AN-Okay, sorry for the wait on this chapter, I was a bit stuck.

This chapter is all of book one/Iron Man 1. There is a MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH! I repeat there is a MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH! Please don't flame me for it, because I am warning for it here. This chapter jumps over the place a bit, as I didn't want to rehash every scene of the book/movie, but I did hit the big parts and the parts that are important to my story.

Disclaimer-I won nothing.

Chapter Two

"Doctor?" Bruce turned at the voice, trying to force a smile on his face as much as he was able, and nodded at the little girl standing behind him. She was disheveled, dirt marks on her face and no shoes on her feet, but he was glad that he might be able to make her smile.

"Your dad is going to be just fine, Sari." The translator repeated the words in Tamil and the little girl lit up like the sun, darting forward to hug Bruce around the waist quickly before she backed away and moved around him to grab her fathers hand.

India was about as far from the United States as he thought he could get and still function, the majority of the country knowing enough words in English that he was able to help many, but Bruce still felt the urge to move.

The Hulk was just under the surface, and the further he got from what he knew, the more the green monster tried to break free. He wanted to be 'somewhere', and Bruce didn't know where. He climbed into the dirty jeep that he had been able to salvage from a local dump, and pulled away. The villagers were surrounding the patient, moving him towards the small house he and his family lived in, and there was nothing else for Bruce to do there.

Rubbing his chest as he bumped down the dirt packed road, Bruce considered that it might be time for him to move on. Maybe if he went back West, maybe to the Middle East or Africa, the Hulk would calm down.

Hopefully.

"Tony?" Pepper stood in the doorway to Tony's underground lab, watching the back of the genius' head. Tony was staring down at the desk in front of him, the fingers of his left hand tapping on the table in agitation. He had been down here for three days, and she was getting worried.

Even JARVIS hadn't been able to get through to him.

"Tony?" She said again, the glass door closing behind her as her feet carried her across the floor. He didn't flinch, didn't acknowledge her entrance. "Tony?" She touched his shoulder, grimacing at the grease that covered the back of his neck and he startled, looking up at her with brown eyes.

"Pepper? I didn't hear you." He covered up the paper in front of him with a hand. Pepper only had a glimpse of spidery, childlike handwriting before it was blocked from her view, and she frowned.

"I called you from the door, Tony. You've been down here three days." Pepper said, "Working on anything interesting?"

There was nothing going on, nothing vital that required his attention for the first time in what seemed like years, and if he was down here just for the hell of it she would understand.

She just needed to know.

She needed to know if this was going to turn into one of those 'Tony tantrums' that lead to drunken one night escapades that were Public Relations nightmares.

"Not really, Pep." Tony turned to face her, a smile on his face that looked wane and false. "Just...playing around really. How was New York?" Tony stood and stretched, ushering her towards the door as subtly as Tony Stark was able, which wasn't very, and she wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff of him.

"New York was fine, though the board was upset you chose not to attend, again." Pepper looked at him, "You need a shower, Tony. Now. You need a shower, and food, and sleep, and then," he opened his mouth to contradict her and she frowned until he closed it again, "Then I'll tell you about New York. Deal?"

He stared her down for a moment, before his own odor seemed to reach his nose and he frowned. "Okay, maybe you're right, but don't get used to this, Ms. Potts."

He headed towards the door and she followed him long enough to see him go up the stairs towards his bedroom, before turning back to the desk.

Whatever had sent him into this funk was there, and she would find out what.

Starting with the letter.

"I wonder what they're going to do for Halloween this year," Terry Boot was talking animatedly about the upcoming Halloween Feast in a few days, and Harry snickered.

"Probably bats and pumpkins." Harry had never gotten the whole Halloween experience, even Dudley didn't get to go out trick or treating, no matter how much he yelled and screamed at his parents. Harry was looking forward to seeing what Halloween would be like in the magical world. Whatever it was, it was bound to be wicked.

"Bats?" Terry asked, turning to walk backwards into the Great Hall. "Why would there be bats on Halloween?" The brunette dropped into an open spot at the Ravenclaw table, tossing his books willy nilly and getting dirty looks from the upper years as Harry, Anthony, and Michael crowded onto the bench next to him.

