I had fun reading all your speculations on who the guard is... and now you'll find out!
Tony can hardly wrap his mind around how far this past night- or, rather, morning- has spiraled after returning from the HYDRA base, as if that base hadn't been enough. No, it seems the universe is truly out to get him today, and it isn't even seven A.M.
"Tell our new magic guard to knock like a normal person instead of pulling a Santa down my chimney." says Tony as Coulson and Romanoff are leaving. He's had it with unannounced guests.
Coulson nods vaguely, seeming more focused on establishing a passphrase for the wizard or witch to prove they're the guard instead of one of the Death Eaters.
Tony's exhausted, but his mind won't quiet, still racing to make sense of everything he's learned in the past few hours as he ushers Pepper out the door. He should probably talk to her, but that can wait. He has files to hack, suits to improve, evil organizations to topple.
He only vaguely processes the fact that James has fashioned a sort of sling for Harry out of his Batman cape, leaving his hands free to do something by the fireplace.
Tony ends up crashing on the couch, not even making it to his lab or bedroom. He doesn't want to sleep, knowing he'll have nightmares even before learning about his parents. But he passes out anyway, his mind filled with explosions and the vague sense that James is rigging the fireplace to detonate. Oh well, Jarvis will handle it.
His sleep is anything but restful. Tony dreams of tortured screams as he walks through the HYDRA base.
No, he's in a cave, unsure if the screams are his own.
Suddenly, he's outside, but it's still dark. He's standing by a familiar road at nighttime, watching helplessly from the sidelines as Howard's car spirals out of control. Howard tumbles out of the driver's seat, gasping on the pavement.
Tony knows he should call Jarvis, or summon a suit, but he can can't move, can't speak as a shadowed figure stalks slowly, silently toward the car.
Tony expects to see the Winter Soldier, to see James with emotionless eyes. Instead, Captain America appears, his eyes cold and his shield gripped tightly. Somehow, all Tony can think is that HYDRA got him too.
"Cap..." Howard gasps as the Captain lift his shield.
A blinding green light fires from the star, blasting Howard in the chest.
Before Howard's body is finished crumpling to the ground, Captain America is by the passenger side, staring at Tony's mother and readying that now-magical shield of his.
'No...' Tony croaks, trying to move, call Jarvis, anything as that killing green light glows.
Tony wakes with his breath caught in his throat, his heart pounding below his arc reactor. It takes him several seconds to hear Jarvis's calm voice urging him back.
"Try to breathe slowly, sir. You've had a severe nightmare."
Tony's not sure how long it takes, but he gets his breathing and heart rate under control eventually.
He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, groaning. He realizes, now, that the dream was his brain processing everything he'd learned, twisting it into some weird crossover between the assassination of both his own parents' and Harry's birth parents'- except for the part about Captain America; Tony isn't sure how his brain cooked that one up. In any other situation, the thought of Captain America having an actual magical shield would be funny.
It's only after he's drank his first cup that he remembers James mentioning the other Winter Soldiers. HYDRA had already gotten its twisted hands on Bucky Barnes after his supposed death. What if the organization had gotten ahold Captain America as well?
No, the likelihood of that is astronomical.
Still, he finds himself walking into Harry's room, which has become James's as well, despite the fact Tony gave the man his own room.
James is awake and guarding the closet door. Tony has to wonder if Jarvis talked him down from his own nightmare as well, or if James slept at all.
"Those other Winter Soldiers... none of them were Captain America, right?" Tony asks.
James takes a good half minute to reply. "No."
"All right." Tony sighs. "Just a stupid dream. Everyone has them. I mean, none of it made sense. I was a teenager when it happened, but in my dream I was me now, and..."
He stops talking, both because of the look James is giving him, and realization suddenly striking. Captain America probably wasn't a Winter Soldier, but maybe he hadn't died crashing into the Arctic as all the history books say.
Howard's endless hunt for Captain America had always seemed particularly stupid to Tony, but James- a man who was thought dead, just like Cap, who had been repeatedly frozen in suspended animation- is standing in front of Tony right now, alive and well.
Maybe 'alive and well' is a stretch considering the hell James has been through, but he is undeniably, well, alive.
