AUGUST 6
Tuesday dawned bright and clear, which, Tony had learned, was only somewhat unusual for London in the summer. It was too bad, really, that the gorgeous day was going to be spoiled by visits to the doctor.
At least the day was starting off well, with a hearty breakfast Steve and Harry were cooking together in the kitchen. Tony helped himself to coffee and took a seat at the dining table, flipping through items in the newsfeed on his tablet while he waited for them to finish.
"Sir." JARVIS' voice sounded quietly - which meant it was coming from the tablet, not the speakers built into the room.
"What's up, J?" Tony asked without looking up.
"The Magic Game, as Master Harry referred to it, has concluded."
"Oh, right." They'd agreed to leaving the quiz live for just twenty-four hours, given how many employees SI had. "How many participated?"
"Nineteen thousand two hundred and sixty-three," JARVIS replied.
"Less than twenty percent," Tony mused. "How many of them got all the magic questions right?"
"Four thousand seven hundred and nine. Another two hundred and seventy-two had similar enough answers that they may be magical, as opposed to getting the answers correct by random chance."
"Less than half a percent - which is probably about right, given the size of Diagon Alley," Tony said, then took a breath. "Of the forty-seven hundred, how many of them are here in London?"
"Sixty-three. Another one hundred and seventeen are in the European Union."
"Sixty-three what?" Harry asked as he brought a plate piled with bacon, eggs, potatoes, and roasted tomatoes to Tony. He carried a similar plate for himself, and Steve followed with a similar plate plus one piled with toast.
"Probably magical Stark Industries employees in London." Tony set his tablet aside and adjusted the plate in front of him as his two companions took their seats.
"That seems like a lot," Harry said. "So now what?" He dug into his eggs with enthusiasm that Tony appreciated, given how poorly the Dursleys had treated him.
Tony took a bite of his own before looking over at Steve. "You up to interviewing a few of them today, while the sprog and I head to the doctor?"
"Me?" Steve looked honestly taken aback. "Why me?"
"Couple of reasons," Tony said, taking a bite of potato. "First, you know as much or more than I do about the magical world. Second, maybe more important, you know how to fight a magic-user if it comes to that."
"Which we hope it won't," Steve muttered, then straightened even more in his chair. "Okay, fine. What are you looking for?"
"Sell it as an executive assistant of some kind," Tony replied. "One where a knowledge of the magical world is the main qualification. Or do you mean the kind of person I'm looking for?" he added as Steve's expression had turned pensive.
"That," Steve said.
"Hm." Tony stacked his fork with eggs, potato, and bit of tomato, taking a bigger bite than normal to give him a few extra seconds to think while he chewed. Finally, he swallowed, and said, "Look, Cap - we don't know each other that well yet, but Dad trusted you and your gut, so I'll do the same. Follow your instincts."
"I can do that," Steve muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, Tony thought. Then he looked toward one of JARVIS' cameras. "JARVIS, can you have some marbles delivered?"
"Marbles, Captain?" JARVIS asked, and Tony swore he heard surprise in the question.
"Marbles," Steve confirmed. "Or anything small, dense, and reasonably aerodynamic that you can get in quantity. Britain apparently has draconian laws about weapons, so I'll have to improvise."
"Do you think it'll come to that?" Harry asked, wide-eyed.
"I hope it won't," Steve said. "But like the Boy Scouts say, be prepared."
After a moment, JARVIS said, "A set of one hundred and sixty will be delivered by ten."
"Great," Steve said. "So start scheduling the appointments at ten-thirty, please. Half an hour should be plenty of time between them."
"And do a random draw among the ones who got all the questions right for the top prize," Tony said. "Second and third prize from everyone else." He caught both Steve's and Harry's inquiring looks and shrugged his free shoulder as he stabbed a tomato with his fork. "It's the fairest I know how to be in this case."
