A/N: What to say...uhm, THANK Y'ALL SO MUCH I find myself surprised by how well-received this thing is. And this emotionally constipated and hermit ass is tongue-tied already.

Chapter Warnings: Hand Wavy everything, Iron Man 3 proceedings.

ARC 2: CHAPTER 9
Homonoia

-0-

Mrs. Davis was kind enough to bundle Harley up in clothes that had questionable origins. It was nice. It's been a while since Harley had encountered such a gesture. And he's dripping wet and can't exactly spell himself dry.

(Harley remembers a woman with green skin, weary and sharp but with soft eyes.

"Compassion for compassion," She says, holding up a hand that he reluctantly takes. "It's so rare to see in this forsaken place.")

EJ was still understandably shaken by his experience and was just sitting there in Mrs. Davis's comforting embrace. Which was odd, but Harley knew better than to judge anything. He only knew EJ when the other boy was being a jerk.

Mr. Stark had gone somewhere after making a brief confirmation that they were okay, so Harley needed to go find the man before he disappears.

But before that-

"Hey, EJ," Harley awkwardly pats the other boy's shoulder, lets his Magic weave warmth into the pullover Mrs. Davis had put around EJ. The other boy opened his mouth to say something but Harley wasn't about to let him, "Your ass was saved by Tony Stark—and me I guess, and Mrs. Davis too—but yes, the Tony Stark. Be grateful about it."

Harley left to the shocked "What?" of the other boy, feeling amused by the indulgence in his own pettiness. He's confident EJ wasn't about to tattle, not when the world at large thinks Tony Stark is dead. No one would believe him. Maybe he won't even believe Harley.

If he did blab, Harley already had a solution. He had about more than a dozen solutions. All of which were decidedly not legal, but they weren't harmful. Mostly. Harley wasn't mean.

Harley finds Mr. Stark back out in the streets, a white folder in hand, and hurried to catch up.

"So where are you gonna go now?" Harley asked, curiosity flaring, but at the same time sated because of what happened in the past hour. It wasn't enough to have adrenaline pumping through his veins, but it was a considerably different pace from the past ten years.

(A part of him still longed for the thrill, to seek the adventure, but a larger part wanted to wait and see.)

Mr. Stark sniffed, pointedly closing the file he had been scanning through. "Classified."

Harley's nose wrinkled, "Well, we got human lava lamps now and I do watch the news. And, the suit is in my garage."

"Yeah," Mr. Stark draws out the syllable but nods agreeably before sending a close-eyed, overly bright smile that portrayed sarcasm. "And I thought I told you to go home."

"Yeah," Harley shot back with equal amount of drawl, rolling his eyes and twisting his mouth enough for it to be called a pout, "I will. Just-" Harley sighed and fixed the man with a stern glare. "Take care of yourself, Tony."

(No one chooses to help the self-sacrificing, always left behind to think that they're doing the right thing and choosing the only option when it's not.

Raised like a pig for slaughter, manipulated to be the lamb-)

"I'm Iron Man, kid," Mr. Stark snipes, all confidence and bravado, but compared to that press conference a few years ago? It was as if the man was convincing himself just as much as he was convincing Harley. "I can take care of myself."

Harley, of course, wasn't about to be tight-lipped with his disbelief, "And that went so well, didn't it?"

"Hey, hey," Mr. Stark flicked Harley's forehead. "That was a one-off, you brat. Stop rubbing it in my nose. Everyone makes mistakes. I'm fixing mine now."

"You're always doing that." Harley voiced out, brows furrowed as Mr. Stark opens the car belonging to Mr. Bald lava lamp.

Mr. Stark pauses, car door separating the two of them, and looks at him with confusion, "Doing what?"

"Fixing," Harley emphasizes, hoping the man would get his point, but to be honest, Harley himself wasn't sure what his point is. At least, it isn't something Harley had fully figured out yet. "You always say that."

Mr. Stark looks away to put his stuff into the car, clearly avoiding looking at Harley, "I'm a mechanic, that's what I do."

