The Magic of Genetics

by StarLight_Massacre

Summary:

In the aftermath of the war, Harry is dying. An unknown curse courtesy of Voldemort has left him wasting away in a hospital bed. His only hope of recovery is a stem cell transfusion, but no one is a close enough match to save him…until he finds out that James Potter wasn’t his biological father. Now he has just one last chance for life and he is throwing all of his hopes onto one man he has never met.

Halfway across the world, Tony Stark receives a specially delivered letter from a terribly sick teenage son he hadn’t known about. Moving before he even has time to digest the information, Tony ignores all the weird and strange things around his son, Harry. At least until he gets him ‘home’ to the Avengers Compound in New York, where they will need to learn to lean on one another and how to become a family.

Chapter 1: Genetic Match

The Magic of Genetics

 

The last several months had been a literal hell for him, for all of them, but now that the war was over and Harry had killed Voldemort for good, Harry had been hoping that things would calm down. His terrible luck was not going to allow that to happen, however.

He was still recovering from the after-effects of the war. He was trying to come to terms with all that he had done during the war and what he’d had done to him. No easy feat when he was stuck in a hospital bed in Saint Mungo’s after being struck by an unknown curse courtesy of Voldemort during their final face-off, trying not to notice how the healers and orderlies were fussing over him with dewy eyes.

The wizarding world was slowly rebuilding after the destruction left behind by Voldemort and his Death Eaters and Harry was, selfishly, glad that the hospital had been left alone and intact given his incredible need for it in the aftermath of the war. He was being monitored closely, kept dosed on painkilling potions, and even then, he was still in pain, but it was nowhere near the agony of when those potions started wearing off.

The Ministry was by far the biggest mess to clean up, given that it wasn’t just building work that needed to be repaired, but people cleaned out too. So many Death Eaters had taken over the top spots in the end that it had created a vacuum of effective leadership once Harry had killed Voldemort and the Death Eaters were dismantled. The trials had already begun for the survivors. Harry had insisted upon it when the rest of the wizarding world had been all for throwing them straight into Azkaban, but Harry knew well the consequences of not allowing people a fair trial. Things might have been very different for him if Sirius had been given a fair trial, for example, instead of people assuming that he was guilty and throwing him to the Dementors, sentenced to life in Azkaban when he was, in fact, innocent. So, though he knew that none of them would get away with what they had done, and it seemed utterly pointless to hold a trial for any of the captured Death Eaters, Harry had insisted on it from his hospital bed and, what he wanted these days, he got without any sort of issue. He’d gone from the Boy-Who-Lived to the Chosen One, and now, post-war, he was being hailed as the Saviour. Harry hated all of the monikers he’d been given throughout his life and he was very glad that he was sealed off in a private hospital room where no one but his healing team and a very small list of select visitors could reach him.

Hogwarts was in a state of disrepair also, after the final battle. It was discomforting to think that the school had been desecrated in such a way. That so many people, more than fifty of them, including children, had been murdered there, but Professor McGonagall had come to see him and she assured him that the castle could, and would, be repaired by the teachers and, come the new term in September, they would be welcoming old and new students alike. It was a comfort, to him at least, to know that the school would endure after this war. That the Founders’ dream of a magical education for all magical children would persist through future generations of witches and wizards.

By far the worst upheaval, for him personally at least, came as part of his personal ‘reparations’ to Gringotts bank. Harry had been forced to explain his actions in relation to the break-in and theft during the war, from his hospital bed and drugged up on pain potions, his explanation of which hadn’t been deemed a good enough reason according to the goblins, who had wanted everything in his vault removed and his account shut down, and a permanent ban from Harry ever entering Gringotts again as payment for his actions…at least until they had actually started clearing out his vault ‘on his behalf’ as he was stuck in a hospital bed and they had found an unenacted will. They had opened it, realised they had made a grievous mistake in overlooking it for all these years, and then brought it straight to him at the hospital for him to read, in the hopes of making up for the will never being enacted. Frankly, Harry was in shock and he was too debilitated to take much of it in, but what he could understand…he was angry.

This will stated, very clearly, that it was to be read and enacted upon the deaths of Lily and James Potter. It stated that Harry was to receive all money, assets, and personal possessions of the deceased and he was supposed to be taken into the immediate custody of a muggle man named Anthony Edward Stark, his biological father…a man Harry had never met, didn’t know, and had never heard mentioned by anyone, not even Sirius and Remus, but James Potter had clearly known that he wasn’t Harry’s biological father as he had legally adopted him as his son and heir shortly after Harry’s birth.

Harry swallowed past the lump in his too-tight throat as he tried to force his foggy brain to concentrate.

 

“Are you saying that James Potter wasn’t my biological father?” He demanded of the goblin representative standing in his hospital room.

 

“That is correct.” The goblin answered in a clipped, bored tone, as if he hadn’t just torn Harry’s life apart even further.

 

“Why am I just hearing of this now?!” He demanded.

 

“The will of the Potters was never read.”

 

“Why not?!” Harry hissed through his teeth. “As the enforcers of the will, it was up to you to make sure their final…ah!”

 

Harry pressed a hand to his side and tried to breathe deeply through the sudden, stabbing pain of his lingering injuries.

 

“As a minor, you were unable to comprehend the contents of the will or give direction as to what should be done and it was up to your appropriate guardians to ask that the will be read on your behalf and they never did.”

 

Of course the Dursleys had never asked for the will to be read. Vernon would have rathered fuck himself with the stick up his arse than walk into a bank run by goblins.

 

“They were muggles and I didn’t even know about magic until I was eleven!” Harry hissed again, doubled over his middle, in pain, but also raging. “This is why you’ve all changed your minds about letting me keep my vault, isn’t it? It’s your mistake for not enacting the will! For not telling me of its existence! Gringotts was named as the enforcer of the will; it was supposed to be the bank’s responsibility!”

 

“Mistakes were made on both sides.” The goblin growled at him.

 

“My ‘mistake’ saved the wizarding world! Including the bank and the goblin nation!” Harry yelled. “Your mistake cost me sixteen years with a father I didn’t know about!”

 

The goblins’ mistake also meant that Harry had suffered needlessly, but he didn’t mention the abuse he’d endured at the hands of the Dursleys, it wouldn’t make any difference to them, but he might never have met the terrible people if the goblins had enacted his parents’ will the moment they’d died, as they were meant to. He didn’t know who this Anthony Stark was, but surely he had to be better than the Dursleys?

 

“We are willing to allow you to keep your vault and forgive your transgressions if you don’t press charges for the late will reading.” The goblin told him.

 

Harry wanted to throttle the ugly creature with his bare hands and if he was feeling better, he likely would have tried to do just that for all the grief the goblins had caused him.

 

“How dare you ask that of me!” Harry forced out. “As if one cancels out the other, it doesn’t and you know it! No one is going to care that I broke into a Death Eater’s vault to steal a Horcrux to destroy Voldemort, but your reputation is going to be in shreds if it comes out that my parents left a will that would have drastically changed my living situation and you never enacted it!”

 

The goblin sneered but said nothing, which, at the least, proved Harry right. The goblins might give a fuck if he broke into their bank to steal from a supposed highly secured vault in his quest to destroy Voldemort, but the wizarding population wouldn’t care as it had led to Voldemort’s defeat. They would, however, care if they had entrusted their own wills to the goblins and they found out that they weren’t being read or enacted upon death.

 

“What do you want from us?” The goblin almost snarled, sneering at him.

 

“There is nothing that you can do to make up for the sixteen years I’ve suffered without the knowledge that I have a living biological father! I still have a parent in the world and you kept me from him for my entire life!”

 

“If it is gold you are…”

 

“I don’t want your fucking gold!” Harry raged. “Do you not understand the damage you’ve caused? No amount of money can make up for the lost time.”

 

“If we perhaps sent the will to Mister Stark now…”

 

“What difference will that make? I’m of age. I’m no longer a child in need of a guardian.”

 

The Dursleys had been out of his life for ten months already and he didn’t know where they’d moved to, nor did he want to know, and he’d never have to see them ever again, let alone live with them and their abuses, so what did it fucking matter now if he had a biological father? It was too late. Sixteen years too late.

Breathing heavily, glaring at the goblin representative, Harry just wanted this all to go away. His head spiked with pain and he moved his hands from his abdomen to his head, trying to breathe through the debilitating pain the war had left him with.

 

“We at Gringotts would like to make up for this error by putting you in contact with Mister Stark, as per the terms of the will. We can help circumvent the no-contact clause so that you cannot be countersued for breaking it.”

 

Harry really was going to throttle this fucking goblin.

 

“An error? Is that how you’re going to spin this?!” Harry demanded, his head throbbing with his anger in time to his heartbeat. “I still don’t think you understand that you robbed me of sixteen years with my father! How is putting me in contact with him now going to help? How is it going to change anything?! What do I need him for now?”

 

“You could use him for his stem cells.” The goblin told him as blandly as if he were pointing out the weather. “As your biological father, it is much more likely that he is the best match possible to donate to you.”

 

Harry trembled in the hospital bed, rage warring with something akin to…relief?

It was true that he needed stem cells, but nothing suitable had turned up and the healers were hunting for a match to him. There had even been a plea in the Daily Prophet for donors to come forward for the Saviour, Harry Potter. Though they had, thankfully, not gone into any detail about his condition or exactly what he needed. But it was no secret that he had been very injured after the Battle of Hogwarts and was currently under the diligent care of the staff at Saint Mungo’s.

 

“If I write the letter and you can get it to him, then we will call our respective debts paid.” Harry said through gritted teeth, stressing the word debts because he did not see that what he did as being equal to what had been done to him by the goblins.

 

“This is acceptable.” The goblin answered quickly. Harry snorted. Of course it was acceptable to them; they were getting more out of this than he was…though, if Anthony Stark did end up being a match to him, then this information could, quite possibly, end up saving his life, which was deteriorating very quickly without a suitable stem cell donor.

 

Harry took a breath and, as politely as he could manage while he was still raging inside, he asked for a quill, ink, and parchment, which were hastily provided, likely in the case of him changing his mind.

It wasn’t ideal, telling someone they had a seventeen-year-old son they clearly knew nothing about in a letter, but Harry had to hope that this Stark was, at the least, a better person than the Dursleys were and that he did come to meet him, if only to donate the stem cells that Harry desperately needed.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Tony stared at the letter in his hands, feeling like his stomach had just dropped out of his arse.

The letter had come via an express, international courier service and Tony had had to sign for it personally…Pepper couldn’t even sign for it on his behalf; it had to be him and the letter had been placed into his hands only.

Scoffing over the weird delivery, he’d been half-thinking that it was another villain for the Avengers to face, either bragging about their unnoticed plans or sending them a riddle to solve to find them. They’d had a few of those over the years, usually sorted out quickly and without fuss or any casualties because, let’s face it, if any villain was stupid enough to send them a heads-up then they probably weren’t a villain worth the Avengers’ time in the first place. One of those they had dealt with had actually been a kid who’d thought it had been funny to antagonise the Avengers; he had gotten a stern lecture from their good Captain America and had thoroughly regretted his actions when the lecture had finally ended more than an hour later.

 

“So, is it another totally badass villain who just has to brag that they’ve outsmarted the Avengers?” Sam Wilson asked him.

 

Tony said nothing as he forced himself to re-read the letter, as if the information it contained would somehow change.

 

“Tony?” Steve asked, gentling his voice.

 

Tony swallowed tightly.

 

“Is it blackmail?” Natasha asked him.

 

“Not really.” Tony answered, his voice so tight it shook. “It’s another paternity case.”

 

“Another one? Damn, that’s what…seventy kids you have now?” Clint teased.

 

“Does this one want money too?” Natasha asked astutely. “You pay up or they’ll go to the media with your baby?”

 

Tony was trembling, he realised. His hands shaking. He put the letter down quickly.

 

“Not quite.” Tony told them. “This one…this one might be real.”

 

“How so? You haven’t done anything with anyone in years, have you?” Clint asked him.

 

The questioning tone made him feel about an inch big, but his reputation was a hard thing to overcome and, despite that he was settled with Pepper now, his past reputation would always dog his footsteps and colour people’s perspective of him. Even those closest to him.

 

“No. The kid wrote the letter himself. He’s seventeen.”

 

“You’d have been late twenties.” Natasha said, working it out.

 

“I don’t really remember much of my twenties, not even the late twenties.” Tony admitted, sighing, trying to come to terms with this information and that it might actually be true.

 

“Why wait so long to come to you?” Clint asked.

 

“I don’t think he’s looking for a father.” Tony said a little stiffly.

 

“So, what does he want? Money? Fame? Acknowledgement?” Sam asked him, frowning.

 

“No.” Tony said, feeling relieved that if this was his actual child then he wasn’t asking for a payout. Though, given what he was asking for, Tony actually wished he was asking for money. “He’s sick and he needs stem cells and he’s asking if I’ll get tested to see if I’m a match.”

 

“That’s…that’s unusual.” Rhodey told him, laying a supportive hand on him.

