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From his golden observatory on Asgard Heimdall watched the Phoenix host acclimate himself to his new home with what passed for avid interest by the all-seeing gatekeeper's standards.
Harry Potter, as the host was known, wasn't quite like any being Heimdall had ever observed personally. The Ancient One had personally recruited him from his initial point of arrival in the British Isles, and he'd brought along a young child, a boy no older than three. At first, Potter had been extremely overprotective of the child, as though he were afraid that someone would kidnap him. Potter had also displayed symptoms of what humans called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He was moody and irritable, especially during his first few days at the compound, he responded to such innocuous things as darkened rooms and sudden changes in lighting as though they were threats to his life, he often used excessive force in combat training exercises, and the only thing that ever made him smile was his godson. Even then, however, there was a deadened, haunted look in his eyes. This was no surprise, given his apparent status as a refugee from a dimension devoured by Dormammu.
The Ancient One took him on as her personal apprentice, something she hadn't done since Kaecilius, who in turn had been the first in decades. Potter was eager to learn, but it quickly became apparent that the usual methods would not suffice with him. Normal sorcerers learned to summon power from external sources and combine it with the source code of reality to create their own magic. Harry's magic, however, came from within. From what Heimdall understood, Potter had been born to magic, making it an integral part of who he was, which meant that it was tied to his emotions and could act of its own accord. This was made rather jarringly clear when one of his sparring partners used a spell that drained all light from the surroundings to blind him. Unsurprisingly, the spell had triggered Potter's PTSD, and the ensuing explosion of fire and telekinetic power had temporarily blinded everyone present and sent his opponent to the infirmary.
After that everyone at Kamar Taj learned to tread on eggshells around Potter. The higher-ranking masters were particularly wary of him, and his only friends seemed to be one Karl Mordo and the Ancient One herself. However, there was no question that she was his teacher first and foremost. After the incident with the darkness spell, she'd taken him to task, given him an impromptu "therapy" session over tea, and taught him a meditation technique that aided him in controlling his emotional responses. Since then, Potter had mellowed, but Heimdall had a feeling Potter's self-control was still shaky.
One misstep, one threat to his child, might be just what it took to set him off again. If he became the Dark Phoenix… Well, the Allfather was getting older, and there was no guarantee he'd survive such a fight a second time.
Kamar-Taj Compound, Kathmandu, Nepal, November of 2001
Harry sat in a lotus position appropriate for meditation, eyes closed, arms spread out to either side of him, hands open as though reaching for something, basking in the warmth of the sunlight streaming through his window. Around him floated a swarm of objects. There were books, some closed and some open, their pages flipping rapidly. There were articles of clothing, bills of currency darting in and out of a wallet, the Potter family Signet Ring, pieces of a chess set, a watch with stars and moons instead of numbers, and children's toys that clicked, squeaked, and popped. A few corked vials of brightly colored liquid orbiting an upturned end table with its drawer open completed the picture.
In his mind he saw nothing but a spark of golden fire, into which he poured all his emotions. His grief over everyone he'd lost, first in the war against Voldemort and then to Dormammu, then his guilt over getting Cedric and Sirius killed, the trauma of his torture at Voldemort's cruel hands. Next went his lingering anger at the wizarding community for using him as its proverbial chew toy, his lingering melancholy from growing up as an orphan, and finally his veritable ocean of survivor's guilt, all burned away. Calm and clear-headed, his mind was a logical machine, devoid of the uncontrolled emotions which had so often gotten him into trouble growing up.
What he would have given to have a normal life, where he could express himself without the risk of causing mass destruction… No, his fear of his own power did not matter, not right now. He fed it to the flame.
Since absorbing the Phoenix Force, or at least a portion of it, Harry had found that his powers were more deeply tied to his emotions than ever. In the past his magic only lashed out of its own accord when he was exceptionally angry or afraid. Now, however, the more he felt, the more energy he unleashed, forcing him to exert a level of self-control that Snape would have been proud of. It was not total suppression of his emotions, for the Ancient One had cautioned that using that particular method was unhealthy and unreliable in the long run. Instead, the goal was to prevent his emotions from growing too powerful to control by routinely "sloughing off the excess," as she put it. He could afford to get moderately angry and laugh, but he could not afford to completely lose his temper or surrender to hysterical amusement.
