Chapter 10 – Weird science
…
Somewhere
"Where the hell'd that come from?" Tony's voice echoed throughout the dark room.
The sound of metal scraping against stone sounded next, before a loud thrum of crackling energy blasted through a series of speakers.
This sound was followed by the tinkling of shattering glass, seemingly innocent and thoroughly out of place in this riot of destruction.
His face washed in the harsh blue light of the monitor, the Mandarin's beastly black eyes were riveted to the footage, even as he delicately balanced a cup of tea in this long-nailed hands, allowing the curls of steam to fill his lungs with its soothing aroma.
After more asinine back and forth between the boy and his supposedly brilliant father, the teen demonstrated still more of his strange new abilities as he seemed to thrust a ghostly fist into the chest of the footage's cameraman, transforming its remarkable power source into a worthless hunk of coal.
Still more chattering between the Starks came through the now crackling footage, but the Mandarin paid little attention, gently sipping his tea as he stared at the transmuted power source.
"Bomb!" the teen's alarmed voice suddenly intruded on his thoughts, leading to the Starks fleeing in their suits before the footage suddenly went dead, its source, one of his disciples, having dutifully destroyed himself rather than suffer capture and interrogation.
For several moments, the Mandarin simply sat there, staring at the static-filled screen as he sipped at his tea.
"Well," he finally spoke, "you seem to be quite full of surprises, aren't you, young Stark?"
Without turning from the screen, he gave a subtle gesture with his finger, and another of his dutiful acolytes rewound the footage yet again.
The Mandarin watched as the boy once more appeared on screen in his monstrous, writhing black form, by all appearances newly leashed and a monster no more.
"I quite enjoy surprises," the Mandarin stated with a grin.
He continued to enjoy his tea as the monitors around him played countless pieces of footage revolving around his targets, most of which weren't even taken by him.
It truly was a wondrous age they lived in.
The hospital
A loud crack announced the abrupt appearance of Harry and Tony in the pristine white hallways of the hospital, followed by copious screaming from the startled hospital workers around them.
Staggering, Harry shrugged off the disorientation that came from his newfound ability for teleportation as he knelt next to Tony's unconscious form.
"Harry?!" Pepper asked in astonishment, forcing her way through the muttering crowd. "Tony!" Pepper started to rush forward, but paused as she seemed overwhelmed by everything she was seeing. First, there was Tony, wearing his red and gold armor as he lay unconscious on the floor with blood-stained lips. Then, there was Harry, a boy recently out of a coma and now kneeling in a battle-scarred silver suit of Iron Man armor. And finally, there was ghostly green limb extending from the missing arm of that very suit.
Pepper's widened eyes couldn't seem to figure out what to stare at first.
However, she was soon brushed aside by a black-haired woman wearing a crisp white doctor's coat.
"What happened?" she asked Harry in crisp tones, kneeling next to Tony and trying to take his pulse.
"He collapsed," Harry told her, his voice distant as he stared at nothing. "I think … I think it's the palladium poisoning from his reactor."
Pepper gave a gasp, covering her mouth with trembling fingers as she stared at Tony.
She knew what this meant.
"I need this armor off. I can't treat him like this," the doctor told him brusquely, still trying to wedge her fingers inside to check Tony's pulse.
Unfortunately, that posed a bit of a problem, as the suit couldn't really be removed without the complex assembly system back home.
However, as Harry thought this, a pulse of energy accidentally raced through the ghostly green hand still resting on Tony's armor. With a snap, the entire suit, a masterwork of mechanical engineering, simply collapsed into sand, making both Harry and the doctor pull back with a start.
"Um … that will work," the stunned doctor admitted, admirably shaking off her astonishment as she brushed piles of sand off the unconscious billionaire to examine him, barking orders at the orderlies and nurses standing around them all the while.
Meanwhile, Harry staggered back to his feet, staring at his ghostly green hand that had just channeled his magic in a useful but completely unintentional way, once again highlighting just how much harder it was to control his power here than it was back in the astral plane.
Pausing, he gained a thoughtful look on his face as the orderlies finished clearing the sand off Tony and shifted him onto a gurney. One of them removed Tony's watch to clear his wrist for an IV, gasping as Tony's holographic disguise was broken, once more revealing his ghastly, black-veined complexion to the world.
Harry's eyes hardened at the sight.
"Natalie?" he heard Pepper remark in surprise. Turning, he watched the redheaded woman gracefully step past Pepper and between the hospital workers milling around Tony. "Where have you been? I've been looking for you."
Natalie declined to answer, instead stepping forward and jamming a needle into Tony's neck in a single swift movement.
"What are you doing?!" the doctor demanded, pushing Natalie away just as she pulled the syringe out of Tony's neck.
"Lithium dioxide," Natalie explained calmly. "Mr. Stark asked me to collect it from his home before he left. It should help to abate his symptoms."
As one, everybody gathered seemed to turn back to the unconscious billionaire, watching as before their eyes, many of those blackened veins lightened and color returned to Tony's cheeks as his breathing eased.
He still looked terrible, but he now looked slightly less like he was on his deathbed.
Pepper clasped Natalie's hand and thanked her, looking at Tony with hope in her eyes.
Harry, on the other hand, stared at Natalie in hard-eyed suspicion.
"Alright, you know what? I've had enough of this," he harshly declared, elbowing through the crowd to grab Natalie's arm in his armored gauntlet. With a flare of his power, he was once more surrounded by the feel of being forced through a tight rubber tube as he teleported, reappearing in the workshop back home, the enigmatic "Natalie Rushman" in tow.
Natalie fell to the floor, clearly disoriented by the harsh experience. However, in an impressive display of reflexes and self-control, she immediately rolled back to her feet, instinctually ending in a crouched, combat-ready position.
Only to find herself staring down the glowing repulsor of Harry's gauntlet.
"I've had enough," he repeated, glaring at the woman. "First, you ghost yourself onto our systems mere days before someone shows up in Monaco with the designs for Tony's armor." At least, so he suspected she had. "Then, we find some lunatic out there apparently knows all of our deepest, darkest secrets, again just days after you showed up out of nowhere. And now, you conveniently pull some miracle treatment for Tony out of thin air, despite the fact that neither I nor Tony ever knew anything about it! Who are you?!"
Natalie opened her mouth, a nervous expression on her perfect face, only to cut off as Harry suddenly charged up the repulsor with a whine.
"Before you try lying," he warned her, eyes narrowed, "you should know that I'm in a really bad fucking mood. Tony's back there dying, and I may only have a few hours to figure out the impossible if I want to save him. So I don't have time to play games. Lie to me, and I will kill you and teleport your body to the middle of the fucking ocean where no one will ever find you. Understand?"
