A/N: Ugh, I'm honestly not so happy with this chapter. I wrote it (and 15 and 16) under emotional duress, so it's not really,,,,stellar. Somehow tho, I can't rewrite them. So here it is!

Chapter Warnings: AoU proceedings, writing action is eh to me

ARC 3: CHAPTER 14
Acratopotes

-0-

All in all, Harley has a plan.

He had motives and reasons that would never match a thing he says. Maybe he lies, maybe he tells the truth.

But that plan? That plan is at the back of his mind, creating itself as life went on. It's vague and ever changing, fluid and adaptive to circumstances. Sometimes it has a goal, sometimes it doesn't. Most times, all he has are conclusions. Lately, there's been a goal solidifying at the end of it.

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

So.

Harley has a plan, but that doesn't mean he knows every detail of it. He'd always worked better under pressure.

That was why, as the Avenger's jet neared the tower, reeking of the power of the Mind Stone, Harley held himself in place so as not to react.

"No." Tony suddenly says.

"What?" Harley lets out indignantly, fixing an incredulous look at the unimpressed looking engineer. "I didn't even say anything."

"I know that face," The engineer gestured with his hand. "See, that face? I've seen that a couple of times. The answer is no, kid. You're gonna stay put, and stay away from this."

Harley narrows his eyes and considered his words. It has been a while since he actually felt this frustrated of how young his body is. He crossed his arms. "I can help."

"I know." It was a simple statement. A fact. Harley felt pride worm its way into his chest. "But that doesn't mean I want you in danger. And this? I want you far, far away from this."

"Well, what's stopping me?" Harley says defiantly, spying the way Dr. Banner shrinks away from the both of them, wanting to avoid being pulled in to their argument. "Either I sneak in without you knowing, maybe get in a lot of trouble on the way, or you let me tag along and keep an eye on me."

Tony stares at him, mouth slightly agape and eyebrows raised in incredulity. "You- that's manipulative."

"It's not manipulation if I'm just stating the facts," Harley rolled his eyes. "So?"

Tony opens his mouth, spares a look at Dr. Banner who merely shrugged, and then sighed. "Fine. But you follow everything I say, okay?"

Harley grins. "Sure!"

"I'm regretting this already." Tony mutters as they made their way to the elevator.

Dr. Banner lends a commiserating shoulder pat on the other scientist.

-0-

There's a man sitting on the pod-thing that contained the Mind Stone. He's tense and fidgety, perched at the near-edge of the surface. Going by the attire, Harley was willing to bet that this man is Hawkeye, minus the arrows.

The Avengers were pretty well-known by now, so even Harley knew their names. Disregarding, of course, the off-hand comments his mechanic made.

"Barton."

"Stark." Hawkeye nods, hopping off of the pod-thing. "Banner." He acknowledges once the doctor let himself known. Hawkeye's gaze swept back to Tony before stopping at the elevated metal railing Harley had made a beeline for. The archer blinks before frowning at the two scientists. "Who let the kid in?"

Since the man didn't ask for his name, Harley cut in. "I'm Harley, not 'kid'!"

Dr. Banner raises his hands in a 'not me' gesture. Or maybe it was more, 'I don't know what's going on either'.

Tony, on the other hand, continued on as if Hawkeye didn't ask anything. "I don't want you touching anything, kid."

"Sure thing, mechanic." Harley agreed easily, perching himself on the railing, minding the table behind him. It gives him the view of the entire room and positioned close enough to touch the pod-thing. "I'll stay here."

Hawkeye looked at him with raised eyebrows, clearly expecting him to explain.

Harley grins in response. He didn't feel like explaining anything right now.

"Where's Nat?" Dr. Banner broke the silence, a worried tone in his voice.

The adults seemed content to ignore Harley as they conversed, though he didn't doubt that at least Hawkeye never let him out of sight. His focus remained on the pod-thing in front of him. The Mind Stone sang from where it's contained, desperately reaching out for something, wild and uncontrolled and aggressive.

What happened?

Reigning in the Magic deep beneath his skin so as to not cause anything, Harley examined the pod-thing—the Cradle, if Harley heard the hushed conversation correctly—fixated on the red, humanoid face that held the Stone in its forehead.

So this was what human technology can reach now. Still not on the level of other planets, but impressive in its own right.

Carefully, Harley reached out a tendril of Magic, testing and ready to pull back at a moment's notice. Even though more than a decade has passed since- well, since Harley had been Harrhan, the severed bond between him and the Mind Stone had never recovered. He'd always figured it would take more time, had ignored it in the way he avoided thinking of what he- had.

But maybe… Harley had never considered what the severance of the bond did to the Stone.

He still felt drawn to it. Still felt the ache that he'd grown used to.

