Recommendation: Story recommendation for this chapter is "Broken Chains" by Darth Marrs. HP/Star Wars crossover. Harry falls through the Veil of Death during the battle in the Department of Mysteries. Soon he returns... but he isn't Harry anymore. He's become something much more and much worse. Can Hermione save him and, by extension, save everyone else from him? A H/Hr story, obviously, and one of the better HP/SW crossovers — in part because it raises a number of interesting ethical questions.

Chapter 5 - Crash and Burn

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. May 18, 2009.

Detective Wallace carefully walked around the spilled soda, looking for anything unusual or out of place. Well, he thought, aside from a Brazilian guarana soda in the middle of Wisconsin... and an old guy who first looks like he's having a heart attack, then starts turning green.

It was sheer luck that he had been driving through the area when the call went out on the police radio. The uniforms who arrived just after the ambulance were only there as a matter of routine, but as soon as the old guy started showing bizarre symptoms, they were smart enough to put out a call for backup. So Wallace, who was already in the area, came in to see if he could help.

Needless to say, he was shocked by what he found and immediately had the house sealed. Despite how hard the old guy had struggled, the paramedics managed to get him into the ambulance and take him to the hospital, and the two uniforms were currently canvassing the neighborhood to see what they could discover.

This left Wallace to work the crime scene alone — and while no crime had been declared, he knew in his gut that a crime had been committed. Strictly speaking it wasn't against regs for him to not have anyone else here, but it was frowned upon. Regardless, he wanted to go over the scene while it was still fresh. It was too weird to justify leaving alone for any length of time.

He heard the front door of the house open, and when he turned, one of the uniforms was walking into the kitchen. "Detective," he said, "me and my partner have to go. That ambulance was involved in a major collision a few blocks from here and they need help. The call just came through on our radios."

"Alright," Wallace replied. "Go do what you can, but when you're done I'd like you back here to continue canvassing the neighbors."

The man nodded and was gone, leaving Wallace alone.

Kneeling down by the refrigerator, he looked at the spilled soda. Then he looked into the refrigerator at the sodas still sitting there, all waiting to be bagged for evidence. He couldn't see any difference between them — not that he would know what to look for. He'd never seen guarana soda before and had no idea what it was supposed to look like.

Reaching out, he dipped his forefinger carefully into the spilled soda and then lifted it up to his face, looking closely at the greenish-yellow droplet that was clinging to his fingertip. In a moment of curiosity, or perhaps insanity, he stuck out his tongue and moved his finger towards...

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

Wallace jumped at the voice that came from behind him, almost falling forward into the evidence.

"What the hell?" he cried out. "Who the hell are you? I didn't even hear you come in, but this is a crime scene and you're going to have to leave."

The unidentified man wearing a dark suit and dark sunglasses pulled out a plastic ID case and displayed it for the detective, revealing that he worked for the Department of Defense.

"Yeah, so?" Wallace asked. "What's the DoD got to do with this? And what authority do you think you have over a local crime scene?"

"Maybe you should go out to your car, Detective Wallace, and make a call to your commander. He's already been informed that we're taking over the scene and that your services will no longer be needed."

Wallace wanted to refuse, but something told him that that would be a bad idea. And it's not like calling this in would have been a problem; if it turned out to be a lie, he'd use the call to bring in backup.

"Alright, I'll do that," he said. "But don't touch anything in here if you know what's good for you."

After he left, the man from the DoD pulled out a small phone and hit a single button before lifting it to his ear. "Yes," he spoke into the phone, "I'm at the scene now. A team is coming to secure it, and local police are being sent away." After a moment, he continued. "Unfortunately, the subject had an extreme reaction. There were injuries, but he was tranquilized and taken into custody. Yes... I'll wait here and supervise the cleanup team."

After ending the call, he simply returned to the front door to wait.

Monaco, May 24, 2009.

Hermione Granger had grown up with reasonably well-to-do parents. Dentists in Britain didn't make enough money to be considered exceptionally wealthy, but they also didn't go wanting, and with two such incomes in the house, they could regularly splurge on fancy dinners and nice vacations. At no point, however, did her parents ever take her anywhere remotely as fancy or expensive as the sorts of places she got to visit when accompanying Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.

