Not waiting to watch the soulless being die, Harry turned his attention to the rest of the forest and sighed. By morning the place would be nothing more than still smoking ash, and a memory in somebody's mind. Pushing the already consuming fire out even further, the wizard picked off the few stragglers he could find, but mostly watched to make sure that the fire didn't burn too high.

Too busy paying attention to the crackling flames and screaming bodies, Harry didn't notice the taller man sneaking up behind him until was too late. Feeling a blunt object crack against his skull, emerald eyes barely took in the smirking form of Rabastian LeStrange before his vision went dark.

Tony was going to kill him.

The feeling of cotton balls in his mouth was one that Harry never got used too, no matter how often he woke from comas and head forced injuries. Gritting his teeth in pain, the short wizard slowly opened his eyes and gazed around.

The room was cold and damp, and from what he could see, there was moss growing everywhere.

"Ok," he muttered, placing a hand to his head in hopes of easing the dull throb. "So I'm in a cave. Lovely."

There was no use checking his pockets for weapons, he knew that the enemy would have stripped him of them; and by the cold metal feel around his neck, his magic was not going to get him out of this one. If it had been the newer generation, he probably would have stood a chance, but this was a LeStrange. A crazy, psychotic, and completely insane genius. Rabastian and Rodolphous were the reason that Aurors were once told to proceed with sever caution. Between the pair of them, they had taken down an entire team in less than an hour; add Bellatrix, and they had been the faces behind the most gruesome and brilliantly designed battles of the First and Second War. Rabastian was a skilled master at what he did, and Harry knew without a doubt that the man would have ten different ways to torture him planned out before he could even think about moving from this spot.

Laying his head back down, Harry Potter huffed deeply.

He was screwed.

Tony and Bruce sat in the lab for rest of the day doing absolutely nothing. It wasn't that there was nothing for them to do; far from it, but even with the easy going attitude they attempted to keep on, they could still sense the bright pink elephant in the room, and it annoyed the shit out of them.

Tapping the end of his pen on the edge of the table, Bruce glanced over at the unusually still man, and sighed. If they were going to get over their huge fuck up, then they were going to have to leave the lab at some point. Chucking the pen down on the table, the brunette stood slowly from his seat and made his way over to his lab partner.

"Tony?"

Not seeing so much as a muscle twitch in response, Bruce lent forward and poked the engineer sharply in the ribs.

"Fuck!" Rubbing the sore spot, Tony opened his eyes and glared angrily up at the grinning doctor. "I'm the one that's supposed to poke people, remember?"

Rolling his eyes, Bruce folded his arms across his chest. "I was only making sure that you were still alive. You were too still and at your age, well..."

Letting his hand fall from where he could swear a bruise was forming, Tony continued to glare at the man as he rose from his seat. "What did you want Bruce?"

That was a loaded question if Bruce cared to think about it. He wanted many things, most he couldn't have. Deciding to answer with the only sentence that wouldn't result in him receiving a black eye, Bruce shrugged non-chantingly.

"We can't hide down here forever."

Tony tensed his shoulders and hardened his gaze, causing the doctor to swear loudly in his mind. If the elephant were real, Bruce would have sworn that it suddenly gained fluoro yellow spots and a pair of antlers. The idea that the pair had held when they first woke; about everything being fine and easy to fix, was the great wall of denial. And Bruce could see it crumbling before his face.

Shuffling over to a bench covered in spare suit parts, Tony called out over his shoulder, hoping that the scientist would take the hint and leave him to wallow in his ever filling pool of self loathing. "You can leave at any time, Banner. I'm not forcing you to stay here."

The use of his last name was like a slap to his face. Since meeting the brilliant man, Bruce could have counted on one hand the amount of times he had heard Tony use his last name; and never was it said with that tone. Stepping lightly, the doctor made to put his hand on the genius' shoulder, but halted last second. "We're not ok, are we?"

