Edited by the mighty pazed!
Once again I own nothing! Just playing with someone else's toys!
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Chapter 25
"Hey Muscles!" Tony said, as they passed through the area he had dubbed the lab and began to work on his suit. "Can I borrow you for a minute?" he asked as he worked.
She looked at Harry for a moment, then headed Tony's way. "Sure, I'll come find you when we're done, Harry."
He nodded and kept going towards the guest area.
"You need help moving something Tony?" she asked, a smile on her face.
"Hmmm…" he said looking up from whatever was on the desk, the jeweler's loupe making his eye look comically large. "No." He shook his head. "I think I figured something out… about why your people say tec and magic don't work together for long." He flipped the visual magnification loupe up as he stood, offering his place to her. "Take a look and tell me what you see."
She looked confused as she sat, and began adjusting the loupe. "I thought you were working on your suit… why are you looking at one of my gauntlets?" she asked.
"I noticed something last night when I was going over my systems…" he said, jabbing his thumb towards the suit in question. "Besides, the new parts won't be here till early tomorrow morning and I needed something to keep my mind occupied… good thing too…"
She nodded. "Alright, what am I looking at?" she asked looking through the loupe.
The older man chuckled. "Nope, you tell me. You need to learn these systems, so you can do your own maintenance."
She grumbled but settled in and began looking around. "Then why is it just me, Harry-"
"Harry's gauntlets are in perfect working order, I already checked," he said quickly. "Now, what do you see?"
She sighed. "The actuators, the ones that control my wand's movement…" She paused, prodding at them, causing them to move slightly, but they didn't extend easily, or completely as they should have during a test phase. "They're sticking…" She looked up at the man confused. "I don't understand… why?"
"I noticed the same thing last night on my suit," he said, moving over to the next table and retrieving her backup gauntlet. He opened the same panel and laid it next to the first one. "You tell me the difference between the two."
She nodded and shifted the loupe to look at both. "They both look the same…" she said softly, then activated the same sequence. The one on the left moved slightly but the one on the right cycled through. She did it a second time. "I don't know Tony… they look the same."
He smiled. "They do don't they…" He reached up and turned on a light above the loupe, the gauntlet on the left shone a pale blue, while the one on the right shone green in some areas.
She looked through the loupe again, comparing the areas she saw the green in on the second glove; suddenly it dawned on her. "Lubricant… The black light causes the lubricant to glow green!"
Tony smiled. "Knew you'd get it!"
She looked up at the older man. "But I don't understand… I didn't…" Her eyes grew wide, as her head swiveled to Tony's armour. "The 'Scourgify!' I used it to clean us both up last night after being in the lake! And… and Harry didn't need to! It cleans all of the surfaces! It removed all of the lubricant!"
"My thoughts exactly!" he said, sliding his chair next to hers and retrieving a small bottle with a long wire tip. "A mono-molecular lubricant, my own formula," he said, dabbing it in several areas, and cycling the armature through its paces. "That ought to do it!"
"So I guess cleaning up the muck on us via magic was a bad thing?" she asked, standing up.
"Evidently…" Tony said, moving to run the test sequences again and watching the armatures move. "Though it does make me wonder about some other things. I may want to do some tests later when we are back at the Tower, till then no more cleaning with magic… capiche?"
She nodded. "Yeah… no problem, I'll tell Harry too."
"So give, Harry," said Clint. "How are we doing this?"
Harry chuckled. "Alright, as far as I know the Ministry is under those buildings," he said, pointing across the road, "and there are a couple of ways we could go in. One is down the elevator, located in that phone booth." He pointed to a red booth almost hidden from view down the street. "Or… we could go through the public loo on the corner… but I doubt any of you want to stand in what looks like a broken stool."
Hermione and he chuckled again as their friends' faces twisted in disgust, "Hey, we had to do it the last time we broke in, trust me it was worse than it sounds," she said.
"Last time?" Motormouth asked. "How many times have you broken into this place?"
Harry smiled. "This will be the third."
She chuckled. "And they haven't improved their security? What kind of idiots are they?"
It was Hermione that answered. "They're Purebloods, they think they can do no wrong and anything that is new is useless."
She looked at the green Giantess in shock. "Seriously?"
Hermione nodded as she flipped open one of her belt pouches, "But this time I think we'll use this," she said, pulling out a length of rope. "Port-key, we took it off Lucius. It will take us inside the Ministry atrium according to him. Everybody grab hold and get ready… Pureblood Rule," she whispered.
With a feeling like they were hooked behind the navel the group disappeared from the roof.
An unpleasant looking woman in a shocking pink cardigan made her way through the hallways of the ministry.
"You! There! Has there been any word from our Lord? Or news of Hogwarts?" she yelled as she approached the desk in the middle of the atrium.
"No Madam Umbridge," answered the young man. "A team is preparing to port-key there as soon as they are ready."
She grumped. "Lord Voldemort is most likely in residence at Hogwarts, showing the children what happens when one defies the natural order of things!" she said with a vicious smile. "Inform me the moment that they return with any information, so I may inform the others!"
"As you say Madam," the guard replied.
Just as she slammed the door and began her descent, she felt the lift shake violently, knocking her off of her feet.
