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Chapter 21: The Reluctant Client
🕑 Added 2025-09-03 18:33:40 +0000 UTCHermione looked at the one-eyed spymaster, her head tilted in a perfect imitation of childish curiosity. The entire, complex negotiation hinged on this next moment, on her ability to maintain the persona she had so carefully constructed.
"Before I help you," she said, her voice small but clear, "you have to tell me. Is this Tony Stark… a good person?"
Nick Fury's single eye held her gaze. The question was so simple, so naive, that it was profoundly difficult to answer. How did you explain a man like Tony Stark to a child? How did you explain that a merchant of death, a narcissistic playboy, and a genius who could save the world were all crammed into the same, chaotic package? In Fury's world, "good" and "bad" were luxuries. There were only assets and threats.
"Yes," he finally said, the word coming out with a decisive, practiced certainty. "He is." Despite the weapons manufacturing, the casual arrogance, and the trail of broken hearts, at his core, yes, Fury thought. He's a good man. As the son of Howard Stark, a founder of S.H.I.E.L.D., and as the most brilliant scientific mind of his generation, Tony Stark's value was incalculable. He had to be saved.
Hermione's face broke into a bright, trusting smile. "Okay, then. I'll help you."
A flicker of genuine surprise, quickly suppressed, crossed Fury's face. "You… you have a way to find him?" He had been expecting more negotiation, more demands. This was too easy.
"Oh, no, I can't find where he is right now," Hermione said bluntly, dashing his hopes as quickly as she had raised them. It was the truth. The movie had shown a cave in the Afghan desert, but the specific coordinates were a mystery.
"Then you…" Fury began, his confusion returning.
"But," Hermione interrupted, her eyes sparkling with a new idea, "I don't need to find him to know what happens to him. I can predict his future."
The words dropped into the silent, sterile office like a bomb. Predict the future. Divination. It was a concept so far outside the realm of their reality that for a moment, all three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents just stared. Every time they thought they had a handle on the scope of her abilities, she casually revealed another, even more impossible one.
Fury was the first to recover, his mind already racing, calculating the immense strategic value of such a power. "What do you need from us?" he asked, his voice low and intense.
"A crystal ball," Hermione said simply. "A perfect one. Clear, flawless, without a single impurity."
A crystal ball, Natasha thought, a brief, absurd image of a carnival fortune teller flashing through her mind. But she quickly dismissed it. This was a real wizard. Her tools were not to be mocked.
"And," Hermione added, a thoughtful frown on her face, "my magic isn't quite strong enough yet to see the future of someone I've never met. I'd need to be in their presence to do the reading."
Fury's expression went blank. "Miss Granger… are you joking? If we could bring Tony Stark here for you to do a reading, we wouldn't need you to find him in the first place."
Hermione's face fell, and she scratched her head in embarrassment, sticking her tongue out in a disarmingly cute gesture. "Oh, right. I didn't explain that very well. I don't need to see his future directly. I can just see the future of someone who is very, very close to him. If Mr. Stark is in their future, then we'll know he's going to be okay, won't we?"
The simple, elegant logic of the workaround dawned on the three master spies at once. They couldn't get a location, but they could get something almost as valuable: confirmation of survival.
A faint flush of color rose on Fury's dark cheeks. He, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., had just been out-thought by a twelve-year-old.
"Tony Stark's close friend…" Natasha mused, her mind instantly flipping through the Stark file. His parents were dead. He had no siblings. His personality was notoriously abrasive. The list of people who could be considered truly close to him was vanishingly small. She leaned over and whispered a single name into Fury's ear.
He nodded. "Potts. Get her here."
An hour later, an agent delivered a heavy, velvet-lined case to the office. Inside, nestled on a satin pillow, was a flawless, softball-sized sphere of pure crystal. Hermione lifted it out, its weight cool and solid in her hands, and placed it on Fury's desk.
A few minutes after that, the office doors slid open and a woman with strawberry-blonde hair, wearing an impeccable business suit that couldn't quite hide the deep, dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes, was escorted in by Coulson.
"Director Fury," Pepper Potts said, her voice strained and brittle. "Agent Coulson said you had a lead. That you could find Tony."
"We believe we can, Miss Potts," Fury said, his tone gentle. "But we require your assistance."
A flicker of desperate hope lit up Pepper's tired eyes. "Anything," she said, her voice cracking slightly. "I'll do anything. Just please, find him. Bring him home." For the past two months, she had been living a waking nightmare, holding a global corporation together by a thread while fielding calls from the military and the press, all while the man she… the man she worked for was missing, presumed dead.
"We will do everything in our power," Fury assured her. "However, the main asset on this operation isn't S.H.I.E.L.D. It's someone else."
"Who?" Pepper asked, confused. "The military? If they were reliable, this never would have happened."
Fury simply gestured with his chin toward the small girl in the strange black robes who was quietly polishing the crystal ball on his desk. "Her."
Pepper stared. She looked from Fury's serious, one-eyed face to the little girl, who couldn't have been more than twelve. A child. In a Halloween costume. The fragile hope in her eyes died, replaced by a cold, furious wave of disappointment.
"You have got to be kidding me," she said, her voice shaking with a mixture of anger and grief. "You dragged me away from my work, you gave me this… this false hope, just to play some kind of sick joke?"
"Miss Potts, I assure you, this is no joke," Fury said calmly.
"You're telling me that this little girl is how you're going to find Tony?" Pepper's voice rose, her composure finally shattering. "How? With a magic wand?" She looked at Fury with utter contempt. "I don't have time for this. The company is in crisis. I have work to do."
Disappointment and sorrow radiated from her in waves. She turned on her heel and marched toward the door. "Thank you for wasting my time, Director."
Just as her hand reached for the handle, the massive, reinforced office doors slammed shut with a heavy, echoing BOOM.
Pepper spun around, her heart leaping into her throat. The little girl in the black robes was now standing, pointing a small, dark wooden stick directly at her.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
An invisible force slammed into Pepper. Her body went instantly, unnaturally rigid. Her arms snapped to her sides, her legs locked together. The scream that was building in her throat died before it could make a sound. She was a prisoner in her own body, her mind wide awake and screaming in pure, abject terror, but utterly unable to move a single muscle. She began to topple over like a felled statue, her eyes wide with horror.
Coulson lunged forward and caught her just before she hit the floor, propping her stiff, paralyzed form against the wall.
Hermione lowered her wand, her expression calm and business-like. "Now," she said, turning to the stunned S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. "Shall we begin the prophecy?"
