GotSIS Ch.33: New and Ancient

12th December 2008

Tony Stark’s Mansion, Malibu

Harry lounged in Tony’s chair, leisurely flipping through a car magazine, keeping an eye on the long, thick metal tubes that they had assembled and were now stretching across the length of the mansion while Harry levitated the last of them in place, and Tony fixed it properly.

“How are we looking, J?” Tony asked, watching Dum-E screw a tube into place. 

“The proposed prismatic accelerator is ninety-two percent complete, sir,” Jarvis’ voice announced from the speakers in the room. “Only the placement of the unique prism-series you’ve designed, and final balance checks remain alongside other safety inspections. The outer structure is stable, and a preliminary analysis detects no faults.”

Harry hid a small smile behind the magazine as Tony nodded. “Good. And we did it in an hour. That’s got to be a record for building a particle accelerator, right?”

“Yes, sir. Forty-seven minutes, to be precise. Thanks to Mr. Potter’s magic, the work happened over eleven times faster than anticipated, had you been alone.” Jarvis said. “I’ll begin rerunning the final calculations now, sir, while you create the reactor for the new element.”

“New reactor?” Harry looked up from the magazine and raised an eyebrow. 

“If I need maximum efficiency, I’ve to create one.” Tony ducked under the metal tube and put his wrench away on the table, wiping his hands clean. “The current reactor unit is made for regular radioactive elements. This is something completely different. For one, it’ll give a significantly higher energy output. For two, it isn’t your regular radioactive element. So, I need to make some changes. And while I’m at it, add some other stuff.”

“I see,” Harry muttered. “What kind of output are we looking at with the reactor and the new element, if you’re successful? Is it going to be anywhere in the league that Fury anticipated? Or we did before we started?”

“Higher, probably. You know, my first reactor, the one I built in a cave, powered my suit for about fifteen minutes. It was rudimentary, and the suit was heavy. My current one could do that for about five to twelve hours straight, depending on how I use it, before I have to let it recharge. Well, as long as I don’t engage the Uni-beam or repulsors a lot anyway.”

Harry frowned. “I thought it was a reactor, not a battery.”

“It is both, which is why it works the way it does. It keeps making its own power, yes, but if consumption exceeds production, which it usually does with the suit, it drains it in the short term, and it needs some time to recharge, unless the core gets exhausted.” Tony scoffed. “Which it does pretty fast with palladium nowadays.” 

“And this new element will get exhausted too? Because if it does, you’ll have to manufacture it with a fair regularity.”

“It’ll get exhausted but not as soon as Palladium, if the calculations are correct.” Tony moved to gather several things from a nearby crate. “I could probably power a suit for days with this— and use my repulsors offensively without having to worry about draining the power. Probably the unibeam too. I could even do some things that I only thought of, but the energy requirements were off the chart.”

“Interesting,” Harry said, glancing at his watch. “You might want to rest for a bit, though, so we can get to the main stuff later. Freshen up and stuff. We’ve been at this all afternoon and evening. Well, you more than me. I just did the physical work, that too, through magic.” 

Tony waved him off. “Please, you saved me a whole day of work at least. Had it been me alone, I wouldn’t have completed half of it until tomorrow morning. By which time, I don’t know where the Palladium poisoning would’ve gone.”

“Astonishingly, sir, the poisoning seems to have decreased,” Jarvis spoke, and Tony turned sharply. “It is less than half of what it was this morning.”

“What the hell was in SHIELD’s injection?” Tony muttered. “J, look up the effects of Lithium dioxide on Palladium poisoning.”

“It wasn’t the injection, it was me,” Harry confessed. Tony’s head snapped back to him, his eyes narrowing. “It was a bit of healing magic. I subtly put it on you, in case this took time.” Harry waved his hand unsurely at the massive tunnel/tube structure stretching across the lab. “I’m no medical expert, but poisoning and radiation seemed bad enough in my head. So, I interpreted SHIELD’s orders creatively, so to speak.”

Tony blinked slowly, as if processing it. “What were SHIELD’s orders?”

