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Harry felt weird. Like he was in two places at once. He couldn’t figure out what was causing it… but he definitely felt like he was here… and that he was there… too.

Or maybe he was there… and here?

It was very disconcerting.

It would probably help to start at the beginning.

… … …

Harry was born in the year 1988 as someone named Cory Fisher this time around. He had lovely parents. His father was a cop, a beautiful man with dark skin and dark curls, and his mother was a gorgeous mixed Asian nurse. He got the best of all of their attributes, but mostly intelligence. But Harry was always intelligent these days.

Too many lifetimes kind of did that to a person.

The hard part was making it look genius instead of unnatural.

With no pressing homicidal urges present, Harry turned his thoughts to other things. He was three years old when a man named Tony Stark took over as head of his company. He was young and CEO and made things.

That sounded interesting. So Cory paid attention. He quickly went from LEGOs to K’Nex to actual engineering kits.

His preoccupation with building things didn’t stop Cory’s advancement through school, though being in advanced placement classes wasn’t the same as skipping a whole grade-- though he probably could have with ease.

It was when Cory was 12 that he finally decided to do what he wanted to do. He’d been toying with the idea for a while. Mostly after he found out about the Sci-Fi franchise Star Wars.

“It’s an actual thing?” Harry, all of ten years old and forever curious, had his eyes glued onto Luke’s lightsaber. His dad came over at the questions prompting and dropped a hand onto Cory’s similar dark curls.

“What’s a thing, son?” he asked, scratching at Cory’s scalp in a way that the boy really enjoyed. It felt good and he felt safe.

Instead of answering, he just pointed to the poster of Return of the Jedi. It was an old poster because they were in a second-hand store, plenty of memorabilia around. But Harry had been drawn to that poster and had been staring at it for a while. He recognized that lightsaber. He knew that lightsaber. He’d sparred against that lightsaber.

His dad, a smart man, figured it out. “I suppose you’re old enough to watch Star Wars.” The pre-teen mouthed the title, chuckling internally. “I know we don’t have a copy; let’s buy one.”

It was the start of an obsession. Harry had an entire bookshelf in his room dedicated to the series. He found out that a few years ago there had been talks about doing a prequel trilogy, but they had been shot down. The strange thing was, Harry couldn’t find any actual references to what he had done in that world… universe? Whatever. He’d been there twice by now!

Sure, there were clones in Star Wars which he remembered when he, himself, had been a clone… and in the books, there was plenty of stuff about the future of that world… but there was no Ben Solo. A Ben Skywalker, but not Solo.

Harry was so confused.

But that didn’t really matter. He’d relived lives plenty of times before. Never the same life, but in the same reality, sure. What’s to say that Harry Potter wasn’t fiction in another universe he just hadn’t been to yet?

(Death smiled knowingly down at his master.)

The important thing was that Cory had an obsession and at twelve years old he set about trying to build his own lightsaber. He’d done it twice already, both mechanically and magically, he should be able to figure it out in this lifetime.

Biggest hindering factor? No Kyber Crystals. Also no magic.

Yeah, that was weird. Harry almost always had a little bit of magic. Even if it was small things. But he was nearing thirteen and hadn’t even had a spark.

He was having plenty of success with his lightsaber though.

Thankfully, his parents hadn’t caught wind of his experiments.

Then he blew up his room.

… … …

Things had been going so well, too, Cory thought as he waved away the smoke and looked at the giant new hole in his wall. “Oh, mom and dad are gonna be pissed…” he muttered, picking up the pieces of his broken room. What he wouldn’t do for a good reparo.

When he heard a noise behind him, he expected it to be his parents or possibly the fire department-- not that there was much fire, he’d managed to get that out on his own-- but instead, it was a couple of people in suits. One man was in an awfully fine suit, not at all suited from the destruction around him. It suited the singed pre-teen just fine.

The pair stared at each other, dark eyes on Cory’s part and blue on the suit-man until he couldn’t take it anymore. “Hello, who are you?”

“Sorry, Mr. Fisher. My name is Agent Coulson with the Strategic…” he rattled off a title that Harry didn’t bother listening to, let alone remember, barely holding his internal sneer in check. Government. “Would you care to share what happened here?”

The pre-teen looked around his room and then back at the man, telling him with just his expression that he thought the agent was stupid. “My room blew up.”

“Yes, I can see that. Care to share why your room blew up?”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe. What’s in it for me?”

A bare hint of what could have been a smile flashed over Coulson’s face but he returned to his placid look so fast, it may have just been in Harry’s mind. “I’m sure we could arrange something. Like possibly fixing your room.” His eyes trailed over to the bookshelf full of collectibles. “And maybe replacing that.”

Cory followed his gaze and actually whined. “No, my stuff.” He went over to the shelf and gently touched an expensive collectible of Darth Vader, now half-melted, and pouted for all he was worth. Then he turned back to the Agent and assessed the man. “Could you really replace this?”

This time an unmistakable, genuine smile came to Coulson’s face, and the agent simply nodded.

Harry pursed his lips then nodded in return. “Well, you see, I was trying…”

… … …

Coulson did more than replace some of his rather rare collectibles. He got Cory-Harry into MIT after sitting through a few days of testing to graduate middle and high school. The thirteen-year-old easily outstripped his colleagues at MIT and it only took two years to graduate.

It was during his graduation ceremony that the emotions first started to hit him. He could feel how proud his mom and dad were of him, earning a Ph.D. at fifteen. He could feel how jealous some of his classmates were of his skill and how the newspapers were touting him as “The Next Tony Stark?”

Cory thought at first he was just reading their body language, but it got to be a lot more intense than that. That’s when he realized his magic had finally come to him! In the form of empathy? It was definitely a first.

After MIT, he enrolled at the SHIELD Academy of Science and Technology. There may have been a couple of movie props from Coulson involved in that decision, but Cory felt it was worth it as he ran a hand over the clone trooper helmet.

“Someday, my precious… You will be a functioning suit…” He tilted his head, wondering if he should go with a StormTrooper, or Boba Fett… well, Fett had the jet-pack, so obviously him.

As one of the youngest members of Sci-Tech, his peers tried to bully him and the other two who started a year later, Fitz and Simmons. Cory gave literally no fucks about the bullies and just continued trying to build his lightsaber. He knew he had all the components right, it was just a matter of getting the right crystals.

It was during one of his late-night lab visits that Harry realized some more of his magic had… awakened for lack of a better term. He had been thinking about how he wanted to try the Tiger’s Eyes again, but this time mixed with some Rose Quartz to see how that fared in his third build of the saber when he heard a whizzing through the air.

His hand shot up and he caught the piece of rock before it could hit him in the face. He stared at it, then the cabinet it had come from, and back and forth a few times. “Huh. Silent accio. Cool.” then returned to his work.

The crystals only worked for a few minutes before fizzling out, sadly.

Harry quickly made use of his new spells that worked-- both accio and the banishing charm-- but only when he knew he was alone and unobserved. The teen always knew when he was being observed.

It didn’t take long to realize that he had a legilimency skill that rivaled any others he’d had before. He’d say surpassed all, but some of those lives he got really damn good at legilimency. Most because of boredom or dire need, but one time was because everyone was mute. That was an odd life. The odd thing this time around, though, was that it seemed to be passively scanning, which was new. Legilimency usually needed to be activated.

If he didn’t know about magic, Harry would have almost said that he was a telepath or something.

(oh, you poor thing.)

… … …

In 2005, Cory started to have some really weird dreams. At first, he attributed it to his legilimency skill, but that didn’t explain what, exactly, he was experiencing.

It took about four months of fuzzy dreams before he realized that he was dreaming of being … a baby.

Within a year, he got the feeling that he was in two places at once.

Within two, the baby named Ian Connolly had lost his mother somehow. It was also the first time the nineteen-year-old heard the word “mutant”. How did the young man go four years of studying at SHIELD without hearing that word before? Pure selective ignorance and wanting to simply work on his lightsaber (he swears, he’s almost got it right. Maybe a diamond wasn’t the best idea, but at least it wasn’t a natural one, eh?)

Cory realized that Ian … Ian was important. Somehow. Harry knew it deep down into his bones. Those times he was in two places at once, he knew.

Ian was him.

Somehow there were Two Harrys.

Within the month, Cory changed fields from Sci-Tech to fieldwork.

… … …

With a change in designation, SHIELD found an untapped resource in one Cory Fisher, engineering genius. At twenty-one years old, there was no better linguist in their division. Not even the Black Widow herself spoke as many languages as Cory did, at least not as fluently.

Harry figured it was simply because he had lived so many lives. It was less of learning and more of remembering the languages. Maybe a touch of legilimency too.

(If he only knew…)

He adapted to fieldwork easily, like a duck to water really, and that he did blame on past lives. You didn’t live as a soldier, SOLDIER, Shinobi, Ninja, Jedi, etc, etc, etc, without coming away with a few things just drilled into you.

Working as a field agent for SHIELD was par for the course for Harry and he didn’t mind it.

He did completely mind the nicknames they gave him.

“Oh look, boys, it’s the Blasian Wonder, gracing us with his presence.” He had just entered the cafeteria where he was located and heard a fellow agent, one Ronnie Graham, teasing him. Cory tilted his head towards the heavens and prayed to Death for patience with these fools.

Harry knew 20 different ways to kill Graham with a toothpick. But Cory couldn’t do any of them because he was a good agent.

Another agent, Steven Chapman, crowed with his own suggestion of, “Nono, buddy, he’s not the Blasian Wonder. He’s the Blasian Sensation. Don’t you remember Arms Instructor Beatie calling him sensational last week with his shooting record?”

