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The Stark Industries Christmas Extravaganza occupied three floors of the London headquarters and looked less like a corporate holiday party than a Christmas village that had somehow been moved indoors. Thousands of lights hung from steel beams and glass railings. Garlands wrapped every pillar. Artificial snow drifted from hidden machines near the ceiling. A tree nearly three stories tall dominated the center of the atrium, covered in silver ornaments and white lights that reflected off the glass walls until the entire building seemed to glow.
Employees, contractors, business partners, and their families filled the building from end to end. Children ran between activity stations. Parents carried cups of coffee and plates piled with holiday food. A choir sang Christmas carols from a balcony overlooking the main floor while costumed performers wandered through the crowd handing out candy canes and gift bags.
Vernon Dursley had spent most of the afternoon attempting to look as though events like this were perfectly ordinary for a man in his position. He shook hands whenever an opportunity presented itself, introduced himself as Director of Sales at Grunnings whenever anyone stood still long enough to listen, and kept one eye open for anyone who looked important enough to remember his name later. Petunia followed beside him looking immaculate in a pale winter coat, while Marge alternated between helping herself to the catering and loudly expressing approval of everything expensive she saw.
"Now this," Marge announced around a mouthful of shortbread, gesturing toward the enormous tree, "is how you do Christmas."
"Well, Stark Industries can afford it," Vernon replied, straightening his tie. "Different scale from most companies."
"Different scale?" Marge snorted. "I'd say so."
Petunia only half listened. Her attention was on the boys.
Harry and Dudley sat side by side near the front of a small audience gathered around a Christmas puppet show. The two toddlers were at the age where nearly everything was fascinating. They laughed whenever the puppets bounced across the stage, clapped whenever the audience clapped, and pointed excitedly whenever something bright or loud happened. Dudley kept trying to stand up for a better view while Harry copied him a few seconds later. Petunia found herself smiling despite everything that had happened over the past several weeks. Losing Lily had been a shock. Taking Harry into the house had been an adjustment. Yet for this moment, watching the boys laugh together beneath Christmas lights while holiday music drifted through the building, everything felt almost normal.
The puppet show ended to enthusiastic applause. A woman dressed as Father Christmas handed each child a gift bag. Dudley immediately tried to look inside his. Harry immediately tried to look inside Dudley's.
Marge laughed. "Look at them."
"They'll be into everything before long," Petunia said.
"They already are."
The boys paid no attention. Dudley had discovered chocolate. Harry had discovered that Dudley had discovered chocolate.
The choir began another song. Somewhere above them a group of employees released another burst of artificial snow. Children squealed. Parents laughed. The scent of cinnamon, chocolate, and pine filled the air.
Then the first explosion hit.
The sound was so loud that for an instant nobody understood what they had heard. The floor lurched beneath their feet. The glass walls shuddered. A shockwave rolled through the building hard enough to rattle decorations and send ornaments crashing from the giant Christmas tree. The choir stopped singing. The music died.
Several seconds of stunned silence followed.
Then people started screaming. A second explosion tore through the upper levels. Glass shattered. Smoke poured from somewhere overhead.
The crowd broke.
Parents grabbed children. Employees shouted instructions that vanished beneath the growing panic. Hundreds of people surged toward the exits simultaneously, creating bottlenecks almost immediately.
"What the hell was that?" Vernon shouted.
Nobody answered.
Another explosion rocked the building. The lights flickered. The giant Christmas tree swayed alarmingly.
"Dudley!" Petunia cried. She reached for him at the same moment Vernon did.
Then the crowd hit them. Someone slammed into Petunia's shoulder. Another person collided with Vernon. Marge disappeared behind a wave of fleeing people. Children cried. Adults shouted. Smoke continued spreading through the upper levels.
"Dudley!"
"Harry!"
For one terrible moment Petunia saw both boys.
Then the crowd swallowed her view. A section of balcony collapsed. People scattered. More screaming erupted. Security alarms began blaring throughout the building.
Harry started crying, then Dudley. Terrified by the noise, frightened by the panic around them, the two boys did the only thing that made sense.
They reached for each other.
Tiny hands found tiny hands.
They clung together.
Above them, steel groaned.
The damaged ceiling began to fail.
