Chapter 1
Location: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Time: Approximately 8:00 pm
The nurse watched, somewhat anxious, as the patient in the bed began to stir. He'd been waking for the past week, brain functions slowly increasing, but this was the first time he'd begun moving in years, eyes moving beneath his lids and fingertips twitching. Slowly, as if every little movement was a struggle, the man, more like teen, cracked open his eyes, exposing cloudy green that seemed to glow in the low light from the moon and the hallway. Once he focused, he noticed the woman in the room and the first words out of his mouth were, "he's coming", then he passed back out.
Location: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Time: Approximately Midnight
Everything hurt, his mind a mess as he landed and his body aching from the tortures he'd received at the hands of his 'masters', but a hidden part, deeply buried in his mind, finally emerged as he saw the humans creeping closer. His hand tightened on the scepter, the magic of it trying to infect the last piece of him that still held some semblance of sanity, then his eyes latched onto the one-eyed one, his irritation at the man's resemblance to Odin clouding his mind.
"Sir? Please, put down the spear!"
He stared down at the scepter in question, impotent rage flaring through him, then flicked his glance back up and fired off an energy shot in warning. Killing would come later, he knew, but for now, he needed out of the building and out into the world. They opened fire and he dodged, using superior strength and reflexes to attack on autopilot, and managed to take down several with throwing knives which he embedded in their shoulders or arms, anywhere really that would slow them down. More blasts of energy followed as he ran out of ready made daggers, and he inwardly flinched as his kick threw someone into the wall, the sound of crunching bone audible even from where he was.
Worry about healing him, and the rest, when you have control over your mind again.
Everything went quiet and he stood, waiting for the next attack. A movement from the man who had saved the one eye'd one had him quickly moving forward before he could get his bearings, then he looked into his blue eyes, looked past them to the heart of his foe.
"You have heart." Too bad I have to take it from you. The tip of his scepter pressed against the man's chest, and Loki watched as light blue eyes became black, then turned an almost neon blue. His scepter had taken its first victim. Another of the men, this one in a suit, became the second victim, then he turned and saw the one eyed man walking away with his prize, the only thing he'd gone to Midgard for.
"Please, don't. I still need that." His tone was polite but the words were an order, the hold on his mind from his 'master' urging him to take it, steal it, kill the man who thought he could run away with his prize.
"This doesn't have to get any messier." The man warned, trying to neutralize the threat without fighting.
Loki smirked, a quirk of the lips on one side, and tried to balance the need to obey with the need to preserve life. "Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else." His 'master' would expect more than just that, though, so he pulled on the role of cracked sanity and leaned forward slightly. "I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose." There. That should be sufficient for my 'master', hopefully.
"Loki! Brother of Thor?" The voice came from his left, drawing his attention from his quarry to see an older man standing from where he'd knelt against the wall. Then his attention snapped back to his quarry.
"We have no quarrel with your people." Fury spoke, trying to relax what he knew was about to be a shit show.
Amusement filtered through Loki as he tilted his head slightly, knowing exactly how to play his next part. "An ant has no quarrel with a boot." He saw the moment his insult hit home, and in the secret, hidden part of his mind that watched everything with his usual mischievous nature, he took pleasure in seeing the irritation on the man's face.
Fury looked like his namesake, though the only way to tell was by his eye. "Are you planning to step on us?" He wondered at the audacity of this man, though he didn't really question it. 'Loki' had taken down several of his best men and turned several others into walking puppets already.
The voice in Loki's head grew more demanding and he knew he had to step up his game, so as he moved around, he smiled. "I come with glad tidings! Of a world made free."
"Free from what?"
His smile abruptly dropped. "Freedom. Freedom is life's greatest lie. Once you accept that, in your heart," spinning, Loki pressed the tip of the scepter into another man's chest, watching as his eyes turned black, then neon blue, "you will know peace." It scraped at his inner self, stealing the free will from these people, but he couldn't do anything else. He was as much a slave as they were, he only had more autonomy because of his Jotun heritage.
