Short Stories and Oneshots

Black is the Colour

Author: Paralelsky 

Platform: Fanfiction.net

Type: Harry Potter x Avengers

When Tony Stark's personal life goes downhill, his reckless behavior puts him in danger. Steve has had enough, he has to call for back-up, he just doesn't know who he's getting on the phone. Fem!Harry.

~

"Home, Mr. Stark?" asked Happy, when his employer slipped quietly into the car. Normally Tony Stark would have been accompanied by the beautiful Miss Potts, but tonight the billionaire was alone and seemingly subdued.

"Yes, Happy, bring me home. But take the longer route, would you?" Tony smiled briefly at his faithful driver and bodyguard, and then he fell back into his thoughts. Absently his hand brushed against the small bulge in the pocket of his suit and he flinched as if burned. Funny, he thought – how that small piece of jewelry had filled him with so much hope just hours before, and now he couldn't wait to lock it back in the safe where it came from. He would have thrown it away, actually, but it had been his mother's, too precious to lose even in his current dark mood.

Tony sighed and then rested his head in his hands, the passing lights outside his car repeatedly casting him into shadows.

What was he supposed to do now? The thought kept circling in his head like an annoying record.

~~

Even though all the Avengers had eventually migrated into Stark Tower and made it their home, they were far too occupied with their own affairs to spend 24/7 in each other's company and Tony knew that. So he played it to the best, never staying too long with his teammates, half-true excuses about experiments in his personal lab providing him with a means of escape. So it was quite some time until the others realized all was not well with the unflappable Mr. Stark.

It was small things in the beginning – how he would always skirt away when the subject of personal matters came into conversations, his prolonged silences or his more reckless behavior whenever they were called for an emergency. He would fly higher and faster than ever before, the first to jump into the fray and the last to leave the battlefield, and it wasn't until he remained almost until it was too late next to a bomb ready to detonate, that Captain America knew he needed to take action. So he went to the root of the problem and phoned the one person who had been conspicuously absent from Stark Tower in the last month: Miss Pepper Potts.

Needless to say, that conversation didn't go as well as he wanted – Miss Potts had been ill at ease to speak and whenever the subject of Tony Stark came up she would clam up and become ultra-professional. Steve barely restrained himself from calling bullshit when she claimed to not have known what was wrong, but eventually she relented and gave him a phone number and a name.

"Call her," Miss Potts said, just before hanging up on him, "she's the only one that can get him out of his mood."

Steve stared at number for a whole ten minutes before slowly punching the numbers on his cell phone. His fingers almost slipped on the touch screen, still a little clumsy with high-tech, but he entered the number right on the first try. He was having second thoughts about involving himself in what he now knew was an extremely private matter as he waited for someone to pick up, while almost wishing nobody will do just that.

He was on the seventh ring and ready to hang up when the call went through, causing his heart to beat a little faster. A feminine voice gave him a slightly suspicious "Hello?"

"Miss Potter, Harriet Potter?"

"Yes...May I ask who is calling?" Steve placed her as a Londoner through her accent.