I have recently bowed to the whims of my inner perfectionist and taken to going through older chapters of this work to edit out minor mistakes. Probably a bit unhealthy of me to obsess over the little things like that, especially since the changes aren't going to impact the rest of the story, but I can't help myself.
I do not own any of the source material for this story. Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.
…
20th Street Northwest, Washington DC, August of 2003
The Winter Soldier crouched atop the apartment building, peering down the length of a sniper rifle and past the scope to gaze through the window of the neighboring building. The modest apartment seemed an odd location for the home of the director of SHIELD, but the Soldier wasn't interested in questioning the man's choice of home. All that mattered was his mission, and this evening the mission was Nick Fury's demise. The Soldier reflexively adjusted his grip on the rifle, which had been modified and customized specifically for him. It was powerful enough to penetrate the bulletproof glass windows with ease, especially at this distance.
Make it quick and clean, his handlers had said.
The Soldier waited there for over an hour, and he was starting to feel the discomfort of bearing his weight on one knee, the same sort of discomfort he knew regular people must feel after only a few minutes of holding such a posture. He didn't care. He'd been conditioned to deal with worse. Eventually, his target became visible through the window, dressed in his usual black trench coat, and the Soldier knew he would never get another chance tonight. A flick of his thumb disarmed the safety.
He centered the targeting scope on Nick Fury's chest, and pulled the trigger twice for good measure.
The sound of a firearm going off and glass shattering split the evening like a chainsaw. Nick Fury reflexively clutched at his chest and toppled over. The Soldier waited a moment, watching closely for vital signs. Though his pre-mission briefing stated otherwise, there was a chance the director had found a bulletproof vest to wear under his coat between his departure from the Triskelion and his arrival at the apartment.
When he was satisfied that Fury wouldn't be getting up again, the Soldier made himself scarce.
Potter Household, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, August of 2003
"... And the big bad wolf huffed and puffed, but no matter how hard he tried he could not blow the house down," Harry read aloud. Glancing up from the book of children's stories, he saw that Teddy had fallen asleep. His hair had turned a deep, royal purple, as it often did when he was at his most relaxed, and his breath came in short puffs like a fish. Despite his own outwardly relaxed appearance, Harry was too agitated to smile at the sight. Closing the book, he sent it back to its place on the shelf before padding out of Teddy's room and closing the door softly behind him.
Making his way back to the living room, Harry pulled out his SHIELD contact phone and tried one last call.
Nothing.
That does it. He hadn't bothered placing a Tracking Charm on Fury, instead relying on the Astral Plane to locate the spymaster. That would probably change after tonight.
Seating himself cross-legged in midair, Harry emptied his mind of all thought, and focused on the complex web of metaphysical energies that flowed through his body. He visualized the multitude of minute connections, the anchors that held him down in his own body, pulled them all towards his heart, and centered them there, letting each of its beats weaken them until he felt something loosen. Then he stepped forward, and he felt himself go weightless.
When Harry opened his eyes and looked down, he was floating in front of his own body, a ghostly shadow of himself.
With a thought, Harry was floating through the walls of his apartment and into the night. The lighting of the Astral Plane was always more bland and subdued than the physical world, as if he were looking at it through a different lens, which he supposed he was in a way. At the same time, everything was clearly visible, without the visual distortions created by reflections, shadows, and the color of ambient light. It was almost as if he were looking at the idea of the world around him rather than the world itself.
Harry ascended through the ghostly sky until he was floating high above the highest clouds, at the very top of the world. A satellite the size of his house drifted past, missing his incorporeal self by inches. He ignored it, instead studying the great orb of the planet spread out beneath him. I need to find Nick Fury . Closing his eyes, he focused on that need, let it fill him up like tea from a pot, and the world around him shifted.
When Harry opened his eyes again, he found himself floating above a street lined with tall buildings, including two apartment towers. Still focusing on his need to find Nick Fury, he allowed himself to be pulled towards the one furthest from the street intersection, and he saw that one of the windows facing the neighboring building had been shattered. Drifting through the gap, Harry found himself in a modest flat that appeared almost militaristically tidy, apart from the mess of broken glass. Lying right in the middle of it was the dark, still figure of the Director of SHIELD.
Growling, Harry looked inward until he'd relocated his physical body, then soared home. Opening his eyes fully, he straightened from his seated position, once again reunited with his flesh and blood, and summoned his dark green combat outfit.
One sparking gold portal later, he was in the apartment and crouching over Fury's still form.
Gently, Harry turned Fury onto his side without touching him and scanned him with magic. Shot twice in the chest, yet the damage to the heart and lungs, though severe, wasn't as bad it should have been. From what Harry could tell, Fury was wearing a strange mesh of Kevlar and ceramic under his clothes, too thin for a bulletproof vest, but sturdy enough to slow the bullets down on impact. That alone had saved the man from being killed instantly, but without immediate medical attention he'd die anyway. In fact, even as Harry worked to remove the bullets and start the healing process, he found that Fury's vital signs were already dropping rapidly. Too rapidly.
Harry scanned him again, this time not for injuries but for toxins. Instantly Fury's bloodstream seemed to light up, and in his mind's eye Harry saw an unfamiliar name gradually take shape. Identifying poisons was tricky, but this one was apparently unique enough to be easily identified by a basic spell. Tetrodotoxin B . Harry had never heard of it, but it seemed strangely familiar. Whatever it was, it seemed to be sending Fury into a deep coma. More, it was slowing his bodily functions to a crawl, slowing them so much in fact, that at this rate it would kill him. Or make him look like he's dead .
