Last Time

He breathed out and absorbed the feeling of being loved and surrounded by his friends. Those few people who had gotten close enough to him to be considered his family. Whatever he chose to do, they would be with him, one hundred percent. Sometimes all you needed in life was the backing of those closest to you. Their love and support. Harry had that in spades, and now it was time to sit down and truly consider all of his options. It was time to make his decision. He just hoped that he made the right one in the end.

Chapter Five – Decision Time

Tony had had very little sleep. His hands were itching, aching to work on something. It had been over a week since he'd last worked on anything and it was driving him crazy. His mind was a hive of activity, he wanted to upgrade the Ironman armour, improve it, add things to it, create better weaponry, better everything. But he couldn't. He was stuck here in London until this was sorted out. Stuck here until he had agreed to marry another man. The thought of it still made him feel queasy, but at least Potter wasn't terrible to look at.

He'd been worried about that, especially after Pepper had said he was strange looking, but he understood now what she had meant. He was strange looking, no twenty-one year old should look that young. But it wasn't a bad thing. It helped that Potter was small, slight and yes, Tony knew that it was from abuse, but it helped him out here, because he could close his eyes and pretend he was holding a woman. If he'd had to marry someone as big as Steve, covered in muscle, with a beard and a moustache, he'd have had a lot more trouble dealing with all of this and he wasn't afraid to admit that.

Of course he would know that Potter was a man, there was no escaping that, it would just be easier for him to have someone smaller and slimmer than he was in bed with him as that was what he was used to and what he liked.

He knew he would have to finish off the talk they'd had yesterday, Steve had already sat him down and told him that Potter didn't think he'd done enough with the kid, Teddy, but surprisingly Steve had fought his corner for him, and gotten Potter to agree to carry on speaking to him. He was very aware that time was running short though. They had just several weeks to plan everything out and talk about everything that they needed to and the both of them were stubborn and unwilling to compromise.

Potter was not who he had believed he would be. He'd come here thinking that the boy had wanted this contract activated, that he had held his silence about it out of some desire to be married to Tony Stark the name, not the man. He'd since learnt that the extreme opposite was true. Potter not only didn't want this, but he wouldn't lose his company if this contract wasn't enforced. Which left it up to Tony to fight for his lifestyle, for his homes and property. For his company and Ironman. He was at the disadvantage, and yes, Potter had said that he didn't want to lose the one house, the one his parents had been murdered in, but Tony had come to know the boy a little better after meeting him face to face several times, and he just knew that if it really did come down to it, and all of these talks failed and fell through, then Potter would sacrifice that house in order to escape the terms of the contract. It was up to Tony to convince him otherwise, and that was a scary thought, truly. He wasn't used to this, he didn't know how to do this sort of thing. He could talk people into buying his products, the weapons he used to create, because he knew exactly how they would work and what they would do. On this, he had no clue.

He was lost, unsure, and that was so not like him that it set his teeth on edge. He didn't want to be here, he didn't want to be in this situation and he didn't want to marry another man…or have a baby with him for that matter. Though if they were going to have a baby, then he at least wanted to be in that baby's life.

He sighed, mumbled to himself, and thrust a hand through his hair in aggravation. This entire situation was messed up. He blamed his grandfather, his father. He blamed Potter's grandfather too. How dare they force him into this situation. How dare they even think that this was an acceptable form of payment for an investment loan. Tony would never have thought to have done this to anyone else. If he'd been an investor and his investment couldn't be paid back to him when asked, he'd have taken the value out of the company, demanding that portions were sold off, not this.

This entire situation was horrifying. No one ever thought of a damn marriage contract…or a baby contract for that matter, to pay back a loan. Only Fleamont Potter had thought of it, and his grandfather had agreed. His own Father had screwed him over by not telling him of the contract, and by negating the terms of it when it had been his responsibility to fulfil the contract in the first place. It should have been his Father marrying James Potter, not him being forced to marry James' twenty-one year old, asexual son.

He'd been reading up on that too, on Pepper's instructions, and he was horrified that anyone could even live like that. Like with most things there were different levels, and Potter seemed to have it bad. Some people could have sex with a partner, but wouldn't think to ask for sex themselves. Some enjoyed being in a relationship, as long as there was no sex. But some, like Potter it seemed, were so disgusted by the idea of sex that they couldn't bring themselves to have it. He seemed to like cuddling and kissing, from what his friends had been saying, but anything at all sexual was repulsive to him.

It naturally made everything more difficult, because Tony was a very sexual person. They couldn't be less suited to one another and that only made the situation worse.

He would go back today and talk to Potter though. If he could save everything he owned, he would at least try to put things into his own favour. Unfortunately Potter was a very shrewd businessman, despite being so young, and he would not make this any easier for Tony. He wouldn't let Tony gain the upper hand or any sort of advantage in this situation…he held all of the cards and he knew it, and he was going to exploit it, and there was nothing that Tony could do about that.

Things would have gone much better if Potter had been a young nobody, just a regular twenty-one year old working minimum wage. He could have exploited that himself, used it to his advantage as much as possible. He didn't like things being out of his control.

"How are you feeling?" Steve asked, sitting beside him, looking at him searchingly.

"How am I supposed to feel?" Tony replied waspishly, fed up of people asking him how he was feeling all the time.

Steve sighed and laid a hand on his arm. "We're here for you, no matter how you're feeling, and no matter what you decided to do."

"I don't have a choice, Capt.!" Tony burst out. "There's only one choice, I'm being forced into it. Even SHIELD won't help, all Fury said was to prevent the Ironman suits being auctioned off at all costs."

"He's not a bad person, Tony." Steve said.

"He's hiding something." Tony said.

"I've found out through experience that everyone is always hiding something." Steve said mildly. "That doesn't mean that what he's hiding is bad, just private."

"His personal files are hidden, Steve. You don't have your file hidden for good reasons. I've never even heard of the DMLE that was mentioned, Pepper looked for it and nothing came up, not a single search result to even point us in the right direction."

"You're putting him at risk by digging." Steve said disapprovingly. "He said he could go to prison if he doesn't get the right permission and you won't get out of this contract by getting him thrown in prison."

Tony sighed and threw a hand through his hair in agitation. "I just, I can't help digging, Steve! I need to know things, it's killing me, not knowing what it is he's hiding that's so important."

Steve sighed himself and laid a hand gently on Tony's knee. "It'll be alright. We're all here with you. We're a team now, and we look out for one another. He is going to tell you what it is he's hiding, and soon from what he was saying, just, try to distract yourself with other things."

Tony went to open his mouth, but Steve's hand clamped over it tight and he smiled wryly.

"I know it's going to be difficult, given the weight on your mind, but try. I know you, Tony. I know there's a brilliant mind in there that could probably find something else to fixate on for a short time. Why don't you play with the TV remotes, or…I don't know, express order some scrap metal to build something. You did say that you'd build a shield for Teddy too."

Tony blinked and reached up to pull Steve's hand from his mouth.

"I can do that." He said distractedly, already reaching into his pocket for his cell to see what he could get at short notice.

Steve watched for a moment, before he stood and made to leave the room. "I'll get some coffee ordered up for you."

