"You're sure you don't want to come to In Defense of Peace?" Pepper jokingly pleaded in the back seat. Harry was crammed in the middle between her and Dean, and Nat was riding up front with Happy. Fortunately for the already cramped space in the car, Dean's mom had insisted on getting her own cab to the restaurant and then home for her and her daughters, since Pepper had paid for dinner at a lavish restaurant off of the Expo campus.
"We're hoping the arcade is emptier," Harry shook his head. Not only had the giant collection of next-gen video games been packed when they'd checked it out earlier, they'd been walking around with their families, who didn't want to hang around there all afternoon. "Why are you going to Justin's presentation?"
Pepper rolled her eyes and admitted, "I want to know firsthand what patent infringement we'll be suing him for tomorrow. But fine. Take Happy with you. Is that okay, Happy?"
"Yes, ma'am," he agreed. "I saw a virtual boxing game in there. Are you going to be okay without a bodyguard?"
"I think Natalie and I will manage," she deadpanned. Unless he'd worked it out somehow, Happy was the only one in the car that didn't know she was a SHIELD agent. Harry had already let Dean in on that fact. "Harry, do you have that new headset we got?" she checked.
He nodded, and turned his head so she could see the small earbud he had in place. They'd visited a promising booth earlier and gotten a set for everyone. The sound quality wasn't up to Tony or SHIELD's standards, but at least it wasn't the big earpieces that were commonplace consumer tech that many companies considered state-of-the-art for 2010. "And I have an icon to call JARVIS if there's a problem."
"Good," she nodded. "Wait, put that icon on mine, too," she handed him her phone, and he spent the rest of the drive downloading the app to securely connect to Tony's AI communication server. Happy pulled into a reserved parking space right next to the main stage, a tremendous open-air amphitheater with a glass ceiling. "Okay, you three have fun. We'll meet you here after the presentation at nine."
Nat turned back to him and mouthed, "I'd prefer the arcade, too," as she followed Pepper into the entryway.
"That lady is a spy?" Dean checked, as the three of them walked along the pathway toward the arcade. "Maybe I should be a spy when I grow up."
"Who's a spy?" Happy asked.
"Nat," Harry said. "She's just here from SHIELD to find out why Tony was acting weird."
"Huh," Happy nodded, deciding to accept that information. "I knew she was a cheater."
"Yeah. But she's on our side," Harry shrugged, having come to terms with it. She'd come and gone throughout the day, ostensibly working (and probably doing SHIELD security things), but he was getting used to her. And, he hoped, getting a little better about being in her presence without losing his concentration every seven seconds.
"Looks like the arcade's clearing out," Dean said, enthusiastically. "I worried, since it doesn't get dark until like eight."
"Want to bet everyone's going to sit there for an hour waiting?" Harry asked them. Even though Hammer's presentation was scheduled to start at 7:00, Harry figured he'd be a diva and be "fashionably late."
"No bet," Happy agreed. "But don't get distracted. Just because there's fewer people doesn't mean there couldn't be bad people."
"And watch out for photographers," Harry reminded Dean. "Don't want you having to worry about paparazzi too." He and Pepper had gone around incognito in hats and sunglasses all day so they wouldn't be mobbed, but he'd swapped back to his regular glasses as the sun was setting, and someone might recognize him.
"You're Harry Potts!" a young voice said, as they were entering the towering room of noise and neon that was the arcade, immediately proving that worry a reality. Harry looked over and saw a little boy pointing at them. He was wearing a hoodie, Stark Expo t-shirt, and too-large plastic Iron Man helmet hinged open to reveal his face. Probably eight or nine, he had the accent of a local. "We saw you on the news."
"Peter!" the dark-haired woman with him corrected. "It's not nice to point." She also had a strong New York accent, and looked to be in her forties, somewhere around Happy's age.
"I'm right though, right?" the kid checked. "I met Tony Stark at the beginning of the month! I made this helmet myself from a kit, and I have a repulsor!" He showed off the flashlight built into the palm of his glove.
Dean smirked at Harry and told Peter, "That's right. This is the Harry Potts. You would not believe how famous he is." Harry chuckled, because that was almost certainly true.
