Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.

Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. There's a small child from an abusive home in the custody of a terrorist cell that is willing to torture a captive in the hopes to force him to build them weapons. There's a lot of trigger potential in that. Please exercise understanding of personal boundaries before and during reading.

Author's Note(s): So, um, a really bad description of this piece is "Harry Potter as a child is in the cave when the Ten Rings kidnap Tony Stark". Believe it or not, this is the part of the series that I started writing first, and then I backtracked into other parts of how things happened as I fought with getting it the way I wanted it. Everything has been building to this, even though this is not the culmination.

Challenge/Competition Block:
Stacked: Not Commonwealth; Sky's the Limit; Terms of Service; By Any Other Name; Neurodivergent (Autism)
Representation: Tony Stark; Asexual Character; Scientists & Inventors; Starks/Defense Squad
Bonus Challenge(s): Endless Wonder; Second Verse (Zucchini Bread); Second Verse (Wabi Sabi); Second Verse (Middle Name); Second Verse (Nightingale); Second Verse (Tomorrow's Shade); Second Verse (Unwanted Advice); Second Verse (Nontraditional); Second Verse (Found Family); Second Verse (Ladylike – Aggressive/Threatening); Second Verse (Unicorn)
Word Count: 4313

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The Purpose of Aeries
Daedalus Bound
Part 01: Labyrinths
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"Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else."
– Fred Rogers
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The darkness felt thick as it covered Tony Stark like an unwanted blanket. He shoved at it irritably, determined to conquer as he had so many of his goals over his lifetime. Something like a hand (except so much smaller than an adult's) touched his neck and foggy memories wiggled loose, vying for simultaneous attention. The memory of something moving around in his chest (by the madness of Tesla, someone had opened him up, hadn't they?) strongly resembled the violated and dirty feelings he refused to acknowledge from MIT (before Rhodey had started interfering and scaring off potential hook-ups; before Rhodey had started carrying him off to beds while refusing to have sex with him; simply before Rhodey) while facing a blinking camera had been hauntingly familiar (no Eym or Jarvis this time but Rhodey would find him; Rhodey won't give up. Rhodey would never give up on him, because Rhodey would let the world burn first).

The not-hand lifted his head carefully. With the extra pressure came more memories, older ones that Tony tried not think about because they hurt to remember. The memories distract him from the chilly liquid trickling over his lips. It hit the back of his throat at the same time Ana's face burst to life through the darkness ("How quickly you forget, Mr. Stark, what acts I am willing to commit for that boy. Lay a finger on my son in anger again and none of your well-trained spies will be able to save you.") The hand (too small, too small, too small) twitched against the back of his neck as he choked on both the memory and the water (cold, metallic, brown).

"Sorry," a small voice (too small to be Jarvis or Aunt Peggy; too small to even be JARVIS) whispered as the darkness pressed harder against him.

Like the hand, the voice is too small. No one should ever be that little and in a place where there was gunfire and pain and his weapons—oh, fucking Tesla, either the US military had turned on itself or monsters had gotten the weapons he had made for them. Did they have the body armor? The communication systems? They certainly didn't have the medical tech because, fucking hell, his body was a mass of pain. All he wanted was Rhodey. Rhodey made everything better; Nowhere was safer than with a Rhodes, even the jerky ones like Joey. Everything hurt but it was going to be okay, because Rhodey would find him.

Rhodey would never give up, not in a million years; Rhodey would let the world burn first.

The darkness managed to drag Tony back into oblivion.

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There was no darkness when Tony next became aware. Or rather there is, because lighting in caves tended to suck, but it was not the same smothering shadows from the half-memory. Tony knew that something was wrong, beyond the entire lack of JARVIS' familiar hum from the area, but he couldn't think past the dryness in his throat and feeling of violation that came with the feel of things shoved in his body. To offset the latter, he pulled the tube out of his nose (oh, Turing, it was down his throat) with hands that didn't want to cooperate.

He laid there panting after finally getting it free. His mind was buzzing with ideas that he knew he wasn't going to be able to work on or get out of his head, not for a long time if ever, meaning that they're stay there buzzing, buzzing, buzzing until they burned or he could drown them properly. He was already exhausted from them.