Chuckling darkly, Tony turned around to face the shorter brunette, and eyed him. "You're kidding right?" Running a hand through his hair, Tony continued in a shaky voice, never noticing the faint whooshing sound of the lab door opening. "We fucked Bruce! We got royally smashed and did it on the floor of my lab not even twenty four hours after my husband left on a life threatening mission that could end in him finally kicking the bucket. He's going to leave me! I just got him back, and now I've fucked it up! The other's won't even want me on the team anymore once they find out, Pepper and Happy are going to quit, and Rhodey will never talk to me again! I'm going to lose everything, and all because of a stupid fucking mistake!"

Bruce had never been able to handle people yelling at him well. As he had grown older, he had learned to mask the pain it caused, but as chocolate brown eyes ripped through him as if he was nothing, the doctor couldn't help but feel like the little boy watching his dad beat up his mum and knowing that there nothing that he could do to help all over again. Forcing the tears to not fall, Bruce kept his gaze on the struggling man, and choked out. "They won't leave you."

Pulling at his hair in frustration, Tony gazed wildly at the other man. "How do you know? How could you possibly know? They don't know me! They know a self centred dick that flaunts his latest prize in front of the camera like they're a piece of meat. How the fuck do you know that they won't take one look at me after this and tell me to go fuck myself?"

"Because we care for you a lot more than that."

Jolted by the new deep yet powerful tone reverberating around the room, Tony and Bruce snapped their heads around to take in the sudden appearance of Steve and Natasha at the doorway. Taking their shocked silence as permission to continue, Steve stepped forward slowly. "I don't know what happened apart from what you just blurted out, and personally, I don't want to know-"

"Then don't ask."

"- But it must have been some extremely out of control situation for you to have cheated on Harry."

Walking past the still motionless scientists, Natasha picked up the bottle she had noticed sitting on the bench, and sniffed. "Did you finish all of this?" she asked, her nose scrunching at the smell. "I'm Russian, and even I don't go near this stuff. I've seen it eat through steel if left to soak."

This was not the way he wanted the team to find out. Not sure what to say, Bruce turned to silently ask Tony if he did, when he instead found the engineer frowning deeply at the pair infiltrating his work space.

"Is there a reason you two are here?" he quipped, his imaginary quills standing on edge. The last thing he wanted to deal with in that moment was an interrogation, least of all by the red headed assassin and their fearless Captain. "Better yet, how did you get in here?"

Putting the bottle back down, Natasha shrugged. "Dinner's ready, and Steve asked if I could over-ride the system so he could drag you two back up."

Not taking his eyes off the billionaire, Steve attempted to arrange his face so it looked sensitive and understanding. "Look, Tony-"

"Save it, Uncle Sam. And stop with the face, you look constipated."

Dropping the look, Steve opened his mouth once more, but was stopped once again by the arrival of Clint and Coulson. Groaning loudly, Tony flopped back into his chair; his fingers finding a permanent place tangled in his hair. He knew it wasn't good for his scalp, but it was a coping mechanism that he had picked up during his time as a war prisoner, and be buggered if he was going to give it up any time soon. "What is the point of having security measures if every idiot can just waltz in?"

Scowling at the brunette, Coulson confidently waltzed into the room; Clint following half a pace behind.

"What's taking so long?" he enquired, his eyes never leaving the huffing man. "Thor's getting irritable, and if we keep him waiting much longer, he's going to just take the whole meal and retreat to the living room."

Glancing up at the agent, Steve shuffled his foot unsurely. The reason was much more important than Thor stealing the lasagne, but it was not Steve's place to tell-

"Bruce and Stark went at it like rabbits last night."

Swivelling around to glare at the red head, Tony ignored the eyes he could feel on himself. "You know, I'm sure that I could come up with a way to make your cat suit suddenly disappear mid fight."

