chapter 6

Harry stepped out of the convenience store with an irrepressible grin, listening idly to Barton and whoever he worked for. There was a brief mention of his reappearance followed by stony silence. Harry sighed. He scowled as he thought of his sloppy work on the roof, nearly getting spotted, and by a Muggle no less. It had hardly been up to his usual standards. He realized uneasily that without practical experience, his much-vaunted skill at catching dark wizards had gotten rusty.

"Agent Barton, we're still getting intermittent signal drops. I–s there any electromagnetic interference in your area that we are not aware of?"

"All my equipment works. I thought the drones were supposed to be hardier?"

Harry's good mood evaporated quite quickly as he realized that he'd once more been tagged with some kind of tracking device, as well drones, whatever those were. It was another thing that wouldn't have happened to him on the job, though he'd never had to deal with the Muggle equivalent before. He thought of the miniscule machine he'd found on his leg, back in Afghanistan. Before his magic had shorted it out, it had to have worked at the very least since he last met Natasha.

Harry started walking again as he realized he was doing a fair job at blocking the sidewalk; an old lady scowled darkly as she pushed past, muttering a few words in such a strong accent Harry had no clue what the words were even supposed to be.

'Target is moving. I'm following."

Harry sighed. With these spies hanging over his head, his plans for a nice and relaxing time were getting mighty unlikely. Rescuing Tony had clearly not helped matters - he doubted anyone would take his word for it being coincidental. He could practically hear Hermione telling him that she'd predicted this. She'd repeatedly argued that it didn't matter whether or not he was well known or a face in the crowd: he'd always end up doing the right thing, and that was not usually stand by and watch. She'd once called it his 'saving people thing' and sometimes it was very aggravating.

Harry thought about why he didn't just pack up and leave, why he was actually planning on going to Stark's place like he requested, rather than vanish someplace else, find a way to ditch his pursuers, and continue what he'd started in Afghanistan. The only thing he could come up with was that Hermione had been right, at least partially: he couldn't stay away. Even when there was nothing whatsoever in this world that he really knew, since he was but a visitor, he'd ended up caring what happened to the people he met. He couldn't just cut and run; he wouldn't have done that in his old world, and the new one was not thatdifferent.

Harry sighed, glancing around the great city. Muggle or not, perhaps he could find some semblance of what he was looking for.

Now, there were pressing matters. Agent Barton – though what kind of agent, Harry didn't know – would doubtlessly have to go back to his colleagues eventually, and that would give an interesting opportunity. An opportunity to spy. Though he'd not placed a tracking charm, the listening charm should be enough to warn him when the man was switched out with another, and then he'd follow.

The biggest hurdle, of course, would be doing something like that without letting Barton or any of his sort know about his presence; he'd have to find and destroy the new tracking machines they'd planted, or shut them up for a while. Unfortunately, staying hidden from technology was not exactly his strong suit; he hadn't ever needed to learn. That was starting to be a handicap; when he'd arrived he'd just breezed past Muggles left and right, but it was clear that would no longer work. If he was honest, that had probably been what warned the locals; so convinced was he that there was nobody to smack his fingers for using magic, he'd forgotten that the Muggle world had its own innovations to boast about.

That, Harry realized, was one of the things he hadn't really grasped, in Afghanistan. The country wasn't highly technological, or at least not the part he'd been in. It wasn't like this city with cell phones and laptops and whatever else everywhere; it'd been comfortably similar to the Wizarding World in some regards, with the height of advancement commonly used consisting of old boxy televisions and cars, which just reminded him of the Dursleys.

There was one person he could ask – he didn't quite know how he'd broach the subject though, since the man would probably laugh in his face. Tony Stark was a technological revolutionary – Harry had read the magazines, understood less than a tenth of them. Unlike himself, effectively unfamiliar with any technology newer than the nineties, Tony would know all about tiny tracking machines. Unfortunately it would bring up a lot of uncomfortable questions.

If all else failed, he could just hit himself with a whopper of a detection charm again. It'd worked well enough last time, after all. Of course then he'd have to be on the lookout for yet more of the things, and he didn't even know how they got these newest ones on him. He'd have to be – the corners of his mouth twitched up – constantly vigilant.