And the owners' dining room at the Monaco Grand Prix was perhaps the fanciest and most elegant of everything she'd experience so far. Here she was, sipping champagne while hobnobbing with some of the wealthiest people in Europe. She'd have probably become lightheaded at it all if she weren't also desperately worried about so many things: Tony's health, trying to find a cure for Tony, Iris' work, Iris spying on Tony, possible terrorist threats against Tony...

"Penny for your thoughts," Pepper said to her, startling her out of her reverie. Her eyes widened momentarily as she tried to come up with a suitable lie that gave no hint of what she had been thinking about.

Quickly settling on something safe and believable, she said, "Just how elegant and fancy all of this is — it's quite a long way from the sorts of places that a daughter of dentists is used to going to."

Pepper nodded, apparently not noticing Hermione's brief moment of alarm. "I know exactly how you feel. I started out as an anonymous member of the secretarial pool in Stark Industries. It was only after I caught an accounting error that Tony made that I got noticed and was moved up — all the way up, right to his office, in fact. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile where I am and where I came from. Sometimes, I wonder if one or the other is a dream."

"That's exactly it," Hermione said fervently. "That's exactly how I feel sometimes."

"When I start feeling like that, it seems like it would be easy for me to start losing my way," Pepper said. "You can't get too caught up in the differences between your past and your present. Life is full of changes, sometimes dramatic ones. You should try to just accept them so you can focus on dealing with your life as it is today rather than getting caught up in memories or regrets about the past."

It was at that moment that Iris Potter — simultaneously Hermione's biggest reminder of her past and biggest issue of her present — chose to walk up to their table. After seeing Iris, Hermione turned to Pepper and deadpanned, "Yeah, sometimes that's easier said than done." Hermione had picked a moment when Pepper was trying to drink to say that, causing the unsuspecting woman to choke slightly on $300-per-bottle champagne.

Iris smirked as she took a place behind and between the two women's chairs and gave a slight wave of her hand. "Your timing is getting better, Hermione," she said.

Pepper's eyes widened as Hermione tried to protest her innocence. "How can you accuse me of doing that on purpose!"

"Because I know you, that's how. You never objected to pranks as much as you pretended. You just preferred more subtle ones than what the twins tended to go for." Hermione huffed and put on a show of indignation, but neither Pepper nor Iris were buying it.

"Where's Tony?" Pepper asked abruptly and started looking around, only just then realizing that he wasn't with Iris as she expected him to be. "Shouldn't you be, you know, guarding him?"

Across the room, a man who appeared to be plainclothes security spoke into a microphone hidden in the wrist of his jacket. The bug he had placed at the table where Potts and the other woman were sitting had squealed then gone out just after the auburn-haired woman had arrived. The first woman had been identified as a researcher for Stark Industries, and the second was believed to be a new personal secretary for Tony Stark.

The malfunction of the listening device was not trivial, but it also wasn't his top priority. Most important was the fact that Tony Stark was not where he was expected to be, with one or more of the three women. He needed to get that information to his superiors so they could better track Stark's movements, enabling them to help the Russian meet Stark in the most opportune setting.

"Tony went to the bathroom; said he wanted to be alone," Iris answered. "I didn't want to follow him in there, and while I am tasked with protecting him, he doesn't need monitoring absolutely every second." Iris and Hermione shared a look, both knowing why Tony might want to be alone, but unable to tell Pepper because it was Tony's secret to reveal.

Iris' words didn't appear to satisfy Pepper, who kept looking around, hoping to see Tony and getting more worried by the minute when she didn't. "Wasn't he talking to Justin Hammer a few minutes ago?" Pepper asked, wondering if she should try to find Tony by retracing his route.

"Yes, unfortunately," Iris said, clearly still annoyed by the other man.

"Didn't like being that close to him?" Hermione asked.

"Not in the least," Iris answered. "There aren't many people that I want to punch just seconds after meeting them, but he's one of them, and that's on top of the awful impression I got from him when I watched him and Tony at that Senate hearing."

