A/N: So I have no idea how this never came up, but I'm not a native English speaker? So, like, I know there're awkward phrasings and stuff. I barely edit too. Anyway, I'm a proud Filipino if anyone cares ＼(￣▽￣)／

Chapter Warnings: Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hand Wavy Everything

ARC 2: CHAPTER 10
Aporia

-0-

The following days were significantly less exciting than that fateful day Mr. Stark decided to drop by.

Christmas came and went; small thoughtful gifts were exchanged, a festive dinner cooked, an entire day spent lounging together on the sofa while Emma played with her new dolls. New year passed, celebrated with plastic trumpets and glow sticks Harley had enchanted with Magic, and still, Harley hadn't heard a word from the man.

It wasn't that Harley was expecting something, just that it would have been nice to hear if Mr. Stark had been successful or not.

Sure, the Mandarin had been caught, the president saved from some such kidnapping, and Harley had even seen a glimpse of Tony Stark in the news before mom changed channels, but to hear it from the man himself would relieve the lingering worry in his chest.

Harley would admit that he had grown attached to the man. It's the kind that kept Harley up late at night with an odd feeling of restlessness and an urge that he couldn't decipher. It sent his Magic into a frenzy that had it jumpy and easier to call into the surface.

Harley thinks it's the worry. A part of him thinks it's more than that.

(We're connected.)

Sometimes, he missed the almost daunting presence that would whisper the things he needed to Know. Now, it remains silent unless he really needed it, its influence ultimately limited by his human body.

Instead, Harley distracted himself with tinkering in the garage with the new materials he managed to get a hold of and that his Magic deemed interest in, interspersed with little breaks consisting of spending time with his mom and little Emma.

And then it was the first day of school again.

Harley went about his business as usual; speaking with a group of his peers, laughing with them and sharing stories, sneaking glances of mocking disbelief and jest, trying to keep still in class and end up fidgeting with anything and everything within reach.

But for all that he smiles, for all that he laughs and the trouble he gets into but never gets caught, Harley felt detached.

Like he doesn't belong.

(The thing was, no matter what life he lived, what body he's in, what name he uses, Harley is still too different. Too burdened, too experienced, too mature, too jaded. Harley tried to not let it spill out of him, to not let it bleed into what they expected Harley should be.

And they believed him.

But he's left lonely and alone and barely keeping his head above water.)

Because he never did.

-0-

Then he comes home to find his garage tricked out and remodeled.

Maybe not alone, Harley thinks, eyes wide in shock and wonder and excitement, chest tight with an emotion brimming with so much positivity and happiness that it felt like he was in an impossible dream, as he reverently picked up the piece of expensive paper that stood in the middle of everything.

Your pal, The Mechanic.

It's an odd, grand gesture, completely unnecessary and unexpected and wonderful.

But the most important and precious and priceless of them all?

The secure communication line left open in the new computer system.

-0-

"Hey, Mechanic," Harley greets as the video call finally patched through. This was his fifth try in the last week, and while it was nice that J.A.R.V.I.S. picks up the calls and Harley can choose to talk to him instead, Harley had been itching to finally talk to Mr. Stark and thank him properly.

Harley knew Mr. Stark was a busy man, so it was fine for him to wait. Harley's just another kid, after all.

"Kid." Mr. Stark looked exhausted even through the camera, but he's got a smirk tilting his lips. He also looked lighter, a little bit brighter, better than what he looked when he came to Rose Hill. For one, he wore a sharp business suit instead of tattered clothes and looked to have just come out of a meeting. "You got all the stuff there?"

"Yeah," Harley grins, feeling the worry unknot little by little. "Thanks, really. You didn't have to do it."

"Don't worry about it." Mr. Stark waved a hand dismissively, a flicker of something bleak flashed through his expression before it was wiped away by a grimace. "And, hey, no offense, but your garage really needed that upgrade. I can't believe you've been using those ancient tools."

"Well," Harley snorts, filing away the nuances of the man. "Not everyone is a billionaire like you."

"I know." Mr. Stark said it with such confidence and arrogance that it seemed more like a habit. "Not everyone is as great as I am."