"What in Merlin's name?" she cried, as she fell. The lift shook again, followed by shouts and the sounds of spell fire from the atrium level that was now just above her level. "Someone dares attack the Minisry!" she growled as she attempted to stand.
Steadying herself against the wall, she stabbed at the button on the wall to no effect. She screamed in impotent rage as the world around her shook again, then in terror as the lift dropped a dozen feet, snapping to a stop suddenly, crashing her to the floor.
Darkness threatened to claim her at that point but was prevented by a sudden blast of pain from her now badly broken ankle, which now sat at an odd angle to the rest of her leg and was beginning to bleed profusely from where the bone had broken the surface of her skin, she noted in an oddly calm manner.
Struggling to sit up, she grasped for her wand, kept, as was her practice, in the special pocket of her pink jacket, only to draw half of the now broken implement out.
She stared at the sight as if she were somehow betrayed by the thing. Glancing down, searching for the other half of her broken wand, she watched as a stain of the darkest red bled into her favorite color from somewhere in her lower stomach,
Within moments darkness claimed her, and death soon after, as Delores Umbridge became one of the first casualties of the latest battle for the Ministry building.
Upon landing in the atrium, the now larger group of Avengers immediately burst into movement, scattering sometimes in pairs and sometimes alone as they did so.
Tony's boot jets roared as he lifted into the air and soared into the vaulted airspace, watching his HUD for threats. "JARVIS! I want you to keep a watch on the balconies, I'll handle the first floor," he said as he cycled and fired his repulsors at his first target, obliterating the guard desk and sending the man stationed there spinning into the air.
"As you wish sir," said the voice of his AI. "Tracking two guards on their way to the gallery, eta ten seconds."
"What say we go greet them in person," Tony replied, wheeling in the air and speeding away on pillars of fire.
Hermione bounded across the large room past the golden statues of magical beings on their knees before Voldemort. She came to a stop in front of the bank of lifts, smashing a fist into the doors of the first, knocking them loose into the open space below and grasping the lift cables beyond, a quick pull ripping them apart.
She watched as the lift fell a dozen or so feet before the lift came to a halt due to the emergency brake, then moved on.
The Black Knight led the way towards the stairs to the left, shield at the ready and sword held loosely in his right hand. Behind him Hawkeye scanned their path for threats as the Black Widow guarded their rear.
"Contact," Clint said, as he loosed an arrow down a side hallway sending it skipping off a wall at an odd angle allowing it to deliver its explosive charge just around the corner, tossing two figures into full view.
"Got'em!" said the Widow, as she snapped off two quick shots from her pistols causing the bodies to jerk.
They moved on towards the stairs.
Cap, Harry and Harley ran a different direction at the stairs, down a hidden hallway towards the Department of Mysteries.
Moments later they burst through a door only for it to slam behind them, leaving them surrounded by a dozen floating doors.
"I hate this room!" Harry muttered, as they began to rotate.
As they stopped, Cap asked, "Which one?"
Harry shrugged. "Pick one," he said, as he pulled a small tube out of a pocket.
Motormouth shrugged and grabbed hold of one of the door handles, jerking it open as she did, revealing a vast starfield pushing out into infinity. Air began to rush past them into the room, Harry quickly slammed it shut and marked a big x on the door with the tube of lipstick he had borrowed from Natasha.
"Not that one then," he said in a flat tone.
Tony circled the atrium, firing at each of the hallways and balconies in turn, forcing the forces gathered there to fall back out of sight. "JARVIS, how are we doing?"
"The new Arc Reactor is working perfectly sir, as are the repairs," the AI responded. "We are still carrying a full brace of missiles to be used if necessary-"
Tony fired at one of the upper level balconies. "I'd rather not use them, we don't know how good the fire suppression is in here… I do wish the big guy was here… Strange how much comfort there is in having an unstoppable rage monster on your side."
"You just like the idea of me breaking their building Tony," said a voice over his helmet com. "It's just too dangerous to have the Hulk smashing his way through a building under London… I broke Harlem already, I don't want to send half of London into the Thames River or something."
"But they could really use your help with decorating…" Tony said over the whine of another repulsor blast. "This place is awful… it's so dark and did you get a load of that statue? According to Jarvis it's solid gold! Maybe I can buy it from them when this is over…" he muttered. "Melt it down and use it in something useful, like microchips… or cufflinks."
Once they were in the staircase the Black Knight turned to the others. "Okay, how do we do this?" he said, pointing at the spiral staircase. "With me leading floor by floor clearing them as we go?"
Hawkeye chuckled as they were joined by Hermione. "You take the express," he said, thumbing towards the giant green skinned girl. "We'll be right behind you."
"Express?" Dean said, his eyes growing wide as the green skinned goliath picked him up easily, settling him under her left arm, kicked the stone railing away and stepped into the void at the center of the stair case.
Clint smiled at the little girl like scream that ripped from the knight's throat. "Think we should have told him before now?" he asked, as he drew an arrow and fired it into the ceiling at the center of the staircase.
"He didn't ask," she said with a smirk, as she grabbed the line trailing from the arrow. "I'll go first, you take too long," she teased as she looped the rope around one leg in an odd pattern, and dove headfirst down the void, rope still in one hand and pistol in the other.
Clint shook his head as he stepped up and attached a metallic clip and looped it through his harness. "Crazy adrenalin junkies," he chuckled as he followed.