Work Text:
The kid is maybe six years old and already one of the most annoying people Tony ever met.
Every morning when Tony goes to open the garage, the kid is already in the front, waiting for him. With his stupid cowboy hat on, way too large for his tiny head.
„Hey, Tony" he says.
„Hi, Harvey" Tony replies, intentionally using a wrong name. The kid (actually Harley) pretends to be oh so very offended, even though he probably doesn't mind.
Tony tells him to go away and stop bothering him. Harley laughs in a fake overdramatic way and claims that Tony loves it when he is there. Tony says that he is full of shit.
An instant after that, Tony's way too polite British accountant slash secretary slash housekeeper slash roommate Edwin Jarvis says, "You can't talk like this in front of the child, Mister Stark." And the kid puts on his innocent face, which is the face Tony hates the most.
Tony works on some cars his mostly rich clients while Harley lurks around, only waiting for a chance to make some snarky remark about how much better this and that could be done (and as much as Tony hates to admit it, the kid is mostly right).
Steve from the gym across the street visits Tony's garage almost every day because he obviously never works. So does Rhodey even though he is supposed to be some awarded general or something.
The day in the garage passes and Harley leaves. He never says goodbye. He just vanishes without Tony noticing.
Harley is annoying as hell, but damn if he doesn't make Tony's dull life interesting.
Then one day he doesn't show up.
Tony acts like nothing is wrong. At all. Like the deafening silence of the garage doesn't bother him. Like he doesn't notice Edwin's concerned glances.
"Where's the kid?" Rhodey asks concernedly, parking his Subaru (because he is one of those guys who own Subaru) in the garage even though he is not there for a repair.
"Don't know, don't care." Tony says and even he, Tony The Bullshitter Stark, can hear how insincere it sounds. And so does Rhodey, but he doesn't pry (because he is one of those guys who don't pry).
Other people ask and Tony does his best to just ignore them.
Then days pass and he starts to question it himself.
A week passes, then two and he thinks that maybe he should have done something by now. But Harley is not his kid. Why should he do anything about it? What could he really do about it? He doesn't even know his full name.
More than a month later the kid shows up.
It's just like any other day, but it's different. Harley sits on crates in the garage, his legs swinging, barely reaching the ground. He is silent, obviously trying hard to act like everything is normal. The kid is not as good of an actor as he thinks he is.
They are sitting around Tony's dirty worktable with Chinese takeout Edwin ordered them. Harley suddenly stops talking and just stares at the cheap Chinese noodles like it's some holy grail while his eyes fill with tears.
"What happened?" Tony asks. Coming out of his mouth those words feel unnatural. He freaking hates it.
"I'm fine." Harley replies except it sounds more like "Uhm Fuhn" because there are tears pouring down his cheeks, right into the Chinese noodles he for some reason started shoving into his mouth.
"You don't look fine." Tony says. Well, that sounds insensitive. But then, he has no idea how to ask these questions sensitively (Where would he even learn to do that? From his cold asshole of father? From his three sets of foster parents?).
"I'm..." the kid starts but got interrupted by his own violet hiccups (and choking on noodles).
"I'm-" Yet another failed attempt. After that, he gives up.
All that can be heard in the next few minutes is his loud crying.
Then only silence.
"They took Abby away." Harley finally says. That one short sentence results in another wave of sobbing.
It takes him way too long to say anything after that. But when he begins, he can't stop.
He says it all in one breath and it leaves him so tired, that he falls asleep right there, head falling on the table. Tony picks him up. His small skinny body feeling like it weighs nothing.
Tony carries the kid upstairs to his apartment above the garage. He takes Harley in the guest room (which is just Edwin's room). There Tony carefully puts him in a bed. He even tucks the kid in. It feels so unnatural, but it's something Edwin or Rhodey or his stupid neighbor Steve would probably do, and they seem like people who would know what to do in this situation.
"So, what did you learn?" Edwin asks when Tony joins him in the kitchen. The Brit doesn't even look up from the dishes he is washing as Tony takes a whiskey bottle from the top shelf.
After pouring himself a glass and drinking it in one gulp Tony replies:
"The kid ran from a group home."
"He said he lived with his mother." Jarvis states matter-of-factly.
"He did. A few weeks ago, social services took him and his sister from their mother. He won't tell me why. They put them in a group home. He liked it there but was looking forward to going back home. But yesterday his sister got adopted. He tried to go back home, but his mother wasn't there."
