“Let us feast and hear stories!”
“I don’t like this,” Bruce murmured for the tenth time since they began scanning the scepter in the lab. “I think we should tell the guys, Tony.”
Tony just barely held back from rolling his eyes.
“Bruce, do you really think any of them can even comprehend what we could be building here?” Tony asked him. “What? Thor took advanced triple integrals? No,” Tony scoffed. “They don’t understand what this could mean.”
“So we’re keeping secrets?” Bruce said. He pulled his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes. “If something goes wrong…”
“Nothing is going to go wrong,” Tony assured him. “We’re just running a diagnostic here, nothing crazy.”
“A diagnostic download,” Bruce corrected him. “You’re copying the data from the matrix in it.”
“You worry too much.” Tony pointed at Bruce while Jarvis continued downloading the information from the scepter. So far, it seemed to share some data with the magical clock that Sirius sent him, but not all of it did. It was an entirely unique matrix - something new that could be twisted to better the world. Secure the world from invasions, keep the world safe for Tony’s son to grow up in.
Bruce sighed heavily. “I worry that you don’t worry enough,” he said.
Tony jumped in a decidedly guilty way when there was a quick rap of knuckles on the lab door.
“Parties over,” Tony told Bruce. He killed the lights in the office and ushered Bruce toward the door. “We’ll have a copy of it before Thor takes off in the morning.”
Bruce muttered about ‘bad ideas’ clear to the door where Happy stood on the other side with a greasy paper bag in hand.
“Thanks,” Tony said gratefully as he pulled the door shut behind himself and accepted the food from Happy. He waited until Bruce wandered toward the elevator to crane his neck around Happy and frown at the lack of teenage boy noise.
“Where’s Harry?”
Happy flapped a vague hand toward Harry’s room. “He’s, uh… not having a great day,” he said. He huffed when Tony gave him an expectant look. “We went to pick his friend up and the aunt said he was sick. No big deal, right?”
That reminded Tony he really needed to get Harry in to see a pediatrician and dentist. Pepper was going to kick his ass when she realized he hadn’t done it yet.
“Right,” Tony agreed. “Kids have germs, they’re disgusting.”
Harry wasn’t, but he was, as usual, the exception.
“Except we circled back around because the Parker’s live in a freaking one-way maze and guess who we saw on a skateboard? Harry’s friend,” Happy said, lowering his voice like the dramatic gossip he was. His raised his brows and nodded at Tony’s surprised face. “Exactly,” he hissed. “And he didn’t look sick at all.”
Tony unwrapped the burger Happy picked up for him and chewed it thoughtfully. Peter had just been texting Harry about how much he missed him earlier in the week. Surely he hadn’t moved on quite so quickly?
Yeah, Tony would have if his boyfriend or girlfriend went off to boarding school, but Peter seemed like more of a standup guy than Tony was. And a hell of a lot more attached to Harry than Tony had ever gotten to any of his hookups at their age.
“Huh,” Tony mused. “That’s… kind of crap, honestly.”
“The kid agrees,” Happy. He shrugged his broad shoulders and frowned when he looked toward Harry’s closed door. “I think his feelings were hurt.”
“Aww,” Tony cooed at Happy and fluttered his lashes at him. “You care about his feelings, Hap? That’s sweet, really.”
Happy huffed and threw his hands in the air just as Tony expected.
“I’m out of here,” he said. “Good luck.”
“Be back in an hour for a party!” Tony called at his back. “Bring booze!”
Happy flipped him off, but Tony was pretty sure he would. Happy was a good guy, dependable and loyal. Like a dog, but with less barking and shitting in the house.
As soon as Happy left, Tony shoveled down the rest of the burger and wiped his hands off on his jeans before heading toward Harry’s room. His lips twitched in fond nostalgia at the heavy bass and loud music he could hear once he got outside the kid’s door.
God, Tony did not miss being a teenager even a little bit.
“Knock, knock.” Tony knocked twice then stuck his head in Harry’s room. Harry was laying on his back on his bed, his sneakers and jeans still on, the speakers blaring, somehow sound asleep. Tony smiled slightly at the way Harry always looked so young, so vulnerable, when he slept. When he slept peacefully, anyway.