And all around them the Christmas celebration dissolved into chaos.
By the time the rescue crews finally reached the center of the atrium, the fire had largely been contained and the surviving victims had already been evacuated. Floodlights illuminated the wreckage where Christmas decorations hung from twisted steel and shattered glass glittered across the floor like ice. What had begun as a holiday celebration now resembled the aftermath of a battlefield. Firefighters moved through the debris in teams, calling to one another as they checked voids beneath collapsed sections of ceiling and carefully searched every space large enough to conceal a survivor. Most of them expected to find bodies. Several already had.
A firefighter climbing across a pile of fallen support beams stopped abruptly and swept his flashlight back toward a section of wreckage he had nearly passed. Something about it looked wrong. The debris formed a rough circle around an open pocket near the center of the collapse, as though tons of steel, concrete, and glass had fallen around that one particular spot instead of directly into it. He called another rescuer over, then another. Within minutes a small group had gathered, carefully pulling away loose debris while an engineer shouted warnings about unstable supports overhead.
The opening widened slowly. A twisted beam was moved. A slab of broken wall was shifted aside. Then one of the firefighters froze, his light illuminating the center of the pocket.
"There are children."
Everything accelerated at once.
Medics were called forward while rescuers cleared the remaining debris as quickly and safely as they could. The space was barely large enough for an adult to crawl into, but it was more than large enough for two toddlers. Harry and Dudley sat in the middle of it, pressed together with their heads resting against one another, asleep despite the noise and confusion surrounding them. Dust coated their clothing. Tiny flakes of concrete clung to their hair. Yet neither child appeared injured. There were no cuts from the shattered glass surrounding them, no burns despite the fire that had swept through the atrium, and no sign that either had been crushed by the collapse that had destroyed everything around them.
One of the medics crawled carefully into the pocket and reached for Dudley first. The movement woke him immediately. His eyes opened, unfocused with sleep and confusion, and a second later he began crying. Harry woke almost at the same moment and joined him. The medic tried to lift one child at a time, only to discover that each had a fistful of the other's clothing and neither was willing to let go. In the end he gathered both boys into his arms together and carried them out while firefighters and paramedics stared openly. Several of them had children of their own. Every one of them knew what should have happened inside a collapse like this. Looking at the boys and then at the wreckage surrounding them, none could understand how they had survived.
Outside, ambulances lined the street while emergency personnel moved through a sea of flashing lights and television cameras. The boys were rushed into the nearest medical tent, where doctors quickly discovered that the mystery only deepened. Both children were frightened and exhausted. Both were dehydrated. Beyond that, they were remarkably healthy. A physician reviewed the initial examination, frowned, and ordered the tests repeated. The second set of results matched the first. There were no fractures, no burns, no internal injuries, and no signs of smoke inhalation severe enough to explain the number of hours they had spent trapped inside the building.
While investigators worked through lists of casualties and survivors, attempting the grim task of matching names to faces, Harry and Dudley eventually fell asleep again in neighboring hospital cots. Neither understood where they were. Neither understood why the familiar adults who had accompanied them to the Christmas party were gone. They only knew enough to seek each other out even in sleep. Sometime after midnight Dudley shifted restlessly beneath his blanket. Harry stirred in response and reached across the narrow gap separating the beds. A small hand found another small hand, and both boys settled immediately.
Pepper Potts stood beside the observation room window with a paper cup of rapidly cooling coffee forgotten in her hand. She had intended to stay for five minutes. Ten at the absolute most. Instead she had been standing there for nearly half an hour watching two toddlers play.
The room beyond the glass was bright with winter sunlight and scattered with enough toys to entertain a dozen children, yet the boys had somehow settled on only two favorites. The fair-haired child sat on the floor clutching a stuffed dinosaur almost as large as his torso while the dark-haired boy with the untamable black hair and startling green eyes hugged a battered black stuffed dog that looked as though it had survived several adventures of its own. The dog had apparently been rescued from the wreckage alongside him because none of the hospital staff could remember introducing it into the playroom.
