By the time they'd managed to get down to Loki's cell, Phoenix was gone, and Loki was crumpled up on the floor. Every camera in the vicinity had gone dark the moment Phoenix had disappeared from the lab, so they had no idea what had happened.
"Brother!" Thor cried, kneeling next to the glass and pressing his hands against it. Loki groaned.
"Thor." Loki pushed himself to his knees and placed his hands against Thor's on the glass.
"I've made a terrible mistake," Loki rasped. "I thought you would be lesser of two evils." He chuckled, then began to cackle madly. Natasha exchanged a worried glance with Phil.
"Barton's just got in contact," Fury hissed beside her. "Said his mind cleared and then moments later Phoenix made off with the cube."
Loki laughed harder, glancing over at them. "You're doomed!" he muttered. "All doomed."
"What have you done?" Thor growled.
"Me? Nothing? Just submitted to another's rule. But now I am free, my mind is my own, and the Master of Death walks the stars, in possession of three Infinity Stones."
"The Tesseract," Thor stated. "That's is one. The Stone of Souls, that is another."
"What's an infinity stone?" Natasha interrupted. "Who's the Master of Death?"
"And the third?" Thor continued. Loki beamed and his eyes were mad.
"Why, the Mind Stone powered my sceptre."
Thor turned to them, his eyes narrowed. "Who did you invite onto this ship?" he said quietly, but there was a threat in his words.
"An operative," Fury replied. "His name is Phoenix and he invited himself."
"He took the stone from the sceptre and absorbed it." Natasha said.
"Mortals!" Thor spat. The tips of his fingers began to crackle with electricity. "Always playing around with that which they do not understand. How did you happen upon the Master of Death?"
Fury looked defeated. "We offered him a job."
The hairs on the back of Natasha's neck prickled. She turned, taking in Loki's narrowed eyes. He was gazing into the shadows.
A gleaming pair of emerald eyes gazed back. Natasha shivered. She edged away from the posturing between Thor and Fury and walked toward Phoenix.
She meant to stop outside of his reach, but he surged forward and wrapped his arms around her. The world lurched and moments later they were standing atop Stark Tower.
"Hello . little spider," Phoenix said. She wrenched herself out of his grip.
There was a device sitting on the rooftop and Eric Selvig was sprawled upon the ground next to it. She crouched by him and checked his pulse.
"He's unconscious," Phoenix said. He waved his hand and two armchairs appeared. He seated himself in one. Natasha took the other. It would be rude not to.
They sat in silence for long seconds that stretched into minutes and eventually Phoenix chuckled.
"I like you," he said.
"What's your name?" Natasha asked. Phoenix quirked his lips into a smile.
"Which one?" She stared at him blankly and he smirked. "Call me Harry."
"Harry," Natasha tried. He didn't look much like a Harry, but then again, he didn't much look as if any human name could fully describe him, with eyes that glowed too bright, and his skin an ethereal gold.
Harry stretched, arching his back. "Mm?"
"I don't suppose you'll explain this mess to me?" she asked, not bothering to get her hopes up. Harry considered her, then he snorted.
"Damn it, but they're right." He winked at her. "I've always had a weakness for red heads. Go on. I'll answer three questions."
Natasha paused to consider her options and decided on a question that would hopefully help determine the rest.
"What's an infinity stone?"
"An incredibly powerful semi-sentient gem that allow manipulation of the universe at a subatomic level. There are six, of which I possess three: Mind, Space, and Soul. Reality, Power and Time are scattered, however I suspect that they are closer than one might think." For a moment Harry glanced toward the sea.
"Loki said that you're the Master of Death," Natasha said. Harry arched a brow in amusement.
She narrowed her eyes. "What is the Master of Death?"
"In my own reality I collected three items; The Resurrection Stone, The Cloak of Invisibility, and the Death Stick. It was said that those whom collected all three would master death. It is a curse. I shall never age, never die, always continue as all things fade."
At the look upon Harry's face Natasha could believe that he'd lived for billions of years. He seemed ancient, beyond mortality, beyond the petty squabbles of humanity.
Then Harry shook his head, as if to clear his mind. "Last question." His eyes gleamed.
Natasha tilted her head and decided to be blunt. "Are you a threat, in any way, to this world?"
Harry smiled. "A good question, one that is far too complex to answer completely. Do I want to preserve this world, and life upon it? Yes. Am I threat?" He smirked. "What do you think?"
