Raising Her

~A/N~ I write Harley Keener (aka the kid from Iron Man 3) and his little sister into a few of my fics (more so in my unpublished WIPs) and this is just a little thing that I decided to write that is basically their past in (almost) all of my fics, (except for a few things that are story specific)~

One of the happiest, if not the happiest, day of Harley Keener's life was December 26th, 2003, the day his baby sister was born…

When he first saw her, laying in one of the small hospital bassinets, the two-year-old couldn't take his eyes off of her. She was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen, even though she was also the first baby he had ever seen.

He was in love with her from the moment he laid eyes on her, and from that day forward, he vowed that he would protect her from everything, no matter what…

Harley almost cried when he had to go home, he wanted to stay with his baby sister, but his mother needed rest and, as much as he wanted to, Harley couldn't stay at the hospital forever.

At home, Harley couldn't wait until they brought his new sister home, and when they finally did, she didn't leave his arms. His parents would try to take her to change her, feed her, or even just give him a break, but Harley would hold her close, shake his head and say "No! My Abby!"

That was her name. Abigail Brooke Keener. Harley loved it, he thought it was pretty and suited her perfectly.

She was born the day after Christmas, and when his mother went into labor on Christmas day, Harley thought it was the greatest Christmas present ever. He didn't even want to open any presents, he just couldn't wait to meet his baby sister.

Three years later, the Keener's life changed dramatically…

Harley was five-years-old and watched his father grab a bag and say he was going to 7-11 before walking out the door, never to be seen again.

After that, their life went downhill. Their mother had to get more jobs to be able to support them, but after a while it became less about supporting them and more about drinking.

Not long afterwards, his mother met a guy and soon enough they were going out and doing all kinds of drugs, leaving Harley to take care of his sister alone. His mother was barely home, and on the rare occasion she was, she was passed out in the living room drunk. 

Harley did everything for his sister, he fed her, bathed her, got her dressed every day, he took her to daycare everyday so that he could go to school. He did everything his parents were supposed to do.

A few years later, when Abby started school, things got a bit more difficult. Harley now had to take her to school, help her with her schoolwork, do his own schoolwork, among all the other things he was doing, he even had to do little jobs around Rose Hill in order to have money to buy them food after their mother started spending all her money on drugs and alcohol. The townspeople didn't see anything wrong with a seven-year-old doing small jobs and grocery shopping because a lot of kids in town did the same thing.

Harley didn't tell anyone about his mother's neglect and him having to take care of his sister, he knew his mother would kill him if he told anyone. His mother hated people knowing about her business. When Harley’s father left, everyone in their little town knew about it and she hated it. Harley was afraid about what would happen to him and Abby if their mother got mad at him for telling someone, so he didn't.

As Abby got older, she started to realize that something was wrong with the way they were growing up. She noticed at school that all the other kids had a mom and a dad but she only had her brother and a mother that rarely ever showed up. Even though their mother wasn’t a very good mother, Harley didn’t want to tell Abby bad things about her, so he just told her that their mother was busy working.

By the time Harley was ten and Abby was eight, he couldn’t keep the truth from Abby much longer, she kept pestering him to tell her and eventually he had to. He explained most of everything, leaving out things that thought she was too young to hear. 

Around a year later is when Tony Stark broke into his garage while his mother was god knows where and his sister was at a friend's house. Harley loved spending time with Tony during that time, even though he nearly died, it was the first time an adult in his life had shown him any kind of attention since he was very young.

Tony had kept in touch with Harley, he could tell that something was up with the kid and even if he was wrong, he could tell that the kid was insanely smart and had some potential.

A few years later, when Harley was thirteen, things had kind of started becoming better for the Keener’s. Tony had talked to Harley’s mom about Harley moving up to Manhattan to get a better education and his mother agreed, but Harley wasn’t sure if he wanted to go. By this point, Tony knew about everything that had been going on with Harley’s family and Harley was pretty sure that that’s why he wanted Harley to move up there.

Harley couldn’t leave his sister, he wouldn’t leave his sister, but Abby told him that she would be fine. A family member of theirs had moved back to Rose Hill so she would have somewhere to live that wasn’t with their mother, and after weeks of convincing, Harley finally agreed to go to New York, on the condition that Abby would call him every week, any time that something important happened or if there was an emergency. He wasn’t happy about leaving, but both he and Abby knew that this is what he needed to do.

“You have taken such good care of me, Harley,” Abby said. “It’s time for you to finally have a life. You need to do this…”

And she was right. He needed to do this. After so many years of taking care of his baby sister, he needed to be able to be a kid and not worry about anyone else but himself.

Harley was burnt out from raising Abby for so long, but he didn’t regret it at all. He might not have been able to be a normal kid and he might have had to grow up quickly, but he wouldn’t take any of it back.

Raising her was the greatest part of his life and he wouldn’t change it for anything…