"Sorry about that," the woman told them. "He's precocious. We don't need an autograph, but if you let him you'll spend all night hearing about how he made the helmet."
"We're used to it," Happy said, checking out the woman and not seeing a husband in immediate evidence. "Happy Hogan, Mr. Stark's bodyguard and driver. Well, Ms. Potts' now." He held out a hand.
She shook it, smiling, "May Parker. That's my nephew, Peter."
"Watching him for his parents?" Happy asked, making conversation.
"Permanently, yeah," she agreed, adding, "They passed," when Happy looked confused.
"I live with my aunt just like you live with yours," Peter explained to Harry.
Harry nodded awkwardly, not sure what to say to that, but Dean offered, "Want to show us what games are good, Peter?" Dean had a lot more experience dealing with younger kids than Harry did.
"We don't want to put you out…" May tried.
"It's no problem" Happy told her. "We just wanted to check out the exhibit while it was less packed. I was going to try the boxing game. I used to be a professional boxer."
"Yeah?" she said, letting him tell her about it as they watched the kids pick a game.
They were in the arcade for quite a while, when May finally mentioned, "It's getting dark. Thanks for playing games with him. But we better get home."
"Hah, I was right," Harry said, checking his phone for the time and realizing it was already 8:00, and he had a text. "Aunt Pepper says Justin just showed up."
"Be safe getting home," Happy insisted to May, as she walked Peter out.
"We will be. We live nearby," May agreed, as they headed out.
"So is there an Uncle Parker?" Dean checked, as the three of them also wandered out into the evening, thinking about getting ice cream or something.
"You know… it was unclear," Happy shrugged. "But she invited me to come help at the homeless shelter she works at if I'm in town…"
Dean grinned, "Between you and that lady, and Harry and the spy, I guess I ought to find somebody to moon over."
Happy looked a little put-out, being ribbed by a thirteen-year-old, but Harry just smiled, "And I want you to tell that story to all the guys, so maybe they'll shut up about me and Hermione."
"Sure. But only if I also get to tell Hermione," Dean laughed. "Guess we'll see if she's jealous."
Before Harry could come up with a rejoinder, they heard the sound of jet engines and looked up to see Iron Man blazing in from the west, aiming to land inside the amphitheater. "Tony didn't say he was coming," Harry said, confused.
"Let's head that way and get Ms. Potts," Happy suggested.
They'd been walking that way for about a minute before there was suddenly the sound of rapid gunfire, shattering glass, and screams.
"Hitting the panic button," Harry announced, making sure his earbud was active and tapping the JARVIS app on his phone, then sliding it back into a pocket. He heard the beep of acknowledgement and asked, "JARVIS! What's going on. We're at the Expo and there's shooting."
"Now patching you in," JARVIS' voice sounded in his ear.
"Maverick?" Tony's voice sounded as he saw Harry's icon pop up. "Where are you? Are you with Pepper?"
"No, outside with Happy," Harry corrected, just as he could see the Iron Man armor streaking up and out of the amphitheater, at least a dozen other humanoid suits flying after him, tracer fire shooting into the night sky. "Woah. Be careful!"
Tony narrated while flying away, "Vanko's alive. He's controlling Hammer's drones and Rhodey's armor. JARVIS, connect to the Mark II, I need to own him."
"Attempting to reset OS to original state," JARVIS announced.
They'd made it most of the way to the building themselves as Harry had talked, only to hit a crowd of guests trying to escape in all directions. "People on the lawn, Tony!" Harry warned. "Don't let them shoot down!"
"He's right, these are armor-piercing. They'll shoot through schools," Rhodey's voice announced. Harry guessed that whatever they'd done to him hadn't broken the root-level link to communications with JARVIS.
Tony, who had been about to bank low to dodge, realized Harry's point about bullets that missed him and asked, "JARVIS, get me an evasion corridor that isn't pointed toward civilians. Maverick! Get to the car and get out of here."
"No, Natalie needs the car," Pepper corrected, suddenly on the line. "Happy should get her to Hammer Industries to capture Vanko. She's heading to the parking lot."
"Pepper?" Tony asked, surprised she had the app.
