Chapter Text
The pitter-patter of rain hitting the bus windows overlaps with the volume of the video, making it almost inaudible.
Harley holds his phone close to his chest, watching the clip playing on the screen intently. He views Tony tinker and fail and fall flat on his ass over and over again in a different sequence of events each time, and it would have been funny if he hadn’t memorized them perfectly.
Harley doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even crack a smile. He merely watches as Tony makes himself look like a dumb fuck on repeat with the occasional success sprinkled in here and there. Each video - laboratory logs, test trial clips, whatever they were technically called - detailed Tony Stark going over his scientific process of making and upgrading the Iron Man suits, or whichever project he was working on at the time.
Harley has seen all of these videos. He’s watched each one a hundred times over. Ever since they appeared on his files two months after Tony’s funeral, it’s been all that he’s thought about.
They have been only one of two things that have kept him sane since he came back from dust.
On the screen, Tony gets sprayed with foam by Dum-E again, in what’s probably the thirteenth replay of the video. Harley merely blinks, and changes focus to the pressure on his arm.
His sister is leaning on him, asleep. Her face is slack from slumber and it gives her an expression of peace.
It heavily contrasted with her black eye and what visible bruises that she has. Her black jacket hid as much as it could, but Harley can see what it didn’t, and it fucking pains him every time that he does. It hurts him knowing that he had let it get to this point.
Ryleigh’s dark red hair falls over her face in small tendrils and Harley instinctively tucks them back behind her ear, inside the hood. He’ll only wake her up when has to, which should be in another hour or so. She deserves to rest at ease, especially after everything she’s been through.
Harley makes sure to tuck her hood over her head more. They can’t afford to have suspicious eyes on them, not after everything they did to get here.
They’re so close to New York already. Finally, after a month of being on the road, doing what Harley could to keep them alive, they were finally almost to safety.
Finally, he could get some answers for what’s been happening to him.
Harley looks back at the video on his phone as it comes to an end. Tony’s face stares back at him, frozen, paused.
Gone. The last remnants of who used to be his mentor.
Harley continues to gaze at eyes that will never look at him again.
The year is 2025. Seven years ago, the blip happened, turning Harley and his sister Ryleigh into dust. Their mom was left alive, the only one left of the Keener family. Or, so Harley believed.
Three years ago, his mom died in a car crash after a depressed drunkard ran his truck into her small car. Death doesn’t stop, not even after universal catastrophes.
Two years ago, the Avengers reformed to take down Thanos and reverse the evil that he had done. Tony Stark sacrificed himself in order to bring everyone else back. And death continues to take.
Two years ago, their dad came back into their life after being revived to claim custody of him and Ryleigh.
A month ago, Garret Keener is now legally dead and his blood is on Harley’s hands. The police know this and are effectively after him for murder.
Harley doesn’t regret an inch of it.
He’s just confused as to what happened when he did it.
Fire. So much fire. Energy that he couldn’t explain, overwhelming him and making him feel powerful. Then an explosion took out the entire household, including his dad, who had fallen at Harley’s feet and died there. He could’ve sworn it was his dad who exploded or was at least the source of it.
Harley came out relatively unscathed. He shouldn’t have. He was, after all, right at the epicenter.
Ryleigh had been in the shed at that time, away from the fight that went down between him and their dad, and luckily away from the explosion that rattled the entire countryside. After Harley had crawled out of the crater that used to be their home, he quickly grabbed Ryleigh and told her that they had to run.
That’s what they’ve been doing ever since.
Harley has kept track of the news on them and police reports so that he knows which places to stay away from. His phone is handmade, untraceable, with its own A.I. and everything. Nobody was gonna be able to track them that’s for damn sure.
So, Harley felt relatively safe when he googled his own name and found his own face staring back at him, under the article, “PATRICIDE AND KIDNAPPING CASE: GENIUS KID ON THE RUN”. That was a few days ago, with the reporter saying Harley could be anywhere in Tennessee or Kentucky, and they gave a description and photo of what he looks like.
Harley has made sure to wear a hoodie and mask since then. Ryleigh wears one too, but she draped it down under her chin in order to nap. Since nobody was on the bus this late, and the bus driver not paying attention to them, Harley is allowing it for now. When they have to get off, he’ll make sure that she puts it back on.
