'Well. This is quaint.'
Harry was stood in the middle of what appeared to be both a military facility and the premises of a modern office building. He was on a grass field, facing an oddly shaped building with an all-glass front, and what appeared to be a swimming pool at the ground level.
And to his right… was that a plane?
Surveying the area, Harry had to admit that the place was mightily impressive! It was like something from the movies. He wanted to explore the grounds, the buildings in the periphery, and that massive warehouse-like building to his left. But the main building was his priority, that was where his magic was leading him.
He drew closer so that he could make out more details, but still kept his distance. With a better view, Harry analysed the building for any obvious weak points, but none came to mind. He knew he could spell his way in there easily, but he wanted to make sure no cameras or other security measures saw anything strange. Harry didn't know exactly what technology these people had to detect intruders, so he was admittedly relying on the action and spy movies he'd caught on TV these last few weeks for information.
It was surprising to see so many people in the area. There were men in dark suits all over the place, some positioned more discreetly than others. He could see a few others milling around, walking between buildings. Their more varied attire, and the folders, briefcases, and papers they carried with them, marked them as more typical workers. Administrative staff perhaps?
Harry decided to make his way to the building and come up with a plan from there. He cast a silencing charm around himself to keep anyone from hearing him and ran across the field, slowing down once he was only a few metres away. He skirted around the decorative pool and came to a stop once within arm's length of the massive glass wall that let him see directly into the building. Behind the glass was a wide corridor that opened up into what appeared to be a large atrium. For a mercy, there weren't many people loitering around in this area.
He wanted to apparate inside but apparition was a little loud, and he couldn't exactly cast a silencing charm through a wall.
A frown worked its way onto Harry's face, and his brow furrowed in thought.
'Maybe I should try another spot. Short of walking through the glass, there's no getting in… from… here….' Harry's eyes widened as his idle train of thought sparked an idea. 'No, I couldn't do that. Could I?'
Many possibilities raced through his mind, and by Merlin he had it.
An illusion.
Peeking through the glass, Harry waited until no one was looking at the glass wall. When the chance came, he quickly tapped his wand on the nearest glass plane and incanted, " Phantasiae Facimus. "
Harry watched with satisfaction as the glass pane shimmered almost imperceptibly, an illusion forming in its place. He repeated the spell on the glass pane below it, to similar results.
Then came the moment of truth.
"Evanesco."
Harry beamed as the two glass panes disappeared in their places, leaving an easy entrance into the facility. And to both the human eye, and hopefully the lens of a camera, nothing had changed. Even the two women standing not three metres away hadn't noticed anything.
Harry slipped into the building, shivering as he was hit by the cold air inside.
'Blimey, how the bloody hell are these people not wrapped up in winter coats? Are these people trying to freeze their employees to death?' Harry grumbled silently about the absurd temperature.
Shivering slightly, Harry turned back to the illusionary windows and cast a short-range muggle repelling charm on the area.
'Just to be safe,' he reasoned. The last thing he needed was someone to discover what he'd done.
Now inside the building, and with no one the wiser, Harry waltzed out of the corridor and into the large atrium. Naturally, he didn't linger there long, what with all the people walking around and the exposure risk. Trusting in his precautions, Harry decided to forgo the pretence of sophisticated infiltration and simply walked up to an escalator and made his way to the second floor. More than once he had to swerve out of a muggle's way, managing to stay on his feet in no small part thanks to his quidditch honed reflexes.
From the second floor, Harry looked around until he found a lift with two security guards standing on either side.
'Well, this looks like just what the apothecary ordered.'
Harry didn't fancy waiting for eons for someone to come along and use the lift, so he decided to hurry things up along a little. The guard on the right was standing quite close to the lift buttons, so all it took was a little magical nudge, and the man stumbled back, accidentally elbowing the lower button.
Sure enough, it lit up and the lift was on its way down.
The second guard was briefly alarmed, until he realised that his partner had just 'tripped'. The first guard apologised by the second one just laughed it off.
Meanwhile Harry crept closer, and once the lift arrived, he swiftly slipped into it between the two men, carefully avoiding any physical contact. Once in the lift, he moved to the corner — just in case — and waited for the door to close. Except… once it did, the lift stayed still.
'Fuck. I should have thought this through.'