Under normal conditions standard Occlumency practices would have sufficed to maintain his self-control, but the Phoenix Force had eroded them to the point of near uselessness. It was a primal force of nature that could not handle human emotions. When it felt his joy, it too would be overjoyed, and its overwhelming happiness would feed his own until he blissed out and burst into flames. Conversely, if he got angry, it would mirror his anger and amplify it until he had to actively restrain himself from killing or maiming the source of his ire. Harry's emotions fed his power, and his power fed his emotions; as one grew, so too did the other, creating a vicious cycle that would inevitably drive him insane if he did not learn to control it. As a result, he had been forced to practice this particularly rigorous form of meditation daily or risk accidentally blowing someone up every time he became frustrated or annoyed.
In addition to the necessity of controlling his emotions, the Phoenix Force had effectively mutated his magic, making it not only stronger but changing its very nature, rendering his original methods of spellcasting nearly useless. Instead of simply being naturally gifted with the ability to use magic, he now seemed to have a direct control over magic itself in its purest form. As a result, he could not use the Mystic Arts the same way the other sorcerers could. Their spells summoned external sources of mystical power, but Harry was a source of mystical power, which had led to rather… interesting accidents, some more dangerous than others. And he still couldn't use his wand. Indeed, he couldn't use any sort of magical focus without risk of damaging it.
The techniques the Masters of the Mystic Arts used to shape their spells proved a boon to his efforts to relearn magic. While the standard eldritch spells were useless to him, he could adapt the casting techniques to his own magic, turning wandless magic from a difficult sub-skill into his bread and butter. The first spell he had (re)mastered was one of his personal favorites; Lumos . Where before he needed to wave a wand, now he could conjure a floating orb of warm light simply by pressing two of his fingertips to the tip of his thumb and pulling them apart as he spoke the incantation.
In accordance with the Phoenix's favored method of altering its environment, psionic applications of magic such as Legilimency and telekinesis were almost absurdly easy, requiring only exertions of Harry's will and simple hand gestures rather than actual spells. Closely followed in the 'easy' category was basic pyrokinesis. He could not create Fiendfyre or an eternal flame just yet, but he could conjure and manipulate regular flames on a whim and without once saying ' Incendio .'
But none of this brought him true peace of mind. He had read the stories of Phoenix hosts who had been driven mad by the power through no fault of their own and transformed into the Dark Phoenix. The last Dark Phoenix to appear in this dimension devoured the supermassive black hole that held an entire galaxy together before it was stopped. The Ancient One had very good reasons for keeping the firebird-shaped entity's presence inside Harry a secret. Only her second in command, Karl Mordo, and the Sanctum guardians in New York, London, and Hong Kong were in the know, though he was certain that others suspected.
Harry sat in meditation for exactly one hour, eyes closed. When that hour ended, his fingers twitched ever so slightly, and the mess of floating objects shifted.
The books closed and filed themselves into stacks, which turned on their sides and fitted themselves back into bookshelves. The clothes, a motley assortment of shirts, pants, socks, and underwear, folded up and neatly arranged themselves within an open armoire, which promptly closed once they were all inside. The signet ring, wallet, and watch settled atop the dresser, while the toys sank into a storage chest, which then closed itself before sliding under the bed and out of sight. The potion vials, holdovers from Harry's trunk when he first arrived in this world, inserted themselves into the table's open drawer, which closed as soon as the last of them was secure.
When he opened his eyes to stand up, he found that he was floating three feet above his meditation mat, and he was so surprised he promptly dropped like a stone.