Knowing that the threat was hollow at best, Natasha ignored the billionaire, and continued her analysis. "Stark's worried that Harry will leave him, and everyone's going to hate him once they find out; and Banner is, from what I can tell, trying not to show the fact that he is emotionally attached to idiot."

Burying his heated face in his hands, Bruce willed himself not to look up when the sound of the lab door opening hit his ears. This was just getting to the point of ridiculous...

"My friends!" Thor exclaimed, his mouth stuffed with the pastry goodness nestled in his arms. "I had wondered where you had gone. Come, let us eat this glorious food whilst you regal me with the tale as to how Bruce became such a colour."

Watching as the doctor turned almost maroon in his embarrassment, Clint waved the thunder god over, and smirked deviously. The thought of the pair finally going at it was hilarious to the archer; or at least until his big brother instincts kicked in and pulverised the idiot for hurting his best friend. "Tony and Bruce got it on last night, and now they're trying to build a secret love nest."

"I do not understand," Thor frowned, his mouth still suffering under the overload of half chewed pasta. "What did they put on?"

Leaving Clint to explain the human terminology for sex, Coulson rounded on the two scientists. The fact that there was so many witnesses was the only reason he didn't have his tazer out and pointed at the self proclaimed genius. Harry was one of the few people he cared about, and the fact that Stark had done such a stupid thing, was sending furious jolts of energy through the agent's body. "Do you have any idea what your little rendezvous could mean for the team? For Harry? You're very lucky that there are so many people here at the moment Mr Stark."

Whirling around to face his potential partner, Steve puckered his brow. "I'm sure that there was a good reason for all this-"

"Yeah," Natasha agreed. "It's called too much liquor. If Pepper doesn't boot your arse for this Stark, I sure fucking am."

The short wizard had grown on her hard shell since he had woken and shown no interest emotionally in Barton; and like hell she was going to let the billionaire get away with breaking his heart.

Finishing off his lecture to Thor about American slang, Clint finally clicked on to what had happened. When asked later, he would deny the fact that it took a moment for the full situation to sink in, but for now, all he could see was red. Pulling his arm back, in preparation to punch the arrogant arsehole right in his face, the archer struggled as he felt two sets of well built arms wrap around his shoulders and chest. Knowing that he would have no chance of breaking Steve and Thor's grip, Clint rounded on the fuming man and spat. "I can't believe after all that talk of having no-one but him, you fuck the first person in sight the moment he leaves! He loves you, you arrogant prick, and you went and did that! I hope you two are very happy with each other, cause I'm going to make sure that the moment he gets back, you never so much as look at him again."

Feeling a headache start to form at the base of his neck, Tony flung himself out of the chair and swept his gaze across the people in the room. Any other day, he would have found the picture hilarious. Steve and Thor were wrapped around a struggling Clint, whilst Bruce sat huddled in a chair with Coulson towering behind him; Natasha leant against a bench with an empty bottle of tequila beside her. Deciding that the only person in that room he needed to explain everything to was Bruce; and that wasn't going to happen with everyone there, Tony marched out of the lab and towards the nearest lift.

He needed to talk to Pepper now.

The kick in the ribs was not the best wake-up call he had ever had.

Hacking at the sudden loss of air, emerald eyes snapped open in foolish hopes of finding what had caused his sudden alertness.

"Get up now."

Glancing up at the shabby looking man looming over him, Harry pinched his brows together, but made to stand up none the less. The fact that his hands had somehow become tied in his last state of unconsciousness making it very difficult. Feeling a hand hook under his arm and reef upward, the brunette staggered a little, but finally made his way into a somewhat standing position. The lack of fresh air and pain in his temple made it slightly difficult to focus, but with a little bit of determination, he was able to figure out that he was still in the same cave as before, and that the man who woke him was not English.

Watching as a rather muggle looking gun waved from him to the back of the cave and back again, Harry rose an eyebrow. Since when did Death Eaters work with muggles?

