Chapter Text
By the time his third day in New York rolled around, Harley had figured out that if he pressed the right combination fast enough in the west-most elevator, he could get it to stop at a maintenance floor that no one else seemed to use.
Not that he did anything special there-he just stood by the window sometimes, eating a candy bar and listening to the hum of dozens of people moving above and below him. Trying to feel if the building had a soul or something.
It wasn’t much, but it was something. Something his.
Stark Tower-or Avengers Tower, or whatever it was calling itself now-had ninety-three floors. Harley hadn’t explored all of them yet, but he planned to.
The sixteenth floor, for example, had a koi pond. A real one. With actual fish. And floor thirty-two had a vending machine that didn’t need coins to give you snacks. That one was officially his favorite.
His own floor-the penthouse-was full of sleek design choices and open space. Gorgeous, obviously. Everything in there was new, deliberate, overly modern. It felt a little like being inside a luxury catalog. Like someone had hired a very expensive interior designer to stage a lifestyle, not a home.
Harley’s room was at the end of the hallway, right across from the master bedroom that Tony and Pepper shared. It was already fully furnished when he got there-white, chrome, and kind of cold.
It had its own bathroom, which smelled exactly like the one in Malibu. Same detergent. Same everything.
Harley hadn’t picked this room. And honestly, it didn’t really feel like his.
It was the kind of room a rich person might assume a teenager would want-futuristic, minimalist, and totally impersonal.
It was exactly the kind of place you gave to someone you didn’t really know-but hoped would stay.
But Harley did have his stuff.
Years of collecting, rearranging, holding onto things that meant something. His boxes arrived on the second day. It wasn’t enough to fill the brushed-metal shelves that looked like they belonged in a spaceship, or to cram the soft-close drawers in the dresser, or to take up more than a few corners of the walls.
The room was easily twice the size of his old dorm room-and that one, he’d always had to share.
It didn’t really resemble his bedroom back in Malibu either, except maybe for the size of the windows.
That old room had been painted blue and was packed with junk, souvenirs, half-dead plants, and surfboards he hadn’t touched since he was twelve. It had been decorated for a younger version of himself-the one who thought he and his dad were going to eat tacos every Friday forever.
By day four, Harley had started decorating in random bursts of energy, somewhere between wandering the tower’s upper floors and zoning out while staring at the city skyline, trying to decide if he liked it or if it was just too much.
Pepper had left him a neat little pile of stuff on his desk-pushpins, wall hooks, painter’s tape, and some swatches of wall color. On top was a sticky note that read: Go wild. Within reason.
Harley had rolled his eyes at it, but he’d smiled too.
So he started putting things up.
The Body Snatcher poster-corners a little bent-and The Wasp Woman, in near-perfect condition. He and Gene had swiped both from the old cinema in the town near their school. The place ran classic horror movies every Thursday and didn’t lock up very well.
There was the fencing tournament banner that someone had accidentally mailed to the dorm instead of the main school building, and since Harley was on the team, he figured it was fair game.
A Godzilla print he found while sneaking around during a lockdown drill.
A terrible-quality Iron Giant promo he’d traded for two Pokémon cards in fifth grade.
And an unreasonably expensive photo print of Queen Elizabeth from the 1950s that, for reasons he couldn’t really explain, just… spoke to him.
He filled the shelf with books-yellowed and battered-most of them gifts, prizes, or just stuff people had left behind in his dorm over the years.
But The Haunting of Hill House went on the desk. Just in case. In case he ever felt like looking at it.
He found a spot for the paper rhinoceros too. It didn’t look anything like a real rhino, but Harley had made it a few months back and felt weirdly attached to it. Along with it came a bunch of random junk, plus his dented school thermos that didn’t actually keep anything warm and which he had no reason to use anymore-but kept anyway.
The photos took the longest.
He covered the strip of wall between the two giant windows with blurry shots from movie nights, group hangouts, half-legal escapades pulled off by creatively unsupervised boys. Most of them were dumb or grainy or both, but they made the place feel less like a museum.
