A/N:I'M ALIVE! kinda. Uni and publication stuff and writing this chapter were bitches.

So, I tried several angles on this one considering how the last chapter ended. And getting a Harley POV on this was like pulling teeth. Screwed on, super glued, cemented teeth. So I had no choice but to write a Tony POV. I'm srsly not satisfied with it, but I've re-read it so many times I wanna throw it out.

Hopefully, y'all don't get a whiplash or something and that I did a good enough job.

Chapter Warnings: Tony's potty mouth and thoughts

ARC 3: CHAPTER 17
Kyllopodíōn

-0-

When Tony Stark decided to mutter a fuck it and used his battered suit to fly back to New York, it wasn't because he particularly wanted to do so.

Seriously, he'd rather take the quinjet with him. The suit's thrusters were not in optimal condition for the flight over.

And yeah, sure, he's tired and aching and yes, there's probably a fractured bone there somewhere, but he's Iron Man. He can handle it. No one survived being a forty-something superhero in a weaponized gold-titanium alloy suit of armor without developing a high pain tolerance.

This was nothing compared to having his sternum and ribs cracked open without even a drop of morphine in his system.

(Tony's lived it so many times it's been downgraded into a nightmare he can still sleep through. He can pretty much describe it in detail if anyone so much as asked.

Like, hey, Tony, how did it feel like to have the reactor put in your chest?

He'd break a spleen and create presentation out of it; diagrams and all.)

Or, you know, slowly dying of palladium poisoning and other what-have-yous he'd indulged in under that type of duress.

(God, that threat about chucking him to a therapist wouldn't even be a threat anymore if Pepper heard his trains of thought.)

So, something as plebeian as being tired and achy hadn't been an impediment to Tony Stark in a long, long time.

Besides, there were things he really needed to take care of after blowing up an entire city in mid-air. The Helicarrier is all nice and dandy, but the principle of the matter is that there are thousands of sokovian refugees currently under the dubious care of S.H.I.E.L.D.

(And it's somehow his fault.)

Between millions, if not billions of dollars of property damage (how do you even file destroying an entire landmass and the city above it in a way that wouldn't send the accounting department- the legal team to tears?) and the amount of bureaucracy involved in settling a huge bunch of foreign refugees... Tony already dreaded the amount of work that would require.

And really, he didn't need to see how much Hill hated his guts, or bare the sharp glares the female Maximoff liked to give off like candy while her brother's zooming around and actually helping, or suffer under the constipated look of judgment plastered on Captain Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things whenever he notices Tony was in the vicinity.

Thank any being higher than Thor that they were all kept busy enough that there was no possible way for them to talk.

So yes, Tony slipped away from all of that chaos because a.) he's so sick of the underlying hostility—he's obnoxious, not oblivious—and b.) S.H.I.E.L.D. may have had its dirty fingers (and tentacles) on many different pies, but their current resources are absolute shit compared to what Tony has. There's a letter C there, and that was maybe the most unconvincing reason of all.

(It's not guilt. It really isn't.)

Tony left Harley a few hours and the kid manages to find a way to get into F.R.I. .'s systems. It would have been impressive (and alarming, because his baby girl might be new, but Tony was sure her code was as protected as it can be at the moment)—and it still is impressive—had F.R.I. . not detected the clumsy-but-still-acceptable attempt.

Then the brat had the gall to leave a threat.

"Come back here or else I'll make sure all of your files are named the same. All of it, Mechanic."

So there's reason C.

And yeah, why should Tony Stark of all people listen to a kid's harmless threat?

Because Harley Keener never failed to deliver what he claims. F.R.I. . didn't have access to the servers of the Tower, so the kid could easily make his threat real. Tony didn't want to deal with that kind of tediousness now or ever.

(It would be a lie if Tony said he wanted to stay there any longer, where there are sharp glances and curt words. Where the mixture of Russian and Slavic merged in a language of sorrow and relief and anger that Tony had started to understand after enough time has passed.)

"Call off the suit, Friday." Tony says once they land on the tower, wincing as his injuries are jostled by the suit disassembling around him.

(There's a sharp pang of loss that he firmly shoves away for later at the absence of the expected welcome home, sir.)

As far as he's concerned, a few bruised ribs (possibly fatal), a strained knee (less fatal, but annoying), and a couple of cuts (significantly less fatal, but infinitely more annoying) was touch and go for all the roughing up he'd received from the battle.

"You look like you've gone a few rounds with giant spiders."

Tony doesn't jump, but it was close to it. Head whipping around, Tony glared at the casually lounging form of one kid from Tennessee, sitting with his legs crossed on one of the ledges.

