Hello everybody! I'm back...bet you didn't expect to hear from me ever again! I'm so sorry, I don't intend nor want for this fic to be one that only gets one or two updates a year. To speak bluntly, my mental health is...terrible, and money troubles mean that I can only do so much, that a lot of the things that would help me are out of my reach. That, along with the frustrating and frankly confusing death of the Dark Universe and increasing disappointment in Rowling as a person and an author sort of tanked my interest and ability to write this story for a good long while. But, I'm back, I've adjusted and acclimated and changed some of my structure and plans around, and I intend to do my damndest to at least get monthly updates out. We'll see how well I can stick to that, but I want to do better and y'all deserve better. So, without further ado, let us resume our story, already in progress.
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"I don't like you two going in alone." Steve admitted, staring out the quinjet's windshield at the spot of English countryside that Thor and Diana both insisted contained Lucius Malfoy's manor. He couldn't see it, hence why he and Natasha were going to be staying behind. Thor smiled and patted his shoulder.
"We'll be fine Steve." He said patiently. "Lucius Malfoy is a cunning man, but an arrogant one. He will not be expecting a confrontation in his home. Moreover, there is very little a mortal wizard can do to incapacitate a god."
"I've fought in wars, Steve, and trained under warriors my whole life. I can handle whatever this Malfoy wizard can throw at me." Diana added confidently, giving Steve a reassuring smile. Natasha waved a hand, focused on checking the quinjet's scanners and systems to reassure herself as best as she could.
"They'll be fine Steve, stop being such a mother hen." She said, not looking up. Steve sighed.
"Guess I'm outvoted. Just...be careful please. Like, actually careful, not Tony careful." Thor chuckled.
"Of course. I have a son waiting for me back home after all, and parents who would be quite furious besides." The pair stepped out of the quinjet, moving quickly to allow Natasha to seal it for safety from invisible threats, and began striding towards the manor.
"You have a son?" Diana asked curiously. "Steve mentioned that this man tried to get something into the school of his son's friend, I just didn't realize that friend was you." Thor nodded, smiling slightly.
"Yes, I do." He said proudly, holding one hand up to the gates of the Manor and summoning wind magic to open it as he had the entrance to Diagon Alley. "His name's Harry, and he's twelve." He paused as the gates swung open. "...he's part of how I know what being around a demigod feels like as well Ms. Prince." Diana frowned, looking at him. "You're the daughter of Zeus, aren't you?"
"And can you feel that as well?" Diana asked as they began striding towards the manor. Thor shook his head.
"I had a visit from the Egyptian god Set recently." He explained. "He told me there were three demigods on the planet. My son, his daughter, and a daughter of Zeus." He paused, looking at Diana out the corner of his eye. "I do not believe it a coincidence that you three are active on Midgard at the same time. Not after several centuries with no demigods walking amongst mortals." Diana took his words quietly.
"Destiny and fate are strange things." She said softly. "And it's hard to know what to believe in these days. I have seen too much pain, too much death. I'm happy with my life." Thor nodded and did not push the point further. He was a stranger to this woman after all, and there was a limit to how much he could expect her to take from him. Besides, they were at the door of the manor. Thor knocked politely. Loudly, yes, but the doors did not crack, so...politely. Eventually the doors were eased open by a House Elf, who stared up at the two.
"How can Dobby help you, sir and madam?" The Elf asked. Thor inclined his head towards the creature.
"Good day Dobby, I'm Prince Thor Odinson of Asgard." He said. "And this is…"
"Princess Diana Prince of Themyscira." Diana supplied, smiling and nodding at the now wide eyed Elf.
"We wish to speak to the master of the house." Dobby frowned apologetically.
"Dobby is terribly sorry your highnesses, but Madam Narcissa is gone at the moment." Thor blinked, then chuckled at what he suspected Lucius would have perceived as a rather significant slight.
"Ah, I apologize for my assumption. We wish to speak to Lucius." He said. Dobby nodded and stepped aside.
"Of course, right this way." He said, the doors closing behind the two.
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Across the ocean, Tony was having a minor breakdown in his lab. "What do you mean I have a daughter?" He demanded, staring at his computer screen in no small amount of horror. "How old is she?"
"Twenty three sir." JARVIS replied. Tony's eyes widened at the number and he sat down heavily in his chair. "She's going to be graduating from Havard at the end of this upcoming school year, and is on track to get four in neurology when she does so."
"Of course she is, she's my kid." Tony murmured, a weird sort of pride blooming in his chest. "Alright, and the mom?" There was a pause.
