Chapter 18 -
"Now Steve, you know how I'm currently you're best friend?"
"Yes" Steve nodded.
"Just remember that when you see your gift. Which should be arriving in...five, four, three, two and look over there." Harry pointed to the elevator just as it opened.
"What is the point of security?" Tony muttered to himself.
The person in the elevator was wearing brown shoes, blue jeans, a black leather jacket and a plain cap. He walked out and everyone got a better look at him, he had a brown beard and shoulder length hair, he also had one hand that appeared to be made of metal.
"Bucky?!" Steve blurted out in shock.
"Hey Steve" Bucky smiled "it's been a long time".
"But...but how?!" Steve looked at Bucky like he was a ghost, he then turned to Harry "is that...is that really..."
"Yep" Harry nodded with a small smile "it's really him". Steve stared at Harry before turning his attention back to Bucky, he rushed forward and pulled the man into a huge hug, Bucky hugged him back. All were silent as the two friends embraced, even Tony could sense that this as not a moment to interrupt.
"I thought you were dead" Steve pulled back and looked at Bucky, still not entirely convinced that he was here.
"It's a long story" Bucky sighed.
"Excuse me, but introductions please?" Rhodey said on behalf of the other confused Avengers.
"Everyone" Steve turned to the others "this is James Buchanan Barnes, everyone just calls him Bucky and he was my friend...back before the war."
"Wait, so is he another immortal being or something?"
"Immortal?" Bucky asked, a bit confused.
"No, he is not" Harry said "back in world war two me, Steve and Bucky fought along with some others, we were a great team. Then in one of the few mission where I wasn't present..."
"Why weren't you present?" Pepper asked.
"I wanted to take a break from the fighting" Harry confessed "I've been fighting all my life and I wasn't sure if it was what I still wanted to do, I was going to power through until Steve over there talked me into taking some time off."
"And I don't regret that decision, you were breaking Harry" Steve said "I could tell, you weren't focused and at the time I thought you would have got yourself killed."
"Yeah, well" Harry took a breath before continuing "in that mission Bucky had apparently fallen to his death. And he would've died if it wasn't for Hydra, you see they had captured him before and performed experiments on him. That helped him survive long enough to be found, unfortunately he was once again found by Hydra. They..." Harry trailed off and looked at Bucky, Bucky nodded his consent for Harry to continue "they took him, he lost his arm which they replaced with that titanium one. They experimented on him quite a bit, Bucky isn't as strong as Steve but he's still pretty damn strong. They also brainwashed him quite a bit, basically turned him into a robot."
"That's awful" Pepper gasped.
"They made me their weapon" Bucky said quietly, though it was still heard by everyone. "They had me kill people"
"Hold on a sec, how are you still alive?" Tony asked.
"They froze him when they didn't need him" Harry answered "when ever someone was causing problems then they'd pull him out before shoving him back in the ice. He got called quite a few names as well"
"Like what?" Barton asked.
"The asset," Bucky answered "fist of Hydra. That's what they called me."
"The rest of the world referred to him as the shooter, or ghost, though Hydra and those who knew about him called him the..."
"Winter Soldier" Bucky interrupted, remembering the name "they called me the Winter Soldier."
"I know" Natasha said softly as she lifted up her clothes just enough to show a bullet wound "we've met"
"I'm sorry" Bucky said sincerely "I really am, I..."
"It's fine" She said, waving him off "Harry said that you were mind controlled"
"Yeah" Bucky nodded slowly. "Harry said he'd help me fix..." Bucky gestured to his head "...whatever it is they did to me."
"I'm just glad to have you back" Steve smiled, hoping to lift the mood.
"This calls for a celebration!" Thor boomed and held up his bottle of fire whiskey, everyone rolled their eyes, despite the short time it had already been well established that Thor loved his alcohol.
"I'm sorry, but introductions would be nice" Bucky said.
"Right, you know me and Steve, obviously" Harry said.
"Obviously" Bucky said as he and Steve rolled their eyes.
