails with a knife, like a psycho. And Clint was frowning in either deep thought or serious constipation.
“I just don’t want to have to hurt the kid if he turns dark side,” Clint finally said, breaking the tense silence filling the room. Well, tense for the others, Tony was mostly just bored and annoyed.
“And I wouldn’t let that happen,” Tony said with another roll of his eyes, leaving them free to interpret that however they chose. If they thought he meant he wouldn’t let Harry turn ‘dark side’, so be it. Bruce’s knowing look told him that he read the true meaning in his words though; Tony wouldn’t let Clint hurt a single hair on Harry’s head.
“If that’s all then, I’ve got actually important things to do today,” Tony said cheerfully when nobody said anything for a moment. “Anyone who isn’t scared of my kid should come over for dinner tonight, we’re going to be out of town this weekend.”
“Where you going?” Bruce asked curiously.
“And what’s for dinner?” Natasha asked.
“None of your business and whatever Harry wants,” Tony quipped. “Oh, and in case this wasn’t clear, Fury isn’t invited and I’d rather not see his charming face around until he’s ready to apologize to Harry. And don’t think Harry’s going to accept flowers and pretty poetry,” he told Natasha, knowing she’d be the one to report back to her boss, “genuine heartfelt apology or he can take me off his emergency contact list, got it?”
“Oh, I’ll definitely tell him that,” Natasha smirked.
“Terrific, I’m off then. Dinner’s at six, don’t be late,” he called over his shoulder as he strolled right back out of Steve’s apartment.
Honestly, he thought it would take a lot more to convince Clint that Harry wasn’t like Loki. But maybe the differences between a fourteen year old kid and a God from Asgard were obvious even to Clint. Either way, if they weren’t going to freak out over a bit of magic, then Tony would be relieved to have his friends back. God knew he’d need at least Bruce’s help to kill the wizard who had a vendetta against Harry.
Speaking of which…
Tony sent Harry a text while he rode the elevator down to the board meetings he couldn’t just send Pepper to.
Having fun?
Tony was playing catch with himself during a finance meeting, bored out of his mind, when he got a text back.
I bought Hedwig a perch. Does that get me off suicide watch?
Tony chuckled and ignored the disproving looks of the older staff members in the room. They never liked Tony’s clothes, the way he rarely showed up to meetings, or the way he thought a smoky scotch made dry pitches much more tolerable. Laughing at a text was the least of Tony’s offenses in their eyes.
Buy a poster.
Of what?!
Metallica? Gandalf the Grey? Topless women on a motorcycle?
You’re disgusting.
Tony grinned and checked the bank account he linked Harry’s card to and saw the kid only spent $22.
I thought you and your friends were going to waste our money?
I did. I bought Hedwig a perch. Have you tried reading? It should improve your comprehension.
Tony laughed again and waved off the dirty looks from the stuffy suits in the room.
For every dollar out of a thousand that you don’t spend, I’m adding that as a day to have Happy hang out with you.
This is blackmail and I’m certain it’s a crime.
Tony felt an odd, unfamiliar, and not entirely comfortable feeling in his chest. He hadn’t even known the kid for a month, but there it was…
“Holy shit,” Tony slapped his hand on the board table, causing the suits to jump in their seats. Tony looked around at them all with a shocked smile, “I think I love my son!”
“Congratulations, sir,” one of the older suits said as he pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Shall we postpone the meeting for this remarkable revelation?”
“Nope.” Tony waved his hand and picked his phone back up. “I’m not listening anyway.”
They suits scoffed, but Tony was still having a moment so he ignored them. It was remarkable, actually. Besides his mom, Tony wouldn’t say that he loved anyone, necessarily. Liked? Sure. Had a use for? Absolutely. Loved? No.
But… yeah. Tony was mostly confident he loved his kid. Which was terrifying, actually, because it opened a whole can of personal worms he’d rather not examine too closely.
He sent a text to the two people who would understand this breakthrough the most.
I think I love my son.
Pepper sent back a little emoji rolling it’s eyes, Sirius sent back a bunch of question marks.
Okay, maybe nobody understood his breakthrough.
We still on for this weekend? Tony sent Sirius.
He chose to interpret the salt shaker and crane he got back as confirmation.
If I buy a $8 shirt, is it still okay if people come over to your house?
Tony grinned at his son’s text. If there was ever a time to blackmail him into putting down roots…
Buy paint for your bedroom, call it ‘our’ house, and you can have a party tonight for all I care.
…
Fine. But I’m buying red and gold and making it as painfully obnoxious as you are.
Gryffindor colors? Perfect. Maybe I’ll paint mine blue and bronze since I’m obviously a Ravenclaw.
