The Eye of the Phoenix

by GrandSpaceWizard

Three years after the Battle of Hogwarts, a foolish Dark Wizard attempted to summon the power of an extradimensional entity without understanding the consequences, and the entire world paid the price. Desperate to save himself and his godson, Harry makes a bargain with a being of incredible power and escapes to another Earth, one with a fighting chance. Will he save it, or doom it?

6. 6: A Wild Phoenix Chase

I do not own any of the source material for this story. Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly /

...

Potter Household, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, November of 2001

Teddy was sleeping soundly after a bed-time story ( Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump , read from Harry's copy of The Tales of Beedle The Bard , which itself had been a birthday gift from Hermione). A fire crackled in the old fashioned stone hearth of Harry's living room, and the only other illumination came from an orb of golden light that had been conjured and left suspended in midair near Harry's own head, shining on the newspaper he was reading. He sat in an overstuffed armchair, the double of his favorite seat in the Gryffindor common room, and found himself oddly fixated on an article about a new hotshot neurosurgeon. Stephen Strange was only twenty seven, but he had an eidetic memory that had allowed him to graduate with his MD and his PhD at the same time, and already the man was making waves with the near miraculous neuro-surgeries he conducted at Metro-General Hospital right here in New York.

Harry had limited interest in muggle medicine, but he wasn't reading to satisfy his curiosity. The sun had set hours earlier, but he was too restless to find any real comfort in sleep, thus his fixation on the article. His dreams were largely responsible for his unease. In the most recent onslaught, he'd glimpsed a man-shaped column of fire attempting to conceal itself from a group of shadows with an insignia on their shoulders; an eagle stylized to form a seal of some sort.

Harry couldn't make sense of the symbol, but he had a shrewd idea of what it meant. A spy agency that specialized in the extraordinary was looking for him, and while he could hide from them as long as he wanted, he would have to interact with them if he wanted to use his powers to make a difference in this world.

The Phoenix intruded, and when Harry realized what it was suggesting, he couldn't quite suppress an evil grin of the sort that would immediately earn a suspicious glare from Professor McGonagall. Checking his watch, he decided to give it three days before he acted.

SHIELD Helicarrier, South China Sea, December of 2001

"So, remind me again why the director thought it was a good idea to drag this rig to the other side of the world and risk publicly exposing it to who knows how many potentially hostile spy agencies?" The thinly veiled complaint came from Jasper Sitwell, a generally unpopular but useful member of Fury's personal staff who was clearly struggling with the umpteenth new time zone of the helicarrier's journey from the Western Hemisphere.

Phil Coulson shot the man a quelling look. "Do the words 'potential Omega Level threat' mean anything to you?"

"Who says it's Omega Level?" Sitwell shot back in his most sniping voice. His petulant expression made the remark sound less like a capable agent of SHIELD criticizing his superiors and more like a child throwing a tantrum over his math homework. He was usually calm, collected, and professional in even the most dangerous situations, but lack of sleep was clearly getting to him. "All we know is that something or someone out there managed to miraculously pick up a crashing plane without touching it and set it down safely at its proper destination. Dangerous, yes, but I'd hardly call it an Omega Level threat."

Though Coulson privately agreed with Sitwell on that score, he knew better than to voice his opinion, since doing so would only encourage the man's incessant complaining. Instead he said "We've never encountered a potential telekinetic before. We don't know what their limits are or how they can do what they do. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe they're only an Alpha Level threat. Maybe they've been reading Carrie . Maybe they're a huge football fan. They could be anything or anyone. We don't know anything about them, and that's the biggest problem. The director doesn't like mysteries, and frankly I don't either. So, unless you can magically conjure up a solution that tells us everything we need to know, you'll stop complaining ."

Coulson nearly shouted the last part and got control of himself. Clearly the stress of the situation had been affecting him more than he realized. His reputation for complete unflappability was what had gotten him into his current position, and it wasn't built on exaggeration or hearsay. However, his outburst seemed to shut Sitwell up, so all wasn't lost. Yet…

Coulson's phone vibrated in the pocket of his impeccably pressed suit, and he was mildly surprised to recognize the caller ID as that of the unsecured civilian phone Barton used when he was on a mission and, for whatever reason, could not speak freely. Thumbing the answer button and bringing it to his ear, he said "Phil here."

