Title: Protection Detail

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Warner Bros, Bloomsbury. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Warnings: language, implied slash

Chapter 7

Harry apparated to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, appearing in an alleyway a few blocks away, his motorbike in a firm grip. It was a sleek, black beauty, made for speed and surprisingly steady in the air. He had bought it a decade ago and added his own spells and enchantments on it. The spells had he found in a book called Marauder's Grimoire in the Potter vault and he was certain it was the same spells which had been used on his late godfather's bike.

He had been forced to leave his broom in the magical world, but he could never do away with flying. Not completely. With an invisibility enchantment and a silencer, he could fly even in the middle of a city, without being afraid of seen by camera's or picked up by sattelites. His only had to remember to keep a watch out for pigeons. There was nothing better than doing a couple of loops and twirls as you speed over the cars locked in rush hour traffic.

He drove the two hundred yards to headquarter and drew his clearance ID card through the slot in the panel. There weren't many agents who drove to work, it was mostly the big shots who bothered with a car, and he quickly found a parking lot in the massive garage. He pulled off his helmet, grabbed the keys and made his way over to the elevator, swinging his helmet around as he walked.

The charade felt a bit silly, but he had overslept this morning and didn't have time to drive to work, only choice left had been to apparate, and off course he couldn't arrive without a mode of transportation. He had learnt early on that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were quick to notice irregularities, like the fact that he arrived at work without using the underground, car or a bike. Having the bike every morning solved that problem. Even if he had to deal with the rumours that he had to have broken every speed limit and traffic regulation there was to get to work on time through rush hour traffic.

He walked to his newly assigned locker, in the hall all the new agents were meant to meet in, and stashed his helmet, leather jacket and bag in it, checking quickly that he had everything he would need that day stashed on his body somewhere.

HaHarry looked around at the other men and women around him, taking note of their postures and body language to determine among the other new recruits who he thought would be able to make it, and those that couldn't. Around him the other recruits were doing the same and he quietly observed them, finding their body language and stances resembled that of the aurors back in the auror department. Using that knowledge he tried to determine who was going to pass the tough recruitment process; S.H.I.E.L.D. accepted only the very best after all.

Surprisingly, Harry thought, most of them would be able to. They were all confident twenty-something's, exceptionally fit, and most of them had knives or tasers clipped to their belts or concealed in their boots. The ones that didn't were the ones that Harry was sure wouldn't be able to handle the high intensity work at S.H.I.E.L.D. and would be chivvied off to work for the CIA or FBI. They were all good, but some of them just weren't good enough. Fury only took the best, and some people, no matter how hard they worked, just wouldn't cut it.

"Right, newbies." A tall, muscled man shouted into the hallway they were all milling around in. "Get your asses into this room and sit down." Harry strolled toward the room, entering last, as the rest of the junior agents had practically run to be the first in the room, out of fear or anticipation Harry didn't know.

Harry looked around the room, at the rows of cheap plastic seats, stacks of files off to the side, and another door leading out of the room, before ducking suddenly as he felt a hand come up behind him. He felt the open hand brush just over the top of his head, and twisted around to look up at the owner, positioning his body to allow the imprint of the knife strapped to his lower back to show up on his shirt.

"Nice, kid. Good reflexes." The man complimented, flicking his eyes down to Harry's lower back for a moment, acknowledging the implied threat. "But go and sit down. I only have fifteen with you before you all separate out, and I don't have time to be dealing with your swaggering."

"Yes, sir." Harry replied, walking swiftly to the last empty seat and sitting down.

The man walked to the front of the room, swinging around to face them with his legs planted shoulder width apart.

"My name is Samuel Robertson, and I've been unlucky enough to be assigned to deal with you all. S.H.I.E.L.D. for all its effectiveness, accepts only about a dozen new agents a year, because we only take the best of the best. And as you can see there are more than a dozen in this room." He gave a nasty grin. "So don't think you're in just because you're here. We are always on the lookout for people to hire, but the time it would take to make sure you're up to scratch individually would be a huge waste of time. So we bring you all in one go to make the weeding process more effective."

