Summary: Kreacher has a massive work related headache and wonders if he should start drinking

Chapter 9

Kreacher crept out of the muggle style workshop to avoid the two bickering mad geniuses, wondering how in the world he got into this situation in the first place. He exchanged exasperated looks with his fellow companions-in-arms.

Oh yes, Master Regulus died.

June 26th, 1979

The Black family's house elf, Kreacher after he switched the lockets, made the mistake of trying to see Master Regulus's face one more time. His heart ached and in those few precious seconds accidentally dropped the real locket leaving his master's last command to him on the island with the terrible sounds of the Inferi just as his master's face disappeared under the water.

Kreacher apparate back in his cupboard, hands empty making him apparate back, or he would have, but for Mistress Black screaming his name, his master's last command hammering in his head so it was a few minutes before he could pop back to the cave, heart heavy in what he would find.

Kreacher did not expect to find his Master Regulus in mid-argument with himself. Or correction, Regulus's ghost arguing with his living body, which was somehow alive and standing in the completely dry lake bed, the Inferi completely gone along with the locket.

"So go on, do the thing." The man or whatever was wearing Master Regulus's body made a circling motion while his master looked puzzled as if this conversation had been going on for a while.

Regulus was confused by the man, it had to be a man, hopefully, becoming quite alarmed. Just a few minutes ago he welcomed death and now he was a blue glowing ghost who was in an argument with his body or whoever was in his body.

"I'm dead remember?" Regulus said somehow patiently for the fifth time.

"Ah where is a wizard when you need one?!" Tony Stark hissed low enough that Regulus or Kreacher couldn't understand him, running his hands through his long, black hair beyond frustrated. He died to save the world, he did not expect to wake up again in a dark cave, with a glowing force ghost, so the short screaming when he did was valid. Thank you very much.

"You clearly are no help." He grumbled as he started to make his way slowly across the lake bed. He was stuck in not his body, in the land of Aunt Peggy if his crisp English accent was any indication. Joy. He also suspected he was buck naked, but he'll deal with that later.

"What are you doing?" Regulus asked as he found his glowing body providing light as the man walked at a slow space so not to trip.

"Getting out of here glow rod." Tony snapped, his body in pain from something other then the gamma radiation that killed him, it felt like he drowned or something. For some reason the cave wasn't full of gamma radiation. "Also clothes. I see that you have clothes, where are mine?" Tony asked grumpily. If he was alive, even in another body, he needed to get back home soon.

Kreacher didn't know what to make of this man, and it was a man, his magic was of human origin and he did destroy a Horcrux. Somehow.

"Kreacher can get you out of here." With that, Kreacher snapped his fingers and they were on top of the hill.

Another snap and his master's body was clothed again including boots. Tony stared at the creature and just blinked. That felt vaguely like one of the wizards portal or the wormhole he took the nuke into or even the nanobots when he put on the suit.

"Right. I'm Tony and you are?" He asked as he started to walk towards the buildings he saw in the distance. He gave a quick look over the side of the steep cliff and was glad he didn't have to climb up it.

"I am Regulus Black, House of Black. This is my house elf Kreacher or was since you're in my body." Regulus gave a short bow, which Tony ignored making Regulus bristle in discontent. Somehow it seemed that a muggle had hijacked his body. Any wizard, low ranking or not would recognize that bow.

"Charmed. Now where is the nearest phone? Or should I say mobile?" Tony asked eager to get home walking rapidly towards the small town. He wondered about the 1970's era cars that kept passing him once he found a road. Gah, he hoped he didn't time travel.

"What's a phone?"

That question almost, almost made Tony stop dead in his tracks, but he was determined to get home. "Nope, not answering that. Now please tell me Gollum has money or at least you had some pocket change hidden away someplace…"

Tony's semi-pleading voice trailed off once he caught sight of the town he was walking towards. Either he time traveled or someone was really, really fond of the late 20th century. He could see the strange looks he was getting from the town folks. Thankfully, Southend-on-Sea, even if it was a tourist attraction had to have a homeless shelter or something of that sort.

