"Wait a second, you were serious about the kid thing?!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. How else did you interpret my middle-of-the-night 'you have a fourteen-year-old nephew, and I need a favor' message?"

Seeing Rhodey, Tony's best friend in the world, sitting across from him on the sofa in his living room and staring at the holograph of Harry still fast asleep in the theater upstairs, calmed Tony's fraying nerves in a way no one else could. Pepper may have been the ray of optimism in the churning sea of uncertainty, but in all the years Tony and Rhodey had known each other, Tony had yet to encounter a situation in which talking to Rhodey couldn't fix. And right now the mystery surrounding Harry was the largest problem plaguing Tony's mind.

After Harry's odd tremor episode at the end of dinner, whatever had woken him up in the middle of the night — Tony was pretty sure it wasn't just jet lag, though the real reason remained a mystery — and the unusual computer incident in the workshop, Harry seemed completely drained when the elevator doors closed to take him to the theater. So it came as no surprise that Harry fell asleep less than thirty minutes into the movie. That had been Tony's plan when he suggested watching a movie. And since Tony did most of his best work with little to no sleep, much to the dismay of Pepper and JARVIS, he asked JARVIS to play soft music in the room as soon as the movie ended and went back to his workshop to investigate what could have fried his systems.

Unfortunately, his investigation ended before it began, as JARVIS informed him that there were no reports of the event at all. Skeptical at believing another anomaly had occurred, Tony asked JARVIS to provide him whatever data he had regarding the event so he could analyze it himself. Everything in the room seemed perfectly normal while Tony and Pepper were there chatting, and continued that way when Tony came back with Harry about an hour later. Things were steady until they started working on his suit, and then there was a surge of energy JARVIS couldn't quantify or trace back to any known source. The report ended just moments before his screens blew up, but leading up to it there were no signs of this unknown energy growing or shifting. Lost for any logical explanation, Tony turned his attention to validating the data JARVIS thankfully recovered, wrapped up the final touches on his suit, and closed everything down right as JARVIS notified him of Rhodey's arrival.

Finally!

Rhodey ran into Tony as he was leaving his lab, and by the time they got back to Tony's floor, Pepper had already left, although she had a pot of coffee ready for Tony and a note letting him know she'd return soon with breakfast. As they settled into their favorite spots on the couches, Tony brought up the live feed of Harry in the theater, completely unaware that Rhodey had assumed his urgent message had been some sort of practical joke. How could he have known his best friend in the world didn't believe his frantic middle-of-the-night message?

"Well, I don't know, Tony, it certainly wouldn't be the most outrageous lie you've told me to get my attention," Rhodey argued.

Tony couldn't really blame him. After all, he had once called Rhodey claiming a swarm of bees had taken residence in his lab when in reality he'd just needed an opinion on what to wear to the Maria Stark Foundation dinner. Thankfully, Rhodey had been on his way, anyway. Still, Rhodey had given him a stern lecture on not using his allergy in that way again and had since refused to let Tony live it down.

"You make a solid point," Tony conceded. Nodding towards the holographic image projected on the table of Harry still asleep in the theater, Tony asked, "So what do you think?"

"I mean, he does look a lot like you. Not that dark hair and sharp jawline are considered defining features," he replied, which felt more than a bit patronizing. Rhodey grabbed the tablet with the paternity results and took his time reading through each line. "I can't say I'm shocked. In those days you were pushing the limit on condom stats by sheer quantity, so a kid was bound to show up. I just kind of thought it'd be sooner and the kid to be a touch younger. Are you sure the mother doesn't want anything? She just dropped him off and peaced out?"

Tony grimaced involuntarily, more for Harry's sake than his own. The deeper he dug into Harry's past, the less Tony liked what he read. The kid's history was filled with death, abandonment, neglect and abuse, and inevitably there would come a day when Harry put two-and-two together and blamed Tony for it — for not being there to take him in after his parents' death. Not that Tony should have been responsible for a goldfish in those days, let alone a toddler, or knew anything about his existence at all, but teenagers weren't known for their top-notch critical thinking skills. Even as a genius, if Tony had lived what little he knew of Harry's life, he would have easily blamed his dad for it. Finally, he answered, "She died in a home gas explosion when he was only fifteen months old."

Swapping the tablet for his coffee mug, Rhodey asked, "So, where's he been all this time? Why now?"