"I dunno," Harry shrugged and reached towards the platter of eggs at his elbow, "Muggles always have bats and pumpkins at Halloween things, I think."

As the Great Hall filled up around them, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw filling in first, with Slytherin soon after and Gryffindors making up the stragglers as always, his roommates gave him pitying looks. None of them were muggleborn, though Terry had a muggle mom, and he found himself explaining the strangest things.

He would never try explaining how electricity worked again, that was for sure. Even for Ravenclaws, they just weren't getting it.

"Don't look now Harry, Granger's glaring at you again." Harry groaned as the Ravenclaws around him snickered, refusing to look at the Gryffindor that had been a pain in his ass since the moment he stepped on the train.

"I don't get what her problem is. You're not even in the same house, why does she care?" Terry was stuffing his face with a waffle, spraying crumbs over the rest of the table as he spoke. Harry made a face.

"I have no idea."

The sound of birds filled the room, hundreds of different owls swooping over tables and delivering packages and letters to students and teachers alike. Harry glanced up, frowning as he saw Hedwig's bright white wings heading towards him, and caught the letter that she dropped in his hands before heading towards the Owlery. He didn't blame her, Scotland to America probably wasn't an easy flight. Harry glanced at the writing on the front of the letter and his heart began racing.

"Harry? Harry are you okay?" Terry's voice brought Harry back and the Boy-Who-Lived nodded, stuffing the letter in his bag and hiding it from view.

"Yeah, I'm fine." His leg was shaking, the urge to run away and read the letter greater than his urge to go to class, but he held it back. He didn't want anymore dirty looks from the rest of Hogwarts than he was already getting.

Apparently, the Boy-Who-Lived and son of James and Lily Potter being anything other than a Gryffindor was just unbelievable.

"What do you think you were doing, Harry?" Harry groaned to himself and stuffed the letter back into his bag as Hermione Granger appeared behind him in the library.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Granger." Hermione threw herself into the seat next to him, the chair rocking onto two legs with the force before settling. The bushy haired girl blushed as Madame Pince gave her a dirty look, but didn't look away from Harry.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about! I was only trying to help them, you know." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "Stepping in like that was rude."

Harry sighed and reached for his book, determined to get his potions essay done early so Professor Snape wouldn't have more reason to take points than he already did. "Granger, I really don't want to talk about this right now. I have an essay to finish."

She refused to let it go.

"You shouldn't have done it. I was correct, and I was perfectly capable of showing them what they were doing wrong." Harry put the book back down and counted backwards from ten. He could feel his temper beginning to build, and the headache that he always got when he was angry hitting him hard in the temples. It didn't do anything to improve his mood. "Well? Are you even going to apologize?"

Harry counted backwards from 100 and stared at the wood of the table, tracing figures with his finger tips.

'I have control of my anger, I will not let it control me.' He repeated the mantra to himself, over and over again, until his heart rate began to calm and he could look up at the bushy haired Gryffindor without screaming at her until she ran away.

"Granger. We are First Years." Harry said, trying to make her understand. "We can read all the theory we want, but we don't have the experience to correct someone. That's why Professor Flitwick is in charge."

She frowned at him and huffed.

"I know how to do the spell, I did it before them perfectly." She was so sure of herself, and Harry rolled his eyes. "You just didn't want us to get house points for it."

"Granger, you're just lucky I stopped you before one of them tried it. Do you know what can go wrong with that spell? Did you even listen to the lecture or did you think that just because you read it in a book you didn't have to pay attention?" He stood, trying to tower over her, and cursed his short size when she stood and loomed over him instead.

"Of course I know what the consequences," She sneered the word, "are. But I know how to do the spell, and I wouldn't show them wrong. You should have just left us alone."

"Granger," Harry's anger snapped, "Would you have been able to save them if they mispronounced and ignited their wands? Would you have been able to save the poor guy who got choked to death if one of your cronies stressed the second syllable instead of the first? I don't think you would have been, but the Professor would."

Hermione's face flushed in anger before paling as Harry pressed himself close enough to her face that his breath brushed over her cheek.

"Now, go away and let me study." Hermione left without another word, her shoulders shaking as she ran and Harry immediately felt bad, but didn't go after her.