 

“It actually makes it more likely that he is my kid, too.” Tony said, trying to ignore the panic trying to set in. “He’s not asking for money or even acknowledgement, public or otherwise, he just stated that he was my son and, if it’s not too much trouble, could I get tested to see if I was a viable donor for him.”

 

“What are you going to do?” Clint asked him.

 

“Get Pepper on it.” Tony said immediately. Any issue he’d ever had, Pepper had dealt with it. She would know how he could go about proving, or disproving, if this boy was his actual son or not…or if he was a viable donor for the stem cells his maybe son allegedly needed. “Pepper can sort anything; she can fix this.”

 

“What have you done now?” Pepper’s voice preceded her into the communal sitting room, a folder open in her hands and she’d clearly been reading it before she’d heard her name mentioned.

 

“Apparently fathered a son.” Tony told her.

 

Pepper scowled. “Another paternity suit?”

 

“Not the usual kind.” Tony told her, picking up the letter and handing it to her over the back of the settee.

 

Pepper rested the folder she was holding on the back of the settee and took the letter.

Tony knew she was done reading when she sighed heavily.

 

“A seventeen-year-old.”

 

“That he’s asking for stem cells too…” Tony trailed off and threw a hand through his hair. “He’s not asking for anything else. Not even a DNA test, it’s like he knows I’m his father before I even know who he is. All he wants is to know if I’m a viable donor because, as his father, the chances that I will be suitable is higher.”

 

“I’ll contact the person named in the return address and set the ball rolling.” Pepper assured him. “Be ready to travel, given that this boy is clearly unwell, it’s doubtful that he’ll be able to travel himself, which means that’ll fall on you, Tony.”

 

“The jet is ready when you are.” Natasha told him as Pepper left for the small office at the end of the hall.

 

“I can’t believe I’m only just finding out about this now.” Tony said, getting angry. “Through all of the false paternity cases I’ve suffered over the years and my actual child was never brought to light until he’s almost a legal adult!”

 

It was karma. It had to be. Some sort of cosmic joke that he was dragged through paternity case after paternity case for babies that were never his, only for what could potentially be his actual son to stay away and only contact him when he was allegedly very sick because he needed stem cells.

Tony needed more information, but there was very little to be had. He only knew his son’s name was Harry, no last name given, and that he was seventeen, no birthdate given. He didn’t even know what illness the kid had that needed donated stem cells, though his mind automatically supplied him with the thought that stem cell donation was usually for blood-based cancers. That thought did not calm him down in the slightest.

Pepper came striding back into the room, her look and movements urgent.

 

“Tony, we have to leave now.” She told him.

 

“Is it so bad?” He asked, even as he jumped up as if he’d been burned.

 

“I got in contact with the bank manager on the return address, and, though he refused to tell me much as I’m not you, I was told that the doctors haven’t found any other viable donor for your alleged son, so they used the closest match they had to hand, but the boy, Harry, didn’t react well to it. His body has rejected the donor cells and he’s very sick and if you are his father, if you are a match for him, he needs the transfusion now.”

 

Tony felt sick and the trembling in his hands increased. Rhodey’s hand on his arm increased its pressure, trying to comfort him.

 

“We have your back, Tones.”

 

“Thanks, honey bear. Hell, with a bit of luck, I’ve made you an uncle.”

 

“God preserve us.” Rhodey teased.

 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Tony asked with a weak grin.

 

“That if he’s anything like you at seventeen then the compound won’t be left standing.” Rhodey chuckled.

 

Tony tried to imagine being responsible for a little bastard who was drinking himself into an early grave, taking so many hard drugs that whole days were just blank spaces, and sleeping with whoever caught his interest and he cringed. No. No, he seriously hoped that his son was nothing like he had been at the same age.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

The goblins had informed him that his father, Anthony Stark, was on his way to take the test to see if he was a viable donor. If he’d felt better then he might have felt something, likely relief that there was one last thing to try before accepting the inevitable, some small piece of hope to still cling onto, but he currently didn’t have the capacity to feel much of anything. He was in so much pain. He was so terribly tired. He just wanted to go to sleep and never wake back up again.

The healers had gotten impatient with no reply from Anthony Stark and Harry had deteriorated to the point that they’d felt the need to try the transfusion process with the closest match they’d found. It hadn’t worked and Harry’s body had rejected the foreign cells, leaving him in a worse state than he’d been in before.

He cursed Voldemort and that last, desperate battle. He’d been hit with an unknown curse which had shattered his hastily cast shielding charm. The pain of that curse was unbearable. It felt like his body was against him and, in a way, it was.

After numerous diagnostic charms by expert healers, it was determined that the curse was actually tearing every single cell in his body apart and, worse, the curse was lingering despite Voldemort’s death and, not only was it getting more aggressive, but it was destroying his cells quicker each time too. The healers believed that the only way to help him was to sweep out the affected cells and replace them with ones his body would accept. The only problem with that was that there were none that were a close enough match to him, leaving him suffering and deteriorating in this damn hospital bed.

The goblins, likely aiming to make up for the exceptionally late will reading, had requested all information that could be found on Harry’s birth and the days preceding it and following after it.

Anthony Stark had signed away his parental rights almost the moment that Harry had been born, after a DNA test had proven unequivocally that he was Stark’s, which had then allowed James Potter to adopt him as his son and legal heir a few days later.

Harry had been given those documents, but what was raising red flags for Harry was that the ‘surrendering of rights’ form and the ‘final release for adoption’ form had been signed, not by Anthony Stark personally, but someone named Obadiah Stane, who was listed as Anthony Stark’s guardian. That had made Harry frown, just how old was his biological father that he’d needed a formal guardian himself when Harry had been born? Harry had no clue, he didn’t even know how this had happened, and he had no answers because Lily and James Potter were dead. The only other people who might have known anything about all of this, Sirius and Remus, or maybe even Dumbledore, were also all dead. He hoped that Anthony Stark stuck around for a while, not only to donate stem cells, but to answer a few questions…if he even could.
Grunting in pain and holding a hand to his abdomen, Harry hissed through his teeth to control the sharp, sudden pain and he, once again, cursed Voldemort for that last curse that had put him in this bed and was keeping him here. He might die in this bed yet. If his biological father wasn’t a match to him…Harry swallowed past his tight throat. If Stark wasn’t a match then it was very likely that this progressive curse would kill him, and sooner rather than later. He wouldn’t see eighteen, despite how close he was to his birthday.

There’d been a massive surge of the population to register as donors, all of them wanting the ‘prestige’ of being the one to match to the Saviour, to be able to say that they had saved his life, but the closest match that could be found had left him feeling worse than ever. If Stark wasn’t a match to him…he wouldn’t live much longer, he knew. It was a sobering thought, a sad thought, but stone-cold fact all the same. He was at the point where he didn’t even want to live anymore. Not like this. He just wanted all of it, and the pain, to just end.

Someone knocked on the door and then opened it. Hermione’s pale face peeked into the room hesitantly.

 

“Harry, how are you feeling?” She asked when she saw that he was actually awake, shuffling into the room, her shoulders rounded. She crinkled as she walked, wearing a full outfit of disposable plastic because Harry couldn’t get any sort of illness or infection now. It would kill him off. He also knew she had been cleansed with a charm and had a very high-strength antiseptic potion applied to her bare skin. It was so strong he could see the redness of the irritation it had caused her.

 

They had all suffered during the war and Hermione was still trying to come to terms with everything that had happened. Ron and the Weasleys were still grieving Fred’s death.

 

“Not great.” He said with a wry smile. “You?”

 

Hermione looked at him in the bed, grey-skinned and getting thinner, gaunt, skeletal, faded and washed-out, and her eyes filled with tears.

 

“I’m going for my first therapy session next week.” She admitted.

 

Harry nodded and he gave her a small, brittle smile of encouragement. “That’s great, Hermione. I’m happy for you.” He said sincerely. “How are the…”

 

Hermione’s hand jumped to her forearm, where that word lay, carved into her flesh as Harry trailed off.

 

“There’s nothing they can do to remove it.” Hermione said with more bravado than she was likely feeling.

 

“I’m sorry, Hermione.” Harry said and he truly was. He knew what it was like to live with a cursed scar you couldn’t get rid of.

 

She shook her head, her bushy hair moving with her.

 

“Don’t be. I wouldn’t change a thing, Harry. He’s gone and we’re safe.”

 

Harry considered that statement and he shook his head. It was true. It might cost him his life, Hermione was permanently scarred, and Fred had given his life for this war. Remus and Tonks had given their lives, and countless others had as well, but it had worked and Voldemort was gone for good. It had to be worth it, otherwise, people had died in vain. Their freedom may have come at a steep price, but they were now free. It had to be worth it. Harry closed his eyes and breathed in as deeply as he could when he felt like his throat and lungs were lined with sandpaper.

 

“I’d change a few things.” He joked weakly. “But never at the expense of changing the outcome. I would gladly die if it meant he stayed dead. I thought…in the forest, I thought I was going to die.” He swallowed hard. “I was willing to die to save everyone and I still am. If this next donor doesn’t work out…it’s the last chance for it to work.”

 

Tears fell down Hermione’s cheeks. “Is there nothing else that can be done?”

 

Harry shook his head. “No. I won’t survive another failed transfusion, I’m not strong enough and every moment they wait, I get weaker and less likely to survive the transfusion process.”

 

“When is the next transfusion?” Hermione asked him, her hands trembling with suppressed emotion.

 

“Hopefully, it’ll be in the next few days.” Harry said. He knew Stark was coming here from wherever he was in the world, so he should be here by the next morning, at least, maybe even that night, and he was going to be immediately tested for compatibility. The healers were desperate to save him, and they truly had done all they could, and Harry had no complaints about any aspect of his care. It wasn’t their fault that a close enough donor couldn’t be found. It was just sheer dumb luck.

 

“I’ll try again to get Ron to come and visit.”

 

Harry shook his head. “Don’t. Things were said and done and I forgive him. If he ever asks, please tell him I forgive him, but don’t force him to come, Hermione. I’m not strong enough to have a slanging match right now. I’m so tired, this is my last chance and if it goes badly, or it fails…” He trailed off into silence. They both knew what it would mean; he didn’t have to spell it out for Hermione. She knew.

 

Hermione’s pale, plastic-covered hand took his grey one and they just held hands in silence.

The war had all but destroyed them. Hermione could hardly bring herself to visit and she was keeping her distance from Ron too, insisting that she needed to focus on herself and her own healing and Harry understood and he didn’t begrudge her that space and time. The things they’d had to do, how they’d had to survive, the injuries they’d taken, both physical and invisible, of course they all needed some time to process it and heal from it all. He understood.

Ron and Harry had almost come to blows over Fred’s death, the both of them grieving and tempers and patience had been thin. Ron had needed someone to blame and he’d chosen Harry as a convenient target. Ron had always chosen Harry to be a target for his anger and jealousies. Harry hadn’t seen Ron since, not even when it came to light that Voldemort’s last curse was killing him. He understood that too, to an extent, which is why he’d forgiven Ron and told Hermione to tell him so in the, more likely, event now that Harry wasn’t around to do it himself.

They all just needed time and space to heal and Harry was sure that, if he wasn’t in this hospital bed dying, then he would be shutting himself away too, unwilling to see them, or face anyone as he tried to come to terms with everything he’d done to end the war. He had cast unforgivable curses during this war. He had tortured people, taken away their free will, and he had killed. It was a lot to try and stomach, and now, on the other side of the war, he had to reconcile the person he had been during the war to the person he was after it. It wasn’t going to be an easy thing…if he even survived that long, that was.

 

“How are the talks with the goblins?” Harry asked, unable to deal with his own thoughts in the silence, giving Hermione’s hand as much of a squeeze as he could manage when his grip was weaker than that of a lamb.

 

“You know I didn’t have a vault. I have a muggle bank account and it was my parents who exchanged pounds for galleons to buy my Hogwarts things.” Hermione said, subtly trying to wipe her teary eyes. “They tried to threaten me with a permanent ban, but it was always a hollow threat. It was you they were trying to make an example of. Ron and I might have been with you, helped you, planned it with you, but it was you they blamed for it.”

 

“They’ve changed their minds in the last few days.” Harry said a little stiffly. “I’m going to be keeping my vault and everything in it and I’m not being barred from the bank premises. We came to an agreement.”

 

“At least that’s some good news.” Hermione said, trying to smile, but it flickered at the edges and fell as quickly as it came.

 

Harry nodded and then he sighed. “I am sorry about everything, Hermione. I just wanted you to know that I have always valued our friendship.”

 

“Don’t, Harry.” Hermione said harshly.

 

Harry took in a breath and swallowed down all of the words he wanted to say, feeling like this might be his last chance to say them, but…if Hermione didn’t want to hear them, what right did he have to force them on her?

 

“I have to go.” Hermione said suddenly, woodenly.

 

She dropped his hand and stood up so quickly that she almost knocked over the chair. Harry watched her as she all but fled from his hospital room without another word or a backwards glance. It must have been hard for her, he reasoned, to see him like this and she was facing her own demons too, but that didn’t make his heart feel less choked as he watched her flee, leaving him feeling alone and abandoned when he needed company the most.

