AN: Sorry this was supposed to be out yseterday, but Black Myth Wukong is so good! Enjoy!
May 2012, Days after the Battle of New York, Stark Tower
Harry walked into the informal meeting room at Stark tower where Fury stood at the front with his typical scowl firmly in place. On the other side sat the team, Widow and Hawkeye both sitting at relative attention, Tony was leaned almost sideways doing something on his phone, Steve was chatting with Thor who was loudly telling of his conquests as a Prince of Asgard, and Bruce was nowhere to be seen. The middle of the room was dominated by a table holding three very powerful artifacts, The Tesseract, The Cask of Ancient Winters, and the Scepter.
Fury noticed Harry entering and immediately spoke up, "Good you're all here. We need to talk about what happens with these three items and what we're going to do with Loki."
"Loki must return to Asgard." Thor said quickly in response as he edged his hand towards his hammer.
"I have no problem with that Thor but I need to make sure I discuss it so I can tell my bosses that I tried." Fury said with a small tilt to the corner of his mouth. "That's Loki squared away. Now what do we do with the rest of these items?"
"First off, where's Bruce? I figured he would want to be here. Second thing, I think we should give the Tesseract to Thor." Harry said as he took a seat near Tony and pushed his legs off the table. Tony was forced to sit up and scowled at Harry before he sat up and gave Fury his attention.
"Doctor Banner left to go and retrieve Doctor Ross. My superiors won't like that Thor is taking both Loki and the Tesseract." Fury said as he eyed the god of thunder.
"I don't like that your superiors fired a nuke at New York city." Tony said with some snark. Harry snorted as the two assassins nearby smirked. Tony eyed the other objects on the table, "Why not trade? We clearly can't trust your superiors with the Tesseract, so why not take the Scepter and Cask as payment?"
Thor was about to speak up before Harry casually summoned the Cask off the table and dropped it into his bag, "They can't have the Cask. I need it for some research and I don't really trust them with anything that can portal or travel through space."
Thor gave Harry a look before he nodded, "As far as I am concerned, I was tasked with retrieving Loki and the Tesseract, nothing more."
Fury nodded, "Good. If that's all?" Fury looked to see if anyone had anything else to say. When it was apparent they didn't he continued, "Then we need to get Loki off world as fast as possible."
Harry just stood and moved off to the side before creating a portal and walking through. Next thing everyone saw was Loki stumbling through still cuffed and muzzled. Harry walked back into the room after him and closed the portal. "Are you ready to go Thor?" Harry asked as he looked over at him.
"I am ready." Thor grabbed the case holding the Tesseract and his hammer before he moved next to Loki. Harry opened a portal to Asgard and they both walked through, Harry following. Thor looked at him in confusion, "Why did you follow?"
Harry just tilted his head towards Loki, "I'm just ensuring the delivery of the criminal Loki. Don't need him using his magic to escape." Thor nodded.
"Greetings Heimdall, I have returned with my brother and the tesseract." Thor said as he approached the guardian of the Bifröst.
"Welcome home Prince Thor, the king is expecting you and Loki." Heimdall greeted Thor before giving Harry a look with a slight smirk. Harry noticed and gave him an over-exaggerated wink, "You will need to announce your friend."
Thor saw the byplay between the two and groaned slightly, "Harry please don't start a fight with my father." Harry just chuckled as they entered a carriage that was summoned.
"Don't worry Thor, I don't plan on starting anything." Harry assured him as he looked over the view of Asgard during the day, "This place is quite beautiful."
"Yes. Every time I return home I am once again taken away by the splendor that is Asgard." Thor said as he looked over his home. Their trip continued in relative silence as the city sped by them as they approached the palace.
Thor picked up the Tesseract and holstered his hammer before grabbing Loki's arm and leaving the carriage. The trio then approached the large double doors leading to the throne room. Ahead of them a guard went inside and shortly after the doors opened. Father, I have returned with Loki and the Tesseract!"
Inside the room Harry saw a large hall with a dais at the far end from the door. The moldings and pillars looked to be cast in gold and the walls were decorated with tapestries. People and guards were lined up along the sides of the aisle as Thor walked straight down the middle dragging the still bound Loki.
"Welcome home my son, I am glad your quest was fruitful!" Odin said as he stood looking at his sons. When his eye caught Harry following along he scowled momentarily before deciding to ignore him. "I hope your time on Midgard wasn't too difficult."
