KEYnote: Captain America, Steve Rogers, is not awake yet. This is before he be found. P.S. Canon ages… meh, live a little. Again, if you don't recognise a character, they will be developed as necessary to enjoy the story.

WARNING: I'm probably a bad person. And I'm upping the rating on this fic, because violence. And references to trauma. I'm earning my M rating :D

Chapter 5 - Of Monsters and Knives

Harry knocked on the doorway to the kitchen where he was nursing a cup of coffee.

Sirius looked up, his expression going blank, "Harry?"

Harry nodded, and in the next moment, he was engulfed in a hug.

Sirius was speaking in a litany, "I'm so glad you're safe. I was so worried."

And so on and so forth.

Something tight and ugly relaxed in Harry's chest, Sirius might not be the best guardian, but he had done what no other had truly managed: giving a damn about him.

Whatever issues they had, he was confident they could work them out.


"You can't be serious," May stated.

"She hacked us," Coulson said.

"I'm not sure your tone of approval is entirely appropriate," Ward said.

The girl, Mary-Sue Poots, or as she called herself Skye, elbowed the officer that got a bit handsy, before knocking back her head, making the officer grunt.

Coulson smiled, "I have a good feeling about her."

Ward made a harsh sound, walking forward to intercept the cop.

Coulson stepped forward as well, May hanging back as Ward grabbed the man's shoulder and shoved, "We'll take it from here."

Skye turned on them with a glare, Coulson noticed her hands slipping the cuffs.

This was a girl who had been in and out of foster homes since she was a baby. She had also seen some time in JV for petty theft, pickpocketing, and revealing really uncomfortable information about some DCF officers over the years.

"How old are you?" Ward demanded.

She raised her chin, "Who the hell are you?"

Ward crossed his arms and said dryly, "Your parole officer."

"Ha ha," she said, though Coulson could see the fear in her eyes.

He waited until the other police officers were on their way before speaking, "You are, according to your records, eighteen, as of today, which means any felonies will be applied to you as an adult."

Skye's jaw ticked. She was an average height girl of mixed descent, white and eastern Asian. She clearly took more firmly after her eastern heritage in features, almond-shaped eyes, tanned skin, and dark hair.

"I can take care of myself," she said, dropping the opened cuffs on the road.

"You can't," Coulson said. "But lucky you, what you do have are options."

"What kind of options?" she asked warily.

"As we were the ones you hacked—" Coulson began.

"And compromised our plane," Ward added bitterly.

Coulson continued, smile intact, "We would like to offer you an internship with SHIELD."

"I'm not working with the government."

"You'll be working in a Federal prison, otherwise," Ward said helpfully.

"Fine," Skye spat.

"Welcome to the team," Coulson said. "Do you need help getting your stuff?"

"I don't have stuff."

"Everyone has stuff," Ward said.

"Not when you're homeless and your one backpack gets stolen."

"And whose fault is that?" Ward asked.

"The State's?" she retorted.

Coulson smiled, "I think you'll fit in just fine."

May called, "Wheels up in ten, move it."

When Coulson was in step with May, she said, "Accepting strays is risky."

"Girl like that would be wasted in the prison system, and everyone deserves a chance."

May looked at him, "We'll see."


Tony didn't think he would like Natasha as much as he did.

Well, he liked her at first, until she made him feel like an absolute idiot. He also didn't particularly like that she had been spying on him for a government agency.

When he showed up on his floor one day, the Tesseract in one hand and with Dr. Bruce Banner at her side asking for help in finding her son.

Putting aside how wild what happened to her son, was the knowledge that Hydra was running SHIELD.

"So how exactly did they get you to join this?" Tony motioned to the tech and old Hydra documents.

Banner pushed up his glasses, " I thought I was living off the grid, I was proven wrong. And then she asked for my help, my help, not the other guy's, not in recreating the other guy… I can't remember the last time someone asked for my help, knowing what I am, asked for my help."