Feeling heavy and exhausted, now emotionally drained from the short visit too, Harry tried to let himself rest. Hopefully, tomorrow he would know if Stark was a match for him. Maybe if his imminent death wasn’t hanging over her, then Hermione wouldn’t feel so conflicted about coming to see him, perhaps if he recovered then it would help her own healing.

A selfish part of his brain whispered that it would be better for him if he just died, so that he wouldn’t have to deal with all of this pain and upset.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Tony hated this weird hospital the moment he set foot in it. It just felt…off. Everything seemed backwards and, instead of pristine white overcoats, it seemed the doctors here were wearing an eye-watering shade of lime green. There were nurses rushing around in bright yellow smock scrubs, not sparing any of them a second glance. It was as if they were nobodies.

 

“Right this way.” The prim woman all but barked at them. There was no consideration for who they were, no awe, not even a hint of recognition that any of them were celebrities. No one here in Britain could give a fuck about them and it actually made Tony smile.

 

The woman escorting them was a representative of the bank that had contacted him about his potential son, Harry, and she had been waiting for them the moment they landed. Her name was Rhosyn, no last name given, and she had brought them directly to this hospital with no fanfare, no details, nothing.

The hospital had an oppressive atmosphere, as if a national disaster had just taken place, but everyone was calm enough. They didn’t even get a second glance as they were led through the sterile hallways.

 

“Please wait in this room.”

 

“You are going to perform a DNA test, right?” Tony asked, unable to keep silent as everything that was happening was creeping him out.

 

“Is that what you want?” Rhosyn asked him, a brown eyebrow raised as if she didn’t understand the need for it.

 

“Yes, that’s what I want.” Tony said, frowning. “I want to know if this boy is my actual son!”

 

“Wait here.” She said, giving him a last once over as if he were scum, before leaving.

 

“This place is so weird!” He complained to Pepper.

 

“It doesn’t seem to be a typical hospital.” Pepper agreed, looking around the large waiting room they’d been placed in as if the answers lay in the mint green walls that were meant to be calming but absolutely were not.

 

He only had Pepper, Natasha, and Steve with him on this trip, after Pepper had told him that it wasn’t wise to take a lot of people around a sick child. Natasha had flown the jet, Steve was here as the leader of the Avengers team, and Pepper was here for personal support. Happy had stayed with the jet, just in case.

 

“Good morning.” A young man greeted them politely as he stepped into the room. He was wearing a shade of yellow so bright it was eye-searing up close, like looking into the sun. “I will be taking your blood for a DNA test and a cheek swab for your HLA type.”

 

Tony nodded and sat down, letting the nurse do what he needed to. There was, again, zero recognition and no fawning as the nurse did exactly what he needed to in a calm, gentle manner, before giving him a generic smile and telling him that a doctor would be back with the results as soon as they were in.

 

“I don’t like this.” Tony said again, feeling antsy. “Maybe there isn’t a boy here, maybe they just wanted my blood. They didn’t even take me to an actual exam room, it was as if they couldn’t even afford that little bit of extra time before they took my DNA, they just did it right in the waiting room!”

 

Pepper sighed and laid a hand on his back, her thumb stroking. It eased something sharp and painful inside his chest and he breathed more evenly.

 

“I know you’re worried, Tony.” Pepper told him. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a boy here who is potentially your son, if it happens then it happens, and we will deal with it.”

 

Tony eased down, but it didn’t last as time stretched his nerves. He was up and pacing, his hands restless and he wasn’t able to keep still.

 

“What is taking so long?!” Tony growled.

 

“They are likely waiting for the results from both tests before coming back to tell you, Tony.” Natasha told him.

 

The circuits that Tony was pacing became tighter and he was so wound up that he was ready to snap when a doctor, of course wearing one of those odd lime green overcoats, stepped into the room.

 

“Well?!” Tony demanded.

 

The woman looked at him with scathing eyes, as if he wasn’t worth her time and it was that which actually helped settle Tony down. No one here seemed to know any of them and whether they did or didn’t, they certainly didn’t give a shit. It was…novel.

 

“It is good news on all fronts.” The doctor told him. “You are Mister Potter’s biological father with a parentage index of ninety-nine point nine per cent and your HLA typing has tested compatible enough to be a suitable donor for him.”

 

The doctor handed over both test results to him and Tony didn’t even cringe at being handed something as he quickly took the results and looked them through himself, seeing the breakdown of each tested locus and the alleles in the ‘paternal’ sample that perfectly matched up with those in the ‘child’ sample. There were no mismatches. Harry was his son. He actually had a son.

He sat down in shock and Pepper was there to give him a gentle touch and silent support.

Tony looked up at the watching doctor.

 

“I want to see him.”

 

The doctor didn’t react.

 

“I want to see my son!” He repeated more firmly.

 

“That isn’t going to be possible. Mister Potter’s immune system isn’t strong enough to withstand any infections at this time and it will delay the transfusion, which, at this time, might prove to be fatal.”

 

“What is wrong with him?” Tony asked then.

 

“I am not permitted to discuss my patient’s information with you.”

 

“I am his father!” Tony pointed out, his hand shaking the test results as if the doctor had forgotten that fact, despite that she had brought the results to him.

 

“Mister Potter is a legal adult.”

 

“He’s seventeen!” Tony said with an angry growl.

 

“Regardless of his age, he is a legal adult and he will be eighteen in a few months. He has not given his permission to share any details with you and I will uphold his wishes.”

 

“Ask him, please.” Tony begged. “I want to see him, speak to him, before the transfusion.” It was noticed, but went unsaid that he wanted to see him before the transfusion in case Harry didn’t survive it.

 

The doctor gave him a stern look, as if she would refuse outright without even asking, but then she nodded, just once.

 

“I will ask Mister Potter about his wishes once he wakes. You will remain here.”

 

That was it, she turned and walked out of the waiting room, leaving Tony trying to deal with the bomb she’d dropped by handing over the positive test results.

Tony sank back into his chair and he looked back at the test results in his hand.

 

“He’s mine. I never knew, I never received any word that I might have a son. Nothing came across your desk?”

 

“Nothing, Tony, I swear.” Pepper told him. “I’ve always brought all paternity cases to you.”

 

Tony slumped. “If he wasn’t so sick, I would never have known about him.”

 

And that was what was hitting him the hardest. The undeniable fact that Harry had only contacted him because he desperately needed a donor. He was seventeen…eighteen in a few months if the doctor was correct and he hadn’t once contacted Tony for anything. Not to acknowledge him as his father, not even to tell him that he existed. Not for money, attention, or something as inane as help with a school project. Nothing, and Tony was one hundred per cent sure that, if Harry hadn’t needed stem cells, then he would have gone on quite happily never meeting him.

Another nurse in yellow came in and she was smiling so brightly that Tony was expecting her to know who they were, but there was no fawning, nothing but bright professionalism.

 

“My name is Claire and I’m the one in charge of Mister Potter’s daily care. Mister Potter is awake and he has agreed to meet with you. I’m going to take you to a sterilisation room, please clean every part of your body and wear the provided clothing, and then I will take you to Mister Potter’s room.”

 

Tony nodded his agreement, his hand clenched tightly onto Pepper’s.

 

“None of us are unwell.” Steve assured the nurse.

 

She smiled brightly at Steve. “That is very reassuring to know. Please, follow me.”

 

The four of them followed Claire to a bright white, tiled room that was well stocked with medical-grade, alcohol-based antiseptic.

Tony followed the written directions on the wall obsessively, removing all excess clothing and accessories and smearing the cleanser on every inch of exposed skin, ignoring the prickle it caused, and the burning as it got into a tiny nick on his thumb, before taking the disposable gloves, hat, booties, and apron from the waiting boxes.

Claire was waiting for them outside the room and her smile was still bright as she led them to a room that wasn’t very far away.

Tony got a glimpse of jet-black, messy hair and a side profile that reminded him so strongly of his younger self that it was actually nostalgic. His heart started beating furiously and Tony had to clench his hands into fists to keep himself walking.

His son, Harry, looked dreadful through the little window. He was small and grey in the bed, looking gaunt and tired and just…he looked very sick and very vulnerable and Tony didn’t know how to deal with it.

 

“Now, just one more thing; Mister Potter is still very tired after the last transfusion. It…it didn’t go to plan, but he has said he’s willing to meet you, but please remain aware that he will tire very easily and is likely not up for much.” The nurse said, a hint of protectiveness in her voice. “Please, do not cause him any stress or emotional upheaval; it will exacerbate his condition. If he weakens much further…” She trailed off and swallowed painfully. “…there’s a chance he’ll be too weak for us to even consider performing the transfusion.”

 

Then, after that bombshell, she was opening the door, greeting the boy inside brightly, with so much enthusiasm and happiness, and Tony had to swallow and steel himself to take that step into the, rather large, hospital room to meet his son for the first time…he’d have liked to make a good impression with his personal style, but even that was taken from him as he was wearing so much disposable plastic that nothing much other than his face could be seen. He hoped Harry didn’t hold that against him.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry looked up as the door opened and his favourite orderly, Clara, came back in, indicating it was time. He took a breath, steeling himself for this first meeting. He hadn’t told any of his friends about having a living father. He hadn’t wanted to add to their troubles, but dealing with this on his own, without advice, while also dealing with his potential impending death…it just felt like it was too much, but what else could he do? If he didn’t contact Stark then he would definitely die; he needed stem cells and blood. The two had to go hand in hand, so he would deal with it.

Four people shuffled into the room wearing the plastic outfits that were to protect him in his delicate state.

 

“Thank you for coming.” Harry said, hating that he sounded so tired and weak and not himself.

 

“Of course I came.” The man out front told him. “I came the moment I found out.”

 

Harry assumed that he was Anthony Stark. His biological father.

From what Harry could see, there was a strong resemblance. Anthony Stark and James Potter could have been brothers they looked that similar. It wasn’t a wonder to him now, looking at the man, that people had still told him he looked like James Potter, even though the man wasn’t his biological father.

 

“Are you feeling…I mean, you’re obviously sick, but are you alright?” Stark asked him.

 

Harry snorted softly through his nose. “Living the dream.” He answered with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

 

Stark gave a wry smile as he took the seat next to the bed and he seemed a little awkward.

 

Harry sighed heavily. “I do appreciate you agreeing to take the test.”

 

“Of course I agreed.” Stark assured him. “I don’t know if they’ve already told you, but I’m a perfect match and I will donate whatever you need, though, I hope you don’t need any part of a liver because I don’t think mine will be suitable, but if you need one, I will find you a liver.” The man rambled.

 

Harry laughed at the outlandish claim. “No, just bone marrow and blood, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Is it…is it cancer?” Stark asked haltingly.

 

Harry grimaced. “No, not exactly, but it’s acting like cancer and it needs to be treated like cancer. So, completely wiping out my malfunctioning cells and then replacing them with healthy donor cells. Only, the last donor wasn’t a close enough match and my body completely rejected the donor cells, so I’m dealing with that on top of my own cells dying off too.”

 

The silence was heavy, oppressive, following that lovely statement and Harry immediately felt the urge to break it with nervous rambling, but someone else beat him to it.

 

“So, how do you know about me?” Stark asked, his hands fiddling in his lap as if he couldn’t sit still.

 

“What do you mean?” Harry asked with a frown.

 

“You knew that I was your father. I didn’t even know you existed, but you knew about me.”

 

Harry’s frown deepened. “You didn’t know about me? How is that possible?”

 

“You tell me, because you seem to be the one here with all the answers.”

 

Harry’s mind went back to those documents that the goblins had given him. The red flags he’d felt as he read that Anthony Stark had signed away his rights to him via a man named Obadiah Stane…who the hell was Obadiah Stane? Had the Potters made him up? Had they never actually told his biological father about him? But no, they had stipulated in their will that if anything happened to them then Anthony Stark was to be contacted and Harry’s care and guardianship was to be passed to him. They must have been of the assumption that Stark knew about him to do such a thing. Harry swallowed heavily. He couldn’t take any more surprises. He just didn’t have the energy for it.

 

“Well, I found out about you a few days ago.” Harry confessed. “My parents’ will was never read because of…well, a series of blundering errors. So, I actually never knew that my father, James, had adopted me and that you were my biological father and, after their deaths, I was supposed to be offered to you, so that you could decide what was to be done about my care, but as their will was never read, their express wishes weren’t upheld and none of that happened.”

 

“He couldn’t have adopted you without my permission.” Stark said firmly, seriously.

 

Harry was beginning to consider that all of this heartache and pain was because of this Obadiah Stane. Who was he and why had he been allowed to speak on Stark’s behalf? Because, from what Harry could see, he certainly wasn’t young enough to have needed a guardian when Harry had been born. He looked older than both Lily and James would have been had they lived. It was time to see if the name meant anything to Anthony Stark.

 

“I have the documents that prove a DNA test was performed shortly after my birth and that the moment the results of that test came back as a match to you, you signed away your parental rights. You signed the forms that allowed my father, James, to adopt me under the condition that they, and I, was to never contact you and I wasn’t allowed to make any claim on your estate or assets, even in the event of your death. I suppose I’ve already broken that condition, though, seeing as I contacted you for stem cells.”