"I only saw snippets on the news," Pepper said, momentarily distracted from her search. "Was it as bad as it seemed?"

Iris rolled her eyes as she answered, "Worse, probably. Tony's egotism is somewhat forgivable because it's so often justified; if anything, it's the fact that it's justified that's annoying, not the egotism itself. Hammer, though, is probably just as egotistical, but with him it's not even a fraction as warranted. And he's worse in person — more like a used car salesman than a CEO."

"You won't get any arguments from me," Hermione noted. "The things his company produces are awful — I can't believe that anyone buys them."

As it happened, Tony was indeed in a nearby bathroom, testing his blood toxicity levels... and contemplating his own mortality.

Tony Stark was dying and he knew it. He also knew that unless he or Hermione Granger came up with a near-miraculous cure soon, he wasn't going to survive. The irony of the fact that what was killing him was also what saved him a few months earlier was not lost on him.

"What are you doing with your life?" he asked his reflection. "Are you living right now, or are you merely existing? Just barely hanging on? Are you enjoying what time you might have left, or are you moping in bathrooms, feeling sorry for yourself?"

After taking a moment to look around, he said, "Well, I guess we all know the answer to that... so the real question now is, what am I going to do about it?"

After a moment's thought, he had what struck him as a fantastic idea. Not many would have agreed with that assessment, but Tony Stark had never been the sort of person who let the opinions of others interfere with his plans.

"Iris?" Hermione said in a slow, neutral voice. "That thing you said about Tony not needing to be monitored every second?"

"Yes?" Iris asked, wondering where this was going.

"You were wrong." Hermione said flatly as she pointed to the nearest TV screen. Both Iris and Pepper swiveled their heads to look and were accosted with images of Tony Stark kicking out the driver of the Stark Industries Formula 1 racing car and taking over himself. Pepper shot Iris an accusing look, and Iris herself simply stood there, gobsmacked. She really had thought that he could be trusted to be left alone in a bathroom for a few minutes.

She wouldn't be making that mistake again.

On the other side of the room, the security man also looked at the TV monitor and quickly began to speak into his microphone, all thoughts about the three women temporarily banished from his mind.

While Pepper fretted over Tony's actions on the screen, Iris and Hermione shared another meaningful look. Regardless of how impulsive and immature Tony could be at times, this was a bit out of character even for him — unless, of course, one knew about his medical issues. Then behavior like this started to make all too much sense...

Sitting in his company's Formula 1 racing car, waiting for the Monaco Grand Prix to start, Tony Stark reflected on how his past choices had affected his life and how much larger such choices seem to loom when one's life starts coming to an end.

I've made a lot of huge decisions without a second thought, not realizing how they would change my life, he mused, but now even the little choices are starting to seem huge. No time for all that now, though. Whatever time I've got left, I need to live large — it's not like I'm ever going to get another chance to do things like this!

When the green light came up, Tony jammed his foot down on the accelerator and his car leapt forward, allowing him to pass two cars before they even reached the first turn and another three a few seconds after that. Few people knew that Tony Stark was an expert driver, and that driving fast cars was in fact one of his passions in life. Jumping into the Monaco Grand Prix wasn't a lark, and it wasn't the act of an immature or unhinged man. It was instead the attempt of one man to fully enjoy one of the things he loved most while he still had a chance to do so.

And his time was running out far quicker than he realized.

Ivan Vanko strolled along the path reserved for race course personnel and emergency workers. No one seemed to notice how unnaturally bulky he looked. No one saw the tiny device in his ear, a device which had told him that Tony Stark had decided to join the race and which was keeping him informed about where on the course his car was.

Arrogant, egotistical thief, Vanko thought. It shouldn't surprise me that you would do such a thing, Stark, but I'll have to remember to thank you for making this easier for me.

Upon learning that Stark's car was getting close, Vanko decided that it was time to act and chose to step out onto the track through the nearest access door. Two cars swerved around him as various race course personnel started shouting at him. He neither heard nor cared what they might be saying.

Two more cars came zooming around the nearest corner, and Vanko decided that a little chaos was in order. He let his plasma whips drop down out of his sleeves and powered up the harness, burning away most of his clothing. Powered by his own arc reactor, the harness increased his strength tremendously while charging two long whips made of copper and steel. The plasma field each whip produced was strong enough to cut through almost anything.

