Chapter 14
“So what you’re saying,” Tony starts, settling for placing a fist on his hands to look neutral, “Is that your best friends mom put a tracker on you before you left Britain, gave it to your Wizard Government, and followed you around our tour? I don’t even know why I’m asking. That is literally exactly what happened.”
Yes, there are other things that should be What the Fucked, like the fact that non-wizard organisations know about magic, for instance, and yet the one that especially reaches out to him, is the epic tale of betrayal.
Harry hums absentmindedly, lounging back in her chair opposite him. It’s weird, her not sitting next to him on all occasions, but Harry needs her own space and he gets that. What he doesn’t get, is a certain woman called Molly Weasley.
Who does that?
Who tracks someone that should be family to them, and gives that information to an untrustworthy government?
But it’s not like Tony feels he can say something; relatives are a sore subject. He knows: Rhodey can bitch about his mom for years on end, but when Tony makes one teeny tiny comment on how the pie she made on Thanksgiving was just a smidge dry, its World War Three. That and his own experience with people talking about his mom…it’s never been a subject that has gone over particularly well.
So, to conclude: Tony doesn’t know how to externally respond to all of this information.
(Internally is a whole other matter.)
“Apparently. I sent a letter to Ron, telling him about the whole…thing. Of what she did. Other than that, I’m not really sure what to do.” Her expression remains stoic, her slouch slightly back on her seat just looks forced and stiff. Tony likes to think he has some sort of read on Harry, some vague idea of the direction her thoughts pave to. And if the harsh outline of her posture is any indication, he knows that, without a doubt, there is an overload of suppressed anger.
He gets that.
“Say something,” she says, when the silence has stretched out, which was also bothering Tony. Yet, this debacle is making him want to act like a politician. Please both sides and all that.
“So, uh,” he mumbles carefully, scratching his ear so his hands don’t clench into an unwanted position. “She was the reason we got taken? Well, she didn’t kidnap us, that would be a different matter in terms of her being a legitimate criminal, but she pretty much led him to that lake?”
“And hurt you.” Harry states, but it comes out as more of a snap. It seems they’re both angry on each other’s behalf, but that’s just not the thing anyone wants to share. Anger at a potential death.
“She hurt you, too. Could have killed you. It’s insane, how far helicopter parenting can go.”
Well. It’s not like he was ever going to be a politician.
Harry has the same expression she’s had all morning, looking all dark and gloomy; it’s a massive contrast against the multi-coloured walls the diner has decided to go with. She then leans forward, her hands pressed against the dip of the table. Like she’s about to stand up and bellow for Tony’s honour, it’s super appealing. “How do you feel? About this all?”
Tony levels her with a strong look. “This is way more about you then it is me right now, Harry. That’s the highest level of a privacy breach. A tracker? She’s not even your legal guardian. Is she?”
Harry sighs, her exhale coming out slightly ragged. “No, she’s not. You’re right. I just- I’m…procrastinating, I suppose.”
“You don’t have to be a genius to tell you’re pissed off. Seriously. You could be in an advertising for anger management, I’m just saying.”
“Yeah,” she huffs, still rigid. It makes Tony ache. “I’m not so great with ongoing emotions. I’m not sure how to handle this.” She immediately goes bright red, as if being so blatant about her own emotional ride is embarrassing. Tony knows he’s not one to talk on the issue of sharing is caring, and he knows that if someone tries to get him to sit in a circle he’ll tell them to fuck off. Except, for all his problems, Tony has the beginnings of a mild solution to this clusterfuck of a morning. Before he can open his mouth however, an unfamiliar voice breaks through their conversation.
“Hi! Are you Tony Stark?” Ice floods through his veins, surprise also leaking through at someone actually recognising him. (Months of travelling without recognition have done wonders to his ego, it’s actually alarming.) He turns to see a girl around his age, blonde highlights and bright blue make up resting on her eyelids.
“Uh, yeah? I mean, yeah.”
