I struggled more with this chapter than most of the others this month.
Any other handler would have punished the Asset James for the nightmares before wiping him to ensure they did not happen again.
Harry the Handler, on the other hand, has nightmares of his own, and expects the same treatment that the Asset James does, though perhaps not the Chair.
Neither of them are punished, and Harry the Handler already made it clear the Chair will not be used. Instead, the computerized voice Jarvis instructs them to make hot chocolate, which the handler clearly enjoys and proclaims yummy. The beverage is overly sweet but warms the Asset James in a way he would've killed for after emerging from the cryogenic chamber.
Too bad he didn't make coffee, the Bucky voice grumbles half-heartedly in his mind.
At 0435, their hot chocolate is finished and Harry is attempting to clean the mugs, standing on a chair to reach the sink. The computerized voice Jarvis assures him it is not necessary, that if he places the mugs in the dishwasher they will be cleaned for them.
Both the Asset James and his handler are too restless to resume sleep. James silently patrols the house, while the handler follows. By 0447, the Asset James is patrolling with the boy in his arms.
He discovers several boxes by the front door which require his attention.
CHECK FOR THREATS
They could be explosive, or contain listening equipment planted by their enemies. None of them are big enough to be a Cryogenic Chamber.
"I scan all of Mr. Stark's packages in case of threats." The computerized voice Jarvis seems to be reading the Asset James's thoughts. It had mentioned his vitals before- can it read minds? "These boxes contain your new clothing."
The computerized voice is an ally of the technician, so he should take its word. The Asset James slowly opens a box, shielding the handler with his own body.
Jarvis had not lied. The Asset James unfolds a child's red shirt with an insignia of a yellow R on the left pectoral area. A yellow cape hangs off the back of the shirt.
"It's Robin!" Harry gasps, jabbing a finger at the insignia.
"I believe you wanted it, Master Harry."
Harry looks away and mumbles "I don't need new clothes, Mr. Jarvis, sir."
"I assure you, it was my pleasure." Jarvis tells him.
The computerized voice is an ally, a superior, but the Asset James still inspects every garment for listening devices. He finds none, but slips on the Batman shirt, the prosthesis stalling partway through the sleeve until he forces it through. His new shirt comes with its own sweeping black cape, which seems impractical in combat situations.
At least it ain't like wearing an American flag, says the Bucky voice. The Asset James agrees that the black Batman suit is much more fitting. He is accustomed to wearing all black.
Harry glances at his Robin shirt, but does not put it on.
Not all the boxes contain clothes. Several contain children's items, such as toys, picture books and art supplies.
"It's more'n Dudley's birthday." Harry the Handler looks shocked that such a number of items could exist. "It's a whole Tesco."
"Not quite an entire Tesco, Master Harry." The computerized voice Jarvis sounds amused.
There is a set of wooden Thomas trains and tracks, similar to the one Harry had admired at the Tesco where they'd been captured by the old man Dumbledore and enemy asset. Just as he had at the store, Harry makes no move to open the box. Instead, he carefully arranges the toys in their boxes. "You're makin' a Tesco." he says, under the impression that Stark will turn his base into a Tesco store.
Stark stumbles up at 0721, grumbling about mornings. Harry whirls around with terror on his face and in his eyes. He rushes toward the stove, stammering about breakfast, but Stark herds him back over to the clothes and toys.
Once he's brewed a mug of coffee, Stark remarks "I figured there's four years of birthdays to make up for." he waves a hand at the toys. "So happy birthday, kiddo. When is your birthday, do you know?"
Harry shrugs. "You're not making Tesco?"
"Those are for you." Stark replies. "Why would I buy them just to resell them? I'm already a billionaire. Hey, kid, how come you're not wearing your Robin shirt?"
Harry looks as if putting on the Robin shirt would be blasphemous, insulting Robin's image. "It's for me?"
"Does it look like it'll fit either of us?" Stark makes an impatient gesture. "Come on, put it on. Your 'Batman James' is already Batman. You'll look like those parent-child costume photos people go nuts over on Halloween."
Slowly, Harry puts the Robin shirt on. He gazes down at the shirt covering his body for 13 seconds, then slowly smiles at the Asset James. "You're Batman!"
"Look at you, Robin. It really suits you." Tony grins, then holds up a child-sized Iron Man suit that appears to lack any of the armor or weapons, rendering it useless. "Course, if you dressed up as me, you'd be even cooler. You know, two billionaire superheroes with tons of tech."
