Chapter 4: Iron Man

Since Laurel had tentatively come to terms with the complete lack of magical communities, she decided that she had better learn about technology so that she could blend in. She had no intention of abandoning magic. It was the only edge she had, and so she needed to learn how to avoid detection, and quickly. She didn't relish the idea of accidentally exposing herself and becoming some government's science project. So she decided to start by entering an electronics store and buying a computer. The teenaged salesman was more than willing to advise her and help set it up, and so she exited the store with a computer and a couple of books on how to operate it.

She found it surprisingly easy to use, but it bothered her that she didn't understand how it was able to do so many remarkable things. And when she realized that she could type any obscure and random question into her computer's search engine and generally get an answer, she decided that if there was magic in this world, that this was it—so much knowledge, so much potential at her fingertips. Machines were amazing. When she discovered Wikipedia, she didn't sleep for nearly two nights.

Laurel had all kinds of questions. She wanted to know about muggle weapons, about technology. Could satellites see her? How did police track people? What kinds of diseases were causing trouble? What was the current political situation? She had been so well-insulated in the wizarding world that she had never bothered to find out the important details of her previous dimension. She cursed her former lack of curiosity, because now it was very difficult for her to make comparisons. But she set out to make up for lost time, striving to learn what the muggles knew. She had set up camp in a hotel in an upscale area of London, a long tube ride from the regions that had been magical and familiar to her in another life.

Laurel knew in her heart that the centaur had told the truth about there being no more magical people, but couldn't bring herself to accept his word for it without more evidence. Because if it was true, then it meant that she was thoroughly alone, cursed to live a trillion lifetimes among ephemeral nonmagicals. She pondered over what the centaur had meant when he had said it was up to her whether she spent eternity alone. Had he been conveying some sort of trite warning about closing herself off from other people? Centaurs were rarely so stale in their speech. It was more likely that he had meant something along the lines of a way to escape her immortality or share it with another. It really was too bad that centaurs only ever said exactly what they intended to say. Once they had said their piece, nothing in heaven or earth could make them utter a word more.

In her quest for other magicals, she took side trips. First she tried to find the Burrow, Malfoy Manor, and every other nearby wizarding location she could think of, and when that failed as expected, she branched out to the continent. She never discovered anything. No Beaubatons, no ICW headquarters….It appeared that she truly was the only magical alive—finally the 'freak' her relatives had called her all along.

Just when she thought she was finally getting the hang of this new world, and had begun to tell herself that the benefits of anonymity and no Ministry of Magic outweighed her sense of alienation, she saw something on the news that made her reevaluate everything.

Laurel had been sitting in a café near Hampton Court Bridge, idly watching through the plate-glass window as pedestrians rushed about making last-minute Valentine's Day purchases. A flash of red and gold on the large television in the corner stole her attention…and kept it.

She watched as a robot executed complicated aerial maneuvers at unbelievably high speeds. Small aircraft, which the newscaster proclaimed belonged to some terrorist group or other in North Africa, zipped around him, firing heavy guns and the occasional missile. The machine fought back, firing blasts of energy from the palms of his hands, and he had a sort of blue crystal embedded in his chest piece. Laurel was riveted. Could this be real? She had thought scenes like this still belonged to the realm of science fiction.

She watched the battle take place, silently cheering on the expert flyer in Gryffindor colors. After it took out the last of the planes, the android landed and was suddenly swamped by reporters. The faceplate rose and…the two most alive, unfathomable dark eyes she had ever seen stared out at her, sparkling with humor and intelligence. She sat back with a soft exhalation. So a man in armor, and not a machine then. Laurel had thought she had caught up with the current technology, but this was something set apart. She had never read about anything remotely as advanced.

Laurel listened keenly as the reporter gave a little background on "Iron Man," the hero of the day, and Tony Stark, his mechanical genius alter ego, while she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that there were mechanical suits that could fly. Who was this one man that kept countries from war? What madness was this?

Her ears perked up as the man in the suit raised his hand to make himself heard. In an amused, carrying voice, he called, "I have a message. World: you're welcome. You know I aim to please, and I know that most of you aren't as greedy and ungrateful as Senator Stern. He thinks the Iron Man suit should belong to the public, and by the 'public', he means that he and his cronies in Washington want a new toy to play with. Well, I have to say that he's showing a lot of bravado for a senator of the state with the second highest crime rate in the nation."