“I’m Tracey,” she beams, her hip jutting out in apparent confidence. “I’m your biggest fan.”
“It’s nice to meet my biggest fan, I’ve been looking for you,” his stage smirk falls in place easily, the fake curl of his lips feeling as if burning his skin in shame. All he wants is to talk to Harry about this Molly Weasley.
She giggles brightly, curling a strand of her hair as she gazes prettily at him. “Well I’m here. You found me.”
“Excuse me,” Harry voice chimes in; Tony looks across to Harry, who’s watching Blonde Highlights with a saccharine grin. “I appreciate you being a fan, but we were having a conversation.” She nods at that and picks up her menu, even though ten minutes ago she told the waitress just an earl grey, please.
Blonde Highlights has the audacity to not even glance her way, solely staring at Tony. Which is unnerving, because there’s a lot to look at in this multi-coloured space. “Mr Stark doesn’t mind, do you?”
Fuck Sake.
“I mind,” Harry comments, lifting a finger. It seems the anger she’s trying to bury deep is slowly unleashing; Tony does not want Blonde Highlights to be turned into a mouse, Roald Dahl style.
Wait. No, he definitely wants to see someone turn into a mouse.
But Wizard laws and blah blah blah.
“But Mr Stark hasn’t complained-”
“Consider this me complaining on his behalf.”
“Oh, Harry, look at the time! We have to go, things to do, people to see, a life to lead. Cha cha.” He gets up, thankful that Blonde Highlights hadn’t decided to crash the party while Tony was inhaling his waffles. Harry’s eager to leave too, flashing her newfound rival a grin that resembles something smug.
And she says he’s competitive.
“Oh,” the girl says with embellished disappointment. “How about your number before you go?”
“I’m sort of, off the market.” He tells her with a roguish grin, excitement pooling in his chest when he realises, it’s true. The excitement only grows when he leaves the diner with Harry, who shuffles her arm in a lock with his in her own way of showing victory.
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“Where are you taking me?” Harry asks in the cab, the excess of annoyance from Blonde Highlights beginning to fade, though her possessive grip on his thigh tells Tony another story.
“You literally heard me tell the cab driver the directions.”
“No, I didn’t. You showed the driver the map and waved a hand in my face so I couldn’t see where you pointed.”
“It’s not my fault your eyesight is poor. And hey, we can’t become one of those boring couples, we gotta keep the mystery alive.”
There’s a pause, where he builds up his courage.
“Do you- you wearing the, uh…the Superman bra?”
Harry suddenly decides to look out the window, the corners of her lips pulled up.
“I knew it.”
Harry barks out a laugh, which lasts for a total of 0.5 seconds. It’s like she remembers something, because her stoic expression firmly sits back in place. Just like that, the procrastination abandons him.
Molly fucking Weasley.
How can a woman who calls herself a mother do something like that? Not once has he ever had the urge to follow someone because he worries. Take his Rhodey-bear. He doesn’t put a tracker on him whenever he leaves, because:
- A.) It’s the capital Violation of Privacy.
- B.) Rhodey would find out, because he’s Rhodey. And if his stick of butter gave him hell for an on the cuff comment of his mom’s pie (not a euphemism), then a tracker would involve permanent hearing aid.
- C.) He was raised differently. Neglect was much more preferable then attachment.
He means, he can see why someone would want to do it, strictly speaking it keeps tabs on those in danger, but then again, it attracts people like Patrick. Who apparently, was a hide in the corner at parties kind of guy, who inherited wealth and good fortune.
He supposes, everyone can take a direction of their choosing.
“Did you ever ask who Patrick was working for? Didn’t he mention a woman or something?”
Harry’s eyes drift shut for a second, before her jaw clenches widely. “I didn’t even remember to ask that.”
“Meh, no harm no foul.”
“Harm and foul. I’ll speak to Diana about it as soon as our trip is over.” Harry stares into the distance for a good while after that.
