They hadn't actually gotten out of the house before five in the morning, Harry shooting his aunt a text message, "Going with Tony to get donuts and talk? Back later." The cab driver they'd called to avoid figuring out where Happy was (or how angry he was) was very surprised to have Iron Man in his armor plus a kid in the back of the car. Harry had tried to convince Tony to remove the armor, but he had plans. With the tip Tony was giving the driver, they made the forty-minute drive in half an hour.

Fortunately, Randy's was open 24 hours, and they put on a fresh batch of donuts before sunrise.

"Bucket list," Tony said over the box of donuts. "I'm going to eat a donut, in the giant donut." He gestured up to the iconic oversized donut atop the store.

"I guess a normal person's bucket list is your Saturday," Harry shrugged.

"Wanna come?" Tony checked.

"I'm not sure there's space for you in that donut," Harry shook his head. "I'll wait in the dining room."

"Alright, then you take this half," Tony ordered, awkwardly handing Harry half a dozen donuts on a napkin while he kept the box with the rest. "And I'll be back in a bit."

Harry smirked, and headed back into the store while Tony figured out how to fly up to greet the sun in a bus-sized donut with his hands occupied.

The Boy-Who-Survived-Power-Armor-Fights was only three donuts in and thinking about whether he had room for a fourth when he noticed the black SUVs pull up in the parking lot, dark-suited soldier-types trying to surreptitiously surround the restaurant. While it probably wasn't terrorists in the middle of Inglewood, better safe than sorry. Harry grudgingly put the rest of the donuts into the trash as he headed into the bathroom. Confirming it was empty, he let his cloak unfurl from its stealth-scarf configuration and drape over him. Invisibility was a lot more useful when you weren't surrounded by cameras.

He'd been just in time, as he heard a man's voice ordering the kitchen staff out of the building, and then presumably the same guy, who he didn't recognize and looked like any kind of government agent, pushed open the bathroom door and did a cursory check to confirm the room was empty. Harry went ahead and scooted invisibly out right behind him as the door swung closed. Through the wide wall of windows (when had Randy's expanded to have a dining room at this location anyway?), he spotted a bald black man with an eyepatch and a black leather coat yelling something at Tony in the donut. The other agents had cleared off, so this guy was either the leader or the bait. Seemingly unconcerned, Tony soon descended on his boot jets, and the two men walked back into the dining room.

The new arrival had handed Tony a cup of coffee and had one of his own, so Harry was pretty sure it was a social visit.

He was a little pleased to notice that Tony lowered his sunglasses enough to glance around the dining room, and looked surprised that Harry wasn't present. His relaxed posture tightened a bit, but he didn't seem to want to let on that there was a potential hostage. As far as Tony was concerned, Harry was either hiding or captured, and he'd hopefully find out about the latter pretty quickly. The two men slid into a booth in the middle of the room, Tony plunking his helmet on the table between them.

After taking a long sip of coffee and collecting himself, Tony snarked, "I told you I don't wanna join your super-secret boy band."

The secret agent chuckled, "Nah, nah, nah. See, I remember: you do everything yourself. How's that working out for you?"

Still clearly trying to surreptitiously glance around to see if Harry was hiding under another booth while toying with his coffee cup, Tony played it off as, "I'm sorry. I don't wanna get off on the wrong foot. Do I look at the patch or the eye? Honestly I'm a bit hungover. I'm not sure if you're real or if I'm having…"

The man leaned across the table to stare Tony in the face from a few inches away, insisting, "I am very real. I'm the realest person you're ever gonna meet." He was smiling as if he was actually having a good time with the banter.

"Just my luck," Tony rolled his eyes, checking around the room more obviously as he realized, "Where's the staff here?"

In doing so, he had revealed his neck, where the toxic palladium markings had progressed up above the edge of the armor. The man with the eyepatch reached over to tug down the collar, observing, "That's not looking so good."

