A/N Slightly later than I intended it to be... But I hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine.
"So what do we do now?"
"We can't just wait for her to act." Steve said immediately.
"And the cookie for stating the obvious goes to Gramps." Tony snarked, ignoring Steve's glare in response.
"Harry, you said you could sense her?" Clint asked.
Harry nodded. "When she was nearby."
Clint made a gesture. " I am willing to stick Harry on a bike and drive him around the city."
"There has to be an easier more efficient way." Bruce said over Harry's small squawk of protest.
"I'm all ears."
"It may not be as hard as we think." Natasha commented from where she stood looking out over the city. She looked back at Clint "The Doomsday-ers are rioting."
They all looked at the pair of them as Clint was off his chair in a moment, standing at her side looking out the window.
"Shit."
Harry crossed the room, reaching the window just as JARVIS slid it open. He stepped onto the balcony and looked down at the rising tide of destruction.
There was a crowd, one that would be fairly innocuous from this height except the roaring cries were reaching them even at this distance. It came as a dull roar building into a crescendo as they moved towards the tower. Faint screams joined the cacophony accompanied by explosions and short, sharp cracks they all recognised as gunshots.
"Shit." Tony echoed for lack of anything better to say.
"We'll deal with it." Clint said, contacting S.H.E.I.L.D, even as he made for the lift, Natasha in his wake. Steve also left the window.
"Me too." He declared.
"Come on," Tony said rubbing his hands together, "not you big guy." He added pointing at Bruce. "You're somewhat overkill."
Bruce shrugged and spread his hands. "Call me if you need me."
There was a moment of tense calm before the fight. Most of the others had elected to go down in the elevator through the building but the wizards and Tony stood on the balcony.
"Ready?" Harry checked with his friends. They had copied Harry in transfiguring their jackets into hoodies without comment, showing their willingness to get involved with a fight that really had nothing to do with them.
"You think its her?" George asked, looking at Harry evenly.
Harry shrugged in response, "It doesn't matter, I need to help."
George nodded and tweaked the hood to make sure that it obscured his red hair before giving an affirmative while Luna hummed and Hermione nodded, her face pale and tense.
"Off we go then." He looked at Tony who had donned his suit. "See you down there. Don't splinch!" The last comment was a throwback to his time as an auror, a lighthearted way of wishing his team luck before they apparated into battle without jinxing the outcome.
He picked a spot in the street and turned on his heel, disapparating with a loud crack.
He was squeezed out at the edge of the crowd. He wasn't immediately noticed and the rioters surged around him.
He started stunning them. Unfortunately there wasn't a mass version of the spell. He had tried to develop one during his time as an auror but it was too complex and there were too many impracticalities to be able to use the spell in a combat situation.
It wasn't long before he was noticed and attention was drawn to him. He started conjuring tangible shields to defend against bullets flying his way.
He caught a flash of green light in the corner of his eye and dived out of the way instinctively. An armed muggle fell to the ground with him, eyes wide and unseeing his surprised face and pallor indicative of the Killing Curse. He was on his feet in an instant, turning on his heel to face the caster. He was faced with a hooded man, slight in stature. The hood shaded his eyes but didn't mask the snide grin that crept up his face.
He was but a youth, Harry realised in duelling him; real battle was unfamiliar to him. He was talented though and Harry didn't have the time for an extended duel. He was cut down with a loud and flashy reducto which sent him crashing through the crowd. When he fell, another opponent took his place. And there were others. This was not just a targeted riot, this was an army and the person who had built it knew that there would be wizards and had prepared for it.
Steve was cutting his way through the swaths of armed men when he saw the first flash that he identified as a spell light up in the crowd.
"There are rogue wizards." Harry said down the line. "Expelli-!" the comm cut out mid-spell, but the point had been made.
"Are we trying to take them alive?" Hermione's voice asked in his ear. Steve could hear the proficiency of a soldier in her tone.
"If you can." Harry replied, "but don't risk an extended duel. There are too many of them."
Steve focussed on the enemies that he was equipped to deal with. They had some rudimentary training, but nothing to challenge him. Their strength came in numbers. He realised that this night had been in the works for several years.
He had just disarmed a woman and knocked her out with his shield when he turned to come face to face with a hooded figure holding a now all too familiar stick. He waved it in a slicing motion and a yellow light sped towards him. He was about to leap out of the way, his muscles tensing for the action even as his shield rose in front of him, but a familiar voice cried out.
"Protego." The yellow light broke over an invisible barrier.
"Stupefy!" A red light not dissimilar to a laser shot past him and struck the rogue wizard who stood still in shock at the failure of his own attack. He crumpled to the ground and Steve spun to face George who gave a small bow before forging his own way through the crowd.
"We have a problem."
"You mean besides the obvious?" Steve bit back to the voice over his comm which he belated recognised as Agent Coulson.
"Good to hear your bland tones Agent." Stark quipped in response.
"Thanks." Coulson replied dryly, "you'll wish you hadn't when I tell you that we have traced the missing bio-weapons."
"What missing bio-weapons?" Banner asked, apparently keeping track of the battle from his spot in the tower.