Harley taps on the back button on his phone and is taken to his videos. In almost all of them, Tony Stark is present.
Harley wasn’t formally invited to the funeral. He had made it on his own to at least watch from the sidelines as Tony was buried and final words were given. Pepper Potts seemed to at least recognize him a bit when she saw his face in the crowd and had allowed him in to separate him away from the civilians who were there to pay their respects.
Harley didn’t think he was allowed up front with the more important people in Tony’s life. Pepper Potts gave no indication that he was, so he had stuck to the back and looked on from afar.
Which was why he was so shocked when he received all of Tony’s videologs months later. It was why he quickly became absorbed in them, obsessed with watching Tony fail and succeed in different ways.
The videos were his last connection to Tony after two whole years of no contact. Two years of ignoring Harley’s existence, of dropping him from the face of the Earth. Two whole years without Tony Stark, before the blip.
Harley knows that he’s making a weird expression. He can feel it, the way that his face is grimaced. He feels…complicated about it. About Tony. About what had happened between them.
Harley was replaced. His spot as Tony’s apprentice was taken by a web-slinging hero who could keep up with Iron Man. He and Tony had already gotten into several big fights at that point, so it probably just made sense to the mechanic to drop the troublemaker in favor of an actual good-hearted obeying prodigy.
Harley feels weird about Tony, torn between anger and grief. But he hates Spider-Man. He hates him a lot.
He’s taken out of his thoughts when he feels the bus slowly come to a stop.
“Alright, we’re in Manhattan, New York. We’re as close to Stark Towers as we can get, as you can see. You kids gonna get off here?” The bus driver informs them and turns to gaze at Harley with a crooked brow.
“Yeah. Yeah, thank you,” Harley says as he shakes Ryleigh’s shoulder harshly, making her wake up with a groan. She aims a shitty look at him.
Harley had already paid the driver, using the last bits of money that he had secretly saved up for emergencies. He gestures for Ryleigh to pull her mask back up and she does, also securing her hoodie while she’s at it.
The bus driver doesn’t question them, just gives them a tired good night and closes the bus doors behind them after they depart. The bus drives off, leaving the 19-year-old and 12-year-old side by side in the open, unfamiliar Manhattan city.
Finally. They made it. They finally made it to Stark Towers.
Harley finally feels the tension leave his shoulders and relief pour through his body.
“Do you think it’ll work?” Ryleigh asks, uncertainty in her voice.
Harley takes a second to respond back. “If it doesn’t, I’ll find a way.”
And with that, the two siblings head off towards Stark Towers, hoping for sanctuary.
Stark Towers usually isn’t open to the public this late, so Harley decided to do the only thing that he could possibly do: break in.
There were no classic windows on Stark Tower, so Harley guesses it has to be through the front doors. Which currently leads to him trying to connect his comparatively primitive A.I. to Tony’s more sophisticated system in an attempt to hack in. Despite the setback, Harley’s confident that it wouldn’t take too long. It’s a good thing that he knows the man’s old tricks and coding methods.
It took only thirty minutes for him to bypass all of Tony’s A-grade firewalls and open up the doors. Harley can usually hack into something in five or fewer minutes, but eh, he’ll take it.
“Why can’t we wait till morning?” Comes a harsh whisper from Ryleigh, who looks constipated through her mask.
“’Cause of multiple things,” Harley begins. “One, we’re more likely to be caught in the morning. Two, we’ll look suspicious as fuck. Have you seen us? Three, we need to catch Pepper Potts as soon as possible. She’s our only ticket to safety.”
Ryleigh nods, understanding. Her eyes go from torn to determined with Harley’s sound logic, and honestly, Harley is so grateful. Ever since the incident she’s been coming around a lot more to his mindset and reasonings rather than being her typical annoying-younger-sibling self. Harley doesn’t worry about it though — he knows that it’s just the gravity of the situation pressing on her young shoulders.
As soon as Harley guarantees them protection, she’ll be right back to her usual self. They’ll go right back to their casual, typical sibling banter. Everything would be normal again.
Minus the weird parts about Harley that have been haunting him for the past two years.
He has a theory, but… he has no proof to support it. Not unless you count the explosion, but even then Harley hasn’t quite connected the dots.
He knows that he’ll find his answers here, though. He knows Tony has to have known something.
