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"Sir? Arrival at your destination in 30 minutes."

JARVIS' voice woke him from a restless sleep and Tony flopped over on his back with a groan. He hated sleeping alone, having gotten used to Sirius' soft snores and Harry warm weigh against his chest. Throwing back the light blanket, Tony sat up, sighing, and rubbed his face with his hand. The sooner he got this damn field test done, the faster he would be able to get back to his family. He trudged into the bathroom and took a quick shower; thankful he'd decided to fly over to avoid the Portkey nausea.

The opening of the London Emrys House had been the day before, Harry bouncing with excitement as they had welcomed the first children into the new orphanage. Set up more like a boarding school, with four children to a room, each with their own designated space, it was homey and warm. There were playrooms for different age groups, classrooms, study areas, a library, as well as a large yard. The staff had been vetted thoroughly and were assisted by several of the Potter house-elves. Harry had been over the moon by the children's excitement as the examined their new, safe living space.

Tony walked down the airstairs twenty minutes later into the brisk winter sun in Geniva. He had his open black robe over a signature pin-striped black suit and the red tie Harry had picked out for him. Casting a quick personal shielding charm, Tony checked that his rings were in place, as was his portkey necklace. A group of ICW Aurors stood to one side and Graves, who had Portkeyed in, scanned the small gathering as he waited for Tony to descend the stairs. A gentle tug on his trousers let him know Max was with him. An older wizard in formal robes stepped forward to greet him.

After two hours, Tony felt like he'd been through the wringer from multiple Apparitions to put more distance between the mirrors. The last jump had put him in Romania, a thousand miles from Geniva and the mirror, delighted that the new runic array had worked perfectly. They had one more test sight to go and, Tony had decided, while this had been a complete success, he just wanted to get back to his son and partner.

One of the Aurors, one who had not been introduced, stepped up to Tony, extending a pink flipflop, of all things. Tony resisted rolling his eyes and laid his hand on one edge, as Robert Graves made a move to do the same, however, the Portkey was activated before he could. After a noticeably longer elapse of time, Tony was dropped into a landscape that looked barren – miles of sand, dirt, and scrub brush, with equally unwelcoming mountains behind him. He could feel the ambient magic around him, dark and oppressive, his wand was instantly in his hand but before he could cast anything, there were two thuds in front of him.

"Max!" Tony yelped, looking at the two Stark fragmentation grenades at his feet as he scrambled away. "Paradise!"

Harry went cold when there was no response from the house-elf. The activation word activated the Portkey; however, the magic was shutdown just as the grenades exploded, tearing through his shield charm and the protections of the runes etched into his rings. The blast hurdled him into a pile of rocks and everything went black.

The swirling blackness which followed was full of excruciating pain and vivid nightmares. Tony felt like his heart was being torn from his body, only to have something shoved into his chest, making it difficult to breathe. His son's face swam in front of him, pleading for him to come home, even as Sirius begged him to be strong and hold on. There was a pressure weighing him down, all the while, making him feel like he was moving through a cloud of the syrup Harry loved so much.

The first time he woke up enough to be aware, Tony thought he'd died and gone to hell as darkness surrounded him. The air was heavy with smoke and ash, his chest burning with every breath he took. Something was lodged in his throat, running down from his nose, and Tony immediately reached up to pull it out. The removal was painful and it dawned on Tony that it was a feeding tube, making him wonder just how long he'd been in this hellish place. He tried to sit up, but a wire tethered him to something—

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Mr. Stark."

Snapping his head up, Tony saw a thin man standing in front of a small mirror, shaving, his voice carefully modulated in a flat tone. He brushed his hand over bandages on his chest, finding the wire and rolled carefully to his side to try and follow it. Tracing it back to a car battery, Tony realized that the heaviness he felt in his chest was something mechanical, as he could feel the hum of machinery. With a grip on the wires, Tony sat up, trying to breathe through the pain that jolted through him.

A door behind him burst open with a clang and the man at the mirror quickly pulled him to his feet next to the camp bed he'd been lying on. "Stand up! Keep quiet!"

"Tony, Tony, Tony," came the oily, condescending voice of Obadiah Stane. "This could have all been avoided if you'd stayed the drunken genius of your MIT days! Feeding you the best scotch and drugs only made you more pliant and creative, but then you had to rediscover magic and a son, becoming responsible."

Even in a cave wherever the hell they were, his one-time pseudo-father figure was dressed in a three-piece, thousand-dollar suit as he shook his head, a fake look of distress on his face. Tony ruthlessly squashed the rage trying to bubble up as he recognized the magic dampening spells, wanting nothing more than to hex him, or punch him in the face.

