Chapter 3
Clint returned before Blaise and Harry really wasn't sure whether or not it was a good or a bad thing. He was in the workshop, smoothing out a few plans for his prototype, when the lab door opened and an arrow with a sandwich attached to the tip embedded itself in the desk.
"There are better ways of delivering me food," he said, carefully peeling the ham and cheese away from the arrow. "And you owe me a new desk, now."
"Come on, I made sure not to hit anywhere the pretty screens come out of."
Harry didn't want to admit that Clint was right, so he took a bit out of the sandwich instead.
Clint hopped up onto the desk, getting comfortable in his new seat before pulling the arrow out. "So… Pepper isn't talking to you."
"She's mad that I didn't get her up while Miranda was here." Harry shrugged and stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth.
"Your doc?" Clint reached forward and pokes at Harry's head. "I don't see any scrapes on you."
"That's the point of Miranda, Clint. She makes sure I don't have any scars." Harry leaned away from him. "I thought you'd be at base longer."
"The Director figured I had more important things to deal with." Clint frowned and stuffed the arrow back where it belonged. "You didn't return my calls."
"I don't—"
"Stop being an ass. Why didn't you let me know you were fine?"
Harry pushed at the floor with his feet so the chair rocked. Honestly, he wasn't sure why he didn't call Clint back. Sure, he had gotten into lesser scrapes before and instantly called Clint to brag. He had also gotten into worse and called Clint to compare battle scars. But he had never, in the year that they had been friends, ignored him. This was new territory for both of them.
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "I thought you were on a tight mission?"
"A voice mail doesn't hurt." Clint leaned forward, resting the back of his hand on Harry's forehead. "You don't seem sick."
Harry batted the hand away. "Quit it. Maybe I just wanted to go home and sleep."
"And not brag about how you brought down someone using those kinds of whips?" Clint scoffed. "Please, try again."
"I can't distract you with a bow?"
Clint's eyes lit up and, for a second, Harry thought he had won. However, Clint quickly schooled his expression and crossed his arms. "Not cool."
"Later, then. When it's actually finished and I sort of test it."
Clint pointed his finger at Harry. "No untested weapons! It might come out backwards and I'd shoot myself instead."
"Oh, Clint, don't lie. You could shoot wildly in the air and the arrow would still hit the target a mile away." It was pretty scary how often Clint would hit the center of a target and still tell Harry that it wasn't good enough, that it had to be better.
"Stop trying to stroke my ego and get on with it." Clint shifted forward so he could dangle his feet off the front edge of the desk.
"I guess I just got to thinking," Harry admitted. "About Vanko and the hatred he had."
"Ivan Vanko, the Russian scientist? We were watching his father until he died."
"Yeah, well, maybe you should have watched him, too." Harry rubbed at his eyes. "He's smart, probably more so than I'm supposed to be. It's just a shame to see all that talent wasted in someone so angry."
"When you work around SHIELD," Clint said slowly, "you get used to seeing that. People waste their talents all the time."
"You don't."
"That's because I got recruited as soon as they found me." Clint shrugged. "You know, it's not just who you are, but where you come from."
Harry laughed, he couldn't help it. "You really think so?"
"Of course. If Vanko had been born on U.S. soil like his father wanted, do you think he would have become a criminal? Would he have attacked you?"
Would Harry still have saved the entire wizarding world had he not grown up abused and unloved? Hell if he knew the answer. He would like to think that he would, but he just didn't know. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Did you know what happened to Vanko's father?" Harry shook his head, so Clint continued. "He was deported by Howard Stark because they had different business views. Howard didn't like where Anton was going with a few of the business deals, so he pulled strings and sent him off."
Harry frowned, trying to recall if he had seen that particular memory or if it was stored in the pensive still. "So Vanko was getting revenge on the Stark family."
"By attacking the only one left alive. At least, that's how Coulson saw it. He talked my ear off while we were on our way back."
"He doesn't seem like one to talk."
"Get him on a tangent about something he likes and he'll never shut up. That man loves information and, when I asked about what happened, he wouldn't stop."
"Well, none of this really matters." Harry stood and rubbed at his chest, trying not to wince. Now that he knew he had a build up in the reactor, it felt as if it stung more than usual. "Does it?"
"I don't know, Tony. Do you think that if he had your opportunities, all of your opportunities, that he would have still done it? If your father hadn't extracted his father, would he have grown up with so much hatred?"
"Didn't you already ask me that?"
"Maybe." Clint slid off the desk and followed Harry around. "You didn't exactly answer me before."