Tony waved a hand to show that he'd heard, but he didn't look up from his phone, scrolling through various hardware sites. Steve smiled and left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Did you get through to him?" Natasha asked as soon as he appeared in the common area of this very large penthouse suite.

"I think so. I got him thinking about other things. He's scrolling through his cell, looking for scrap metal and circuit boards. He wants coffee."

Pepper sighed, almost in relief. "That's almost normal behaviour for Tony."

"It won't work for long." Natasha frowned.

"No, it won't, but it's something for now." Steve said firmly.

"He needs the distraction." Bruce agreed before shaking his head. "This whole situation has really gotten to him. He hasn't worked on anything in weeks, just stepping back and getting his hands dirty, and engaging his brain, it will help him calm down. It's a good idea, Steve. Tony needs to feel like himself again and this really will help."

"I'll get him that coffee." Pepper told them, putting her file aside and standing.

Steve looked at the remaining members of his team.

"What is it?" Natasha asked, looking at him discerningly.

"I don't think Tony is coping." Steve answered quietly, moving to stand by the window so he could peer down onto the street far below.

"Not coping in what way?" Clint asked, his eyebrows furrowed as he played with an arrow between his fingers.

"He's a danger to himself." Steve said heavily. "I can see it in his eyes. A lot of guys I fought with had the same hopeless look. He's backed into a corner, trapped, and he's lashing out. It won't take much more for him to snap."

"Is that why you've been so nice to him lately?" Clint asked curiously.

"We're supposed to be a team." Steve replied evenly.

"That didn't stop you from hating his guts when you first met him."

"I thought he'd died." Steve said softly.

"When he went through the wormhole?" Natasha asked.

"I ordered it closed, knowing that he was on the other side and he wouldn't be able to get back, and I did it anyway."

"You had to make the call." Clint assured him. "Besides, Tony fell out before it closed. He's fine."

"He's not." Bruce said, with such certainty that the three others looked at him. "Do you look at Tony and think that he's alright? Are you looking at the same Tony that I am?"

"I see it." Steve said with a nod. "I see it and I want to help."

"See what?" Clint demanded. "He's Tony Stark."

"He was fine when I went to evaluate him in twenty-ten." Natasha insisted.

"He's not fine now." Bruce told them. "Evaluate him here and now, forget about what you previously saw, and actually look at him. He changed from when he was on the Helicarrier, to after the battle of New York. He was a different person. Now this contract has popped up, and Steve is right, Tony's close to snapping."

"He seems the same to me." Natasha told them, her arms folding over her chest. "Pepper doesn't seem worried."

"Pepper is very worried about him." Bruce contradicted. "I've never seen someone so stressed."

"That's because Potter is stonewalling and generally being…" Clint started, but he trailed off as Bruce shook his head.

"No. Pepper was stressed before she'd even met Potter for the first time." Bruce told him. "She was highly strung before this contract was brought up. Which makes me think that Tony wasn't behaving like his normal self, even before this contract was brought to light."

"He isn't himself." Pepper said as she came back into the room and sat herself back down, flipping open the paper file that contained everything from the meetings with Potter. "He hasn't been himself since the battle in New York."

"He seems the same." Natasha said, her arms dropping to her sides.

Pepper barely looked up, but she shook her head. "No. He's pretending to be his normal self, there's a difference if you know him well enough to see it. But he loves speaking about himself, and the things that he's done, but he hasn't said a word about that battle. He glosses over it, and from what he does say about it he was barely there at all. Something happened during that battle that has changed him. I've been trying to push him to get help, to see a therapist, but he's still Tony, and he won't have it."

"So, he's not being his normal self?" Clint asked.

"No, he's trying to act like his normal self." Pepper said seriously. "That's the problem. He's got to think about it, instead of it being just Tony being Tony. He has to force himself to act like himself. Something is wrong and he won't tell me and now this contract has come up and I'm worried he's going to do something stupid."

"You mean like suicide?" Natasha asked, genuinely shocked.

"He's mentioned it twice now." Pepper said quietly, as if saying it any louder would make Tony leap from the hotel window.

"Do you think that he would?" Steve asked seriously.

"Tony always says what he means." Pepper said. "If he says he'd rather be dead, I believe that he means it. He can't see a way out of this contract, if we can't come to some sort of understanding with Potter, one that Tony can live with, then I do believe that Tony would end things on his own terms."

"So, we need to sort this, right now." Clint insisted.

"What do you think I've been trying to do?" Pepper demanded. "Things would have gone much better if Potter had been a normal young man, maybe one who could be bought with money, but that isn't the case and he's just as stubborn as Tony himself."

"We'll help you, Pepper." Steve said gently. "I've spoken to Tony and distracted him a little. I don't believe that Harry is a bad man, he'll listen to reason. He's just trying to protect himself, as much as Tony is."

"I thought that things were going well yesterday." Bruce nodded. "It was nice of him to even allow any of us to be there, around his godson. Steve's right, he's willing to try and we can use that."

"We'll keep tabs on Potter." Clint said, nodding to Natasha.

"I think it's gone beyond that now." Bruce said, then he'd never approved of spying on Harry in the first place. "They are going to be married, he'll be Tony's husband. They're running out of time and trying to find a way out of the contract is not going to help either of them now."

"So…we find a way to make them both accept it?" Clint questioned.

Bruce and Pepper both nodded.

"I think that would be for the best." Pepper sighed. "The two of them need to come to a mutual understanding now. The time for finding a way out of this contract is over, there isn't one. They have a little over eight weeks left before the deadline. We need to focus everything on getting them to sign a marriage certificate. More particularly Potter, as he has less to lose than Tony."

"He's said several times that he won't do it." Natasha pointed out.

"He's going backwards and forwards, he doesn't know what he wants to do." Steve pointed out.

"We have to make sure he decides right." Pepper said with a weary sigh.

"We'll sort everything out now later today. We have to make sure we stay quiet though, because Teddy will be there, sleeping." Steve said.

The rest of them nodded and Steve sighed and looked at the wall, behind which Tony was ordering parts to fiddle with. He hoped that things today went well. He swore that he would stay close to Tony when they went to see Harry later. Tony would need someone to guide him through this coming meeting and if Pepper was worried for Tony's life, that he would be a suicide risk…Steve refused to lose another teammate, no matter the cause, and while he did find Tony irritating and annoying he had also watched Tony sacrifice his own life to prevent New York from being nuked.

Maybe the front Tony put up was all an act, or otherwise there was another layer underneath it, one that was willing to lay down on a wire and let others crawl over him. Steve didn't know Tony well enough to say for sure which one it was just yet, but he'd taken the first step to making the Avengers a real team, and he would get to know Tony better. He would find out who the real Tony Stark was when he was stripped back to his core, and not the man that was portrayed almost like a brand name to the public, like those cartoons that Teddy watched about Captain America, who was far from who the real Steve Rogers actually was.

Harry was having a very good morning, as he carried Teddy up on his shoulders, the three year old mesmerised by the skeletons of dinosaurs all around him as they explored the Natural History Museum.

"Harry! Harry, look. Look at the skull." Teddy said excitedly, pointing at the Triceratops.

Harry walked over to it, like he had been doing all morning, and he started reading from the information plaque.