Slowly, Natalie stood up straight, her false nervous expression bleeding away as if it had never been.
"You know … it's easy to threaten to kill someone. It's a lot harder to carry it out," she said quietly, staring deep into his eyes.
His eyes darkened with memories. "I just killed two people today," he said, just as quietly. "The first lives I've ever taken as Harry, and not the mindless creature you all met back at the hearing. But I didn't hesitate, because they were trying to kill me and Tony. And I don't regret it, because I know they would have gone on to kill even more people if I hadn't stopped them." Drifting out of memory, he glared more intensely at Natalie. "So believe me when I tell you that if you're responsible for all of this happening, I will drop you right here and now, and then I will never give you a second thought again."
A small, almost pitying smile spread across her lips. "Is that what you think?" she asked him, her voice somber. "Let me give you some advice, kid: knowing you were justified in taking someone's life is one thing, but it's a whole different animal to forget their faces."
Unbidden, his mind flashed with the faces of all the people he had seen killed by Voldemort, all the people he had felt himself kill before he destroyed the rest of those horrific memories.
Sparks danced across the surface of his gauntlet as he charged the repulsor past its safety limits.
"Who … are … you?" he growled one last time.
With those words, the final mask left her face, leaving only cool professionalism.
"My name is Natasha Romanov. I'm an agent of SHIELD," she told him, her words clipped and dispassionate.
A thrill of alarm raced through Harry's spine upon hearing them.
"I was assigned to monitor you and Tony, and to assess your suitability for assisting SHIELD in certain projects we have in mind," she continued, somewhat vaguely.
"And the Mandarin?" he asked, gritting his teeth. "Is he just one of your tests?"
"No," she answered curtly. "The Mandarin was an unintended variable."
"Then how does he know so much about us?" Harry demanded.
"Probably the same way SHIELD does," she stated with a shrug. "Paying attention and adding two and two together." A light smirk ghosted its way across her lips. "Frankly, neither you nor Tony are as good at keeping secrets as you think you are, Spectre."
He drew back slightly at that, which her sharp eyes clearly caught.
"You're good, I'll admit," she complimented. "You were damn thorough in covering your tracks, never leaving any witnesses, footage, or DNA, and your methods were as unpredictable as they were successful." Her smirk deepened as an expression of something like respect glittered in her eyes. "Hacking SHIELD databases and getting away without a trace isn't exactly a boast many could make, after all. Especially not before they even hit puberty."
His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth to prevent his instinct to blithely respond that he only did it once.
The glint in her eye said she wasn't fooled, though she simply continued. "But eventually, even you couldn't really hide the fact that a number of 'Spectre' thefts occurred in the same cities that also experienced unexplained disturbances featuring 'dark winds', a 'black mass with shining white eyes', or 'giant killer dust bunnies'." He felt a flash of indignation at that last descriptor, but he said nothing. "And then, all Spectre crimes mysteriously come to a halt the same night that Stark Labs becomes the epicenter to an 'atmospheric disturbance' that seems suspiciously similar to previous reports of that same dark creature." Her eyes bored into his. "And out of nowhere, that very same night, Tony goes full Daddy Warbucks and takes in a young boy off the streets."
"Okay, you did not just compare me to Annie," Harry cut in indignantly, able to hold his tongue no longer.
She gave a throaty chuckle at his response. "The point is, we at SHIELD have known about you for a while, Harry. We've even thrown out some false leads to try and keep others off your scent. General Thaddeus Ross in particular has been chomping at the bit to get his hands on you after the unfortunate footage of your alter ego at the hearing, even without linking you to the 'Spectre', though we've managed to keep him at bay. But unfortunately, those breadcrumbs to your past were still there for those diligent and patient enough to look for them, which it would appear that the Mandarin is."
The muscle in Harry's cheek twitched as he clenched and unclenched his jaw, but what she said made sense. "And Tony's condition? How did the Mandarin know about that?" he asked next, still eyeing her suspiciously.
"Before his death, Ivan Vanko appears to have spent quite some time working with the Mandarin," Natasha explained. "SHIELD did some checking after the events in Monaco. From what we could gather, Vanko was abducted from his home somewhere around four years ago, presumably by the Mandarin's 'disciples'. Since Vanko seemed to have been capable of building his own miniaturized arc reactors, it's very likely that he would have understood the device well enough to know what would happen if someone kept one embedded in his chest for years on end. And if he had really been in the Mandarin's clutches for over four years before Monaco, then it is also very likely that he would have shared that knowledge at some point. From there, all the Mandarin would have to do was use the fact that Tony Stark isn't exactly shy around the camera and yet didn't exhibit any of the visible symptoms that he should have in order for the Mandarin to realize that Tony was probably hiding his condition in some way, and given who Tony is and what he does, he wouldn't exactly be relying on makeup to pull that off. Add in the fact that all the footage of Tony from a certain point onward features him wearing the same particularly advanced-looking watch instead of buying a new one after a single wearing like he always used to, and it wouldn't be too difficult for the Mandarin to eventually pinpoint the probable source for how Tony was hiding his condition, especially with a tech expert like Vanko whispering in his ear."
He stared at her. "You've given this some thought," he remarked.
"The Mandarin appears to think like SHIELD does," she explained. "He's smart, patient, and absolutely thorough in his attention to detail. That type of mindset is key in our line of work—it keeps your ass alive in the field—but he seems to be putting it to terrible but effective use in his own."
"Or in other words, Tony and I have a somewhat crazier than normal stalker on our tails," Harry rephrased things, reluctantly powering down his repulsor and lowering his gauntlet.
"So it would seem," Natasha agreed with a faint curve to her cupid's bow lips. "So what are you planning to do about it?"
"For now? Nothing," he told her. "I've got bigger fish to fry. Like inventing a new element in order to save Tony's ass. But eventually? … I think I might try violence."
"Always a good start," Natasha agreed, mirth reaching her eyes.
"Glad you approve," he blandly remarked, once more building his power in preparation for teleporting. "I don't suppose SHIELD has anything else that can help besides their little miracle drug and their remarkable talent for sitting on their asses?"
"Not really, no," Natasha answered blithely.
"Figures," he muttered, focusing on his destination.
"Oh, and Harry?" she added just before he vanished. "Don't think I'm going to be holding back on you in our training sessions just because of your little arm issue." He looked down at his ghostly hand before turning back to her in surprise. "After all, SHIELD agents do have some other talents beyond 'sitting on their asses'. And I'd very much like to show them to you. Especially since Tony's already paying me to do so."
Her slow smile cast a disturbing counterpoint to the vicious glint in her eyes, suddenly making Harry welcome the comparatively comforting embrace of searing pressure he felt when teleporting. Even if this time, it squeezed harder and surrounded him for far longer as he traveled.
