Holly Potter and the Midlife Crisis (Hp x Mcu) by Enigmaris

Chapter 14: What do a Robot and a Broomstick have in Common?

The car died.

She kicked at the car, her foot hitting the plastic covering on the upper part of the drivers seat.

Tony giggled.

"I'd like to see you do so well on a broom."

"A broom?" Now something about that made Tony's mechanical heart beat just a bit quicker.

"Yes. We don't have cars in the magical world we have flying brooms." She said. "And I bet if you tried to fly in one, you'd land flat on your face."

Why had he never been told about the flying brooms? Maybe she'd brought it up before, but it was only now registering in his brain. Holy shit, they flew on brooms. He had to be a part of that. He had to. There was literally no other way this afternoon could go.

"Oh really? You wanna put your money where your mouth is Miss Potter?"

"You are so on, Mr. Stark."

She pushed open the door of the car, eager for the excuse to get out of the car she'd fought so hard against getting inside of, and waved her hand, conjuring two brooms. Who knew where they came from. They didn't look normal brooms, they were stylized and had metal pegs coming out the side, he assumed for the user to put their feet on. She tossed one at Tony who immediately caught it as he got out of the car himself. They both walked towards the nearby field, the entire place was private property of Tony's which meant that it was deserted. They stood in the grass and Holly instructed Tony to put his broom on the ground and then hold out his hand.

"Now just say up." She said. "Like so. Up!"

Her broom jumped right into her hand. She motioned for Tony to do the same. He huffed.

"Up." Nothing happened. "Up!"

The broom at his feet rolled a little as if to show that it had heard Tony but didn't much care for his tone.

"Hmm...It's not very effective." She said, her tone far more amused than it had any right to be. Had she not just stalled his car fifteen times in a row?

"Did you really just make a Pokémon reference?"

"Clint's gotten me hooked on them."

"Of course, he has. Up!" The broom still didn't listen to him. What the hell? Was it defective?

"At least I got your car to move." Tony gave her a very offended look and tried again. This time ordering the broom up with something akin to a threat in his voice. The broom didn't seem to hear him. "You know plenty of men your age have a hard time getting it up. Performance issues are totally natur..."

"Do not." Tony said. "I will figure this out and then you'll be sorry."

"Right right." She consoled. For the next ten minutes Tony tried every sort of version of the word 'Up' he could think of. From various different languages to turns of phrases until he descended into frustrated insults and threats. The broom didn't twitch at all.  "Tony you're doing it wrong."

"What?" Tony stopped his rather creative threat to the broom and looked up at the witch who was still holding her broom and looking at him as if she was mystified.

"Think of the broom like...like it's Dum-E or U."  She said. "Is this how you'd ask Dum-E to do something for you?"

"Of course not." Tony said. "Dum-E's my buddy, not some stupid piece of wood."

"Aren't there people that just call Dum-E just a pile of metal gears?" His jaw dropped a little as he considered that. Slowly he stooped down and looked at the broom.