"'With its three horns, a parrot-like beak and a large frill that could reach nearly a metre across, the Triceratops skull is one of the largest and most striking of any land animal.

The horns could have been used to fend off attacks from Tyrannosaurus. A partial Triceratops fossil collected in nineteen-ninety-seven has a horn that was bitten off, with bite marks that match Tyrannosaurus. The fossil shows that the horn healed after being bitten, so at least some Triceratops survived these encounters.

Puncture marks on fossil frills show that male Triceratops also used their horns to fight each other, probably to impress females.'"

"Why do boy ones fight to impress girl ones?" Teddy asked.

"A lot of animals do fight one another to impress females, Ted-Bear. They use it to show that they're stronger, and thus they'd be a better mate."

"Do people do that too?" Teddy asked.

"Stupid people try to do that." Harry said honestly. "A lot of women these days are far too smart to fall for such tricks though, and you'll find that they'll be more disgusted than impressed if you fight someone in front of them."

Teddy nodded and he looked at the giant skull in front of him with wide eyes, marvelling at how very big it was.

"He wasn't a meat eater, was he?" Teddy said, sounding a little worried.

"No, Triceratops was a herbivore, Ted. That means he only ate leaves. Ah, here we go, the Triceratops only ate palm fronds." Harry said, pointing to the plaque.

"How can something so big eat only leaves?" Teddy asked.

"He would have eaten a lot of leaves." Harry told him with a smile.

"What does Tricetatops mean?"

"It means three-horned face."

That made Teddy giggle and Harry craned his head back to grin at him.

"A lot of dinosaur names are very literal." Harry said. "The Triceratops has three horns on his head, thus he was called three-horned face."

"I wanna see a T-Rex!" Teddy exclaimed. "He was much bigger, wasn't he?"

"He would have been, yes. Come on, I know that there is one here. Let's go and find him."

"What does T-Rex mean?" Teddy asked him as they walked through the exhibit.

"It's short for Tyrannosaurus Rex. Tyranno means tyrant in Greek, Saurus means lizard in Greek and Rex is Latin for King. So together his name meant king of the tyrant lizards."

"What's a tyrant?"

"A tyrant is a cruel or oppressive ruler. A bully."

"I don't like bullies."

"No one should ever like a bully." Harry insisted.

"Was…was Voldemort a tyrant?" Teddy asked quietly. "The one you stood up to?"

Harry looked at the floor and swallowed before he inhaled deeply.

"That's right, Teddy, he was. You should never lie down and let bullies hurt you, or others. You should always stand up to them."

"Bullies don't like that."

"No, which is why we should do it all the more." Harry said, tipping his head back to give Teddy a smile.

"I don't think I want to see T-Rex anymore."

"He was an animal, Teddy. Animals don't have the brain power to have done what Voldemort did. T-Rex was named what he was because of how big he was. How big his teeth were and because he was an apex predator, which means he was the top predator in his territory, which is why he was called a king."

Harry heard Teddy gasp as they entered the room housing the massive T-Rex skeleton. It took up most of the space, from floor to ceiling in the vaulted room, and Harry, with Teddy on his shoulders too, did not make up one of the legs.

"It's huge!" Teddy gasped. "We'd have been eated in one bite, Harry!"

"Then it's a good thing that he's extinct, isn't it?" Harry chuckled.

Teddy nodded distractedly, as he gaped up at the dinosaur skeleton. Harry walked over to the plaque and he started reading aloud to Teddy, and to a group of children, about seven or eight years old, who were also gaping up at the dinosaur nearby.

"'Tyrannosaurus lives up to its reputation as one of the most fearsome animals of all time. Its powerful jaws had sixty teeth, each one up to eight inches long and its bite was around three times as powerful than that of a lion.

Bite marks found on Triceratops and Edmontosaurus fossil bones show that Tyrannosaurus could crunch through bone. Analysis of fossilised Tyrannosaurus dung show that it contained the bones of its prey.'"

"It even ate the bones?!" Teddy gasped.

"He wouldn't have noticed, honey." Harry told him. "With the size of his mouth, he would have bitten chunks from his prey and he would have swallowed a lot of it without chewing. So naturally some bones would have made it into his stomach and he would have pooed them out."

Teddy giggled and Harry tipped his head back to give him a grin.

"Did he fight others for girl T-Rexes?" Teddy asked curiously, as they stood and looked up at the bones.

"Yes, nearly all animals do, honey. Here… 'Some Tyrannosaurus fossils show bite marks from other tyrannosaurs, so it's clear that they fought each other, whether over food or mates.'"

"They fought for food too?" Teddy questioned.

"I would imagine that they fought over everything." Harry said. "If a bigger, stronger T-Rex wanted the food of another, smaller T-Rex, then he could have fought him off and gotten an easy meal without having to kill it himself."

Teddy nodded and Harry walked off, looking at more skeletons, reading out more information plaques. Teddy was very interested in the dinosaur egg that the museum was displaying.

When midday approached, they left the museum and Harry took Teddy to a nearby café, ordering them both a small lunch. Harry smiled to watch his godson, as he played with a stuffed Triceratops that was being named, as far as he could tell, Horn Face. He also had two books and a real fossil, which was a small Velociraptor claw in a sealed case.

Harry helped Teddy to eat his lunch and Harry ate his own in between bites. Teddy couldn't finish his food, and Harry hefted him into his lap and cuddled him as he drifted off to sleep with the stuffed dinosaur clutched in his arms. He finished his own lunch, drank the rest of his tea, and he stood with Teddy in his arms, the carrier bag of Teddy's other gifts wrapped around his wrist.

He headed out and walked down the street until he found a deserted alleyway. He Apparated from here to an alleyway he'd boxed off behind his work building. He slipped back out onto the street and set to carrying Teddy home. It wouldn't take very long, but it was more the thought of what would be waiting for him at his home…Tony bloody Stark.

He'd been awake for half the night, thinking and agonising over what to do, and sadly, no sudden strike of inspiration had hit him. He still didn't know what he was going to do and it was making him anxious and panicky. It took him back to the war, back to the hunt for the Horcruxes, where he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders and the expectation of thousands of people, while he had no clue what he was doing or what he was looking for.

He had muddled through that, and it had almost cost him his life. He had willingly sacrificed himself, and coming back from that had left him with rather severe anxiety and trauma that only an experienced mind healer had been able to help him with, and even then it had taken years.

Harry shoved those thoughts away and bumped Teddy more securely in his arms. The three year old made a soft noise, but pulled the stuffed triceratops closer and snuffled into it. It made Harry smile softly and he sighed and carried on walking.

He wished now that he hadn't sold Grimmauld Place, or that he had bought the house that he currently lived in with the money from the sale of Grimmauld Place instead of putting it into the company. He just hadn't wanted Teddy being raised in that toxic environment, and he himself couldn't stand to live there, it had reminded him too much of Sirius, with too many bad memories attached. But that house would have been safe from the terms of this contract, which only took assets from the Potter side of his family from him. That was also why his company was safe, because not only was it not the same company put up for collateral, but Harry had built it and funded it over the years using the money that Sirius had left to him, thus it was safe from the terms of the contract on all fronts as it wasn't considered an asset of the Potter family, despite him being the CEO and a legal Potter, as it had been built on Black funds.