Tony adjusted the volume of the decent heavy metal Harry must have kicked on before laying down, then left him to it. Kid probably had jet lag from hell after the flight home and he’d had a rough few days, Tony would just wake him up once people starting showing up for ‘revels’.
Thor and the wonder twins showed up first and Tony winced on the inside.
He actually didn’t care much for those two and didn’t particularly want them around Harry. Pardon him for being a skeptic, but the witch-bitch and her ability to dig in Tony’s head and pull up his worst nightmare didn’t exactly leave him chomping at the bit for her to be near his kid.
“Tony!” Thor slapped a heavy hand on Tony’s shoulders and smiled joyfully at him. “Where is your son? I’d like to talk with him!”
Tony smoothly stepped away from the God who never understood that puny humans were breakable and ignored the eager looks on the wonder twins’ faces.
“Sleeping,” he said. “Hey, by the way, keep your hands to yourself around him, huh? Harry’s not much for brotherly hugs and manly back slaps.”
Thor, big baby he was, frowned in a sad little pout while more people poured in the apartment around them.
“I give you my word that I will not lay a finger on your son,” Thor said solemnly. He cracked into a wide smile then. “Go wake him! I wish to hear tales of his battles against sorcery!”
“Dibs!” Rhodey pushed past Tony and rushed toward Harry’s room, ignoring Tony’s protests that Harry wasn’t having a super great day.
“Oh, chill,” Rhodey scolded him with a shit eating grin. “I’m his favorite uncle, he’ll be happy to see me.”
Tony threw his hands in the air when Rhodey slipped in Harry’s room and closed the door behind him.
“No, why would anyone listen to me?” he said sarcastically. “I’m just his dad, nobody important.”
“Exactly,” Natasha agreed. She’d already made herself at home behind the temporary bar Tony had set up in the dining room. “Now get your ass over here and have a drink.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, Miss Romanoff,” Tony said. He moved away from the elevator that was still bringing guests up and decided a couple drinks wouldn’t hurt anything.
His son was home, he was thiiiis close to cracking the code on project Ultron, and his team was all together for a party.
What more could a guy ask for?
Tony was only a single drink deep when Rhodey and Harry came out of Harry’s room with similar looks in their eyes.
“Harry!” Clint sat beside Tony at the bar and raised his glass at Harry, drawing everyone else’s attention to him. Harry didn’t look great, still too pale and too much like the kid that Tony first met at the beginning of summer, but Rhodey was a damn miracle worker because there was a smile flitting around Harry’s lips.
Maybe it was another Stark thing- they were powerless against spicy redheads with bossy tones and couldn’t resist Rhodey’s charms.
Harry nodded at Clint and the rest of the team, he gave Thor a sideways look, but Rhodey whispered something to him that had Harry laughing and nodding at Thor more casually.
“Hey, Tony, I’m stealing your kid for a bit,” Rhodey called across the room as he and Harry edged toward the elevators.
Tony straightened up in his seat and tried to make big puppy eyes at his son.
“You’re trading me for him?” he asked with a playful pout. “C’mon, what’s Rhodey got that I don’t?”
“A functioning heart,” Rhodey said, causing the others to laugh at Tony’s expense. “Open the damn window, it’s hot in here. We’ll be back.”
Tony slumped dramatically on the bar top when Harry and Rhodey just slipped away together.
“Give me another one, I’ve just had my heart broken,” he told Natasha.
Bruce was lounging in the living room with Steve and the twins and he turned around so he could smirk at Tony and laugh.
“How many times have you been traded for Rhodey?”
“Only once before now,” Tony said truthfully. “This sorority girl told me she wanted to know if the rumors about Rhodey were true.”
Steve made a face, but his relief at a successful mission had him relaxed and just as joyful and playful as the others were.
“Were they?” he asked.
Tony pulled a surprised look off with near believability. “That Rhodey was a perfect gentleman? Of course.” Tony clicked his tongue and wagged a finger at Steve. “What rumors were you thinking of Captain Purity?”
Everyone laughed at Steve’s blush and stammer and Tony had never felt as fond of them all as he did in that moment.
With Harry home, it really was like Tony’s entire family was inside his apartment. All they needed was Pepper and Sirius and Tony thought the entire evening might be perfect.