"This is Natasha Romanoff, shield agent, all around badass and my girlfriend." Harry introduced Natasha who smiled and shook Bucky's hand. "Over there is Rhodey, that's Pepper, that guy is Clint Barton, we call him Hawkeye. That's Thor, god of thunder.
"Wait what?" Bucky blinked.
"And that's Tony Stark" Harry didn't bother stopping and pointed at Tony "he is Howard Stark's son"
"Stark's son?" Bucky said as he remembered Howard Stark "oh yeah, he looks like him a bit"
The group began talking for a while, a few hours later everyone had gone home with Bucky staying at Steve's place, meanwhile Natasha had decided to spend the night at Harry's for what she phrased as 'a reward for being a good friend', after that night Harry vowed to always be a good friend.
"Hey Nat" Harry smiled as Natasha entered his apartment, the pair had been dating for a while, nearly a year since the battle of New York, and today's date would be spent in Harry's apartment. Natasha was dressed in a beautiful red dress with black heals, and a black coat that she took off once she was inside. Harry, mean while, had chosen to go for a pair of smart black shoes, along with beige trousers, a black belt and a stylish blue button up shirt. "I feel a little underdressed" He admitted after he looked at her.
"Don't" She smirked as he closed the door "you look brilliant"
"Not as brilliant as you" Harry replied.
"True" Natasha shrugged.
"No, you see this is the part where you're supposed to deny it in order to try and be nice" Harry pointed out.
"True" Natasha shrugged again and walked towards the dinner table, Harry followed behind as he shook his head with amusement. The two sat down at the table, Harry waved his hand and food began gliding from the kitchen and landed on the table. "Impressive, you make this yourself?"
"Yep, didn't even use magic" Harry said proudly "I hope you like it, if you don't then we can always just go out to a restaurant and get something"
"I've been having your food for nearly a year" Natasha let out a content smile as she took a bite "it's still brilliant".
"Well thank you" Harry said with a pleased nod "so how's work?" He asked as he began eating as well.
"It's alright" Natasha said after taking a second which she used to swallow her food "I've not been as busy as usual, what with the Avengers and all, plus now that Bucky and Steve are working together it makes missions a hell of a lot easier. Especially when we add you into the equation, I mean between the wizard, super soldier and the almost super soldier, who really needs me?"
"Well I'm sorry" Harry apologised "next time Fury wants me to run head first into a place where I'm likely to get shot then I promise to bring you with me" Harry added dryly.
"You're such a romantic" Natasha said with an amused voice, the pair continued talking as they ate. When they were nearing the end of dinner Natasha asked Harry for something. "Can you tell me another story about Daphne?" She asked.
Harry wasn't always the best with girls, but even when he was a teenager he knew that you don't talk about your ex with your current girlfriend. It appeared to be the opposite case with Natasha, for reasons he didn't quite fully comprehend, she loved asking about Daphne. Honestly he was tempted to just read her mind to find out why, but he wouldn't do that, when she asked the worst he would ever do is a brief surface scan to see her emotions and they always seem positive.
"You always like asking about Daphne" Harry said to her.
"I like hearing you when you talk about her" Natasha smiled "you always sound so full of life when you talk about her."
"You know most girls don't like talking about their boyfriends ex" Harry couldn't help but point out.
"Most girls don't fight aliens or date wizards" Natasha countered.
"Good point" Harry snorted "well, um...let's see, I've told you quite a few stories about her."
"Like the time you two pranked Malfoy and got him to walk into the great hall without any clothes"
"Brilliant prank, horrible results, my eyes still burn when I think about it" Harry mock shuddered "um...did I tell you about the tri-wizard yule ball?"
"Yes you did" Natasha nodded.
"What about the day after?" Harry asked. Natasha thought for several seconds before she shook her head in the negative.
"No, you didn't tell me about that."
"Alright, well it went like this, me and Daphne had just walked into the great hall...
