My Dad, the Boy (*Man) Who Lives

October 28th 2000

Tony has been working at SI in Research and Development (R&D) since he received his master from MIT in 1997. He’s been coming up with so many new ideas and profitable ones at that and not a year later he was promoted to Head of R&D. His most surprising and brilliant invention was STARK phone. It was so sophisticated and easy to use that he received so many invites to guest lecture in ivy league colleges.

After his 21st birthday, Howard gladly passed the reign of CEO of Stark Industries to Tony. Even when he got even busier with his work, he still tried to have a life outside of work and hung out with his friends through a weekly dinner with his closest friend, Teddy, Clint Barton (surprisingly), a couple of brilliant scientists such as Dr. Bruce Banner and Dr. jane Foster with Rhodey, whenever he wasn’t deployed overseas.

As for Howard, he former Head of Stark Industries could finally have a quiet retirement in their Manhattan mansion with his wife. Right now, Howard and mom were in Italy, having their long-awaited second honeymoon. And they will be staying there for a year in their country home, enjoying the cuisine and their time together.

Harry and Tony missed them, but the Stark couple had been through enough. After Afghanistan, Howard wasn’t able to take long days off to relax. After getting back from his outer wordly trip, he and his little genius came out with a way to safely take the homemade pacemaker out and pull the pieces of shrapnel out before growing Howard's ribcage back.

In their discussion, they realized that it’s better to get the arc reactor out of him sooner rather than later. The longer the thing was inside the older man, the worst it could be for Howard. The palladium core would poison the billionaire and even the serum wouldn’t be able to hold off the palladium poisoning.

After they got the mini-arc reactor out of his body, he and his son could finally breath freely. While the older Stark was healing, Ms. Peggy investigated the terrorist who kidnapped her friend and discovered that Obadiah was the mastermind behind his kidnapping. Ms. Peggy was furious and the moment Howard was fully healed, Obadiah was already behind bars.

Later, his adoptive father shut down the company’s weapons division, which prompted a lot of protests from the board of director. He started branching out towards technology and clean energy with Tony’s help. Therefore, he didn’t have to fire his employees and began to transfer them to these new divisions.

He also searched deeply into his company and started firing Obadiah’s associates, whom helped and turned a blind eye to what he has been doing to the company this whole time.

Maria wasn’t exactly happy with this, but after what happened to Howard, she didn’t want there to be the next Obadiah Stane to happen to his baby boy. Her husband even retired from SHIELD to clean up the house.

The whole finding betrayers in his company were weighing on his mind. Adding to the trauma of being kidnapped and tortured that finally hit him in waves on one memorable night (traumatic dream and screaming… It was nightmarish, pun not intended), he wasn’t fine at all. Thank Merlin, he and Maria were able to persuade the man to talk to a psychiatrist, which was not easy.

And now 4 years later, he was better mentally and still talking to a psychiatrist, albeit not his current doctor, Dr. Morgan whom resided in New York. While he’s in Italy, he would be talking to Dr. Esposito, an associate of his current psychiatrist.

“Good morning, Mr. Evans,” said a young woman in navy blue business attire, looking impacable as always with a minor confusion on her face. She has her red strawberry hair in a pony tail and currently standing up from her desk, next to the CEO’s office.

Her name was Virginia Potts, aka Pepper. She was Tony’s latest PA and the longest one so far who was able to deal with Tony’s uniqueness. Before she came along, Tony has 5 assistants quitting on him in the span of two months. No one could handle his crazy schedule or his cockiness.

Because of that, Harry volunteered to assist him at work, and became his new PA temporarily, just until the next person to fill in the position came around. It was interesting to work with his own flesh and blood, but it was also uncomfortable for the both of them. Tony wasn’t used to bossing him around and Harry wasn’t used to have Tony being so undisciplined with his schedule.

It was only for three weeks, but they were quite miserable. The line between professional and family was blurred. It wasn’t like what they were doing at home when the Jarvises were around and he was still the under-butler to the servants around the house.

For a while there, he thought no one would come to take the position from him. And then came along, one Virginia Potts. Apparently in his busy time, Tony had made an error in his recent calculation. It would have caused a serious damage to the company if not for Ms. Potts.

