I'd like to thank everyone for the comments, kudos, and likes for the first few chapters of the fic!
Ironically, magical flying — specifically on his broomstick — became Harry's preferred form of transportation in both of his worlds since he soon discovered he hated muggle flying just as much as he hated magical floos and portkeys. The muggle airplane, where Harry spent most of the eight-hour journey actively avoiding the image of him trapped in a metal tube tens of thousands of feet in the air, turned out to be only one aspect of a long string of stressful muggle traveling that started the moment they left 4 Privet Drive by jumping out of Harry's second-floor window followed by an unbelievably long hike into the night.
Harry's steps were more sluggish with each passing mile, and when they came to a stop in front of an old abandoned warehouse, rather than the airport where he believed they were going, he immediately regretted accompanying the man. It'd be just his luck that this was all part of some elaborate plan to draw him away and kill him outright. However, rather than confront Voldemort or any other combination of Death Eaters, Snape simply led Harry to a small tattered mattress covered in a red blanket, gave him an Anti-Cruciatus potion to help reduce his tremors — "only time can fully heal them," Snape had snapped at him — and instructed him to sleep, not so subtly telling him he looked like death rolled over.
The wall across from Harry's held Snape's bed, a mattress in the same condition as Harry's, but with a Slytherin green blanket. Harry was at least relieved to see they both had new, bright white pillows that had to have been conjured as nothing transfigured from the room would be nearly that clean. Crumpled bags and food wrappers alongside documents scattered around the other wizard's bed led Harry to believe he'd used the dingy, moldy space in the last few days as his own little "headquarters" to plan his escape; an idea which equally terrified and warmed Harry. His name on a birth certificate drew Harry's attention to a pile of paperwork as tall as Harry's Monster Book of Monster Textbook several magazines — muggle one based on the lack of moving pictures —, a map of New York, and an array of photographs of himself, as a baby and teenager, and of his mother. He desperately wanted to ask to at least see the photos, and possibly find out where he'd gotten them, except Snape sorted through them as soon as Harry saw them and despite whatever Snape said about him, he wasn't actually dumb enough to interrupt that process.
Harry tossed and turned most of that first night and from what he could tell Snape didn't sleep at all. Each time Harry cracked his eyes open, the man was sitting hunched over the folders, running his hands through his hair, and his worry lines deep as if he were preparing for war. After catching Snape's obviously anxious expression for the third time, Harry worried they might be heading into a war zone, and upon reaching the chaotic airport, he realized Snape was correct; something he had never admitted, even just to himself.
At first, Harry figured they'd want to pass by as few people as possible, and therefore was confused when they left for the airport at dawn rather than waiting for the evening. But he quickly picked up on the benefit of anonymity by blending into the chaos of morning flights as they got on the plane and made it to New York with no one questioning them. Harry suspected Snape confounded at least a dozen muggles on their way to the plane — from the gate agent to the flight attendants, and even the nice, older couple who sat beside them on the long flight after they wouldn't stop asking questions about their "father-son trip" to the States — and possibly an Imperious or two, most notably on the customs agent in New York, which probably also helped get them there relatively easily.
If Harry thought the London airport was crazy, he wasn't prepared for New York. Similar to how he felt walking through Diagon Alley with Hagrid, the corridors were so packed with people and luggage that they had to swerve this way and that to avoid them all. While most of the travelers passing through Laguardia were happy to ignore the man in all black guiding an uneasy teen with only a backpack slung over one shoulder, there were plenty of others who watched them closely as they skipped baggage claim and headed for the exit. One woman even trailed Harry until they reached the taxi that was waiting for them, catching up with him whenever Harry slipped a little bit behind Snape and backing off again when he caught up to the professor. Surely the woman thought Snape had kidnapped Harry, and Harry gave a humorless laugh to himself at how close to the truth she would have been.
In the same way that Harry believed they were going to the London airport straight from Privet Drive, Harry foolishly believed they would go straight to Stark Tower — renamed Avengers Tower last year according to the magazines Snape had given him to study on the flight — from the New York airport. Instead, Snape asked the taxi driver to take them to a rundown hotel in a place called Queens, a place which didn't look like any picture of New York Harry had ever seen. He then left Harry magically locked in their shared room for hours, taking the invisibility cloak with him, and stayed out all day; returning only for lunch, dinner, and finally at bedtime.
All of that happened three days ago, and after the whirlwind of his escape followed by the days of idly waiting it out, allowing him too much time to rethink the situation he found himself in, Harry felt as if he had officially gone mad.