As he got to his feet, he found that his eyes were still gummy from sleep. He almost reached up to rub them, but the Phoenix seemed to offer an alternative. He hesitated, not trusting it, but there was no sensation of disproportionate irritation. After a moment, he surrendered to its suggestion and allowed it to guide him. A surge of power directed at his eyes cleared his vision, and suddenly he truly saw the world before him. He saw dust motes drifting through beams of sunlight, the countless miniscule dents and abrasions in the wood and stone walls of his room, and colors more vibrant than he believed possible. This was new. This was wonderful . He blinked, and the energy receded, his vision diminishing to its usual level of sharpness, all traces of gumminess lost.
Smiling slightly, Harry opened his door and stepped outside, where he found Teddy waiting for him.
The Ancient One herself met them both in a sunlit common room on the eastern end of the compound with a cup of steaming tea. It had become a ritual for him; he had arrived in this dimension on a Sunday, and so every Sunday morning he had tea with his mentor. She intrigued him. Being far older than even Dumbledore and in possession of the Eye of Agamotto, and consequently far more powerful, she was often infuriatingly cryptic, but each of her deflections inevitably led him in the direction of something useful. She had been up front with him when he asked about the Phoenix Force, up to and including the risk of becoming the Dark Phoenix, and that alone earned her his trust. She had also warned him about the recent defection of Kaecilius and his zealots, who were convinced that summoning Dormammu into the world would give all of humanity immortality and had tried repeatedly to contact him. Dumbledore, he knew, would have withheld knowledge of such dangers out of a misguided sense of overprotectiveness, even if he had the best of intentions.
The Ancient One had also taken a shine to Teddy. While her subordinate Karl Mordo was his most frequent babysitter, she still spent time with the little boy and even provided him with enchanted toys of her own creation, which he loved. Now godfather and godson sat on large cushions opposite the old sorceress drinking hot tea and warm milk respectively.
"I've been meaning to ask," Harry said after a minute of silence. "How do I acquaint myself with this dimension? I mean, I've been relearning magic to control the… you know." He gestured vaguely at his chest. "But I can't spend all of my team cooped up in Kamar Taj or the Sanctums. And Teddy needs to grow up with children his age." He lowered his voice. "He's already lost so much. If we're going to live even a semblance of a normal life the authorities can't suspect a thing about where we came from."
The Ancient One nodded. "I was waiting for you to bring this up." She sipped the last of her tea and stood up. "Come with me." Harry scooped Teddy into his arms and followed her as she led them in the direction of the library. They moved through the stacks to a collection that took up an entire wing of the library and was filled with rack after rack of books, scrolls, and tablets. After searching one of the shelves, she pulled out four volumes of varying thickness and passed them to him. Telekinetically he held them level with his chest and shuffled through them. The thickest bore the title Circa 2000: A Brief History of Civilization , while the smallest was labeled Starting Over: A Guide for Stranded Dimension Hoppers . The others were How Captain America Changed Everything and The Truth of Asgard .
Harry blinked at the latter two. Who the hell is Captain America? Is there a Captain Britain, too? And I thought Asgard was a myth. The Ancient One must have seen the incredulity in his face, judging from her Cheshire-cat grin. He stared at her. "After spending ten years in a secret society of magic users and traveling to a parallel universe nothing should really surprise me, but seriously? Asgard and the Norse Pantheon are real?"
"They are, though there is nothing truly divine about them in the way most people would assume when thinking of gods." she explained. "Divinity is a myth, but gods are not. Most major deities humanity has worshipped throughout history are real, though often grossly misunderstood by their adherents. The Asgardians are an alien civilization from another dimension who have advanced to the point that they make little to no distinction between magic and science. In fact, it was an Asgardian king who stopped the rampage of the last Dark Phoenix. The Olympians were of a similar nature, though admittedly less mature as a people. The Judeo-Christian God, known to us as Yahweh the White God, is a powerful spirit who seeks to improve the lives of mortals, but he's not infallible. He told me as much the one time I ever spoke with him. The gods are not the supreme entities of the universe, however much some of them wish to be."