Tony paused in front of the red-brick department store, Harry beside him. A sign on the front door of Purge and Dowse Ltd. read "Closed for Refurbishment," and the mannequins in the window were chipped, their wigs askew, and dressed in clothes that were at least ten years out of date, and perhaps more like twenty.
"Huh." Wizardkind certainly went in for odd choices of concealment - but if this was the entrance to their hospital, Tony supposed he could put up with it.
For now, anyway.
"What now?" he asked.
Harry stepped forward to address a female mannequin sporting a green pinafore dress that wouldn't have been out of place in a Disney cartoon.
"Um, hello," he said to it. "Harry Potter and Tony Stark. We have appointments."
The dummy gave a slight nod and made a beckoning movement with its finger. Harry grabbed Tony's hand and took a step forward. Tony followed him-
-through the glass-
-and into what looked like a waiting room, judging by the people sitting in chairs…
…wooden, rickety chairs. Tony frowned at that.
He had expected uncomfortable chairs - waiting room chairs always were, or at least he remembered them being that way the last time he'd actually visited someone in a hospital - but rickety?
If they didn't care for their furnishings, how would they care for their patients?
At this time of the morning on a Tuesday, Tony wasn't surprised that the lobby - because surely that's what this was supposed to be - was nearly empty. Only one other case appeared to be ahead of them, a man and a woman standing at a desk labeled INQUIRIES. The woman had a … foot? Seriously? … sticking out of her left shoulder.
A plump blonde woman sat at the desk, her expression rather irritated. "Really, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, this is the fourth time you've been here for a similar condition. You should know by now spell damage is the fourth floor. Off you go now."
Tony frowned at her attitude but allowed Harry to take the lead - he was, after all, the famous one in this world. What would her behavior toward him be?
"Good morning," Harry said as he got to the desk. "We have appointments with-" he looked at the parchment he carried. "Um - Master Healer Cheswick. It doesn't say where."
"The Master Healers' offices are on the fifth floor," the woman said, and maybe it was because they didn't have identifiable problems, or maybe because Harry had obviously consulted the parchment before asking, but her tone was more polite than it had been to the people ahead of them. "Past the tea shop, there's a sign for private consultations. Go through that door, then Master Healer Cheswick is the third office on your right."
"How do we get to the fifth floor?" Harry asked.
"Through those double doors and down the corridor," she said. "You'll see the stairs."
Stairs? To the fifth floor? What about people whose legs are hurt?
The questions flooded Tony's mind, and he found himself pondering magical medicine as he and Harry followed the woman's directions.
Magic, he assumed, could heal most injuries very quickly - however long it took to wave a wand and say an incantation in most cases. Then, according to Harry's textbooks, there were potions for recovery and for minor ailments - magic even cured the common cold. So maybe it made sense that they expected their patients to climb stairs.
And maybe the relative brevity of any visit explained the lack of effort to make the place at all welcoming. Even so, there was no excuse for keeping a workplace unclean. Untidy, maybe - God knew Tony's workshop could become a bit of a disaster area after a particularly creative night - but not unclean.
Tony could only hope this Healer Cheswick was clean and professional.
Finally, they emerged onto the fifth floor and Tony spotted the door labeled PRIVATE CONSULTATIONS in the same split-second Harry did, and it was only a few minutes after that when they knocked on the third door on the right.
"Come in," came a pleasant voice - most likely female, if lower in timbre than Tony usually encountered in women.
He let Harry open the door and was relieved to see a neat space that was a cross between an examination room and office. To the left, a bed was tucked against the wall. In the far right corner was a desk, behind which sat a somewhat overweight dark-haired woman in lime green robes with a quill in her hand. She finished whatever she was writing and looked up with a smile that was warmer and friendlier than anything Tony had seen before in the magical world.
"Mr. Stark and Mr. Potter." She stood and offered her hand. "Dahlia Cheswik. It's a pleasure to meet you both." She shook each of their hands in turn, then gestured them to seats across from her. "Now, Mr. Potter - your note wasn't specific. What seems to be the problem?"
