Heroes Assemble!

Hold On Tight

Tony bursting through the door to the lab was enough to almost make Harry sigh in relief.

"There!" Harry exclaimed, pointing to the console that Sterns had been working at before Harry'd stunned him.

It took Tony bare seconds to divest himself of his armour and to race across to the indicated console.

Really, this shouldn't have happened. Stopping to 'talk' was a rookie's mistake. When it came to the bad guys, Harry knew better – he should have learnt that lesson all the way back in the second Wizarding War – stun first, question later. The only thing that he could put his mistake down to was the technology involved. Even after all this time knowing Tony, Harry still didn't have that great of an understanding of what it could do. And who knew that pressing one button could set something like this in motion?

"J, plug in and get me through whatever firewalls are in place," Tony ordered his AI even as his fingers began flying across the keypad.

Harry stalked across the room to peer over Tony's shoulder while making sure that he stayed far enough back so as to not get in the tech genius' way. A deep rumbling coming from somewhere under their feet deeper in the base had both Harry and Tony looking up.

"Guys, I'm seeing movement below," Hawkeye announced.

"What is it?" Steve asked, "more soldiers."

"I don't think so. Looks like a second ICBM moving into position," Hawkeye replied.

"Get me in, J; looks like we're running out of time here," Tony stated.

"I'm sorry, Sir, I cannot break in, not in the time required to stop any more ICBMs launching," Jarvis replied.

"How many of those things does this base have in its arsenal?" Natasha asked.

"Five," Hill replied. "One of which has already launched."

"What's the problem, J?" Tony asked.

"There appears to be a twenty-three digit code that is rotating at a random interval blocking my efforts to break into the program," Jarvis replied.

"How long until that next missile launches?" Steve demanded, entering the lab at a dead run, Thor at his back.

Tony's fingers manipulated the console before he looked up with a frown.

"Ninety seconds," he replied.

"What are their targets?" Thor asked.

"No idea," Tony replied. "That info's locked away in the programming that I can't access."

"Judging by its trajectory, I'd say that the one in the air is heading for the east coast of the United States," Hill added.

"What about him? Could we get him to stop this?" Steve asked, gesturing at the unconscious Sterns.

"Doubt it," Tony replied. "Super villains don't really like having their plans thwarted. Not to mention that he's unconscious right now."

"Leave that to me," Harry stated grimly.

He knew what he needed to do. There was one spell which could solve all their problems. Really, there was no alternative. The only problem was that the one time that he'd used this spell in the past, he'd hated himself for years afterwards. An Unforgivable; it wasn't called that for nothing. But this wasn't an ordinary time and if it would save lives ...

Even as he strode towards Sterns, Harry's wand was in motion. A vicious jab rennervated Sterns.

"Imperio!" Harry whispered.