AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END!
SUMMARY: After a life of war and adventure, all she wanted to do was live a fairly quiet life running her little café and avoid inquiries on future children from Mrs. Weasley. She didn't expect Tony Stark to wander his way into her life and decide to never leave. FEM!Harry/Tony Stark
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Blackdog
Chapter Five
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"Pull up those specs, Jarvis. I wanna rework those designs while I'm on a roll," Tony said out loud, bobbing his head to the music that raged throughout his personal high tech Candy-land.
It's been four days…four days since Tony reluctantly walked away from that café and The Woman. He'd had four days of blissful unbroken rest and it was like he'd been reborn.
His sleep was completely void of night terrors. In fact, it was entirely dreamless, or if he was dreaming he didn't remember anything about them.
Except singing. A few times he had woken he felt like he was struggling to remember a song…a wordless tune from a faded memory. It irked him that he couldn't remember it, not even a few notes. Something deep inside of him wanted to remember – strove to remember – but it always escaped him upon waking. He even took to catching frequent naps with a notebook handy in hopes of capturing a few of the notes before he quickly gave up as there were worse things to be haunted by in your dreams than a song you couldn't remember in the morning. In the end it just didn't matter.
Tony had four days of sweet freedom and resolved himself to enjoying every second he had left of this reprieve.
He felt centered and in control over himself for the first time in a very long time. He likened it to someone had taken superglue to his broken spirit and shored him up with a bunch of fluffy good feelings. He was still irrevocably cracked and dented, but he was at a strange sort of tentative peace with his damage.
Perhaps he should have had a mental breakdown a long time ago…
Nevertheless, the first thing that Tony did when he stepped foot back in his penthouse was promptly pass out again, physically and emotionally exhausted. He woke up having slept through an entire twenty-four hours in the deepest most restful sleep of his life feeling like a brand new person and he was now on his third day of surging productivity.
He shocked everyone and attended all his meetings for the first time in months. He attended a Stark Industries charity gala the night before and was at top form in suave charm doing a fair bit of PR soothing to pacify his overworked and severely underpaid team of agents. He'd even performed countless suit upgrades to replace the ones he stupidly blew up.
He fueled most of his productiveness into his secret project he'd been working on for months now but would probably never get to share. It started as a panic response to the things he had seen on the other side of that wormhole, this secret armory of Stark-designed upgrades for the other Avengers. On particularly bad nights he would come down and tinker, frequently upgrading and improving the designs for the gear that would never see the light of battle. It was astounding the amount of progress he made just in the last twenty-four hours while being fully rested and fueled by caffeine.
Tony often wondered if he'd ever get to share this with the others, but he knew they never bothered to ask him for help nor would they accept it when he offered. He had offered, too. A number of times. Every time he was either awkwardly or flat out refused.
"Sir, I do believe you are about to burn yourself with the soldering iron again."
Tony swore at Jarvis's sudden statement and shook his head to snap himself out of his thoughts as they unexpectedly wandered to dark hair and bright green eyes again, catching himself before he could drip hot solder all over himself. Bad Tony, he thought to himself. Stop it! He gave a sigh and set the soldering iron down in its cradle before running his hand through his hair making the mess worse than it was. "I've got to stop this," he muttered out loud, picking up a wrench instead. "She is just a woman."
I wonder what Bruce would say if he saw me all crazy like this, he thought with a sarcastic laugh escaping his lips. Mooning over a British barista from Chelsea like a pubescent teenager.
The Jolly Green Giant was one of the few if not the only person in the fucked-up-Avengers-club that Tony really trusted to any sort of degree. He could even cautiously call the fellow scientist his one only true friend other than Rhodey.
James Rhodes he trusted 1000% to look out for his sorry undeserving ass even if he didn't like it or especially didn't want it. He always had Tony's back despite a lot of shit Tony had thrown his way over the years.