The boys were playing together with the easy familiarity of children who had never considered the possibility of being apart. The dinosaur was currently stomping across the padded floor toward some imaginary destination while the stuffed dog followed close behind. Whenever the blond toddler moved the dinosaur forward, the dark-haired boy immediately scooted after him with the dog. Whenever the dog caught up, both boys laughed as though something tremendously clever had just occurred. Neither seemed remotely interested in the dozens of other toys surrounding them.
The dark-haired child suddenly held the stuffed dog above his head and grinned. "Pa-Foo!"
The blond boy immediately looked up from the dinosaur. "Dihno!" He pointed at himself "Duddee!"
The dark-haired boy pointed at himself.
"Hahee!" Then he shoved the stuffed dog toward the dinosaur. "Pa-Foo!"
The dinosaur was dutifully introduced "Dihno!". Both boys erupted into giggles.
Pepper found herself smiling before she could stop herself.
A nurse walking past noticed where she was looking. "They've been doing that all morning."
"The names?" Pepper asked.
The nurse leaned against the counter and watched the boys through the glass. "Maybe. We honestly don't know. Duddee and Hahee are the only things they say consistently. Could be names. Could be nicknames. Could just be baby talk."
Inside the room, the dinosaur abruptly toppled over. Both toddlers stared at it in shock for a full second before the dark-haired boy dropped beside it and shoved Pa-Foo underneath as though the dog intended to rescue it. The blond boy immediately joined the effort, patting the dinosaur with intense concentration while the two of them carried on a conversation composed almost entirely of nonsense syllables.
For a moment it was easy to forget why they were there.
It was easy to forget casualty reports, police investigations, and the growing list of unidentified victims. Easy to forget that nobody knew who these boys belonged to or whether any of their relatives had survived. Through the glass they looked like any other children playing on any other afternoon.
The doctor joined her a few moments later, carrying a folder thick with reports. He watched the boys for a moment as Dihno was successfully rescued by Pa-Foo and immediately sent stomping off on a new adventure.
"They're doing remarkably well," he said. "Physically speaking, there's very little to worry about now. When they arrived they were mildly dehydrated and had a collection of bruises that looked much worse than they actually were, but all of that has been treated. They're eating normally, sleeping normally, and every test we've run has come back clean."
Tony Stark appeared from around the corner carrying a fresh coffee and handed it to Pepper without comment before glancing through the glass.
"You're telling me those two walked away from a terrorist attack with bruises."
The doctor gave a helpless shrug.
"I'm telling you I don't have a better explanation."
Tony watched the boys for another moment as Dihno somehow ended up balanced on top of Pa-Foo.
"Kids are weird."
The doctor laughed softly before opening the folder in his hands.
"The problem isn't their health anymore. The problem is figuring out who they are. We know they attended the Christmas event. We know they arrived with family. We know they were found together and are almost certainly related. Beyond that, we're running out of obvious ways to determine who their parents were."
"Wait."
The word left Pepper's mouth before she had fully formed the thought. She continued staring through the observation room window while the pieces clicked together in her head. Inside, Duddee was making the stuffed Dihno stomp across the padded floor while Hahee followed behind with Pa-Foo tucked firmly beneath one arm. Dihno fell over. Both boys gasped in identical outrage. Then Hahee immediately dropped to his knees and used Pa-Foo to rescue it.
The doctor looked up. "Ms. Potts?"
Pepper turned away from the glass. "Stark Industries maintains employee records. Blood types, emergency contacts, insurance information, medical information, security files. We have to. Half the company works on government contracts." Tony opened his mouth, closed it, then frowned. Pepper ignored him and continued. "Not just Stark employees, either. Most of our major affiliates and contractors are included in the same system."
The doctor straightened in his chair. "You're saying the information already exists?"
"I'm saying if the boys are related to someone who attended the event, there's a chance they're already in the database somewhere." Pepper looked back toward the playroom as Duddee carefully picked the dinosaur up and handed it to Hahee for inspection. "We know they came with family. We know they didn't arrive alone. If one of the adults who brought them worked for Stark Industries or one of our higher affiliates, we might be able to find a connection."
For the first time all afternoon, the doctor looked hopeful. "Would the company allow access to those records?"
Pepper glanced at Tony.
Tony gaped. "Why are you looking at me?"
"Because it's your company."