"We struck out. I can't believe I let you talk me into this!" Clint's strident voice rang out. Translation: neither he nor Romanoff had managed to learn anything useful.

"It can't be that bad," Phil said in a would-be soothing tone that would fool even the most astute eavesdroppers. "I'm sure you found at least one thing interesting."

Not even one lead?

"No, we haven't! But that meet and greet you recommended is a go, so we may get lucky. Past experience isn't making me optimistic, though."

None so far. We still need to interview the pilot and co-pilot, but the prospects don't look good.

"Keep your chin up. I want all the juicy details."

Do not abort. If they're hiding something, coax it out.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But if it's another dud, I want outta here. And a refund!"

This is our last chance. I don't think we'll gain anything by extending our stay.

"If that happens, I'll do my best, but you may be surprised."

If they give us a lead, we follow it. Otherwise, we'll call it off and get you out of there.

Clint sighed into his receiver with theatrical exaggeration, creating a tiny burst of static over his reply. "Fine. We'll listen to the expert. I'll talk to you later. Then we'll see who gets to say 'I told you so'."

Understood. Hawkeye out.

Phil clicked the call over and suppressed a sigh. So far, his prediction about the sheer pointlessness of the mission was spot on.

New York Sanctum, New York City, USA, November of 2001

The Ancient One absently conjured a stuffed tauntaun and levitated it into the arms of the blue-haired three year old she was babysitting. Immediately the boy reached out with both hands and summoned it into his arms, giggling madly as his eyes shifted to deep gray and his shock of blue hair vanished into his scalp. Teddy Lupin's metamorphosing antics usually made the old sorceress smile, but just then she was too lost in her thoughts to offer more than perfunctory attention. Mordo usually made a much better babysitter than her, if only because he didn't have as much blood on his hands, but just then he was busy investigating a demonic possession incident in the UAE, and she was the only other person Harry trusted with his godson.

She had spent many hours scanning possible futures, searching for some clue as to what had drawn the attention of the Phoenix Force, but thus far she had found nothing. It was as if the Eye of Agamotto itself was refusing to let her see the events. Or perhaps, her own mind was unable to comprehend what she had witnessed and had locked away the memories of what she'd seen out of self-preservation instinct. Nevertheless, the Ancient One remained convinced that something was out there, something that threatened to change the course of events, sending the timeline in a direction even she couldn't predict, and that scared her like nothing else had in centuries.

Teddy giggled from his high chair, and the Ancient One realized he'd somehow managed to turn the tauntaun into a dragon. Her grim mood lightened marginally. The idea of an entire sub-race of humans who were born with magic inside them fascinated her to no end, and she'd been delighted when Harry allowed her free access to the small library he'd been carrying on his person when he arrived in this dimension. Her attempts to replicate his old magic had met with limited success, but she didn't mind. Living as long she had, she'd come to appreciate the value of learning for its own sake in a way and to a degree few beings could, or would, understand.

As Teddy cuddled with his new toy, the Ancient One's thoughts drifted back to the visions the Time Stone had granted her. While she couldn't perceive what had actually prompted the Phoenix Force to intervene, she did know one thing; the last Dark Phoenix had made enemies, and those enemies would not make any distinction between the current host and his predecessor.

That was a war waiting to happen, and there was almost nothing she could do stop it.

Police Department Headquarters, Kathmandu, Nepal, November of 2001

The Nepalese police officer glared at Natasha's SHIELD issue badge so hard one might have thought he was trying to burn a hole through it with his gaze. The man's slightly slanted eyes were narrowed to slits, which did little to enhance the effect. Natasha resisted the urge to snatch back the badge before he'd accepted its authenticity (she'd earned the stupid thing, goddamnit).

Finally, the man relaxed his stance, handed over the badge, and motioned her through the glass doors. Clint was already there, engaged in what appeared to be serious conversation with another local officer. The archer glanced in her direction, politely excused himself, and beckoned her forward. Clint's companion led through a warren of cubicles and corridors to a small room where the pilot they'd come to speak with was waiting.

