Harley knew his jaw had dropped. How could it not have with the insane amount of things stuffed into his garage? Everything here was new and shiny and so far out of his family's price range it was almost laughable. There was even a car. A car. He couldn't think of any other twelve year olds who had a car, nevermind anything as nice as this.
He noticed what looked like a chemistry set of some type in the back, and, while he knew next to nothing about that particular science, Harley knew that it must be state of the art just like everything else.
His eyes fell upon the robot, a bright orange machine with an arm to grip things, that was actually waving at him. A laugh sprung to his lips unbidden and he waved back before focusing again on the note. The Mechanic had given him this, all of this. And it was amazing.
"Mr. Keener," a voice called from the room around him. It was slightly mechanical, with a forgein accent that Harley didn't recognize. The voice countiued as he looked around for a source. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am an artifical intelligence system that Mr. Stark has created to assist you."
"Whoa..." Harley's awed remark came out before he could stop it, and his backpack finally dropped from its place on his shoulder and onto the ground. Then he remebered Tony's AI system. "Are you JARVIS?"
The AI laughed softly and Harly had no idea that AI sytems were able to express emotions that were almost human like, but Tony was a genius.
"While our programming is similar, JARVIS and I are not the same. He is wherever Mr. Stark is, while you are my priority." The AI answered. "You may call me YINSIN."
"This is so cool," Harley said breathlessly, still trying to take in everything around him at once. He moved towards the potato gun mark II and touched it reverently. Tony had made this, he had done all of this, for him.
"Hey kid." Harley whipped around at the sound of that voice. Tony Stark, in sunglasses, dark jeans and a heavy metal band tee shirt, was leaning nonchalantly on the doorway of his garage. Last time Harley had seen him, he was driving away to go save the world, leaving Rose Hill far behind. He looked better now, more relaxed.
"I... This... I mean... This is," Harley struggled to find any words that could express any amount of the wonder he was feeling. He ended up gensturing helplessly to the room around him.
Tony, the Mechanic, grinned and pushed himself off of the door frame, walking further into the garage towards Harley. The doors automatically closed behind him and Harley knew they couldn't do that yesterday. "I know, I'm a lot to take in. People say that a lot. Because I'm awesome."
He ruffled the blond hair as he passed Harley, going towards the potato gun. He picked it up and aimed at a far wall. Suddenly, a holographic target appeared in midair, making Harley gasp and Tony grin at him. Tony's potato soared right through it, making the target disapear, as he started explaining his new design. "See how this one's barrel's longer? It makes the shot up to fifteen percent more accurate, which helps discourage pesky intruders."
"Like you?" Harley got over his awe enough to form a somewhat smart response.
Tony put the potato gun back on the table and clutch his chest. "I'm wounded, kid. I thought we had something special, with us being conneted and all."
But Harley didn't laugh at the joke, staring at where Tony's hand was resting on his chest, and the distict lack of light coming from there. "Where's your thing? Your Arc Reactor?" He asked, pointing.
"Ah, yes, my thing, as you put it, very eloquent by the way, has been removed along with the shrapnal that it was protecting me from," Tony answered as he turned to the computer and hit a button to turn off the Stark Industries sceen saver that was bouncing around the moniter. "But, that's all in the past now, long gone."
"Oh," Harley said, not knowing anything else to say. His focus quickly turned back to what must be thousands upon thousands of dollars of technology around him. "So, umm, this is" he wanted to say something like amazing or awesome, but, instead, all that came out was "a lot."
"I'm a go big or go home kinda guy, kid. Besides, I owed you one for letting me crash here." Tony sat down in the chair on front of the computer, facing Harley who was still standing where he stopped when he came in.
"I think this is a little bit more than one, Tony," Harley said, staring down at his hands. "I don't think my mom will like it. It's" he again searched for a word like fantastic and magical, but came up with "a lot."
Tony waggled a finger at him. "Ah, see that's where you're wrong, shorty. She came home at eleven today and was not thrilled to see some strange people, yes multiple because even I couldn't assemble this alone in the time you're at school, going in and out of her garage. So, Patricia and I had a lovely chat about your future, and I convinced her that this was a great idea. Because I'm awesome. You're welcome."
Harley couldn't picture his mom having a conversation with Tony. He couldn't even picture them in the same room. "But, she hates that I come out here all time. She's always saying I shouldn't waste my time here."
Tony nodded. "Parents do that, until I dropped phrases like 'the Stark Young Inventor's Scholarship' or 'a possible future career at Stark Industries.' Parents love that stuff."
"Really?" Harley whispered, as if his voice alone could break such a big statement. "You would hire me?"
"Well, I'd wait until you got a bit taller. Can't be breaking child labor laws," Tony said as he looked at Harley over his shades. "Unless you don't want it. World's a big place, you don't need to settle for anything just yet, although if you do something awful like become a nazi or try to join Hammer Industries, there will be disowning."
"I think there needs to be owning for there to be disowning," Harley managed to get out. Yesterday he didn't know what he was going to do next month, nevermind for the rest of life. But now, Tony, his hero for so long, someone who took the time to listen to him, was telling him he could have an education and a future job. Rose Hill was a town where most people stayed the rest of their lives, but he was being offered his ticket out on a silver platter. It was exciting. And terrifying.
"Well, I don't think owning would be the right word. Renting, maybe? I asked your mom if you could come and stay with me on some of your breaks-"
"You did?" Harley inturrupted in amazement. Tony tooked off his sunglasses and put them on the table next to the computer.