"What if I don't want to meet him?" Harry grumbled sullenly, balling up the wrapper of the greasy burger he'd just finished for dinner. He tossed the wrapper towards the small rubbish bin on the other side of the room, smiling smugly as he watched it effortlessly sink to the bottom. "Being a sperm" – he grimaced at having to say the word to Snape of all people – "donor doesn't automatically make him my father, you know."
"Actually, according to the genetic definition, his donated sperm is precisely what makes him your father," Snape responded, seemingly unfazed by the awkward subject.
Not wanting to get into a biological debate, Harry ignored the comment in favor of fueling his increasing frustration. "Right now he doesn't even know I exist. I can just go hide in muggle New York until you and Dumbledore take down You-Know-Who and he would stay completely oblivious to me." Harry wiped his hands dramatically against each other. "Problem solved."
"Do you honestly believe you'd survive one night in New York on your own?" Snape rhetorically asked. Unlike Harry, he ate his dinner at the table directly in front of Harry's bed while he read through papers Harry wasn't allowed to see; papers the spy went as far as taking with him whenever he left the room to go on his 'missions'. Without so much as turning around, he added, "My goal here is to not get you killed and, as tempting as it might be, leaving you to the streets of New York is counterproductive to that endeavor."
Harry let out a loud, exaggerated, hmph.
The next few minutes passed in uncomfortable silence, or uncomfortable for Harry as it seemed Snape could sit almost anywhere and appear at ease, so he dumped the bag of magazines and news articles about Tony Stark, Stark Industries, and the Avengers across his small bed. Like his mother had, as Harry read about his biological father he was drawn to Stark Industries' former legacy of building weapons. Not that Tony Stark's "party" legacy was much better, but Harry's entire existence was composed of violence, and he didn't particularly like the idea of his father's fame coming from killing others. And the more he read about Tony Stark's early years, the same information his mother would have had, the less Harry liked him and the more he understood her decision.
But then some terrorist group kidnapped Tony in Afghanistan, as part of a conspiracy Harry didn't claim to understand anything about, and turned his business and himself around. Four years and an Iron Man suit later, Stark Industries was making a name for itself in advanced tech and sustainable energy — two more topics Harry knew nothing about, but Hermione would probably love to spend a day with Tony Stark, or better yet Pepper Potts, to discuss them. The attack on New York last May brought together an odd group of people to protect the city, and the Earth if Harry believed half of the journalists, with Tony practically leading the way. Coming from the world of magic, it shouldn't seem so unusual, but Harry sat on his bed debating if the photo of his alleged father flying a weapon into a hole in the sky was real. One major advantage of wizarding photographs was that they moved, making them significantly more believable. Surely someone had a video of the event somewhere, however, Harry wasn't too sure he wanted to see the man who was supposed to protect him voluntarily sacrifice himself.
Harry noticed a small inset photo of Tony Stark presenting at the Stark Expo a few years ago. He was standing on a lit stage, looking well put together in a smart suit with a carefree enthusiasm that Harry had never really seen in another adult.
"We sort of look alike… in a generic way." Harry shuddered at the deep layer of sadness laced into his voice. He kept his eyes fixed on the image, mentally taking in every minor detail of Tony Stark's features, as he asked, "Why do you think everyone always said I look just like James if we're not blood-related? Did my mum get lucky? O-or she had a type?"
He heard papers rustling and a zipper opening, then closing immediately afterward; Snape preparing to leave again.
"Power of suggestion, most likely," Snape eventually answered. He sat on the edge of his bed to pull on his boots, in a normal, human act Harry would never get used to seeing from his professor — still not anywhere close to the horror of seeing Snape, the evil git, brush his teeth. Harry shivered at the domesticity of it. "The glasses don't certainly help. They are the same round wire frames James used to wear. Therefore, when the child assumed to be his was seen, and he had similar, albeit common, features… dark hair, pale skin… the mind fills in the rest."
It seemed as good of an answer as any. Looking at his pictures of James Potter, Harry couldn't say they shared any single defined feature solely with each other. His brown messy hair could have come from anyone, not even necessarily Tony Stark, and his smaller stature… Well, he never knew James or Lily so he couldn't really say whom he got it from. But his eyes were all Lily's and, looking into Tony's brown ones, Harry loved how he still had this unique connection to his mother.
"You're off to follow him again?" Harry complained as Snape pulled on his black overcoat. The only information Snape gave him about these mysterious outings was that he was observing Tony to find the right way to approach him, and he needed Harry's invisibility cloak to do so; something about Stark technology being able to read his heat signature if he used a Disillusionment Charm alone. "How many times do you need to see him walking down the street? Can't we just show up at the tower? It's not like he can turn us away."