(Still remembers the constant hum at the back of his mind that now felt so, so achingly empty and void and painful.)

His Magic reaches into the Cradle and into the Stone.

Harley nearly falls over as the Stone pulled in his Magic and pushed back, backbackback until the bond is forced back in place and everything else became a haze of yellow light and all the pain and cruelty and kindness and sorrow that shouldn't be there.

Images and impressions flashed in his mind, too fast to be comprehended, too much to be contained.

(Just like it used to be, just how his mind should now be able to keep track of it. But it was too slow, too sudden-)

Then-

It stops.

"Shit what's happening-"

"The energy inside is fluctuating. The genetic coding is adjusting to something-"

"So what, now it's adaptable?"

"Kid." That last one was close and Harley, against all odds, shifts his gaze to see Hawkeye-Barton looking at him with concern even as Tony and Dr. Banner fussed about the Cradle. "You okay there? You just froze."

"Yeah, I-" Harley breathes, hands gripping the railing in a white-knuckled grip. "Just vertigo. Get it from time to time."

"Huh." Hawkeye-Barton doesn't look like he believed Harley but the archer let it go, mind too preoccupied by something else. The man turned his attention back on the muttering scientists. "Everything okay there?"

"It- well," Dr. Banner answered after a moment, a bit tense and fidgeting with his glasses. "It's fine now. Got into a state of homeostasis after."He was about to say something more before he realized himself. Then the doctor mutters to Tony, "We're going to need to access the program, break it down from within. We've gotta be extra careful if it fluctuates again. Destabilizing the connections is the last thing we need."

Tony turned to Hawkeye-Barton instead of responding to Dr. Banner. "Any chance Natasha might leave you a message, outside the internet, old school spy stuff?"

That got the archer out of the room.

Harley watches them in a daze, all focus into adjusting and assimilating back to a bond with an Infinity Stone.

With only the three of them now, Tony and Dr. Banner started going into some sort of argument that Harley couldn't quite understand at the moment.

"I found him."

Harley catches sight of the holoprojection, glowing and bright and unique and beautiful. No one needed to tell Harley what or who it is.

J.A.R.V.I.S. had never been just an A.I.

"Hello, Dr. Banner, Mr. Keener."

"Ultron didn't go after Jarvis 'cause he was angry." Tony spoke, his voice strong but Harley could hear the subtle waver. "He attacked him because he was scared of what he can do. So Jarvis went underground. Okay? Scattered, dumped his memory. But not his protocols. He didn't even know he was in there, until I pieced him together."

And all at once, everything made sense. Harley understood what the Mind Stone had been showing him, had been telling him.

Ultron. A separate entity with its own consciousness, its malice born from all the pain and grief and anger and sorrow an Infinity Stone shouldn't have harbored or absorbed. The result of a broken bond that didn't have anywhere to go.

(Thanos and his grief and twisted resolve. Loki and his fear and anger and jealousy. HYDRA and its greed and lust for power. The twins of whom the Stone had desperately called up to, their desire for revenge. Tony and his guilt and drive to do everything to save everyone.

"A suit of armor around the world."

Then J.A.R.V.I.S.)

Harley looks at the physical manifestation of a Soul—of one made by a man, of one made of code, of one that was horribly young and yet still so much more than most—in sorrow.

His attention comes back in time to hear Dr. Banner say, "And you just assume that Jarvis's operational matrix can beat Ultron's?"

It doesn't take long for Harley to figure out what Tony wanted to do.

(And wasn't that something. Because J.A.R.V.I.S. is more than an A.I. and Tony knew it, had trust in his creation even if he can't comprehend just what J.A.R.V.I.S. is.

Tony is easy in his affection once you prove yourself in his eyes; has a long, long list of things someone could do wrong before that affection waned. But sometimes- sometimes it's too much too easy. 'Trusting' isn't a word to describe Tony Stark, but he might as well be.)

Harley finally decided to butt in, because he could see how painful this is going to be for his mechanic, how the fear would worm its way precariously and make that guiltandsorrow worse. Words make something more real, something that can't just be ignored.

"If Jarvis has been beating Ultron even without knowing it, murder-bot Ultron would be no match with Jarvis pieced back together. Besides," Harley slips down from his perch and made his way to J.A.R.V.I.S.'s holoprojection. "Jarvis's consciousness and operational matrix are more concrete than Ultron's."

There's a vicious tug from the newly replaced bond, the Stone growing agitated at the sudden distance between them. Harley twitched. That was going to be a bit of a problem.

(And where was his scepter?)

"Wait," Tony quipped, head tilted with a frown. "How did you know that? How does he know that? I never said anything. Bruce?" He turned to Dr. Banner who looked puzzled, then the engineer's gaze is back on Harley, questioning and suspicious.

