Title: Protection Detail

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Warner Bros, Bloomsbury. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Warnings: language

Chapter 8

It was fortunate that Harry wasn't expecting to interact with Bruce in public in the near future, because he had no idea how to act around any kind of family that didn't despise the air he breathed. With the Dursley's as his only frame of reference, Harry was barely capable of genuinely being comfortable around anyone claiming a familial relationship to him, including the Weasleys, although he did know that with Bruce it was an entirely fake relationship. It meant that Harry could most likely fake his way through any situation with Bruce, but he wasn't completely sure.

Nevertheless he did his best to act normally as he made his way to Stark Tower, not allowing himself to consider Bruce coming to meet him outside the tower or in the lobby. The man knew that Harry was able to make his way up to their floor. It would be fine.

Harry, noting a café on the other side of the street, decided to step inside and get a coffee, so that he could give himself some time to calm down as well as wake himself up from the very long night he had had.

Stark had sent over a box of files, disguised as moving materials (Harry had supposedly only moved in last week, and as a teenager it wasn't unfeasible that he was still buying things to fill his house) two nights ago. Included was not only the final report on the 'Liberators' mission, which had been officially proven to have been entirely disbanded and very unlikely to start up again, but a couple of other files and pieces of information that Harry had requested including any numbers or data he could find on S.H.I.E.L.D. missions that had failed in the last year that had any relation to mutants or mutant affairs.

Harry figured that whoever it was sabotaging S.H.I.E.L.D., at least from what he could work out with the information he was working with, was perhaps someone trying to do something about mutants, either to help their rights movement, or was determined to wipe them out entirely.

Either way it was this request, of information on failed missions that had required Harry to stay up almost the entirety of the night before. While S.H.I.E.L.D. did have an incredible success rate, far above any other spy agency in the world, like any agency some missions were always going to fail. In the past year, 10 involving mutants had failed, and reading through the reports for all of them, to try and find a connection, had been very very hard and very very time consuming.

He hadn't found one yet, but Harry was sure he would. He knew just wasn't looking in the right places. He would have to wait and see if another mission failed on the same scale, or in the same manner as his own had, and then try and find a link with some of the other past failed missions.

"I'll have a large cappuccino, please." Harry requested of the cashier.

"Would that be a grande or a venti, sir?"

Harry rolled his eyes but replied in his politest tone. "Whichever one is larger, please."

"And your name, sir?"

"Harry."

Harry paid and went to stand at the edge of the large crowd surrounding the pick-up area.

"Harry? Harry Potter?"

He turned around at the sound of his name, and saw someone who he knew he had met somewhere around S.H.I.E.L.D.. Harry managed to remember his name just as the man came to a stop in front of him.

"Hello. Cliff right? With the knives?" Harry held out his hand to shake, taking note of the gun under Cliff's coat in a holster and the knives he could just see the faint outline of pressing into his pants. He knew just how well the man could throw them, having spent a couple of hours working in the S.H.I.E.L.D. training room before and since becoming an official agent.

"Yeah, that's me. Fancy seeing you here."

Harry gave a small grin. "Yeah, crazy. Look, mate, I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm going to my uncle's for lunch and I'm gonna be late. I'll catch up with you back at HQ some time, yeah?"

"Oh, sure. Sounds great." Cliff replied. "Here, what's your number? I'll call you."

Harry pulled out his phone and they exchanged numbers, then after collecting his coffee, said goodbye and made his way out of the café and toward Stark tower again. He wouldn't have minded staying to chat, but he had been looking forward to a chance to stop acting like a twentyish year old for a week now, and having to continue the charade for even a little while longer when he didn't have to would have been exhausting.

Entering the building, Harry took a moment to admire the extraordinary effort that had gone into the building and designing of the Tower. Although it was nothing like Hogwarts, or really anything in the magical world, it was awe inspiring in its own, muggle, way. Harry smiled at the receptionist as he walked over to the lift stepping in when it arrived.

Harry pressed the button for the top-most floor, and greeted J.A.R.V.I.S.. He still found the concept of a non-sentient sentience to be odd, even after he saw what Stark adamantly professed was the brain. He guessed he was just too used to true sentient objects like the Sorting Hat, and Hogwarts to an extent, that had never been 'programmed' to act like they did, but just were. The idea that this 'machine' had been built entirely by human hands, and ran off something as simple as electricity was… mind-boggling. This was probably the closest Harry would ever come to understanding Arthur Weasley's fascination with plugs and electricity.