A Nepalese man in his late forties, he was leaning forward in his seat, hands clasped on the table in front of him. Natasha could read him easily enough. The man was obviously relieved to be alive, but he also seemed nervous. It wasn't the fear of a criminal who knew he'd been caught, but the nervousness of a civilian who was surrounded by people in positions of authority. Natasha had been extensively educated in psychology by the instructors at the Red Room, and she knew that the best way to get the man to talk was to get him to relax. Still, her talents were better suited to seduction and interrogation than interviewing shell-shocked civilians, and so she let Clint take the lead.

Clint spent a moment going over the records, checking the flight number, schedule, weather conditions, and specifications of the aircraft with the occasional humorous interjection. Beneath his professional demeanor the archer was a genuinely affable jokester, a trait he could use to break the ice in tense conversations, as he was doing now with the pilot. The man's tense posture relaxed somewhat, and Clint began asking the real questions.

"Can you tell us when things started to go wrong with the flight?"

The pilot hesitated for only a moment, then began to speak in flawless, accented English. "We started our descent at 10:00, right on time. I don't remember exactly when the engines gave out, but I certainly felt it. There were two small explosions, right after another, and suddenly we were descending way too fast."

He faltered, then continued, seemingly determined to get the whole story out in one go. "I tried to pull up and put full throttle to the engines I still had, but it wasn't enough. My copilot was panicking. He was no help. Can't say I blame him. We were going to hit the mountain, and there was nothing either of us could do to stop it. I have piloted commercial aircraft for twenty years. I never imagined I would die doing it. I closed my eyes then. I was… too afraid to face my death. I suppose that's when physics broke. The plane jolted again, and I thought another engine had blown up."

"But that wasn't what happened," Clint said gently.

"No," the pilot agreed. "I opened my eyes then. I couldn't stop myself. We started slowing down. I don't know how, but our speed was reduced, and then suddenly we were pulling up. It wasn't because of me or my copilot. My hands had been thrown from the control yoke, and we had only two out of four engines. And yet somehow, impossibly, we were ascending. It happened so fast. We cleared the mountain top, and that was when the g-forces caught up to me. I - how do you say - blacked out."

The pilot seemed to sag as he finished his story, but there was something about his facial expression that suggested he wasn't finished. Was he hiding something? No, Natasha thought. He wasn't hiding something per se, but there was an element he'd left out because he was unsure whether they'd believe him. If that was the case, the man was mistaken. Hawkeye and Black Widow were the best of the best for an organization that specialized in dealing with weird stuff. Whatever he had seen or thought he'd seen wouldn't faze them.

Clint seemed to notice it as well. "Sir, if you think you know something, don't hide it because it sounds crazy. We deal with crazy things all the time."

The pilot hesitated. "I… saw something on the mountain top. The ridge that we were about to crash into is covered with trees, but there is a large clearing at the top. I know this because I used to hike there between flights. Just before I lost consciousness, I caught sight of a figure in the clearing on the ridge. Maybe there were two of them, I'm not sure. I couldn't discern any details, not when the plane was still moving as fast as it was. I would have dismissed it as a hiker, but the path leading to that ridge collapsed years ago. And I could have sworn the figure had his hands raised in front of them."

Natasha felt something heavy settle in her gut, and she glanced at Clint. He was looking at her, his expression grim, the nervous pilot all but forgotten.

Hours later they contacted the helicarrier from the hotel suite they'd set up and secured on arrival in Kathmandu. The room's modest desk had been cleared of its customary coffee pot and mugs to make way for a black laptop equipped with the latest encryption software and anti-hacking measures.

Phil Coulson's impassive face stared up from a video calling app as Clint and Natasha recounted their interview with the pilot of the miracle airplane.

"He said he saw someone at the top of the ridge?" Phil said, frowning. "What makes you think it wasn't a hallucination, or poor memory caused by trauma?"

Clint shrugged. "His copilot corroborated his story. Eyewitness accounts usually vary pretty significantly, but both of them said they saw something or someone standing at the top of the ridge. We didn't tell either of them what the other had told us, and they hadn't discussed it between themselves before we spoke to them - too busy reassuring their families - so it's unlikely the idea spread from one to the other by power of suggestion."

Phil frowned. "People never have the same hallucination. If they both saw the same thing, then it was real."

Natasha nodded. "I thought so too, but according to the pilot the hiking path leading to that particular ridge collapsed three years ago."