He really should buy that man some flowers or something…
Bruce, he considered a friend…a fellow scientist at the least. They spoke the same language most days, but Banner had his head up SHIELD's posterior most of the time and generally sang to their tune. He played along when they came knocking via the Terror Twins and kept his head down to stay out of trouble. He'd even willingly went on some Avenging business a few times – not that Iron Man was ever willingly invited.
As it were, Bruce had left a few days ago – three before his first Chelsea Encounter, Tony recalled – on some SHIELD funded field trip. He'd up and left Tony all alone in the Tower which was a bad idea all on its own, but in the state he'd been in it felt even more isolating than normal. Which, in hindsight, was what probably spawned the bit of stupidity that left Tony doing the walk of shame into that café. The radio silence was atypical of the Good Doctor without forewarning. He and Bruce usually managed to keep some type of constant communication over the various projects they were collaborating on, but he hadn't heard from him since the Chicago Infestation and Tony was loath to admit he felt lonely.
Tony didn't like loneliness.
He didn't cope with it well.
He also didn't like to be on the outside looking in when it came to the "saving the world" business. He hadn't heard a word from SHEILD since he did that work on those mega-repulsion engines he developed. Thor was off-world and out of touch. He never saw the Terror Twins outside of rare official business and he'd rather punch himself in the face repeatedly before willingly talking to Captain Kiss-Ass.
Despite proving himself in the Invasion, flying a nuke through an alien wormhole and suffering for it, the other resident Superheroes and their handlers still only considered him "the consultant" and let him know it on a surprisingly regular basis. It was infuriating and insulting and Tony hated not knowing things.
So he hacked.
SHIELD tried to keep things away and he hacked some more.
It was a vicious cycle.
"Sir, Miss Potts is requesting access to the Lab."
And good mood's gone, Tony thought to himself sarcastically, tossing his wrench back onto the bench with a sigh as his phone nestled among the bits and bobs began to ring with the Imperial March. Maybe he was childish, but it was only fitting. He plastered on a fake smile and answered it through the holoscreen he pulled up with a wave of his hand. "You've reached the life-sized talking Stark model," he said in a fake, overly happy sort of way he knew would irritate her.
"Tony, we need to talk," she said pleadingly.
"I'm sorry; the real Tony Stark is not available at the moment so please leave a message."
"Tony plea—"
Tony abruptly ended the communication with a vague swipe of the hand. "Sorry," he muttered under his breath to himself, "but you don't get to pull that concerned act bullshit anymore. You gave up that right."
Pepper had been even more relentless to get him to talk, obviously concerned with his sudden 'personality shift' as if manning up to his responsibilities after a visibly dark emotional period was a cause for concern. Here he was, proud of himself for taking charge again, and she probably wanted him tested for a psych evaluation.
Tony hopped off his stool and grabbed the random zip-up hoodie bearing the AC/DC logo from its spot crumpled on one of the benches. It was slightly singed in places and had a few oil stains, but he didn't care.
"Jarvis, I'm escaping. Clear me a route out of the Tower. I'm not in the mood to deal with people right now."
"Of course, Sir," the AI said.
At least one good thing about this whole mess was that Jarvis seemed more accommodating with Tony playing hooky.
FIN
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
#NOTDEAD
So I'm going to come out and admit that I've had this little bit written for a long time...like since last year. This chapter was intended to be much longer, but I agonized over it for so freaking long, writing and re-writing that I've finally broke down and chopped the chapter up into more manageable bits. It's mostly Tony here, kind of touching on the aftermath of his breakdown. Just this little bit took me MONTHS to write and I still hate it, but I said screw it and decided to post it anyway. I think I mostly captured a slightly-believable reaction from Tony to a situation like his. There will be more Tony-Helen interactions in the next chapters and some more of her Team will be introduced here soon.
That being said, I sincerely hope it doesn't take another year to post as this is taking procrastination to a whole new level of stupid.
As always, I read all the reviews that are left and I'm always surprised when a new alert crosses my inbox. I love all the fuzzy feelings you all are sharing. I like to think that I've become a better writer on my hiatus and hope that this story (and any other that I get around to actually posting) would continue to improve.
Thanks for sticking with me!
~Atlantis Sinatra