"I have no conclusive evidence of you meeting her." JARVIS admitted. "Camera coverage and technology in general was less than ideal at the time of her conception, and so I have no pictures or video footage of the two of you together. However, she has worked a number of bars that you once frequented in the area, so there was ample opportunity. In addition, analysis of her facial structure and similar genetic traits, as well as analysis of blood she's donated, suggests a ninety five percent probability that she is your daughter. I am as certain as I can be without an actual paternity test." Tony let out a groan and hung his head, massaging his forehead.
"Shit, this is exactly what I tried to make sure would never happen." He muttered. "Okay, okay uhm...get started fixing this. Pay off any debt she's got and the rest of her tuition, refund the total of her debt and tuition to her bank account. She wouldn't have had to pay that if I wasn't such an ass, so no reason to make her pay it now. I'm going to go record a message…" Before he could get any farther there was an explosion that shook the tower. "JARVIS...what was that?" He demanded, standing up abruptly.
"A large burst of flame, electricity, and cold just struck the defenses at the same time sir." The AI reported swiftly. Tony groaned. With literally everyone but Bruce gone, this could not have been a worse time. If Tony didn't know better he'd have thought it was planned like that, but that would have required a spy within the tower itself, nobody should have known that the others would be out of town for the next few hours. There was a second, smaller, tremor. "Sir, the front doors have been disintegrated, the defenses are breached." JARVIS said urgently. Tony strode out of his lab, pressing buttons on his watch, readying his latest armor.
"Get everyone into safe rooms JARVIS." He ordered. "Where are we on the House Party Protocol?"
"I can have it operational in fifteen minutes sir." The AI replied. "I've been focusing on projects you deemed more essential." Tony grunted.
"Alright. Get everyone into safe rooms, tell Bruce to get the Big Guy on the ground floor, get a message to Natasha and Clint, tell them to move ass back to New York if they're not being attacked, then get the party started." He ordered briskly, pieces of his suit flying to him as he headed for an elevator shaft.
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Natasha's eyes widened as she stared at the message. "...shit!" Steve turned and looked at her from where he'd been buffing his shield, startled. "Tower's under attack." Steve blinked.
"Well that's not good. But Tony and Bruce are there, right? And the Tower's got some good defenses, they should be able to hold off whoever it is…"
"JARVIS' message said that whoever it is punched through the front door, disintegrated it. They're already in the tower, with a bunch of Stark employees, Pepper, and Harry. Ahmanet's still at her school, so I don't know if that means Broughton's out or not, but at best that's three of them against a group confident enough to attack the tower and powerful enough to blast away Tony's defenses."
"And they did so while most of us were out of New York." Steve said slowly. "That's...suspicious timing." Natasha clenched her jaw and nodded shortly, eyes focussing on the empty patch of English countryside in front of the quinjet.
"Hurry up big guy, we're on the clock." She muttered anxiously. The Bifrost would be faster than a quinjet, and they couldn't exactly just leave.
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Dobby led Thor and Diana through the halls of Malfoy Manor hurriedly, either sensing the urgency of the god and demigod, or else just feeling that he should get such important visitors to Lucius promptly. "Lord Lucius?" The House Elf called, opening the doors to the library. "You has visitors sir."
"I told you lot you weren't to disturb...me." Lucius' response began as a snap but turned into a much softer tone, eyes widening in distress. The man swallowed as Thor and Diana walked towards him, hand gripping his cane. "Prince Thor, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" He began to ask, eyes darting from one to the other. "And who is your friend?" Thor waved a hand, and a strong gust of wind knocked the cane, and with it the wand, out of the other blonde's hand. No sooner had it left than did Diana's lasso wrap around Lucius tightly, glowing gold. She nodded firmly at Thor, both ignoring Lucius' incensed protests.
"We found the book you tried to smuggle into the Weasley girl's cauldron Lucius." Thor growled. "It's been destroyed, but I need to know why you wanted an item that dark in Hogwarts. Why send something so dangerous to the school where your son, your heir, attends?" Lucius squirmed against the ropes.
"Draco wouldn't have been in any danger." He growled out, compelled to speak but not happy about it.
"How can you be certain of that? Did you even know what the book did?" Thor pressed.
"I...know enough." Lucius growled, gritting his teeth. "It would have opened the Chamber of Secrets, unleashed Slytherin's Monster. The creature only goes after those with impure blood, Draco would have been fine." Diana blinked at that.
"Impure blood?" She repeated, looking at Thor. "There are Nazi wizards?" She demanded. Thor grunted.