And then it clicked. Thinking quickly, Harry suspended Fury from the floor, focused on the memory of how the man had looked when he'd first arrived, and said " Geminio! " The spell wasn't really meant for something as complex as a living creature, but Harry had long since grown used to blowing past the conventional limits of magic. Sure enough, an identical copy of Nick Fury as he'd been only a minute earlier appeared on the floor in the exact same spot as before. He added a weak Animation Charm as well; with the Phoenix Force amplifying the spell, its natural limits meant nothing, and the copy of Fury's body began to show very weak vital signs. Outside, emergency sirens were beginning to sound off. He was running out of time.
As an afterthought, Harry cast an Evidence Obliteration Charm, which erased all physical traces of his presence, before adding a Tracking Charm to the copy of the director. Then he shifted himself and the real Nick Fury into the Mirror Dimension.
After his battle with the Hulk, Harry had relentlessly practiced entering the place until he could drag everyone within ten meters of himself there instantly.
Next second, they were gone from the apartment completely, and Fury was lying on a conjured bed, made in imitation of the Kamar-Taj infirmary setup. The Mirror Dimension folded around them until they were surrounded on all sides by blank walls. Studying Fury's injuries with both magical and mundane senses, Harry was relieved to find that this was within his ability to heal on his own, unlike the blunt force trauma and amnesia suffered by Tom.
Bullets wounds typically consisted of a cavity in the victim's body carved by the bullet's passage, but tissues surrounding the cavity were also damaged by the shock of having so much kinetic energy transferred into them, which made the flesh swell, bend, and snap like an elastic band. These secondary effects were beyond Harry's current healing abilities, which were rather "brute force" in nature, but he could easily repair the cavity itself, including the bone damage.
With gentle but firm exertions of telekinesis, Harry carefully pulled the first bullet from Fury's chest, easing it slowly but inexorably from where it had lodged itself halfway into the soft flesh at the front of his heart. As soon it was completely removed, Harry did the same to the second bullet, which had grazed the top of one of Fury's lungs. The instant it had cleared Fury's chest cavity, Harry suspended it in midair beside the first, then cast a healing charm that rapidly repaired the damage to Fury's chest. Before his eyes, the spymaster's flesh knitted itself back together, and the superficial damage to his ribcage was repaired. His heart and lung would be weakened for a few days by the ordeal, but he no longer needed surgery. When he was finished, he sent the bullets to his personal pocket dimension; they might prove useful in tracking whoever was responsible.
Soon, the only signs that Nick Fury had ever been shot were the small blobs of drying blood on his chest and the ragged holes in his clothes. Harry got rid of the former with a Siphoning Charm and the latter with a Cloth Repair Charm. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about the toxin in Fury's bloodstream, given his unfamiliarity with how it worked. He considered simply flooding the man's body with magical energy and burning the poison out, but there was no telling what sort of long-term consequences such an act would have for Fury's health. After a moment's consideration, Harry grabbed Fury by the upper arm and disapparated.
The crushing darkness took them to a very familiar expanse of gently sloping lawns surrounded by white sand beaches and deep blue waters disturbed by white capped waves. To one side stood the crumbling remains of what had once been a grand fountain, now discolored by long exposure to endless sea breezes and overgrown with weeds.
Harry levitated Fury towards the decrepit building that stood behind the fountain and through the portal he conjured, depositing them back into the real world. The wards slid over them with a soft, whistling hum that only Harry, with his natural attunement to magic, could hear. The crumbling mansion shimmered before his eyes, and suddenly it was not old and decrepit at all. The overall shape was unchanged, but now the walls were made of thick slabs of sturdy stone, and the architecture had a robustness that it would have lacked even before it was abandoned. It looked less like a manor house than a castle, something Harry had done intentionally when refurbishing it for use as a safehouse.
Harry had deliberately distanced himself from his past, but this place was too potentially useful for him to let go of it completely. He was glad now that he'd taken the precautions he had, because he had no intention of letting Fury see Kamar-Taj if he could help it.
Tom and Dr. Banner had been the exception, not the rule.
Harry used switching spells to swap out Fury's ruined outfit for a set of pajama-like clothing before laying him down on a bed in one of the guest rooms. It was a decently sized space, with large windows framed by dark blue curtains, a desk against one wall, and a large armchair beside a modest bookshelf. Harry spent a long moment thinking, then set up a series of monitoring spells that would keep him constantly appraised of Fury's physical condition.
Satisfied, he left for the sitting room on the mansion's first floor and performed the astral projection ritual again. While his physical body hovered in place amid the comfortable furnishings, his astral form tracked the copy of Fury's body he'd conjured to an ambulance that was just pulling up to a hospital in the heart of Washington DC. From the Astral Plane, Harry watched as the decoy was brought to an operating room and declared dead within five minutes, the amplified Animation Charm having run its course. Harry kept an eye on the "body" as it was placed in a black bag and moved to a morgue.
Harry was grateful for the relative nature of time on the Astral Plane, because several hours passed before the double doors to the morgue opened to admit a tall man his own age or older with thick muscles that gave him a deceptively stocky appearance. He was dressed in the garb of hospital security, but the outfit failed to conceal his massive, sculpted arms, sandy brown hair, and blue grey eyes. So, Hawkeye himself was among those Fury still trusted. That would make Harry's job easier.
…
From the moment he'd entered the morgue containing Nick Fury's seemingly dead body, Clint couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. He tried to pinpoint the source of the feeling, but nothing in his surroundings had ever given him such unease; not security cameras, not crowds of oblivious bystanders, not orbiting satellites. He checked repeatedly for signs of a tail, but if someone was following him, they were doing an exceptionally good job of concealing themselves.