As the two make their way through the lobby Harley directs them on where to go. He keeps his phone out and activates the elevators to work, not wanting to put Ryleigh through the hundreds of stairs leading up to where they need to go.
They’re so close. Harley’s finally fixed this grave mistake.
The elevator dings and its doors open up, allowing the two in. They enter, and Harley puts into his phone the floor that they need to go on.
The elevator begins its climb upwards. It’s a steady ride, at least for a couple of minutes.
Then it stops, and a voice calls out from overhead.
“Excuse me, but you’re not supposed to be in here,” says the female-sounding Irish voice. “Please indicate who you are as I call the authorities. You do not have access to these floors.”
Harley’s prepared for this. He knew that this was coming.
“Derby, go play with Friday for a minute.” He says, putting a tiny flash drive into his phone socket.
“Which one is— A— Ah— y-You— Nnnnn— What— Wha— Ts-ts-zzz—”
Friday’s voice starts to buzz around, becoming mechanical and less comprehensible. It takes a minute, but eventually, the noise peters out. On Harley’s screen, a thumbs-up emoji appears on its own.
“Nice, good job,” Harley thanks, a smirk gracing his face.
The elevator continues its way up.
When Harley and Ryleigh make it to the suites they both have their own destinations in mind. Ryleigh makes it straight towards the couch and falls over onto it, curling up and sighing in happiness.
“Finallyyyyy…” she groans out, sounding tired. “A real place to sleep. Is there beds in here? I want a real bed and blanket.”
“Yeah, just walk down the hallway. Pick out whichever one you like most, they all look the same. I gotta go do something.”
“Like what?”
“…I’ll tell you later, okay?”
“Yeah, you fuckin’ better.” Ah, and there it is already.
“Go get some rest, dork.” Harley retorts, the smile on his face growing wider.
He hasn’t made a step out of the elevator. He already knew which way was to the laboratory and Tony’s main computer. His answers would be there.
He exits the elevator. Harley steadily makes his way to the old labs. He punches in the code to the door and is surprised when it actually works.
When he steps inside it’s like looking at a memory.
Harley takes a second to look at everything. Things have absolutely changed. There are new gadgets everywhere and different machines wherever his eyes land, but it still at the very core feels the exact same.
It feels like coming home.
Harley makes his way through it all, only taking sparse few seconds to gaze at whatever catches his attention before continuing onwards. Before Tony died he sure as shit was still hard at work. Nothing could keep the mechanic away from his passion.
Harley tries to not think about it for too long.
Eventually, Harley finds it — the main computer of the laboratory.
'This is it.'
Harley makes his way to it and turns it on, lighting up the dim lab with a bright blue glow.
He puts in the password that he knows Tony never changes due to his pride in his protection systems, and the computer opens up for him.
'This is it.'
Harley begins to sort through the files. It doesn’t take him too long to find what he’s looking for, digging as deep as he has to. He reads the file name and a twinge of unease courses through him.
Extremis.
This is it.
Harley opens up the file.
Two things happen at once —
Multiple pages and videos and reports spill out before his eyes, dragging his attention everywhere.
At the same time, his phone begins to ring the alarm that D.E.R.B.Y. has reached her limit.
Harley snatches his phone up and sees a devastated emoji appear back at him, D.E.R.B.Y. communicating that she’s in a bad spot right now.
'Shit, shit, shit, fuck, fuck fuck!!'
She was supposed to last at least another six hours from now! She was supposed to keep F.R.I.D.A.Y. at bay until Pepper Potts made it to the tower!
She was supposed to be Harley’s bypass key! Without her, Harley can’t access any file! Harley knows for sure that Tony got rid of all of his access privileges, he’s tried to get in before! This is why he made D.E.R.B.Y.!
Shit. He’s got a time limit!
He’s gotta sort through these and get Ryleigh up and them gone FAST.
Harley begins to sort through everything Tony has on extremis at lightning speed. Usually, his dyslexia would have stopped him from being so fast at reading, but in the last two years, it seems to have effectively vanished.
“—Extremis is able to heal its user from anything and everything.”
Harley keeps looking. He’s pretty sure he has nine minutes left.
“—gives the user the ability to wield energy throughout their body, with pyrokinesis being the most prominent physical trait—”
Harley remembers when he came back from dust. He remembers how he had come back different.