Tony assumed that the length of time it took Harry to respond, when the finance meeting ended and the marketing one began, was him working through his shock that Tony knew yet another thing about his son’s world that he thought he needed to keep hidden.
Which reminded him to schedule a meeting at Grunning’s for Monday morning…
Paint is expensive and I like white.
Nobody besides Steve likes white. You don’t want to base your fashion aesthetic on Steve, trust me. Just buy some paint, some t-shirts, whatever, and you can do what you want tonight.
Tony got up and stretched, ignoring even more disgruntled looks, when Harry text back a very irritated seeming ‘K’.
“Good meeting, guys,” Tony told them all with a cheery smile. “Unfortunately, it’s five o’clock, so we should all call it a day and head home.”
A young, and new, suit coughed quietly. “Sir? It’s two thirty?”
“Five o’clock in Paris,” Tony said.
“I believe it would be eight thirty in Paris,” he said hesitantly, missing the amused looks of his more experienced coworkers.
Tony grinned at the man, “What’s your name?”
The guy abruptly looked nervous to have Tony’s complete attention. “Davidson, sir. William Davison.”
“Well, William Davidson, do you have kids?”
“Uh… yes, sir, a newborn daughter.”
“Then you should take the rest of the day off, go home, hug her, come back fresh tomorrow, alright? Good talk, I’ll see you guys next month.”
Tony whistled his whole way back to his lab. He figured he had roughly thirty minutes before someone tattled to Pepper and he’d better use the quiet time productively.
And he did. He worked on the security system for the StarkCar for eight and a half minutes before moving on to the only project that could currently hold his attention.
“Oh, baby, that’s beautiful,” Tony murmured after he opened the box of electronics Sirius sent back to him and began pulling them out. Sirius had even utilized the sticky notes Tony sent, and each piece had a note on it.
‘Apparated with it’, for the melted TV remote.
‘Three stunners and a petrifying jinx’, on an arc reactor powered smart watch that was still in perfect working condition.
Tony sent off a quick text, asking for clarification between a stunner and a petrifying jinx.
‘Ask Harry’, was the smartass reply he got back, quickly followed by a ‘I’m actually not sure. One leaves you awake, one doesn’t’.
The rest of the little common household items followed the same trend. The ones Tony built to run off the clean energy source he used for his home, his suit, and all his toys, were in perfect condition. The ones that were built to run off solar energy or batteries were destroyed.
“Amazing,” Tony breathed as he made notes for each item and the results of the tests ran on them. He ignored the ping from his phone that flashed Pepper’s name, this was another breakthrough.
Sirius told him that ‘muggle’ electronics couldn’t survive contact with magic, it fried their systems, but if this all meant that the arc energy, based off the Tesseract which probably carried magical properties, was compatible with magic then it could open the door to the 21st Century for witches and wizards.
And, after all he learned about his son and his triumphs and struggles and his life as ‘The Boy-Who-Lived’, Tony wasn’t an idiot. The wizarding world would come knocking for his kid one day, which meant every advancement Tony made for the magic world would be an advancement for Harry.
“Mister Stark?”
Tony paused his notes, a packing list of tech to bring with him that weekend, and held the pen poised to continue if it wasn’t anything important.
“Yes?”
“Mister Harry is home, sir. He has a guest as well.”
“Oh.” Tony put the pen down and checked the time. “Thank you, Jarvis. Can you ask Harry what he wants for dinner?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Tony carefully packed away his notes after transferring them to his email. He put the electronics back in the box, placing them in a cabinet with Harry’s broken cell phone.
“Sir? Mister Harry said he doesn’t care.”
“Of course he did,” Tony rolled his eyes. “Ask him if his friend is staying for dinner. Oh! And who is it?”
Jarvis was quick, he was back within a minute. “He said if you don’t mind, sir, and his guest is Mister Peter Parker.”
Tony stopped his cleanup long enough to grin. “Perfect, Jarvis, go ahead and order a bunch of stuff from that Chinese place and ask Steve to pick it up on his way.”
“Very good, sir.”
Tony waited to go upstairs long enough to send a text to his team—
Harry has the skater boy up for dinner tonight. Steve’s getting Chinese. See you all soon?
Clint was the first to respond—
Wouldn’t miss it. I’ll bring my bow.
For a guy who acted like Harry was a bad headache away from taking over the world, Clint didn’t seem to like the idea of Harry having his ‘just a friend’ over for dinner.
Tony whistled cheerfully the entire way up to his floor.
You only got to interrogate the kid who flirts with your son once. Well… Tony could probably swing it three or four times, five of Natasha got involved, but he could only do it for the first time once.