Deciding that lack of sleep was making him paranoid, Clint forced himself to carry on his mission with the stoic professionalism he was renowned for. Find Fury. Transport him to a secure location without being followed. Be quick and inconspicuous. It was simple enough, and in due course Clint was driving a nondescript van through the streets of Washington DC. But the feeling of being watched refused to abate, and he doubled back on his own route several times to check for pursuers, though he found none.
Eventually he reached his destination; a dam on the outskirts of Washington DC surrounded by lush vegetation. Clint would have driven into the facility directly if he could, but the van wouldn't fit in the narrow, cave-like entrance. Instead, he parked under the cover of the trees before shutting the van down. Before retrieving Fury from the back, he hastened to the entrance to the dam, a thick metal door set into the concrete with a control panel to one side and pressed the call button.
"Identify yourself," a digitally garbled voice demanded from the control panel.
"Agent Barton, Hawkeye, clearance level seven, confirmation code Alpha Omega Epsilon thirteen," Clint replied in a low, firm voice.
A few seconds later, the speaker crackled again. "Hawkeye confirmed. Get Foxtrot in here."
Clint did just that. He still felt like he was being watched by something he couldn't see.
The facility's only lucid occupant aside from himself was one Dr. Fine, who was tending to an injured Natasha. With some help from Clint, he hooked Fury up to another bed in the infirmary. The doctor insisted on giving Clint a checkup, ignoring his half-hearted protests, before prescribing bed rest. Clint pretended to grumble, but over the last twenty four hours he'd flown from DC to Houston and back to smuggle two people who were very much alive out of morgues, and he had no desire to remain on his feet any longer than necessary.
Thoughts of rest were lulling him in the direction of the facility's barracks when he heard a faint popping noise up ahead. Frowning, he palmed the nightstick on his belt, the only weapon his disguise had permitted, and moved forward more cautiously. He was so tired that he could barely think straight, but he knew that sounds like that weren't normal for underground facilities of any sort. Finding the corridor empty, he moved toward the door to the barracks and pushed it open.
"Good to see you again, Hawkeye."
"What the hell?!" Clint all but yelped, leaping backward in alarm as he gazed at the hooded figure of Phoenix. The telekinetic was leaning casually against the far wall of the barracks with his arms crossed, like a teenager hanging out in an alleyway, dressed in the same dark green silk outfit he'd worn to the warehouse meeting weeks earlier. Clint didn't bother drawing his weapon. He knew all too well how useless it would be in this situation. Then again, he doubted Phoenix was here to cause trouble, given his benevolence so far. He removed his hand from the nightstick. "How'd you get in here?" he asked warily.
Phoenix shrugged. "I followed you."
Clint felt a headache blossoming in the depths of his skull. He did not need this right now. "How?" he ground out.
"I'm more than just a telekinetic," Phoenix said, as if that explained anything. "And you need my help rather badly at the moment."
Clint couldn't argue the point. With Phil running interference at headquarters and both Natasha and Fury incapacitated, it was impossible to truly fight back against the corruption in SHIELD. Whatever hidden talents Phoenix had were desperately needed.
"Look, I appreciate your generosity, but I don't have the energy for this. Can't you come back tomorrow or something?" Clint asked wearily.
Instead of answering, Phoenix rose to his full height, an inch or two shorter than Clint himself, and approached with one hand held out as if to shake. Clint tentatively raised his right hand, though what he was supposed to do he couldn't surmise. Phoenix grasped Clint's extended hand firmly in his own, and Clint felt something flow into him, as if he'd been injected with a vast quantity of fresh blood, and he felt new strength surge into him. His exhaustion vanished, replaced by a rush of energy as satisfying as his favorite morning coffee, and his thoughts sharpened. "What was that?" Clint gasped. He hadn't felt this energetic in a long time. He felt like he could run a marathon.
"An infusion of my own energy. It'll keep you in top shape for the next ten hours, but once it wears off you'll be twice as tired as before, so we'd best not loiter," Phoenix replied, and he swept past Clint. "We have a long way to go."
Clint followed Phoenix, who seemed to know exactly where he was going, to the infirmary. Dr. Fine looked up in surprise at the sight of Phoenix and reached for something clipped to his belt, but Clint hastily said, "It's ok, he's friendly."
The doctor looked skeptical, but heeded Clint's words. Phoenix swept over to the hospital bed where Natasha lay, still in an induced coma, and laid a hand over her chest without touching her. "Broken sternum and multiple rib fractures," he muttered. "Lots of bruises. Did she get into a fist fight with a metal man or something?"
Clint traded looks with Dr. Fine before the latter said "Basically. How'd you figure it out?"
"Magic," Phoenix said nonchalantly. When silence met this answer, he turned to look at them both. "Right, I demanded secrecy," he said self-deprecatingly. "Well, long story short, that right there isn't Nick Fury, it's a copy. I moved the real one to a safe house when I found him bleeding out in his apartment."
Clint gaped at him. Dr. Fine looked disbelieving. Phoenix sighed. "You want proof? I take you to my safe house, and let you use it as a base to regroup, then we can get down to the business of bringing whoever is responsible for this mess to justice."
"Do we have a choice?" Clint asked dryly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
"Considering the circumstances, I don't think you do," Phoenix said, though not harshly.
Dr. Fine glanced at his instruments. "I don't see how it's possible, but not even TTX B could fool my equipment," he admitted, looking at Clint. "This is a dead body."
"A perfect simulacrum of a dead body," Phoenix corrected. "Are we in agreement, then?"