Harley felt something heavy drop in his stomach because there it is. Suspicion.

(Tension is high in the air. Harley shouldn't take it for what it is.)

Before Harley could blurt out anything, J.A.R.V.I.S. cut in, "I believe you were not overly cautious of your discussion earlier, sir. You have mentioned Ultron no less than five times, enough for anyone to form correct conclusions."

Covertly breathing out silently in relief, Harley continued, "Yeah. And there are stuff about this on the internet. There's enough sci-fi to cover the bases. Naming something Ultron was, like, calling for something bad to happen. Jarvis is a perfectly friendly name."

"Thank you, young sir."

"No problem, J." Harley grins up at the look of incredulity from both men.

"Catching up on a world crisis situation with sci-fi," Tony mutters in disbelief, seeming to accept the excuse for now. "You are a menace, kid."

"You love me."

Tony sends him a deadpan look. "No, I don't." Which was a bold-faced lie.

"So," Dr. Banner looked hesitant, but he still cut in with exasperation and guilt and too much stress. "I still don't think we should do this. Because this? This is exactly where it all went wrong before."

Harley was in the perfect angle to see the way Tony's face shutter back into stoicism, but nothing can ever shadow the expressiveness of his eyes. And right there, Harley could see the guilt his mechanic had been carrying and hiding. The desperation that shouldn't be there.

"No." Harley shot back a little too sharply, both men startled enough to snap their attention to him. He felt a spark of his old temper flare, not entirely sure what or who triggered it, just that the resigned and defeated way Dr. Banner held himself grated on his nerves. "This isn't 'exactly where it went wrong'. This is where it would go right because now you have Jarvis and that Stone away from the enemy's hands. You made your mistakes and now you've gotta show them- yourselves that you learned from it."

(Harley shouldn't be the one rallying them.)

The stunned silence that followed his short speech was enough for his temper to deflate. It takes a few moments before Dr. Banner gives a defeated sigh, cleaning his glasses out of habit. "Alright. How do we do this?"

The smile on Tony's lips was equal parts victorious and fabricated. It took no time at all before the two adults started firing instructions at each other.

"Great speech by the way," Tony ruffles Harley's hair in the lull between setting up the program and making sure they're doing it correctly this time. "Very mature, but I don't need you to defend me, alright, kid?"

Harley scrunches his nose both at the mess his already messy hair had become and at his mechanic's words.

Of course Harley needed to.

(He doesn't know what else he should do.)

-0-

Harley felt their approach before they even came close to the laboratories. He continues with his work, keeping an eye on the codes for Tony, soothing the Mind Stone every now and then to avoid another fluctuation, and generally staying out of the adults's way.

Hey, Harley knew his limits. And his limit at the moment is the presence of easily suspicious, jumpy adults who's gone through rough hours of battle and hasn't quite finished just yet.

(Harley knew better than anyone how that felt. The fear that they would fail, the adrenaline that pumped through their veins and make everything tense and trembling, the intense drive to succeed.)

"I'm gonna say this once." Captain America's authoritative voice followed the pointed heavy tap of his boots. The Mind Stone's twins are right behind him, a beacon to those familiar with the Stone.

Harley could feel them, all their rage and fear and trepidation and relief. They have power, yes, something that was the Mind Stone and something uniquely theirs. But the Stone didn't want them anymore, not when Harley was there.

Tony tenses right beside Harley and subtly pushes him behind, the man's hand staying on his shoulder to keep Harley in place. Which was weird, but Harley easily goes, peeking over the man's waist and catching the eyes of the blond twin. Tony automatically fires a response, "How about 'nonce'."

Captain America didn't like that, it seems. "Shut it down!"

"Nope." Tony quips, fingers never faltering from its work over the keyboard. "Not gonna happen."

"You don't know what you're doing." Captain America spoke just like how Harley imagined the man would in a high-stress situation. It made Harley bristle at it being directed towards his mechanic.

"He's the tech genius here, of course he knows what he's doing!" Harley blurts out, ignoring the warning squeeze on his shoulder.

Sometimes, Harley wished he still had Harrhan's temperament.

All eyes settle on him, but Harley wasn't one to be intimidated by the gaze of a handful of super-powered people. "Besides, we've got Dr. Banner here and he knows bio-organic genetic construction better than anyone in this room."

All three newcomers are frowning, Captain America more so. Dr. Banner was keeping a wary eye on the twins and Harley can only imagine the look on his mechanic's face.

The American icon made his thoughts known by ignoring Harley's presence and directing his words at Tony, "Why is there a kid here? What did you do?"