"No father, I was aided by my new companions in battling Loki's army." Thor said with a small bow before he approached the dais and set down the Tesseract. "We were quite successful in battling back the Chitauri." While Thor was talking he was approached by Frigga, who silently laid a hand on his arm before moving to Loki. She gently cupped his face with a look of disappointment before she stepped back and stood behind her husband.
"Loki stand forth!" Odin bellowed when Thor finished. Loki moved forward still shackled, "You have caused great harm to a place under the protection of Asgard using a foreign power. You have stolen from the king's vault and did uncountable damages to the 9 realms by destroying the Bifröst! You shall be imprisoned for an unspecified amount of time and we shall see if you learn your lesson." Odin finished sentencing him and waved forth some guards. "Take him away." The whole hall quietly watched as Loki was lead away in chains before they looked back only to see Odin back in his throne. "There shall be a feast in response to Prince Thor's success in his quest!" The crowd cheered before they left, leaving Harry and the Asgardian royal family. "Now what do we owe the pleasure of your guest Thor?" Odin asked with a glare at Harry.
"My teammate was ensuring that my brother was unable to escape during my journey here." Thor said as he walked closer to the throne. Odin scowled and was about to say something when Harry interrupted.
"Don't get your beard in a knot, you old crow." Harry said as he approached the throne. "It is lovely to see you again, Lady Frigga."
"You as well Summoner. Thank you for looking after my sons, even if one has lost his way." Frigga said sadly as she looked towards where Loki was removed. Thor approached and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"It was no issue my Lady. Also call me Harry, as Thor does." Harry said . He then looked to Thor, "With Loki locked away it is time I left. Are you coming with me?" Harry asked him.
"My son will be here protecting Asgard, not off galavanting with mortals in Midgard." Odin spoke up in answer. Harry didn't even look at him, just rolled his eyes.
"Whatever., Thor, I'll be back in a few days to give you a present. See you later." Harry waved at Thor and Frigga and walked to the side where a portal opened and closed as he stepped through it.
"Father must you always be so confrontational with him?" Thor asked almost disappointedly. He noticed his Father seemed almost petulant when Harry was near and he couldn't understand how his Father could become so childish.
Frigga patted the hand Thor still had on her shoulder, "Don't worry about your Father, he is just stubborn in his old age." Odin started mumbling as he turned and left for the feasting hall. Frigga chuckled softly as Thor escorted her after him.
/OO-HP•SoS-OO\
Harry sighed as he walked into his kitchen removing his cowl, causing his hero suit to change back into the jeans and t-shirt he normally wore. He opened the fridge to grab himself a butter beer before he walked out to the garden before taking a seat. He pulled out the Cask of Winters and sat it on the table in front of him. He studied the ancient device casually as he sat there, his mind wandering. Finishing off his butterbeer Harry stood up and waved his hands over the cask as he mumbled several incantations.
Minutes passed as he studied the object, sparks of magic falling all around it as every type of diagnostic was used to see its secrets. When he was done Harry looked disappointed, "So you're only a container for the power of Ymir." Harry picked it up and fed some magic into it causing the cask to shoot out a beam of cold energy that froze the table and covered it in a layer of ice. Studying the ice he was once again frowned, "Not even a higher level of ice, just dimensional energies from one of the frozen sub-dimensions."
Harry dropped the cask back on the table, irritated that it wasn't more than it appeared. The Cask of Ancient Winters was only a vessel containing the powers of the primogenitor of the ice giants. It was said he was born from Niflheim and had the capability of freezing worlds. This cask had the ability to open a breach in the world tree and travel between the nine realms. It also contained Ymir's ability to pull on dimensional ice energy, meaning it was powerful and could freeze a world, but was nothing more than an ice ray in truth.
"Now what to do with a jumped up ice machine?" Harry said in thought as he summoned another butterbeer and sat back down. He looked over it again and a thought occurred to him, he could use the essence of Ymir to craft a weapon. "Oh this should be fun, but first I need to find a proper receptacle." Harry said as he picked it and his butterbeer up and walked down to his workshop, leaving a glistening frozen table in the middle of the garden.
/OO-HP•SoS-OO\
"Hey Tony! You gotta see this…" Harry said as he walked through a portal into Tony's lab only to trail off when he saw Pepper jumping off Tony's lap. "Oh ho ho did I interrupt?" Harry asked with a wide grin.
