A Death in the Family

Wow, a new subscriber (mary_alice)!  Hello!  Welcome, I hope you enjoy your stay!
(While I'm at it, a shout-out to milady_dragon--if you're looking for the Queen of Dragons or Queen of Torchwood, look no further than her.  Though be prepared to spend a lot of time reading because they're hard to put down and it's not easy to stop reading one of her works /grins.  I'm gonna make a recs list.  Eventually.)
~Dreamer~

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: It was only a matter of time before Xander's home base got attacked.
Word Count: 510
Rating: Gen, Angst

          “Come on, come on!”
          ‘Zathras is not responding,’ White Star informs him.  She sounds weird, but he’s kind of her brother, and it’s not like they’re just AIs.  They’re Stark AIs (not like Ultron, thank goodness) and they’re magic-enhanced, so it’s like they’re real entities.  Real people.
          It’s kind of sad but they’re currently closer to him than his human friends.
          White Star had informed him of a break-in.  So he’d flown off in the middle of a conversation with Buffy and Willow, which he’ll pay for later, but right now, he’s got things to do, places to go, he’s a busy man.
          He blasts a hole in the roof.  He’ll fix that later.  Right now he needs…
          Not to see that giant demon in his living room.  It’s all fur and horns, and it’s definitely not green, but he gets the image of the big guy in his head for a few seconds and has to shake it out.  He thinks it’s on the monitors briefly before he discards the idea as stupid.  It’s in your head, get it together Xand.
          It’s almost enough to distract him from all the destruction.  Because there’s destruction.  There’s destruction up the wazoo.  His heart breaks.
          The foundry’s nearly gone.  He can replace it, but that’ll cost a lot.  No upgrades for a while.  And he doesn’t have the power to just fix it with magic, and he’s not about to ask Willow to go all ‘Eye of Agamotto’ on him, because he can feel where she’s going and doesn’t want to contribute to that particular natural disaster.
          Most of his equipment is sparking.  That includes the self-created tower that houses Zathras.  It’s cut in two, and there are definitely pieces too missing or destroyed to replace.  He’ll have to wait for the assessment, but it’s entirely possible that Zathras was just…gone.
          He’d been trying to keep a low profile.  He hadn’t let Zathras spread out onto the net like Jarvis because he was fairly certain that the United States government, at the least, was keeping an eye out for strange AIs appearing in the net.  Zathras is in every piece of electronic equipment in the warehouse, but by the looks of things it’s entirely possible that every single piece is destroyed.  Perhaps not beyond repair or recovery, but…he’s not optimistic.
          He blinks tears out of his eyes.  His landing’s a bit wobbly, largely due to the fact that the metal catwalk is barely hanging in there by a few bolts.  It tilts dangerously.
          “I’ll ask you to step away from the highly expensive equipment.”  No reaction.  “You break it, you bought it.  Let’s talk damages.”
          It growls.  He tries one of his handy ‘apps’ frantically, and gets a translation from Star.
          ‘Metal Man easy target.  Good offering,’ she says, even mimicking the growl.
          He can’t wipe away the tears.  He knows that.  He doesn’t have time to be all emotional and mourn a friend, either.  He can avenge him, though.
          “Trust me, I’m not easy,” he snarls, and hits the Repulsor jets.