There's a moment where Harley mulls over his response and Mr. Stark takes that time to enter the vehicle and start the engine. When Harley has his words ready at the tip of his tongue, he had to knock on the car window in annoyance.

Mr. Stark rolls the car window down and was about to say something, but Harley cuts him off, "You build things too. You create." It's a half-concrete thought that which its context still eluded him, but still stands true. Harley had spent hours watching the man work his own brand of Magic with the subpar materials Harley owned. "Not just fixing."

(Because fixing meant something had to be broken.)

The sound that Mr. Stark let out could either be derisive or strangled, "Sure, whatever, kid."

Harley notices how uncomfortable Mr. Stark looked and, just this once, in a remarkable display that Harley Keener wasn't completely insensitive and unnecessarily blunt, chooses to let the subject slide.

"Thanks, by the way," Harley said instead. "For saving me earlier."

Mr. Stark let out a dismissive snort and fixes him with the most serious look he'd seen from the man, "You did good. You handled yourself well there, brat."

Despite how juvenile his reactions had been, Harley wouldn't deny the feeling of warmth that curled around his gut at the praise.

("You have done well, my child," The gleam in Thanos's eyes matched the pride in his words-)

"Yeah," was all he could manage.

Mr. Stark smiles, this one soft and small and genuine, "Bye, kid. I'll keep in contact. Guard the suit!"

"With my life," Harley says with as much childish determination as he could. (He's telling the truth, he finds out.) "And don't think I didn't notice you removing the bandaids, mechanic. Next time, Barbie. Mark my words."

Mr. Stark did an odd wave before driving away.

Harley watches him go, feeling the cold seep in just a little bit before his Magic chased it away.

There's a spark that catches his eye, the sound of wires short-circuiting, and he turns, sight meeting with the dangling, half-roasted body of lava lamp lady that hung on the electrical lines like some demented halloween twist to Christmas. A cursory glance around shows Harley the destruction wrought and the cautiously emerging townspeople.

With a sigh, Harley set to work, Magic undulating and pulsing all over the place like a curious cat, invincible and most powerful in this world of humans and primitive technology. This is the first time he'd let it out like this in this body and it took a few trials and errors, but he gets the hang of it.

(And if some stuff went missing? Harley can't really fault himself and his Magic.)

Rose Hill, Tennessee was an uninteresting town in the middle of nowhere and it's meant to stay like that.

-0-

When Harley made it home, it was a few minutes before sunrise.

He checks on J.A.R.V.I.S's progress, finding that he had a few more hours to wait for before the system Mr. Stark created needed human intervention, and then jumping into the shower to wash off the grime he had accumulated on the trip back. Harley resolved to return the clothes Mrs. Davis had loaned him once whatever Mr. Stark had been working on is finished.

Only slightly tired even without sleep, Harley sets to start his daily routine earlier than usual. It would be a waste to try to sleep only to have to wake up an hour and a half later. He makes breakfast, eats, and leaves Emma's and his mom's portion in the microwave.

There's not much else to do, so Harley trudges into the garage to put back a semblance of organization to the mess they left last night.

-0-

He only realizes he fell asleep when the chirping noise of a notification breaks the silence.

Harley rubbed his eyes and fought against the cobwebs of sleep to make his way to where they set up the Iron Man suit. The screens of the laptop and improvised secondary monitor flashed. Harley squints at it and swivelled his gaze to the armor.

Right.

Tony Stark. Iron Man. Some lava lamp guys.

With a sigh, Harley follows the instructions Mr. Stark had made sure was burned in his memory, reconnecting wires and entering codes that barely made sense to him. Harley may be a genius, but the man who had been instructing him was under duress and couldn't explain anything other than giving him strings of code and hardware instructions to memorize.

Now, he's just kinda trying to untangle the web of codes with the rudimentary knowledge he possessed. Hardware and software are two different things and Harley had focused on the former. He'd look it up later, make himself get well acquainted with this stuff, but Harley had something else to do for now. Such as finishing the bag of candies Mr. Stark had told him to eat.

Odd man.