Tony sighed as he reclined against the cushion behind him, trying to conceal how unsettled his nerves were from the entire situation. "Until yesterday he lived with his aunt and uncle in England who, for reasons I have yet to uncover, had their rights revoked last week."

Tony spent the next few minutes sharing with Rhodey his brief history in Cambridge, how he met Lily Evans right before his parents died, and catching him up on the events of the past two days, cutting the story off at dinner last night. As expected, Rhodey interrupted him to ask how the hell someone unauthorized had accessed his floor — a valid question Tony still had no definitive answer for — yet for the most part he listened intently, keeping himself busy by watching Harry's sleeping form hovering above the coffee table, taking several too long sips of coffee, and feigning interest in test results for the umpteenth time, as if searching for some hidden mistake deep within them.

"You have a kid, Tones," Rhodey stated, filling the silent stretch once Tony finished his story as he rotated the three-dimensional hologram of Harry around.

Tony groaned. Rodney really needed to get past that tiny detail so they could move on to the more serious issues at hand. "Yeah, I kind of got that part of it all, thanks."

"No, I'm not sure you do. If I know you, and we both know I do, then you've kept yourself busy and you haven't taken a second to process any of this."

Sometimes Tony hated having a best friend. To avoid confirming Rhodey's suspicion, Tony casually countered with, "You're not my shrink, Rhodey."

"This is serious, Tony!" He pushed Tony's phone with the projection and the tablet aside, effectively clearing the table of any distractions between them. The coffee remained untouched. Even upset, he knew Tony would skin him alive for touching his much needed caffeine. "If you're going to keep him–"

"Keep him? Like a lost puppy?"

"–it's not something you can half-ass your way through. You know you have to parent him, right? And not just for the next few weeks while this is all shiny, new, and fun. You are this kid's–"

"Harry. His name is Harry," Tony argued at the same time Rhodey finished with, "-parent for the rest of your life."

"Dammit!" Tony slammed his palm onto the table, taking pleasure in his friend's slight jump. It took a lot to startle James Rhodes and pushing Tony to his limit had done just that. "Thank you for mentioning it because I knew I was forgetting something. Do you happen to know the return policy on teenagers? Because you're right, I should just take him back… you know, seeing as he has so many better options to choose from."

Rhodey's expression remained serious through Tony's small tantrum. Obviously, Rhodey was panicking over this more than Tony, and he didn't even know half the shit Tony had — or hadn't — found.

"Yeah, parenting… I got that part too," Tony said, barely keeping his anger in check. "Thanks for the confidence in me not screwing the kid up, though, it's been a real treat to hear."

"Ok, then, what about school?" Rhodey challenged, his arms tightly bound around his chest, as if school, of all things, was the biggest worry at the moment. Peter's school was currently on summer break, so Tony figured he had at least a couple of weeks to work out the hidden school issue. But Rhodey didn't budge. "Have you thought about where to send him?"

"Done. A super-secret boarding school," Tony stated, curtly. If Rhodey wanted an honest answer, Tony would give it to him.

"Tony!"

Lifting his hands up, Tony laughed. "I'm actually serious on that one! And, trust me, the kid's got bigger problems than where to go to school. Hence the favor I need… or it's more help to decipher up from down than a favor."

Rhodey scoffed. "Yeah, well with your genes, I wouldn't expect anything less."

"Now who's the one not being serious?"

Releasing a frustrated breath, Rhodey pinched his eyes closed momentarily, his head softly shaking. "Fine, I'll bite. What kind of problems are we talking about? Drugs?"

"Unlikely." At least Tony didn't get the impression Harry had any kind of hidden drug habit, however, to cover his bases he added it to his mental list to investigate. In fact, he also added getting a full physical from Tony's on-staff physician. Parents were supposed to take their kids to the doctor, for vaccines and stuff, and none of that was listed in Harry's scarce medical records. For all he knew, on top of whatever caused Harry's shaking last night, the kid also had some serious allergy and one unknown meal would put him into anaphylactic shock.

Oblivious to Tony's mental tangent, Rhodey guessed, "Psychotic?"

"No."

"Delusional?"

"Not likely."

"A gang?"

Tony swayed his head side-to-side, trying to determine if, and how, the newspaper image of the professor and the school explosion fit into all of this. Hesitantly he replied, "Possibly."