There were ripples of laughter and outrage at his words, and he continued, "You tell me, people. Who do you think is more likely to keep you safe: the man that actually invented the technology and has been successfully protecting the world as Iron Man from every threat that's raised its head since his inception…or a bureaucratic buttinski that owns even more Hammer Tech stock than he does twinkies….a number which, I've been told, is considerable.

"Now I'm speaking directly to you, senator. Perhaps it's not too late for you to run out and buy a gift for your wife, if you can spare a little time from your obsessive plans to take from me and the American people. Your undivided attention is flattering, but I'm just not attracted to you!"

Snickers and cheers erupted at this pronouncement. He had gathered quite a crowd, and had to wait to speak again until after they had settled down. He was unapologetically taking advantage of his moment of public goodwill in order to grandstand, and Laurel fleetingly wished that she had learned to manage the press half as well as he seemed to be doing.

"If any terrorists are listening, well, it looks like you guys got your asses handed to you once again. The next time you or any of your fellow villains get it into your heads to start something, I'd consider it a personal favor if you came at me with something a little more challenging than scrap 1960s Soviet tech. Pathetic!"

Laurel grinned in spite of herself. She liked this man. He was obviously arrogant, and probably self-destructive, but he had a hell of a lot of courage. Her eyes roamed over his face, taking in his dark hair, the flush of victory on his tanned cheeks and the smirk that he made no attempt to hide. His full lips were accentuated by a thin mustache and an artfully styled goatee.

She was shaken from her appraisal when he began speaking to the reporters again. "Sorry, guys. No Q and A today," he announced. "Maybe we can work something out a little closer to the Stark Expo….You heard it, ladies and gentlemen! This April, New York City will be the place to be. Come to the Stark Expo. Iron Man will be there, and scientific breakthroughs clearly beyond the wildest dreams of the terrorists whose stylings we all witnessed earlier. Stark Expo, people!"

Then he dropped his visor, and flew off into the sunset…at supersonic speeds. That was the beginning of Laurel's preoccupation with Tony Stark. She lapsed into thought, striving to come to terms with what she had just seen. Could he be a wizard that had managed to blend in with the muggles through showmanship and misdirection? Surely he could not do the things he did without magic. Perhaps the glowing blue device in his chest was merely a prop. She decided to go home and do a little research on her computer.

Perched cross-legged on the bed in her hotel room that night, she read all about the beguiling superhero, about his capture by terrorists last year, probable torture, and daring escape in a homemade, prototype Iron Man suit. She found articles rife with rumors of how he had (allegedly) slaughtered every single terrorist in the Ten Rings, the group that had taken him. There was also lots of speculation that the hit had been ordered by Obadiah Stane, his mentor and surrogate father. She had curled her lip in fury at that. It seemed that she and this Stark had more in common than she had anticipated.

Much had also been written about how his technology was changing the world. Apparently, before his kidnapping, his company had been the world's greatest weapons manufacturer, but afterwards, he had decided to go another direction and look into clean energy. It seemed that the military and his board of directors weren't exactly thrilled he had shut off the tap. That was probably the impetus behind this movement headed by Sen. Stern, who clamored for the Iron Man suit to be taken away, preaching that it was too much power for one man to have. "More like, governments can't bear the thought of power not their own," she muttered darkly, recalling the escalation of the threatening tone in the Ministry's 'requests' for her sworn wizard's oath of cooperation with them. Identifying even more with the American inventor in that moment, she felt vindictively glad that he had publicly told the politicians to shove it. She had often dreamed of the chance to do the same.

Apparently, Tony Stark had been a notorious playboy before his capture, but since then, most articles speculated that he and his personal assistant, Pepper Potts, were in an exclusive relationship, although it seemed neither had confirmed it to the press. She scowled in irritation as she caught herself reading a gossipy exposé on his personal life. She knew from experience how libelous and inaccurate those usually turned out to be.

The more research she did, the less water her wizard theory seemed to hold. Apparently his father, Howard Stark, had been a genius inventor, and Tony himself was a prodigy, with a very well-documented history. Magic was a pretty big secret, and it would be a very hard one for a child celebrity to hide. It appeared much more likely that he was a technological innovator decades ahead of his time.