Harry stared at her, trying to wrap his head around the idea of most of humanity's gods being real. It was rather ironic, he thought, that a secret order of magic users had a better understanding of the gods than the very religions that worshipped them, especially since most monotheistic faiths had labeled magic as something to be mistrusted or suppressed. And the Ancient One had personally talked to Yahweh ! The pope, if this dimension had one, would have been green with envy, Harry was sure. Teddy didn't seem to understand that the Ancient One had dramatically shifted his godfather's worldview as casually as one might say "I'm going to the grocery store." He merely clung tighter to Harry, his hair turning black and his eyes green.
"If all the different gods are real," Harry managed, "where do they come from? What is a god, really?"
The Ancient One's eyes twinkled. "Read and find out."
Harry pouted. He'd been doing quite a lot of reading these days. Hermione, he reflected sadly, would have been proud.
Hours later Harry put Circa 2000 down on an end table in his room and shook his head. On the surface, history in this world prior to the 1930s wasn't all that different from the history in his own world, at least on the mundane side of things. Indeed, there was no real great divergence in the timeline that he could discern until the rise of the Nazi deep science division HYDRA. Led by a madman named Johan Schmidt, aka the Red Skull, they had acquired an extremely powerful pseudo-magical artifact called the Tesseract and used it to create weapons of incredible power. They were stopped by an American super soldier of all things, operating under the callsign Captain America. It was a rather ridiculous name in his opinion, but then Harry had been known by such an absurd title as 'The Boy Who Lived' so he was in no position to judge.
A glance at his watch, a battered little thing that had once been Fabian Prewett's, and realized he'd been reading for nearly three hours. Getting to his feet made pain shoot through his legs. He ignored it and left the room, deciding he needed to spar to clear his thoughts. While he didn't exactly like hand-to-hand combat, he was pragmatic enough to understand it was necessary for him to relearn it.
Harry soon found himself facing off against a fellow novice dressed in white robes. The man looked to be in his mid-thirties and sported a short beard across his face. A scar ran up from the top of his right eye and straight through his forehead, giving way to a lock of white hair that bisected his scalp. The man conjured a pair of war fans composed of eldritch energy, similar to the weapons favored by the Ancient One, and attacked.
Harry did not bother with weapons but encased his hands in a fiery orange-gold aura of magical energy that greatly enhanced his durability and striking power, allowing him to match the eldritch weapons of the sorcerers with ease. Harry had found his greatest asset in combat was his speed and agility, and so he focused on avoidance and evasion. When he could not dodge, he simply deflected each blow, redirecting the force of the attack away from himself.
Harry's bearded opponent grew increasingly frustrated. Soon the man was sweating, putting more and more power into each swing of the fans and gradually surrendering the precision and dexterity that was required to use his weapons to their full potential. As the assault hit a crescendo, Harry's opponent slashed both war fans horizontally from two directions like a pair of scissors. Instead of attempting to block or leap away from the attack, Harry ducked under the fans.
Then he took the fight to the bearded man.
In a blur of motion Harry jabbed his energy encased right hand, fingers first, straight into the man's exposed stomach. The man doubled over in pain, and Harry leapt upon and around him, moving like a circus acrobat. Again and again Harry stabbed out with his hands and fingers, striking pressure points with just enough force to stun rather than injure, paralyzing the man's arms and legs one by one until at last he crumpled to the floor of the sparring arena like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Harry stepped away from the man and breathed deeply to settle his nerves. He wasn't even winded by the spar, but the man he'd just defeated was gasping on the ground as he struggled to return sensation to his arms. Harry offered him a hand, and after a moment the man took it, groaning as Harry pulled him to his feet. "You alright there mate?" Harry asked.
The man nodded, and Harry helped him stumble to a bench, where he sat and began massaging his limbs. "Nice technique," the man wheezed.
"Thanks."
Harry sat with him until he was certain the man could walk again, then got to his feet in search of another partner. Eventually Master Minoru, who was visiting from the Hong Kong Sanctum, offered to test his skills. A pleasant looking Japanese woman with long black hair in a neat braid and dark eyes, Minoru was a head shorter than Harry and carried herself with palpable self-assurance. Harry wasn't entirely sure he should challenge a fully-fledged master even if it was only in hand-to-hand combat, but decided he'd just go with it. Since developing his new fighting style, he had yet to face someone who could give him a true challenge save the Ancient One and Karl Mordo, and he was eager to see how he fared against the local equivalent of a senior Auror, particularly since the Ancient One tended to effortlessly kick the arse of anyone who sparred with her.