"First, I am doing significantly more than simply watching him walk down the street," Snape lectured, clearly annoyed at having to deal with Harry's angsty mood, "There are hundreds, quite possibly thousands, of people who enter or get close enough to his ivory tower to be of concern, not to mention the type of people who also reside in said tower and who you will inevitably come into contact with and frustrate enough to lose control."
"I will not—"
"Second," he said, interrupting Harry's rebuttal to defend himself, "I am trying to keep you hidden as well as alive. What do you think will happen if we stroll up to the reception desk and demand a paternity test? I guarantee you any of those hundreds of people in or around the lobby will sell your identity to the highest bidder."
Based on the harsh glare from the professor sent towards him, the question, apparently, was not rhetorical, despite Snape already answering it. But rather than provide his own answer, Harry pulled a page out of Snape's book and answered his questions with a question. "But he's famous, right? Doesn't exactly seem like a good hiding spot, now does it?"
If they were back at Hogwarts, down in the dungeons during a Potions class, Harry would have been proud of the dark angry red creeping up Snape's pale cheeks; not so much being stuck sharing a hotel with the man. There were some lines he didn't want to cross or get close to at all, and he was already toeing it.
"Have you heard the phrase 'hiding in plain sight'?" He asked through clenched teeth. Harry nodded. "It's a phrase for a reason. Now leave the rest to me."
He didn't give Harry a chance to respond before turning on his heels and storming out the door, although it didn't slam nearly as hard as Snape had probably wanted.
"I am so screwed," Harry muttered to himself as he went back to reading the magazine, and unsuccessfully trying to sort out his feelings surrounding his newfound father.
ooOoo
Tony Stark was having a fabulous night. While Pepper spent the day hopping from meetings with the board and regulatory committees, Tony spent his morning checking in on his latest communication devices, the software upgrade for the last StarkPhone camera, and Clint's new arrowhead prototype — fixing the new laser he added to the previous prototype which had been so strong it cut through the test bow — effectively opening up his afternoon to plan the perfect date for him and Pepper.
Dinner and a movie, or in their case a movie and dinner, followed by a stroll through Central Park. Yes, it might have lacked any sense of originality, but it checked off all the boxes Pepper had been looking for: a classic, normal date night out. And keeping Pepper happy was at the top of his priorities because he fully realized that he couldn't live without her, especially after the attack on New York last year.
"I really think I nailed date night this week," Tony smoothly said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. She wore the sleeveless black dress Tony loved and with her walking next to him, he felt like he had everything in the world. "Dinner at your favorite Italian restaurant," he counted on his fingers, "a movie out in an actual movie theater, not our living room or the Towers theater, and now this beautiful night stroll… it doesn't get more normal than this, am I right?"
Because normal had been the word she used after date night last week when they stayed in for the third date night in a row, and when he suggested they fly back to Chicago to see Hamilton. But since nothing about Tony Stark's life screamed normal, he asked JARVIS for the most common dates and he thought he hit every single one of them.
"Well," Pepper emphasized the word as she leaned into his shoulder, "technically normal people don't buy out a theater to play a decade-old movie or have the popcorn machine sitting in the back row of the theater. Dinner, however, was delicious and spot on."
"You're mocking me," Tony feigned insult by moving away from her and walking backward in front of her. He pointed his finger at her, accusingly. "Next date night I'll send you to refill the popcorn bucket and you can miss the best parts of the movie. As for the twelve-year-old thing… Yesterday you specifically mentioned you wanted to go out, then turned down every movie playing tonight, so that one is sort of on you."
"Oh, really?" She gently grabbed for his arm, slowing them down on their path. With a smile on her face, she softly kissed his lips, a move he'd never take for granted.
"Do I at least get credit for knowing your favorite movie is Kate and Leopold? A movie almost no one knows about, I might add," He asked, speaking into her smile. "You have to admit, it's an improvement from the vague, and misguided, connection I made between you and the strawberries."
"That depends." She kissed the side of each cheek with the words, then whispered, "Did JARVIS suggest it?"
"Absolutely not," he proclaimed, holding his hands up in innocence, even though it pushed them further apart than he liked. "And I'm not going to lie, I'm a little insulted you'd think that. Ok, maybe it is a move I'd do, but tonight… that was all me. JARVIS?" His head swayed side-to-side. "He helped with the heavy lifting… reservations and such."
"I had a lovely night, Tony," Pepper said in a way that made Tony wish they weren't standing in the middle of the park blocks away from home.