Harry sighed and looked down at Teddy, he had to do what was best for his godson, not just himself. He breathed deeply to calm himself down. He could do this. He would stay true to himself and despite being forced to consummate his marriage, he would not agree to anything else and Stark would just have to deal with that.

Harry made it home and he knocked on his own front door. He smiled when he saw Hermione.

"Aw, is he all tuckered out?" She asked quietly.

Harry chuckled. "Yeah, poor thing is exhausted."

Harry went into his living room and he wanted to walk right back out again when he saw that his guests were already here.

He ignored them for the moment as he sat down in a free seat, put down the carrier bag and supported Teddy as he took off the three year old's shoes.

"Do you want tea, Harry?" Hermione asked him.

"Please. I'm just going to go tuck Teddy up in bed, I'll be back down in a minute."

"Okay." Hermione answered as she left for the kitchen and went to boil the kettle.

Harry got Teddy's other shoe off and left them where they'd fallen as he stood back up and he carried Teddy upstairs, to his bedroom, and he laid the three year old down on his bed and tucked him in.

He smiled gently at the rise and fall of Teddy's chest, the stuffed dinosaur still snuffled into his face.

"You'll never know a life like mine." Harry whispered to him softly, stroking that brown hair with gentle fingers. "You'll never suffer like I have."

Harry bent and kissed Teddy's head and he stood with a sigh. He cast a barrier ward at the top of the stairs and headed down them to the living room. It was time to sort this situation, once and for all. He was sick of it now, right to his back teeth he was fed up of it all.

"Did Teddy have a good morning?" Tony asked him.

Harry blinked and looked at Tony consideringly, wondering if he'd been prompted, or if Steve had actually had that chat with him and it had sunk in.

"He has. I think he's found a new attachment to Triceratopses." He said with a grin. "I took him to the Natural History Museum, to the dinosaur exhibit this time. He thought it was hilarious that Triceratops means three-horned face and he doesn't like T-Rexes because they were bullies. That's your influence, Captain."

Harry grinned at Steve as he sat down, taking off his own trainers and putting them under the coffee table, picking up Teddy's tiny shoes and putting them beside his own.

"Do I apologise for that?" Steve asked.

"Nah, the morals in those cartoons are making him into a better person. Teddy won't stand for bullying of any kind and he will even stand up to adults if he feels the need to. I wish he bloody wouldn't, because then I might not feel like I'm going to get my face kicked in, but I'm proud of him…even if he no longer likes T-Rexes because he sees them as bullies for picking on the other dinosaurs."

"Oh, that sounds so much like Teddy." Hermione chuckled as she came back in and held out a cup of tea to him.

Harry grinned at her and accepted his cup of tea. "Thank you, Hermione. Teddy is going to be a huge pariah for equality when he's older though, I can see him now, a placard in hand, campaigning to have T-Rexes brought to justice over their bullying behaviour."

The two of them, him and Hermione, broke down into fits of giggles like they were still in Hogwarts. It felt good to laugh with his friend.

"Did you get permission to tell us whatever it is you're hiding?" Pepper asked, once Harry and Hermione had calmed down and each taken a sip of tea.

"Not yet, but I'm not expecting that to happen for a few more days yet." Harry said, calming himself down by taking another deep drink of tea.

Pepper nodded and Harry gave a side eyed look to Hermione and they both snorted and started giggling again.

"Okay, who took the two mature, responsible people we met yesterday and replaced them with teenagers?" Clint asked.

"We're only just outside the limit of teenagers." Hermione pointed out with a grin.

Harry shrugged. "I've had a good day. Good days make me giggly. It doesn't happen all that often."

"Did Teddy like his play-doh?" Tony asked, and Harry actually saw a hint of vulnerability to him that he hadn't seen before.

"Yes, he loved it." Harry said mildly. "I told you that he would."

"Right, let us not beat around too much." Pepper said as everything went quiet again for a few minutes. "We need to sort everything out today. So can we please agree on a date for the registry signing?"

"The last day possible, Pep. Obviously." Tony put in immediately.

Hermione flinched and reached out to him, and everyone saw it.

"No." Harry said immediately.

"The last day is the thirty-first of October." Hermione said quickly. "This isn't convenient for Harry."

"I'm sure you can still take Teddy trick-or-treating if you get married in the morning." Bruce tried, but he didn't understand what the issue was.

Harry shook his head and breathed deeply to calm down.

"It's not that." Harry said. "I was fifteen months old when my parents were murdered. Exactly fifteen months old. They were murdered on Halloween. I don't want to get married, even via a forced contract, on the day my parents were killed."

There was silence for a moment and then Tony sat forward.

"Saturday the twenty-ninth?" He offered instead.

Harry was actually surprised that Tony wasn't causing a fuss over it, but thinking about it Tony had lost both of his parents in a tragic accident too, so Harry reasoned that he was comparing how he would have felt if he'd been forced to get married on the date of his parents' deaths.

Harry acknowledged the effort Stark was making with a nod. "The twenty-ninth is fine. Thank you."

"Do you…do anything for their…?" Pepper asked, stumbling over her words.

Harry nodded. "I look at photos of them, and if I can I'll go and visit their graves."

"Where are they buried?" Tony asked him.

"The West Country." Harry said softly. "Down in Devon. I can't always get down there between work, and Teddy too, of course, but I do like to go and visit them at least three times a year."

"I can fly you down there if you want." Tony told him. "I have my private jet, or the Ironman suit. It could take a few hours, that's all."

Harry actually found himself smiling at Stark, despite himself.

"Thank you. We'll see if my work schedule allows for me to have the time off."

"So, you're both agreed for the twenty-ninth of October? It's the thirty-first of August today, that gives us eight weeks and three days to work with." Pepper said, checking the date on her watch and making a note.

"You need witnesses too." Hermione added.

"I'll bring Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, and the team." Tony said, before turning to said team. "If you guys will come, of course."

"We're here with you." Natasha told him, laying a hand on his shoulder while Steve nodded.

"I'm taking about a dozen." Harry said, mentally tallying everyone up. "It'll be fifteen if everyone can come."

"Will you invite Teddy and Andy?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. "Teddy shouldn't see such a farce of marriage. I don't want that image in his head that marriage is this unhappy event where two people are forced together, it's not fair to him."

"What will you tell him?" Hermione asked curiously.

"I don't know. How do you explain a forced marriage, via a legal contract, to a three year old?" Harry sighed and shook his head again. "I'll think on that later."

"Where would you get married?" Pepper asked.

"America." Tony said immediately.

Harry sighed again. "It really doesn't matter to me, as long as it doesn't interfere with my work, but I should be able to manage a few days in America, as long as I'm back the following day."

"Thank you for your cooperation." Pepper said, making notes in her ever present file, and Harry sighed yet again and shook his head.

This entire farce was a mess of complications. Harry took a big gulp of tea and swallowed hard. He reminded himself that he needed to do this, to keep his way of life. He would refuse to do anything that he didn't want to, namely sex. No one could force him to do that, not unless they wanted rape charges thrown at them. He was strong enough to hold off any verbal attacks or cajolement, and he had his magic if anyone actually tried to physically force him. Not that he expected anyone to do that, of course, but just in case, he could protect himself easily enough.