Harry gives the Iron Man suit a suitably dispassionate glance. "Batman's better."
"Ouch, kid. You know how to kick a guy in the heart."
"Is Robin Batman's handler?" the Asset James asks. Harry had mentioned that Batman taught Robin.
Stark snorts. "Batman is Robin's adoptive dad. Plus his mentor, he certainly doesn't take orders from Robin." the man gives him a pointed look. He clearly thinks Harry being a handler is ridiculous. "But if anyone gives Robin a hard time, Batman beats the crap outta them. Uh- crud."
Wonder how many alley fights Robin gets into, the Bucky voice drawls, even as the information slides into place in the Asset James's brain.
Harry has been calling him Batman since before he was a handler. Even as a handler, the boy expressed the wish that the Asset James was his father, as Batman is, reportedly, Robin's.
Now the boy has designated himself as Robin, Batman's son.
HARRY THE HANDLER IS RELINQUISHING CONTROL.
"You wish for your Batman to be your father." The Asset James watches his handler carefully. Harry's response is the same as in the dilapidated house. His eyes are full of hope and longing, yet heavily guarded with the clear expectation of rejection.
"You are Robin. I am your Batman." the Asset James tells his boy. "I will be your father."
Harry stands unmoving for 34 seconds, seemingly unable to comprehend the words.
I think we broke him.
UNACCEPTABLE.
"You'll... you'll be my dad?" he asks in a hushed whisper. "'Cos you're a James an' you give me food an' hold me after bad dreams?"
The Asset James nods. Harry surges forward, wrapping his thin arms around the Asset James's legs, burying his face against them. The Asset James bends down, picks him up.
The boy smiles at him, and the Asset James curls his mouth into a smile in return.
Stark's voice is slightly choked, though he's clearly trying to pass it off as normal. "You missed your chance to say 'No. I am your father!' Course, you're getting kinda the opposite reaction from Luke screaming Nooooo!"
Jarvis tells Stark it isn't the time.
"I will still protect you, Harry." the Asset James assures him.
"I'm with you 'til the end of the line." the Bucky voice sounds sad but determined. Steve flashes through the Asset James's mind.
The same fierce protectiveness surges in his chest from when Harry was his handler and it was his mission. Keeping Harry safe is still a mission, he realizes, even though it was not commanded by a current handler. It had been what made him defect from the original mission in the first place, the reason he'd never delivered the boy to his previous handlers.
Stark mutters under his breath "So you can say 'I'". If the boy is not his handler, he does not have to address himself solely by his title rather than pronouns.
If Harry isn't his handler, who is? Harry had not passed the position to another, simply given the Asset James the role of "father" instead.
Not having a handler seems impossible, but he hadn't had one since shortly after finding Harry. He'd been avoiding taking Harry to HYDRA, answering to nobody but the voices in his head.
Can he do that again?
Well, soldier, I was a sergeant, remarks the Bucky voice.
Should he answer to the voice?
Stark is a technician, not a handler. Harry had not passed command to the computerized voice Jarvis. Perhaps Stark's handler, Miss Potts, will take control.
"What do you want for breakfast, Mr. A'set..." Harry trails off, biting his lip. "Mr... Bat-dad?"
"Good question, but you're not making breakfast." Stark says. Harry opens his mouth, but Stark shakes his head. "Look, kid, your only chore here is being four years old. Start playing with all those toys you just got. Scream, run around, do whatever normal four-year-olds do. I wouldn't know, I was building circuit boards at that age."
"I'm not normal." Harry protests.
"You are not a freak." the Asset James tells him, opening the Thomas train set. The wooden tracks and trains could be used as weapons as a last resort. Laying the tracks out on the floor seems particularly pointless, but he does it anyway.
Harry points to a red tender locomotive with a gray face and the number five painted on the side. "That's James." He makes no move to pick up the toy engine.
The Asset James pretends to struggle with fitting two tracks together. "Will you help?" he asks. Harry stares at him.
The prosthesis spasms, splintering the piece it is holding.
Harry takes the broken pieces and stashes them in the closet where he sleeps.
"Found anything yet, J?" Tony asks over the AC/DC music in his lab.
"Unfortunately not, sir." Jarvis replies. "I have fond no information regarding Sergeant Barnes past his supposed death in 1945."