Tony nodded, that made sense.

"And you?"

"Hydra's a part of SHIELD. SHIELD knows too much, which means everything my godmother and father fought for would be for nothing. We can't let evil win."

"So melodramatic," Yelena said as she walked into the room.

Banner looked down while hiding a smile.

Yelena Belova was a gem.

Tony grinned at her, "We were discussing world upending conspiracies. Melodrama is in its nature."

"What are you eating?" Banner asked.

She held out a small bowl of chocolates, "Expresso beans coated in dark chocolate."

Banner raised a brow, but he took a few, popping one in his mouth, his brows shut up.

"Good, right?" she asked with a smirk.

Banner nodded, popping another into his mouth.

Yelena sat herself down on one of the clear work tables, "Speaking of Hydra, SHIELD is definitely looking for us."

Tony waved it away, "Changing license plates and fake IDs are child's play, as long as you guys don't wander about the city, things should be fine."

Yelena crunched on another coffee bean, supremely unimpressed.

"Sir," Jarvis interrupted. "Forgive the intrusion, but I believe you are needed on the sixth post-level. I'm afraid Sergeant Barnes is in need of medical attention."

Yelena was the first on her feet, beans forgotten.

Banner grabbed the first aid kit.

Natasha joined them at the elevator.

When they got to the right level and the right room, Tony was appalled by what he saw.

"Stop!" he yelled.

Barnes who had been curled up in his seat as Melina held a God-forsaken cattle prod to his side, moved with an incredible speed.

One moment, he was just a man, a war vet curled up in pain.

The next moment, a dark blur of a man with death in his eyes was before him.

Metal fingers clamped over Tony's throat. Barnes raised him off the floor, and Tony's mind went blank with horror.

It would be so easy for that hand to crush his windpipe.

"Asset," Melina said, then gave firm orders in Russian.

Tony was dropped a second later, left gasping on the floor as he tried to relearn how to breathe.

Melina backhanded Barnes.

The slap reverberated through the room.

Barnes's voice was tight as he spoke through clenched teeth, "I'm here."

"You failed," Melina drawled.

"What the hell, Ma?" Yelena asked, hovering near but not touching Barnes whose shoulders were rounded and tense as if bracing for a beating.

"I'm reprogramming him. No one would have gotten hurt if you hadn't interfered."

"You're torturing him," Tony said angrily taking the hand Natasha offered him.

He coughed, he was going to be bruised tomorrow.

Melina scoffed, "There is a cost to freedom. Hydra taught him to obey for fear of pain, I'm teaching how to let go of that fear."

"Lady, everyone is afraid of pain, you can't untrain that," Tony said.

Yelena and Natasha exchanged a look.

Melina shook her head, "Not wanting and fearing something are different. What is difficult is hurting Soldat worse than Hydra did without causing physical damage."

Tony gaped at her, "You can't be serious."

Melina shrugged, "I said difficult, not impossible."

Tony shook his head and turned to Barnes, "You don't have to do this, Sergeant, we can find another way."

"There is no foolproof way," Melina insisted. "This will have the quickest and most reliable results."

"This isn't freedom, it's—"

"Stark," Barnes cut him off. "This is my choice, and I need to be reliable and functional if I am to face Hydra."

"But—" Tony tried.

"You don't know what they've done to me, you don't know what they've made me do, I can pay this blood price."

"You're being tortured," Tony reiterated, these people, honestly.

"I've survived worse."

Melina clucked her tongue, her accent sounding thicker as said, "If you want to help him, design him a new arm. The one he has now is counterproductive to his usefulness as an asset."

Barnes glared at her.

Tony realized she was intentionally pissing Barnes off.

Tony wondered if anger was something Hydra ever allowed him.

Yeah, this was all too much for anyone to handle and way too far outside of his comfort zone.

"It's unethical," Tony said.

That earned him a look from everyone, except Banner who had backed away toward the exit.

Wouldn't that have just been terrific if Barnes had grabbed Banner.