‘Must. Not. Kill. These idiots…’ Cory thought carefully to himself, turning to glare at the group of agents in question. Chapman made eye contact with him and then seemed to freeze. A minute later blood started to run from the man’s nose and he fell face first into his tray.

As those around him began to cry for a medic, Cory made a hasty retreat. That was new. That was definitely new. Maybe this wasn’t magic like he had been telling himself all this time, despite knowing about mutants now. As he rounded the corner to his room, he felt his entire world tilt to the side, pressing a hand to his head as he did.

“Oh no… Ian…”

… … …

Ian hadn’t meant to do it. He really hadn’t. He didn’t! He was just distracted by the thoughts from the bigger him who worked with the mean people who called him mean names!

One minute, Ian had been playing with the energy powers he thought he got from his dad, the next he was glaring at a stupid asshole in a cafeteria. And then he was back to himself and his father was lying twitching on the floor in front of him.

Ian tried to shake Dadai but that really just seemed to make it worse. “Nooo~” the little Irish boy whined, trying to pull away but unable to until his father had stopped twitching. It was then that the four-year-old scrambled away into the corner of the shack they lived in, curled in on himself, and sobbed.

It took Ian several minutes to actually calm down, looking at his hands in utter betrayal at how they had hurt his dadai, but the older him, Cory, or maybe it was Harry really that finally decided that he really couldn’t stay here.

Harry had lived through enough fosters systems in enough worlds to know that THAT was definitely somewhere he didn’t want to go. Especially as he was a mutant.

Ian knew mutants much better than Cory. Mostly because Ian’s parents were both mutants too. His dadai had the power to manipulate energy. Ian thought he did too. But if what just happened was any indication… he probably wasn’t.

As Ian forced himself up from his corner, he went to go gather a few things up. The first thing he grabbed was a sock and it promptly exploded after flashing white.

‘Okay,’ thought the more adult Harry part of the Ian-baby-brain. ‘So maybe I do have dad’s power.’ Much more carefully and with a lot more focus, Ian gathered up a small backpack worth of things. He even fished his dadai’s wallet out of his pocket, all while hiccuping away tears, before going to leave.

At the door, he hesitated. He could hear a voice saying to wait. Listening to this voice, Ian moved a blanket to the small electric heater that was in the room, tipped over his father’s bottle of whiskey next to it, and then started a fire with the energy power he had possibly stolen from his father.

‘Make it look like an accident,’ Cory was saying to Ian and the four-year-old nodded before dashing out of the shack and into the streets.

… … …

Cory woke up in medical. Chapman was a few beds down from him, Cory could tell, but Cory was focusing a lot more of his attention internally. His body was fine. Physically he was fine. Still, every other blink felt like he was there. Like he was Ian again.

It was disconcerting.

Harry vaguely remembered a conversation he had with Death before… and cursed the entity. Two Harrys at once?

“I need to find that kid,” Cory muttered as he forced himself to sit up, scrubbing at his short hair. He looked down at his skin, dark by birth, and thought about Ian’s pale freckled one. Could see it in the next blink. Well, not really. The longer he was awake the farther Ian was getting from his brain.

‘Okay, Harry, focus. You’re two mutants at once in this world. Baby Harry is four and alone. This is why you became a field agent, so you could track him down and find him. Time to put those skills to work.’

As good as he was, his other self was good too. For all that Ian was four, he was also a nigh-on-immortal being that had been reborn thousands of times.

It was harder than he liked to track himself down.

… … …

It had taken an entire year. Cory had to be relocated too, just so he could get the right kinds of missions to be in the same area as Ian. The baby version of him, all of five now, was the biggest shit he’d ever met.

Was this what it was like for everyone else when he was a kid?

Maybe he would apologize next time.

Probably not. Caretaker confusion shenanigans were some of the best.

Cory was getting off-topic with himself. He was trying to, as casually as possible, approach the building where he knew his other self was squatting. It took all of Harry’s mental faculties to keep Ian from realizing he was there too.

In the past year, both Harrys had grown in their mutant powers. Accepting that he was a mutant, and using the SHIELD database to find all the information that he could on them, he knew his power type. Then Cory used everything he knew about telepaths and psychics (a certain boy with pink hair came to mind), he was able to disconnect the two Harrys in his mind.

Sometimes he still felt like he was in two places at once, but his mutant power definitely helped with establishing that there were, indeed, two of them.

Ian, meanwhile, realized exactly what type of power he actually had. If he saw a power in action, he could do it. If he touched a mutant, he had that power too, if only for a little bit. He never lost Dadai’s power though. That one remained with him and protected him from lots of bad guys. Including those creepy guys in masks with the weird squid symbol on their arms who had come just a few months after Dadai died.

They died too, but they weren’t mutants, so Ian was fine.

Ian was sleeping in the middle of a pallet in his warehouse, enjoying a not-Cory dream for once.

At least, he was sleeping until he heard the pallet squeak as Cory knelt on it.

Two sets of eyes, bright green and dark coal met and held. Green looked at green and coal looked at coal and Cory slapped his hand to his head to force the feedback loop to stop.

“Ian, it’s okay.”

“Shut up, I’m you, I know it’s okay.”

“I know, but I can feel your panic.”

“Of course I’m panicking, don’t you remember how we felt when we met Kunsel before!?”

“Yes, of course, I remember, I can feel you remembering too-- calm down!”

On the verge of hyperventilating, Ian did just that. He did some breathing exercises he remembered from… somewhere… (not Sephiroth, no, that melodic voice in his head telling him to release all of his emotions felt like someone else).

Cory heard the voice too and touched his latest lightsaber prototype. He remembered Luke’s lessons well, even if he didn’t always agree with the Jedi.

(Of course, he was still finding time here and there to perfect his lightsaber between trying to find Ian and missions. His latest experiments showed that Amethyst was the most stable. The prototypes generally functioned properly for a maximum of ten minutes before the gem shattered. Results varied by the environment and use, of course.)

He still experimented with that, even if he was a field agent. Each prototype could hold a beam for about 10 minutes before the crystals shattered. Amethyst seemed to be working the best, lately.

“Sorry,” Ian muttered eventually, looking at his older, but-- he knew newer-- life. And wasn’t that strange to figure out in his head? “I don’t want to disappear.”

“Why do you think you’ll disappear?” Cory asked, wanting to reach out and soothing those dark red curls, but not.

Ian gave him a flat look. “What will happen when there’s two of us.”

Cory winced. “Okay, good point. But we can’t keep this up. The older you get, the more I see your life.”

The boy sagged. “I know. I feel like I have three people in my head some days.”

“Only three?” mused Cory darkly. “I’m just grateful that we had that life as a Yamanaka. It came in handy when dealing with my mutant powers.”

Ian chuckled a bit, absentmindedly grabbing his pillow to clutch to his chest.

“Did you know?” The agent asked, curling up in a similar fashion, “I didn’t know I was a mutant until you were born.”

“What?” Ian asked, giggling this time as he looked up at his older, mixed-race self.

Cory nodded a few times. “I thought it was just magic at first. You know we usually get magic in our lives.” Ian nodded, “So I figured it was that. Or something like that.” Ian nodded again. “But nothing. Not even shadows.”

“I can’t do anything with shadows either.”

“I know. It’s weird.”

“Yeah, it is.”

They lapsed into silence. Cory looked over Ian, noting how skinny he was. “When was the last time you ate?”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know everything,” retorted Cory. “I’ve been purposefully keeping us separate for weeks now so you wouldn’t know I was coming.”

“Oh. … so that’s why I’ve been having weird dreams about giant daffodils coming to life and eating buildings.”

Cory was silent for a few minutes, staring at Ian. “You have that dream too?” Maybe he wasn’t doing as good of a job as he thought.

Eventually, Cory slipped out to get them both food. Ian tried to prepare himself for what was going to happen. They would eat and then they would touch. Just to see what would happen. Maybe nothing. Maybe they would stay apart and live two separate lives.

Maybe something else would happen.

(...Do you really think you’re that lucky?)

After a delicious meal of hamburgers, they settled on the pallet facing each other. Cory had called in and given his update while he got food then dumped all of his gear in such a way that it could look stolen-- just in case the worst happened.

Both held up a hand, again a feedback loop happened and they could see themselves look at themselves and finally they lurched forward and joined hands.

Cory thought he screamed. Maybe it was Ian. Ian could see a bright light coming from their hands and he thought it was the ergokinesis he had stolen from his father. But Cory knew it was something else. He knew their mind well enough to know it was something more.

Light enveloped them and then a shockwave blasted apart the building.

… … …

When Fisher didn’t report in at his next call back time, they dismissed it. In the past year, the agent had become a little scatterbrained, maybe he just forgot.

Within a day, he was listed as MIA. They found his gear and the condition it was in. As valuable as he was for an agent, they didn’t have the resources to send after him. Not with everything else they had going on.

Coulson was in charge of boxing his items. He didn’t feel like Fisher was the type to just vanish and his skill set should have made him near impossible to kidnap-- unless, of course, he wanted to be. Plus he had his actual fucking lightsaber. Sure, it only worked for a few minutes, but it worked.

Carefully lifting the Clone Helmet he had given the lad years ago as an incentive (bribe, it was a bribe Coulson) to join SHIELD, he couldn’t help feeling disappointed.

Another perfectly good agent, gone.

He stashed the items in his office closet, planning to mail them to Fisher’s parents after a year if he didn’t show up before then.

… … …

It took Harry a month to emerge from the damn building. He felt different once he crawled his way out. He could feel everything inside of him. He felt Ian, and his powers, and Cory, and his skills, and he could feel death. And Magic. That was the best part and probably why he was still alive after being buried under rubble for a month.

Magic was back and rolled under his skin like a beast in a way he hadn’t felt since Hidan-nii.

It was... nice.

