Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.
Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There is also references to canon character death, child abuse, and violence (which includes threats to a child). Feel free to back out if need be.
Author's Note: As a general reminder, if you dislike any aspect of my story, please check the FAQs provided on my FFN profile before telling me.
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Post Term 16); MC4A (Year 5)
Individual Challenges: Thorny Iron Son; Red Dress (Y); Red Lights; Ginger; Red Bull; Little Tykes; Red Wave; Iron Fam; Bi Rainbow; Rainbow Rainbow; Missing Rainbow; Lovebirds; No School MC; Magical MC; Magical MC; SHIELD MC; SHIELD MC: SHIELD MC; Hydra MC; Neurodivergent; Neurodivergent; Rowl in Her Grave; Rian-Russo Inversion; Rain-Russo Inversion; Rain-Russo Inversion; Ethnic & Present; Ethinic & Present; Disabled; Tiny Terror; Laws; Shifter MC; Nonhuman MC; Bi Bi Bi; Lovely Triangle; Setting Sail; Hold the Mayo; Zed Era; Old Shoes; Old Shoes (Y); Marvelous Cinema; Short Jog; Bucket Listing (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Green Ribbon
House: Slytherin
Other Hogwarts Challenges: 365 [17](Camaraderie); 1000 Prompts Challenge [84](Black); Hogwarts Gardens [Tree 19]("Stop making that face") [Englebert] (No using the word "and")
Other MC4A Challenges: TrB [5B](Killer Bunny); SuB [5D](Watermelon); AU [2E](Superhero); Ship (Frost Iron)[SpBig (Jewelry); SpMic1 (Fusion/Crossover); SuMic1 (Fusion/Crossover); SuMic2 (Black; Gray); 4C (Accidental Confession)]; Chim [Kyrie] ("Carry on My Wayward Son" by Kansas; Race Bend; Ball);Hunt [Su WD (Anxiety); Su Con (Honey; Lemonade)]; Fire [x3](Movie Buffs); Garden [Mixed Bag (Single Parent; Loki; Tea)]; Harvest [Items (Chessboard; Musical Instrument; Spoon); Settings (New York City); Tropes (X Plus 1)];
Representation(s): Desi Harry Potter & Tony Stark; Past Tony/Lily/James; Pre Loki/Tony; Genderfluid Loki; Chim Song Prompt; Canon Conflicts
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Brooms Only; Car in a Tutu; Three's Company; A Long Dog; Eternal Boredom; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; Found Family; Nontraditional; Middle Name; Mother Hen; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice); Chorus (Endless Wonder; Odd Feathers; Pocky Pockets; Wabi Sabi; Bee Haven; Fizzy Lemonade; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: Once (Santa Fe); War (Monomania; Orator; Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui); T3 (Toad); SN (Rail; Intercept); FR (Satisfaction; Gestation); LiCK (Poppy; Amaranth; Narcissus; Tansy; Yarrow)
Word Count: 2215 words
(^^)
Worth Noticing
(^^)
Phil Coulson didn't notice the boy watching from the corner of the antechamber. He had only a few more minutes to finish tying up the loose ends of this situation before he needed to head out for his next mission. He was confident that Tony Stark had been successfully brought into the organization.
Why would he think otherwise? Neither Stark nor Rhodes raised any fuss about being detained for a tour of the Los Angeles headquarters of SHIELD. Phil was even able to commandeer the Stark Industries Public Relations Department to set up the press conference that Phil was now giving Stark the cover story for. All Stark had to do was read the cards.
Stark was the most powerful asset added to the SHIELD roster since Hawkeye convinced a Widow to give up freelance work. The suit was only part of the equation. With a Stark backing SHIELD once more, the organization would be less reliant on the so-called World Security Council for budgetary decisions.
But no matter how much of a feather Stark's recruitment was, Phil was still a busy man. So he gave Stark his cards with the cover story, dismissed Stark's comments about the plausibility of the story in general. Then he rushed out the door.
All without noticing how a pair of emerald green eyes watched his every move or the growing frown on the brown face those eyes belonged to.
By the time that Tony Stark went off script, announcing on live television that he was Iron Man, Phil Coulson was already crossing the city limits.