Melina rolled her eyes, "Said the arms dealer."

Tony's jaw flexed which hurt his throat. "Fine, whatever, but whenever Darth Vader stops consenting to this, it's over, capiche?"

Melina inclined her head but it was Barnes's gaze he held, those dark blue eyes held his gaze for a long breath before he looked away and he nodded, "Confirm."

Confirm? Yeah, that was fucking comforting.

But fuck it. Barnes was a big boy and…

And well, he trusted Natasha at least to know if it was going too far.

He showed himself out, swearing mentally that in addition to finding their son by rebuilding the damned Hydra machine, he would also work on a new arm for Sergeant Barnes.

While America might not give a damn about their vets and elderly, Tony most certainly did.

Sergeant Barnes had been a friend of Aunt Peggy and his dad, the least he could do was give the man two working arms that didn't cause more pain than he was already submitting himself to.


Soldat felt more humiliated than anything as Melina went through what he had and hadn't done right, the latter being a much lengthier list.

He hadn't wanted Tony's pity and he certainly hadn't wanted to hurt the man more than he already had.

He knew that Melina, Natasha, and Yelena had all been through similar torture, they just didn't have their brains baked while enduring it so they had developed true coping mechanisms.

He just had the embedded knowledge that dissonance would be worse than any pain he was either enduring or could come to.

Yelena must have picked up on this because she left not long after Melina began doing more brain checks and pointing lights in his eyes.

Natasha waited for him, following him back to his room. He left the door open in wordless invention.

She shut it behind her.

Still, he said, "I'm fine."

"Do you need help getting undressed?" she asked, disregarding his statement.

He didn't, but the thought of her hands on him…

He didn't want sex, but he felt starved for skin-on-skin contact. He wanted something to chase away the lingering sensation of the electric burns that were no doubt already healing.

At his lack of answer, she crossed the space between them. She started with the shirt, he raised his arms for her. Tossing the shirt aside, his breath hitched as she ran her fingers down his chest, his stomach, she tugged upward on the belt of his pants, but he didn't react.

Hydra usually made him undress himself and if they did touch him it was either with a scientist's scalpel or with very rough hands.

Natasha was being playful but still careful of him as she pulled down his zipper.

He let out a sigh as her palms rounded his hips and squeezed his butt. Her hands were small and warm, but he didn't have it in him to rise to the occasion as she pulled his pants down.

"Would you like to undress me?" She whispered.

He shook his head, and she stripped without fanfare. He went to the bathroom, again leaving the door open.

Again, she followed.

He turned the water on almost as hot as it could go and Natasha stepped into the steam with him.

He was certain many people wouldn't want to be touched after everything he'd been through in his life.

But in seventy years of hell, Natasha was the only person he had ever relied on before. Knowing it was her hands on him, being able to trust she wouldn't hurt him.

He's thankful the water stays hot as she ran suds over his tensed muscles. He doesn't touch her as she washes her own skin before finishing his.

He even let her towel him down, he was exhausted, but the delightful sort where his mind became hazed and incapable of drawing up painful thoughts and pesky memories.

"Do you want me to cut your hair?"

He found his voice but his words aren't fully coherent, "Long, I don't… I'm not him."

She understood him still and pulled him over to a bench in the stupidly large bathroom. She seemed to know the cupboards better than he does as she was able to locate a comb and scissors. Maybe these rooms are like hotel rooms and all but Stark's own are copies of one another.

With the damned AI of the building, he hasn't been able to fully scope the whole of Stark Tower.

Maybe Natalia had been given permission, or maybe she had checked his suite over in one of the times she had visited.

He'd be proud of her if that were the case. He is beginning to fear that she had marked him as tame.

While he trusted her, she —under no conditions— should trust him completely. Natalia combed her fingers through his hair and it was—

He closed his eyes and had the fleeting thought that this was better than sex as she began sectioning off locks of his hair. The sound of snipping scissors filled the room.

