94 The Algorithm

“Hello? Is this working?” Thor asked as his giant fingers fumbled with the camera, as the image on the screen shook wildly. “Jane, is this proper? Can they see me? Can they hear me?”

Offscreen, Jane’s amused voice replied, “Yes, Thor. The call is connected. Stop poking the lens.”

On the other side of the screen, Harry and Natasha sat on the couch in the Avengers Tower lounge, both trying and failing not to laugh.

“There’s a mute button, Thor,” Natasha said with a grin. “Try not to summon lightning while finding it.”

Thor looked baffled. “Mute? Why would I wish to be silenced during a conversation?”

Harry chuckled. “Just don’t hit anything and you’re doing fine.” To which Thor nodded and stopped fidgeting with the phone.

“Hey, you two?” Natasha asked, leaning closer to the screen. “How are things going in London?”

Jane smiled and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s been nice. I’ve been catching up on my research, and Thor’s learning how to live like a human.”

“Yes!” Thor said with a proud nod. “I have discovered many wonders of Midgard. I have learned the ways of movies. Though I still do not understand why the man did not throw the ring into the volcano sooner.”

Jane snorted. “He’s talking about Lord of the Rings. We just finished the trilogy last night.”

“I have also mastered rollerblading,” Thor continued, holding up a 'painted' bruised elbow like a war wound. “And I am learning to navigate the streets of this mighty city. I even have driving lessons for your metal chariots!”

“Cars,” Jane clarified with a chuckle. “We’re still working on stop signs and parallel parking.”

“And are you practising your gaming skills for the next showdown with Barton?” Natasha asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Mightily,” Thor declared with a dramatic flair. “I have trained in the ancient art of button-mashing. My thumbs shall be swift and my combos furious when next we battle.”

“You sure he’s not actually learning humility?” Harry quipped with a grin.

“Oh, he is,” Jane said, giving Thor an affectionate nudge. “Especially every time he loses at Mario Kart.”

“I will conquer Rainbow Road soon!” Thor thundered, pointing a finger at the screen as if declaring war.

Everyone burst into laughter.

“If you need anything, just give me a call, okay?” Harry said. “Jane, did you teach Thor how to use the bank account and credit cards yet?”

“Not yet,” Jane replied with a laugh. “But we’ll get there eventually. Don’t worry, I’ve got enough for both of us right now. He’s still figuring out the difference between a debit card and a TV remote.”

“Just saying,” Harry added, grinning, “Thor’s expenses might pile up. He’s used to living like a prince, after all.”

“Do not worry, brother,” Thor replied solemnly, placing a hand on his chest. “Living frugally is part of the experience. I have taken to eating those small cup noodles and walking to the store myself. I even learned about coupons.”

“You’re using coupons now?” Natasha asked, barely holding in a laugh.

“Indeed,” Thor said proudly. “They bring great discounts and joy when accepted.”

Jane giggled. “He tried to use a pizza flyer as a coupon at the grocery store last week.”

“It was misleading!” Thor defended with mock indignation.

“Alright, I’m going to go get ready for bed while you chat with your friends, okay?” Jane said, leaning in to kiss Thor on the cheek. “Don’t stay up too late playing on the iPad.”

As she walked out of frame, Thor watched her with soft eyes and a gentle smile, then turned back to the camera.

Once Jane was out of earshot, Harry leaned forward slightly and asked, “Is life on Earth how you imagined it would be?”

“A thousand times better,” Thor replied without hesitation, a big, innocent smile lighting up his face. “I do not think I would have ever experienced this if not for coming to Earth.”

He glanced off-screen for a moment, as if watching Jane move about in another room, and his expression softened.

“I spent so long thinking glory was only found on the battlefield, in honour and sacrifice,” he continued. “But here... I have found something else. Quiet moments. Laughter over burnt toast. Learning to dance in socks on the living room floor. It is not the glory I was raised to seek, but it is the joy I never knew I needed.”

“She is... remarkable,” he added quietly, his voice losing its usual boisterous tone for something more sincere. “I thought I knew strength in battle, but her patience in teaching me all these Midgardian customs? That is a might I never imagined.”

There was a brief pause on the line, a warm silence shared between the two couples across continents.

“We’re happy for you, big guy,” Harry said.