And the homicidal urges weren’t too bad either, so, bonus.

After stumbling away from the wreckage, Harry immediately went about assessing the situation. He could tell he was smaller or maybe bigger, and naked. That needed immediate fixing. Thankfully, magic made it simple.

Food was not so simple.

He tried twisting on the spot and just fell over.

So no apparating yet, okay, he could deal with that.

In his newly created hoodie, Harry disappeared off into a McDonalds to use the facilities and get a good look at himself in the mirror.

Well. That was the new him. He looked a lot like he remembered. He was still dark-skinned like Cory, but not quite as dark as before. He had freckles too-- he remembered having those as Ian. His eyes were a mix of the two, a nice clear hazel. His features leaned more towards Cory, more Asian with that eye shape. The hair was dark, like Cory’s, but curled more like Ian’s had, in loose waves.

In short, Harry was reminded of himself. The First him. Maybe a little darker and Asian, but still him. He felt comfortable like this and approved of whatever the merge had done in that regard.

What he did NOT approve of was how young he looked. Quick mental maths, if the image in the mirror was any indication, put his age at nearly fourteen. He had been five not too long ago and also twenty-two. Fourteen was not where he wanted to be. Harry really didn’t want to live through puberty again. Puberty sucked!

Oh well, whatever. Harry could deal with this. He’d just have to keep living like Ian had, on the streets. Maybe he could get a job or something, but he was pretty skinny right now-- Ian had definitely not been eating properly-- but he could make this work.

He didn’t have much of a choice, did he? It’s not like he could return to SHIELD. Cory Fisher and Ian Connolly were dead.

All that remained was Just Harry.

… … …

A year passed by pretty quickly, Harry thought as he sat in a cafe sipping his hot chocolate. In the end, he hadn’t bothered with a job. He decided instead to use his skills from all of his lives, including that as a SHIELD agent, to get him through the day.

Having telepathic mutant powers helped. Harry would use them like a confundus spell to change people’s mind. (“No sir, I didn’t just walk out with this sweater, I paid for it, see, here’s my receipt.”) The first few times he tried that, he made the same mistake he had made with Chapman two years ago, but with trial-and-error, he was able to completely figure out that power. It was… useful.

Because, honestly, when someone is coming at you with a knife and you can just think ‘pew-pew!’ into their brain and they go down, it’s … super helpful.

Mostly, the teenager just tried to stay out of trouble. He had returned to the building to dig up his lightsaber but still made sure to use it as infrequently as possible. It was an extremely noticeable weapon and he really didn’t want to wind up on SHIELD’s radar if he could help it.

That didn’t stop him from experimenting on the thing, still attempting to perfect it.

He continued to use Amethyst crystals, but he usually had about five different types of stones in the chamber at any given time. Mostly quartz, a tiny ruby he had found (coughstolecough), and a nice piece of fluorite some fool had traded him in exchange for fixing the screen on their iPhone.

However, the really cool thing was when he used the mutant powers that Ian had absorbed from his father. Power absorption was a crazy mutant ability and Harry wore gloves just to be certain he didn’t do it accidentally-- an issue he still had trouble with-- but the power he had gained by using it was very effective.

The ergokinesis, a strange name for energy manipulation, allowed Harry to power his lightsaber indefinitely, as long as he had enough power himself. He just channeled it in to the hilt and -pssshhew- out it came. The crystals did help, but they weren’t really needed. Just made it easier to regulate his power output.

What he wouldn’t do to get his hands on one of those Arc Reactors in the Iron Man suits, though.

Harry released a wistful sigh, just thinking about it.

Oh well.

He glanced down to check the screen on his phone, giving it a little tap to check the time and then returned to his drink. And his reminiscing.

There was another thing that Harry found he could do with Ian’s powers. Well, actually, it was a combination of both Cory and Ian’s. Taking the psionic weapons that Cory could create and manifesting them in the physical with Ian’s energy manipulation. As Harry liked to mentally think of his psionic weapons as an arrow, that’s how they came out in the real world, made completely of energy.

It was fucking awesome. He wasn’t the best shot, but the more he practiced the better he got. It was a lot like spell casting-- except not.

His wand had yet to show up. He figured it would have by now. Maybe because he built an actual lightsaber it wouldn’t?

Whatever. He didn’t need it anyway.

Out the window, Harry could hear a faint rumbling. He leaned a bit closer to the glass and looked around but everything seemed business as usual so he leaned back onto his table. He tapped his phone again, accidentally zapping it even with gloves on, then swore softly. It was time to go, he had to go meet a guy about a thing.

Just as Harry stood up to return his cup, the rumbling from outside increased tenfold and the window crashed in. Laying where his table had been was some kind of weird… machine. And on top of it was a mutant. Or an alien. No, definitely an alien.

Harry was glad he’d picked up his phone before standing.

“What in the actual fuck,” asked the only calm patron of the cafe, moving to the counter to return his cup and tucking away his phone. “What even are you?” Harry dropped into a low squat next to the creature and tapped it on the head. When it didn’t move, he gave it a zap and it stirred. “Oh, hello,” and then he dove into the things mind.

Possibly a mistake. This alien, a Chitauri, seemed to be connected to all of its brethren via a hive mind. If Harry himself wasn’t so powerful being what he was (in general, not just in this life) he probably would have gotten stuck in there. But, he was powerful and so was able to drag himself away.

“Well you can’t be allowed to live,” declared the fifteen-year-old mutant with a lightsaber. He pressed the hilt to the creatures chest and flicked it on and off, leaving a perfectly round burn mark and a dead alien.

Rising to his feet, Harry carefully cast out his mind to see if anyone else was out there protecting the city. Maybe his old compatriots at SHIELD?

But instead he found Tony Stark. Well, Iron Man would definitely work.

Stepping out onto the street, Harry found several of the aliens harassing some civilians. “This won’t do at all,” snarked the boy, reaching up to pull up his hood in an effort to remain hidden. Or to just harken back to those days when he wore a cloak as a Jedi and Jedi initiate.

Ah, the good ole days.

Luke definitely wouldn’t be proud of Harry’s next move.

Using that wonderful Death magic, Harry went full Cthulhu on those aliens’ asses. His shadows burst from beneath his feet forming tentacles that dove into the ground and speared aliens left, right, and center. Every alien within about a 200m distance (over 656 feet) from him was destroyed.

Sadly, only those on the ground. Tilting his head back, Harry caught glimpses of several aliens flying through the sky. “That’s inconvenient.”

Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. Harry turned his head and found one of his shadows wiggling there. “Oh, hello,” he grinned and looked at where that shadow was pointing.

Another shadow was holding up a piece of bent metal. The shadows mimicked shooting and Harry got it. “Oh, thank you. You’re so helpful.” Each shadow tentacle was given a little pat before he took the make-shift bow.

While looking up he noticed the giant wormhole in the sky and decided to make his way over there whilst simultaneously shooting in the sky and using his shadows to prevent anything from getting too close to him.

Was he a little overpowered?

Probably.

Harry had been two separate mutants and now they were merged into one. Of course, he was going to be overpowered.

He wasn’t perfect though. Out of two flying aliens, he tended to hit the left when he was aiming for the right and when he aimed right, he hit the one on the flying machine behind. “Fuck,” Harry muttered after it happened for the twelfth time. At least he was still hitting something.

At one point, when Harry felt he was maybe four blocks from the epicenter of the battle, he saw Iron Man wizz by overhead. Because his focus was so split, he got this weird buzz in the back of his mind that went, ‘Who knows the Kagome looking kid?’

Harry stopped and looked at his energy arrow in his hand… then started laughing. That had not been his intention when he started this, but it definitely was like hers.

Ah, memories.

One of the aliens slipped through his shadows and nearly managed to skewer him in the back, but a mechanical voice shouted, “Look out Kid!” and then something picked him up and lifted him through the air. Harry gasped in shock, whipping his head around to see Iron Man right there!!!

He may have made some kind of strangled squeaking noise.

May have.

Maybe.

He wasn’t telling and hopefully Iron Man couldn’t hear him.

(He did, he was just too busy to really say anything at that moment).

And when Harry picked up on that thought he flushed a deep red.

“Hey kid, you okay?”

Another strangled noise left Harry but he just nodded. When Iron Man dodged, Harry went to go shoot again but realized that when he was picked up he’d dropped his make-shift bow. “Aw, man.”

“Shit, we dropped your weapon, didn’t we?” Iron Man asked, bringing them over towards what appeared to be a group of people. The thoughts he could just hear being broadcast identified who they were and he tried not to perk up at seeing fellow agents.

In his distraction, Harry didn’t answer and Iron Man almost made to turn around when Harry remembered and croaked-- yes, honest to death croaked (fucking PUBERTY)-- “It’s okay, I can make another one!”

Somehow through the helmet, Harry could feel Tony’s incredulous look.

“What, I’m serious? It’s just energy. Anything vaguely bow shaped like that I can use to make arrows.” As Harry explained, he was being set down on the ground. Barton, whose hearing aids must have been dialed up extra high, turned to look at him.

“You serious kid?”

Wide hazel eyes looked at his former fellow agents and he nodded a few times before Hawkeye’s actual fucking BOW was thrust into his arms. “Prove it.”

“Uh,” was the eloquent response.

“Clint, knock it off,” Black Widow replied.

Harry glanced at her and managed not to squeak, but only barely. He knew these agents, but he hadn’t ever really met them before. They had much higher clearance than him.

Plus puberty. He was definitely blaming puberty.

(I don’t think you really know what puberty is…)

Lucky for Clint, Harry had no choice but to prove it as a chitauri decided that moment to literally drop from the sky and try to attack them. Pulling back on the custom compound bow, Harry leashed two arrows in quick succession. One hit in the lower abdomen and the other near the shoulder. Wherever that thing’s heart was was close enough to one of those two places because the thing went down.

