“How do we get Harry back on a broom?”
Tuesday, December 20
As a general life rule, Tony didn’t like kids.
They were loud, annoying, messy, and they touched things.
Harry’s band of friends were no exception and Tony had to grit his teeth and bear it when the teens ran up and down the stairs, switching between his and Harry’s floor and the one he very specifically made just for them to stay on.
The twins, as terribly amusing as they were, were so loud. Tony didn’t even know that two people could be so loud. But they were even louder when they refused to use the stairs or the elevator and they just poppedloudly from floor to floor.
Hermione was a smart girl, something Tony could appreciate, but she also talked so ungodly much. She would ask fifty-two questions before Tony even finished a single cup of coffee and then move on to an entirely new topic before Tony could even register what any of her questions had been about.
Luna was a funny girl, quiet and a little air-headed, but Tony also couldn’t understand half of what she did say. She told him that he had wrackspurts, but not as many as Harry, and that Tony had a ‘lovely lavender aura’. Luna also kept carrying her pet tarantula around, which never failed to make Ron scramble away from her with a green sheen to his face.
Ron and Ginny weren’t terrible houseguests, not really. Yeah, they were loud and Ginny had a habit of tackling Ron at random moments, leading to impromptu wrestling matches held anywhere and anytime. And Ron left crumbs everywhere. Tony didn’t even think he had to be eating something to leave crumbs behind him. But they didn’t go out of their way to bother him like the others seemed to purposely do.
The worst part was quidditch.
For the love of science, Tony didn’t think that he had heard so much about quidditch in his entire life as much as he did after just three days of Harry’s friends being there.
Sirius himself kept showing up and contributing to the quidditch talk. Apparently, it was the only sport in the ass-backwards wizarding world. Tony shouldn’t be surprised by that, since they didn’t even use central air conditioning, but did all of them have to be so obsessed with the sport?
Even the little brainiac girl and Petey both seemed willing to discuss positions, point-spreads, statistics, and teams with the others.
Tony would have hidden away in his lab, avoiding all the quidditch-obsessed, noise-making, things-touching teenagers, but Harry wouldn’t let him.
Every time Tony started to make his way to the lab, Harry would look at him with a grin and draw Tony in the conversation somehow.
“Dad, you wanna hear about the Wronski Feint?”
“Hey, Dad, listen to what George found out about Oliver! So Oliver was our quidditch captain…”
‘Dad’ was the most manipulative word that Tony ever heard and it worked every damn time.
“How’s it going?” Pepper asked Tony over the phone on just the second night of the invaders being present.
“Ugh.” Tony threw himself in his bed with a dramatic groan. “Pep, I hope you only want the one future step-kid because I can’t handle any more.”
Pepper laughed, a joyful sound in Tony’s ear.
“Surely they can’t be that bad,” she said. “You just aren’t used to having more than one kid around.”
“They never stop talking or touching things or breathing,” Tony stressed. “I never realized how perfect Harry was until now. So unless we find a way to clone him, I think he’s doomed to be an only child.”
“And here I thought we’d have half a dozen kids with your brains and my looks,” Pepper said, her voice coy and lighting up a spark of joy inside Tony.
It had always been Tony pursuing Pepper with corny jokes and glib remarks about their future. And now… now Pepper was the one who said ‘we’.
“Mm…” Tony rolled on his stomach and reached for his nightstand drawer, pulling out the 2.5 carat, beautifully extravagant engagement ring with the silver band that he desperately wanted to present to Pepper for Christmas.
“Half a dozen kids, you say?” Tony asked her, staring at the twinkling ring that would fit the fourth finger on Pepper’s left hand so perfectly. “Tell ya what, if they get my good looks, your brains, and Harry’s ability to not make my ears bleed with his chatter… you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Tony could hear the smile in Pepper’s voice when she responded.
“We’ll see what we can do,” she told him. “Goodnight, Mister Stark.”
“Goodnight, Miss Potts,” Tony replied, wondering how long it would be until he could change that.
‘Mrs Stark’ sounded much better and Tony would even give Pepper six kids if that’s what it took for her to marry him.
It was a relief when Harry’s physical therapy appointment rolled around, the only appointment that Tony stood his ground on Harry still attending over the Christmas break, and the two of them got to leave the Tower and the other kids behind.
“We’re driving you mad, aren’t we?” Harry asked as soon as Tony pulled the car out of the garage. Tony looked over and saw that the bright smile that had been painted on Harry’s face the last few days had dimmed and he looked unreasonably nervous.
“I’m sorry,” Harry went on, rambling like Tony did when he was anxious. “I tried to keep them all out of our place, but then I didn’t want to not see you, and they just kept coming upstairs and they’re very hard to tell ‘piss off’ when they’re so excited about the Xbox and CHOW and Luna loves Joey. I want to spend time with all of you, but there’s only one of me, and I can tell they’re driving you barmy, but I’m sorry.”