He disappeared, his armchair with him, and Natasha leapt to her feet just as her own vanished into thin air.
Did she think he was a threat? Unequivocally. But Natasha knew all about picking the lesser of two evils. Perhaps she was being naïve when she thought that he had no interest in causing harm. He was dangerous, certainly, but she didn't think he'd flee his home world in order to destroy another.
That was what she had to hope for.
If Harry wasn't careful, he could easily be caught in Natasha's web. Caught and comfortable with it, satisfied with his place as a pawn of Fury or another short-sighted mortal.
The Infinity Stones throbbed within his soul and he calmed himself. It would not do for Harry Potter's infamous anger to rule him, not when he had the power to level planets and warp worlds.
With barely a thought he found himself in Nepal. It was a moment's work to enter the Kamar-Taj, and the gentle caress of the Mind Stone encouraged those that might apprehend him to look elsewhere.
He walked calmly to the Eye of Agamotto, or as it was more commonly known, the Time Stone.
The glowing gem pulsed the same emerald as his eyes. As Harry passed his hand over it, the other Infinity Stones surged within him.
Earth itself screams as a pulsing ball of indigo matter spews from the crater that was once Hong Kong, consuming everything it touches. Black tendrils creep forward, cleaving mountains in half, while dark energy engulfs the very world it lives on. All the powers in the universe are nothing against an empty maw that forever craves more. A black hole forms, the universe collapsing in on itself as the Dark Dimension devours everything that ever existed and ever will. Beware… Beware…
BEWARE.
Harry staggered backwards, wrenching his hand from the Time Stone.
"It can be like that, sometimes."
He spun, coming face to face with the being known as The Ancient One. Her hands were clasped behind her back, but he knew very well that wouldn't stop her from attacking him, should she wish.
"I will not take it," Harry said. "It is still needed here." He narrowed his eyes, refusing to be cowed by a woman he'd known as a child.
"Beware your arrogance, Harry," she said, her words a whisper on the air as he transported himself to London.
"All this, and you're telling me Loki's not the problem?" Stark snarled. Natasha rolled her eyes and Clint smirked at her.
"For someone that claims to be so intelligent, you don't like to listen, do you?" Steve said, crossing his arms.
"Enough," Fury growled. "Posturing isn't going to solve anything. We've already determined that Loki was operating under the same influence that Clint and Selvig were and we know that the Chitauri can't arrive without the Space Stone. Let's focus on the real threat."
"Phoenix?" Clint said. He tilted his head to one side. "I rather liked him."
"Right," Stark drawled.
"Did you ever meet him?" Natasha asked incredulously, while Steve and Stark resumed their bickering.
"Yeah, ran a few ops with him. Funny guy."
Natasha didn't bother to hide her frown. "He didn't feel a bit… off, to you?"
Clint shrugged. "Not really. He's bloody scary with a knife, but it wasn't like I ever thought he was any kind of threat."
"He felt dangerous to me, even from a distance," Banner said quietly.
Clint cleared his throat. "Who here got the heebie-jeebies from Phoenix?" he asked the room at large.
"Yup." Stark popped the 'p'. Steve nodded sharply.
Hill exchanged a glance with Fury. "He almost seemed to have an aura of danger about him," she said. "I'd dismissed it, prior to discovering magic."
"I found him unsettling," Natasha said.
"The Other Guy really didn't like him," Banner added.
"There was always something… different, about him," Phil said, ever the diplomat.
"Even now, I can still smell the stench of his magic," Thor said. "Death, and decay."
"You can smell his magic," Fury said incredulously.
Thor grimaced. "It is a translation error. You humans do not have the sense for it, thus do not have the necessary words to describe it."
"Great," Stark muttered. "Thanks for that, real useful."
Steve cleared his throat. "Let's start with what we know and work from there, okay?"
"I'll dig up what I can find online," Stark said.
"I can keep working on an algorithm to find the Tesseract?" Banner offered.
"I'll talk to Loki," Natasha said.
"I'll give him a call," Clint said. There was a beat of silence as everyone turned to stare at Clint, who shrugged. "What? He gave me his cell number."
Stark banged his forehead into the table. "I – am – surrounded – by – idiots," he said, each word intermittent with another bang.
"I read that you lose brain cells doing that," Clint said.
Stark glared at him. "Give me his number, Birdboy, and I can use it to triangulate his location."
Clint slid his phone over and Natasha slapped the back of his head. "идиот.[4]"
[4] idiot