"Yeah, you say peace, but I kinda think you mean the other thing." Fury wasn't buying it. He'd seen bad guys in all shapes and sizes, knew insanity by the smell, and to him, Loki was the embodiment of it.
Hawkeye, who had been staring upward, at the ceiling above where Loki arrived, drew attention by speaking at that moment. "Sir? Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow; drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us."
He now had a name for the one who resembled Odin: Fury.
"Like the Pharoahs of old." Fury quipped, a slight smirk on his face.
Selvig chimed in at that point after checking the readings. "He's right, the portal is collapsing in on itself. We've got maybe two minutes before this goes critical."
"Well then." Loki turned to Hawkeye and without much urging, the man fired into Fury's chest, causing the irritating one-eyed menace to lurch back far enough away from the case carrying his prize. With the way clear, he grabbed the case, then directed his fellow slaves to follow him. Men like Fury would survive even the end of the world; it was how they were built, so Loki didn't mind leaving him behind.
He and his group left, heading out into the garage area where Hawkeye took charge, pointing out several of the automobiles. "I need these vehicles." Hawkeye barely glanced at Agent Hill as he spoke, leading Loki to the bed of one truck.
Hill gave the new addition a suspicious look. "Who's that?"
"They didn't tell me."
"Hill! Do you copy? Barton has turned!"
Loki smirked inwardly as he heard Fury's voice, tinny over the radio, and knew his assessment of the man had been true, then the woman dodged as one of the agents turned by him began shooting, rolling behind a stack of boxes, and the truck he was in sped off, followed by a sleek black car. She tried firing after them but they were gone before she could get a clear shot.
Agent Hill glared at the disappearing vehicles then turned her attention to her radio as it went off again.
"They have the tesseract! Shut them down!"
A moment later, Loki watched as cars caught up and people began firing. By that point, however, he was getting tired of being delayed, and he shot off an energy blast directly into the closest car. It exploded, swerved, and crashed to a stop, causing the ones behind it to stop as well, then Loki set the scepter crosswise in his lap and tried to organize the small part of his mind left untouched by his 'master'. His meditation was interrupted quickly as their truck rammed into a jeep, then shots began going off again and he waited to see whether or not he'd be needed.
Some fancy driving got them free, then the compound he had arrived in blew, collapsing in on itself and crumbling into nothing more than a pile of rubble. Of course, then Fury reappeared in his helicopter, and Loki braced himself for yet more fighting, the scepter in one hand as he stared over the hood of the truck cab. Several of the shots managed to hit the truck itself, then another energy shot to the rotors of the helicopter and they were free; it went down, Fury survived well enough to shoot a few more times, then their truck was speeding away, tesseract in his possession.
Fury stared after the truck for a few seconds, then heard his radio sound off and slightly relaxed his tense stance.
"Director? Director Fury, do you copy?"
Despite aching from the rough landing, and everything before that, Fury responded as calm and assured as ever. "The tesseract is with a hostile force. I have men down. Hill?"
"A lot of men still under; don't know how many survivors."
"Sound a general call. I want every living soul not working rescue out looking for that briefcase." His men were important to him, sure, but if he left the tesseract out there, not only would his ass be on the firing line, but his men would be in deep shit as well.
"Roger that."
"Coulson, get back to base. This is a level seven. As of right now, we are at war."
There was a pause before Coulson responded. "What do we do?"
He knew this would either go splendidly, or the world really would end, but they were his only hope. "I'm reinstating the Avenger's Initiative."
Half an hour later, Coulson arrived in a dusty car looking calm but giving slight tells toward his anxiety. "What is it, Coulson?"
"Sir... He's awake."
Fury felt himself pause at the words, knowing only two men of import who'd been asleep, one of which had woken already, then sighed. The night was growing progressively worse, and he wondered if he'd get the chance to rest that night at all. "Take me to him. I'll need to speak with him."
"Yes sir."