Harry didn't want to raise suspicions by activating the lift, since it was supposed to be empty. But bugger it all he wasn't going stand around waiting for someone to do it for him. A quick press of a button later, and the lift was rising right to where he needed it to take him. Hopefully the guards wouldn't think anything of it.
Once the doors slid open again, Harry walked out of the lift and followed the tug of his magic through some corridors, coming out into a wide-open space overlooking the large field he had apparated into.
From there his magic pulled him to the right, and after a few minutes of navigating the cold, empty halls, Harry stumbled onto what looked like a laboratory. The drone was definitely in there, as was…
'Is that that Spider fellow? Captain Spider? Ah, no — Spider-Man. And that's the man with the iron suit. Tony Stark, I think? What are they… doing… he— Oh no. Don't tell me.'
Merlin help him. It dawned on. Harry that he had caught the attention of the Avengers. Oh this had to be a bad joke.
Harry let out a long, suffering sigh. He didn't know what he expected to find — the drone, certainly, but he didn't imagine that bloody Iron Man was the one behind it.
'What have I gotten into now?' Harry moaned to himself.
A sane man would have gotten the fuck out of there immediately, but Harry decided that since he'd made it this far… well, he might as well carry on. Get meant getting into that lab, and he decided to use the same method as he had downstairs.
The nervous wizard repeated the illusion spell on the glass, then vanished one of the glass panes and walked into the lab with no one the wiser.
The two men were talking, so Harry honed in on their conversation.
"Alright underoos, give the new shooters a try. See if you notice a difference," Stark was telling Spider-Man.
Inspecting the superhero, Harry thought the bright red costume was a bit tacky, but it was very form fitting and he couldn't deny it highlighted the man's body quite well. Without realising it, his eyes momentarily wandered down to the man's arse before he realised what he was looking at and averted his gaze with a blush and turned to inspect the other man.
Stark, unlike his red and blue friend, wasn't as impressive in person as he looked online. Harry thought he'd be taller. There was something interesting about him though, if one looked deeper. At first glance, the man looked well-groomed and carried himself with a certain confidence, but his eyes carried a weight that told another story.
Harry could definitely picture Stark as the cocky womanizer he was portrayed as in the articles he'd read. But that person was not someone who would be so willing to risk his life for others — as Stark had apparently done multiple times.
Harry watched with interest as Spider-Man walked to the center of the lab and stared at the back wall. Not unlike a cobra, the hero sprang into action, aiming at an invisible target, flexing his wrist, and shooting out several projectiles in a matter of a second, covering the wall in webs from side to side.
"Nice shootin' kid," Stark praised his fellow superhero.
'Kid?' Harry was startled by the nickname. 'Stark couldn't possibly mean…?'
"Thanks Mr. Stark! These shooters are way faster," the voice was muffled and distorted, but it did sound fairly young.
Ignoring the superheroes for a moment as they started discussing some technical nonsense, Harry looked around the laboratory. He picked up details that he had missed initially. The place was full of discarded tools scattered on the workbenches, shelves stacked with parts, and vast arrays of machinery. One bench was the odd one out, with three pizza boxes laid out, contents mostly eaten.
Harry realised that this was more of a workshop than a typical chemistry laboratory as it had looked at first.
There were also strange television-like displays near the two superheroes, but there was no physical screen as far as Harry could tell. He walked closer to one of them and moved his head side to side to examine the display from front and back, but there was nothing there.
It was like magic!
Harry shook his head in wonder, amazed at muggle ingenuity.
That did remind Harry of something, though. He walked over to the drone he had imbued with his magic. It lay in pieces, one side completely dismantled, on a workbench. There were a variety of tools at its side, some of which Harry recognised — like a wrench and screwdriver — and many he didn't.
Harry wasted no time in releasing the magic embedded in the drone, then glanced around and saw that the two muggles were still discussing some scientific nonsense, talking about kin-attic force and drag cow-ef-fish-ants.
Harry went back around to get a good look at the magic like displays, this time paying attention to their contents.
Unsurprisingly, one display had a recording of the confrontation from last night, including his little disappearing act. Another screen had more interesting content.
'Project Saruman? What the hell?'
Harry started reading everything. This was all the information they had on him! His name, his age, his estimated weight and height, accompanied by pictures of him seemingly taken by unseen cameras around the city.