His arrival in the enormous warehouse laboratory was followed by a loud crack of displaced air, followed by a metallic clang and a pained yelp. Stepping around one of the countless bulky machines littering the floor space of their lab, he spotted a bleary red eye glaring at him through a tangled mat of brown hair as his fellow lab owner poked her head over the device she had been working on.
"Is there any particular reason why you're suddenly too good to use our perfectly serviceable and quiet teleportation tech?" she asked irritably, rubbing her scalp.
"You said it yourself: I'm just too good for that stuff now," he answered in a falsely magnanimous tone. "Well, that, and I wanted to see if this new ability worked for traveling cross-country," he explained more seriously.
"And?" she asked, curious.
"And it does. I managed to travel from southern California to upstate New York without any real difficulty," he said, stepping over and examining the device she was working on. "Strangely, though, I experienced more time during the travel than I did when making shorter teleportation jumps, which to me says that I'm traveling through some kind of space, even if it isn't the same physical space I'd be traveling by foot." Pausing, he closed his eyes and shook his head, forcibly derailing his inquisitive mind from the strange phenomena of his new powers. "But that's something to look into later. How's the device?"
"Yeah, how about you instead tell me about the freaky ghost arm sticking out the broken sleeve of your suit," she suggested, staring fixedly at his new astral limb.
"What? You've never heard of phantom limb before?" he asked with a grin, wiggling the semi-transparent fingers at her.
"You mean the condition where someone loses a limb, and they still feel like it's there?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "Because I think you might be taking that to a whole different level with that thing."
"Meh. I've always been an overachiever," he replied with a careless shrug, reaching up and disconnecting the helmet of his borrowed armor and setting it down on a nearby table.
Rolling her eyes, she returned to work, unable to find it in her at the moment to deal with or even really question the madness that was Harry Stark's very unique life.
"So how's our new baby?" he asked, eyeing the already pretty well assembled device.
"You mean the miniaturized particle accelerator I've had to jury rig in only a few hours?" she asked in some amount of anxiety and annoyance, her oil-smeared cheeks and tangled hair doing wonders to portray a girl on the verge of a breakdown as she stared at the immense metal coil. "Well, assuming it doesn't explode and kill us both, it might work once I finish up here." Picking up her tools, she glared at him as she crouched down to resume work. "Have I mentioned how much I hated working with these things in our other experiments?" she asked.
"About once or twice a month since we scrapped them," he answered, collecting tools of his own from a nearby workbench. However, he was temporarily slowed in these efforts by his ghostly hand simply passing through the tools and table as if it wasn't even there, forcing him to gather them all one-handed while staring at his incorporeal limb in vexation.
"And for good reason!" she called out to him in between muttered cursing. "Do you have any idea how dangerous these things are?"
"I have a notion," he answered, stripping a nearby machine with swift, deft movements, surgically removing the components he needed and leaving the rest, his use of only his left hand slowing him down, but not by much. "But if you have any other ideas for how to synthesize a completely new element, I am all ears over here." With careless disinterest, he tossed the remains of the cannibalized device over his shoulder to crash against the concrete floor. His miniature horde of reclaimed parts, by contrast, he treated with delicate care.
"But you said yourself that the machine wouldn't work," she reminded him, suddenly yelping as she accidentally scorched one of her fingers when the part she was working on started sparking. "And I pieced together more of what your notes were saying while you were gone. From what I can tell, even if it works perfectly and doesn't kill us all, this thing will only be able be able to synthesize small amounts of the element that will only last for a few seconds before falling apart again. And unless I was missing something in your notes, you also haven't seemed to have figured out the exact atomic structure you need for the pre-sample of the element that we're going to be smashing this high-powered ion beam into to create this new miracle element of yours."
Harry turned and looked at the conspicuously empty pedestal in the center of the open area encircled by the accelerator. That pedestal would hold the pre-sample of the element, which the particle accelerator would bombard with a stream of laser-focused plasma to transform it into the final element.
That pre-sample was the key. It had to have just the right atomic structure for things to fall properly into place when the stream of subatomic particles was smashed into it by the accelerator. Otherwise, all he'd end up with was a pile of radioactive goop instead of a new, stable element that could replace the palladium in the reactor.
And unfortunately, that pre-sample was one of the parts of this whole thing that he'd never quite been able to figure out.
"Like I said," he answered her, turning back to what he was building, "there are still a few kinks to smooth out."
She poked her head over the accelerator to point out that these were a lot more than just kinks, only to find herself distracted by what he was building. "What are you doing?" she asked instead.
He didn't answer right away, continuing to one-handedly build what was starting to look like a dentist chair from some hellish sci-fi future, lit with the harsh blue glow of several reactors he was hooking into the thing with quick, precise movements.
"You know that coma I was just in?" he finally responded, still not looking up from the disturbing mass of metal cables and wires.
"I vaguely recall it, yes," she answered, eyes darkening as she remembered staring at him in that hospital bed, uncertain if he would ever wake up, or be the same if he did.
Unfortunately for her stress levels, it seemed that he was.
"Well, I wasn't just sleeping," he told her, unthinkingly reaching for a part with his ghostly right hand, only to find the metal device was left with the consistency of rubber after his hand accidentally released a burst of his uncontrollable power into it. With a sound of annoyed disgust, he grabbed the now worthless junk and chucked it over his shoulder with his left hand, reaching more carefully for another part to take its place. "I was in some kind of … alternate state of being," he continued explaining, "in some place called the astral plane."
"Astral plane? As in Yanni CDs and incense and cheap New Agey crystals, astral plane?" she asked, somewhat incredulous and more than a little judgy.
"Well, it wasn't exactly advertised like that, but essentially," he responded, soldering a connection in the haphazard device he was building. "But while I was there, I was able to explore my own subconscious, and part of that was encountering tech that I've never consciously designed, but have apparently been mulling over in the back of my head without realizing." Pulling the tool away, he gently blew on the soldered area. "And one of those designs included an arc reactor that I think might have been made of the element we're trying to create."
Her eyes widened. "So you're saying …"
"I need to go back there," he answered succinctly, connecting wires and starting up the device with a whine. "I keep feeling like the answers I need are just on the tip of my tongue, but I can't quite grasp them. Not consciously, at least. But I may have already figured some of this out subconsciously. And if I can get my stupidly slow conscious mind to access it …"
Suddenly, she started eyeing the device more trepidatiously. "Harry …," she began slowly, "what exactly is this thing?"
He paused in his work to study the device. "A chair," he answered evasively.
"You're recreating the event that sent you into this 'astral plane' in the first place, aren't you?" she whispered in horror.