He did the right thing, after all.

"Harry? Can I talk to you, mate?" Harry took a deep breath and turned to the red head, smiling and trying not to scream inside. He had only just escaped one Gryffindor, and now he was dealing with another one. It just wasn't fair.

"Sure, Ron." The two first years walked out of the castle and into the sun, heading for the quidditch pitch. The Hufflepuff team was practicing, and both boys were looking forward to watching. If they couldn't play on a team, at least they could watch. "What's up?"

"I heard Granger came after you for Charms." The redhead stuffed his hands in his pockets and curled his shoulders over against the wind. "Sorry about that, the girl is absolutely mental."

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "It's not like you did anything. She could have gotten everyone in the room killed. Have you heard anything about the Gryffindor seeker? Is he any good?"

Ron opened his mouth to reply, face lighting up at his favorite subject. "We..." It was as far as he got before someone was running in between them, brown hair flying behind her as she huddled close to her books.

"I..reckon she heard you." Harry felt a momentary flash of pity for the other first year. He all-too-well what it felt like to be smarter than everyone around you and have no way of proving it, but shrugged it off quickly. At least in a Muggle school, you didn't risk blowing your classmates up if you didn't know what you were talking about. "Anyway, the Gryffindor seeker is looking really good. Better than Cho Chang anyway."

Harry laughed, shoving the other boy at the slight to the Ravenclaw's second year seeker and put all thoughts of Hermione Granger out of his mind. He would apologize tonight at the feast.

The Great Hall was somber, several Gryffindors sobbing into their porridge while the rest of the students tried to look away and hide their own tears.

Hermione Granger was dead. The words echoed around Harry's head, over and over again until it was one long word. He clenched his fist around the letter in his hand, knowing that he was creasing it, but not finding it in himself to care.

Hermione Granger was dead, and it was his fault. Harry could feel the eyes on him, the whispers coming from the other tables. His housemates pulled around him, shielding him from as much of it as they could, but he knew that even some of them blamed him.

He was the Boy Who Lived, as Draco Malfoy had gleefully pointed out. If he was such a huge Savior, why hadn't he been able to save her? Why hadn't he gone after the Troll? Why hadn't he done what he was supposed to do?

"It's not your fault, Harry." Terry said, pushing the plate of toast closer to him and glaring daggers at someone over Harry's shoulder, "You need to eat."

Harry took a bit of toast, but couldn't make himself eat it. If he put something in his mouth, he knew that it would just end up coming back up.

"Yeah Harry, you know Malfoy was just running his mouth as usual. He didn't even like Gran...Hermione. Don't let him get to you." Anthony chimed in from Harry's left, Michael on Harry's right nodding in agreement.

"But maybe I..." Harry's mouth clacked shut audibly as he was nailed with a glare from all three of his roommates.

"Mate, if the next words out of your mouth aren't 'I had nothing to do with Hermione Granger's death', we don't want to hear it, okay?"

"But..."

"Okay?" Terry said again and brandished a fork at Harry until he nodded sheepishly.

"Okay," Harry said, mentally writing a letter to Tony in his head. He still wasn't exactly clear on how Tony knew him, or his parents, though the man had always been a presence in his life as far back as Harry could remember, but the man was the only supporting adult Harry had ever known.

Surely he would be able to help Harry through this too.

Tony stared at the letter in front of him.

He had no idea what he was doing, or what he was supposed to say.

They were talking more comfortably, Tony enjoyed being the all knowing Uncle that Harry could turn to, even if he didn't know what Tony really was to him, but this...this was so far beyond his scope he didn't even know where to start.

But he couldn't just ignore it, could he?

"JARVIS?" Tony asked aloud, spinning around in his chair to look out at the lab around him. DUM-E and Butterfingers were asleep in their charging stations, and the holograms were muted for once. "Do a search on parenting websites for anything remotely similar to this."

JARVIS didn't say anything for once, just projected the search results on the nearest screen and Tony began scrolling through them. "Talking to your Child about Death", "The Child's Loss: Death, grief, and mourning", Tony read through the them all.

"JARVIS, all of this seems to be for kids younger than Harry." Tony raked a hand through his hair, "Is there anything for older kids?"

