“Oh shit.”
Harry was lying flat on his back on an uncomfortable bed, staring at a bland ceiling, willing himself to either apparate back home or die.
Everything in Harry’s body ached, everything in his body felt like it was just shutting down… it was agony, pure agony.
Harry was sweating and shivering, twitching and shaking, too much to even grab one of the bottles of water Bucky left in the motel he dumped Harry in. There were bags and bags of food, but Harry hadn’t been hungry since before he got buried in potatoes.
When Harry lifted his head to try and grab the water - it was so bloody hot, Harry hated Mexico - he caught sight of his left leg and then felt as if his brain got zapped and he dropped his head right back down to the pillow.
There was probably a phone somewhere in that room and Harry couldn’t even move to find it. Harry couldn’t even force himself to slide sideways on the bed to keep from vomiting on the same pillow his head was on.
Harry didn’t need a doctor to tell him that the skin of his leg turning a mottled black pattern clear up to his thigh or the blood spewing from his mouth weren’t exactly signs of excellent health.
“Who knew potatoes would one day kill you, mate?” Ron would say with a bracing smile and a brotherly pat to Harry’s back if he were there.
Harry could picture him sitting beside Harry’s bed, just like he always had every time Harry had been in the hospital wing. Ron was always there for Harry when it counted and he didn’t leave him then either.
And where Ron was, there was always…
“Don’t be insensitive, Ron,” Hermione scowled, always on the boys to mind their manners. Hermione was exactly like what Harry imagined an older sister would be like; bossy and naggy, but always for Harry’s best interests. “Harry, you know I’ve read about injuries like yours before and I’m quite certain that there’s high levels of success in recovery. Oh! I should go find the research on past cases!”
Harry looked toward Sirius, needing his reassurance that Harry wasn’t shutting down and drifting away. Sirius was always there to reassure Harry.
Sirius was always there, full stop.
“Siri?” Harry croaked with his dry throat. “‘M gonna be fine, right?”
Sirius smiled widely at Harry from where he sat on the dresser, swinging his legs childishly.
“Of course you are, kiddo. You didn’t survive your bastard uncle and a horntail just to be killed by a few potatoes,” Sirius laughed carelessly. “You’re tough, Harry. You’re going to be fine.”
“It was not a ‘few potatoes’!” Peter snapped at Sirius. He sat beside Harry on the bed and held Harry’s hand tightly. “That psycho buried him in hundreds of potatoes to sneak him over the border! He probably crushed his organs!”
It did feel as if Harry’s organs had been crushed. None of them seemed to be working right and Harry didn’t know when Bucky would come back, if he would come back.
“We are never buying potatoes from that company again,” Pepper promised Harry. She stroked his hair, just like Harry imagined a real mum would, and smiled down at Harry. With her teal eyes and nearly red hair, Harry could almost imagine she was his mum; holding him when he was sick like Petunia did for Dudley. “You do have to eat other vegetables though,” she added with a playful smile.
Harry smiled around at everyone, grateful they were all there. But none of them were the person he wanted to see the most.
“Where’s my dad?” Harry asked them all, searching for his dad’s face, so similar to his own. It was hazy in there, probably from the heat, and Harry twitched from another jolt in his brain and then whined weakly at the pain the twitch caused in his leg.
“He’s coming, baby,” Pepper swore while she kept stroking Harry’s hair. “He’ll be here soon.”
“He needs to hurry, right?” Harry asked her, blinking through the haze and the tears to search Pepper’s eyes for the truth. “If he doesn’t hurry…”
“He’ll hurry,” Sirius swore gently, dropping the teasing tone when he must have seen how sick Harry really was.
“That’s what Bucky said,” Ron scoffed. “‘Don’t worry, Harry, I’ll be back soon and the mission will be over’, how are we supposed to believe them?”
“We believe Tony because he never lies to Harry and Bucky is suffering from a break with reality,” Hermione huffed. “It’s entirely different.”
“I- I need my dad now,” Harry said, hating himself for being so pathetic. He sniffled and couldn’t even feel any tears on his face even though they had to be there. “I think- I think I’m really sick.”
Harry had been sick a lot of times in his life, but never ‘black skin, puking blood, lightning striking his brain at random intervals’ sick.
“I’ve got to tell him what Bucky said,” Harry remembered, looking over at Pepper. “He needs to know about HYDRA and Howard.”
“We’ll tell him,” Pepper said. “Just rest, try and breathe, okay? We’ll see him soon.”
“Soon,” Peter repeated. He squeezed Harry’s hand and gave him a crooked smile that made Harry’s heart race and his skin to sweat even more. “It’ll be real soon, Bright Eyes.”