"A facility was raided about a week back." Barton provided, "See Nat, I told you it would be a more interesting case."
"Your boring case happens to be causing havoc in the streets of New York." Romanov reminded Barton. "How is the weapon relevant?"
Coulson coughed, "It is going to be released in the city."
Multiple voices swore in Steves ear.
"We have found the machine being used as a dispersal system. It looks to be a localised gaseous release, and it has been designed to be transportable and realise multiple bursts of the bioweapon. It's guarded."
"I'm there." Stark declared, "Send me the coordinates."
Steve saw the red form rise above the crowd and shoot away down the street, deliberately flying low enough to send some of the crowd jumping for safely. A few spells shot after him but he deftly manoeuvred around them.
"What's the weapon?" Banner asked, "I can start to manufacture an antidote should the need arise."
"I'll send you the details."
Steve took a gun from one the fallen rioters and shot into the crowd, using up the clip before tossing the weapon aside. It was never a good idea to be dependant on an enemies weapon: you had no guarantee on it being in a good condition or on how many bullets it had left. He was raising his shield against the attack of another only for his opponent to take an arrow in the chest and fall sideways. Not wasting a moment he turned his defensive movement into an attack, striking a man with the edge of his shield and knocking him down. Steve spotted the blonde witch, Luna he thought it was, fighting with a fluid grace . She paused after downing an enemy with an ice blue light as if in thought before conjuring a silver light out of her wand. Steve thought he recognised it from Harry's demonstration all those months ago but it took a different form. It was smaller, and he couldn't make it out clearly but it looked to him like a rabbit. After a moment during which he thought she spoke to it, it bounded away, becoming like smoke mid-leap and spiriting away. He thought about asking about it but decided against it when she engaged another wizard and he too put his full attention into the surrounding hoard.
"I think I have something, I've seen something similar before." Banner said, "We have the basics here so I can make a prototype, but if I need to mass produce it I'll need a hospital and it's supplies."
"That may be a good idea." Tony's voice was tense and hard, "it looks like this system has already been used once today."
"Shit." Steve's eyebrows rose slightly, even as he too swore internally. Swearing seemed out of character for Agent Coulson who had so far handled everything thrown at him with a straight face and dry humour.
"What's the range on this thing?"
"Around a half mile."
"So people are already running around with this thing?" Steve clarified.
"We need to set up stations for the infected to go to, around the city." Coulson said, "We have no idea where this thing was set off, and those infected will have spread out by now. We'll set up a broadcast telling people where to go once locations have been decided. Bruce get to the nearest hospital and start working. Look around, there is already a panic!" He added after a pause, to some Agent on the base with him. Steve could imagine them scurrying away to carry out orders after the way Coulson had snapped at them.
"I can help." Luna's said lightly.
"I think we need all the wizards we have on the street." Coulson contradicted.
"The others have arrived." Luna said.
Steve looked afield his circle of battle and saw other cloaked figures, this time wearing navy blue robes taking up arms against the rising tide of black-clad forms.
"Ron says there aren't as many as he would like because of political matters with the Americans. Kingsley would only let him bring so many. 'Besides, the yanks should get off their magical arses and supply some fire power themselves.'" The last bit was reported by Hermione with a wry tone that gave Steve the impression that it was quoted word for word.
"The American Ministry should be here before too long." Harry added, "They seem to have a lot more red tape than we do. I remember trying to work with them in the past involved a helluva lot of paperwork."
"It's hard to believe," Hermione replied, "That there could be more than we are required to fill out. I thought oodles of paperwork was the British stereotype."
Bruce tuned out Harry's reply as he gathered his equipment and made sure he had everything he needed. He had a moment of wondering how exactly he was going to get to the nearest hospital through the battle which had come to a clot around the base of the tower.
"Ready to go?" He turned in surprise and realised what Luna had meant when she said 'help'. She was watching him with intelligent eyes, holding an arm out for him to grasp. He remembered briefly Clint's reaction to apparating. He threw these thoughts aside and before he lost his nerve took her arm. She smiled and, with surprising strength, pulled him into a turn.
It was like being squeezed through a tube. When he stumbled out the other side, he doubled over, feeling as though he was going to retch. He felt a small hand on his back.
"You get used to it." Luna said with empathy.
"Can't say that I want to. Where are we?"
Luna looked around, "I don't know it's name, but it's the nearest hospital to the tower. I passed it on my walk there earlier."
Earlier. As in earlier today. It felt so long ago since he had first met Luna in the wake of Harry's albeit temporary death.
"We need to use your lab." He said to the shocked nurse standing a few meters away gaping at them. We are with the government, a bio weapon has been released and we need to set up a triage for those infected. Our agency will contact your director with details." She just nodded and Bruce sighed. "Which way to the lab?"
She pointed down a corridor and Bruce spotted the 'Medical Personnel Only' sign.
"Thanks." he said, walking swiftly in that direction. He spotted Luna's lazy wave to the nurse who returned it still looking gobsmacked, before the witch in turn followed him.
Tony had deactivated the machine and taken the prime components from it. It had been harder than he'd anticipated as he'd had multiple buffoons with machine guns firing at him. The weapon had been very highly guarded, it was apparently key in Little Miss Scorned-Lover's plan to attack Harry.