“Pause, breathe.” Tony flashed Harry a smile when Harry took a pause for air. “Kid, they’re supposed to be annoying, they’re teenagers. You’re not annoying, for the record,” he added quickly before Harry could question it. “But you’re mine, so I assume it’s a genetic stroke of luck that you’re not as—”
“Annoying as the others?” Harry cut in with a grimace. “I’m sorry, Dad, I’ll tell them to stay out of our place.”
“No, don’t,” Tony said immediately. “I’m pretty sure it’s normal for old men like me to be grouchy when I’m surrounded by you youthful people who never stop talking,” he finished in a dramatic groan, at least getting a short chuckle from Harry. “Honestly, Harry, you’re so quiet that I forget other teens can make so much noise. And, while I’m thinking about it, what the hell are wrackspurts and why do you have so many?!”
“So you admit that you’re old?” Harry smirked.
“That would be what you’d pick up on first,” Tony grumbled playfully.
Harry laughed and the moment of tension between them disappeared. Tony would have been much more irritated by the noisy invaders, but the constant smiles on Harry’s face were more than an equal compensation.
The two hours that Tony spent in the waiting lounge with Wilson, designing upgrades and venturing in further reach for their prosthetics, was a sort of heaven for Tony though.
No quidditch.
No wrackspurts.
Just… adult conversation and crappy coffee.
“You have no idea how much I needed this,” Tony said when he knew that Anderson would be finishing up soon with Harry not far behind. Tony packed away his laptop and tablet in his bag and Wilson handed him the drafts he’d drawn for more economically friendly materials to be used in the prosthetics.
“Is it all chaos in Stark Tower?” Wilson guessed. “Harry getting hyped for Christmas?”
“Harry’s hyped for Christmas and Harry’s friends are all just hyper,” Tony told him. “I’ve got eight kids staying until the third. Did you know that teenagers eat a lot? I’m not talking about just at meals either, I mean they eat constantly! And is an inside voice something that develops later in life? Because they are so damned loud.”
Wilson laughed and stood up to stretch his arms over his head, popping his back loudly.
“Man, I think teenagers and vets are the same people. I’ve got three extra houseguests for the next week, getting some of the guys through the holidays. Lawrence, Green, and Jones don’t have anyone or anywhere to go. It’s a hard time for them, you know?” Wilson shrugged humbly, as if he wasn’t taking in veterans during the holiday season out of the kindness of his heart.
“I’d offer to take some too, but I think they might be more suicidal after listening to a constant recap of the most complicated sport in the world,” Tony quipped. He held up his hand when Wilson began to ask the obvious question. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Wilson laughed. He looked toward the doorway and Tony saw Anderson leaning against the wall, looking more run-down from his therapy than usual.
“How’s the leg holding up?” Tony asked him. “Any pains or discomfort?”
“Nope.” Anderson slapped his hand on his leg, causing a clunk to echo around them. “This baby’s been taking me places.”
“Anywhere good?” Tony asked with a knowing smile.
Anderson’s lips curled to the side in a smirk. “So many very bad places.”
Tony laughed and accepted Wilson’s parting pat on the back.
“Well you have my number, let me know if it starts to act up or cause you any pain,” Tony told him. “Have a good Christmas, guys.”
“You too, Tony,” Wilson said. “Try not to let the kids drive you crazy, I’ve heard some parents say they miss those days later on.”
Tony assumed those parents meant they missed when their own kids were teenagers, not their kid’s friends.
Harry was just as tired as Anderson seemed after his therapy ended. He was quiet on the drive home, withdrawn, and hesitated when Tony opened his door for Harry to slide in his wheelchair.
“I fell,” Harry said. He stared down at his lap where he was twisting his fingers around and admitted it quietly, like he was ashamed. It took everything inside of Tony to not panic - Harry was obviously fine, there was no reason to start asking fifty questions and overwhelm him - and he waited for Harry to get the rest of his thoughts out.
“Anderson told me I should push myself even though Doctor Torres said I shouldn’t be trying to walk with the crutches yet and she went to take a call, she said she’d be right back, and…”
“And you tried to walk and you fell?” Tony guessed. Harry nodded his head, still not looking at him. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m going to cry and it’s not because I’m in pain,” Harry said, speaking through a clenched jaw. “And I’m sorry for whining, but I don’t want to do it in front of my friends.”
Tony moved the wheelchair away and knelt down beside the open car door. He reached over and took Harry’s hands in his, hating to see him fidgeting so hard.
“Okay,” he said calmly, “what’s going on?”
“I know you’re bloody sick of hearing about quidditch, but all my friends play it, and I was good at it, Dad.” Harry’s voice was choked up and Tony smoothed his thumbs over the tops of Harry’s hands, silently reassuring him that he was there and listening. A tear dropped from Harry’s cheek, landing on top of Tony’s hand, and Tony’s heart broke some.
“I was the youngest seeker in a century and now I can’t even take two steps with crutches. How- how am I supposed to fly, Dad?” Harry looked over at him and Tony hated the miserable look in his eyes, the tears welling at the rim and leaking over.