 

“I would never have done such a thing!” Stark burst out, his hands flailing and waving angrily. “I didn’t even know about you! Pepper…!”

 

He turned to one of the people standing quietly behind him almost beseechingly.

 

“I’ll find out exactly what happened, Tony.” A woman said seriously.

 

Stark, Tony, turned back to him, his eyes almost too wide, as if he were on the edge of panic.

 

“I promise, Harry, I would never have signed you away like…like a fucking business contract if I’d known you existed! Do you still have those documents? There’s no way I signed them, which means they’re forged!”

 

“They’re not forged.” Harry said gently. “They were signed in person, with legal witnesses from the bank where the will was kept and from your company, Stark Industries, but…but it’s not your signature on them.”

 

Stark was breathing heavily. “Then they’re not legally binding!” He said desperately. “Who signed them on my behalf?”

 

“Your guardian, a man named Obadiah Stane.”

 

Stark knew the name. He knew who had done it, Harry could see it in the pain and grief that suddenly swallowed his hazel eyes, he heard it in the choked-off sob he let free. It was impossible to miss when the woman he had called Pepper immediately stepped forward and laid a gloved hand on his shoulder, pulling Stark back to rest his head on her plastic-covered stomach. If Tony wasn’t wearing the plastic hat, Harry got the feeling that she would have been playing with his hair to soothe him.

From the reaction, Harry was betting he wasn’t the only one in the room who had had abusive guardians.

He turned slowly, painfully, in the bed to reach across to the bedside table, picking up the folder he’d been given by the goblins that contained the several documents, all signed by Obadiah Stane.

Harry let out a pained grunt as he shifted back, gasping and pressing his free hand to his chest. Just that small movement and his heart felt like it was beating so fast it would explode.

 

“Here.” He said hoarsely, breathless from the pain. “Whoever that Obadiah Stane was to you, he signed everything on your behalf. The severance of parental rights, the final adoption notice, the contract of disinheritance that prevented me from contacting you for anything or making any claim to your estate or assets, whether you were still alive or had died.”

 

Pepper took the folder and opened it, holding the documents and she looked through all of them, holding them low enough that Stark could read them with her, but he was trembling, Harry noticed. So close to a panic attack that it seemed too late to prevent it from happening.

 

“This needs to be undone.” Stark said to the woman. “We need to find a way to undo this.”

 

“Maybe you should ask me if that’s what I want first.” Harry said, a hint of anger creeping into his voice. “You’re not the only one here who’s had a shock over this news. I had no idea that the man I thought of as my father, the man I am named after, had adopted me and wasn’t even my biological father.”

 

“I need to make this right!” Stark told him.

 

Harry gave him a wry smile. “Sometimes, it’s not about what you want. I don’t want my father’s adoption overturned. He died to protect me. He threw himself between me and danger, and he died willingly, unhesitantly, so that I had a chance to live on.”

 

“I…I just want the chance to know you.” Stark, Tony, said, still trembling.

 

“Why do you have to try to overturn my adoption and make this revelation harder than it needs to be to do that?”

 

“Because this isn’t what I would have wanted! I would have wanted to know you, to be able to call you my child and look after you if needed. How…how old were you when…?”

 

“When both of my parents were brutally murdered while protecting me? Fifteen months.”

 

“You said that…that I was supposed to be offered guardianship of you before anyone else.”

 

“If my parents’ will had been read and enacted, you would have been.” Harry nodded.

 

“Who is responsible for not enacting the will?” Tony asked with an edge of something dark to him.

 

“The bank where it was stored. The same bank whose representatives are desperately trying to make amends by helping me contact you despite the signed order that forbids me from doing just that.”

 

“We can’t let them get away with this, Harry.” Tony told him, trying desperately to sound calm and in control, but his hands were still trembling.

 

“I have to.” Harry said, smiling apologetically. “As part of my reparations to the bank, I’m not allowed to hold the unenacted will against them.”

 

“Reparations for what?” Pepper asked him. “Surely it is not so bad as not having your parents’ will read.”

 

“It’s not. Not in my mind, at least, but given my current state, I deemed contacting you for stem cells more important than trying to hold the will over their heads.”

 

“You could have contacted me yourself.” Tony burst out.

 

“With the signed order to never contact you for any reason? I didn’t want to risk that you might sue me for breaking those conditions, so I agreed to forgive the overlooked will if they handled it for me. Not that it would have gotten you very far if you had wanted to sue me, mind, as I’d have likely been dead before it ever got to court.”

 

“I would never have sued you for contacting me, I didn’t know what Obie had…I had no part in any of it; I didn’t know about you or any of it.”

 

“And how was I to know that before you told me? As far as I knew, you’d signed me away the moment I was born and never wanted contact with me. I hedged my bets that you would possibly be decent enough to be willing to donate some blood and bone marrow for me, but that’s all I was actually expecting and, even then, I was half expecting you to refuse.”

 

“You’re very candid about your condition and what not getting treatment could lead to.” One of the people Tony had brought with him said. She was a redhead too, and she was looking at him through serious eyes, scrutinising him, breaking the shocked silence his words had caused.

 

Harry shrugged a narrow shoulder that was now overly bony in his loose medical pyjamas.

 

“Would you prefer me to break down and sob over it? I almost don’t care if I do die now because I am in so much pain that the medicine they’re using to try and control it doesn’t last longer than a few hours. If my own mutated cells don’t kill me, then the overly strong medicine used to try and numb the pain for a brief bit of respite will.”

 

“That’s not going to happen…that…it’ll be over soon. I’m going to donate everything you need, for as long as you need. You’ll get better.” Tony rambled desperately.

 

Harry smiled. “Hopefully.” He said. “If it doesn’t work…” Harry swallowed, his first sign of vulnerability. “…if they ask you as my only next of kin…let me go. Just let me die. I can’t stand this pain anymore. If the transfusion fails for whatever reason, don’t let me wake up. The doctors already know my wishes, but if they legally have to ask you now it’s been confirmed that you’re my only living parent, don’t contradict my wishes.”

 

“No. I can’t do that, Harry. There has to be something else to try if this fails.” Tony said, that edge of panic back in his brown eyes.

 

Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to try anything else. I don’t want to live like this anymore, the pain is too much to bear. Promise me that if the transfusion fails, you won’t let me wake back up.”

 

“Euthanasia is illegal in Britain, the same as in America.” Pepper said seriously.

 

Harry shook his head. “This hospital is the exception. Euthanasia is legal within these walls as long as the patient is terminal and, I’m sorry to say, I am. If this next transfusion doesn’t work, I will die. It’s only a question of the manner of death I suffer; dignified and on my terms or slowly, painfully, drugged up to my eyeballs, until I finally give in to this condition.”

 

“That’s why you chose this weird hospital, isn’t it?” Tony asked him, his eyes too wide.

 

It wasn’t. He hadn’t chosen it at all as Saint Mungo’s was the only magical hospital in the country. But, if magical healing failed, if even magic couldn’t help a patient, it was deemed better to allow true death and, in that case, legal euthanasia was practised in wizarding Britain.

So many allowances had had to be made to allow several muggles into the hospital. All of Harry’s healers and orderlies were muggleborn and knew to use the muggle terms while these people were here. The human representative of Gringotts had also been chosen because they were muggleborn.

Harry had been moved as close to the entrance of the hospital as the healers dared, from his room five floors above, just so these muggles didn’t see anything they shouldn’t and the protections on the hospital had been removed for the few minutes it took them to get onto the street and into the building. All via special request from the new Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt.

 

“I felt that they would offer me the best care with my condition, even if, in the end, the best care for me is to let me go so I can finally be free of pain.”

 

“It’s so bad that you want to actually die?” Tony asked him carefully.

 

“It’s so bad that if I was strong enough, I would have done it myself already.” Harry confided. “I’m so heavily dosed now that it’s doing almost as much damage as the condition itself and it’s still not enough to completely take away the pain. I still feel it, like a constant grinding ache all over my body, but as the medication wears off, it gets sharper, it’s impossible to ignore, I can’t keep still or rest or sleep. I just want to rest.”

 

“Are you in pain now?”

 

“Yes.” Harry said simply. “It’s constant, but I was freshly dosed just before you came in, though, so it’s not as bad as it will be in an hour or so.”

 

“You are strong enough for the transfusion, aren’t you?” Tony asked desperately, his gaze sliding down to his blanket-covered body as if assessing him.

 

“I have to be, because if I’m not…I’m only going to get weaker from here on out. It might have been better if I hadn’t had the failed transfusion, but I had a dip in my cell levels and the doctors panicked and used the closest donor who matched to me in desperation. Despite that it was an almost perfect match, it still failed. They’re not even sure if you’ll be able to cure it, which is why I want you to swear that, if it fails this time, you will let me die in peace, before I wake back up to the grinding pain.”

 

This man, his actual father, was trembling so hard that he shook where he sat. They had only found out about one another a few days before, well, no, Harry had known a few days ago, for this man, it was yesterday. He’d known for a day and this was their very first meeting. Harry understood that he was asking for a lot from him, but it was a very serious matter. For him, it was life and death. He couldn’t live in such pain for much longer. This was going to be the last chance for him. If even this didn’t work, then he wanted to die.

 

“I’ll uphold your wishes.” Tony said softly, sounding like he’d rather scream that he wouldn’t do it, that he wouldn’t let Harry die, but he had said it and it meant everything to him.

 

Reaching out a grey-tinged hand, Tony met him very quickly with his own, holding his bony, skeletal hand in his larger, warmer hand that was covered in a plastic glove.

 

“Thank you.” Harry said seriously.

 

“I’m going to donate everything you need and, in the meantime, look over everything they have on your condition and what they’ve tried. I’m going to help you as much as I can.” Tony promised.

 

Harry hummed sleepily, feeling the exhaustion of everything that had happened dragging on him. He’d been awake for too long. He had done too much, felt too much, and now that he had a verbal promise from the man who was the only one who could potentially override his own wishes, he felt drained. Nothing else was left to be said; all he could hope for now was that the transfusion with a perfect match actually worked this time. He would either wake up from a perfectly successful transfusion…or he’d never wake up again.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Tony watched as the tiny, skinny kid who was actually his son fell into an exhausted sleep that didn’t seem in the slightest bit restful if the deep black bruises surrounding his eyes were an indication.

Harry looked so damn tired, every inch of him stretched through pain and exhaustion. Holding his hand was like holding a bag of bones. All over his small body, Harry was all bones and no flesh, as if he had lost a significant amount of weight in a very short timeframe.

 

“It has to work.” He said into the silence of the room, feeling the stillness like an oppressive weight crushing into him.

 

No one said anything and that weight grew, his head started buzzing and he felt the panic clawing at him. He needed air, he needed out of these plastic clothes and out of the sterile, oppressive room, but he also needed to stay here and hold Harry’s tiny, bony hand because he felt that the moment he stepped away, that would be the end. He had to spend every single moment he could with Harry now because he had missed seventeen, almost eighteen, years with his only child and Harry was now so sick that if this transfusion didn’t work then he would never get a moment more with him.

 

“Tony, take a deep breath.” Steve coached him, standing away from him, not touching him, but still a steady presence at his shoulder.

 

“I can’t. He wants to die. It has to work because I can’t lose him now that I’ve found him.”

 

“There must be something else we can try if it fails again.” Pepper said softly, hopefully.

 

Tony swallowed and said nothing. He wouldn’t disrespect Harry by going against his wishes. He wouldn’t force Harry to carry on living with such pain, on medication that was so strong that it was also killing him. It wasn’t fair. He felt sick and he had to try hard not to clench Harry’s hand in his own.

 

“Obie knew.” He said, focusing on something, anything, else to distract himself from his dying son. “If I could kill him over again, I would.”

 

“I should have set someone to going through all of his papers and documents.” Pepper said sadly. “Perhaps there was something in them that would have led us to Harry.”

 

“That was my decision.” Tony said, feeling wretched for ordering all of Obie’s stuff to be incinerated without looking through any of it. He’d been too hurt at the time, but now, almost a decade on, Obie was still betraying him in the worst ways possible. “I might have known him from two thousand and eight if I’d just looked through those papers. He’d have been eight. I could have taken him in when he was only eight.”

 

Tony bowed his head and rested it on the fist of the hand that wasn’t holding Harry’s.

 

“I should have known him from birth!” He carried on angrily, sitting back up. “Obie should never have been the one contacted about it! He should never have been the one to make those decisions on my behalf!”

 

“He was trying to kill you off, wasn’t he?” Natasha asked and Tony turned to stare at her. “I just mean that it makes sense that he wanted Harry out of the way. He wanted to take over Stark Industries after he’d had you killed. He couldn’t have your confirmed biological child muscling in on your company or your assets when he wanted it all for himself, so he made sure that Harry couldn’t legally lay claim to any of it and he put in that clause about never contacting you for anything so that you’d never find out.”

 

Tony couldn’t breathe and he turned back to Harry, holding his hand with both of his own.

 

“It means that Stane was planning to have you killed as far back as nineteen-ninety-nine.” Natasha pointed out, but it wasn’t needed. Tony had already worked that out for himself.

