Tony was appalled. He was starting to see why Jazz had left England, if this was the level of competence the average 'wizard' displayed.
They went from hailing her as the next coming of Merlin (who knew he was real), to being an evil villian like the terrorists who held him captive for three months.
And they fully expected her to act as some 'savior' when they treated her like a caged bird.
"Rhodey... why exactly did she go back?" asked Tony disgusted.
"She was asked to put an end to the war once and for all. Once she gets rid of the worst of the lot, she'll come home and stay home."
"I want to see her."
"I have no idea where she is. But I have a general clue who to ask."
Tony was finally going to make that meeting with Agent Coulson.
Hermione stared when she saw who was in the base.
"Is that...Tony Stark?!"
Jazz was rather upset.
"Who told you where I was?"
"Agent Coulson. We need to talk," said Tony.
Jazz was not happy.
"Jazz...why is Tony Stark here?" asked Hermione slowly.
Jazz winced.
"It's complicated and I would be happy to explain it to you later. Much later."
Hermione wasn't happy about that, but Jazz at least kept her promises. Unlike Dumbledore, who kept them in the dark.
Jazz waited for her friends to leave the room, before she faced her father.
"So... you know."
"Rhodey explained it to me. And turned the couch into a hippo," said Tony.
Jazz winced.
"I wanted to tell you...but I didn't know how you would react."
Tony thought back to the newspaper articles he read, and winced.
"I get why you didn't tell me about magic, and why you came here. I just wanted you to know you can trust me with the important stuff, even if I do act like an idiot," said Tony.
"It's not that I don't trust you to keep silent... it's just that I've gotten sick and tired of adults abusing that trust over and over again for no other reason than because they thought they knew everything," said Jazz tiredly.
Tony knew she had trust issues. Hell, he had trust issues.
Which was why he brought a peace offering in the hopes she might open up to him a bit more.
"I brought a new suit. I heard about the nickname they gave you so I gave it a bit of a visual upgrade. If you're going to be fighting a bunch of inbred hicks, then you should at least have the latest designs," said Tony.
He had changed the outward design to something a bit more along the lines of the old Norse legends about Valkyries. While it followed the same lines as his Iron Man armor, it was clearly made for a female body and the chest plating looked more like the older armors back during the viking era.
"You didn't have to bring it personally."
"Yeah I did. You're my daughter, and while I still have no idea how to feel about this whole magic mumbo-jumbo I'm going to try and support you. I want to be included in your life, even if I can't help you with this sort of thing," said Tony.
This was a big step for Tony. He was at least trying to be a better parent, even if he had no idea how to be one in the first place. He had the title shoved onto him with a daughter that was basically damaged goods in a lot of ways. It was a learning experience for them both.
"...Pepper does not need to know until she needs to know," said Jazz.
"Fair enough. I can hold down the fort until you come home. And I can pester Rhodes to tell me more about this magical society you're part of," said Tony.
In an impulse, Jazz hugged him. It took Tony a few seconds to hug her back, but they could both tell they had taken a big step forward in the right direction.
Even if it was a long road to being a proper family.
Hermione waited for a few hours before she asked about the suit.
Jazz was amazed it took her that long before she snapped and demanded answers.
"Why did Tony Stark of all people come here?"
"He wanted to deliver a new suit," said Jazz. She had looked over the designs and would openly admit she liked them. A lot.
At least he hadn't made her look like Wonder Woman or something. She would have hit him if he had.
Hermione stared at her.
"What on earth do you do at Stark Industries that he would openly hand over an upgraded suit for you to use?!"
Everyone who had any contact with the real world knew about Iron Man and the Iron Maiden.
Suddenly Hermione gave her an odd look.
"Don't tell me you're Iron Maiden."
"Since you told me not to tell you..."
"What on earth possessed you to make up a ridiculous name like that?"
"I didn't. The press came up with it on their own, and the only reason I have 'Iron Maiden' as a handle is because they wanted something to tie into Tony's new super hero identity. It sounded better than Iron Woman."
That and the fact she was Tony's kid and not his girlfriend was one of the main reasons. She was guessing Hermione missed that particular memo, or hadn't made the connection that "Jasmine Evans" was in fact "Jasmine Potter".
Then again she had been going as "Jazz Evans" when that press conference had been held announcing her heritage to the world.
Hermione stared at the new suit, then at her.
"Jazz...please tell me you aren't sleeping with him."
"Gods no, he's far too old for my tastes and neither of us would be interested in that sort of thing. At least not with each other," said Jazz openly horrified and more than a little nauseous.
It might be 'normal' for the purebloods to openly practice incest, but Tony absolutely wasn't her type. Never mind the fact he would have found the idea just as disgusting as she did.
"So why did he deliver a new suit to you personally? Much less customize it?" asked Hermione.
Jazz was more than a little irritated by Hermione's need to know everything attitude.
"None of your damn business. If I feel like explaining it to you, which I don't at the moment, then I will. For now you can learn to keep your nose out of everyone else's business and leave me the hell alone," snapped Jazz. "I don't have to explain every insignificant detail of my life to you, Granger."
Hermione looked like she had been slapped by a fish.
"I'm just worried about you! You've changed a lot since you left."
"It's called growing up and finally feeling comfortable in my skin. I was actually happy to be away from this nonsense and not having everyone watching me like I'm some form of free entertainment. This is my life and I have every right to decide how I'm going to live it...without having someone trying to dictate what I can do and who I can be!" snapped Jazz.