More results scrolled in front of his eyes, and Tony nodded. He read through a few of them quickly, and turned back towards the paper waiting for him to impart words of wisdom and healing.

He still didn't feel like he was the right person to talk about this, but he had to give it a shot.

The words came quickly, Tony trying not to overthink them, and he slid the letter away from him with a smile when it was finished. Hedwig swooped down from her perch on the ceiling (Tony may or may not have made her a specialized perch with all the amenities an owl could want) and picked it up in her claws. The white owl circled him a few times, hooting loudly, before flying out the entrance and winging into the sky.

"Well, that could have gone worse." Snapping his fingers, the lights came up to full power and the pictures Christine Everheart had shoved accusingly in his hands at the reception earlier spreading in front of his eyes.

Galmira.

He owed it to Yinsin to make sure those bastards couldn't hurt anyone else.

"Jarv, ready the suit."

They wouldn't know what hit them

Harry stared in the mirror, frowning as looked over his shoulder and saw nothing, but the image didn't change when he looked back at it.

It made him smile, no matter that what he was looking at wasn't there. Terry hadn't seen them either, instead babbling about some award he had always wanted to win.

Maybe it was only for Harry?

The figures surrounding him in the mirror smiled, the man with brown hair and a glowing circle in his chest squeezing Harry's shoulder and playfully shoving the man Harry knew was his father. James Potter laughed and shoved back while Lily Potter nee Evans, smirked in the background, shaking her head at the antics of the men in her family.

It was a dream, a dream that Harry knew would never come true, but he couldn't help but come back here night after night anyway.

He had to see them, if only for a moment.

Terry said he was crazy, and the other boy wasn't talking to him until he put 'that Gryffindor stupidity' behind, but Harry didn't care.

"You've come here at lot, Harry." Harry jumped and turned around, his heart pounding in his chest. Headmaster Dumbledore sat on one of the abandoned desks in the corner, watching Harry over the top of his halfmoon glasses.

"Professor! I didn't see you there," Harry's heart was still pounding, but he unclenched his fists. It was just the professor, he had more right to be here than Harry himself did. "Do you have a cloak too?"

"I had no need of a cloak to make myself invisible, Harry." The Headmaster said, standing and making his way across the empty room. He stood behind Harry and looked into the mirror. "What do you see when you look?"

Harry hesitated, but shrugged. It wasn't like what he saw was all that different. "I see my family."

Dumbledore smiled and stuck a hand on Harry's shoulder, squeezing lightly, and Harry had to bite back a hand as the Tony-and-James in the mirror stuck out tongues at the aging Headmaster.

"Do you know what the Mirror of Erised does, Harry?" Harry shrugged. He had figured out the name of the mirror the first night Terry and he stumbled onto it, but he didn't know what it did, not exactly.

"It shows us, nothing more and nothing less, than the deepest and most desperate desire of our hearts. You have never known your family, and so you see them standing around you. Your friend Terry has always been told that rising to his ancestors greatness is the most important thing, and so he sees himself surpassing them, making his own mark on the world." The Headmaster sighed, "But it doesn't show us the truth. Great men have wasted their lives away, standing before it, or gone mad when they were unable to reach their dreams." He stepped back, and fixed Harry with a serious stare. "The mirror is being moved tomorrow Harry. I must ask that you not go looking for it again. If you do run across it, you will be prepared, but it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Remember that, young potter."

Harry nodded, and the Headmaster stepped aside, the door Harry had closed so carefully behind him swinging open without being touched. "After you Harry. I will escort you back to your dormitory."

Harry looked back once as they left the room, smiling sadly as the figures in the mirror waved once at him before fading away.

"TERRY!" Harry screamed from his spot on the board, but didn't move as Terry took the hit from the Queen and crumpled to the ground. Michael tried to take a step forward, but Harry screamed at him to stop. They couldn't risk his sacrifice being in vain, they had to keep going.

If they didn't, Quirell would win. They couldn't let him get the Stone. Harry took short steps across the board until he stood in front of the King. "Checkmate" his voice trembled as he spoke, and he jumped slightly as the King's sword fell from his hand and landed on the board with a clang. As soon as it hit, and the other pieces had fallen completely still, Harry and Michael were across the board and at Terry's side. The other Ravenclaw was bleeding slightly at the temple, but he stirred and blinked up at them weakly.