"You are all here because you caught our attention, and passed our tests, and have the ability to become effective S.H.I.E.L.D. agents." Here Agent Robertson, glared around at all of them. "This does not mean that you will make it. If you don't we are perfectly capable of taking you out of the agent roster and moving you to another department or out of the agency altogether. So don't get cocky.

"You are going to be spending the next couple of months under the supervision of a handler, who will tell you what to do, whether it be to deliver paper, or follow an agent on a mission. They say jump, you jump. Got it?"

Harry nodded, as did the other agents in the room. He was very amused by this speech. It was very similar to the one he had been given with the other trainee's upon finishing Auror training, and entering the Auror corps officially, although the Auror giving the speech had spent most of it glaring at Harry, as if to make sure that he knew that even though he was Harry Potter, he wouldn't be afforded any special attention or responsibilities. Harry had taken it in his stride then, and did the same now, laughing internally at the not so subtle intimidation tactics Agent Robertson was using. He already had a job ar S.H.I.E.L.D., not that anyone knew that, so he didn't need to worry about not being 'up to scratch'.

"Right. Now your handlers will be reporting to me, so I can assess you all equally, but when your trial period is over, they will remain your handler until you retire. Or die.

"Now, there are four of you to a handler, and we've split you up already so, by last name, could you go where I direct you. You three, over there." He gestured to the back wall. "you three over there." He pointed to the wall to the left of their seats. "And the rest of you, stay where you are. There's an odd number of people so you're going to remain as a three until we hire someone else." Harry looked around at the other two junior agents sitting with him. One was a tall, buff red-head, around twenty five, and was one of the ones Harry had picked as not being able to deal with it. He was clearly used to getting his way because of his size, and hadn't yet learned that there were other ways to deal with things aside from muscle. He would learn though. Maybe. The other was a younger looking man, around twenty-one, only two years older than Harry was pretending to be, with a weedy chin but a wiry body. Clearly he was the opposite of the red-head. He had most likely been picked on during primary school and the early years of high school, but had dedicated the later years to learning how to defend himself, and had managed to come out on top. Harry was pretty sure he would have been a Slytherin, and marked him as someone to watch.

The other door into the room, opened and in walked two men and a woman who were obviously their handler's. Harry let a wide grin momentarily grace his face as he saw who one of the men was. He turned his head away quickly before Adrian had a chance to recognise him.

"Right, newbies." Robertson called. "I have other things to be doing, you over on the left, you follow Agent Daniels here." He pointed to the woman. "you three at the back you're with Agent Kruscha" He pointed to the other man. "And you sitting down, go over to Agent Marelli. You have the rest of the day to get to know each other and learn what you're job is gong to entail, and tomorrow you start for real. Good luck." And with that Agent Robertson strode from the room without a backward glance.

The other agents led their group's from the room, picking up a pile of files from the side table as they did so. Adrian made his way over to the table, but instead of picking up the last pile, walked behind the table to sit in the chair, calling over to them to bring their chairs and sit down on the opposite side of the table.

Harry made sure his had a neutral expression and picked up his chair and sat down directly in front of Adrian, but was disappointed when Adrian had no visible reaction at seeing him.

"Right, you three. I'm your handler for the rest of your time at S.H.I.E.L.D., so you're all going to need to learn to trust me. Or not. My job, either way, is to tell you how and when to do your job. Any questions?"

Harry shook his head, as did the other junior agents. Adrian clapped his hands once and smiled. "Great. Now, I know all your names, but none of you know each others. You are all going to be working very closely for the next little while, and may even be partnered once you become full agents. I want you to state your names and ages."

Harry turned to the other junior agents and gestured to the red-head to go first.

"Christian Smith, twenty four." He stated in a New York accent, and Harry was slightly disappointed that he hadn't guessed his age properly.

The other junior agent spoke up next. "Damien Kingston, twenty one." They both looked at Harry.

