April 30th 2015, Harry's Bastion
Over the last two months Harry and Tony had worked on improving and repairing the gear for the entire team. While the magical vibranium Harry developed was quite the material for armor, it wasn't as unyielding as the naturally occurring version making up Cap's shield. Damage taken in battle slowly broke down its natural toughness and ability to store and release energy making it much less durable than it should be. It was still miles ahead of any other widely available metals making it the standard regardless of its faults.
Tony felt like this was a good thing. Being forced to repair it allowed him to improve design and function without feeling wasteful. Harry didn't mind either way. His ability to travel through space quickly eclipsed anything seen on earth and allowed him to mine the asteroid belt like taking a trip to the store. Between Stark Phones and the team's gear his supply of silver was still higher than any other treasury on the planet.
Time slipped by and soon enough it was the end of April and Teddy was now 5 years old. Harry and Natasha had thrown together a small party for him and now they were standing there looking at a pile of children all sleeping on the couch as the TV played an animated movie of some sort. Food and empty plates were scattered across the tables, while presents were opened and toys were left scattered on the floor.
"Should we move them?" Harry asked as he leaned against the door frame with Natasha leaning against him. They had been standing there looking at the kids for the last 20 minutes.
"Let's get them laid out properly at least." Natasha said as Harry waved his hand and slowly floated the kids into proper sleeping positions on the couch. Once that was done Harry turned off the TV, left the door open a crack and walked upstairs to the bedroom with Natasha.
"Sometimes I feel like Teddy is missing out on something important, not having kids his own age to play with." Harry said as he readied himself for bed. He had been worrying about Teddy not having anyone like him for a while now.
"He'll be fine." Natasha said as she wrapped her arms around Harry from behind as she made eye contact through the mirror, "You're a good father. Once he's a little older you can even put him in school. There will be plenty of kids his age."
"You're probably right." Harry said as he leaned against Natasha. He closed his eyes and smiled at how happy and full his life now felt. They stood there for a moment just basking in the silence before Natasha's hands started to wander making Harry grin before he turned and picked her up and carried her to bed.
May 5th 2015, Avengers Tower
Harry stood before the full team in the basic training room. Each one of them was suited up in their new gear. Warmachine looked more sleek and had a near infinite supply of magical munitions in expanded spaces all over his armor. Falcon, Sam Wilson's new moniker, was fitted in a new magical version of his wing suit. The wing pack was now much smaller, the guns attached now shot plasma instead of bullets, and the flying capabilities were enhanced by Harry and Tony's enchanting work. Lastly Buck was sporting a new uniform close to his WW2 Holding Commandos uniform, just updated and loaded out with magic friendly weapons.
"Alright team, this is the first real mission for our new recruits." Harry said as he eyed the three newbies. "Our target," Harry threw his thumb over his shoulder as a hologram showing a file of a masked man in military fatigues, "is this man. Obasi Njoku, a Nigerian warlord who found himself benefiting from the mass release of Alien armaments last year. He calls himself 'Warlord of God' and has a fairly large following of cult-like followers. Over the past two months he has been taking down government buildings and armories to expand his army and territory. With SHADE now up and running we would typically leave this to the local teams, but our African based teams have their hands full in other areas dealing with an outbreak of mutated animals attacking all over the southern part of the continent."
"We figured that this would be a solid training mission for the new recruits." Steve said from the side. "The lineup for this mission is myself, Bucky, Warmachine, Falcon, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. Hulk and Thor are both too high profile for an urban battle. Iron Man and Summoner are backup." Steve said as he stepped to the side again.
"With that said, the folders on the table have all the information you'll need. Wheels up in 20." Harry said as he turned and left the training room. Tony followed him out and they both made their way to the kitchen.
"How do you think they'll do?" Tony asked as he picked up a bottle of water.
"Fine. Bucky and Rhodey are both veterans of many battles and Sam has adapted to the training well." Harry said as he leaned on the counter. "I'm just hoping they can keep the destruction to a minimum. That's the main reason I didn't put Thor or Hulk on the lineup." Harry said.