"Why are you idiots still here?" He said, coughing as he moved, "I didn't just get my head bashed in so you guys could stand here and mope over me. Get after Quirell, I'm fine." He waved a hand and maneuvered himself into a sitting position, "I'm just going to sit here and relearn how to breathe. Go!" Harry nodded and backed towards the door, while Michael kept looking towards Terry as he moved.

They stepped through the door, and both boys jumped as flames roared up behind them, blocking the way back, and black flames roared across the exit, blocking the way forward. A long table, with seven unmarked and differently shaped bottles and a piece of parchment, were the only things in the dark room, and Michael stepped towards it.

"I guess we found Snape's contribution," The Ravenclaw said wryly, reading over the parchment before passing it to Harry and studying the bottles in front of them. Harry glanced at them as well and back at Michael.

"So, one of these takes us forward, and one of them takes us back." Michael nodded, already pointing at different bottles and muttering under his breath, "That's brilliant! Lots of wizards and witches could figure out the rest, but a lot of them don't have a lick of logic!"

"Most of them would have said Professor Snape was the bad guy too." Michael said, shaking his head and making a face, "Hand me that paper, I think I know which ones are the right ones, but I want to look at the clues again." Harry passed it over without a word and Michael's eyes flicked down it quickly before he pointed at the rounded bottle and the smallest bottle. "The small one takes us forward, and the other one takes us back."

Harry nodded and picked up the smallest bottle, looking at it. "There's only enough for one of us." Michael shrugged and grabbed the backwards potion, taking a swig and backing towards the exit back to the chess room.

"Better get going then, Terry and I will go get more help, if he's done picking his brains up off the floor." Michael gave a vicious smile, "I don't know why Quirell wants the stone, but you better make him pay for it Harry."

He was gone a moment later, and Harry squared his shoulders. "Here goes nothing," he muttered, and swallowed the remaining forward potion with one gulp.

Tony couldn't stop thinking about the letter the entire time he stood in front of the press. Words came out of his mouth, words that he knew made some kind of sense, but he couldn't focus on them.

Harry had almost died.

Harry, his Harry, his son, had almost died.

And Tony hadn't been there to stop it.

"Excuse me, you don't think we'll actually believe that, do you? That a bodyguard just happened to be..." Tony laughed, clueing back in to what was going on around him as Christine Everhart spoke.

It was always Christine that saw through his bullshit. It was refreshing.

"Are you insinuating that I'm a superhero?" He laughed as he asked the question, and she frowned at him.

"I never said anything about you being a superhero."

Tony laughed and fiddled with his collar before looking out over the room. It was filled with reporters, cameras and tape recorders trained towards the screen, "Good, because that would be ridiculous and, um, outlandish and.." Tony coughed. "Okay, you want the truth,"

They leaned in more, and Tony saw Pepper put her head in her hands. She knew him better than he knew himself, apparently.

"The truth is..." He looked over the crowd more, a flash of green catching his eye, and Tony made up his mind in that split second. He had to end this, so he could go get Harry. He couldn't stand on the sidelines anymore to his own son's life. The first time was a mistake, and he was going to change that.

"The truth is...I am Iron Man." The crowd went wild, standing up and shouting questions at him, Christine staring at him with a frown as she watched him walk away from the podium.

He didn't care. He would deal with the fallout from this when he got Harry. Nothing else mattered. The SHIELD Press Agent was on the stage, trying to regain quiet and do some kind of damage control, and Agent Coulson was glaring at him as Tony came off the stage and passed him.

"Was that absolutely necessary, Stark?"

Tony nodded, sliding his sunglasses over his eyes as he neared the door. "Yes, it was Agent. Pepper!" Pepper stepped up next to him, none of what she was feeling showing on her face.

"Yes Mr. Stark?"

"Get the jet ready, we're going to England. Surrey, to be precise."

Pepper blinked, pulling her phone out and typing a few text messages without looking as she stared at him.

"England? Why?" Tony smiled, and climbed into the limo that stopped at the curb.

"I'm going to get my son."