The ride was long, but they arrived at the hospital just in time to catch a nurse coming out of the room, looking frazzled and irritated as she walked away carrying uneaten food. "Stand watch, Coulson, I'll speak to him myself." Leaving his agent at the door, Fury entered the dimly lit room to a sight he'd never thought to see. The man in the bed, with green eyes and long, black hair that waved slightly, was sitting up and creating multicoloured lights that danced and warped above his palm.
"You should knock, sir, before entering someone's room. It's only polite." Glowing green eyes flicked up to meet a singular black eye reproachfully, then Harry sat back against the pillows propping him up, the light show vanishing as if it had never been there. "I know why you're here, but I won't fight."
Fury took a seat near the bed, elbows braced on his knees and hands clasped together between them. "What makes you think I want you to fight?"
"Oh please." Harry snorted, raising an eyebrow at the man and golding up his hand to tick off his fingers. "Let's see, you walk like a soldier, look like you've just gotten into and out of a fight, your aura practically screams commander, and the first person you visit in hospital is someone you aren't related to but who has abilities beyond what humans of this world can access. I could go on, if you like, but I think that's enough. Next time, don't insult my intelligence."
Humming softly in consideration, Fury sat back in his seat and eyed the male for a moment, watching as Harry went back to playing with coloured lights. "Fine. Tell me what you remember."
There was another moment of quiet as Harry thought back, his lights taking on darker hues. "I don't remember the exact date, but I was thirteen when I was kidnapped. Schmidt wanted to see how the power of the tesseract might affect the serum in his blood, but he didn't want to test it on himself. I'd already had magic at that age, and apparently I gave off an energy signature, which is how they tracked me. There was a pain in my arms and legs, my back, my stomach, and my neck, then I was hooked up to something. Everything was fuzzy, though, like I'd been drugged, and I couldn't really make sense of anything at the time."
One eye tracked the shudder that wracked Harry's form, and just when he thought the man wasn't going to continue, he did.
"Whatever I was hooked to, my magic seemed to absorb it. It was like... Imagine a cup, right? It can only hold so much liquid. My magic was like that, before, and I had to keep stretching the cup wider and wider. This thing I was hooked to, which I later realized was the tesseract, it was like it shattered the cup and tossed the fragments into an ocean. I can still feel it, you know?" Looking up, haunted green eyes met black and Harry curled up on the bed, arms wrapped around his chest and knees drawn up against his arms.
"That's what woke me, the tesseract. I could feel it when it opened a gateway, and when it let through a man. I was even able to sense the man's magic, too. It's like... It's like he's being controlled, possessed, but there's a part of him that remains free."
Intrigued, Fury sat forward and pinned the man in the bed with a look. "You're saying he's not in control? That someone who could take out an entire compound of my agents, who turned several of them into his puppets, isn't strong enough to fight off someone else?"
Once more, haunted green eyes looked up into Fury's own and he saw the truth there. Someone stronger than Loki was out there, someone strong enough to put Loki under thrall, and that was who they faced. Abruptly, he stood, thanked Harry for the information, and swept out of the room, ordering Coulson to keep watch over the man. His plans had just moved up and he needed everyone on the heli yesterday.
Loki had managed to bespell the hotel staff of their current location into ignoring their presence entirely, except for the usual room cleaning and room service when ordered, and made plans for what to do next. He could feel the minds of those he had enslaved, the ones he'd taken against their will, and could feel them struggling against the scepter's thrall. One, the first man he'd taken, fought the hardest, his thoughts on his friends and family, and while Loki commended him for his perseverance, he couldn't help. They were all slaves to the scepter, which everyone knew, and he couldn't even save himself, so he wasn't wasting time on anyone else. Not yet, at least.
Patience, Loki. You're good at the long haul, the deep cover. You'll be free soon. Patience.
After Fury left, he called in another agent to replace Coulson on guard duty, had Coulson call Natasha, then set his mind to work on plans. The world needed the Avengers now, needed protection from extraterrestrial threat, and he'd be damned if he left the world to flounder. Then again, the Council didn't seem too enthused about his plan.