“Swear?” Harry asked him.
“Swear.”
Harry closed his eyes and tried to find a comfortable position on the thin motel mattress.
“‘M gonna sleep now,” Harry to everyone. “Don’t leave…”
“We won’t,” Pepper promised. She kissed Harry’s forehead, right on top of Harry’s scar and Harry felt his chest hitch at the warm maternal affection. “We love you.”
“Love you,” Harry murmured back. He didn’t think he’d have a lot of chances to tell them, so he said it again just in case they didn’t hear him the first time.
“Love you.”
Harry wished he knew what time it was… what day…
“How long have I been gone?” Harry asked Ron.
Ron checked his watch and frowned. “I think my watch broke, I’m sorry, mate, I’ve got no idea.”
Harry sighed and then shivered, his body shaking with some mixture of a horrible fever and sweat that soaked him from head to black-toe.
“Black-toe,” Sirius snorted. “Sirius Black and his godson, Harry Black-toe.”
“Cute,” Harry said, working to banter with Sirius as easily as they used to. “You’ll be- be…” Harry’s witty retort failed him when his body began shivering hard enough that his teeth were chattering.
“Your dad will be here so soon,” Pepper promised. “You can have a hot shower, a good meal, and—”
“And your medicine, Harry James,” Hermione said firmly. “These are probably those withdrawals I sent you the information about before. I told you not to stop taking them.”
“It’s not like he had a choice,” Peter said heatedly, defending Harry like Harry could see he’d always tried to do. “Sorry his kidnapper didn’t grab his meds before they went on the run.”
“I hate him,” Harry murmured weakly. “My- my leg… it doesn’t hurt anymore…”
“That’s good!” Ron said cheerily. “That means it’s not as bad as it was!”
“Or it’s like fifty times worse than it was,” Peter said logically. He was so smart that it sometimes made Harry feel insecure, like he felt around Hermione occasionally. Like maybe Harry could have been a genius if he’d spent his childhood focusing more on school and less on not getting beaten by his relatives.
“It should hurt, I can see the bone again,” Peter added.
“And the skin is as black as my dear old mum’s heart,” Sirius snorted. “That can’t be good. It’s definitely going to hurt your chances of getting laid anytime soon, kiddo.”
Harry tried to laugh, since he was sure that was what Sirius wanted, but something was wrong with his lungs and he couldn’t.
“Oh, shit.”
Harry tried to open his eyes to see who was talking then, but they wouldn’t cooperate.
“‘M sl-sleepin’…” Harry told them, his words slipping out with a tongue too dry to properly use. “Shh…”
“It’s time to wake up, kid, we need to get you home,” the new person said snappily, a familiar tone that Harry couldn’t place. “Actually, scratch that, I’m taking you straight to Metro-General and an operating room. That’s eschar necrosis. We’re going to have to move quickly if you want to keep it.”
Harry didn’t want to keep anything. The mission hadn’t ended and Harry didn’t think it was going to anytime soon.
“Don’t thrash, we can end up in the wrong realm if you do that.”
Realm…
Harry didn’t actually know what that meant.
“Here we go…”
Harry let out an unholy screech that hurt even his ears when his body was grabbed with calloused hands that seemed as if they were trying to be gentle.
“I know, kid, I know. You’re in for a fight, let’s move.”
All Harry was aware of in the next couple of seconds was a grateful shift from heat so oppressive that it had filled his lungs to somewhere cool and so loud that Harry wanted to scream.
“I’ll tell them to be quiet,” Hermione promised Harry. “You need to rest now.”
Hermione scolded everyone until the noise became a distant fuzzy sound in the background, leaving Harry alone with the people he loved.
“‘S my dad here?” Harry asked her hopefully.
“Soon,” Sirius promised.
Harry whined and whoever carried him began running, jolting him around and causing everything to send shooting pains through his body like walking on a foot fallen asleep did.
“Bright Eyes, stay awake,” Peter said. “Want me to quiz you on chem or tell you about this jerk trying rob a gas station with a curling iron?”
“Gas station, please,” Harry said. He forgot about the story and screamed instead when something cut his chest open. Pepper was there immediately, smoothing his hair off his forehead.
“You’re at a hospital now,” she said. “I think it’s your tutor, Strange, working on you.”
“You think?” Harry asked. “You don’t know who’s stabbing me in the chest?”
Pepper smiled sadly down at him. “I only know what you know, baby.”
“I heard them say it’s a chest tube,” Hermione said smartly. “It’s really a fascinating—”
“He’s here!” Sirius yelled. “Kiddo, your dad‘s here!”