Tony was pleased that she focused on Harry first - but his pleasure turned to mild annoyance when Harry ducked his head.
"Tony should go first," Harry said, and though Tony was irritated at the self-sacrifice his son was showing, Harry's next words belied that. "He has pieces of shrapnel near his heart. That's got to be more important than what's going on with me."
"That's - very considerate of you, Mr. Potter," Cheswick said before turning to Tony. "Are you comfortable being treated with magic, Mr. Stark?"
"I'm getting there," Tony said. "What do you want to do?"
"First, a basic scan to show me exactly what's going on and, if it can be treated, how to do so," Cheswick replied. "Then it would depend on the answers to those questions."
"Fair enough. Do you have the Hippocratic Oath?"
"To do our best in the practice of healing, and never to harm our patients? Yes."
"Okay," Tony said. "Do the scan." Then he looked at Harry and tried to inject a bit of humor into his tone when he added, "If anything goes wrong, sue the hell out of them, okay?"
Harry managed a smile, though Master Healer Cheswick looked somewhat scandalized.
Well, let her. It's not my fault she's so provincial.
"Very well. It will only take a moment." Cheswick drew her wand and Tony tried not to grip the arms of the chair he sat in too tightly as she waved it at him.
It may look like a toy, but it's a weapon. Never forget that.
A moment later, Cheswick holstered her wand, a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Am I going to live?" Tony quipped.
"I don't understand how, but yes," she replied. "Or at least, whatever has been done to you to this point appears to be working properly - bearing in mind that I know little about Muggle electronics."
"You can pronounce it," Harry said, "and that's more than some."
Cheswick laughed quietly, but her expression was sober when she looked back at Tony. "I could transfigure the shards in your body into blood."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "There's a but in there somewhere."
"But I don't know that I could limit the spell to just the shards. The … thing … in your chest might be transfigured as well."
The arc reactor? Oh, hell no.
Tony forced down his initial, instinctive reaction, reminding himself that he was a scientist and he should approach this in a reasonably scientific manner.
"What are the dangers of doing that?" he asked.
"Minimal," Cheswick replied, and Tony heard Harry's relieved sigh despite how quiet it was. "At the same time, I'd be mending the arteries, veins, and bones, so while there might be some blood loss into the chest cavity, it would be minimal."
"And this - transfiguration, you called it? It's permanent?"
"Usually."
"Usually? What does that mean, usually?" Tony demanded, trying to ignore how his heart rate sped up at the healer's nonchalant tone.
"Any transfiguration can be reversed," Cheswick explained. "But I would have no reason to, and no one else would think to try."
"What about the General Counter-Spell?" Harry asked. "Will that affect it?"
Cheswick's brow furrowed. "I shouldn't think so."
And I'm not willing to bet my life on that. "I'll think about it. How about Harry?"
Cheswick drew her wand again and cast at Harry. Tony felt certain it was the same incantation and wand movement he'd watched her use on him and congratulated himself on learning to recognize at least one spell as it was being cast.
Cheswick paled, and she cast again. And a third time. Harry turned wide, scared eyes to Tony, and all he could do was reach over to take his son's hand.
"Whatever it is, we'll get through it together," he murmured, and was pleased when Harry relaxed, however fractionally.
"Please accept my apologies," Cheswick said, stowing her wand once again. Her voice was remarkably steady considering how shaken she appeared. "It wasn't my intention to frighten either of you."
"But something you saw frightened you," Tony said reasonably.
"Frightened? No," Cheswick assured him. "Surprised me? Certainly. Disgusted me? Very few people wouldn't be disgusted if they saw what I did. But frighten? No."
"What - what did you find?" Harry asked, his voice small enough that Tony wanted to take him away from this world and the people in it.
