“That’s what’s important to me.”
Sunday, September 23
It was cheesy beyond reason, but Tony looked around his place and nearly smiled at everyone who showed up for their weekly dinner.
Weekly dinners had been a screeching halt while Harry was gone, and Tony had worried that with the whole ‘let’s blame Tony for the Ultron mistake’ that they wouldn’t resume. But apparently Harry told Sirius about them, Sirius asked Clint, Clint got Nat, Nat got Steve, and by the end there were nearly a dozen people stacked in Tony’s apartment, sharing gyros and easy conversation.
Harry sat by Tony and had his chin propped in his hand, his eyes wide, and his lips twisted to the side while he listened to Thor describe Asgard. Sirius was sitting in the sitting room with the wonder twins, chatting up a patiently amused looking Nat. One of the wonder twins, the witch-bitch, was staring hard at Sirius, causing Tony to chuckle to himself privately. Clint was lounging across the recliner, his feet propped up on the table, talking in quiet tones to Steve about their lack of progress on the Ultron front.
Honestly, it was a damn good day and Tony couldn’t be more at ease with his raggedy band of an enhanced family.
Or, it was a good day, until Wanda spoke up and ruined the relaxed atmosphere they had going.
“Why can I not hear your mind?” she asked Sirius abruptly, drawing all other conversations to a screeching halt.
Sirius slowly turned to look at Wanda, his eyes narrowed.
“What?” he asked her slowly. “Are you- are you trying to legilimize me?”
Pietro bristled, and Harry stood up, rocking back on his heels with a hand on the bar, to see what was happening.
“She is not trying to do anything,” Pietro drawled. “It is one of her powers, she hears what is in the minds.”
“All the fucking time?!” Harry demanded, drawing their eyes to him. Harry looked torn between indignation and fury and Tony felt for him. It didn’t exactly feel great knowing witch-bitch was in their minds seeing and hearing things they would all rather keep private.
Wanda looked at Harry and the soft expression on her face was all the confirmation Harry needed. He spun on Tony and pointed a finger at him.
“Did you know she’s reading my mind?” he asked harshly, a flash of betrayal in his eyes.
“Did I know she’s got some freaky powers where she can fuck with our heads? Yeah,” Tony admitted. It wasn’t exactly a secret, so Harry’s twitch of surprise was unexpected, as was the way he spun around to glare at Wanda.
“Stay out of my bloody head,” he demanded with a finger pointing at her.
“I am not entering your head, your mind reaches out to me,” Wanda told him, sounding genuine if not ridiculous.
Harry scowled and his eyes flicked toward Sirius. “How are you blocking her?”
Sirius shrugged from where he still sat on the sofa. “Must be occlumency, my barriers were pretty shot when I left Azkaban, but I’ve been working on them since I joined the Order.”
“What is occlumency?” Harry and Wanda asked at the same time.
“Why don’t you ask your ‘magic tutor’?” Sirius asked with a roll of his eyes for Tony. As if Tony weren’t doing him a hell of a favor.
Tutoring Harry would eat up Sirius’ free time and could put a strain between him and the kid. Tony hated every tutor he ever had, he’d almost feel guilty if Harry and Sirius stopped getting along because Sirius was taking a different role in his life.
A small part of Tony would be thrilled if they weren’t so chummy, but that was Tony’s own insecurities at play, so he smacked it like a whack-a-mole when it popped up.
“Why don’t you stop being a dick and just answer the question?” Harry snarked right back at his godfather, earning a snicker from Clint and Pietro.
“Occlumency is an ancient art,” Thor piped up helpfully, drawing the spotlight to himself. “It is a worthy art for Stark’s son to learn, it will keep young Stark from suffering from the visions that Wanda forced on Tony.”
Tony sighed in a long suffering way. He’d rather not talk about the reoccurring nightmare that the witch-bitch first showed him. It made it hard to consider her a part of the team when he wanted to throttle her every time he thought of it.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Harry demanded, his voice cold and his head turning back to Wanda with eyes narrowed nearly to slits.
“Okay, dinners over, time to play a game,” Tony announced loudly, interrupting whatever Wanda was about to say. Tony wasn’t defending her, he didn’t trust her as far as he could see her, but he didn’t want to have her spell out Tony’s worst nightmare to the others either.