“They needed you to find your own solution to the poisoning problem and didn’t want me to heal you like I wanted to. You see, I’m on their payroll for exactly three things— My expertise on magical stuff, the Avengers Initiative, and healing.” Harry pursed his lips as Tony’s eyes narrowed. “If I healed you outright, they feared that you wouldn’t ever find a real solution and instead rely on me to heal you to function.”

“But you healed me anyway, by putting some spell on me.” Tony sat in his chair and pulled his tools closer. “I mean, I get it. At the end of the day, you’re on their payroll. And SHIELD operates in certain, fucked up ways.”

Harry let out a sigh. “I don’t usually listen to Fury unless I think whatever he’s saying is, well, good. I interact more with Coulson, who, as I’ve said, acts as a buffer to Fury’s… ways. He usually plays straighter with me. You, on the other hand, interact directly with Fury, who is a lot less forthcoming and secretive and, well, manipulative.”

Tony scoffed, working on the reactor, his jaw tightening. “Why do you work for them then? You told me that the Sorcerers are different. You work on different stuff. Why join hands? I mean, I get the Avengers initiative, and I’m on it too. But I don’t actively work for them.”

“Till today, neither did I,” Harry said. “Before this, I’ve been on a grand total of one SHIELD mission, and it was because there was an enhanced in the field— someone with superpowers, namely, mind control.”

Tony whirled around in his chair. “You’re shitting me.”

“It was a little girl who had lost control of her mind due to her powers. She had taken a SHIELD team hostage with a Bahrain gang, all of whom were working for her, alongside her mom, who is an enhanced herself.” Harry wetted his lips. “Coulson called me, half in panic, when his SHIELD team disappeared. He only knew about the mom, you see? And far as they knew, all she had was super strength and durability.”

“What happened then?”

“A SHIELD agent, one who had stayed outside with Coulson, infiltrated the compound with me to check on the situation. That was when I realized that there was mind control involved. The SHIELD team was ready to kill us, but I knocked them all out with a spell before tracing it to the little girl, who had been driven mad with her powers. She felt all the pain… Tony, it was awful.”

Tony grimaced. “What’d you do then?”

“I cut her off from her body, pushing her soul out.” Harry raised a hand as Tony looked horrified. “Not in the way you think. I separated her astral form and communicated with her, getting to know the situation better. It is a form of advanced magic. Doesn’t even hurt. It feels weird, but doesn’t hurt at all. Once I knew what was exactly going on, I healed her.”

“Just like that?”

“All she could feel were the bad feelings in a person. The pain and the hurt. And she absorbed it from them like a sponge, which drove her into insanity. So, I overloaded her with happiness and positive emotions, pulling her back into equilibrium, while putting the Astral equivalent of a giant band aid on her soul.”

Tony leaned back heavily in his chair. “Damn. That’s… that’s good. But mind control is a few notches up into the craziness of magic. That’s overlooking the soul part.”

“The girl’s powers weren’t magic,” Harry said. “It was a genetically altered DNA that gave her those powers. There are others like her, each with varying powersets, whom we call Inhumans.” Harry suddenly felt a small chime ring in his ears as the back of his neck itched. “I think Coulson’s outside, in the real world.”

With a snap of his fingers, the space in front of him cracked like a mirror, and a moment later, Coulson slowly stepped through, his eyebrows shooting up as he looked around.

“I see you two have been busy. Is that a particle accelerator?”

“Prismatic Accelerator, technically,” Tony corrected, turning back around to the table. “What do you want? We’re busy creating stuff that’d change the world. And discussing stuff that is rocking my world. I just got to know that there are people with actual superpowers, like mind control, on the planet.”

“You shouldn’t have been told that,” Coulson said mildly, giving Harry a disapproving look. “The mission was beyond classified. The security is in place for a reason.”

Harry shrugged. “Who’s Tony going to tell?”

“He tends to be supremely counter-helpful to authority just on principle,” Coulson stated in a dry voice, glancing at Tony, who smirked. “Don’t think we don’t know about your attempts to prod into SHIELD, Mr. Stark. We know you’re already into our secondary framework, which gets shared with law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”

Tony snorted. “If you want to keep me out, get a better cyber department. And based on the stuff that came to light today, I think I’ll take an even closer look, so good luck.”

Coulson glanced at Harry. “See what I mean by counter-helpful?”