The one he liked most was of Pepper. She was wearing this stunning dress and had an even more stunning smile, and Harley-tucked up against her side-had a look on his face like his shoes were way too tight.
Back at school, that photo had always gone above his desk. Every year.
It was a little harder to find a place for the photo strip he’d taken with Olivia during the holidays, but eventually he tucked it into the edge of the mirror.
One picture stayed face-down in a drawer until day six.
At first, he hadn’t even meant to bring it with him. He’d planned to leave it behind, forget it existed. And when he realized it had made the trip, he figured there was no way he’d actually hang it.
He was maybe seven when it was taken-probably the last summer before everything started to fall apart.
He was sitting on a sun-bleached bench, feet not even touching the ground. Tony had an arm slung across the backrest behind him, sunglasses pushed into his hair, ice cream cone in hand. He looked like someone nothing could touch.
Behind them, laughing at something off-camera, was Obie. One hand on Harley’s shoulder. One on Tony’s.
Harley stared at that one for a long time.
Then he took a breath and pinned it up with the rest.
Tony saw the photo on day eight.
He’d been walking past Harley’s room, slowed down when he noticed the door open, and leaned in. Harley didn’t comment. It was Tony’s house.
But his eyes went straight to the Malibu picture. He walked over and just stood there, staring at it for a solid few minutes. Harley stared at him back, just as still.
“Obie was good to you,” Tony said eventually, his voice low and strange-like he was tired, or like something inside him was pulling tight. “Really good.”
Harley didn’t answer. But his chest tightened.
He had loved Obie. Trusted him. For years, Obie was the one grown-up Harley felt like he could actually talk to. The one who showed up. Who picked him up from school, who reminded Tony about his birthday, who clapped at school plays when Tony sent an assistant instead.
And then, apparently, he’d tried to kill Tony.
Harley wanted to rip the photo off the wall. But he didn’t.
“I’m not saying take it down,” Tony said, straightening up a little too fast, throwing Harley a look he couldn’t totally read. “It’s your room. I just… get it. If it’s weird. It’s weird for me too.”
Harley didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that. And before he could figure it out, Tony was already gone.
Left the air a little messier than it had been.
By day ten, Tony flew out to Dubai. Something about licensing. Something something PR. Something something fire to put out.
Harley didn’t ask.
He just watched from his spot on the couch as Tony stepped into the elevator-one hand on his suitcase, the other still glued to his phone.
It looked like every other time Tony disappeared. When Harley was five. Or seven. Or twelve. Always movement, blur, noise.
But Harley wasn’t seven anymore.
Seven-year-old Harley probably would’ve cried. Clung to his dad’s leg. Gotten bribed with ice cream or a trip to the beach or some overpriced toy.
Fifteen-year-old Harley was old enough to know Tony had surgery a few months ago to remove the damn shrapnel from his chest. That he could’ve died. Again.
Pepper didn’t talk about it, but Harley noticed how worried she was. How sometimes, mid-sentence, she’d just go quiet, or rub her thumb into her palm-the thing she did only when she was really anxious.
He noticed. So he didn’t add to it. Didn’t ask how Tony was feeling. Or if he should even be flying.
She didn’t need that. She deserved peace.
And Harley… Harley had kind of made his peace with the fact that with Tony, you had to never be too surprised when he left, and never get too hopeful when he came back.
Still, that night, Harley rode the elevator up and down for a long time.
Just to feel something move.
On day eleven, Happy took him on the Staten Island Ferry. Supposedly because Harley had once mentioned he’d never been, but more likely to keep his mind off Tony.
It was grossly humid, the water smelled awful, and the benches were weirdly sticky.
But Harley kind of liked it anyway.
It was normal. No holograms, no upgrades, no AI giving snarky commentary. Just a boat. A ferry. Full of overheated people and stale snack food.
They sat on the upper deck, eating fries that were somehow both soggy and way too salty, watching other passengers go by.