As the two Formula 1 racing cars tried to go on either side of him, he swung his arms and the whips came down cross-ways on each car, slicing them both in half and causing the halves of each car to go spinning through the air. The shouts of anger from a few personnel suddenly turned into screams of horror from both personnel and spectators.

Good, Vanko thought, now they know what I am capable of and will keep their distance.

Everything was being broadcast on live television, so it was all visible to those in the luxury seating area where Pepper, Hermione, and Iris had been watching the monitors. The threat not just to the spectators and drivers, but to Tony in particular, was immediately clear to each of them. While Pepper felt herself starting to panic, Iris began issuing orders.

"Hermione," she said, her voice no longer soft and welcoming but instead decisive and sharp, "I want you to stick to Pepper and to protect her. Any attempt on Tony might include an attempt on her as well. We can't take any chances, and I need to go to Tony so I can help him."

"How are you going to do that?" Hermione asked. "Apparate down to the track?"

"No," Iris said as she shook her head. "I can't risk violating the Statute of Secrecy by using magic too publicly. I can do subtle things in public, but nothing too overt, and that includes suddenly appearing out of thin air in the middle of the race course. Even if I could do that, I don't know where exactly I need to be. An image on a TV screen isn't enough."

Iris was quiet for a couple of moments, then sighed in resignation. "There's only one feasible option, a H.A.R.D. landing."

"A what?" Pepper asked.

"Sorry, no time to explain," Iris said. Hermione squeaked in surprise when Iris fisted her hand in Hermione's hair at the back of her head, craned the brunette's neck back, and leaned down to give her old friend a deep, searing kiss, then looked at the sky through one of the large windows before she jogged off in search of a quiet, private place to apparate from.

"Hermione?" Pepper asked the now-dazed witch. "Hermione, when you come back to earth, do you think you can tell me what's going on?"

"Oh, sweet Merlin," Hermione said, fear creeping into her voice. "I can't believe she's going to try something so dangerous!"

"What do you mean, dangerous?" Pepper asked, starting to get annoyed at the lack of answers.

"You remember that apparition is like teleportation, but you need to have been where you're apparating to? Or see it personally somehow?" Pepper nodded. "Well, Iris doesn't know where exactly down on the course she needs to be and couldn't easily do that anyway without violating the Statute of Secrecy — she wants to avoid the attention of magicals if she can. So she's going to use the H.A.R.D. landing technique: High Apparition, Rapid Deceleration. Instead of apparating to the race course, she's going to apparate a few thousand feet above the race course — since it's mostly empty air, it's not too dangerous to blindly apparate there after having looked up in that part of the sky once."

Pepper blanched, but Hermione took a deep breath to continue because she wasn't done yet. "Then Iris is going to free fall until she spots a good target to land on — but she won't be able to apparate there directly because apparition preserves momentum, so she's going to have to apparate around in the air to reduce momentum then cast a strong cushioning charm before landing. And all while disillusioned, too. No one thing should be too taxing, especially for her, but doing all of it in such a short period of time will be incredibly difficult."

Pepper's eyes kept getting wider and wider as Hermione described what Iris was about to attempt. "Is that something normal that you magical people do?" she asked incredulously.

"Absolutely not!" Hermione insisted. "I'd never try it, and neither would most others. In fact, when I first heard about it, it was only a proposal that they had yet to test. I assumed it had been shelved as too dangerous. I had no idea that Iris even knew about it, much less that she thought she could do it."

Pepper shook her head and said, "That sounds way too dangerous to rely on. Happy has Tony's latest Mark V portable emergency armor, I'm calling him." She pulled out her mobile and hit a speed dial number. Once she connected to Happy, she quickly explained the situation and told him to come get her in the lounge.

"So, we've got a suit?" Hermione asked.

"Yep," Pepper said, "When Happy gets here with it, he and I are driving down onto the course to give it to Tony."

"Not without me, you're not," Hermione said firmly.

"You don't have to come," Pepper tried to argue, but Hermione held up her hand to stop her.