Whoever she'd chosen as her Master was a good tactician he noted wryly, or had access to one, and had been planning this attack for a long time. The sheer numbers of her army, because that was what this was, was staggering, and not all of them were inexperienced kids handed guns and told where to point. Several of them were mercenaries or had at least seen battle before and survived, not because of luck, but skill. And they were prepared for him and his suit. There were sturdy shelters scattered around the machine on which his repulsers dispersed over the surface. They took shots at him from around the rim of these shields, or carried full sized shields reminiscent of Police riot shields that took the heat of his strikes, meaning that his attacks only pushed them back or if he was lucky and caught them unbraced, knocked them over.
This level of preparation didn't bode well. They had somehow predicted that he would be the one who would come to tackled the dispersal device and unless they had set up the shelters at each of the dispersal points, they had figured out that it was here that S.H.I.E.L.D would find it.
He instructed Jarvis to run a scan for similar layouts, so he could determine which it was. One of those theories was more unnerving than the other.
There was a rally of gun shots that weren't directed at him and Tony spotted some S.H.I.E.L.D agents at the fringe of the battle hidden in the park's tree line.
"We found the first dispersal site." Coulson announced, "Bad news, it was near a fringe subway station with trains inbound to the city centre. The infected could be anywhere."
"We've already got some coming into the hospital." Bruce said, "I think I nearly have the first batch of the antidote ready. I'm not sure how we are going to get it to the other hospitals."
"Neville and I can do that." Luna said.
"Neville's here?" a voice that Tony identified as Ron asked, evidently he had been given a comm.
"I sent him a message when I realised an antidote may be needed."
"Luna, the bio-weapon is muggle-made." Hermione said with an air of tired patience, "the cure will be muggle, not magical."
"I didn't think it would do any harm." Luna replied, slightly stiffly.
"Actually he's been useful as an assistant. I guess some potion-making principles carry across into chemistry." Bruce offered.
"See." Luna pointed out and he could hear Hermione's huff.
"Hey," Tony said when he realised how dominated the comms were by the magic members of their group "I thought magic messed with electric stuff, how are you all on working comms."
"We have a telly-box." Ron supplied for himself, "Hermione would have got frustrated if I hadn't learnt how to use magic with out messing with minor electric stuff."
"Television, Ron.' Hermione said, exasperated.
"Sorry." Ron replied, in a tone that had Tony think he wasn't sorry at all, and only mis-named the TV to annoy his wife out of habit.
"As lovely as this conversation is," Phil contributed, "please concentrate on the battle and stop blocking the comms."
"Gottit." Tony affirmed, "So what about you Luna?"
"I travel." she replied slightly airily.
He grinned as Phil's sigh could be heard.
Bruce finished splitting the first batch into enough containers for the hospitals designated as cure centres. He knew that an announcement had been relayed over the media and that everyone would have seen it, as glued to the news as they were to track what was still being referred to as a riot. He had begun to create a vaccine a well, but Tony had declared the disperser unusable so he had refocussed his attention on the cure.
Neville and Luna were both examining a map with the hospitals marked.
"You guys ready?" he asked and they both nodded. "They are expecting you and have people on hand to give the shots out. I would try and apparate out of sight: no need for them to know how you are getting there."
"I think magic may be out of the bag, we are beyond an inter-relation nightmare." Luna commented wryly, referring to the magic battle outside. "Even then, with all the technology around, and Norse Gods we aren't going to be out of place and you muggles all love rationalising magic into something more mundane."
She still pulled her hood up to obscure her face, an action copied by Neville. They each took their box of vials and vanished with a crack.
With nothing he could do to speed up the creation of the next batch which was running through the necessary machine to get it up to scratch, he grabbed the remaining vials and met the nurse they'd crossed earlier who led him to the rooms set up to deal with the crisis. They had cleared out the walk-in clinic for the purpose, redirecting those not infected to other areas of the hospital. Gurneys had been brought out and the inhabitants of the nearest ward relocated to other areas of the hospital. There were patients waiting desperately for a cure with rashes already spreading on their skin and the beginnings of nosebleeds. Bruce got to a young boy first, lying down and coughing weakly, his mother sat by him, stroking his sweat drenched hair, ignoring her own rash which was evident on her wrist.
Harry took his latest opponent with a swipe of his wand and a swift sectumsempra. And then a chill spread through him. He recognised that 'd been expecting it, and as a result, it didn't shock and disorientate him as it had before.
For a moment he wasn't part of the battle. It was going on around him, but it was as if someone had muted it. He turned and saw through a gap in the fighting a young woman and he knew that it was her. The gap widened, as if she had parted them and it was just them facing off in the middle of a circle of warring people. The situation seemed all too familiar.
A sneer twisted her face and she spoke in heavily accented english.
"We meet at last."
The muted sounds from the raging battle clearly weren't Harry's imagination as her words were picked up by the open line on his mike.
"Seriously?" Tony said incredulously in Harry's ear, "That's the opener she went with?"
A/N Ahhhh... all the walking...