"Really, my boy, I thought I had at least another ten or fifteen years before I would need to eliminate you. However, I can't pass up the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, literally!" Stane laughed, apparently quite amused with himself. "You will build me the scorched-earth bomb I saw the blueprint for on your workbench and then, we will use you to lure that son of yours out of hiding, so these Death Eaters can sacrifice him to bring back their Dark Lord."

Every muscle in his body tensed up, but Tony was careful to keep his face a neutral mask. "And if I say no?"

The look on Stane face turned vicious. "I'll just kill you, use your body to lure the kid out, and after I take Harry, allow the more unsavory of the Death Eaters to satisfy their deviant proclivities before he is killed. All the while telling him how his father couldn't save him."

His teeth clenched so hard; Tony was afraid he'd crack a tooth. "Fine, I'll build your fucking bomb!"

Stane had the audacity to wink at him. "I figured you would." He signaled the robed and masked Death Eaters. "But I did promise them a bit of torture."

The men dragged Tony away, and it was all he could do to hang on to the car battery he was tethered to. Luckily for him, the wizards were also affected by the magical suppression and were forced to do their torture physically, which they were not very good at. Unfortunately, they had taken to the water boarding someone has taught them, much to Tony's detriment.

Ho Yinsen, the man held captive with Tony explained he'd been taken by a local terrorist group. A group who had somehow illegally purchased many of Stark Industries missiles, bombs, guns, and other explosive devices, all before entering into a partnership with the Death Eaters. Stane was the supplier of the weapons and had demanded the locals find a surgeon who could save Tony. The Shielding Charm Tony had cast on himself had been weakened by the natural magic dampening of the area and had only offered minimal protection from the fragmentation grenades. The fine shrapnel in his blood would shred his internal organs if not held at bay by the electromagnet in his chest.

Thankful that he'd spent time studying his father's creation, the first thing Tony did was to create a miniature arc reactor to replace the battery. Then, he grimly got to work on his plan of escape. The doctor helped with what he could and took it upon himself to keep them fed with the scraps their captors gave them. Thoughts of Harry, Sirius, and his other friends occupied his mind as his hand shaped the metal he was hammering out. While he knew they were well protected, it had been a traitor within the ICW Auror ranks who had sold him out and he worried the man would be able to infiltrate their security.

It was during one of the discussions with Yinsen, who also turned out to be a research scientist, when the man quietly suggested Tony had received some of the Super Soldier Serum Howard had been involved in developing.

"You are either uncommonly gifted, Stark, or received a gift of enhancement, as no normal person could have survived the surgery you endured, under the circumstances. Many would not have survived if they'd been in a fully equipped operating room."

Sleep didn't come that night as Tony stared up at the ceiling and wondered when he became an experiment to the man who had sired him. Was it when he was at MIT, taking any substance he was given, and drinking himself to unconsciousness every other night? Surely, he'd waited until Tony had reached puberty at least.

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Tony had no idea how long he'd been imprisoned, weeks at least and possibly months. He'd crafted a metal suit of armor, powered with propulsion units of the many weapons the idiot Death Eaters had given him to build Stane's missile. There was an empty shell of the prototype missile which stood near the fire, blocking the armor, and made up of several pieces of shaped iron that Yinsen would use as a bulletproof vest when they made their escape.

Stane, who had never understood the design or fabricating part of Stark Industries, stormed into the cave one afternoon and demanded the missile be ready the next morning or he would kill Yinsen. Vowing he would permanently remove the smirk from the man's face if it was the last thing he did, Tony had agreed.

It was after Stane and the guards had left, Yinsen having moved toward the cooking fire, that Tony heard the sound of someone else moving around the room. He stepped to the far edge of the range of the surveillance camera, just as a soft clearing of the throat had him turning around. Near where his iron armor lay disassembled on the floor, Bucky Barnes' head appeared from beneath James Potter's Invisibility cloak. His back to the camera, Tony stepped that way, wanting nothing more than to hug the former assassin.

"Holy fuck, Frosty! How'd you get—"

With a shushing motion, Barnes beckoned him closer, and into the hug Tony needed desperately. "Non-magically, primarily, and just so you know, Harry misses his Papa and we've had to physically restrain Black half a dozen times to keep him from coming to find you."

Tony let out a sigh of relief, taking a step back. "Put the cloak back on and we can talk while I put the finishing touches on my imissile/i."

Going over to the forge, Tony grabbed a piece of metal with a gloved hand and began to hammer it flat. "What's happening?"