 

The fresh betrayal ripped through him like a set of claws, but Tony refused to acknowledge the hurt. Harry had to come first.

 

“I can’t even be glad that he contacted me.” Tony whispered into the oppressive room. “Not like this. Not because he needs blood and bone marrow because he’s so sick that he…” He shook his head, he didn’t need to say it. Everyone in that room had heard the same conversation as he had; they knew that Harry was dying. That he might still die, either from the procedure itself or after, if it failed, and he was euthanised. He couldn’t bear the thought of it, but he had agreed because he didn’t want to be the one who forced Harry to keep living when he didn’t want to. He didn’t want Harry to hate him, or to spend any energy on hating him when he needed it to keep living.

 

The door knocked so quietly that Tony wondered if it was a figment of his imagination, but a nurse in yellow poked her head around the door. It was the bright, smiley one named Claire.

 

“Mister Stark? The team are ready for you if you’re ready.” She told him.

 

Tony trembled. Not at the thought of the donation process, which he knew wouldn’t be a walk in the park, the process was usually harder on the donor than the recipient, he knew, and he didn’t care about any of that. He couldn’t bring himself to leave Harry if this was it…if they took Harry to receive the stem cells straight after he donated them, then this could be the last he saw of his son alive. He swallowed hard, trying to remove his hands from Harry’s.

Pepper’s hand on his back helped and he inhaled deeply, bracing himself for what was to happen next. He had to leave Harry to help him. He prayed to a god that he didn’t believe in that this worked. That Harry came out of this and recovered. He had to recover. He had to come through it. He just had to.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Chapter 2: Transfusion

Tony was feeling terrible, and sore, but not as bad as he had been expecting, all things considered, but he didn’t care how badly he felt as he forced himself out of the hospital bed to pace the room, waiting for any news on Harry.

 

“Can’t you just stay still, Tony?” Pepper begged. “You’re recovering too. You’ve just donated a litre of bone marrow and a pint of blood.”

 

“I don’t care about me.” He said, ignoring the aching in his hips, but that was all it was, an ache, not really anything he would call pain. That didn’t seem right either. He’d been prepared for a long recovery afterwards and the pain of having several needles forced through the back of his hip bones to harvest a litre of bone marrow for enough stem cells for Harry. He considered it a plus, though.

 

He’d had to drink several foul concoctions, which he’d been told would immediately increase his stem cell production, though he was under the impression that the drugs for such a thing would have to be taken over a few days, but he wouldn’t question it. He’d then been put under a general anaesthetic for the harvesting process, as a litre of liquid bone marrow had been taken from the back of his pelvis and a pint of blood was taken from him, all while Harry was prepped by another team to receive the blood and bone marrow as quickly as possible afterwards.

It seemed too quick, too strange, but he would look up the procedure once he left the hospital just in case there had been some sort of medical breakthrough in this exact procedure that was being trialled. They had been told, by the bank representative who had met them the moment they’d landed in the country, not to switch their phones, or any other technological devices, on inside the hospital and Tony had taken that seriously. He’d left all his tech on the private plane, under Happy’s diligent watch, and made sure everyone else had as well, but he wished he had some way to look up how this procedure was supposed to go, and how long it usually took, because he’d only been here for a few hours and his part of the process was done and Harry’s procedure would be done today as well. It seemed too quick, suspiciously quick, but if it worked then he wouldn’t give a damn about this weird hospital or their practices or the fact that this one hospital, despite the entire of Britain having euthanasia as an illegal practice, was somehow allowed to euthanise their terminal patients.

It took hours and Tony was stretched to his limit and nothing was able to calm him down. Not the team members who had come with him, not even Pepper. He didn’t have any tech to distract himself with. Nothing but his panic-inducing thoughts about what might be happening with Harry somewhere in this damn hospital. Was the procedure complete? Had the transfusion worked? Or were they, at this very moment, administering drugs that would euthanise his only child?

Tony had to stop and breathe through the wave of panic those thoughts created. He would be glad to never come here ever again once all of this was over. He wanted to take Harry back to America with him, settle him in at the Avengers compound in upstate New York, and never let his son out of his sight ever again.

A knock on the door and a doctor in lime green came in and he held up a hand to stall any words, but he gave them a small smile of reassurance.

 

“The procedure is complete and all signs for the moment are positive.” The man said brusquely. “Mister Potter is responding to the donor cells well enough that we are cautiously optimistic for a positive outcome.”

 

“I want to see him.” Tony demanded.

 

The doctor nodded. “I had assumed as much. Mister Potter is currently in a post-procedure recovery room and he is still under the effects of the anaesthetic. We want to monitor him closely until he wakes from this, and then he will be moved back into his patient room, where you will be allowed to see him again.”

 

Tony swallowed against the lump in his throat, trying to breathe through the sheer, dizzying relief he felt.

 

“How long before he can be released?” Tony asked. “Until he can travel?”

 

“We will want to ensure that the condition has been treated successfully.” The man said, eyes narrowing on him suspiciously. “We want to be sure that Mister Potter will not relapse and this condition will not come back. He will need time to recover from the procedure. As long as three months could be needed before he is able to leave the hospital, and that is only if he doesn’t get any infections or his body doesn’t reject the donor cells. It could be as long as a year before he is no longer at increased risk of infections from this process.”

 

Tony had been expecting that. He knew it would take time for his donated cells to establish in Harry’s body, but a year before he was free of the threat of increased infections from this procedure?

 

“But, everything looks good?” Pepper asked worriedly.

 

Tony’s heart melted for her and he held a hand out and she took it, squeezing gently.

 

“Everything is looking very positive, as a contrast to the last transfusion that Mister Potter had, where he immediately rejected the donor cells and we noticed it almost immediately after the procedure was complete. We had to give him several strong medications to keep him alive through that rejection and we feared he would be too weak to endure this transfusion, but he has gotten through it and he is recovering well. It is the best possible outcome we could have asked for.”

 

Tony was surprised to see that the doctor had tears in his eyes. Just how long had Harry been sick, been in this hospital, for these medical professionals to be so attached to him?

 

“You really should be resting, Mister Stark. We will give you more painkillers if you require them, but it will be a few hours, at least, before you can see Mister Potter again. We will inform you if his condition changes and we will take you to his room when he is placed back there.”

 

“Thank you.” Tony said seriously, the relief almost swallowing him, and he sat back on his hospital bed, the adrenaline seeping out of him all at once, leaving him feeling tired and sore.

 

The doctor nodded and then left the room and Tony allowed a hint of vulnerability to show as he allowed himself to fall back against the bed, covering his face with his hands and just absorbing the news that Harry looked like he was going to recover. That the donation process had worked.

 

“Get some rest, Tony. I’ll wake you if there’s any news.” Pepper assured him.

 

Tony took some deep breaths and relaxed every part of his body slowly. He didn’t think he could fall asleep in this sort of situation, but he did. Now that he knew that Harry was showing positive signs, he could allow himself to rest for a while.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry felt groggy when he woke from the process. It wasn’t even, strictly, an operation. He’d been knocked out with a sleeping charm and his mutated cells had been wiped out with a mixture of potions and spells and the donor cells had been spelled straight into his body. No needles, no opening him up, no blood filtration, nothing.

 

“Mister Potter?”

 

Harry hummed softly, trying to remember who was around him.

 

“Are you awake? Can you open your eyes?”

 

Harry tried and he managed to crack them open a bit, glad that the light was dim. He saw one of the orderlies who had been looking after him, Olive, and the man smiled so brightly at him that it brought an answering smile from him, even if his felt a little delayed and lopsided.

His brain was a bit slow, but he was waking up. That he was waking up too meant that the procedure had been a success…unless his father, Tony, had overruled him. Though, after their last talk before Harry had fallen asleep, he hoped that the man hadn’t gone against his wishes.

 

“It worked?” He asked, his throat feeling tight and sore.

 

“As expected.” Olive said, fighting back tears of his own.

 

Harry let his head sink into the pillow as he took that information in. It had worked. It had actually worked.

 

“Now that you’re awake, we’re going to move you back to your private room.” The orderly said.

 

Harry nodded.

 

“Your…father, he is still here.” Olive said, with only a minimal pause before he said the word ‘father’ which, Harry supposed, was understandable given that he was the famous son of Lily and James Potter and now, suddenly, he wasn’t James Potter’s son at all. “He wishes to see you again.”

 

Harry was only a little surprised that his biological father was still here. Though, after what he’d found out, about Tony never knowing about him or about the documents that had been signed in his name, it was a little more understandable that he’d stayed.

Harry yawned and didn’t fuss as he had several spells cast over him to check his vitals.

 

“Everything is looking good.” The orderly said and, in short order, the bed was rolled out of the observation room and Harry just let himself rest as he was wheeled back down three floors, going in the lift, and then he was back in the room where he’d met Anthony Stark for the first time.

 

“Are you feeling up to visitors?” The orderly asked him after he’d finished setting up the wards that would alert the orderlies on the ward of any issues Harry might experience.

 

Harry nodded, though he was feeling very tired still and like he needed a month or so of rest to get over everything he’d been put through in the last few weeks. Merlin, had it only been two weeks since the end of the war? It felt like months, years, had passed. He was due some serious rest and relaxation from here on out.

 

“Harry, how are you?”

 

Harry blinked and suddenly his room was full again. The four people were all back in the plastic outfits, but he gave them a tired smile.

 

“Feel like I got hit by a bus.” He said honestly.

 

“You have more colour to you already.” Tony observed.

 

“Feeling better already. Not so much pain. Bit groggy, though.”

 

“That’ll be the anaesthetic. Oliver, the nurse who came to get us, said you’d just come around.”

 

Harry hummed. “All went well. Went as expected. As long as that condition doesn’t come back and takes over the new cells.”

 

“You’re taking immune-suppressors?”

 

Harry nodded. “Among other things. It’s going to be a while before I’m well enough to leave the hospital.”

 

“I’m not leaving.” Tony told him seriously.

 

“It could be weeks, even months.” Harry pointed out.

 

“I’m still not leaving.”

 

Unexpectedly touched by that statement, Harry didn’t know what to say.

His father, and wasn’t that a novel thought; that he actually had a living parent? sat beside him and took his hand again. Harry saw him frown for a moment and then he looked around the room, then his face cleared and he looked back at him.

 

“You really are feeling better already?”

 

Harry nodded. “Yeah. I’m tired, but that’s not anything new. The pain kept me from sleeping a lot. I’d get small snatches, but I haven’t slept properly for weeks.”

 

“You don’t look like you’ve been eating either.” The other woman in the room said. The one who wasn’t Paprika. He didn’t know her name. Or maybe he just didn’t remember it. He was getting very forgetful of all of these new people being introduced to him.

 

Harry shook his head. “Nothing by mouth.”

 

“Intravenous?” The same woman asked.

 

Harry shook his head and grimaced. “Nasogastric.”

 

Tony hissed through his teeth. “Damn, that’s a terrible way to get fluids and food into you. Why would the doctors choose one of the most traumatic methods to give you fluids instead of just setting up an IV?”

 

Harry hummed. “Swallowing anything by mouth would trigger my gag reflex. I had to take antiemetics because I couldn’t stop throwing up, even though it was just acid and bile. It got so bad that I started throwing up blood where the constant vomiting had taken the lining off my oesophagus. I’m not that bad now, since the nasal tube, but I lost a lot of weight very quickly.”

 

Tony opened his mouth as if to say something, but he thought better of it.

 

“I know I look terrible, you can say it.” Harry prompted.

 

“It’s not that. I just…it would be so much easier to keep you from dehydration and malnutrition with an IV drip and it wouldn’t have damaged your oesophagus further like having a tube forced down it would have.”

 

Harry wasn’t sure that healers even knew what IVs were given that they hadn’t even heard of stitches. Maybe some muggleborn ones had, like the one who had suggested stitches to Mr Weasley following the snake attack, but a lot of potions were designed to be ingested, to go through the stomach and not through the blood, so the nasal tube, despite being a new level of horror for him, had been necessary when he’d been vomiting up almost anything he swallowed and, while he was taking potions via that tube, it made sense to also feed him and give him fluids through it while it was already in.

Some of the medicines he needed to take were just charmed into his body, though, with no need for him to swallow them. Harry remembered thinking, on the first time it had happened, that he’d wished Madam Pomfrey had done that with the skele-gro in his second year just so that he hadn’t had to taste it. He’d learned since, though, that some potions couldn’t have any spells interact with them, which is why some could be spelled directly into his stomach and some had to be administered through the nasogastric tube.

 

Harry shrugged a bony shoulder. “I’m not a doctor.”

 

“Maybe I should have a talk with your doctors.” Tony said, his tone lowering with displeasure.

 

“No need. They’ve seen me through this now and I’m going to get out of this hospital. Yesterday, I didn’t think that would ever happen. I turn eighteen soon and I was facing the real possibility that I wouldn’t get that far, despite how close it is.”

 

“You never said, when were you born?”

 

“July thirty-first.”

 

“And you’ve been in the hospital since when?”

 

“May second.”

 

“That…Harry, that was two weeks ago!”

 

Harry nodded. “I deteriorated incredibly quickly. It’s a very virulent condition.”

