Chapter 8
Harry whipped around to the door, battle stance ready. Pepper’s fear filled eyes met his own, and there was a little part of him that begged him to stop, to drop the wand, and to hold his partner close. He wanted to go back to normal and pretend this never happened, but there was that overwhelming extra voice in his head demanding him to continue. So he did. He turned away from the one thing keeping him grounded in this world and swung his wand directly at the Iron Man suit electrifying it.
“Harry!” Pepper screamed over the blast and shifting metal, but Harry’s mind was set. Her voice was too far away to stop him.
The suit began to move, stepping out of its fixed position. He was here. You did it Harry, he could hear Death speak in his mind. Good job, it said, good job. And Harry did feel good. The power was euphoric as it radiated from his hand to deep in his heart warming his mind and body. The feeling made him smile wide, and he almost laughed as the suit took another step towards him. The suit- no Tony, it was Tony now. Tony stared blankly ahead, but Harry didn’t expect much emotion from what was essentially a robot harboring the soul of his lost love.
The chaos stopped as quickly as it started as Tony looked around his lab. Harry hoped that he would speak but wasn’t sure how it all worked. Was he even capable of speaking in this form? Did he mess up somehow? No, he couldn’t have. Death guided his hand through it all. There could be no mistakes.
“Harry,” Pepper attempted again. “Harry, what did you do?”
Finally, he looked at her; sad, concerned, but especially angry. “I did it, Pep. He’s back.”
“No,” she shook her head. “That’s not possible, Harry.”
“But it is.” Harry reassured her as the Iron Man suit, Tony, stood close to him. He placed a hand over the arc reactor feeling its warmth. “He really is in there. I can feel it.”
“Harry, please, stop. The Elder Wand is playing games with you. You, yourself, said the dead cannot come back to life.” Pepper’s voice became frantic. “You’ve seen it before.”
The wizard remembered the resurrection stone in the forbidden forest. Being able to talk to those that passed but unable to bring them back. It was a failure in his eyes now. He knew better now. He knew the true power of the Deathly Hallows and what it truly meant to be the Master of Death. Slowly turning back to Pepper, Harry softly smiled. “One day you will understand.”
“Understand what?”
“The power we could have.” He wasn’t talking about Pepper when he said ‘we,’ and she knew that. Harry had turned to face what appeared as an empty dark corner to her, but held Death and an open door to somewhere else. Where? Harry did not know, but he really didn’t care. He needed to keep moving and bring Tony back for good just as he was before.
Pepper watched as Harry and the Iron Man suit walked through darkness and disappeared into the corner of Tony’s abandoned lab. She screamed and yelled after him, but the wizard ignored her pleads, or perhaps couldn’t hear them. She wanted to cry but couldn’t, and the only thing Pepper had left was the horrible feeling that somehow, someway she could’ve prevented this. What she did know was that she had several phone calls to make.
Teddy, Harley, Natasha, and Steve sat quietly at the kitchen island waiting for Pepper to put Morgan to bed. It was rather awkward to listen in as Pepper tried to avoid questions from her daughter over where Harry had gone. Using the excuse of Harry being busy at work, Morgan finally went to sleep. Pepper rejoined them shortly, unsure how to start the meeting. The group looked tense already from the brief description Pepper had given over the phone. “Harry’s in trouble, I need everyone at the house now” wasn’t very informative.
But before explaining, Pepper glared at Natasha and her guest. “Nat, why is Steve Rogers in my kitchen?”
“I thought he could help.” Nat shrugged. On her right, Steve sat confused not even thinking his presents could be an issue.
“I told you I can handle this with a few people.”
“Tell us what’s going on,” Teddy cut in a little aggravated no one has told him where his godfather was yet.
Pepper glanced over at Steve warily as she chose her words wisely. “Harry has used a powerful object attempting to bring Tony back.”
“Shit, not the-“ Teddy began which Pepper simply nodded confirming that The Elder Wand was responsible for this.
“The what?” Steve asked unaware that they legally couldn’t tell him. “If we’re going to have to fight him, I’d like to know what weapon we’re up against.”
“You aren’t fighting my godfather.” Teddy stood firm.
“If he is dangerous-“ Nat tried to explain.
“Harry isn’t dangerous.” Teddy countered.
Pepper could feel her headache intensify. “I did not bring all of you in to fight Harry. I just need help finding him. He went through a portal and could be anywhere across the world by now.”
“Or worlds.”
Harley shot up at his boyfriend's words. “I’m sorry, worlds?”
“The El- the powerful object Harry has is connected to a very powerful entity that lives between all worlds. It is Death, itself.” Teddy wasn’t sure of how much he could reveal to these muggles, but it was an emergency situation.
Natasha spoke under breath, “this sounds more like a Thor thing.”
“I think we should call Hermione.” Pepper stepped closer to Teddy.
“No, she’s way too busy for this.”
“But she would do anything for Harry, and if we ask anyone else in England they would tell her anyway.”
“You’re right, but we can’t have the ministry in Harry’s business. This could go very bad, and the last thing we need is to bring more government into it.” Teddy brought up a very good point. “And he hates the ministry.”
Nat spoke out again. “You know eventually, you’ll have to give us all the details.”
“Not yet. Right now all you need to know is that Harry and an Iron Man suit are missing. We need to start surveillance and look for any possible sightings. An Iron Man out in public isn’t hard to miss.” She then turned to Teddy and Harley. “Take Harley to Harry’s office and look for anything that could help. I need every book he has about Death and his domain. If Harry’s out there, we will find a way to bring him home.”
The four of them nodded, and separated to begin their tasks. Pepper sighed, deciding to make a pot of coffee. It was going to be a long night.