She hasn't taken off more than two inches, but he felt as if he had just shredded two hundred pounds as he stood.

Afterwards, she led him to bed, neither of them got dressed and she spooned him from behind. His body all but melted into the mattress.

He had almost fallen asleep when she spoke, no more than a whisper against his neck, "Thank you."

He sighed and replied in Russian, a reminder for her to never forget what he is no matter how far he let her in, "For what?"

There was a slight delight in her voice as she switched to Russian as well.

She had lived in America too long, been ashamed of her past for too long; the Americans weren't better —Hydra— was not better than the Red Room.

She had no reason not to speak her mother tongue.

"For not taking the easy way out. For staying with me and trying to become something more."

At least she didn't say, someone.

Sweet Natalia, a heart of roses armed to teeth in thorns.

"I trust you."

She kissed his neck.

He continued, "I trust you to do what needs doing if I slip too far."

She was still for a beat before saying, "One day, you're going to remember you're the one holding everyone else together, one day, you'll remember that you gave everything, that you were to be the shield and the rock everyone else depended on. You think you've lost it, but you haven't. I would not dishonour you if the day ever comes when you stop fighting that fight. When you stop being who you've always fundamentally been."

For a moment, Soldat remembered Stevie, half-dead in his arms as he burned up with a fever.

Don't you give up on me, pal.

Couldn't, Steve had choked out, if I did you'd just drag me back. He coughed hard, then wheezed, Resurrection sounds worse than this.

You're damned right. Now shut up and breathe. Blasphemy by attempting resurrection is not how I planned on spending my ticket to Hell.

Steve had laughed, coughed, and then continued to laugh until he was almost blue in the face. That joke had very nearly killed him.

But it had been worth it to see the light spark back to life in his cornflower-blue eyes. A light of defiance in his eyes.

Steve had always been a stubborn shit, it's why he had survived for as long as he had. Neither bullies nor demons could keep Stevie down.

"I'm not him anymore," he said, to Natasha and his memories.

He wasn't that young man hopelessly in love with a boy whose body was as merciless as the society they had been born into.

"No, you're just the one who handed me the keys to freedom. I'd be dead today or worse if not for what you taught me. Barton wouldn't have hesitated to pull the trigger on the creature I was before."

"What did I teach you?" he asked. He had trained her for over a year, then sporadically between missions and cryofreezing over the course of decades.

She hugged him tightly, "You taught me that blood comes from the heart. They can take our bodies, our minds, but they can't take what is most fundamental."

"They can kill us just fine, Natalia."

She laid her face on his neck, her warm breath spilling over his shoulder, "But they can't keep us from wanting. They can take away everything and everyone we have ever loved, but they can't stop us from loving."

He blinked into the dark, "I couldn't have taught you that."

Natasha chuckled, "They told you to train me how to kill, they didn't tell you to teach me how to protect. They told you to fuck me, they didn't command you to care about me."

He let out a long breath, "Go to sleep, little spider. Dream of a better world for me."

She kissed his cheek before settling back around him as if he was the one who needed protecting.

But he knew in his bones it was already far too late for him, today had proven that to him if nothing else.


They stayed up late that first, talking until dawn. Sirius poured his heart out in his attempt to be understood.

It was easy to forgive him.

And for some reason, it took Sirius, "I'm so sorry, Harry, I never wanted you to come to harm or feel as if you were ever unwanted," for everything that was happening to him to become real.

He was Aleksey Romanov, just as he would always be Harry Potter, but he was still the same person he had always been, he was just… more himself.

"I can't believe you're like Captain Carter."

Harry brightened, "You know who that is?"

Sirius nodded, "Course, Lily was appalled when we didn't know who she was. She brought us to the museum to see her exhibit. I am personally a fan of her boyfriend, that little guy, Rogers, lots of spunk, kind of like you."

Harry rolled his eyes, "Sure, the Howling Commandos were brilliant."