"I could show you Stark Tower, if you wanted."

"I'm less interested in that and more interested in seeing your lab." Harry said. "Seeing as you broke into my work labs."

"Did I apologise for that?" Tony asked, looking genuinely unsure.

"You did, you even offered to pay for the extra cleaning my staff had to undertake because of it, but I waved that off as long as you promised to wear the booties and sterilise your hands if you ever went down there again." Harry explained. "Thankfully you also had the presence of mind to not enter any of the actual labs, or I would have been forced to throw out sixteen thousand, five hundred vaccines that are worth several million pounds stored inside them on the risk of contamination."

"I would have paid for that too." Tony told him.

Harry shook his head. "That isn't the point."

"I imagine the point is that that's sixteen and a half thousand vaccines that can't be used, Tony." Bruce pointed out.

Harry nodded. "That's the point. They were being sealed and boxed up, ready to be shipped to Africa. We were on a very tight schedule, we couldn't have afforded the delay, and neither could the people those vaccines are going to. Thankfully, as said, you didn't enter the labs, and that shipment was sent four days ago."

"I promise to show you my lab. I could set you up a lab at the Tower too." Tony said.

"That won't be necessary. I won't be there all that long and you really don't want me blowing a hole in your floor."

Harry could see that the others had taken it as a joke, until Hermione shivered at the memory.

"Never do that again." She told him.

Harry shrugged and smiled. "It was an accident?" He tried to offer, but he just laughed when Hermione carried on glaring.

"You really blew a hole in the floor?" Steve asked confusedly.

"And then fell through it and broke his leg, yes he did." Hermione growled.

"What even happened?" Bruce asked.

"It was back in the early days, I was only eighteen and…yeah, it just happened. I was synthesising when tired, and yes, looking back I know how stupid it was of me, but I was close to my first ever breakthrough. I was pushing myself, and I must have picked up the wrong thing, because the next thing I knew there was no floor underneath me and I was falling."

"You're lucky it didn't blow off your damn legs." Hermione huffed.

"I was wearing full protective gear." Harry waved off. "Besides, it led to my first ever cure for measles, so it wasn't all bad."

"No you almost lose your legs, but you made a cure for measles, no, everything is fine." Hermione said sarcastically.

Harry chuckled. "You know I would risk all of my limbs to eradicate these diseases. You know I'm not going to stop."

"You're a moron, that's why." Hermione sniffed.

Harry was surprised into laughing and he trailed off into giggles. That made Hermione look over at him and smile.

"I love you too." Harry told her with a grin.

"Oh, I love you. Never doubt that, but it doesn't stop you from being a moron."

"How…how are we going to work living arrangements?" Tony burst out.

Harry blinked and looked at him. "Living arrangements? What do you mean?"

"Your house isn't big enough, so I assumed you'd be staying at the Tower."

"Why would I do that?"

"We'll be married."

"And you just assumed that that meant that we'd be living together too?" Harry asked, his stomach dropping. He'd been right about that as well, it seemed, and Tony had just assumed that Harry would be going to America and living in his ego Tower.

"Yes." Tony replied easily. "We'll have a child together too, so considering you don't have the space, I thought it made more sense for you to just come to the Tower, or even my house in Malibu, if you'd prefer."

"You know that I work based in London, don't you?"

"That's why I offered you a lab at the Tower. You could work from there instead."

"We're not living together." Harry said sharply. "My entire life is here, in London. My work is here, my friends and family are here. I'm not moving anywhere and I certainly wouldn't leave Teddy behind."

"Teddy could come too." Tony insisted.

"It's not happening. Teddy is all Andy has left. I'm not moving, Teddy is not moving, we are not living together. It's not a contractual obligation, which was about the only thing they didn't put in writing."

"It is assumed that after you're married that you will be living together, to raise the baby together." Pepper said quickly.

"The thing with contracts and assumptions is that it leaves room for loopholes, that I will definitely be exploiting." Harry said firmly. "The contract assumes living arrangements, and thus didn't write it in, which means it can't be legally enforceable, thus it is not happening."

"You're going to keep my child away from me that way instead. Keep them here where I'll never see them!" Tony snapped.

"You haven't even shown yourself capable of having a child yet!" Harry hissed. "At the moment you won't be getting a child!"

"You said that you'd need me to be the primary carer!" Tony reminded him.

"I did, and I meant it, but you haven't convinced me in the slightest that you can even be a secondary carer."

"I think we all need to calm down." Steve interrupted quickly, looking at the two heavily breathing men who were glaring at one another.

"No, he's not doing this fairly, Steve!" Tony argued. "He's going to keep my child away from me, here in Britain."

"At the moment you're not even getting a child from me." Harry insisted. "You can't handle a three year old, I don't even want to imagine you with a newborn."

"That's not fair!"

"Life isn't fair, Stark." Harry snapped. "Nothing about this situation or that contract is fucking fair! We're being forced together, to marry and merge assets, but I will not let you wrangle everything to suit you. I will not be staying in America, I will not be living in your damn ego Tower and I will not bring a baby into this world a single minute before I am ready to have one! I have sole control over that, and you will go at my pace, or I will never agree to have this baby while you're still alive."

Stark was white-faced and breathing heavily. He looked a breath away from either leaping up and throwing a punch, or passing out.

"Mister Potter, Harry…" Pepper interrupted, taking Harry's focus, and he levelled her with his full gaze, staring at her, daring her to try and change his mind. "What do you suggest as an alternative? You house is not big enough, and it's not right that the baby be kept from their other parent."

"It's not fair on the poor baby to be landed with that as a parent either." Harry snarled, tipping his head to indicate Tony. "My mind is made up. This baby will not even be planned until I am satisfied that I can ensure their safety and wellbeing as my paramount priority. Whether that means I have to wait until I am in my forties and I can leave the company for several days at a time to look after my child, or Stark somehow surprises everyone and learns that he's not the centre of the universe, time will tell. But that baby is not even a thought in my mind at the moment, Miss Potts, neither of us are ready. Perhaps by the time the baby does come around I will have a larger house, and Mister Stark can come to visit."

"If I'm still alive." Stark snarled.

Harry wasn't cowed, and he nodded his head. "If you're still alive." He agreed simply.

"I thought we were making progress, Harry." Steve said quietly, in a very disappointed tone. It actually reminded Harry of Dumbledore and because of that, Harry couldn't meet Steve's disappointed blue eyes.

"We were." Harry said, looking at the wall instead of at Steve. "Then he went and ruined it all by expecting me to uproot and move to America just to please him. So I'm on hand whenever he feels the urge to rape me."

"Tony would never…" Pepper started furiously, but Harry had had enough.

"He said he would yesterday, so don't tell me he fucking wouldn't!" He burst out angrily, and suddenly all eyes were on Tony.

"That wasn't what I said!" The pale faced Tony leapt up to shout at him.

"It's what you meant." Harry growled back.

"Of course it wasn't!" Tony shouted, flinging his arms around.

"What did you think it would mean?" Harry demanded, standing up to confront Tony on his feet, not liking being loomed over, even if there was a coffee table between them.

"I said we should compromise."