“What’s big, green, and turns me on?” Natasha ran a sly finger down the front of Bruce’s shirt and Tony hid his snicker at the way Bruce’s eyes dilated past a healthy point.
“W- what?” Bruce stuttered. Poor man was no match for Natasha when she was in the mood to toy with him.
Natasha leaned across the bar and had her cleavage on full display and her lips an inch from Bruce’s while Tony and Clint clung to each other and shook with silent laughter.
Steve and Happy were in the living room with Thor and the wonder twins. And Tony had no idea what the five of them could possibly be discussing that had them all laughing, but he figured it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as seeing Natasha hit on Bruce.
“Shrek,” Natasha whispered, blowing her breath in Bruce’s face.
Bruce grinned gracefully even while his face turned red and he pushed Natasha away.
“Good one,” he said weakly. “Seriously, you should consider stand up.”
“You should consider laying down,” Natasha winked.
Clint was practically dragging Tony to the floor with him as he filled the room with his drunken laughter. Tony gave him a little shove and suddenly everyone was laughing as Clint landed on his ass.
“You’re cut off,” Natasha told him with a tsk.
“He never could handle tequila,” Steve called from the living room. “In fact—”
“INCOMING!”
Everyone’s attention moved from the drunk on the floor to the open windows as Rhodey flew in with his War Machine suit in full display and Tony’s son no where to be found.
“Hey!” Tony felt a bit of panic flutter in his chest and he quickly got to his feet. “Where’s—”
THUD!
The quick-kid was the first one to race over when something? nothing? crashed in the TV, sending sparks and glass flying, and then hit the floor with a groan.
“Oh, shit.” Rhodey’s mask was off and he was moving over by the quick-kid and the busted TV while Tony was trying to process what the fuck just happened. “You good, kid?”
Kid?
Tony’s kid?
Tony was halfway to the living room when Rhodey grasped at the air and pulled a sheet off Harry, revealing Tony’s son slumped on the floor, on top of a broomstick, and rubbing his head.
“He can fly?!” Natasha cried.
“He has mastered invisibility?” Thor was beaming. “It took Loki many years to do that!”
“What the fuck just happened?” Tony demanded. He shoved Rhodey and the quick-kid to the side to kneel down in front of Harry. “Hey, kid, you okay?”
Harry gave Tony a wry smile and winced as he probed his own head with his fingers.
“Bit of a headache.” Harry glanced up at the TV and winced again. “Er… suppose I’m two for two on owing you a telly?”
Tony sighed in relief and helped Harry to his feet without even sparing a look at the shattered flatscreen.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. He looked from the broom that Harry reached down to grab to the purple sheet Rhodey held and the sheepish look on his best friend’s face.
“Did you take my son flying?” Tony demanded once the pieces clicked together in his head. He ushered Harry on the couch and absently pushed him to sit between the witch-bitch and Steve.
“He likes to fly!” Rhodey said defensively. “I just showed him the sights. I didn’t expect a crash landing!”
Tony tilted Harry’s head around, anxiously looking for any cuts or signs of a concussion.
“Go grab the tylenol,” Tony told Rhodey briskly. “Jesus, kid, you couldn’t wait twenty-four hours before giving me a heart attack?”
“I don’t usually crash.” Harry jerked his chin from Tony’s grasp and glared at him. “I just… er… did this time.”
“Crashing is an important step in mastering flight,” Thor said. “It’s better to get it out of the way now, Stark’s son, it will hurt your pride much worse the older you get.”
Harry stared deadpan at Thor. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly.
“Catch.” Rhodey came back in the room, sans super suit, and tossed a bottle of Tylenol and bottle of water both at Harry. Harry caught them easily and gave Rhodey a perfectly friendly grin and cheeky salute.
“I won,” Rhodey said smugly while Harry swallowed two tablets.
“You fucking cheated!” Harry told him hotly.
“Says the invisible boy,” Rhodey snorted.
Harry threw the bottle of Tylenol at Rhodey and then nodded toward the TV. The two of them were in their own little world and Tony wished he’d been invited to go flying with his son…
“You said ‘let’s race’, you replace it,” Harry told Rhodey.