Tony sighs. Even being able to break into secure servers such as SHIELD's hasn't yielded results, and Jarvis has sifted through terabytes of data. Granted, they've still only hit the top of the iceberg. Maybe if they keep digging...
He hasn't found any records for Harry. No birth certificate, doctor checkups or preschool enrollment forms to be found in association with the Dursleys. It makes sense in a twisted way- any doctor or preschool should have noticed the obvious flags of his neglect and abuse. No wonder the Dursleys kept Harry away from both.
It still doesn't explain the lack of a birth certificate. He finds Petunia had a sister named Lily, but has found nothing about Harry's father. Vernon Dursley has a sister named Marjorie, who breeds bulldogs.
Even when Tony's not actively interacting with his two new houseguests, they are inordinately challenging.
"What are our caped guests up to now?" Tony asks his AI. He's reasonably certain Harry hasn't gotten hold of another weapon, because Jarvis would have alerted him. They'd reportedly spent most of the morning in the gym, which reminds Tony that he needs to invent equipment that can withstand James's super strength.
"Master Harry is attempting to empty the dishwasher, despite my assurances he does not have to." Jarvis reports.
Tony shakes his head. What four-year-old would do chores instead of play with the mountains of toys Tony bought? Well, that answer seems pretty obvious, one who was forced to work and was probably never allowed to play with toys in the first place.
Suddenly, Jarvis says "Sir, I believe you should see this."
"Don't tell me I forgot a knife." Tony groans.
Jarvis pulls up a video feed of the pair. Both of them have not changed out of their Batman and Robin suits since they arrived that morning.
He watches Harry knock a mug off the countertop, and it tumbles downward. Only it falls much slower than it should, defying the laws of physics.
"My sensors detected an odd disturbance during the incident." Jarvis reports.
Tony replays the video several times, to make sure he hadn't been seeing things in a insomnia-induced haze.
The video has not been slowed down- James and Harry are still moving at a normal speed. Well, James is moving faster than a normal human as he lunges over the counter to catch the mug.
An astonished grin spreads over Tony's face. "Looks like one of them can use the Force."
Tony rushes upstairs, excited, only to see Harry on the verge of a panic attack. He is clutching the cape of his Robin shirt like a security blanket and stammering an apology, as if preventing the mug from breaking was a bad thing.
With seemingly practiced movements, James rubs the boy's back. At first, Harry flinches from the touch before seeming to melt into it. Tony is fairly certain Bucky had done the same to Steve Rogers back before the serum, when Steve had asthma attacks.
Some mental switch seems to have flipped in James- he no longer treats Harry as a handler, had even called himself the boy's dad.
Now, James manages to look intimidating even when comforting a child. Yet his face softens a bit as he murmurs words in Russian.
"Sorry." the boy sniffles.
"Seriously, no need to apologize." Tony jumps uninvited into the conversation. He's great at that and, well, this is his house. "Even if the mug broke, who cares? I sure don't. I can afford them."
Harry stares at him warily.
"You didn't say you had the Force. What else can you do? Can you do mind tricks? Is that why he was obeying you?" Tony jerks his head toward James.
The boy mutters that it wasn't him, in the least convincing lie Tony's ever heard.
The only reply he gets is a terrifying glare from James and a clipped statement "You will not experiment on him. You are not his technician."
Tony stays silent. As much as he wants to know everything, it is obvious the boy is traumatized by his own abilities or, more likely, other people's reactions to them.
Like with James's prosthetic arm, he doesn't want to cause undue stress and pain.
"Your abilities are an asset." James tells Harry. His voice is soft, gentle even.
"Like you?"
"Even I cannot do that." James tells him.
"I didn't know you had superpowers, kid." Tony says easily, as if he sees them every day.
"They're not..." Harry trails off and asks in an awed voice "...Superpowers?"
"Sure looked like superpowers to me. Can you make force fields, too?" Tony grins, suddenly remembering a comment James made about shields. "Hey, can you fly? I can fly, but I had to invent my powers. Like Batman, we're both billionaires with loads of tech."
Harry ducks his head before glancing over at James. "We fly'ed. An' I fly in my sleep, on moto-cycles... I knowed you know Batman!"