"Jesus, Tony!" Reaching his limit, Rhodey pushed off the couch and paced the area in front of it. "How bad are we talking?"

"I don't know, exactly. That's the problem. He's… he's got a sketchy past–"

"How sketchy?"

"Like practically non-existent." Tony rested his elbows on his knees and let the story unfold off his chest. "Yes, I was putting off thinking about all this… mess… so I figured I'd do some research on him. Except I couldn't find anything under his legal name, Harry Anthony Evans. Instead, I found the shitty life of Harry Potter… Potter being Lily's husband married after Harry was born. They go through elementary school and then nothing. He went completely off the grid in the fall after he turned eleven. And his mom? Lily Evans? Same story. Literally the same post-elementary school poof." His hands sprung in the air to visually show the two disappearing. "I don't know what to think, Rhodey. I've got this kid I know nothing about, who lost two sets of guardians in almost fifteen years, and who I can't help but think sounds like he's reading off a script whenever we talk. I can't find any history on him, and the little I found looks bad… really bad."

"Maybe a cult?" Rhodey offered, and Tony appreciated his non-judgemental tone in his suggestion. Leave it to Tony Stark to have a son born into some secret cult life that stole kids at eleven.

"Maybe," Tony admitted, although he didn't like the sound of a cult any better than the terrorist group he was already considering. "It would fit the glaring gaps in his and his mother's history, at least.

"And there's definitely some form of abuse going on," he added reluctantly. He swapped the tablet screen from the paternity test to the images JARVIS found of an elementary-aged Harry in worn clothes and bruising and handed it to Rhodey to examine. "I doubt Harry will admit to any of it, but I found pictures and a few police reports suggesting someone was hitting and neglecting him. My bet is the aunt, uncle, and cousin. Naturally, the reports stopped when he went off to boarding school, which I wasn't exaggerating when I said it's super-secret because I also can't find any record of him attending it despite him providing me with the physical copies of his school records."

"Yeah, this isn't looking promising, Tony," Rhodey agreed with a low hum, scanning the few documents Tony showed him. "Are you sure this is legitimate, and he's not some kind of Trojan horse? It wouldn't be the wildest thing we've seen here."

"I considered it." And to his core, Tony hated hearing himself admit to it. Now having actually met Harry, if the kid was some kind of weapon, Tony was sure he didn't know about it. "Bruce ran the test four times, twice each on his blood and cheek swab. All four had the same result. We also had JARVIS discreetly check the coding for any breaches or tampering. Nothing. Regardless of the reason for him showing up, it doesn't change the fact that he is my son. "

"I can do some digging on my end, see what I can find," Rhodey offered. "You said his alias is Harry Potter?"

Tony let out a long hiss at the term 'alias'. The words made it sound like they were putting Harry in the same class of people the team was currently out hunting. Still, he gave his friend the information he needed for the request, providing Harry's full pseudonym, Harry James Potter, his birthday, Lily and her husband's — Harry's stepfather's — names, and the circumstances of Harry arriving in his aunt's care, being found at their doorstep, of all things, and the issued a birth certificate under his new name the day prior. While he also sent over the files of Harry's potential abuse, he kept everything on the professor for himself. Some pieces he needed to handle on his own, and that was one of them.

"Like I said," Tony reiterated, bringing them full circle, "there's nothing else there. Sure, on the surface, it looks like this perfectly logical, albeit sad, story of an orphaned kid, yet as soon as I try to dig for anything tangible, I keep coming up empty-handed."

Rhodey paused his reading to glare up at Tony from his phone. "You realize there are places your bots can't hack."

"First off, no one says hack anymore. I don't know how many times I have to tell you," Tony pointed out, heading to the kitchen to refill his coffee and taking comfort in the warmth of his first sip. Making the solid decision that he needed something in his stomach besides coffee, he grabbed the leftover cheese pizza box out of the fridge. Cold pizza was a necessity for problem-solving at this level. Mouth full of pizza, he added, "And two, JARVIS is not a bot."

"Oh, excuse me," Rhodey dramatically draped his hand across his chest, "I meant your firstborn… or is he technically your second born now?"

Tony screwed his eyes up to think about the timeline of JARVIS's conception. Which level of the code's completion considered him to be born? If it had to be his most current form, then he definitely shifted to the secondborn, however, Tony had started the concept of JARVIS in his MIT days; long before Lily Evans walked into the picture.