"The foulest of magic," Cheswick replied. "I'll order tea - we'll all want it, or something stronger, before we're done."
The marbles had arrived promptly at ten, and Steve supposed he shouldn't be surprised at the service money could buy. At least Tony, like Howard before him, did his best to do good things with his money.
Steve rolled several marbles in his hand, testing their weight and getting used to the feel of them. His only advantages against a wizard were surprise and the enhancements Dr. Erskine's formula had given him - strength, speed, and agility they wouldn't expect - and their general dislike of physical exertion.
The marbles would do. A single one, thrown with sufficient force at a vulnerable target, would make an effective weapon and a handful of them would distract his opponent.
"Thanks, JARVIS," he said again. Talking to the air still felt strange, and he hadn't read enough in science and technology to understand exactly what an artificial intelligence implied, but JARVIS had helped him more than once, and his mama had taught him manners.
"You are quite welcome, Captain." There was a brief pause before JARVIS spoke again. "Commander Maria Hill is calling, asking to speak with Sir."
Maria Hill? It took Steve a moment to place her - Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury's left hand as Phil Coulson - Steve fought back a wave of grief for the man's death - had been his right. What was she calling about?
"She appears to know about the contest," JARVIS added, and Steve sighed.
"I'll talk to her." He replaced the marbles in the box they'd arrived in and set them on the coffee table.
His cell phone rang, and he answered the call. "This is Steve Rogers, Commander Hill."
"I'd hoped to speak to Stark."
"He's out now, ma'am," Steve replied. "And I'm not sure when he'll be back. Can I help you?"
After a moment, she said, "Maybe. He sent out a questionnaire to his employees that referenced things he shouldn't know about. I want to know how he does."
Steve felt his mouth tightening into a frown. "And how do you know what happens within Tony's company, Commander Hill?"
"My cousin Crispian works for SI. He and I both know about those things."
"JARVIS?" Steve asked.
"A Crispian Paddington answered all but one question correctly," JARVIS replied.
"His mom and my mom are sisters," Hill said.
Steve didn't need to know her entire family history, so he cut to the chase. "Why are you calling, Commander?"
"Crispian called me when he saw the quiz," she replied. "He read me some of the questions and-" she broke off and he could almost hear the frown in her voice when she asked, "Do you know what's in the quiz?"
Steve grinned, just a little. "Not exactly, but I know the gist of it. Including what those sensitive words mean."
"How?"
Since she could find the answer given the right clearance and a few hours of research time, Steve decided to tell her. "I fought beside some wizards during the war."
"Huh." Hill sounded flummoxed, but recovered as quickly as Steve had expected. "So why does Stark know about magic?"
"Why should I tell you?" Steve countered. "You still haven't told me why you're calling."
"To give Stark a heads up," she replied. "Fury will eventually find out about it, and want to know everything, if not bring Stark in to consult."
Steve winced. "And we all know how he'll respond to that."
"Exactly. So … Stark?"
Steve blew out a breath. "I don't know that I should reveal personal information, Commander - especially since I'm not entirely certain where your loyalties lie."
"I'm not sure what you mean, Captain."
"The governing body of your organization ordered a nuclear strike on New York City," Steve said. "I had to look it up, you know - what that meant. They would've killed everyone in the city, and I don't understand why."
"We were being invaded," Hill said.
"We were. But how many had died at that point? It can't have been many - relatively speaking, and given a population in the millions."
"Approximately eight million, one hundred seventy-five thousand, according to the 2010 census," JARVIS said.
"Thanks, JARVIS," Steve said. "Not even one percent of them suffered an injury. How can nuclear force be justified in that instance?"
"It can't," Hill answered, and Steve gave her credit for honesty. "And Fury's looking into that situation, because how can S.H.I.E.L.D. be a force for good if its supposed to carry out acts of unspeakable evil?"
"That's why you're still with them?"