Though the question was obviously rhetorical, Clint nodded anyway. Phoenix moved away from the medical equipment and gestured towards the far end of the room. A circle of golden sparks materialized in midair, growing into a round gateway big enough for all of them to walk through abreast of one another. Instead of the concrete wall of the infirmary, the portal, for Clint realized that it could be nothing else, led into a luxuriously appointed foyer of some sort. Phoenix sauntered through and made a beckoning motion with one hand that summoned Natasha's entire medical apparatus to follow him at a sedate pace, while the apparent facsimile of Nick Fury dissolved in a wisp of gray smoke that vanished without a sound or breeze.
Clint decided he could marvel at Phoenix and his remarkable abilities later. He followed the strange man through the portal, and after a moment, Dr. Fine did so as well. The room they found themselves in was indeed a foyer, the high-ceilinged entry to a mansion of some sort, with pale stone walls warmed by landscape paintings, abstract tapestries, dark wood floors and support beams, and a colorful rug. A grand staircase curved up each wall to either side, while tall arched doorways led into various rooms. The place oozed old-world charm, but various modern touches were visible as well, including electric lighting and air conditioning vents. Bright sunlight streamed through the windows, which told Clint that they'd traveled very far indeed. "You call this a safehouse?" he asked dryly. "Bit obvious, isn't it?"
"Not really," Phoenix said as he floated himself to the second floor, trailing Natasha and her life support behind him at a steady pace. Clint hastened up the stairs after them, Dr. Fine at his heels, as Phoenix continued "This place looks like an empty, moldering old ruin form the outside, and no one can see, hear, or smell what's really going on unless they're inside."
"What if someone comes snooping?"
"They won't."
Instead of speaking to it, Clint said "A lot of people at SHIELD like to joke that you're a wizard, and you called your powers magic. Is it true? Are you… magic?"
"Yes," Phoenix said flatly. "I am a wizard, and I laugh in the face of physics. Your boss has known this ever since the warehouse meeting a few weeks ago. Now so do you. I'd appreciate it if you don't go blabbing. I hate modifying memories."
Clint had no answer to that, so he kept his mouth shut as Phoenix led them to a bedroom. Lying prone on a queen-sized mattress, dressed in Captain Hook themed pajamas he would never be caught dead in if he could help it, was Nick Fury. Dr. Fine bustled up to him and began feeling up his chest in search of injuries, but even from a distance Clint could tell Fury was outwardly unscathed. The two of them looked to Phoenix for an explanation. "I have healing abilities," the wizard said simply. "He'll wake up when the toxin wears off, and he'll need a week or two to recover fully, but his life isn't in danger anymore."
Phoenix looked at Natasha again. Hovering his hand a few inches over her crushed chest, he began to undulate his fingers, muttering words under his breath that Clint couldn't discern. Streams of faint gold light, barely visible, flowed from Phoenix's fingers and into Natasha's chest. A moment later, Phoenix stopped moving his fingers, instead holding his hand steadily over the injuries, and the light faded. Clint approached them without speaking and examined his partner's unconscious form. Abruptly, the bandages over her the center of her chest vanished. Clint started, but he saw that the horrible bruises over her heart had faded, making the injury look months older. He paid her assets no mind as he studied Phoenix's handiwork and was grudgingly impressed. "How long until she's back in top shape," he asked as Phoenix conjured fresh bandages.
"A week or two, depending on how strong she is," Phoenix answered as he moved away.
Clint knew all too well how strong Nat was. He would give her a week, tops.
Dr. Fine shook his head in wonder. "I need a drink," he muttered as if in a daze.
"There's whiskey in the kitchen," Phoenix offered, conjuring a paper bird out of thin air and flicking it vaguely in the doctor's direction. "Follow this. It'll lead you right to it. I can fix up Ms. Widow." Fine rubbed his eyes but didn't question it. Like Clint, he seemed to have decided to accept whatever impossible feats Phoenix performed as they came. Deciding he needed a drink as well, Clint followed the doctor, pausing at the door to look back at Nat and Fury.
A few minutes later, Clint was sitting in a comfy armchair in the mansion's enormous great room, nursing a glass of cheap whiskey. Dr. Fine had accepted Phoenix's offer of portal transport back to the base in DC, but Clint had elected to stay at least until the energy high Phoenix had put him on faded. When Phoenix washed away his exhaustion, he'd felt like he could bench press a refrigerator, but now the alcohol seemed to be reducing him to the same tired state as before. He wondered if the drink was laced with some kind of sleeping potion, or if alcohol was a natural way of dispelling magic. The thought gave him pause, and he set the drink down on the old-fashioned coffee table in front of him.
Magic was real now. And Clint's preferred weapon was a bow and arrow. His life was weird.
Kamar-Taj, Kathmandu, Nepal, August of 2003
The young man who called himself Tom in lieu of the name he'd lost when he was afflicted with amnesia stood in respectful silence alongside his classmates as a grim-faced sorcerer named Wong educated them on the use of the Sling Ring.
Tom's amnesia made his studies of the Mystic Arts easier in some ways and more difficult in others. On the one hand, the lack of memories made clearing his mind and meditating easy, since there wasn't much in his head to clear. He had no trouble opening his metaphysical "Third Eye" and summoning the eldritch energies it allowed him to perceive to cast spells. On the other hand, his mind's attempts to heal itself often manifested in the most uncomfortable and unexpected ways. During his first martial arts training session, he had found himself instinctively employing hand to hand combat skills he had no previous awareness of, which interfered with his ability to use magic in combat, and thus he remained inept in that area of study. Now, while it was easy for him to summon the energies needed to use the sling ring, he could not form the destination in his mind. Every time he tried, he found himself unconsciously attempting to open gateways to places he had already visited but couldn't recall; when that happened, a searing pain tore through his head, an exaggeration of the headaches he suffered when he tried to force himself to remember things before his mind was ready.