“Better, right?” Happy asked eventually, leaning over the railing. “This city makes a little more sense with wind in your hair.”
By day thirteen, Harley had started showing up in Pepper’s office after lunch.
It smelled like expensive perfume and coffee and something that was just… her.
He never knocked. He never had. It was exactly like when he was ten and used to sit on the couch in her office doing summer math packets while she worked late.
“Need something?” she asked the first time, giving him that warm, familiar smile.
“Naaah,” he said, plopping into the seat across from her and pulling out his phone to reply to something in the group chat. “This floor has the best snacks.”
She hummed quietly and went back to her work.
She didn’t mention that this floor didn’t actually have any vending machines. Or a kitchen.
And he didn’t mention that she was the closest thing he had to a mom.
Technically, though, he did say it.
On day fourteen, in the evening, Pepper was making popcorn while Harley sprawled across the kitchen island waiting for her to finish.
“Thanks, you know,” he said, tilting his head to look at her.
“For what?” she asked, turning toward him with a curious smile.
“For being with him,” he said, holding her gaze.
She froze mid-motion.
“I mean-with Tony. I’m glad it’s you.”
He didn’t say the rest. That it was good it wasn’t someone fake or plastic. That it wasn’t someone who disappeared when Tony did.
He never called her Mom. That word felt too big, too late, too weird in his mouth.
But honestly, he couldn’t really remember life before her. Not in any real way.
“Of course. Always,” she said, like she understood all of it.
And when she ruffled his hair a moment later, he didn’t say anything.
Didn’t need to.
On day fifteen, Tony sent him a photo of a camel with the caption has your energy.
Harley didn’t reply.
But he saved the picture anyway.
On day seventeen, the stuff Harley had ordered one random night while doom-scrolling through obscure shopping sites finally showed up.
So now he had a new rug, a chair that absolutely didn’t match anything else in the room, and three cacti lined up on the windowsill that he named Philip, Charles, and William-even though he fully accepted they were doomed.
He also had a basketball hoop that wouldn’t have fit in any room smaller than this one, but lucky for him, this was the Tower.
By day eighteen, Harley had officially run out of things to do.
He’d rearranged his bed at least three times. Hung up the medals he swore he never would-the ones from elementary school tournaments that barely counted. For a while, he just lay there, staring at the ceiling or playing FIFA even though he didn’t actually care about soccer.
With nothing left to do, he circled back to the first thing he’d started with: exploring.
Except by the time he finished wandering around floor forty-eight-which turned out to be an actual maze of nothing interesting-he decided walking around definitely wasn’t his thing.
So he pulled out the skateboard he’d shoved under the bed back on day nine, when he’d first opened the box labeled IMPORTANT.
Same board he’d technically gotten for his thirteenth birthday. It showed up two weeks late. No card. But it had the Stark Industries logo printed on the underside, like that was supposed to explain everything.
It was from Tony, so Harley had made a personal vow to ride it until the wheels literally fell off. Which, to be fair, almost happened that one time he went full speed over the uneven bricks near the school auditorium.
Not that he was good at it or anything.
Even if someone offered him millions, he still wouldn’t be able to land a proper kickflip. He’d proved that on the school trip to Geneva back in November when he tried one, split his eyebrow open, and chipped the tail of the board.
But he could ollie over pretty much anything.
Curbs, door thresholds, caution-wet-floor signs, even the little fountain on floor thirty-seven.
Didn’t matter what it was-if it stood still long enough, Harley could ollie over it.
By day twenty-one, Harley had been caught by security five separate times.
And each time had its own flavor.
The first time, he got kicked out. Literally.
It was on the eighty-ninth floor-some kind of logistics zone, full of crates, drones, conveyor belts, and mechanical arms. It looked basically abandoned, way more sci-fi than any of the other floors he’d seen so far, and honestly kind of perfect for skating.