Director Nick Fury paced through his office with thinly-veiled annoyance, a crumpled report spread out across his desk. He'd been elsewhere for most of the day, and when he returned, this happened.

"You mean to tell me that the target is somehow messing with the Nano-drones," he said harshly, staring at the nervous technician that'd taken a seat across from him. "Messing with one of the most technologically sophisticated tracking devices that S.H.I.E.L.D. has access to."

"Over a fifth have stopped obeying instructions altogether," The wiry man argued, pointing at the frayed pages that Fury had been reading. "The rest are all experiencing technical difficulties. Short-outs, confused directions, so forth. An electromagnetic field might be responsible for that, though I wouldn't know one small enough and powerful enough to carry on a person and have such an effect."

Fury scowled, staring at his computer's screens, where an image of Harry was shown, alongside the video that'd originally alerted S.H.I.E.L.D. to his existence. He frowned, glancing back at the computer as a thought occurred.

"Agent Romanoff?"

The face of a mildly bored Natasha appeared on screen, raising an eyebrow. "Director Fury?"

"Your report from Afghanistan... I recall reading a mention of Harry and exploding cell phones?" Fury rubbed his chin. "Did he ever mention anything else that related to electronics malfunctioning? I have a hypothesis…"

Natasha frowned. "I recall him mentioning something about crashing a car into a tree, that's the closest thing I can think of. Other than that, I can't really say. He didn't seem the type to use gadgets very much, anyway."

Fury nodded. "This teleportation of his... we have no real insight into how it works, which means we don't know what it would look like to our drones. Perhaps the 'malfunctioning' is not so much that our machines are faulty, but that they're doing things they're not designed for? It must be his 'jumps' that short out electrical equipment."

The technician coughed lightly. "If this Harry is actually spreading an E-M field of some sort, that would explain it, but it would also be worrying." He frowned as he pulled a small booklet from his pocket. "Our Nano-drones are state of the art but even they won't survive a proper electromagnetic blast. We'd lose the signal within days at the rate things are going."

"I want you to find out if we have anything to shield properly against such effects; there are only so many times one can trick a man into drinking an army of robots. Assuming I am right concerning the reasons for the signal's corruption, the glitch reported this afternoon was likely not just a glitch. The computer reported the signal vanishing, reappearing in another building moments later- far too quick for a human to walk over. I think we can assume he teleported."

"To do what? Sight-see across the street?" Natasha wondered, then paled. "…Barton."

Fury nodded grimly. The technician took his cue to leave, quickly putting the little booklet of specifications back in his pocket as he went. Fury hit a few keys and brought up audio communication. "Agent Barton, we have some new information for you."

"Director Fury?"

"I wanted to inform you that we have likely confirmation that Harry is aware of your existence; like in Afghanistan, he seems to have a knack for spotting his pursuers." Fury sighed, tapping his fingers together impatiently. "His teleportation seems to be interfering with the drones we placed, so we cannot properly track him for at least a short time after he uses it. Being careful is a must. He could attack you from a blind spot at any time."

"I doubt he's going to do that now," Natasha commented to Fury as he closed down the connection to Barton. "He's had months to do so across the pond, and instead he went to museums and curiosity shops." She rolled her eyes. "As long as Clint doesn't shoot him, I think he'll be fine."

Fury sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Timid as he may appear, this mystery man's already managed to ingratiate himself with one of the richest men alive."

"You believe he planned that?" Natasha put in. "You're not seriously accusing him of being in league with a terrorist cell, are you? Granted, he's too cryptic by half, but he's never shown outright malice as far as I've seen. Besides, I doubt the kidnappers planned their own destruction."There are some things that don't add up," Fury opined. "It's possibly it's a coincidence but I seriously doubt it. Nobody wanders a hundred miles into the desert voluntarily. He must've known that Stark was out there, and went looking. It's possible that he too arranged for the illegal paperwork, though I question what he'd hope to accomplish with such an act, aside from a court order."

"Hey, wait," Barton said, and there was a brief silence. "The target just disappeared! I repeat, he just vanished."