"Harry is asexual. Any sexual contact to him is unwelcomed, and unwelcomed sexual contact is assault." Hermione explained calmly. "Unwanted sexual intercourse is rape, Mister Stark. You can word it how you please, insist on a compromise, but if you push Harry for sex, it's rape and I will see you behind bars for it if you try to force the issue."

"I can't go the rest of my life without sex!" Tony insisted.

"And I can't stand the thought of having you even touch me." Harry spat. "The very thought of it makes my skin crawl. I'm asexual, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do to change that. You're just going to have to learn to live with it."

Harry honestly thought that Tony would lean those extra few inches over the table and punch him, but Steve got there first and inserted himself between them by pulling Tony back a few steps.

"This is getting us nowhere." Steve said sternly. "Every time you make the slightest bit of progress, you ruin it again by taking several steps backwards."

"I'm not living with him and I'm not having sex with him after the forced consummation." Harry said firmly. "It's non-negotiable. I'm not putting my mental health at risk because he can't control himself."

"It's not as if I want to have sex with you, you're the only option I have because of those clauses!" Tony told him.

"And you think that makes it better? You think that makes it alright to force me to have sex with you because you'll be forcing yourself? It doesn't!"

"We need to draw a line under this." Pepper said firmly. "No one is forcing anyone else to have sex. Tony, we'll find another way."

"There isn't another way." Tony said.

"It's just tough." Harry told him. "I'm not having sex with anyone past this consummation. If you even try to force me, I'll have you in court on assault charges."

"Enough!" Steve cut in. "Sit back down, the both of you. Don't let this issue ruin the progress that you've made."

"It's a pretty big issue, Steve!" Tony declared.

"Just masturbate like the rest of normal humanity!" Harry told him.

"It's not the same!" Tony growled.

"I'll take your word on that." Harry said. "But it still doesn't mean anything to me."

"Harry, go and cool off for a moment." Hermione suggested, reaching out to touch his arm.

Harry breathed out raggedly, and nodded his head once, sharply, and he took off for the kitchen, out of the back door and down his garden.

He really didn't know why these things always seemed to happen to him. Hadn't he suffered enough in his life to be done with all of this? He pushed those thoughts aside quickly, he had never really been the sort of person to wallow in his own misfortune and he didn't intend to start now.

"I'm sorry."

Harry breathed out heavily and turned to face Tony.

"I assume that the apology is for trying to force me to put up with spousal rape?" He asked mildly.

"Yes. I didn't realise that that was essentially what I was asking you to do until it was explained to me. I told you that I needed Pepper as a translator. I would never rape anyone. Never."

Harry nodded and moved to sit on the swing. He was surprised that Tony sat next to him on the other swing. Tony pushed off and swung back and forth for a while in silence.

"This situation is seriously fucked up, Tony. I know that." Harry said with a frown. "It was never meant to be us, but it is."

"If my father was still alive, I'd have beaten him to death for doing this to me." Tony said angrily. "If he'd just told me about it, I could have been married and nullified this contract."

"I could have done the same." Harry nodded, kicking off himself and swinging.

"I suppose we're not going to ignore the contract." Tony sighed.

"We can't now." Harry said with a look at Tony swinging next to him. "We're in too deep, Tony. We've set a date to sign the contract even. I don't want to risk losing everything. I've worked too damn hard to build up the life I've carved out for myself, and you have too. It's not fair, not by a long shot, but it is what it is. You never know, I might accidentally kill myself doing my research or synthesising, then you'll be free to carry on your life as normal. Just…just…if that does happen, do right by Teddy. If I die you take control of everything, I can't leave anything to him, or to any of my friends. Just make sure he's got enough to live comfortably, please?"

"I will, I'll even put that in writing if you want to."

Harry shook his head. "I think it's time to start putting a little trust in each other. I don't believe that you're a bad person, Tony. I don't believe that you'll stitch Teddy up, not with the amount of money you have in your own right, and what I can leave to him from liquefying my assets."

"I got the feeling that you didn't have much spare money lying around." Tony said, looking up at the house.

"Do you know why the contract can't touch my company?"

"It's not the same company put up as collateral." Tony said immediately.

"The contract forfeits everything given to me by my Potter relatives, which includes anything bought with Potter money."

Tony blinked and Harry saw his brilliant mind working.

"It would have included anything given to you by your mother too, as she was a Potter by marriage. Who gave you the money for the company?"

"My godfather, Sirius." Harry said softly. "I sold the house he left me and used the money from that and everything that he'd left me to build that company up, and that's why it's excluded completely from the contract. I used Potter money to buy this house to live in." He said, looking at the back of the house with a small smile. "It's small, cosy, but most of all, it's mine. I don't have much disposable funds, it's all tied up in the company, in this house, but I'm comfortable and I can treat Teddy and help my friends out if they need it. I was happy until this came crashing down around me."

"I was too." Tony told him. "I was busy working on upgrades for the Ironman armour when I was called into the Stark Industries main building and confronted with this contract. By then it was too late to do anything about it."

Harry sighed and kicked himself higher.

"If…if you can die from your research, and from what you've been saying there have been some close calls, what happens if you die and I can't fulfil the contract?" Tony asked. He seemed to really be trying and Harry was so very fed up of being angry. He was tired more than anything.

"I thought of that when I wrote up the contract to have your semen stored at the company in the event of your death. My samples are already frozen there. If I die before the contract is fulfilled, you have sole control over those samples, as I will have control of yours. That way you could have the contracted baby when you wanted."

"I…I want to try with Teddy. I'm nervous though. It's not like me at all, it's a strange feeling for me, but I feel like I'm being judged if I so much as look at him."

"I'm not ready for a baby, Tony. Teddy…he's still so young. He's only just three years old and I'm struggling to juggle him and work, and I'm not even his primary carer. Maybe a few years down the line things will be more settled and we can talk about it again. Would you have wanted a baby at twenty-one?"

Tony chuckled. "I don't remember much of being twenty-one, but I was mostly perpetually drunk or burying myself in this new, shiny company that I'd just taken over after my parents death."

"I saw that your guardian turned out to be a shit too. I'm sorry about that."

"Obi." Tony sighed and put his feet down, stopping himself mid-swing. "I never saw that coming, I trusted him with everything and he tried to kill me and Pepper. He was behind me being taken by those terrorists in Afghanistan."

"I suppose that half of this aggression is coming from trust issues linked to that? I mean he knew you since you were a child according to news articles, he took over the company after your parents' death until you came of age even. Did you ever see a therapist for that?"

"I've always had trust issues, but I'm doing fine on my own."

Harry shook his head and planted his own feet. "Therapy isn't so bad. I was apprehensive at first, I tried to dig my heels in and insist I didn't need it, that I was fine…until I realised that I wasn't."

"What happened?" Tony asked him curiously.

"I've always suffered with nightmares. In the sort of situation that I grew up in…well, after you survive the living nightmare, you get actual nightmares. It was normal, so when they intensified, I played it off. Until I started having night terrors, where I would wake up screaming and clawing at myself. It got to the point where my neighbour thought I was being murdered and called the police. It was at that point that I realised I was far from okay."

Harry stared up at the sky and sighed heavily, picking up his legs and letting himself swing ever so slightly.