He’d just managed to hop over one of the conveyor belts, letting his board roll underneath, and had barely tried to slide down the metal edge of what he decided was an extremely ugly bench, when two dudes materialized out of nowhere.
They had radios, jackets with SI printed on the back, and expressions that screamed we hate teenagers.
“Hey! Hey!”
Harley froze mid-move and let himself coast backward on the board, eyebrows raised.
“You’re not authorized to be here!” one of them yelled.
“Sorry, I was just-” Harley started, lifting a hand, trying to explain.
But he didn’t get the chance.
Next thing he knew, he was physically herded into the elevator. His hoodie got yanked halfway up his back, one of his shoes came untied, and they tossed his board in after him like it was a crime scene weapon. One of them punched the LOBBY button with unnecessary force.
Harley felt like a supervillain.
“Next time, it’s NYPD, you little punk,” one of the guys said as the doors started to close.
“I live here, jackass,” Harley muttered under his breath as he hit the STOP button and got off one floor down.
He didn’t dare take the elevator back up, though. Just in case.
He took the stairs for the next five floors.
The second time, he ran for it.
And he wasn’t even doing anything remotely illegal. He was just wandering around the lower floors, hoping to find that weird zen garden Pepper had mentioned offhand one morning-and maybe a cool spot to take a photo to send to his friends.
But then some door opened somewhere and someone called out:
“Excuse me, who are you here with?”
“Oh, I’m just-” Harley shot his best smile at the guy heading his way.
Didn’t help.
A few seconds later, a completely different dude was coming toward him-this one had a radio and a bulletproof vest with the SI logo on it. Apparently the lower floors had fancier security.
So Harley did the only logical thing. He bolted.
Full-on sprint through a carpeted hallway, down some stairs that felt way more public than the emergency ones he usually used. He tore through a chill zone meant for engineers, and a utility corridor that smelled like printer ink and wires. Knocked over a trash can somewhere along the way. But he lost them.
Somewhere near the cafeteria on the twenty-fifth floor, he managed to duck behind a massive rolling cart stacked with even more massive cooking pots. He stayed there until it felt safe.
When he ran into Happy a few hours later and the guy asked what he’d been up to that afternoon, Harley just shrugged and said he’d found a vending machine that sold expired grape soda. Then silently begged JARVIS not to rat him out.
The third time was when things got actually serious.
Harley’s original plan had just been to ride the elevators. For fun.
But when the elevator stopped by itself on the forty-first floor, it felt like an invitation. Music still blaring in his headphones, he stepped out.
The floor was full of weird corners and pointless ramps-two stairs down just to be followed by three up. Classic Stark Tower nonsense.
Harley had just gone for a landing off one of those random drops when someone tackled him like they were playing in the goddamn Super Bowl.
He hit the floor hard, board flying off somewhere, his shoulder crunching painfully against the tile.
“Hey, what the-! Get OFF!”
Nobody listened.
Someone twisted his arms behind his back, someone else grabbed his board. The next ten minutes were a whirlwind of being dragged into some kind of security office and getting exactly zero sympathy.
“Harley Stark,” he said for maybe the eighth time when they kept asking who he was and what the hell he was doing there.
Cue another eye roll.
“Right. And I’m Pepper Potts.”
“No, like, seriously.”
“No ID. No adult supervision. No anything. And don’t you dare say Stark again.”
They were maybe two seconds away from calling the actual cops when Happy finally walked in, radiating the specific kind of energy reserved for exhausted uncles.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, staring directly at Harley. “Can you please find a hobby that doesn’t give me gray hair?”
Harley just grinned.
They gave him his board back. Finally. One of the guards even said sorry.
And the fact that Happy ended up taking him to that zen garden Harley had been trying to find earlier-and handed him a bag of chips while muttering something about how Harley was gonna send him to an early grave before his dad did-only made the whole thing better.
The fourth and fifth times both happened on the same day.