"Oh. Right." Tony straightened slightly. "Yes. If legal signs off and the hospital follows the proper procedures, absolutely."
The doctor was already reaching for the phone.
"We can start immediately."
Several hours later Pepper and Tony found themselves seated in a conference room overlooking the pediatric ward while technicians worked through the comparisons. Through the glass below, the boys continued playing entirely unaware that adults were attempting to reconstruct their lives from blood samples and personnel records. Duddee had acquired a toy ambulance at some point and was trying to convince the dinosaur to ride in it. Hahee was attempting to help by pushing the dog into the ambulance as well.
The conference room door opened and a technician entered carrying a thick folder. He looked like a man who had spent the last several hours staring at spreadsheets and genetic reports.
"We've got preliminary results."
Pepper sat forward. "That was fast."
"We had a very large database to work with."
The technician opened the folder and spread several reports across the table.
"We started with the children themselves. Subject One and Subject Two share approximately twelve and a half percent of their DNA. The relationship is consistent with first cousins. Confidence exceeds ninety-nine point nine percent."
Tony glanced down toward the boys.
"So they're cousins."
"Almost certainly."
The technician turned another page.
"We then located a parent-child match for the blond child. Based on the genetic results and attendance records, we believe his father was Vernon Dursley."
Pepper looked back toward the playroom. Duddee was currently attempting to load the dinosaur into the ambulance backwards.
"And the parents?"
The technician's expression softened.
"Vernon Dursley, his wife, and his sister have all been confirmed deceased."
Silence settled briefly over the room.
The technician continued.
"The dark-haired child is not related to Vernon Dursley. However, because the boys are confirmed cousins, we expanded the search."
He slid a final report across the table.
"Both children share approximately twenty-five percent of their DNA with the same individual. The relationship is consistent with an aunt-nephew match. Confidence exceeds ninety-nine point nine percent."
Tony frowned. "Both boys?"
"Both boys."
Pepper looked down at the report. "Who?"
The technician rotated the page toward her.
For a moment she simply stared.
Then she saw the name.
Virginia Potts.
Below them, completely unaware that anything had changed, Hahee held Pa-Foo above his head in triumph while Duddee made Dihno roar at him from the back of the ambulance.
Pepper went still.
Tony looked at her, then at the report, then reached over and pulled the folder closer. Whatever reaction he had expected, it clearly hadn't been this one. He scanned the page for several seconds before looking back at the technician.
"How certain are we?"
"The relationship exceeds ninety-nine point nine percent confidence."
"So she's their aunt."
"Yes."
Tony nodded once. "Okay. Then what happens next?"
The technician seemed relieved to be dealing with someone focused on practicalities. "We're still verifying every aspect of the identification process, but assuming the results continue to hold, Ms. Potts would be the closest living relative we've identified so far."
"Closest living relative for both boys?"
"Yes."
Tony glanced through the glass wall toward the observation room below where Duddee had finally succeeded in getting the dinosaur into the ambulance. Hahee immediately shoved the dog in after it. Both toddlers looked absurdly pleased with themselves.
"And there's nobody else?"
"Not that we've found."
"What about grandparents?"
"We're still searching, but at the moment we haven't identified any surviving relatives closer than Ms. Potts."
Tony nodded again, accepting the answer, then turned toward Pepper. "You okay?"
"No."
"Fair."
The response was automatic, but it seemed to help. Tony looked back at the technician.
"Then let's assume for a minute the test is right. What do we need to do to get those boys out of a hospital and somewhere they're actually going to be taken care of?"
Down below, completely oblivious to the fact that their futures were being discussed, Duddee pushed the ambulance across the floor while making enthusiastic engine noises and Hahee chased after it.
Tony nodded once, accepting the answer. "So what do we do here?"
The technician folded his hands on top of the folder. "At this point, we verify everything. The DNA results are about as definitive as science gets, but there are still procedures. We continue searching for additional relatives, continue matching casualty reports to attendance records, and continue trying to identify the second child. If no closer relatives are found, Child Protective Services will become involved and determine temporary placement while the legal side is sorted out."
A small sound escaped Pepper before she could stop it, not quite a word and not quite a sob, just a quiet distressed noise at the thought of Harry and Dudley becoming names on a government file while strangers decided where they would go.
