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 potential violence due to unspecified reasons. Feel free to back out if need be.
Author's Note: This started as a flashback in another project, but I pulled it to make it a stand-alone because I hate flashbacks with the same passion that TW has for giving fem characters actual names.
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Post Term 16); MC4A (Year 5)
Individual Challenges: Fire Extinguisher; Red Lights; Ginger; Red Bull; Red Wave (Y); Happy Birthday (Y); Rainbow Rainbow; Missing Rainbow; Lovebirds; Gryffindor MC; Gryffindor MC; Magical MC; Magical MC; Professor MC; Neurodivergent; Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion; Rian-Russo Inversion; Ethnic & Present; Ethnic & Present; Bi Bi Bi; Lovely Triangle; Ship Sails; Setting Sail; Shipwreck; Hold the Mayo; Hold the Mayo; Zed Era; Old Shoes; Old Shoes (Y); Marvelous Cinema; Short Jog; The Story Goes On; Bucket Listing; Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Green Ribbon
House: Slytherin
Other Hogwarts Challenges: 365 [34](Devotion); 1000 Prompts Challenge [76](University); Days of the Year [Aug 1/National Girlfriends Day](Asking Someone Out); National Picnic Month [09](Modern/Muggle AU); Creative Ice Cream Flavours Day [26](James Potter); Shard Awareness Day [04](Deadly); International Cat Day [20](Sociable); National Dog Day [08](Hyper); National Indoor Plants Week [01](Tangled); Teddy Bear Day [04](Mischievous); Crystals & Gemstones [04](Gilded); Tarot Reading [05](Adventurous); Gryffindor's OTPs [07](James/Lily);
Other MC4A Challenges: SuB [2D](Firefly); Ship (Iron Thorns)[SuMed1 (Meet Cute/Meet Ugly; Opposites Attract; School Sweetheart); SuMic1 (Hacker/Programmer); SuMic2 (Red); 4D (Meet Cute)]; Chim [Kyrie] ("Rewrite the Stars" - The Greatest Showman; Race Bend; Sienna);Fire [x3](Hold the Mayo; Genius; Hybrids); Garden [Badges (Desi Character); Gee Favs (Race Bend)]; Harvest [A&B (Sleeping); Relationships (Poly Ship; Strangers); Settings (College/University); Tropes (Forbidden Love)];
Representation(s): Desi Potters; Desi Lily Evans Potter/James Potter/Tony Stark; Chim Song Prompt; Modern (ish) AU; Cambridge AU; BC Use
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: For the Vine; Lovely Coconuts; Wind Beneath; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; Found Family; Nontraditional; Middle Name; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; Brooms Only; Three's Company); Chorus (Pocky Pockets; Wabi Sabi; Fizzy Lemonade; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Tomorrow's Shade; Larger than Life; Unicorn); Demo 1 (Corvid Brain; Shiver & Shake; Grease Monkey; Under the Bridge; Casper's House); Demo 2 (In the Trench; Soul-Like; Hot Stuff; Abandoned Ship)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: Once (Moses Supposes; Santa Fe; Inchworm); War (Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui); TY (Ntaiv; Avasa; Kulonbozo); T3 (Toad); SN (Rail; Ameliorate); LiCK (Poppy); FR (Evolution); O3 (Oath)
Word Count: 1001 words
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Worth It
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Tony had been doing one of his lecture tours when he had met the Potters. It hadn't been one on a subject that the general public acknowledged that he knew anything about, but considering that these lecture tours were aimed at academics, that only meant that he was more or less safe from the press. In fact, according to the tabloids, he was not in the UK at all but cruising around the Caribbean with a yacht full of models. No doubt by the end of the semester, the same tabloids would be reporting that he was doing another stint in rehab.
Lily Potter had signed up for every single lecture in the series. Her questions on chemical compositions had been refreshing, especially give that her listed major was predictive mathematics. Her ability to keep up with Tony intellectually had been as attractive as her body. Despite being of South Indian descent (with miles of dark brown skin that looked as smooth as silk), her hair had been the same red as hot solder and her eyes as green as engine coolant. The defiance of expectation sent anticipation zinging through Tony in the same way it did whenever he was about to bring another intelligence program online for the first time.
He had been disappointed but resigned when she had mentioned being married in their conversation after the first lecture. Lily clearly loved her husband, even when relating how aggravated she was with the many shenanigans that he got up to with his best friend. The raw devotion practically dripped from her every word in the same way that Ana had always talked about Jarvis. When she had insisted that Tony needed to meet her husband, Tony had agreed, already unable to think about denying her anything.
Then James Potter had attended the second lecture.
In many ways, James was the opposite of Lily as well as matching on so many points. He was of Punjabi descent, making his family from the opposite side of India as Lily's. His sienna skin held a reddish undertone that matched the darker reds in Lily's hair. His gilded frames had a trio of inlaid green gems that matched Lily's eyes. Even their British accents were complementary, with Lily's being common compared to James' posh upper class tones. He was just as intelligent as his wife, though he leaned more towards strategy and mechanical aptitude than academic pursuits. James leaned towards practical jokes and puns for his humor while Lily was more prone towards sarcasm flavored with irony and over-dramatizations.
In just one conversation, Tony noticed that both seemed to be haunted by something. Or maybe hunted was a better word, given how James' eyes tracked the few entrances of the lecture hall while Lily had positioned herself to do the same with the ones he couldn't see. In that single conversation, Tony found himself just as infatuated with James as he was with Lily.
So of course, when they asked if he wanted to get coffee with them, Tony agreed.
Maybe he actually was the masochist that Rhodey had accused him of being multiple times.
Except instead of falling into pining for both of them, Tony found himself falling into bed with both of them. The benefit of being a guest lecturer rather than teaching a class was that there was no conflict of interest in sleeping with a university student. The Potters were not the first couple that Tony had slept with, even though they were the first couple to actually be married at the time he did so.
It was still an amazing couple of months.
Then there was an emergency with Stark Industries that required Tony's personal intervention, something that required him to fly back to New York and miss his last lecture of the term. The next handful of weeks were a whirlwind of crisis management. Tony didn't even sleep for more than a couple hours at a stretch. He existed on coffee and business lunches. After things had been resolved, he collapsed in exhaustion for three days straight.
It was only once Tony had recovered that he realized that he hadn't heard from either Potter since the end of the first week. He called the numbers he had for them, but they went straight to voicemail. Even more strangely, JARVIS couldn't find their location. Lily had dropped her classes for the Lent term. They had left the lease on their flat.
Going further back, the only records of them were Lily Potter's enrollment at Cambridge and the broken lease on their flat. There wasn't even a record of their marriage on file with any government in the British Isles or Europe. They had mentioned a few friends, but even with the unique sounding names, Tony couldn't find any records that matched. The closest he came was finding a Remus Howell whose records stop when he was eleven.
Finally, Tony had to conclude that the Potters had never truly existed. He was almost certain that they had not been spies of any kind. As distant as his father was, Howard's sex talk had come with a special lecture on how to spot honeypots and avoid getting tangled up in them.
Tony could still remember how the two had clocked every exit, how they had reacted to unexpected noises the same way that Rhodey did when he had just finished another mission series. Just because they weren't targeting him, it didn't mean that they weren't in some kind of deadly danger. Despite not knowing exactly what he might be able to do or what he hoped for if it netted any results, Tony had JARVIS start keeping a search active for any potential incidents with anyone matching either Potter's description.
A few months passed without any results.
A few months turned into a year.
Tony got used to mourning the lost potential he had had with the Potters.
The happiness of the two months he had with them was worth it.