One problem down. Onto the next one: thirst.

Tony spotted a cup on something resembling a nightstand nearby. He reached for it, stretching as far as he could. His fingers glanced off the rim of it, succeeding only in making it fall. The splash and thunk of it nearly covered the quiet sound of a sharp gasp.

Startled, Tony looked down, immediately meeting a pair of green eyes wide with surprise. The face that held the eyes had murky rivers of water dripping down from limp, black curls. The unexpected eye contact made Tony's already upset stomach give a threatening twist, but already the boy was dropping his gaze. The kid then scrabbled to grab the cup and refill it from a crude earthen pitcher on the same nightstand. Without saying a word or meeting Tony's eyes again, the boy held out the cup for Tony to take.

Two urges welled up within him, warring with equal viciousness. He was so fucking thirsty, but being handed things too often meant dropping them, which was embarrassing and something that Starks weren't supposed to do. A wave of painful want for Happy or Pepper cut through him. They were always so quick to step in at these moments, to explain and cover the issue. Rhodey would have already stepped in to fix it. Of course, if it was his platypus offering the cup, this wouldn't even be an issue because Rhodey knew how to hand things to him without setting off the twitch that made him drop things like an idiot. Then again, Rhodey being present would have meant not being here, where it wasn't safe. He should have listened to Rhodey when he had told Tony that he didn't need to come to the Jericho demo, that it was too much of a risk, and that it was stupid to have one in a hot zone anyway.

"I don't like being handed things," Tony managed, though his voice was hoarse and cracked. The boy glanced up briefly to look at his face before shuffling closer. Tony eyed the increasing tension across the boy's shoulders and the fluttering of the pulse in his neck, both obvious even in the dim light of the space. Even with Tony laid out on his back and clearly as weak as a kitten, the kid didn't want to come any closer than strictly necessary. Since he understood the juxtaposition better than most would have, Tony gritted his teeth against the dislike and reached out his left hand to take the blasted cup, already steeling himself against any reaction that meant dropping the thing.

The brush of skin against skin lasted barely more than a second, but something whipped through Tony, like an electric charge. The taste of maple syrup burst on his tongue, reminding him very strongly of Sunday mornings at MIT, when Rhodey (and later Jenny) would make waffles. Whatever it was had startled the kid as well, because those green eyes flashed upwards again, meeting Tony's before hastily skittering back to the floor. As soon as Tony's grip on the cup was solid, the kid likewise skittered away, disappearing under a chunk of something that looked like it was being used as a table. Recognition hit him like a blow.

Tony knew this pattern.

He knew it, same as he knew the pattern of Rhodey's visits or how Jarvis had liked his tea. He could still remember how it felt, being too small to do more than to hide from danger and too alone to expect help. A memory of Ana Jarvis rose up again, not quite as sharply as before but still clear enough that he could see the rage in her blue eyes as she had advanced on his father. The same rage filled him, and he spared only a thought to be grateful that the kid couldn't see him at the moment because there was no way that it wasn't on his face. If this was what Rhodey had always felt, then there was no wondering why he had always said the things that he did.

Right at that moment, Tony would have been willing to let the world burn if it meant protecting the kid, and yeah, Rhodey was right, absolutely right as always, when he said that it had started in an instant.

"I wouldn't do that, if I was you," said a voice (vaguely familiar; lecturer? Meet & greet? Business or science?), interrupting Tony's unconscious move to follow the kid off the bed. Tony glanced over at the source, refusing to acknowledge the whisper about the stupidity of being distracted to the point of not noticing the speaker before then. His mind tumbled the words around, trying to decode the message and analyze the voice. The tone was off, annoyance clear but also impatient warning. Pepper sounded like that occasionally, usually when she was tired of his quote/unquote misbehavior making her job harder. (Admittedly, a good chunk of those times were the times that Tony had gone out of his way to do something just because it annoyed either her or Rhodey, so yeah, her tone was fair.) Tony coughed once before remembering the cup in his hand. He cautiously took a drink, letting the flavors (cold, metallic, brown) burst across his senses, as he twisted to see the speaker.