"I thought we were friends."
"Friends don't have to know every detail of each other's lives. We're allowed to keep secrets from each other, especially when it's personal."
"Is he your uncle or something?" asked Hermione.
"Or something," admitted Jazz.
Hermione dropped the subject hearing that. Clearly Stark wanted his only living relative to be safe, since he didn't want his family hurt. The fact Jazz might be Stark's niece wasn't that far fetched... it wasn't that odd to think that Lily might be the illegitimate daughter of Howard Stark.
It certainly made more sense than her being fully related to that woman.
Jazz felt no little amount of vindication when she found out quite by accident that the arc reactor powering the suit allowed her bypass most wards. Whatever energy it was using, it worked very well with magic.
Some days, it didn't pay to wake up in the morning.
Case in point, when she was stuck in a massive fight with some of the top ranking Death Eaters and her suit was currently back at the base camp because it was supposed to be a simple in and out recon mission.
Without really thinking, she reached for her tessen only to remember with some dismay she had left those behind in California.
At least she had her sling ring on her, so she could still use the energy based one.
It was as she went to block an attack from a dagger that it happened.
One minute she was using her tessen to block it, the next there was a death rattle from Mulciber as his left arm was damn near cut off by none other than the Sword of Gryffindor.
It took her a few moments to figure out why he had died from having his arm cut off before she realized.
Oh, right. The last time she used this she had killed a basilisk with it and had accidentally hit the venom sack... and being a goblin blade, naturally that meant it had absorbed the venom.
And he had just gotten a massive dose of it.
Carefully making a sheath for the blade, she grinned viciously as she proceeded to slice and dice any confirmed Death Eater she recognized in a rather sloppy, but highly efficient fashion.
She really needed to learn how to use this thing with a regular blade, before she accidentally hurt someone with it. Even she knew she was a complete amateur when it came to using a sword.
"What's with the sword?" asked Clint, a few hours later.
Hermione stared at it for a moment, before she squeaked in recognition.
"Jazz, why do you have the Sword of Gryffindor?!"
"Maybe it was bored? Or the fact I forgot to grab my usual weapon and needed something to deal with a certain pest called it to me," said Jazz flippantly.
"It's a sword, it doesn't have feelings," said Hermione patiently.
Jazz smirked at her.
"Magic."
Hermione opened her mouth, then shut it with a frustrated huff. Even she couldn't deny the sheer lack of logic that came with handling magic, and the sword was reportedly old enough that it WAS possible the thing had developed sentience at some point.
Jazz shared a triumphant look with Luna. The oddball blond had been trying to get Hermione to loosen up for months since they gave up on relying on the Order to get things done.
She should have known her luck was just that weird. It had been fairly tame until that point, which meant she was overdue for an adventure.
At least she had the upgraded armor and the new power source Tony had discovered by accident when he was going through some of Howard's old work.
Tony had been feeling nostalgic and discovered something odd about the original Stark Expo Howard had hosted before things went to hell and he became obsessed with finding Steve Rogers.
(He was very glad to find that, because the cores he had been using to power the arc reactor in his chest were starting to have some nasty side effects.)
Voldemort hit her with a rather nasty curse, attempting to kill her...except it hit the arc reactor in her chest.
The container cracked, and right as she was able to finally kill the bastard once and for all, the energy contained within came out in a surge of power.
In her mind's palace, which Dr. Strange helped her to create in order to give her a chance to fix the shattered mental barriers, she saw a gem appear. It sat neatly next to the two others that were already there. The first had appeared when she first encountered the odd amulet that Dr. Strange had used to loop time. The second appeared when she visited Dumbledore's tomb to rob it...and to spit on his corpse.
She had the feeling they were important, but had absolutely no clue what the hell they were.
When she woke up, she found herself in a forest...and decidedly not on Earth.
"Well, shit."
Today was not her day.
Tony was decidedly NOT happy upon hearing what happened to Jazz.
"So you're telling me the supervillian Jazz was putting a permanent end to hit her with a curse...and the arc reactor exploded?!" said Tony irate.
Natasha kept a rather admirable poker face.
"From what we can tell the arc reactor didn't actually explode...so much as use a form of transport that hasn't been used in centuries. Besides, according to the devices that the old goat had monitoring her, she's still very much alive."
Tony was glaring at her. He had just managed to connect to his daughter, and now she was stranded in a strange place.
The odd blond woman next to the Black Widow smiled at him.
"The Valkyrie is safe enough. She's with the old gods and will find her own way home. After all, she is your daughter," said Luna.
It took Tony a moment to remember Jazz's alter identity was "Valkryie".
"Where is she?"
Luna smiled at him.
"Nyx, can you triangulate where the armor is?"
"Right away, Lunabell!" said Nyx cheerfully.
Nyx threw open a screen on the windows, and it took a few moments before she was able to pinpoint the rough area of where Jazz was.
It was considerably out of reach of earth.
"What the heck is that?" asked Tony, squinting at the picture.
"Magnifying now!"
To his complete shock, the screen enlarged just enough to make out something that wasn't a planet.
"See? I told you she was with the old gods. She'll fight right in with the Æsir," said Luna cheerfully.
"The what?" said Tony, staring at her.
"It would seem Ms. Evans is with the Asgard," translated JARVIS.
Tony was more curious as to how exactly Luna knew exactly where Jazz was.