Harley raised an eyebrow, unperturbed. "Whatever you say." Then he squints, leaning forward to the screen. "Wait." Harley ignored the what from the billionaire and continued his scrutiny. Narrowing his eyes on the partially unbuttoned shirt, Harley tried to determine what bothered his cursory glance at the man.

Gone.

"Where's your arc reactor?" Harley finally asked, confusion mixed with the returned feeling of worry. The importance of the reactor to the man's life had been glaringly obvious in the short time they'd spent together.

Mr. Stark startled, hand flying up to his chest reflexively. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Not gonna work on me, mechanic." Harley crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, doing his best to show how unimpressed he is. Which would have looked ridiculous with this body, but Harley doesn't care at the moment. "I can always ask Jarvis. He'd tell me everything I wanted to know."

Mr. Stark maintains his denial by raising an equally unimpressed eyebrow and not answering.

"Mr. Keener has a point, sir." J.A.R.V.I.S. says either in the background or directly to the speakers. "You have-"

"Okay, okay, fine," Mr. Stark sighed, more for show than anything, and pinned Harley with a look. "How did you even know about that?"

Harley shrugged, "The reactor? Your clothes. Jarvis? I asked. But you are okay, right?"

"Nosy brats," Mr. Stark muttered sullenly under his breath, but he probably knows the mic still caught it. "You don't even really need to know. I don't need to explain myself to you." There's reprimand in the man's tone, but it's as much a confirmation as it is a scolding.

"I'm curious." Harley gestured with his hand. "And worried."

Mr. Stark makes a confused face. "Huh."

Harley thinks he recognizes that confusion. "C'mon, mechanic. We may have met, like, a few weeks ago, but I'm free to worry about who I want to worry about." It's the best phrasing Harley can put it in a way that the engineer won't snap back into defensiveness.

It takes a few (barely there) moments for Mr. Stark to form a response, for the man to work through surprise without showing he's surprised, "You're weird, kid."

"And you're old." Harley shot back just because he'd concluded that Mr. Stark wasn't one for serious conversations. Maybe he can get better at this socializing thing if he takes this systematic hit and miss approach?

Probably not. He's getting even better at tip toeing over landmines though.

"Brat." Mr. Stark didn't look too insulted so Harley counts it as a win. "So what have you been doing with your new toys?"

Here, Harley grins and lets himself be lost in schematics and circuitry and motors and engines. He cautiously basks in the ease of their conversation, allows himself to relax into a sort of new cadence that revolved around mechanics and creating with someone else.

(He doesn't just destroy. Harley Keener is a builder, he's a maker of things that can do many and serve others, he can fix things just like he'd been fixed. Broken and falling apart, and built back up so differently yet still the same.

Harley Keener is a mechanic—a fixer, a builder—not a savior nor a monster.)

Maybe not alone, was the echo of his traitorous thoughts.

-0-

When Harley woke up in the middle of the night, chest tight and Magic sizzling underneath his skin, he realizes it wasn't just the worry.

It was a call. It was the warning for what was coming, the cry for his attention that flits under and above his senses. It was the presence turning to his Magic to let him Know.

Death had always been a looming presence, but this time, It lets him Know what It will take.

("Peace.")

-0-

Harley is eleven when Amelia Keener died, a smile on her lips that shouldn't be there.

-0-

"She was so sad," Emma says, one hand held in Harley's and the other fidgeting at the hem of her black dress. "Mom always cried herself to sleep, y'know?"

Harley knows. He'd been there with her for a long, long time. "Yeah. She was. She did."

They had her body cremated, urn sealed and buried at the graveyard and not a columbarium. Harley thinks of the irony of ashes and fire, thinks of how his mom's death should be natural but isn't.

"Am I going to be like her?" Emma's voice was soft, strained, but she's not crying. "Dead?"

Harley's heart skips a beat, his hand gripping Emma's tighter. He looks down at her, at the way her little shoulders slump, at the way her eyes looked older than it should on such an innocent face (Harley knows his is worse, but he hides it better). He feels the cautioning coldness around her, the presence looming over her lovingly.