Tony's assertion that, "I've been worse," was mostly lost to Harry, as he noticed the new agent that was walking in from the back of the building. It was Natalie, but in some kind of all-black uniform/catsuit with official-looking patches and a sidearm. She strode across the room with purpose, and Harry almost forgot to slide out of the way as she approached their table. His dreams were going to be even more confusing for the next little while.

Natalie stood to attention next to the table and informed Tony's guest, "We've secured the perimeter, but I don't think we should hold it for too much longer."

Tony—just as surprised as Harry—had lowered his sunglasses and said, "Huh." He gave it another beat while her apparently-real-boss laughed, then added, "You're fired."

"That's not up to you," Natalie said, sliding into the booth next to the other agent.

"Tony," he said, wrapping his arms around Natalie possessively, "I want you to meet Agent Romanoff." Harry suddenly wondered if he'd been wrong about him being her boss, since that was even handsier than Tony usually was with Pepper.

Harry got the impression that this wasn't going to turn into a fight, but Tony might freak out soon if he thought they'd kidnapped him, so he slipped back to the restroom, allowed the cloak to reveal him and return to its hidden mode, and walked out like he'd just been in there the entire time.

He was approaching from behind Tony, and he saw the look of surprise on Natalie's face and on the lead agent's, as she trailed off, "...redundancies to prevent unauthorized usage."

Tony awkwardly craned around and had a look of relief as he spotted Harry. "I told you coffee would go right through you," he covered. "Have a seat. This is Nick. And you already know Natalie. Though I guess that's not your real first name either."

"Natasha," she admitted, and both clearly-spies looked extremely put out as Tony budged over and Harry slid in next to him.

"And don't call me Nick. Not even my mama calls me Nick," he insisted, then turned incredulously to Natasha. "They didn't check the bathroom?"

"They assured me they had," she corrected, eyes narrowing at Harry, who just shrugged. He could feel Tony's glee at getting one over on secret agents.

Tony repeated his introduction with the right name, "Maverick, this is Fury, he runs a super secret government division that, while sometimes helpful, didn't get the memo that it's hard to be spies when you dress like a biker gang."

"Maybe they're spying on a biker gang?" Harry helped.

Tony pretended to consider it, nodding, "Lot of drug running in this part of the country. It would explain a lot." He pointed at Natalie… or Natasha, Harry supposed. "And rather than just ask me if there was a problem they could solve, they sent Agent Romanoff here to join the company, pretend to be a paralegal, work her way through the ranks, and get into position to become my assistant. Is that all right?"

"Basically," Fury gritted out.

"My tax dollars at work. So now we're at the point we could have been at weeks ago. What do you want from me?"

Scrambling to take back control of the conversation, Fury sighed and admitted, "I had a whole speech, but… just stick him."

Faster than Harry was even prepared for, Natasha leaned across the table and nailed Tony in the throat with some kind of automatic hypodermic needle, which hissed as it injected something.

"Freaking, spies," Tony grunted, whatever he'd had shot into his system making his jaw clench.

Harry had jumped out of the booth and was ready to at least dodge if they came after him, but not sure whether he could fight off two spies without revealing his powers if they were here to kill Tony or knock him out and cart him off. "What'd you do to him!?" Harry insisted.

"Give it a second," Fury ordered, and was watching Tony's neck. Harry glanced over, making sure to pay attention to the spies with his peripheral vision in case this was a bluff. The geometric black lines on Tony's throat began to recede back down under his collar. "What did we just do for him? That's lithium dioxide. It's gonna take the edge off." He gave Tony a serious look with his one eye and explained, "We're trying to get you back to work."

Tony, who was trying to hide that he suddenly felt much better, argued, "Then give me a couple of boxes of that. I'll be right as rain." He glanced back at Harry and said, "See. They could have given me the cure weeks ago, but it's all theater with these guys."

Natasha corrected, "It's not a cure, it just abates the symptoms."

"Doesn't look like it's gonna be an easy fix," Fury added.