"And I won't answer you now because I don't know." Harry opened the cabinet where he kept the other reactors, frowning at them. Maybe he could just remake the core, find a way to easily pull that out and replace it when it got too bad.
Clint sighed and came up behind him. "What are you doing, Tony?"
"I can't stare at life-saving devices and think?" Harry shut the cabinet door. "Clint, go take a shower and get some sleep. Rhodey should be coming back eventually and I need to talk to him."
"Is that your polite way of saying 'fuck off, Clint, and leave me alone'?"
Harry just smiled, not needing to actually say that yes, it was. Clint threw up his hands with a sigh and backed toward the door.
"Whatever, I get it. We doing dinner tonight?"
"Same time. If you have a special request, tell Edwin if you see him, Jarvis if you don't."
"See you then." Clint grabbed one of the tablets that rested on the desk before disappearing upstairs.
Harry rolled his eyes at the theft, not really worried about it. As soon as Clint turned it on, he would notice it didn't work. Mainly because that was just the outer casing – Harry had taken out the guts of the machine earlier to poke at it and see if he could do better than Apple or Samsung or whoever else out there. He had already made most of the tech 3D if you could afford it, but he was proud that his screens (so far) rated the most durable and reliable.
He opened the cabinet once more with the reactors and frowned, knowing that he was on his own. He pulled one out and figured he might as well put it in and hope that it took another year for the new one to corrode. Optimistic was usually never his forte, but he had grown more into accepting it lately.
Harry just managed to press the new reactor into his chest when Jarvis informed him of Blaise's arrival. He turned to the door just as his friend came down the stairs, typed in the code, and came into the lab. Harry stood in front of where the corroded reactor was and hoped his friend wouldn't see it.
"I don't want to know details," Harry told him. "Just that it's done."
"It's done, but we might have a problem." Blaise ran a hand over his head. "Someone tried to help him escape the prison. I was just barely able to get it under control."
"Shit. Do we have any idea of who—"
"I have a few and I can watch them easily enough through the military." Blaise stepped closer and took hold of Harry's chin, tilting his head from side to side. "How much did she fix?"
Harry pulled away. "Why are you asking me questions you already know?"
"Harry—"
"Don't, Blaise. I don't get to be upset when you go off to help a war, you don't get to be upset when some amateur tries to beat me up." Harry crossed his arms. "I'm fine."
"You're a terrible liar." Blaise glanced down to the table and at the reactor there. "What's that?"
"Nothing." Harry turned to pick it up, but Blaise summoned it before he could. "Blaise…"
"What the hell is around it?"
"I was testing it," Harry quickly lied. "Seeing what kind of poisons or acids it could hold up to. You know, just in case."
"What's this from, then?"
Harry forced himself to look at Blaise. If they looked at each other, maybe Blaise would believe him. "Mercury."
No, Blaise didn't believe him. Harry could see it in his eyes, but Blaise did put the reactor back down. "You'll tell me when you really need help, right?"
"Of course I will. Blaise, you're my best friend."
The corner of Blaise's mouth quirked up slightly. "Yeah, I guess I am. Does that mean I get to call you out on your bullshit?"
"Can it wait until after the expo opening? I'm kind of busy on that front." It would also give him enough time to think of a better excuse than Mercury.
"Yeah, Harry, it can wait." Blaise patted Harry's shoulder a few times before pulling them close enough that their foreheads touched. "Just don't lock me out."
"I save that torture for Clint. You're good."
"Asshole." Blaise grinned and backed off. "I'm going to go take Hermione and distract her for a few hours. We'll see you at dinner."
Harry wrinkled his nose and made a gagging noise. "Didn't need to know that, ew. Thinking of my friend doing what I know you're implying is not how I want to spend my evening."
Blaise laughed, heading for the door. "Consider it payback for making me go into a French prison."
Harry rolled his eyes and said nothing else as Blaise went up the stairs. He was glad his friend was back and that Vanko was one less thing to worry about. He had no doubts that Blaise would make sure the man's death looked like an accident – it was just whomever tried to help him escape that worried Harry now. If Blaise could watch them easily through the military, that didn't bode well.
He sighed and stared at the corroded reactor, wondering when he was ever going to get a chance to just relax and enjoy life. He didn't expect things to be normal after he announced that he was Iron Man, but he wasn't sure he expected quite this much drama.
"Jarvis?
"Sir?"
"Find me a way to keep track of the Palladium levels. The last thing I want to do is kneel over and die without warning."
"Yes, sir. Am I to assume that this is private?"
"Nobody but me for now," Harry agreed. "They don't need to worry."
He stood in silence, unable to really think of a solution, for a long time.