Tony's mind was sorting details at speeds that he normally kept slowed by alcohol because thinking too fast had a tendency to hurt after a while if he didn't have a project at hand—and he didn't like what conclusions he was making. The man had been shaving; the child's hair was tangled. The man wore mostly clean and fitting clothes; the boy had on visibly dirty clothing that looked six sizes too large. The cave had lighting and plumbing, which was accessible, but there was something off. Tony's gaze darted around the confines again—and finally spotted the obvious camera. He didn't pause until he had spotted another two cameras hidden in less obvious spots. Hypothesis tested, he returned his gaze to the man watching Tony through the mirror as he used a straight razor to remove the hair from his throat and cheeks.

"Wha—" Tony's throat felt like it was cracking at the strain of trying to speak. Oh, great, that's just what he needed, to be stupidly falling apart like a weakling. Viciously, he bit his bottom lip, hoping to counter both the choking sensation in his throat and the sense memory of the time Jenny had made him handwrite (not type, because sisters were just as evil as Rhodey had always warned) how he wasn't weak for having limitations. It had the unfortunate side effect of clearing the hazy feeling that had been clinging to the edges of his mind, making him increasingly aware of his physical state. The thirst and hunger were muted compared to the growing awareness of something in his chest. He downed the rest of the water before carefully sitting the cup back on the nightstand-thing and turning his attention to the wires connecting something under the bandages on his chest to a battery on a table to the right of his bed.

'Oh, fucking hell,' was Tony's only coherent thought as he connected the invasive feeling of something inside him with what he was seeing. He didn't care if it was childish or weak, but he suddenly wanted nothing more than Rhodey to shake him awake and tell him that this was just a nightmare, just some terrible, horrible, very bad dream, and everything was alright. Tony licked his lips as his mouth went dry again. His fingers twitched, wanting to feel Rhodey's shirt between them or even Jenny's. What he wouldn't do to have a Rhodes nearby—he'd even settle for Joey, despite how they clashed whenever they were forced to interact outside of Mama's sight. Nothing was safer than a Rhodes.

Fingers curled around his wrist, slipping easily under the cuff of his jacket. An image flashed through his mind of the cameras in the room watching. It was quickly followed by an image of the shaving man looking stressed and desperate as things moved around inside of Tony's chest and a sour-sweetness filled his senses. Tony's mind raced in a thousand directions, struggling to process everything. What he wouldn't do for a stiff scotch right then—abruptly, the sensation of remembering everything disappeared, leaving him feeling nauseated and wrung out. Tony whipped his head around just in time to see the kid disappearing under the table-thing again.

Tony licked his lips, barely registering the way they stung among the ache throughout the rest of his body. This was a terrible situation and he just knew it was going to get worse before it got better.

It was only after meeting his host that Tony understood just how worse it would get.

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Tony's mind felt raw as it raced through potential strategies. The situation sucked, yeah, and the probability of every plan he had thought up so far being successful was not inspiring. If it was just him, the numbers were better, but there was no way he was leaving either of his fellow captives, even if the man was a bit of an asshole. Maybe not a flamingo exactly but definitely one of the typical snipers that frequented the science conventions and seminars that he had been a presenter or lecturer at over the years. Tony didn't present as often anymore, trying to focus more on growing SI to the point that they fully uncouple themselves from weapon manufacturing. Being known as the Merchant of Death would have been enough for Howard and Obie certainly seemed to covet the title that the media had bestowed on Tony, but he wanted more. He wanted the emphasis to be on Da Vinci of our time, for people to recognize the things he had accomplished that weren't tied up in Howard's legacy. Tony would even take up painting if that's what it took.

Starks were made of iron and so were weapons, yes, but so were skyscrapers and arc reactors and cars.

Tony stared into the fire, not paying attention to his exchanges with the man he was trapped with—Ho Yinsen, apparently, which is funny because he had always wanted to meet a man named Ho. Ah, shit, that sounded familiar. The thought hit him exactly a moment before Ho began talking about the disaster that was Bern2000. The snide comment about his drinking really was uncalled for, especially since Tony had been going through a sobriety period at the time. Jenny had insisted as repayment of having dealt with Rhodey's threats of taking a discharge to keep him out of trouble and away from people like Sunset Bain. Not that the story had made more than the tabloids, so really, Ho probably didn't know and drinking in social situations was something Tony was known for. Maybe he could forgive the guy, at least for the duration of their captivity.