He taps his finger on her wrist, a gesture he'd always used to comfort, and contemplates lying. "Yes. But not like mom."

He can't.

Emma pulls herself closer to him, burying her face into his shirt. "Okay." Like he didn't just say she'd die.

Harley raises a hand, pats her head haltingly, trying and failing to search for guilt or sympathy or loss. There's nothing.

(You can't mourn what you've already mourned a long time ago.)

"Let's go." Harley whispers instead. "Mrs. Davis is waiting for us."

-0-

"Good evening, Mr. Keener," J.A.R.V.I.S. greets after a few seconds of waiting. "How may I be of assistance?"

"Hi, J." Harley greets back, fiddling with the sheets of paper that was the homework packets the school had given him for his week of absence. He'd finished most of it already at Mrs. Davis's insistence. Harley had obeyed, not wanting to be a burden to the old lady who had taken them in. "Is Mr. Stark busy?"

"I'll notify sir."

Leaning back in his chair, Harley let his eyes wander the entire garage, already reorganized to his taste. The workbench was filled with half-finished projects that range from another model of the potato gun to something he'd idly sketched in class out of boredom. Most of them would end up disassembled before they can be finished. His gaze lingered on one of the mezzanines, heavily warded and forgotten by everyone but him.

"What's up, kid?"

Harley blinks and swivels his attention back to the screen where Mr. Stark is shown to be in the middle of working on something, the blue glow of the holograms surrounding the engineer. "Hey, Mechanic."

Mr. Stark hummed, fingers flying over the holograms and muttering under his breath. "Yeah, yeah. Why did you call? Is something wrong?"

"Nah." Harley lied through his teeth, pasting on a smile that felt off-balance but doesn't look any different. He's been doing this kind of deception for such a long time. "Just checking in to see if you're still alive."

"Well," The genius faced the camera and exaggeratedly gestured to his body in all its disheveled, haven't-showered-in-a-week glory. "As you can see, I'm alive."

"Jarvis?" Harley didn't need to say any more than that, this type of conversation having been tackled enough for it to be usual.

"Astonishingly, sir has kept a relatively normal schedule in the last three days."

"Hey," Mr. Stark squawked indignantly after mouthing 'astonishingly' under his breath. "I can take care of myself. I'm the adult in this relationship, not you, Keener. I should be grounding you."

"And yet you still need Jarvis to keep track of things for you," Harley ignored the grounding comment, an argument that was overused and never backed up. Harley was too good to be grounded. "Doesn't tell me much about you being a good adult."

"Can it, brat." Mr. Stark sniffed, but was distracted by a crash off-camera. The engineer snaps his gaze to his left, an exasperated look twisted on his face. "Dum-E! How many times have I told you that I haven't even finished replacing your sensors yet? Go back to your charging station and don't. Touch. Anything."

Harley loses the fight with his body and pulled his legs up to his chest, lip twitching as Mr. Stark had an impressive argument against a bot that could only communicate with beeps and whirrs. His fingers pinched at each other, his mind a maelstrom of emotions that he hadn't quite untangled yet.

"I apologize, Mr. Keener," J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke with as much exasperation as could be expected from him as Mr. Stark got distracted by U wreaking as much havoc as Dum-E. "It seems like Dum-E and U had been left without anything to do for too long."

"It's okay, Jarvis." Harley fidgets with his fingers, scratches his nose repeatedly, thinks of telling the truth but failing to convince himself. Instead, he smiles and waves the mostly answered homework to the camera. "I've got some stuff to do for school anyway. So I guess I'll see you next time."

Both of them knew how useless of an excuse that is. Harley had done his homework while talking to J.A.R.V.I.S. more than could be counted.

What else would he say?

Hey, can you tell Tony my mom died?

My mom died and I don't feel anything. Emma's going to die soon, too. What do I do?

(Please help me, I'm drowning. Save me, please pleasepleaseplea-)

"Of course," J.A.R.V.I.S., nonetheless, acknowledged. "It was nice hearing from you and I am sure sir shares the sentiment."

Harley ended the call and is left to stare at the screen.

Not alone, he reminds himself.

