Tony let out a low whistle as he set the quinjet carefully down on the asphalt outside the Dursley house. A thick, dark, heavy cloud hung over the house, and only that house. From it poured a seemingly endless torrent of rain in sheets so thick that even from the street Tony could barely see the house, and couldn't make out anything through the windows. "You don't do things by halves, do you big guy?" He asked as he got up from the pilot's chair.
"They made him sleep in a broom closet until he was eleven." Thor growled as he stared out the windshield at the house. "He's been cooking and cleaning for them since he was old enough to hold a rag or see over the stove. They deny him food as a punishment, often for days at a time. They allow his aunt's dog to chase and attack him, and their son to do the same. I consider the fact that their house still stands an act of restraint on my part." Tony stared at him, then shook his head.
"Jesus. What kind of boarding school lets a kid return to a place like that?" He demanded. Thor sighed.
"My son did not think to tell the faculty. He felt that given the fact that no adult ever laid hands on him, his situation was not so bad. Also, I suspect that he didn't wish to give those who would bully him ammunition."
"That sounds like a twelve year old." Bruce agreed as he finished undoing his seat belts and walked over to the others. "I assume you'll be having words with his teachers?" Thor nodded curtly.
"Indeed I will." He said before turning and heading briskly towards the ramp, followed by Bruce and Tony. "But that is a task for another day. Today I simply wish to get my son from here."
The Dursleys were, needless to say, unhappy to see Thor and company. "Oi!" Vernon snapped, stomping forward and, in a fit of astounding bravery, jabbing Thor in the chest with a finger. "What have you done to the weather?" He demanded. "Do you have any idea what damage you're doing to our house and yard?"
"I imagine it's doing quite a bit of damage to your lawn and shrubbery." Thor replied. "As for your house, I have enchanted the rain to ensure that it does not erode your foundations, nor will it impact the homes of your neighbors. From what my son has told me, you value the appearance of normalcy above all else. Good luck accomplishing that with a perpetual storm surrounding your home." He smirked and headed for the stairs, leaving Vernon gaping as Tony and Bruce waited by the door.
Bruce looked around the house critically. "You know, is it just me or does this house look more like one of SHIELD's safe houses than an actual family home?" He asked musingly. Tony paused, then gave the place a second look.
"Oh wow. You're right, this place is *too* clean. Like, surgical theater room clean. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the lab I installed my second arc reactor in was dirtier than this. I mean, the first one got put in in an even dirtier place, but that was a cave, so that's a given." He frowned and arched an eyebrow at Vernon. "What's your secret walrus man? Black magic, brownies, miniature robots?" Vernon spluttered indignantly.
"B...black magic? Brownies? What sort of man do you take me for?" He demanded. Tony shrugged.
"Based on what Thor told us his kid said? An asshole." Vernon started to turn purple. "I mean seriously, keeping him in the broom cupboard when you've got two extra bedrooms? Really?"
"If nothing else he's your nephew." Bruce said softly. "Isn't blood supposed to be thicker than water?"
"We didn't ask for that burden!" Vernon roared. "He was dropped off on our doorstep one night. Nobody asked us if we wanted him! If we were willing! I'm a normal man sir! I've worked for everything with my own two hands! And I will not be insulted like this in my own home!" Tony looked at Bruce, ignoring Vernon.
"Left him on the doorstep in the middle of the night? Didn't Thor say that the kid's mom got killed on Halloween?" Bruce nodded and Tony scowled, running a hand through his hair. "Someone left a one year old outside all night, in October/November, in Britain? That...wow, what the hell? They're lucky the kid didn't die of pneumonia." Bruce pursed his lips and nodded again. "Someone's got some explaining to do." Tony muttered as Thor walked down just then with Harry. Harry carried a small satchel and a snowy owl in a cage. Thor, on the other hand, was empty handed and looked rather angry. He pushed past a still purple Vernon and bent down in front of the padlocked cupboard. Reaching out, he tore off the padlock as if it were tissue paper, tossing it aside, before pulling out a trunk and a large cauldron. He hefted them both up, letting them rest on his shoulders, and brushed past Vernon once more before smiling down at Harry.