“Holy shit,” Harry muttered, shaking out his gloved hand. “The draw weight on this thing is insane!”

The group stared between Harry and the downed alien before Hawkeye snatched his bow back. He gave it a few pulls, making it look fucking easy (asshole) and then looked at Harry again. “How’d you do that?”

“Uh,” another eloquent response. His mouth flapped for a few seconds as he contemplated his answer. He could say mutant. He could say magic. That specifically was mostly mutant.

Thor, Harry’s telepathic abilities informed him, spoke next. “Clearly this child is a skilled sorcerer!” He went to drop a hand onto Harry’s shoulder but the teen dodged it as gracefully as possible, offering an awkward laugh after.

“Sorry,” He waved his gloved hands in the air, “Don’t really like being touched. It doesn’t turn out well. For those touching me.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes at him and Harry cursed in his head but kept that unsure-kid-smile on his face as best as he could.

“What’s your name?”

With a little unsure noise, he offered, “Harry?” as if it was a question.

Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (again, thank you telepathy), chose that moment to say his piece. “We can’t have a scrappy little kid like him being involved in this fight.” He turned to Harry as if to shoo him away but Harry wasn’t having any of that.

“Look, I can help!” His hero-complex kind of made it so he felt obligated to do so. Well, that was the excuse he would give if anyone asked. His homicidal urges were really getting a kick out of stabbing aliens.

“How old are you even, Harry?” Steve asked, firm and annoying, and Harry kind of wanted to punch him in the face.

He glared up at him, damning the height difference because he was fucking short again, but then flicked his gaze off to the side. He threw his lightsaber from his hip at the same time as he ignited it and, using his telekinesis, directed it through the air to slice the heads off of four aliens that were attempting to sneak up on the group.

Without breaking eye contact with Death-be-damned Captain America, the hilt of the lightsaber smacked back into his hand.

Thor cheered for the show of force (haha) while Iron Man shouted, “Kid’s a mother fucking JEDI!” Harry missed the look that Clint and Natasha shared, but their thoughts were loud behind his anger at Steve and he caught it. Shit. They probably knew who he was.

Whatever. He had a year of anonymity. He was bound to wind up on SHIELD’s radar again. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to explain everything.

As he deactivated his lightsaber, Harry sniffed and appeared as haughty as he could, “I’m fifteen years old right now.” The wording of his sentence was picked very carefully. Maybe his age would throw off Clint and Natasha? Eh, doubtful. Again, whatever. “I can still help and you’re not going to stop me from doing so. I’ll knock you out if you try, but I’m pretty sure we--...”

Harry trailed off. A motorcycle pulled up. How someone could radiate so much sheepishness was kind of astounding.

As Bruce Banner got acquainted with the group, Harry felt a spike in emotions from Natasha. He turned to look at her and spotted a typical SHIELD com piece in her ear and tried to open his mind to what was happening. He missed it, however, when she declared, “that doesn’t look like a party.”

Because no, no that giant fucking alien monster? It really did not look like a party.

Next, Harry locked his eyes onto Bruce and stumbled back. “Woah,” he muttered, barely resisting the urge to hold his head. So much anger!

‘I thought I had better control of my empathy than this… Note to self,’ Harry’s thoughts continued, ‘Skills need more testing under high-stress situations.’

It was pretty impressive to watch the giant ball of anger smash the huge alien centipede. He glanced at Hawkeye, not wanting to watch too long lest his power mimicry activate, and asked, “Would you call that a centipede? I’m calling it a centipede, but I don’t want to be the only one.”

Clint snorted a laugh, checking on the arrows he had in his quiver. The jerk didn’t answer him though and Harry pouted at him.

“Won’t work, kid.”

“Damnit.”

Then Steve broke it down. Harry watched Iron Man fly off with Hawkeye in tow and frowned. “I wanted to go with him,” he muttered and the comment earned him a glare with the Captain. Everyone was gone to do their tasks and Steve turned to him and Natasha. “We’re going to say down here and keep it on the ground. You,” this was at Harry, “will stay close by so I can keep an eye on you.”

“What!” yelped the teen, all indignant. “I can take care of myself! I’ve killed five of these fuckers in the last ten minutes, and all you’ve done is give orders!” He huffed, turning his back on Steve and crossing his arms over his chest. He started to mutter under his breath in Gaelic about how ‘Steve was a tyrant and not the boss of him’ but then he picked up Steve’s thoughts on his language of choice.

It was a bad habit that Ian had picked up after basically absorbing his father and one that Harry got after the merge. “You speak Gaelic?” Steve asked, unable to stop himself. He even asked it IN Gaelic.

“Uh,” Harry realized he was doing that a lot lately and closed his mouth. “Yes, I do.”

“Where’d you learn that?”

Natasha was looking at him funny. Shit shit shit. Cory never realized when he spoke other languages either and just did it like Harry just had.

Curse you mutant powers!

“From my dad?” Harry offered to Steve’s question, shocked that they hadn’t had any aliens sneak up on them in a while. Well, he had learned Gaelic from one of his dads in this life. The other had helped him with Spanish because he had learned it as a kid from his neighbours.

Steve gave Harry a considering look. After the merge, he really didn’t look like the type of person who should speak Gaelic as fluently as he did. That was Cory’s influence on his looks.

Thankfully, Steve couldn’t press anymore as the aliens decided to attack then! Yaay!

Harry activated his lightsaber and dove into a group of Protoss-wannabe heathens.

And so began the slaughter.

He kept the cackling to a quiet minimum.

(Jashin be praised?)

… … …

At some point during the fighting, he and Natasha had wound up nearly back to back. She spoke a soft question to him that he just barely caught since he was using his mutant powers to keep track of where she was-- and through her what was going on over the com he didn’t have. “So you’ve had training?”

Harry cursed, glancing at her and then to the alien he’d just cut in half. Lightsabers were great, but he was definitely feeling his energy flagging from it. He was contemplating ripping off his glove to steal some energy from the aliens but thought better of it. He wouldn’t be able to properly modulate an energy he’d never encountered with all of the emotions running through him at the moment.

“Yeah,” he finally answered her question in a near breathless whisper. “I’ve had some training.”

Natasha hummed, swinging the specter she had stolen from one of the chitauri like an expert and then used it to stab the next one that approached her. “It looks familiar,” she observed, kicking the alien off her staff and going for another one.

“Oh?” was all he could reply, throwing his hand out and knocking back several of the aliens with his telekinesis. Once they were on the ground, his shadows, hidden by said ground, thrust up into their chests a dozen or so times. Just because he was fighting alongside allies didn’t mean he wasn’t still going to use all the powers at his disposal. That included his shadow tentacles.

“Yeah,” Natasha replied, looking at the carnage around them before turning back to look at him. “We’ve been looking for you Skywalker.”

Harry cursed aloud. He realized then that they had been conversing in Russian the whole time. The use of his last codename, the one he was using when he went to go find Ian just sealed the deal. His reaction probably didn’t help either. Fucking puberty, ruining his poker face.

“What happened to you? Why didn’t you call in? Coulson was worried.”

The teen winced, his distress clear to see on his face. “It’s complicated.” When she opened up her mouth to question him further, he shook his head. “I don’t wanna talk about it right now. I’ll come in and talk to Coulson when this is all over, all right?”

There was something wrong, Harry realized when he made eye contact with her then. Her face gave nothing away and her mind was nearly blank. That’s what gave it away. Harry’s breath stuttered and he blinked rapidly a few times.

He turned away from her and, after deactivating his lightsaber, grabbed his head with both hands. He flung his consciousness away from his body to search out the man who had recruited him over ten years ago… and just barely touched onto something. He winced, flinched-- that wasn’t right!!-- and stumbled forward onto his hands and knees.

“I’m s--” she began but Harry interrupted.

“He’s alive. Somehow.”

It was Natasha’s turn to act shocked. Well, as shocked as a master assassin could.

Harry got back to his feet and brushed off his pants. “We’ve got more aliens to kill, come on.”

… … …

“We gotta close that portal,” Natasha was saying tiredly. Harry was slumped against a car, trying to regulate his breathing. He ignored the conversation, looking back to the sky and the portal itself. There was energy, plenty of energy, and magic. He could feel both and they fought against his own skills.

When he looked back, Captain was throwing the Widow up into the air via his shield and she was whisked away by one of the flying chariots. “Aw, man, that looks so cool…” the teen whinged, watching her disappear. “I miss flying…”

Steve gave him a weird look but then went back to fighting aliens.

Harry glanced at him and then up to the tower.

… He could probably help.

Probably.

The question was if he could line-of-sight apparate up there.

Fifteen was a bit young to be trying this and he really didn’t want to splinch, but he’d been able to go to and from his hideout in the Bronx and other places in the city, this shouldn’t be any different.

Without a comment, he kept a careful grip on his lightsaber and spun on the spot.

Winding up in the air above the tower wasn’t his goal, but at least he hadn’t left anything behind. With a small scream, he apparated again until he was safely on the roof just in time to see the Hulk smash through the glass.

Harry leaned over the edge and looked down there and then looked to his left and saw Natasha. “Oh, hello,” then he twisted again and was down on the walkway to the penthouse. After looking up and giving a cheeky wave to Natasha, he walked into the penthouse, just in time to see the Hulk jump right back out. “Well, okay then.”

He kept walking, hearing a minor groan from the crater on the floor. Again, he gave a cheeky little greeting and went to kneel next to the man. Hazel eyes flicked over the Asgardian’s form, not broken but definitely in pain, and smirked. “Hello, Mr. Bad guy. Nice to meet you.”

A wheeze was all he got in response. At least aloud. Loki was quite verbal in his mind.