It was dangerous to be sitting that high, right? Tony really shouldstart researching on what responsible adults should do.

(Now that J.A.R.V.I.S. wasn't–)

"Jesus Christ, kid." Tony rubbed a hand over his chest where his heart made a few painful thumps, managing a narrow eyed look at Harley Keener. "Give the poor man with heart conditions a warning. And really? Spiders? Where do you even pull those things from?"

"Not my fault you didn't see me coming in." The kid shrugs, a guarded look passing over his face before it was back to a pinched look that oozed disapproval like nobody's business. "And for the record, they're giant spiders that can talk and have very painful venom. What did I say about losing limbs, Mechanic?"

There was a time when odd remarks like talking giant spiders, mountain trolls, and heck soul-sucking flying dementor-things made Tony worry about the kid's imagination. They were illogical and exactly the kind of flitting fancy Howard never allowed Tony to have. Like having fantastical imagination made someone less of a person.

And it was exactly for that reason that Tony never judged.

It doesn't hurt to admit that there was that spark of fondness whenever Harley said something ridiculous, something completely absurd to detract seriousness from the coming conversation that would have made either of them uncomfortable.

But there's something...off about it right now. Like it just wasn't hitting the right buttons. And call Tony self-centered all you want, but after the last few days that he'd had, he can't actually control the tangents his mind would go off to.

In response, Tony splays a hand in the air in a so-and-so motion. "I'm whole, if you didn't notice."

Whatever reaction he was expecting, it wasn't for Harley to launch himself down from a height more than two times taller than Tony, and what the hell, of course the kid survives it, landing on the ground like he was a monkey and not the vanilla human that he is.

Fuck, Tony didn't remember anything this heart attack-inducing that few years ago when they'd first met.

Or Tony's just more exhausted than he first thought, because there was no way the kid didn't even wobble. Maybe the ledge wasn't even that high and that it's perfectly sane to jump down from it. Yes, he's going with that.

"Okay, I'm gonna pretend you didn't almost cause cardiac arrest twice in less than five minutes," Tony muttered, rubbing his tired eyes. "Nope. Not at all. This isn't going to set the tone of our completely normal, science-filled future. I'm not old enough for gray hair."

Harley didn't say anything, which really should have set the alarm bells off in Tony's mind, but his body decided this was the prime time to let the exhaustion be felt all over his joints and injuries. God, he hated being reminded of his physical limits. As much as he claims that he is Iron Man, Tony Stark is still very much a baseline human with enough health problems to fund a hospital for a decade.

Stubbornness could only last for so long.

So yeah, no one could blame Tony for the surprised yelp he let out when a pint-sized missile collided with his stomach, gangly limbs snaking around his waist to hold on with reluctant strength.

And it hit Tony then. Like a giant bucket of ice cold water dumped on him out of nowhere.

Having been running on fumes and more than an unhealthy dose of manic desperation, Tony had wholly ignored just why Harley Keener was there in the first place. Too consumed by the problem he had created, too distracted and too driven to remember.

(Just like how Howard was. Always busy, always working, always looking for Captain fucking America that it felt like Tony was there because of the convenience of having a wife.)

Not even a day in (and Christ, it felt so, so much longer than that) and Tony was already messing this up, too.

This was a bad idea. Why did Tony agree to take in a kid in the first place? Discounting even his own set of problems, Tony Stark was nowhere near the first or even the last person anyone would consider for this position. It was a miracle the paperwork even went through as smoothly as it did. Was it too late to change it again? Tony can definitely find a more suitable and more qualified and more deserving person out there.

"Stop it," came the muffled words from the boy still clinging around him, "You're supposed to be comforting me, not drowning in your old man thoughts."

Tony swallows down the automatic response of snarking back because he's actually capable of holding back, thank you very much.

At the engineer's hesitance, Harley groans exaggeratedly before tilting his head to fix Tony with a glare. "Clearly, you don't know how this works. Hug me. Yes, that, move those arms. I don't care if your joints ache."

"Jeez," Tony finally lets out, exasperation and fondness and the magnanimous thing human contact does mixing together to overpower the guilt for the moment. "So demanding. Keep up with those old man jokes and I'll revoke your lab access."

"You won't," was the only thing the brat said before pressing his face against Tony's shirt, surprisingly gentle despite the rough movements.

"You wanna talk?" Tony finds himself asking, concern making its way through the exhaustion a few seconds too late.

Harley makes a noise at the back of his throat. "Later."

Despite the overall awkwardness of the hug, neither made a move to pull away.

Tony nods. "Later," he says in agreement.