"I do like you, Harley, obviously, I mean look around you. You were there for me in a tough spot, and," he paused, looking pained. He looked down at his hands. "Look, kid, I'm not that great with emotions and words, but it was fun, being here, talking to you. And" he ran a hand through his hair laughing bitterly. "You know, my dad was shit too, and I told myself I was never going to have kids, and I haven't, but us hanging out was great, and you're smart as hell and a sarcastic little shit and a little bit alone. A lot like I was. So, I thought I could help you, and you could help me."
Harley had froze at the beginning of the speech. He had wanted Tony to come back, but he hadn't expected it.
"This seems like a good time for a hug," the AI, YINSIN, interjected, breaking their pregnant silence.
"Yeah, thanks for the tip, YINSIN," Tony said tightly. Finally looking up at Harley. "Ah hell, kid, bring it in." And he rolled his chair the few feet over to Harley and wrapped his arms around the kid, albiet a little awkwardly. Harley stayed frozen from the emotion outburst for a few seconds, but wrapped his own arms tightly around Tony as well.
"Thanks, Mechanic," the kid said into Tony's shirt. Tony just squeezed tighter, not knowing how to respond.
The hug broke off awkwardly, like it began, and Tony stood up and kicked the chair back where it was supposed to be. "So," he cleared his throat as if to get rid of the emotion there. "You've met YINSIN then?"
Harley looked anywhere but at Tony, finally settling on his disguarded backpack on the ground. "Yeah, he's cool."
"Thank you, Harley," YINSIN said.
"Of course he's cool, I made him. Everything I make is cool." The orange claw robot waved and beeped it what could only be agreement. "See, even DJ agrees."
"Your robots have weird names," Harley pointed out as he went to see DJ, who rolled to meet him halfway. DJ seemed to ressemble a puppy in the way he was practically preening when Harley pet his orange body.
"Well, that's rude," Tony said accusingly as he went up to DJ as well. "And DJ is named after one of my bots. It stands for DUM-E Jr."
"Why woukd you name a robot Dummy?" Harley asked, still petting the robot in from of him.
"Because he's an idiot," at Harley distainful look Tony countiued. "Seriously, there had to be rules made about DUM-E and fire extinguishes. Plus my coffee machine will never be the same. But, DJ here," he patted said robot, which beeped in acknowlegdement. "Has all those kinks worked out, which is awesome."
"Where's DUM-E then?" DJ seemed intent on fixing Harley lopsided collar, tickling him in the process.
"Back at my place, but I didn't come all this way to talk about my idiot robots." DJ hit Tony with his arm. "Ow! I wasn't talking about you!" DJ beeped in apology, smoothing down the rumpled shirt while Harley laughed. "Traitors."
Harley laughed harder and even Tony ended up smiling. "Don't make me regret staying here, kid. My plan was to leave all this stuff here and be gone by the time you got back, but YINSIN told me it was stupid to give you a bunch of state of the art equipment and expect you not to blow yourself up."
"It was a stupid idea," the AI interjected. "And Mrs. Keener agreed."
"Yeah, yeah, safety. I get it," Tony said back, snapishly. "You all know best. So, kid, I have to be on a flight to New York in..." He checked his wrist and realized he wasn't wearing a watch.
"Four hours," YINSIN supplied.
"Yeah that, so let's introduce you to everything," Tony said, excited.
The next three hours were a whirlwind. Full of buttons and shiny things. Every new peice of technology was explored and played with. Tony assured him that YINSIN could explain most of the stuff to him if he forgot, and that, if anything went wrong, the AI had full phone capabilites and could get help. He learned how to work the holographic displays that worked everywhere in the garage and that apparently there was an arc reactor powering everything in the room, so the garage didn't use too much town power. That would have been expensive. Tony had also furnished the little landing above the garage into a little room complete with a bed and some extra cloths. He had even added a bathroom as well as a fridge. For the late nights, Tony had told him. Apparently, YINSIN could also order food and anything else and it would charge to Tony.
"Just don't go over your spending limit," Tony warned.
"What's my limit?" Harley asked curiously.
"You'll have to find out," was the mysterious answer.
The last thing Tony showed him was the security system. It was mostly based on YINSIN's facial recognition and his own voice commands, but would stop anyone who didn't have access pretty easily.
"And I think that's it," Tony said as he fell back onto the computer chair. Harley pulled himself up to sit on one of the tables.
"This is awesome, Tony."
"Yeah. Wait, I almost forgot" Tony said, putting his hand into his pants pocket, and throwing something at Harley. He caught it and examined it.
"It's a phone," Harley stated.
"Not just any phone, it's your new StarkPhone. It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. And I do. YINSIN can work through that too and my number's already in there, so you can call or text whenever."
"Awesome!"
"Yeah," Tony smile looked tired as he pulled himself from the chair. "I got to go, but I'll see you soon, kid."
Harley jumped down from the table, leaving the phone, and threw himself on Tony for another somewhat awkward hug. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Tony hugged back, and they broke apart faster this time.
"Anytime, kid." He ruffled Harley's hair on his way to the door that opened automatically. "See ya."
"Bye," Harley answered as the doors closed. Leaving him in his new awesome garage.
AN: Thanks for reading! And this is currently just a one shot, but I was debating on expanding it. No promises though!