Who could better survive a crash in the Arctic than a super soldier?
James's voice startles him out of his thoughts. "You dreamed Captain America assassinated your parents."
Tony hopes he hadn't shouted in his sleep or anything. "Yeah, with that killing curse. But who hasn't had weird dreams?"
"Steve wouldn't-" James starts, his eyes far away. "It was me."
"Let's not go into this again." Tony responds wearily. "It was HYDRA. They made you their weapon, and you told Harry weapons aren't good or bad. Anyway, there's a chance Steve could be alive. I mean, you survived, and he landed in the arctic."
James's eyes are sharp again. "Cryonics requires precise conditions to maintain the body."
Okay, now he's getting creepy again.
"Howard didn't stop looking." Tony sounds more bitter than he'd intended to. He can tell James is thinking something, his eyes deep, but he can't tell what. Is it guilt over the assassination?
"HYDRA would've looked." James grits out, then "I had a vision that Pierce took Harry. Reset me. Killed Nighty."
"Just now? Like a nightmare?"
"Before here." James says. "It was inaccurate. Pierce would have made me shoot Nighty in front of Harry."
Tony remembers Harry once mentioning that Nighty was a bad dog. "I won't let him get you."
"There are words." James grits his own words out through a jaw clenched tight enough to break teeth.
"Like magic words?" Tony frowns. Is Pierce magical?
"Unknown. They can reset me, demand compliance. That's how Harry was the handler."
Tony remembers seeing something about triggers in the documents at the base, but he thought that was more like PTSD triggers. Not that HYDRA cared at all about giving James extreme amounts of trauma.
He has a million different questions, the most prominent if there's a way to disable those words, but Jarvis interrupts before he can ask a single one. "Sir, I believe your guard just arrived."
"Are they invisible?" James asks, readying for action but seeming unwilling to leave his post guarding Harry.
"He is visible, Sergeant Barnes." Jarvis replies. "He has given the correct passphrase."
Tony shoots James what he hopes is a reassuring grin as he heads out of Harry's bedroom. "I've got this."
James's eyes almost look concerned for him, and don't seem to think he could hold his own against a wizard. Which, ouch, but then again, Harry had shorted out an Iron Man suit, surely a fully-grown wizard could do much worse.
Tony is expecting a Gandalf or Merlin-esque wizard with a long, flowing white beard, or maybe some sort of elf mage like in fantasy games.
His new guest is neither.
Like James, the man has long hair falling around his face, a terrifyingly murderous gaze, and a prosthetic body part. The last two items on that list are combined in the form his left eye, which is strapped onto his head like a pirate's eyepatch. It darts around- at one point rolling completely backwards to gaze into the man's head- while the right eye remains steadily fixed on Tony.
"I'm here for Robin and his Bat-Shield." the man growls, and Tony would laugh at the ridiculousness of Coulson's passphrase if this man didn't look like he was going to kill him.
Tony finds himself wishing Coulson had sent a witch that looked more like Romanoff, instead of a grizzled, scarred old man who's missing a large chunk of his nose.
Seriously, this seems like the wrong guy to send when they're trying to convince Harry all magic people aren't scary. Or had Coulson figured that Harry wouldn't be bothered, not with the way the boy snuggles up to James, who can, quite frankly, be just as scary?
"You've come to the right cave." Tony's own passphrase, so this guy knows he's the real deal, leaves a lot to be desired.
Tony lets him in. The man clunks when he walks, and at first Tony thinks it's the huge wooden staff he's carrying. Then he glimpses another prosthesis, an actual peg leg, under the man's long, very worn coat.
"I thought Coulson was sending a wizard, not a pirate." Tony blurts out. This guy doesn't look like the sort to have a sense of humor, and given how things have been going for Tony recently, the wizard might just decide to turn Tony into a turtle or whatever they do to people who annoy them.
"Or did Fury send you?" Tony can definitely see this guy and Fury getting along as well as Fury gets along with anyone.
"You're hiding Potter in a closet?" the man asks as he walks further into the room, that left eye still rolling in its socket.