"You move now."

Gritting his teeth together as the rifle pressed into his bruised ribs, Harry decided that the best thing he could do for now was follow orders, and staggered towards what he assumed was the beginning of a underground tunnel system. It was cold and covered in slime and mildew; much like the ones he had once come across during his time as a wanted fugitive.

Hissing as the jagged rocks scrapped across his skin, the brunette stumbled and slipped his way through the tunnel system, until finally he came to a stop at a rather large section of cave. People of both magic and non scampered around the cave, yelling out in languages Harry had never heard before. One rather large and obnoxious looking man was shouting at a group standing next to a pile of crates, whilst another man that seemed to radiate power and fear, sat off to the side talking to a man that had his back faced towards him.

"Move."

Feeling the butt of the gun hit his lower back, Harry bit back a snarl, and continued forward; allowing the man to lead him through the mess of men and weapons. Catching sight of one particular crate that still had a legible logo on the side, Harry closed his eyes in pain. Tony had told him that there were still weapons out there that he had yet to find...

"Harry Potter, The Great Wizarding Saviour."

Noticing that his feet had come to a stop, Harry opened his eyes in annoyance, and came face to face with one of the most dangerous men he felt that he would ever meet.

"Rabastian LeStrange," he replied, his tone giving away none of his inner anger and frustration. "Since when did you start working with muggles? I thought that they were scum compared to such social standing gentlemen as yourself."

The quip hit its mark. Watching in morbid satisfaction as the sunken face morphed from a smirk to a sneer, Harry mentally added a point to his side of the board.

Staring down at the young man with haunted silver eyes, Rabastian pulled his lips back to show his straight, yellowing teeth, and grinned. "Well," he whispered, the sound of his deep hacking voice sending shivers down the brunette's spine. "We can't all have billionaire playboy's for husbands, now can we?"

The words were a threat, Harry knew it.

Keeping his gaze on the smirking shell of a man, Harry ignored the other man that made to join them. If he was going to get any information, it would be out of LeStrange, not some new comer.

"It truly is a pleasure to meet the husband of the great Tony Stark."

Standing perfectly still, Harry ignored the others words. Rabastian had just revealed that he knew who he was married to, so it should be no surprise that others in his camp also knew. "What do you want LeStrange?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Rabastian leant back so that he was sitting comfortably on a stack of crates, and grinned. "The Wizarding World to tremble at my feet."

Knowing that the man would keep talking if he stayed quiet, Harry waited for him to continue. It was a game of cat and mouse that they had perfected during the war. Every time one of them had the other, they would taunt each other until finally the other gave, and the inevitable duel would break out. When he had left the country, he had left with the hope that someone else would bring the mad man down; clearly he had been wrong.

Smirking wider, Rabastian folded his arms across his chest; shifting so that his back was more comfortable. He knew just as much as the brunette what was happening, and after what felt like an eternity, the Death Eater finally decided to give. "I want your head on a mantle in my living room. You have been a thorn in my side for much too long, Potter. A thorn that I plan to remove very soon."

Raising an eyebrow, Harry looked up at the taller man and grinned. The Death Eaters hated it when he grinned. It meant that he knew something that they didn't, and that never boded well. "So why did you bring in the wannabe mafia?"

Glancing over to the man standing beside him, Rabastian shrugged. "They actually came to me. In return for weapons and men, I would give them the ultimate revenge on Tony Stark."

This caught Harry's attention. Snapping his head around to face the other man for the first time, Harry took in his appearance and hissed. Light, neutral coloured robes garbed his toned body; letting in the chill of the damp cave that they were clearly not made for. Dark, almost black eyes pierced at him from under bushy eyebrows; the only hair on his head. Finally catching sight of the hideous scar running down the side of his face, Harry let out a growl in rage.

"Raza."

Grinning widely, the man opened his arms in welcome. "As I said Mr Potter, it is a pleasure to meet you."