Rhodey whipped his phone from his pocket, pressed a few buttons, then pocketed it again.
“Done,” he said smugly. “It’ll be here tomorrow.”
Harry gaped at him for a brief moment before blinking and scowling.
“You all have too much bloody money,” he muttered like it was a sin.
“Uh… can we get back to the invisible thing?” Natasha said. She snagged the purple sheet from Rhodey and held it up. “What is this?”
“Hey!” Harry’s face turned pale and he jumped to his feet. “Don’t touch that, it’s—”
“Here.”
Tony hadn’t done anything more than blink and the quick-kid had raced to Natasha, snatched the purple sheet, and brought it back to Harry with a smirk.
Harry squinted with the same suspicion toward the quick-kid that Tony had, but he quickly grabbed the sheet and held it just as tightly as he did his broom.
“Is that Sirius’ invisible sheet?” Tony asked, equal parts curious and desperate to break the tension filling the room.
“Hm?” Harry looked away from quick-kid and up toward Tony. “Oh, it’s my Invisibility Cloak, Sirius was borrowing it, but he lost privileges.”
“How does it work?” Witch-bitch asked with round eyes.
Harry gave her Tony’s own patented ‘did you go to community college?’ look.
“It’s an invisibility cloak,” Harry said, speaking mockingly slow at her. “I’ll give you two guesses how it works.”
“Can I try it?” Clint asked, finally getting off the floor and joining the group in the living room.
“No.” Harry must have realized he was the center of everyone’s attention because he started edging toward his room with the cloak stuffed behind his back. “I’ll just… put this up…”
Tony shooed everyone away when Harry slipped in his room to put up his cloak and broomstick.
“Let him breathe, Jesus, guys,” he said. “And don’t touch his stuff again,” he warned Natasha.
“Oh, don’t take it personal, it was James Potter’s cloak,” Rhodey said. He walked over to the bar and grabbed a handful of crackers, missing Tony’s surprised look.
“How do you know that?” Tony asked, he didn’t whine, he wasn’t whining, but…
But Harry told Sirius about his teacher and he told Rhodey about his cloak and Harry never told Tony anything.
“He told me,” Rhodey shrugged. “Don’t give me that look, Tony, the kid’s an open book up in the air.”
“Noted,” Tony said sullenly. He sat down in his barstool with his arms crossed, watching Harry’s door and waiting for him to come out.
“Hey,” Rhodey touched Tony’s shoulder and gave him an apologetic smile, “I think he’s happy to be back, if it counts for anything.”
It counted for everything.
“Invite me next time,” Tony told him petulantly. “I want to see him fly.”
Tony would love to fly in the skies with his son. He could take him on the best tour of the city and they could talk and bond and Harry would tell Tony things he told other people. More things even, better things.
They could be just as close as Tony used to wish he’d been with Howard.
“Will do,” Rhodey winked just as Harry’s door opened back up and Harry slipped out of it. “Hey, kid, let’s grab some chow.”
“Yes!” Thor leapt to his feet and threw a fist in the air. “Let us feast and hear stories!”
Harry gave Tony an exasperated look and Tony just shrugged. If Harry wanted to swap stories about magic with Thor, Tony’d be glad to hear them.
Hell, if Harry wanted to talk at all, Tony would be glad to hear it.
It started slow. Everyone settled in the living room with plates of pasta that had been catered for the get-together and glasses of wine. Bruce had rolled his eyes when Tony slid Harry a half-full glass, but Tony had been drinking much worse than wine at Harry’s age. And Harry hadn’t touched it after taking a single sip and pulling a quick face of disgust.
Harry sat in a chair he’d pulled up in front of his door, as far from the others as he could get, and listened to Thor describe Loki’s magic while he picked at his food and dropped bits of meatball down to his dog. He gave quick-kid another slightly less suspicious look when he joined in on throwing the dog table scraps with his own chunks of chicken.
“Certainly you’ve experienced mishaps and mayhem as well?” Thor asked Harry at one point after talking about something his brother had done that Tony hadn’t really listened to. “Magic is a mysterious Mistress, and only the truly gifted can wield her.”
Harry shrugged and rolled his eyes at Thor’s eager look.