(^^)
Nicholas Fury didn't notice the boy who had watched his conversation with Tony Stark from beneath the piano bench. He had been too busy trying to intimidate Stark into falling in step to feel the way that gaze had stayed on him the entire time he had stood in the dark waiting for Stark to come upstairs from the lab. He had not looked around after finding his perfect spot to lurk, which made him miss the cat-like shine on those emerald eyes.
He did note that Stark seemed even more antagonistic than usual, but he didn't think anything of it. Stark had proven to be a bit more of a wild card than their previous Index profile suggested. When he left, he immediately assigned one of his best undercover assets to update the damn thing.
SHIELD needed the type of resources a Stark would bring. Whatever was needed to bring about that outcome was acceptable. It was unfortunate that Stark was too much in the spotlight to just bring to heel like they did their other Index subjects, but that was the trade off for the usefulness of a Stark.
(^^)
Natasha Romanoff did take note of the child playing on a Stark tablet by the windows of the gym. He was of obvious Indian descent or perhaps Middle Eastern. His ink black hair had the same wild almost-curl that Tony Stark's did, not that Natasha thought the two could possibly be related. If Stark had had a love child, it would have been all over the news, especially with Stark either having custody or visitation.
The boy glanced up from his tablet. Natasha felt herself still under that unnatural emerald gaze, like a rabbit being spotted by a fox. There was something about the look in the child's eyes that reminded Natasha painfully of the last time she had seen Yelena across the training floor. It was like the boy could see through all her pretty personas to the dark heart of her. Just as quick he had looked up, the boy turned back to whatever he was doing on his device.
She fretted for half a heartbeat before dismissing the boy as unimportant. He hadn't been in the brief for the mission nor had he been reported in any surveillance up to this point. Whatever his reason for being in Tony Stark's personal residence, it must be temporary. He was likely visiting either the bodyguard or the personal assistant cum CEO. Whoever he was, he was not important to completing the mission objectives.
Instead, Natasha focused on flirting with Tony Stark, even if he didn't seem very intent on taking it any further than that. She barely managed to get enough time alone with a data port in the mansion to plug in the USB drive that would give SHIELD remote access to the house servers—which ended up being a wasted effort as the computer analysts managed only to retrieve only a few gigabytes of some cartoon before their access had been cut off.
When Potts decided to make Natasha her personal assistant, Natasha had been sure that it would come with more access to Stark or at least another chance at his private servers. Instead, it was even more boring paperwork than what she had been doing in the Legal Department for the last six months. Stark didn't even come on the trip to the Grand Prix, which was something he had done every year except one since the death of his parents almost twenty years ago.
Then Stark canceled his birthday party, seemingly disappearing off of SHIELD's radar completely.
When he emerged from wherever he had been hiding a week or so later, he did so with a different ARC reactor but just in time to stop a man with electric whips who was intent to destroy every exhibit at the Stark Expo. In the wake of the attack, SHIELD got wind that SI security had figured out who had poisoned one of their paralegals to the point that she required hospitalization.
Natasha was reassigned to follow the man providing a living cage for the Hulk. She didn't manage to achieve the mission objectives there either. However, she did manage to net the research of Banner's contact, not to mention bring Samuel Sterns into SHIELD custody.
She submitted her profile update on Stark without including anything about the boy.
(^^)
Tony pushed the thrusters on the suit probably more than was safe. At least JARVIS had stopped the warning about suit integrity from flashing. Likely, he was just as worried as Tony was. While JARVIS still had most of his connections to the Tower in New York, he had lost access to the penthouse a little over three hours prior.
Outside cameras showed a man identified as the missing Dr. Erik Selvig setting up some kind of device up for the first half hour of that time frame. Then Selvig had been called into the penthouse where he has presumably remained, given how he had not appeared anywhere else. The same non-status applied to Happy as well. He had last been seen entering the penthouse so that Tony could fly to Germany. He had still been there when JARVIS lost security access.
All devices within the penthouse were not responding to JARVIS attempting to ping them. That also included any devices (such as cleaning bots from other floors) being sent onto the floor. The elevator doors on the penthouse were refusing to open, so the camera in the car wasn't an option. The treatment on the windows that prevented anyone from looking into the Tower from the surrounding buildings also prevent JARVIS from utilizing security cameras from those buildings to see into the penthouse.