"What do you say we cut this walk a little short?" Naturally assuming her answer, he pivoted them around and walked — ok, partially pulled — them in the opposite direction. "I have a perfect bottle of…"
The sound of footsteps to his left and the rustling of the bushes took his attention away from his thoughts. Every muscle in his body automatically tightened as if, like Peter, he could sense some type of incoming danger, and he stepped in front of Pepper, using his body to shield her. A quick check toward the sound revealed nothing out of the ordinary, though the reassurance did little to ease his anxiety. This was the fifth time he noticed something unusual in the last three days.
"Tony?" Pepper grabbed onto his arm, trying to get around him, but he didn't budge. "What's going on?"
After scanning for any movement or odd objects in the immediate vicinity, he moved outward, at last acknowledging no one was there. But that fact didn't help him relax. Something inside of him screamed for them to return to the Tower right now, that he wouldn't be able to rest until they were safe there.
"Tony!"
"I heard something," he finally explained with an edginess to his voice he hated using with Pepper. "Like someone walking near us."
"It's probably a cat or something."
She didn't believe her own words, Tony could tell even before she sped up her walking, neither slowing down until they reached their personal entrance in the back of the Tower leading them directly to the backside of their personal elevator.
Waiting for the elevator, Tony swallowed the lump forming in his throat. "JARVIS, I need all the video footage from around Central Park in the last hour… emphasis on the route Pepper and I took. Identify all known possible assailants and include everything in a block radius of the theater and restaurant going back the hour before we arrived through a half-hour after we left."
"Of course, Sir," his AI loyally replied. "Would you like it sent to your phone or upstairs?"
Tony peered up at the floor numbers; it'd be there any second. "Upstairs, Jay."
Pepper squeezed his hand tighter. "There goes our bottle of wine tonight. Do I at least get to know what's occupying your mind this time?
The elevator dinged, and Tony released his anxious breath as they stepped inside, feeling like the band around his chest had snapped and allowed him to breathe easy again. The Tower protection officially started at their elevator. No one could get to them from here without JARVIS knowing, and acting accordingly to prevent any danger.
"I've had this feeling of being watched lately, except JARVIS hasn't been able to find anything there. No thermal signatures, no people without a reasonable purpose for being near, not even anyone with more than a speeding ticket lately. And just now… I swear I heard footsteps out there too heavy to be a cat. And it felt like someone moved when we did… maybe ending up in the trees."
Pepper pulled her hand from his and snaked it up his arm to wrap it around the top, both of them focusing on the increasing floor numbers.
"Are you sure you want to stay in New York? The building is done, and everyone is settled here. We could fly back to Malibu in the morning and get far away from all the… stress… I know the city brings you."
The lack of tension in her voice at the suggestion told Tony she'd been thinking about this for a while now. And why wouldn't she? Everything about the city sent him right back into that wormhole. But things hadn't been easier in Malibu; it was why they moved into the Tower during the rebuild in the first place.
"No," Tony refused. Ready to get started on his search, and distract him from the conversation at hand, he pulled his phone from his pocket to access the Tower camera from the last three days. Then, he could run a comparison to check if any person shows up on multiple feeds without reason; "reason" being limited to: they lived in the fucking Tower. He spoke as he typed, never losing track of his work or his words to Pepper, "You love New York, Pep. And I love you. And it's good for me to be here to work on the Team's tech, build morale, that sort of stuff. I'm making progress, you know."
"I know you are."
Pepper laid a soft kiss on his cheek just as the elevator doors slid open into the new vestibule that separated the elevator from their penthouse door. As much as Tony loved the grandiosity of walking straight into their home before, he appreciated the added security the vestibule provided, even if it now divided his living space into two distinct sections — their primary home through the door on the left and their guest quarters through the door to the right. Aside from the small decorative table on the wall across from the elevator, the vestibule contained only two additional features: a door to the emergency set of stairs beside the elevator and a second glass-encased stairway leading down to his personal workshop. To help him keep his work and home separate, he had agreed with Pepper to keep the latter set of stairs outside of their official residence — as if opening one more door would make him think twice about spending hours down there during one of his work benders.
Pepper had designed almost entirely their newest home on the 80th floor of the Avengers, and Tony wouldn't have had it any other way. He wanted her to feel like it was her home as well — not twelve percent, or any other odd percentage. Plus, she honestly knew more about Tony's taste in furniture, paint colors, and artwork than he did. So how much of the design was her personal preferences versus her choosing what they both liked, he'd never really know. His workshop on the floor below them, though… that was all him.
Despite the lavish, high-end decorating and the high-ceiling, expansive space, Tony's favorite aspect of their New York home was the view he had when he walked straight into the living room from the entryway. With floor-to-ceiling windows encircling the entire outside wall, the three bedrooms and entire living area literally had the best views of New York City, the city that truly never slept. And while it differed completely from the ocean view in Malibu, watching the life of the city… the lives of people he literally saved… helped keep him sane throughout all of his struggles in the past year.