"Oh, God no!" he assured her. "There are no psychos in armored suits standing around this time. See? Totally different. Not recreated at all."
"I see one psycho in an armored suit," she pointed out. "Seriously, Harry, are you out of your mind?! You want to put yourself back in a coma only a few hours after climbing out of one?!"
By her tone, she evidently thought this was both ludicrous and deeply concerning.
"Look, I'm not actually blowing myself up this time," he assured her, flipping a few switches on the improvised machine, and giving it a kick when some loose connections briefly made it start powering down. "But overvolting my body with arc reactor energy managed to knock my astral form out of my physical form last time." He neglected to mention how it had also fractured his psyche. "If I can harness that in a more controlled and less explody way, then this should work to send me back there."
"This is what you call controlled?" she asked, watching as he pounded on the device with his fist to keep it from dying, the scrapped-together machine clearly suffering from its hasty workmanship.
"Relatively," he answered, tightening the last connections on a headband trailing with wires. "Look, I don't have time for safety. So you can either help me, or force me to do this all on my own. Your call."
For a moment, she simply glared at him. "You know, I really hate it when you do that," she told him, stepping forward and helping with the final connections.
"I know. I'm okay with that," he replied, grinning at her as he wormed his way between the cables and wires to situate himself in the seat.
Her glare was unmollified as she helped to fix the headband around his temples.
"C'mon, would you lighten up?" he goaded her. "You're a part of a mad science experiment! Where's the excitement? The mania? The mad cackling and peals of thunder?!"
Without a word, she simply reached down and flicked his ear.
Hard.
"Alright, where's the stupid lever for this thing?" she asked as he rubbed his ear and shot her a piteous look.
"Over there," he told her, nodding off to the side.
Turning, she spotted a heavy-duty power cord trailing from the device to a power switch.
Which was placed several dozen meters away from the device it activated.
"And why, exactly, do you want me that far away when I throw the switch?" she asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"No reason at all," he answered with a distinct lack of eye contact.
Glaring, she stomped over to the switch, clearly set so far away in order to protect her against the device malfunctioning and exploding, which Harry evidently saw as a distinct possibility, even if he wasn't admitting it.
As she stood there cradling the switch, though, her irate expression faded, leaving only concern.
"Are you sure about this, Harry?" she asked softly.
His expression likewise grew somber. "It's Tony," he told her. "And this may be my only chance to save him."
Reluctantly, she gave a slow nod and prepared to throw the switch.
"Do it," he gently told her when she hesitated.
Gritting her teeth, she did.
With an ominous whine, the machine powered up, and then bombarded Harry's body with a thunderous crackle of energy.
Harry seized in the chair, gritting his teeth so hard he was in danger of cracking a tooth as he fought the impulse to scream, the waves of energy burning his body as they coursed through him. As a strangled groan escaped his throat, he tried willing his astral form to leave his body, tried forcing it out, even. His clenched eyelids were bombarded with a harsh green light as his spectral arm grew blinding from the energy overload, but he still couldn't separate his astral and physical forms.
Unwilling screams filled the lab as his body continued to be wracked with the searing waves of energy, drowning out the panicked shouts coming from his friend.
However, they didn't quite drown out the high-pitched whine coming from the hastily jury-rigged device as it started to fail.
Without further warning, it exploded with a thundering boom, crumbled pieces of metal rocketing through the air backed by violent waves of sapphire energy, turning Harry's world white as the explosion tore him free from the chair.
It took several moments for Harry's overwhelmed senses to start slowly returning. The first to come back was sound, an almost musical ringing echoing in his ears. The second was touch, his cheek registering the feel of cold concrete beneath his face. The third was taste, his tongue registering something that tasted like … coconut and metal?
Groaning, he slowly raised himself to his knees, his dizzy brain registering sight once again as it showed him the simple gray concrete floor of the warehouse the two of them had commandeered and turned into their own secret lab all those years ago. However, he kept shaking his head and blinking his eyes to try and clear them, as this time, the dull gray concrete seemed to carry a light green hue to it, which didn't make sense. Looking up, though, Harry saw that same faint emerald hue pervaded the entire warehouse, as if he was looking at the world through a camera with a light green filter on it.
On top of that, everything he looked at seemed … thin, somehow, as if it wasn't fully there. It was difficult to process. It was almost like, even though by all rational measures, everything looked exactly the same, albeit slightly green tinged, it still seemed more like looking at pictures of the things rather than looking at the things themselves.
It kind of made his head spin a little.
Standing, Harry next registered that he didn't feel any pain from the blast, which was … confusing, to say the least. However, when he turned around, that confusion took a firm back seat to the pure astonishment he felt next.
The astral projection chair was still exploding, bits and pieces being torn free as they rode waves of torrential blue energy. However, they did so slowly, like they were moving through molasses. Turning, he also saw his friend, face horrified as she was caught near frozen in mid-sprint towards the chair, moving so slowly she might as well not have been.
"So, the astral plane comes with some serious time dilation," Harry remarked, staring in interest at the slowed down world around him. "Cool."
However, what he didn't see was what made him truly uncomfortable.
Specifically, he didn't see an unconscious physical body that he should have left behind. Looking down, though, he noted that his body did emit a faint emerald sheen, but unlike the last time he was here, his form didn't seem to be made of transparent green light, except for his arm.
"Am I … physically in the astral plane?" he asked in surprise. "Because that doesn't sound healthy at all."
However, healthy or not, that seemed to be what he was dealing with at the moment, given the clearly physical body he still possessed.
"Wonderful," he groused. "Okay, first things first, get what I came for. Deal with all this other crap later," he prioritized, deciding to just roll with things for the moment.
Frowning, he noticed that he still heard that persistent musical chime ringing in his ears, too. However, he simply shoved that aside along with everything else as he focused his mind on the advanced suit of silver armor he had encountered the last time he was there, embracing his power to give that thought weight.
Releasing his power, and relishing how much more responsive and controlled it was here, he watched as the air in front of him rippled, revealing the very suit he came here to study.
Curiously, it seemed subtly different than it had last time, which he assumed was the result of reflecting his ever-changing subconscious ideas and designs. However, his eyes were truly on one thing and one thing only.
The reactor.
Glowing more brightly than the standard arc reactor Harry was used to, this new reactor was situated in a triangular opening in the armor's chest as opposed to the circular housing unit that Tony's armors used.
Reaching out, Harry's ghostly hand easily phased through the chest of the armor to cup the advanced power source, gently pulling it free like picking an apple from a tree. For several moments, Harry stared at the miniature sun floating above his spectral hand, until he gently squeezed his ghostly fingers, crushing the reactor in a soft burst of light.
