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, and Marvel Worldwide Inc.. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Chapter 11
"So. What do you think?" Harry leaned back in his chair, having just finished explaining all that he knew to Steve. The set of files he had requested from Fury the day before had turned up that night, and Harry had needed to scrap everything he had done and go from the ground up because of what he had found.
"That this is quite possibly the greatest waste of time and effort since the League of Nations. And really, all that did was fail in preventing WWII." Steve replied, incredulously.
"What?" Harry had been expecting criticism, as he know he wasn't the greatest strategist, but thought that was a bit harsh.
"I mean, you are seriously going through every file that details a failure? And every personnel file as well? Because I'd think that you'd realise you haven't got anywhere, and maybe decide to do something else. At least, that's what anyone with common sense would do?"
"Oh, right. No. Well, yes. I am going through all the files. But I also have a secondary objective of giving Fury an assessment of my skills, and how I could help in any given situation. And a general knowledge of all the people I can gather information on, to see if they act out of character. I've always been good with people."
Steve snorted. "Right. Sure you are. Anyway. Have you actually found anything then?"
Harry pulled out his summary from the mass of papers on the table and passed them over to Steve. "Well, like I told you, there doesn't seem to be any one person who connects all the missions. I mean, I'm pretty sure I've identified a good portion of the sabotaged missions, based on what the people involved should have been able to do, but, there is nothing linking any one of them. Like I started out thinking it was mutant related, you know, hate-crime or something, but that was just because that's where I started…"
"Yeah, I see that." Steve interrupted, comparing his notes on the first mission he had looked at, the Liberator's mission Natasha had intervened on, with his current analysis. "But, do you have any idea of the bigger picture? I mean, there must be a reason."
Harry shook his head. "No. Honestly, that's what I was hoping you could help me with. Because I've got nothing."
"Christ. Why does Fury even have you on this?" And there it was. The mostly restrained frustration and anger Steve still felt bubbling to the surface in any way it could. To give Steve credit he had mostly kept it to himself, obviously making an effort, but the occasional snippy comments and tightening of his hands around pens, or the edge of the table, gave him away.
"Because he doesn't have anyone else. All his resources are potentially compromised, or too high-profile. Like the Avengers. He couldn't get Natasha or Clint to look into S.H.I.E.L.D. for a problem this big. Whoever is doing it is smart enough to notice." Harry knew Steve had asked as a rhetorical question, but had felt the need to answer anyway.
Steve nodded, but instead of replying, changed the subject. "As far as I can tell, whoever is doing this, is doing this to take down S.H.I.E.L.D.. Everything they've done, at least from what you've put together, basically shows that Fury, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is failing at what they are doing. Becoming obsolete. My guess. Someone wants to have S.H.I.E.L.D. dismantled, then attack while the new agency is being set up. Fury might be powerful, but he still has to answer to someone."
Harry honestly didn't know what to say. After only a couple of hours Steve had gone over everything Harry had put together and come up with something that seemed entirely plausible, when Harry had barely managed to keep ahead of all the information he was processing. "That's incredible. I would never have worked that out so fast."
"Then, why are you doing this?. It's not what you are best at, evidentially. I doubt it's what you expected to be doing." Steve pushed his chair back from the table, and glared across at Harry. "What do you get out of being Fury's lapdog?"
"Entertainment?" Harry huffed out a laugh, his shoulders sagging slightly. "I don't know. When you all first met me- saw me- whatever, I'd just cut myself off from all my friends and family, with the likelihood of never talking to them again. I am also stupidly wealthy, and really have no restraints on my time. I'd met Fury before, he tried to recruit me, so I figured I could work for him for a while. Obviously I assumed I'd be doing something more along the lines of wet-work, but what he has me doing has me set for the next couple of decades at least. It works well enough."
"So you're what. Just working for us on a whim. You could as easily have gone to work for… I don't know, North Korea?" Steve asked, clearly frustrated, which was exactly what Harry had been aiming for. Perhaps it wasn't the best way to vent some of the irritation he felt toward his situation, but it felt very satisfying
"Nah. I have enough values not to go to North Korea. But yeah. Fury won by… luck of the draw basically."
"Luck of the… How do you live with yourself? God. And to think- Fine." Steve drew in a deep breath, and stood up from the table. "I hope what I have given you is useful. Let me know if you require my services again."
Steve stalked away from the table, and Harry realised he had seriously screwed up. He had planned on making an honest effort with Steve, but his natural desire for isolation had led him to sabotage that before it ever had a chance of working. Shit.