Pepper immediately headed for their master bedroom on the left side of the penthouse, unfortunately, to change out of her dress, while Tony merely loosened the blue tie around his neck and waved his hand over the set of three clear screens at his small workstation opposite their sofa and entertainment center, bringing them, and JARVIS, to life.
"Sir, I've analyzed the footage you requested, using the hours proceeding yours and Miss Potts' whereabouts in Central Park."
Dozens of small windows of videos filled the transparent screen, with colored coded circles pointing out people of interest and lines connecting those people from one video feed to the next. A quick tap of the circles brought up any potentially relevant details on the person — tickets, arrest records, and any reason for their location nearby, such as dinner reservations or work location. He lifted his phone up to the screen on his right and with a quick flick of his wrist, the videos he'd been watching in the elevator jumped to the screen and immediately began connecting anyone from the Tower over the last few days to the videos JARVIS found.
His fingers danced over the keyboard, already knowing the answer to the question he was about to ask. It'd be the same as every other event he'd asked JARVIS to explore.
"And what'd you find?"
"There is no evidence of any human life in the vicinity related to the event you experienced."
"I heard something, Jay," he argued. In an almost inaudible mumble, he added, "And I felt… the air moved. Too quickly. Almost… unexpected."
He might be onto something. What had they done right beforehand? They had turned around, suddenly. If someone had been following them… Well, that person wouldn't have expected Tony to about-face out of nowhere. That person would have had to move out of their way or risk being discovered. However, that person also didn't exist on any camera, radar, or thermal scan he'd run. And as far as he knew, not even SHIELD knew of anyone enhanced with invisibility, at least not yet. Surely, they'd eventually face it in the future.
Several dozen more clicks on his screen later, the door to their bedroom closed and Pepper joined him in the living room. Now dressed in a casual, and significantly less sexy, set of jogging pants, a fitted green T-shirt, and bare feet, she sat down in her reading spot, on the corner of the couch, with a book laid open across her lifted knees. She was preparing for a long night, and he was determined to prove her wrong, just as soon as he eased his mind enough to allow him to rest.
"Sir?" JARVIS interrupted. His clicking on the screen halted when a large window popped up of a live feed of their lobby, effectively covering the other areas Tony had been investigating. "A guest code for your elevator was generated thirty seconds ago, requested and entered by Miss. Braden in reception. As I do not have any guests on your schedule, I've stopped the elevator between floors thirty-five and thirty-six. I cannot detect any lifeform inside of it."
"Thanks, Jay," he murmured. Swiping his finger over the live feed to rewind the footage, he was shocked to watch as his overnight receptionist typed out the request for the code, walked to the elevator, and entered it into the keypad completely alone and with no verbal request to do so. Miss. Braden never stepped into the elevator, so when it closed, it appeared completely empty.
"Bring up the elevator feed." He demanded, but he knew what he'd see. Or in this case, not see.
"Tony?" Pepper met him at the screens, watching the events of the receptionist unfold again from over his shoulder. "She has a clean record–"
"I don't think you didn't do your job, Pep," he said forcefully and paused the screen at the moment she went to request the guest code, zooming in on her face. "Look at her eyes. A frame or two ago she was reading on the screen and now they look unfocused. Why?
"And then…" he fast forwarded the video from the hallway pointing to the elevator doors closing, and brought up the same timestamp from the elevator camera so they had one viewpoint looking straight into the elevator and the other as a bird-eye view inside of it, "look, right there. I swear I see a ripple of black. But it's quick and not picked up inside the elevator."
Pepper's eyebrows scrunched, giving her full attention to the two observations Tony made. "I see something, but can't tell what it is."
In the screen's corner, the live footage of the elevator still showed nothing inside. Then it hit him.
"JARVIS," Tony called out, "compare the weight of elevator car five in the minute proceeding Miss. Braden opening it to its current weight."
"Good idea," Pepper muttered.
Two numbers flashed on the screen with a bright red "182 lbs" circled between them; the amount of added weight in the car.
"Got you!" Tony exclaimed. He had no clue how to explain it, but someone — likely an adult male based on the average weights JARVIS listed beside it — was hiding in the elevator car.
"Send it down, JARVIS," Pepper stated, and the numbers in the elevator decreased.
"No!" Tony cried out. "Stop it there Jay." Like a good AI, the elevator stopped between floors twenty-seven and twenty-eight. He turned to Pepper. "Here me out."