When they got out of here, Rhodey could decide what details the good doctor needed to know. Rhodey was good at determining things like that, the absolute best. His platypus was an expert at things like that. Tony simply wasn't. His babies certainly took after Rhodey, which was great even if it was something that Tony complained about constantly when he was back home. He would give a good chunk of what he had to be there now, drinking one of Dummy's smoothies while playing catch with U and arguing with JARVIS. Butterfingers would be fussing with his chessboard and Pepper would probably be upstairs, doing what she did best as she decided where to point SI next.

He really should get around to actually appointing her to the position that she already does. It would do wonders for her stress levels and now she wasn't coming out of nowhere on the poor 'old guard' either. They've had a decade now to get used to her. Forbes already knew who really ran Stark Industries, even if People and Time liked to focus on him and Obie. It should be obvious that her appointment wasn't earned on her back, right? At least to those who had dealt with her across the table.

Tony Stark was not the type to doubt himself like this, to feel this indecisive on things. There was just not time for it because changing the world took a surprising amount of effort. When he made decisions, even something as seemingly simple as appointing an obviously competent successor as CEO, they were never just about him. Stark Industries employed a little over three million people in seventeen countries. Anything he decided to do that could have an effect on the profitability of SI had to be weighed with that in mind. With a thoughtless action, he could directly impact the lives of four-point-three percent of the world. Because Stark Industries was primarily in the business of military technology, that possible impact increased exponentially from just the employees of the company. Soldiers went into battle with Stark weapons protected by Stark armor. If they were injured, the chances were fair that it was Stark medical equipment used to treat them while Stark communication equipment got them evac'ed. Lives as well as livelihoods depended upon his decisions.

It was a lot of pressure, but he was a Stark.

Starks were made of iron, which did not buckle under pressure.

It did take quite a bit of planning to pull off some of the stuff he had. Thankfully, Tony was a genius capable of spinning scenarios and calculations in moments that would take even the fastest computer hours or days. He could only work when he had all the variables, of course, but as luck would have it, he was typically good at connecting the dots even when he was missing a few of them. He was also damn good at getting the information that people tried to keep from him, regardless of what obstacles were placed in his way.

Waking up in a cave after his military convoy had been blown to hell was definitely an obstacle he had never prepared for, but being kidnapped wasn't anything new exactly, just inconvenient. It had taken the last seven years to get to the point that he could successfully leverage Stark Industries out of the weapons trade. The Jericho was going to be their last missile-because, yes, Miss Everhart, that would help him sleep better at night, thank you. He had looked forward to being able to rub that in her smug face when he got back from Afghanistan. Maybe he should have pushed for an earlier announcement, but Obie had a valid point about waiting for the old contracts to come up for renegotiation before making the announcement. As it stood, Obie and Pepper were the only ones with a head's up on the shift. Rhodey knew that he was planning to change something with SI's contracts, as he was the official liaison and Tony wasn't going to leave him hanging like that, but Tony hadn't wanted to deal with his grumbling any sooner than necessary.

Tony wondered if Obie would still go ahead with their plan for about three minutes before discarding it as unlikely. Merchant of Death would definitely be Tony's legacy should he die here, with the judgy man called Ho (that joke would never get old) and the small boy who made the same amount of noise as a shadow. Obie had never liked the idea of shutting down the weapons division, citing how Howard had felt about its role in the company and how he felt about its role in their profit margins. Tony hadn't wanted to make too big a deal over the illogical uneasiness he felt listening to Obie's arguments and then his one-eighty acquiescence to Tony's new direction.

Tony was self-aware enough to know that those types of feelings usually meant that he had processed something too fast to be consciously aware of it—sometimes the speed that his mind worked at, even when deliberately slowed with alcohol was very annoying—so instead of just ignoring it, Tony had set JARVIS auditing the company files and Obadiah's personal communications. If there was anything to the feeling, JARVIS would find it, regardless of whether Tony was there or not. If there wasn't, then at least JARVIS got to practice his hacking skills. It was a win-win.