"This is out of line, Director. You're dealing with forces you can't control."
"You ever been in a war, Councilman?" Fury asked rhetorically, staring between the screens showing blacked out silhouettes of each Council member. "In a firefight? Did you feel an overabundance of 'control'?" He barely managed not to snort derisively or roll his eye.
"You're saying that this... Asgard, is declaring war on our planet?"
The man's tone was patronizing, as if Fury were a child throwing a temper tantrum after not getting a toy. "Not Asgard. Loki."
Another Council member spoke then, one of the women though he never got their names. "He can't be working alone. What about the other one? His 'brother'?"
"Our intelligence says Thor is not a hostile, but he's worlds away. We can't depend on him to help either. It's up to us." Not that we need another alien slash god wreaking havoc on Earth.
"Which is why you should be focusing on phase two. It was designed for exactly this..."
Fury interrupted, trying not to let his irritation show. "Phase two isn't ready. Our enemy is. We need a response team." He'd long suspected part of, or all of, the council didn't hold the world's best interest at heart, but their reluctance to approve the initiative was making that less a suspicion and more a fact.
"The Avenger's Initiative was shut down."
"This isn't about the Avengers." Fury tried, only to be spoken over by two other Councilmen in succession.
"We've seen the list."
"You're running the world's greatest covert security network and you're gonna leave the fate of the human race to a handful of freaks?"
"I'm not leaving anything to anyone. We need a response team." Fury just wanted the headache done with at that point. His eye ached and his feet were sore from standing so long. "These people may be isolated, unbalanced, even, but I believe with the right push, they can be exactly what we need."
"You 'believe'?"
"War isn't won by sentiment, Director."
"No." He agreed, irritated once more. "It's won by soldiers."
They agreed, reluctantly, and he left, headed back to the agent hospital to see if he could talk Harry into at least joining S.H.I.E.L.D.
"You're back... And still don't know how to knock." Harry mused, turning the chair Fury had been moving toward into a pile of blankets. If the man was rude enough to barge in unannounced, he didn't deserve a chair. "At least you don't look like you got dragged through a cave while fighting trolls this time. What do you want, sir?" Harry asked as he looked up and took in the man's attire.
Lips twitching with an aborted scowl, Fury clasped his hands behind his back where he stood, giving off an imposing, intimidating air. "You won't fight, I get that, but you have no records, no background. S.H.I.E.L.D already has one like you at the compound, Steve Rogers-"
"Mmmh, yes. 'Captain America'. I heard of him. And... What? You want to give me a nice, cushy place to live where you can monitor me? I'm powerful and a threat, so you want to keep an eye on me, make sure I'm not doing anything suspicious? Or is it that you hope I'll fight when I see whoever else it is you're bringing in? Maybe both?" Harry folded his arms across his chest and glared. "I've known men like you, Mr. Fury, men who think to use people as chess pieces, and I've been down that road before. I'll go with you, mainly to keep the peace, but I'm not fighting. Try all you like to nudge me into it, but I won't. I spent a lifetime under someone else's thumb, and I'm tired."
Fury narrowed his eye at the man. He'd received several pieces of the puzzle that was Harry Potter, but things didn't add up. Yet. They would in time, though, he'd make sure of that. "Agent Coulson will show you to the base as soon as you're discharged." He swept out to silence, irritation making him snappier than usual as he ordered Agent Coulson to collect Harry while grabbing Stark. He had a Captain to collect himself.
An hour later, Fury watched the American Icon, Steve Rogers, destroy a sandbag. The man looked like he'd been reliving his past for several hours at that point, and when the bag flew off the hook, splitting open and spreading sand everywhere, he watched Steve replace it with another, then decided to step in.
"Trouble sleeping?"
"I've slept for seventy years, sir, I think I've had my fill." Steve turned back to the new bag and began punching it, the impact of his fist against sturdy leather helping to work up a sweat.
"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world." Fury knew the man was fighting his own demons, and he watched as Steve moved away, unwrapping his hands.