Harry relayed the order to Happy, who didn't look, well, happy about it. "You two get to Pepper then," he insisted, as he rushed off toward the car, dodging fleeing people. It was obvious he was stressed since he forgot to call her "Ms. Potts."
"Easier said than done," Dean complained, realizing there was a stampede of people and more of the oversized humanoid robots coming up behind them. Several with huge blocky grenade launchers as shoulder pads hunkered down on the stairs and started firing salvos across the lawn, further driving the crowd into a frenzy.
"We'll go around," Harry decided, stepping onto the grass and out of the way of most of the guests who were staying on the concrete paths. "Hopefully nobody will pay attention to two kids," he told Dean, summoning orange light into his hand, being obscure so the other people on the call wouldn't get that he was talking about doing magic in public and trusting no one to notice in the chaos.
Dean got it and nodded, briefly stopping and stretching to get into his wandless casting stance. Harry pulled the fake plasma-whip wristband he'd cobbled together out of a pocket and slid it on, and they ran toward danger like the two Gryffindors they were. When the next volley of grenades were launched, Harry managed to snag one with an energy whip and fling it back into the drone that was most directly in their path, and Dean shot it with a bolt of orange energy after the explosion opened a hole in its armor.
It actually fell over, and the two boys gave each other a high five as they ran through the gap in the enemy line.
Over the comm, JARVIS announced, "Remote reboot ready on your go. I'd suggest you lead Mr. Rhodes toward the ground, as his flight will be interrupted."
"On it. Sorry, buddy," Tony announced.
"Better me than civilians," Rhodey agreed.
Somewhere in the distance, there was the sound of the chase getting closer to the ground, and then the thump of a heavy set of power armor plowing into the lawn. JARVIS announced, "Reboot successful. Reloading Stark OS."
"Tony, you've got more problems," Harry warned him, as they spotted drones with shoulder-mounted sniper rifles stopping on the high ground and aiming upwards. "Shooters down here."
"Got it. Good spotting," he said, as he banked and the shots failed to connect with Iron Man, but did manage to explode one of their own drones, which crashed into the ground and caught fire in the distance.
"Peter!" a woman's voice was screaming, and they recognized May Parker nearby. Dean led as he and Harry ran over to her and she yelled, "Peter said he needed to go help Iron Man. He just ran off!"
"On it," Dean assured her, as he and Harry turned to scope out the area.
The previously-stationary drones were again moving, and Harry's snitch-locating expertise led him to the golden shine of Peter's toy helmet, "Over there. We'll get him, May. Stay back." He warned Tony, "Kid in the line of fire over here."
"Crap," Tony cursed. "Little busy with the pack."
"We'll get him," Harry corrected, mostly just making sure Tony wasn't going to notice what they were about to do. One of the drones with a long gun had slowed to a stop in front of Peter, who was confronting the robot with the confidence of the young. He started to raise his "repulsor" at the target. "Are those things programmed to just shoot at the Iron Man helmet?" Harry couldn't believe it. "Dean, same strategy as before?"
"You go high, I'll go low," Dean agreed, rushing up behind Peter as Harry raced in from the side.
"Hey, idiot!" Harry yelled at the robot, not expecting it to have the audio processing to be distracted by taunts, but it made him feel better. He produced his energy whip and wrapped it around the thing's head, covering up its cyclopean eye and tugging back with all his might. It actually reminded him a bit of the shadow nix he'd encountered in the Forbidden Forest. "Just like troll clubs," he grunted out with the effort.
Weaving his hands to charge as much power as possible, Dean slid to a stop right behind the little kid and launched a hadouken-sized blast of energy that caught the drone in the "jaw" where Harry had its head pulled back. With a sizzling of wires, the head popped off, and Harry released his whip so it could go flying into the near distance. The drone continued orienting its gun for a moment, but then stopped. "Nice work, Peter," Dean encouraged, hoping the kid would imagine from the angle of attack that his toy repulsor had done something. "We gotta get back to Aunt May."
"Reload successful, reactivating the Mark II," JARVIS announced over the comms.
"That sucked," Rhodey complained. "Give me a minute. Guns aren't responding."
"Hammer software drivers were erased in the reload," JARVIS explained. "I am attempting to repurpose Stark code to enable the new peripherals."