The hall went silent as Daphne Greengrass, the ice queen of Slytherin, walked in hand in hand with non other than Harry Potter, Gryffindor golden boy and boy-who-lived. Both noticed the reactions of the hall, they just chose to ignore it.
"So, where do you want to sit?" Harry asked Daphne, the whole hall was listening.
"The Hufflepuff table?" Daphne said, not really meaning it.
"No, not the puffs. I mean, for the supposed house of loyalty, they were pretty quick to abandon me, twice now in fact." Harry said and many of the Hufflepuff's winced at the reminder. "Ravenclaws were hardly better, you'd think the house of intelligent would be able to think up their own opinions instead of just copying everybody else's." The Ravenclaws now winced and many looked down in shame.
"What about the Slytherin table?" Daphne asked.
"We could...but then that would mean getting near Malfoy" Harry said slowly.
"You're right" Daphne sniffed "nobody wants that" A few people giggled and Malfoy turned red, though he didn't say anything as he still hadn't gotten over the fact that the girl he wanted had just walked in with his worst enemy. "We don't have to sit at the table with the Gryffindor's do we?" Daphne said with some hope in her voice.
"No" Harry chuckled "I like you too much to force that on you. Perhaps we should just go find somewhere else to sit."
"What an excellent idea" Daphne smiled and pecked Harry on the lips before the two walked out, a few seconds later the hall burst out into whispers and gossiping.
Harry and Daphne were walking away from the hall, they had gone down a new hallway when someone began calling for Harry.
"Oi Harry" Ron Weasley said, the couple rolled their eyes before turning around and looking at the red headed boy who stopped in front of them.
"Yes Ron?" Harry asked, hoping the tone of his voice would inform Ron that he was definitely not in the mood.
"What the hell are you doing with her?!" Ron demanded, pointing an accusing finger at Daphne "She's a snake!"
"You do realise that that's a mascot right?" Daphne asked, the question was not sarcastic, she really didn't suspect Ron of being that intelligent.
"Shut it! I'm not talking to you!"
"Then maybe you shouldn't be talking about me when I'm in hearing distance" Daphne glared at him.
"Are you going to let her talk to me like that?!" Ron said to Harry.
"Yes" Harry answered immediately.
"What?!" It was clearly not the answer that Ron was expecting. "But I'm your best mate!"
"You were my best mate Ron, key word 'were'" Harry replied. Daphne was beaming at him, she was glad that he was finally standing up for himself. The Harry of old was a meek boy, this one that she unleashed was a true lion, one with the cunning and intelligence of a Slytherin. Truthfully she liked Harry either way, but with this one she felt like she didn't have to worry about his former friends doing something. This Harry in front of her, this was the real him, and he was no longer hidden beneath the surface, he was unleashed and roaring proudly.
"What are you on about?!"
"Ron, you abandoned me to fight in a deadly tournament where I had to deal with a bloody dragon of all things! Just because you were jealous that I was forced into a tournament that I didn't want to be in! A dragon! I could've died! I'm not immortal You then came back and said some crap about always believing me and gave me an 'apology' that didn't even involve the word sorry. At the time I was too tired to argue about it, but now I've got all the energy needed to be honest. If I had to pick between you and Daphne then it'd be her in a heart beat...or whatever is quicker than a heartbeat."
"But she's a Slytherin!" Ron argued "You can't trust her!"
"I trusted you, look where that got me" Harry said right before he and Daphne walked off, leaving a sputtering red head.
"I'm really glad that you've started to stand up for yourself" Daphne said as they walked. She smiled at him as he rubbed his thumb on the back of her hand.
"I'm just glad that you're here"
A.N: Sorry that this is a short chapter but it was originally longer and I had written more but then I lost most of it so I had to quickly re-write it all up, so sorry for it not being as good as it might usually be, unless you like it in which case you're welcome. Anyway, this is the last chapter before the events of Thor the dark world, after this chapter there won't be too many flashbacks. Maybe one every five or ten chapters, I'm not sure yet.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a review.