"Harry Potter. Nineteen." The age he had been when Fury originally offered him a job in his Agency. Harry smirked internally as he heard Adrian let out a small cough, which would have been barely audible if the room wasn't silent. He looked at him, putting on the defensive face typical of a teenager. "What? Do you think I'm too young to be good enough? Because I am. I was chosen so young because I am good enough. So you can-"

"Harry, shut up." Adrian interrupted good-naturedly. "And take that expression of your face. You are clearly more mature than a teenager if S.H.I.E.L.D. hired you."

Harry dropped the act and smiled back at Adrian. "Yeah, well. It was worth a shot. And the other two clearly believed it." Harry waved his hand at the other two agents, who were valiantly holding on to their impassive expressions, but the widening of their eyes betrayed their surprise.

"Wait. Hold up. You two know each other?" Smith asked.

Adrian spoke before Harry had a chance. "We met last week. He was here at headquarters, and we had a chance to talk. I assumed he was older because of how talented he was. With knives." He corrected hastily. "I met him in the training room, and he was throwing knives at a target like he'd been doing it for years. I had no idea a teenager could be so good at it.

Harry smirked. "I spent some time on the streets when I was younger, around, like thirteen, and picked up the skill, and after I was taken into care just continued to practice. It's amazing how much practice you can get when you spend as much time as I did locked in your room." Harry had no qualms about getting caught but he knew how to add just the right amount of truth in his answers to make it believable

"Bullshit." Smith said, with a smirk on his face. "That might be true. But there's something else." The red head looked between Harry and Adrian a few times, and then his eyes widened as he looked at Harry's and he snapped his head back to Adrian. "You fucked him didn't you?"

"You're an agent. Act like one." Adrian snapped back immediately. "If you work out something from body language, you don't just blurt it out like that. You report it back to your supervisor, and use it as black mail later."

Harry just smiled lazily, outwardly calm despite his inner mortification. "We did. How could you tell?"

"It wasn't that hard really. When you walked over here you expected some reaction from Agent Marelli, which you didn't get. He didn't have any reaction at all, like he was purposefully controlling any he might have. There's also the fact that he keeps looking at the hickie that's just above your collar. Add that it up, and it's fairly obvious."

It wasn't that obvious. Not at all. But Harry reminded himself that he was working with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and they had been hired for a reason. They were the best, and that was better than most people could even begin to contemplate. Underestimating Smith as he had was dangerous and stupid. It showed that he was losing his touch, and relaxing far too much into the teenager act he was putting on. He only had to pretend to be slightly oblivious, not actually miss details that could be important.

"We did. Once. A few days ago. It was a one night stand, and I thought Harry was just visiting or something and never expected to see him again. It's not like we are dating or anything." Adrian explained.

"Anyway, now that you've all learned far more about me and my sex life than I'm comfortable with, we're going to move on.

"As your handler it is my job to tell you what you need to do for your job. As junior agents, you don't have very interesting lives to look forward to for the next couple of months. You'll be mostly responsible for administration; filing, delivering files or documents, organising rosters, things like that. If you're lucky you may get to follow along a more senior agent on a mission, but you'll be expected to stay way out of the way, and most likely won't get to see that much anyway.-

Harry was sure that Adrian was going to continue, but Kingston interrupted him, speaking for the first time since introducing himself. "What the fuck?! I agreed to join S.H.I.E.L.D. because it's a spy agency. I was pulled from the special forces for this. I spent three years in hell over in Afghanistan, and now you want me to go back to delivering fucking paper? That's bullshit."

Harry privately agreed, but instead of saying something, coughed to draw Adrian's attention for a moment, then cast legilimens silently, to drop into his mind.

He swept past the burst of thoughts meeting him had brought to the front of Adrian's mind, and moved on to his memories relating to being a handler.

"-to take you off the active roster, Agent Marelli." A doctor was explaining in a soft tone.

"You're going to be responsible for three new agents. You're going to be their handler." Adrian sitting in Fury's office.

Then him sitting in what Harry assumed to be his home, looking though some files, and his shock at Harry's face.

And then, what Harry wanted to see. A briefing just this morning, with Samuel Robertson standing at the front of the room. "They're going to have the most boring and tedious jobs for a month. Filing, delivers, you name it. Whatever you want, so long as you try to get them to crack. They need to learn to follow orders or they don't get to stay."