"Don't hurt yourself thinking that through," Rhodey sarcastically said, suddenly standing in front of him and yanking the pizza box out of Tony's hands to get his own slice. "What does Pepper think of all of this? You were enough to handle on your own without becoming a step-mom to a shady teenager."

Tony winced as he nervously tapped his left fingers on the counter. He had intentionally avoided the step-mother term when he and Pepper finally had the chance to discuss the situation yesterday, between the lawyer meeting and dinner; while Harry and the possible terrorist professor said their mysterious goodbyes. Not once had Pepper mentioned leaving, or stepping aside to give Tony and Harry space. That was a good sign. Throughout the custody meeting, he'd been terrified she would try to remove herself and he didn't know what he'd do if she had. On the other hand, while she had been warm and welcoming towards Harry, to Tony she fell into her assistant mode, focusing on tasks they needed to do to help Harry settle in, so they actually hadn't had a real conversation about it all yet. What they needed to talk about were things like: how Harry would fit into their lives, what impact it would have on Tony's role in Stark Industries, and, the one sure to be on the top of Pepper's mind, how would this change role with the Avengers. Could Tony really go out with the team knowing he could very well orphan his son for the second — or technically third — time on any given mission? To Pepper's credit, she didn't jump right into it as he assumed she would, but they also needed to address it sooner rather than later.

Thankfully, he never had to answer on Pepper's behalf because she walked into the kitchen balancing bags of food from the SI kitchen along her arms.

"Speak of the—"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence, Tony," she warned, placing the bags on the bar side of the counter and setting out boxes of French toast, sausage, scrambled eggs, toast, and a basket of assorted pastries. Handing him a tall smoothie he loved to start his morning with on the days he actually showed up to the office, she let out an annoyed sigh at the sight of the pizza box behind Tony. "My note literally said I was bringing breakfast."

"We didn't see it," Tony quipped, charmingly.

"Interesting, so where did you get your coffee?" she countered. A small smile crept up the corners of her lips and made Tony's heart flutter.

As if reading his mind, she rounded the corner and wrapped her arms around his neck. Not giving Rhodey a second glance, she placed small, soft kisses down the side of his neck, making his lie all the harder to convincingly stammer. "The… coffee… uh… downstairs… uh… Rhodey brought it."

Tony shrugged at Rhodey's scowl.

"Of course, he did. Good thing JARVIS warned me he was on his way. There's plenty extra to go around." Pepper swung around to grab an extra plate from the cabinet and set it with the other three at the breakfast bar, only then noticing Harry's absence. "Wait, where's Harry?"

With his hands on Pepper's shoulders, he led her to the living room and gestured to the holographic image of Harry displayed from the phone sitting on the coffee table. "Still asleep in the theater."

"You left him alone?" Pepper exclaimed as a small, yet firm, slap landed on his chest. "He can't even use the elevator to get onto our floor yet."

"Hey, now! JARVIS will get him up here when he's awake."

Sitting back at the breakfast bar, they divided out the food and placed Harry's in the microwave for later. Tony frowned at Pepper's almost empty plate, a single croissant and a small helping of eggs. She didn't even sit to eat, merely took a bite here or there while gathering books and notepads from around the living room or their bedroom. It perfectly demonstrated how they really were the quintessential big city 'business couple', always on the go and hardly an ideal lifestyle to raise a teenager, particularly one who was thrust into this lifestyle randomly, not born into it. Tony may have hated having a nanny past the age of eight, but he kind of — if he squinted hard and turned his head slightly — understood why his parents had kept one around.

"I can't stay this morning," Pepper said, unknowingly confirming Tony's turmoil about their busy schedules. "I double booked everything from yesterday into today hoping I can slip out of a few meetings a touch early. Doing it this way I'll be caught up by dinner. I'm also trying to lighten the schedule for the next two weeks."

"Lightening is good," Tony said, between a sip of his drink and a bite of egg. He could do a lighter schedule temporarily… until they learned the dynamics of Harry. "We've got the R thing at noon, right?"

Pepper shook her head. "You're not going. I completely cleared your schedule for today… and don't even pretend to be sad, we both know you weren't going to show up to half of it, anyway."