Smiling and using all the Stark charm he could muster up, a short while later Tony had a quick but hot shower, a slight shave to start his goatee since the young man barely had any whiskers to begin with, and ignoring the dead glow-rod, no Reggie's protests of him changing into, admittedly clean but clearly used muggle clothing.

Tony abstractly tossed the black robe towards Gollum, which passed through the incorporeal Reggie and concentrated on not cussing out whoever decided that the fashion in the 1970's were the greatest ever as he sorted through the clothes bin, grabbing a few outfits that wasn't painful to his eyes. Thankfully they had a black Led Zeppelin shirt and some jeans that fit him, along with a suit that could work. He stuffed them all in a ragged bag he found.

Now the sunglasses he could get behind and he did. The shoes, well he had worse.

Now feeling mostly normal, Tony went in search of substance which he found during dinner as he was filled in with what they could offer him. He was chewing on the slightly dry beef as he overheard a conversation between a few people.

"Well, the pocket transistor radio is broken again. Jed can't come by until next week, late next week."

"I can take a look at it?" Tony offered after he swallowed painfully, his voice a little hoarse from it but some water fixed that up.

Gale glanced at the young man who had long hair but dressed more smartly or at least decently enough, a eager look on his pale face. She shrugged. "Well you can't break it any further then it is already."

She instructed him to wait there. Tony inwardly groaned at the thought of the outdated technology but he had to keep his mind and hands busy as he puzzled over this strange turn of events.

It turned out it was a simple fix, at least to him, but that simple fix turned into a almost until lights out fix-a-thon of all things electric in the place which was apparently sorely needed. The workers kept eyeing him and whispering to each other. Tony settled on ignoring them as best he could.

A week later, Tony was in London, at a decent hotel screaming into a pillow beyond done. Lifting his head from the lavender smelling pillow sheet he noticed his companions for the first time as he got up to grab one of the magazines he brought with him.

"You're still here glow-rod, with Gollum?" Tony grouched as he skimmed, to him, outdated Popular Mechanics magazine of May 1979 along with the other magazines he found in the give away box at the nearest library after he was done with his application exam test thingy.

At this point Regulus was done with this man who ignored all his attempts to get him to listen to him as he tried to get Tony's attention during the few days they were at the muggle place. So he just ignored the man who took his body as he discovered he couldn't move more then six meters from him at almost all times.

Somehow Regulus was patience as the workers got Tony into a decent job in London. Which went faster then most people, even if 'Tony' was a 'genius' at this muggle thing that got everyone excited even the ones who were waiting longer for a job.

Tony tried to let the others go ahead of him, as it seemed that he now had all the time in the world, but even the guy who was on a waiting list the last three months pushed at him to even try. So mentally tossing up his hands, he got all set up as English citizen and applied for this company everyone thought he'll be a great fit for.

A haircut with a brown hair and goatee dye made Tony feel almost normal, almost. He missed Pepper and Morgan terribly. Along with all his other people. Heck he even missed Steve Rogers.

It was slightly annoying but Tony couldn't deny the relief he felt when his 'application' was received by this A.I. company who gave the written application test flying colors and set up a interview for a few days after he sent it in. The glimpse of the logo before the test began nagged Tony, but he ignored it to focus on the written test was so easy to pass or at least most of it, he had to really dig into his schooling for some of it.

The last bonus question made him pause and made him run through the whole application exam once more with new eyes and then stared for a full three minutes at the logo which the bonus question was about. Tony instantly knew what the logo represented, after all it was part of his legacy. The marigold for the dot of the I of the A.I. clinched it.

Tony smiled and copied the logo into two parts. Captain America's shield complete with the stars and stripe and for kicks he included his catch and release he made up for the shield. Calling it 'Capsicle's ball and chain.'

As for the drawing of the tesseract blue cube, he wrote instead, "You took me back to school and I made my own greatest creation because of it."

All the test papers were locked up in a black box and could only be opened by the founder of the Antoni Industries company. Or Marigold for short as it was called in the tech circles.

