September 2012, Quinjet over Sokovia

Harry stood in his hero outfit looking down at the hidden base they were attacking today. He turned and saw his entire team turnout for this. Clint was checking his quiver, again, Nat was double checking her widow bites and Staff of Ymir, Tony flying outside the quinjet , Thor was leaning back against his seat with his eyes closed, Bruce was nervously looking around, and Steve was studying the mission briefings again.

He turned his attention back to the front window as the quinjet lowered outside the area of the HYDRA base. It had taken Fury nearly two months to track down the Scepter again. During that time they had raided all manor of hidden bases and safe houses. They even found the infamous Winter Soldier and Arnim Zola, who was promptly wiped from the computer network he had downloaded himself onto. Steve had been happy hearing of his old pal Bucky's survival, but couldn't see him until they removed the brainwashing that made him the most effective assassin in recent memory. With a soft thud they landed, Harry was pulled back from his thoughts and everyone stood ready to move out.

"Everyone ready?" Steve asked over their comms. Harry was adjusting himself for battle again as the rest all nodded at the Captain.

"Looks like we're going in hot guys." Tony said over the comms as an explosion rocked the nearby terrain. Rushing out the team saw a wave of enemy soldiers taking defensive positions through the forests surrounding the castle.

"Well that sucks." Harry said as he banished an incoming RPG round. Clint took off into the air behind him as Thor and Hulk, who just transformed, stormed a nearby bunker. Steve went speeding by on a bike and Natasha had already started moving amongst the ground troops, freezing and electrifying anyone who got in her way. Tony could be seen doing sweeps with his repulsors and flying around. Harry got hit with a bullet in his chest plate and was pulled out of his observations. Rushing forward he started sending out wind blades, bisecting or crippling anyone who was in their path. As he ran he started making an army of transfigured foxes. He sent them out to fight anyone they could find. He saw Natasha getting surrounded and watched as she jumped up and did sever air hikes in a row smashing her new staff into each enemy, removing them form the fight. He stopped staring and summoned a large boulder that he banished smashing a nearby tower to pieces, killing the enemy snipers positioned up top.

Off to the side Harry could see Thor shooting lightning into several vehicles, causing them to explode before he spun his hammer and took off. Harry moved on, taking out towers where he could and dispatching HYDRA agents with wind blades, stone bullets, and his favorite spells. Any destroyed bunkers he passed by he would transfigure into large golems that would start gathering the HYDRA operatives and placing them close together.

Slowly they pushed up against the large number of combatants until Harry heard the screaming of civilians in the nearby town. "I'm splitting off to reinforce the civilians." Harry said as he flew towards the area that stray fire was bombarding the town. Landing he started directing civilians away and creating large stone walls to block off the fighting happening outside the town. Once he had the perimeter down he flew thorough the outskirts and tossed any hiding HYDRA agents to the other side of the wall.

"Shit!" Tony shouted over comms as he bounced back off a shield enveloping the HYDRA base.

"Language." Steve said as he kicked a nearby soldier off the back of a truck he and Natasha stole. He soon realized he messed up when the comms went quiet.

"What happened Tony?" Nat asked as she jumped off the truck and twirled in mid air before she slammed down with her staff and sent out a wave of freezing energy that created half a dozen statues out of HYDRA agents.

"Excuse me, is no one going to mention that Cap just said language?" Tony asked as he flew by a bunker that he launched a rune bomb into, blowing the bunker to pieces.

"I'm with Tony on this." Harry said as he summoned a wave of fire that sent the soldiers advancing on the town running.

"That's not going away anytime soon is it." Steve said with some exasperation as he flung his shield, sending it bouncing between trees and knocking down several soldiers positioned on sniper's nests. The team replied with a few chuckles until a pained grunt brought them back to their mission. "Clint you alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine." Clint said as he rolled behind a nearby tree and checked to see if he was wounded. Seeing he was fine he looked back out and saw a guy in a blue tactical vest and black cargo pants. The man sent a blast of energy out of his hand blowing up a tree near where Clint was hit. "We got an enhanced on the field."

"Powers?" Harry asked as he weaved into a bunker and spun between two soldiers swinging his sword and gutting them. He removed the arm of the next soldier he came across before he jumped and launched himself forward stabbing one through the chest. He landed on top of the body and ripped his sword free in an upward strike cleaving a large wound on the HYDRA operative manning a nearby mounted weapon. Checking that there wasn't anyone else he stepped back out.

"He can fire energy from his hands as far as I can tell." Clint said as he notched another arrow and let it fly, aiming right for the enhanced man's chest. When the arrow got close it was blocked by an energy shield causing the man to turn towards Clint. "And some type of shield evidently." Clint jumped and flew up, dodging blasts of energy and sending several more arrows, one of which hit the ground next to the enhanced, making the ground explode up into his face.