Harry snorted but said nothing.

“Is there something else?” Tony asked. “If not, I’d really like a coffee run about now, unless you can make me one? Or allow me to break your precious perimeter. Whatever suits you.”

“If you just wanted coffee, you could’ve asked me,” Harry said, flicking his fingers.

Tony nearly jumped as the coffee mug appeared in his hand, the coffee within swaying. Tony sniffed it, as if not believing his eyes, before looking incredulously at Harry. 

“You… of course. Magic can turn the world on its head, so it can at least produce coffee out of thin air.” He took a sip. “Holy Jesus, this is great coffee. Can you do this for everything? What about water to wine? Heck, what about water? You could end the freshwater problem forever.”

Harry coughed. “Thank you. I can conjure most liquids, yes, and turn water to wine— it is a basic trick, really.” Tony goggled. “But the thing with it is that it won’t get you drunk cause it is just… water pretending to be wine. Think of it more as wine-flavored water.” 

Harry conjured a wine glass and poured water into it. With a swirl of his finger, the water reddened, turning to wine as Tony’s eyes widened. 

“If I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it,” Tony muttered, picking the glass and swirling the wine in it, before taking a sip. “Pinot Noir. Aged well. About… twenty-five years, I’d say.”

Harry quirked an eyebrow. “That, I didn’t know. I’ve never had wine.”

“Yeah, I’m not a big wine drinker either,” Tony took another sip. “Pepper, though, knows her wines, and I’ve picked a thing or two from her.”

“That’s wonderful,” Coulson said, before his tablet beeped and he turned to Harry, his forehead creasing as he scrolled through something. “You got a moment? I need to consult with you on something.”

“Sure.” Harry shrugged. “I think most of my work is done anyway until the actual thing starts. And it isn’t like Tony really needs my help anyway.”

“I would agree and disagree,” Tony said, and Harry cracked a smile.

Coulson gestured to the doorway of the mirror dimension. “Let’s step outside then. I don’t know if you’d get Wi-Fi here.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Tony spun in his chair. “You’re not leaving me in this. This isn’t the real world, and I’m not going to stay alone here without you. And we get Wi-Fi here. I’m operating normally, apart from him insisting that whatever I want to carry back out with me has to come from the real world.”

“How about we just go upstairs?” Harry suggested, rolling his eyes at Tony. “If you need anything, yell. Or tell Jarvis.”

With a sharp snap, the floor around them separated in a neat rectangle, rising through the lab as the ceiling parted, allowing them to rise and emerge into the main mansion. 

“I’ve seen you do it, yet it still freaks me out a bit when you turn the world around,” Coulson looked down as the floor turned back to normal and subtly toed it. 

“What did you want to consult me on?”

Coulson turned the tablet toward Harry, showing him satellite images of a storm on the tablet screen. 

“Our weather satellites picked up a freak storm in New Mexico. It appeared out of nowhere, unconventional winds picking up with a thunderstorm, before it vanished a few moments ago. Lasted about an hour. SHIELD intel suggested that it is likely an experiment by one of the companies there who are researching the stuff.” Coulson pursed his lips. “There has been no confirmation yet, so I brought it to you. How likely do you think it is magic, not science?”

“I mean, it could be,” Harry frowned. “I cannot say for sure. There are very few creatures that could cause a storm, to be honest. A sorcerer could’ve done this, I suppose, since this seems pretty localized, but I doubt it.”

“Why do you doubt it?” 

“Causing a storm isn’t really helpful unless you’re dealing with some rather specific stuff. Sure, it could’ve been a fallout to the fight, but if it was, the storm would’ve been the least of your worries.” Harry pinched his lower lip, before zooming in on the image. “And there aren’t any gods or deities situated right above there either, as far as I can remember.”

“So magic’s unlikely?” Coulson asked. 

“I… would say that,” Harry said slowly. “Unlikely, but not improbable, though. I could check, if you want me to. But now that the storm’s ceased, I doubt I could really pinpoint what happened. Well, I could, but it’d take me some time and several spells, some of which are a pain in the ass to gather information from.”