There was a lot of text he didn't understand, and many detailed hypotheses, but as far as Harry could tell these muggles didn't believe in magic. They were attributing his powers to him being a mutant, an alien, or possessing some sort of advanced technology. They knew about his apparition, and there was a bunch of text dedicated to his ability to 'manipulate or produce electromagnetic and/or kinetic forces' that both confused him and made him wonder what else they knew.
Harry's eyes widened. The other night! He had felt something try to breach his wards. Was that also linked to these people?
There appeared to be more information, but it was cut off and Harry couldn't exactly interact with it to scroll down.
He sighed, the silencing charm keeping him from being heard, and decided to look at the remaining screens. He couldn't make out most of what they said, what with it being more technobabble, but between the pictures and what he did pick up, the essence of the information was clear enough.
His eyes hardened and he tensed up, shooting a glare at the muggles to his side.
These people were invading his privacy, clearly had far too much interest in him, and evidently they had plans for incapacitating him. And what for? Because he had magic? These Avengers may have been 'superheroes', but that didn't give them the right to stalk him like this.
Looking back at the floating screen, blanched as he realised that they had a record of his recent activities, and had even looked into his online search history, labelling it 'unremarkable'. It was incredibly unsettling.
A part of him wondered if he should give them the benefit of the doubt. 'Might you not be wary of a stranger with unknown powers if you were in their place?' it wondered. But the larger, more incensed part of him questioned why he should be accommodating when the other party had a dagger held behind their back.
Harry kept reading, and found that thankfully, the plans to incapacitate him were labelled as 'last resort', in case he turned violent. So, they were privacy invading arseholes, but at least they weren't completely malicious or unreasonable.
Still, Harry's hands began to tremble, ice shooting through his veins as visions of another time resurfaced — memories of the werewolf registry, of the thwarted attempts to trace and round up muggleborns, of the constant surveillance from a Voldemort controlled ministry. The parallels weren't quite there, but the thought of having his every move watched like a prey raised his hackles. His chest tightened, burning with a flame that sunk into his blood and chased away the ice.
Emerald green eyes glowing with displeasure, Harry stepped away from the displays and turned to the other occupants of the room, only to recoil in shock.
"What the fuck!?"
Peter was so impressed with the upgrades to his web shooters. They were already great, but Mr. Stark looked over his own improvements from a couple of weeks ago and tweaked them further. The shooters were now 7.4% faster, with minimal loss of accuracy and no loss of web fluid integrity.
They were supposed to discuss the rest of the plan, but Peter derailed the conversation by asking Mr. Stark to explain the changes he made in detail, and picking at his brain about this and that. At some point he took his mask off, not needing Friday's targeting assistance. Besides, that thing was stuffy.
It took a little while before Peter's curiosity was satisfied, or rather, it took a little while before Mr. Stark's seemed to get fed up.
"I'll just send you the schematics. You're smart enough to figure it out. Now," Mr. Stark clapped his hands, affecting a cheerful voice. "I think—"
At that moment, a voice Peter knew all too well rang through the lab. He froze in place and looked at Mr. Stark in absolute panic.
"What the fuck!?"
Peter was Spider-Man.
Peter Parker, his neighbour, friend, and let's face it, his only source of company these days, was Spider-Man.
Harry knew he had lived an interesting life; discovering he was a wizard, defeating a dark lord, ending up in another world, meeting Death and discovering he was immortal — one would think there was little left that could faze him, and yet here he was, utterly shocked at discovering that charmingly awkward Peter Parker from next door was a superhero.
Harry kept repeating that fact in his head, as though repeating it enough times would change the answer. His thoughts were racing, moments and memories flickering in his mind's eye like an unrolling reel of film. It took him a little while to realise that he had spoken aloud, and that Peter and Stark had somehow heard him.
'Oh dear.'
Harry then realised that in his shock, his magic had lashed out and shattered his silencing charm, exposing him as surely as if he had taken his invisibility cloak off.
In fact, he might as well do just that; the Snitch was out of the bag.
With a heavy sigh, Harry let the cloak dissipate, revealing himself body and flesh to Peter and Stark — whose Iron Man suit was already assembling around him, leaving only his head exposed.
He opened his mouth but couldn't get any words out, not knowing what he wanted to say. Stark had no such problem.
"Okay, wow. I don't even know where to begin with this," the man muttered, bringing a metallic hand up to massage his forehead.