Either way, no matter that it made him uncomfortable, Harry was going to be polite to the AI like his British, Petunia-enforced, upbringing demanded.

When the lift doors opened the first thing Harry saw was Thor's massive chest. He had mostly moved on from his unfortunate height issues, but finding himself almost a foot shorter than someone, no matter that they were a god from another plane of existence, was never going to be something he enjoyed. Harry just took solace in knowing that he had beaten the thunder god in a fight and was perfectly capable of doing it again.

Thor stood in front of Harry with his hand held out at Harry's chest height, the fingers curled around his palm making a fist.

"Fist me."

Harry blinked at the completely unexpected offer, then realised who he was talking to. "I'm pretty sure that's not what you wanted to ask. Although if it was" Harry flicked his gaze up and down the gods well defined body "I'm all for it."

Behind Thor, in the living room he saw Stark laughing and Banner grinning widely and figured it would be far easier to deal with someone who perhaps had some idea of what was going on.

"Come on, mate. Let's go and work out what mess you've got yourself into." Harry spun the demi-god around with a push to his elbow, and together they wandered over to the couches where the two geniuses were sitting.

After taking a seat for himself Harry looked over at the two still smiling men. "Alright, which of you two set him up for whatever that was?" Harry looked at Stark pointedly, but the man just grinned and pointed at Banner.

"Banner?" Harry asked in surprise, but before he had a chance to continue speaking he was interrupted by Stark.

"Ah ah ah." He reprimanded. "That's your uncle you're speaking to. First names only. You should probably call us all by our first names, just to keep in the habit."

Harry huffed but knew the man was right. "Ok then. Bruce what did you do to Thor?"

Harry reached out with his hand and pulled Thor's fist down to rest in his lap, after realising that the demi-god was still holding it up.

"Nothing, actually. Thor saw some teenagers doing it out in the city a couple of days ago and has been greeting everyone the same way since. Except this morning, pre-coffee, I thought it was a fantastic idea to say 'fist me, bro' when Thor walked into the kitchen, and that… well… seems to have been adopted."

"So, it is not correct to say 'fist me'?" Thor asked.

"No, big guy, it's really not. Just go back to how you were doing it before, 'kay?" Tony replied.

Thor nodded, but before he had a chance to reply, Harry interrupted him, "I see. So that was a greeting, then?"

At this Stark actually looked up from the pad of paper he was no doubt designing something on. "You don't know what that was? What kind of rock have you been living under to not know what fist-bumping is?"

Harry rolled his eyes in response. "I don't know about a rock, but I have been living in an entirely different world almost exclusively since 1997. That's like me asking you about… I don't know… your opinion on the latest addition to chocolate frog cards. You'd have no idea what I was talking about. Wizarding and Muggle societies are extremely separated."

"Seriously. You're that isolated? So tell me about the wizarding teenage greeting then. Do they tap their wands together or something?"

"I, honestly, have no idea. Although, "he continued "I do know far too much about how muggle teenagers act nowadays. Pretending to be one was the worst decision I ever made. I haven't said 'like' so much before in my life, and all the high-fiving and the clothes and the constant enthusiasm for everything… Merlin. I'm thirty five for Merlins sakes. It's undignified." Harry complained.

"Oh, come on. Cheer up and embrace your inner child. What were you doing when you were a teenager? Just relive that." Stark replied.

"Well, considering I was at the top of Wizarding Britain's most-wanted list and living on the run hunting down pieces of a mad-man's soul..." Harry deadpanned.

"Right then. Well, just… keep doing what you're doing because it seems to be working. No one at S.H.I.E.L.D., as far as I can tell, has made any serious inquiries into you, so you're flying under the radar pretty well as is. But to perfect your cover you're going to need to learn how to fist bump, okay?"

Harry nodded.

"It's really easy. Just hold up your fist, like Thor did, and then he'll touch his fist to yours and voila, fist bump."

Harry had started following Stark- Tony's instructions, but as he continued with his explanation he had pulled his fist back and put his hands behind his back. "Whoa. No way, mate. Not going to happen! That's practically a punch, and I wouldn't punch my worst enemy, let alone Thor, here."