“I think mishaps can happen to anyone,” Harry said with a bit of snark. “My friend Hermione’s a genius and she turned herself into a cat once.”
Tony chuckled when he pictured the prissy looking girl who’d stared at Tony with hero worship in the castle.
“How?” he asked Harry. “Sirius said animagus transformations are hard as hell.”
Harry smirked and put his hardly touched plate on the floor, giving the dog full access to it.
“Sirius just likes to brag,” he said. “And it wasn’t an animagus transformation, it was Polyjuice.”
Tony the others listened with rapt attention as Harry slowly talked about brewing an advanced and heavily monitored potion when he was twelve (like father, like son, Tony thought fondly) with his friends. With a few more prodding questions, Harry told them about a basilisk in the walls and a hidden chamber where his friend’s sister was taken.
“And then what happened? Did the girl die?” Witch-bitch asked quickly when Harry’s story tapered off after Ron’s sister was left for dead.
“And then I got a sword from a magic hat, stuck it in the snake, and nearly died for my efforts,” Harry said flatly. “Not much of a fun story.”
“It is the most fun story!” Thor protested immediately while Tony did the math on how big the snake had to be if a single fang left a fist sized puncture wound in Harry’s arm.
Sometimes it was a curse being a genius.
“You slayed the beast, saved the damsel, and future generations will sing your praises!” Thor told Harry. “You would have been gifted with armor on Asgard for your heroic actions!”
Instead of looking happy at all, Harry’s face flushed with irritation before he ducked his head. When he lifted it, it was blank, but Tony saw it.
The kid might be a little Tony in looks, but damn if his self-esteem wasn’t shot to hell.
“Yeah, yeah, the kid’s a little Avenger in the making,” Clint said, waving a hand impatiently. “When can I try the flying broomstick?”
Harry raised a brow at Clint. “Never,” he said coolly.
“And Harry already has a team of superheroes,” Tony reminded Clint. He winked at Harry, “The AA, right?”
Harry clamped his jaw shut and Tony saw a tick go through it while he tried to figure out how he’d messed up again…
Damn.
That had been a joke between Harry and Peter.
“What is the AA?” quick-kid asked Harry, diverting the attention from where Tony had stuck his foot in his mouth again.
“Anti Avengers,” Harry told him. “I’d offer you an invite, but frankly I don’t understand why you’re even here.”
The witch leaned toward eagerly and smiled at Harry sweetly, as if she weren’t a demon.
“I also have magic,” she said. She held her palms out and Tony wasn’t the only one instantly on edge by the glowing red light in them. “I believe you and I are the same.”
Harry looked at her hands then over at the quick-kid and up at Thor’s wide smile.
“I doubt that,” he drawled. “For one, my hands aren’t a portable nightlight, and two, if nobody showed up at your doorstep when you were eleven and called you a witch, then that’s not the same magic I have.”
“We were in captivity when we were eleven,” quick-kid said smoothly while his sister’s face crumpled with disappointment. “Perhaps they tried and were unsuccessful in finding her?”
Harry hummed with obvious skepticism. “Or you’re about a magical as that bloody hammer,” he said with a glance towards Thor’s hammer that never left his side.
“Mjölnir is more than magic!” Thor said. He lifted the hammer for everyone to see. “She is a gift from my father and his father’s before him! Only the most worthy are granted her blessing to carry.”
Clint scoffed. “Don’t listen to him, kid, that’s just some mythological bullshit.”
“Oh?” Thor placed the hammer in the center of the coffee table. He waved a hand toward it regally. “Please, by my guest.”
Clint looked around at everyone else’s amused looks and started rolling his sleeves up.
“Alright,” he said. He moved over to the table and grasped the handle tightly. “Just call me— ugh.”
Tony grinned while Clint tried to lift the hammer from the table.
“Put your back into it,” Tony jeered when Clint propped a foot on the table to try and yank harder. “Come on, Barton, it’s just bullshit.”
Clint huffed and leapt nimbly away from the hammer. “You try it then, smartass.”
Tony would have turned it down, he didn’t really want mocked like Clint was, but he couldn’t turn a challenge down in front of his son either.