Pushing down the urge to charge at the man and kick him in the groin, Harry whirled back around to the other brunette and snapped. "Why haven't you killed me already? I can't make Tony's weapons."

"No," Rabastian agreed, flicking a fleck of dirt off his blood stained robes. "But you can draw in the man that can. We know that you're in contact with Stark; why do you think we waited until now to have the Ministry call you in?"

Harry couldn't believe it. The only one that was still alive and knew where he was, was Kingsley, and the thought of his fellow Order member betraying him like that was impossible.

Stepping away from his leaning post, Rabastian sauntered his way over; his bright silver eyes shining with a sense of purpose. "Don't worry Potter, the Minister was very adamant about protecting you. It took a double dose of the Imperious to finally subdue him; not that really matters, he'll be dead in the next hour or so. Good Aurors are so hard to find these days."

Unable to contain his rage any longer, Harry made to charge at the psychotic man, but was stopped by a cluster of hands wrapping around him and pulling him backwards. Snarling in rage, the brunette struggled against his captures, yelling out every profanity he could think of. He would get out of here if it was the last thing he did.

And when he did, he will watch them all burn.

Tony didn't know what to do. His exterior was oozing calmness and ease, but his mind was a going off like a circuit-board that someone had just poured coffee all over. He had just spent four years in celibacy, and then the moment he had his love back, he got down and dirty with the nearest willing body; which happened to be his new science bro.

Tapping his foot impatiently, Tony sprung out of the elevator the moment the doors opened.

"Tony?"

Making his way towards the kitchen, Tony winced when he caught sight of the long legged red head sitting at the kitchen bench, huddled over a personal tablet.

Glancing up from the latest sales figures, Pepper took in the billionaire's appearance and frowned. The last time he looked like that, was when he locked himself in the lab for a week with a case of gin and pile of frozen pizzas. "What's wrong? The others disappeared downstairs when I got here, and Jarvis hasn't said anything."

Hooking her elbow with his hand, Tony gently pulled the PA out of her seat, and pushed her towards his room. "We need to talk."

Following her boss through the apartment, hazel eyes caught a quick glance at the elevator opening to reveal a rather sober looking team, before being shoved into the bedroom. This was not good. If there was one thing Tony never did, it was push her around. For him to be so wound up, that he handled her in such a way...

Placing a soft, manicured hand on the quickly unravelling man, Pepper led him towards the bed, and forced him to sit down. "Tony? What's going on?"

He couldn't look at her.

He just couldn't.

The moment he did, he knew that she would see how much of a fuck up he was, and leave him forever. Staring down at the blank void in front of him, Tony opened his mouth to hopefully explain and plead his case, but could get nothing more out than a gagging, chocking sound.

"Sir," Jarvis' smooth tones echoed, startling the tightly wound man. "Would it perhaps be easier to simply show Miss Potts the video footage?"

Knowing that there was no way he was going to get it out, Tony nodded mutely. Pepper watched the interaction between machine and creator with a sense of growing dread. She knew that the genius had been a bit off since Harry had left the day before, but Bruce had gone down to the lab to look after him, hadn't he?

Dimming the lights, Jarvis tinted the wall sized window and quickly started projecting the recorded footage on the home made screen.

"So do you want to talk?"

Pepper Potts was a proud, strong, and determined woman.

She cared strongly for the man that she not only worked for, but also considered to be one of her closest friends; but as she watched the footage from the night before play out across the screen, she couldn't help the deep wave of disgust and fury that washed through her. Clenching the hem of her skirt tightly in her hands, hazel eyes took in every detail of the footage.

Pausing just as the exhausted pair slumped over in a drunk filled haze, Jarvis spoke up; his voice soft and what one would consider as worry. "Would you like me to play the events that followed this morning?"