She came to the elevator door like an avenging angel and pepper sprayed Happy (Tony’s personal bodyguard/chauffeur) when he stopped her from confronting Tony about it. She barged into his office and that’s when Tony offered her the job and nicknamed her Pepper. 

Pepper was good for Tony. She wasn't afraid to reprimand him and ushered him to his meetings. She's even patient with him when he was being Tony. In conclusion, Pepper was an Angel. 

“Mr. Stark didn’t inform me that you will be coming,” Pepper had her brows furrowed and looked a bit annoyed.

The look and the way she said the last sentence sounded like she was accusing Tony of forgetting to tell her. Well for a genius, Tony has a terrible time-management and misplacing his appointments, so it was partially right for her to put the blame on Tony.

“Good morning, Pepper,” Harry smiled, and immediately defended his son. “It’s a surprise visit. I brought him brunch. And please, call me Harry.”

The young woman smiled softly,” I will call you Harry if you will stop calling me Pepper.”

“I’m so sorry. But the name suits you too much,” Harry chuckled. “I was there when you pepper sprayed Happy, you know.”

He said this while stealing a glance at Happy, who sighed and muttered something under his breath about being caught off guard.

“In my defense, I was trying to save him from losing money.” The young lady didn’t rolled her eyes, but Harry knew she wanted to.

“Yes, of course, ms. Potts,” said Harry. “So, did he have another appointment at this hour?”

Checking her notes, Pepper answered,”No. He’s free.” She looked up from her notebook to look at Harry with an amused expression. “Every time you came to surprise him, you always managed to come when he wasn’t busy. Are you a psychic?”

If Pepper wasn’t a no-maj, the healer would have been alarmed. Because a witch or a squib would have guessed that Harry had enchanted Pepper’s notebook with a copino exulco. The spell would continuously copied everything in pepper’s notebook to his book, which allowed him to check on Tony’s schedule.

Harry wasn’t stalking his son. He was not. He’s only checking on him. That’s all. That’s what parents do.

“You’re stalking me again.”

The moment Pepper closed the door behind him, Tony turned his smile into a frown in a complete 180. His son was currently pouting at him and had his arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t look amused at all at the surprise visit.

“I didn’t stalk you. I only…”

He frowned and put his palm up to stop Harry from talking. The young CEO started to count with his hand. “Two surprise lunches, one surprise dinner and now… One surprise brunch.” He sighed deeply as if tired. “There’s only so much of “surprise visit” (he quoted with his fingers) until I figure out you were using a spell to find out about my schedule.”

“I’m…” Harry let himself fell onto the comfy chair in front of Tony’s desk and looked anywhere besides at his son. He knew it was silly and predictable. Harry wasn’t an idiot. He knew his son would discover the spell sooner or later. After all, he was a genius who was also the first wizard to incorporate magic and tech.

But Harry couldn’t help himself. He’s been trying to curb his anxiety over his only child’s safety since he came back from his master of Death’s duty 4 years ago.

His mother-henning and worried came in full-blown since that time he came home to a tired-looking Maria and a Howard with a hole in his chest. After hearing the story and a face to face apology from James about bringing his son to an active war zone, Harry was agitated and bordering hysteria.

The memory of losing his family in Britain suffocated him so much, that the thought that he almost lost both his father and son terrified him beyond his wildest imagination. Picturing his mom getting depressed and worried sick over Howard’s disappearance brought the memory of him worrying about Hermione getting tortured in the Malfoy Manor back in full-blown. The feeling of being helpless was the worst.

The wizard got so worked up that he basically put a tracking spell on his family. He made ms. Peggy promised to watch over his adoptive parents through placing several agents around their house and the company.

With Tony, he basically stalked him around with his invisibility cloak. And when he couldn’t, he would ask one of Death’s servant in a form of a Grim to watch him and inform him if something happened to Tony.

This went on until Tony had enough when Harry barged in into Tony’s dorm room when there was little smoke coming out of the door. Apparently Tony had a little accident with his project and it started to spark a little fire. Rhodey was spraying the fire extinguisher when Harry busted the door.