Tony shrugged, "Trust me, I know. The kid knows. I've been looking for a suitable replacement for palladium. Scandium through Lawrencium. Kid even has me trying to synthesize neutronium. We've tried every combination, every permutation of every known element."

Fury gave a dismissive head tilt and said, "Well, I'm here to tell you, you haven't tried them all." He turned back to Natasha and ordered, "Let's continue this over at his mansion. Get someone to drive the kid home."

"He's my lab assistant. I need him," Tony argued.

"He has to leave for the Stark Expo with Ms. Potts in ten hours," Natasha corrected, obviously having access to everyone's travel itineraries in her role as personal assistant.

"Oh, crap, is that today?" Harry groaned, having completely lost track of what days were relative to any others. And he was meeting Dean out there.

"We'll get Coulson. You trust Coulson with the kid?" Fury checked.

"Pepper probably does," Tony grudgingly agreed. "But we'll go introduce him. And I'll fly home. I don't think housekeeping's been by yet, by the way, we weren't expecting guests. This better be worth my time."

As Tony walked Harry out, trying to salvage his own control over the situation, Fury and Natasha left the other way and got into their spy-mobile. Once inside, bug detectors checked, and in motion toward Malibu, he asked, "Interesting, the way the kid knew he should bolt but was thinking about fighting if he had to. What have you learned about him?"

She took a second to consider then listed off, "Brave to the point of recklessness. His aunt is angrier at Stark for putting himself in danger than she is Harry, and I don't think it's just because she's not an attentive guardian, so she trusts him to get out of danger. Keeping secrets, but bad at hiding his emotions. Drowning in puberty, and embarrassed about it. His school has no online footprint whatsoever, which might fit with an old Scottish boarding school, but I haven't been able to confirm it even exists except on paper. You should put an analyst on it if you want to know more, because they don't keep any details about it on the Stark systems I could get to. I don't think Stark knows it's anything but what the Pottses say it is."

"You think it's another agency?" he checked.

She shrugged, "My guess would be a British intelligence feeder school. Potts' brother, Harry's father, died mysteriously with the mother, which was how she got custody. The father could have been MI-6."

"Is she working for the Brits?"

Natasha shook her head, "Her loyalty is completely to Stark and his company, maybe not in that order if she's angry at him that day. She knows what Harry is learning, but neither of them are committed to whatever organization it is. It may just be a really good education. I don't see him ever making it as a spy. Too easy to read."

"I'll ask some colleagues," Fury agreed. "Continue to treat them as blue team for now. Nothing about Stark's profile says he can stand kids, but he seems to like this one. It's either a weakness we need to worry about, or something to keep him on the rails. And it seems like we may desperately need everything we can get to keep him from going off the rails again."

Meanwhile, in an identical black SUV, Harry was meeting Agent Coulson.

Tony dropped him off at the car, insisting to the driver, "Make sure he gets home safe." He introduced Harry, "This is Agent." Harry could tell from the way he stressed the word that it was a nickname, not just Tony forgetting the man's actual name. "Don't tell Pepper anything. Or tell her everything? I don't know. She'll probably take it better from you." Tony sighed and stepped back, putting his helmet on in preparation for flying off. "See you when I see you."

"Phil Coulson," the agent introduced himself properly as they looped around onto the 405 towards Encino. Harry guessed he shouldn't be surprised that they knew where he lived without asking. The man driving was indeterminately middle-aged, pretty nondescript, with thinning brown hair. At least he wore a suit, unlike the biker gear his fellow agents seemed to favor. His voice was as inoffensive as the rest of him.

"Tony must like you. He gave you a nickname," Harry clarified.

"'Agent' is a nickname?" Coulson checked.

"He doesn't always try very hard for nicknames," Harry shrugged. "But you get a nickname and your boss doesn't, so that means something."

"You're fishing," he smirked. "But, yes, Fury is my boss."

"He seemed bossy," Harry agreed. "Aunt Pepper mentioned you. You helped them with Obie last year."