"Even if Iris hadn't insisted that I protect you, I'd still go." she said. "You're my friend." Pepper smiled in appreciation at that — because of the sort of work she had to do, she didn't have too many friends... especially female friends. She'd grown to like Hermione Granger quite a lot in the past few months, and it felt good to know that she'd willingly walk into danger with her.

Hermione sighed and added, "I don't know who's going to most want to kill us once this is over, Tony or Iris."

"We'll worry about that if we all survive," Pepper said as she saw Happy walk in and hold up the portable, briefcase-sized emergency suit that was attached to his wrist. "C'mon," she said as she got up, not waiting to see if Hermione was following.

The security man who had been quietly observing the three women saw none of this and was therefore unable to inform his superiors about the presence of one of Tony Stark's Iron Man suits at the race. When he observed the auburn-haired woman race off, he concluded that she might be the biggest potential threat to their plans and so chose to follow her. Much to his consternation, though, she simply ran into a ladies' restroom, forcing him to wait nearby.

After five minutes, he got tired of waiting and decided to take a chance on entering, thankful that the entire security force at the racetrack had been compromised by his organization — this would become rather awkward otherwise. He quickly discovered, though, that the room was completely empty. There were no windows, no other doors, and no vents big enough for even a child to escape through. Cursing, he called in on his miniature radio to let his superiors know that he had lost the woman. When he returned to the main lounge, he had to call in again to report that the other two were gone as well.

Neither report would make a bit of difference.

Falling from 5,000 feet without a parachute and while invisible is even more dangerous than it sounds — are we having fun yet? a small part of Iris' mind thought sourly. The rest of her mind was much too busy trying to shut out the rushing air and decreased temperature, watching out for news and security helicopters and planes (because they couldn't see her), and trying to find the optimal spot to land so she could help Tony without getting run over by a race car — including Tony's own, if she got there that fast. And she had to do it all in under thirty seconds.

Needless to say, that wasn't likely, which necessitated a number of additional apparitions, either back up, sideways, or both, all of which necessitated reorienting herself to landmarks on the ground, looking again for dangers in the air, then reconsidering possible landing locations, usually with even less time than in her first attempt. On top of all that was the fact that Tony Stark was on the ground and in danger right now.

She watched helplessly as the man in the strange metal harness destroyed two more cars, possibly killing their drivers in the process as they burst into blue flames and joined the previous two cars he had sliced in half. As far as Iris knew, no one had crawled out of those first two wrecks, either.

And then she could see a blue car that she was sure was Tony's enter the final turn that would bring him straight into the hands of that madman.

Ivan Vanko grinned when Tony Stark's car came around the nearest corner. He shook out his plasma whips to bring them to their full extension — no matter what sort of maneuver Tony tried, he wouldn't escape justice. As expected, he did indeed try to steer clear of Vanko: he might not have understood exactly what was going on, but Tony was no fool. Seeing the flaming wrecks behind a man in a harness with long, electrified whips was more than enough to tell him that something was wrong.

Unfortunately, there wasn't nearly enough room on the track for him to avoid what was coming. As he swerved, Vanko brought both of his plasma whips down on his car, cutting it into three pieces. Fortunately for him, both of the whips missed his body; and while the front and back pieces of the car went flying, the middle, where Tony sat, tumbled and slid but otherwise kept him safe as it spun towards the earlier wrecks.

Excellent, Vanko thought, I don't want you dying quickly out here, Tony. I want you to be humiliated and laid low in front of the world first.

Vanko turned to face Tony and as a result failed to notice the sudden, large cracks that appeared in the pavement about ten meters behind him.

After one starting apparition, five reverse apparitions, and two sideways apparitions, Iris had finally been able to identify a spot to land. In order to land, though, she had to do two more reverse apparitions precisely enough to leave her facing the opposite direction so as to bleed off as much of her momentum as possible, then she cast a massive cushioning charm directly below her as well as a similarly strong Arresto Momentum on herself. The latter spell, unfortunately, only worked well when cast on another.