"Yeah no kidding." Tony said with a scoff. "They are both great fighters, but their collateral is a bit high for a population dense area like Nigeria." Tony paused as he sipped his water. "What was that thing about mutated animals?"
"Some super scientist is trying to perfect evolution in a bottle." Harry said with a grunt as he narrowed his eyes. "There is a literal army of mutated animals pouring out of some underground facility in South Africa." Tony raised an eyebrow at that.
"Should we be worried about that?" Tony asked.
"Nah." Harry said with a wave of his hand. "Maria is keeping me in the loop and SHADE needs to show its fangs if it wants to build up any kind of goodwill or reputation. The Asian and European branches are both ready for quick deployment if the African division can't keep up."
"Oh so this mission is just for training?" Tony asked as he tossed the empty bottle across the room into a trash can.
"Yeah. I had to find something above the pay grade of your average police or military force but low enough that we could nip it in the bud anytime." Harry said as he looked to the side and the rest of the team piled out of the elevator. "Looks like it's go time."
The whole team boarded the team's quinjet on the balcony, quickly making their way to the mission site. Natasha and Clint were sitting quietly to the side double checking their gear. Cap was quietly talking with Bucky and Sam, while Tony and Rhodey sat at the helm piloting the jet.
In a little over an hour the team was coming in on Nigerian Airspace. Tony contacted Maria who got them clearance before they touched down a mile outside Okene.
"Alright team, form up." Steve said as the active Avengers all readied themselves. Steve gave a small speech and highlighted things to lookout for and their main objective, an underground bunker on the peripherals of the city. Once everyone was ready they headed out. Tony and Harry hung back and flew above them keeping an eye on the general area.
Steve led the charge as he bulldozed through a gate before taking out two guards in the gatehouse. Bucky followed him up with nonlethal rounds towards the watchtower guards. Falcon flew through the air and disabled the security systems surrounding the base while Warmachine destroyed all the above ground vehicles.
Harry and Tony kept to the skies even as the team made their way inside the bunker. Captain's callouts and the teams check ins allowed them to stay apprised of the happenings underground. Falcon was getting much more use out of his new suit even indoors, his wings were able to fold and move much more smoothly, allowing him to use them as a shield for gunfire.
Bucky was excelling in the close quarters combat of the bunker and Warmachine was unstoppable in the warehouses. A short 40 minutes later and the team was standing next to a mountain of captured combatants. Military vehicles showed up to take in the detained criminals while Harry collected all the alien weaponry on premises.
With most of the militants out of commission and Obasi in custody, the mission was a success. Harry left all the details and paperwork to the main force as Tony and him both retreated to their lab through a portal. After cleaning up and changing Harry decided to work on his expansion project for the Resort.
As of right now the resort only saw use very infrequently and he felt like it could be better utilized if he expanded the functions of the training rooms and obstacle course. So he pulled up the current designs and started updating everything to include some of the new tech and enchantments he and Tony had developed. He was even considering a permanent portal for the X-Mansion so that the kids could use it for camping year round. He had only been working for about an hour when Tony came over to his station.
"I got something I think we should work on." Tony said as he pulled up a list of files on known super villains. "This is a basic framework for a villain database for SHIELD and SHADE." Harry moved his project to the side as he pulled the list up to his terminal and expanded it. Flipping through it he could see several small and major villains listed with relevant stats and profiles.
"This is impressive." Harry said as he browsed through it. "Jarvis working on it?"
"That is correct sir." Jarvis' voice intoned from the speakers. Harry smirked at the glib answer as he continued to look through it.
"So what's the goal?" Harry asked.
"I want a working index for our personnel to have access to. If they run into a previously active villain they'll have a list of known abilities, associates, and weaknesses. This could potentially keep a greener team from taking on a difficult or deadly combatant." Tony said as he started pointing out the different filters and search criteria.