"I couldn't see it before that point. I believed that I was fine, that I was doing as well as I could expect of myself. It took the police hammering on my door at four in the morning and scoping my house for intruders and asking me repeatedly if I'd been attacked when they saw the bloody scratches on my arms and face for me to realise that…that what I was going through, how I was feeling, it wasn't normal at all."

"Did the therapy help?" Tony asked him.

Harry turned to look at him and he smiled. "Yeah, Tony. It really helped. Living with that stress and pressure crushing you into the ground, well, you never notice it until it's gone. Therapy can be incredibly freeing."

"Pepper's been on to me about seeing one."

"You know, there's no contract for that." Harry joked. "You can go once, or a few times, and see how it goes. Isn't it worth it to see if it can help you? Of course you might not be at the stage where you want help at the moment. I know I didn't want help until I realised that I was living my life in the shadow of what I went through. It took years for me to admit there was a problem, then years still to come through the therapy and become more normal."

"I'm sorry this contract sent you back to the therapist."

Harry snorted. "It's not like it was your fault. Neither of us knew about it and those who did know are all dead. I've long since learnt the value of asking for help when I need it and I know exactly how much help just talking can be. After the battle in New York that you went through, not to mention being captured by terrorists and held captive, then finding out it was orchestrated by someone you trusted, damn Tony, Pepper is right, you need therapy. It can be done discreetly, no one would know, and the nightmares will finally stop. Isn't that incentive enough?"

"How do you know I have nightmares?" Tony asked with narrowed eyes.

Harry gave him a look and then looked back at the house. "Anyone would have nightmares after what you've been through. There's no shame in it, I had to learn that the hard way too. I felt belittled, ashamed, when I first went to therapy. Almost as if I couldn't believe I'd gotten so bad, sunk so low. Actually going through the therapy though, I realised how wrong I'd been. There's nothing wrong with going to therapy when you need it. It helps, Tony, I can't tell you in words how much it helps."

"How did you…" Tony trailed off and shrugged. "How did you stick with it?"

"I wanted the nightmares to stop." Harry said. "I wanted to be able to go to bed and just sleep with no worries and without waking up in a cold sweat every few hours. I wanted to stop clawing myself to pieces in my sleep, I almost lost an eye once because of it. Of course I never wanted the neighbours to call the police again either, that was humiliating as well. I just wanted to be the guardian that Teddy deserved, the man I knew I could be. The sleeplessness was affecting every aspect of my life. At work I was less focused and in meetings I was less eloquent, which didn't endear me to clients, and at home I was grouchy, lethargic, and unconcerned with the people around me who wanted to help. I pushed them away before I allowed them in. I'm thankful that none of them gave up on me and just called it quits."

"How long does it take?"

Harry gave Tony a long look. "It can take a while, Tony, maybe years like it did for me, but each session is usually an hour. Sometimes they were shorter, if I stood up and walked out, or longer, if I made a significant breakthrough."

"Did you walk out often?"

"A fair few times." Harry said with a grin. "Particularly in the beginning, before I learned that to open up was to free myself of the pain and poison of the past. It takes a while to settle in and get used to talking about such awful, painful things, but given enough time, you can get there, as I did. It took several months of going before I finally settled into a routine, and then the real healing could start."

They sat in silence and Harry didn't push. Tony said nothing either and the silence stretched on, but it wasn't uncomfortable, it was quite nice to sit in silence without shouting and screaming in one another's faces.

"Harry!" Hermine called out from the back door. "Teddy's awake."

Harry smiled and stood. "That's my cue to go back and talk about dinosaurs."

"I…I need help speaking to him." Tony said, also standing.

"Come on then. He'll be groggy for about ten minutes now, while he gets used to being awake, then he'll be everywhere."

Harry went back into the house with Tony, then into the living room.

"You're both still alive?" Hermione asked.

Harry smiled as he went to the settee and picked up the groggy Teddy.

"Yes, we've had a nice, calm talk." He said as he sat Teddy on his lap and cuddled him in tightly.

"So…what did you speak about?" Pepper asked.

Harry smiled and sent a look at Tony, who bit the bullet and sat next to Harry and awkwardly raised a hand to touch Teddy's hair.

"A lot of things, Pep, but we have decided to call a truce. I mean, that was what we decided, wasn't it?" He asked of Harry.

Harry snorted. "Yeah, we've agreed to a truce. I can't deal with so much stress in my life and I can't keep running to my therapist every other day. We're both committed to this now, it's time to just get on with it."

"Can I hold him?" Tony asked.

Harry smiled and kissed Teddy before transferring him over to Tony's lap.

"Am I doing it right?"

Harry reached over and adjusted Tony's arms more securely around Teddy.

"There, that's perfect."

"I'm glad you're both on the same page." Bruce said. "It was uncomfortable to be around so much anger."

"It was a stressful situation." Natasha said. "No one is denying that, but I'm glad you're both working things out."

"It's about time." Harry said. "We can't escape this situation, but we were only making it worse with so much anger and hostility. Hopefully, moving forward, things will be better."

"Harry, want horn face." Teddy said sleepily from against Tony's chest.

Harry looked around for the triceratops teddy, and not seeing it he went upstairs to Teddy's bedroom and he found the teddy on the floor, where it had been knocked during Teddy's nap.

He picked up the soft triceratops and carried it back downstairs.

"Here you go, honey." He said, sitting back down and rubbing the soft toy against Teddy's cheek.

Teddy's one arm snaked out and wrapped around the toy and he once again snuffled his face into it. Harry reached forward and smoothed Teddy's hair back from his face. He assumed that Hermione had recast the suppression charm on Teddy.

It took another few minutes of quiet chat around him before Teddy squirmed and stretched on Tony's lap. He broke free of Tony's unsure grip and squirmed down to the floor.

"Do you want a drink, Ted?" Harry asked.

"Want juice." Teddy said, not even looking up from where he was walking the dinosaur across the carpet.

"Do you want orange or blackcurrant?"

"Orange."

"Okay. Anyone else want tea or coffee?"

"You know I want tea." Hermione chuckled.

"You're as bad as I am." Harry grinned.

Harry took everyone else's orders and he went out into the kitchen. He was rather surprised that Tony followed him.

"Did I do okay?" Tony asked him.

"With Teddy? Sure." Harry nodded, allowing Tony to have the verbal praise he obviously sought. He really was like a man-child.

Harry set about making tea and coffee for everyone, and while waiting for the kettle to boil, he made a beaker of orange juice for Teddy. Was everything fixed and now hunky dory? No.

Harry might have decided that all this fighting and aggression was just getting in the way of everything, but they still had a lot to work out, and a lot to still talk about. This time though, Harry hoped that it didn't all devolved back into fighting and arguing, he meant what he'd said, he was thoroughly sick of it.

Tony watched as Harry moved. He didn't stop and his hands were always doing something. He was at a loss as to what to say, or what to do, until he spied the cup of orange juice on the side.

"Should…should I take this to Teddy?" He asked.

Harry looked over his shoulder and he nodded.

"Yeah, make sure he says thank you. I don't mind so much if he doesn't say please, I don't believe he has to beg to get food or drink from me, but I like him to thank people who hand him things."