Barnes' voice was barely a whisper and Tony angled his body to protect the man from the sparks his hammering was throwing around.

"One of the ICW Aurors had been bribed to Portkey you to a foothills location in Afghanistan, near Tajikistan, and drop you into an area with ambient magical damping minerals. Max was thrown clear of the area by the wards, including anti-Apparation and anti-Portkey. He was the one was able to give us the general area to start our search. Rhodes and Lord Black were able to involve the US military and Aurors, who have been searching since."

Tony swallowed passed the lump in his throat. He'd thought his little protector dead. "How did you find me?"

"Followed the magic," Barnes growled. "Death Eaters are idiots, think their repeated Apparitions into an area no magicals would willingly go, wouldn't draw attention! Max and I followed them to their Apparition point, where there is a well-marked footpath to the caves. Stane joined them shortly afterwards." Barnes went silent for several moments. "I instantly remembered him, or the soldier did – he's been HYDRA for a long time."

His chest squeezed. "My parents?"

"Yes," Barnes whispered, apologetically.

Swallowing tightly, Tony paused in his hammering and took a deep breath. "Tell me how Harry is doing."

Bucky whispered to him while Tony continued to pound the end of a tube of metal until it was perfectly round, one end flattened to be inserted into a ring of solder Tony had already prepared. A cone shaped tip sat on the floor, in a prominent position for the camera and their unseen watchers. Yinsen turned from the fire, giving Tony a considering look before ignoring him to continue stirring whatever stew would serve as their meal for the day. Tony wasn't sure whether the doctor believed he'd finally gone crazy or was studiously ignoring the invisible man in the room. Either way, Tony didn't care, nor did he bother to wipe away the tears streaming down his face as he listened to what his son and partner had been doing the passed three months.

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Working through the night, everything was as ready as they could make it by dawn. The improvised explosive device, with its directional charge aimed toward blowing the door outward, was in place. Yinsen was tightening up the hulking iron armor and Bucky had positioned himself midway between them and the door. As the terrorists attempt to gain entry into the cave, the explosion blew them and the door into the hallway. Yinsen deviated from the plan and Tony was beyond sad when he realized there was never any other way for his friend.

"Don't waste your life, Stark."

Stane's maniacal laugh filled the passageway, a ground-to-air missile launcher balanced on his shoulder, aimed at Tony's chest. He opened him mouth, however, before he could spout more of his vile rhetoric, a bullet hole appeared between his eyes and threw him across the open area. As they burst out of the cave, Barnes grabbed onto the handholds Tony had made for Yinsen and held on as Tony blasted over the desert. As they soared over the dunes and began their descent, Tony yelled at Barnes to jump before he thudded into the sand.

"Didn't really think through the landing, did ya, iron man?" Barnes asked smugly, tucking away the cloak into a pocket before he helped Tony stand up.

Sagging against the man, Tony tried to catch his breath, the reactor pressing against his lungs making it difficult. Barnes steadied him, a bottle of water appearing out of nowhere and Tony drank over half of it greedily, before handing the rest of the bottle back for Bucky to drink. A large Stark communications mirror was thrust into his hands and Tony might have shed a tear or five when Sirius and Harry's blurry faces appeared. The conversation cut in and out, and Tony was sure he wasn't really coherent, but Barnes' voice was steady as he gave them their current location and direction. Tony, feeling utterly exhausted, physically and emotionally, contented himself with waving to Harry.

"Come on, Tony, we need to keep moving," Barnes slid a supporting arm around his waist. "Rhodes is on his way with a helicopter, as we're still within the no-magic zone of this area."

Tony lost track of time, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, until Barnes stopped him. Then Rhodey was there and the rest pretty much a blur. His last coherent thought was how relieved he was that Stane was finally dead.

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Tony woke up with a start, his eyes darting around the dimly lit room. He was disoriented and it took him a long moment before his brain kicked into gear. They'd made it to the helicopter, where he'd collapsed into his platypus' arms. Jodi Proudfoot had been there, along with Max, who latched onto Tony's leg. Most of the flight had faded into a blurry, before Tony had just gave into the darkness pulling at him.

A movement at the side of the bed drew his attention and Tony turned his head to see Sirius dozing in chair next to the bed. He tried to shift, to reach out a hand, but a warm weight press into his side kept him from moving. Turning his head, Tony could make out Harry curled up along his side. Tony smiled for the first time in weeks, reaching down to run his fingers through his son's hair. When he tried to sit up, Tony discovered his right arm immobilized in a sling across his chest and pain reverberating through his body at the slight movement.