Tony was furious and he drew a line over Harry’s overprotectiveness. After some time, Harry managed to only let a Grim followed him and not doing the job himself.

It’s safe to say that one of the reasons Tony hired Harold Hogan or more known as Happy wasn’t just because the man had helped him from being mugged, but it also because of Harry’s constant worry over his son. By having a personal bodyguard, Harry ceased to let a Grim followed his son. But of course he still put a tracking spell on him. That’s non-negotiable.

“So, when did you find out?” He looked back to watch his son’s expression.

Tony raised his eyebrow. “The first time was suspicious enough. The chances of you coming with lunch at a time when I had a free schedule was slim to none. And this sunglasses,” he tapped on the pair of dark spectacles on his desk,” can detect signs of magic.”

“So, basically you were letting your old man have his fun?” Harry pulled a fond smile at his son.

“Well, I’ve been busy,” Tony answered sheepishly. “And after that disastrous time of us working professionally…”

They both shuddered at the reminder of how awkward those weeks were.

His boy cleared his throat and continued,” Anyway, it was fun just eating and talking with you, Dad.”

He let his hand fall and sat down straighter. “It was fun for me as well, Orion.”

“But, you knoooooow,” Tony trailed his words. “You could always just call me and ask me to eat with you like a normal person would do.”

Harry gave his son an innocent smile while fixing his glasses. “Well, where’s the fun in that?”

Tony smirked at his dad’s response. “Well, you got that right. So what’s for brunch today?”

As they ate their meals, they got into talking about Peggy, who was sightseeing in Indonesia right now.

Fighting HYDRA has been tiring and time-consuming. Having the serum injected to her has been a huge help for her to keep her energy to fight in the war against HYDRA; yet, considering her age, it would be suspicious if she continued to head the organization.

Thus, after she finished cleansing SHIELD out of HYDRA, she retired last year and decided to start her adventure to travel around the world. But, she still received updates from her sucessor regarding HYDRA, whose still have agents everywhere in the world.

“Did she tell you when she will be back?” Harry asked curiously.

“Nope. Aunt Pegs said she’ll be back when she’s needed.” Tony said as he chewed on a piece of beef. “Her sucessor…mm… Angry, Merry…”

“Fury,” Harry corrected.

“Yeah, Fury.” Tony shook his head. “I have no idea how someone could survive being called Fury at school. I mean the names and jokes I could come out with. Oh dad, check this…”

“Tony,” the older man reprimanded his son.

“Okay, okay. So, Clint said that Fury has been intense on the HYDRA hunting. He’s been busting their asses on this sudden intel they got from uncle James.”

Since that first time his son met with agent Barton in Afghanistan, they have been keeping in contact. Just chatting and joking, no leaking out sensitive information or mission. Harry was happy that at least there was something good coming out of that terrible event.

“And?”

“So, it’s been almost 7 years and this HYDRA thing kept on growing its head back, over and over,” Tony said, waving his hand frustratedly. “Maybe with this Fury guy, they could finally be eradicated, dad. And then aunt Pegs would stop stressing out over them and uncle James could stop with his missions.”

“Tony,” Harry smiled tiredly at his son. “HYDRA is a massive organization. They are parasites that have been planting their seeds everywhere, not just in SHIELD. I know your are miffed about them. But Orion, this thing takes time to be flushed out of the society. You just have to be patient.”

The head of SI huffed before taking a deep breath and smiled. “Okay, change of topic. So where’s the ring?”

Harry couldn’t help but smile at the new topic. Finding the ring wasn’t easy. Harry scoured everywhere to search for it, but he finally found it. He took a velvety box out and opened it in front of Tony. In it was a plain silver band with several diamonds decorated it. Harry had put some powerful magic in it. Mostly protective spells and the likes. It would protect its wearer from harm.

Tony took it out and fiddled with it between his fingers in awe. “Oh wow, dad. Did you put your core in it? This is one powerful ring. Sadly, it’s not gold.”

“Why?”

Tony coughed softly and started to recite dramatically. “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one…”

“I fall for that, didn’t I?” Harry groaned and put his fingers on the bridge of his nose.