“And now we’ve got a perfect pitch - something that Ron and Ginny would crucio a baby for a chance to have - and I can’t fly. I can’t walk, I can’t fly, and it’s so bloody selfish but I can’t sit on the pitch and watch them fly while I’m stuck on the bloody ground!”
Harry’s voice broke at the end and Tony wasn’t sure if he reached for Harry or if Harry reached for him, but Tony gave Harry a twisted hug while Harry cried about the loss of a sport that he so obviously loved and Tony tried to find a way to fix it.
When Sirius designed and built the pitch, neither he nor Tony thought that Harry would struggle to fly. Sure, they thought it might take him a moment to find a new readjustment of his weight on the broom, but Sirius had been confident that Harry could do it.
Tony wouldn’t have put it in the tower if he knew that it was just going to be a miserable reminder to Harry of yet another thing he lost.
“Have you tried to fly yet?” Tony asked when Harry’s cries calmed to wet sniffles. He pulled away from Harry and winced at the ache in his knees from the concrete beneath them.
“No point,” Harry said flatly. “I can’t walk, I can’t fly. I’ll just- I’ll fall, I just know I will. I’ll fall and everyone will get worried and then they won’t fly while they’re here because I can’t and I don’t want to ruin everything for everyone.”
God, the kid definitely got his selflessness from Lily. Tony never would have considered his friends’ comfort if he were in Harry’s… shoe.
Tony tried to picture the physical demands of flying, the physics that went into balancing and staying seated on turns and twists and ‘wronski feints’. It was all physics, weight distribution and angles…
“Let’s get upstairs,” Tony said in a murmur while he tried to picture the flight with his mind. “You want me to clear the cretins from our place so you can rest?”
Harry hesitated after getting in his chair so Tony made the decision for him, to take away any guilt he might have for it.
“You’re grounded for the next two hours,” Tony told him. Harry didn’t grab his wheels so Tony pushed the wheelchair for him. “Two hours of no friends, no spider-brat, and just a pain reliever and sleep.”
Harry looked over his shoulder at Tony and gave him a small smile that didn’t reach his tired eyes.
“Thanks, Dad.”
It felt natural to bend his head down, press a quick kiss to the top of Harry’s head.
“Anytime, kid.”
As soon as Harry was asleep in his bed, Tony strolled down the the next floor to barge in on the teens for once.
“Good afternoon, demons and destroyers of peace.” Tony grinned at the cluster of kids sprawled out on the furniture, all watching some cheesy looking Christmas movie.
Peter sat up quickly and twisted his neck around. “Where’s Harry?”
“Sleeping, so nobody bother him,” Tony told them all. He pointed at each of them and begrudgingly laughed when Luna pointed back at him just as seriously.
“I have a top secret mission that I need your help with,” Tony announced. “If you know how to shut your mouth, you can help. If you can’t keep a secret to save your life, go find something else to do.”
“I can keep a secret!” Luna said immediately, waving her hand in the air. “Nobody ever talks to me, so there’s nobody for me to tell!”
“Tragic, and you’re in,” Tony said evenly. “Anyone else?”
“Peter dated Harry under an alter-ego, so he’s in,” Ron said.
“And we all lived in a secret house for a whole summer,” Ginny said brightly. “So we’re all in.”
“Follow me,” Tony said. He led the teens to the quidditch pitch and threw the door open with a flourish. “The goal today is: how do we get Harry back on a broom? And failure is not an option.”
As annoying as the gaggle of teens were, they made up for it as they all spent three hours hard at work, helping Tony find a way for Harry to fly. Tony started to see what Harry must have seen in Harry’s friends while they helped him.
Hermione, as inquisitive and bossy as she was, went right to work with Peter, drafting up graphs of weight distribution on broomsticks. The twins put their theatrics to use as they took turns flying around the field with one leg bent and tucked beneath them, crashing over and over while they tried to find a way to land. Ron and Ginny followed Tony’s lead, trying out different positions and bringing him different broomsticks to tinker with.
Luna was an unexpected pleasure when she started a story about Minfrings, some sort of one-legged creature that Tony wasn’t sure actually existed. The story wasn’t actually helpful in the slightest, but Luna’s agreement to go fetch Tony’s toolkit from his lab was.
And with the kids’ help, Tony was able to have a broomstick for Harry to test out when he woke up and the others weren’t around.
“As repayment for your valiant efforts, I am gifting you with passes to get the hell out of my house tonight,” Tony said when they were all high-fiving each other with their success. “Petey, I’m trusting you with my credit card and the SUV. Take everyone to the movies and out to dinner.”
“Yes, sir,” Peter said, giving Tony a sloppy salute after accepting the card. “Lobster and sushi, right?”
Tony considered how happy Harry would be to fly again and shrugged with a smile.
“Whatever you want,” he told him. “As long as it keeps you all busy late enough that Harry can fly without an audience.”
Luna Lovegood was becoming Tony’s second favorite teenager when she gave him a tight hug and told Tony that he was an excellent dad.
Although then she started talking about nargle infestations in the walls and Tony briefly considered jumping out a window to get away from the noise.