Until she breaks out a thought, that makes Tony turn.
“Ever since I left Scotland,” she comments, her gaze far away, too far away. “I’ve lost all sense of reason. I don’t know how to handle things.”
Tony doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t know if there’s anything he can say to that. He never met Harry before she left. He never knew Harry before the war.
So, he responds in the fashion that is typical Tony Stark. He gets her attention with a tap on the shoulder, tapping his lips and overexaggerating a shrug.
“Short term solution to your issues’ right here, Seneca.”
Harry fondly and ,seemingly out of her control, rolls her eyes (he didn’t even clock that someone could roll their eyes fondly, but, what does he know) and raises her eyebrows dubiously.
“I dunno. They look kind of dry.”
“You know that’s just not true, the amount of lip balm I slap on these babies is almost comical. Plus it makes my lips irresistible, just quoting the truth, nothing wrong with that.”
“Well, clearly that’s just not true.”
“If you’re gonna be like this I might as well go back to where my biggest fan was. Ooh, or better yet, I’ll go ahead and give Abby a call”-
Harry practically smooshes her lips against his, the peak of her apparent territorial-ness put in full place, but is amazing, arousing, enchanting, all the good words and then some. He deepens the kiss, opening his mouth with keen ease and feeling delight when Harry imitates the action. Either she’s a claimer, or she wants him to shush.
Can’t it be both?
See, the thing about Harry: one second the girl has the whole ‘virgin sacrifice to Satan’ charisma, the next thing you know, bam.
Superman bra.
It means she’s very obviously the most unpredictable person Tony’s ever met. And it’s glorious. So yeah, he can shut up for a few. Be a land she can claim victory over. He’s good with that.
“No.” A booming voice goes. Both Harry and Tony lean back from one another, staring at the man behind the wheel of the car.
“What?”
“No.” The driver says again, which meant he was the one who rudely interrupted his Happy Times; his gaze is sharply fixed on him in particular from the rear-view mirror. Which is just so insulting, it wasn’t like Harry’s tongue wasn’t getting involved, he means really, she was centre stage. “I’m not having this in my cab. Sit still or find a new ride.”
“I mean, it wasn’t like we weren’t sitting still,” Tony retorts, subtly placing his hand on Harry’s knee, “Is that the deal? You don’t want to have the fear of missing the show? Distraction from driving and all?”
“Unbelievable,” Harry murmurs to herself, and Tony’s perceptive enough to realise it’s not aimed at the guy behind the wheel.
“You want me to stop the car? I’ll stop the car, try saying something like that again.”
“What if I pay you five hundred dollars?”
From the corner of his eye, he sees Harry rub a hand over her face.
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I driving you to a bank you can rob?”
Why does no one know who he is? This never happened before Harry.
And he doesn’t want to be this person…but he doesn’t happen to know who he is, does he?
“Do you not know who”-
“Don’t you dare,” Harry cringes, “If you say that, you will sound exactly like my ex-boyfriend.”
Tony gapes.
“You’re saying I can’t say that ever again?” He’s not necessarily ever said it, but he likes the…freedom? Of saying it?
Ugh.
“You can say it,” Harry tells him with undercurrents of amusement. “You’ll just sound like Draco.”
Ugh.
“Sorry, what was that? Drew? Derek?”
“We’re here.” The driver says as the vehicle comes to a halt, annoyance seeping from his tone. “Get out.”
“Well well well,” Tony claps, feeling irritatingly obliged to only go and want to leave a tip, “Aren’t you just the happiest person I’ve ever met. What are you, one of Snow White’s seven dwarves?”
“Why are we at a junkyard?” Harry asks.
“Why did you wanna drive to a junkyard?” The driver asks with honest to god curiosity.
Too. Many. Questions.
Kudos to the driver, though. They’ve gotten there in record time.
“Here you go,” Harry takes some money from her cute little red wallet, handing it to the Sassy Driver. She looks at the ID next to the side mirror and gives him a sheepish smile. “Have a good day, Mr Hogan.”