Steve raced up and decked the enhanced man's face, sending him sprawling. Steve was about to apprehend him when a loud sound attacked him causing him to back off and grab his head. That's when they noticed another man nearby screaming, he had a mask with a large hole for his mouth and black suit covering him. He approached the downed enhanced and helped him to his feet. A whole squad seemed to back them up with cover fire as they tried to retreat. Thor wouldn't let that happen though as he landed in front of them and kicked them both back towards Steve. Harry then rushed in behind Thor and threw up a shield blocking energy weapons and bullets. "Can anybody take out that bunker?" Harry asked, but he didn't have to wait but a moment as a green blur came charging down from the sky and obliterated the defensive building.

Turning he saw Steve knocking both men out with hits to the jaw before he placed manacles on them. "I got the shield down." Tony said over the comms. The team pushed up and gathered together, just in time to see a man rushing out of the base looking behind him before he smacked straight into Harry, who was waiting.

"Hello again Agent Sitwell." Natasha said as she approached. Sitwell looked at all of them but before he could say anything he was tased by Nat and crumpled to the ground.

"Alright, Hawkeye get up on that wall and give me an overwatch. Hulk and Thor I need you to make sure the bunkers have been destroyed and the enemies rounded up. Widow, Summoner, and myself will infiltrate the base. Copy?" Steve said as he moved towards the base entrance. The team replied in the affirmativemoving to their positions.

"Tony, any sightings of Strucker?" Harry asked as he walked into the base. Tony gave a negative. Harry entered an underground area and found himself at a crossroads, he pointed out the right path to his team and moved on. The path he was on led to a large bunker hallway. Harry rushed the first team to walk out of a room and dispatched them with his lightning enchantments. Three more agents jumped out of a nearby room, but were quickly banished, stunned, and tied up within only moments. Continuing his exploration of the base he moved between rooms but most were either armories or dorms, all empty.

"I got Strucker." Steve said over the comms. Harry finished the hallway he was in, not finding anything else, before he doubled back and found the whole team at the crossroads near the entrance, surrounding a downed Baron von Strucker, the scepter laid on the ground nearby. "Fury, we need clean up and evac." Steve said into a wrist mounted SHIELD communicator. They decide to apprehend any of the still living agents and clear a spot for the SHIELD team to break down the base.

/OO-HP•SoS-OO\

Harry was laying back in a recliner he had placed in the lounge of Avenger's tower, lightly napping as he waited for Fury to show up. He was startled awake when someone sat on him, but relaxed when the red hair and scent of apples reached his senses. Hugging Nat to him he chuckled, "You just get here?" Harry asked, knowing she was on the Helicarrier last night.

Nat just groaned as she stretched out on top of him. They heard the approaching footsteps but didn't bother getting up. "You two gonna do that all the time now? Wasn't it bad enough when I walked into your make out session in Harry's workshop." Tony said with a huff as he sat on the nearby couch.

"Oh shut up Tony. Make your girlfriend a suit so she can join us or stop bitching." Harry said with humor as Nat chuckled softly into his chest.

"You know I tried but she got annoyed and commented about how she was too busy running my company." Tony whined as he propped his feet up.

"Just make an honest woman out of her and it'll be her company too." Harry said easily. Tony didn't reply and just grunted as he started messing around on his phone. Slowly the room got more occupied as the rest of the team showed up. Clint let out a whistle when he saw Harry and Nat cuddled on the chair, but was promptly flipped off by both of them. Steve didn't say anything and Bruce just sat quietly with one of those soft smiles he usually wore when he was comfortable.

"Good morning my friends!" Thor boomed as he walked in from the landing pad on the balcony. A large grin covering his face. Harry took one look at him and laughed.

"Someone got lucky last night." Harry whispered to Nat as she peeked up and saw the grin on the Asgardians face before she chuckled and nodded in agreement. Thor ended up sitting next to Bruce and regaling him with his thoughts on the Hulk's many exploits in battle yesterday. Bruce seemed a little uncomfortable at first before Hulk took over and sat on the couch and proudly, if a little disjointedly, spoke on Thor's achievements as well.

That's the sight that Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, saw as he walked out of the Frame room. Hulk and Thor boasting, loudly, to one another, Steve watching the team with a fond look, Tony head deep in his phone, Clint staring at the ceiling, and Harry and Nat laying together on a recliner. Shaking his head he moved up and looked to Steve, "Good job Avengers. Not only did you get back the scepter, but you caught Strucker and two new enhanced. We were able to recover a lot of data from their computers and found out that the two enhanced were created by Strucker using the Scepter and serums of some kind."