Annoyed by the barely held back enmity and the clear way it put increasing tension in the room, Harley steps away from Tony's protective stance to glare at the red-white-and-blue clad man, sparing a glance at the agitated twins. Harley was trying to keep his calm, but the Mind Stone's stifling presence wasn't helping.

"I put myself here." Harley declares, arms crossed. "Tony didn't do anything."

That finally put the captain's attention back on him and he's doing this face like he's disappointed that just rubbed Harley the wrong way, especially in this kind of situation they're in. "This isn't a game, kid. So whatever Stark told you-"

"Stop it right there, Rogers." Tony cut in, walking away from the terminal and planting himself to another that is at the corner of the room. "And you, midget, stop rising to the bait. We talked about this. Cap, we've got other more important things to do, so spare us your lecturing when we actually want to listen to your spangly voice."

Harley scoffed at the 'midget' comment, but does back down, the Mind Stone finally regaining some sort of sense to actually emit something that didn't make Harley want to scrub his skin raw. That broken bond and separation really messed it up.

But apparently, only Harley chose to do it because after Tony's statement was when the adults erupted into an argument. Harley liked to think that he was patient, but the strain between Tony and Captain America and then Dr. Banner and the brunette twin was another thing entirely. He didn't even bother butting in on this one.

(Calm, he tries to coax the Stone. It doesn't want to.)

The blond twin had the same thought, his eyes rolling in an 'I can't believe this' way before using his powers—Speed? Okay, Harley was kind of jealous—to stop the squabbling.

With his bond to the Mind Stone, Harley was granted a degree of immunity to track the blond twin with his sight like he's watching a normal person running. It's disconcerting. Because Harley knew he can't really move to match that speed, not even with Magic humming through his veins.

He watches the blond unplug the bigger wires, clearly not sure what was or wasn't important.

The smug, "No, no. Go on. You were saying?" had Harley covering a grin.

What happened next was a series of stupid decisions that Harley hadn't seen in a while. He'd had that, many times in his life as Harry Potter and few over his lifetime as Harrhan, but the Avengers were a whole new concoction of tempers and probably hidden grudges. Top that up with super-powers and impending doom and- well, the less said was better.

The blond twin—Pietro, apparently—fell down when Hawkeye-Barton shot the glass beneath the speedster's feet. Tony sort-of panics as the power loss proved critical to the upload.

Captain America threw his shield at the machines, which were mostly unneeded and was only there for monitoring, thankfully. Tony pulled Harley into a corner without a word before an Iron Man gauntlet flies to his hand and he fires a repulsor beam at the Captain.

Dr. Banner moves to immobilize the brunette twin—whose power was unbelievably unsubtle with its red visual glow—who then retaliated by using her own powers to break free of his hold.

Everyone was moving all at once, and while Harley didn't have problems in following them all and was more than fine to sit this one through, he would prefer it if they just didn't fight with each other. Even Harley hadn't done this kind of turn of events and weren't they teammates?

He'd kind of gotten the impression that the Avengers were dysfunctional from when his mechanic was run-down enough to rant about them, but this? Harley never expected they would turn on each other like this.

Like a single chink on the armor was enough to make them fall apart.

(Is it poor taste if he compares them to the Black Order and then realize the Order was more a family than the Avengers currently seem like?)

Then, of course, Thor Odinson arrives to put further confusion into the fighting people, jumping on the Cradle and using his lightning to power it back up.

Harrhan had never been this close to the Aesir, had only seen the god of thunder's conquests from afar. The god's lightning felt like what Harley would imagine natural lightning felt; static-y but clearly unique to the Aesir. It was neither Magic nor seidr, but still a form of energy similar to it. Strong, but no match to a Stone. It was more likely to be absorbed, like it was doing now.

It stops the fight, everyone riveted at the Aesir's display. Harley watches it with curiosity, feels the Mind Stone's pleased hum. Whatever's happening, it wouldn't end badly. Not in the way Captain and the twins were sure of, and not in the way Dr. Banner and Tony were wary of.

When Thor Odinson ceased the flow of his lightning, everyone waited with bated breath.

Acratopotes (Ἀκρατοπότης) the drinker of unmixed wine

I'm so sorry for how slow I'm being. Coz somehow,,,I'm,,,the literary head for our college's publication? I honestly didn't expect to get to this position. I'm allergic to being a leader, ugh. I'll be damned if I don't at least become a soccer mom to these ducklings tho. Which means, what time I spend not studying or reading fics, I'll spend working on my ducklings and the pub.

Progress is zero in the latest chapter I'm writing (ch17).

Thank you so much for reading! Nothing else makes me so happy than seeing the emails I get. And omg you guys, this fic is at 840 kudos? That's like, the most I ever had in a single fic. Thank y'all so much!