128 Memorial

Natasha stood in front of the television in Avengers Tower, remote in hand, flicking through the endless parade of talking heads. Every channel carried the same subject, but the tone varied between outrage, fear, and accountability.

“Tony Stark should be held accountable for creating Ultron,” one American pundit thundered. “First, he used to be the merchant of death, creating weapons that could be used for mass destruction. Now, after his so-called retirement, one of his creations was about to destroy the whole world. This is negligence on a global scale; he took the world to the brink of annihilation.”

She changed the channel. A European anchor leaned forward at her desk as she asked her panel of guests. “Harry Potter burned the entire city of Sokovia into nothing. Not even nuclear weapons can cause this much destruction. We understand why he did it, but what happens if this man is slighted? What if he turns his power on Paris? Or London? How do you stop someone who can erase a city with nothing but mere thought and an extension of his will?”

Natasha’s eyes narrowed slightly as the next feed came up. A South African panel argued heatedly. “Everyone fears Potter, but let’s not forget Johannesburg. The Hulk tore through our streets, through our homes. He is literally a rage monster, someone that we used to scare children with, but now it's reality. Dr Banner may be a respected scientist and a known pacifist, but can you say the same about the Hulk? You can’t reason with Hulk. You can’t even predict when Dr Banner will transform into the Hulk. Is that really someone we entrust with the planet’s safety?”

Another flick. An Asian commentator gestured emphatically to a screen behind him showing Thor in battle. “Thor may have been worshipped once, but at the end of the day, he is an alien entity with no accountability to Earth. No government, no law, no oversight. He wields powers beyond human comprehension. How long before his interests clash with ours?”

Natasha exhaled slowly, pressing the button again. This time, a British political analyst addressed the camera. “And why, in all this chaos, has no one addressed the elephant in the room? SHIELD. The Avengers have dragged the world’s largest intelligence agency back into the light and placed it firmly under their wing. Who gave them that authority? Shouldn’t SHIELD, and the Avengers themselves, be answerable to a body like the United Nations?”

Every channel layered another accusation, another fear. Words like unchecked, dangerous, reckless, and unaccountable echoed from screen to screen, each pundit and politician sharpening their knives on the same whetstone.

Natasha kept flicking. A few commentators tried to defend the Avengers, citing the lives saved, their cause, but those voices were drowned out, fading fast under the roar of outrage. Public opinion was already tipped, and the support for the Avengers was dying out fast.

Her expression stayed neutral, but her mind catalogued every headline like a mission briefing. Emergency UN sessions. Talk of countermeasures. Security Council probing SHIELD’s alignment with the Avengers. Calls for oversight. She muted a particularly shrill panellist demanding Harry’s immediate arrest and leaned back. None of this surprised her. Fear was predictable. Fear was a currency governments spent freely. Still, the consistency of the message worried her; it wasn’t random chatter anymore, it was narrative. And narratives were far harder to fight than armies.

With a wry exhale, she flicked to the next channel. “We just saved the world again, and somehow we’re the villains of the week.” She thought to herself.

Harry cleared his throat softly. “I thought you told everyone not to watch the news,” he said, dryly but teasingly.

Natasha turned her head just enough to pout at him. He was sharp in his black suit, the weight of mourning evident in the set of his shoulders. She matched him in a sleek black dress, though hers carried an effortless grace that made the setting feel less grim.

“Yes, well,” she countered, eyes flicking back to the screen, “I only trust Steve and myself not to get rattled by this bullshit.”

Harry arched an eyebrow. “And me?”

Her lips curved into the faintest smirk. “You’re easy to rattle. You just hide it better than the others. People don’t get to see you brooding inside your room after all.”

Harry huffed in amusement, leaning closer until his arm brushed against hers.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Natasha asked softly as she stepped closer, her hand slipping around his waist.

Harry didn’t back down. “Everyone’s already there,” he said quietly. “It would be rude of me not to be with the team.”

“Yes, but the others aren’t the ones who vaporised the whole city,” she countered. There was no judgment in her tone, only concern. “You don’t have to put yourself in front of that kind of scrutiny. Not today.”

Harry exhaled slowly, the weight of her words hanging between them. His gaze softened, but his resolve didn’t. “Nat, I was part of this. I made choices, like everyone else. If there’s blame to carry, I don’t get to step aside and let the others bear it without me.”