Howard Stark knew he had pushed past his limits as he tried and failed to connect the wire to the socket for the fifth time. His hands were shaking enough that he could feel the vibrations up his arms. When was the last time he ate? Maybe Al was right about needing to eat properly.

Sighing he took off his welder's goggles in disgust tossing them in a heap, stretching out his back to work out the kinks. Waking up in a different body in a alternate 1976, after being strangled to death by a friend of his was not how he thought heaven or perhaps hell would start.

Thankfully for his sanity, he had help of a sort. Howard went to the kitchen to start a sandwich, eyeing the glowing blue ghost at the counter as he carefully flipped through this years candidates who wanted to apply to the company. It took ghost energy but it could be done.

Alphard 'Al' Black looked up at the chewing sound. "I told you you need more food Howard. Make sure you eat more then one sandwich if you're going to go back to your workshop again."

"Don't mother me Alphard, I've survived on less."

"But you're a wizard now and need more fuel then a normal person." Al looked fondly at the older man who wore his body well. If he didn't know any better, Howard Stark was a Black or at least a excellent Slytherin or Ravenclaw if he went to Hogwarts.

But on the other hand his work habits were all Hufflepuff. He even had a hint of Gryffindor at times. Some of the ideas he had seemed to be pure magic for a normal person. Muggle was completely unsaid after almost four years together. Pity most of the wizarding world couldn't or wouldn't or even wanted to understand.

"La de da. Don't care. How's the candidates this year? Any cream of the crop of 1979?" A.I. took applications year round or at least during all the seasons but winter.

"Some are promising…" Al trailed off as he looked at the last bonus question he had to go through until the fall.

"What's wrong? Did he scribble, like that one woman did?" Howard asked as he looked at what stumped his invisible friend, his third sandwich fell onto the floor. "Tony."

Howard sat on the floor and cried tears of relief. He knew he wasn't the only one here, he just knew it.

Tony couldn't help but pace in the small waiting room where the good looking woman secretary had led him too.

Regulus or Reg as he instructed Tony to call him, eyed Kreacher as the freed house elf eyed the muggle surrounding with distrust.

Tony was quite shocked to learn he well, Regulus 'accidentally' freed Kreacher from his family when Tony tossed the unwanted robe through his one-time master and Kreacher automatically grabbed it.

Once Tony understood the ins and outs of house elf bonds, which at times horrified him, he flat out refused to bond with Kreacher or as he nicknamed him Gollum, but somehow stuck with Tony or perhaps Master Regulus.

Kreacher or as he was warming up to the name of Gollum walked invisible behind Tony with Master Regulus, as Master Tony had extended a slight bond towards him when he let him stay near Master Regulus or that's why Kreacher, no Gollum decided to take the words 'Oh I don't care what you do, stay by glow rod or whatever.' So Gollum Kreacher did.

Kreacher locked eyes with the blue glowing ghost that looked at Kreacher, no Gollum with wide eyes, but before anyone could say something, especially Regulus as he stood and stared at the man who looked like his Uncle Alphard but had brown hair and a mustache which his uncle would never do.

The man opened his mouth after the door to the office was closed saying, "I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world. What is, and always will be my greatest creation... is you."

Tony stepped forward to study the man who seemed to be his father and said, "You saved my life dad. At the nick of time too. That is," Here Tony frowned crossing his arms, "You are my father in someone else's body and can answer this one question. Did you really have to work with Anton? His son almost murdered me. I mean serious, not to mention Hydra!"

"Ok so working with Anton was a mistake and what about Hydra? Steve,"

"You never told me that Steve was a bleeding heart and had America's ass."

"What? When did you meet Steve? Also I loved that design you made, it's genius."

"Well duh. Capsicle needed something."

"Don't be disrespectful."

Needless to say it was a long day and night for everyone. But at the end of it, the Starks were reconciled which included adding Tony to the company as heir by adoption, the Blacks at a shaky truce and Kreacher aka Gollum had a headache that truly never went away.

So he sighed with mental relief at the thought of other house elves when he noticed them in the security cameras as some of the humans with them said the code words. He hoped that they liked DUM-E and Butterfingers. Jarvis was like a fellow house elf. But invisible.