Agents testing him, family members absent from home, a classmate staying with his sister.
All these clues told John that something was wrong.
He needed more clues.
"I wonder if that woman is still in London?"
He considered tracking her down and questioning her.
Interrogation was difficult, but Veritaserum and Legilimency could solve all that.
For now, though, his priority was finding out where his family had gone.
John picked up the phone at home and hesitated for a long time.
"What was Dad's number again?"
He could hardly be blamed for preferring owls in the Wizarding World.
He was used to exchanging letters by owl.
It seemed he had never used a phone since coming to this world, so he had barely ever asked anyone for their number.
Returning to the technological world after so long left him a little out of practice.
Fortunately, before he had crossed over, technology had already advanced to the point where everyone had a mobile phone and hardly anyone carried cash.
Despite the endless futuristic technology in the Marvel world, civilian technology was largely the same.
Setting down the picture frame, John decided to keep looking for clues.
"What was supposed to be a nice vacation is getting more and more complicated," he sighed.
His vacation had barely begun, and he could already tell it would be troublesome. He hoped this would not ruin it.
Leaving his sister's room, he came to his own.
It was clean and tidy, though rather sparsely furnished.
A floor-to-ceiling window overlooked the streets of Manhattan.
That view alone was worth a million dollars.
"Dad really has made a lot of money doing business over the years."
John lingered by the window, then breathed onto the glass.
He raised a finger and drew on it.
A strange, eye-like symbol appeared on the glass.
This was an Intruder Detection Charm, a very practical spell that could detect intrusions into a house.
After making his rounds, John returned to the living room.
He drew his wand. Knob-like protrusions dotted its black surface.
Elder wood, with a Thestral feather core.
This was the most powerful wand of all.
In the Wizarding World, it had once belonged to the most powerful Wizard.
And John had taken it from its owner.
It had a famous name: the Elder Wand.
Standing in the middle of the living room, he waved the Elder Wand. Something like golden powder sprayed from it, coating the floor and revealing footprints.
The footprints began to move. One pair belonged to large dress shoes, the other to slender high heels.
They moved from the living room to the second floor, arriving at his sister's room.
A pair of canvas-shoe prints emerged from the room.
The large dress shoes paced back and forth several times and also visited the Hall of Glory.
Finally, they went out the door, and the footprints vanished.
John stared thoughtfully at the spot where they had disappeared, narrowing his eyes.
"They were in quite a hurry."
Not long after those footprints vanished, another set appeared.
These were different, seemingly a man's footprints. Dress shoes appeared at the entrance and wandered freely through the house, as though searching for something.
Clearly, these did not belong to anyone in his family. Their owner entered the Hall of Glory.
He stopped at the cabinet containing the Golden Snitch.
John guessed that he had opened the cabinet, allowing the Golden Snitch to escape.
Those footprints covered almost every corner of the house, not even sparing John's room.
Finally, they returned to the living room and left.
John sank into thought. Who was this person, and how was he connected to that agent?
As he pondered this, the lights overhead began to flicker.
The Intruder Detection Charm he had left was reacting.
John looked up, his brow twitching. His instincts told him something was happening.
Without hesitation, he waved his wand.
"Protego!"
The spectral outline of silver armor appeared around him. The living room window shattered, and a red-and-gold figure flew toward John.
The spectral armor collided with the Armor, abruptly stopping its advance. The figure flipped backward in midair, using the thrusters in its palms and soles to steady itself.
The Armor landed in a superhero pose.
The Shield Charm could both defend and repel. Even a speeding car would be bounced away.
The man quickly stood and raised an arm, firing a laser from the Armor's palm.
John turned and vanished.
Apparition.
When he reappeared, he was already behind the Armor. He raised his right hand and clenched it hard.
Object-Grasping Magic!
As though an enormous hand had seized the Armor, an unseen force restrained it, lifting and crushing it.
Only a dozen or so seconds had passed since the fight began.
Just as John was about to crush this uninvited guest to death, he recognized the familiar color scheme and started.
"Iron Man?"
The moment he spoke, the opposing Armor's shoulder opened, launching a small bomb toward him.
"Relashio!"
Sparks sprayed from his wand, striking the missile precisely.
The missile changed direction and flew toward the second floor.
The explosion made him release the magic gripping the Armor.
Looking at the blasted wall upstairs, he felt his anger rise.
Even superheroes deserved a beating for barging into someone else's home like this!
"All right, I think Ariana is going to be very angry."
"JARVIS, analyze this guy."