Sirius grinned, "Lily had a thing for Rogers's best friend, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. She even bought a biography about him. James was a little jealous, but figured he could be the wizarding version of that old war hero."

Harry nodded, "Their story was kind of tragic, how he and Rogers were the only ones of the Howling Commandos to die in the war. Hydra kind of reminds me of the Death Eaters. I'm glad they never found magic."

"Me too." Then Sirius said a bit more seriously, "Though, no wars, kid. We are leaving this all behind us and Captain Carter wasn't bulletproof, and neither are you."

"So we're really going to Russia?"

"Anywhere is better than here," Sirius said before calling out, "Right, Kreature?"

There was no response.

Sirius sighed, "My point exactly. It's just going to be me and you against the world."

There was a loud pop.

"Kreacher?" Harry called.

The sound of heels on wood had them both on their feet.

A grinning wild-haired woman came into view, her wand was already pointed.

At Sirius.

Harry had not come this far to watch another person he loved die.

He tried to get in front of him.

But Sirius grabbed him from behind in a hug, spinning them so his back was to the Death Eater.

"Live, Harry—"

"Avada Kadavra!" Bellatrix Lestrange shouted.

In a flash of green, Sirius's body went limp, his arms going lax as he slumped to the floor.

"No!" he screamed.

Jumping at Bellatrix bodily before tackling her before she could kill him too. He grabbed her shoulders, "He was your family!"

She was laughing at him.

He shook her as if he could shake some sense into her.

He was watching her eyes as his anger made him forget his strength. Her brown eyes widened as her head fell forward and then snapped back.

Her neck made a sharp sound.

The animation in her large eyes went out.

Her laughter stopped as she fell to the floor alongside Sirius.

She was dead.

They both were.

Harry reeled back, his mind protesting.

Immediately, he wanted to apologize and say it was an accident.

But there was no one to apologise to and he had wanted to kill her, just like he had wanted to kill Umbridge.

Maybe he hadn't meant to do it, but you couldn't keep killing people you wanted dead and still claim it was an accident

He remembered a book he had read over the summer once, Of Mice and Men.

Harry realizes he's Lennie, he's the one who doesn't know his own strength.

The one who kills without meaning.

On the bright side, he thinks he would feel a lot worse about killing a puppy than Bellatrix Lestrange.

He heard another popping sound, and Harry decided he was done with this. Done playing these games.

Sirius was gone now and there was no one who can protect him now.

Telling him to live, to survive, had been his godfather's last words.

He was going to have to protect himself just as he had done for years now.

And he's done meeting deadly force with stunners.

He doesn't have magic anymore, but he does have superhuman speed and strength.

He ran to the kitchen, pulling out drawls until he found what he was looking for.

Knives.

Lots and lots of knives.

Harry took as many as he could hold, including the butter knives.

He was darting up the stairs when he heard voices in the greeting room.

So much for the Fidelius Charm, Harry really should have spoken up when he saw Kreacher being mistreated by Sirius.

"The boy! He must still be here!"

Harry reached another floor, before he stopped, waiting at the top of the step to the side, his back against the wall.

He tried focusing on his breathing, trying to picture what he wanted.

Any protection charm could stop a mundane object, but only if they got it up in time.

He just needed to be faster, more brutal.

He listened to the stairs creak, holding onto the handle of one knife in his right hand, his left holding the others to his stomach.

Waiting, waiting— he lived under a cupboard for years, he knew how to wait, he knew how to count footfalls on steps.

Now.

He turned round the corner, his arm already pulled back. He recognized the man who wanted to kill Buckbeak, his blue eyes wide as he begins to raise his wand.

Harry released his knife faster, aiming for Macnair's right eye.

He missed.

The blade plunged hilt deep into his throat instead.

There was a weightless moment, and Harry didn't know who was more shocked; himself or the Death Eater he had very purposely thrown a knife at.

A hand went to that knife as Macnair gaped like a beached fish, red pouring across his pale skin as he fell back, to the exclamations of his Death Eater pals still stuck on the stairs.