“My turn to pick!” Nat yelled. She pulled a pack of cards from her jacket pocket while Clint snagged the poker case from one of the drawers beneath the newly replaced TV.
“I don’t know how to play, I’m going to bed,” Harry said with a final scowl for Wanda.
“No, stay and play!” Sirius cried cajolingly. “Come on, kiddo, I’ll teach you.”
“I’ve got school in the morning,” Harry snapped at him, apparently pretty pissed off about something. “Goodnight.”
Tony sighed when Harry stalked to his room, avoiding contact with anyone cluttering the living room, and closed his door behind him with a soft slam.
“You guys go play somewhere else,” Tony told the others, abruptly exhausted. It was always one step forward, one step backward. Teenagers were the moodiest damn things in the world; Tony should just be grateful his kid was a wizard and not an addict like he’d been.
The team filtered out, offering Tony apologies and shrugs, but Sirius lingered before he took the stairs down to Clint’s place.
“Peter hasn’t talked to Harry in a few days,” he said as he rocked back and forth on his heels, holding the door handle tightly. He shrugged when Tony gave him an irritated look as Sirius knew yet another thing Tony didn’t.
He knew he shouldn’t have stopped reading the kid’s texts.
“And… Harry doesn’t like the word freak, so maybe don’t call Wanda that again?” Sirius suggested. “Good luck, mate, you’re doing brilliantly.”
Tony felt his stomach swoop with an uncomfortable feeling of shame as Sirius cheerfully bounced down the stairs. He’d forgotten, actually, it had been a slip of the tongue.
But ‘freak’ was what Harry said his mom’s sister and her husband called him.
And then Tony went and said Wanda’s powers were freaky, like a damn moron.
“JARVIS, what’s Harry doing?” Tony asked as he sunk down in his chair and made bedroom eyes at the liquor cabinet across the room from him.
“He is in the shower, sir,” JARVIS answered promptly.
“Fine.” Tony rubbed his eyes then slapped his cheeks lightly, willing himself to stay awake and alert. He’d wait a few minutes, and then he’d just go talk to Harry. He’d apologize for the insult to Wanda, ask about Peter, clear the air.
Easy.
Except Tony fell asleep in his clothes right in the recliner and didn’t wake up until after midnight, only to find Harry passed out in his bed.
Tony had a box of apology donuts laid out in the counter the next morning and a cup of coffee brewing for Harry when he woke up.
“Good morning,” Tony called cheerfully. His kid was not a morning person, it was adorable. Harry had his face all twisted up in a scowl and his clothes haphazardly tossed on. One of his shoes weren’t even tied.
“It’s morning anyway,” Harry muttered. He looked suspiciously at the pink box of pastries and Tony chuckled.
“There’s some raspberry ones in there,” Tony told him, waggling his brows enticingly. “Come on, eat breakfast with your old man before you go to school. Tell me about your friends. How’s Gwen liking the new internship?”
Harry sighed and seemed to resign himself to a quick chat before Happy drove him to school.
“She says it’s brilliant,” Harry said. He sat down and pulled the box of donuts to him, wrapping his arm around it while he dug for one of the ones Tony knew he liked. “They let her do a press release about the Avengers and she said her manager only made a few edit.”
Tony beamed, more happy about Harry talking to him about his friend than about Stark Industry’s newest intern.
“That’s great,” he said before tactfully adding, “and how’s Pete holding up?”
Harry’s easy posture tensed and his hand paused for a fraction of a second with his donut on the way to his mouth.
“Dunno,” he said shortly, glaring at the donut like it had offended him. “I haven’t talked to him in a few days. He’s upset, I guess.”
Tony could empathize with Harry’s boyfriend, even if he couldn’t really sympathize. He would miss his parents more, had they ever really been present in his life. But to lose an uncle that had raised him for most of his life? It would be like losing Rhodey. Hell, Tony’s only wish used to be that he’d die before any of his friends, it would kill him to go to their funerals.
Now Tony just wanted to go before his kid and hope to God that he never had to bury him like he had his parents.