"When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won." His movements were slightly shaky from adrenaline but he continued speaking, watching Fury out of the corner of his eye. "They didn't say what we lost."
"We've made some mistakes along the way." Fury admitted. "Some, very recently."
Steve looked up, then back down quickly. "You here with a mission, sir?"
"I am."
"Trying to get me back in the world?"
"Trying to save it." Handing over a file, Fury waited for Steve to take it, giving him a knowing look. This was a soldier without a purpose; he was there to give him one.
The first picture he saw brought flashbacks, but Steve kept reading. "HYDRA's secret weapon."
"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think. The tesseract could be the key to unlimited, sustainable energy." Not to mention weapons powerful enough to possibly take down a god. "That's something the world sorely needs."
The blonde looked up and Fury knew he'd won by the next words out of his mouth. "So who took it from you?"
"He's called Loki. He's... Not from around here." Understatement of the year. "There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."
Just in time, Fury managed to hold back an amused sound, his expression neutral when he spoke. "Ten bucks says you're wrong." He watched as Steve bent to grab a sandbag, then his personal bag, and added. "There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment. Is there anything you can tell us about the tesseract that we ought to know now?"
Memories flashed in front of his eyes as he walked away, but he did comment. "You should have left it in the ocean."
Phil knocked politely on the hospital room door, received an equally polite "come in", and when he did, he found Harry wearing a regulation S.H.I.E.L.D uniform, hair braided neatly against his back. It had been longer, long enough to pool on the floor around his feet, but some time between waking and then, he'd managed to get it cut to his waist.
"Mr. Potter-"
"Harry, please. 'Mr. Potter' makes me feel like I'm still in school." Harry smiled slightly, then gave an exasperated sigh when the man insisted.
"Mr. Potter. If you'll follow me, I need to pick up Mr. Stark." Phil smiled blandly back, the expression not reaching his eyes, then he led the way with Harry in tow to a car just out front of the hospital, allowing the man to take his first steps outside since he'd been kidnapped and put in a coma. Once they were in the car, he drove to Stark Tower. On the way, he called the man himself, though he only got the A.I., and after insisting he still got shunted away due to the man's arrogance.
Instead of getting angry, he led Harry to the elevator, over wrote Jarvis's programming, while knowing the A.I. was letting him, and pressed the button for the suite.
"Mr. Stark, we need to talk." Coulson spoke into the phone as the elevator rose, sounding just a bit urgent.
"You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark. Please leave a message."
There was a soft, feminine laugh over the phone, mimicked by Harry as he heard the reply, then Coulson spoke again, the elevator slowing down. "This is urgent."
"Then leave it urgently."
The doors opened at that moment, admitting Coulson and Harry, and while Harry hung in the background, Coulson stormed forward.
"Security breach!" Tony stared at Coulson, not really noticing Harry, then leaned toward Pepper. "That's on you."
Coulson barely refrained from an annoyed growl. "Mr. Stark."
Pepper smiled and stood. "Phil! Come in." Her smile faltered slightly at the sight of Harry, and while she ignored Tony's quips behind her, she headed over to the duo.
"'Phil'? His first name is 'Agent'."
Harry smothered a chuckle at the sarcasm and tuned out the rest of the conversation, his eyes glazing over slightly as he felt the buzz coming from Tony Stark's chest. It felt strangely similar to his own magic, only more tame, compacted. The word that finally caught his attention again was 'Avengers' and he flicked his gaze upward, relieved that his staring had gone seemingly unnoticed.
"... Avengers? Which I know nothing about." Pepper's eyes widened and she looked away, but all Phil did was mentally shrug and turn back to Tony.
"The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought." Tony reminded them as he walked away, already reading the file. "And I didn't even qualify!"
"I didn't know that either."
"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self obsessed, don't play well with others?" Turning, he pinned Coulson with a raised eyebrow.