"It seems like you got it working all on your own." Harry said, giving Tony a questioning look.
"I need your help creating classifications and danger levels. You have more experience than most of us, besides maybe Thor, with varying levels of enemies. You'll have a better grasp of danger levels than we do." Tony said as he pointed out empty sections on each villain profile. "Plus I figure we could have a few drinks and bullshit with the team while ranking them."
"That sounds like a good time." Harry said with a smile on his face. He put aside the idea of working on anything and called up the rest of the team. An hour later and the whole group was sitting in the penthouse looking at the holo projector in the middle of the room.
"What's going on guys?" Clint asked as he looked at Tony and Harry standing next to the display.
"Today we're going to help Tony expand the parameters of The Index. A continually updating list of villains and their powers. Our main objective is to give each villain a danger rating based on their level of strength, danger, ability for destruction, and their likelihood to disregard human life." Harry said as he pulled up the same file from earlier.
What followed was a loud and obnoxious free for all from everybody. Even Natasha and Bucky, the more reticent members of the team, were outspoken about the different ratings for each villain.
"Absorbing Man is much higher in danger than Ironclad!" Clint said as he looked at Sam with a withering glare. "The man can literally turn into energy! That's beyond Ironclad's super strength and metallic skin."
"Alright that's enough." Harry said with a smile on his face. "Absorbing man will get a Orange 7 rating and Ironclad will be downgraded to Yellow 6." Harry said as he eyed both of the arguing men. Tony and Harry decided on an easy classification system before meeting the team. The color represented the danger to civilians and public property ranging from green, which meant little to no collateral damage, to black, which meant massive loss of life and property damage. The numbers were much easier to designate. Each number, increasing from 1, represented a level of power or difficulty in handling. A common thief is rated at a 1 whereas Hulk was rated at a 10. Anything above that and the scale was a bit meaningless anyway.
"I think we can wrap it up here." Tony said as he looked at his phone. "It's nearly 2 AM and some of us have work tomorrow." Tony said with a grin as he looked at the Captain who had to report in for debriefing after the mission today.
"That's fine." Harry said as he stood up and stretched. "We covered all the big baddies anyways, now it's just the mid to low level threats that need to be categorized." Harry and the rest all bid each other goodnight. They all went off to their own rooms while Harry made a portal for himself and Natasha right to their bedroom.
After their nightly routines Harry was laying in bed, Natasha already asleep as he stared at the wooden ceiling of his room. Thinking over the future and how well everything was going Harry couldn't help but start to think about his friends and how he could save them. Raising his hand in the air a soft red glow flowed around his fingers as he thought over everything he learned from Death during their last encounter. Clenching his fist the red glow briefly brightened before fading away as he turned to his side. Soon he would head home to save everyone, but first he had to stop the destruction of his new home.
AN:Hey sorry about the blackout. Dog ended up ripping his sutures out last Wednesday, and Friday, and Saturday. Eventually he had to have a diaper and Cone on at all times. But now everything is over, he's all healed up and I'm back to my regularly scheduled programing.
Hope you all enjoy the chapter and my American readers had a Happy Thanksgiving!
Reviews:
Monkey D. Conan - Yeah I see what you mean. Don't worry it'll happen I'm just not sure how at the moment.
Jako Gutman - Well the main reason I had Harry approach SHIELD was due to the frank discussion he's had with The Ancient One about the future and his affect on it. Just him being there threw a huge wrench in the viewable future for the Sorcerer Supreme. so much so that she deciede to just be frank with him aind get his opnion on what he should od. I hop you continue reading as I feel like my writing improves throughout. Either way I hope you enjoy.
MoleofWar - Yeah there are some things in canon that just need to happen and at the time I just wasn't sure how to do so without completely destroying the timeline. Without Loki going off to Thanos the invasion of New York might never happen, or happen much later. As for the broom thing, I'm pretty sure I detailed that his power form the cloak is more of a really slow flaoting technique rather than flying like you see with Dr. Strange. I hope you're enjoying it anyways.