His son chuckled. “Well with the upcoming movie, how could I resist? Anyway, I’m glad you found this ring, Dad. I think she would appreciate you giving her Grandmother’s ring.”

“Yes, I think she would love it.”

“Funny thing was, when I introduced you to her, I didn’t think that you would have a relationship with her. I mean, she was okay, but I didn’t think she was your type, dad. And now 38 months later, you’re going to ask her to marry you,” Tony smirked. “I’m a badass matchmaker.”

Tony gave the ring back to him and Harry cradled it gently in his hand. “Is she the right one, though?”

He knew he sounded doubtful but it has only been 3 years. Harry loved his soon to be fiancé, no doubt. What he had with her couldn’t be compared to what he had with Ginny or Mia. With Ginny, it was mostly puppy love. With Mia, it was because they had a child together. But with his current girlfriend, it was a relationship that lasted for more than a couple years. It was a relationship that build on the foundation of hard work, compromise and compassion.

“Dad,” tony tried to reason with him. “When I saw you with her, it’s like I’m seeing father with mom. The way you guys act around each other was giving me hibies jivies. It’s so sweet, I feel my tooth aches from all the sweetness and cutesy.”

“Really?”

“Toothache, dad. Toothache,” Tony said dryly. “So, when will it be?”

“What?”

“When will you tell her?”

Before he could answer, Tony cut him. “Not her. I mean mom. When will you tell her?”

“I’ve told her and Howard weeks ago.” Harry took a swig out of water bottle. “Your mom would kill me if I proposed to my girl before telling her about it.”

“You tell them before me?” His son put his hand on his chest, pretending to look shocked and hurt. “But I’m your son.”

“And she’s our mother. She’s much scarier than you, son. And Howard was there, so he knew too,” Harry shrugged.

“Hmph.” Tony huffed again. “Moving on. So when will you ask her?”

***

October 31st 2000

Harry’s girlfriend has been living in DC and with her unconventional schedule, it was rather hard to guess when she would be in town. So far they have been making it work by talking on the phone and seeing each other whenever they were free. Every time she’s back in DC, harry would come to stay with her. And the other way around, whenever she was in New York, she would be staying in Harry's apartment. The apartment was a present from Howard and Maria when they found out that he was seeing someone. They were meddlesome but in a good way. And Harry did love his apartment.

Their long-distance relationship worked and the distance did bring them closer together. With the blessing from his family, Harry felt confident to ask her hand in marriage. And then, when she agreed to marry him, Harry would be able tell her about his family.

It's not like he hasn’t bring her home to meet his son and parents before. They have met and ate together. She like them enough and they adored her as well. She just didn’t know that Tony was his biological son and that he was adopted by the Starks.

Then he would petition the American wizarding’s government to give him permission to tell her about the magical world before the actual wedding. He trusted her with his family, so there’s no doubt he trust her with his other world.

And finally, the time came for his girlfriend to have some times off. She would be staying and celebrating Halloween with him in New York.

Harry was dressing up as Gandalf, the irony. While his girl dressed as Lady Galadriel. It was after all in the spirit of the upcoming Lord of the Ring movie.

“Honey, could you bring me the candies?” Harry stood close to his apartment door with a staff on his hand.

His beautiful black haired girlfriend, whose wearing a blonde wig and long white dress, took the bowl of candies in her hand. She gave him a sweet peck in the lips before handing the bowl to him.

“Here you go. It’s not even 7 yet. I’m not sure the kids will start banging on our door, you know,” she teased him.

Harry wasnt embarased to say that he was smittened when she said the word our. He could just hear his son's voice saying,"You got it bad, Dad."

“I’m not sure either, but…” Harry started to fish out something out of the bowl of trick or treating candies. “I was hoping to ask you about something first.”

She put her hands on her hips and cooked her head to the side. “And what would that be?”

He put the bowl on top of the drawer closest to him and started to kneel in front of her. He brandished the open box of ring in his hand, looking up lovingly towards his girlfriend and asked softly. “Maria Hill, would you give me the honor of being your husband?”

***