"Of course," he whispered as his mind flashed with knowledge, his subconscious ruminations on the reactor's elemental composition flooding through his conscious mind. Like finally coming up with a word that had been dancing on the tip of his tongue for hours, the final pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, giving him the answer that a part of him had already possessed.
It wasn't perfect, of course. He didn't immediately understand all the steps he'd need to make it work, but he understood exactly what the composition of the new element needed to be, and what he needed the pre-sample to be for the accelerator to change it into that new element.
The only problem was, he still didn't know how to physically craft that pre-sample in the first place.
Frowning, he idly passed his ghostly right hand through the suit of armor in front of him as he pondered the issue, watching as it collapsed into a soft burst of light that flooded his conscious mind with the knowledge of its design.
He barely noticed, though. His mind was on the issue of how to synthesize this element in order to save Tony's life.
However, as he paced back and forth, ruminating on the riddle of how to synthesize an element that seemingly couldn't be synthesized, he found himself growing more and more annoyed by the pervasive hum he had been hearing ever since coming here, until finally, he just couldn't take it anymore.
His head on a swivel, he started walking around the lab, casually passing through the various machines that littered the floor space as he hunted the source of the chime. As he walked, the sound grew faintly louder as he came closer and closer to its epicenter, but all of a sudden, as he kept walking, it started to grow quieter once again.
Pausing, he turned around and headed back the way he had come, carefully listening to the musical hum. Eventually, he found himself standing just where the chime seemed to be loudest, but there was nothing there. Just an empty stretch of concrete, and that damn pervasive hum.
"Is it under the floor?" he wondered aloud, staring at the concrete. "I wonder … I can walk through things here, so can I get down theeeeEEEE!"
Just as he thought about it, he passed through the floor as if it wasn't even there, falling through vast stretches of concrete and steel before finally passing into some kind of dark room hidden deep under the floor of their lab.
Thankfully, this strange world seemed to recognize his desire to stop, and he landed painfully on the floor of the room without passing through it.
Cursing under his breath, he once more clambered to his armored feet with the sound of metal scraping on stone. However, his curses died as he got a good look at the only source of light in this strange room, and the apparent source of the constant chime that had been haunting him.
Front and center in the room, set within a heavy metal column reaching from the floor all the way to the ceiling, was a glass tube filled with some strange, dark metal threaded with glowing blue light. Even more curiously, though, the faint sense of thinness he got from everything else, making whatever he looked at seem like just faint echoes of the real thing, wasn't present in the odd dark metal. Instead, the metal gave off the distinct impression of substance, like it was just as physically present in this plane as his own very physical body was.
As for what this strange metal was, well, the photos on a nearby table, most of which revolved around a rather famous artifact from America's history, gave a pretty decent clue.
"Holy shit!" he breathed in astonishment, scanning the workbench covered in notes and data on tensile strength, unusual properties, and potential applications before turning back to the source of all this study. "I guess this place was a hell of a lot more than just an abandoned storage facility of yours, wasn't it, grandpa?"
Years ago, shortly after Tony had taken him in, he had gone trawling through old records on the designs and experiments undertaken by his adoptive father's father, the late great Howard Stark, his own young but utterly ravenous mind constantly driving him to learn everything he could wherever he could find it. In the process, though, he had stumbled across a passing mention of an old, near abandoned warehouse in upstate New York. Upon investigating, he had found the place filled with forgotten tech, most of it old and outdated. But of far greater interest to him was the simple fact of this huge space just sitting there, long forgotten by the outside world. To him, this place offered incredible potential for him and his friend to continue their constant experiments unseen and undisturbed, in a space they could truly call their own.
Within a day, he had contacted her about his new find, and a month later, they had cleared out the last of the rubbish and started work on the first of many devices that had since filled the cavernous building. And they had been freely using the forgotten warehouse ever since.
But in all that time, they had never once suspected that Howard Stark had used this space as anything more than a storage facility, or that this unbelievable treasure had been buried underneath, hidden from the world.
"Vibranium," he whispered, staring at the glowing, singing metal sealed away behind a glass case. He snorted. "I guess you didn't use up all you had making Captain America's shield after all, did you?" he remarked, eyeing the countless photos of said shield, scribbled with endless notations on its incredible durability and other unusual traits.
It made sense, now that he thought about it, though. Scientist that he was, of course Howard Stark would never take the world's sole sample of this one-of-a-kind metal and turn the entire thing into a prototype shield for a man who, at the time, was still little more than a living publicity stunt, and hadn't yet become the renowned hero the world would later come to know him as. What Howard Stark would have done, though, was hold some of the remarkable metal back in order to study it, all the while claiming to the world that he had used up all he had in crafting the legendary shield. Otherwise, he would have ended up being hounded by constant attempts to steal the invaluable metal from him.
And where better to hide this priceless treasure than in a secret vault hidden underneath some insignificant storage facility that never held anything more valuable than old plane parts, making it the last place in the world anyone would expect to find such a prize?
As Harry looked on at this unbelievable find, only one word summed up his feelings on the matter.
"Dibs!"
And so, completely forgetting that he was in the astral plane, and thus that nothing around him had physical form, he reached out and grabbed the sample of invaluable, singing metal.
Things didn't work out as he had expected.
For one thing, his hands both passed through the glass case around the metal as if it wasn't there. Understandable, since it technically wasn't. He may be able to mimic the sense of physical touch here, such as he did when walking, but everything around him was more a reflection of the object rather than the object itself. As such, it was somewhat surprising when his metal-covered left hand successfully clasped the dark metal set inside the case.
It was even more surprising when his ghostly right hand did as well.
He stared as, for the first time, he registered the sense of touch with the ephemeral limb, watching as it reached through the glass and somehow closed around the glowing metal, registering an inexplicable sense of heft and warmth from the metal.
For several moments, he simply relished the sensation of sensation itself in his missing hand, tracing the metal with his ephemeral fingertips, and feeling its warm, smooth contours beneath his touch.
But then he tried pulling it free.
"Tried" being the operative word.
Frowning, he glared at the stubbornly immovable metal clutched in his ghostly green fist.
Once again, he tried tugging it free, but to no effect.
Bracing his feet, he pulled even harder, feeling his ephemeral fingers almost bruise as they yanked at the unmoving vibranium, leading him to reflexively push more of his power into said limb.
Like flipping a switch, the strange blue light threaded throughout the dark metal turned green, and the sample of metal pulled free, passing through the glass case as Harry fell to the floor, suddenly nauseous and suffering a severe case of vertigo.
For several seconds, Harry simply lay there, trying to understand why everything felt so fundamentally different all of a sudden. However, several details quickly made themselves known to him. For one thing, the constant musical chime emitted by the metal still clutched in his ghostly right hand had suddenly silenced. For another, everything around him had lost its green tinge, and no longer appeared thin or less than fully there.