And if Tony feels the tremors of the smaller body clinging to him, he doesn't say a word.

(Maybe Tony needed this too.)

-0-

The meeting between F.R.I. . and Harley goes like this.

"Friday?" Harley eyes the battered armor with a squint. "Huh."

It only takes a moment for her to answer. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Keener. Boss didn't have time to say much about you."

And there was something...vulnerable in the way the boy from Tennessee drew back before it was gone, leaving Tony wondering if he really saw it. Instead, Harley taps at the suit's reactor, a grin tugging at his lips. "Want me to show you around the internet?"

"I'd love to."

Tony sighed, feeling that this will somehow backfire in some way.

(But there's warmth somewhere in his chest, tight and uncomfortable.)

-0-

Later came in a few hours, when Tony was bandaged up (and honestly, seriously slapped with Barbie bandaids that appeared out of nowhere) by a curiously efficient and silent Harley. It wasn't that Tony isn't already aware that the kid knew how to tend to injuries. He is. It was that Harley was a tight coil of tension the entire time.

The engineer and the boy are down in Tony's personal workshop, working away the night (day? Tony didn't bother to check) elbow deep in official statements and inquiries and the general hubbub of keeping the Avengers afloat in the aftermath of a particularly gruesome battle.

(Neither had to voice out the reluctance to use the ruined labs where all of this mess started.)

Harley, brilliant kid that he is, was working with F.R.I.D.A.Y. to clean up the tower's systems and make sure there was nothing left of Ultron with the secured remote access Tony had sneaked into NEXUS. Tony, being the adult between the three of them, was left to handle the boring things that involved politics and S.H.I.E.L.D. and pulling favors from the right people.

It's weird, at least, that the thought of leaving such a task to someone (a kid, really) didn't bother him at all. Well, that was a lie, because Tony was absolutely bothered by how the kid and his A.I. managed to tag-team him into letting them at it.

But well–

Dum-E and U, dumb, only slightly helpful bots that they are, were more than happy to welcome the kid into the fold. And Harley Keener is one of the few that Tony trusted.

"You know it's not your fault, right?"

Tony takes a moment to pretend he didn't hear anything, but decides against it. He's tired and exhausted and in need of something more potent than caffeine.

"I've done a lot of things, kid." Tony started with as much light-heartedness as he could manage. "SI's plummeting stocks? That's on me. The Malibu mansion going down the ocean? Again, my fault. That hole in Bexley Hall that no one ever managed to repair until they demolished the building? You bet it's mine. Well, Rhodey too. Platypus dared me. Anyway, you gotta be more specific than that."

Even without taking his attention off the holoscreens and the various documents he was composing, Tony felt the massive eye roll Harley was making.

"Ultron. And I guess me, too." Harley's blunt answer actually made Tony pause before going back to his work, fingers moving slower this time. "We were both minding our business, things happened. That's it. No need to get worked up because I suddenly decided to pull away."

Tony wanted to protest. There were so many things he could say about the matter, but he was given no chance to.

"And Ultron? From what I gathered, that thing wasn't your Ultron. Never had been. Friday scanned through the data at least thrice and there was no code. How can it be your fault when there was nothing besides a name? Your Ultron was just an idea, wasn't it?"

Tony hadn't even noticed that he stopped working, standing there with his limbs frozen in place and swallowing down the panic clawing its way up. Logically, he knew the kid was deflecting and that Tony should be the one leading this conversation, but there's nothing logical about the sudden fear that gripped his heart.

"A suit around the world." Harley plowed on ruthlessly, so terribly reflective of their first interactions when Tony's panic attacks were at an all time high. "Wasn't that what you said?"

Because what the kid was saying is right and true and was definitely something Tony didn't ever want to confront.

Ultron was an idea. A peacekeeping program that he and Bruce were supposed to create based on the data they manage to collect from Loki's scepter (the Mind Stone, now).

Three days. Three days it took for the combined minds of J.A.R.V.I.S., Bruce Banner, and Tony Stark to create one possible, completely hypothetical rendering of the neural network they have managed to accidentally detect within an alien artifact. It wasn't functional, existing only in J.A.R.V.I.S.'s system as a model, a simulation to test the possible outcomes without integrating anything they weren't sure of.

But along the way, something went wrong, something that they didn't account for.

This could have been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand.

And that's just the thing. They didn't understand. Who was supposed to make them understand? Thor hardly ever explained anything or genuinely didn't know how to. It would have been fine had the god of thunder not been their only source of information. How were they going to defend themselves from something that they don't even know?

Fury was on to something with his reasons for Phase Two, and Tony could honestly see his point of view, but S.H.I.E.L.D. would always be a shady organization no matter how many skeletons in the closet they air out.