Tony's attention snapped to her immediately. He watched her for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Pepper looked up at the movement, but Tony ignored the questioning look entirely and focused on the device in his hand. "JARVIS."
"Yes, sir?"
The technician stared at the phone for a second. "I know I shouldn't be surprised by anything that comes out of Stark Industries anymore, but I still find that mildly unsettling."
Tony didn't even look up. "You should hear him critique my life choices. Pull everything we have on Vernon Dursley."
Information appeared on the screen almost instantly.
"Vernon Dursley. Born January 12, 1971. Confirmed attendee at the Stark Industries Christmas event. Deceased. Parents deceased. One sibling: Marjorie Dursley, born August 18, 1970. Unmarried. Deceased. Wife: Petunia Dursley, née Evans, born September 9, 1976. Deceased. One child: Dudley Dursley born June 23rd, 2000."
Tony nodded and pointed toward the observation room. "Good. We have Dudley."
The technician leaned forward, following Tony's line of thought. "Because if the boys are cousins and the dark-haired child isn't related to Vernon Dursley, the connection has to come through Petunia."
Tony finally glanced at him and pointed approvingly. "See? That's exactly why they let doctors into meetings."
The technician rolled his eyes. "I'm not that kind of doctor."
Tony ignored that too. "JARVIS. Pull Petunia Dursley's family records."
The response came after only a brief pause.
"Petunia Evans Dursley. Born September 9, 1976. Deceased. Parents deceased. Twin sister: Violet Evans, born September 9, 1976. Reported deceased September 10, 1976. Younger sister: Lily Potter, née Evans, born June 21, 1980. Deceased October 31, 2001."
Tony stared at the screen for several seconds, then slowly lowered the phone and looked across the table at Pepper.
Pepper frowned at him. "What?"
Tony turned the phone around so she could see it. "Petunia had a twin."
"Apparently."
"A twin who would be exactly your age."
Pepper's eyes moved from the family record to the DNA report still lying on the table. Virginia Potts. Twenty-five percent shared DNA. Aunt-nephew relationship. Both boys. She looked back at the date beside Violet Evans's name and felt her stomach twist.
The technician looked from Pepper to the report and back again. "I admit that's a little difficult to ignore."
Tony nodded. "That's one way of putting it."
Pepper rubbed a hand across her face. "You're both looking at me like you've solved something."
Tony shook his head. "Not solved. Found. There's a difference."
Before Pepper could reply, Tony looked back down at the phone. "JARVIS. Pull Lily Potter."
"Lily Potter, née Evans. Born June 21, 1980. Deceased October 31, 2001. Married to James Charles Potter, deceased October 31, 2001. One child: Harry James Potter, born July 31, 2000."
The technician sat up straighter. "That would fit."
Tony looked through the glass toward the dark-haired toddler. Harry was attempting to climb into the toy ambulance while Dudley held it steady for him, and when he finally succeeded both boys celebrated as though they had accomplished something far more impressive than getting into a plastic toy.
"Yeah," Tony said quietly. "I think we just found Harry."
The technician nodded slowly. "If Lily Potter was Petunia Dursley's sister, Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley would be first cousins. The DNA supports it."
"So Harry and Dudley," Pepper murmured, looking down at the boys.
"So Harry and Dudley," Tony agreed.
For a moment all three adults watched them play. Harry carefully settled Pa-Foo into the ambulance. Dudley immediately added the dinosaur. Both boys looked absurdly pleased with the arrangement.
Tony looked back at the phone. "JARVIS. Pull everything available on Violet Evans."
There was a slightly longer pause this time.
"Birth records located. Death certificate located. Hospital records incomplete."
Tony's eyebrows climbed.
The technician frowned. "Incomplete how?"
"Several files associated with the birth and death records are unavailable."
The technician sat back slowly. "That shouldn't happen."
Tony pointed at him. "See? That's the reaction I was looking for."
Pepper looked between them. "You're both enjoying this far too much."
"No," Tony said. "I'm enjoying this exactly the right amount."
He stared at the screen for another few seconds, then pressed a button on the phone.
The call connected after a single ring.
"Boss?"
Tony smiled. "Happy, how do you feel about investigating a twenty-five-year-old cold case?"