Tony spends the next half hour trying to convince a preschooler that Batman is fictional, pulling up images from the comics. It almost feels like trying to ruin a kid's belief in Santa, except if Tony's not careful, the boy's going to go out looking for the Batcave. He's not sure if James would stop him or join him and apparently they've got people hunting after them.
As soon as Harry sees screenshots of Michael Keaton, Christian Bale and other actors dressed as the Dark Knight, he immediately uses those as evidence of Batman being real.
"He's not jus' a drawing." the boy proclaims stubbornly, jabbing a finger at them.
"They're just playing a part, like how Steve Rogers just played Captain America at first." Tony tries to explain. Maybe it's not the best example, since Captain America became a real war hero instead of just a stage character used to raise bond money.
Tony almost expects James to comment on that, seeing as how he seems to have sort of accepted formerly being James Buchanan Barnes, but the man remains silent.
Harry apparently doesn't even know who Captain America is, and Tony almost envies him before realizing Harry's childhood was worse than never living up to Cap in Howard's mind.
He gives up, instead refocusing on Harry's abilities. "You know what would be really cool? If you made Thomas move without touching him." He gestures to the blue train sitting innocently on the tracks. Jarvis hadn't even gotten motorized trains, just simple wooden ones the child has to push. How boring is that?
Harry glances at the trains, which stay still.
"You don't have to keep them a secret." Tony says. "I'm terrible at the whole secret identity thing, I ended up telling the whole world I was Iron Man."
Harry is not swayed, and Tony tries to coax him a few times throughout the day.
Jarvis announces that Pepper is arriving that evening. Tony tries to stop Harry from fleeing to the closet, but Harry ignores him.
"Why is there a Thomas train set on your floor?" Pepper asks, studying Tony and clearly wondering how drunk he's been. She's probably expecting him to turn them into tiny robotic trains with laser eyes or something. Which, Tony thinks, would make them way cooler.
Tony sighs. Looks like the gig is up, but he's so far out of his league here that he could really use the help.
"They're for the kid."
"Kid?" Pepper demands. "Did you get someone pregnant?"
"No." Tony feels like that would have been a much easier scenario to deal with and explain, even with how the paparazzi would've gone wild for the scoop. "Hey, Robin, c'mon out here!"
He waits, not sure if either of them will emerge from Harry's room. Eventually, James silently enters the living room, wearing the Batman hood over his eyes, his long hair tucked out of sight.
Pepper heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Why do you have a man dressed as Batman?"
"You are Stark's handler." James states without preamble.
"It certainly feels like it." Pepper says, far too used to Tony's own greetings to be perturbed by some fact being flung at her without context.
"Are you the Batman's new handler?" James queries in a flat tone. "Harry did not designate a new handler when he relinquished his position. Stark is the technician."
"Who's Harry?" Pepper asks. Tony sees Harry lurking in the doorway, before he rushes forward to cling to Jame's cape, peeking around the fabric at Pepper.
"Hello," Pepper smiles warmly at the tiny child. "I never expected to meet Robin."
Harry stares back mutely, seeming at war with himself. Pepper turns to James and introduces herself, asking his name.
"Batman James, ma'am." James replies.
Harry speaks up finally, in a voice still laden with disbelief. "He's my new dad."
"Tony is?" Pepper asks, glancing his way. She mouths he looks starved at Tony, as if Tony didn't know. He may forget to eat, himself, but he wouldn't let a kid go hungry. Or, rather, Jarvis wouldn't.
Harry shakes his head. "No, Mr. James. He's my Batman. An' he said he'd be my dad."
Pepper glances between them. "I'm sure he's thrilled to have you as his son."
James certainly hasn't acted thrilled, though he had smiled at the boy earlier. His smile had looked stiff, unpracticed, a far cry from the natural, easy grin Bucky had in old photos. Not that Tony blames him.
"Stark is not following an adequate schedule for a technician. He is delaying maintenance." James reports, and Tony's jaw drops. Did the cyborg just tattle on him? "The prosthesis must be operational."
Pepper, who can usually handle anything thrown her way, looks bewildered. Tony sighs.
"All right, I've got a lot to fill you in on." Tony tells her, then glances at his guests. "Harry, go play with your toys or something. But no chores."
Harry glances between Tony and James, then scurries off to his room.
Tony gestures wearily to the couch and tells Pepper. "We'd better sit. This might take a while."
Yay, Pepper's here!
All right, this is still moving sort of slow, but I'm planning a sort of fast-forward scene through several days.