They stood ten feet apart in the outdoor sparring arena. Minoru conjured war fans like the Ancient One as well, and Harry knew immediately that she was far more skilled with them than his previous opponent.
When they began to spar in earnest, she took full advantage of the large surface area of her weapons to deflect Harry's pressure point strikes and hinder his evasive maneuvers, something the novice hadn't been able to do. She didn't limit herself to simple war fans, either. When it suited her, she changed the shape of her weapons, turning them from fans to circular shields to narrow blades and back again when it suited her and kicking out with her powerful legs. Harry twisted and contorted his body, making full use of the speed and agility he'd been developing in his workouts to evade her attacks. Other times he caught or redirected her blows with his aura-infused hands and struck back with precise jabs, targeting her pressure points. Unlike the previous fight he alternated frequently between offense and defense; he could not afford to be cornered. Harry was good, but Minoru was better, however much it stung to admit it even to himself.
At one point Harry leaped over Minoru, spinning in midair to strike at her head with his open palm. She deflected the blow with her fan in a shower of sparks as he landed behind her in a crouch. It was time to change tactics. " Ferrumus " he muttered, pulling the palms of his hands apart. The spell conjured a katana sword between them. Made from the same fiery gold light he'd used earlier, the weapon looked as if it were made from glowing glass. Grasping it in his right hand, he slashed at Minoru, who was caught off guard and barely deflected his blow. Now Harry was fully on the offensive, attacking in seemingly random staccato sequences that were in fact calculated to split her attention and break down her defenses like a battering ram on a castle gate. Minoru was likewise forced to step up her game, rapidly changing the shape of her weapons to accommodate the rapid changes in maneuvering space his assault created.
As Harry dodged a kick from Minoru that would have almost certainly broken his nose, he struck out at her exposed ankle with a chopping motion of his empty but glowing left hand. The blow didn't break any bones, but Minoru spun away and landed unsteadily just out of reach of Harry's blade, favoring her other leg. Pressing his advantage Harry attempted to strike out at Minoru's neck in such a way that the flat of his blade would be pressed against her shoulder, which would be checkmate due to the ease with which such a position would allow him to behead her. His blade flashed through the air only to stab through a raised war fan. Harry tried to wrench his weapon back, only to find that it was stuck uselessly in the fan. Minoru twisted her arm, and both conjured weapons flew away from their owners, dissolving in midair into a rain of sparks.
Minoru swung at him with her other fan, and Harry caught it between his glowing hands. Then, bending backwards and swinging his arms upward in an arc with all his strength, Harry dragged Minoru off the ground and tossed her over his head. Harry snapped upright and spun as she landed in a heap behind him, yelping in surprise. Wasting not a moment, Harry conjured a second katana and rushed at Minoru, who leapt to her feet and conjured another fan. Harry orbited her, evading her retaliatory blow and placing the edge of his blade against her neck.
"Dead," he said triumphantly, breathing hard. He realized that he was sweating.
"So are you," Minoru said. Looking down, Harry saw that she'd somehow twisted her arm so that it was bent around her torso opposite his sword. In her hand the war fan had been compressed into a dagger shape and was positioned mere millimeters from his stomach. All she'd have to do to cut him open was straighten her arm. They stood there frozen for a moment, then simultaneously vanished their conjured weapons and stepped away from one another.
The sound of someone clapping their hands drew Harry's attention away from Minoru, and he realized for the first time that they had an audience. His scarred and bearded sparring partner was clapping, joined by Karl Mordo, Teddy, the Ancient One, and three apprentices in crimson robes. Harry felt his cheeks redden as he turned to look back at Master Minoru. She smiled at him and inclined her head. "Impressive," she said. "No novice has fought a master to a draw since I first arrived here."
"And when was that?" Harry asked, curious.