There was a long silence.
"That depends."
"On what?"
"Whether this is a normal cold case or one of your cold cases."
Tony glanced at the screen displaying Violet Evans's incomplete records.
"Definitely one of mine."
Happy groaned loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear him.
"Fantastic. I was having such a peaceful day."
The next morning began quietly.
Harry and Dudley sat on the floor of the playroom surrounded by toys that would have seemed impossibly exciting only a few days earlier. The ambulance rolled back and forth between them. Pa-Foo rode in the passenger seat. The Dihno occupied the back. Dudley occasionally rearranged the passengers while Harry protested each change with great seriousness.
The nurses were pleased to see them playing.
The nurses were also watching them carefully.
Neither boy had cried much since arriving at the hospital. They had slept, eaten, accepted cuddles from strangers, and adapted with the strange resilience very young children sometimes displayed when they didn't fully understand what was happening around them. The problem was that eventually they would start understanding.
Pepper paused outside the playroom while the social worker finished a conversation with one of the nurses. Through the glass she could see Harry leaning over the ambulance while Dudley carefully positioned the dinosaur beside Pa-Foo.
Then Dudley looked up. The toy slipped from his hands. His entire face lit up.
The uncertainty that had shadowed him since the attack vanished beneath a burst of pure joy so bright it made Pepper's breath catch. "Mama!"
Pepper froze.
Dudley scrambled to his feet and ran toward the glass as fast as his little legs could carry him. "Mama! Mama!"
The room fell silent.
Harry looked up in surprise. For a second he seemed confused by Dudley's excitement. Then he followed his cousin's gaze to the woman standing outside the room. Hope appeared on his face too.
Pepper felt her stomach drop.
Dudley slapped both hands against the glass. "Mama!"
One of the nurses was already moving toward him, but Dudley barely seemed aware she existed. "Mama!"
Pepper opened the door before she could think better of it.
The moment she stepped inside, Dudley launched himself at her.
Instinct took over. She caught him.
His arms wrapped around her neck immediately.
"Mama."
The word came out small and relieved, as though everything was finally going to be okay.
Pepper closed her eyes. For one awful second she wished she could lie. She wished she could tell him yes. She wished she could bring Petunia Dursley back.
Instead she tightened her arms around him and swallowed against the lump in her throat. "No, sweetheart."
Dudley pulled back. Confusion replaced relief. "Mama?"
"No baby."
He stared at her. Really stared this time. The shape of her face was close. The coloring was close.
The voice was wrong. The smell was wrong.
Mama was still gone. His lower lip trembled. The cry that escaped him seemed far too big for such a small child. Across the room Harry immediately dropped Pa-Foo.
"Mama?"The hope in his voice was somehow even worse.
Pepper looked up and met his eyes. Harry took one look at her expression and understood the only part that mattered. His mother wasn't here either.
Within seconds both boys were crying.Not because they had fallen. Not because they were hurt. They were crying because they wanted their parents. And for the first time since the attack, they seemed to realize nobody was bringing them back.
Pepper staggered back a step under Dudley's weight as he wrapped himself around her neck. Across the room Harry abandoned Pa-Foo entirely and burst into tears of his own, stumbling toward her with both arms raised. One of the nurses moved automatically to intercept him, but Harry immediately twisted away and cried harder.
"He wants his cousin," the social worker said quietly.
Pepper didn't hesitate. She shifted Dudley higher on her hip and reached for Harry. The moment he was close enough he latched onto her jacket with both hands and buried his face against her side.
That was apparently the correct answer. Or at least the least wrong one. Neither boy stopped crying, but neither tried to pull away.
Pepper looked around helplessly before sinking into the nearest chair. Dudley climbed directly into her lap the second she sat down, while Harry squeezed himself into the remaining space at her side and pressed against her so firmly that she could feel every hitching breath.
The room gradually settled around them. The nurses stepped back. The social worker retreated toward the door. Even the quiet beeping of hospital equipment seemed farther away.
Pepper sat there with one arm around each child while they cried themselves out. Eventually the worst of it passed. Dudley's sobs faded into occasional sniffles. Harry's tears slowed until only a few remained clinging stubbornly to his eyelashes. Neither boy let go.