Although Pepper might know Tony better than anyone on the planet, she clearly didn't know him well enough if she thought he'd find an excuse to skip out of the monthly R showcase luncheon. Out of all his SI duties it was the only one he liked because he got to deal directly with the people building the tech, rather than the board of directors, marketing, and sales side of the business. Preferring more of the hands-on work, meetings involving a bunch of numbers and charts instantly put him to sleep. Plus, Tony enjoyed talking to the R guys. They were like Bruce for the SI side of his life, and by the end, what was usually a two-hour update on the projects in their pipeline ended up being four hours and dissolved into brainstorming one ridiculously impossible idea after another. Or so the R department thought. Tony kept all the notes from their meetings for future work. Occasionally they popped up at a future meeting, tweaked by Tony to have some chance of success and fully funded.

"They're the only department I can tolerate," Tony argued knowing full well he'd already lost the battle. "Maybe Harry should come? See how his old man handles the ropes."

Harry's future with SI was yet another topic Tony was actively avoiding and thankfully Pepper hadn't brought it up. As a family-owned business, as soon as they introduced Harry to the world, he'd be expected to follow in Tony and Howard's footsteps. Having long given up on the notion of a child successor, nothing would honestly make Tony prouder. Except, Harry's little interest in Tony's lab — and frankly his lack of knowledge at fourteen — didn't give Tony much confidence in him taking the reins someday. Of course, given last night's little field trip had been at two o'clock in the morning on day number one, he supposed he could give the kid a break and leave the decision of SI's future for another day.

As Tony knew she would, Pepper flat-out refused his suggestion. "No, we can't go parading him around before we've announced him as your son."

"Heir," Rhodey spoke up. "Isn't that the term you people use?"

Tony balled up a triangle of toast and tossed it at his friend two chairs down. "You're not helping."

Rhodey tossed the bread back, and Tony plopped it in his mouth. "Besides," Rhodey said through a satisfyingly disgusted grimace, "don't those meetings take forever? I think Steve, Natasha, and Clint are due back this afternoon. You should plan to be pulled in for the debrief."

Tony swiveled his chair to look at Pepper, his eyebrows lifted in silent question. Although Tony usually placed Avengers debriefs somewhere near accounting and board meetings, Tony added a stronger magnet on Cap's shield last week. So despite how interesting chasing down their lead on the two missing teenagers from Sokovia sounded to Steve, Tony really only wanted to go to hear how the upgrade did in the field.

Not realizing how badly Tony wanted to go, Pepper stated, "That one you can do."

Perfect. Now he only had to fill in a few hours of the day with… well, he wasn't entirely sure what to do with Harry. "So what else do you have for me today?"

She exhaled her exhausted 'Tony I cannot continue to micromanage your life while running your company, but secretly enjoy it' sigh. "Yesterday afternoon, I told Harry we'd take him shopping. His backpack is the only thing he brought with him. I asked about other things from England and he said there wasn't anything else waiting to come over."

Rhodey and Tony shared a concerned look, and without breaking it Tony answered Pepper with a peppy, "I love shopping. Got it."

"Given the situation, I think you should do it all online," Pepper advised, seriously. "And sensible clothes, Tony. Remember, he's fourteen."

Formulating a plan in his head of what the afternoon could look like, Tony chose his next words carefully to avoid lying later. "Sensible, teenage clothes… check. Anything else?"

Pepper packed up her SI bag, silently telling Tony their conversation was pretty much over. "Happy needs his biometrics to set up his security access. Beyond that, I'm sure you'll figure something out. Now I have to go… I'm late for PR to strategize how to get ahead of all this."

Focused on their plans for the day, they all missed the door opening until Harry appeared at the entrance of the kitchen. His shabby oversized shirt and sweatpants were wrinkled, he had thick dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was literally standing up in all different directions — reminiscent of Tony's hair in the years before he learned proper styling for the mess.

With confusion in the same bright green, kind eyes Tony remembered as Lily's, their son looked around the kitchen and gently asked, "Ahead of what?"

ooOoo

Three pairs of eyes were staring, uneasily, at Harry as he stood at the entrance of the kitchen waiting for one of them to answer him. The first two sets belonged to Tony and Pepper. Tony was sitting at the breakfast bar — actually eating breakfast, hence the name he supposed — with Pepper standing behind him and picking food from a plate on the corner of the bar while simultaneously packing a leather messenger-style bag. Unlike Tony who was still dressed in the clothes he had on last night, Pepper's gray and white smart business suit highlighted her CEO position at Stark Industries; where she was obviously heading off to soon.