“Everyone deals with death differently,” Tony told Harry gently. “Give Pete a few days, I’m sure he’ll be following you around with puppy eyes again soon enough.”
“You don’t even have a girlfriend,” Harry snapped, but there wasn’t any real malice in his tone, it was nearly playful coming from him.
Tony grinned crookedly and gave Harry his drink when it was finished brewing.
“Kid, I’m an endless pool of dating advice. I just look at every relationship I’ve had and then suggest the opposite of what I did.”
“So I should always ask myself, ‘what would Tony do?’ and then do the opposite?” Harry huffed, and it sounded close enough to a laugh that Tony melted. “That’s the first bit of good advice you’ve ever given me.”
Tony clapped Harry on the shoulder softly and gave him a bright smile.
“That’s the spirit,” he said. “I’ll make you one of those lame rubber bracelets and stamp ‘W.W.T.D?’ on it for a constant reminder.”
That time, Harry did laugh, and Tony was pretty damn thrilled with himself by the time the kid left for school. He hadn’t apologized about the Wanda thing, but Harry probably wasn’t interested in hearing it anyway. Plus, Tony didn’t make a habit of apologizing, so it was easier to text than talk.
Wanda isn’t a freak and neither are you. How’s school?
You’re annoying. I’m at lunch.
I know, that’s why I text you.
Do all parents stalk their kids?
Only the good ones.
Peter isn’t here, I’m sitting with Gwen. Goodbye.
Don’t forget your tutor is coming today. Have fun, kid, love you.
Harry sent back an emoji rolling it’s eyes and Tony chuckled in his office.
As much as Harry mimicked Sirius, he was quite a bit like Tony as well. It made Tony wonder how much of Lily Harry had in him, aside from the eye color.
Harry’s new tutor, Doctor Strange, arrived a few minutes before Harry was due back from school that afternoon. Tony had instructed him to arrive early so they could go over his contract and he was relieved that the man could follow a plan to an extent.
Strange was just as strange as his name, really. He dressed like some low budget ninja from a bad movie and talked with a lot of arrogance for a guy wearing a blanket like a cape.
“Tony,” Strange said, offering Tony his hand, “where’s the kid?”
“School,” Tony said. He sat down behind his desk and waved a hand, indicating Strange did the same. “I wanted to ask you a few questions before your first session.”
Strange sat down and crossed one ankle over his other knee.
“I assumed so,” he said with a smirk. “I didn’t take you for someone to hire an employee without playing fifty questions first.”
“You’re right,” Tony said bluntly. He pulled Strange’s background report up on a screen so they could go over it together. “You graduated top of your class at Harvard, specializing in neurology.”
“I did,” Strange said smoothly. “I worked as a neurosurgeon for many years.”
“Before you crashed a car and the wreck left your hands too damaged to use them,” Tony pointed out bluntly. He looked to where Strange’s hands were tremble-free and resting on his leg. “Did you fix them with magic?”
“Magic? No,” Strange chuckled, unflappable. “My hands healed when my soul did. The mind and the spirit are connected.”
“But you do know magic, don’t you?” Tony pushed. “You can help Harry with his OWLS and NEWTS?”
“I can teach your son, yes,” Strange said slowly and evasively. “Which is more important to you, Tony, Harry fulfilling his potential or Harry passing his tests in a traditional manner?”
Tony thought about Darth Vader and Ultron, the witch from Hogwarts, and the Death Eaters that had staked out his house. Tony considered the guys that attacked Harry in an alleyway and the guy in the mask that could have killed Harry, but saved him instead.
Tony propped his elbows on his desk and leaned forward, staring Strange down intently.
“What’s most important to me is that my kid lives to become his own person,” Tony said solemnly. “Harry being safe from threats, able to defend himself, that’s what’s important to me, Strange.”
Strange smiled slowly and inclined his head to Tony.
“Then our goals are perfectly in alignment,” he said calmly. “Your son will make an excellent sorcerer, Tony. I’m going to make sure of it.”
Tony didn’t care much about sorcery or how good at it Harry would be, he just wanted his kid to be happy, healthy, and alive.
Just as every other halfway decent parent in the world, he assumed.