Phil waited with Stark, Miss Potts, and Agent May, all of them anxiously watching the building for any kind of sign, good or bad, but nothing happened.

Phil supposed that nothing might be better than something happening, but he also couldn't get rid of the fear that had been creeping up since the moment Harry had goaded Stark into leaving the roof with him.

"How are the readings?" he asked.

"It's dead space, sir," Agent May reported, and then visibly winced at her choice of words. Phil tried not to panic. Dead space simply meant there was no energy that their instruments could pick up on. Most likely, Harry and her team had successfully powered down the overloading reactor. Now Phil was worried about why they hadn't come back.

"Send a few agents in to retrieve Stane," he told May, who nodded efficiently, and then he turned to Miss Potts and Stark, who were standing suspiciously close to each other. Briefly, he recalled his bet with Harry about when the two would get together before pushing it to the back of his mind. He was trying to distract himself; he couldn't afford to think about things like that.

"Right. How would you like to spin this story? Because I was thinking…"

It was probably about ten minutes later, just as Phil and Miss Potts were nearly finished nailing down all the particulars of the story they were going to feed the media to everyone's satisfaction, when they heard the familiar pops of Apparition, and Phil, expecting to see Harry, couldn't help feeling the full force of disappointment when there were only three people there, and not a witch among them.

"We're not sure where Harry's gone," Ron said, bluntly, and then rushed to continue. "I mean, we were all feeling a little buzzed up on magic and needed to use it up quick, and she took most of it."

Phil couldn't bring himself to speak.

"You think she's just burning off the excess magic somewhere?" Miss Potts asked.

"That's what the rest of us were doing," Ron shrugged. "It'd be impossible to follow her Apparition trail now, though. We'll just have to wait."

Phil's throat felt tight, his eyes hot.

"Phil," Ron said, looking directly at him. "I'm sure she's fine."

Phil nodded, but it was all he could do to remember to breathe. He didn't realize he'd let a tear slip until Stark said something.

"Shit, Agent, I was joking earlier. Are you really with Potter? How did that – "

Stark was promptly shut up by Ms. Potts, which Phil wasn't exactly cognizant of at the time, but which he was infinitely grateful for later.

Ron was right, of course. Until there was hard evidence that Harry was dead, he should really assume she was alive. She wasn't called the Girl-Who-Lived for nothing.

But three days later, with no sign or word from Harry at all, Phil couldn't help that his worry was overtaking him. After a morning of unproductively attempting to do paperwork – his favorite task, usually – he spent his lunch break at the gym, trying to run the treadmill into the ground. Thirty minutes into this self-torture, however, an arm reached over and slapped the emergency stop button.

Phil looked over and met the unamused gaze of Nick Fury as the treadmill slowly brought his speed down to a full stop.

"Go home," Fury said, without any room for argument. Phil tried, anyway.

"I know I'm having an off day, but I can still work."

"Really." Fury pulled his phone out of his pocket, and with a few swipes pulled up a document. "Then care to explain why you wrote this on Form S28GL1?"

Phil stared at the evidence on the little screen with horror. Dear Merlin, he'd used you're instead of your — what had he been thinking?

"I apologize, sir," he choked out. "I'll go home. Clearly, I am of no use here."

Fury's face twisted sympathetically. "Try to relax, Cheese. She's Harry fucking Potter, not the Wizard of Oz."

Phil rolled his eyes, but he left SHIELD headquarters feeling marginally better.

When he unlocked the door to his apartment, he immediately noticed something was off. At first glance, nothing was out of place, but there was an odd, subtle smell permeating the air that Phil couldn't place. He drew his gun and tread silently towards the living room, pausing just before the open doorway for a second and then swinging quickly into it, gun up.

"Harry?"

Harry was sitting on the floor in front of his sofa, her robes in disarray and hair thrown up in a messy ponytail. She was holding her wand up in front of her, and looked extremely focused on maintaining the constant stream of bubbles which was erupting from it. The bubbles, for the most part, weren't staying together long enough to hit the carpet before they burst. That explained the odd smell, Phil thought. Harry turned at his voice, and the bubble stream stopped.

"Sorry," she said, her smile nervous, "I guess you were probably worried."

Phil couldn't speak. All he could do was look at her, hardly believing his eyes.

"I did a lot of apparating at first," she laughed shakily, "Bounced around the world a dozen times, but it didn't help much. So, I fought a dragon in the Himalayas, reformed a couple glaciers, cleared a bunch of plastic out of the ocean – which was tricky, actually, there were a lot of animals caught in it – and then I fought a couple of natural disasters. That helped a lot. Really, though, Phil, I am sorry I didn't even send a Patronus, or something. I was so wired up I couldn't think, and I was overpowering everything. I tried to cast a normal Lumos and it was like full daylight, and… Phil, are you alright?"

Phil wasn't sure what expression he was making, but he finally found his tongue.

"Marry me."

Phil really hadn't planned this out – at least not for right this moment, anyway. He had the ring in his sock drawer, and he'd planned on proposing sometime after all of Stark's drama was over, when they finally had a little free time.

Harry was staring up at him, wand drooping and mouth hanging a little open, and Phil had a horrible sinking sensation flooding his entire body.

"I – what?" she finally said, and Phil didn't feel much better about that reply, but he also didn't feel any worse. It wasn't a straight up no. He tried again, this time actually phrasing it as a question.

"Will you marry me?"

A smile burst across Harry's face, and Phil felt every bit of his tension and concern evaporate with it as she practically launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling his lips down to hers.

"Yes," she managed to tell him at some point in between kisses, "yes, Phil, of course."