The last pair of eyes came from a man seated on Tony's left, an empty chair between them, casually eating bites of eggy toast that he dipped in syrup before eating them. He looked vaguely familiar to Harry, but Harry couldn't place where they might have crossed paths, and his blue military uniform gave little to go on in identifying him.

"Who are you?" Harry boldly asked the new man.

Tony's face lit up and waved Harry around the breakfast bar, excitedly introducing them, "Harry, this is your Uncle Rhodey. Honey Bear, meet my son, Harry Evans."

Apparently, Tony's animosity at titles was more about the term father than son, and all at once a rush of unexpected emotions hit Harry at hearing Tony call him his son. Harry had no memories of anyone calling him their son. To keep his cool in front of the man he safely assumed was a "friend uncle" like Sirius and Remus rather than a blood relative like Aunt Petunia or a married relative like Uncle Vernon, Harry swallowed back those rising emotions.

Rhodey — Harry refused to jump to referring to him as Uncle — stood up from his chair, rim-rod straight in front of Harry, and held his hand to his forehead, in salute. "Colonel James Rhodes, US Air Force," he said sharply and froze like he was waiting for Harry to do something.

What that was, Harry had no clue. And worse, he wanted to turn right around and go to his bedroom. Figuring doing so would be a bad first impression, Harry stuttered out, "Uh-u-umm…" hoping Tony or Pepper, supposedly the sensible one of the couple Harry now lived with, would put him out of his misery. Neither of them did, though. Instead, they continued to watch him for the ten excruciatingly long and uncomfortable seconds Rhodey let it continue.

"I'm just kidding," Rhodey said with a side smile, and then patted Harry on the shoulder. "It's Uncle Rhodey to you. Welcome to Casa de Stark. Maybe you being around will keep Tony in line and give me and Pepper a break from it."

"Good luck on that," Pepper muttered. Turning to Tony she added, "I really have to go. I'll text you about plans tonight. It's not a bad idea to send out for some decent groceries and cook tonight."

Tony winked at Harry, then turned to Pepper. "Don't worry about it, I'll handle it. I'll even throw in the beets and peanuts you like for a salad."

"They're chickpeas, Tony, not peanuts," Pepper corrected. Sounding more amused than frustrated, Harry gathered they had this conversation often.

Less than a second after the door closed behind Pepper, Tony clapped his hands, startling Harry's attention to him. "Ok! Let's get this day started. First, breakfast. Harry, you have a plate of breakfast in the microwave. JARVIS, warm it up for him."

A soft hum from the microwave confirmed the AI did as Tony asked. No numbers came up on the screen, so Harry didn't know how long JARVIS set it for or how he knew how long to set it for. But when it dinged, the food on the plate — more than Harry could actually eat — was at the perfect temperature.

"Cups and glasses are in that cabinet," Tony pointed to the one above the coffee maker next to the refrigerator. "Juice is in the fridge and coffee is in the pot. Or actually, you're British. So do you drink tea? Pepper has an entire basket of tea in the pantry, fancy flavors and all too. Help yourself to it. The coffee maker dispenses hot water from the little knob on the side."

Rhodey beat Harry in responding, "Just so you know, they drink coffee in England too."

"Thank God for that. You'll learn I literally can't function without coffee," Tony exclaimed to Harry. "So pick your poison. I think the juice of the week is some combination of orange, mango, and banana, and we have plain orange too with lots of pulp because Pepper thinks there's some magic in it or something like that for your body."

Half-listening to Tony and Rhodey argue about the benefits of juice pulp, Harry opened one of the nicest refrigerators he'd ever seen. And also one of the emptiest. Three cartons of juice sat on the middle shelf, beneath the four leftover pizza boxes from dinner. A variety of condiments, ranging from soy sauce to three different salad dressings, packed the door shelves. The fruit drawer had a half-full container of blueberries and a few stray oranges and apples, while the vegetable drawer held only a bag of salad and a few stalks of celery. It was no surprise that Pepper made the comment about buying groceries since not a single meal could be made from the current contents of the fridge.

"Got any pumpkin juice?" Harry asked to see Tony's reaction to such an odd request.

"Pumpkin juice?" Tony whispered to Rhodey. "That's a new one. Another British thing?"

"We always have that with breakfast at school," Harry said with a shrug.