“You’ve got something real there,” Natasha added with a smile.

Thor nodded once, his gaze drifting for a moment in the direction Jane had gone. “Aye. And I will protect it, no matter the cost. I may have given up a throne,” Thor added. “But what I’ve gained is worth more than any crown.”

“Well,” Natasha said with a faint smirk, “just don’t get too soft, lover boy. We’re still going to need you to bring the thunder when things go sideways.”

Thor chuckled. “Worry not, Lady Potter. The thunder is merely resting. I can come now, if you need my help?”

“No, not yet,” Harry said quickly. “Right now, we’re in investigation mode, digging through files, tracing patterns, connecting dots.”

“And we both know that’s not exactly your strength,” Natasha added with a small smirk. “So, for now, focus on Jane. You gave up a throne to be with her. We don’t want to be the reason that the relationship doesn’t work out.”

Harry nodded. “You’ll know when we need you, and when that time comes, you bring the lightning.”

Thor smiled with gratitude in his eyes. “Very well. I will stay by Jane’s side and wait for the storm to call me.”

“Good,” Natasha said. “And Thor?”

“Yes?”

“Keep practising your Mario Kart skills. Barton’s been training.”

Thor narrowed his eyes with mock intensity. “Then so shall I.”

The three shared a final round of goodbyes and ended the call.

“It’s good to see things working out for them,” Natasha said as she and Harry stepped away from the screen.

Harry nodded with a small smile tugging at his lips. “Fingers crossed it stays that way. He deserves this. And he looked happy,” Harry said as they continued to walk towards the science labs. “Really happy. Like he finally found something worth grounding himself for.”

Natasha gave a sideways glance, a soft smirk tugging at the edge of her lips. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t burn down Jane’s flat trying to make pancakes.”

“Odds are about fifty-fifty,” Harry replied with a light chuckle.

They reached the elevator and stepped inside. Harry pressed the button for the lower lab levels as the doors slid shut behind them.

“Alright,” he said, straightening his posture, “time to switch gears. Let’s see what the geniuses have found.”

Natasha nodded. “Hopefully something useful and not their murder-bot.”

The elevator dinged softly, and the doors slid open to reveal the sleek hallway leading to the research wing. A soft glow spilt from the lab ahead, coupled with the low murmur of voices and the rhythmic clacking of keyboards.

As they approached, the scent of coffee and soldered circuits drifted out to meet them. Bruce and Tony were deep in the zone, surrounded by floating holo-screens and open terminals.

“Brace yourself,” Natasha muttered with a smirk. “It’s about to get nerdy.”

Harry gave her a grin. “Better nerdy than apocalyptic.”

“Any progress, boys?” Natasha asked as she and Harry entered the lab.

Bruce and Tony were fully in the zone, hunched over their respective stations and didn’t acknowledge their arrival. Harry walked over to the coffee machine, grabbed two fresh cups, and set them down beside the overworked geniuses.

The scent of caffeine did its job as it snapped them out of their trance.

Tony looked up and grinned. “Ah, the real heroes have arrived.”

Bruce took his cup with a grateful nod. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Thought you could use a break,” Harry said, pulling up a stool.

“This algorithm is a real piece of work,” Tony started, rubbing his temples. “It’s like trying to play chess with a computer that keeps changing the rules mid-game.”

Bruce chuckled. “He means it’s protected by some kind of adaptive AI. Every time we tried to probe deeper, it rewrote sections of itself to block us out.”

“Basically,” Tony continued, “it’s paranoid. Which tells us someone really didn’t want it being tampered with.”

“But we got around it,” Bruce added with a tired smile. “We built a sandbox to contain the AI’s responses and started pulling data in pieces. Tedious, but effective.”

Tony took a sip of coffee and pointed at Bruce. “We also made sure the system can’t trace the access point back to us. Because we’re not just smart, we’re paranoid too.”

Natasha smirked. “You’re getting there. But not quite Romanoff-level paranoid.”

“Working on it,” Tony said, raising his cup in a mock toast.

“Did you figure out the full scope of the algorithm?” Harry asked.

“We did,” Bruce replied grimly. “And it’s exactly what we feared.”

Tony nodded, spinning his chair toward them. “It’s a predictive threat assessment system. It uses invasive data mining, behavioural modelling, and online activity to calculate who might pose a threat to the people behind it.”