Harry pulled out of Adrian's mind. He had seen enough.

It had only been a second since he had coughed, so he turned to Kingston, as if he had just been clearing his throat. "Don't worry. I'm sure things will get better soon. I'm pretty sure S.H.I.E.L.D. is just like... hazing us, I guess. You know, making sure we can cop it.

Harry was very surprised, and slightly worried by the volatility of Kingston's emotions, as his face immediately smoothed from its previous anger into a calm expression.

"Well then. I can deal with that. I was in the army. I can deal with a little hazing." He sneered at Adrian, as if in challenge.

Harry exchanged a glance with Smith, seeing that the other man was also slightly worried about the third junior agent in their little group.


It was only Harry's second week working undercover at S.H.I.E.L.D., and he was already, as the teenager he was pretending to be would say, totally over it.

He had spent his first week delivering and ferrying paper between agents, and had only this week branched out. He was now taking some of the less sensitive paper work to places all over the city, either to FBI and CIA offices, to some businesses, or occasionally to an agent waiting in a street or cafe somewhere who was acting as a middleman.

It was tiresome, especially for someone like him who was used to action. Additionally, in the past, when ever he had been dealing with paperwork, Harry had at least been allowed to read it. Admittedly, his finely honed sense of curiosity was practically burning with all the sensitive information that had read by magically opening then resealing the envelopes, but not being able to share it, or even let any one know he knew about it.

In the past he had always had someone, whether it was a Hermione or Ron, the portriat of Dumbledore he had kept in his sitting room, or one of the small garden snakes that lived around his house. Although the latter were too unintelligent to really understand anything, so Harry had mainly used them to vent. But now he didn't have anyone, like his early childhood, and it was a disconcerting shift.

Right now he was on his way back from the CIA, after delivering a bunch of files for Alphonso Mackenzie, the S.H.I.E.L.D.-CIA liason.

Harry was lucky to have not met the man at the scene of his disastrous attempted interrogation of Steven Davis, the man who had been assassinated by Agent Romanoff before he even entered the house. Mackenzie had come to look through Davis' paperwork with a few members of the CIA as well as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, because there had been suspicions that the Liberator's had been working with revolutionaries in Syria and Iran. Harry had left the scene by then, but only because he was reporting to Fury about his suspicions about an infiltration in his ranks. His whole mission could have been disabled if he had left only fifteen minutes later.

But of course it hadn't, and Harry was able to cultivate a relationship with the man. Because of Mackenzie's high position within the S.H.I.E.L.D., Harry figured he could occasionally skim his mind to see if he had noticed anything suspicious. He didn't want to do that for a while however, because the man had a hint of magic around him, perhaps from a wizard a few generations up his family tree, and although he was clearly a squib, the man still might be able to detect any intrusion into his mind.

Harry had run into 'Al', fairly often over the past two weeks, because of how often he delivered files to and from the Agency. All of them were required to go through the liaison, so that he had knowledge of everything pertinent to his position. It was the same with the FBI liaison.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had a fairly open relationship with the upper levels of the Agency. They were kept updated on the less sensitive cases that were ongoing, informed them about the successes and failures of missions overseas, and occasionally Fury would meet with the Director to organise collaborative missions.

It was Mackenzie's job to keep that line of communication open and friendly, and to soothe any ruffled feathers.

Harry found the man to be competent and assured, and in line with his harsh nature, had a biting wit.

Harry often found himself drawn into conversation with Mackenzie for a few moments whenever he dropped by his office.

"Hey, sir."

"Hello, Agent." That was another reason Harry liked the man, he didn't refer to Harry as Junior Agent like everyone else in S.H.I.E.L.D. did, although it was odd for a man who Harry had been told was a strict adherent to any and all rules and regulations.

"So I dropped off the Nightingale, Gaunt and Postcard files, and have some here for you to look through. And there's two things that you need to sign before it goes to Fury." Harry reached into the bookbag he had taken to carrying around, and flipped through the collection of paper's and files he had stored there that he had yet to deliver. He pulled out one of the files, which he had put at the front for easy access. "Here, this one. It just paperwork detailing the S.H.I.E.L.D. missions you have assigned CIA agents to." Harry flicked his eyes down the list. "There certainly are a lot them. Why's that?"

