Impossibly Indistinguishable

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: Experiment, note results, adjust, experiment again.  (Also, the one where Jenny accidentally makes a pun.)
Word Count: 410
Rating: Gen
Note: Dr. Strange does not appear in this fic, but it does strongly reference the Sorceror Supreme and how magic works there, so that's why it's listed.

         Miss Calendar’s still staring at him in shock and he shrugs halfheartedly, dismissing the mandala-shaped shields.
         “But…” she protests.
         “I can actually do the whip, too, but it’s harder to hold.”  He demonstrates, pulling a glowing golden form of light into a long, lethal line and whipping it at a vase.  It fizzles out in midair.  “My senses for magic are a lot better, so if we ever run into something and wonder, ‘hey, is this a potentially lethal magical artifact’, I can tell, but in the meantime combat’s something I’ve gotta work on.  I mean, you can use a shield as a weapon—look at Cap—but it’s not the easiest to maintain.”
         She continues making fishlike faces at him and finally says helplessly, “But that’s not how magic works.”
         “I have a theory about that, actually,” he continues, like it’s nothing.  The Sorceror Supreme in his head finished the majority, but after a few of the other Tonys got over their kneejerk ‘I hate magic’ reactions, their curiosity led to them hanging out in what he’s designated the main room of his mind.  And once they got the concept that magic followed rules, they decided it worked as well as an alternate science (thanks Arthur C.) and were enthusiastic about learning all the rules, just to prove that it wasn’t random nonsense.  “Chaos magic is designed to bend the normal rules.  Of magic, too, or it wouldn’t be chaotic.  In the Marvel Universe, magic is what happens when you draw on the power of other dimensions.  It doesn’t matter what’s possible here, what’s important is that it’s possible somewhere else.  My magic, I think, works off that principle.  So I don’t think I can learn traditional magic, which is kinda why I came to you and not Giles for this stuff, because that’s rules for this realm and not for the one my magic’s actually based off.  The whip, we think, goes out like a bad firecracker because it’s gotten too far away from me, and is suddenly having to conform to the rules of this world.  I can probably stabilize it if I focus it somehow and/or get stronger or a better power source, but right now that would take my life force and probably kill me, so I don’t think I wanna try.”
         She continues to stare at him, gobsmacked, and then shakes her head.  “You’re a marvel.”
         He smirks.  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”