"So, he came here."
"Yeah."
"We must take him back in the morning." Jarvis states.
"I know that." Tony mumbles, taking yet another gulp from the bottle.
When he wakes up, his whole-body aches and sun (that jerk) is cooking his eyes alive.
"Tony?" a disembodied voice says, and it feels like someone stabbed him in the ear. With a fork. He really shouldn't have finished that whiskey.
He mumbles something about where the said person can go and what they can do there.
"Wow Tony, those are some juicy words you got here." The kid (of course it's the kid) speaks even louder. Tony opens his eyes, to see Harley's face only a few inches from his own. That's a way too close for his hangover mind to handle. He instinctively screams and pulls back. That has the kid falling on the floor with laughter.
Little asshole.
Tony ignores him, walking to the counter and pouring himself a cup of coffee. Edwin must have made it in the morning, before going to his actual paid job (Tony can't remember the last time he made a coffee). As he drinks the cold bitter and frankly disgusting drink that makes everything feel slightly less disgusting inside, the Harley pours himself a cup too. Then he stares at the black substance with almost scientific interest.
"Have you never drunk coffee before?" Tony asks mockingly. Overly offended look in Harley's face makes him chuckle.
"Of course I drank coffee before." And to prove it, he takes a huge gulp from the mug... and spits it all out instantly. He stares at the wet spot on the floor for a while before turning to Tony and saying, "It was too hot." very seriously and breaking into the tears for seemingly no reason.
Tony doesn't know what to do so he just puts his hand on kid's head. The little creature takes it as an invite for a hug and he attaches himself to Tony's side. As his limited children skills dictate, tony moves his hand to kids back but other than that doesn't move (god Rhodey would do so much better in this situation).
After minutes of kid convulsing with loud sobs, he suddenly stops and takes a few shaky steps away from Tony.
"Please don't make me go back." He whispers softly, his eyes on the floor.
Tony truly has no idea what he got himself into.
Steve from the gym is not helpful at all. He comes in just to ask a bunch of questions Tony doesn't want to answer to and calming words Tony doesn't care for. But the kid looks happy to see the blonde wonder, so Tony lets it slide.
But there are visitors ever less welcome then Tony's hyper neighbor. Like the lady who rings on his door a while after the noon. She is a petite blonde with boyish haircut and clothes that make her look like she is either about to go for a run or to kick someone's ass. Against his better judgment, Tony likes her.
"Are you Mr. Tony Stark?" she asks. Before he gets a chance to answer, the kid is shoving past Tony to have a look.
"Miss Danvers?" The kid squeaks uncharacteristically high. The lady smiles at him.
"Hi there, kiddo." she says with the warmest smile Tony has seen in a while. "This is the Tony you have been telling me so much about?"
Harley nods even though it wasn't really a question. The blonde turns to Tony.
"Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Carol Danvers, Harley's social worker. Could we perhaps talk inside?"
Not like he can refuse right?
With some half-assed reason, Tony sends Harley to do something in the garage (he's not worried the kid would destroy something, he knows his shit too well) and ends up sitting at the kitchen table with Carol Danvers, the social worker.
"So, what do you want here?" he asks, setting the two-days-old coffee in front of her.
"Straightforward, I like it." She grins. When he doesn't reciprocate, her smile morphs into a more serious expression.
"I don't know if you heard but Harley ran the group home yesterday."
"I heard." Tony admits.
"Since I have been working with him, Harley talked about you a lot. When the service called me that they couldn't find him anywhere, this was the first place I thought of."
"So, you came to take him back." Tony states.
"Do you want me to?" she asks, and the cheeky grin is back. Tony wants to send her to a very deep depth of hell for that question, but he at the same time he doesn't know his answer.
"What really happened with him?" he asks instead. Carol scowls. She looks in her untouched coffee and he is starting to think she may never answer. But in the end, she looks him directly in the eye and she does. And it's not a nice tale she tells.
By the end of it, Tony is sure.
The kid can't end up like him.
Another little boy, his head filled with all those dreams and ambitions. Ideas of how he could make the world a better place. The system taking it all away, leaving only a cold shell of a man.
He wouldn't let that happen to Harley
When Carol asks again if he wants the kid to go away, Tony knows his answer.