Hearing that Hulk shrunk back down to Bruce, his clothes being enchanted were still whole from his transformation. "What kind of serum?"

"We aren't sure, but I'm having them analyzed right now." Fury said as he watched Harry set his recliner back up. He expected Widow to move from his lap, but that didn't seem to be happening. Redirecting his attention back to Bruce he continued, "I'll be sending the data to you and Stark. See if you can make something of it." Bruce nodded while Tony was still on his phone. "Strucker was moved to Harry's prison, but the enhanced were placed in The Raft." Harry groaned as he raised his free arm up and rubbed at his face, "I know, but the WSC required me to give some type of credit to them due to Sokovia making a fuss at the UN about damages to one of their cities."

"That's bullshit. I know for a fact that the damages were repaired, because I did them myself. There were 3 casualties to civilians because they were recording the fight instead of moving away." Harry said, looking directly at Fury.

"Language." Tony said, removing Harry's ire and causing the team to all chuckle and look at the resident super soldier who just rolled his eyes. Fury even smirked a bit before readdressing Harry.

"Regardless of what the outcome was, there are casualties and there were damages. They don't care if the casualties were basically self inflicted or that you repaired the city. They just care about what they can gain." Fury stated before he decided to move on, "Now that this base has been cleaned out, HYDRA is almost non-existent. I'm sure that there are more cells in hiding, but their numbers are so far down they shouldn't be a problem for much longer."

"What about the scepter?" Bruce asked from the side.

"I'll be taking that back to Asgard. The All Father was quite upset to find another item of such power on Midgard." Thor said, his jovial mood being brought down by the reminder of how dangerous the scepter truly was. Fury looked to see if anyone would say anything, but the whole team was in agreement about getting it off Earth.

"Fury." Harry said, grabbing the spymaster's attention, "The scepter and whatever powers it could gain the attention of whoever controlled the Chitauri. We don't need that kind of heat on Earth. Let Asgard handle it." Fury stared at him for a moment before he sighed and nodded in acknowledgement. "Plus, Tony and I basically figured out free energy anyways. What more do you need it for?" Harry asked, a slight challenge in his words at the end. They all knew about Phase 2 and what HYDRA planned with the cube, Harry was just reminding him of that.

"Fine. Either way we won't have much going on mission wise for you guys. So take a vacation, I'll call you if I need you." Fury didn't wait for anything else and just swept from the room. Harry briefly thought about his old Potion's teacher who had a flair for the dramatic as well before he was brought back by Nat getting up for his lap.

"How about some time at the resort? Harry recently added a hot spring." Nat said as she straightened out her clothes. She looked over at Bruce and Tony, "Bring the girls. I could use some girl time." She then walked off to the Frame room and disappeared. Clint moved to Harry's side, chuckling.

"Did she get you to add that?" Clint asked. When Harry nodded, Clint just laughed, "She's been obsessed ever since we took a mission to Japan a few years back. She said that if she ever retired it would be to a Hot Spring village." Harry laughed alongside the archer before his eyes stared after his paramour. Over the last few months they had grown closer. Every week Harry would either take her out to dinner, visit Fu Mei, or cook at home for her. The Twins have even started to warm up to her. Wanda was taking the most time of the two and Harry wasn't sure why. At one point he heard her mumbling something about Ororo but he couldn't hear it properly.

"Well I think it's about time that I release those files. Don't you?" Tony asked as he stood and stretched. Harry gave him a long look before nodding.

"I agree. If we release those files now, we can use them as a scapegoat for a lot of the damage being done in their skirmishes with SHIELD and put them on search lists the world over." Harry said in agreement.

"True. I mean, who likes Nazis?" Tony asked as he walked off to his lab.

"Are you not going to call Pepper and tell her about the hot spring?" Harry asked with a smirk, causing Tony to stumble and stop before he walked towards his room instead mumbling something too low to hear. He turned to Bruce next, "You can invite Betty. I think she will have a good time." Bruce nodded with a smile.

"I'll call her up. She's staying in New York at the moment so it shouldn't be too hard to get her up here." Bruce walked off pulling an old phone from his pocket.

"May I invite the Lady Jane?" Thor asked from behind Harry. He almost jumped when Thor's booming voice appeared right next to him.

"Sure Thor that's no problem. Just let her know that we have many secrets and they can't be bandied about." Harry said, patting the Asgardians shoulder before he walked off with Clint towards the Frame. "So gonna invite someone?" Harry asked Clint as he dialed the resort.

"Maybe next time. The kids just went back to school." Clint said as they both walked through the now open portal.

"Nat might call her anyways." Harry said with some humor. Clint just groaned as Harry patted his back and led him through the portal that closed quickly behind them.