"Why do I feel I won't like this?"
"Obviously some real weird shit is going on here," Tony went on, completely ignoring her rhetorical question. "Sure, we can send that car back down and lock it for the night, but what's stopping whoever this is from coming again tomorrow? Right now, we have whoever… whatever… has been following us locked in that car and it can only go up here. I say you go upstairs for a bit, I grab my suit and have JARVIS send the car up. The door opens and—"
"You blast at nothing because you can't see what's in there," Pepper deadpanned, deflating the building excitement Tony has over getting this guy.
"I was going to say blast him into next week," he argued. "You make a fair point but it's better than letting this guy roam free."
They spent the next ten minutes debating how to handle the situation — Pepper all but demanding they get other resources involved and Tony pushing to let him take a go at it. In the end, Tony won and less than five minutes later Pepper was safe upstairs on Thor and Steve's currently unoccupied floor with the instructions for JARVIS to call Bruce — the only other Avenger in the building that night — as an absolute last resort if things went south. In his full Iron Man suit, Tony stood directly in front of the elevator with the door to his private floor securely locked behind him.
With all his scanners targeted on the elevator and his arms out ready to fight, he whispered to JARVIS, "Send him up."
The numbers seemed to crawl from twenty-seven to eighty, and when the ding finally sounded Tony's heart was beating hard against the metal suit, because although he refused to say it out loud to Pepper, Miss. Braden's reaction reminded him too much of Clint being under the control of Loki's scepter, and Iron Man had little to protect against it.
As expected, the door opened to an empty car, and instead of waiting for his tech to confirm that it also detected nothing, Tony moved to blast at the middle of the floor, hoping to hit anything or at least shock the being into showing itself. That wasn't what happened, however. Despite assuming he had the upper hand, in what seemed like a blink of an eye he found his limbs frozen, JARVIS and all of his displays fried, and plummeting to the floor, hitting it with a loud thud he hoped Pepper didn't hear.
Tony, unable to move inside his suit, continued to stare up at the ceiling as an ugly man with a hooked nose and awful greasy hair clutching a sleek black stick, of all things, appeared.
"You have been petrified. Any attempt to move will be futile until I release you," the new man stated, and Tony was taken aback by his English accent. "I do not wish to harm you, but there are at least a half dozen ways for me to do so in this situation. I have information you will be interested in hearing. My name is Severus Snape and I am the good friend of a woman you met about fifteen years ago. She needs your help… Your son needs your help."
The words, specifically the mention of a son, sucked all the air right out of Tony's lungs.
"I'm going to let you up now," the man said, calmly. "Call off whatever backup you might have coming so we can discuss where to go from here."
Tony wanted to yell fuck no, but even if he could move his lips to say it, the thought simply vanished. So after his suit powered back up and the hold this man had on him ended, he told JARVIS, "Tell Pepper to stay put."
"But, sir–"
"Do it, Jay!"
As the cloudiness in Tony's head cleared and he regained his footing, he was ready to slam the man to the ground when he held out a picture in front of Tony's face. It was of a woman with dark auburn hair and vibrant green eyes, the brightest green he had ever seen and had never seen on anyone since. He fell to the floor once again, staring up at the picture clutched by the mysterious man.
It took a moment, longer than he would have liked, for his brain to supply him with her name. "Lily… Lily… I don't remember her last name."
"Evans." The man, Severus was it, stated, his disapproval of Tony clear in his tone. "Her name was Lily Evans, and you met her in London in October 1997 under the alias Anthony Rhodes."
"I was taking a robotics class… thought it would teach something up and upcoming. I was sorely disappointed," Tony offered to help jog his memory. He removed his face plate to get a better look. Yes, it was Lily. "She didn't recognize me. I threw the name out hoping to mess with her and catch her in the lie, but she really had no clue who I was."
Lost in the fragments of the memories, Tony jumped at the sound of the stairwell door flying open where Pepper stood there panting for breath. Naturally, she ignored JARVIS's — and by extension his — instructions to stay upstairs.
"Tony Stark, what is–" she started, and screamed at the sight of the vampire-looking man kneeling in front of Tony.
"It's fine, Pep," he said, although he didn't entirely believe it himself. "Let's, um… why don't we all go upstairs to talk this through?"
Not wanting this person on his private floor, he figured the communal lounge was as good of a place as any. Plus, it had the most angles for him to recover the recordings of this conversation later seeing as he had no doubts he'd want to fully examine what the hell was about to happen.