"It's not actually a punch, Harry." Bruce said in confusion.

"I know that, but it kind of, technically, is, and I'm not going to risk a blood feud forming for a bit of fun."

"What?" Stark asked in shock.

Harry sighed. "In a society that has magic, and wands, physical violence is the ultimate insult. I didn't understand that at fifteen and when I got in a punch up with my school-rival I formed a blood feud with his entire family. But we shared some family connections, through my grandmother and his mother so the feud warped and ended up slowly killing us. There was a chance I was going to have to marry him, which… yeah, no. So instead it took multiple life-debts being owed to everyone on both sides of the feud for us to get it to dissolve. And that took years." Harry ran his hand through his hair, remembering the disaster that had been his interactions with Malfoy and his family in the years following the War.

"I'm not going to risk that happening again, especially considering Thor's position in Asgard. It wouldn't be a problem with either of you, but because of Thor's magic, who knows what could happen."

"Christ. What is it with you wizards? Like, you've got magic, but you've never moved out of the middle ages. I thought quills and robes were bad enough, but life-debts and fucking blood-feuds. What's wrong with you all?"

Harry tuned to glare at Stark, bristling. "Unlike you muggles, we wizards never had any 'dark ages'. Do you know what that means?" Harry asked, instead of answering his question.

"That you're a society that's so entrenched in tradition that you stagnated centuries ago?" Stark asked mockingly.

"Merlin fucking Emrys, no. It means that centuries ago while you were sitting around in squalor, killing anyone who looked at them sideways, wizarding kind was creating things that you are only just matching now.

"You think your so superior with your electricity, but you forget that the only reason we didn't develop it is because we didn't need it. We've been able to produce light and make things move since before recorded history.

"You're confused about us using quills? You developed pens and pencils because their easier to use, right? We instead developed spells, with our magic, that enabled quills to last longer and work better and for ink to run more smoothly and even change colours if we so wanted." Harry ran his hands through his hair again and sat down. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that I use 'Merlin' like you use 'Jesus' or 'God', right?" Harry ploughed on without waiting for an answer. "That's because, for us, unlike you, Merlin was a real person. He lived and did incredible things and when he died be was practically deified. But not really, because for us, our 'deity' is magic herself. We worship her above anything else for the gift she gave us all. And no wizard or witch would ever take her name in vain because she is able to directly punish us.

"For that same reason, magic's active presence in our lives, we still have blood-feuds and life-debts and everything else you condemn about us. Magic creates and enforces them and that's the way things are."

Harry would have continued talking but for the woman walking out of Tony's study that looked so very familiar in a way that made his breath catch and completely forget his train of thought.

"Ginny?" He whispered. Harry blinked a few times and realised that while the woman certainly resembled Ginny Weasley there were a few things that differentiated them. "I'm sorry." He gave a somewhat sad smile. "You remind me very much of someone I used to know." Harry stood up and offered his hand. "Harry Potter, ma'am."

"Pepper Potts. It's lovely to meet you."

"The pleasure's all mine. Do you live here or…?" Harry trailed off leadingly

"No." Ms Potts laughed. "No, I just run Tony's life."

"Oh. Must be tiring." Harry winked. "I'm sure Tony mentioned that I was coming by today, then."

"Yes, he mentioned you a few times. It's nice to meet the man behind the stories."

"I assure you they were all even better in real life." Harry winked.

"If you've finished flirting with my very taken CEO..." Tony interrupted.

Harry laughed and replied to Ms Potts, ignoring Tony. "Sorry. As I said, you remind me of someone. My wife. I guess I just fell into treating you the same way I did her."

"You don't have a wife." Tony said, bluntly.

"Ex-wife. She died. 10 years ago." Harry turned to glare at Tony and was glad to see the man looked somewhat abashed but also very surprised.

"Christ, but you're only thirty-five. You were married at twenty-five?"

"I was married at eighteen. I was expecting a child at twenty-five. There were complications and…" Harry shrugged, not wanting to talk about it, and fished around for a way to change the subject, and proceeded to do so extremely inelgantly. "How about you guys get Rogers - Steve to come up here so I can tell him all the interesting things his blood has told me."

"Um, sure. J.A.R.V.I.S.'ll do it, but the Captain might be a little bit. He said he was going to the gym and he always works out for at least two hours." Tony turned to Pepper. "Are you going to stay for lunch or do you have places to be?"