Coulson waved him off, shutting the tablet. “No, it’s alright. I just wanted to hear your thoughts about it. A SHIELD drone would go over the whole area in the morning, and if we find something, we’d let you know.”

“Cool,” Harry paused, mulling over the words on his tongue. “Hey, um, this might seem weird to ask, but what can you tell me about Natasha Romanoff?”

“She’s one of SHIELD’s best agents, if not the best. Why do you ask?”

Harry hesitated. “Um, she might’ve asked me out on a date, I think?”

Coulson’s eyebrows rose. “That’s… something.”

“It is just that she knew a lot of stuff about me from my SHIELD file, and I knew nothing about her,” Harry said. “And she gave me this weird feeling, like danger. Not in a ‘danger to me’ way, but in a more generic way, if you know what I mean?”

“You’ve good instincts,” Coulson gestured to the couch, sitting down with a purposefully blank expression. “Most people never pick this up about her. I wouldn’t have either, had I not been briefed about her before I met her. But yes, she is dangerous in a way most aren’t. In fact, I might go as far as to say that nine times out of ten, she would be the most dangerous person in any room.”

“What’re you saying? Harry asked. “This is my first date in a while, and I really don’t want twisted trouble. Or, well, what I think is going to be a date. And something about her didn’t sit right with me. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is.”

“She’s a good person, if that’s what you’re asking,” Coulson said, his lips thinning. “Or at least, trying to be a good person and rising above her past… and what she was raised to be.” Coulson sighed. “Harry, her full story is bad. The kind of bad that’d break any person if they went through it. The kind that’d give you nightmares by just hearing about. I didn’t sleep for a night after I read her file. A file which only had bare-bones information about her past.”

Harry felt a bubble of trepidation weigh in his gut. “What do you mean?”

“Her story isn’t mine to tell… Not fully anyway,” Coulson said slowly, closing his eyes. “But I owe you that much as a friend to give you a fair idea of what you’re getting into because she isn’t your normal person.”

“Anything you feel comfortable telling me. No worries.”

Coulson nodded, taking a deep breath. “Natasha… had a very different childhood. She wasn’t raised by a parent but by a Russian agency known as the Red Room. And they raised her to be a weapon. The perfect spy-assassin that one could hope for. And how they did it was worse than terrible. To do what they did to a child was abhorrent. Harry… her first kill was when she was six. And I’m talking about cold-blooded murder.”

Harry winced, feeling his heart drop into his stomach. “They made her do stuff like that?”

“Way worse than that. She was raised to have no conscience, no morals, nothing. She was taught that emotions were either a tool or a liability. She was quite literally forged to be a cold, deadly, calculating machine who would do whatever she was ordered to, in whichever way possible. And I don’t use those words lightly.” Coulson let out a long breath. “They raised her in a way that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies. She was trained and tested in ways no human should. Heck, even the strongest, toughest people I know would crumble at the things she went through as a mere child, let alone when she grew older.”

“Bloody hell. That’s awful.” Harry swallowed the disgust and the spark of anger that rose in him.

“It is. Which is also why I say that she’s perhaps the bravest person I’ve met. After the control the Red Room had on her, and knowing what they could do, she still defected to do the right thing, taking most of their operation down as she left. And it wasn’t an impulsive thing.” He added. “It was cold and brilliantly calculated in a way that’d have most spy agencies froth with envy. And the first words she said to one of my agents who was sent to take her were that she knew it was monumentally suicidal to defect, but she could no longer live the life she was living.”

“Takes guts to do that,” Harry said softly, and Coulson nodded. “She’s had it rough, hasn’t she?”

“That’s not even the worst part,” Coulson said, looking vacantly at the waterfall-fountain in the room. “The part which breaks my heart is that she knows what has happened to her is awful, but she doesn’t feel it. She is practically disconnected from all emotions because of the way she was raised. I’ve never seen her display an emotion unless she wanted to. I have barely seen her crack a genuine smile.”

Harry grimaced. “To live like that, I can’t even imagine.”

“She’s trying to rise above it. She really is, and… I’d genuinely say you should give her a chance if a date is what she really wants. She is trying really hard not to be what she was made to be, but it is difficult to shake all that you know.”

“I wasn’t raised in the most loving home, but I would rather take that any day than being turned into a killer from birth,” Harry said.