It takes a few hours, the morning sun rolling over into late afternoon, but Harley gets it done before the deadline Mr. Stark had set. He had only gone through one bowl of candies, which is great because any more and he'd be bouncing all over the place. As it was, he's jittery and hungry for more substantial food.

Which reminds him of lunch and mom and Emma.

Harley jerks from his seat, nearly toppling the chair with his haste. He doesn't so much as run as speed-walk to the house, worry for the only family he had left seeping into his bones. He's probably—definitely—overreacting and he'll find both of them fine—mom is a functioning adult—but Harley didn't spend half of his current life for nothing.

The faint sound of the TV playing some program had Harley walking straight into the living room. And, yes, mom and Emma are fine.

Both of them are asleep, cuddled close on the couch, evidence of their meal still laid out on the coffee table. Like this, mom didn't look any less ill, but the lines on her waxen face was smoothed out just a bit to show how relaxed she is. Emma is curled into herself and burrowed in the space between mom's arm and the couch.

Harley sighed, relieved, before he lets himself smile. Quietly, he padded over to the TV and shut it off, seeing a glimpse of a rerun of some cartoon he'd long lost track of.

"Harley? That you?"

"Yeah," Harley takes the plates, careful not to let it clatter. He looks at his mom, her eyelids heavy with sleep and exhaustion. "You should sleep some more. I'll take care of it."

"Y'sure?" Her words slurred, but she doesn't move from her position. She's falling asleep again. He knows she's always tired now.

(Death hung like a shroud around her, intangible and unseen and unreal, fluttering and caressing and whispering around them.

"Come," It croons to the air. "Come, child. Peace.")

"'Course." Harley answered, snapping his gaze away, already knowing that whatever he says wouldn't be heard. "I'll be in the garage if you need me."

Mom surprised him with a reply, "Always are. You don't need to keep on doing this, y'know."

(Of course he does. No one else would.)

"Uh-huh," Harley kisses her hair and doing the same to Emma. "Now, go rest."

Mom touches his cheek, but it falls back on her lap like it weighed a ton. "M'sorry, baby."

She always is.

He leaves them there and makes his way to the kitchen, washing the dishes before making himself a sandwich that he brings back with him to the garage. JARVIS would be up online in a few moments.

Just as he finished eating, a whirring noise called his attention.

"System recalibration complete," came a male voice with a posh british accent from the Iron Man suit. "Initializing internal scans… Scan complete. Good afternoon, sir."

Harley stared at the suit in wonder, feeling a niggle of nostalgia at the accent, "Hey, Jarvis. It's great to finally meet you." He bites back the british lull that threatened to slip into his unpracticed, American tongue. It's been a long, long time since he last heard that accent, but the faint impressions of memories it dug up wouldn't rest no matter what he tried.

There's a moment of silence when J.A.R.V.I.S. lagged with hesitance (or other more complex processes Harley doesn't know about). "I'm afraid I cannot extend the same familiarity with you, young sir."

"Oh," Harley rubs his nose with embarrassment. "Right. I'm Harley Keener. Mr. Stark left you with me so he can take down the bad guys while you're recovering." Then, because Harley was really, really curious, "Can you really pilot the suit on your own?"

"I see. Well met, then, Mr. Keener." J.A.R.V.I.S. responded. "As for your question, I'm not sure how much I am allowed to disclose without sir's explicit permission."

Harley had already guessed that anyway, so he nods, "Okay." And then goes back to scan through the programs that continuously logged data. He's getting the hang of it and so close to figuring out the patterns, it would be such a shame if Harley didn't continue working on it.

"...forgive me for my observation, but it seems like-"

Harley cuts him off, mind absorbing and processing information faster than keeping track of his behavior, "I'm taking your rejection well?"

"Yes. Children your age tend to be more curious when faced with something... 'cool', I believe, is the term."

"I'm just not normal, then." Harley fires back, frowning at the line of code that proved the pattern he's piecing together wrong and ignoring what the A.I. is implying. "Hey, could you help me make sense of this stuff? I don't like working with something I'm not entirely sure of. And this is you I'm kind of working on now. Mr. Stark trusted me with this. I don't want to do something wrong."