"About fifty years ago."
Harry blinked. Minoru looked to be in her late thirties at most. But then, he thought, magic users back home had aged slowly as well. Dumbledore had been 115 when he died, but if not for his long beard and hairdo he would have looked like a healthy septuagenarian. The Ancient One herself was at least 700 years old, but she looked strangely ageless.
"Well done," the ancient sorceress said, approaching. She leaned towards Minoru and they had a quick, whispered conversation. After a moment Minoru nodded and turned back to Harry.
"I look forward to sparring with you again, Mr. Potter," she said before turning to walk away.
"Your skills are progressing wonderfully. You actually managed to avoid sending someone to the infirmary this time," the Ancient One remarked, and Harry felt himself flush in slight embarrassment. "I think you're ready to study the sling ring."
Harry felt a thrill of excitement at that. As useful as apparition was, he had found himself falling in love with the concept of the sling ring. For one thing, there were no distance limitations; if you could picture the destination in your mind you could go there. For another, using the portals once they were opened was as simple as stepping through a doorway, unlike the discomfort of apparition or portkeys. He'd been disappointed to find that his new powers overwhelmed any focusing tool he tried to use, but if he could study a sling ring and the enchantments used to create it, he could theoretically replicate its properties. More important, if he mastered the portals, he'd be promoted from novice to apprentice, which would give him the liberty to access the entire Kamar-Taj library and leave the compound unsupervised at his leisure.
That night, Harry dreamed that he was a giant the size of a small mountain, lumbering through a city of glittering skyscrapers, struggling not to crush people and cars under his gigantic feet. He narrowly avoided knocking over a building with his arm as he turned to find that he was in the company of six other giants. He was the tallest of them by far; the only one that came up to his chin was an attractive blond man with eyes the color of clear skies, a short beard across his face, and enormous muscles. dressed in strange armor, complete with a red cape, and carrying a hammer that crackled with electricity. Only an inch shorter than the blond tower of stereotypical masculinity was a green-skinned hulk of a man, more beast than human, with what looked like muscles piled on muscles and a feral look in his eyes.
There was a dark haired, dark eyed man in a suit of red and gold armor with a glowing chest plate as the centerpiece who stood a head shorter than the green troll-man. Everything about the way this man carried himself screamed "arrogant playboy with a hero complex." The fourth giant was much shorter than the armored man. Another paragon of blond-haired, blue-eyed male beauty, his eyes were level with the nearest skyscraper. He was dressed in a red, white, and blue soldier's uniform, and he carried a circular metal shield painted to match his outfit. The man didn't cause the slightest disturbance in the tiny city with his steps and seemed completely oblivious to his own larger than life stature. A head shorter than the shield-carrier, the last of Harry's giant companions were a muscular, sandy-haired man with a bow and arrow and a beautiful woman with red hair who carried a pair of enormous knives. Both of them looked deadly.
Harry glanced down at himself, getting vertigo when he noticed the height difference between himself and the city, and saw that he was dressed in a deep green version of Ministry Auror fatigues, complete with a cloak and gold accents. A sound made Harry look up, and he realized that he and his fellow giants had stopped walking.
Standing before them was another unnaturally muscular humanoid. Unlike Harry's feral, green-skinned companion, this giant stood only an inch shorter than Harry himself and had purple skin. His pale eyes glittered with intelligence and unmistakable madness. He held up his left hand, and Harry saw that it was encased in a glove made of golden metal with six slots over the knuckles and center. As Harry watched, six glowing gemstones, each shining with a different color of the rainbow, fell from the sky and inserted themselves into the slots. With each gemstone the purple giant grew taller and taller until he dwarfed even the mountain-sized Harry, and when the gauntlet was completed, he snapped his metal-encased fingers.
There was a flash of blinding white light. Somewhere a bird screeched, and Harry woke with a startled yelp. Instinctively his hand flew to his forehead, but his scar did not hurt at all. After a moment spent taking deep, calming breaths, he realized the bird he'd heard in the dream was a phoenix.