"That turned out better than it had any right to," he acknowledged, simply, carefully signaling to change lanes. Even just after sunrise on a Sunday, the road was already busy. And they had 20 miles to kill before he got home.

Making conversation, Harry asked, "So why'd you sneak… um, I guess her name's actually Natasha? Or is that just another codename? Anyway, why'd you sneak her into the company when you could have just asked? I thought you guys were friends with Tony and Aunt Pepper."

Coulson explained, "Last time we tried to just ask Mr. Stark for information, he put me off for six months and finally talked only because he needed our help with Mr. Stane. This seemed like it might be time-sensitive."

Harry blew some air out of his mouth in frustrated acknowledgement. "He only told me because I worked it out. He still hasn't told Aunt Pepper." He changed the subject and asked, "What's it like, being a spy?"

"Classified," Coulson replied, deadpan, but flicked his eyes over to Harry so he could tell he was joking. "I do less spying than most. I liaise. It means spending a lot of time trying to talk to people. And paperwork."

"You seem like you'd make a better spy than Natasha," Harry said. "You blend. She's hard to miss."

He nodded, but corrected, still deadpan, "And yet, I can't put on a little black dress and get let into any party on the planet."

"But have you tried?" Harry grinned. "You might do better than you'd think."

Without missing a beat, and only the ghost of a smile, he agreed, "I'll include it as a suggestion in my next mission briefing. We'll see if Fury goes for it."

They made the rest of the drive in mostly silence. Harry could see why his aunt liked the mild-mannered agent. He seemed nice, and didn't push. It gave Harry time to reconsider his interactions with "Natalie" and realize that she had been pushing. It was probably pretty dangerous for him to be friends with spies, if he was going to keep magic and Vanaheim secret. Hopefully, he hadn't given too much up. The scary thing was, Natasha seemed nice, too. Honestly, so did Fury; he could have been way harder on Tony. Harry would need to talk to Aunt Pepper and decide whether SHIELD actually were just the good guys, or they needed to assume they were always trying to manipulate them for information.

He liked to think that he could tell when people were trustworthy, but he knew his track record wasn't great.

Harry had texted he was on the way back, but he wasn't even sure his aunt would be awake. Yet when they pulled up to 5730 Encino Ave a little after six in the morning, she came out in her bathrobe to greet the black SUV. She smiled as she saw who was driving and said, "Phil! Thanks for bringing him back. Do you need coffee?"

"No thanks, Ms. Potts," Coulson shook his head. "I have to go over to Mr. Stark's after this." He glanced at Harry and figured that the kid would tell her most of what had happened, so went ahead and explained, "After last night we had an… intervention. Didn't expect Mr. Potts there."

"Did you at least get donuts?" Pepper checked, and Harry nodded. "Thank you for trying to help. Do you think you made any progress?"

Coulson gave a slight shrug and said, "We'll know soon. Our director is turning over some information that may help with his personal crisis." Before she could grill him for that information, he added, "Full disclosure, Ms. Rushman is one of ours. We inserted her to get close to Mr. Stark and assess his state of mind."

Suddenly a little upset, Pepper narrowed her eyes and checked, "You 'inserted' a leggy redhead into Stark Industries because you knew Tony would talk to her?"

"That's all they've done, if you're curious," Coulson said. "Her initial assessment indicates that Mr. Stark was less… forward than most men she's shadowed." Seeing that she was slightly mollified he said, "We'd ask you to keep her cover intact for the next few days, until we're certain the crisis has passed. She's also a fully trained bodyguard, for your trip to New York tomorrow."

"Fine. But the next time you want to know something Phil Coulson, you just ask me," she insisted.

"That's what I told him," Harry agreed. "But he said he didn't want to wait six months again."

Pepper huffed out a, "Fair," and then said, "Well, it was lovely to see you again Phil. You're welcome to come by to catch up when it's not a crisis."

