"Short and intense magic?" he repeated.
Tony looked up at him. "Yeah. You can do that, right?"
In reply, Harry simply turned on his heel and disappeared with a crack, reappearing right beside Tony with an identical crack.
"Like that?" he asked with a lopsided grin.
Tony, though, was staring at him from where he'd stumbled away, one hand on his chest.
"Sheesh, Potter, don't do that! What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?" he asked, before instantly changing tacts. "You can disappear from one spot and reappear somewhere else instantaneously?"
"Yeah. We call it apparating," Harry replied with a shrug.
"What's the range?" Tony asked.
Harry shrugged. "Depends a lot on how powerful the wizard is, really. Most can make it from Scotland to London in one go, if that's any help."
"Approximately six hundred and fifteen kilometres," Jarvis supplied.
Tony gave a low whistle. "Not bad. Useful, too. Right, looks like you've just given us a whole bunch of new tests to do. Get back over there and let's get to work."
Harry couldn't help but to apparate to the other side of the room, looking back as he appeared to check that he'd startled the scientist once again. He had.
ooo00ooo
"Sir. Agent Barbara Morse of S.H.I.E.L.D. is at the front door," Jarvis announced.
Both Tony and Harry paused in their latest testing of Harry's magic and looked up at each other.
"Best let the good Agent in," Tony ordered.
"Very good, Sir," Jarvis replied.
"Come on, let's go see what she wants," Tony said as he shut down his computers with a swipe of his hand and led Harry towards the glass doors of his lab and the stairs beyond.
By the time that the pair reached the correct level, Agent Morse had been let into the house and directed through to the lounge.
"Agent," Tony greeted. "I'm hoping that this is a social call and not one where you say, 'the world's in danger and needs you to save it'?"
"No to both," Agent Morse replied. "Stark. Potter."
"Nice to see you again, Agent Morse," Harry greeted, bypassing Tony to go and shake the woman's hand.
"Then why are you here?" Tony asked bluntly as he flopped into a chair.
"Something's come up and we were wanting your opinion on it," Agent Morse stated.
"I distinctly remember telling your predecessor that consulting hours are every other Thursday between eight and five," Tony rebutted.
Harry watched as the other two seemed to pause and gather themselves after that statement. He'd been told in the very briefest way about the Agent that had brought the Avengers together, but he wasn't someone that they were all that comfortable talking about yet. Still grieving, he assumed, something that Harry could relate to; after all, there were still some people that he still had a hard time talking about.
"What did you need our opinion on?" Harry asked, deliberately steering the conversation back on track.
"This," Agent Morse said, pulling a data pad from one of the pockets of her pants.
Instantly, Tony was leaning forward, his hand reaching out with a 'give me' gesture. Harry watched as the pad was placed on the low table between their chairs and activated. A few quick taps at it from Tony, followed by a grand throwing gesture sent half a dozen images and videos up into the air for all to see.
"In the past week, this person has appeared in New York City," Agent Morse said. "All we know about them is what you're seeing right now."
Harry stared at the holographic screens, trying to process what he was seeing.
In every one, there was a man – he guessed it was a man, judging by general body shape – dressed in a form-fitting red and blue suit with black highlights. Leaning forward to get a better look, Harry made out a symbol of some kind on the man's chest. His eyes widened as he realised that it was a spider.
Most of the stills and video were grainy, as though they were taken from a great distance before being blown up. Either that or the cameras weren't the usual top-of-the-line stuff that S.H.I.E.L.D. used. The fact that the vast majority of these were taken at night probably also didn't help. It was something that Tony obviously didn't appreciate.
"Jarvis, can you do something about the quality?" he asked.
The images rippled slightly before being replaced with a marginally sharper image.
"I'm sorry, Sir, that is the best that I can do," the AI replied.
"No problem, Buddy. Thanks," Tony replied.
Harry, meanwhile, had focussed on one of the videos that began showing the man running across the rooftops, leaping gaps that seemed impossibly wide with ease. Suddenly, the man flung out one arm and a string or rope of some kind seemed to shoot out and the man leapt off the building, swinging away at the end of the line like some monkey in the depths of the jungle swinging on a vine.
"Is that natural or manufactured?" Tony asked excitedly. "Where did it appear from? Some kind of device or straight from his wrist? And how'd it attach to whatever with enough strength to allow him to swing like that?"
"Judging by your questions, I'm guessing that neither of you have seen anything like this before?" Agent Morse asked.
"No, Ma'am," Harry replied, his eyes fixated on what he was seeing.
"As to your questions, Mister Stark, we don't know. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been unable to get a sample of the line as of yet," Agent Morse asked.
"So, what's his deal?" Tony asked. "Some kind of guy trying to be a hero? Mutant? Or simply a punk crook with a new gimmick?"
A few taps on the pad from Agent Morse changed the images floating in the air out for new ones. These were all stills showing the police at the scenes of crimes with guys trussed up and left dangling in front of buildings – convenience stores, jewellery stores, ATMs and even a bank.
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