"Yes you indeed interrupted." Tony grumbled with a glare shot at his friend. Pepper was slightly blushing as she smoothed out her outfit.
"I can come back." Harry said as he opened another portal but Pepper waved him off.
"Don't worry about it. Now Tony will be distracted whether you leave or not and I have a meeting in 30 minutes." Pepper said as she walked off to the side to grab her tablet and bag. "You boys have fun." She gave Tony another kiss and walked out the lab doors.
Tony got up, still grumbling, and adjusted himself before moving over to his main workbench, "So what did you want to show me."
"Well I did some scans of the cask I took from Loki." Harry said as he dropped it and a bo staff on the table, "Turns out it wasn't more than the essence of the creator of frost giants. It gave access to a sub-dimension of frozen energies that was near limitless but not much else." Harry explained, still slightly disappointed. "I did get the idea to use it to craft a weapon though and came up with this." He finished as he picked up the bo staff.
"Wait! An unending source of frozen energies?" Tony asked. When Harry nodded Tony's mind started flipping through ideas quickly until he hit on something, "Couldn't we use it to create a true cold fusion reactor? I know my arc reactor works very similarly, but this would allow us to gather power on a massive scale! The power of the sun at our fingertips…" Tony trailed off, about to go off on a designing spree before Harry rolled his eye and slammed the bo staff onto the ground creating a wave of cold energy that left a light dusting of ice falling through the air.
"Geez that's cold!" Tony exclaimed as he started shivering. Harry waved his hand and applied a warming charm on Tony. Feeling better he took a better look at the bo staff in Harry's hand and saw the craftsman ship. It was solid metal, a dark blue almost black with trails of light blue outlining nordic depictions and hiding the inscriptions within the design. "That looks nice."
"Looks nice? This is awesome!" Harry said as he lifted it up, showing it off before he twirled it around himself.
"I didn't know you used a staff." Tony commented idly as he moved back to his work bench and started typing out his ideas for a cold fusion reactor.
"Oh I don't. I'm thinking about giving it to someone. Anyway the main reason I came by was to pick you up so I could show off the new training room. We will need to get those portal doors working soon." Harry said as he pocketed the staff and cask again.
"Oh yeah!" Tony started grinning as he pulled up a new design and tossed it to the large workbench that had the image grow to life size, "I finished up the design last night. I had an idea of using a new line of runes that let you choose the destination with a dial." Tony explained as he zoomed in showing off the inscriptions and a dial on the side of the door that looked like a few spinning rings. "See that inscription at the top that's fairly visible?" Tony asked. "Well that's the address. I used a set of Sanskrit and Kanji to create a list of addresses and the visible one is the exception, it won't connect to itself obviously."
Harry spent the next few minutes going over the different inscriptions and notes on the charms that might work in helping pair the doors. When Harry was done he looked over to Tony who was now designing a large reactor, "It looks good Tony. We could probably have one done today." Tony agreed.
The next several hours were spent crafting two portal doors. When they were done they both stood back and looked at the large rectangular door frames. Harry moved forward and powered them both up and used one to dial in the other. Nothing happened for a moment and they were worried something went wrong. "Why isn't it working?" Tony asked.
Harry scratched his chin as he looked over their work before he smacked his head and moved towards the second door and powered it up for the initial runes to start feeding themselves with ambient energy. When he was done the doors both let out a soft blue light that filled the empty frames and pinged opening a portal between them. This allowed Tony and Harry to see themselves through the door.
"Awesome." Harry said in slight awe as he and Tony just looked over their creation. "Now we can test its range." Harry said as he walked up and deactivated the door before shrinking it and giving Tony a wink, "I'll be right back." Tony barely saw towers of gold beyond the portal Harry opened before it was gone.
Harry walked down the hallway in the palace of Asgard as he searched for Thor. Not having any luck he asked a nearby guard who waved him towards the throne room. Moving back to the large hall Harry saw Odin holding court with Frigga seated next to him and Thor seated on his other side. Deciding not to interrupt he moved off to the side and waited. He watched as the current group were pleading some case about a fruit stand to their king and he was even less tempted to interrupt when he noticed how annoyed the All-Father was with his current task.
When they were finished they were led out of the throne room and Odin sat back wearily on his throne, "Quite the conundrum wasn't it?" Harry asked, causing Odin to snap back to attention when Harry walked out of the shadows in the corner. Thor stood and approached while Frigga just grabbed her husband's arm.