“—extreme healing factor, energy manipulation, elongated lifespan, and on rare occasions abilities specific to the user—”
He had come back stronger. He remembers bursting open his shed door when it was locked and the metal flying everywhere. He remembers getting cuts and being targeted by his dad, yet the wounds never stay for long.
“Extremis has been used as a weapon in the past by Aldrich Killian, the creator and distributor. He used mainly ex-military men as living explosions to set a terroristic force under the pseudonym of the Mandarin. The people who took extremis either immediately exploded upon ingestion, exploded later upon stress or activation, or adapted to the virus in ways that made them superhuman.”
Harley remembers when he began to accidentally burn everything that he touched. He remembers when he would feel power surge through him anytime he got pissed off and fought with his dad. He remembers his hands glowing and staring at them for hours after they dimmed.
He remembers his dad’s eyes glowing too.
A list of successful living candidates of Extremis dated between 2000 - 2013 is listed below:”
Control-F. Harley types in a name, but he doesn’t have to scroll down very far to find it.
“Garrett Keener - 2000.”
There it is. His fucking proof.
Garrett Keener, Harley’s deadbeat dad, had extremis.
This explains the explosion, even after Harley accidentally killed him. His dead body still had extremis, and Harley’s own had somehow made it detonate.
His own…
Harley has extremis.
Somehow, someway, he has the extremis virus running through his veins.
And Tony Stark knew about it.
The alarm on his phone rings again. Harley turns to look at it.
“Fuck!” He yelps. His phone screen with D.E.R.B.Y. is now blue-screening, going in and out of absolutely bugging out and showing off multiple sad emojis. Five minutes left.
He quickly grabs his phone and makes a run for it.
He doesn’t use the elevator. He knows it won’t work now. Instead, he almost ops to take the staircase down, which won’t be long to reach the suits.
That makes him hesitate though. Shit, how were they gonna get out of here?
Harley looks around real quick and sees something that could be useful. He quickly grabs it and continues to make a run for it.
He descends the stairway, almost tripping over his feet multiple times. Harley’s already planning out their escape as he bursts into the living room, running down the hallway and banging open every door he reaches. Finally, he reaches the room where Ryleigh is sleeping.
“RYE, WAKE UP!” He yells, unable to feel apologetic as Ryleigh jumps from the bed and almost falls out of it.
“What— huh?! What’s happening?” She asks after she orients herself, terror in her voice.
“Derby failed! Friday is making her way through quicker than I thought! Come on, we gotta go!”
That’s all Ryleigh needed to hear to get her to storm to his side.
“What about Pepper?! Why can’t we stay and explain things to Friday?!” She asks, confused and out of breath as they make their way to the stairs.
“Friday doesn’t see me as one of Tony’s buddies anymore, that’s why! He deleted all of my privileges after we stopped talking! Even if I asked her to sort through her deleted files, this was over seven years ago! She would already have contacted the police and we’d be surrounded!”
The two of them are huffing and puffing as they descend. Harley checks his phone. Three minutes.
They still have dozens of stairways to go through. They won’t get low enough for it to be completely safe.
It has to be now or never.
Harley grabs Ryleigh’s arm and drags her through the first door he finds. It leads into a hallway and they run down it, not questioning where they are going.
All Harley needs is a window.
Eventually, they make it back out into the open, wall-to-floor glass letting in the moonlight that illuminates the lobby room.
Harley makes his way over to the windows and looks down. He sucks in a breath when he sees just how far up they are.
His heart leaps frantically. It doesn’t beat because he’s afraid, but it does for the safety of his sister.
And yet, it’s the best chance they got.
Harley steps back and bends down on one knee, quickly placing the abandoned prototype flight boots beside his feet.
He doesn’t know who made them or if they even work, but it’s their best shot. It’s their only chance at escaping.
“Harley? What’re you doing? Where— we’re not gonna get out through here, are we?”
Harley doesn’t like lying to his sister. “Yes, we are.”
“WHAT!” She screeches, and Harley shushes her. That’s when a familiar Irish voice speaks out once again.
“The police have been contacted. You’re Harley Keener, correct? My old boss told me to keep an eye out on you. Your A.I. is good, yet somewhat lacking. They weren’t able to hold back my own attacks, and I was able to garner information from your digital device concerning you and your month-long whereabouts.”
