"Where have you been all this time? You wouldn't answer your phone or reply to my messages!"
After holding Hermione in her arms and fussing over her for a while, Pepper finally asked.
"At school, of course!"
"But I already checked the schools in New York..."
"I don't go to school in New York. I go to Hogwarts." Hermione thought for a second, then added, "A wizarding school."
"Oh... a wizarding school." Pepper nodded, then suddenly exclaimed in surprise, "What? A wizarding school?!"
Hermione tilted her head. "I'm a wizard, so of course I go to a wizarding school. Where else would all my magic come from?"
Pepper: ???
Back at S.H.I.E.L.D., she had called Hermione "Miss Wizard" solely because her clothes resembled those worn by wizards on television, not because she actually thought she was one.
From the start, she had only considered Hermione a child with a few superpowers.
Children loved to fantasize, after all, and Hermione liked calling those powers magic.
But now... could it actually be true?
"You... you're not joking? Wizards really exist?!" Pepper couldn't believe it.
Hermione felt helpless.
After she demonstrated a few spells, Pepper finally accepted the truth.
"So you're usually at, um... Hogwarts, and you only come back when you don't have classes?"
Hermione nodded and explained the basics of the wizarding world and the mystical side to her. It was much the same as what she had told S.H.I.E.L.D., only in greater detail.
"Whew..."
Pepper digested this worldview-shattering information.
After a long while, something seemed to occur to her, and an apologetic look crossed her face.
"I'm sorry, little Hermione. Once Tony came back safely, I should have brought him over to thank you in person. But I couldn't get in touch with you, and Tony simply doesn't believe in predictions. He even thinks S.H.I.E.L.D. deliberately used some trick to fool me. Besides, he's been spending all his time in his lab developing some sort of armor. That's why we still haven't thanked you."
Hermione nodded.
That sounded right. It was very Tony Stark.
Still, she wasn't angry. She could even understand, because she hadn't really done anything.
From Tony's perspective, he had been kidnapped for ages and suffered terribly. In the end, he had barely escaped by relying on the armor he built himself and Yinsen's help-and even Yinsen had sacrificed his life.
Then, after he came back, someone told him, "You only escaped because someone made a prophecy about you. Your future was always going to be safe, and it had nothing to do with your own efforts, so be grateful!"
She wouldn't have accepted that either.
"Now that you're back, once Tony returns from testing his armor in the Middle East, I'll have him personally..."
At this point, obvious resentment appeared on Pepper's face.
While Tony was missing, she had worried about him every day while exhausting herself to keep the company running. She had thought he would rein himself in a little after returning. Instead, he had not only decided to shut down the weapons development division, but also washed his hands of everything, spending every day focused on his armor and dumping the entire mess on her.
It left her even more overwhelmed than before.
She understood that the armor had saved his life, but even so, he really was being unfair to her.
I'm your secretary, not your nanny!
"Wait!"
The speaker had thought nothing of it, but the listener took notice.
"Stark went to the Middle East?" Hermione suddenly asked.
Pepper nodded. "Yes. I don't know what got into him this morning, but he insisted on going to a place like that. He only just escaped danger, and now he's heading right back into it!"
Hermione understood.
So the plot had already reached this point.
During his captivity, Tony had witnessed terrorists using weapons from Stark Industries. Realizing that his weapons had been misused to kill far too many people, he had decided to shut down the weapons division.
But that had threatened too many people's interests, especially those of Obadiah Stane, who played the part of his loving uncle.
The latter had secretly continued selling weapons behind Tony's back. After discovering that terrorists were still using Stark Industries weapons, Tony had gone into action as Iron Man, using the Mark III to utterly overwhelm them.
Hermione's eyes shifted, and she suddenly said, "Pepper, I've got something to take care of. I'll be back in a bit."
Without waiting for Pepper to respond, she mounted her Broomstick and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Pepper: "..."
Once airborne, Hermione flew at full speed, circling the entire city before heading straight in a certain direction.
Before long, a red-and-gold figure streaked across the sky toward her.
Hermione's eyes lit up.
Up close, it was indeed the Iron Man armor.
Thanks to the Disillusionment Charm, Tony Stark didn't see Hermione.
She turned her Broomstick and flew alongside the armor, unable to resist reaching out to touch it.
In her previous life, she had bought Iron Man figurines and dreamed of soaring through the sky in that suit. Now the real thing was right before her. How could she not be thrilled?
Even though she had acquired a higher-order system of power, her fondness for powered armor had never faded.
After all, powered armor was every man's... every child's dream!
Inside the suit, Tony was considering what improvements to make once he got back.
The test at the terrorist camp had been mostly satisfactory, producing the expected results, but there were still plenty of shortcomings.
Just then, the voice of his artificial intelligence, JARVIS, suddenly sounded in his ear.
"Sir, this may be a sensor error, but... I believe I should still inform you."
Tony paused. "What?"
"Just now, something appeared to be stroking the exterior of your suit."
JARVIS reported exactly what he had detected.
"Huh?"
Tony was utterly baffled. "Are you sure it wasn't some bird crashing into me?"
JARVIS immediately replied, "No. Judging by the temperature and the shape of the contact area, it appears to be..."
"To be what?"
Tony grew a little impatient. Why was JARVIS being so hesitant? He had never acted like this before.
"...A human hand!"
"What?!" Tony was startled at first, then relaxed and declared, "Impossible. You must have made a mistake. We're a thousand meters up. Where would a hand come from, let alone one stroking my suit?"
"Besides, I'm not blind. If someone were actually up here, I'd have seen them already."
JARVIS said, "But that is what the incoming data indicates."
"Then the data is wrong," Tony said calmly. "Some components probably got damaged during the fight."
JARVIS fell silent.
After a while, his voice sounded again.
"Sir, while your explanation is reasonable..."
"While what?"
Tony frowned.
What was wrong with JARVIS today?
Could the problem be with him rather than the suit?
"But... that hand seems to keep moving around, touching you from head to toe. It has practically felt up the entire suit."
Tony: ???
What nonsense was he talking about?
"That settles it. You're the problem, JARVIS. I'll give your code a thorough check when I get back." Tony sighed.
Yet what happened the next second made his heart clench and nearly stopped his breathing.
A clear, youthful voice sounded beside him.
"JARVIS isn't malfunctioning. I'm right beside you."
Before you continue