"Harry, it is good to see you. I wasn't expecting to see you until we repaired the Bifröst in a few weeks." Thor said, as he grabbed Harry's arm in greeting.
"I told you I had something to give you." Harry said with a grin. He pulled out the shrunken door and held it out.
"What is it?" Thor asked as he looked over the small rectangle in his teammate's hand. When he reached for it Harry took it back before tossing it allowing it to fall before he waved his hand causing it to enlarge and settle standing up. At that point Frigga and Odin both approached, able to feel the magic coursing through it.
"This, my friend, is a portal door. It will link to the ones I'll have set up at my resort and Tony's lab." Harry walked forward and powered it again causing the blue light to fill the area inside the frame. He turned the dial and was s happy when it connected immediately with the one back in Tony's lab. The three Asgardian royals were shocked when they could see a room with a sole midgardian on the other side. "Yo Tony!" Harry shouted, causing the man to turn and find Harry standing on the other side of the portal frame, as he called it.
"Where are you?" Tony asked, confused, until he walked closer and noticed Thor standing next to him with an old man wearing an eyepatch and a woman holding his arm. "Wait, are you on Asgard?!" Harry just smirked.
"Indeed we are Man of Iron." Thor said as he walked through the portal. Harry winced as he realized he hadn't actually walked through it yet. Seeing Thor do so removed his worry and followed through.
"I was going to drop the first one with Thor so he could come and visit or join us for training." Harry explained as he looked over the frame to make sure nothing would happen to it. "We should really install these somewhere permanent." Harry mused as he looked at the back of the portal only to see inky blackness. His musings were interrupted when he heard a yelp.
Walking around the frame he saw Odin shaking out his hand and glaring at the portal, "Well it's good to know the user restriction works. Thanks old man." Harry said as he patted Thor's shoulder and led him back through, "Tony pick a spot you want to put the portal." Tony nodded before waving them off and going back to his work.
Harry followed Thor to his personal quarters and installed the frame against the wall with a permanent sticking charm and showed him how to dial in the other doors. "We will have a full list later that I can give you but right now there is only one door." Harry explained as he powered it up and turned the dials to the neutral position. "It will automatically go back to this position after 5 minutes if it hasn't been disconnected on the other side." Harry then dialed in the other frame and walked through, "Feel free to visit Thor. In fact I'll be inviting you to check out the new training center in the near future." Thor waved at Harry as he hit the disconnect button below the dial causing the portal to go back to it's blue glow before he shrunk it down and put it in his pocket.
"So where do you want it Tony?" Harry asked as he approached the inventor still working at his desk.
Tony looked up in slight confusion before he remembered, "Let's put it in the lounge." Tony led Harry to the long and put it in an empty room just off from the kitchen. Harry once again stuck it to the wall and ground before powering it back up. They both left the door open and moved back to the lab. "How many more doors do you think we need?" Tony asked as he moved back to his workstation.
"Hmm, well I want two for personal use, one for the resort, one for the helicarrier, one for Fury's office, and finally one for the Malibu house?" Harry ended with a question. Tony nodded and spoke out loud. "Hear that Jarvis?"
"Of course sir. Fabrication will take an estimated 12 hours." Jarvis said with his typical British lilt.
"Thank you Jarvis." Harry said to the AI.
"You're welcome Harry." Jarvis replied.
"Well I'm going to go and spend some time with the kids. I'll come and help inscribe the destination runes tomorrow before we install them." Harry said as he started towards a new portal. Tony just grunted as he didn't look back up from his design again.
The next day Harry was back at it and a few hours later Harry and Tony were looking at 5 more portals. "Sweet." Harry said as he looked at the future of travel. "You know we could create a hub of permanent portals at an airport and charge to shorten travel times across the globe."
"Yeah if we could trust no one would steal them." Tony said as he looked over the new frames.
"Eh a few lethal intent based wards and people will stop trying after people just drop dead when they try and steal them or use them inappropriately. Considering that if anything goes wrong we're the only ones who can use them.." Harry said and trailed off as Tony chuckled.
"True, we would be the leaders of global travel." Tony said, "But what would be the point?" He asked as he finally looked away from the frames at his co-inventor.