 

“What is it called?”

 

Harry shrugged again. “I never asked.”

 

“What do you mean you never asked? Harry, that’s…that’s the very basic thing you should have asked!”

 

Harry shrugged yet again. “I was more concerned with how much pain I was in and how to get rid of it. I didn’t care what it actually was and I didn’t have the mental capacity to think of asking questions. I’ve mostly been drugged up to my eyeballs to stop the pain and, when I wasn’t drugged, I was in so much pain that asking questions about anything was the last thing on my mind.”

 

Tony looked like he might actually argue, but he inhaled deeply and then nodded. “I can understand that. It must have been terrifying to have this all happen in such a short amount of time.”

 

“It really was. I’ve been in constant fear and pain since it happened.”

 

“Since what happened?” The new woman asked suddenly.

 

“My collapse.” Harry said. The curse hadn’t affected him straight away. He didn’t know why it had been delayed, but after he’d been struck by that curse, he’d been able to fight Voldemort until the bitter end. He’d been able to help round up some of the remaining Death Eaters. He’d helped clean up a little after his spectacular falling out with Ron in which Harry had been blamed for Fred’s death, but then he had collapsed suddenly, with no warning, screaming as if he were under the Cruciatus curse, writhing and convulsing in pain. He didn’t remember much after that, only being taken straight to Saint Mungo’s. He’d been here ever since.

 

“So, you could have had this condition for a while before you noticed it?”

 

Harry didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know any of these people really, he’d only met them earlier that same day, or was it yesterday?, and despite that Tony was his father, what did he really know about him? Nothing. He wasn’t even sure if he could say anything given that they were clearly muggles and the war had been magical.

 

Harry sighed heavily. “Look, I don’t have any answers for you. I haven’t been aware long enough to even comprehend what has happened to me. The beginning was…before they found a medicine that would work to keep me somewhat sedate, all I remember is pain and fear. I couldn’t rest because the pain was so bad it actually broke through the sleeping medication intended to knock me out. I tried to kill myself twice in mindless agony. If it’s all the same to you, now that I can, I would like to just rest a bit.”

 

“Of course.” Tony said quickly, giving Harry’s hand a gentle squeeze.

 

Harry couldn’t suppress the yawn, nor the shudder that went through his body.

 

“Is there any lingering pain?” Tony asked.

 

“My head is killing.” Harry said. “Hoping that’s just the anaesthetic though.”

 

“Do you need anything?”

 

Harry shook his head, already dozing off. He couldn’t force himself to stay awake any longer. He could feel his hand going limp in Tony’s gloved one. He felt the soft little squeeze, but then he was out of it. Resting properly for the first time since he’d been struck with this condition. No, it was way before then. He hadn’t been sleeping properly for months, not in that tent on the Horcrux hunt. In Grimmauld Place, maybe, before it had been infiltrated. He just really needed some proper rest.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Tony watched as Harry slumped into an exhausted sleep. He did not let go of that tiny, bony hand. He held it like a lifeline.

Harry truly was looking much better, in such a short amount of time too, but Tony didn’t give a shit about that as long as Harry was no longer dying. He’d have to find a doctor and demand all the answers that Harry hadn’t been able to get.

He was just so glad that Harry no longer had that deathly grey pallor to his skin. He was still very pale and he still looked sick, but he no longer looked like he was dying and that did help to settle Tony down.

 

“He doesn’t look post-op.” Natasha pointed out.

 

Tony shook his head. “No IVs, no heart monitor on him, not even an oxygen cannula. This hospital is too weird. I’ll be glad to get him out of here and back to America.”

 

“Tony…” Pepper said, drawing his name out in that special tone of hers that meant he’d said or done something wrong. “…you need to ask Harry if that’s what he wants first.”

 

“He didn’t even really expect me to show up, Pep! He thought I’d hear his plea for stem cells and just ignore it! He thought I’d just leave him to die!”

 

“That doesn’t mean you can just whisk him back off to America as you please. You need to ask Harry, properly, if that’s what he wants before you just try to do it. He might not even be able to fly as a donor recipient.”

 

“It’s between six and twelve months before he can fly, depending on how well his recovery is going.” Natasha put in sounding so sure that no one argued. “The risk of thrombosis will be higher, so even if he is allowed to fly, flight socks are a must.”

 

Tony swallowed and he nodded. He didn’t know what he’d do if Harry refused. He wanted to keep Harry with him, get to know him properly, to get him checked over properly by his trusted doctors, and then never let his son out of his sight ever again. Harry couldn’t refuse. He didn’t know what he’d do if Harry didn’t want to come with him or didn’t want him in his life after this.

 

“I need to try and convince him. I’m not leaving him here now that I know he exists.”

 

“You heard the doctor, Tony, he’s not going to be healthy enough to leave the hospital for months and it will be as long as a year before he’s not at additional risk of infections.” Pepper reminded him.

 

Tony inhaled deeply and tried not to clench Harry’s hand too tightly.

 

“Cancel everything I have in the next few months, Pep. I don’t care what it is, nothing is more important than Harry. Nothing.”

 

“I will once I get my planner back.” She said, smiling. “I might head back to the plane, just to catch up with work and sort out what you need me to.”

 

“Remove the disinheritance order and the no-contact order. Harry might not want the adoption overturned, which means I can’t reinvoke my parental rights, but he is eighteen soon anyway, that doesn’t matter as much, regardless that I would never have signed him away. But I want contact with him and he is my only child, so he gets everything when I’m gone.”

 

Pepper nodded with a small, pleased smile.

 

“I’ll see what we can do about them.” Pepper assured him, then, with one last look at Harry in the bed, she left the room. Natasha went with her, leaving Steve in the room with him and the sleeping Harry.

 

“Everything will work out, Tony.” Steve told him.

 

Tony nodded, wanting desperately to believe that it was true. He’d found out about Harry only yesterday. Fuck, was it really less than twenty-four hours ago since he’d found out his son existed? He wasn’t going to lose him, even if he had to uproot himself from America and move here to be with Harry, he’d do just that. He had more than enough money to find a large enough plot of land to build a new compound if needed and he would bribe anyone and everyone to allow him to move and live here. He didn’t care about anything other than Harry.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry continued to improve over the coming weeks and he was starting to feel stronger and just overall better. His cells were holding stable and were no longer being torn apart. It seemed the healers were right, and that the cure for the curse Voldemort had hit him with was to wipe his cells and give him donor ones.

The first few weeks he had barely noticed anything that had happened around him as he spent most of that time catching up on his sleep. It was amazing, truly amazing, to be completely pain-free for the first time in weeks and he was taking advantage of it by sleeping and resting as much as possible.

He spoke a little to Tony and those people he’d brought with him. Once a little more aware, Harry had been introduced to them, he was sure, but his memory wasn’t what it was before this curse had taken him over, and names especially were very difficult for him to remember, so he couldn’t actually remember any of them exactly and he’d accidentally called Pepper Paprika, which Tony had found so hilarious he’d started calling her Paprika. Pepper had hit him with a folder she was carrying, but assured Harry that he could call her whatever he wanted.

Today, Harry had asked the orderlies to help him sit up and it felt so strange when he’d spent so long on his back, looking at everything from his back, to see things from an upright perspective.

 

“There we are, Mister Potter.”

 

“Harry.” He replied, allowing the orderly to fuss over him and prop him up on a couple of pillows as his core muscles were screaming from the sudden use after several weeks lying flat on his back.

 

The orderly, in a bright, sunshine yellow outfit to try and give this sterile environment a pop of colour, gave him a gentle smile. “You know that we wouldn’t do that, Mister Potter.”

 

Harry hummed and allowed the orderly to rest him back against the pillows so that he was more supported.

 

“Everything is looking much better this week.” The orderly reported to him. “The healers are very pleased with your progress and they believe, that if you carry on making such strong strides, you might only be here for another week or so.”

 

“It’ll be nice to get some air.” He said. “See the sun. Feel the breeze.”

 

“It is starting to get warmer now, too.” The orderly told him. “The flowers are blooming and summer is certainly here.”

 

His body still ached a little, but the potions he was taking were keeping him healthy and getting him stronger, though he was not even close to trying to stand or walk yet. He still wasn’t eating by mouth, though he could take a few sips of water without it making him sick, but the potions were still being spelled into his stomach if they were able and, if they weren’t, they went through a nasogastric tube, which he hated. He was thankful that they were using that less and less now as he recovered more.

Someone knocked on the door and then came in. Harry knew it would be Tony and his little group and, as they entered, Harry smiled in greeting.

 

“You’re upright!” Tony said excitedly, as he hurried his steps and hovered over the side of the bed.

 

Harry managed a pained chuckle. “Yeah. I’m feeling stronger today.”

 

“That’s wonderful news, Harry.” Pepper told him.

 

Harry hummed and rested further back into the stack of pillows.

 

“Is there any sign of trouble?” Tony asked.

 

Harry shook his head, knowing that Tony was asking about his condition and if the donated cells were holding up. He asked the same question every single day. “All good on that front.”

 

“Mister Potter is showing a remarkable strength and resilience.” The orderly said proudly.

 

Harry rolled exasperated eyes. The orderly saw him and smiled fondly.

 

“Do you require anything else, Mister Potter?”

 

“No, thank you, Bean.” Harry frowned. “No, that’s not right.” He said, his frown deepening to a scowl as his brain couldn’t produce the right name.

 

“Dean.” The orderly corrected gently.

 

“I knew that.” Harry said, utterly frustrated with himself.

 

“You shouldn’t expect too much from yourself.” Dean told him patiently. “You will recover.”

 

Harry sighed glumly.

The orderly gave him a last smile, a last fluff up of the pillow behind Harry’s back and then left them alone and Harry felt like he could breathe again. He would forever be thankful to the healing staff here, but fucking hell he couldn’t wait to leave. They were so stifling, so fawning and some still burst into tears if they were in the same room as him. He hated it. He’d had to remind one of them just the week before not to call him ‘the saviour’, though his head healer had overheard their exchange and that particular orderly had been given duties elsewhere, away from him, which Harry was grateful for.

Harry was still hoping to be released from the hospital very soon. He needed to get out of this place before he went stir-crazy, but he got the feeling that the healers wanted to keep him here for as long as possible. He needed to find a way to get out of here and he, regretfully, couldn’t do that on his own. Not when he was too weak to just get up and walk out on his own.

 

“Harry, I wanted to speak to you about something, now that you’re getting stronger.” Tony said, sinking into the chair at his bedside and reaching out for his hand. It had become an automatic gesture now to just hold onto one another. To have some sort of physical connection after finding out they were directly related even if one of them was wearing plastic gloves.

 

“Go for it.” Harry said.

 

“How do you feel about a trip to America once you’re cleared to leave the hospital?”

 

Harry frowned at how nervous Tony sounded. How shifty he looked.

 

“Why do I feel like I’m going to get jumped in an alley or thrown in a dungeon cell if I agree to go?”

 

Pepper stepped forward and laid a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

 

“Because Tony is terrible with emotions and doesn’t like opening himself up to rejection.” Pepper told him, giving him a soft smile. “What he is trying to say is that we would really love for you to come home with us so that we can carry on getting to know you better. There are no conditions, no strings. We were just hoping that you’d agree to spend some time in America with us.”

 

Harry thought about it, but truly, what did he have here that was worth staying for? Ron wasn’t speaking to him, Hermione needed some space as she went through her therapy process, but Harry wanted company in light of his illness and almost death. Maybe this would be for the best. He could go to America for a while, get to know his biological father and his family, give Ron and Hermione the space they needed. Maybe things would be better when he came back. Once he was healthy again.

 

“Just think about it, okay?” Tony asked. Harry had clearly been lost in his thoughts for too long.

 

“I’ll go.” Harry said softly. “I don’t think I could recover properly here. I need a bit of space from everything.”

 

“You don’t want the reminders?” Pepper asked gently.

 

Harry shook his head. “So much so, I just really don’t want to be in the country.”

 

“That’s great!” Tony said happily.

 

Pepper’s hand gave the shoulder she was still holding a warning squeeze.

 

“He doesn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Pepper assured him.

 

“I figured he was just happy I had agreed to go with him.” Harry said, smiling. “And not so visibly pleased that this event has traumatised me so much I don’t feel able to stay in the bloody country.”

 

“It was the former. Definitely the former!” Tony told him quickly.

 

“I’m getting better at understanding the weird way you express yourself.” Harry assured the older man.

 

“Excuse me, I do not express myself weirdly.” Tony told him.

 

“No, sometimes he doesn’t express himself at all.” The other woman, Sasha, spoke up. No. Her name was Natasha. He knew that.

 

Harry laughed as Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“Ignore these people, kid.” Tony told him. “So, have you heard when you might finally bust free of this awful place?”

 

Harry chuckled and shook his head. “Nah, they keep saying in a week, in a week, but a week passes and I get the same answer when I ask again. I get the feeling the doctors want to keep me prisoner for a while longer. They’d never let me go if they didn’t have to.”