“Hulk certainly did a number on you, didn’t he?”

Harry’s eyes fluttered as he tried to make sense out of the garble that was inside of Loki’s head and he glared at the man in the floor, shifting so he was sitting in the lotus position. “Could you think in just one language please? I won’t understand them well enough if you aren’t speaking them aloud.”

Loki stilled, at least in his mind, and a single question seemed to come to the forefront. And in a language he could understand, sweet! ‘You are reading my mind?’

A Cheshire grin spread across Harry’s face and he nodded. “Sure am. Probably shouldn’t, you’re a very powerful man. Woo, demi-god. Been a while since I’ve met one of those. Even longer since I’ve been one of those. Though I killed a self-proclaimed goddess not too long ago.” Jenova counted as that right? Maybe.

Despite the amount of pain that Loki was in, he still had a pretty formidable glare. ‘I am a god, you fool.’

“Big G god, or little g god? Because that makes a huge difference.”

Okay, that was a lot of anger and rage and Harry used his hands to shift himself back on the floor away from the angst muffin. “Okay, sorry, calm down. I’m not going to call you a god though, regardless of the size of your G.” The teen waggled his eyebrows at the innuendo and got an eye-roll in response. That made Harry laugh.

“Oh come on, you know that was good.”

‘Your humor is as lowbrow as you are.’ or my brothers, the man’s thoughts continued, but Harry caught it anyway.

“Your brother?” The leading question had an image popping into Loki’s head and Harry laughed. “Thor is your brother?!”

Loki snarled and almost pushed himself out of his crater. Harry wagged his finger and tutted at the man, “nuh-uh.” From behind him, his shadows rose up in the shape of claws, plunging the pair into artificial darkness as they sucked up the light around them. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

It was really pleasing, for Harry, to watch how Loki’s pupils seemed to dilate in fear. At least that was the emotion Harry was picking up from him. ‘What manner of creature are you!?’

Another huge grin blossomed on Harry’s face, but he tilted his head as he heard something just on the edge of his awareness. He held up a finger to Loki, a shadow slapping over his mouth to shut up the Aesir-- not that he was actually speaking aloud, it was the gesture that counted-- and listened in to the com in Natasha’s head.

How he had missed the entire closing of the portal, he didn’t know. Maybe because talking to Loki who was a few thousand years old took so much of his own mental faculties, but either way, it seemed like the fight was over and they were all heading towards the tower.

“Damnit,” Harry muttered, looking back at Loki. “And there was so much that you could have taught me.”

‘Taught you?’ The thought was as incredulous as the look on Loki’s face.

“You can do illusion magic, can’t you?”

Another leading question led to more images and the statement, ‘What of it, creature?’

“Well, I wanna learn. I have lived countless lives-- literally, I lost count eons ago-- and I’ve never really had a chance to learn something like that before.” The teen was completely honest now, the look of innocence over his exotic features too much for the demi-god to handle. Loki turned his face away and didn’t respond, forcing his mind to be blank to the telepath before him.

Harry clicked his tongue and shuffled away from Loki a bit more. He turned to look at the elevator, waiting for the rest of the … team… yeah, that’s the word they liked now, team… to arrive. He mentioned casually just before they arrived, “You’re lucky I don’t just rip them from your body with my powers.”

As the elevator doors opened, he mused aloud, “Would I be as long-lived as an Aesir if I took your powers?”

Loki stared at the teen in horror but was distracted by the Avengers piling off into the room.

… … …

There were way too many people in the penthouse for Harry’s tastes. He was really tempted to run off on everyone, but he had told Natasha that he would stick around. Or, at least, that he would explain things once this was all over.

He sequestered himself away from the group, under the counter in the kitchen and just tried to stay within his own mind, pulling everything else back into him. He felt exhausted. He was exhausted.

Bruce had reverted to normal and was sprawled over a couch with a blanket; Tony was talking to the dozens of agents milling about-- some of whom Harry could tell had less than decent motivations for being there-- and Natasha and Clint were having a whispered conversation in a corner.

Thor was trying to have a conversation with his brother, even as he was cuffed and gagged. Loki was just not having any of it and kept rolling his eyes at his brother.

And Harry was sick of seeing and hearing it all. He curled his legs close to his chest and held his head in both hands, pulling it all in, in, in, in.

It wasn’t until it was quiet all around him that he realized his old co-workers were crouched in front of him.

“Hi,” he offered in a small voice, feeling like the fifteen-year-old he looked like.

“Hey, kid. Wanna get out from there?” Clint offered his hand. “Everyone but the team is gone.”

Harry grunted but shook his head. “Too noisy.” Both of his hands were still fisted in his hair.

Clint and Natasha shared a look before the Widow offered, “You want a knockout pill?”

Hazel eyes flew wide and he actually dropped his hands for this. “Yes,” he breathed, desperate. “I can’t sleep with all this noise.”

Considering it was pretty silent in the penthouse, that definitely spoke volumes to what was going on in the kid’s head.

“Let’s see if Stark has a room we can put you up in.” When Harry opened his mouth to protest-- really, this place in the kitchen was much nicer than his hideout-- Clint cut him off. “You can’t sleep on the floor in the kitchen.”

Grumbling, Harry crawled out from under the counter, brushing off the offered hands. “Don’t touch me,” he snapped in his exhaustion and whined when he felt emotional feedback. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean it like that. I just. I don’t have control over all of my powers right now and I don’t want to hurt you, okay?”

Natasha narrowed her eyes, but then shrugged it off. “We’ll tell the others.” Then pressed a packet into Clint’s hand and she turned on her heel to walk into the living room. “Stark! We need a bed.”

Swaying as he stood, Harry laughed softly.

“What’s funny, Skywalker?” Clint asked, holding out the packet to the teen. It held the knockout pill that would put him to sleep for at least twelve hours.

“Nothing. I just remember hearing horror stories about her.” He shrugged a single shoulder, toying with the packet. “She’s not as bad as people say.”

Clint smiled at Harry then and made an abortive move to pat him on the back. Instead, he just gestured. “Let’s get you to sleep.”

Harry was so grateful for the bed from Tony and the knockout pill from Natasha and Clint that he wasn’t even angry when he felt the man steal his lightsaber.

Not too angry anyway.

He was just too tired to feel it at that moment.

… … …

Tony Stark was many things, but a fanboy was not one of them. Sure, he could appreciate feats of mechanical marvel, like this wonderful joy in his hands, but he wasn’t a fanboy.

He had some. But he wasn’t one.

But watching that kid-- seriously, fucking Jedi man-- fight with this lightsaber (was there any other name for it? Lazer sword? No fuck that) had him itching to take it apart.

So that’s what his plan was when he snatched it from the kid. Think of it as payment for allowing him to sleep in one of his beds.

Sure, sure, the kid had helped them save the world and all, but seriously? Tony had to look at that thing.

Entering his workshop, which was delightfully saved from the destruction that plagued a good chunk of his tower, Tony placed it gently on a table. “JARVIS. Scan this thing with as much detail as possible.”

“Of course, sir,” came the AI’s reply, a few lights shining on and over the machine.

Flopping into his rolling chair, he allowed the momentum to take him over to his computer. Tony had this memory niggling at him that he needed to follow through with. Besides, it would take JARVIS awhile to scan the… fuck it, the lightsaber.

Tony’s fingers flew over the keyboard with practiced ease and several articles popped up over his variety of screens. He took in all the information quickly. Young Genius. “New Tony Stark”. That made the man laugh. Graduated MIT at fifteen with a PhD… But that had been in 2003 and he looked fifteen NOW.

After a bit of digging, Tony went to the files he’d extracted from SHIELD. And oh, there he was. Cory Fisher, agent. But Cory Fisher looked nothing like the Jedi he had sleeping upstairs. Similar, yes, as if they were cousins maybe, but not the same person.

It sure as shit didn’t explain why Harry had Cory’s lightsaber.

… … …

Tony had to try it out.

Of course, he did, he wasn’t an idiot. It was a lightsaber. He wasn’t a fanboy and he had to try it.

Bad idea, turns out.

Maybe all of that use in battle had worn out the prototype (it had to be a prototype and not the real thing if it was the real thing it would have been in the SHIELD records) because when Tony turned it on, the thing had stayed lit for all of a minute before sparking, popping loudly, and then smoking as the blade flickered out.

“Oh shit. That’s not good. JARVIS, what happened?”

“I do not know, sir.”

Tony grumbled, set down the lightsaber, and shook his hand. “Damn,” he muttered, going to the first aid kit. That spark had burned him, apparently.

After a bit of investigation, Tony was able to tell that the crystals inside (actual fucking CRYSTALS) had shattered. Well, investigation was a nice word for it. Mostly he tipped it over and pressed a button and out came multi-colored sand. A quick analysis by JARVIS told him exactly what he was looking at.

There were some fried wires and stuff too, but Tony didn’t want to break it more.

Just as he was about to put it down, The Widow herself came in. “How did you get in here? Security breach!”

“Can it, Stark,” she replied with a roll of her eyes, “Pepper let me in.”

“Why is she ‘Pepper’ and I’m ‘Stark’!?”

“Because I like her and I don’t like you.”

Tony stumbled back and put both on his hands over his arc reactor. “You wound me, Widow, I’m so wounded!” Dummy pushed a chair into JUST the right place for the dramatic man to fall into it.

Natasha rolled her eyes and went over to the workshop table. At least, she tried too. YOU stopped her. “Stark, call off your robots.”

“What?” Tony lifted his head and saw how his three robots were boxing in the assassin. “Oops. Hey, knock it off.” All the robots drooped but did as ordered. Natasha nodded her head and went to grab the lightsaber.

“Why did you take this?” She turned it over in her hand and noticed the scorch marks. “Did you break this, Stark?”

