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Chapter 31: The Tortoise and the Rocket Man
🕑 Added 2025-09-03 18:43:19 +0000 UTC"Hey, little wizard!"
Tony's voice, filtered through the suit's external speakers, was laced with a familiar, arrogant confidence. He hovered in the air beside her, the sunlight glinting off his gold and hot-rod red armor. The brief, humbling experience of having his entire worldview shattered was already being papered over by his indomitable ego. He had been outsmarted and out-maneuvered, but this… speed, flight, technology… this was his domain.
"I'm feeling generous," he continued, a smirk evident in his tone. "How about a little race? To Stark Tower. We'll see what's faster, your little magic broomstick or my state-of-the-art suit."
Hermione looked at him, her expression one of profound speechlessness. He was a forty-year-old man, the head of a global corporation, and a certifiable genius, and he was acting like a ten-year-old boy on a playground. He was so transparent. His pride had been wounded, and he was desperately trying to find some way, any way, to reassert his dominance.
A slow, wicked smile spread across her face. "Alright, Mr. Stark. You're on." She paused, letting the hook set. "But we need stakes. To make it interesting."
"Name your price, kid," Tony said with a dismissive wave of his gauntlet, utterly confident. "A research grant? A pony? New set of robes?"
"No," Hermione said, her smile widening. "The loser, upon arriving at the Tower, has to find Sister Pepper, look her directly in the eye, and bark like a puppy. Three times."
Tony was silent for a moment, processing the sheer, childish absurdity of the wager. Then he burst out laughing, a loud, metallic sound from his speakers. "You got a deal, kid! I haven't had this much fun in years." This was perfect. He'd win, of course, and then he could gently rib her about her overconfidence. I'll even go easy on her, he thought magnanimously, so she doesn't lose too badly.
Hermione's grin turned predatory. You have no idea what you just agreed to.
"First one to the President's office wins!" Tony yelled.
With a final, cocky salute, he engaged his thrusters. The sound was a deafening roar. In an instant, he broke the sound barrier, the sonic boom a thunderclap that rattled the clouds. He was a red and gold bullet, a streak of light vanishing into the horizon.
Hermione was left hovering in the sudden, ringing silence, the wind from his departure still whipping at her robes. She knew the Nimbus 2000, for all its magical prowess, couldn't hope to match that kind of raw, brute-force velocity. But she had never intended to play fair.
"Accio, Iron Man suit!" she whispered, pointing her wand at the distant, rapidly shrinking speck.
Tony was exhilarated. This was what he was built for. The sky was his, the wind was his, the sheer, unadulterated thrill of speed was his. He glanced at his HUD. No sign of the little wizard. He'd probably lost her the moment he'd hit Mach 1.
Then, he felt it. A sudden, inexplicable drag. It felt as if he'd deployed an anchor into thin air. The suit's forward momentum slowed dramatically, his velocity dropping back below the speed of sound with a jarring lurch.
"Sir, I am detecting an unknown, persistent kinetic force pulling against our primary thrusters," Jarvis's voice announced, a fraction of a second too late.
"No kidding, J!" Tony grunted, pushing the thrusters harder. The suit strained, the arc reactor's output spiking on his HUD. He turned his head and saw, to his utter disbelief, that Hermione was no longer a distant speck. She was gaining on him, or rather, he was being dragged back towards her. An invisible, unbreakable tether seemed to connect them across the sky.
He was towing her.
"You're cheating!" he yelled, his voice a mix of fury and grudging admiration.
Her voice, magically amplified, came back to him on the wind, dripping with smug innocence. "Cheating? Mr. Stark, you said we should see whether my magic was stronger or your suit was stronger. I'm using my magic. Are you saying I'm not allowed to?"
Tony was speechless. He was trapped by the exact terms of his own arrogant challenge. There was nothing he could do but grit his teeth and push his thrusters to their absolute limit, the suit screaming in protest as it fought against both the wind resistance and her infuriating magical tow rope.
Hermione, meanwhile, was having the time of her life. The raw power of the Iron Man suit was incredible; even with a full-powered Summoning Charm latched onto it, she couldn't actually pull him back. She could only slow him down and get a free ride in his slipstream. It was a perfect, magical stalemate.
Seeing that he was still slowly pulling away, Tony's triumphant laugh echoed again. "Hahaha! Just a clever trick, kid! Not enough to beat pure power!"
He was right. She couldn't actually overtake him this way. But, as anyone who had ever played a racing video game knew, winning wasn't just about being the fastest. It was about making your opponent slower than you. A devilish grin spread across her lips.
Tony saw that smile on his HUD's magnified view, and his blood ran cold.
Hermione slowly raised her wand again.
Oh no, Tony thought. She's starting again.
"Impedimenta!"
BOOM! Tony felt his suit slam into something solid and unyielding. The impact was jarring, a full-body jolt that rattled his teeth and sent a cascade of yellow warnings flashing across his HUD. "What was that? Did we hit a flock of birds?"
"Negative, sir," Jarvis replied instantly. "No obstacles detected on any sensor."
"Impedimenta!" Hermione's voice chirped again.
BOOM! Another invisible impact, this one harder than the last, sending him into a brief, uncontrolled spin.
"Impedimenta! Boom! Impedimenta! Boom! Impedimenta! Boom!"
The rest of the flight was a special kind of hell. Tony was battered and bruised, his multi-billion dollar suit stumbling through the sky like a drunk, constantly crashing into invisible walls that his sensors insisted weren't there. It was the most humiliating and uncomfortable flight of his life.
Finally, through the haze of his concussion, he saw it. Stark Tower. The finish line. He was battered, but he was still ahead. He pushed the thrusters one last time, ready to end this nightmare. He didn't notice that Hermione, having ceased her magical assault, had glided up right beside him.
She gave him a sweet, innocent smile, and then shot ahead, zipping through the open window of his office a full ten seconds before him.
She hopped off her broom, turned, and waved as Tony, unable to decelerate in time, came crashing through the massive, tempered-glass window with a deafening explosion of shattering glass and screeching metal. He plowed through his own office, taking out a desk, a sofa, and an abstract sculpture before finally skidding to a halt against the far wall.
The door to the office slid open. Pepper Potts stood there, a stack of documents in her hand, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated fury as she surveyed the absolute carnage.
"TONY STARK!!!" she roared.
Tony's faceplate retracted. He glanced at Pepper's thunderous expression. He glanced at Hermione, who was giving him a sweet, expectant smile. He was trapped. There was no escape.
He took a deep breath, the sound of his own dignity shattering like the window behind him.
"Woof," he said, the sound a pathetic, defeated bark.
"Woof! Woof!"
Then he turned and, with his thrusters at a humiliating fifty percent, fled the scene.