Honestly, they were starting to feel like part of the routine-Harley went somewhere he wasn’t supposed to, jumped over something a little too fragile-looking, someone yelled something about a possible intruder. And like clockwork, Happy showed up within ten minutes, frowning and holding something decent to eat.
By the fifth time, he even gave Harley a ride on one of those little transport carts, the kind they usually use for crates and equipment. Harley stuck his hand out like he was surfing through the air.
But that fifth time also came with a warning.
“You’re stressing out my mid-level staff,” Happy complained. “I’m gonna have to start printing you a guest badge every morning.”
“I’ll behave,” Harley promised with his best innocent smile-making a mental note to limit his boarding to the penthouse, the roof, the garage, and the outdoor areas. Not like there were many floors left anyway. At that point, he’d pretty much officially hit all 93 of them. The rest of the Tower’s nooks and crannies? He could explore those more... discreetly.
Luckily, on day twenty-two, Rhodey dropped by. Still in uniform, coming from who-knows-where, and holding two tickets to a Yankees vs. Mets game like some kind of angel.
“You’ve grown again,” he said as a hello.
“You’ve been saying that since I was nine,” Harley rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, and you keep growing. Stop doing that and I’ll stop saying it.”
“And you keep getting older,” Harley shot back-pretty sure he heard Pepper laugh at that, even though she was mid-phone call in the next room.
Harley didn’t even like baseball that much. But he knew the stadium would be loud, and Rhodey was the kind of guy who’d definitely buy him a hot dog and let him ramble about stupid stuff.
They barely watched the game. Mostly, they roasted the players and made fun of the people in the stands.
“You know,” Rhodey said at one point, “you could visit me on base sometime.”
“They let civilians in?”
“Being unauthorized hasn’t stopped you so far, from what Happy tells me.”
“Okay. Ouch.”
Harley even pretended to root for the Mets just to mess with him-Rhodey was a die-hard Yankees fan.
In retaliation, Rhodey bought him one of those giant foam fingers, the kind that made Harley cringe on sight.
“This thing is disgusting,” Harley declared.
But he kept it on the whole game. And the entire ride back.
On the twenty-fourth day, Tony came back. Loudly, of course-like always. In his style. Full of energy, the kind that usually showed up a few minutes before he did. Full of chaos too, the kind that probably made the interns flinch.
Harley was sprawled out in that ridiculously out-of-place armchair in his room, texting Gene about how Olivia probably had a new boyfriend, judging by her Instagram posts.
He heard the elevator arrive, the doors sliding open. Then Pepper’s voice-too quiet to make out the words, but just loud enough to hear how soft it was. Happy-soft.
"I missed you. Did you miss me?" Tony’s voice was definitely louder. “Come on, tell me you missed me.”
Some kind of mumbling answered him. Harley dropped his phone onto his chest and listened more closely.
“…island. Not clear.”
He sat up just as Tony’s shadow appeared in the doorway. He looked pretty much the same. Which wasn’t exactly a good thing. He had dark circles under his eyes and might’ve actually been skinnier than before, if that was even possible.
"Hey, kid!" Tony said casually, leaning in the doorway. "You eaten today?"
"Yeah," Harley lied.
"Cool," Tony said, stepping into the room, eyeing random stuff and avoiding the clothes scattered on the floor. “You changed things around.”
“You were gone a while.”
“I was gone on business,” Tony said, putting weird emphasis on business. “Is that poster crooked or is it just me?”
Harley looked at the poster Tony was pointing at. It was definitely crooked.
“It’s straight,” he said. “Mostly.”
“Cool. Cool. I brought you something.”
Harley frowned deeper, watching closely as Tony reached into a suitcase he’d dropped in the doorway and pulled out a miniature gold camel. It looked kinda deflated, dusty, and very obviously from some tourist-trap market.
“You brought me a camel?” Harley asked, turning the figure over in his hands.
“A gold camel. Classic. Exotic. Culturally questionable. But it’s got personality.”
“Uh… thanks, I guess.”