Tony and Mr Hogan both look at each other and let out a simultaneous huff.
---------------
“You really need to start explaining.”
After jumping over the fence, it’s pretty crystal clear that the air of mystery is well and truly gone, and to keep up the charade of not explaining anything would just be really creepy. So, he stops abruptly, and looks at her with all the seriousness he can muster.
“Okay, so, I’m not a serial killer.”
Harry scrunches her eyebrows together. “You brought me to an abandoned junkyard to tell me you haven’t killed people? Ah, I see. I’m your first.”
“Witty, ten out of ten on the comedic timing. I used to come here when I was drunk with some people who thought it was all edgy. I guess it is, perfect for the goths to write their poetry in this gorgeous landscape. Anyway, I saw something awesome here ages ago, but I couldn’t bring it home to work on because then my home life would really go tits up. And I’m digressing. Follow me!”
He takes her hand, and surprisingly, always surprisingly, Harry complies, giving his hand a squeeze.
Ugh. All he can hear at that is Rhodey’s voice. Though his face when Tony gave him the set of plastic gloves will forever be ingrained in his mind.
Ha! Sucker.
“It smells here. If I see a scuttle of rats, I’m off.”
“Snob.”
Harry lets out a small shudder, “Nah. Just hate rats, is all.”
He gives her hand a gentle rub with his thumb. He knows there’s more to it, he gets that.
“You really gave that driver sass.” She comments idly, exasperation seemingly at war with humour.
“He ruined tongue on tongue time, don’t think that won’t pop up again later. I blame you though, Miss ‘My Magic is Acting Up.’ Can’t even teleport us to a dump like this, piss poor on your part.”
“Maybe I’ll try and teleport again,” Harry comments cheekily, “Seeing as you can’t go anywhere without trouble following you.”
“True. How long have we been travelling together, babe?”
He receives a flick to the nose at that. Doesn’t matter however, seeing as he finds just what he’s been looking for when he turns a corner to reunite with…
The car!
When he stops, Harry halts in her track, and stares in confusion.
“What?”
He dramatically gestures at the car and does it again when Harry just looks nonplussed. He waits for a response that never comes, it’s all very shameful. “You don’t get it?”
“Not even slightly,” Harry says, peering at the vehicle as if it holds all the answers. Which, it kind of does?
“You’ve got a lot of anger, I’ve got some brewing in me, probably, but not my show today.” Definitely. “No one’s gonna care if we smash a car into pieces. Get it now?”
When comprehension forms in her gaze, she gapes at Tony incredulously.
“You took me to an abandoned car to smash? The eccentricity.”
“I prefer the term therapeutic please and thank you.” He sees something resembling a crane in a garbage pile next to him and picks it up, flipping it in his hand for good measure while decidedly not thinking about any disease that could bring about. “I’ve totally seen this before, the whole getting rid of rage spiel. And baby, you got a lot of things you need to get out.”
Harry’s eyes land on the crane, and then back to him, annoying dancing across her features.
“This is a terrible idea! What’s your IQ?”
“Never knock it until you try it. I’ll even ignore the questioning on my IQ, because that was clearly coming from a place of hate.”
Harry reluctantly takes the crane from his now dirty palms (ew) and pulls a face. (Less ew.) “You would make a very unconventional therapist.”
“So they say,” he shrugs.
“Who’s they?”
“You.”
Harry lets out a laugh at that, which fades in record time as she brings up the crane in a fuck it kinda attitude, and in one swift motion, brings the crane to the window in a heroic swoop.
The glass splinters everywhere around, falling to the ground like snow. It’s beautiful.
Harry gasps, apparently unused to the sensation of destroying something.
“That’s my girl! Feel good?”
“No,” Harry says, bringing back the crane to the car, her face slowly morphing from her stoic persona, to the now sneer dripping from her features.