The development of this technique for covert combat insertion had been cancelled for a good reason: put simply, it didn't work. Everyone who tested it died, and messily. That, and her desire to avoid doing too much powerful magic, was why she'd only ever tried this once before. And it will be quite a while before I try it again, too, she thought as she grimaced and tried to stifle a moan of pain.

In spite of everything Iris had done to protect herself, she still hit the ground with enough force to turn the average human body into jelly, and it was only the extent to which extreme amounts of magic had hardened and enhanced her bones and muscles that she was still alive. That didn't mean she wasn't hurt, though. She could still fight, but only because she had also applied strong numbing charms to herself. Even if nothing else happend to her, she'd be laid up for several days while her body healed from the impact.

But first, she needed to deal with a problem that currently had its back turned towards her. Under most circumstances, this person probably wouldn't even amount to a headache, much less a real threat, but Iris couldn't afford to break the Statute of Secrecy — not simply because it was the law, but because she didn't want to draw the attention of the various magical ministries to herself.

She wasn't currently wanted by any of them, but she had disappeared from the magical world for good reasons. She didn't want to be drawn back in as the Woman Who Conquered, and she certainly didn't want anyone to think that there was anything unusual about her magic, leading to her becoming a lab rat. She wanted to be forgotten, and that meant she needed to approach public problems like this with a lot more subtlety than even she was accustomed to using.

I can cast low power spells invisibly, she considered, but with their power dialed down that low, they might not affect this man enough. I have no idea what that powered harness does for him. Direct damage spells would probably work on him, but I'd need to put so much power in them that they'd become visible — and streaks of light coming out of nowhere would be recognized by someone. Iris stopped for a moment and shook her head, suddenly overcome by a strong urge to let loose on the man, regardless of the consequences. Focus! she berated herself.

Conjuration and transfiguration wouldn't work because there'd be no explaining random animals that suddenly appeared on the race track. I don't understand what that harness is, so I can't visualize transfiguring it directly. Water might be great — if that's electricity that's running along his whips, he'd electrocute himself if I put enough down, but a pool of water can't appear out of nowhere like that. So that leaves indirect spells for me to use. Maybe there are a couple of minor prank spells that will make it easier for Tony to beat this guy?

All of these ideas were going through Iris' head as she carefully approached the man from behind, and she was almost caught by one of the plasma whips when he drew his arm back to attack the remnants of Tony's car. Iris dove out of the way and tried to avoid the wrecks of cars which she and Vanko were now walking among, all the while cursing herself for not paying closer attention. Vanko sliced the middle portion of Tony's car in half, but Tony had already gotten out and was running in Iris' direction so he could get around and behind Vanko.

Vanko spun and used his other whip to attack, slicing up the road behind Tony - it was only because of Iris' quick reflexes and a silent, low-powered banishing spell that he wasn't hit. He did, however, go flying several meters forward against one of the earlier wrecks. Fortunately, it was one of the wrecks that wasn't currently on fire.

Tony shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs and thankful that he hadn't hit the car head first. When Tony looked down at what was left of the driver, he was suddenly uncertain about whether he'd survive this, yet also wondering why none of the track's security had shot this guy in the head yet.

"Tony!" Vanko called out, "Are you having fun yet? I am!"

"Who the hell are you?" Tony cried out as he turned back around to face his attacker, wanting to know who was trying to kill him this time.

"Ivan Vanko," the man said, "an old family friend, here to pay my respects."

The three of them were now arranged on the race track in a triangle, though the two men were unaware of Iris' presence. Before Iris could take proper stock of the new situation and decide on how best to help Tony, a prickling on the back of her neck caused her to turn around, allowing her to see a green race car coming right at her. Shit! Iris thought. He won't swerve because he can't see me! Once again, Iris was diving and rolling to get out of the way in the nick of time. I'm supposed to be better than this, she cursed herself.

As she stood up again, she watched Vanko slice the green race car in two, sending one half flying in Tony's direction. "A gift for you, Tony," he said with a flourish.

Tony had the presence of mind to dive out of the way, and the pieces of the car flew above and past him. It was then that Iris saw what appeared to be a Rolls Royce come barreling around the far corner, driving in the opposite direction of normal race traffic. All three of them froze for a second as they stood there incredulously watching the out-of-place vehicle come straight at them.