"No, don't worry; I'll leave you to have your fun, Tony. I've a couple of meetings this afternoon. I'll drop in tomorrow with some things you need to sign, and I want the schematics for that new phone you're working on. There's a company interested in it, but I don't actually have anything to show them right now, so if you got on it, that'd be great."

Pepper's phone rang as she was talking so she picked it up and just wove goodbye to them all before she walked over to the lift and left.

Harry immediately turned to Tony with a sceptical look on his face. "Pepper Potts? Really? Did her parents really hate her that much?"

"Yes. Pepper Potts. It's honestly the reason I hired her originally." Tony flashed a wide smile at the memory. "Anyway, did you come here for something, or just our wonderful company?"

"As much as I truly love you all, I do have things to tell you. Your team is fascinating magically. Well, except you Tony." Harry laughed slightly as Tony spluttered.

"What do you mean? I've got some of the most advanced pieces of technology in the world embedded in my chest. Like I'm being kept alive by something that, when I built it, no one believed possible, or had even thought of. Of course I'm fucking fascinating."

Harry rolled his eyes before he replied. "Yeah, you are fascinating, Tony, but that's not what I said. I said fascinating magically. According to all my tests, you're just a regular human, with no magical talents and just a fuck ton of luck. I'm sure I could look at your reactor to find out more about it, but considering you built it, anything I could tell you would just be repeating that back to you. "

Tony looked somewhat mollified by Harry's explanation as he dropped back into a sprawl on the couch, but still a bit put out that he didn't have any 'super cool mystical mojo' going on, as he had described it to Harry a few weeks back.

"Anyway." Harry continued, turning to Bruce. "I'm going well with your tests, but is there any way I could have some of your alter's blood? Because I'm getting a whole lot of signals from your blood that make only some sense and I think some tests on the properly altered part of you could clear everything up."

"Of course. I think Tony might have some sitting around actually. Could you use that, by chance? Because getting blood the Hulk is a really difficult experience that I'd like to avoid if possible."

Tony nodded before they even had a chance to ask and addressed Harry. "Yeah, I've got some lying around somewhere, we can go through my lab when you leave, and pick it up then."

"Brilliant. Okay, then." Harry grinned. "You promised me food."

Tony smiled and levered himself up off the couch and led them into the kitchen to find something to eat.

Harry figured he could continue chatting with the two geniuses and Thor while he waited for Captain America to make his way up to this floor, and so followed Stark into his high tech kitchen, so very far away from the domestic space he had originally been forced to cook in.


AN: Ok, so, chapter. Yay. Very very late. Not so yay. This isn't betaed as I wanted to actually get it out to you, rather than send it off and make you all wait even longer, but I did read through it a couple times before posting, so any grammar mistakes are my own.

Basically, and I'm sure you all don't care, I'm currently in my last year of high school and over here in Australia we are coming up to the last days of school (like seriously 15 days left of actual school) and three weeks ago I had my first exam, in the second most important series of exams that I will do this year, and they went for two weeks and the month before that I spent studying, as I realised that I actually really really didn't know anything and had to sort my shit out if I wanted to pass, let alone do well, so I did. I studied a lot. Like all the time, and yay, I did well in my exams, but that meant my focus on this story and my other one was sacrificed. I did spend some time over the last two months writing, but I have a thing about not posting a chapter under 3 000 words, and this chapter sat on around 2 500 for ages with me just not finding anytime to write anything.

But I finally made it, and here is the new chapter, and I have about a month until I need to start properly studying again so I'll be writing like I was back in May/June with a chapter every 2 weeks-ish, and then I start a month of exams (I shit you not, look up the HSC, a month of exams) where I might be able to get out a chapter, but don't get your hopes up, and then… holidays start, where I have no responsibilities, and I just wait for my marks back and hope they're high enough to get me into law, and I'll try to put all my effort into writing rather than like sitting around home getting fat, and you can expect a concerted effort in getting the story finished over the Christmas holidays, although that depends on how many words the plot I've got planned ends up taking.

Anyway, if you're still with me, thanks for reading, if you're new (which according to my graph is about 300 people a day OMG!) thanks for reading, and to every reviewer, of course, your replies and responses are much appreciated.

Love you all.

xx

Whitsie.