John was ready to get serious, while Tony Stark was deeply shaken.
Magic had no place in this physics genius's understanding of the world.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology had never taught him how to counter spells, either.
For now, he could not understand how that guy had redirected a missile with a chopstick.
"Sir, his identity is Sealing."
"Just hack in."
As a playboy, Tony had never been one to let rules constrain him.
As the most powerful intelligent system, JARVIS possessed extraordinary computing capabilities.
Shortly after Tony gave the order, he hacked into the S.H.I.E.L.D. database as easily as opening a binary lock.
"John Wick. Male. Born in 1980. British."
The information was pitifully sparse, a first for Tony.
"I think that kid's angry," Tony told JARVIS.
With John's face, it was hard to imagine he was thirty.
Their brief exchange had forced him to take the threat posed by that "chopstick" seriously.
He raised both hands, charged his laser cannons, and fired.
That meant he was going all out.
"Protego!"
The Wizarding World's three staple moves;
Protego, Expelliarmus, and Apparition.
That strange spectral image appeared again, reflecting even the lasers that struck it.
Tony was hit and sent flying into the Wick family's wall, embedding himself in it.
"What the hell is that thing? Damn it!"
Tony had no time to catch his breath. He saw his opponent wave his wand, and a chair beside him twisted into a brown python that coiled around his arm.
The horrifying sight made him break out in a cold sweat. He grabbed the python and hurled it away.
In midair, the python turned back into a stool and smashed to pieces.
John narrowed his eyes and said coldly, "I take it you're not a lost little bird that flew into the wrong house."
"Damn, that charming London accent. Is he an aristocrat?"
Tony quipped about his opponent's accent. Americans tended to like that sort of thing.
He maneuvered the Armor out of the wall.
His faceplate flipped open, revealing the billionaire's face John had seen only that morning.
"That's right. I came specifically for you, Mr. London Aristocrat."
The billionaire suffering from palladium poisoning knew he could not handle this man, but he still issued a threat. "I don't care what tricks you have. Come at me!"
Already living on borrowed time, Tony had been attacked yesterday. Naturally, he was in a foul mood.
Fueled by the considerable amount of alcohol he had drunk, he had decided to take care of the problem himself.
He had already arranged the transfer of his estate: the company would go to Pepper Potts, and the Armor to Rhodey.
With that settled, he could not allow a potential threat to keep targeting his family.
Whiplash's background was far from simple. There was a good chance that a rival company had sent him to kill Tony.
Stark Industries and Hammer Industries had once competed for government contracts. After he announced the closure of his weapons division, certain people had begun targeting him over the Iron Man Armor.
And Hammer Industries stood to benefit from all of it.
Among Hammer Industries' shareholders was someone with ties to Russia.
That person was Watson Wick.
John's father.
It all seemed to fit perfectly. Kill Tony Stark, send Stark Industries' stock plunging, and the Wick Group, Hammer Industries' largest shareholder, could make a fortune.
Given his existing conflict with the Wick Group, it was entirely possible that they would use their influence to eliminate him.
It was logical, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files had given Tony plenty of confidence.
The entire Wick family appeared in that Black director's database.
All the evidence suggested that if Tony wanted his friends to be safe after his death, he would have to eliminate the threat posed by the Wick Group.
With the alcohol from his partying still going to his head, he had simply gone ahead and done it.
But his intelligence had been wrong. The man in charge was not at the Wick home; instead, his young son was there.
The moment Tony opened his faceplate, John could smell the tequila on his breath. Who knew how many bottles he had drunk?
His expression turned odd. "How much have you had to drink?"
"What?" Reeking of alcohol and making no attempt to restrain himself, Tony taunted, "Your mommy won't let you drink?"
"You've managed to make me very angry, Tony Stark!"
John narrowed his eyes and waved his wand.
"Let me sober you up."
"Expelliarmus!"
Red light turned into lightning at the tip of his wand and struck the Iron Man Armor, driving it backward under the impact.
Tony reacted quickly, closing his faceplate to protect his face and preparing to fight.
Under the red lightning, the Armor was forced open, its components peeling away from his body and falling to the floor.
Struggling against it, Tony had thought he was done for. Instead, he felt a chill.
Cool air blew in through the shattered window.
Tony stared down blankly. The Iron Man Armor lay scattered across the floor.
And during yesterday's partying, he had demonstrated how to use the bathroom while wearing the Iron Man Armor.
For convenience, he had not even worn clothes.
So...
He was stark naked.
Before you continue