 

“Well, I’d say you were doing a hell of a lot better than you were when I first saw you. The transfusion was clearly successful and you haven’t shown any more signs of that super-secret condition no one will tell me anything about coming back. The compound in New York is a lot more secure than this hospital and has a lot less people in it to keep you from getting any infections.”

 

“It helps that a lot of the people in the compound are enhanced.” Natasha said with a smile. “Our lovely Steve here doesn’t get sick at all.”

 

Natasha laid a hand on a blushing Steve’s arm, but he gave her a smile and turned back to Harry, giving him a nod.

 

“That is true. I don’t get sick, neither does Bucky, Peter, or Vision. We’re not too sure about Wanda yet, but we will keep you safe and healthy.”

 

“That’s good to know.” Harry said. “A year of living in a literal bubble will drive me mad, but somewhere that’s a bubble but doesn’t feel like it, that would be a unique experience.”

 

“I’m going to find your doctor. I’m springing you free.” Tony declared.

 

“Tony.” Pepper said in a low, warning tone as if she did it several times a day.

 

“No, Harry wants out of here, Pep, so we’re getting him out.” Tony insisted, already heading for the door.

 

Harry laughed as Tony left the room and he sat back, feeling a warm sense of satisfaction that someone, anyone, was actually taking care of him for once. That they were doing something for him.

 

“I’m sorry, he gets like this sometimes.” Pepper said.

 

“I don’t mind. I really, really want out of this hospital.”

 

“Are you honestly feeling strong enough to leave?” Natasha asked him. “This is only the first time you’ve sat up in weeks.”

 

“Probably not, but…but I thought I was going to die here. I thought I’d die in this very room, in this very bed. It’s difficult to remain here now that I’m actually getting better when I didn’t think I would.”

 

“Oh, Harry.” Pepper said softly. “I wish you had told us this, we could have at least gotten you moved to a different room.”

 

Harry wasn’t sure that would have happened even if they’d asked, because these people were muggles and they had to stay very close to the front entrance of the hospital in case they saw something they shouldn’t, but just hearing that they would have asked for that for him…had anyone ever thought of him in such a way before?

 

“It’s fine.” Harry waved away. “I’m just really ready to get out of this place.”

 

“Then, I bring good news.” Tony said, coming back into the room. “You’re leaving tomorrow. You were right, though, they really didn’t want to let you go. It’s like you’re a sort of guinea pig to them all. They want to keep you and just watch you and watch you. I told them I’d sue if they didn’t let you go now that you’re getting better. But, you do have to rest, you do have to stay in a secure area to limit any risk of infections, and we have to limit the number of people around you, which I will absolutely do.”

 

“I can really leave?” Harry asked visibly brightening up.

 

“Yes, but you’ve been released into my care, which you probably won’t like given that you’re an adult, but you need someone with you at all times to make sure nothing happens. They’re very worried that as soon as you leave the hospital then this super-secret condition will come back.”

 

“A valid fear given how quickly it came on and how it did come back after the first transfusion I had. I guess your genes are just that superior.”

 

Tony smirked. “Genetics that we share. Though, I should think that you have more of my genes now than your original ones.”

 

Harry rolled his eyes. This had been a very familiar tease in the last few weeks. That Harry now had even more of Tony’s genetics than he had before the transfusion.

 

“We should test your DNA again when we get back to the compound!” Tony said excitedly. “I’d love to see how the microchimerism effect of the transfusion has affected you given that you are my son and already had my DNA.”

 

“Tony.” Pepper said in that low, warning tone of voice. “You’re breaking Harry free from the doctors here who are treating him like a guinea pig, so don’t treat Harry like one at home. Understand me?”

 

“But, Pep…”

 

“Tony, no.” Pepper said seriously. “Just ignore him, Harry. He gets like this when it involves science. The trick is not to give in to him.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Harry said with a smile.

 

“I’ll make sure that we have everything ready for you, Harry.” Pepper said, already using a notebook and pen to write things down now that she knew Harry was getting out tomorrow.

 

It was a little embarrassing to have people fuss over him like this. He wasn’t used to it and it felt strange, but he liked it.

 

“I’ll have to make sure everyone is using hand-sanitiser.” She muttered, almost to herself as she wrote that thought down. “No shoes in the main areas of the compound.”

 

“I’m sure I can create something that can help keep everything sterile.” Tony added and he got that look on his face that Harry had learned meant he’d been taken over by engineering and science.

 

“Are you still not eating properly, Harry?” Pepper asked him then, looking up from her list.

 

Harry shook his head. “No, nothing by mouth, though I’m sipping more water and I managed a thin broth, though it was more like flavoured water, and I can keep that down, I just can’t keep solids down.”

 

“We’ll get you set up with an IV at the compound.” Tony told him, coming out of his inventor’s daydream. “There’s no way I’m letting you be fed by a nasal tube. It’s so medieval.”

 

Pepper sighed heavily. “Tony.”

 

“No, I mean it, Pep. Who even uses nasal tubes anymore?”

 

“I thought you liked medieval stuff?” Harry teased. “You told me you have your own suit of armour you called Ironman.”

 

“It’s not like a medieval suit of armour!” Tony denied immediately, offended that his own son was picturing Ironman like an actual suit of armour. “It’s red and gold and very much technologically advanced, thank you.”

 

“You can colour it what you want, but it is literally a suit of armour.” Harry said, laughing.

 

“It flies!” Tony told him. “You show me a suit of medieval armour that can fly!”

 

“Can I use a catapult?” Harry asked innocently.

 

“No.” Tony said immediately, but then there was a gleam in his eyes that spoke volumes that Harry had just given him some sort of terrible idea. “I do sort of want to build a catapult with you now just to launch a suit of armour…”

 

“Tony, no.” Pepper told him.

 

“I want to bond with my son!”

 

“Do it without building siege weapons.” Pepper said, giving a long-suffering sigh.

 

“We are definitely building a catapult.” Tony told him and Harry had to laugh.

 

“I can’t wait.” Harry said.

 

“I want to introduce you to everyone when we arrive. At least so they know what you look like.” Tony said. “Then you can rest in your room. I’ve already sent orders to have a room made up for you, but if you don’t like it, we can change everything about it.”

 

Harry was feeling a little overwhelmed and he had to swallow down the lump forming in his throat. Had anyone ever shown him this level of care and attention? No. No, they hadn’t. Tony hadn’t even known that Harry would agree to go to America with him, but he’d still sorted him out a room, just in case.

 

“Let yourself rest now, Harry.” Pepper told him. “Tomorrow will be a long day for you, but we’ll make it as comfortable as possible. Tony, I’m going back to the plane to get things ready.”

 

“I’m staying here.” Tony immediately said, shifting forward and holding Harry’s hand tighter, as if Pepper might drag him away by his collar if he didn’t.

 

“Harry, sweetheart, I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t let Tony rile you up and make sure that you rest.”

 

Harry nodded, shifting his shoulders further back in the pillows. He’d been upright for maybe an hour and already he was exhausted and his body was aching. His recovery, he feared, was going to be a long time coming.

 

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Harry was exceptionally tired when he was finally sprung from the hospital. He was dressed in very loose-fitting jogging bottoms and an oversized hoodie, which was an improvement on the medical gowns he’d been stuck wearing for more than a month. He was also forced to wear tight, knee-high socks that were apparently for medical reasons and he couldn’t fly without them on, but Tony wanted everything done the muggle way, so, Harry had been moved from his hospital bed to a private car in a wheelchair, but even sitting upright was so draining on him that Harry was flopping to the one side a lot, both in the wheelchair and in the car. Then, as soon as they boarded Tony’s private jet, Harry was hooked up to a very annoying heart monitor that was beeping rhythmically.

 

“Oh yeah, that’s not going to piss me off within ten minutes.” Harry grunted, staring at the screen that was showing his steadily beating heart from a device that had been clipped to his finger.

 

“Do you know how discomforting it is to see you in a damn hospital without something so simple as an ECG machine or even an IV? You didn’t even have an oxygen cannula, Harry.” Tony demanded. “It stays on.”

 

Harry sighed heavily, but at least he was in…sort of a bed. It was a chair, but it was reclining so far back it was almost completely flat, so he didn’t have to sit upright but it was so comfortable, the leather buttery soft and cool underneath him and Pepper had laid a blanket over him that was also exceptionally soft. It had been bought especially for him and was apparently made of some kind of antimicrobial material, but it was soft and cool and weighty and Harry really liked it.

 

“Harry, this is my chief of security, Happy Hogan.” Tony introduced. “Happy, this is my son, Harry.”

 

“Hi.” Harry said tiredly.

 

“He looks just like me, doesn’t he?” Tony all but bragged to the new guy.

 

“Yeah, just what we need, two of you running around.” The guy, Happy, teased in a rather dry, sarcastic tone.

 

“I can’t even walk, let alone run, so feel free to chase after him and just leave me here.” Harry waved off.

 

The moment was broken when Harry couldn’t suppress a wide yawn, his head lolling against the soft chair as he shifted his body to get more comfortable. The heart monitor blipped faster for a single second before returning to the steady beeping, but Tony still stared at it in fear.

Harry was of the opinion that the damn heart monitor was causing more fear than easing any of it, but he kept it on for Tony.

 

“Get some rest, Harry.” Pepper said gently from opposite him. “We’ll be taking off soon and then the plane will level off so that you can sleep.”

 

Harry nodded, his eyes already closed, his right hand holding onto the underside of the blanket that was covering him. He really liked the feel of it.

It took only a few minutes after they had levelled off in the air for him to fall into a deep sleep, comfortable and exhausted from the drive from Saint Mungo’s to the private airstrip where the jet had been waiting.

He slept through the entire flight, only waking up when Tony gently shook him.

 

“Are we there or did my heart thingy go off?” Harry asked sleepily.

 

“We’re back. Do you want to walk or do you want me to carry you?” Tony asked with a grin.

 

“I’d rather die than have anyone carry me.” Harry replied seriously, squirming in the chair and stretching himself out. He was the last one there, everyone else was already out of the plane.

 

“You’re a little wonky on your feet, so I am going to help you.” Tony told him seriously, even as he shouldered Harry’s special blanket.

 

Harry flapped a hand in disinterest, even as he slipped forward and stood on jellied legs. He’d already learned from getting into the wheelchair, and climbing the plane steps back in London, that he really wasn’t that good at walking yet and this amount of activity was going to knock him back on his arse. Tony’s arm wrapped around his back, taking his weight and helping Harry to walk.

It did not escape his notice that Steve was hovering at the bottom of the stairs to the jet.

Harry took the steps slowly, hobbling almost, holding on tight to the handrails, exhausted from the travelling and the walking that he was no longer used to.

 

“You doing okay there?” Tony asked him once they reached the bottom of the steps.

 

“I might pass out.” Harry warned.

 

“Are you feeling that bad?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Do you want a wheelchair?”

 

“No.”

 

“Right, well, if you do pass out, I’ve got you.” Tony told him, his arm tensing around Harry and holding him tighter.

 

Steve walked on Harry’s other side, not touching him, but there in case he was needed.

 

“There are a few more people for you to meet, but it can wait if you’re not up to it.”

 

“You have just dragged me halfway across the world.” Harry pointed out.

 

“You slept the entire way!” Tony told him teasingly.

 

Harry laughed tiredly. “Yeah, but this is the most I’ve moved since I was admitted to the hospital. It might just be moving from seat to seat, but even that is enough to knock me out.”

 

“Right, of course. Let’s get you sat down. I should have gotten you that wheelchair.”

 

“No.” Harry said shortly. He didn’t know how to explain that he needed to be able to go where he wanted to go, and not have that control taken from him. He’d had to rely on the hospital staff, on the orderlies, for everything for several weeks, he’d had no control over himself and he’d been wheeled around in his hospital bed on others whims and he couldn’t control it, he couldn’t even stop it from happening if he’d wanted to, so now that he was starting to recover, even if it was painful and difficult, now that he could walk himself where he wanted to go, he wanted to do just that.

 

Harry had to grit his teeth through the entire walk through the massive building.

 

“How fucking big is this place?” Harry complained. “Are you hiding your own cult in here or something?”

 

Someone laughed from ahead and, as they turned a corner, Harry saw that everyone had congregated in the one room, obviously waiting for them.

 

“You’re not too far from the truth there.” Someone said, grinning widely.

 

“Harry, this is my best friend, Rhodey.”

 

“I wasn’t aware that you had friends.” Harry quipped, smiling as he heard the laughter around him. Tony rolled fond eyes.

 

“Honey bear, this smartass is my son, Harry.”

 

“I got that from the way he is, you know, exactly like you.” The new man, Rhodey, said with a laugh. “Hi, Harry. I’m James Rhodes, but you can call me Rhodey if you’d like.”

 

“This idiot is the man I would have named you after if I’d had a choice.” Tony said, clearly teasing the other man.

 

“You’d have called him something ridiculous and, knowing your ego, it would have been Anthony Edward Stark the second.”

 

Harry ignored the teasing banter and broke away from Tony to hobble his way to a settee just so that he could take the weight off his trembling legs. Maybe he should have allowed himself to be pushed around in a wheelchair; he was feeling a little lightheaded.

 

“You can pretend you named me after him if you’d like, my middle name is actually James.” Harry said.