Harry mentally catalogued all he could see about the man, taking in his constant movement, the little twitches of his lips, the way his eyes flickered while looking at others as if reading something no one else could see. Big brain, not enough physical capability to do all his mind can think of at once. Probably needs a calming draught, but I can't make those here. He began to mentally take stock of what all he could do, some questions he could probably ask the man, and only tuned back in when screens popped up and gunshots sounded.
There were images of what looked like some sort of troll rampaging, a man in American flag pattern clothing leading troops, smoke, fire, flashes. He quickly looked away, trying not to remember the flashing lights of spell fire as students fought Death Eaters, some dying and others being maimed, tried not to see the bodies laid out in the Great Hall, Teddy held by Andromeda while she wept for her daughter and son in law, or how George looked like a walking corpse at the sight of his brother's body framed against the white sheet; how Molly and Arthur had been surrounded by their remaining children as they mourned, how little Collin had looked like a first year all over again, how people's faces blurred as he attended funeral after funeral after funeral.
Somewhere, a shattering could be heard and Harry found himself with his back to the wall, crouched down with his head in his hands, and Pepper mere feet away, looking so like Ginny it hurt to breathe. His eyes clenched shut as he tried to regulate his breathing, the stinging pain of hair pulling from his scalp helping to ground him, and once he managed to look up again, he saw Tony standing in front of him, holding a glass half full of what smelled like paint thinner from so close but looked like whiskey. There was an understanding look in the man's eyes, but no pity, so Harry relaxed minutely and took the glass, wetting his throat before he spoke.
"I'll fix that, sorry... It's been... a while, since I've been engaged in war, but it sticks with you."
"It does. I'll try not to startle you like that again." Tony promised, knowing better than to try making a joke out of traumatizing war survivors. "Coulson already left. I promised him I'd bring you with me." He added when Harry looked around. After a moment's pause, he asked. "So. What's your shtick? Aside from exploding things with your mind in moments of stress, I mean. And apparently fixing them, going by your words."
After he'd drained the glass, he floated it back over to the bar, then stood, fixed the glasses he'd broken, and even polished the glass of the large windows for good measure. Once that was done, he gave the typical demonstration, transfiguring the couch into a sleek tiger and back, conjuring a chair to sit in, changing the colour of his outfit to have silver and green highlights, and finally, he showed off Prongs, his patronus. Being hooked to the tesseract made all of that possible with barely a thought, and even afterward he wasn't tired. "Pretty much anything you can think of, really. If I had the ingredients, I could brew love potions, potions to make someone enter a death like state, ones to give luck, calm people down, so on and so forth, and while yes, I could bring back the dead, it's only shades, not the real person. Enough to give closure, but not true life.
"I can fly, learned that once the bastard gave me the spell, and I can change into an animal. There's healing spells, summoning spells to brings items to me, spells to cook and clean, spells to build houses from scratch in minutes, or to enlarge a space, or shrink things down. Pretty much anything, really; you imagine it, I can probably do it, and if I can't, there'll be a spell I can create to do it."
Tony stared, slack jawed, then poked the couch that had been a tiger as if checking to see whether or not it would bite him.
"Actually, the thing in your chest gives off a similar feel to my own magic. Normally, magic can't coexist with non magic technology, or it explodes, but your thingy is compatible." He waved a hand toward the glowing device in Tony's chest, still curious about it.
"Ah, that. It's an arc reactor; clean energy. Runs off a recently rediscovered element. The one in my chest keeps shrapnel from piercing my heart and killing me, and I recently changed it out because the old one was poisoning me." Stark shrugged and noticed Harry was flagging, so he motioned for Harry to follow him down the hallway. "Jarvis, schedule wake up at six."
"Yes sir."
Harry had seen and heard a lot in his life, so a talking ceiling wasn't really that odd, but he couldn't feel the typical brush of house elf magic along his own so he figured it wasn't magic, just more tech. The room he was led into was clinically bare, sterile, and looked like it had never been used, but Harry didn't mind. It was much better than the hospital mattress, and it smelled nicer too, so he gratefully plopped face first into the bed, barely awake enough to set up wards around his bed before he was out like a light.