The Party floor, as they appropriately named it, was where they hosted large gatherings, like the Grand Opening party for the Tower and once to celebrate the last contract Stark Industries scored; much to his lawyers' displeasure as they continuously cautioned him to keep the SI side and Avengers side of his life separate. It had a wide open space, glass walls, a fully stocked bar — his drinking might have slowed since Afghanistan, but he had a feeling he'd need something by the end of this little rendezvous — and several well-hidden weapon spots, for extra security measures. Although Tony removed his suit, he kept it close by. Not knowing how Dracula incapacitated him out of nowhere, he wasn't taking any chances.
"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer we had this conversation alone?" Severus asked, sending Pepper a glare that would have earned him a quick blast if he still had his suit on.
"She knows my history." Tony gestured to the sofa to show the man where to sit. He and Pepper took the one directly across from him, positioning the glass coffee table between them; a potential weapon should he need it. "She had the unfortunate position of cleaning up most of it, actually. This… uh… Lily… she was a bit before Pepper's time."
He picked up the picture Severus tossed on the table between them. It had to be an older picture, taken not long after she and Tony met. For this purpose, Tony guessed it made sense to bring one closest to the age Tony would have known her.
"How is Lily these days?" He asked. It felt safest to start with Lily than use the word he wanted to avoid. Son. "I take it she's looking for money?"
Because wasn't that what every single one of the other bogus paternity claims had been after. None of those were real, a simple and efficient DNA test snuffed those real quick, but as he stared into Lily's eyes something about this felt different. Almost right.
"She's dead, actually," the man said, averting his eyes down to his clasped hands.
"I'm sorry," Tony replied. What else could he say? Like it or not, it didn't take Tony's genius-mind to see the writing on the wall and where this conversation was headed. She got pregnant and now that she's dead, the boy in question — the one presumed to be his — had to go somewhere. "It happened recently then?"
"No. She died roughly fourteen years ago."
"No shit?" Tony did not see that coming. "Must have happened a few years after we met."
"So, you remember her?" Pepper asked, which somehow coming from his girlfriend made Tony feel worse about the whole thing.
He nodded. "Hard to forget when I got the call about my parents' death the morning after we…" he looked at Pepper in a silent apology, "... Uh, got together. But it wasn't just one night… I mean, it was only one night, but we had seen each other for a week or two before then. Another part that made her unique outside of the whole not knowing who I was thing."
Pepper gently grabbed the picture out of Tony's hand. "If she died, why are you here? Did Tony… do you think he had something to do with it?"
Tony cringed at Pepper's perfectly reasonable question. He'd purposely been tip-toeing the elephant in the room, the one about to be spotlighted.
"She had a son," the man stated, delivering the news like ripping off a bandaid. "She had your son."
Tony felt, more than saw, Pepper's head snap up to look at him. Needing to move, otherwise he might explode, he stood and paced to help work through his thoughts on it all.
"Allegedly," Tony snapped, whipping around and pointing at the man, who looked nothing like the other money-hungry women who loudly proclaimed him to be the father of their infants; all in the very public Stark Tower lobby. Those few years had been wild ones and had thankfully declined rapidly after Afghanistan, alongside his Playboy days, and all but stopped once he officially started dating Pepper. No, instead sitting there was a rather scary-looking vampire — dressed similar to Fury, Clint, or Natasha in all black with a shifty look on his face… so like a spy — trying to sell him a story of a woman who kept his child a secret for the last fifteen years.
"What's the deal, here?" Tony snapped his fingers as he said it. "Let's get to the point, Mystery Man. If she died that long ago why wasn't I notified then? What happened to… the kid… and why come out of the shadows now?"
"Harry," Severus offered. "His name is Harry, and he went to live with Lily's sister- and brother-in-law. Recently, they have become… unable… to care for him."
"They died too?" Pepper asked, and Tony hated the grief he heard in her tone. They absolutely could not get attached to an orphan story with no evidence to it.
"How convenient," Tony counted with. "He lost two sets of guardians before turning eighteen."
Severus gritted his teeth. "Some might say unfortunate, rather than convenient."
Tony stopped his pacing and leaned his side against the couch directly behind Pepper. "So why wasn't I notified when Lily died?"
"Lily heavily implied her future husband to be Harry's father. Your identity only recently came to light in a letter found in Lily's estate." Severus pulled another sheet of paper from his coat pocket — how did he fit it in there? — and stretched it out towards Tony.
"I'll take that," Pepper said automatically as Tony said "I don't like being handed things" and grabbed the paper to then offer it to Tony.
A birth certificate for one Harry Anthony Evans, born on July 31, 1998, in England to Lily Evans. No father was listed.