Coulson gave her a nod like that probably wasn't going to happen, but he was being polite about it. "Enjoy your trip," he said instead, getting back in the car and pulling out to begin the circuitous route from Encino to Malibu. At least it was a pretty drive through the mountains.

Harry yawned and Pepper said, "Take a nap but I'm waking you up in a few hours to head to the office. If you sleep all day you'll just be up all night at the hotel in New York. And on the way in, you're going to tell me everything."

"Yes ma'am," Harry yawned again. He gave her a hug and said, "I think it's going to be alright. Goodnight."

Pepper woke him up before lunchtime, had him pack for the overnight trip to the Stark Expo, and then drove with him to the Stark Industries office. They grabbed lunch on the way, and Harry wound up basically informing her of everything. To say she was annoyed was an understatement. "He was dying. May still be dying. And he didn't tell me. Wait, how long did you know?"

"Since right after Monaco," Harry admitted. "He said he was going to tell you, so I shouldn't. Guess he never did."

"Risk taking. Selling off his stuff. One last big party. Making me CEO. God, it makes so much sense now." Pepper had spent years on Midgard figuring out how to curse like a native, and just didn't let on that the god she was cursing at was usually Odin. "Well he can't have it back once he's feeling better."

"I probably could have helped him," Harry sighed. "I think the metal he's looking for is uru. Even if it's not, there's probably something the Masters could do. I guess he can't ever go to Vanaheim, or his heart would just stop."

"I know, Harry," she said, sadly. "It's a constant fight, keeping that knowledge separate. If he ever finds out…" Harry didn't have time to remind her that the Ancient One thought he might, pretty soon, because she suddenly said, "What do you mean, his heart would just stop?"

"Oh. He has an artificial heart in there that the arc reactor is running. His real one was too messed up. Don't you know he's got a hole in his chest that's like three inches wide and just as deep?"

"He told me it was just shrapnel!" she yelled, angrily turning off the 105 onto the Stark Industries exit. "He tells everyone it's just shrapnel! Oh god, I stuck my hand in there and I didn't even ask myself, 'Where's his heart?' It's so obvious. There's a giant hole in his body!"

"I thought it was just, like, sitting right on his chest until I saw him take it out," Harry shrugged, agreeing that it was weird she hadn't realized it if she'd had her hand in there. He wasn't going to ask what kind of weird flirting that was a part of.

"Okay," she grimaced, as they turned down the street and into the parking deck. "Don't tell him you told me. I want to see if he'll actually tell me himself. Maybe apologize for once."

Harry rolled his eyes, more than ever thinking that the two of them were made for each other. He just wasn't looking forward to being caught in the middle of their inevitable drama when they got together.

Set up for the afternoon in Pepper's old desk outside of what used to be Tony's office (and was now Pepper's), Harry was mostly watching aikido tutorials on the computer and texting Dean to make plans for Monday. He was a little surprised when Natasha showed up, having switched back to a black work dress like she hadn't been dressed to infiltrate a Bond villain's base a few hours earlier. "Um, Nat… uh…"

"Just Nat is fine," she smiled. Having the last week to compare it to, it seemed a little more genuine, since he was now in on the secret. But, then again, maybe that was just another layer of manipulation. She seemed to read that thought going across his face and said, "I'm sorry, Harry. It's the job. I don't know if you know anything about keeping secrets, but we don't always get to choose to be totally honest."

He guessed he could see that and shrugged, though he didn't feel like the kind of secrets he was keeping were anywhere near the same. "But, how would I ever know who you really are?"

She frowned, sadly, as if that was one of the greatest questions of her life. She just said, "I guess, watch what I do more than what I say? That's just a good tip for dealing with anyone."

Harry thought back to the last year, when he should have trusted his own perceptions about Neville at the very least and nodded. "Yeah, okay. But if you want to know something, you should just ask, in the future. At least me. I know Tony can't help himself."

"He is a character," she smiled again, and he kind of hated that he got his own silly grin every time she did. "Your aunt in?"