Not giving the engineer a second to reply, Pepper voiced an affirmative, and watched as the rest of the footage played on the screen. The confusion and worry between the two scientists was probably not what the red head was expecting; although she had no idea way, considering the amount of alcohol the pair had consumed the night before. Asking the AI to fast forward as it became apparent that after talking, the pair just sat in silence for the rest of the day, Pepper waited until she noticed Bruce finally move from his corner of the room.

"Jarvis, stop."

Stopping the video, Jarvis started it back up in real time, and waited silently to be called upon once more. He knew that his creator had done wrong, but even though he was only a machine; as many people told Tony time and time again, he did feel. And he truly felt that his creator was not the only one to blame.

"It's called too much liquor. If Pepper doesn't boot your arse for this Stark, I sure fucking am."

Wincing at the words, Jarvis stared down at his creator; and not for the first time, wished that he was human, or at least had arms so that he could wrap the fragile man up in them and never let him go. Silently musing over the possibility of getting the one armed robot trio up the elevator and into the genius' room so that they could comfort him, Jarvis stopped the video as Tony left the lab, and opened the windows once more so the glow of the city's lights could fill the room.

Pepper sat silently on her perch, and mused over what she had just seen. She was naturally angry, no, she was pissed. Harry was her best friend, her partner in crime; so for Tony to go off and do something like that? She knew that the irrational side of her brain was taking over, and that it wasn't just him in the wrong, but like bloody hell she wasn't going to give the man a piece of her mind.

"I can't believe you."

The cold, sharp whisper stabbed at the engineer in a way that no other words ever had. He knew that Pepper would be angry at him, but he had never heard her use such a tone, especially towards him. Keeping his head lowered, Tony opened his mouth to say- To say what? Sorry? How could an apology ever hope to fix this?

Noticing that the brunette was going to stay silent, Pepper continued on. "I have a right good mind to have the company lawyers draw up divorce contracts right here and now. He stayed celibate for you- You stayed celibate for him! Four years of separation, and not once did you even let your eyes wander! So how could you possibly do a thing like this now?"

Choking on his closed up throat, Tony swallowed thickly. "He left me."

Staring down at the broken man, Pepper let all the anger and frustration her friend had put her through, burst out in an angry tirade. "So what if he left! He is coming back you unbelievably stupid man! Rhodey and I are lucky to see each other once a month, but you don't see either of us jumping in bed with the first person to walk our way. I have seen you through separations, hang-overs, the entire Iron Man debacle, and near death experiences, and I have never felt so emotionally drained as I do right now. Harry is my best friend, Tony; even if he did leave without so much as a word. I will always put his happiness first, even if that means removing you from the picture."

Knowing that he deserved every word, Tony wrapped his arms around his mid section, and nodded. "I honestly didn't mean for it to happen," he muttered, his eyes finally leaving the floor to gaze blankly up at the strong willed woman. "And if you think that filing for divorce is the best thing for Harry, then I want you to make sure that he gains everything that he is entitled to. But I also want you to know, that I will do my fucking hardest to hold onto that man, and never let him go. Harry pulled me out of one of my darkest periods, and I refuse to let him walk away again without a fight! I may have fucked up, but that does not mean that I shouldn't be given a chance to get on my hands and knees, and beg for forgiveness."

The sudden fire blazing in the chocolate brown orbs was something that Pepper had not seen in a long time. It was as if a piece of the old Tony had returned, and the red head just didn't have the heart in her, to stomp it out and bury it in a hole. Switching her mind back to her analytical, PA side, Pepper straightened her back, and raised an eyebrow. "Very well, Mr Stark. Mr Potter estimated that he would be returning in approximately two weeks, how do you plan to deal with this situation?"

The return of his wonderful, fiery assistant and friend sent a tingling sensation through the engineer's body. She had forgiven him, or at least decided to let him live for a little while longer. Glancing at the door separating the pair from the rest of the team, Tony felt a sudden jolt of shame and irritation. "First things first. We've got a few team members to set straight."