Fury sighed.

Well, Harry had to admit it, Tony's house was exactly as he'd anticipated it to be. It was huge, oddly shaped (though Harry was used to that, at least) and beautifully situated near the water, with a view that could rival anyone's since it peeked over the bluff down to the waters below. It reminded him a little of Shell Cottage, though infinitely more expensive.

Walking down the tree-lined path to the front door, he raised an eyebrow at a large flat section of concrete with a large H painted on it. It was a landing pad for helicopters, he concluded, and was mildly content that he'd known that much. A bit further along was a tennis court though it didn't seem to have been used in a while, as it was a bit unkempt. The house's gardens were huge and varied. He had serious doubts Tony ever did any gardening, though.

Finding the man had been tougher than he'd anticipated, mostly since Harry hadn't really considered the distances involved. Nearly thirty miles he'd followed the tracking charm. It was lucky he'd been able to catch a bus, or he'd still be walking. He rang the doorbell.

Listening in on his pursuers on the way here had been informative but not nearly as much as he'd hoped. He'd learned of a 'Director Fury' - he seemed about as gruff as Mad-Eye Moody had been, and hell-bent on figuring him out. He'd also learned that this organization knew little to nothing about him, at least that they were willing to admit to Barton. Judging from what Fury said, the only thing the organization even knew about had to be Apparition. That could be helpful as long as they didn't know about magic itself or all the things he could do with it, he'd always have an edge.

The door swung open suddenly and Harry blinked. A woman in a neat brown suit was looking at him with some confusion. After a moment she nodded in understanding. "You must be Harry Callahan. Come in."

Harry nodded, quickly wiping his feet as he stepped inside the building. If the outside was remarkable, the beautifully decorated interior was jaw-dropping. There were little fountains, long benches arrayed along huge curved windows, and a beautiful painting of the Los Angeles skyline and that was just in the foyer. He turned to the woman and smiled. "Just call me Harry, please."

"So," she began, smiling. "Tony didn't think you'd come."

"Figured as much," Harry mumbled, walking over to one of the gigantic windows at the far side of the house. The sea stretched out all around, distant boats bobbing lightly on the water and the setting sun shimmering across it. He turned to the woman in embarrassment as he realized he was being a terrible guest. "I'm sorry, you must be the assistant that Tony mentioned. Miss Potts?"

She nodded tightly, smiling. "Just call me Pepper." She glanced over to a glass door on the far side of the room; there was a staircase there, as well. "Tony can be a bit impulsive, so I wasn't sure if you would turn out to be an Afghan farmer he just kidnapped off the street. I wouldn't have been all that surprised, considering."

Harry shrugged, sitting down on one of the benches and taking in the view again. "He wasn't kidding about the house. It's magnificent. I wouldn't want to ever move again."

"He wants a tower. Knowing him, he'll build it himself," Pepper noted, smiling. "So tell me, Harry, how did you end up out in the middle of nowhere, so you could pick up my wayward boss? I can't imagine it's very hospitable out there."

"He used donkeys."

Harry turned. Tony strolled in, smirking. He dropped himself down on the bench next to Pepper and Harry, sighing contentedly. "It might've been small horses, I was napping at the time, so I couldn't tell you." He turned to Harry. "You actually came! I'd half expected an APB with your name on it by morning. Kudos."

"I'm still not a fugitive, Tony," Harry responded, glancing at Pepper. "Honestly."

"So defensive," Tony chided, gesturing to Pepper. "Could you get us a good drink? I don't think I can get up right now. I figured the assistant's the one that helps out the cripple, right?"

"You're not crippled, Tony."

"Close enough." He shrugged. "I already crippled the company, I think that counts."

Harry glanced at him, frowning. "What do you mean? You've barely been back a day, what did you do?"

Tony gave something between a smile and a grimace. "Remember, on my plane, I said that all my mistakes tend to be big. I went to fix one. I don't think that anyone quite expected how far I went, though. Obadiah certainly didn't." Tony turned away. "If you haven't seen the press releases yet, just turn on the television." He paused for a moment. "What I saw in Afghanistan were my own weapons, used to kill our own troops. I decided that I couldn't continue to do this." He frowned down at his chest, where the arc reactor shone softly. "This afternoon I pulled Stark Industries out of the weapons market. I think right about now all the shareholders are panicking."

