~Broken Family~

You Are Twenty Going on... Eleven?

Tony watched, heart sinking, as the terror never melted off Harley's face and gave way to relief and recognition. It didn't happen. His terror stayed there, stuck.

"Where am I, Tony?" he asked, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth like a little kid. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Who are these people? Who is she?"

Gwen looked like a dead girl walking. Agony broke across her face. With a flick of her wrist, she shot a web at something above.

"Gwen---" Tony tried, but she was already gone, swinging away and leaving strands of webs behind. He saw her stop somewhere across the battlefield, where Clint was carrying Albrecht Jr's baby. Turning his attention to his own son, Tony hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder, as if scared he were a hologram or an apparition. "Are you okay, Harley?"

"I don't know." His voice rose to a frustrated whine that a kid his age should've been mature enough not to make. "One minute I was taking Kenny, he's my dog I'm sure I've written about him, outside, the next I'm here. Where is here, Tony? What's happening?"

"What do you remember?" he asked, trying to focus on the basics. He could feel Pepper trembling over his shoulder.

"You mean, like, ever?" he snorted. "You're Tony Stark. You crash-landed in my garage like five weeks ago."

Tony swallowed hard. "Really?"

He nodded eagerly, not picking up on Tony's perturbation. "Yeah... Oh, I just got your letter by the way. I thought your use of language was quite interesting, you're lucky my momma wasn't around to see it. I was gonna write you back and tell you I lost my knife at the gas station, so that made me sad. Um, where am I?"

Tony sighed. He'd forgotten how much energy Harley had had before coming to him, before the accident.

"Harley, what do you remember about where you are?" Pepper asked calmly. "Do you remember who any of these people are?"

Eyes getting as big as the crowd that had formed, Harley silently shook his head. Pepper steeled herself.

"Do you...remember me?"

He shook his head again.

Tony hugged her close and tight. Listened as she tried to stifle her tears. Even though Harley hadn't known what he had done and only spoken the truth, it still made him a little frustrated that he'd hurt his foster mother like that after all she'd sacrificed for him.

"Look, buddy..."

I'm the only thing here he remembers, Tony realized in horror. He looked over his shoulder for Dr. Strange, but he was gone.

"Buddy," he tried again, "a lot of stuff has happened, that's why you're out here and don't remember anything... At least, anything from the past ten years."

"Ten ye---!" Harley gawked and looked down at his hands, as if just now realizing how big they were, and patted a hand to his head, feeling his hair's length. He paled.

"No, no, no, it's okay." Tony awkwardly patted his arm. "We're gonna go home and fill you in on everything, okay? Does that sound good to you?"

Harley chewed on his lip and glanced around skeptically, and Tony could tell he was realizing that this was an actual battlefield. As if the smoke rising in 500-foot columns around them wasn't a dead giveaway.

He just shrugged casually and jumped to his feet, as if this happened every day.

"M'kay. Sounds good to me."

***

Since their cars were blown up, Tony enlisted Wong to create a portal to the cabin for all of them to pass through. Rhodes went to retrieve Morgan from the bomb shelter, where a more-aware Harley had said she had been hiding just an hour before. The second she laid eyes on Harley and was told that he had the mind of a ten-year old, she didn't act like anything was different and went right at him.