Her grip on his waist tightened. “You’re allowed to protect yourself, Harry.”

He reached up, brushing his thumb along her knuckles where her hand rested against him. “And I’m allowed to stand by the people I love. By the team. By you.”

She pressed her lips together, shook her head faintly, and whispered, “Stubborn Gryffindor.”

“Always,” he murmured, managing the faintest smile.

“You know,” Natasha said, her voice low and almost wistful as she leaned against him, “we should just go to my cabin in Norway. It’s got a lake and no connection to the outside world. We could disappear for a while. While the rest of the world argues about what to do with the Avengers, we could take a small holiday from the spotlight. Let the public’s rage burn itself out before we even think of coming back.”

Harry chuckled softly. “What would the team think? Leaving them high and dry like that?”

“I think they would understand,” Natasha countered. Her gaze lingered on his. “It’s not like we’d be gone forever. Just… long enough to breathe.”

Harry tilted his head, studying her. There was a vulnerability beneath her words, one she rarely let anyone see. “Tempting,” he admitted, his tone half-serious. “You and me, away from all of this madness. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sound perfect.”

She gave a small, knowing smile, her fingers brushing against his wrist. “It would be. But you’re already thinking about the others.”

“No, I was actually thinking about the wedding?” Harry asked, raising a brow.

Natasha tilted her head, pretending to think. “We can do that after we come back from Norway,”

Harry couldn’t help but smile at her suggestion. “Or,” he countered, “We go to Norway after the wedding for the honeymoon. Take a proper break from all this world-saving nonsense. Just you and me, no interruptions, no SHIELD, no Avengers, no public opinion. Nothing but peace and quiet.”

The faintest curve touched Natasha’s lips. “Sounds almost too good to be true.”

Harry leaned closer, his voice dropping into a playful murmur. “Though if I remember correctly, didn’t you want to visit Asgard first? Something about… getting your uterus fixed?”

“That can wait. It’s not like Asgard is going anywhere,” Natasha pointed out with a shrug. “Let’s spend some quality time together first. Then we can deal with all the godly fertility business.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. “Have you been reading Breaking Dawn again?”

Natasha pressed her lips together and studiously avoided his gaze, which only made Harry groan.

“Our kid is not going to be like Renesmee, alright?” Harry said firmly. “No creepy supernatural pregnancy, no accelerated growth spurts. It’ll take the usual nine months, just like everyone else.”

Natasha tilted her head, feigning innocence. “But how do you know that? Have you had a kid before? You said before how Robert Pattinson looks so much like Cedric.”

Harry rolled his eyes so hard she half-expected them to get stuck. “There were magical kids before me, you know. My world isn’t that strange.”

That was the breaking point, and Natasha burst out laughing. She covered her mouth, but the sparkle in her eyes betrayed her amusement.

“Sorry,” she said between chuckles. “I couldn’t help myself.”

Harry muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, you’re insufferable, but before he could work up a proper sulk, Natasha leaned in and kissed him. The kiss lingered just long enough to soften his grumbling. When she pulled back, her smile was gentler. “I was just trying to cheer you up before we go to Sokovia.”

Harry exhaled, the corners of his lips tugging into a reluctant smile. He understood exactly what she was doing. And it worked.

He pressed a gentle kiss to Natasha’s lips, then the world around them twisted on the spot. The familiar crack of apparition split the air, announcing their arrival in Sokovia.

For the briefest moment, silence hung heavy across the memorial site as all eyes turned to the clearing where Harry and Natasha stood. Recognition spread through the crowd like fire through dry brush. Murmurs sharpened into shouts, grief curdling into anger.

The first rotten tomato splattered against the ground near Harry’s feet. Then came stones, bottles, scraps of junk, anything the people could throw in their rage.

Harry reacted instantly, raising his hand, and a shimmering arc of magic snapped into existence, curving around Natasha like an invisible wall. Every projectile hurled her way ricocheted harmlessly off the shield, clattering to the earth.

But he did not extend that same protection to himself.

A rock struck his shoulder; a bottle shattered against his arm. He didn’t flinch, didn’t raise his wand, didn’t return their fury. He simply stood tall, absorbing every blow the grieving people hurled his way.

It was a choice. A silent declaration that he would bear the weight of their anger, their pain, because he understood it. Because he deserved it.