"Come along Harry." He said gently. Harry nodded and quickly followed his father, only giving his uncle a quick glance before walking out the door, Bruce and Tony close behind. The rain briefly parted, giving the four a clear path back to the quinjet before closing up again. Tony let out a low, appreciative whistle.
"You know, I don't think I'll ever get used to weather manipulation on such a precise scale." He said before grabbing Harry's hand and shaking it warmly. "Tony Stark kid, good to meet you. Welcome to the family." Harry just stared at him, wide eyed and his mouth open. Tony coughed awkwardly. "Right. Well I'd better get this bird in the air, we're blocking traffic." He said briskly, ignoring Bruce as the other man rolled his eyes.
"Don't worry about him, he's not so good with...emotions." Bruce told Harry as they sat down before holding out his hand. "I'm Bruce by the way. Bruce Banner." Harry tentatively shook his hand. Things were happening rather fast, and he was having difficulty processing it all. Bruce, understanding this, didn't push him, simply shooting the young boy a quick smile and leaning back in his seat. Thor stepped briefly away to speak to Tony.
"Any word from the others yet?" He asked softly. Tony shook his head.
"Nothing so far. GPS says they're still on route." He paused, glancing over his shoulder briefly at Harry before looking back at Thor. "So, uhm, it's been a while since I've been around kids but...I don't think that he's supposed to be that skinny." He said slowly. "And given what you said about the dog and his cousin I'm thinking it would be better to get him to a doctor sooner rather than later. Think he'd be okay with Helen giving him a check up?" Thor frowned.
"I will ask." He said finally after some consideration. "And Tony? Thank you. You are a good friend, and a good man." He patted Tony on the shoulder and sat down next to his son.
Thirty Five Minutes Later
Clint cocked his head to the side as he lowered the quinjet down what he felt was a reasonably safe distance from the tower/head, triple checking to make sure that all of the weapons systems were down. Unsafe Iraq might be, but the quinjet had more than decent armor, and between a protective father who happened to be a god and insurgents, he'd rather handle the latter. Still... "Nat?" He called back over his shoulder. "You told Fury what was going on, right?" Nat looked up from where she'd been inspecting her 'widow bites'.
"Yeah, why?" She asked with a frown.
"It looks like someone already beat us here." He said, gesturing at a quinjet parked far closer to the tower than them. Steve sighed.
"At least their jet is intact." He said, sounding rather exasperated at this development. "That's a good sign, right?" Natasha shrugged.
"Depends on what kind of defenses Set put up. They might only target organic material." She pointed out. "Though I don't think this was Fury." Steve looked at her, and she half shrugged. "Fury's paranoid, but he trusts us reasonably well. And as he demonstrated when he let Thor take the Tesseract, he's not one to needlessly challenge gods. He wouldn't try to send a team to investigate something like this, something that wasn't an immediate and active threat, not when he knew we were on the way and he doesn't know what the thing's capabilities are." Steve mulled it over, then nodded.
"Fair enough. But if it's not SHIELD, who else has a quinjet?" Clint shrugged as he stood up from the pilot's seat, now that he was reasonably sure they weren't about to come under fire in the next two minutes.
"World Security Council." He pointed out. "This seems like their kind of move. Maybe the Russians. Either way, we'll find out when we get in." He said, heading for the ramp. Natasha frowned.
"Uhm, Clint?"
"Yeah?"
"Aren't you forgetting something?" She asked, gesturing at the bow and quiver still racked on the wall of the quinjet. Clint just snorted.
"Right, like I'm going to walk heavily armed into something a *god* built to protect his baby girl." He said, rolling his eyes. "Look, Steve's shield will probably fly, and maybe your bites will since they look like bracelets, but nobody has ever mistaken bringing a bow somewhere as a peaceful gesture." Natasha frowned, looking at Clint intently, then nodded, removing her bites and a variety of knives that Steve hadn't realized she even had on her person. He shot her another quizzical look, and she shrugged again.