He quickly deduced that this meant he was somehow no longer in the astral plane.
Just as this thought occurred to him, though, the room was suddenly flooded with flashing red lights and the blaring klaxon sound of an alarm.
Evidently, Howard Stark hadn't been content to hide his sole sample of vibranium in a secret vault. He had also hooked the thing to an extensive security system.
"Intruder alert!" a woman's smooth voice blared through speakers in the room. "Self-destruct sequence initiated!"
That was not a sound he was happy to hear. Nor was the sound of additional heavy locks engaging in the metal door on the other side of the room, intended to trap any intruders inside, presumably unless they input the "please don't kill me" code in the panel next to the door in time.
Unfortunately, this was a code he didn't have.
"T-minus 10 … 9 … 8 …"
Hastily, Harry gathered his power, focusing on the upstairs lab. However, his eyes widened in horror as he remembered all the notes on the nearby bench, utterly invaluable to him if he wanted to unlock the potential of this one-of-a-kind metal, and all of which were about to be destroyed in a fiery inferno.
"… 5 … 4 …"
Without thinking, he reached out to them with the hand holding the sample of metal, wishing he had time to grab them. To his astonishment, however, his power instinctually raced through his astral limb and into the green-glowing metal, and the countless papers and folders suddenly raced into the air, surrounding him like a sand dervish.
"… 2 … 1 …"
No time to think, he teleported, appearing upstairs just as the floor beneath his feet shook from the explosion destroying the secret room deep underground.
To his stunned delight, though, he also watched the countless notes, photographs, and folders fall to the ground around him, his magic having successfully taken them along for the ride.
Grinning, he pointed the chunk of metal at them as he embraced his power, watching as they all floated into the air and neatly stacked themselves on a nearby desk.
He gave a delighted laugh as he flipped the twenty-or-so-pound chunk of vibranium in the air, catching it again with his ghostly green hand. From what he could tell, this metal may hold the answers to helping him gain control of his magic, maybe even allow him to use it just as well as he had back on the astral plane. And he was more than a little excited to test that further.
More importantly at the moment, though, it may also hold the answer to a slightly more pressing issue.
He was soon distracted from these thoughts by the sound of another small explosion coming from somewhere deeper in the lab, making him take off running with a start.
After all, he just remembered that a certain someone would probably be interested to know that he hadn't gotten vaporized in the exploding astral projector.
Clearing yet another of their large machines, he found the girl in question standing over the wreckage of the astral projector chair that may have, by some standards, been less than professionally put together. Just then, however, her head whipped to the side to spot him, astonished eyes turning from him to the recently blown-up chair she had last seen him in mere seconds ago, and back to him.
"See? I told you that experiment was too dangerous!" he couldn't help but goad her.
By her narrowed eyes, this was a less than wise move on his part.
Thankfully, as the enraged girl charged at him, he had a few options to keep himself safe.
"Get back here!" she hollered as he kept teleporting to the top of the giant machines around them, keeping himself safely out of her reach.
"No! You're going to hit me!" he called back, continuing his tactical retreat.
"Of course I am! You keep blowing your stupid ass up!" she yelled, chasing after him.
"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" he retorted, holding up the chunk of dark metal, still glowing with green cords of light.
"I don't care! Do you have any idea the kind of stress you're putting me under?!" she yelled back, somewhat irrationally, but also a bit justifiably.
"Wait, what is that thing?" she asked suddenly, finally registering the strange-looking metal in his hand.
"Vibranium," he told her proudly, hefting the decent-sized chunk of metal.
That gave her pause. "Where on earth did you get that?"
"It's a long story. I'll tell you as we finish up the accelerator," he replied. "But first, can you promise to stop attacking me until we're through with all this?"
She gave him a considering look. "Can you promise not to blow yourself up again for at least a month?" she asked.
He hesitated. "I might be able to give you a week," he countered.
"Three weeks," she rebutted.
"One and a half weeks, and a promise not to strap myself to any machine that was assembled in less than five minutes ever again," he counter-offered.
"Make that two and a half weeks, and I won't attack you even when we finish up here," she answered.
"Done!" he exclaimed happily, shaking her left hand with his own. "Now let's go. We're running out of time."
"So all this time, this grimy old warehouse was actually a front for Howard Stark's secret vault for the most valuable metal known to humankind, and we had no idea?" she asked, hooking an arc reactor into the accelerator to power it. "Well that's embarrassing."
"I know, right? I can't believe neither of us ever found out about it," he said, carefully placing the crystalline reflectors in the accelerator.
"No, I meant embarrassing for you," she corrected him, prompting him to look at her in confusion. "I mean, you used to be this big-time thief, and for all these years, you've been standing on the biggest treasure trove anyone's ever seen, and you had no idea?" She snickered at him. "Somebody's losing his touch."
"… Hilarious," he informed her.
By her continued giggling, she certainly seemed to think so, at least.
Rolling his eyes, he simply walked over and carefully grabbed a sample of palladium crafted into a triangular ring and delicately placed it into the receptacle on the center pedestal.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" she asked him uncertainly as they started finishing up the last of their preparations.
"Oh, God no," he told her. "But I'm also not sure it won't work!"
She stared at him. "Well, at least there's that," she responded dryly.
"That's the spirit!" he gleefully replied, taking up his position next to the pedestal as she moved over to the power switch. "Now … throw the switch, Igor!" he yelled with a mad scientist cackle.
"… What did you just call me?" she asked, a dangerous look in her eyes.
"Uh … pull the lever, Kronk?" he suggested next.
"I will kill you," she threatened, evidently not pleased with these comparisons.
"Ugh. Fine! Just push the stupid button, Sally No-Fun," he pouted.
With a final threatening glare, she did so. "Initializing power sequence," she called out as the accelerator started to power up with a loud, low hum. Mirroring the device, Harry focused on gathering his own power, drawing on his magic and letting it build inside him like a swelling tide, making his ghostly right arm glow brighter and brighter.
"Almost at maximum power!" she called out, standing by the final switch as the accelerator's hum reached such a low pitch it made their teeth vibrate in their skulls. Meanwhile, Harry cleared his mind, focusing the entirety of his being on one thing and one thing only as he hefted the piece of vibranium in his brilliantly glowing hand.
"Now!" he called out, hearing the accelerator's hum reach a crescendo.
Throwing the final switch, she released the built-up stream of ions, the accelerator firing a narrow blue particle laser directly at the triangular sample of palladium.
At the same time, Harry released his own power, enveloping that sample in a brilliant green glow.