"Good call on the security patch, Maverick," Tony told Harry. "Rhodey, you have flight? Let's see if we can lead them off somewhere quieter."
Several seconds later, as they had almost led Peter back to May through the chaos, the entire flock of drones chased Tony and Rhodey overhead. They banked sharply enough to scrape one off into an expensive big screen mounted high on a building, and then Tony decided to fly through the giant metal Earth sculpture at the center of the park. Several exploding drones turned the art installation into a giant fireball. "That was somewhere quieter?" Harry asked. He noticed that the ones on the ground were starting to fly off and warned them, "You at least got them to send in the reinforcements. More coming to you, none on the ground."
"Peter!" May, almost distraught, nearly shrieked as they jogged back up, wrapping the boy in her arms. "You are not a superhero! Never do that again!"
"But I got one," Peter insisted, flipping his helmet open, obviously not even slightly guilty. "Well, Harry helped. Can I see the thing?" he asked, focused on Harry's arm.
Harry just showed him the wristband, gambling that the kid wasn't perceptive enough to realize it was as much a prop as the toy repulsor. He pulled the "whip" a few inches out of the housing at the base of his palm and hoped Peter would draw the conclusion that it was a copy of Vanko's plasma whips.
What Peter got was a look in his eye like he was having a moment of inspiration, and he said, "That's a good place to launch a line from…"
"Looks like things are calming down around here," Dean said, the area basically clear except for burning wreckage and places where grenades had ignited the lawn.
"I see ambulances and police incoming," Harry announced.
"Good," Pepper's voice cut in. "I called them."
Harry suggested, "I'll see if I can spot anyone that needs help for the EMTs, then get to Aunt Pepper. Dean, can you get May and Peter home? We'll pick you up when Happy brings the car back."
"You don't need to…" May tried to correct, but she was clearly distraught enough to appreciate the help.
"Be careful, Harry," Dean said then nodded when Harry mouthed, "Find out what she saw." He started leading Peter away and said, "You said you're close, right?"
Harry gave himself a minute to sit on a bench and let the adrenaline crash wear off. He probably shouldn't be getting used to that, at his age. He could still hear Tony and Rhodey's comms chatter, as it sounded like they'd been disagreeing over who was the bigger gun and wound up getting surrounded by drones as they argued. But it also sounded like the fight was going their way, so Harry shook it off and jogged out to look for injured people.
Fortunately, the grenades had mostly been launched to scare the crowd (and they were Hammertech besides, so weren't very good), and Tony hadn't led any gunfire into civilians. Well, at least here; Harry had his worries about all the shots that had been fired into the air that might come down and ruin someone else's day on the other side of the city. He came upon a couple of people that had suffered wounds that had immobilized them, and flagged down medics, but breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't come across any dead bodies.
"I'm up on the steps in front of the amphitheater," Pepper said over the line. "I'm going to wait to make sure everyone else gets out."
"I think we're done here," Tony assured her.
"You're not," Nat corrected, also joining the party line. "Vanko cleared out. And I read another drone incoming. This one looks different. The repulsor signature is significantly higher."
"Everyone's trying to copy my suits," Tony complained.
Nat added, "Well done on the new chest piece, by the way. I am reading significantly higher output and your vitals all look promising."
"Yes, for the moment, I'm not dying. Thank you," he scoffed.
Pepper finally couldn't take it anymore and prompted, "What do you mean you're not dying? Did you just say you're dying?"
"No, I'm not. Not anymore," Tony corrected, then wheedled, "I was going to tell you. I didn't want to alarm you."
"Why didn't you tell me that?" she checked.
He insisted, "I was gonna make you an omelet and tell you."
"Well are you okay now?"
"I'm fine. Don't be mad. I will formally apologize when I'm not fending off a tattooed Russian patent thief!"
"I am mad!" Pepper yelled, but closed with, "Fine."
Needing to have the last word, Tony claimed, "We could have been in Venice."
"Oh please," Pepper complained. "Harry, meet me at the steps."