Harry huffed and glared at both men. "You don't know where to start?!"
Merlin. As shocking as it was to realise Peter was Spider-Man, it was a greater struggle to accept another realisation that was dawning on him. It stung like poisoned nettle; a small sharp pain followed by a mild burning ache.
Peter was one of the arseholes monitoring his every move.
In that moment, Harry found himself looking back over the past week, seeing the distance between them he was unable to encroach, seeing May's greetings change from warm affection to cold reception. He felt like he was back in fourth year, with Ron having believed the worst in him and distancing himself from Harry.
"I- uh- Harry," Peter stammered out.
"What the fuck?" Harry repeated, unable to express himself otherwise. "You thought I might be some...what, supervillain?"
"No! Probably not!"
" Probably? "
"Almost definitely! Like 95%," Peter corrected in some misguided belief that he was digging himself out of this hole.
"How could you possibly think that? Do you people just assume anyone with magic is dangerous?" he accused, noting that, behind the target of his aggravation, Stark perked up at the mention of magic.
"No, not really. Just when they're my neighbour?"
"You think I picked that flat to do what? Hmm? Turn you into a rabbit and kidnap you?"
"Can you— no, wait, not the time. Uhm, no I didn't think that, but the odds of someone like you living next to Spider-Man. Well…"
"Are so low that alarm bells were ringing from here to Notre Dame," Stark interjected, crossing his arms and walking closer as he entered the conversation. The man quirked his lips into a smile that was probably supposed to be 'charming', and held his hand out for Harry to shake. "Tony Stark, nice to finally meet you."
Harry stared at the man blankly, making no move to return the gesture and shake the man's outstretched hand — gauntlet more like.
"You ambush me with armed government agents, spy on my every move, and make plans for how to subdue me, but it's 'nice' to meet me?"
"Look kid, I did what I thought was best, but all's well that ends well — Shakespeare, very poignant. Are you a fan of Willy? You should be. Anyway, I had to be sure you weren't some sort of megalomaniac asshole with daddy issues trying to take over the world or whatever."
'Is this man right in the head?'
"But you're cool with Harry now?" Peter piped up hopefully.
An almost theatrical sigh escaped Stark's lips. "Alas, you've convinced me. This—" Stark gestured at Harry and Peter, finger wagging and circling, "— is one hundred percent teenage drama. If this is his master plan, I admit defeat."
"That's it?" Peter asked, blinking with wide, dumbfounded eyes. "All that, and it takes you two seconds to decide that he's okay?"
"Oh I don't think he's 'okay' yet," Stark shrugged. "He still broke into my lab with his—" he turned his attention to Harry "— what did you call it, magic?"
Stubborn silence was his only answer, as Harry crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, glaring at Stark in defiance.
The man threw his hands up and swivelled around, walking away to a fiddle around at a workbench in the corner of the lab. "Peter, you handle this. I'll just stand in the corner and pretend baby Gandalf didn't break a million laws and act like he's the aggrieved party."
"Break a million laws?" Harry queried Peter.
"Well… obviously he's exaggerating, but the Accords are a thing, even if those agents he sent last night aren't part of the S.A.E.D. — and by the way I did not know about or agree with that ambush," Peter explained, emphasising his lack of involvement with that farce last night.
Harry was glad to know that much, at least. He made a noise of acknowledgement, but didn't otherwise react, letting Peter continue.
"Right. So, obviously there's the whole needing to register for having superpowers thing, the breaking and entering, and— yes I know I don't have room to talk about that, can you please stop glaring with the glowy eyes? It's kinda scary."
Glowy eyes? Harry picked up a screwdriver from the nearest bench and transfigured it into a small mirror, ignoring Peter's shocked gasp. Sure enough, his eyes were more vibrant than he'd ever seen them, suffused with something of a glow.
"I… huh, that's new," Harry muttered, leaning closer to examine his eyes in detail.
He didn't know why they were glowing, but he suspected it might have something to do with the way his magic was permeating the air, tinged with the same tempestuous feelings as Harry. His control was fragile presently, but Harry closed his eyes and reached out to pull the ambient magic back into himself, centering it within his core as best as he could.
When he opened his eyes, they had stopped glowing.
"Well, it's gone. You were saying?"
