Man of Iron, Child of Magic

5

A few minutes later, they had the boxes open on the table under the gazebo and the drinks - cans of more flavors of soda than Harry had ever seen before - distributed. A still-unconscious Errol had been carefully moved to one side, and Harry had called Hedwig to come get a bit of whichever pizza she liked. She'd then flown back to wherever she'd been before, and the three humans settled in to eat.

Eating pizza directly from the box felt … a little bit naughty, if Harry were honest. Certainly Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would never have eaten pizza directly from the box, even if they'd ever eat pizza at all, which Harry wasn't certain of.

There were three types of pizza. One was something Rogers called New York style, with a thick crust, sauce, and heaps of melted cheese. The second was a thick-crusted rectangular pizza with everything, whatever that meant when it came to pizza, that Stark called Detroit style. Finally, there was thin-crusted pizza with pepperoni and cheese that Stark seemed to prefer.

Harry was determined to try all three, though the slices looked very big.

"We'll get a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza some other time," Stark said, licking a bit of sauce from his finger.

"How many types of pizza are there?" Harry asked.

"If you're talking toppings, it's not an infinite number of combinations, but it's a big number," Stark replied. "If you're talking styles - eh. Chicago, Detroit, New York, St. Louis, Neapolitan, and Pepper introduced me to an abomination called California pizza."

"Abomination?" Rogers asked, saving Harry the trouble.

"All fancy and frou-frou." Stark took another bite of his Detroit-style slice. "Pizza's not supposed to be fancy."

"How do you make a pizza fancy?" Harry asked once he'd finished swallowing his New York-style bite.

"By putting toppings on it God never intended," Stark declared. "Like scallops, caviar, zucchini - which last is a travesty."

"They all sound like travesties to me," Rogers said.

"I'd like to try one," Harry offered. "Just to see if I like it or not."

Rogers pointed at him with his slice. "Good attitude."

"So." Stark wiped his hands on a paper napkin. "Now that we've all had our first slices - what did the book do that required you to get half-naked and wrestle with it?"

Harry swallowed, hard, before looking down at the pizza in his hand. "It's - a secret…"

"You're a wizard."

Harry jerked upright, gaping at Steve Rogers. He barely caught Stark's splutter, choked off as it was by a bite of pizza coming back up instead of going down as he spat it out.

"Wizard?" Stark said. "Seriously, Spangles?"

"Seriously," Rogers replied.

"How - how did you know?" Harry asked quietly.

"I met a couple during the war," Rogers replied. "Hydra was looking to recruit some, and that wouldn't have ended well for anyone. The Howlies and I teamed up with a team from the IWC. No, ICW, right?"

Harry nodded, unable to form words at that revelation. "The war that killed my parents?"

"No," Rogers replied with a grin. "A bit further back - the Second World War."

"How is that -?" Harry broke off as realization hit. "Oh. Steve Rogers. Captain America."

Rogers blinked. "I'm surprised you know that."