Vanko recovered first and used his plasma whips to cut this new car into pieces. As soon as he started to move, Iris recognized the driver as Happy Hogan, which meant that the car was Tony Stark's... which could only mean that the two indistinct people behind the tinted glass in the back were Pepper and Hermione.

"Do you need your woman here to save you, Tony?" Vanko taunted.

Iris saw red as the car split and the half with her love went flying up in the air. She paid the front half with Happy no mind because it remained on the ground — he was screaming, but she knew in a split second that he should be fine so long as the man with the whips ignored him.

Iris was about to reach out with her magic and catch the back half of the car, the Statute of Secrecy be damned, when she recognized the blue shimmer of a protego shield come up across the exposed end of the back half of the car. Iris knew that while Hermione might be too out of practice to engage in direct combat right now, her spellcasting hadn't weakened over the years, and so Iris trusted that her shield would be enough to protect both her and Pepper from the impact of the crash.

The front half of the car with Happy slammed into the wall near Vanko and on the opposite side of the track. While Tony went to help the women in the back half of the car, Vanko chose to strike at Happy in the front half. When his plasma whip hit the chain link fence on top of the wall, Iris softly incanted "Epoximise!" casting a sticking charm on the metal fence to prevent him from pulling it back for a second strike and distracting him too much to think of using his second whip.

Vanko would pay for nearly killing Hermione, but first Iris had to get her out of the line of fire.

While Vanko was struggling on the other side of the race track, Tony ran towards the back half of his car which had crashed against the wall. He was amazed at first to find both Pepper and Hermione unharmed — shaken up, but unharmed. Then he saw that Hermione had her magic stick out and he concluded that she must have used some of her mojo to keep them both safe.

He was still skeptical about magic — he was skeptical about anything which couldn't be quantified and described with science — but if it kept Pepper and Hermione safe, he wasn't going to complain. There was also the fact that he always felt a little funny whenever Hermione or Iris were around, but he hadn't figured out what that was about.

"Ladies, allow me," Tony said as he gallantly helped them out of the car. He was about to demand to know what they were doing there when Happy ran up, having extricated himself from the front half of the car while Vanko was distracted. It was then that Tony realized that Happy was carrying the football, thus explaining why they were all there.

"Here you go, boss," Happy said, huffing and puffing. With a feral grin, Tony unlocked the chain holding the emergency suit to his wrist and dropped it to the ground to activate it.

Before he could step into it, though, Hermione leaned in close and whispered, "Iris is already here, invisible. She'll help."

Tony nodded and then ignored everything else but Vanko as the Mark V unfolded and molded itself around his body. He watched Vanko finally send a massive power surge through his plasma whip, allowing him to rip it free from the metal fence, but didn't see as an invisible force pulled Happy and Pepper by their arms through the nearest access door and off the track, away from danger.

Hermione followed Happy and Pepper as they were dragged away by the invisible Iris, though reluctantly because she hated running from a fight — especially a fight that she knew Iris was going to be walking back into shortly. She'd always fought by Iris' side when they were younger, and it felt wrong to not do so now.

However, she also knew that she couldn't easily support Iris while the other witch was invisible, whereas Happy and Pepper could definitely benefit from backup. "Iris," she whispered, holding on tight to the invisible hand to prevent her from leaving immediately. "How are you holding up?'

"I hurt, but I'll manage," came the response. "Vanko, however..."

"I meant your control," Hermione said, gripping the hand even more tightly.

"He... he almost killed you," Iris said in a deep, pained voice.

"But he didn't," Hermione said, trying to sound reassuring. "I'm fine. Pepper is fine. You, however, won't be fine if you can't hold it together." She could hear Iris take several deep, ragged breaths.

"Alright. I'll... I'll try. I..." Whatever she was going to say next was cut off by shrieking and tearing metal from the racetrack, and when they looked, both witches could see Vanko sending surges of energy through his whip as he ripped it free from the chain-link fence.

"Gotta go," Iris announced as she ripped her hand free from Hermione's grasp.