"Not in name, but in spirit, yes. Though they're less concerned with skin color and culture and more with ancestry and how long magic has manifested in their families." He told her, body tense. "So, your plan was to open the Chamber and unleash a monster on a school full of children? Why?"
"Remove or at least cow a generation's worth of filth, frame a blood traitor's daughter for the act, and potentially remove Dumbledore from Hogwarts? What downside would there have been?" Lucius said calmly, shrugging. Thor growled. This...was worse than he'd thought. He'd thought perhaps Lucius had meant to resurrect whoever the Horcrux had belonged to using the Weasley girl as a shell. That would have been bad enough...but the mass murder of children? For the simple fact of their parentage? It wasn't even like there was a history of those born to muggle parents, or of the union of muggle and wizard, to attack and fight those with long lines of wizarding ancestry. It was simple...snobbery.
"Where did you get the book?" He demanded finally. If he knew who'd given it to him, he'd know more about whose Horcrux it was, and how big the threat was. Lucius gritted his teeth, straining against the lasso, lasting a surprisingly decent amount of time before crying out.
"It was the Dark Lord! He gave it to me, told me to keep it safe, told me that it had the means to open the Chamber. It's been eleven years, so I thought it time to actually put it to good use." Thor filed that away, then nodded and grabbed Lucius by the collar.
"I think you need to pay a visit to the Ministry, Lucius." He said simply. "You might be rich, but conspiring to unleash a monster into Hogwarts, using an artifact Voldemort gave you? That ought to be worth something." He lifted the man bodily off the ground and began dragging him out of the library. Unsurprisingly, the House Elves he knew were watching did not raise a finger. House Elves were funny creatures, loyal and eager to please, but good at the arts of passive aggressiveness and selective loyalty. Lucius did not think to ask their aid, choosing instead to hurl insults at Thor and Diana, and so they did not help him. Thor rather suspected that Lucius erred on the side of excess when punishing his House Elves, given this.
To his surprise, Natasha and Steve were waiting outside the Quinjet for them, both suited up and looking serious. The former cocked an eyebrow. "I thought the point was subtlety and not roughing him up?" Natasha asked, nodding at Lucius. Thor scowled.
"His crimes were worse than I expected them to be. I would not leave him to roam free." Thor replied. He frowned. "Why aren't you two waiting in the Quinjet?"
"Thor, the tower's under attack, and the defenses have been breached." Steve said bluntly. "On top of that, a larger invasion of New York is taking place, a mixture of mercenaries and an organization in yellow armor. We don't have time for the Quinjet, we need the Bifrost, and we need it now." Thor paled, then turned to look at Diana.
"Lady Diana. I know you do not wish to fight. But my son is in danger. And I cannot be in every place at once, not if the city is also in danger. Will you help us?" Diana stared at him for a moment, then nodded.
"Of course. This is important. But I am unarmed and unequipped for this fight. We might not have time to give me armor, but I need a sword and a shield." Thor nodded as well, gesturing for the others to gather close to him.
"Those we will gladly provide. Heimdall!" No sooner had he said the words than a column of rainbow light fell onto the group, taking them to Asgard. Thor stepped out of the gate on the other side to see a serious looking Heimdall looking at him. And behind him were Sif, Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun, all equipped for battle and looking serious. At Heimdall's feet were a large, round shield and a simple longsword, ideal for one handed wielding, the latter in its scabbard with a belt. "You've been watching." Thor said, relieved.
"Your son began saying my name the moment he was told the tower was under attack." The guardian said, nodding. "You prepared him well. As he is in a safe room within said tower, I could not extract him, so I had your companions equip themselves for battle."
"You have a son and you didn't tell us?" Volstagg demanded incredulously. "You didn't tell me?" Sif held up a hand, though she raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Thor, conveying her agreement with the largest Asgardian's sentiment. Thor nodded.
"Much has happened since I discovered less than a week ago that Harry was my son." He said. "I was intending to tell you, introduce you, soon. Though I was hoping for better circumstances." Steve held up a hand hesitantly.
"Uhm Thor, what are you doing with him?" He asked, pointing at Lucius.
"He'll be kept here and delivered to the British Ministry shortly after you all leave." Heimdall said shortly. "With instructions on giving him Veritaserum." He looked at Diana. "You may remove your lasso Princess. A mortal wizard with no wand is not a threat on Asgard." Diana nodded and after Thor set Lucius, who was currently doing something that was a mixture of seething and cowering, on the ground she retrieved her lasso and took the Asgardian weapons with a nod of thanks. Heimdall nodded and opened the Bifrost. "Now hurry."