Poor Peter looked like he had a million questions, but he seemingly chose to bite his tongue and finish what he had to say. "Uh, right. So yeah, technically you are a criminal, but —" Peter hurried to say, "that doesn't matter. I've done worse. Hell, Mr. Stark's done way worse. I think he's just pissed that you managed to get in here. Anyway, what I wanted to say is I'm sorry," he apologised with a look of such sincerity that for a moment Harry forgot he was angry. Then it all came rushing back.
"I know it was a really shitty thing to basically spy on you, but in my defence, most of that was Mr. Stark. I just looked out for anything weird when we were hanging out. Oh, and I did try to bust into your place the other night, but—" Peter held out his hands, preemptively gesturing for Harry to settle down. Wise move, because at realising it was Peter that had tried to break into his apartment two nights ago, he had been fractions of a second away from conjuring and batting a Bludger at the bloke. "But that was only 'cause I was fed up with all the secrecy, so I thought that if I snuck in and found some concrete proof that you weren't a threat, this could all be over and things could go back to normal."
"Hmph, 'this' being the inquisition that you brought to my door?" Harry clarified, still frowning.
Harry watched as Peter bit his lip and let his head hang, a slight tremble in his hands that the other bloke tried to hide. He then clenched his fists and raised his head to look Harry in the eyes, tension radiating from his frame.
"Yeah... I'm sorry," he apologised again.
Harry hummed thoughtfully, then started speaking, unsure of what he was going to say. His thoughts streamed out of his mouth as they formed.
"I'm… upset. And I'm pissed too, Peter," he stated quietly, sternly. "And hurt. And disappointed. And…" Harry paused, trying to make sense of what he was feeling. "Logically, I understand why you two were curious about me. When you deal with the fucked up gobshit that you do, er— obviously I've googled the Avengers before — it's understandable to practice constant vigilance. And I'm aware the things you saw me do are highly unusual to you, but the extent to which you went..."
'But what? What did I expect? Stark doesn't owe me anything. I'm pissed at him, but that's all, he's just a stranger. Peter, though… I'm hurt. It feels a little like I've been betrayed, but… I've only known him for…' Harry did the math, '3 weeks. Merlin! Has it really only been 3 weeks?'
The silence got to Peter, it seemed. He stepped forward, bringing them within arm's reach of one another, and began to speak.
"Believe me, I thought about saying screw it and just asking you outright. But come on…" Peter sighed, shoulders slumping. "I'm sorry," he repeated, laying a hand on Harry's shoulder, a small look of relief lighting up his face when Harry didn't shrug it off. "Like you said, with the kind of stuff Mr. Stark and the Avengers see, 'constant vigilance' sounds about right. My new neighbour having these mysterious powers was like, way too much of a coincidence, and as much as I wanted to trust you, it's only been like three weeks — two, it was only two weeks when this started! So yeah, I went along with Mr. Stark's plan… and I'm sorry that I did, and I'm sorry to have put you through this."
Having said what he needed to, Peter stepped back and stared solemnly at the floor, leaving Harry to formulate his response. They both stood there, Harry in deep thought and Peter anticipating his response, with silence as loud as any noise he had ever heard ringing through the room.
"It stings," Harry finally spoke, minutes later, "knowing that for the last week my only friend here has been spying on me, treating me like a threat… but you're right."
If not for his superpowers, Harry was sure Peter would have sprained his neck muscles from how fast he raised his head to stare at Harry. "I- I am?"
Harry nodded. "I don't like it, but you had your reasons, and most of the spying was done by the arsehole behind you." He ignored Stark's noise of indignation. "Personally, I think you're both paranoid idiots, but I suppose I shouldn't begrudge you that too much."
"I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you did hold a grudge…"
Harry snorted. "Why, do you want me to go back to being angry?" — because it wouldn't be hard, Harry could still feel the embers begging to be relit again. He could rationalise, and he could try to forgive, but that anger didn't just disappear.
"No!" Peter burst out, drawing a small chuckle from Harry. Peter blushed endearingly and glanced away. "So...uh, are we cool?" he asked hesitantly.
Harry thought about everything they had said, and nodded his head. Things weren't magically 100% better, but disappointment and hurt aside, he understood why Peter made the choices he did, what with Stark being some sort of mentor for him. He remembered how much Peter looked up to Stark when he had mentioned him some time ago, and even from the brief glimpse of them earlier, he got the sense Stark was some sort of mentor figure for Peter. He could see it now, the older well respected hero of the people, 'oh he could never lead me astray.' He had been much the same, Harry thought, remembering a wizened old headmaster he had conflicting feelings about.