Can energy from the arc reactor counter magical spells? Iris wondered as she ran back onto the track. She was intrigued because S.H.I.E.L.D. would want to have this information — it might come in handy if magical society ever became a threat to world peace. She was worried, though, because it could prove to be a weakness for her personally as well. I'll have to find a way to do some tests to see how much power from an arc reactor is needed to overwhelm my magic, a part of her mind noted as she watched Iron Man move to engage the man in the harness. He should be the one to defeat this maniac, but that doesn't mean that I can't toss in a spell or two here and there to help out.

At first Tony was able to knock the plasma whips away with shots from his repulsors, but he wouldn't be able to keep it up forever. Inevitably one of Vanko's strikes managed to hit Tony, wrapping around his suit and causing significant damage, at least from what Iris could see. I don't know if that's because his emergency suit is weaker than average or if Vanko's whips are that strong, Iris considered. Maybe both.

"Not so tough now, are you, Tony?" Vanko called out. "You hide yourself inside a metal shell, but all shells can be cracked. How much more will it take for me to crack your shell, huh, Tony?" Suddenly Iris could see increased power flowing along the whip which was wrapped around Tony and his suit, damaging it even further. This time, it also looked as though Tony might have been in some pain as well.

When Vanko tried to send his second whip against his quarry, Tony was able to lift one arm and grab the whip out of the air. With a flick of his wrist, he caused the whip to wrap around the arm — that kept the second whip out of the fight, but also started causing significant damage to that arm of the suit.

"Didn't your parents bother teaching you," Tony said, "to keep your hands to yourself?" His words were flippant, but Iris could hear the effort behind them.

The power running through the whips visibly increased as Vanko growled out, "Don't you talk about my parents, Tony. You have no right to mention them to me. No right at all!"

With the amount of power being put out by the whips, Iris couldn't get too close, but she also couldn't easily help if she stayed too far back. Added to that was the recent revelation of how arc reactor power seemed to affect magic. Will my low-power spells even work on him? she wondered.

There was no more time for thought, however, as Tony went down on one knee and Vanko started laughing maniacally. As she looked around for some idea, she noticed the growing puddles of various fluids that had leaked all over the raceway, finally giving Iris an idea she could run with. Approaching as closely as she dared, despite how badly her hair was standing up because of all the unfamiliar energy charging the air, she softly incanted "Glacius!" at the asphalt beneath Vanko's feet. The freezing spell was capable of transforming water into ice several inches thick, but at such low power it only created a thin sheen of ice from the moisture in the air — and that was all Iris needed.

Surprised by his sudden loss of stability, Vanko desperately sought purchase as his feet began sliding this way and that. Tony noticed the change and immediately started to stand in order to take advantage of the opportunity, but Iris wasn't done yet — she didn't want to give Vanko a chance to regain control over the situation.

Just as quietly as before, she cast a low-powered tripping jinx at Vanko, causing him to lose his footing entirely. His wide eyes betrayed his shock when he tumbled over and landed on his back with an audible crunch. He was even more shocked when Tony leapt forward and reached down to rip the arc reactor out of the harness. A quick jab from his other hand sent Vanko into unconsciousness.

Tony stepped carefully away from the downed man, working hard to avoid slipping himself even as the ice evaporated in the midday sun. He crushed the arc reactor in his fist and called out, "Thanks, Iris. I owe you one."

Still invisible, she walked up close to him and said softly, "I'll go check on Pepper and Happy, though I'm sure Hermione has them safe. Do you think you can stay out of trouble long enough for me to do that?"

Snorting, which sounded strange coming out of his suit, Tony said, "I think I can manage on my own for a few minutes."

"I hope you're sure," Iris responded as she turned to walk away, bringing one arm up to grasp her side as the numbing charms started to wear off. "Didn't turn out so well the last time I left you by yourself. Don't think that I'm going to forget that, Tony."

Tony sighed softly to himself, wondering if it had been such a good idea to start living large. Down the track, he could see the approach of police, security, and emergency vehicles and wondered how he was going to explain all of this to the authorities and the press.

Maybe I should have become a recluse like Howard Hughes, he lamented, opening the faceplate of his suit so he could deal with the oncoming police.