Harry stirred and lifted his head, his eyes popping open. "Papa!" His cry loud in the quiet room as Harry lunged forward.

Sirius startled awake, grabbing the little boy before he could crawl onto Tony's chest. "Careful, baby, remember Papa is hurt."

Tony lifted his left arm in invitation, and Sirius allowed Harry to scoot up, tucking himself against his father's side. Wrapping his arm around Harry, Tony leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, before looking back up at Sirius.

"Hi," he croaked.

Settling a hip on the bed beside him, Sirius bent down and gave Tony a lingering kiss, before resting his forehead against Tony. "Damn, love, don't ever do that again."

Tony gave a shaky laugh. "Believe me, dog man, I'll do my best not to."

"Papa, I missed'ed you," Harry's voice was muffled as he turned his face into Tony's shirt, but it was clear that he was crying.

"Oh, Tesoro, I missed you so damn much!" Tony felt hot prickles in his eyes, tightening his arm around his son. "Thank you for sending Bucky Bear to rescue me."

"Although, according to Barnes, you didn't need all that much help," Sirius muttered, just as the man in question peered around the doorframe.

Barnes gave Tony a nod and a slight smile. "I'll let the healer know he's awake."

Despite his chest aching and his throat parched, Tony returned the smile and savored the feeling of being alive, his family around him.

It turned out, he had been taken to the New York penthouse. Max having popped him there from the helicopter as soon as they had left the magical null zone at the foot of the Afghani mountain range. The healers weren't able to do much for Tony's chest wound with the arc reactor embedded in it and the shrapnel in his blood. He was warned the palladium he'd used as a core would degrade over time and begin to leach into his blood, if they couldn't find a way to contain it or replace it. In the meantime. Tony was put on a regiment of foul-tasting potions: blood clarifiers, bone strengtheners, and nutritional supplements.

Barnes had suffered two bullet wounds, but it irked Tony that he had healed in hours, while the healers forced him for to stay in bed for three days. Howard must have had inferior Super Soldier Serum! Sirius argued that Tony had been tortured and starved for three months, holding him tight when Harry's haunted green eyes had shutdown Tony's argument. Everyone conspired to make him take it easy for another two weeks. Pepper and Sirius reminding him that Harry and SI needed his attention the most, while Sirius and the others would concentrate on keeping everything else going. Remus even brought the children on a "field trip" to the living room to say hello, knowing it would cheer Tony up.

It turned out the distance tests they had done, prior to Tony being taken, had been successful; both MACUSA and the ICW had already ordered substantial numbers of the enhanced mirrors. For now, Tony and Sirius had decided to make the mirrors only for exclusive government contracts, as it seemed a better application. The magic resistant cellular phones were still flying off the shelves and Tony added division to begin building the infrastructure needed to stabilize the network for the phones, regular and magical, more accessible. Tony's brain had not shut down, although dulled by the conditions, had actually kept him sane by developing strategies on improving several of their divisions, including medical, prosthetic, inteli-crops, and protective gear.

Harry was doing well in his classes and, aside from a couple of incidents while Tony was missing, continued to heal and grow strong. His emotional recovery was still a work in progress, but it helped when Tony agreed to speak to a mind healer about his on trauma and nightmares. Sirius and Barnes were already undergoing treatment, so there was no stigma attached to it anymore for Tony. Arcturus Black was a frequent visitor, having taken a liking to the New York area. He had even been persuaded to teach the children lessons on Magical History and Understanding of Family Magics.

While Tony was still trying to find another element to use as a core for the arc reactor, he had also began drawing up the schematics for a sleeker, lighter suit of flying armor. He knew he wanted a titanium alloy, as it was one f the most durable and flexible metals to work with, possibly Adamantium, Vibranium, or even gold. Arcturus and Sirius were working with a healer and an American Potions Master to develop a potion to either coat the palladium in or to internally mitigate the damage heavy metal poisoning might cause. Tony swore each rendition of the potion tasted worse than the one before it!

In the aftermath of his rescue of Tony from the cave, James Barnes had broken out of his shell, finally accepting Tony forgiveness of his parents' death. The healers and the regenerative potions had helped his mental health to the point, he had sought Tony out to talk about his experiences in Afghanistan, and after Tony's initial panic attack, he'd actually felt better talking to Barnes. Tony knew there was no one else in the unique position Barnes was, to understand what Tony had gone through. Barnes had even been able to talk Tony into doing physical exertion tests to try and determine whether or not he'd been given the Super Soldier serum by Howard.