Natasha turned toward him, her eyes flashing with alarm as another stone clipped his temple. “Harry—” she began, instinctively moving to raise her own defence to protect him.

But Harry’s hand tightened around her waist. His gaze stayed locked forward.

The crowd’s fury swelled like a storm, but Harry didn’t blame them. How could he? To them, he was the man who had brought war to their doorstep. The man whose choices had burnt their city, taking with it lives, homes, and everything they had once called their own.

A bottle shattered against his chest, but Harry stood unmoving. He bore the hate in silence because he knew it was justified.

Within moments, SHIELD forces pushed their way into the mob, armoured agents forming a human barrier. Commands were barked, shields raised, and the barrage of stones and debris dwindled. Order, if only barely, was restored.

Still, the rage did not vanish. Jeers and curses rang out, voices cracking with grief. Placards were thrust high into the air: “Avengers Not Wanted!” — “Bring Our Homes Back!” — “Justice for Sokovia!” and the one that cut deepest, “Jail the Avengers.”

Harry’s gaze swept over the sea of faces, catching the despair etched into their expressions. Mothers clutching children, fathers hollow-eyed with loss, the elderly leaning on canes before signs demanding retribution.

Harry and Natasha walked forward, against the murmurs of the crowd, until the full sight of the gathering came into view. The Avengers were assembled in formal mourning clothes similar to what Harry and Natasha were wearing. Steve stood at the front, being the symbol he was used to being, while Clint lingered close to the others with a subdued expression. Tony, dressed in black with a simple tie. Bruce adjusted his glasses nervously, the dark suit making him appear even more out of place, while Thor stood tall next to him. Vision watched everything quietly, not really understanding what was going on. Wanda and Pietro, though dressed respectfully, looked pale and withdrawn, their eyes fixed on the memorial stones as though they were staring into open wounds that had yet to close.

Maria Hill and Phil Coulson stood nearby, surrounded by an escort of SHIELD agents. Beyond them, the presence of Sokovia’s prime minister and president was unmistakable, flanked by ministers, ambassadors, and foreign dignitaries from across the world.

Harry felt every gaze upon him as he stepped forward. He took his place beside Tony, who gave him the briefest of sidelong glances but said nothing. Natasha, on the other hand, slipped naturally into her place beside Clint.

“You sure you can’t just remake Sokovia?” Tony muttered under his breath, flicking his fingers toward the stains of dirt and spoiled fruit still smeared across Harry’s jacket. “It would make all this so much easier.”

Harry shook his head slowly. “Sokovia was burned away with cursed fire. Flames conjured with the strongest wand ever crafted. That kind of magic scars reality itself. There isn’t a spell, a ritual, or a miracle in this world that could bring it back.”

For a moment, even Tony didn’t have a comeback. His shoulders sagged slightly. “Damn shame,” he said at last. Then he glanced toward the horizon and gave a half-shrug. “At least they got a beautiful lake out of it.”

Harry followed his gaze. Where the proud city had once stood, a vast expanse of water shimmered in the sunlight. The basin left behind by Ultron had been impossible to hide, a wound in the earth itself. So Harry and Thor had reshaped it, pulling in mountain snowmelt and redirecting veins of groundwater. The result was a sprawling lake so clear it mirrored the sky, its surface only broken by ripples of wind and the occasional flash of fish already darting beneath the waves.

From the surrounding cliffs, new rivers ran like silver threads. Harry had carved them in such a way that they poured into valleys and joined with distant waterways that would eventually spill into Europe’s seas. Already, wild birds circled overhead, drawn by the promise of new life.

Bruce had reassured them all that nature would do the rest. Plants would seed along the shore, insects would arrive with the wind, and animals would follow. In a few short years, the scar of Sokovia would become a thriving ecosystem.

But standing there now, with grieving families in black and protest signs still visible beyond the SHIELD cordon, the lake felt less like a gift and more like a reminder of what had been lost, and what could never truly be restored.

As the crowd finally settled, the proceedings blurred together for Harry. Speeches were given on promises of Sokovia’s recovery, hollow assurances that lives lost would not be in vain. He heard officials thanking the Avengers for saving the world, though the jeers from earlier still rang louder in his ears. Politicians did what they always did, weaving words into shields for themselves. Activists took the podium, demanding justice, remembrance, and change.