'Shit. Fuck. God damnit. This is only getting worse.'
Harley slaps the metal as it stagnates to contort to his shoes.
“Your criminal record is not one to be laughed at. Property destruction. Menacing. Illegal hacking attempts. Patricide. Kidnapping. Robbery. And now, breaking and entering. You have gone down quite a dark path, haven’t you, Mr. Keener?”
“You don’t know shit, Friday!” Harley spits out. He taps on the boots and they don’t make a sound. Fuck!
“And yet.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. simply responds before going silent.
Harley knocks at the boots and gets a faint light out of them.
Then, she speaks up again, “The police will be here in less than five minutes.”
Harley stands back up. That’s all that he needed to know that they work.
“Ryleigh, grab on. Hold onto me like you’re putting me in a chokehold, okay? Lock your arms tight.”
“Harley, what the fuck! We’re not jumping are we?!” The twelve-year-old asks hysterically.
“The police are now in the area,” F.R.I.DA.Y. states from above.
“It’s our only choice!” Harley yells back. “I won’t drop you!”
“This is stupid! The boots barely work, I seen them! Why can’t you hack into the elevators again and then we run out the back?!”
“We don’t have time! The cops will surround the area!” Harley takes a step towards her and he sees her take one back.
That makes him hesitate.
Down below, blue and red lights start to swirl through the night.
“The police are here. I suggest you either stay where you’re at or make your way down to the lobby.” States F.R.I.D.A.Y. and Harley takes a deep breath in. He lets it out slowly.
“Ryleigh, please.” Harley begins, voice pleading and desperate. “The police will take you away. I-I don’t want that to happen. I promised that I would look after you when you were born, and I’m sticking to it. But, y-…you can go down if you want. I won’t stop you if you want a chance at a normal life. I know that I can’t be the one to give you that anymore, not after this.”
Harley has to accept the truth. He fucked up. He’s fucked up, especially after everything that he’s learned. But his baby sister shouldn’t have to go through his mistakes. That would be the last thing he would ever do to her, not after everything she’s already been through.
They lost their father. Their little family only had each other for years, a mother with her two rambunctious kids. Then, one day, her babies had turned to dust and left her behind. Harley knows that their mother was depressed for the rest of the time that she was alive. Yet, her babies came back to life.
They came back to a world where she was gone.
In her place to claim custody, their shithead biological father came back. Apparently, he also survived the blip and had already laid claim to the house. He had sold all of Harley’s gadgets and machines, even the white paneling off of the shed wall. He had transformed their bedrooms into storage. He didn’t even buy their momma a headstone, leaving her with a little lonely plaque in the cemetery where she was put to rest.
When he came back, that’s when it all went to hell. Ever since then, Harley has had to protect Ryleigh from his abusive hands and angry gazes, his favorite words being that she wasn’t even his and Harley was a disgrace. Harley has had to protect Ryleigh since she was born, and he never regretted an inch of it.
He feels tears come to his eyes.
“I’m a wanted man. You know this. You’ve seen this. To stick with me means having to deal with my bullshit and constantly being on the run. But maybe… maybe you can find another family, one that’s better…”
Harley knows what has to happen now.
He can’t pull his baby sister into any more of this.
This time, he has to protect her from him.
“What? B-but wait, are you leaving me? Harley, are you going away?”
He grits his teeth.
He never lies to his sister.
“I…I want to take you with me, Rye. But I can’t.”
“Why not?! You were telling me to go seconds ago!”
“I’m dangerous, Rye. I can’t live a normal life anymore, and that’s the least that you deserve.”
“No, stop! You’re not dangerous! You protected me from Dad and from bullies, and you always looked after me! You’re just crazy, sometimes!”
That gets a chuckle out of Harley.
“Yeah? Well, this is about to be the craziest thing that I’ve ever done. It’s gonna hurt, too.”
“Then don’t do it! Let’s just go out the back way, and we’ll be okay!”
“We can’t, I already told you.”
“Yes, we can!”
“No, we can’t.”
“Yeah-huh!”
“Ryleigh.” Harley gets closer and closer, tentatively testing the boundary between them until he can lean down to look her in the eyes.
