Changing Tides

Harry felt as if he were playing a dangerous game of hide and seek, only be was doing both the hiding and the seeking all at once.  While Bruce now knew of the Palladium issue, the rest of the tower didn't.  Neville, Hermione, and Blaise were told about the strange man Harry had seen (and he still didn't know why he had been the only one), but they were the only ones that knew.  Romanoff was kept in the dark about everything despite how hard she tried to eavesdrop and, frankly, Harry was tired of it.  All he wanted to do was stand in the middle of his living room and scream out everything that was going on.

Instead, he sent a letter off to Malfoy, requesting potion ingredients.  Sure, the blond git would question why Blaise's boss needed the strange list, but Harry had an idea for that.  Bruce was researching human biology, after all, and Harry (as Tony) had promised to give him random things to test with.  Or so the entire house thought.

So Blaise would think they were for Bruce, Bruce would think they were home remedies Harry thought of, and nobody else would know anything.

Harry rubbed his eyes, tired in every bone in his body.  He didn't want to admit it to Hermione and get her "I told you so" speech, but the Expo was becoming a bad idea.  He couldn't concentrate on that and his own issues at the same time – it was giving him a massive headache.  Thankfully Hermione and Blaise were doing most of the work on that front, but it didn't ease his mind.  He was Tony Stark and he should be at his own events, giving speeches and shaking hands.

"Earth to Tony."

Harry jumped as something sharp poked his side.  "Christ, Bruce, what was that for?"

Bruce shrugged.  "You were staring off into the wall and didn't respond the first eight times I tried to call your name.  Everything okay?"

"Just peachy.  I mean hell, here I am working my ass off when, in a year, I might not even have one."  Harry rubbed his eyes again, feeling a little guilty about snapping at Bruce, but not really wanting to apologize either.  "When was the last time we slept?"

"I slept about three hours ago."  Bruce handed him a glass with a sickly green liquid in it.  "Here.  I found your notes and followed them exactly.  Did one of your relatives believe in witchcraft or something?"

That was Bruce-speak for "I found your potions text and I'm a little weirded out by it."  There went the home remedy idea.  Harry shrugged and wrapped both hands around the glass, letting it get some kind of temperature in it since this particular potion always came out almost frozen.  Sometimes, magic and the way ingredients mixed really sucked.

"Something like that," Harry told him.  "The headache stuff worked in the past, so there's no reason this shouldn't."

"I saw something called a Calming Draught in there.  Think it would work?"

The hope in his eyes jerked Harry's heart around in his chest.  He smiled softly and reached a hand forward to rest it on Bruce's shoulder.  "Buddy, I think you got this calm thing down well enough."

"It wouldn't hurt to try."  He shrugged and Harry figured it was mostly to get the hand off his shoulder.  "For now, meditation works."

"Anything else you're trying?"  Harry leaned back again to flip through a few elements on the screen in front of him.

"I tried opium once.  A few other drugs across the places I ran."  Bruce flicked his hand, sending a mass of data toward Harry.  "Nothing seems to help."

"Maybe fighting it isn't what you should be doing."  Harry stared at the data, his eyes reading, but his brain not processing.  "Maybe you should start accepting who you are."

"A monster?"

"A man trying to do good in the world in his own way."  Harry shrugged and sent the data back.  "I'm an engineer, Bruce, not a biologist. What does this mean?"

Bruce eyed him for a moment before sighing.  "Can you have Jarvis bring this—Ah, thanks."  He stood as soon as Jarvis brought the information to project into the room.  "You tried about six of the elements, but you didn't try combinations.  I don't want to get your hopes up—"

"My hopes are pretty low."

"—but I don't think there's a good chance of us finding a replacement."  Bruce poked at a few things, knocking off bits and pieces.  "Less than fifteen percent."

Harry stared at the chart in front of them.  "I've died nearly six times in my life," he said finally.  "When I was a year old, several times through my schooling, once when I was seventeen, and then once while I was in Afghanistan.  I plan on living out my full nine lives, Doctor Banner."

"Not all of us are cats."  Bruce took his glasses off to rub his nose.  "One day, our luck is going to run out."

Harry had nothing to say to that.  He looked away, lips pressed together and trying not to think about how unfair this was.

"Tony, I think you should tell the others."

The image flickered a bit behind Bruce and Harry made a face.  He would need to look at the coding again, make sure the wires weren't crossed (as he had done the first time he installed Jarvis).  "I'm not telling them anything."