"Yeah, she's fighting with the lawyers," Harry agreed. "Rhodey gave the suit he took to the Air Force. There's patents and stuff. See, answers." He stuck out his tongue.

She chuckled and let herself into the office after saying, "Thanks."

Nat had come and gone by the time the next visitor showed up, Tony came strolling in carrying a giant container of strawberries. "Boss lady in?" Tony joked.

"Still fighting with the lawyers about patents for the suit," Harry answered. "You didn't bring her strawberries did you?"

"Pepper loves strawberries?" Tony insisted, his certainty eroding as he said it.

"They're the one thing on Earth she's allergic to," Harry corrected. There were several other things she was allergic to, but they were only native to Vanaheim. Fortunately, Harry didn't seem to have acquired any of the Potter family allergies.

"See, I knew there was a correlation," Tony instantly reconfigured his error into a success, but did at least leave the strawberries on the desk with Harry. "Does she know…"

Harry shook his head, "You two figure out how to talk to each other without me. I'm at school most of the year. You can't get used to using me as your go-between. I think she forgave Nat though."

"Nat, now, huh?" Tony said. "I guess that is easier. And she's certainly like a gnat, buzzing around."

Harry pointed imperiously at the office door and said, "Now you're stalling. Go. Talk."

Tony just grinned, "You are so like her sometimes. Alright, I'm going." He let himself into the office as well.

Bambi—the company's office manager, who was nothing like her name would suggest—stuck her bespectacled face and severe haircut out of her office and said, "Did you just let someone else in to see Ms. Potts? They're supposed to check in with me."

"Trade you this desk for your office and you can stop them?" Harry suggested. Pepper and Bambi had always been at odds over who controlled access to Tony, and he guessed now she was trying to stake her territory before Pepper got her own personal assistant. "It was just Tony."

"Protocols, Harry. Protocols," she insisted.

Before she closed her door, Harry saw Happy and Nat walking up the hall to collect them for the flight to the Expo and asked, "Do you want to have them sign in?"

She huffed and told the two adults, "Mr. Stark is in with Ms. Potts at the moment."

"Hopefully apologizing," Harry added.

"I'll put ten on not," Nat said.

"Are we betting friends now?" Happy raised an eyebrow. "Do we bet?"

"Not against Nat," Harry figured.

She smirked but said, "Well it's wheels up in twenty-five, so unless it's a really good apology…"

"Wouldn't be the first time something like that's happened in that office," Happy mumbled, obviously not wanting to burst in on the two just in case.

Harry's eyes widened once he realized what they were implying, and deliberately turned away from the door as Nat opened it. Fortunately, there was just the sound of an argument trailing off, which was a much more normal sound between Tony and Pepper. "Wheels up in twenty-five minutes," Nat repeated for Pepper.

"Thank you," she answered, in the way that meant Tony needed to get back to whatever he'd been doing and stop bothering her.

Happy asked, "Anything else, boss?"

Tony started to say, "I'm good, Hap," but Pepper talked over him with, "No, I'll be just… another minute."

Harry poked his head around the corner and watched Tony, who raised his hands and tried to smile like it was funny as he said, "I lost all three kids in the divorce." He laughed nervously and glanced at Happy, who shook his head, and at Harry, who just rolled his eyes and mouthed, "Apologize," before moving back over to the desk to let the adults work their problems out.

Since Pepper came storming out twenty seconds later with Happy pulling her luggage, he figured it hadn't gone so well. Pepper spotted the carton of strawberries on her old desk and stopped so abruptly that Happy almost ran over her, and she said, "I guess he brought strawberries and you talked him out of it?"

"I guess he didn't apologize?" Harry asked in response, grabbing his backpack and standing to follow as the convoy resumed. Behind them, Nat was exiting the office and catching up.

"Of course not," Pepper rolled her eyes. "At least he seems to be feeling better. Let's get to New York."


Credit to Diane Castle's Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived over on Twisting the Hellmouth for the idea for Natasha's mistaken impression that Hogwarts is an MI-6 feeder school.