"Let's see about that. What's the name of the mountain we're talking about?"

Clint supplied it, and Phil ran the name through SHIELD's self-updating database, which included software designed to filter out outdated, inaccurate, or irrelevant data. A moment later, a blue topographical map of the mountain appeared on the screen, partially obscuring the image of Phil's office. A series of meandering yellow lines highlighted the various hiking paths that crossed it. Only one of them provided access to the summit, and sure enough, a significant portion of it was highlighted in red, indicating it was now impassable.

Clint and Natasha traded uneasy looks. Phil was frowning at the display, as though the force of his disapproval could change it to something that didn't imply what it did.

Natasha broke the silence "I think we should pay this mountain a visit. If there was someone up there, there'll have left traces. We can take a quinjet."

Phil nodded and began typing furiously into his own computer. "Good idea. I'll send a quinjet to the extraction point at 2100 hours tonight. The sooner we get there the better."

"It's been almost a week since the incident. Any traces may already be gone," Clint pointed out.

Natasha spoke to it. "That may be true, but it's still worth a look. It's not like we have any other leads."

Clint sighed. "We don't get paid enough for this crap."

…

"I told you so!" Clint all but yelled over the freezing wind as he and Natasha shuffled about on the mountaintop, where it had only begun snowing five minutes after they had landed, as if nature itself was conspiring against them as part of some great cosmic joke. The two of them had departed Kathmandu's crowded city center an hour earlier and boarded a quinjet in one of the outlying valleys.

A brand new design provided by Stark Industries and a successor to the old quadjets, the quinjet had a bulky main body that tapered into a cockpit that looked as if it belonged on a military chopper, downsloping wings that could fold upwards in landing configuration, and a pair of powerful wing-mounted turbines that allowed it to hover and maneuver as well as any helicopter without sacrificing the great travel speeds afforded by the pair of hyperjet engines that adorned its two-pronged tail. The design, which gave the aircraft a passing resemblance to a manta ray, was highly modular and could be retrofitted with a variety of weapons, stealth systems, and other apparatus to suit any mission profile. Only ten of them were currently in service, but SHIELD's pilots had liked them so much that Fury had, through intermediaries, set up a contract that gave SHIELD exclusive rights to the craft for the next ten years and promptly ordered dozens more.

The ride to the mountaintop had been unusually bumpy due to the strong autumn winds, which had buffeted the quinjet so badly the pilot had been forced to put the wings in lockdown configuration when they set down. Natasha and Clint had been fruitlessly examining the mountaintop in search of clues by the light of flood lamps for fifteen minutes, but it felt as if they'd been there for days. The light snowfall was rapidly turning the ground to mush, and the glacial wind all but stabbed through their jackets.

Natasha didn't have it in her to snipe back at her partner. In fact, she would have liked nothing more than to drag him into the quinjet, fly back to the helicarrier, and shout at Fury until his ears bled for setting them on a wild goose chase, but she restrained herself. She was a Black Widow trained by the Red Room. She was the Black Widow, the most dangerous woman in the world, and she did not earn that dubious honor by being petulant or impatient.

Natasha was just straightening up from a crouch when a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold laddered its way up her spine. Turning ever so slightly, she saw that Clint had shifted his gaze toward her without moving his head in a gesture she had come to associate with alarm. It took Natasha a moment to consciously identify the source of her sudden unease, and when she did, she decided that if she died on that mountain she'd find a way to return and haunt Fury to his grave.

The winds had died, surrendering their bone-rattling chill and deafening howl to an eerie silence that hung over the mountain like a shroud. As if accentuating the unnatural quiet, every single airborne snowflake had ceased all motion, floating frozen in midair like the stars against the black field of the night sky above. It was as if time itself had come to a standstill. Natasha slowly straightened to her full height, edging towards Clint. The immobilized snowflakes remained frozen where they were, melting against her skin and leaving a visible trail in her wake. Clint maneuvered his body so that they stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes scanning the cloud of motionless snowflakes and surely coming to the same conclusion she had.

They hadn't been chasing a goose; they'd been chasing a snake.