Coulson nodded distractedly. “Just remember that she doesn’t have the best of a moral compass. She was raised not to have one, and she has been developing it every day since she joined SHIELD. But… she doesn’t see things in the way you and I do.”

“I understand.”

Coulson gave him a small smile. “Good. And… good luck.”

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12th December 2008

Puente Antiguo, New Mexico

The howl of the wind tore at the windows of the van, rattling as the storm swirled. Jane barely held the camera steady, the infrared readings spiking as the equipment in the van beeped.

“What are you doing!?” Jane screamed as Darcy tried to turn the van away from the storm. 

“I’m not dying for SIX COLLEGE CREDITS!” Darcy screamed back, trying to keep the van under control as they entered into the swirling dark winds, the aurora around them flaring. 

Jane lunged and turned the wheel back, driving them back in, and Darcy cursed in protest, but she paid her a little heed. 

“Come on, this is going to be great for research! Erik, are you seeing this?”

Her eyes widened as she looked back, and a figure appeared in the darkness in front of them. Darcy screamed, trying to swerve out of the way. The next sound that echoed through Jane’s ears was the thump of the man slamming into the side of the van, which threw him to the ground a few feet away as the van spun in the wind.

“FUCK! Shit!” Darcy cursed, slamming the brakes as hard as she could, giving Jane a horrified look as the van stopped. “CHECK ON HIM!”

Jane scrambled out of the door as the storm around them vanished, leaving only the gale of wind as she stumbled toward the man.

“I think that was legally your fault,” Darcy’s panicked voice rang from behind as she knelt next to the man.

“Get the first aid kit,” she barked back, frantically searching for his pulse, muttering, “Please don’t be dead,” under her breath.

She found the throbbing pulse and breathed a sigh of relief, just before the flashlight shone across the man’s handsome face, and her breath hitched. 

“Is he alive?” Erik asked, and she nodded, gulping down the panic that had risen.

“He’s alive,” she breathed as Darcy scrambled next to her, holding the first aid kit from the van. “Where did he come from?”

“Who cares right now? We need to get him to a hospital,” Darcy said.

Suddenly, the man’s eyes opened and he gasped, looking around and meeting her eyes with his startling, almost electric blue ones.

The man scrambled to his feet, and Jane breathed a sigh of relief.

“Jane,” Erik called. “Look at the ground. Look at the markings. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Jane looked down at the ground, noting the burnt patterns in the sand under her knees. “Wow. We need to move quickly and document—”

“HAMMER!” The man bellowed. “Hammer!”

“Yeah, we can tell you’re hammered. It’s pretty obvious.”

“Jane, we’ve to take him to the hospital,” Erik said. 

“Oh, he’s fine, look at him,” Jane said dismissively, studying the marking on the ground.

“Father? Heimdall? I know you can hear me! Open the Bifrost!” He yelled at the sky before whirling around to them. “You? What realm is this? Alfheim? Nornheim?”

“New Mexico?" Darcy pulled out her taser, and the man’s eyes narrowed.

“You dare threaten me, Thor, with so puny—” the man stopped short as Darcy pulled the trigger, convulsing as Electricity ran up his body, before he dropped like a stone.

“Darcy!”

“What? He was freaking me out.” 

“Hospital now?” Erik

“Yes,” Jane breathed as Erik shuffled toward the man. “You’re right. We should get him to the hospital. He seems knocked out, but I’m not a medical professional.”

“Sometimes I doubt what’s the point of being a doctor twice over if you can’t do that,” Darcy muttered.

“Shut up, Darcy.”

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13th December 2008

Tony Stark’s Mansion, Malibu

“Ready?” Tony’s voice cut through the lab, and Harry put on the pair of protective glasses Tony had given him, standing behind the particle accelerator coil. “Let’s get this party started.”

The faint hum of power rang through the lab as Tony turned the key, and blue power ran through the coil.

“Initiating prismatic accelerator,” Jarvis declared, and Harry tensed, drawing a deep breath, gathering energy on the tip of his fingers.

Suddenly, Tony panicked a bit, rushing to the spot where the ray would emerge, trying to turn the wheel, which remained unmoving. Harry realized the problem and stepped up beside him, murmuring under his breath, “By the Might of Mokar.”