Certainly he wanted Peter to have believed in him enough to take a leap of faith, but no matter how fast their friendship seemed to build, it was early days yet — sometimes he forgot that. This was a massive breach of trust, but when it came down to it, Harry liked Peter's company. He saw enough potential there that he was willing to give Peter another chance; 'enough rope to hang himself with', as they said.
"I'm… I'm not happy about what happened, and you essentially shattered my trust, and I kind of want to smack you upside the head, so no we're not 'cool'," he said slowly, watching as Peter's face dropped. "But I'm willing to try."
"Right. That's... more than I deserve, so I'll take it. I promise, you won't regret it!" Peter said earnestly.
'I hope not, but we'll see.'
"Well, that was touching," Stark chimed in, catching their attention, "but now that you've kissed and made up, can we get back to the screwdriver transforming, the glowy eyes, oh and that little word you said earlier — magic? "
"What of it? I'm a wizard," Harry admitted frostily, shrugging and eyeing Stark with some degree of frigidity. Unlike Peter, he had no reason to be friendly to the man who committed the bulk of the invasion of his privacy, and who put him through that awful confrontation last night. His fingers itched to pull his wand out on the man and it was all he could do not to cast a blasting spell at something in this room, if not Stark himself.
"You're kidding me," Mr. Stark deadpanned. "You're telling me my nicknames were right?"
"Pardon?"
"Never mind that, Gandalf," he waved Harry off, ignoring the pinched look on his former suspect's face. "I mean, it was pretty obvious by the time you showed up that there wasn't any tech involved. But… you're not Asgardian, are you?"
Startled, Harry shook his head no.
"Any other kind of alien?"
"No, completely human."
"No cosmic artefacts?"
"...What?"
"Never mind," Stark sighed. "Well damn, I figured either you were an alien, or a mutant. Didn't consider that humans could have magic. Although," Stark said consideringly, "what even is magic when you think about it?"
"I don't, but while you think about it, I think I'll be off." Harry lifted his wand and made to apparate away, but Peter interrupted him.
"Wait, Harry. Please? Could you tell him just a little bit? To get him off your back?" he pleaded.
'Well, I suppose he's right. They already know some of what I'm capable of. It might be better to tell them something — enough to keep Stark from bothering me again. I can be civil with this intrusive, paranoid arsehole for a little bit. Probably.'
Truthfully, Harry wasn't sure how long he could stand to be around Stark without blowing up and possibly causing an incident. He was older now, and more in control of his temper, but Merlin, he just wanted to let his magic loose to cause havoc.
He also wanted to get this over with though, so — after making his reluctance very obvious — Harry agreed. "Fine, I'll stay and explain some things, but I decide how much is enough, hm?" At Stark's nod, Harry stepped forward and held his hand out for Stark to shake. "Harry Potter," he gritted out.
"Tony Stark," Stark replied, reaching for his hand and giving it a solid.
"Peter Parker," Peter chimed in unnecessarily.
Harry and Stark both turned to the teenage superhero, eyeing him with amusement and exasperation respectively.
"Well, someone had to say my name."
[AN:] Took me a long time to be happy with this chapter, but here it is: the big reveal! Hope you enjoy it & can't wait to hear what you think of it!
This chapter might be a bit divisive. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the make-it or break-it chapter for some people. I do want to clarify that Peter was mostly just a bystander to Tony's invasion of Harry's privacy, and that while he had his misgivings, he decided to trust his idol. A mistake, but an understandable one, I thought. Also, Harry doesn't outright forgive Peter so much as see where he's coming from and decide to give him a chance to keep the friendship, and earn his trust. As far as reconciliation goes, this is the beginning. It's all just words right now.
And he's proper pissed at Stark, but he knows enough about the Avengers to know that they have some authority and that it's best to give them something. He's 18, he's been through a lot, he's matured some. Of course, his reluctant cooperation doesn't mean he's going to blab everything to Tony next chapter. And don't worry, this isn't going to be a bashing fic either. Tony's going through some stuff, you got a taste of it in chapter 10, and I plan to explore his character further.
And of course, thanks for reading this fic so far, and for all the faves, follows, and reviews :D
Cheers!