“Not just who is a threat,” Bruce said grimly. “Who might become one. The algorithm doesn’t analyse actions. It predicts intentions.”

Harry’s brow furrowed. “Predicts?”

“It’s probabilistic,” Bruce explained. “It combs through everything, including search history, bank transactions, medical records, even childhood behaviour reports if it can find them. It builds profiles and simulates outcomes. If you could pose a threat, you go on the list.”

“Watch this,” Tony added, spinning his chair back toward the console. He typed a few quick commands. The holographic display flickered to life, casting an eerie glow across the room.

A grid of names appeared, ticking upward one by one as the algorithm processed.
Harry Potter.
Natasha Romanoff.
Clint Barton.
Bruce Banner.
Tony Stark.
Steve Rogers.
James Rhodes.

Each name appeared beside a red label:
Threat Detected.

The room went quiet at the result. Then, Tony’s fingers moved again. “Let’s add some more,” he said, almost like a dare.

The list grew:
Pepper Potts.
Nick Fury.
Phil Coulson.
Maria Hill.
Happy Hogan.
Darcy Lewis.
Jane Foster.

All marked in cold, clinical font.

Threat Detected. Threat Detected. Threat Detected.

Bruce leaned back. “It doesn’t distinguish between levels of threat either. Doesn’t matter if you’re a combat-ready Avenger or someone who once shared a coffee with one. You’re in its crosshairs.”

Natasha stared at the floating display, her expression unreadable. “So this thing is a preemptive death list.”

“No trial. No warning. No room for nuance,” Bruce said. “Just execution, carried out by three flying death machines the moment this program goes live.”

“If you ask me,” Tony started. “The moment the helicarriers and targeting systems go online, this thing doesn’t ask questions. It just executes every possible threat.”

Harry stared at the screen. “It’s not a defence system. It’s a purge.”

“Do we know who made this?” Harry asked.

Bruce typed a few commands, pulling up a data trail that culminated in a glowing dot on a digital map. “It traces back to SHIELD,” he said, as the map zoomed in on an old military facility in New Jersey.

“One of SHIELD’s oldest sites,” Tony added, leaning over the screen. “My guess? They developed a crude version of this algorithm for threat assessments back in the day, back when most intel was handwritten and filed in cabinets. It probably used personnel files, psych evals, risk assessments.”

“But now?” Bruce continued. “With modern data streams such as social media, surveillance networks, and biometric tracking, it’s evolved into this.”

Tony nodded. “Our parasite took the skeleton of this old project, upgraded it, and prepped it for global deployment.”

“Anything else we can pull from it?” Natasha asked, scanning the screens.

Bruce shook his head. “Not from this end. The code is self-contained. It doesn’t have any further purpose than identifying threats.”

Tony leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Classic paranoid spy stuff. Whoever modified it knew exactly what they were doing. If we want more answers, we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “You mean break in and hope we don’t get caught?”

“I prefer to call it on-site archival research,” Tony said with a wink. “Very hands-on.”

Bruce chimed in, “We should check out the facility in New Jersey. It’s been abandoned for a while now. And there might be hard drives, paper records, maybe even an old server that didn’t get wiped properly. Anything to tell us who repurposed the algorithm?”

“Now you’re starting to sound like Steve,” Harry said with a smirk. “‘When in doubt, boots on the ground.’”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Don’t say that too loud, he might materialise behind you with a clipboard and a tactical plan.”

“I can hear him already,” Natasha mocked in a faux-gravelly voice. “‘There’s no substitute for good intel. Trust what you see with your own eyes.’”

Bruce laughed softly. “To be fair, he’s not wrong.”

“Okay,” Harry nodded. “You two finish combing through the algorithm. Once that’s done, we head to Jersey and see what that old facility’s hiding. Meanwhile…” he glanced at Tony, “what’s the fallout from our little raid on the Lemurian Star?”

Tony grinned like a man who’d just dropped a bomb and was watching the dust settle. “Oh, it’s beautiful. SHIELD is in absolute chaos. Utter pandemonium. People are running around like their badges are on fire.”

Bruce gave a quiet chuckle. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“Of course I am,” Tony replied with mock offence. “They’re scrambling to explain how a classified covert operation got hijacked. They aren’t sure if the hit was to extract data or to tamper with the program. Everyone’s pointing fingers, but no one has any idea what to do.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “And what’s the official story?”

