~Broken Family~

Project Iron Lad

Gwen watched over Harley's shoulder as he started a new untitled project. It was a suit of armor.

"What are you doing?" Gwen blurted, gripping the back of his chair as she watched him copy and paste the design for the Mark XLIII suit and begin changing the dimensions to nearly half of what they had been before. He started programming it for nanotech. "What the---"

"I think you're right about the fact that Tony probably could have done some more stuff," he said breathlessly. Even with her enhanced eyesight, Harley's fingers were one big blur across the keyboard.

"What are you talking about?" Gwen gave her head a shake. "I don't even---"

The words dried up in her throat when she saw him open the plans for Rhodey's braces. After a few clicks, he had changed the size, cut out the right side, added it to the suit, and somehow changed it so that it supported his knee, lower thigh, and calf muscles rather than his spine. She blinked in surprise. "How--how did you do that so quickly?"

Harley cracked his knuckles and smirked, leaning back a little in his chair. "What can I say? I'm a computer nerd." He added a few more features before authorizing the various repulsors with a code.

"Are you sure Tony is going to let you do this? I mean, he hardly let Peter do anything Spider-Man related without complete supervision."

"It'll be fine." He patted her arm reassuringly, making her pulse spike. "Besides, now you have another Avenger to protect you."

"...I think you just want to play with an Iron Man suit."

"Maybe. Hey, FRIDAY, paint the gold silver, please."

"Right away, Motorcycle."

He looked up at Gwen, an excited light to his eyes. Something had happened to his face.

Gwen realized that he was smiling. The first big, real, genuine smile he'd given her directly. Not through a photo or watching him smile at someone else or pretending to smile. Harley Keener was smiling at her.

She couldn't keep one of her own off her face. "Okay, I'll bite. What are you gonna call this project, though? You can't be Iron Man the Second. I'm sure there'll be copyright issues."

"Puh-lease. Tony's my adoptive father. Doesn't count." He tapped his chin. "Iron Boy sounds too stupid."

"Yeah, well so does Iron Dude."

He clapped. "That's it. Iron Dude. Now I just need a surfboard and a lesson on surfer-dude talk."

"You've almost got the hair." Gwen gave one of the shaggy strands a tug and he yelped in protest.

"Hey! Don't touch the hair."

"Mm, I wanna take a pair of scissors to that so bad."

"Inconceivable!"

Gwen laughed. The Princess Bride had been Morgan's favorite movie, and they'd watched it almost every time she came over for movie night. She cleared her throat, switching to her British accent.

"My dear, sweet Westley, oh, won't you please cut your hair?"

Harley gave a sly Westley-style nod and half-bow. "As you wish."

"There's a good lad."

Harley clapped. "That's it."

Gwen was confused. "What's what? Was I doing a bad accent? Because I've been practicing for---"

"No. Lad. Iron Lad---That'll be my name."

***

In a few short hours, Gwen had a full suit of Iron Ghost-Spider armor, a cool, shiny white and black-purple with teal and pink accents. The back half of her mask was now the hood, giving her hair some room to be free and loose down her back. The suit could now be accessed through her wrist pieces.

"How is it?" Harley asked, standing by his helmet that was plugged into a computer and downloading FRIDAY into it.

Wow. His helmet. Had he really rebelled and made himself a suit of armor? Gwen turned her head to look at it.

Yup. In all its shiny silver and red glory.

She felt like she had seen that particular suit of armor somewhere before, with the silver instead of gold and the darker red parts, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She tried to shrug it off---probably just reminded her of Tony's many suits.

"It feels nice," Gwen said, eyepieces narrowing as she inspected it. It felt a lot cooler, like it had its own air conditioning or something. It felt sturdier than the old one, but it still moved with her with the same flexibility. All she had to do was think, and the nanotech moved.

She felt indestructible. Like nothing could touch her. She crouched down, then sprang up onto the ceiling and did a few flips. She laughed with delight. "This is awesome!"

Harley gave his helmet a tap. "That's great! Now come down here so I can download your AI."

"Wait." She flipped down, the mask collapsing back into the neckline. "My own AI?"

"No, of course not." Harley grabbed a cord and plugged it into her wrist piece. The nanotech automatically receded back, leaving her standing in her Abbey Road t-shirt. "I'm smart, obviously, but I'm not like, Tony-smart. I can't whip up a whole AI in a few minutes. You're just getting FRIDAY. Unless you want Karen?"

"Karen?"

"Peter's AI."

"Oh." Gwen hesitated. She'd forgotten all about Karen. "Um, no, thanks. I'll just take FRIDAY. Thank you."

Harley clicked his tongue regretfully. "Okay."

"What's wrong with FRIDAY?"

"Nothing. She's great."

Gwen rocked on her heels, then glanced over at his Iron Lad suit again. It looked like a mini silver version of Tony's, with several blue dots along the joins and hip on the left leg. The arc reactor was a soft orange color, already glowing with life. The eyes of Harley's helmet would glow orange, too, so as not to "steal all of Tony's color."

"And how, pray tell, are you going to keep this secret from Tony?"

Harley wordlessly pointed to one of Tony's spare watches on the counter, then went back to typing up more code for Gwen's suit on the computer. "I took one of Tony's backup watches. I deleted everything that was programmed into it, and now I'm programming it to store the nanites in the watch like Tony's does."

"But won't he notice you wearing his watch all the time?" Gwen protested, crossing her arms. This was seeming less and less thought out by the second.

But Harley waved his arm. "I'm not gonna wear it all the time. And I'm having FRIDAY spraypaint it a different color."

"Oh, yeah, that'll work like a charm," Gwen grumbled sarcastically.