 

Rhodey started laughing happily and Tony gave Harry a scrutinising look.

 

“You see, I’m so used to your bullshit already that I actually can’t tell if you’re lying or not.” Tony told him, grinning.

 

“Not lying.” Harry said tiredly. “I told you I was named after my adoptive father, James Potter.”

 

“Give me your passport.” Tony demanded, holding out his hand.

 

Harry rolled his eyes. “What, and get stuck here in the cult compound?”

 

“Passport or I won’t believe you.” Tony said, wiggling his fingers.

 

Harry snorted and fished the little booklet thing the Ministry representative had given him last night, handing it over.

 

“Well, look at that, you weren’t lying.” Tony said, having opened the passport and saw his full name printed inside. “You see, honey bear, my son is named for you!”

 

“I should have stayed in Britain.” Harry groaned, letting his head fall back against the chair.

 

“Then we couldn’t build a catapult.”

 

Harry laughed. “Maybe it is a good thing you have your own cult then, plenty of land to play with.”

 

“I’ll have you know that this isn’t a cult, this is the training compound of the Avengers superhero group.”

 

Harry blinked. “Sounds even more culty to me now. I think it was ‘superhero group’ and ‘training compound’ that tipped the scales.”

 

“Let me introduce you to everyone.” Tony said with a smile.

 

There were more than a few people too. Though Harry wasn’t sure that the being introduced to him as ‘Vision’ was even a person, but, Harry was used to weirder things than Vision, so it didn’t give him much of a pause as he greeted everyone.

 

“And remember, none of you touch my kid or else!” Tony said after everyone had been introduced, without handshakes because of the risk of bugs. “Friday will alert me if any of you so much as cough and you’ll be evicted immediately.” He added happily.

 

“That’s a little too overzealous.” Harry insisted.

 

“No, it’s not. You’re at increased risk of infection for at least a year, Harry, that means no bugs, no illnesses, no germs.”

 

“I’ll be fine. Stop worrying.”

 

“No.” Tony told him seriously. “I’m not going to stop worrying because I don’t want to see you in that state ever again, Harry.”

 

Harry rolled his eyes, but he had gotten very used to Tony’s stance in the last few weeks. He was, Harry had learned, a very overprotective person by nature and Harry, as his only confirmed child, was going to have to bear the brunt of that. Hopefully, in a year or so, when he was no longer at increased risk of infections or of getting so sick again, he would be strong enough to push back a little. Right now, he just didn’t have the energy.

 

“Are you asleep?” Tony asked him gently.

 

Harry fought to open his eyes. He hadn’t realised he’d dozed off.

 

“Almost.” He said sleepily. “Today was very busy.”

 

“Come on, let me take you to your room. I had it all kitted out while you were in the hospital. It’s perfect.”

 

“Tony, stop exciting him; he needs to rest.” Pepper cautioned.

 

“There better not be any suits of armour in my room.” Harry said.

 

“For the last time, Ironman is not what you’re imagining.”

 

“I don’t believe you. A suit of armour is a suit of armour.”

 

“I’ll show you.” Tony said, chuckling, as he helped Harry hobble back through the compound.

 

Harry hummed and stumbled. Tony quickly caught him and supported him.

 

“No good.” Harry sighed when he was completely unable to lift his foot for another step. “Pick me up, please.”

 

Tony gently and carefully lifted Harry into his arms.

 

“You’ve done too much today.” Tony said, carrying him through the compound.

 

“I know. It’s the most I’ve moved in weeks, but I had to get here somehow.”

 

Harry was carried through the massive building. Down corridors that all looked the same, and then through a door that led to a huge, wide corridor with doors coming off it every several feet.

 

“This is the family wing.” Tony told him proudly. “Me and Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, and Peter all have rooms on this wing. Your room is also in this wing.”

 

Harry was carried to a room that had a cute little placard on the front that had his name on it, which made him smile. Tony juggled him a moment and then opened the door and Harry chuckled as he saw inside. His room was red and gold.

 

“Pepper told me to make it neutral and we could redecorate if you didn’t like it, but I thought bright and bold right off and if you didn’t like it we could redecorate.”

 

Harry laughed. “You made your suit of armour red and gold, right?”

 

“That’s right.” Tony said. “So, thoughts?”

 

“I like it.”

 

“Ha! I knew it! Wait, you’re not just saying that, right?”

 

“No. The house I was sorted into at school was called Gryffindor, and the house colours were red and gold. It reminds me of that.”

 

Tony laughed, even as he went to the red bed and carefully placed Harry onto it.

 

“So, a bit of a crossover.”

 

Harry hummed, lying right where he’d been placed. Tony noticed that he wasn’t moving himself and, with a soft smile, he moved Harry himself, tugging him gently to the gold pillows, shoving the duvet out of the way and putting Harry on the gold sheets, before tugging the red duvet over him and tucking him in.

 

“So, you like the colour scheme?” Tony asked, if a little insecurely.

 

“Yeah. Makes me feel like I’m home.” Harry said sleepily.

 

“Because of your school house?” Tony asked in confusion, even as he took Harry’s new blanket from his shoulder and spread it over the top of the duvet. Harry’s hand found the edge of the blanket and held it. He liked the feel of it.

 

“It was a boarding school. I was there most of the year, except the summer. It did become home and the common room and the dormitory, my uniform, my bed, it was all red and gold.”

 

“I’m glad you like it.” Tony said.

 

Harry didn’t reply and Tony looked at him, seeing his eyes closed and his breathing had slowed and evened out. His eyes were still bruised and he looked exhausted, but he was clearly asleep.

 

“Sleep tight, Harry.” Tony said, brushing some black hair from Harry’s face and he kissed his forehead, tucking him in again. “Friday, keep a very close eye on him. Heart rate, temperature, breathing, everything.”

 

“On it, Boss.” Friday replied.

 

Tony left Harry’s bedroom and he went right back to the common area. Everyone was still gathered and Rhodey, who had been watching out for him, came right over to him.

 

“So, he looks exactly like you did at that age, just with different eyes and, I have to say, his are better.”

 

Tony put his forehead in his hand and rubbed. “He’s so fucking sick, honey bear.”

 

“He looks it, but Steve said he looked even worse before the transfusion.”

 

“I thought he’d die on me.” Tony said seriously. “He had no colour, he was grey and washed out. Like he’d been completely drained. I can’t lose him now.”

 

“Hey, we’re going to keep him safe, Tones. I promise. Pepper did her thing and had deep cleaners in two days ago. We’ve all been following her new rules of getting used to no shoes and washing our hands more often and using hand sanitiser before entering every room. None of us want anything to happen to your kid, either.”

 

“It was Obie.” Tony confessed suddenly.

 

“Stane? What does he have to do with this?” Rhodey asked protectively.

 

“He kept Harry away from me!” Tony said, reaching out and draping himself over Rhodey’s shoulder. “It was him, Rhodey.”

 

“He knew you had a son?” Rhodey asked, wrapping his arms around him and patting his back.

 

“He was the one who signed away my parental rights and agreed the adoption notice. He used his position as my guardian to sign away my only child and that’s the only reason I didn’t know about Harry before now.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Tony.” Rhodey told him.

 

“If Harry hadn’t needed my stem cells…”

 

“He did, Tony, and yeah, it’s a shitty situation that he’s so sick, but you were a match and you’ve met him, and he’s here, living with you. He’s going to get over this and recover and you can make it up to him now that you actually know about him.”

 

“He thought I wouldn’t go.” Tony said, trying to hold back his emotions, as he felt tears threatening. “He thought I’d refuse to get tested. That I’d just let him die!”

 

“Well, he knows now that that isn’t true as you did go to see him and you did donate stem cells, Tony. You saved his life.”

 

Tony took some deep breaths and pulled himself together, taking a little more comfort from Rhodey before pulling back.

 

“All of you, Harry still gets mixed up with names, so I don’t care what he calls you, don’t make him feel bad for it.”

 

“What does he call you?”

 

Natasha smirked. “Tony is the only one who is exempt from the mix ups.” She said. “He actually called me Sasha on the drive from the hospital.”

 

“What did he call you?” Sam turned to ask Steve, a teasing tone to his voice.

 

Steve blushed a little. “The blonde one.”

 

All of them had a laugh at that. That Steve, Captain America who was so well-known worldwide, was now relegated to ‘the blonde one’.

 

“And Pepper?” Rhodey asked with a grin.

 

“Paprika. I’d say he was doing it on purpose to break the tension, but the doctor warned us that he’s been having short-term memory issues, especially relating to names and faces. He knew all of the nurses around him, but kept getting their names slightly wrong too. Claire was Clara, Macie was Grace, Oliver was Olive, Dean was bean, and his doctor, Ben, was the worst. He was called hen, pen, and Glen just in the time we were with him. Harry knows that he’s getting the names wrong too, and it upsets him, so pointing it out will make him feel worse, so just don’t do it.”

 

“So, anyone who is new to him is going to get pet names, got it.” Sam said with a grin. “How’s he dealing with everything anyway?”

 

“It was kept from him too. His parents died when he was a baby and their will was never enacted, so Harry didn’t know either, he thought his adoptive father was his biological father. They wanted him with me! I tried not to overwhelm him, I really did. I wanted him to focus everything on his recovery and this was before the transfusion and he looked terrible, but he should have been with me from fifteen months old. If I could kill Obie again, I would for this.”

 

“Let it go, Tony. Move on and focus only on Harry.” Rhodey told him seriously, but Tony wasn’t sure he could do that. Knowing that his son, his only child, had almost died without him even knowing he existed…he couldn’t let that go. Harry should have been in his care from fifteen months old and he was now almost eighteen. He had missed almost eighteen years of his only child’s life and he could never get that back. He could never make up for it.

 

“Who was he living with then?” Sam asked curiously. “Did anyone visit him in the hospital while you were there?”

 

Tony’s mind immediately switched tracks as that was pointed out to him. No one had visited Harry and he had been dying. No family, no friends…who had Harry been living with and why hadn’t they been at Harry’s side during the worst moment of his young life? He might have been almost eighteen, but he was still a young man, technically a minor, and he had been alone in that hospital for weeks with only them as visitors.

 

“No one visited him.” Tony said angrily. “I’ll find out who raised him and ask them why the hell they abandoned him like that. He was dying and not a single person came to see him.”

 

“There’s a lot we don’t know about him and his life.” Natasha pointed out. “We’ve only known him for a few weeks.”

 

“He was very jaded.” Steve pointed out.

 

“I think I would be too if I had thought I was dying at seventeen.” Pepper pointed out, a touch protectively.

 

“It was more than that.” Natasha said, backing up Steve. “Evidenced by him not having any visitors. Something has happened to him.”

 

“I’m not questioning my severely ill son!” Tony snapped back. “I need him to settle in so that he can rest.”

 

“Can’t you dig into it?”

 

Tony frowned. He could and, given Harry’s state, perhaps he should.

 

“I don’t think Harry would like it if he found out you were digging into his life.” Pepper warned.

 

“He was alone in that hospital room, Pep. He was dying and no one cared enough to come and visit him.” Tony implored. “If I find out his guardians were abusive when he should have been with me…”

 

“You don’t know that’s what it is.” Pepper said sternly. “For all you know, his guardians died recently.”

 

“Or he could have refused to see them.” Sam added. “I know from the VA meetings that sometimes, traumatic events like this have people closing themselves off from everyone and the doctors would have respected his wishes if he’d expressed his wish of privacy.”

 

“But, he wanted us there. He seemed desperate for company.” Tony pointed out.

 

“I’m not saying his mental state wouldn’t be all over the place.” Sam insisted. “Maybe he didn’t want anyone close to him seeing him in such a state, but he needed you to survive, Tony. You’d have to have a talk with him and see how he’s doing. Going through something like this…he’s going to need all the support he can get.”

 

“But he agreed to come here with me.” Tony said desperately. “He’s on the mend and he’s left everyone behind. I offered to bring anyone he wanted with us, but he refused.”

 

“Hence the need to talk to him.” Sam said pointedly. “He might want to keep the people in his life at arms’ length for the moment, until he’s feeling better. He has just found out you’re his father too. He wants answers.”

 

“I don’t have any answers for him.” Tony said. “He has more answers than me at this point.”

 

“There’s also the possibility that he just wants to get to know you.” Steve said gently. “You’ve just found out about one another and he lost his parents young. This is a chance for him to get to know one of his parents, a chance he didn’t think he’d get.”

 

That was plausible too. That Harry was merely curious…and grateful that he had donated stem cells for him. He’d needed a safe, sterile place to recover out of the hospital and Tony had offered him the best chance. His heart dropped at the thought that, in a year when Harry was better and at no increased risk, he would leave and not come back. That gave him a year to work with. A year to change Harry’s mind and get him to stay. A year to connect with his only child and, if Tony had his way, Harry wouldn’t want to leave after that year was up.

 

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Notes:

A/N: I wonder how long it’s going to take now for Tony to find out about Harry’s magic, especially under the watchful observation of Friday. He’s already starting to click that something just isn’t right, especially now when his own doctors get their hands on Harry…poor Harry!

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StarLight Massacre. X

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Genetics Series