"Okay. Okay, I can do that." Tony said, ignoring his inner panic as he picked up the cup and carried it back to where Teddy was playing.

"Ted…Teddy." He called out, offering the cup.

Teddy looked up and then dropped his toy and stretched out both hands.

"Thanky." He said, before Tony had even passed him the cup.

He made sure the three year old had hold of the cup before letting go and, feeling exhausted from just that small interaction, he sat next to Natasha and breathed.

"Are you alright?" Natasha asked, bending forward to whisper to him.

"Yeah. I think we're doing well today, despite the argument."

Natasha touched his back in silent support, as she'd been doing for the last few days, just giving him a small touch of physical reassurance as she did what she did best, sitting and observing. Remembering every word that was spoken for future reference.

Harry came back in with the tray of tea and coffee and he handed Hermione her tea first, before handing out everyone else's. He looked calmer at least, as far as Tony could tell. He sat on the sofa with his own cup of tea and he looked at Teddy playing, smiling softly at him.

Tony remembered that this was his chance to prove that he could interact with a child, but it would mean putting everyone's sole attention on him, and he was nervous, he couldn't help it. If it had been an adult he would have been much more secure in the conversation, he loved talking about what he did, like when Harry had asked about arc reactor technology yesterday. He had gotten so into that conversation that he'd actually forgotten who he was talking to for a moment, that he would have to marry and have a baby with this bright, intelligent young man who was asking the right questions and seemed to be understanding exactly what Tony was saying. It was very rare for anyone to understand him when he spoke shop, and he was much more used to seeing confused frowns and having to try to explain in much simpler terms, which only ended up frustrating him.

But the point was that he couldn't speak shop with Teddy. He couldn't even put anything into simpler terms, because Teddy wouldn't understand any of it.

"Stop over thinking it, just get on the floor and play with him." Natasha encouraged, perhaps picking up on his tension as he just stared at Teddy.

Tony baulked at that idea, but Natasha gave him a push, right at the bottom of his spine, and Tony found himself on the floor before he could stop her.

Teddy looked over at him, and he laughed happily in the high, giggling voice of children, and Tony had to smile.

Potter had the audacity to snort out a laugh, but ultimately ignored him and went right back to talking to Hermione, Tony mentally thanked him for that, as he could see that he wasn't being watched. But the problem now was that Teddy was playing with the stuffed triceratops, and there were no other toys around.

"Teddy, why don't you show Tony your blocks?" Harry offered, and the little boy lit up.

"Yes, can I have them?"

"Of course, do you want me to get them?"

Teddy nodded his head and Harry put his tea down and stood to get a large bucket of chunky blocks. He put it down and Teddy ripped the lid off and upended it happily, with a large grin.

The three year old immediately started stacking the interlocking blocks and Tony tentatively reached out to help. When he wasn't shouted at, and Teddy didn't seem to be upset by his help, Tony got more confident and the engineer in him came out.

"Come on, Teddy, we can make this epic." Tony insisted, as he slotted another chunky block into place, and kept an eye on Teddy, who was watching him, and then copying him.

"Wanna tower."

"You want to put a tower in? I have a tower too, we should do it." Tony said, looking behind him for more blocks, pushing them towards Teddy so that he could build a tower next to their structure.

"Harry, I need more blocks." Teddy said, turning to his godfather, who turned from his conversation and looked at him.

"You want your other sets?" Harry asked.

"Yes, all of them." Teddy said.

"Okay. I'll move the table out of the way too." Harry said, looking at the coffee table that was getting in their way.

"I can do that." Steve offered immediately, like the good Captain he was. "Just tell me where to put it."

"Behind this settee would be great, Steve. Thank you." Harry said, as he went out of the room and rummaging under the stairs.

Steve picked up the table easily and lifted it over their structure carefully, putting it out of the way. Harry came back in carrying three other big buckets of blocks and Teddy grinned happily.

Teddy had the lids off and the buckets upended the moment Harry put them on the floor, and Harry laughed, ruffling Teddy's hair.

"Does anyone want more tea or coffee?" Harry asked.

"Oh!" Teddy turned and crawled to a side table, where he'd left his beaker of juice, and he drank.

Harry grinned at the three year old, shook his head, and left for the kitchen to get more drinks. Tony was thoroughly entranced in building with the kids' blocks, and having a little helper was an added bonus. Despite himself he was actually enjoying this. His nervousness was forgotten, he didn't think about anyone watching him, as he instead focused on Teddy and engaged the little boy's engineering skills, encouraging him to think of more ways to build the little structure they had started and the more Teddy wanted to add to it, Tony thought of a way to make it work so that the blocks stayed upright and where they were meant to be. Teddy looked amazed as he stood back and saw what they'd managed to do, and Teddy being happy made Harry happy. He was certainly smiling a lot more than he usually did as he watched Teddy laughing and clapping.

"Another tower!" Teddy demanded, coming to stand all over him, tiny hands griping his shirt and tugging. "Tony, more towers!"

"Alright, where do you want to put it?" He asked, gathering more blocks.

"In the middle!" Teddy said excitedly, as he ducked under an arch of blocks and held his hands out for more blocks to build a fifth tower.

"I feel I should warn you now that Teddy's favourite part of playing with blocks is getting to knock them all over when he's done." Harry said with a smile. He looked even younger when he smiled and that unnerved Tony more.

"That's okay, half my experiments end up with things crashing around me or exploding in my face."

"Oh, snap." Harry actually laughed.

"Only half?" Hermione teased. "I thought it was more like ninety-five percent."

Harry snorted. "No, not that much, it's more like seventy-eight percent." He joked. "It's more things exploding in my face though, it's not often that things come crashing around me."

"Unless the entire thing explodes and sends shards of glass and metal everywhere." Hermione pointed out. "Then it breaks everything else too."

"Usually me first." Harry said blithely.

"Is that where all the scars on your hands came from?" Tony asked.

Far from being self-conscious about the subject, Harry sat forward and spread both hands out, showing all the white and silvery scars on show.

"Oh yeah." He said happily. "All of these have come from inventing and tinkering. This one is the most recent." He said, pointing to a scar that was still a pinkish-red going down the side of his hand from his thumb. "Thankfully it didn't need stitches, so I could just patch it up and carry on, but it's still healing and I've lost some sensation in that part of my hand. I believe it to only be temporary, though."

"Tony! Help me with a tower!" Teddy interrupted, reaching out to tug on Tony's sleeve.

"Alright, bud, I'm helping." Tony laughed, turning back to the three year old and collecting up more blocks.

It was more relaxed now that they weren't shouting in one another's faces, and Tony felt the slightest bit better. They'd set a date for their marriage, one that was now stuck in his mind and refused to leave, it was the worst situation Tony had ever found himself in, but he would find a way to make it work. He had to.

A/N: I've had a little Avengers blip, so all of my Avengers plots are currently back on the menu. It'll be a limited time though, so I'll get what I can done, as quickly as I can, though I am really distracted with a Bucky/Harry soulmate fic at the moment, which is trying to become a threesome with Steve added into the mix which I'm trying to ignore, but I thought to get this chapter out while I'm on an Avengers kick.

That's all for now, thank you all for being so patient with me while I work on everything, I'll see you all next time,

StarLight Massacre. X