Tom forced himself to focus on the task at hand. When the lecturing sorcerer gave the word, he concentrated on his room in the compound, fixing the details in his mind as he traced circles in the air in front of him. The energies were within reach, but his mind refused to cooperate. He knew he was supposed to surrender to the flow of cosmic power and guide it like a current to do as he requested, but every time he tried, his mind drifted inexorably to focus on lost memories. When he surrendered, he had no destination, and when he had a destination, he could not surrender. A few pitiful sparks formed in front of his extended hands, only to fizzle out as quickly as they appeared.
Tom suppressed a groan of frustration. Again and again he struggled to form the portal, but received only headaches and a few pitiful sparks for his efforts. Within a few minutes, he was the only trainee who hadn't managed to open a portal. Eventually, Wong called an end to the session. Tom did groan then. If this kept up, the Ancient One herself would have to intervene, and he'd heard the stories of her "sink or swim" method of overcoming blocks such as his own. If that was what it was going to take for him to achieve mastery he wouldn't complain, but he had no desire to go through such a thing if he could avoid it.
As Tom made his way through the corridors of Kamar-Taj, angling towards the library, he caught sight of Dr. Bruce Banner. Tom knew that while Banner was incredibly intelligent, he lacked any sort of talent for the Mystic Arts and was only staying at the compound to master his gigantic green alter ego, which could be accurately described as a walking earthquake with anger issues. Tom knew too that Harry Potter was responsible for bringing both of them here, and so there was a strange sort of kinship between them. Just then, however, Tom was too tense for conversation, so he changed direction, striding down a different corridor, letting himself get lost in the serene halls of Kamar-Taj. Eventually, he found himself in a small meditation room filled with unlit, scented candles and, deciding he needed to clear his mind, closed the doors and sat himself on the mat, lighting the candles with a sweeping flick of his fingers.
Tom breathed slowly and deeply, exhaling his doubts and inhaling the calming scent of the candle smoke. Eyes closed, he allowed himself to lose track of time. The tranquility was eventually broken by a distant scream.
Tom tried to open his eyes and spring to his feet, but his body wouldn't cooperate. The distant screams contained a pleading note that sent shards of ice shooting through Tom's heart. He had to help, but he could not move. It was as if his muscles had been replaced by clay. His eyelids were heavier than the mountains around Kathmandu. He could not move to save his life or the source of the screams, which were gradually becoming clearer. Yes, someone was pleading for help, begging someone to do… something . The screams were fading to gasps, and a second voice began to scream, and it contained an even more desperate pleading note.
Tom's eyes snapped open, and he screamed, thrashing on the meditation mat, sweat pouring down the back of his neck. He shook his head and scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping over his white novice robes, sharpening his senses as he did so, straining to hear the horrible, desperate, pleading screams. But all he found was silence. Was it a memory? He half-expected someone to come running to his little meditation room in search of the source of the racket he'd made, only to dismiss the thought when he remembered that the door had been enchanted to be soundproof. Breathing hard, Tom forced himself to swallow and sat down.
The scented candles were still burning, filling the room with fragrant smoke, which was gradually wafting out through a grated window. It occurred to Tom that he'd never meditated with such aids before. Had they triggered the memory flash?
The experience hadn't been pleasant, but Tom doubted all of his lost memories were so horrible. Either way, he had to remember his past. He needed to know who he'd been before he'd been brought to Kamar-Taj; he had no doubt that his ignorance would haunt him if he didn't.
SHIELD Bunker, Washington DC, USA, August of 2003
Phil Coulson palmed his pistol in uncertainty as he made his way through the emergency bunker Fury's hidden message had directed him to. He was certain that this was the right place, but it was quite empty. There was no sign of the Director, Agent Romanoff, Dr. Fine, or Agent Barton in any of the rooms, and the only sounds apart from his own breathing and footsteps were the gentle rumbling of the dam's turbines nearby. He wondered briefly whether SHIELD's dirty elements had found the place and finished what they had begun, but he immediately dismissed the thought. Nowhere in the bunker had he found even a single sign of struggle, which meant that either they had left willingly, or no one had ever arrived at the bunker to begin with. The latter was unlikely, however, as it failed to explain the absence of Dr. Fine, who had been posted here a week earlier.
Was it possible that Phil had come to the wrong place, then? If so, then he'd dropped the ball in a way he had not since he was a small child. He was just beginning to wonder if he had lost his mind completely when a curious sparking-whizzing noise reached his ears. Turning, he saw something that would have given him a heart attack only a month ago; a circular portal air edged in merrily dancing golden sparks. Phil had never seen anything like it before, but there was no mistaking what it was, what with the sumptuously appointed room on the other side and the all to recognizable figure waiting on the other side.
For a brief moment Phil's legendary composure slipped, and he sighed before stepping through.
Potter Redoubt, Scilly Isles, United Kingdom, August of 2003
Harry needed a vacation. From the moment he'd arrived in this world he'd had almost no time to himself. When he wasn't training he was raising Teddy, and while he loved that boy to death, Harry had needs of his own that the child simply could not address. The rest of his time was spent running a small business, checking in with Tom and Dr. Banner at Kamar-Taj, striving to understand the Phoenix Force to keep it from consuming him, and monitoring the political landscape for signs of threats. Now he was cleaning up a mess that by all rights shouldn't have been any of his business by helping Nick Fury.
For all his power, in the end Harry was only human.
