Harry's boots crunched over broken glass as he landed and walked forward. The balcony looked even worse in person than it had on the telly, shattered windows and jagged chunks of concrete were all over. The metal and glass railing around the curving balcony was twisted and bent where something large had gone right through it. The penthouse inside was no better, with more glass and masonry littered across the marble floor, and huge craters in the middle of the room where who-knows-what was slammed into the ground.

"These premises are off limits," a voice called out. Harry blinked and looked around. "You are trespassing and the proper authorities have been notified. Please do not resist."

"Hello?" Harry looked all around the room, but no one was there. "Where are you?"

"You may direct all queries to the police once you have been picked up," the voice said, a very refined sneer barely detectable at the end.

Harry stared bemusedly at the walls. "Not gonna happen, but if you don't want to answer that's fine," he said with a shrug. He then proceeded to ignore the voice's increasingly annoyed warnings as he wandered around the broken room.

He found that it was only really the open front room of the penthouse in such terrible shape, all the other rooms were untouched save for cracks in the paint and fallen paintings and tipped over knick-knacks. All things that were clearly the result of tremors from the battle outside. But no one was there, aside from Harry walking quietly from bedroom to hallway to office to bath and then back out to the destroyed living room.

Harry was just thinking what a nice, if too large, space the room must have been before being broken apart when a wide door opened to reveal an elevator with several armed men in body armor. He watched as the men hurried out, calling instructions to each other for searching the rooms for the intruder. They moved right around him like water flowing around a rock in a stream, and the voice that had been smugly informing him that he should go quietly, went silent.

Harry sent a rueful grin to the ceiling and walls, still unsure where the voice came from, and moved over to the sunken couch. He brushed debris and dust off the cushions and made himself comfortable while the security team searched the whole penthouse top to bottom. The voice tried telling them once that Harry was in fact lounging on the couch in plain view, but after approaching his general area, the men forgot why they were checking an obviously empty space and began ignoring the voice as well.

Eventually, the security team left, unable to find anyone and apparently deciding that the tower systems were damaged. Harry sat in the sudden quiet, with the feeling an incredibly annoyed and worried voice was watching him in utter confusion. He gave the walls another almost sheepish grin and let his head fall back. The couch was very comfortable, no matter the damage to the rest of the room. Comfortable enough that he wondered if he would fall asleep before Tony Stark finally showed up.

Of course, he only had to wonder about falling asleep for a minute or so before a roar of heat and light hurtled through the broken windows of the penthouse, slowed down, and landed with a heavy clank of metal on stone. Scuffed, dirty armor in red and gold faced Harry with glowing hands raised while a man with a bow dropped to the ground behind him and drew an arrow with a glare toward the couch. A tall, beefy man in a cape landed on the balcony in a gust of wind then stalked over to join them, a hammer raised threateningly. The doors to the elevator opened barely seconds later, and three people hurried to stand behind the couch, a man with a shield, a woman with a gun, and another man in very dirty, loose clothes and smudged glasses who followed them but stayed awkwardly back near the wall.

"Okay Invisible Man," the suit of armor said. "Neat trick by the way, now what are you doing in my house?"

Harry snorted. "Not really a house, is it?" He winced, Merlin but he was doing this all wrong. Of course, he'd sort of envisioned seeing Tony, not Iron Man.

"Semantics, house, penthouse, extravagant tower of comfort in the heart of Manhattan- point is, it's mine and you are very rudely trespassing."

"No visual, no audio," the woman said suddenly. The rest of the group was already tense, but at that Tony in his robotic suit shifted, head tilting to the side. He finally realized that he was the only one in the room who could see and hear Harry. The others were looking toward the couch, and weapons were out, but no one was looking at him, and no one had reacted to his unintentional quip.

Harry shrugged at him apologetically. Iron Man lowered his hands, face plate retracted, and finally- Tony Stark was standing before him, annoyed, perplexed, but fully alive and mostly well.

"Okay, who are you?" Tony asked. "Why can't my friends see you? Or hear you for that matter, it's making me look crazy I'm sure, talking to thin air."

Harry stood up with a soft smile. "I only really wanted you to see me," he said with another shrug. "And I only came to make sure you were alive. Sorry if I caused any panic."

"We're not panicked," Tony said. The man with the bow and arrow glanced at him worriedly before going back to staring in Harry's direction. "Nobody's panicked, why on earth would an invisible, silent stranger showing up right after an alien invasion- which we defeated by the way- cause us to panic?"

Harry looked around at the group of tense people, all generally facing him and all but one holding some kind of weapon, and then looked back at Tony, eyebrow raised rather high.

Tony made a face and waved his arm around the room. "Well, we don't like uninvited guests, and we've had our fill of those for today."

"I can see that," Harry said with a smile. Tony just looked confused, and Harry knew it was because he was throwing the man off what with being invisible to everyone else but being so calm. "In any case, I really did only want to make sure you were alive, so I've done that and I'll just go if it's all the same."

Harry stepped around the coffee table and walked toward the balcony again. Tony jumped to the side, following him.