“You’re welcome, kid,” Tony said, clapping his hands onto Harley’s shoulders. He gave them a quick squeeze, drummed his fingers in some rhythm only he seemed to know, and then headed for the door.
“Hey,” Tony said suddenly, turning around with an expression Harley couldn’t quite read. “If you’re gonna ride your board indoors again, please, please stay out of the AI calibration rooms. You nearly ran over a prototype eyeball.”
“When was I even in that kind of room?” Harley frowned, genuinely unable to remember anything that looked remotely like an eyeball.
“Just…” Tony gave him a tired smile. “Don’t make me sew a GPS tracker into your hoodie.”
And without waiting for a reply, he left. Leaning back in his seat, Harley could just see Tony heading to his room. Good. Maybe he planned on sleeping. Getting some rest.
Pepper came into view a moment later. And Harley would’ve had to be blind not to see how her face lit up at the sight of the camel in his hands.
“He missed you,” she said, and walked into the room Tony had just disappeared into.
On the twenty-sixth day, that weird limbo Harley had been living in-sharing a roof with his dad but barely talking to him-either ended, shifted, or... something.
It was late morning. Quiet and calm. Pepper had been at the office for hours. Harley was halfway through a bowl of way-too-sweet cereal, sitting at the kitchen island. Some jazz was playing in the background. JARVIS liked to play that kind of crap. Harley wasn’t a fan, but it wasn’t annoying enough to ask for something else. He tapped his heel against the stool in time with the music, not really thinking about it.
Tony showed up without any fanfare. No explosions. Just barefoot, hair a mess, wearing a washed-out MIT shirt that was probably older than Harley, blinking like he hadn’t quite finished booting up. He mumbled a greeting and Harley mumbled something back, fully expecting him to disappear again.
But he didn’t.
He made himself coffee, sat down across from Harley, and started scrolling through what looked like emails on his phone. He looked tired-but not bone-deep tired. Not destroyed. Just like a normal guy who hadn’t slept great.
Harley had no idea what to do with that. It was weird. But not bad-weird. Just… weird.
His phone buzzed. Reflexively, he grabbed it and read the message.
We’re coming Friday. Mom wore him down. Les Mis. Get ready,
Harley smiled. His shoulders relaxed without him even realizing.
“Some girl?” Tony asked over the rim of his phone.
“You always think it’s a girl,” Harley rolled his eyes, but there wasn’t any bite to it.
“Optimism,” Tony said, taking another sip of coffee. “Or pattern recognition.”
“It’s Gene,” Harley replied, not bothering to react to the rest.
“Gene…” Tony tilted his head like he was digging through mental file folders. “Is that the one with the weird vocabulary and even weirder shoes?”
Harley squinted at him.
“You saw him once. When you came to get me to sign the papers to make Pepper CEO. That time you thought you were dying. Again.”
“Right,” Tony said, like he was genuinely turning that memory over in his head. “That was a funny time.”
“Mhm,” Harley snorted before he could stop himself. It wasn’t a funny time. “Super funny for me too.”
“Was he the one with braces?” Tony asked. Harley looked up from the reply he was typing to Gene.
“Yuuuup,” Harley said, still not totally sure what was going on. “He’s flying in Friday.”
“Do we need to pick him up from the airport?” Tony asked immediately. Like, zero hesitation.
“Nah, his mom’s definitely got it all planned. They’re staying at some Carlyle or whatever, and I’m sure they’ve got a whole fleet of drivers,” Harley explained, setting down his phone and actually looking at his dad.
“Mm, fancy,” Tony said. “Anyway, if you want, I can have JARVIS clear my weekend. We could hang out. You could, like, officially introduce us.”
Harley felt like his heart might’ve straight-up left his chest. Not only had Tony remembered something about his life-he was offering to make time for it.
“I’ll let you know, okay?” Harley said, and yeah, his eyes were definitely shinier than they should’ve been.
“Cool,” Tony nodded, grabbing his coffee and tablet and heading for the elevator.