Of course, there was always the possibility that his current predicament was tied into all that crap rather than just happy circumstance, sarcasm totally implied. It didn't help that Ho Yinsen had the same self-righteous attitude that Tony had been putting up with from the old scientist crowd for years, made even worse due to the chop job in Tony's chest being his work. (That won't be true once Tony had access to materials because he would willingly believe in an Invisible Man in the Sky before he believed that he couldn't build a better electromagnet than a car battery.) Being trapped with a man who was as subtle as a brick about his desire for Tony to just build something already would grate on anyone's nerves. Tony didn't need it on top of going through complete detox for the first time in five years and his growing collection of aches. Surprising how much having a chunk of one's sternum replaced fucking hurt, wasn't it?

Then there was the little kid that had been shoved into the space with them. Well, maybe a rephrase on that because the kid was in there before the botched assassination cum kidnapping landed Tony in the custody of the Ten Rings. It was Tony who was late to the party. Watching how Ho (my name is 'Yinsen', Stark; stop calling me 'Ho') interacted with the kid (they called him 'Harry' when they left him, but he hasn't said anything yet), Tony always felt uncomfortably reminded of Pepper's exasperated impatience or Obie's condescending patience. The discomfort stemmed from the fact that instead of steamrolling over the complaints like Tony would have, the kid would snap into action to complete whatever Ho told him to do. After growing up with Howard Stark, Tony didn't particularly like anything he was seeing in the kid, especially since the kid couldn't have his own version of Rhodey to fight for him.

Scrutinizing things did not change Tony's conclusion about the kid's past, or his present for that matter. Ho mentioning that he had kids around Harry's age didn't help as much as the man clearly thought it would. The kid—who barely answers to the name Ho said was his, which was way beyond bad—had a habit of trying to keep their space clean while staying out of their way. It took longer that Tony cared to admit to actually notice that the kid lingered over Tony's stuff, organizing it even better than Dummy and U had ever managed despite them being trained to do it and supervised by JARVIS most of the time. He also had a habit of placing whatever Tony was trying to find just within his reach—never trying to hand him anything, not since that first time with the cup of water. Harry was only slightly more willing to be within reach of Tony than Ho and not once had Harry been the one to initiate touch between him and Ho like he had with Tony (not that Tony's been paying attention to that or anything; he just noted it, is all).

Tony's normal MO was to become absorbed in his work, to the exclusion of all other things. So it was strange to be continually aware of the kid no matter where he was in the room. Ho had the same demanding impatience with the kid that he had with Tony, even if Tony couldn't think of anything that the kid would be able to do that he wasn't already doing. Then again, Tony couldn't think of any reason a terrorist organization would want a kid, so maybe he was missing key portions of the data set.

Whatever the kid was doing in the delightful hospitality of the Ten Rings, Tony was thankful that he was spared the daily incentive trips, even if they always took the kid somewhere else before they came for Tony and returned him after Tony was back at work. They probably didn't even realize how much of Tony's drive to complete his projects was his understanding of human dynamics; he knew that this particular bit of timing wouldn't last forever. Eventually, someone would notice how the kid hovered over Tony, and arrange for him to see what Tony was going through, or given the average intelligence of these guys, it would be just an unfortunate bit of timing or maybe impatience with whatever Ho was attempting to get the kid to do or on Tony's production of his alleged Jericho. Then they would target the kid more directly—show him that someone else would suffer the consequences of his choices and Tony was willing to bet that the kid would fold faster than a house of cards.

Whatever the plan was here, there had to be a way to come out on top, and Tony had better get it done sooner rather than later.

Something told him that they were already operating on borrowed time and regardless of what Rhodey might have to say about this opinion, getting the kid out and to safety had to be the focus, the thing that mattered most. Harry didn't deserve to spend his life in a place like this, where he hid under tables to escape monsters who should have never had him in the first place. He deserved to be safe, to have someone like Ana or Mama or Jenny to take care of him, someone who would be fierce but comforting and who would spoil him with affection like he needed.

Tony would do anything to make that happen.

He just first had to do the impossible and get them out of the cave.

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To be continued in Part 02: Wings
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