"Woah there, Danny Phantom," Tony said quickly. He had to wave his friends down when his actions caused most of them to jump around with him, and at least three of them figured out Harry had moved and were following along behind them. "You can't just show up and disappear-" Tony paused with a hand raised toward Harry "-and then disappear again."

Harry laughed. "I'm sure you'd rather I did actually. I didn't come here to make trouble after all, and I think any more than this will be nothing but trouble."

"Well it just so happens we're in the business of dealing with trouble, so you came to the right place."

Harry looked at Tony, as much of the man as he could see, which with the armor was really only his face. "You know, I think you've had a long day. It might be better if you just rest."

Tony gave him a weird look. "Thanks, but I'm feeling great now. Up for another round of taking down baddies if that's what I need to do."

Harry shook his head gently and closed his eyes. "You really aren't making this easy," he said quietly. And I'm doing everything wrong, he thought to himself.

"Pretty sure you're the one making this difficult- what with the whole Predator act you've got going on."

"What?" Harry frowned in confusion.

"Oh, didn't see that movie?"

"Guess not," Harry said, still frowning. They were by the broken windows, and had been for a minute or so, and Tony and his friends had maneuvered themselves into more of a circle around him.

The others still couldn't see or hear him, but Harry noticed there was faint talking coming from somewhere, but no one else was speaking. Then he saw- they each had a device in their ears and though they still couldn't see him, none of them were looking at his face, they were all arranged so he was in the center of their circle, and they were looking more or less at him rather than in his direction. Someone was telling them where he was.

"Too bad. It's a classic, I'd definitely recommend looking it up if Shield's holding cells have a dvd library."

"Shield?"

"Yeah, dvd's too much to hope for, they probably only have vhs."

"I think you have the wrong idea of what I'm here for," Harry said slowly.

"Well, since you won't tell me, and you're invisible," Tony gestured up and down at Harry, a little wildly, and Harry was starting to think his impression was right. Tony really, really needed to sit down more than he needed a confrontation- and he really had just done everything wrong, hadn't he? "I'm gonna guess you can't be here for anything good, so I've got to make my own guesses. I bet I'm close though, I'll bet all sorts of nefarious deeds are easier done invisible."

"Like sneaking to the kitchen," Harry said fondly.

Tony blinked at him. "Right. Or sneaking into private penthouses while the owner is away enjoying some well deserved shawarma."

"Shawarma?" Harry repeated.

"It's delicious, you should try it sometime."

"Stark," the man with the shield finally said. "For the love of God, what is going on?"

"We're getting off topic," Tony said with a grin. "Back to you being invisible and all in my home-"

"I did tell you already," Harry said with a sigh. He crossed his arms and looked around at the group of people. They looked less worried now and more annoyed, also very tired. Tony wasn't the only one who needed to sit down. "I came because I needed to make sure you were okay."

"Last time you said you wanted to check on Stark, now you're saying you needed to," the woman with the gun said to Harry's left shoulder. "Why the change?"

Harry glanced exasperatedly up at the ceiling. "I suppose you're telling them what I say as well as where I am then."

"I certainly see no reason not to," the voice said primly.

"Well, I suppose I have no one to blame but myself for this," Harry muttered. He looked at Tony seriously. "I guess if we're going to do this, we should sit down then."

"Oh, by all means," Tony said with a wave back at the couch. "You made yourself so comfortable before."

Harry sighed and turned back around. The group walked awkwardly back to the couch with him, trying to keep him mostly at the center with the voice's quiet help in their ears. Tony, of course, brazenly sat across from him on the other side of the couch and offered him a drink.

"I'll pass, thanks," Harry said. He looked down at the table and took a careful breath. "I… needed to check that you were okay- that you were alive, after I saw the news."

"Thanks for the concern, coulda just watched the news some more," Tony said. He was still looking at Harry like he was trying to figure him out and failing. "Pretty sure they're reporting me as still alive."

"Yes, they are," Harry flicked his hand to the side impatiently. "I just needed to see it for myself, that's all."

"Why, is the question," the man with the bow said with a confused frown. The others in the room were clearly getting updated on the conversation by the mysterious voice. "Why do you have to see Stark in person?"

Harry looked at Tony sadly. Yeah, he'd really botched this whole thing, hadn't he.

"I...um," Harry bit his lip. "This is sort of crazy, but… Uh."

"Gosh, the suspense is killing me," the man in baggy clothes said.

"I'm getting more of a watching paint dry vibe myself," Tony said.

Harry sighed tiredly. "Look, you're not even going to believe me."

"Why don't you try us, son," the man with the shield said after a moment. "It's been an eventful day, you aren't going to surprise us."

Harry sent the man a flat look he couldn't see, then turned to Tony.

"Okay then," he said seriously. "Tony, I am your father."


A.N.: So once I read a Harry is Tony's dad fic, and while fun... it just didn't have the whole angst-wtf vibe I wanted. I don't want Harry and Tony to form some super happy family with rainbows and kittens, they are two messed up idiots and I want that total lack of chill to be what connects them. ^_^ So here you go! Cry for me~