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The fire roared. The ice cracked. Inside the metal coffin of the Iron Monger, Obadiah screamed, a muffled, gurgling sound of a man being cooked and frozen at the same time. Coulson and his men could only watch, their hands hovering uselessly near their sidearms. This wasn't a fight. It was a damn exorcism.
Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. The flames vanished. The ice sublimated into mist. The night was silent again, save for the crackle of burning debris.
Hermione stood in the quiet, her face illuminated by the cherry-red glow of the superheated armor. She raised her wand.
"Expelliarmus!"
The word was spoken with a strange, almost bored finality. A thin red line of light shot out and hit the Monger's chest.
It wasn't a blast. It was a key turning a lock. With a deafening shriek of protesting metal, the Iron Monger came apart. Not in an explosion, but a violent, catastrophic disassembly. The helmet flew off, the gauntlets were ripped away, the chest plate tore free from its moorings. It was like watching a car get unwrapped by a hurricane.
Obadiah Stane was left standing there, exposed and blinking in the sudden silence, his face a mask of utter, mind-broken confusion. He looked down at his own hands, then at the scattered pile of what, a moment ago, had been his god-machine.
A low, gurgling sound escaped his lips. He pitched forward and hit the asphalt, dead before he landed.
Hermione's eyes widened slightly. Huh. Well, that works. The thought was cold, clinical. Expelliarmus. Works on armor. Note to self: file under 'Ways to Annoy Tony Later.'
Tony watched it all from the ground, his HUD displaying his own heart-rate flatlining for a second in sheer, existential terror. The suit. His suit. Her spell could just… take it apart. Take him apart. The thought was a cold spike of fear in his gut.
"Hmmph," Hermione grunted, looking at her wand with a slightly dissatisfied expression. "Still not as efficient as I'd like. If Dumbledore would just let me use the Dark Arts, this whole mess would be a cloud of ash right now."
Coulson heard the words "Dark Arts" and took an involuntary step back. His face was pale. The situation had gone from a superhuman altercation to something far older and more terrifying. "Miss Granger," he said, his voice strained but professional. "My team can secure the scene. I need to… update the Director." He couldn't get away fast enough.
As the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents moved in, Tony, with Pepper's help, struggled to his feet. He looked at Obadiah's body, the man's eyes wide with a final, lingering look of shock.
A pleasant, cold jolt of energy flowed through Hermione. Fifty points, her internal grimoire noted. From a Muggle? Interesting. Importance must be a factor.
A few minutes later, the sirens were a distant song. Tony, now out of the armor, stood staring at the wreckage, a ghost in his own warzone. The adrenaline had faded, leaving behind a hollow, aching void.
Hermione walked up and stood beside him in the quiet.
"I should be dead," he said, his voice a raw whisper. He wasn't talking to her, just to the night. "I should have died in that cave. Yinsen… he told me not to waste it. My life. So I came back, and what do I do? I build a better weapon. I put on a suit. It's all I know how to do. It's the only way I can… live with it."
His voice was broken, stripped of all its usual bravado. It was the sound of a man confessing to a child because she was the only one who had seen the full, ugly truth of him.
"So you want to die?" Hermione asked, her tone blunt, not unkind. "Fine. But at least die after you've actually fixed something. Dead men don't get sequels."
Tony let out a shaky, humorless laugh. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?" He looked at her, really looked at her, and saw not a child, but something ancient and unreadable. "The things you said before… in the workshop. Thank you."
"Don't thank me," she shot back, the old sharpness returning. "Thank Pepper. She's the one who cares if you live or die. I just don't want to have to find her a new boss."
"I will," he said, and it sounded like a vow. He stuck out a hand, the gesture feeling strange and new. "Tony Stark."
She didn't shake it. She just slapped his palm with her own, a quick, light tap. "Hermione Granger," she replied. "Witch."
A silence settled between them. Then, Hermione's eyes narrowed with a mischievous glint. "By the way," she said, "I believe someone promised to apologize to me ten times a day. We can start now." She raised her wand and wiggled it. "Or I can start taking your suit apart again. Your choice."
Tony's jaw twitched. The brief, heartfelt moment was over. God, she's annoying.
The next day.
"Iron Man," Tony said, looking at the newspaper headline. He took a sip of his coffee. "It's got a nice ring to it. Technically inaccurate, the suit's a gold-titanium alloy, but still. It's catchy."
Pepper, applying a dab of concealer to the bruise on his cheek, just sighed.
Agent Coulson walked in, looking like he hadn't slept. He handed Tony a stack of white notecards. "Your press conference is in five," he said, his voice flat. "Just read the cards. The official alibi is on there. Your robot bodyguard malfunctioned. The end."
Tony looked down at the neat, government-approved lies on the cards, and a familiar, rebellious smirk began to play on his lips.
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