Pepper returned with a bottle of wine – if Harry had to guess, very expensive - and a couple of glasses, setting them down on a little table near the two men.

"So, you'll stop making weapons?" Harry wondered, picking one up. "I thought it was a weapons company? Isn't that going to cut the legs out from under your whole enterprise?"

Tony shrugged. "I don't care what the shareholders think. A new direction's what's needed." He looked at Harry askance. "You missed Obi, I spoke to him earlier. He thought the same thing you did. That I'd ruin the company and myself by doing this."

Harry nodded. "Yet you're doing it anyway?" Harry smiled. "I know how that is, you know, when I decided to leave I had quite a bit of opposition. Those who knew argued I'd be throwing away so much that was important, so much that had been with me for my whole life, but I did it. I'm starting to come around to the opinion that I was even more right than I'd anticipated at the time. I feel alive again for the first time years."

Tony snorted. "All you had to do was pull a billionaire from the desert."

"Point is, go for it. Don't let people tell you what you ought to do with your own company. Just as you shouldn't let people decide what you ought to do with your life." He smiled sadly, and they sat in silence for a moment. "In any case, do I get a tour?"

"Oh, yes, of course." Tony got up, grabbing his glass of wine as he passed. "Well, you've already seen upstairs, so I can show you where I work, I suppose. Jarvis, light it up again."

Harry started as a new voice spoke, seemingly from everywhere. "Yes, sir. I am detecting an electromagnetic disturbance in the house again, are you aware of this?"

"Yes, yes." Tony muttered, putting a hand over the arc reactor in his chest. "I'm coming down, now. Put away the sharp bits, I'm bringing a guest."

Harry quickly followed Tony. Pepper stayed behind, eyebrow raised at the two. If upstairs had looked futuristic because of the design, the level they now entered was so because every surface was covered with little bits of electronic equipment, spare tubing and wires, as well as numerous scale models of what had to be Stark Industries products.

"Jarvis, I did say lights, didn't I?"

The place lit up like a Christmas tree. Harry blinked around in astonishment as what appeared to be square illusions blinked into existence, showing all sorts of complex technical drawings that he had no clue about. Computer screens, sure, but they seemed like they were floating in mid-air. If he hadn't known it was technology…

"Holographic. It's neat, isn't it?" Tony said as he waved his hand in front of one of the screens, shoving the contents around; they actually responded to his movements, too. It reminded Harry remarkably of that time in the chamber, when Voldemort had written his name in floating letters and rearranged them at will. "I'm outfitting the whole place with them. They're all hooked into Jarvis, whom you've already heard."

"Greetings."

"Hello, Jarvis." Harry tried, glancing up nervously, then towards Tony.

"Your tone suggests discomfort. I apologize," Jarvis responded kindly."He's an A.I." Tony added to another confused look from Harry. "Artificial Intelligence. He helps out with a lot of stuff around the house so I don't have to do them all myself." He cocked his head. "Well, I actually do almost none of it myself."

"Ah, so it's like a spirit," Harry concluded. "Invisible but interacting with stuff anyway, did you design that? I didn't even know M- people were capable of something like that."

Tony gave him a weird look, but shrugged. "Well, if that's how you want to compare it, though I think that I've got things a little more down to earth than ghosts and goblins around here."

Harry didn't comment, savouring the taste of his wine as he glanced over the various images. A few were showing sketches of what appeared to be a human, though strangely bulky. He turned to Tony with a serious look. "I thank you for your hospitality, Tony, but you must have some reason you dragged me all the way out here to America. Spill."

"Can't a man just be helpful in the spirit of goodwill?"

"You?" Harry asked dryly.

Tony sighed. "Nobody ever believes me when I say I don't have an ulterior motive. I think people believe that rich people are always up to no good." He frowned. "Well, it's probably a good rule of thumb, but honestly."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm leaving soon. Not sure when yet, but I've got a few things I want to do, and I hardly think that I should stick around here just because I know you." He looked around the messy workshop. "As far as I can tell, you've got three months of unfinished work strewn around here and I don't know what even a tenth of it does. I wouldn't even know how to begin to help with any of it, even if I wanted to."