By all traditional science, the element he needed to create simply couldn't be synthesized with existing technology. The pre-sample couldn't be made, and the final element wouldn't last more than a few seconds even if it could. But he had far more than just science on his side. And with the vibranium in his hand granting him unprecedented control over his magic, he enveloped the palladium in his power, transforming it just as the stream of ions from the accelerator did, the two naturally opposing forces combining to achieve the impossible, and to form something entirely new.
He squinted as the light grew blinding, even with the heavy black goggles he wore. But he didn't let up, continuing to flood the sample with his magic, transforming it even as the condensed stream of particles crashed into it from the accelerator, building up a high-pitched hum that grew louder and louder.
Until finally …
"Kill it!" he yelled, the ionized atmosphere coating his tongue in the sharp taste of metal as blue-green light washed over him.
With a metal clang, she turned off the accelerator, ceasing the narrow but unbelievably intense blue-glowing stream of particles just as he released his power, ending the constant flow of emerald magic.
For a few heartbeats, the room continued to be bathed in the brilliant waves of blue-green light, but with a snap, that light condensed, rushing into the brilliant green-glowing sample of the brand new element, the first of its kind on this earth.
"See?" he panted, sweat-soaked black hair clinging to his scalp. "I told you it would work!"
"Did it?" she coughed, the brittle tang of the charged air stinging her throat.
"I guess there's only one way to find out," he answered, grabbing a tool to delicately lift the glowing, new-made element out of the housing unit and carrying it over to a waiting arc reactor.
With a gentle snap, the reactor closed around the triangular element, flickering with faint pulses of green light as it started to activate, until it finally stabilized, emitting a quiet hum as it bathed Harry in a steady emerald glow.
"It works!" he announced excitedly. "The new element has taken the place of palladium in the reactor, and now it can function without that pesky poisoning-its-user feature. And it should have a pretty massive upswing in power output, too."
"And let me guess: you're going to go cram that in Tony's chest without even taking five minutes to run diagnostics on the thing, aren't you?" she asked him flatly.
He beamed at her. "You know me so well," he complimented, grabbing the new and improved reactor.
She groaned. "How are you not dead already?" she asked in exasperation.
"Unreasonable amounts of luck," he answered. "Plus, I've got you to watch my back."
This time, the smile he shot her was full of nothing but warm affection and deep-seated gratitude.
She rolled her eyes at him again, but couldn't quite hold back the fond smile completely.
"Thanks for your help with this," he told her, grabbing his stuff and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "I owe you!" he called out as he teleported to the hospital.
She gently touched her blushing cheek as she turned and stared out across the massive warehouse lab, almost every inch of which was filled with immense, hyper-advanced pieces of machinery developed and built over a period of years for the sole purpose of helping her, and nearly all of which had been almost single-handedly funded by him without a moment's complaint or hesitation.
"I think we're still far from even, Harry," she muttered, a caring smile on her face.
An institution providing medical and surgical treatment and nursing care for sick or injured people (otherwise known as a hospital)
Stepping through the door into Tony's room in the hospital, Harry was greeted with an almost physical wall of silence as everyone inside turned and stared at the still armored teen.
Pepper was standing by the window with the doctor, who, judging by the look on their faces, had likely just been explaining Tony's condition, and how there wasn't really anything conventional medicine could do for him at this point. Closer to the door, Natasha casually slid her hands out from behind her back, where, based on what he had learned about her true nature as a SHIELD agent, she likely had a weapon concealed.
And on the bed, hooked up to a weakly beeping heart monitor, lay Tony, likely looking much like Harry himself had only hours ago.
"Harry? Where have you been?" Pepper asked with all the fatigued softness of someone who was grieving, and lacked the strength for more potent emotion.
"Went for a burger," he answered facetiously, stepping over to Tony's bedside. "I mean, IV bags are great and all, but I needed something with a little more substance, you know?"
Before Pepper could reply, Natasha stepped closer, eyes on the glowing device in his hand. "Is that …?"
"Hmm? Oh, this?" He held up the new reactor. "Yeah, I figured the waking nightlight here could use a battery change."
With that, he set the reactor on the bed and, without further ado, ejected the old reactor from Tony's chest.
"Junk!" he declared, tossing the priceless reactor over his shoulder carelessly before grabbing the new reactor and hooking it into the socket in Tony's chest. Finally, like the Fonz starting a jukebox, he popped the reactor the rest of the way in with a firm bop of his fist.
The reactor gave a high-pitched whine as it began to glow more brightly, bathing everyone there in a brilliant green light before finally leveling off, the reactor fully integrated into Tony's body.
For several seconds, everyone waited with bated breath, staring silently at Tony's unconscious form.
With a gasp, his eyes suddenly snapped open.
"IT'S ALIIIIIVE!" Harry cried, cackling wildly.
Dead silence greeted his exclamation.
"You know, I work really hard on my mad scientist impersonation, and nobody appreciates it," Harry grumbled to himself unhappily.
"What impersonation?" Tony asked groggily, but with a smirk firmly in place. "But before we get into that, I have a couple questions: first, who exactly has been feeding me coconut and nickels?" He smacked his lips with a grossed-out look on his face. "And second, who is responsible for this horrendous piece of junk in my chest?"
Harry thought he would swallow his own tongue. "Piece … of junk?!" he cried. "That thing is the most advanced reactor on the freaking planet! I had to invent a fucking element to make that thing! And you're calling it a piece of junk?!"
Natasha edged herself closer to the nearly apoplectic teen.
Tony simply continued staring at the new reactor. "It's green."
"So?!" Harry demanded.
"It's ugly," the blue-favoring Tony explained with a look of deepest disgust.
"It's keeping you alive!" Harry choked out.
"But it's ugly," Tony insisted again.
"I will kill you!" Harry threatened, Natasha physically holding him back as he subconsciously tried to launch himself at Tony. "I will kill you dead!"
"Please do not murder my patient," the frazzled-looking doctor requested. "And while you're at it, could you please stop giving him experimental treatments? I'm fairly certain Mr. Stark didn't call me all the way here just to stand by and do nothing."
"Oh, believe me, I am freaking done!" the irate teen promised, glaring murderously at the man still staring unhappily at the reactor that several years of Harry's life and a couple of near-death experiences had gone into developing.
"So, wait, this new reactor is going to keep Tony alive without killing him?" Pepper desperately tried to clarify.
"Yes," Harry answered, still glaring at Tony. "I had to invent a new freaking element to make it, but the reactor can now function without the palladium that was poisoning the bastard."
"Can I please get a piece of blue glass or something that I can tape over this? Because I just can't respect myself at all with a neon green light sticking out of my chest." Tony said to the room.
Harry charged up his repulsor with a whine.
"Oh, would you please stop it?" Pepper asked in exasperation, smacking Tony on the back of his head as he snickered at the look on Harry's face.