"I've learned to trust Clint's judgment when it comes to how parental instincts work." She said simply, stowing her weapons in her personal compartment. Steve looked at them both, then sighed and took his shield off his back and set it down as well.
"Alright, lets go." He said, not sounding thrilled at entering unarmed but accepting the spies' point.
The walk from the quinjet to the jackal head tower was uneventful, though all three Avengers noticed an abundance of scorch marks and dropped weaponry. "Either that quinjet has Destroyer tech on it, or that is some impressive defenses." Clint said, his eyes scanning the tower. "You guys even see a scratch in that thing?" Steve paused, scanning it, the shook his head.
"Doesn't look like it. Either whoever left these weapons didn't manage to get a shot off, or that's not just painted sandstone." He said. Natasha hummed.
"I bet SHIELD would love a sample of this stuff..."
"Please don't go trying to chisel some off of that thing Nat." Clint pleaded. "Or at least let me get far enough away to not be considered a threat."
"I'm not an idiot Clint." Natasha huffed. "It was just an observation." Steve gave Clint a concerned look.
"Are you alright Clint? You seem a little on edge." Clint sighed.
"I've seen a lot of shit Steve. A LOT. I've fought big foot, robots, aliens, werewolves...you name it. But the last time I took on a god when he hadn't been worn down by the Hulk first? Didn't go so well. So yeah, I'm a little nervous." Steve nodded grimly. He remembered his own bout with Loki all too well.
"Fair point." He said as they came up to the doors, which were large, ornately carved and, of course, tightly shut. Steve looked around for some sign of a door knob or other typical method of opening a door, but found nothing.
"Any ideas?" Natasha asked. Steve hesitated, then knocked politely on the stone. Almost immediately a small portion of the doors, just large enough for Steve to squeeze through, opened up.
"You've got to be kidding me." Clint muttered. Steve shrugged and stepped through, the other two close behind.
The room they entered was nothing short of palatial. Murals of gold and precious stones adorned every wall, pillars of marble stretched up to the ceiling, sheer silk curtains closed off every doorway, and in the center of it all was a large pond, lilies floating serenely on the surface. In direct contrast to the beauty of the room however, were the six corpses strewn around. Natasha bent down, examining one of them. "Judging by the knife, the gun, and the clothes, definitely insurgent." She reported.
"How the hell did they get in here?" Clint demanded. "They knock too?" Steve nodded at the doorway directly across from the main one, through which he could make out two figures sitting at a table.
"Lets go ask."
What they found was not precisely what they'd expected. Admittedly it couldn't be said exactly what they'd been expecting. But all things considered, all three could confidently say that they *hadn't* expected to find a young woman with skin that was pale to an almost ludicrous degree lounging regally (if one could do such a thing) and staring intently at an older blonde woman as said older blonde woman explained the intricacies of English grammar. Natasha blinked once, then arched an eyebrow. "I should have guessed. The quinjet outside is yours I assume Lorraine?" The blonde pursed her lips.
"Agent 10 please, I'm on the clock." She said briskly in a British accent of some kind, though Steve couldn't place the exact region. Natasha snorted.
"You here investigating for the Council, Fury, or Pierce?" She asked. Lorraine smirked.
"Who says it can only be one of them?" The young woman was following the exchange with interest, and Steve was startled to see that she had double irises in each eye. Now that he was only a few feet from her he could also make out tattoos curving up and down her body and face, which resembled hieroglyphs but weren't quite either.
"You're Set's daughter I presume?" He asked when her eyes briefly passed over him. She paused, examining him intently, then nodded.
"Yes. I am Princess Ahmanet. Once the heir to the throne of Egypt, though my divine father tells me that it would be unwise to seek my throne at present." Clint snorted, and Ahmanet's eyes whipped to lock onto him. Clint held up his hands.
"Sorry, sorry your highness." He said quickly. "That was just a bit of an understatement. The current leadership of Egypt is...let's just say they're anti polytheism at the moment." Ahmanet stared at him in silence, then nodded curtly.
"That was the impression I was given, yes." She said simply. "My divine father gave me the...basics, and Agent 10 has been quite helpful in giving me a more thorough understanding."