"Of course, Mr. Keener."

Harley sends a quick smile at the direction of the suit even though he knows J.A.R.V.I.S. won't be able to see it anyway.

(There's something about smiling that makes him feel better about it.)

The next few hours are spent with Harley elbow-deep in learning an entire computer language that J.A.R.V.I.S. just happened to possess a data packet of, while the A.I. continued running and adding on the tracking algorithms Mr. Stark needed for his not-really-classified mission.

Harley blinks as a thought entered his mind. It's a test of impulse control that Harley easily loses. "Hey, Jarvis?"

"Yes, Mr. Keener?"

"Wanna play a small, harmless prank on Mr. Stark?" Then Harley squints. "And didn't I say stop calling me by my last name? They only call me that in school."

J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice is all mechanical, but Harley was onto him, "What does this prank entail, Mr. Keener?"

Harley rolls his eyes as J.A.R.V.I.S. ignored his attempt at making him call Harley by his preferred name again, "Oh, you know, just a tiny glitch in your speech drive that doesn't really exist." Which was vague, but J.A.R.V.I.S. would know what to do.

"System error detected," J.A.R.V.I.S. reported instead of answering him. "Minor damage found in the speech drive."

J.A.R.V.I.S. wasn't just an A.I.

"I'm sorry Jarvis," Harley responded with a smile as his attention went back to his appointed not school-related homework. "I don't know how to repair it."

"Quite alright, young sir."

It's early evening when their rhythm is broken by the phone ringing. Harley picks it up, dropping a piece of candy in his mouth, mind a haze of patterns and languages and sugar-induced spike of split attention.

"Harley, tell me what's happening," Mr. Stark's voice came from the speaker. "Give me a full report."

"Yeah." Harley absently plops another piece in his mouth. "I'm still eating that candy. Do you want me to keep eating it?"

"How much have you had?" Mr. Stark didn't really sound worried.

Harley blinks and stares at the bowl of candies. "Two or three bowls."

"Can you still see straight?" Okay, so there's concern in the engineer's voice now.

Harley stares at the glaring screen of his laptop, switching the window he's working on for the one where Mr. Stark's algorithms are running. "Sort of."

"That means you're fine." Harley nods at the man's words. "Give me Jarvis."

Harley puts him in loud speaker and places the phone at the crevice between the suit's chest and face plates. J.A.R.V.I.S.'s speakers aren't necessarily there, but that's the first place Harley thinks can hold the phone without it falling.

"Jarvis, how are we?"

"It's totally fine, sir." J.A.R.V.I.S. responded. "I seem to do quite well for a stretch, and then at the end of the sentence I say the wrong cranberry."

Harley grins in amusement but remains silent.

"And, sir, you were right." J.A.R.V.I.S. bulldozed over whatever Mr. Stark might say. "Once I factored in available AIM downlink facilities I was able to pinpoint the Mandarin's broadcast signal."

"What are we talking?" Mr. Stark asked. "Far East, Europe, North Africa, Iran, Pakistan, Syria? Where is it?"

"Actually, sir, it's in Miami."

There's a moment of silence on Mr. Stark's end before the man speaks again. "Okay, kid, I'm gonna have to walk you through rebooting Jarvis's speech drive, but not right now. Harley, where is he really? Just look on the screen and tell me where it is."

There's a little nudge of guilt at the disbelief Mr. Stark displayed because of his prank so he types a "sorry" on his laptop. J.A.R.V.I.S. helpfully flashes the visuals in acceptance of the apology, "Um, it does say Miami, Florida."

"Okay. First things first, I need the armor." Mr. Stark said, a hint of urgency in his tone, and J.A.R.V.I.S. switches the screen to display the suit's statistics before Harley can. "Where are we at with it?"

"Uh, it's not charging?" Harley hears the tires screeching all the way over to where he's sitting and hastens to correct himself. "Uh, no, no it's just- it's charging! The power source just can't reach what the suit needs."