Night had fallen, but Agent Barton and Dr. Fine had not moved from the mansion's Great Room, though the latter showed signs of having drunk too much whiskey. Clearly he didn't know how to deal with the weirdness around him. Harry hoped for his sake that he would get used to it. Merlin knew Phil Coulson had, judging from his unflappable demeanor in the face of the current situation. Harry had tried to get Barton to tell him what was going on and how Fury and Romanoff had been injured, but he'd refused to speak without Coulson present. Harry was once more impressed by the archer's fortitude; too many people in similar positions would have cracked out of fear of his power, and Barton had witnessed it firsthand. Now here they were, crowded on the couches in front of the giant hearth, where a small fire crackled forlornly.
Coulson was the first to speak. "How did you know?"
Harry didn't need telepathy to unpack that question. "I saw the news about Senator Grant and got suspicious, so I called Fury. He didn't pick up, not even when I tried again several hours later, and he never called me back, and I went from suspicious to worried. You know I have ways of tracking people down. I got to him just after he was shot, fixed him up as best as I could, replaced him with a decoy of his body for the authorities to find, then brought him here. After that I waited for someone to retrieve the decoy, and as soon as Agent Barton showed up I followed him to that bunker."
"And moved the whole operation to this safehouse of yours," Barton finished. "I still think it's too fancy. If this is where you go in an emergency, your real house must look like something out of a Disney Princess movie."
Harry chuckled good naturedly. "Honestly, I don't care for luxury. This place was abandoned before I moved in. I just breathed new life into it. My real house is a lot smaller."
Barton looked skeptical, but Coulson cut in before he could say more. "We can discuss real estate later. Right now, we have a serious problem on our hands." He looked directly at Harry's shadowed face. "Remember when Fury asked you to prove you could read minds?"
"Yes. What of it?"
"Well, what you told him made him suspicious, so he had Agents Barton and Romanoff look into them. We all know he's paranoid, but it turns out that in this case it was justified."
"How so?"
Barton spoke up. "Every single one of those agents at the warehouse answer directly to Alexander Pierce, the Undersecretary to the World Security Council and the only person in SHIELD who can tell Fury what to do. We couldn't bug his office or his house, but we did record him having a phone conversation in what he thought was a secure room."
"Let me guess," Harry said grimly. "He ordered the death of the Senator?" Barton nodded. Harry looked to Coulson. "Why didn't Fury contact me then? I could have helped before this got out of hand."
"He couldn't," Coulson said simply. "Pierce stole your special phone and replaced it with a bugged copy. Fury almost used it before he noticed the details weren't right."
"And I canceled the original number I gave you two years ago, which effectively forced you lot out of contact," Harry finished, nodding. He would have to work on providing a more reliable means of communication, one that couldn't be stolen so easily.
"The only people Fury trusted after that are all in this building now," Coulson continued. "Romanoff went on a black op to guard the Senator, but the assassin Pierce sent, someone he referred to only as 'the Asset,' overpowered her. How, exactly, we're not sure, but she broke open her false tooth, and the toxin inside put her into a coma-like state that made it look like she was dead."
"I'm guessing Fury used the same trick to fool whoever shot him, as well?" Harry asked.
Coulson nodded. "Agent Barton retrieved Romanoff and Fury from the morgues where they'd been sent after the hospitals declared them dead. You did the rest for us."
For a long moment, no one spoke.
"So, what happens now?" Barton asked at last, staring intently at Harry. In turn, Harry looked at Coulson.
Coulson tensed, as if bracing himself. "I know you have responsibilities far more important than us, but we really can't do this without you," he said, looking at Harry.
"Do what, exactly?" Harry asked, knowing the answer.
"Clean up SHIELD. Find out what Pierce's real agenda is and put a stop to it."
"And what would you have me do?" Harry asked, allowing a trace of sardonicism to color his words. "Scan the thoughts of every person employed by SHIELD? Tell whatever legitimate authority I turn them over to that I discovered their treachery by reading their minds and expect them to believe me? Or would you have me kill the traitors en masse with a twitch of my mind? Bet the history books and policy makers will love that." Everyone else flinched, even Dr. Fine, who looked as if he were on the brink of falling into a drunken stupor.
"Personally, I'd rather not solve this through mass murder," Barton said, a little too casually.
"That makes two of us," Harry muttered.
"I don't want you to kill anyone," Coulson cut in. "But there is something you can do now that would allow us to do the rest of the work on our own."
"Just one thing?" Harry asked in a voice that dripped skepticism.
"Well, a couple of things," Coulson amended without missing a beat. "But I doubt you'll have any objections."
Harry listened intently, and he found himself agreeing to the plan with an ease that reminded him all too eerily of how readily he'd accepted the burden of the Horcrux Hunt.
Triskelion, Washington DC, United States, September of 2003
Alexander Pierce was surprised to realize that he was in a genuinely good mood as he strode into his private office with a hot cup of coffee in hand, its comfortingly rich scent wafting into his nose. If asked, he wouldn't have been certain just why he was in such high spirits. Perhaps it had something to do with being appointed interim Director of SHIELD in the wake of the death of Nick Fury. Perhaps it was because he now had sole access to the Phone, providing him with the only secure means of contacting Phoenix. He very much doubted the mysterious telekinetic would trust him, but even men (Phoenix was a man under that hood, wasn't he?) who could move things with their minds had weaknesses. If he could get Phoenix to drink drugged tea or coffee, his fate would be sealed, and HYDRA would own him forever. Yes, an assassin with Winter Soldier levels of programmed lethality at his command was certainly something to look forward to.
Perhaps Pierce's good mood was a result of how he'd vicariously satisfied his secret bloodlust, something he worked so hard to conceal from the ignorant among his pawns, by finally seeing Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff dead.