"Please do not strike my patient," the doctor politely ordered, recovering from her frazzledness remarkably well as she returned to her standard professionalism.
Tony smiled. "You know, Doctor Cho, I was already planning on paying you ridiculously well for taking care of me and Harry, but if you'd write me a doctor's note for that whole 'No hitting me' thing so I could show it to Pepper whenever she starts going off on me unfairly, I'd be willing to throw an even heftier bonus your way."
"Well, I do have a rather interesting project that could use funding …," the Korean doctor mused with a faint smile.
"Ooh, I like interesting projects," Tony remarked happily, sitting up and looking at her in interest.
Just then, however, the muted TV on the wall suddenly spat out a burst of static noise as some crappy daytime show was replaced with a blood-red screen featuring what was by now a well-loathed symbol.
"Okay, this guy has seriously got to go," Harry groaned, staring at the screen hatefully.
"Seconded and thirded," Tony eloquently agreed, a dark shadow falling over his eyes.
Once again, the screen ran through a riot of images of violence and destruction. But this time, these images showcased the Mandarin's attack on Hollywood, with screaming throngs of people fleeing from unrelenting metal juggernauts as the city around them crumbled under missile fire.
And front and center among all of these images, the destruction of the famed Hollywood sign played again and again, the entire mountain side erupting in a pillar of fire as the quietly planted explosives did their work to decimate a famed part of America's history.
An event Harry and Tony had failed to stop.
Finally, however, the nerve-wracking cascade of images stilled, settling on the robed figure of the Mandarin.
This time, though, he looked … disappointed.
For several moments, he simply sat there, staring into the camera with his dark eyes, seeming less like a terrorist conducting a nationwide campaign of carnage and destruction, and more like a father considering how best to punish his unruly child.
"America," he muttered, tapping a long-nailed finger on the wooden arm of his chair. "It would seem that I spoke too soon when I said that you knew who I am. In truth, you clearly have no idea." His frown brought to mind a father reaching for a belt as his guilty child looked on in fear. "Allow me to educate you," he both offered and threatened. "My name is the Mandarin. This you know. What you may not know is that my name carries with it a long and rich history. In ancient times, my name was a war mantle meaning 'Adviser to the King'." His eyes seemed to bore into those watching. "How does this relate to you? Well, this goes back to the question I posed to you last time. 'Who are you?'" His disappointed frown came back in full force. "And since you still can't seem to find an answer, once again, I will answer for you." He leaned forward. "America … is a king."
He gave a sagely nod. "Yes. As a nation, your precious America stands among the others in this world as a king, mighty and powerful. Its wealth and its strength are unparalleled … and yet its people are nothing more than sheep." His black eyes glittered with righteous fury. "You flock behind mascots that offer you protection, but deliver only ash and broken promises. You worship them as gods, when they stand as nothing more than men, broken and weak!" The Mandarin was all but snarling. "I gave your idols a chance to prove themselves, to show themselves worthy of your trust, and what did they do? Nothing!" The man's nostrils flared in his anger. "Nothing but show you who they truly were: hollow figures full of nothing but tricks and lies, worth even less than the scraps that went into crafting their precious suits. And so one of your great cities lies in ruins, bringing you one step closer to fulfilling your destiny of rising above these shackles of illusions and lies that bind you, letting you stand truly as a king among nations at long last." The Mandarin settled back in his ornate wooden throne. "But you are not quite there yet, are you? No. A part of you continues to hold out hope that your faith will be rewarded, and that your glorious defenders will rise to the occasion and protect you." His lips twisted in a vicious smile. "But don't worry. I will free you of these delusions soon enough. That is my purpose, after all. In the end, I am not a terrorist, no matter what others may claim me to be. I am the Mandarin, adviser to kings. And today, that means I am your teacher." His beastly black eyes stared at them hungrily. "And now, it's time for another lesson."
Once more, the screen burst into a chaotic avalanche of violent images, only to return to some mindless daytime program.
Silence reigned in the room as it did.
"He didn't tell us where he was attacking this time," Pepper pointed out quietly, her face pale.
"No. He didn't," Natasha agreed, her emotionless expression conveying immense focus as she stared at the screen.
However, no one else had the opportunity to speak before things went from bad to worse.
"Harry!" Jo's panicked voice suddenly sounded in Harry's ear.
"Jo? What's going on?" Harry asked in concern as everyone else looked at him in surprise. Tony stood as the only exception, holding his hand to his ear as Jarvis apparently contacted him as well.
"You have to get home, now!" she yelled. "The Mandarin's next target is the mansion! They're here! They're already attac–…!"
With terrifying suddenness, her voice suddenly cut out.
"Jo?!" he asked in alarm, tapping the earbud. "Jo!"
The sound of static was the only response.
Author's note: Woo! New chapter! Now, for those that are wondering, the warehouse lab commandeered by Harry and [NAME REDACTED] is what in the movies would become the New Avengers Facility that the team would live in following the events of Age of Ultron. Ant-Man established that it was originally one of Howard Stark's old storage facilities before this change.
As for vibranium being hidden there, Age of Ultron indicated that the vibranium sample used to make Cap's shield was acquired when Howard Stark traded with Wakanda for what he thought was their sole supply of vibranium. This further suggests that he owned the sample himself, and not that the US government owned it and simply contracted Howard Stark to figure out what could be done with it. And given that Howard Stark was one of the premier scientists of his age, if he had managed to get his hands on what he thought was the world's only supply of this extremely valuable and unique metal, then there is absolutely no way he would have taken the whole thing and turned it into a glorified trashcan lid. What he would have done was hold some of it back to study, while claiming to the world that he had used up all he had in crafting the legendary frisbee in order to protect himself from thieves, much like how Wakanda later claimed that Klaue had stolen all the vibranium they had after that vibranium was publicly revealed in Age of Ultron. So, while it may not be official MCU canon that Howard Stark kept a part of his vibranium supply to himself, I find it very realistic that he would have done so. In fact, I find it extremely unrealistic for him to have done otherwise.
Regarding vibranium's mystical properties, that's actually canon, according to the comics. Doomwar heavily featured this lesser known quality of vibranium, where it was also mentioned that one of vibranium's more unique traits is that it coexists in both the material and spiritual planes (which, in this story, I'm interpreting to mean the astral plane, or astral dimension, as it's referred to in Doctor Strange).
Beyond that, I hope you're enjoying the story, and what I'm doing with the Mandarin plot and character in particular. I know that a number of you apparently don't, but I was never thrilled with Iron Man 2 and 3, so I thought I'd try my hand at a more original storyline and character interpretation. I know it's not perfect, but I figured you'd enjoy something new. So let me know what you think, and I'll see you next time :)