Faultlines

Long Time Coming

Long Time Coming

Harry Stark was sitting in his favourite armchair, his feet up on a stool and reading files on a possible acquisition. The past few months he had spend working from home a lot, still going in for meetings and such, but generally making himself a bit rare. He wasn't actually hiding, but being generally careful of things. They all were. Bucky was still being treated at St. Mungo's, apparently making great progress... Clint and his family had relocated to Scotland, not exactly hiding either, but laying low. Steve, Sam and Scott had made Sirius' home in France their base, when they weren't out doing whatever they got up to. And Wanda had permanently found a home with Harry's family. She really seemed to enjoy her role of big sister and Harry favourited the Weasley approach to family: at a certain point one child more or less doesn't make a difference.

He had wanted to stay awake and wait up, but it had been a very, very long day. He had returned from a trip to Japan yesterday and was still trying to adjust.

The doorbell rang, stopping Harry in his decision to go to bed early. There was an excited noise of feet moving upstairs. Harry made his way towards the door carefully, seeing the excited faces of his three youngest on top of the stairs.

"Back to bed, you three."

"It's Uncle Tony!", Lily declared, bouncing up and down.

"I saw him from my window.", Alec explained.

Harry felt his heart sink and simultaneously swell with hope. Tony had come. After all those months of radio silence.

"You shouldn't be anywhere near your window.", Harry chastised, "Off with all of you. Don't try eavesdropping. I will check."

Three loud groans followed, but Harry could hear them returning to their rooms.

Carefully, he opened the front door to find Tony standing there, dressed casually and looking even more tired than Harry remembered.

"Can I come in?"

"Of course.", Harry agreed, stepping back to allow his big brother inside.

"Where is everybody?", Tony asked, looking around the place.

"It's past ten. Lily, Alec and Jimmy are in bed, Emmy, Wanda and Johanna have a Zumba class.", Harry explained, as he and Tony reached the living room.

"Zumba class?", Tony laughed.

"Yes. Every Thursday. From 8.30 to 9.30."

"I am trying to picture that.", Tony laughed again.

Normally he probably would have said something about that, but Zumba class wasn't his favourite subject in the world. It had been Johanna's idea. She had been worried about Emmy and decided that maybe spending some time with something like Zumba during the holidays was a good idea.

Harry sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Emmy's mental health problems, he thought, was not the conversation he wanted to have with Tony right now.

"So Wanda is living with you full-time now?", Tony asked, studying a picture on the wall. It was their last family picture from Christmas, and yes, it very much included Wanda, she was standing between Johanna and Teddy, waving just like the rest of them. Harry didn't answer. Tony probably didn't expect an answer anyway. Or apparently he did.

"Picking up strays everywhere then?", Tony continued, moving on to a very different picture of the Barton Family in front of Castle Urquart. Harry chose to ignore him. There was a reason for those pictures. And for the one of the rest of TeamCap. Those pictures hung in all three houses. Dormant portkeys, ready to take them to the house in question. Or, if it was the house you were already in, to Grimmauld Place. Harry didn't like to take chances. Especially not with children involved. It had been time for him to embrace his magical side a bit more again.