Ever since he came back from dust, he’s also gotten taller too.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry for everything that I’ve put you through. The homelessness, the lack of food, the lack of sleep… the lack of safety. I shouldn’t have taken you with me. You should be able to live a good life, without a shitty broken family to hold you back.”
“Stop! No! Take me with you, I promise I’ll be good! I’ll be a good girl, I’ll do everything that you tell me to do, just don’t— don’t leave me!”
They’re both crying now. Ryleigh’s outright sobbing while Harley’s holding back his own, though he knows it does little to hinder them. It’s at this moment that Harley realizes once more that Ryleigh’s only twelve, and it cements his decision.
“I’m sorry.” Harley apologizes, reaching in to give his sister one last hug.
“Please! Please! Please don’t go, don’t leave me! I need you! I don’t wanna be alone, please, please!”
Harley rubs his hand up and down Ryleigh’s back. He runs his hand through dark red hair. He lets her cry because it would be pointless to tell her to do otherwise.
Harley forces her to let go of him, and she screams out in protest.
It’s been too long. Harley doesn’t know if F.R.I.D.A.Y. turned on the elevators for the police to let them up or if they’re taking the stairs, but either way, their time is up.
“Stay safe okay? Learn to protect yourself. Bye, Rye.”
Harley goes to stand up, but he’s grabbed by the jacket by Ryleigh’s clenched fist. He goes to unclasp her grip, but he stops short when she begins to talk.
“Stay with me… please… I want my big brother…”
Harley holds her hand for a second. Then a second longer.
“If I can’t see you… then— then will you please come see me? Please? I don’t wanna lose you too…”
That makes Harley hesitate. He has to think about it for only a second.
“I’ll try my best, okay? I promise you.”
Ryleigh sniffles. Harley holds out his pinky and she grabs it with her own. Pinkies locked, their promise is set in place.
Harley stands up. That’s when the doors to the stairway bang open, police making their way through. Ah, so stairs it was for them. At least they seemed to have had an easier time with it than he did.
“Freeze! Put your hands in the air or we’ll shoot!” Shouts one.
Harley turns towards the window.
“I said freeze!”
He digs deep within him. He digs for courage, but also for something else.
He isn’t sure if he finds it. He makes a run towards the glass anyway.
The police yell and he can hear them charge. None of them start shooting, probably due to Ryleigh being in the way.
It’s enough time for him to make it and smash through the reinforced window, going into freefall.
He hears the wind soar past his ears. His heart is racing. He feels his courage fade out as quickly as it came.
Harley brings one foot up close to his chest and slaps at the metal boots.
Nothing.
Harley slaps at them again. Still nothing.
Harley bites his lip to hold back in a scream.
The ground is coming up quickly. He knows it.
Harley closes his eyes.
Precious milliseconds tick on by.
Harley digs, and digs, and digs deep.
He’s afraid. He’s relieved. He’s stressed out and in pain. He’s sad, most likely depressed. He’s anxious. He’s troubled. He’s doubtful of himself.
But more than anything, Harley Keener is pissed the fuck off.
At the world, at the hand he was given, at god himself. At Tony Stark for abandoning him, at Spider-Man for replacing him, at himself for not being able to fix this.
Harley Keener fixes everything. He was supposed to be the mechanic’s apprentice, the good child, the reliable one, the genius, the one that fucked up but made it worth it in the end.
He’s too fucking stubborn to let it end here.
Harley feels something— power— fire— energy— it surges through—
The next thing that he knows, he’s lifting off into the sky, the flight boots jetting him off into the night sky with great speed. The police start shooting at him, several grazing him and one actually managing to stick into the meat of his leg. Harley winces at the pain, yet he focuses on his trajectory.
It was to get as far away from here as he could.
He doesn’t know how long he remains in the air. He knows it couldn’t be long though, not with the way that he was quickly running out of energy. It could have been seconds, minutes, an hour, but Harley sticks to it as much as he could.
Then, the next thing he knows, he’s once again freefalling. He’s diving out of the sky straight towards hard ground.
First, he bounces off of the side of a building— and pain lances through him.
Then he’s hitting the metal of a ladder and his shoulder burns.
Then he’s hitting off of the brick wall again as he makes his final tumble to the cement ground.
He falls headfirst, and the last thing that Harley sees is the moon shining up in the sky, stars swirling all around them for miles and miles.