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The air in Tony Stark's workshop, usually a clean, sterile environment smelling of ozone and ionized metal, was now thick with the cloying, earthy scent of something vaguely like boiled cabbage and sulfur. In the center of the pristine lab, a small, black cauldron bubbled merrily over a magically sustained blue flame.
"Five parts powdered moonstone," Hermione muttered to herself, her tongue sticking out slightly in concentration as she carefully measured the shimmering dust. "Four parts syrup of hellebore…"
She was so absorbed in the delicate, final stages of a Calming Draught that she didn't hear the workshop doors slide open.
"…and that's final, Pepper!" Tony Stark's voice, full of his usual post-congressional-hearing bluster, echoed through the lab. "I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one and the same. I will not be handing it over to those greedy, incompetent politicians, and I don't care how many senators I have to piss off to make that point."
"Tony, that's not the point!" Pepper's voice was a tight, strained counterpoint of pure exasperation. "No one is questioning your resolve. They're questioning your stability! You can't just go around blowing up foreign countries and expect the government not to have a few… questions."
With a final, dramatic thump, the door slammed open fully.
Hermione yelped, startled by the sudden noise. Her hand jerked, and an entire vial of crushed frog brains, far more than the recipe called for, tumbled into the bubbling cauldron.
BOOM!
A geyser of thick, foul-smelling, purple sludge erupted from the cauldron, splattering across a nearby holographic design table, which immediately short-circuited with a shower of angry sparks.
"For Merlin's sake!" Hermione shrieked, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. She spun around to face the two people standing, stunned, in the doorway.
"TONY STARK!" she roared, her voice echoing with a rage that made the real Iron Man take an involuntary step back. "Has no one ever taught you to knock before entering a room?! Thanks to you, five measures of glycerin and an entire frog's brain have gone to waste! Do you have any idea how hard it is to source fresh frog brains in this city?!"
Tony and Pepper just stared. One moment, they were in the middle of a world-altering corporate and political crisis. The next, they were being screamed at by a small child who was furious about wasting frog brains.
Then, Tony's eyes began to take in the full scope of the scene. His eyes widened in dawning, apocalyptic horror.
His lab. His beautiful, pristine, billion-dollar workshop. It was… a disaster zone. The sleek, chrome surfaces were covered in a strange, sticky residue. His state-of-the-art 3D modeling table, the one he used to design his armor, was now a makeshift potions station, covered in bubbling beakers, slimy, dissected animal parts, and jars filled with things he didn't even want to identify. A rack of spare Iron Man gauntlets had been unceremoniously shoved into a corner to make room for a display of potted mandrakes.
"What…" he began, his voice a trembling whisper, "have you done to my lab?" He had just spent two days in Washington D.C. being interrogated by the United States government. He had come home, to his one true sanctuary, only to find it had been colonized by a medieval apothecary.
"Oh, this?" Hermione said calmly, pouring the ruined, smoking sludge from her cauldron onto the floor, where it began to hiss and corrode the polished concrete. "I needed a place to practice my potions, and since you weren't here, I just made myself at home." She turned back to her cauldron, completely unconcerned. "You did say I could use whatever I wanted."
Tony's hand, pointing a shaking finger at her, trembled. The corners of his eyes twitched wildly. "HERMIONE GRANGER!" he finally roared.
His rage, however, was quickly Hijacked by his own insatiable scientific curiosity. He stopped mid-shout, his eyes narrowing. "Wait," he said, his anger instantly forgotten. "Did you say… potions?"
He strode over to her workbench, peering with intense interest at the rows of colorful, bubbling liquids in their glass vials.
"Yes," Hermione said, annoyed but also a little proud. She picked up a small bottle filled with a shimmering, golden liquid. "This, for example, is Felix Felicis. Liquid luck. A single drop will make you successful in all your endeavors for twelve hours." She held up another, a dark, viscous fluid the color of midnight. "This is the Draught of Living Death. One sip will put you into a sleep so deep it's indistinguishable from death."
Tony stared, his mind racing, trying to deconstruct the chemical compounds, to find the scientific principles behind these impossible claims. "But the ingredients," he argued, pointing at her open textbook. "Powdered moonstone, syrup of hellebore, leeches… there's no scientific basis for this! How can you possibly create these effects from… from medieval witchcraft?"
Hermione just gave him a look of profound, withering pity. "Muggles," she said with a sigh. "You're so adorable when you try to understand things that are beyond you."
"You little…" Tony began, his pride stung, but he was interrupted by his own, more pressing needs. He leaned in conspiratorially, his voice dropping to a low whisper. "Okay, okay, forget the science. Do you have anything… you know… for a man's vitality? For… health?"
Hermione's head snapped up, her eyes widening in a perfect imitation of shocked, clinical concern. She looked from Tony's hopeful face to Pepper's confused one, and then back again. Then, her voice boomed through the lab, full of a loud, faux-sympathetic horror.
"OH MY GOD, TONY! YOU HAVE ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION?!"
"COUGH, COUGH, HACK!" Tony nearly choked on his own tongue. "WHAT?! NO! THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT! I'M TONY STARK! HOW DARE YOU!" he sputtered, his face turning a shade of crimson that clashed horribly with his arc reactor.
Pepper's own face was burning with a secondhand embarrassment so intense she looked like she was about to spontaneously combust.
"Hmph! Forget it!" Tony fumed, grabbing Pepper by the arm. "Let's go. I need a drink." As they walked away, he tried to salvage the evening. "Later, I'll open a bottle of champagne. Your birthday is in a few days, and I have a surprise for you."
"He's making you the CEO of Stark Group," Hermione called out cheerfully from behind them.
Pepper froze. "!!!"
Tony spun around, his face a perfect storm of rage and disbelief. "YOU… YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!"
He had been planning it for days. A romantic dinner. A heartfelt speech. A grand, life-changing gesture. And this little gremlin had just spoiled it with the casual cruelty of a child pulling the wings off a fly.
Before he could continue his tirade, Pepper covered her mouth, her eyes wide with a disbelief that had nothing to do with him. "Tony," she whispered. "You… you were really going to do that?"
He just nodded reluctantly.
"Wait, Sister Pepper, this is for you," Hermione said, her timing impeccable. A small, elegant necklace floated through the air and settled gently into Pepper's hand. It was a simple, silver locket, etched with swirling, intricate patterns, humming with a faint, magical warmth.
"Tsk, it's a bit tacky," Tony scoffed, a last, petty act of revenge.
Pepper didn't even hear him. She looked at the beautiful, magical object in her hand, a gift from the strange, wonderful girl who had become her friend. Without a moment's hesitation, she unclasped the multi-million-dollar diamond necklace she was wearing and put on Hermione's instead. It settled against her skin, feeling more precious, more real, than any jewel she had ever worn.
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