She had stubbornly refused to abandon her theory as long as there was a shred of doubt, but the story of the creation of his arc reactor placed the last proverbial nail in its coffin. Apparently, he had only had the glowing disc in his chest since his captivity. It was an energy source he had invented. He had been quite tight-lipped on the subject to the interviewer, but had mentioned something about it replacing a car battery. Laurel shivered. She didn't know what that meant, but it greatly unsettled her, and the image of a gaping, ribless hole in the center of his chest, with the leads of a car battery slithering out of him like chains or tentacles, haunted her long after she fell asleep that night.

The next morning, the young witch woke feeling more hope and resolve than she had experienced since she'd arrived in this new world several weeks before. She had decided to pay a visit to this Tony Stark in…Malibu, California. Even if he wasn't a wizard, he was changing the world with his technology. She only intended to scope him out and make sure he and his inventions weren't a threat to her, but a part of her wondered idly if he could be a potential ally. With her magic and his genius, who knew what they could achieve?

She shook off the idea, sternly telling herself that she couldn't let her loneliness start making decisions for her. As much as she had hated the Ministry of Magic, they might have been onto something with the Statute of Secrecy. She would have to be mad to expose her magic to muggles. That way led to slavery, labs, and possibly vivisection. Magic was both her greatest asset and greatest liability. The secret weapon can't be coveted, or suspected by enemies until it's too late.

That afternoon, Laurel checked out of her hotel and considered whether she ought to fly on a muggle plane or attempt an apparition. It was a ridiculously long distance, and she had never heard of anyone attempting it, but had honestly never felt more exhausted after jumping five hundred miles than she had after one foot. She suspected that distance had nothing to do with the equation, since one was basically joining two points of unrelated space, but she had never read any research on it one way or the other. After studying the layout and images of Malibu near the environs of Stark's mansion on something called Google Earth, she felt confident enough to give it a try. She hoped that she didn't land somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but if she did, well, that's what brooms—and being a raven animagus-are for.

Her legs trembled slightly as she settled onto solid ground. The balmy weather surprised her, although she supposed it shouldn't have. She would have to find a place to stay and change clothes immediately. The British witch stepped out from behind the stand of palms shielding her from view of a gorgeous skyscraper, and surveyed the shoreline for lodgings that appealed to her. She settled on a particularly luxurious building a couple hundred yards away and started walking. Laurel decided that she might as well enjoy herself. She had had far too little opportunity to do so in the past, and the gold she had invested was reaping abundant returns (considerably more than a Gringotts' galleon-to-pound conversion, she thought with a snicker).

As she entered the lobby, she felt pale and out of her element surrounded by so much beautifully bronzed skin. She thought that it would be nice to swim in the ocean, but the water was far too cold. She could use warming charms, but being the lone winter swimmer would certainly not help her remain anonymous. She could make herself invisible….Laurel shook off the idea. She hadn't come here to swim. Something far more interesting than water had led her here.

After grabbing some dinner at a nearby crab shack, Laurel concentrated on being invisible and apparated across the road from Tony Stark's…palace. The mansion was situated on a cliff, with the sea visible from three directions. It was modernism at its most graceful and revolutionary. Parts of his house reminded her of a starship, gleaming white, with vast, rippling expanses of glass. Expecting that he had some sort of state-of-the-art perimeter alarm, Laurel strained her eyes to look through the windows. She could see into a large sitting room, and promptly apparated into the middle of it. The curving walls and clean, bright surfaces reflecting the setting sun struck her as the antithesis of Grimmauld Place, which had reeked of madness and stagnation. Stark's house broadcasted genius and progress.

Stealthily, Laurel began to explore. Few of the rooms seemed lived in, but all exhibited the same sleek, deceptively Spartan style as the living room. She wandered through many areas, and only found the master bedroom because of the clothes on the floor. Stark displayed no photographs, and, like the rest of the house, his room bore no personal touches. It seemed that a professional decorator had had her way with the place, and the owner had never seen fit to change anything.

Laurel had begun to think that no one was home, when she heard murmuring voices coming from the stairs. Curious, she descended to a vast laboratory, the most state-of-the-art workshop she had ever seen. Iron Man suits lined the walls, and the many machines and materials littering the room must have cost in the millions. His lab looked like it could house a small country's space program. Tony Stark leaned over a table, casually moving data on touch screens on six different monitors, and bantering with a polite, disembodied male voice. "Sir, this configuration appears too unstable," the voice was saying.