Dudley lifted his head first and looked up at her with swollen red eyes. "Mama come?"
His mama had always come before. After nightmares. After scraped knees. After tears. Whatever had happened in Dudley's short life, his mother had always come back.
Pepper brushed a hand through his hair and forced herself to answer. "No, sweetheart."
Dudley stared at her. For a moment it looked as though he hadn't understood. Then his face crumpled. "Mama..."
Pepper gathered him closer before the crying could start again. "I know."
Harry immediately looked up from her shoulder. His own eyes were red-rimmed and exhausted. "Dada come?"
Pepper felt her throat tighten. "No, baby."
Harry's grip tightened on her sleeve. "Mama come?"
She looked at him, then at Dudley, and wished there were some gentler answer she could give. "No, sweethearts."
Neither boy understood death. Neither boy understood why everyone suddenly looked sad whenever they asked those questions. They only understood that the people they wanted weren't here.
Harry buried his face against her shoulder again. Dudley tucked himself beneath her chin. And this time neither of them cried. They simply held on.
The room remained quiet as Pepper sat with one arm around each child, running her fingers through Dudley's hair while Harry clung stubbornly to her jacket. Every so often one of them gave a tired little sniffle, but even those gradually faded away. She didn't realize Dudley had fallen asleep until his weight settled more heavily against her chest. Harry lasted only a few minutes longer before his eyes drifted shut, his falling into his lap as exhaustion finally won.
Pepper looked down at them and felt something twist painfully in her chest. They were so small. Yesterday they had been names on a report. Today they were Harry and Dudley, two little boys who had cried themselves to sleep asking for parents who were never coming back. Outside the playroom nurses passed by, phones rang, and hospital life continued as normal, but inside the room everything seemed to have narrowed down to the sleeping weight of two children trusting her not to leave.
The social worker waited until she was certain neither boy would wake before crossing the room and lowering herself into a nearby chair. "Ms. Potts?" Pepper looked up. The woman glanced at the sleeping toddlers and smiled softly. "Have you given any thought to the emergency placement?" A tired laugh escaped Pepper. "I found out yesterday that I had a twin sister and a younger sister I never knew existed, who both died before i had the chance to meet them, and two nephews. I'm not sure I've had time to think about much of anything."
The social worker nodded sympathetically. "That's understandable. But if you're willing, we'd like to begin the process of placing Harry and Dudley with you while everything else is sorted out."
Before Pepper could answer, the door opened and Tony stepped inside carrying enough shopping bags to stock a small toy store. He took one look at the sleeping boys and lowered his voice immediately as he conversed with someone on the phone. Pepper glanced at the bags. "Tony, why do you have so many stuffed animals?"
Tony looked down at them as though only just noticing. "Support."
The social worker raised an eyebrow. "For the boys?"
Tony considered the question. "Mostly for me."
Against all odds, Pepper laughed. Then she looked back down at Harry and Dudley. Harry sighed softly in his sleep and shifted closer. Dudley followed without even waking. And suddenly the answer didn't feel nearly as complicated as it had an hour earlier.
The next forty-eight hours passed in a blur of paperwork, signatures, phone calls, and meetings. There were questions about temporary guardianship, questions about transporting two British children to the United States, questions about visas, citizenship, and approximately six hundred forms that seemed to require signatures from increasingly important-looking people. In the end, most of the obstacles vanished once Stark Industries lawyers became involved. Tony threw money, legal departments, and several extremely determined assistants at the problem until it stopped being a problem. The social worker seemed vaguely stunned by how quickly everything was approved. Pepper suspected that happened often around Tony Stark.
By the time they arrived at the airport, Harry and Dudley were tired, overwhelmed, and in absolutely no mood to cooperate. The hospital staff had managed to be convinced that Pa-Foo and Dihno could come with them, largely because Tony had donated enough toys to the pediatric ward that nobody felt particularly inclined to argue. Even so, neither boy was happy about being loaded onto yet another form of transportation after days of hospitals, unfamiliar adults, and constant disruptions. Dudley wanted down. Harry wanted Pepper. Dudley wanted Pepper too. Harry objected loudly whenever he thought Dudley got more attention than he did. Dudley retaliated by crying. Within minutes both boys were working themselves into matching toddler meltdowns.