“No! It was already like that when I got it.”

“JARVIS, did he break this?”

“JARVIS DON’T ANSWER HER.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes and then shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re looking into at all.”

“It can’t be any more dangerous than what I did on Nick’s Flying Fortress.” Tony flapped his hand and then pushed his chair over towards his computers. One monitor pulled up the specs for the lightsaber that he’d scanned in with JARVIS while the others brought up several of the articles about one Cory Fisher.

“Is he one of yours?” He asked bluntly, turning the monitor around to face her.

“Yes,” replied Natasha, just as blunt. “He was.”

“Was?” Tony turned the monitor back around and then tapped a bit on his keyboard, pulling up the agent’s records. “Oh. Missing in action, presumed dead.” He looked down at the lightsaber in her hands. “How did the Jedi get his saber then? Thinking maybe a master passing it down to his apprentice?”

Natasha gave him the weirdest look and Tony held up both hands in surrender. “I’m not a fanboy. I just know stuff.” She actually gave an exasperated sigh in response and Tony couldn’t hold in his laugh.

“I doubt he is going to be happy when he finds out you broke this,” she said, waving it at him. “I’m going to put it back in his room.”

“Guest room,” corrected the billionaire, pointing his finger. “It’s a guest room. Not his.”

The Black Widow left with one last eye roll.

Tony turned to the computer screen and began typing. “JARVIS. Let’s order the Jedi some new parts, shall we?”

“Of course, sir.”

It was to make up for what he broke. Not because he wanted to watch the kid rebuild it. Noooope.

… … …

Harry came to slowly. The bed was far too real to be the pile he normally slept on. After all, cushioning spells could only make what was basically refuse so comfortable. He opened his eyes slowly and looked around the room, scanning it methodically. Then he just groaned.

“What time is it?” he muttered, rolling onto his back and patting his pockets.

“It is currently 3:04 pm on May 5th. You have been asle--...”

The voice continued to drone on, but Harry had been shocked out of his mind. When he first heard it, he jumped to his feet on the bed. His hand automatically swiped for his lightsaber, or wand--he kept them in the same place usually--, and when he came up empty, he just jerked a hand back as if to hold a dagger. A shard of energy formed there like an incomplete arrow.

As the voice continued, Harry relaxed and looked at his hand. “Well, that’s new.” He looked at the knife of energy in his hand and tried to toss it in the air. Instead of falling back to his hand like something with weight would have, the way physics says it should, it instead shot towards the ceiling and left a huge burn mark. “Yup, definitely new.”

It stopped the voice at least.

Harry dropped down onto the bed and bounced a bit, looking around for his stuff. His shoes had been removed-- how nice-- so he pulled them back on and found his lightsaber on the nightstand.

It looked weird. It FELT weird.

“Oh no,” muttered Harry, shoving his heel into the untied shoe, snatching up his lightsaber and turning it this way and that. “Oh nooo…” he moaned out this time, cradling his precious delicately between his hands. “No, no, nooo…”

See, Harry knew his lightsaber very well. He had been working on it for years, after all. But more than that, he could feel that it wasn’t right. The crystals that should have been inside resonated with his energy-- that’s why he had picked that selection of crystals to begin with-- and he could feel that they were gone.

A quick inspection told him everything else he needed to know about his lightsaber. It was broken. Thankfully, not beyond repair but the components needed to fix it would take forever to get without some kind of help.

His one-man pity party was interrupted when the door to the room -sho-wah- opened. ‘Why am I seeing onomatopoeias everywhere?’ Harry wondered looking from the door to the person standing there.

“Oh good, you’re awake. JARVIS said you would be.” Clint stepped into the light, though his voice gave him away before that. “And he said…” The archer looked up to the ceiling. “Huh, you did burn out his speaker. Impressive aim.”

“Wasn’t trying to,” Harry admitted with his pout still present. “Did you break this?”

“Eh?” Clint looked down at the lightsaber Harry was cradling in both hands. “Nope, pretty sure that was Stark.”

Harry blinked his eyes open wide, totally unsure how to react to that. He settled for an awed, “Tony Stark broke my lightsaber!?”

“One and only, kid,” Clint laughed, gesturing with his hand. “I bet you’re hungry. I’m always starving after a Knock Out.”

As unsurprising it was to literally everyone reading this, Harry’s stomach growled with hunger. “Hey, stop being clichéd,” the teen declared to his stomach. Still: food. Food would be good. So he got to his feet and clipped his broken lightsaber to his belt where he usually kept it.

Clint just laughed at the whole thing and led the way.

They eventually reached a kitchen, not the same one he had been hiding in before, and found several other people and lots of food that looked like it had possibly been delivered by a catering company. Everything was set up buffet style and, if Harry saw correctly, there were several more trays of food in some kind of heated bag on the counter as well.

“Well, shit, look at this setup,” observed the teen, going to grab a plate and inhale the smells deeply. His gloves squeaked against the plate, drawing Clint’s attention to them. Thankfully, the archer ignored it.

“Yeah, little bit of everything-- ooo,” the archer skipped over the first tray Harry was hovering in front of to take several … tacos!?

Harry’s eyes were glued onto the food then and he took a little bit of everything as it had been a while since he could have such variety. As poor as he was, he tended to just buy from the dollar menu. “Omigosh, there’s even SODA!” Bypassing the cups, the teen took a full two-liter with him to the table.

The sight made Thor laugh uproariously and he immediately got to his feet to grab his own two-liter bottle of the fizzy deliciousness. “Good idea, young sorcerer!”

“I’m not,” Harry interrupted, opening the bottle and setting the cap aside. “A sorcerer, that is. I’m not a sorcerer.”

“Are you a Jedi?” Tony asked, sneaking up on Harry.

The teen yelped and spun around, nearly getting orange Fanta everywhere. “Am I a what!?” he squeaked, cursing puberty with a heavy wince.

Clint and Tony both laughed and Tony repeated his question.

‘Not in this lifetime,’ thought Harry but aloud he said, “No. I’m a mutant.”

That shut everybody up.

“What is a mutant? This does not sound like a nice name, young sorcerer,” declared Thor, reaching out to drop a hand onto Harry’s shoulder. The teen wiggled sideways to avoid and smiled in a self-deprecating way.

“Please don’t,” the teen explained, “touch me. I mean, it’s okay through clothes, but your hand is huge and it’s not like I’m in a turtleneck or anything, and so it’s just safer to… to not touch me.”

Clint, who had narrowed his eyes, gently set down his taco. “Skywalker, what happened to you?”

In the background, Tony could be heard whispering, “Skywalker!? I knew he was a Jedi! But who's ever heard of ‘Harry Skywalker’? What a shitty name.” but everyone just ignored him.

“It’s kind of a long story and I’m sure the Director would like to hear it too, so I’ll wait for a proper debriefing, if that’s all right.”

“You can start the debriefing now,” a new voice said, startling the hell out of Harry, again, and he squeezed the bottle of soda and it went fucking EVERYWHERE.

A few people screamed.

Harry was one of them.

Other people laughed.

Mostly just Thor.

Clint was disgruntled about his tacos.

Tony simply said, “Security breach. How do you people keep getting into my house?”

“I walked,” Director Nick Fury replied, motioning to the elevator. “Then I came down the elevator. You do realize you have no windows in the penthouse, right?”

Tony thought about that for a second and muttered, “Oh yeah…”

Fury turned his gaze from Tony back to Harry. “Agent Fisher,” he began and Harry straightened up automatically, almost squeezing the soda bottle again. “Go get yourself cleaned up.”

“Sir!” Harry croaked-- fucking puberty-- and went to stand up. Then he paused. “Uh… I don’t have any other clothes.”

As one the group turned to look at Tony.

The man in question looked around and shook his head. “I hate absolutely every single one of you.” And then grabbed Harry by the front of his shirt and dragged him out of the room.

At least he listened about not touching Harry?

… … …

Once Harry was cleaned up (and the kitchen too for that matter) and dressed in a pair of Tony’s old clothes, the teen stood before the director of SHIELD, debating if he should drop into military parade rest or something. In the end, he just kind of stood awkwardly, scratching at his arm, a textbook picture of a gangly teenager.

“Report, agent,” the director… directed.

Harry looked at all the other people in the room and then shrugged. Okay then. “Sir, can I ask a question first?”

Fury waved his hand as if to say ‘go ahead.’

“How much did you know about my abilities before I disappeared?”

The director nodded a few times then explained, “We knew you were a mutant. Not when Coulson recruited you, but it became evident after you were a field agent. We assumed you were a telepath and had the capability to manifest similarly aligned abilities. We kept a lookout for evidence of prolonged confusion in your peers, as that’s the most common side effect of mental tampering when the telepath doesn’t realize what they’re doing.”

“Oh,” Tony interjected, “Like reading a book and being too rough with the pages, and you fold and rip them up as you go through.”

Fury gave Tony a look, “Astute observation, Stark.” ‘but I didn’t really ask for your input’ was implied but not said.

“Especially for someone so careless as to break a guest’s weapon of choice,” snarked Natasha.

“He broke the lightsaber?!?” Clint gasped in fake shock since he had already seen the sadly busted gadget of badassery.

Now it was Harry’s turn to nod, although glumly. He was still sad about his Precious and what Fury said made sense.

“I am. A telepath that is,” began Harry, steering the conversation back on track. “I also have some minor empathic abilities and telekinesis, but I’m sure you saw that during the battle.” Several of his listeners nodded, he hadn’t been hiding that. “I can also create… like.” For a moment the teen struggled. “Arrows with my brain? And shoot them into other people’s brains?”

“Ah. Psionic weapons,” supplied the Black Widow.