"Steve." Harry called, scrambling to get up from his chair. "No. Steve! Wait. Sorry!"
Steve halted a few steps before the entrance to the fire stairs, but didn't turn back to face Harry.
"Look. Sorry, okay. I was being a wanker. I do want to help. My friend used to tell me I have a hero complex. I could have just have easily gone and travelled the world, but I wanted to help. That's why I'm doing what Fury asks. Because I know he does do what's best for the world. Sure he's… manipulative, but he does have good intentions. I'm sorry, alright. I won't be an arsehole again." Harry had stopped a couple of feet away from Steve, separated from him by the corner of a couch.
"Apology accepted." Steve turned back to face Harry. "I'm- I apo- I should apologise too. I probably overreacted."
Harry smiled, and wave his hand to dismiss it. "No worries, mate. It's all in the past. Now, come and walk me through what you came up with so I can properly explain it to Fury"
"So, basically I need you to write me a list of all your enemies, and whoever you think would be able to dismantle S.H.I.E.L.D." Harry finished, having just detailed Steve's idea to Fury.
Fury stared at Harry from the other side of his desk.
"No, seriously. I'm not kidding. How many could there seriously be?"
Fury kept staring.
"Like I'm sure there are lots of people who want to kill you, but not so many who could seriously dismantle an agency that is so entrenched and technologically superior that it is able to militarily compete with Asgard."
Fury's eye twitched, but did not blink.
"…Or not."
Harry apparated into a hallway of Stark tower and walked the few steps to the glass door of Tony's lab. The door opened as he came up to it, and loud music blasted out the door. It was turned down almost immediately, and Tony turned to face Harry, who just walked across to a stool and sat on it. He had been in Tony's lab a couple of times before, mostly helping the man to identify exactly what magic was. It was incredible to see the man work, because his mind was so fast he could pick up ideas it had taken Harry months to develop, then pull it apart and rework it even better.
"What's up with you?" Tony asked, turning away from whatever it was he had been working on.
Harry just slumped back against the bench behind him. "I just need to bounce some ideas off you."
"Sure, but why don't you go to Steve again. He didn't complain once about the time he spent with you the other day, which, let me tell you, has never happened before." Tony asked, a grin on his face.
"Because while he gets your world better than I do, you can tell me way more about technology." Harry replied. "Plus I just like your laboratorium."
"Sorry, what? Are you trying to say laboratory?" Tony asked, his voice incredulous.
Harry frowned. "Um, no. What? This is a laboratorium. A room equipped for specialised operations."
"Yeah, but, this is called a laboratory."
Harry blinked, but accepted that Tony most likely knew what he was talking about. "Ok. Laboratory. You are all far less latinate than we are."
Tony just shrugged. "Fair enough."
"Anyway. You could take down S.H.I.E.L.D., right. I mean, you're smart, and you have your," Harry waved his hands around in the air, "sentient computer thing."
"It's called an AI. But yeah, theoretically." To give Tony credit, he barely even blinked at the odd question. "I mean I wouldn't, but absolutely JARVIS and I could."
"Okay, and you wouldn't because what it gives you is better than what it takes away, right."
"Yeah. Fury's an asshole, but he knows what he's doing, and he does it well." Tony had picked up something from the bench behind him and was slightly distracted by fiddling with it.
"So, how many other people could, theoretically, maybe not take down, but infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
"I have no idea."
"What?" Harry sat up slightly so he could look at Tony properly. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously. Look," Tony pointed the thing in his hands at Harry. "there are billions of people in the world, and that's not counting however many magical people are in your alternate dimension thing. Now, a small portion of those people have the ability to hack into just about anywhere. The only thing is, the internet is so massive that its really impossible to know how many people there actually are, and if there are other people who have the skills but just haven't shown that they do. I could give you an estimate, but it would definitely be off the mark, and any list I put together would be missing people who I just don't know of."
Harry nodded, and leant backwards again. He had expected something like that. "Okay, but people, or organisations I guess, who have the technological ability, as well as the manpower, knowhow and desire to take down S.H.I.E.L.D.. There aren't many of them."
"No. But you always have to assume there is someone, because otherwise you get complacent. Or I do, because if they can they could also maybe take on me, and that's not something I want to let get passed me. But both me and Fury have things in place to stop that." Tony had picked up a pair of pliers and was pulling a wire out of the middle of the object.