"Keeping this to yourself is going to kill you more than the Palladium."

Harry pushed his chair back roughly and stood.  "Don't, Bruce, just don't.  This is my choice and I won't tell them.  They don't need to fret and worry about my body or my health right now, okay?  We have bigger things to focus on."

"Tony—"

"And we're going to find a cure.  You're going to find it because you're brilliant at this stuff.  We're going to keep everything about the Palladium poisoning to this lab and it won't leave it, understood?"

Bruce looked away, fingers gripping tightly to the desk near him.  "I disagree, but this is your house.  I understand."

"Good.  I'm going to make some lunch, do you want anything?"

Bruce shook his head.  "Not really.  Bring down the leftovers and I'll eat that."

Harry nodded and left the lab as quickly as he could.  The ride up to his penthouse was silent (the elevator used to have cheesy music, but Harry had put a stop to that as soon as he got in), as was the floor once he stepped out.  Neville was at the expo with Hermione and Blaise while Romanoff was probably still in her borrowed room.

No, scratch that.  She was leaning over his dining room table watching a screen on the surface.  Harry took a step closer and frowned when he heard the audio coming out of it.

"…at this stuff.  We're going to keep everything about the Palladium poisoning to this lab—"

She flicked her fingers and the video jumped back a few seconds, repeating his words again.  Harry narrowed his eyes, shoved his hands in his pockets, and leaned against the door frame.

"Fury swore he wouldn't send any more spies on me, but I always pegged him for a dirty liar," Harry told her.  Romanoff simply replaced the video, saying nothing.  He sighed and looked away.  "So you brought the good doctor here in order to diagnose and do what?  Try to save me?"

"I had no idea why Director Fury wanted Doctor Banner here.  I advised him that it was unwise to have an untamed animal in a city like this."  She finally looked up, eyes burning holes in Harry's brain.  "Now that I know the reason, I'm confused.  Who knows of this, Stark?"

There was no point in lying to her.  "Me, you, and Bruce."

"Your friends are kept in the dark?"

"Don't play stupid with me, Agent."  Harry pushed off the doorframe and sat across from her.  "What's your real question?  How did you even know what to look for?"

"It's my job to know things, Stark.  I researched your reactor and the ingredients to how it works.  It wasn't hard to come to this conclusion."  Her eyes lowered.  "Agent Barton—"

"Doesn't know either."  Harry felt a little guilty as her fingers twitched and tried not to think about how easy it was for someone to figure out he was dying.  Clint didn't talk much about who he knew at SHIELD, but he did know that this particular Agent was close to him.  "Don't tell him."

"You don't think he already knows?"

"If he did, he wouldn't be in New Mexico."  Harry shook his head.  "Lay off, Agent.  I know what I'm doing."

"We have no record of you dying as an infant."

Harry tried not to laugh, a little glad that Fury was right in some things.  His Agents obviously didn't know who he was.  "Unfortunate accident.  I'm still alive."

"And your schooling?"

This wasn't really a good thing, but Harry was glad for once that Stane had an obsession for trying to kill Tony Stark.  "You didn't read all the reports?  My lab exploded at one point."

"You weren't in there."

Harry clutched at the spot above his reactor.  "My heart!  Agent, my life is my lab.  And before you ask, seventeen was my car accident."  Seventeen was when he finally managed to kill Voldemort, the bastard.  "Afghanistan is what your people tried to debrief me on.  Are we done talking about this?"

"You need to tell Clint."

He was going to get in trouble one day with this whole empathy thing he had with upset people.  Not that she showed she was upset, but Harry could tell.  He offered a small smile and reached forward to take her hand.  She flinched and tried to pull away, but Harry held fast.

"Romanoff, Natasha… You want me to tell Clint something he doesn't want to hear right now.  No, he doesn't need to hear it right now.  I've done the tests, I'm not going to die anytime in the next few weeks.  If life sucks, it'll be a year.  If life doesn't suck, it could be five.  I don't want to live with people looking at me as if I'll break."  Harry squeezed her hand once before pulling away.  "I'll make my amends to the world before I go.  I'll make sure my loose ends are tied up."

"Stark, your company isn't on stable ground yet."

"It still has Pepper.  It's crawling out of the hole I put it in."  Harry stood and went to the attached kitchen.  "Grilled cheese?"

It took a long time for her to answer.  "I expect two slices of ham between my swiss cheese."

Harry grinned and opened his fridge.  "Wouldn't dream of making them any other way."