"Political Capital." Harry said casually, "When governments start trying to control supers, and they will, this will give us a lot of leverage just based on the good will of the people." Tony grunted in acknowledgement. He much preferred his lab time to dealing with politicians and businessmen. "Well I'll be off. Portals to install and what not." Harry said as he shrunk them all down, "Mind creating the location list based on what we discussed?"
"Yeah no problem." Tony said easily.
"Just remember to exclude the X-Mansion door from that list." Harry said as he faded away.
Harry first went to his home and put it in the entrance hall along a bare part of the wall and moved on to the resort putting it in the lounge. Next was the Helicarrier behind a hidden door next to Fury's office. Next he moved towards Fury's office at the Triskelion and put it under several wards and gave Fury a quick rundown. Finally he moved to the Malibu house "Jarvis?" Harry asked out to the empty house.
"Yes Harry?" Jarvis asked.
"Do you know where Tony wants this frame placed?" Harry said as he moved towards the living room.
"Mister Stark said to install it in the corner of the garage." Jarvis said. Harry hummed in reply and moved downstairs. He saw a cleared out area next to the small kitchen and sitting area that he paced it. He then powered it up and dialed through all the different doors and was happy they all worked.
"Thanks Jarvis. Let Tony know they are all ready to be used." Jarvis confirmed what he heard before Harry faded away, landing behind Logan at the X-Mansion. He had to quickly duck when Wolverine spun around with his claws out. "Woah Logan! It's me." Harry said as he flipped backwards. Logan paused and huffed.
"You've gotten quieter with your popping." He grumbled as he sheathed his claws.
"Ah, well I don't really pop anymore." When Logan just gave him a questioning look Harry explained, "I found some notes on modification to that form of travel an ancestor of mine was working on. Unfortunately he died before they were finished but I managed to figure it out. It uses magical energies to almost seep from one spot to another. Whereas popping was a type of wormhole travel, this is more like my portal just without the…well big portal." Harry finished as they walked up to the front of the mansion.
"Well I didn't get most of that but try to make more noise next time." Logan grumbled. "So what brings you here this early?"
"Well first I need to talk to Charles, but I have something that will help my kids get to and from the mansion without me being nearby." Harry said as he walked towards Xavier's office. Logan grunted and waved him off as he went down to the danger room. Harry moved up to Xavier's office to find Jean and Charles both talking, "Hey sorry to interrupt but can I talk with you?" Harry said as he knocked on the frame.
Jean and Xavier were both brought out of their conversation when Harry knocked on the open door, "Welcome Harry. What can I do for you today?" Xavier asked.
"Well I finally finished one of my projects and wanted to install it here." Harry said as he walked in and sat in the chair next to Jean, "Also hello Jean." Harry greeted her with a smile.
"Hey Harry." Jean said as Xavier spoke up.
"You mean that permanent portal you were talking about?" Xavier asked. Harry just nodded. "Well let's find a spot for it then shall we?"
"I was thinking of just putting it in the room the twins share when they stay here." Harry spoke up as Jean started pushing Xavier out of his office.
"That should work just fine." Xavier said as they went down the hall out to the foyer and around the corner until they reached a room with some personal effects, pictures of the twins with Harry, Tony and Pepper, various inhabitants of the mansion, and a bunk bed. "I'm glad they didn't mind sharing the room when we had some new kids join us the other day."
Harry waved him off as he moved in and picked a blank section of wall next to the window, "They have their own rooms at my place. They only stay here when I can't get back home in time anyway. I'm just glad you put up with them." Harry finished with a chuckle as he levitated the now enlarged frame and installed it like he did the others. "Now I'll be adding most of the X-Men to the access list, but warn off others, especially the blue skinned prankster, that it won't allow others to touch it until I add them."
"I'll be sure to impress that on the more rowdy children." Xavier said with some humor. He and Jean watched as the door frame was filled with blue light before Harry used a dial on the side and watched as the frame pinged before displaying the foyer of Harry's home. "Incredible." Xavier said with a whisper.
"This is amazing Harry. You don't have to do it yourself?" Jean asked as she walked over and started examining the door.
"No. This runs off ambient energies and can be dialed by anyone who is listed on the wards." Harry explained. He then pushed a middle button and the blue light was back swirling gently within the frame. Harry then showed them how to access his home before gathering the twins and gave them the full explanation and the address list that Tony sent him earlier. With that done Harry went home to relax, as tomorrow they started team training.