Tony had had many stressful incidents since discovering that he had a son with the married couple he had had a brief affair with seven years ago. He had been positively murderous to discover how Lily's stepsister had treated Harry since the death of his parents, not to mention sick with worry about Harry's injuries from the abuse. Tony had thought that he had been scared when he realized that Obie was trying to kill him with Harry sleeping just down the hall. That had been worse than the months of thinking about how Harry must have felt to lose yet another parent so soon after being rescued from that awful house. Coming home to find yet another another stranger in their home while Harry hid in a shadow nearby had also been terrifying.
But nothing compared to knowing that there was a powerful being who was dangerously unstable alone with his son, that the only thing that Tony could do was rush as fast as possible to the tiny child's rescue while clinging fiercely to the hope that he would still be alive when Tony got there.
Tony landed on the raised platform. Thankfully, it still responded to JARVIS enough to remove the battered suit as he walked as sedately as possible down the incline towards the balcony doors leading into the main room of the penthouse. Of all the scenarios that had been spinning out in Tony's head, he had not imagined any close to the scene that awaited him.
Selvig was seated next to Happy at the bar. Between them was a wooden chessboard. Each man had a glass next to them filled with liquid. Judging by color, Selvig was indulging in the watermelon lemonade that Tony had made before getting roped into the whole SHIELD drama while Happy had made iced tea. Judging by the spoon sticking out of the glass, he had sweetened it was honey instead of leaving it plain. From what Tony could hear of their conversation, the two men were in deep discussion of the movie version of Mamma Mia.
Likewise nonchalant, the god who would be king of Earth was sitting on the floor in front of Tony's couch. He was rolling Harry's favorite fidget ball around in his hands. His impressive armor had been replaced by a sleeveless gray tunic over black pants. He was barefoot, not even wearing socks. His bare arms each had a giant snake wrapped around it as well as complicated scroll work that did not appear even slightly Norse like the decorations on Thor's stuff.
Most incredibly, Harry was sitting on the couch behind Loki. The six-year-old was braiding a strand of Loki's hair. By the sheer number of other braids already tied off with tiny gold cuffs, Harry had been at it for a while. Most tellingly about the boy's camaraderie with his companion, Harry was talking in the way that always reminded Tony of James' excited rambles, despite their lack of shared genetics.
"Then Megamind throwed Minion in the fountain," Harry finished as he tied off the braid he was working on. "It made him all better."
"It healed him? Truly?"
"Uh-huh. All Minion needed was some water 'cause he's a fish."
"Fascinating," Loki said right before he spotted Tony still standing by the balcony doors. His relaxed demeanor vanished quicker than fog after sunrise. His next words sounded like he was resigned to whatever fate Tony had brought along with him. "Ah, it looks like our time together is up, poppet."
Harry looked up at the declaration. Then the small child launched himself in Tony's direction like a tiny missile that just happened to be wearing a purple t-shirt over red shorts with yellow Iron Man helmets decorating them like polka dots. Loki took a stray foot to his head, making Tony's breath catch in a flash of terror, but the god just rolled his green eyes.
Tony frowned as he caught his son mid-leap. Hadn't Loki's eyes been blue in Germany? They definitely were an unnerving blue while they had all been on the helicarrier. Tony distinctly remembered being unnerved by the accidental eye contact. He pondered the problem as he slowly made his way to the other side of the talking pit from Loki, who looked good enough to eat, if Tony was honest with himself.
"Daddy, you're home," Harry said loudly. "Loki said you would be soon. They also said that you would have to take him away because of the bad man that was in their head. But I took cares of that, so now they're good like Megamind." Harry pulled back far enough that Tony was worried about dropping him. His green eyes were exaggeratedly large as he voiced his plea. "That means we can keep them now, right?"
"Harry," Tony started, uncertain how to explain that it wasn't that simple. Harry's eyes shimmered as he stuck out his bottom lip. Making the expression even more heart-wrenching was the slight quiver to that lip. Tony felt like he had any time that Lily had broken out the same expression: completely powerless to deny any request. "Okay, okay. I'll do my best. Just stop making that face. It's breaking my heart."
The boy let out an excited squeal that made Tony wonder if he was going to have damage to his inner ear. Though, it looked like that was going to be the least of his worries soon. It was going to be a lot harder to keep SHIELD out of his affairs while also keeping what sounded like an alien refugee in his personal residence. Not that it was really debatable if Tony was going to keep Loki around, not when Harry wanted him to be. The kid was an excellent judge of character.
Then again, maybe it was just that it was a good barometer of trustworthiness if a person treated Tony's son as someone worth noticing.