Tony had.

He was able to surpass the strength and endurance limits of a baseline human. His enhancements didn't match the records that Steve Rogers had been able to set, nor the slightly lower enhancements Barnes had gotten from Zola at Azzano, apparently it was Howard's Vita-Ray machine that had made the difference. The Soviets and subsequently, HYDRA had attempted to replicate the serum over the years, most of the human trials had failed or had they had to be euthanized, with the exception the five HYDRA soldiers who were given Howard's last batch of serum. Barnes had already relayed that information to Director Carter.

When the tests indicated Tony had the serum, it shouldn't have been a surprise, but Tony had taken the confirmation that his own father had used him as a guinea pig badly. Sirius had called in Rhodey when Tony locked himself into his lab – sending Harry in to sit with his Papa until his best friend arrived. Tony rolled his eyes at the manipulation, but accepted when Harry crawled into his lap and began reading his Papa his favorite story. Tony, his mind whirling with memories of his own childhood, shut down his thoughts and got lost in his child's voice. Rhodey had joined them, wrestling father and son on to the couch in the lab, and cuddled them both until Tony was ready to talk.

James Rhodes had never been a fan of Howard Stark. Two weeks as Tony's roommate at MIT had given him an insight into Howard's parenting style, and it didn't take his genius level IQ to figure out Tony's coping mechanisms. Instead of preaching, James had attended parties with Tony, reminding all present that he was "jailbait", and ran interference when Tony managed to get in sticky situations. His big brother attitude rapidly became fact, and Tony was unofficially adopted into the Rhodes family. While he became known as Tony's best friend and protector, James had also graduated with degrees in physics and aerospace engineering.

After Tony finally opened up and began talking, his anxiety lessening as he was able to talk it out. They spent the rest of the day in the lab, sciencing as Harry called it, Sirius checking on them every so often. Harry wandered out to get them snacks in the middle of the afternoon, only to come back leading Barnes by the hand, a sheepish look on the man's face.

"Papa, please fix Uncle Bucky's arm, 'cause it's hurting him."

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Tony knew, for several reasons of his own, Barnes hadn't been one of Howard supporters during the war. However, he also knew Barnes had been a science fiction fan in his teens, and the look on Barnes' face the first time he'd actually stepped into the workshop and Dum-E had immediately deemed him someone worthy of playing catch with. As Tony looked up at his son's statement, he remembered when they had gone to the gym to test Tony's strength, how he could hear the servos in Barnes' prosthetic arm laboring. His mind had immediately begun to develop a design for a new arm.

Waving Barnes over to his workbench, Tony reached for his microtools. "Come on over, Frosty, and let's get a look."

Harry followed him, still holding Barnes other hand as the man sat backwards on the stool, laying his silver arm along the backrest. Tony rolled his stool over, Rhodey standing to watch over his shoulder, as he ran his fingers over the arm, from wrist to shoulder.

"JARVIS, scan the arm, with particular attention to the shoulder joint."

"Yes, Sir."

Tony moved his hand back down to the area of the elbow, searching for indications of entry points. "Can you extend your fingers for me, Buckaroo?"

Barnes moved his fingers, the sound of the gearing audible as they flexed and Tony could feel the section of metal heat up. Running his fingers over the plates, Tony found the edge of one and slid his fingers under it, to open what he assumed was a maintenance panel.

"I have the scans ready, Sir." JARVIS announced.

"Throw them up, J."

Rhodey leaned closer, his eyes running along the wiring schematic displayed on the screen, seeing where they connected to the servos. "Tony, there is another panel on the inside of the forearm that will give you better access."

Tony looked up, seeing where Rhodey's finger was pointing at. "Got it. Find where the hydraulic pump is for me, please, Honey Bear?" He turned his attention to Barnes. "Does this area always get hot when you use it, Frostbite? Tells me you may need some fluid—"

Tony's fingers brushed a coupler and something sparked. Barnes jumped and Tony shook out his fingers, rubbing the tips on his shirt. "There is just enough electricity in this to not like my magic," he grimaced. "The new one I'm making for you will have a little arc reactor in it as a power source, keep it from shocking you or me."

"New arm?" Barnes questioned; his eyes wide.

"This thing shocks you?" Rhodey looked horrified. "Damn HYDRA torture device!"

Harry frowned and Tony smothered a grin at the look on his son's face. He reached over and ruffled Harry's tousled hair, loving how protective the little boy was about those he considered family.

"It'll be fine, bambino. We'll get Uncle Bucky all fixed up."

Harry wide smile was reward enough for Tony.

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