Hadley Potter-Stark

chapter 17

Hadley Potter-Stark returned to school for her 6th year in a far better mood than from the previous year. She had a new baby cousin to coo over and gush about and best of all: Her dad was home, safe, and able to protect himself and the rest of their family better than ever before.

While she wasnt exactly thrilled with her dad for outing his identity (for all of the safety and privacy issues that no doubt would come from it) she was immensly proud of the hero he had become. He had always been a hero in her eyes, but now the rest of the world could see it too.

Another exciting thing about the new family member, was that this one could come with them to hogwarts. While her uncles taught their classes, teddy was looked after by them in turns. The baby spent the class period in a pack-and-play set up next to his dads desks. Since he was so small, the only things needed to entertained him were his pacifier, his blue stuffed bear and his mobile.

His mobile had been custom made to have plush felt versions of the families animagus form and items to represent those who didnt have one. There was a Stag, Lily, Black Dog, Wolf, White Dog, Dragon, Bear, Kangaroo, Horse, Deer, Boxing Glove, High Heel, Iron Man Gauntlet, Toddler Letter Block labeled 'P', and a Combat Boot.

While teddy was usually content to sit quietly in his playpen as classes went on, occasionally he would get a bit more needy and end up in either his dad's, brother's, or cousin's arms. None of them were ever upset by this as they adored the baby and were always glad to have the chance to hold him.

While the family at hogwarts enjoyed the new member, the family over in california were dealing with drama stirred up from both a rival company and the government itself.

The government tried to put tony on trial and claim his suit as a weapon so they could seize it and make more of them for their armies. Tony used it as a publicity stunt if nothing else and then promptly appointed Pepper as the new ceo of stark industries.

Tony then went to the grand prix race in monacco and decided then and there to join the race himself. Much to the ire of his husband and wife, who had very much not approved of this decision. This was only made worse by the emergence of a new villain walking out on the track looking for Tony.

While Hadley had been horrified to hear of this situation, she was very amused to find a video had somehow been captured of her mom and dad on the track arguing with each other. Her mom's yell of "Are you out of your mind?!" and her dad's response of "I was attacked!" were quickly a popular thing to quote among the friend group.

As it turned out the new villain was the bitter son of an old work associate of howard's that had died around the same time as Tony had became Iron Man. Unfortunately for the Starks, the rival company of Hammer tech (owned by Justin Hammer) had aparrently decided to strike a deal with Vanko.

This meant Hammer was making his own versions of tony's suits for a profit and a reputation boost.

It was the night of her dad's birthday that Hadley (from the morning after, in her own time zone that is) had called (knowing it was more likely for him to answer at that time of day).

Unfortunately, he still didnt answer, apparently too busy throwing a huge party, getting drunk, and destroying things in his suit. Rhodey had to resort to donning his own suit to put a stop to it all.

The friends acted out like middle schoolers in a dick measuring contest and destroyed the house around them, ending with Rhodey leaving with (and essentially stealing) the iron man suit.

Luckily, Peter hadnt been there. He was safely away, being babysat by their grandma Maggie and grandpa Thomas (Pepper's mom and dad).

Meanwhile, Hadley had her phone call to her dad answered by a frazzled "Natalie Rushman". While the girl could see herself being friends with the woman, she also got a strange feeling of off-ness about her. As it turned out, she was actually from shield, sent by director Fury to spy on Tony.

Apparently, Fury was close to Howard, close enough to give Tony a box of things from Howard. Tony and Pepper meanwhile, got stuck in a rough patch, one that Tony took to hiding his hurt by joking about as a "divorce". Even while on another continent, this stressed Hadley out for obvious reasons.

Not that she had much time to allow herself to be concerned about it. She had been informed that the hufflepuff artifact horcrux had been found and destroyed, which eased some of her stress, though it had been quickly sent back in a decline when headmaster dumbledore died under "suspicious circumstances". He had fallen off the astronomy tower but had seemingly been suffering from symptoms of a curse.

Back in California, Tony discovered how to create an entirely new element to replace the palladium in the arc reactor. He then showed up to the weapons demonstration Hammer was hosting for his drones. As was soon realized, Vanko had sabotaged them and was controlling the drones and the suit Rhodey was in to attack Tony and anyone in their path.

One such drone caught sight of Peter (who had been brought by, and then wandered away from, happy's sister Vanessa) in a toy version of the iron man mask and gloves and almost shot a blast at him before Tony arrived in time to save him. Tony immediately recognized his son. "Hi kiddo! Good job! You totally saved me from that drone! Now go find your aunt please!"

After ensuring his son was safe, Tony flew off to continue fighting the drones. Natasha and Happy arrived to the location of Vanko only to find an empty room. Natasha managed to free Rhodey from the control of Vanko and subsequently took note of Tony's vitals making a comment that implied that the palladium apparently had been killing Tony.

Hadley, Pepper, and Happy had been pissed to find out about that little detail he'd hidden from them. It sadly had to be pushed to the back of their minds as Rhodey and Tony had to work together to stop Vanko in his own high powered suit. The two then quickly got moving as they realized the drones were set to explode.

Tony just managed to get pepper away from the blast range of one. The two landed on a roof a ways away, having a brief argument before they made up, previous marital spat forgotten out of relief that they were safe and alive.

Hadley was relieved to return home to her parents alive, healthy, and all still happily married to each other. Though, she had been angry with her dad and uncle Rhodey for quite a while, given that; in addition to everything else that had happened while she was away, her room had been one that was heavily damaged in their destruction of their home.