"You mind telling me what happened to those men in the foyer?" Natasha asked bluntly. Ahmanet cocked her head to the side, seemingly confused.
"The entrance hall dear." Lorraine said gently. Ahmanet nodded her understanding and...blushed.
"I needed to regain my strength." She said, her eyes moving from one Avenger to another. "The past millennia left me in a...weakened state. Little more than a corpse. I needed life energy and my divine father provided." She paused and added, somewhat defensively "He told me that they were criminals and bandits, that would not be missed."
"Relax, we're all soldiers here." Clint said quickly when Steve frowned. "We've all done things we're not proud of." He hesitated. "That's not going to need to be a regular thing, is it?" He asked quickly. "Sucking the life out of people? Cause if it is, that might be a little awkward." Ahmanet shook her head curtly.
"No. I have regained my strength and regenerated in full. Any future injuries can be dealt with in a more...standard manner." She then cocked her head once more. "You have come to bring me to the new dwelling place my divine father spoke of, yes?" Natasha nodded and Ahmanet frowned. "I was under the impression that the god known as Thor would be retrieving me." She said bluntly, her chin tilting up in challenge.
"Yes, well, we're friends of Thor's..." Steve began.
"I know who you are." Ahmanet said, cutting him off. "My divine father gave me images to go along with the facts he delivered. I was not asking for your identities, I was asking where this Thor is."
"Getting his son." Natasha said flatly. Ahmanet blinked, startled.
"Oh." She said softly. "I...familial loyalty is a good thing." She finally said. "Very well. Shall we go?" Natasha nodded, then turned.
"See you next time Agent 10." She said over her shoulder, a only vaguely detectable edge to her voice.
"She is coming with us." Ahmanet told them. It was not a question, but a statement delivered by a member of royalty. "I will require a tutor and aide. I have chosen her." Natasha paused. Before anyone else could say anything, Lorraine spoke up, her voice wry.
"Liaison to a demigod? I'm fairly certain I can spin that as a positive to my superiors." She looked down at Ahmanet. "However, rules are rules. By your leave your majesty, I will need to tell those who give me my orders of your wishes." Ahmanet paused, then nodded.
"Very well. But make it clear that I will be most displeased if they do not comply." She said eventually. Lorraine smirked.
"Don't worry, I will." She said before turning and heading for the door. "Clint, Captain." She said as she passed, giving each polite nods. "Natasha." This was delivered with a smirking half curtsy.
"Bad blood there?" Steve asked once the blonde had left. Clint sniggered.
"She has more kills than me by one." Natasha muttered petulantly, giving Clint a dirty look. Steve blinked, looking like a deer in headlights, thrown off by the idea that Natasha was capable of getting caught up in a rivalry. Ahmanet cleared her throat impatiently.
"May we leave now?"
Author's Notes
Thank you for still reading this everybody!
I uhm...I kind of saw Atomic Blonde for my birthday and...let's just say it left a big impression on me. Particularly Charlize Theron's chemistry with Sofia Boutella. So...yeah. Lorraine Broughton is in this now. _ That's the last crossover element I'll use though, I promise. This plot is going to be busy enough without me grafting a *sixth* universe into it.
And as for where Petunia and Dudley were when Thor and company went to retrieve Harry? I don't know, running errands or something.
...look, I'm sorry, I tried to figure out a way to work them in but it never felt right! They just felt extraneous, particularly Dudley. Maybe they'll pop up later, maybe not. I confess that having a confrontation with the Dursleys wasn't a large priority of mine. The meat of the story is going to be the interactions of our three young gods (young so far as gods go) and the ramifications of their existence becoming public. There's a thousand and one stories out there where those who care about Harry chew out the Dursleys or punish them (Arthur Weasley confronting them in the sadly abandoned 'A Little Light Reading' is one of my favorites) and I wasn't eager to retread such old ground. Maybe I'll come back and edit in Petunia. Maybe I'll even show Thor saying more than a paragraph of dialogue to them. Who knows?
...sorry