"Yes. I believe S.H.I.E.L.D. does good work - necessary work - but it's not perfect. Nothing and no one is."
"I still don't have the right to tell Tony's secrets," Steve said. "But - JARVIS? Will you call Tony, relay this conversation, and ask what he wants to do?"
"Certainly, Captain," JARVIS replied. "Though he may not be able to answer immediately."
"Understood," Steve said. "Also, push the interviews back until after we hear back from him, please?"
"Certainly," JARVIS said again, and the room was quiet.
"I admit, Captain," Hill said, "I'm surprised you're with Stark. I thought Fury had invited you to work for S.H.I.E.L.D."
"He did," Steve told her and smiled at her surprise. "But I wasn't ready to accept."
"Do you mind if I ask why?"
"Rip Van Winkle missed twenty years, and in those twenty years, the American Revolution happened," Steve said. "I've missed seventy years and still have no idea all the things that happened. I'm not ready for the kind of work S.H.I.E.L.D. does - not without a lot of catching up."
"I'm sure Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. would arrange for your reintroduction to the world."
"Probably," Steve agreed. "And equally probably, everything they recommended would be biased in favor of America."
Hill bristled. "Captain America doesn't care for America?"
"I didn't say that." Steve scowled, and irrationally wished she were there to see it. "I said whatever Fury's people gave me would be biased in favor of America. I love America - her ideals, at least, even if her people don't always live up to them - but that doesn't mean I believe America is always right or that it's the only country on Earth that matters. Nor does it mean that I'm actually whatever stereotype of me has evolved over the decades."
"Stereotype?" Hill's disbelief came clearly through the phone. "There's no stereotype."
Steve snorted. "Trading cards."
"Pardon?"
"Trading cards," Steve repeated. "Agent Coulson was telling me all about them, and then Fury had them after Coulson died. Now, they could just be antiques - ephemera, I think it's called. Paper goods? But I did a little looking, and there were also comic books, and even a short-lived series of pulp novels. All the pieces are there for a stereotype to be created."
After a long pause, which Steve hoped meant she was considering what he'd said, she spoke again. "May I ask why you're with Stark?"
"I was in the Tower when-" he stopped himself before he said something he shouldn't, contenting himself with, "I offered to come along as backup. Are you a witch?"
"Squib," she replied, her tone turning harder. "My cousin's a wizard, though. Does it matter?"
"Only in that Tony's looking for someone knowledgeable about that world. He doesn't care whether that person has magic or not. He just needs the knowledge."
"Crispian would be a good person to know, then," Hill said. "His dad - Clive Paddington - holds a seat on the Wizengamot. Think of it like Parliament, or Congress, but there's only one house."
Before Steve could respond to that, JARVIS spoke. "Sir gives permission for you to discuss the broad outline of the reason for his visit."
"Great, thanks," Steve said. "And would you ask Crispian Paddington to come up in ten minutes? I'll need to see his personnel record, too, please."
"Of course, Captain."
Then Steve refocused on his conversation with Maria Hill. "Tony has a son who's a wizard. Circumstances have changed such that Tony's taking custody of him."
Hill blew out a breath. "And Stark needs a magical education."
"And someone who can represent him in that world," Steve said. "I have the impression that wizardkind - British wizardkind, at least - don't look too kindly on non-magicals."
"They don't, generally speaking," Hill said by way of confirmation. Then, "Thank you for telling me. You have my word I won't tell Fury - or anyone else. But if I'm asked, I won't lie."
Steve grinned briefly. "Which is why that's all I'm telling you."
Hill laughed, a pleasant sound, and amusement came through her tone when she said, "You have good instincts, Captain."
NOTE: I was proofing the rest of this story, and realized that I blew the ending originally. Badly. Like, Iron Man 2 badly. So posting's going to slow down - every other day, most likely - while I redraft the ending, because we all deserve the best I can do: you, me, and the story. Sorry for the slowdown, but I thought the alternative was worse.