"I suppose you'd have to learn, then." Tony argued, shrugging. "Well, you can let yourself out, if you want to go. You've got your papers, make something of your life. Until you do, you can use one of the guestrooms, I suppose – I'm sure Pepper can point you to one."

"Agent Barton, please report."

Harry winced, bringing a hand to his head as the sharp voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts, courtesy of his listening charm.

"The target's in the Stark residence – I have nothing new to add, yet. The security is too high to go in unnoticed. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents haven't had a chance to bug it, either."

"Understood. Most of the Nano-probes are still functional; they indicate the target hasn't left the building."

Harry blinked, shuddering. Tony didn't say anything, but the bewildered look was enough. "Just a headache. It'll pass, I'm sure," he muttered as he shook his head. So, the people that were after him were from something called 'Shield'.

"Jarvis, get me some aspirin." Tony smirked at Harry. "Some for my guest, too."

Spending time at the Stark house had been a bit odd, Harry realized; Tony had no appreciable schedule outside his few official obligations, which meant he regularly worked until far into the night, or he outright skipped them entirely. The few times he'd spoken to the man at those late hours he could get little more than a dull glare out of it. Harry wondered if it was the man's alternative to sleeping. He'd been working on something new – he hadn't want to show it yet, but whatever it was incorporated the arc reactor he'd built, since he'd been tinkering with that for quite a while.

Compared to Tony, Pepper was far more sociable at most times; not too bothered by his lack of knowledge when it came to technology, she'd actually given him some pointers, though he'd largely stayed away from everything that looked delicate, given his tendency to make things explode. He'd met one other person: Tony's driver, a Mr. Hogan. The last few days Harry had gone out and explored the surrounding area, particularly the city, all the while keeping an ear out for new information from his unwitting spy.

It took the better part of a week before Barton was finally switched out for someone else. It was ideal, given that the listening charm was wearing a little thin – the voices were getting awfully reedy, in any case, but Harry could still catch some things. Apparently they were convinced he'd stay for an extended period, much as he had in Afghanistan; not a bad assumption, though honestly he'd quickly realized that there wasn't really an easy place to fly around here except over water, so he had been considering other locales for a little while.

He'd learned a few things from listening in on Barton's conversations. For one, he'd been horrified to realize that the Nano-probes that were used to track him weren't on him... they were in him. Evidently Muggles had developed such miniscule machines that they were unnoticeable. Not even his detection charms could give him more than a vague idea of where they were. The one time he'd tried the Elder Wand he'd almost fainted as all the devices simultaneously protested violently, they were distributed all throughout his body, If what he overheard was correct, over half of them were already beyond repair and would flush out of his system naturally, so it was only a matter of time before that was resolved.

Another thing he'd learned was that about the organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. that was keeping an eye on him. Some kind of secret government agency from what he could gather, specializing in the weird and unexplained alongside other, more mundane things. Harry figured that they were right in one thing. He definitely counted as such in this reality.

He'd spent the beginning of the week considering his options, whether he should try infiltrating the organization and find out what exactly they were up to, or if he should ignore them. The latter option, Harry realized, would not really work out. He was already drawing too much attention as it was, and a single glimpse by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent of anything else magical would just get them to pay even closer attention.

That is why he found himself hovering some forty feet away from Barton, who was waiting by the door of small aircraft, he was chatting with his home base about the Nano-probes losing contact again; thankfully, he wasn't sent right back. Harry smiled from under his invisibility cloak, glad to note that his assumption about that item had been correct: between the cloak's magical nature and its alleged effects – hide anyone, even from death – he'd assumed that it would work to block the signal, but hadn't actually been able to try it easily.

Adjusting his grip on his Firebolt, Harry slipped his wand back in his pocket, grinning in anticipation as Barton stepped into his ride; Harry had already put a tracking charm on the vehicle, just in case.

"It's time to pay a little visit to Mr. Fury."