Harry drifted through it all, only half-listening, his mind caught elsewhere, on faces in the crowd, on the weight of the destruction, on the gnawing sense that none of this ceremony could mend what had been lost.

At last, the speeches ended. Fabric was pulled away, and the memorial statue stood unveiled. Gasps and murmurs rippled through the audience, but Harry just stared blankly, not even sure when the applause began.

The memorial rose from the earth like something pulled from myth, with its gleaming marble and dark stone entwined into a monument that seemed to command reverence simply by existing. At its heart stood a towering figure of a Sokovian guardian, one hand outstretched in protection while the other bore the weight of a crumbling world, around its base coiled sculpted reliefs of Sokovian homes, streets, and faces, frozen forever in the moment before loss.

Tony leaned closer to Harry and whispered. “You think they’ll figure it out? That this wasn’t stone masons burning overtime on Stark Foundation payroll, but you who made it?” His eyes narrowed, more curious than accusing. “I wonder what the world would think if they knew their monument was built by the very man that destroyed it.”

However, Harry didn’t answer. His gaze was locked on the names etched into the encircling ring of stone, two hundred of them, each carved by him. Even when carving the, the question was in the back of his mind, and even now it had not left him. “How did we lose two hundred people in that fight?” he whispered, the question more to himself than to anyone else.

“I don’t know, Harry. They must have stayed back, I guess,” Tony said, but even to his own ears, it sounded thin.

Harry’s eyes didn’t move from the etched stone. “But we checked everything before you gave me the signal.”

“We always do,” Tony countered quickly, almost defensively. “Every time. We run the scans, we triple-check.”

Harry finally glanced at him. “We had you, Rhodey, and Fury monitoring every sweep of Sokovia for stragglers. And on top of that, Vision and Wanda were using magic and whatever cosmic voodoo they tap into to make absolutely sure. Before we blew it up, before we let it fall, we made certain.”

“We did, but we aren’t perfect, Harry. We lost people. Some during the evacuation, some when Ultron lifted the city, some when it came crashing down. It’s impossible to save everyone,” Tony reasoned.

Harry’s gaze hardened. “I accept that. I’ve accepted it since the day I joined the army. But after all the precautions we took? Two hundred feels… inflated. And it’s the exact number every news station has latched onto.”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again. The thought gnawed at him too. The very first reports out of Sokovia hadn’t been about the battle, or the billions saved, or even the fall of Ultron. They had been about two hundred people who died. Two hundred, delivered like a neat, round statistic, easy for headlines, easy to chant, easy to remember. About how Harry’s fire had burned the bodies beyond recovery, denying families closure, denying funerals. That single headline of ashes in place of graves had carried more weight than every rescue they had made.

It had felt orchestrated in hindsight. The precision of the number. The way the same words like “denied closure,” “stolen goodbyes” appeared across networks, as if all of them were reading from the same script. The initial outrage didn’t question the details; it didn’t need to. Grief had been handed to people in a ready-made package, and they clung to it.

From there, the story grew legs of its own. Politicians pointed to Sokovia as proof the Avengers were reckless, activists decried them as unelected gods, and every tragedy that followed—no matter how distant—was tied back to that neat number, two hundred. It didn’t matter if it was true or not. Nobody cared to verify the source of the matter. That constancy made it true in the public mind.

What had begun as a whisper of blame became a movement, and then an indictment. The billions saved were forgotten under the weight of two hundred ghosts, ghosts that might not have even existed.

 “What are you thinking, Potter?” Tony asked with concern.

Harry’s gaze lingered on the lake that had replaced Sokovia. “Just that after all the measures we took, while two hundred is a small number compared to the thousands we saved, it’s still too big. Fifty, maybe—slips through the cracks, people who hid or refused to evacuate. That would have made sense. But two hundred? Two hundred feels… manufactured. Like it was chosen to stir the public opinion.”

Tony frowned as he considered it. “You want me to check if everything’s in order?”

Harry nodded. “It might be nothing. Maybe I’m seeing shadows where there aren’t any. But yes. I’d like you to do that.”

As the proceedings continued, Tony and Harry wondered how much of the chaos happening in and around the world was created by their enemies, who were too scared to fight them face to face. And was using Sokovia as a catalyst to destroy the team, or worse, control it.