Ever since he slipped through that portal, carrying the weight of the world and a million ton trinitrotoluene on the back of a failing suit, waiting for death that never came while forced to realize that there's something so much bigger of a threat out there, his fear had become that of protecting everything he knew from what he didn't.

Aliens existed. Beings stronger and more knowledgeable than humans lived throughout unexplored galaxies. And it's been proven, time and time again, that Earth was nowhere near able to defend itself from them.

(He sees the team, the Avengers, the people worming their way into what Tony could have called a family. Dead and broken and blaming him for not doing enough to save them.)

So Tony had taken the opportunity presented to him, heedless of the consequences.

(He remembers the team, not dead, but tired and anxious and cleaning up the mess in Sokovia, and they're blaming him still.)

And it's Tony fucking Stark's fault.

"You can still do that." Harley broke through his thoughts.

"Yeah?" Tony snapped, admitting to himself that he was being defensive. But right now he was tired and raw and he didn't need to have his actions rubbed on his face by a child. "And then what? Look what happened when I tried! We had to blow up an entire city. Hundreds died. Thousands of families are homeless. Bruce is somewhere blaming himself for Johannesburg. And Jarvis is-" His throat tightens and he chokes on his next words. "I can't- I tried, okay? Nothing I can do is ever gonna fix what Ultron did. What I did. I'm just- I'm tired, Harley. I'm just a rich guy flying around in a tin can and playing hero. I fuck everything up."

Immediately after finishing that last sentence, Tony feels shame swallowing him up. There's a lot of things to be done, lots of people who were going through so much more than he is, and here he was, puking his guts out to a kid who shouldn't even be there.

(Stark men are made of iron.)

"I-" Tony squares his shoulders, pushes away the exhaustion deep inside his bones, and pointedly goes back to what he was doing. "That was rude of me. I'm sorry. That was unfair."

For a long, tense moment, there was only silence.

"Tony."

Tony tries not to react, focusing instead on the message he was composing for the contacts he had around Europe.

"Mechanic, look at me."

Right, he had to secure visas for the others in the team. Crossing the borders between countries was still illegal without it. Ah well, better late than never.

And- Tony definitely doesn't screech in surprise when an awfully strong kick was delivered to his shin.

"Ow, shit. That was uncalled for!" Tony glowers down at the pleased looking midget in front of him. "Do you always resort to violence when you're being ignored?"

The little shit that Harley is only says a "Totally was," in response.

"Well? What is it?" Tony impatiently asked, grumbling under his breath as he rubbed at his poor shin.

"I was going to say something very wise and well thought-out." Harley hedges, smugness draining away into a serious look that looked terrifying and out of place on a face that hadn't even hit puberty yet. "And I still am."

Even disquieted, Tony managed a disbelieving scoff, but he doesn't say anything.

"You can still do that." Harley says, arms crossed. "Put a suit around the world, I mean. You're Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, ex-weapons manufacturer for the military, philanthropist. You didn't have the Iron Man suit when you revolutionized the entire world with your technology twice over. You take risks no one else would. You became Iron Man when the world needed him. And yeah that worked for years, too. Now, you have this tacky boy band called the Avengers."

Tony tries hard not to react at ex-weapons manufacturer and mostly succeeds.

Then, as if it really was such an easy concept, Harley shrugs. "Maybe the world needs more of Tony Stark, the genius, billionaire mechanic than Iron Man, the superhero, now that they have the Avengers."

It took so many moments, but Tony managed to get a hold of himself.

"Get back to work," was all he managed to croak out.

-0-

Tony drifts.

He's lying on his back, chest tight and heavy. The ground beneath him is cold and hard, uneven and covered in dust and grime. He reaches up with barely responding limbs.

There's a sinking feeling of realization when his fingers met the familiar cold metal on his chest.

His eyes snap open, sight met with darkness adorned by tiny dots of light. There's red around the edges, beckoning him to look behind.

He doesn't struggle.

And then-

(He dreams of red and blue and yellow. Of pain and hurt and discomfiting numbness.)

-0-

He doesn't know when it happened, but Tony passed out somewhere between replying to the secretary of foreign affairs of Slovakia and reassuring Rhodey that he was fine in the tower.

He opens his eyes to Harley shaking him awake, the smell of some sort of stew making his stomach grumble.

"You gotta wake up, Mechanic. Friday says your superhero buddies are coming over with a few extra baggages."

Tony groans.

He was expecting his body to be sore, but the feeling of lightness like he weighed nothing wasn't something his brain processed quick enough. Like the aches and pains of yesterday was nothing but a memory. It was nice, though. Very, very nice. He just wanted to bask into the feeling and never let it go.