"This doesn't tell me a damn thing besides a boy was born to a woman I knew for a hot second. Anyone with a computer can doctor that up with their eyes closed, seal and all," he argued, allowing his frustration to build. He needed this charade to end, and to end now. "So where is this secret kid? Why didn't you bring him here for a simple DNA test? That'd clear this all up real fast."
Again, Severus drew another item from his coat pocket, but he didn't offer it to either him or Pepper. He dropped it on the table for Pepper to pick up, which she did, and none of them missed her sharp inhale at the sight of a boy looking a lot like Tony did as a teenager, but with Lily's beautiful green eyes, staring back at him. Tony closed his eyes and turned around; he'd seen enough for the night.
"I thought it best for us to meet before bringing him into the equation," Severus told them. He clasped his hands together on his knee and casually leaned back, having laid all of his cards on the table.
Pepper gave a slight nod, answering Tony's unasked request for her to handle the details of this. She was always good at handling the details of Tony's messes.
"Can you bring him here tomorrow at eleven?" She requested, handing the two photos and the birth certificate back to Severus, and seamlessly slipping into her business mode. She stood to show the end of the impromptu meeting. "We'll have someone on our staff–"
"Bruce," Tony demanded. He didn't care if Bruce claimed he wasn't 'that kind of doctor', Tony trusted no one else with this information. "It has to be Bruce."
"Bruce," Pepper corrected, "will run the necessary paternity test and we'll figure out where to go from there. I'm sure you can understand that we need more than a couple of pictures and a half-completed birth certificate."
"Understood."
Severus mirrored Pepper's stance; all professional as if two people's lives weren't about to potentially and drastically change by lunchtime tomorrow. Tony, on the other hand, wanted to either throw the man out the window or lock him up.
Thankfully, Pepper handled the salutations — she requested they "please enter through the front lobby and ask for Pepper Potts" and Severus told them to keep the photographs, confident that this child from Tony's former fling would be a permanent addition to their life. Tony's sole contribution to the end of it all was yelling that he'd find out how Mystery Man snuck onto their floor and all about the voodoo magic he'd done; a comment which thoroughly confused Pepper.
Later, when Tony and Pepper were finally in bed neither could sleep but for very different reasons than the wormholes and aliens usually keeping Tony awake. He wrapped his arms around her, softly kissed up her bare shoulder, and whispered into her neck, "I'm sorry, Pep. I don't know what to think right now. There's the invisible thing, the frozen thing, how he got the guest codes, and then the…"
He trailed off. If he didn't say it, it might not be true.
"We'll figure it all out in the morning, Tony," she tried, unsuccessfully, to reassure him. "Nothing you do or don't do tonight will change the results tomorrow. You need to sleep."
"I know that. But God, Pep… a kid? I can't have a kid." He pushed himself up and rested against the plush silver headboard. "And I probably don't! A middle name and looking vaguely like me doesn't mean he's mine. So this… vampire… is going to drag a teenage kid through this mess for what?"
"I know you're scared, Tony," she stated, confident like only she could, "but try to remember… this boy… Harry… he didn't ask to be born, and he didn't get to choose his parents. And if what this man says is true, it sounds like he's had a pretty rough ordeal lately."
She was right. Pepper was always right and listening to her would make Tony a better person. But he couldn't let go of the feeling that something didn't add up. Where were the lawyers? Why the clandestine meeting?
"What if he's a Trojan horse?" Tony spat out, already hating himself for suggesting it, but in for a penny in for a pound. "For all we know he's part of some organization to get inside."
Pepper patted his pillow, convincing Tony to lie down. "I've already arranged extra security for tomorrow and they'll be limited to the reinforced room in the biological laboratory on floor sixty-two. Bruce is going to move all the equipment there in the morning. I've also canceled everything after ten, so no one will be in the building who shouldn't be."
Tony nodded, exhaling a half-relieved sigh. She really had taken care of everything. Everything besides…
"I want the lawyers on standby," he added, refusing to look away from the spot on the ceiling he was currently fixated on. "On the off chance that… that Count Dracula is right, and a middle name and a familiar-looking face ends up meaning something, then I want the kid in my custody by the end of the day."
He could feel Pepper's smile. "Absolutely. They've confirmed their calendars have already been cleared too."
Tony rolled over, pulling Pepper close to him. With her having all this part of the mess under control, and the kid and his bodyguard not arriving until eleven, Tony had all morning to reexamine the footage of the mysterious man's arrival. He had to get ahead of the powers — or tech — the man used and, if nothing else, it served as a worthwhile distraction from his personal life.
"I don't deserve you, you know," he whispered into Pepper's ear.
Her body relaxed and, with a grin, she said over her shoulder, "No, you really don't."