…

Harry floated above the mountain top, indifferent to the freezing temperatures as he stared down at the spies. He wore dark blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and a forest green hooded jacket. A simple black mask covered his face save for his eyes, which he concealed behind tinted aviator goggles. None of it was actually part of Harry's normal wardrobe; the entire ensemble had been conjured on a whim and infused with numerous charms to guard against the elements.

Harry knew he was being somewhat reckless trusting the Phoenix when it urged him into this, but he found that he didn't particularly care. He'd been in this dimension for less than eight months and already he'd managed to ruffle the feathers of every major government on the planet without actually revealing himself. Harry had observed Voldemort's tactics during the war and noted how the lack of concrete information about his whereabouts had done a great deal to heighten the terror, as well as how nervous the Death Eaters had been in their uncertainty of Harry's own activities. Worse, he vividly remembered the riddles he'd investigated as a student at Hogwarts and the fear they inspired. Mysteries were often frightening by nature, and more so when there was no evidence with which to solve them.

The spy and security agencies of this world were desperate to understand the un-crashed plane incident, and the longer he let their fear of another unexplained event fester, the more difficult it would be to gain their trust when he needed it most. If Harry gave them a tangible target to chase, however, it would alleviate some of the hysteria he'd generated and thus reduce the overall fear of him.

And so here he was.

Harry had enlisted the help of Master Minoru, who had been rather partial to him since their first sparring session, in identifying the airline pilots whose lives he'd saved and tracking them to their interviews with government agents. Then, with a judicious application of telepathy, he had 'persuaded' each of them to 'remember' seeing a figure on the mountain top just before blacking out. The ploy had worked beautifully. Now all he had to do was play his cards right.

"Looking for me?" he asked conversationally.

The effect was immediate. Both spies spun in his direction, one bringing a composite bow fitted with black metal arrows to bear while the other readied what looked like a taser of some sort. Harry ruthlessly stifled the urge to snort. He knew a dozen different ways to kill the agents and another dozen to subdue them without harming them, all of which could be accomplished with a hand gesture made in the space of half a second, but he wasn't here to fight.

The bowman spoke first. "Depends. Juggled any jumbo jets lately?"

"I did not juggle it!" Harry said in mock outrage. "I stopped it from crashing and set it down at the airport, thank you very much."

"That was you?" the woman asked. She had luxuriant red hair that reminded Harry painfully of the Weasleys, blue-green eyes, a figure like a gymnast, and the symmetrical, regally delicate features of a supermodel. Under different circumstances he might have asked her out.

Instead he said "Well, I thought that was obvious. Unless you've met other telekinetics before?"

The spies traded looks, but only for an instant. As Harry continued to stare at them, it occurred to him that there was something familiar about these two, as if he'd known them from some previous life. Had he? Or had they appeared in his dreams? He extended a light telepathic probe that skimmed their surface thoughts, like a breeze over a lake.

"Can't say we have," the archer said finally. "But for the record, you saved many lives that day."

"And ruffled quite a few feathers, as well," Harry noted.

Both spies gave no outward sign of discomfort at his subtle undertone, but their minds flared with a mixture of annoyance, fear, and...anger? Yes, they were very angry, furious even, but not with him. Until his arrival they had been on what appeared to be a wild goose chase, and neither was amused at having been caught like fish in a barrel by an unknown being far more powerful than they were. Harry couldn't blame them. He probed a little deeper until he'd found the name of the one responsible for their predicament. Nick Fury …

The man Harry glimpsed in the archer's memories was tall, dark skinned, favored black trench coats, wore a patch over one eye, the loss of which he refused to discuss, and appeared paranoid enough to impress Mad-Eye Moody. That could be a problem.

Harry withdrew his mental probe as the woman spoke up. "How are you doing this?" She indicated the motionless snowfall. Harry allowed himself a smug smile behind his mask. The ability to telekinetically immobilize every object in a given radius individually, no matter how large or small and without affecting specific targets, had taken hours of practice to perfect, especially when he could have replicated such a feat with a simple Freezing Charm, but the exercise had greatly improved Harry's control, and he had to admit he was quite pleased with himself for using as casually as he did now.

"Study and practice," he said, then added sarcastically "Don't tell me you haven't taught yourselves how to move things without touching them."