Managing a few moments more before pulling himself up, he muttered a "When?" that continued the conversation when it registered as something important to his sleep-addled brain. There's a moment of confusion on how he ended up on the couch that he completely dispels as he tries to shake off the grogginess clinging to his thoughts.

"Well, they left a couple of hours ago so about thirty– forty minutes?" Harley hands him a mug filled with coffee and Tony absentmindedly accepts it. "Vision, Thor, and your Rhodey flew on their own so they'd arrive earlier."

"Thanks, kid." Tony mumbles into the rim of the cup, the smell of promised caffeine already making him more alert.

He finishes it in record time, ignoring the way it scalds his tongue. You'd think after years of abuse it would hurt less. It doesn't. He just got so used to it that it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. And the grand scheme of things is that coffee was the best thing mankind had ever discovered and that this coffee tasted so heavenly Tony felt threatened by the sudden religious thoughts that entered his mind.

Before he could put it down or beg for more, it was snatched away from his hands and replaced by a bowl filled with stew that made his mouth water just by the scent.

Despite how famished he feels, Tony raises an eyebrow in question at the boy watching him intently.

"What?" Harley blurts out defensively, squirming in such a familiar way that Tony had seen countless times on video but never with his own eyes. "I can cook. I've been doing it for a long time."

Tony shakes his head and takes a bite, hunger winning him over and knowing better than to poke personal-question-shaped holes this early in the morning (night? Afternoon? Tony wasn't sure anymore).

"Just wondering what you wanted." He makes a startled, pleased noise when the taste registers. "Oh my god, this tastes even better than restaurant food."

Harley makes a face that somehow combined pleased, embarrassed, and confused. "Uh, thanks, but I don't really want anything?"

Tony was on the side of awake that stopped him from letting out something he would regret later like cooing.

"No," Tony hums instead. "Seriously, what do you want? I'll give you anything if this is what you feed me."

"I don't-" Tony bites back a smirk at the aggravated sigh the kid lets out, smugly relishing in the glare he is graced with. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"I know what you're doing and I don't like it, Mechanic."

Tony shrugs innocently and takes another bite of his food. "I'm not doing anything."

Harley let out a frustrated huff and threw himself beside Tony. "You know you don't have to make up for anything," said the kid with an amount of understanding that bordered on uncomfortable.

Seriously, here Tony was, offering up virtually anything that a person could ask for, and the half-pint deflects it with talk about feelings. And while Tony acknowledged the fact that it was the responsible thing to do, a small part of him would like to put it off a little bit longer.

"And you didn't have to give me coffee and food. Not to mention you're helping out in this mess." Tony points his spoon in emphasis before sticking it back in his mouth, aiming for dismissive and mostly succeeding. Mostly, because this kid could make Natasha bristle at how perceptive he can be. "Fair's fair."

Harley stares at him with narrowed eyes then deflates when he didn't budge. "Fine."

"So?"

"I guess…" The kid trails off, head tilted thoughtfully. There's something deeply calculating to it. "Let me meet your superhero buddies properly. It's not everyday that a kid can claim the Avengers know their name."

"You've never been interested in them before. I almost thought you disliked them." Tony noted, expertly hiding that tiny bit of hurt. Ah, insecurities really were such bitches sometimes, rearing their heads where they aren't needed.

"It's more… I didn't really care?" Harley shrugged. "It's the only thing I can think of right now."

"Really?"

The boy nods. "Really."

"Suit yourself." Tony rolls his eyes and sticks another spoonful into his mouth. He'll get something for the kid later. Something overly extravagant and outlandish just to prove his point.

If this was their way of sweeping things under the rug, it was no wonder he and the kid got along so well.

Kyllopodíōn (Κυλλοποδίων) - an epithet of Hephaestus meaning "the halting"

Y'know, I've come to the realization that I hate being an editor. For one, I don't like conforming, which equals to me hating myself when I have to force my writers to conform to the uni's and pub's rules. And second, I respect their creativity rights too much to ever want to put my own touch on them, which leads to me, again, hating myself for having to pepper each paragraph with comments and edits. And these hesitations make me feel inadequate for my position. I love being able to teach them stuff, but ig I'm gonna look for my replacement earlier than I thought.

ANYWAY!

I LOVE EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU GUYS, both old and new readers! I'm sorry that I'm still unable to reply to y'all. Know that I read and re-read all your reviews whenever I lose inspiration to do anything. Thank you all so much. (Yes, I passed those exams. Thank you for showing your support.)