"Because the missions keep getting messed up, and I need to go and fix them. Fury's been slipping recently. Wrong orders, sending agents to the wrong place. It's embarrassing, especially for those of us that report to other agencies."

Harry just hummed non-commitedly, while rooting though his bag for the other file Mackenzie needed to sign. He didn't want to agree with Mackenzie, because truly did like Fury, but the liaison was under the impression that he had never had any contact with the Director, and so had no reason to disagree. If asked Harry would just push it off as not wanting to insult his employer openly.

Huffing out a sigh of exasperation, Harry pulled out the whole pile and spread it out on Mackenzie's office.

"Here, help me look. One of them a agent transfer form. One of the junior agents has already dropped out, and asked to be shifted to another Agency." Ordinarily Harry wouldn't let anyone look at any of the files he had in his bag as they were all confidential, or had sensitive information, but these had all already been through Mackenzie's hands, or would in the near future.

Harry quickly began to flick through the files, Mackenzie doing the same. It wasn't long before the senior agent was waving a small stack of paper under Harry's nose. "Is this it?"

Harry pulled his head back a bit to catch a glimpse of the words on the page, and nodded when he recognised the header. "Yeah, that's it sir. See the post it notes? That's where you need to sign."

"Thank you, Agent Potter. I won't keep you longer, because I see you have quite a bit to be doing. I'll take this by Fury later."

Harry smiled at Mackenzie. "Thanks, sir." He collected the files back into one pile, and stuffed them back into his bag, and called a farewell over his shoulder as he left the office.

He had just made it down the hall to his next destination, when his new phone rang.

It had appeared in his letterbox two weeks ago, with a note from Stark telling him to keep it, and make use of it. Harry answered the call, and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hello." He greeted.

"Hello." A voice replied. "Is this Harry Potter?"

"It is. Who's calling?" Harry asked warily.

"Bruce. Bruce Banner."

"Oh right. Of course. I can't believe I didn't recognise your voice, Uncle Bruce."He glanced around the hallway and found himself to be surrounded by three office workers and a cleaner. He continued in a chipper voice, keen on not falling out of character, even if there was seemingly no one from S.H.I.E.L.D. here. "How are you?"

"Good, Harry. Good." Banner replied absently. "I'm calling to ask if your going to be coming past for... lunch anytime soon. It's just that you missed last week and we all want to... see you." Harry cursed in his head for a moment. In his rush at setting up a completely new identity and personality to pass for an agent at S.H.I.E.L.D. he had forgotten to go past Stark Tower last week. He'd even had some new things come to light that he couldn't wait to share with the Avengers.

"Oh, sorry. I've just been so excited with my new job, and like making new friends, that I completely forgot. Can I come by tomorrow after work? Does that work for you? I have so much to tell you." It was annoying keeping up a teenaged persona, but Harry knew it was necessary, and so just went along with it.

"That sounds great, Harry. We'll see you then."

"Brilliant. See ya." Harry hung up the phone, and took a moment to work out how to set an alarm to remind him to go to the Tower after he finished for work the next day.

Having finished that he continued down the hall with an extra bounce in his step knowing that he would have a chance to act as himself tomorrow, with people that, to some extent, knew about the 'real' him.


AN: Sorry for the longer than normal wait, but there was this thing called real life that got in the way, and i've been kinda busy with school, being in my final year and all. As this acts as a kind of stress relief thing, when I have assingments and the like, for all that I want to sit down and write about fictional characters, i do have other things to concentrate on. Anyway, thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, favourited and followed. You guys are fantastic. Thanks also to the fantastic the elusive shadow for continuing to beta my fic.

Also I've changed my review policy. I know I said before that I would respond to every review, but it is very exhausting to respond to every single one that says like, "great chapter" or "update soon" or something. So, from now on, I'll respond to every review that's more that a sentence long, or asks a question, or is just has something for me to reply to.

Thanks again.

Whitsie