"Yeah, I know that. I just… need to know how many people could do that, hypothetically, and then, I don't know. I figured some background knowledge would be useful. And it is. Sort of. I'm really just trying to figure out how major the person in S.H.I.E.L.D. is, because I know they have someone, I just can't find them. You have JARVIS doing… something, right. I think Fury mentioned it."
Tony had now turned back to face his bench, and was splaying out all the wires from the device on the bench, and pulling out more from a drawer. "Yeah, just a basic thing looking for leaks or hacks or whatever. It's easier for me to just let JARVIS do it 'cause he can do it 24/7."
Harry stood up from the stool, and walked over to clap Tony on the back. "Thanks, mate. I'll leave you to your work. And let myself out."
"Sure. See ya. JARVIS if we gave it a 20% power boost, but then reduced output by a quarter, would that give it the backlog we're looking for."
Harry smiled as he left the lab, all to used to dealing with genius focussing on solving a problem.
"Supervillains are more concerned with the Avengers or just… causing as much wanton destruction as they can."
Fury nodded.
"Terrorists have more obvious targets than an agency most people don't know exists."
Fury nodded again.
"And regular criminals are either know better than to go through with it, or too dumb to think of it. So that just leaves another rival agency, or some super powerful organisation, you've managed to piss off."
Fury nodded, and smiled slightly.
"So now could you put together a list?"
"Yes. I'll send someone over with it tonight."
Harry was sitting in the space in his apartment he had designated for his office. It was a modest open plan studio, but right in the middle of New York, mostly for convenience because he didn't have to worry about the price, but also because the view out over the street was incredible, and reminded him of being on a broom.
He had pushed a large desk right up next to the large window, and was currently standing in front of it casting a series of spells on Natasha's blood, because initial checks had shown that there was an extra substance in it.
It was something he had never seen before, and he had only just separated the substance from her blood the night before, and was now analysing it to see what its characteristics were. It was clearly man-made, but something that he had never seen before.
Some of the substance was floating in a golden bubble, a series of scans running over it, while the blood that it had been separated from was in a glass jar. Harry was holding a piece of parchment lengthwise that he had charmed to note any changes in the blood a couple of days ago. What the parchment showed was somewhat incredible. The blood had kept itself in an almost stasis while combined with whatever the substance was, changing at a rate slightly more than a third slower than normal. However, once whatever it was had been separated, the blood cells had begun to decay at the expected rate.
Somehow, a scientist somewhere had managed to create something akin to the Elixir of Life, a feat that was expected to be beyond muggles capabilities forever.
Harry was in the process of trying to work out what exactly it was made of, and if there were any other effects than delayed aging.
His ears caught the click of the matchstick he had rested against his window falling to the floor, and he conjured a small mirror just in front of his elbow that he peeked at out of the corner of his eyes. "Hey, Clint. Bring that over here would you."
The man kept his steps silent despite having been caught, habits of a lifetime not dulling for a moment. "I like the matchstick thing. You have some magic thing preventing people from seeing it, don't you."
Harry smiled at the man, in greeting. "Yeah. How did you know?"
"'Cause I didn't see it." Of course. It was not arrogance, but simple fact. Clint was one of the best, and wouldn't be tricked by something people had been using for decades if not centuries.
"How old is Natasha?" Harry asked, knowing the man would leave soon, but needing to have his answers from the best available source.
"Ah. You found it. We weren't sure if you would."
"Yeah, ah. I'm not going to do anything about it, but I need to know."
"Ask Fury. He has it as well."
Harry froze. This was something he hadn't expected. This was important, and he could not believe Fury had kept it from him.
"Does he. Thanks for letting me know. Please let yourself out. If you don't, and if you try to take something, my wards will kill you." Harry picked up the parchment that had just finished detailing the components of the not-so-mysterious liquid, and apparated out of his home.
Harry walked into Fury's office and slammed the piece of parchment down on his desk. "What the fuck is this, and why the fuck didn't you tell me about it?"
Fury looked up from the document that Harry had just covered, and slowly put his pen down. "Because you didn't need to know."
"I didn't need to know?! Seriously. Because from where I'm sitting this kind of thing looks like something people would, I don't know, attempt to take down your agency for."
AN: Hi, so it's been a little while, but not as long as it could have been.
I've started a new story, that left me a little sidetracked, but i figured you guys deserved a new chapter.
Anyway, as always hope you like and feedback is always appreciated.
xx
Whitsie
p.s. *whispers* check me out on ao3, that's where I post all my porn.