Was it a premonition? Some warning from the Phoenix Force about the threat it had sensed and need his help to stop? As Harry thought about it, he realized he'd seen the green gem once before; inside the Eye of Agamotto. He tried to make sense of it, to remember what the amulet contained, but he was too tired, and the details of the dream were fading from his memory.
Eventually he fell back asleep, and when he did, it only led to more dreams, even stranger than the first.
He saw a figure costumed in deep green floating above a circular wooden shield that was rotting and cracked, throwing fire at a trio of armored monsters standing on its face. Ferocious battles between colorful apparitions and armies of faceless shadows. Bolts of lightning stabbing down from a dusky sky like giant swords to strike a tiny orb of bright light. A warrior dressed in white and armed with a pair of glowing metal rods locked in vicious combat with a giant bird that bore the head of a beautiful woman.
A figure carved of roiling flames begging a man in a star-spangled soldier's uniform and a woman who held red light in her hands to remember a promise.
The assault of perplexing images intensified until Harry could no longer distinguish one vision from the next. Overwhelmed as he was, he did not remember most of the dreams when he awoke the next morning.
SHIELD Helicarrier, Northern Atlantic Ocean near Massachusetts, November of 2001
Nick Fury was fairly certain he was going to have an aneurism. A dedicated team of his best scientists had been working round the clock to trace the source of the strange energy wave that had nearly knocked the Helicarrier out of the sky, but to no avail. They knew that it came from somewhere in Europe. They knew that it had affected both Earth's magnetic field and, to a lesser extent, its gravity. Golden auroras had been reported near the poles in the aftermath, and those who witnessed them later reported having strange dreams about a giant firebird. A few rather vocal conspiracy theorists had insisted on internet forums that it was a preemptive strike for an alien invasion, but most people dismissed their concerns with a shrug.
Worse for Fury, the energy wave had had a curious effect on the Tesseract. The cube had destroyed all the equipment in its immediate vicinity during the Event, as everyone had taken to calling it, and had been even more temperamental than usual ever since. Fury had been hounding his best science teams for answers, but they had none to give.
He would not lose his temper. He would not berate his people for something outside of their control. He would not… Oh damn it all to hell.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?"
Clint Barton chuckled to himself from his perch in the air vent.
Hours later he sat down with Natasha Romanoff in the helicarrier's austere mess hall, recounting the Director's half-meltdown and mounting paranoia about the Event and his science team's inability to learn anything meaningful about it, to her great amusement. Not that anyone but him could tell she was laughing to herself behind the unflappable expression on her face; only her eyes gave her away. Clint had been working hard to get her to loosen up since he'd rescued her from the Red Room, and one of his preferred methods was telling her embarrassing stories about their superiors, who still didn't fully trust her despite the recent end of her probationary period.
"He's going to give himself a heart attack if he doesn't relax," the former KGB agent said dryly when Clint finished, smirking.
He snorted. "That man's been up to his one good eye in paranoia for as long as I've known him. His heart hasn't given out yet." Clint put a hand on his chin as he thought about it. "Though now that you mention it, I did see a vein pulsing in his temple." At Natasha's raised eyebrow he added "It could have been his eyepatch. Have you noticed how much it makes him look like a pirate? Especially with that trench coat." He winced as Natasha kicked him under the table. "What?" he demanded, still grinning.
"Don't let him catch you saying that. You might not wake up in the morning, and no one will find your body." Her deadpan delivery made it difficult to tell whether she was joking or not.
Clint's smile widened even further. "Aw, Nat you do care!"
This time the kick made him cry out softly, and his smile faltered for a moment. Surely, they'd gotten to the nickname stage by now? But as Clint thought about it, he remembered the first time he'd called her that. The kick she'd unleashed then had landed in an altogether more sensitive spot. Natasha's lips twitched upward, the movement so small and quick that even Clint's trained eyes would have missed it had he not spent most of the last year in her company on missions where such tiny shifts in body language could mean the difference between life and death. His grin returned in full force.
So, the infamous Black Widow did appreciate his humor and the nickname. There was hope for her yet.