Harry poured himself a glass of the chunky orange juice — Tony's rather accurate description of it — and took a seat at the end of the breakfast bar, where Pepper had been sitting, rather than the seat sandwiched between them they had clearly left open for him. If either of them noticed Harry's strategic choice, they didn't comment on it. Harry picked at his breakfast while listening to Rhodey tell him about meeting Tony at MIT, and later working with him as a liaison for the US Air Force and Stark Industries, back when SI's primary focus was building weapons. To Harry, appointing the best friend of their manufacturer as their liaison made the US no-maj government sound as biased as the Wizarding Ministry in Britain, giving him little hope that the Magical Congress of the United States would be any better than Minister Fudge. With any luck, Harry would never cross paths with MACUSA, making it a moot point.

Rhodey continued by explaining how he became the icon "War Machine" — an excessively violent name, not that anyone asked Harry's opinion on it — by stealing one of Tony's suits and fighting Tony, in his own house, then refusing to return it. Neither of them mentioned anything about it, but Harry saw the story as evidence of Tony's value in their friendship. Harry didn't think he'd be as willing to forgive Ron if he had stolen Harry's invisibility cloak to hex Harry in the Great Hall. Then again, even though Ron only apologized after seeing how utterly disadvantaged Harry was against the dragon, and not trusting Harry's word from the start, Harry never considered not forgiving Ron for throwing away their friendship simply because he believed Harry had entered the bloody tournament. So Harry mentally added 'forgives easily' to the growing list of traits he and Tony shared.

Harry attempted to slip away to his room several times, but whenever he stood, Tony would dive into another exciting story from his and Rhodey's adventures, leaving Harry no choice but to stay and listen. As the stories flowed one after another, Harry eventually found himself hanging on every word. By the end, Harry was convinced of two things: for better or worse, Tony was a Gryffindor through and through, much like himself, with little regard for self-preservation, and that Tony and Rhodey were truly more like brothers than just best friends. In fact, they reminded Harry a lot of Fred and George.

Unfortunately, the superhero stories stopped right around the time Harry finished his breakfast, a coincidence that did not go unnoticed by Harry.

"So here's the deal for today," Tony stated as he grabbed Harry's empty plate before Harry got the chance to go wash it. He tossed it, almost defiantly, to his other side where it wobbled around before settling on the countertop, thankfully still in one piece. "I heard you can use a few more clothes and stuff… nope, you don't get a say in this one," he rattled off, stopping Harry's incoming rebuttal, "Pepper suggested online–"

"Tony…" Rhodey tried to warn, but Tony ignored it.

"–but I'm going to guess that the most you've seen of New York is wherever you stayed in Queens before coming here yesterday. And since Queens is not Manhattan, I think we need to get out and see the city, do some shopping, have some lunch, and grab a few groceries so I can attempt to cook you something that passes as healthy. Trust me, there is no better way to tour than with yours truly. What do you say? We'll leave the wet blanket-" his thumb jutted out to Rhodey, "-here and make it just the two of us. And Happy because the one thing I hate about New York, and desperately miss about Malibu, is driving in the city. Plus, this way I can show you all the cool kid spots."

Putting aside the embarrassment of needing clothes, what Harry really wanted was to head to his room and maybe write a letter to his friends — one he knew he could never actually send. But between the excitement pouring off Tony in waves and Rhodey sending Harry a look like he was silently begging him to be the sensible one, Harry really didn't want to say no. It didn't help that Harry knew if he spent the day locked away in his room he would be tempted to use his mirror to contact Sirius, and Snape had made it absolutely clear that he couldn't contact anyone unless it was an emergency. Plus, he'd have to leave the Tower eventually, so as long as he covered his scar — just in case the American magical community knew about him — he might as well get it over with.

"Yeah," Harry replied, although not as confidently as he would have liked to appear. "Can I shower quickly first?"

"Absolutely." Tony gave Harry's knee a slap. "You get ready, I've got a few calls to make and I'll ask Happy to get the car ready. You're going to love it. And Rhodey… you…"

"Oh, don't worry about me. I'll be hanging around to watch the fireworks when Pepper finds out."

A/N: Unfortunately, my real life has taken some unexpected twists (and a few fires to put out) which has taken me away from writing :( Since I have close to 70k words written (through chatper 20), I'm going to focus on editing for the next few chapters to give me time to catch up on the writing side so hopefully there won't be as much time to wait for the next chapter.