"He chooses to sleep there." Tony says, thankful for his many years of business meetings where he's learned to hide behind a mask, not showing his uneasiness at the fact the man apparently can see through walls. Is that something all wizards can do? Can Harry do that? Is this guy going to spy on him in the shower?
The man's eye is already flicking to the fireplace, which Tony only now remembers is rigged to explode.
"You aren't connected to the Floo, but you should be taking precautions." the man sounds almost approving, even though he would have been blown to bits if he'd come through the fireplace like Coulson said wizards could.
"That was James." Tony says, and the prosthetic eye flicks towards Harry's room again.
"Heard Potter's already got protection detail." the man stumps across the room.
"Yeah, well, I guess you're our wizard guard now." Tony says.
"Alastor Moody." the man finally introduces himself.
"Moody?!" snorts Tony. "Did you and Fury change your names to fit your personalities, like the Seven Dwarfs?"
He gets nothing but a scowl from the man, and Jarvis announces "Sir, Master Harry is awake."
Moody's right eye flicks toward the ceiling, while the prosthetic eye goes absolutely bonkers, whirling in circles looking for the source of the voice.
"Where are you, ghost?" Moody mutters.
The thought of ghosts being real is way more than Tony wants to deal with right now. Fortunately, he's distracted by James emerging silently from Harry's room.
There's an incredibly awkward standoff where James and Moody glare daggers at each other. They exchange pass phrases and go right back to giving looks that could kill.
"Heard you were mind controlled." Moody snarls. "Convenient excuse for an assassin. Hard to disprove."
"We have proof." Tony interjects quickly. Why in the hell did they send this guy? "Loads of it."
"I've heard. Muggle method, worse than the Imperious." Moody's scarred face twists into a terrifying grin and Tony wonders where he'd heard that. He's pretty sure Coulson and Romanoff hadn't looked at James's files. "Something worse than Obliviate, too."
Tony can guess what those words- spells?- mean, and he sure doesn't like either of them. At least Moody doesn't sound like he's accusing James anymore.
Tony casts a quick look at James, hoping those weren't the trigger words he'd mentioned. James looks furious, but he still seems like James.
"I've heard you'll do anything to protect Potter." Moody continues. "That's good."
"Including eliminating you." James intones emotionlessly. Tony blinks. What happened to James not killing, like Batman? Had he been reset?
Moody chuckles darkly. "I don't think you could."
Before James can retort, Jarvis interjects "I believe you share a common goal of protecting Master Harry, do you not? I'm not sure how well protected he would be if you killed each other."
"Ouch." Tony exclaims, putting a hand over his heart and directing a wounded expression at the ceiling. "He'd still have me."
"Might I remind you that Master Harry destroyed your suit, sir? Should a duel with Mr. Moody occur, it is likely several more of your suits would be damaged."
"You can come out, Potter." Moody says to the door of Harry's room. "I'm your guard."
Harry scampers next to James to peer up at the newcomer. He's squinting again, and Tony has to get the kid some glasses.
"You look like Two-Face." Harry says accusingly. Sure, Moody's face is scarred, but he's not as horrifically scarred as that particular villain, certainly not split down the middle. Or is he just referring to the huge left eye, which does bear some similarity.
"He's supposed to keep us safe from bad wizards and witches." Tony slowly explains, though he's wondering if this whole situation will blow up in their faces. They're certainly not off on the right foot. "He's apparently one of the good ones."
"Even wit' a Two-Face eye?" Harry's face scrunches. Tony's actually really curious about the eye, but doubts Moody would let him run tests on it.
"Potter, I'm here to protect you from everything they can't."
"You won't eat me?" Harry asks slowly.
"What are these muggles filling your head with, boy?" Moody's right eye scrutinizes their Batman and Robin costumes, as if his own coat is high fashion or something.
"You're still my dad." Harry declares, clinging to James as if Moody had been trying to replace him. "You pro-tect me more."
James sweeps his cape around Harry "Till the end of the line."
I figured this is a good stopping point, so I can figure out what happens next. I actually am going to try and fast-forward a bit.
I know Tony doesn't know the details of his parents' deaths, but when I wrote the nightmare I kind of unconsciously made it like the scene in Civil War... well, aside from Cap and Avada Kedavra.