OoOoOoOoO
Ahmanet was still sitting with her new friends (she hoped it wasn't too soon to call them friends, but she was rather uncertain about the protocol of such things) when the explosions began. "What the…" Peter began, then whipped his neck around to stare as the door to the library burst open, five men armed with guns moving into the room. Ahmanet thought they fell under the category of machine guns, but her divine father and Lorraine were both unconcerned with teaching her about firearms as a whole, given the minimal threat they posed to her.
"Alright kids, stay where we can see you." One of the men said roughly as they fanned out in a semi circle, guns training on the teenagers.
"What the hell?" Peter demanded, staring at them incredulously. "You know this is a public school, right? During the summer?"
"Yeah, a public school that's attended by the Wayne and Frost heirs." The man who'd ordered them to stay in sight replied. "Speaking of which." Emma let out a bored sigh, and suddenly the men all froze and fell to the ground backwards, stiff as boards.
"...What the hell?" Peter demanded again, still staring at the men incredulously. Dick got up and began checking the men.
"They're alive, just...paralyzed or something." He reported. Explosions began sounding off in the distance again, but Ahmanet noticed that Emma was still staring at the men, a look of concentration on her face. After a second though she looked up and stood.
"Dick, Peter, do you have your suits nearby?" There was a moment of silence, both boys (and Gwen) doing double takes.
"This is hardly the time for fashion Emma." Dick joked. Emma arched her brow.
"New York is under attack by a small army, made up of mercenaries and an organization calling itself AIM. Unlike the Chitauri, they're not coming out of a single point, which means there's not enough Avengers for this job. So. Do you have your suits?"
"Look Emma, I'm not sure what you think we're going to do, but…" Peter began, but Emma glared and pointed at him.
"Spider-Man." She pointed at Dick. "Robin." She pointed at Zatanna, ignoring Dick muttering what sounded like 'Nightwing' under his breath. "Sorceress." She pointed at Ahmanet, making the Egyptian demigod blink in surprise. "I...don't know precisely, but your mind feels like Thor's so there's something divine in you." Emma said bluntly, then turned into a translucent statue. "Mutant." Emma finished dryly, giving a little curtsy. "Gwen is the only one here who shouldn't be going out and fighting right now. No offense Gwen." Gwen blinked, a little stunned from the storm of what were apparently impressive revelations. All the other teens looked stunned, now that Ahmanet looked around. She guessed she was missing something.
"How do you know all this?" Dick demanded shortly. Emma waved a dismissive hand.
"I have two mutations. This form and telepathy. This is my secondary one."
"Wait, you can read our minds?" Gwen demanded, eyes wide.
"Could. Mostly haven't beyond the initial surface scanning when we first met and the things you think so loud you're essentially shouting. You and Peter are fucking precious by the way. LIke, seriously, you're so adorable I had to use a word like precious." Both Gwen and Peter turned beet red at that.
"Alright...we'll be discussing that whole...revelation later." Dick said slowly, shaking his head. "But yeah, I've got my suit hidden in the school."
"Same." Peter admitted, both boys rushing off. Zatanna looked at Emma.
"I'm early in my training still, but I'll do what I can." She promised. Then she stopped, eyes widening. "Wait...if Dick's Robin...does that mean Bruce Wayne's Batman?"
"Oh my god, I think it does." Gwen groaned, eyes equally wide. "Holy shit." Then she paused, eyes widening. "Oh holy shit, my Dad's a police captain, he's going to be putting himself on the front lines, Peter!" She bolted from the room.
"I know a portal spell, I'll get them where Gwen's dad is." Zatanna said, nodding at the remaining girls and chasing after Gwen. There was a moment of silence. "You read my mind?" Ahmanet said slowly. Emma shrugged.
"I got in enough to realize you were more than human then backed out before my mind could be fried." She said unapologetically. "I'm rich, part of a minority group many Americans want dead, and my father hates me. It pays to be cautious with new people." Ahmanet nodded.
"I was once heir to the throne of an empire, I understand that much." She said calmly. "I don't know the degree to which I care for this city, but there are individuals within it that I care about. And they are largely the sort who'd be upset with me if I didn't help others on my way to help them." Emma's lips quirked, her expressions a bit hard to fully process in her translucent form but not inscrutable.
"Same honestly. So, shall we go help save the day?" Ahmanet nodded and stood, twisting her fingers and conjuring up the black, twisted knife her divine father had given her.
"Yes, lets."