“Something about rogue pirates and blackmail,” Tony said, swirling his coffee like it was a glass of scotch. “But too many people know that doesn’t check out. Internal channels are buzzing. People high up are sweating, trying to figure out how the op leaked.”

“Nice,” Natasha muttered with a smirk.

“Any movement that stands out?” Natasha asked.

“SHIELD is so rattled,” Tony said, “that Secretary Pierce himself is now personally involved. He’s poking around like an angry dad who just found out someone crashed the family car. And considering Project Insight is technically a SHIELD initiative, his reaction looks pretty genuine.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “So he’s either an excellent actor or he’s really in the dark.”

“Could be both,” Bruce offered. “He has to cover his bases, even if he suspects something deeper. People like Pierce don’t let a scandal unfold on their watch without trying to control the narrative.”

“Other than that?” Harry pressed.

Tony shook his head. “Nothing concrete. They’re waiting, probably expecting some ransom demand or a claim from one of the usual mercenary groups. So far, no bites. They’ve also put out internal queries, trying to trace who authorised the op or which team carried it out. But as expected…” He gestured with a dramatic shrug. “Crickets.”

 “Any names that have been shortlisted?” Natasha asked.

“Everyone,” Tony replied, hands spread dramatically. “But don’t worry, the Avengers haven’t made the suspect list yet.”

“Yet?” Natasha echoed, narrowing her eyes.

“There’ve been a few theories floating around,” Bruce said, tapping a few keys as threat-level reports scrolled across a screen. “But because the op wasn’t flashy or superpowered. No capes, no giant green rage monsters, they’re leaning toward a covert mercenary group. That’s helping us stay under the radar for now.”

“But if no one steps forward to take credit,” Harry added grimly, “they’re going to start turning over every rock. And eventually, they’ll look under the one we’re hiding under.”

“Bingo,” Tony said. “So, let’s enjoy the temporary lack of suspicion while it lasts.”

Natasha folded her arms. “Let me know when we’re officially on the list. I want to wear something nice for my public betrayal.”

Bruce smirked. “I’ll print matching shirts.”

“Are they planning to hold off on the launch of Project Insight because of this debacle?” Harry asked as he leaned against the lab table.

Tony shook his head, sipping his coffee. “Not really. They’re rattled, sure, and are being extra cautious to make sure we don’t slip any viruses into their precious program. But otherwise, the launch is still greenlit.”

He glanced at the holo-screen beside him. Pierce already told the World Security Council that Fury wants to delay it. That’s their cover. But from what I’m seeing, they’re just buying time to run a security sweep before they fire it up.”

As the discussion turned toward logistics, Natasha’s phone buzzed.

She glanced at it. “Excuse me” she said before stepping out of the room. Tony and Bruce continued planning, but Harry kept glancing toward the door.

When Natasha finally returned, her expression was cold.

“Fury’s been shot,” she said. “They’re prepping him for surgery now.”

The room fell silent.

Harry straightened. “Where?”

“In Steve’s apartment. Washington D.C. Steve tried to chase the shooter, but the guy got away.” Natasha reported.

Bruce went pale. “How does someone even get that close to Fury? That’s not just a breach, that’s a collapse of every security protocol he’s ever used.”

Harry’s mind was already racing. He turned sharply toward them. “Find out everything that you can. Whoever pulled this off knew Fury’s whereabouts and protocols.”

“You want us to trace the shooter?” Tony asked.

“I want names, aliases, biometric signatures, gun models, surveillance footage, digital footprints, everything,” Harry said firmly. “I want to know how the Director of SHIELD ended up on the receiving end of a hit successfully. And I want to know if the parasite network had anything to do with it.”

Tony nodded, already typing on the console. “Alright. We’ll tap into the satellite feed and traffic cams near Steve’s place, see if we can get a visual on the shooter. I’ll cross-reference the timestamps with SHIELD’s encrypted comm logs and see who was talking when Fury got hit.”

Harry stepped beside Natasha and grabbed her hand. “Keep us updated and be ready to inspect the New Jersey site in a couple of days,” he told the others.

Then, with a sharp crack, Harry and Natasha vanished.