To the sounds of Rhodey and Tony arguing while they fought Vanko somewhere on the other side of the Expo, Harry jogged over and saw Pepper standing where she'd said at the steps up into the amphitheater, surveying the destruction of what was supposed to be a year-long attraction, surrounded by the fallen forms of defeated drones…
…which started beeping, red lights flashing on their chests.
Rhodey's voice sounded over the comms, "All these drones are rigged to blow. We gotta get out of here man."
"Pepper? Maverick?" Tony swore.
"I got the kid, you get her," Rhodey instructed, as Harry looked up to see two rocket trails shooting directly at them.
"Did we have to stand by the bombs?" Harry asked his aunt, as the Mark II armor crashed into him, probably giving him a full-body bruise as they then rocketed up at g-forces slightly higher than what he was used to in quidditch. He finally got a good look at what Hammer had done to the armor as the world exploded around them. The suit now had a bunch of steel plating and guns, and was painted black and white instead of the original chrome. "Cool armor," he had to admit.
"Thanks," Rhodey agreed, as they made an arc across the Expo grounds and settled on a building nearby to watch the fireworks. "Flies like a Warthog, though. So heavy. So many guns."
Before Harry could comment, Tony and Pepper set down on the other side of the same roof, and she shoved him back as soon as she had her feet on the ground. "Oh my God. I can't take this anymore!" she yelled at him.
They didn't notice Rhodey and Harry as they launched into a ridiculous argument about her quitting, through which Tony was charming but notably still didn't apologize. But they did finally kiss, and Harry and Rhodey rolled their eyes at each other from the shadows.
"Weird," was all Tony had to say, as they split back apart.
Pepper disagreed, "No, it's not weird."
"It's okay, right?"
"Yeah."
Tony smirked, "Run that by me again."
As they started to kiss again, Rhodey finally spoke up, explaining, "We think it was weird." That finally got both of their attention. "You guys look like two seals fighting over a grape."
"That's mean," Harry smirked. "They look like two seals sharing a grape."
"I had just quit, actually," Pepper tried to cover.
Tony backpedaled, "Yeah, so we're not…"
Rhodey shook his head, "You don't have to do that. We heard the whole thing."
Tony frowned, "You should get lost."
Rhodey countered, "We were here first. Get a roof."
"I thought you were out of one-liners," Tony sighed. "You kicked ass back there, by the way. Both of you."
"Thank you," he accepted for both him and Harry. "You too. Listen, my car got taken out in the explosion, so I'm gonna have to hang on to your suit for a minute, okay?"
Before Tony could object, Harry pointed out, "We need to go get Dean. Can you drop me over in Queens? We'll call Happy to pick us up. That way the two of you can keep making out up here."
"Well if the kid's giving us permission…" Tony told Pepper, mollified, as Rhodey and Harry flew back off into the night.
"Over a grape," Rhodey repeated.
And that's the official end of Year 2. There's still a few more summer chapters, but they're on a quick run into Year 3 plots. I hope everyone enjoyed the dip into Iron Man 2. This is probably the last time that things will occur as closely-tied to canon, as Harry's ability to affect events grows. What I'm saying is, we've got a baseline established, and now we're just working our way towards Avengers and how much of a monkeywrench the presence of one Harry Potter will throw into Thanos' plans for a Loki-dominated Earth.
Also, yes, I have no shame about having Harry meet every MCU character it's even slightly plausible to meet. Are we not all here to see Harry Potter bounce off of various MCU characters? And I understand that Feige is on record that the kid in the Iron Man mask in IM2 was canonically Peter Parker, so this was barely a stretch. There's another early meeting next week!
I'm really bad about replying to reviews, but I do read and appreciate all of them. Now is an excellent time to tell me what you're enjoying, what you'd like to see more of, and what your theories are about where things are going.
Just to answer a question I've gotten a couple of times recently: pairings aren't set yet, though third year will explore some possibilities. I'm waiting for a ship to really make sense with the Harry of this timeline, and it may be someone I throw in as a one-off and discover has really fun chemistry. Honestly, it's just as likely to wind up being an MCU character as a Hogwarts student, though there aren't actually a ton of MCU characters in Harry's age range unless he gets Blipped or we draw on the no-longer-canon shows, which makes it a little more of a challenge. We'll see where it goes.