Harry threw another sharp knife just as quickly, aiming for the throat this time.

Another Death Eater went down, collapsing in a spray of blood over Macnair as the two tumbled down the stairs. The others were getting out of the way lest they too get caught, unable to bring their wands up.

Harry tried another blade but it pinged harmlessly off a shield charm.

He turned back around at the top of the stairs, darting up to the next two floors.

He had counted three more, two men with dark hair and Lucius Malfoy, with his prissy haircut that seemed to glow in the dim.

He looked down at his hand. He had five knives left, one cutting into his hand, which was already closing up.

Problem; three of them were mere butter knives.

He tried not to think about how much force he would need to actually take anyone down with a butter knife.

"He's not using magic!" one of the Death Eaters shouted. That one had to be either Crabbe or Goyle.

It was funny that they didn't change their tactics when Alesey had already proven he is quite capable of killing without magic. But these were pureblood fanatics, and you just had to lack a certain amount of intelligence to be a proud racist.

Dumb enough, for instance, to not shield yourself from non-magical projectiles when they had been forced to climb over the still-warm corpses of their friends.

Harry didn't hold back when he gets to the top of the landing, throwing the knives as hard as he can, visualizing what he wanted to happen.

One dark-haired man opened his mouth to yell a spell, and swallowed a blade for his trouble.

Harry doesn't think about how gruesome that is as he pitches his last sharpened blade.

The Death Eater tried to dodge it, but Harry's throw had been too fast. As the Death Eater tilted to the side, the knife still slit a clean line across his throat as it passed and thudded into the wall.

"Expelliarmus!" Lucius shouted, the butter knives falling from Harry's hands.

Malfoy sneered at him, "It seems my son was right, you are a freak. A changeling, no doubt, your bitch of a mother sleeping around with things that weren't even human."

Harry judged the distance to the rail. Could he jump it? He had survived the staircases falling on top of him, surely he could handle a fall from the top floor of this townhouse.

He debated it too long.

Lucius drawled, "Crucio."

Harry bit back a scream as he fell to the ground, hitting the wood hard.

Clearly, super healing didn't make him immune to pain.

But he was still stronger, and as he writhed on the ground he reached for one of the butter knives.

Lucius chuckled, approaching him at a leisurely pace as he kept the Unforgivable going, no doubt to kick the knife out of his hand.

But Harry was ready for him, baring down past the pain, he plunged the dull blade straight through the man's boot and foot.

Lucius Malfoy screamed and the Torture Curse lifted.

Still shaking, Harry grabbed another butterknife and tackled the Death Eater. He stabbed at the man's arm, and Lucius's wand rolled through the railings down the stairs.

Harry kept stabbing random parts of the body, then Lucius's eye, where he pounded a fist into the bottom of the hilt.

Lucius wailed.

Harry was covered in blood, and his adrenaline skyrocketed his fear.

More people were coming.

Voldemort was coming.

Somehow, Harry didn't think knives were going to work well on the creature whose life's purpose was trying to discover immortality.

He had been in Voldemort's head before, after all.

He was a paranoid bugger.

Harry grabbed the last cleanish knife, stumbling as he opened the attic to where Buckbeak was, leaving Malfoy keening in a bloody ruin behind him.

Buckbeak reared in fright and Harry dropped to a knee, bowing his head.

Buckbeak's hooves skittered over the floorboards, then there was a scraping of claws against boards, followed by the tearing of wood and a gust of air.

Harry looked up.

Buckbeak had ripped a hole in the wall big enough for the hippogriff to escape through. Harry has a moment to fear Buckbeak would leave him behind, but then the hippogriff was bowing to him, and Harry wasted no time scrambling up that feathered back.

"Go, go!" he urged.

Buckbeak took a running leap into the London air, and he knew, whatever lay ahead of him, there was no going back.


AN: Thoughts, pachycephalosaurs, or feedback, please?