Mr. Stark is breathing heavily on the other end, and Harley hopes he didn't just cause an accident in a highway or something.

"Are you alright, sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S. inquired worriedly, before he continues to explain the circumstances clearer than Harley can. "It is charging, sir, but the power source is questionable. It may not succeed in revitalising the Mark 42."

"What's questionable about electricity?" The amount of panic and incredulity loaded in that question had Harley sitting up straight and pulling the phone to his ear. "All right? It's my suit, and I can't… I'm not gonna… I don't wanna…"

"Tony?" Harley calls out with his own frantic urgency, hearing the gasping breaths the man takes. "Are you having another attack? I didn't even mention New York."

"Right, and you just said it-" There's a hitch in between Mr. Stark's words, his tone strangled and breathless. "By name- while denying having said it! God, what am I gonna do?"

"Okay, um, Christ," Harley muttered, fingers tapping on air with the tension that coiled between his shoulders, still without information on what to do in this kind of situation. "Just breathe. Really, just breathe." That hadn't worked before so it wouldn't work now, but Harley didn't know what else to say.

Would a distraction work? A temporary solution?

"Okay. Okay. Tony, remember what I said before? About fixing and stuff?" Harley rambles, coming into the conclusion that offering what help he can would be better than just telling someone to breathe like they can't do it by themselves. "You're a mechanic, right?"

"Right." The man finally responds coherently and Harley let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Prolong it, make him answer some more. "You said so."

"Yes I did." There. That sounded way better than the blind panic the man had been spinning himself into.

"You make stuff, you create." Harley continued, finally letting his hand fall onto his lap and twisting his seat to face the suit. "Why don't you just build something?"

There's a moment of silence on the other end.

"Okay." It was a simple statement, but Harley can hear the confidence back in the man's voice. "Thanks, kid."

Mr. Stark ends the call.

"Jarvis?" Harley places the phone back on the table, pinching and rubbing his fingers together in agitation. "Pull up everything you can on how to deal with panic attacks. Clearly, Mr. Stark needs it."

"Of course, Mr. Keener."

"Save the data in your mainframe, you'll need it more than I do. Send me links for it, though." Harley didn't like being unprepared. He fidgets some more, hesitant on acting on the conclusions he had drawn before. The suit needed a more reliable source of energy, and electricity from the rigged car battery wasn't working as well as they'd hoped.

Really, the only viable source would have had to have similar energy output as an arc reactor, which they didn't have the materials for or the time to create.

That left only one option.

Harley stared at the suit, mind running through several scenarios at once, calculating possibilities and consequences.

(Planning leads to victory. Without it is to welcome the possibility of failure.)

"Another thing, Jarvis." Harley pushed himself up and away from the chair, standing beside the armor. "What do you say about measuring some energy levels to match with what the suit needs?"

"You cannot possibly be suggesting an alternative source of energy, young sir." J.A.R.V.I.S. responded, a hint of bafflement in his tone. "The amount of time it would require to procure materials, let alone generate enough energy at such a short notice is impossible."

"Not impossible, Jarvis." Harley started sending tiny tendrils of Magic to the reactor of the suit. Power supplies are easy. "Just a trade secret you're not allowed to ever breathe a word to anyone. Not unless you really need to."

-0-

The next day, Harley watches the Iron Man suit fly in the crisp early morning, a grin stretching across his lips.

Good luck, Merchant of Death, Harley thinks. You'll need it in the years to come.

(Harley puts loyalty second to none, and family above all.

War?

War puts everything into a certain perspective. Harley had already lost too much to waste what he has and what he can have.)

Homonoia (Ὁμόνοια), spirit of concord, unanimity, and oneness of mind

A/N: So I may not be able to update in the coming weekdays 'cuz I'd be in school most of the time, running around with a camera (why tf am I media ughhh) while the little ducklings get introduced to (hell) their new uni.

On another news, I've just finished writing chapter 15! So no fear of this being unfinished yet.

Also, (wat do u mean i haven't announced i plan on dragging this till iw wat) I love y'all 3000!