Raw strength flooded his arms, and faint purple bands wrapped around his wrists as he turned the wheel, just moments before the beam of energy shot out, a bit of it cleaving through the wall before he managed to focus the ray on the small triangular metal, which they were using.

“Great, great,” Tony breathed, his eyes fixed on the small triangle, his eyes wide beneath the protective glasses as the metal began to glow.

Harry squinted as the glow grew before glancing down and scooching back as Tony lunged around him, pulling a lever. In the next moment, the equipment powered down, and the hum died, while the small triangle continued to glow.

“Is that it?” Harry breathed.

“Yeah, that was easy.” Tony picked a pair of forceps and went closer, plucking the triangular-shaped metal from the stand, examining its glow.

“Congratulations, sir. A new element has been created.” Jarvis announced, and Harry let out the breath he had been holding.

Tony carefully placed the metal in the reactor, which powered on, a faint beeping filling the lab as Harry shuffled closer.

“The reactor has accepted the new core,” Jarvis said, and Tony grinned. “I’ll begin running diagnostics.”

“Eureka,” Tony said, a laugh bubbling in his throat as he turned to Harry. “We did it. We created a new fucking element.”

“You did it. Well, you and your dad.” Harry said. “I contributed nothing of significance.”

“Yeah, but you should still take twelve percent of the credit. You don’t have to take fifty, but I must insist on at least twelve.” Tony grinned, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “We officially make an awesome team. And that was you without even using magic directly.”

Harry smiled, nodding at him. Dum-E looked up and clicked its arms, rotating slightly. “I suppose. But now, before you try that on, I’d like to put you through a bit of healing. Remove the poisoning completely before you take the new reactor.”

“Well, magic healing, why not?” Tony muttered. “Do I need to lie down or—”

“No, it is magic,” Harry snorted, pulling on the soul stone, remembering Hermione and Ron’s beaming faces. 

Warmth bled from the amulet into his bones, which he poured into Tony, the orange glow spreading around his body. Harry swirled his fingers around the arc reactor Tony was wearing, preventing the magic from bleeding into it, as it healed all else. He felt the energy burn through the poison and run over Tony’s liver and arm, his eyebrows rising.

“What is it?”

“The poisoning wasn’t the only problem. There was something in the liver and your arm.” Harry pointed at the spot that had just healed. “There.”

Tony rubbed the spot. “That’s where a bullet hit me in Afghanistan while I was fighting my way out. Thanks.”

“I think my work here is done.” Harry glanced at his watch. “It is getting late. It’s past midnight now. I’ll tell Coulson we were successful, and he can get out of your hair. So will I.”

“Are you kidding me? Well, Coulson and SHIELD can go fuck themselves, but you’re more than welcome to stay around.” Tony said. “I mean, magic? That’s the most interesting thing I’ve seen in years, and I just invented a new freaking element— which, I think you should name for all the help. I mean, I thought of the name Badassium, but somehow I doubt legal would let me get away with it.” 

Harry frowned. “Why?”

“Wasn’t an element, but I’ve tried to name a missile something similar— Ass Kicker, to be precise,” Tony snorted. “Legal came all the way down to my office and yelled at me to scrap the name. Renamed it as Spear Mark One. Boring.”

Harry nodded slowly. “Well, it may have offended some people. But hey, you should get Pepper to name it. Or name it after her. She’s mad at you, and you two seem close. So… it may be a good apology?”

“Now that’s an idea.” He blinked, scratching the back of his head. “Do you think she’ll like it as an apology?”

“It wouldn't hurt, would it? And letting someone name an element is a big honor. Of course, it has to come with an actual apology and you not screwing things up like you did a few hours back.” 

“In my defense, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Tony muttered. “She just doesn’t know the full story, which is why she’s pissed. I told her we could go to Venice and stuff…” He trailed off, glancing at Harry’s deadpan look. “What?”

“Look, mate.” Harry sighed. “It is your life, but… she’s someone close to you and she’s pissed at you. You care about her, and she cares about you, I feel. So, don’t lose her, you know? I know something about losing people I care about and… it sucks. You may not feel it today or tomorrow, but you’ll definitely feel it in the long run.”