“I’m angry, yes,” she says, beginning to relax her position around the bar. “Extremely. Molly’s just the bloody icing on the damned cake.”
Tony doesn’t say anything. He watches. He observes. He listens. Even if he wants to come over to her.
“How could she do that?” She clangs the crane again and again, her speech increasingly louder. “How could she have done that to me,” another clang. “To you?”
Clang.
“She had the fucking nerve.”
Clang.
“The lack of respect.”
Clang.
“I thought of her as family!”
Clang.
“I still fucking do!”
Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.
“And she threw that in my face! Like she never cared of what I wanted.” Harry finally drops the crane on the ground, something lost in her eyes. She takes in the car in front of her, looking like a scrunched-up piece of paper, and gazes at the crane in something akin to wonder.
She turns to face Tony, who’s watching her with something that feels like trepidation.
“Maybe it’s my fault. I-I feel like the more I live, the more I lose.”
And It’s this that surges Tony closer to her, his speed rapid and expression most likely desperate as he pulls her close to him and cups her face with distress.
“You’re not losing anyone. Hey.” He says forcefully when Harry tries to look away. “The more you live the more you save, okay? You fought in a war and won. That’s saved more people then you’ll ever know. What that woman did to you was wrong. What Patrick did was wrong. Don’t switch this to make yourself look like the villain. You’re allowed to be angry, you’re allowed to place blame on someone whose actual fault it was. People have been putting pressure on you for years, haven’t they? To make you feel responsibility for things that our out of your control.”
He waits until Harry nods, her breaths coming out shakily, but her eyes trained on his, as if in a daze.
“What if I’ve done things that have ruined people?” She asks him, practically beseeching.
“Then think of the things you’ve done that have helped them, and if they haven’t, I know you never meant to hurt someone. You’re still allowed to be angry, Harry.”
He takes a short pause, because what he’s about to say is a risk.
“Just because Tom is gone,” when her eyes widen slightly, he presses on, “It doesn’t mean you’re the only one left to display fault. And it’s not. Your fault.”
It’s like something in Harry breaks, because she edges into him, shuffling her head into his chest and resting there as if her own personal pillow. There’s no crying, there’s no heavy sob he hears muffled into his clothing, but that’s almost worse, no release. The only time he had seen tears was with Patrick, but Tony thinks that’s more due to shock and guilt for him then for her sake. That’s a whole other matter, and Tony doesn’t know what to do right now instead of just holding her, squeezing her tightly.
His mom once told him if you hug someone hard enough, all the unhappy thoughts spill out.
“Thank you,” Harry says after a little while, her head buried now into his neck, while his nose is scrunched into her hair. “Just…thank you.”
All Tony can do is press a deep kiss onto her forehead, and continue to try and squeeze out all the pain.
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Something has changed in Harry since their trip to the Junkyard.
Oh, he knows it’s not all of a sudden completely better. Harry’s not applied to star in Disney, there’s no spring to her step and no animals are coming with her to take part in a five-minute song. But there’s a lightness in her shoulders now, as if there’s still some weight resting, but she’s managed to clear off some of the heaviness.
It’s freeing, knowing that anyone can cure their mind from twisted thoughts. It’s liberating, seeing someone have the freedom to melt and know it hasn’t caused any permanent damage.
There might be some hope for him, too.
It surprisingly causes a good mood, even if the ache in his heart hasn’t subsided, no, that memory will forever be a heated brand marked in his mind. But there’s a set of happiness in him. He knows there’s hope, he knows the Junkyard Road Trip was a success.
But, in this day and age, things just go. Wrong.
Opening the door to their room is just the weirdest shit, seeing as there’s an owl on the bed, a letter crushed in between the its beak.
Tony has No Energy for This Shit. He wants to make out with Harry for as long as he can (he wants to do more than that but that’s another subject entirely), possibly see a Superman sports bra somewhere during that time, with matching boxers if he’s really lucky, but nooooooooo. There’s an owl. Holding a letter.