As Pierce sat behind Fury's old desk, his desk now, he set down his coffee and flexed his fingers, only to pause as a sudden thought struck him. He needed privacy for a while. His day had barely started, but already he found himself so tired of socializing with his coworkers, and he had no scheduled meetings until this afternoon. Until then, he didn't want to see anyone, and unless the world was ending he couldn't care less what the rest of SHIELD needed from him today. Yes, Alexander Pierce wanted to be utterly alone for a while, so he turned on his intercom and told his secretary that no one was to disturb him until his scheduled lunch meeting with the World Security Council for any reason.
The secretary sounded surprised by the vehemence of his demand, but she didn't question it, and as soon as the connection was severed, Pierce tapped a code into the security control panel on his desk that sealed the room. The secondary security doors closed, the window blinds lowered, and the gentle hum of the air vents above stuttered as the air currents shifted in sympathy with the closing internal security gates. No sooner had he isolated himself from the rest of the world than Pierce found himself blinking and shaking his head, certain that his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Before Pierce's eyes, the air cracked like glass, and he beheld in his own reflection in the spiderweb, which shifted and expanded in fractals. Pierce yelled in panic as the distortion enveloped him, and he threw his arms up over his face, but he felt nothing. After a moment of paralyzing confusion, he lowered his arms and glanced around. He was still in his office, still surrounded by the best security systems money could buy, and he was alone. Pierce was just beginning to wonder if someone had snuck a hallucinogenic drug into his coffee when he realized that he was not, in fact, alone.
A figure was standing between the visitors' chairs in front of Pierce's desk; a figure he'd read about in the reports of his underlings and which he himself had only seen in grainy, low quality photos taken by his underlings one summer night, but one he'd trained himself to recognize regardless.
Phoenix.
The telekinetic was garbed in the same green outfit from the warehouse meeting, his arms crossed over the golden pendant that hung from his shadowed neck. Pierce gaped at him, then reached frantically for the security control panel on his desk, slamming his hand down on the buttons when they didn't respond.
"Don't bother," Phoenix said in a voice as cold as the polar ice caps. "You're in my world now, Mr. Pierce. I make the rules here, and if I say your security system doesn't work, then it doesn't work." Pierce reached inside his tiny holdout pistol from his suit jacket's inner pocket, only to be flung backward by an invisible yet unstoppable force, and he crashed into the window wall behind him. The impact sent pain blasting through his body and made his vision blur as he slumped to the gray carpeted floor. Athletic and healthy he might have been, but Pierce wasn't a spry young man anymore.
"This will go much easier for you if you surrender peacefully and cooperate," Phoenix said from somewhere nearby. "We both know you have no chance of escaping."
"Wrong!" Pierce spat, finally succeeding in pulling his pistol from its pocket and switching off the safety. He rose up from where he'd landed on the floor, pointed the pistol directly at Phoenix, and fired, but his first two shots failed to so much as make the cloaked man twitch.
It took Pierce a moment to realize that the bullets were suspended in midair between the two of them, as immobile as the dead. Phoenix had thwarted his effort with the tiniest motion of one finger. He fired again, only for an irresistible force to yank his arms to the right, throwing his aim off by inches, but he might as well have been firing at the ceiling for all the difference it made. The gun pulled itself free from Pierce's grasp and spun in midair so that its barrel pointed directly at Pierce's own heart.
"A pistol? Really?" Phoenix asked in that same cold voice, chilled even further by derision. "Did you honestly think that would work?"
Pierce yelped as he was pulled from where he stood and flew through the air to slam back first into the far wall of the office, his limbs splayed uselessly like a child making a snow angel, his head facing forward, completely and utterly unable to move anything save his facial muscles. "You-you'll pay for this, freak," he ground out, his features contorted in a snarl of impotent rage that barely concealed the terror writhing through him. Despite his defiance, every instinct in Pierce's body was screaming that he was about to die, that the universe itself had condemned him, that the very air he breathed now conspired in his downfall. That was when Pierce realized that the last thing he had wanted that morning was to be alone. And yet, inexplicably, he'd sealed himself in his office for the next three hours like a hibernating bear, and he'd done it so eagerly and so emphatically that no one would dare try to dig him out.
Phoenix loomed before him, a far more menacing presence than Pierce would have believed a single human being was capable of projecting, even the Winter Soldier. "You should know, Mr. Pierce, that I really hate that word," Phoenix said in little more than a whisper.
A chill of foreboding laddered up Pierce's spine. Then he felt something vast and alien tear its way into his head, sending spikes of agony coursing through his skull as it sifted through his thoughts, distilling and sifting through them with no care for the anguish it caused him until it found everything it needed to know. The presence's anger and disgust at what it discovered stabbed at Pierce's psyche like spears of red-hot iron, burning him from the inside out.
The presence lingered, cold fires smoldering as it contemplated its next course of action. After a long, agonizing moment, it took on a note of grim resolve. Then it sharpened its probes into a razor sharp point, like an old fashioned writing quill, and scratched its will into Pierce's mind, etching the commands into him so deeply and with such permanence that by the time it was finished he could no longer distinguish between his own thoughts and those the quill had wrought if he'd tried. This was his new identity, and he could never return to the person he was before, could not even remember what he was before.
He didn't want to.
…
Harry hadn't realized what he'd done to Alexander Pierce until it was over, and by then it was far too late to undo it. It wasn't forcefully tearing into the man's mind that bothered him, not after the things he'd seen there; it was what he'd done after, what he'd done so easily and without reservation it sickened him. He staggered away from Pierce, releasing the drooling old man from his telekinetic grip and letting him slide to the floor. Then he bent over, holding his torso in both arms, and vomited all over the gray carpet.