“And how do you know that, Ms. Romanoff?” Tony accused, hands on his hips.

She returned the look with a simple, “I know things.”

As Tony scoffed all affronted, Fury continued. “So that’s what happened to Chapman.”

Harry winced and nodded. “That was an accident. First time doing it. Anyway, that’s beside the point. Since 2005, I had been receiving visions from a fellow mutant. A young child, powerful in his own right, with parents who were also mutants. I felt there was a reason for the visions and wanted to find him. I became a field agent to accomplish this.”

Fury continued to nod along to Harry’s story. “You found him.” It wasn’t a question.

“I did. Ian had a very unique power… the power to absorb the abilities of others for a small-time. I think he and I were just two beings that were just too similar,” Harry tried really hard not to laugh as he altered his story a bit here, “when I went to pick him up, he absorbed all of me. That’s why I look like this.” The teen held his arms out wide and did a little spin.

“Ian is me and I am Ian. The two of us became one new person. With my change in age and appearance I figured it wasn’t a good idea to return to SHIELD. I wasn’t sure how to explain it, so I trashed my gear and decided to just hide out.”

“Until now,” prompted Fury.

“Until now. I couldn’t just sit back and calmly drink my hot chocolate when aliens were attacking the city, now could I?”

Clint snorted in the background.

“Hmm,” Fury looked Harry up and down and then grunted. “You are trouble, Fisher.”

“It’s just Harry, sir. Cory Fisher is dead. So is Ian Connolly. I am Harry.”

Fury grunted at him again and then shook his head. He turned to leave without saying anything more and Harry started to look around the room in utter confusion. Natasha followed Fury out, but Clint walked over to a fresh plate of tacos.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. We’ll figure things out,” offered Clint, the tacos a weird kind of peace offering.

“I am so confused,” admitted Harry, accepting the plate.

“Welcome to the club, little Jedi.” Tony went to throw an arm around Harry’s shoulders but the teen dodged yet again and the billionaire pouted at him. Then, “Oh right, the touching thing. Sorry. It does explain the gloves.”

Harry laughed and nodded, then picked up a taco to eat. He hadn’t gotten a chance to yet, after all.

… … …

Apparently ‘figuring things out’ meant fabricating an identity for Harry. Or rather, altering the status of what had happened to Cory so that he could continue living as him. Since nobody even knew who Ian was, he was, unfortunately, written out of things. When asked what happened to himself, Harry had to answer, “Accident. It’s classified.”

He was reinstated as an agent and then quickly shifted over to the Avengers initiative with Black Widow and Hawkeye.

Basically it meant he was staying in the tower with the rest of the other Avengers, which worked fine for the teen since it was a lot nicer than his shack in the Bronx. No matter how nicely it was duct-taped together to resemble Hogwarts. Once he was fully rested, he made sure to (literally) pop over and gather up all of his stuff and dump it into the room he’d claimed at the tower.

The one where he’d burnt out Jarvis’ speaker.

Tony hadn’t been too happy about that.

Harry had just responded with, “You broke my lightsaber. It’s only fair.”

When Tony told him that he’d ordered him a bunch of replacement parts, the teen offered to help fix it and Tony laughed.

Really the billionaire seemed to just be glad to have other people to play with in his R&D wonderland.

… … …

Loki was relaxing in his newest cage awaiting the moment when he would be shipped back to Asgard when he heard his voice in his head again. That creature had been contacting him every day, since he figured out how to do so, to request from him LESSONS of all things.

He was unsure if he should be flattered or mortified.

Him? A TEACHER? Ugh, perish the thought.

But the creature refused to let up and would come tapping on his metaphysical mental door every day asking for the lessons again.

“Go away,” Loki spoke aloud to the voice in his head.

‘Oh, please, you’d miss me!’ replied the one referred to as Harry. Loki replied with a litany of mental images and he got laughter in response.

“How are you even able to do this? You did not seem that impressive when we met, for all of your aggrandizing.”

How Loki could feel Harry’s shrug kind of just went to show how good of a telepath he was. ‘I have a lot of experience with throwing my consciousness across vast spaces.’ The image of a dark blond-haired girl in a purple outfit flashed across Loki’s mind. ‘Oops, that’s private.’

“Ah, so for all that your proclaimed experience you can still make such simple mistakes.”

Another shrug.

“Why do you even wish to learn from me? Aren’t I the villain? Someone to be avoided at all costs? A monster?” Loki settled onto his back, rolling his eyes at his own comments.

‘Villains aren’t all bad. Sometimes they do a better job at being the good guy than the good guys.’ There was amusement coming through from the teenaged creature and Loki scoffed.

“Why illusions then?”

‘I don’t know how to make those yet,’ came the prompt reply.

Loki sneered, counting the rivets in the ceiling with one part of his mind as he held the conversation with another. “And do your esteemed colleagues know about your vast skill set?”

Somehow the image of a smirk flashed through Loki’s mind and he matched it with one of his own. ‘No, of course not. Why would I reveal all of my secrets, even to allies? Especially to allies.’

“Hah,” laughed Loki without humor. “A creature after my own heart.”

With that he received the image of the teen preening, complete with black wings. That made Loki laugh for real.

“What if you cannot learn? If I cannot teach?”

Harry sent a long hum in response before actually chirping into his head, ‘Then I’ll rip it from your body like I said I would before.’

Loki contemplated that and vaguely asked, “Is that a threat?”

‘More like a promise, because I really want to know and I’m not above killing you to get those skills.’

“I’d love to see you try.”

‘I think you’re at a disadvantage in your current situation,’ replied Harry with a laugh, referring to the chains that made it near impossible for the demi-god to move around. ‘Maybe a battle of wits?’

Loki laughed, “Mental chess?”

‘You know it?’

Harry got a savage grin in response.

… … …

“What’s he doing? He’s been like this for a few hours.” Clint asked, munching on a bag of popcorn.

Natasha shrugged, wiping down her weapons one by one before replacing them on her person. She had a lot of weapons.

“I thought he had plans to go with Stark down to the labs.” Clint had taken up a position on the coffee table right across from the resting teen. He had contemplated flicking popcorn into Harry’s open mouth, but had refrained.

Again, Natasha shrugged.

Clint shrugged too and went back to watching.

It took another hour before Harry’s eyes flickered open and he had such a smug grin on his face when he did.

“Did you win?” Clint asked. He was now the one cleaning his weaponry, and Natasha had vacated the room. Harry watching wasn’t exactly fun for her.

Harry’s hazel eyes turned to look at Clint and his grin got bigger. “I did indeed win!” He threw himself into a sitting position and then stretched, cracking his spine with a groan. “Oh that felt good.” He looked again at the archer and tilted his head. “Where is everyone?”

As Clint relayed everyone's location, the teen contemplated the situation. He had already spent a few days playing around with Tony before distracting himself with Loki. But now he wanted to try something new.

“Do you know how to use throwing knives?”

“Yeah, why?”

Harry held up his hand and, after a moment of focus, created another one of those energy knives. “It’s new.”

Clint blinked a few times then got to his feet. “I think there’s a room in this building we can turn into a shooting hall.” He grabbed the teen by the shirt, something the rest of the team had gotten into the (bad) habit of and dragged him off.

… … …

Harry’s life was a giant fucking trope. He had basically moved in with the Avengers team and received training from all of the members. The only one who didn’t really like him was Steve but Harry didn’t care for him much either, so.

At the moment, Harry was in the labs with Tony again, using the man’s equipment to build a brand new lightsaber. The pair of geniuses (is that even the proper plural for that word? genii?) had worked together to upgrade the design a bit, but Harry already had it as good as it could get with this universe’s technology.

Not that he admitted that aloud to Tony.

After leaning back from his soldering, he flipped up the mask he was using to protect his face and looked at Tony. “You should just give me an arc reactor for this thing. Those crystals you got me are no good.”

Tony made a weird squawking noise that caused Harry to smile. “Give you an arc reactor!? Why would I just give you one?” Then the billionaire scoffed, giving the teen a once over. “I bet you could build one.”

It was Harry’s turn to scoff, pulling off the welding gloves and stretching his spine. “As if you’d let me do that.”

“I could,” Tony said, moving over to one of the many computer stations and typing in some commands. “You’re smart enough. Maybe as smart as me. IF you are, in fact, as smart as me, you should be able to figure that out.”

That turned out to be a half-finished mini reactor project that Tony had started but not finished. It was one that was even smaller than the one Tony had in his chest. He had sent the project to Harry’s computer terminal. He looked at his Stark Pad and then over to the computer and pulled it up on the holographic imaging thing.

“Holy shit, you’ll really let me finish this?”

Tony gave a little smirk. “If you think you can.”

“You’re on, Old Man.”

Ton squawked again. “I’M NOT OLD!”

For a moment, Harry considered the man and his own hypocrisy. After all, mentally, Harry was a few eons old. He was so old he couldn’t even remember. But, just considering this life. “If you add the ages of both ‘me’s together, I’d still be younger than you. Therefore: You’re an old man.”

Well, Tony just didn’t have a comeback for that.

… … …

At night, instead of sleeping, Harry dropped into a meditative state and connected with Loki’s mind. The pair had gotten so good at doing this that there was basically a little mindscape they could go into to practice in. Plus, meditating was nearly as good as sleeping, in Harry’s opinion.

“Back again, are we?” greet Loki from where he was resting. Not that he was actually resting, them being all in their minds after all.

Harry smirked. “Of course. I will keep coming back until I can get this right.”

“Well,” Loki began as he rose to his feet, as elegant as ever, “Show me what you’ve got.”

Somehow the look on Harry’s face turned nearly feral as he brought his shadows up. When they fell away, there were a few copies of him around, and they were all dressed differently.