"Very funny," the woman said. "Why are you here? There was no trace of you for us to track. You could have stayed completely hidden, and we'd still be on a wild goose chase."

"And leave people like you scrambling around chasing ghosts into the Himalayas? That would be rather cruel of me, don't you think? And there's no way I could use my powers to prevent things like plane crashes without revealing myself. This way we can build trust. Unless of course you want to try and arrest me while I'm holding back flood water from a broken dam."

The archer snorted. "What, you fancy yourself a superhero?"

Harry frowned. "Not really. But I think it would be irresponsible of me to hide my power when I can use it to make the world a better place. A good friend of mine called it my 'saving people thing.' Most people like that join law enforcement or the emergency services, but for someone like me that would be rather limiting, don't you think?" He lowered his voice to a menacing growl. "And don't bother offering me a job with whatever agency you work for, because the answer is 'no.' I'm not going to work for a shady organization that would force me to compromise my values or let anyone use me as their superweapon."

Both spies flinched, though almost imperceptibly. For a long moment, no one spoke. Finally the archer said "I don't think there's anything or anyone that can force you to do anything, not if you have enough power to catch a 747 and enough control to do this," he gestured vaguely at the suspended snowflakes, which had yet to melt or shift in any way. "But if even if that weren't the case, we don't force people with special abilities to join us. We protect them when they need it, and we fight the ones that other people need to be protected from. Everything we do is meant to keep people safe. As long as you don't fly around ripping people's heads off with your brain, we'll get along just fine."

Harry cast out with telepathy once more. The man was sincere. Terrified for his life and containing it beneath an iron will honed to perfection by intense training and sheer professionalism, but sincere nevertheless. Harry was impressed.

The woman chimed in. "Our boss isn't the trusting sort, but he knows the difference between friend and foe. He won't bother you if you don't give him reason to." A telepathic scan told Harry she was being sincere as well. Her thoughts were a maze of mental scars, remnants of horrors she herself had been forced to perpetrate for much of her life, but there was no malice there. She was definitely the more dangerous of the two, but she wasn't the heartless monster she thought of herself as.

"Even when he needs my help?" Harry asked dryly. Sensing their surprise, Harry laughed at the agents. "I won't work for you, but if you really are out to keep people safe then I'm willing to work with you. I do appreciate that you two, at least, don't want to burn me at the stake." He reached inside his jacket pocket and summoned a rolled up scrap of parchment, which he telekinetically lowered into the woman's personal space. Carefully she reached out and plucked it from the air. "That's a number you can use to contact me. Don't use it except in an emergency, and don't bother trying to trace the calls. You'd only be led in circles." He paused, then added "By the way, you might want to tell your friend in the jet that he shouldn't have called for backup. If we ever came to blows, you really wouldn't stand a chance, no matter what you bring to bear. Meep, meep!"

The second quinjet, sent on Fury's orders after receiving a call from the pilot of the first, soared over the mountaintop like a giant bird of prey, creating a gust of wind its wake that all but knocked Black Widow and Hawkeye off their feet, but to no avail. The snow was falling once more and the freezing winds had howled back to life. Of the mysterious telekinetic, there was no sign.

Later the parchment Black Widow had been given would be studied extensively by SHIELD scientists in search of DNA samples, but no amount of testing produced a match (Widow had refused to confirm or deny Fury's accusation that she'd deliberately contaminated the parchment with her own DNA; Hawkeye was similarly tight-lipped, and no one was brave enough to challenge either of them on it). Aside from the phone number, the parchment contained the telekinetic's preferred alias, Phoenix, which baffled everyone who tried to make sense of it. After all, they had no reason to connect mythological firebirds with telekinesis. Eventually a theory began to take root among those in the know that the telekinetic had gained his powers from a near-death experience and was invoking the symbolism of the immortal firebird to reflect that, without realizing how close to the truth they actually were.