The Phoenix Force remained curiously silent.
Harry wretched again, then stumbled into the desk, planting one hand on its burnished surface for support as he took several deep breaths and swallowed hard. He recalled Snape describing to him all those years ago how Voldemort enjoyed tormenting his victims with Legilimency, how the dark lord would trap his favorite prisoners in their own heads with visions that slowly drove them mad until they cooperated or begged for death. Riddle was supremely skilled in the Cruciatus and Imperius curses, but they were too simple for his monstrous appetites, so whenever he had the opportunity to rewrite a victim's mind to his own twisted liking he would take it. Now Harry had done the exact same thing to a bloodthirsty, treacherous old man, and he felt as sick as a ghoul with spattergroit.
Alexander Pierce would never notice the changes forcibly inflicted on his mind. Once he awoke from his stupor he would go about his usual business running HYDRA ( HYDRA , how was this possible?) from inside SHIELD, but in those rare private moments even his co-conspirators weren't privy to he would undermine everything he'd worked so hard for. HYDRA's greatest asset in the modern world still thought he was loyal to his shadow organization, but in truth he would spend the rest of his life gleefully aiding in its destruction, and he would never realize it, never see the difference between his own thoughts and those Harry had imposed on him. The directives were as vital a part of Pierce's psyche as his basic instincts, and not even the Ancient One's skill in mind healing could undo the damage.
All because Harry had, in his anger, carved the directive into his subconscious with all the subtlety of a blunt axe and the unstoppable force of a charging giant.
On the one hand, it needed to be done. On the other hand, Harry felt sickened with himself in a way he had never experienced even after attempting the Cruciatus Curse against Bellatrix Lestrange. His one consolation was the knowledge that he'd never have to do it again. Pierce had enough political connections to make Nick Fury jealous, and his ability to manipulate them was second to none. With help from the honest agents Harry would recruit next, based on what he found in their minds, HYDRA would spend the next three years destroying itself from within.
Alexander Pierce reportedly exhibited signs of sleep deprivation for the rest of that day. His eyes were heavy lidded, he lost track of conversations, and he swayed drunkenly as he walked, barely noticing those around him. Yet when asked, he was at a loss to explain his curious behavior. After all, he was fairly certain he'd for once gotten his proper eight hours the previous night.
Harry returned himself and Pierce to the real world, erased all evidence that Pierce had ever been attacked, and reapplied his scheme of stealth enchantments. Then he departed the office and spent the remainder of the day tagging his potential allies with appropriate charms to lead them in the direction of Phil Coulson and Nick Fury's conspiracy. None would have their minds interfered with, but all now carried tracking spells and would glow faintly to the eyes of Coulson and Agent Barton, ensuring that they would know who to recruit and where to find them.
Once Harry was finished, he sent a message to the Redoubt (he was too emotionally exhausted to wonder whether his allies would have conniptions over its contents; he would worry about that at their next face to face meeting) and departed for home, where he spent hours meditating. As he went to bed, a sudden thought struck him, a detail that had not registered in his initial, hasty fury earlier that day; the assassin who'd shot Fury and nearly killed Romanoff, the Winter Soldier, was once known as James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky Barnes, as he had been affectionately known to his friends, who would rather die than serve HYDRA and the monsters that ran it. Harry would have to do something about that.
First Banner, then Tom, and now Barnes , Harry thought to himself. How many more strays will I end up rescuing?
When he finally fell asleep, he was assaulted by dreams of a man in a red, white, and blue combat suit, armed with a circular shield painted in the same colors, fighting alongside an older version of Tom and a masked figure with a metal arm against an army of faceless monsters.
Behind the heroic trio two small children cowered, one blurring in and out of existence and the other holding currents of scarlet light in her hands.
Below, the ground was coated in a thick sheet of ice. Above, the sky was dark save for the outline of a flaming bird that was descending for them with its talons extended.
Kamar-Taj, Kathmandu, Nepal, September of 2003
Bruce Banner set down his teacup and looked at the Ancient One. He'd been genuinely surprised by how much he liked her and her disciples, despite the way their lifestyles and worldviews clashed, and he had to admit he was sorry he hadn't been able to achieve any of the feats they were capable of. The Other Guy didn't bother him as much as he used to, but for all that Bruce's relationship with his volatile green alter ego had improved over the last few weeks, there was no denying that a walking earthquake was less useful than the ability to conjure portals to anywhere in the world on a whim. Still, he knew better than to feel jealous when everyone here was damaged in some way and sought healing more than they had sought power.
"You're certain you want to leave?" the Ancient One asked, neither judging nor eager.
"I am," Bruce said. "I am truly grateful for everything you have done for me, but I can't spend the rest of my life here. I've spoken to Master Hamir, and he thinks I'm ready. If I stay, I'd be getting in your way, and I need to make a life where my skills are needed."
The Ancient One nodded. "I won't deny it. You have an important role to play in the future of this world, and you won't fulfill it here. But you are always welcome to return, should you feel the need."
"Thank you. I probably will," Bruce said, inclining his head. "I'll wait until Mr. Potter visits again before I go, though, so I can say goodbye in person. I owe him that much for bringing me here."
The Ancient One smiled. "He'll appreciate that." She stood from her cushion and began to move off. "I suggest you speak with Master Wong before that happens. He's been putting something together he believes you'll be very interested in." She paused, inclining her head as if listening to a sound no one else could hear. "And on that note, duty calls." A gesture of her hand transformed her simple white robes into the golden yellow outfit she wore in combat and dashed down a corridor in the direction of the Orb of Agamotto.
Bruce watched her go, then stood up and made his way to his own rooms. He had plans to make.
...