"Don't worry, Jarvis. I'm not finished," Stark rejoined cheerfully, and Laurel settled into a nearby corner to watch him work.

She had cast a magical detection spell before she descended the stairs, and received no readings, which had settled his magical status rather definitively. Although, as she watched his brilliant mind at work, it was impossible for her to feel disappointed. It seemed to her that, although she possessed some magic, he was magic. His mind was magical. Just as she was now the only one of her kind, so was he absolutely unique. As she viewed him do things with metal and fire that she could never have even imagined, she felt as awed as if she had stumbled into Mt. Etna and found the god Hephaestus himself at his forge.

Stark…wasn't what she had expected. In company, he was brilliant and flashy and sharp suits and everything one would expect. But he only adopted that persona a fraction of the time. He spent the vast majority of his days working on his inventions in a near-Bacchic frenzy. She couldn't help but admire him. He was the Michelangelo of technology. His drive and unparalleled mind fascinated her. She saw that he had no interest in management and public relations. The beautiful, red-haired woman in the perfectly tailored clothes was forever having to track him down to sign documents related to his company, which he always seemed reluctant to make time to do.

His genius didn't really surprise her. Impress her? Sure. But what she hadn't expected was to find someone so…broken. He rarely slept more than a few hours, and she caught herself coming by in the evenings to watch him work more and more often. She should have realized then that she was already too entangled with his life, even if it was only by subconsciously trying to soothe his loneliness. She had long since learned that he had no magic, and wasn't actively working on any projects that could harm her. In fact, more than half the time she couldn't begin to fathom what he was doing. She had no logical reason to keep coming back, but was drawn inexorably to his lab every evening, and had given up fighting the pull.

His presence eased her unacknowledged emptiness. She always bought a book, but rarely concentrated on its pages. He made for far more interesting material. It pleased her to see the spark of creativity in his vibrant brown eyes, and to witness his deft fingers seamlessly dart between touchscreen and blowtorch. Watching him chat with his robots, holding court in his small kingdom filled with marvels he had crafted with his own hands, gave her some measure of contentment. Tony Stark was very vital, his force of personality unmatched. And he was good—genuinely kind, generous, and oddly noble.

Laurel saw how guarded he was beneath his brash façade. His humor and devastating wit were formidable weapons indeed. But when he was alone (which was surprisingly often), his expressive dark eyes frequently took on a haunted cast. She sometimes produced small magical distractions to divert him from his black moods, just subtle things, like causing a tool to topple off the workbench. He was far too sharp for her to dare anything more obvious.

When he worked in the lab, he frequently wore jeans with wife-beaters or t-shirts, and her spell-corrected eyes spotted a few faint scars lightening the olive skin in places on his arms. His clever, long-fingered hands sported a few burns, which didn't appear to deter him, because nearly every day she dropped in, she saw him working with either lasers or hot metal. But then, Laurel supposed, there probably wasn't much that could stop a man like him. Stark's sturdy, compact body moved with grace and power. A man that could endure months of torture and then have the sheer audacity to use his captors' tools and materials for his own ends—while strapped to a car battery and filled with shrapnel-must have an absolutely unshakable will. His character, combined with his genius intellect and silver tongue, made him the proverbial irresistible force. She laughed fondly as it occurred to her that the terrorists had never really had a chance.

He received no visitors besides Pepper Potts, and Laurel had to roll her eyes at the other woman, who merely performed her tasks and then smartly departed. It seemed so obvious to Laurel that Stark wanted her to stick around and spend time with him. He went to great lengths to entice her, teasing and trying to distract her from her business by showing her his creations, but she never seemed more than politely interested. They talked past each other. How could Laurel see his desperation and yet a woman he had known for years be so oblivious?

After a few weeks of observing him, she chanced upon Pepper granting him a cold and perfunctory goodbye kiss, and realized that the two had what must be classified as a 'romantic relationship'. But by that point, she had seen enough of the couple's interactions to grasp that Tony was a bit of an afterthought with Pepper. Job and company would always come first, and this knowledge irritated the witch, causing her to feel a little angry and hurt on Stark's behalf. It was beginning to seem like she had more in common with the entrepreneur than she had expected. No one ever put his needs first either. And that might have been when her Gryffindor protective instincts surged up in his defense.

It surprised her when she realized that she was no longer content merely to observe him.