"Tony, what's wrong?"
Pepper startled at the sudden noise and scrambled up, reaching out to check on him.
At almost the same moment, the Iron Man armor standing quietly in the corner of the room came to life.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Mechanical systems whirred. The faceplate blazed to life with an eerie blue glow, and the suit's arm shot out and locked around Pepper's wrist.
The cold metal made her flinch.
She stared at Tony in alarm.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., deactivate defense mode!"
Tony snapped back to himself. The armor's automatic defense system , triggered. He threw both arms wide.
A sharp crack, and the suit disassembled on the spot.
Metal components rained down like scattered building blocks, clattering across the floor in a cascade of sharp, ringing impacts.
This was the modular suit he'd designed in a flash of inspiration after Hermione's disarming spell had taken his armor apart. Even if someone broke it down, the pieces could fly back and reassemble in seconds.
Pepper was still shaking.
"Tony, I can't take this anymore."
"I'm going downstairs to sleep with Hermione!"
Her voice trembled. She'd been genuinely scared.
Tony apologized immediately, his voice thick with guilt.
"I'm sorry, Pepper. I'm sorry. I had another nightmare."
He pressed his hands to his head, brow knotted, face drawn with pain, still caught in the tail end of whatever had been chasing him in his sleep.
Pepper looked at him and felt her heart give.
She exhaled softly, sat on the edge of the bed, and reached up to stroke his hair.
"What did you dream about? Those aliens? Didn't little Hermione deal with all of them?"
Her voice was gentle, coaxing.
Tony shook his head. There was something in his eyes , fear, and something quieter underneath it.
"Not aliens."
"I dreamed about... that girl."
Pepper blinked.
"Hermione?"
"What about her?"
Tony looked up at her, his expression unreadable.
"I dreamed the universe ended. And she was the reason."
Pepper stared at him.
She genuinely thought she'd misheard.
"...What?"
She let out a laugh and reached over to tap his forehead.
"Tony. Are you exhausted, or did Hermione's magic actually traumatize you?"
Her tone stayed light, trying to ease him back down.
"And think about it practically, forget justice for a second — if the world is destroyed, we don't survive either."
She spread her hands, helpless.
"What could possibly be worth killing even us for?"
She couldn't come up with a single reason.
Even if Hermione wanted to do something like that, she'd need a motive. After all this time together, Pepper had figured out that Hermione wasn't exactly a righteous person , there was something a little wicked in her nature, if she was being honest.
But so what? She was still her sister. Hermione was still her little Hermione. Righteousness, evil , maybe that mattered to Tony. It really didn't matter to her.
Tony opened his mouth. Closed it.
He didn't know how to say it.
The dream had been too real. The despair, the fear , he could still feel both sitting in his chest.
He'd seen Hermione standing on a field of rubble, eyes flat and cold, black energy rolling off her in waves.
A wave of her hand. Mountains split. Cities fell.
Countless people screaming at her feet, and she didn't even look at them.
That coldness, that total indifference, made her a stranger. It made him afraid.
He couldn't reconcile it. That sharp, strange, irreverent girl, becoming that.
Tony dragged a hand across his forehead and wiped away the cold sweat.
"Maybe."
Even as he said it, something in his gut refused to let it go. It didn't feel like a simple dream. It felt like a warning. A glimpse of something that hadn't happened yet.
Which made no scientific sense. None at all.
He laughed, short and bitter.
"Maybe spending too much time with the least scientific person on the planet is getting to me. I'm actually starting to believe in this stuff."
---
The next morning, Tony came downstairs with dark circles under both eyes. Pepper followed close behind, looking thoroughly done with everything.
Hermione was already at the dining table, hammering away at a piece of metal. A row of bottles and jars was arranged in front of her, liquids in every color bubbling and gurgling.
"Morning." She didn't look up, just pointed at the table. "Made sandwiches. Try one."
Pepper picked one up and took a bite. Her eyes lit up. "These are good! Little Hermione, you really don't seem like a Brit."
Hermione thought: I'm not, originally.
"Tony dreamed about you last night," Pepper said.
Hermione glanced up. "Dreamed about me doing what?"
"Destroying the world."
Hermione's hand jerked. The test tube nearly went over.
She fixed Tony with a look of pure exasperation. What, had he caught Trelawney's void-prophecy disease?
Tony scratched the back of his head.
"Do you think I'm some kind of lunatic?" Hermione rolled her eyes. "What would be the point of destroying the world?"
She wasn't lying. Even if she wanted to harvest Soul Energy, the most she'd do was wipe out a few more villains and alien species. Destroy the Earth itself? Then what , drift through the void for eternity?
Power was a means. Not an end. What she ultimately wanted was to live the life she chose.
"Sir, Dr. Maya Hansen is here. She's waiting at the entrance."
J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice filled the room.
Maya Hansen.
Tony paused. The name caught him off guard.
He and the doctor had history — one night's worth of it, specifically.
Pepper's expression shifted into something carefully neutral.
She knew about Tony's past. It wasn't jealousy, exactly. Just the particular awkwardness of this kind of situation.
"Let her in, J.A.R.V.I.S."
The front door swung open. Maya Hansen walked in wearing a sharp business suit, briefcase in hand.
Her eyes found Pepper, and something flickered across her face , a brief, evasive dart of the gaze.
Pepper smiled easily and stepped forward. "Maya. It's been a while."
"It has." Maya's tone came out slightly stiff. "Good to see you, Pepper."
Her attention shifted to Hermione.
A small girl in pajamas was swinging a hammer roughly the diameter of her own arm, beating steadily on a piece of metal.
The image was deeply strange no matter which angle you looked at it from.
"And this is...?" Maya asked.
"Hermione." Pepper smiled. "My sister."
Sister.
Maya's expression turned puzzled. She had no memory of Pepper having a sister.
Then again — another explanation occurred to her almost immediately.
Unless... this was Tony and Pepper's daughter. An illegitimate one, kept quiet to avoid the press. Called a sister to keep up appearances.
That would make sense.
Satisfied she'd worked it out, Maya looked at Hermione with a new, knowing quality to her gaze.
Hermione noticed.
She set down her hammer and looked up.
Shouldn't you be off mediating between Godzilla and Kong? What are you doing here?
Maya was just opening her mouth to speak when something outside the floor-to-ceiling window caught her eye.
Two armed helicopters, hovering in the distance.
Two missiles, closing fast.
"Look out!"
The missiles hit before the echo of her voice died.
BOOM!
The explosion was enormous. Fire roared up into the sky.
The entire villa lurched, shuddering like something alive, like it might come apart at any second.
➤ Next: The Ancient One's Conditions
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