He gave Harry a jerky nod, turning to a cabinet and picking up a bottle of scotch. “Whom did you lose?”

“My best friends,” Harry replied. “It was a bit different from your situation, but it involved… death experiences too. And I did something similar to my own girlfriend… I chose her safety over our relationship and somehow, a part of me still regrets it.”

Tony silently poured out a glass and handed it to Harry, before pouring one for himself. “Well, I’ll take it under advise. And just between you and me, it hasn’t been fun driving everyone away, just so it hurts them less. And it is about time I really got my life back on track.”

Harry smiled, raising his glass to him, which Tony clicked with his own, and they both drank in silence.

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13th December 2008

Harry’s Home, New York

The phone’s ring cut through the silence of his bedroom, and Harry jerked awake, groaning as the sunlight seared his eyes.

“Who the hell?” he fumbled for his phone, squinting at the name before picking it up as he read Coulson’s name, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Hello?”

“Hello, Harry. I’m sorry for probably waking you up. I know it is early, and you had a late night last night, but this is beyond important.” 

“No, no, it’s okay. It is after ten anyway, and I slept in enough.” A small bit of panic clutched him as a thought crossed his mind. “Is Tony okay? Did the arc reactor not turn out properly?”

“No, no. He’s fine.” Coulson replied, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. “The reactor’s working perfectly and he already tried it earlier today. He’s making a new suit to go with it now, but that’s not what I’m calling about. You remember the storm we discussed last night at Stark’s?”

“I do. What about it?”

“You know how you told me that it wasn’t likely to be magic? Well, I think it is. I cannot confirm it for sure, but this seems to be right up your alley.”

“Seriously?” Harry tossed the bedsheet away and got to his feet, summoning a pair of slippers. “What is it exactly?”

“From the images? A hammer of sorts, which is not moving,” Coulson replied. “Sharon will give you photos and the exact location. She should be at your door in twenty or twenty-five minutes tops, so you should get ready. Our SHIELD team is setting up right now, and I am on my way myself.”

Harry nodded, scrambling toward the bathroom. “Okay, you got it. But if it isn’t what it seems to be, you owe me breakfast. And I’m talking about a full English breakfast, not the burgers and stuff.”

“You got it. I’m sorry for all the trouble, but I can’t help it,” Coulson said. “And one more thing. Do not talk about this to anyone right now. Get here, and we’ll discuss more details after you take a look at it. Right now, SHIELD is putting the area in lockdown, and teams are rolling in as we speak.”

“Alright,” Harry squeezed toothpaste onto his brush. “Anything else?”

“Yes. Do not tell anyone there what you do. If someone asks, tell them you’re under me and a special consultant for O-8-4s. Sharon will give you an ID, and no one should question it.”

Harry frowned. “Why do you sound panicked?”

“Because where this hammer landed is a crater. And SHIELD is actively interfering and preventing the others from rolling in, ranging from the army and FBI to NASA. I got to go, I just arrived at the site. Wait for Sharon and listen to her until you reach me.”

“Understood.”

“Good. See you in a bit.” The phone beeped, and Harry kept it down with a sigh.

This was turning out to be an interesting week.

Either that, or Fury and SHIELD were up to something, in which case he needed to be careful.

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AND… DONE! Hope you all liked the chapter!

So, we've moved on from Iron Man 2(or close enough) into Thor 1. Don't worry, I'll cover a bit of the Tony v/s Whiplash fight in the next chapter, in which, we'll see the 'ripples' of Harry's presence begin to show.

Not substantial ones, mind you, but small changes, like, in this instance, Tony having the time to upgrade his suit to the new reactor because he finished his work a day early, thanks to Harry.

And Tony Stark, being Tony Stark, can do a LOT of stuff in a day.

Though, this is not the last we'll be seeing of Tony, even in the short run. He'll be on the sidelines for a couple of chapters after the next one, but that's just because I plan to concentrate on the Thor side of things.

Officially, this is the stone being dropped into the lake that's MCU though.

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Stay Happy! Stay Safe! Keep Smiling! Keep Reading!

HPfanfictioner66