The Owl, upon seeing Harry, simply puts down the letter (he’s going with it, it is what it is and he’s tired), and flies out the window.
How can he get all magical things to a laboratory? He doesn’t want to sell any ideas, he just wants to know some stuff.
“Magic thing?” Is all that comes out. He thought he’d seen it all.
Nope.
“Magic thing. It’s my reply from Ron. About Molly.”
Tony unconsciously hunches his shoulders, something like disappointment blooming in the pit of his stomach.
It doesn’t last long.
“Sod it.” Tony whirls to where Harry stands, a firmness in her stance that he hasn’t seen in what feels like forever. She grabs the letter and throws it over her shoulder, not looking when it heavily thumps to the ground.
A heavy letter, then.
“I’m sensing some symbolism going on here.”
“Damn right you are.” Harry steps forward into Tony’s little bubble of personal space, taking his hand with the exact opposite treatment that heavy letter received. Her energy is bursting, the strength he associates with Harry firmly back in place. A success indeed.
“This- this was supposed to be us travelling! And I- I think I lost sight of that, when Patrick happened, when running from problems caught up. We’ve had fun- fun doesn’t even begin to describe our time together- but we haven’t done what we sought out to do since then, to visit anywhere we want. I say we continue, if you’d like. We restart everything. I know this isn’t the best solution when it comes to dealing with issues. But I don’t want to stop going places with you. Fuck that letter, fuck who the letter’s about, I’m not reading it until I’m ready. I’m in control.”
“How ‘bout this,” Tony instantly says, the idea already blossoming in his head. “How about we go everywhere. I’m not kidding- you can teleport, or try to, and we only went around the US. Lame. No, I’m thinking we broaden our horizons. Egypt, Denmark, Disneyland for all I care. And then when we both think the time is right, we stop. When we’re ready, we face our problems.”
Harry beams at him, something like adoration leaking from her features. “I would like that very much.” Then, more bashful, as if she’s never been allowed to want, “I’ve always wanted to see the pyramids.”
“Done. First place we go. And then we can do…the northern lights sound pretty awesome. Ooh, or the Bermuda Triangle, can’t have any issues if you’re not on planet earth.”
“We could see Paris.”
“Japan.”
“Brazil!”
“Vegas!”
“We could buy postcards!”
“I could do the view thing!”
“The what?”
“You know,” he waves his hands animatedly, worked up in the best way possible, “You look at the view and go, ‘oh wow, so pretty,’ and I go, ‘yeah,’ because I’m looking at you. Then you look at me and I look at the view quickly to avoid you knowing I was staring, but you know. So yeah, the view thing.”
Harry’s smile slowly morphs into something smaller, softer. She places a hand on his cheek, her fingers idly brushing against his blush. “Nah, stare at the view. You’ll never forgive yourself if you ogle me in ratty jeans rather than the Bahamas.”
And oh.
Oh.
Tony knows what love is. He feels a surge of love whenever the memory of his mom flashes through his mind and heart like a painful jolt of electricity. He reluctantly feels something whenever Howard is mentioned, but he won’t define what that emotion is, probably ever. He knows he loves Rhodey, loves him like he knows he would a sibling, a relationship that he made himself, a relationship that his best friend helped create.
But this is different.
When he told Harry all that time ago, when they were in a potential serial killers’ home stretched out on a warm bed, when he said she was alright, he meant it. It was a feeling of the moment, something amazingly overwhelming that he had to say it, he couldn’t not. But he wasn’t fully sure what it meant when he said it, only telling her something that made sense in their own language. But now, now he knows that he doesn’t love Harry, not how he loves Rhodey, his mother.
He is now aware, that without a doubt, he is in love with her.
And leaning in to kiss her, leaning in to close his eyes and take in the vibrating energy pulsing through him, he knows that wherever they go will simply be a background setting.
“I don’t know why you’d be wearing jeans in the Bahamas, but sure. Fine by me.”
I’m in love with you.