All at once, the spell Hermione must have used to mute the sounds around Harry failed and he became painfully aware of several people screaming around him.
“WAIT! SIRIUS CAN SAVE IT! STOP! LET HIM TRY!”
“THERE IS NO SAVING IT, IF WE DON’T GET IN THERE NOW ITS GOING TO EAT AWAY HIS ORGANS!”
“TWO SECONDS, STRANGE. TWO SECONDS!”
“YOU HAVE ONE! Palmer, do not move him yet. Understand? I’ll grab the wizard.”
“He’s in— and he’s gone.”
Harry tried to speak but something was over his mouth, stopping him. Everyone was screaming and then Sirius was there and he was crying—
“I- I don’t know any spells or potions for this… we- we usually just heal it right away. Maybe if I could get Snape or Albus…?”
“He does not have time,” someone, Hermione whispered it was Harry’s teacher, Strange, snapped. “Stark, listen to me, if we do not take that leg off now the infection is going to spread to his heart and kill him, if the sepsis doesn’t leave him brain dead.”
“Take my leg?!” Harry looked up at Ron and saw his own terror reflected back at him. “Mate, they’re joking?”
Ron shook his head, eyes wide. “No way, mate. They won’t take your bloody leg. That’s… that’s mad, that is.”
“Kid, Harry, can you hear me?”
Harry tried to answer, he knew that voice. That was his dad even if he sounded like he was choking on something.
“I love you, Harry,” his dad whispered urgently in Harry’s ear. “I’m so sorry; Harry, I’m so god damned sorry.”
“Oh, he’s crying,” Hermione said sadly. “He loves you, Harry.”
“Of course he does,” Sirius laughed. “What’s not to love about a little smartarse Tony Junior, eh?”
“Go,” Tony said to someone out beyond where Harry could see him. “Just- save him. Please, God.”
“Black, you’re in with us,” Strange said curtly. “Whatever we can heal with magic, we will.”
“Aren’t you a bloody wizard?”
“Sorcerer, it’s different. A touch more prestigious.”
“IS THIS THE TIME?!” Someone, a woman, yelled. “His systolic is 197, Stephen! He’s going to stroke out!”
“Let’s move,” Strange said.
Harry felt someone holding his hand, someone real and solid. And then, just a moment before everything went black, they let go of Harry’s hand.
Harry wished they hadn’t.
Harry didn’t even get to see his dad.
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s not waking up, Rhodes. And… and look at him.”
“He’ll wake up soon, Tony. His body’s been through hell, just give him time.”
“Have they found Barnes yet? I’m going to—”
“Not yet. Strange said he isn’t attuned to Barnes like he is Harry, or some crap like that.”
“Keep me updated?”
“Sure. Get some sleep, he’s back now.”
“Is he?”
Was he?
Harry shifted around at some point, struggling to understand what was happening. He couldn’t talk, something was choking him, and his eyes wouldn’t work.
“Hey, hey, take it easy, you’re okay,” someone said soothingly. “I’m going to remove the vent, hold on.”
Something burned in Harry’s throat, ripping itself from his body.
“Someone page his dad, tell him he’s awake.”
Harry opened his mouth, a weak croak had replaced his voice. “Dad?”
“He’s coming, sweetie,” someone said. There was a warm rag across Harry’s face, gently washing his eyes. “Can you—”
“He’s awake?!”
Harry could open his eyes then - he stood on his feet when he thought Voldemort was going to kill him and he managed to walk three blocks on a broken leg, Harry could open his eyes to see the face that voice belonged to.
“Dad,” Harry breathed.
There he was, finally.
Ron, Hermione, Pepper, Peter, and Sirius were gone and Harry’s dad was there.
Tony dropped to his knees beside Harry, bringing his tired and lined face even closer, and Harry saw that his hazel eyes were bloodshot and wet and there.
“Harry,” Tony said. His eyes welled up and Harry saw a tear zigzag down his cheek. Tony tilted his face forward until his forehead touched Harry’s.
Harry was still tired, exhausted clear to his bones, but he forced himself to stay awake to tell Tony… something… something important…
“Dad,” Harry said, wincing at the way his throat burned. “Buck-Bucky…”
“Sh…” Tony’s arms were wrapped around Harry’s torso, causing a storm of pain and relief to mix through Harry’s body. “I thought I’d lost you…”
Harry was shocked when Tony’s shoulders began shaking with sobs. Tony seemed so relieved to have Harry back that he was actually crying.
Tony was crying like his heart had been broken and Harry being with him repaired it somehow.
Nobody, nobody, had ever loved Harry so much.
Harry was sure of that.