Based on the Hawk and the Widow's reports, it was clear that Phoenix was not only strong, but skilled. He had taken credit for the rescue of the doomed 747 in Kathmandu, which, based on the aircraft's specifications, suggested a telekinetic lifting strength in excess of 300 tons and an effective range of several kilometers. Footage from the meeting on the mountain top confirmed that Phoenix had immobilized millions of snowflakes falling across the entire mountain and shut down the sustained winds of a building snowstorm without creating a vacuum or affecting levels of breathable oxygen, which indicated an astonishing degree of precision and control. He appeared to have some form of extra-sensory perception, as he was able to detect the incoming SHIELD reinforcements and fled so quickly no one realized he was gone until the snow had started falling again. This hypothesis was supported by the fact that Phoenix displayed the ability to control items outside of his line of sight and effectively nullified any potential battle plans meant to catch him by surprise. Disturbingly, no one could discern whether this theoretical ability was how Phoenix had known to go to the mountaintop to find the SHIELD agents looking for him, which suggested that he had a means of gathering detailed information that was both reliable and undetectable.

It came as no shock that Nick Fury was not happy when he read the report on Phoenix. If half the conclusions SHIELD had drawn about the mysterious telekinetic were true, and at this point there was no reason to believe they were not, he was the single most powerful being on the planet by a considerable margin. Worse, SHIELD knew next to nothing about him; they had no countermeasures against his powers if he turned hostile, no leverage to manipulate him with, no clues to his true identity, and no way to track him down save the number he'd provided, which was almost certainly a burner phone in any case.

It had taken a great deal of persuasion on Phil Coulson's part to convince Fury not to immediately call Phoenix and demand a more formal and thorough dialogue, but eventually he managed to wear down the one-eyed spymaster by pointing out that Phoenix had specified he was only to be contacted in an emergency and that it was a bad idea to annoy a being who could probably knock the helicarrier out of the sky with a casual wave of his hand, lack of hostility during first contact notwithstanding.

The preliminary psych evaluation of Phoenix was promising, though undermined by the fact that only two SHIELD agents had actually met him, and they'd had only one, brief conversation. Phoenix stated his intentions to use his powers for the benefit of others, which the 747 incident corroborated, and he seemed to have a proclivity for sarcasm. He was not averse to an alliance, but he seemed determined to keep it on his terms. What stood out most, however, was Phoenix's clear distrust of government agencies and spy organizations in general. The telekinetic had been at his most agitated when emphasizing that he would not allow anyone to use him as a weapon, and it was that particular detail that convinced Fury to add the phone number to his personal contact list."Just in case," was all he said to Coulson's raised eyebrow.

What neither Natasha nor Clint made mention of on any official record was the emotional reaction Phoenix's presence had provoked in them.

"Phoenix never threatened us," Natasha explained to Phil and Fury as they sat in a secure room aboard the helicarrier, which was en route to its usual post in the waters off the east coast of the United States. "He was actually pretty friendly, and I knew logically he wasn't there to hurt us. If he wanted us dead, we would have been dead before we knew it. He just wanted to talk. I think he only froze everything to prove a point."

"But?" Fury prompted.

When Natasha didn't respond, Clint said what she would not. "You know that feeling you get when you see a volcano erupting, or watch the news about an incoming hurricane? You're in awe of the power of nature and a little afraid because you know you're at its mercy?" The director of SHIELD and his "one good eye" nodded. "When we looked at Phoenix, we got that feeling, but it was way stronger. It was scary, as in so-terrified-you-have-to-run-away-but- can't-cause-your-legs-have-turned-to-jelly level scary. It was irrational and illogical, way too big a reaction for the situation, but it was there. It was like standing next to a nuclear bomb without knowing whether it was armed. My every instinct was telling me to run away."

"It felt… primal," Natasha added. "You know how antelope seem to know instinctively that lions are their enemies? It was kind of like that. It was all I could do to talk to him without curling up into a ball or running away with my tail between my legs."

Fury broke the ensuing silence, sounding slightly constipated. "Do you think he was trying to scare you?"

Clint shook his head. "He didn't seem to notice. He knew we were afraid, but he didn't know how bad. I don't think he was trying to scare us, just get us to understand we can't mess with him. I think the terror was a side effect of his powers."

Phil rubbed his eyes, looking exceptionally tired. "And he said not to call him unless it was an emergency?" Clint nodded. Phil sighed. "We're doomed."

Coulson's pronouncement was only half-correct. As painful as it could be dealing with him, Phoenix was a dubious ally of SHIELD. The creature that would be born inside Bruce Banner three years later and eventually be dubbed "the Hulk" by the media was a different matter altogether.