Pepper was beginning to look mildly desperate when Tony appeared beside the seats carrying two large gift bags. "Okay," he announced. "Emergency distraction plan." Dudley paused long enough to sniff suspiciously. Harry stopped crying just long enough to stare. Tony crouched down and reached into the first bag. "For Harry." He produced a stuffed Rudolph complete with bright red nose, followed by a stuffed Rizzo the Rat wearing his little scarf from The Muppet Christmas Carol. Harry's tears stopped immediately. "Dada!" he announced, grabbing Rudolph with both hands before clutching Rizzo against his chest as well with a quiet "Wormy". Tony pointed at the second bag. "And for Dudley." Out came a stuffed Gonzo and a large white Abominable Snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Dudley's eyes widened. The crying ceased so abruptly it was almost alarming. He immediately wrapped both arms around the yeti and refused to let go.
The peace held all the way through boarding. Harry sat beside Pepper with Pa-Foo tucked under one arm, Rudolph under the other, and Rizzo balanced in his lap. Dudley occupied the seat across the aisle with the dinosaur, Gonzo, and the yeti crowded around him like a personal council of advisors. Every so often one of the boys would look uncertain, reminded that they were leaving everything familiar behind, but then they would reach for one of their stuffed animals and settle again. Across from them Tony leaned back in his seat and looked entirely too pleased with himself. "You know," he said, watching Harry carefully introduce "Wormy" to Pa-Foo, "I think I'm actually pretty good at this." Pepper looked at the mountain of stuffed animals occupying four separate seats and shook her head. "Let's not get carried away."
The years that followed settled into something that looked remarkably like a family. Happy's investigation eventually uncovered the truth about Violet Evans, proving that she had never died at all, merely disappeared into a tragedy and a bureaucracy that had buried the truth for twenty-five years. Pepper gained a family she had never known existed. Happy gained Pepper. Somewhere along the way the guest house stopped being a guest house and started being where Happy lived. Nobody ever officially announced anything. One day Harry and Dudley simply started referring to him as Uncle Happy and nobody bothered correcting them.
The boys grew. Harry remained curious about everything. Dudley proved surprisingly clever, especially when something mechanical was involved. While Harry could often be found curled up somewhere with a book, Dudley spent an alarming amount of time following Tony through workshops and laboratories. By the time he was eight, several engineers had learned that allowing Dudley near a prototype meant accepting an endless stream of questions until every detail had been explained to his satisfaction. Tony pretended to find it exhausting. Nobody believed him. Malibu became home. Pepper ran Stark Industries. Happy kept everyone sane. Tony occasionally blew things up. The boys attended school, collected stuffed animals, and somehow accumulated enough toys to rival a small department store despite Pepper's repeated attempts to impose limits.
Looking back, the strangest part was how normal the impossible things seemed at first. Toys occasionally moved when nobody was touching them. Missing objects had a habit of turning up wherever Harry and Dudley happened to be playing. Once, during an argument over a video game, every television in the house switched itself on simultaneously. Another time a broken toy fixed itself after both boys spent an afternoon trying to repair it. The incidents were rare, unpredictable, and always happened when Harry and Dudley were together. Tony blamed faulty wiring. Happy blamed Tony. Pepper blamed coincidence. Nobody noticed the pattern until much later.
Life continued. Tony Stark went missing and eventually announced to the world that he was Iron Man. Pepper survived the experience with remarkable patience. Obadiah Stane failed spectacularly at murder and corporate espionage. Ivan Vanko arrived a few years later, attempted revenge, and failed just as spectacularly. Through all of it Harry and Dudley remained firmly planted in the middle of the family, old enough to understand that Uncle Tony's life was bizarre but still young enough to think armored suits were the coolest thing they had ever seen. Then, on a perfectly ordinary summer morning between their eleventh birthdays, an owl flew into the Malibu mansion, ignoring every security measure Tony Stark had ever invented, and landed directly on the breakfast table, dropping two letters. The first was addressed to Mr. Harry James Potter. The second was addressed to Mr. Dudley Vernon Dursley. For several seconds nobody spoke. Then Tony sighed.