Loki slowly circled them, one seemed to be the ‘default Harry’. Next to him was another slightly different Harry: More scars, paler, glasses. The eyes were glowing too. This one Loki knew Harry referred to as ‘Potter’. The tall man with long hair, dressed mostly in red with a large-brimmed hat was new. “And who is this?” He asked while poking at the illusion-- only to find resistance.

The man’s small round sunglasses flashed yellow and he grinned all teeth. “Just an idea I’m working with,” he replied and Loki realized this was actually Harry. He turned to Default and Potter and cast magic towards them. They dispelled easily. He was impressed despite himself.

“I do believe I have nothing left to teach you,” declared the god.

The illusion vanished in a ripple of smoke, revealing the young teen doing what could only be described as a happy dance.

“Now be gone from my thoughts.”

Harry snorted, “You’d miss me Loki, admit it.”

“I admit no such thing.”

“Lokkkkiii~”

The Asgardian in question turned his back on Harry and attempted to leave their little shared mindscape. This rarely worked for him, sadly. Somehow the teen tethered him there until he was done with him.

“LooooOOoOoOkkKkKkKiiiii.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No.”

“LookKkKiIi!”

“Would you cut that out?” Loki turned back to Harry who was smiling at him. He noticed dozens of Harry’s that were also behind him, all dual-wielding those swords of light he had.

“Spar with me?” The teen raised a challenging eyebrow.

Loki narrowed his eyes before sighing. His own form shifted, bringing out his armour and weapon. “I’m sure I could teach you a little something more.”

“I can’t wait.” And they pounced on each other.

… … …

Harry was lounging in Tony’s living room, head leaning back on the couch with a hologram floating over his face. He used that to work on the schematics for his mini Arc reactor, but in a lazy fashion. Some calculations would go through his head and he would type them out on the Stark Pad in his lap and they would pop up on the hologram and then he would move some things around with his fingers.

It was surprisingly efficient in its laziness.

Just as Harry was adjusting the chamber where the palladium rested-- changing it from a circle to more of a ball-- and wondering if he should still include a crystal to stabilize the whole mess, he felt something just on the edge of his psychic range.

Now, things came in and out of Harry’s psychic range all the fucking time. Unsurprising, considering he was living in Central New York City. But this one… This one Harry knew.

He shot up and almost threw the Stark Pad off his lap in shock. “Oh fuck,” the teen muttered, turning towards the elevator door.

Clint and Steve were sitting in the kitchen eating lunch and both said, “Language,” though one (Clint) with much more humor than the other. It took them just a second to realize that the teen wasn’t even paying them attention. Usually he would quip right back at them for that, but this time his attention seemed to be glued to the elevator.

Clint, being the one who knew the kid better, got to his feet. “What is it Skywalker?”

At hearing his code name, Harry whipped around to look at Clint and then back to the door. “Someone is coming.”

“Who?”

“S-... Someone important.” ‘To me…’

The archer tapped his chin and shrugged. “Director Fury?”

“Yeah he’s here, too,” confirmed the teenaged agent. Which served to confuse Clint even more.

Fortunately, all was answered when the elevator door sho-wahh’d open. Standing inside was Director Fury and next to him was…

“Coulson?” Clint stumbled where he stood. “They said--”

“Tales of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” replied the agent in question just before he was barreled into by Harry. This shocked Phil because he knew he had been holding a box of stuff about a second prior-- only to see it floating in the air next to him. “Oh. Hello, agent.” Coulson sounded unbelievably fond, returning Harry’s hug.

“I’m sorry,” Harry replied with an embarrassed grumble, pulling away and rubbing at the back of his neck. “Teenage-brain demanded I hug you.”

Agent Phil Coulson laughed softly and squeezed Harry’s shoulder the way he used to do to Cory. “Quite all right-- ugnf!” His words interrupted by Clint hugging him as well. “And what’s your excuse, Clint?”

“No excuse,” Clint lifted Phil with the hug and then set him down. “I just wanted to hug you, too. It’s good to see you alive. How long were you waiting to use that line?”

This time Coulson’s laugh was interrupted by Tony, “JARVIS did confirm: You are alive. How does that work, Phil?”

As Coulson obfuscated, Harry tilted his head while looking at Coulson. The man felt… off. Not… He was whole, definitely, in a physical sense, but there was definitely something wrong with his mind. Harry was quietly swimming his way through the other’s mind to find this… wrong… part when Director Fury cleared his throat.

Coulson stopped, looked at Fury, and then plucked the box from the air. “Agent Fisher.”

And this broke Harry’s concentration and he was back to his own self, staring at Coulson. “Yesyouaskmewhat?” He mumbled out quickly.

“I believe this stuff is yours.”

“Mine?” Harry held out his arms and received the box and casually flipped open the lid. Then his green-hazel eyes went wide. “Holy shit MY HELMET!” The box was let go of in favor of retrieving the StormTrooper helmet-- though of course, it didn’t fall, it just floated to the ground. The helmet however was unclasped and shoved onto his head.

Clint started cackling at his teenage enthusiasm. “Lookin’ good, kid.”

Harry gave a Nice Guy thumbs up, but no one could see the grin under the helmet. “Oh... Wait. TONY!” The Helmet turned to look at Tony, who blinked in minute surprise. “Can I use your tech to make this helmet functional? I already have the specs drawn up. I did that back at MIT during my free time.” A good reminder that, hey, this literal child was actually an adult who’d graduated MIT nearly a decade ago. And the reminder was necessary, as his attitude sure didn’t show it.

“What?” Tony asked first before the question played again in his head. “You want to create a real Trooper helmet?” After Harry’s fervent nod, Tony laughed and nodded himself. “Come on, let’s go.” Tony grabbed him by the back of the helmet and dragged him off towards the lab.

The box of stuff was stared at by Coulson for a moment before it went shooting off to follow the tech-duo.

Clint gaped at it and then back to Coulson and Fury. “So…”

… … …

“And… there!” Harry released the palladium from his tweezers and it settled into the chamber of his Mini-Arc Reactor. A few taps on the keyboard next to him and the chamber closed off and started to power up. “Ah, wait.” Harry took several steps back from the reactor-- it had blown up on him a few times after all-- and then fully activated it.

It didn’t blow up.

He relaxed from the pre-wince he had been holding and grabbed the keyboard, tapping away quickly with one hand (a talent, to be sure). A few minutes later he lowered both of his hands and stared agape.

“It worked. It’s viable.” If Harry had any less respect for technology (in this life) he would have dropped his keyboard. As that wasn’t the case, he carefully set it down and picked up the body of his latest lightsaber.

He approached his workbench and, after adjusting his gloves, carefully picked up the Mini-Arc.

“Wait right there, Hot Shot.” Tony barged into the lab, startling the heck out of Harry.

“TONY! What did I say about scaring me like that!? Honestly, if I didn’t have better control I probably would have dropped this!” He held up the Mini-Arc and shook it in his face. “Or exploded it!... Again!”

“Yeah, seen those videos. Hysterical. Anyway, I wanted to watch this and not just in videos. So, go ahead, connect, and fire ‘er up.”

Harry narrowed his eyes in suspicion but went back to work. A few buttons on the lightsaber were pressed to open it up so it could accept the Mini-Arc into the base of the handle. If Harry’s calculations were correct, the Mini-Arc would merely be the power source for the sword of light-- it still required a crystal component like the original.

The Mini-Arc clicked into place and Harry tapped those same buttons so the power source could be docked into place. With a final look to Tony, who gave him a thumbs-up, Harry flicked the switch to activate his lightsaber.

Tshwwwww….A pure white beam of light formed his sword and Harry gawked before shouting in joy. Just like his first-ever lightsaber he had made with Luke Fucking Skywalker giving him instruction, Harry’s lightsaber color was finally WHITE again.

“Isn’t it supposed to be blue? Like my arc reactor? Or green? Or heck, even red?” Tony had to stop himself from poking the beam of light with a finger, remembering at the last second that it Wasn’t Something You Poked.

“Actually,” Harry adjusted pretend glasses as he went into a nerd rant. “If you look at the book lore, lightsabers can be a wide variety of colors and each holds a different meaning.” He held up his white lightsaber with pride. “White means someone truly neutral in the Force.”

Tony nodded along, tapping at his chin. “And you’re proud of this fact?”

“Very proud.”

“Huh…” Tony continued to mutely nod and only after Harry flicked off the ‘saber did he ask, “Is there a quiz to check your color?”

“Sure is, wanna take it?”

… … …

The silence of The Inbetween was broken by Harry’s harsh panting.

He’d just died. Obviously, that’s why he was here. But he’d definitely gone out with a BANG.

“I still can’t believe that Ultron fucking created General Grievous,” grunted Harry as he turned his head to look at that viewing screen that allowed him to see the world of the living directly after his death. “I mean, like. The prequel trilogy DID NOT exist in that world, right?”

THAT IS CORRECT, MASTER.

“Then how the fuck did Ultron create General Grievous? Not to mention the fact that I TOLD Tony it was a bad idea to keep my ‘saber blueprints on his fucking servers. I knew I should have disagreed harder. Fucking Ultron, stealing my shit…” He could still remember those few Ultron-bots that were decked out like StormTroopers. At least they had StormTrooper aim-- nothing could help those stupid helmets with their aiming problem.

Death was quiet for a moment, letting Harry rant before finally saying its reply.

THERE IS ROOM FOR CREATIVITY, MASTER.

Harry snorted at that and hoisted himself to his feet. “True. At least I destroyed that stupid ‘droid.” He watched the scene as Clint prepared to be shot to protect a kid only to be saved by Quicksilver, who was then saved by StormTrooper Aim (truly a terrible [wonderful?] thing).

“Well,” he paused, turning toward Death. “Where to next?”

… … …