-0-

They say his dad should still have custody of Harley and Emma, but the man had disappeared off the face of the earth. In the end, Mrs. Davis signed the papers, citing something about being a family friend. Whatever friendships his mom had, had long since worn down to the ground before her death.

Mrs. Davis, if anything, wasn't anyone qualified to look after two children. No one says anything, eager to have the matter settled. They don't move in with Mrs. Davis as much as she drops by their house every morning and they stay with her during weekends.

It's a weird arrangement and would probably be a problem to the social workers, but Harley made sure they could get away with it. Besides, her apartment-type house is too small for the three of them, no matter that it's in a better condition than theirs.

Harley only really wanted to keep his garage, and Emma needed a room for herself.

"When I lost my Chad," Mrs. Davis says one day, nursing a glass of water instead of alcohol, voice wavering every few words. "I didn't know what to think. He killed himself, killed a few people with him. Left a file I never touched and had only ever wanted gone. He was a good boy, served his country like men were supposed to, but he'd changed since they cut off his leg."

"I don't think he killed himself," Harley responded, pausing briefly from sketching, but doesn't look at Mrs. Davis. "Or those people."

"No," Mrs. Davis let out a breath. "No, he didn't. I know that now."

There was a lull in their conversation, the atmosphere clear of tension but obviously not comfortable. Harley went back to his sketching.

"Everything's going to be okay," Mrs. Davis spoke in the silence, trying to be comforting yet falling short. "You're stronger than you look."

Sometimes Harley wonders what would have happened if he had removed her memories as well, made her forget what happened. Made her forget who Chad Davis is and what had actually become of him.

-0-

"Hey, Harley."

Harley didn't resist the urge to roll his eyes at the familiar mocking drawl.

"EJ," His eyes scanned the hallway, corridors bustling with children going to their next class, but notably lacking the posse EJ usually had at his beck and call. "Where's your boot-lickers? They found another big bad they wanted to worship?"

"No." EJ answered, arms crossed over his chest, something more bitter and less indignant passing through his face.

Harley frowns, scrutinizing the other boy in suspicion, noting how defensive the other's holding himself. "What are you doing here then?"

"I can take you on my own, Keener," EJ tried to say threateningly, but fails with the way his eyes dart all over the place, obviously stewing on his thoughts and motivations.

"No you can't." Harley says this with confidence like he usually does. Because EJ really can't even if he tried, and he never did. For all that EJ and his gang terrorizes the school, they haven't really messed with Harley. Not since he'd shown them how unaffected and above their league he is. It didn't stop them from targeting him with insults all the time.

He gave as much as they did, though.

"Why are you making this so hard?!" EJ suddenly burst out, surprising Harley. Luckily, no one was paying them attention.

"Uh," Harley lets the incredulity pass through his tone. "No. I don't even know why you're here. So spill, I've got class to attend and I'm sure you've got your bad boy club to return to."

"I'm sorry your whore of a mother died, okay?" EJ bit out, all prickly and angry and reluctant and insulting and sincere.

Harley barely blinked at the slight, already used to it after years of hearing it come from different mouths. Normally, he would have reacted in a much more visceral way, but- "Huh?"

"Did I stutter?"

"Thanks," Whatever the other boy was expecting, it wasn't Harley looking amused. "That took a lot out of you, didn't it?"

EJ scoffed, all anger and defensiveness seemingly drained out, "Whatever." Then he left.

It's weird, but Harley felt a little bit lighter after that.

Aporia (Ἀπορία), spirit of difficulty, perplexity, powerlessness, and want of means

I APOLOGIZE (*_ _)人 I haven't really replied to any reviews lately. Since chapter 8, actually. I've kinda emptied my socializing reserves and it takes a long, long while for me to recharge it. So here I am, sending all my regards, gratefulness, and apologies in this note. It kills me not to reply to every single one of you, but my skin starts crawling every time I try to. But, yes, I do individually take your comments to heart. (yes, i have issues)

Unfortunately, classes are going to start this coming week. I'm gonna be down to updating only twice a month if I don't get swamped. College is an annoying thing we need to go through. Chapter 16 is on the works though!

I love y'all 3000!