“Fine.” Tony stood up and held a single hand over the handle the sparked beneath his fingertips. He smirked at Thor, “I can rule Asgard as soon as I lift this, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Thor nodded seriously. “It’s all yours.”
“Great.” Tony winked at Harry, “I hope you’re ready to be a prince.”
Tony grunted when he pulled on the hammer and the damn thing didn’t even twitch.
“One moment,” he said while the others openly laughed at him. He shot another grin off at Harry before darting off to snag his wrist cuff and return with his Iron Man gloves and blasters in place.
“Let’s try this again.”
Tony couldn’t move it even with the extra power. He cajoled Rhodey into helping him with his gloves and still nothing.
“Bad technology,” Tony told Harry breathlessly when he collapsed on the ground beside him and Clint was pestering Steve into trying.
“Or it’s a magic thing,” Harry said, which might have been the nicest thing Harry had ever said to him. Not including the time he called Tony dad and then immediately changed his mind.
“A magic thing? You give it a go then, wizard boy,” Natasha taunted Harry after Steve failed to lift the hammer.
“If it works, we move to Asgard,” Tony grinned.
“Brilliant. My first order as king will be letting Loki free,” Harry said. He didn’t even stand up, he just reached across the table with his right arm and gave the hammer a light tug. Tony bit his lip when Harry frowned and stood up to try again.
“What the fuck?” Harry scowled. He gripped the hammer more firmly and gave it another harsh tug. “I’m not letting some stupid magical tool call me unworthy,” he snarled.
Tony had been laughing on the inside as Harry’s competitive side came out.
All the way up until Harry pulled his left hand from his sleeve to grab the hammer’s handle and Tony caught sight of red cuts across the back of his hand.
Those weren’t scars, as Sirius had implied, they were still bleeding!
“Are you kidding?” Tony lunged forward and grabbed Harry’s wrist before Harry could pull away and he held his hand up so he could see the cuts more clearly.
There, across the back of Harry’s hand, were the words: ‘I must not tell lies’ in Harry’s own handwriting.
Tony’s blood ran cold while his pulse had never beat so furiously. He felt like he really was suffering from a stroke. He couldn’t even think straight—
How dare she?!
—until Harry yanked his wrist away and left Tony’s empty hand dangling in between them.
“Don’t touch me,” Harry snapped. His face was a dark red and his eyes were glowing angrily. Harry looked around at the suddenly silent and solemn group before he slid his hand back in the sleeve of his hoodie and backed away from Tony quickly.
“This has been super fun, goodnight,” Harry said curtly before he snatched his dog from the floor and quietly locked himself in his room.
Tony was still standing frozen in a mixture of shock and absolute unfiltered rage.
“Nat, get the jet,” he said. “I’m going to kill her.”
“Oh gladly,” Natasha said, swiftly getting off the chair she’d been lounging across.
“Tony, hold up, don’t be hasty,” Rhodey said. He reached out to out a calming hand on Tony’s shoulder, but Tony wasn’t in the mood to be calmed.
He was in the mood to carve the skin from the woman who fucked with his son. He finally understood why Sirius had been ready to kill her.
It was one thing to imagine some vague little scar on Harry’s hand, it was another thing altogether to see the infected and bloody cuts that had been gouged in Harry’s hand.
“Oh, this isn’t hasty,” Tony said with deadly calm as he sidestepped away from Rhodey’s grasp. “My lawyers will call it premeditated.”
“Why would you leave behind a body for your lawyers to discover?” Quick-kid asked with a lazy smirk. “No evidence, no crime.”
“Precisely.” Tony pointed at him and nodded, “You’re on mission murder. Let’s go.”
Rhodey and Bruce were still making feeble objections that Tony was ignoring in favor of quick plans when a clattering sound from the hall outside Tony’s office drew their attention.
Slowly… with everyone’s eyes peeled on the hallway and Tony’s mind was filled with wizards who could pop in and out of anywhere they pleased… one of Tony’s scrapped legionnaires drug itself into view, mumbling to itself…
“Murder… murder…”
The legionnnaire stopped and assessed the group that was on their feet, muscles tensed, confused by its presence.
“You’re all murderers,” it said, waving an arm around. “Killers, murderers.”