First of all, let me just say that I am absolutely thrilled by the response to my plea for help at the end of the last chapter. To say that everyone who put in their two cents was a big help would be a bit of an understatement. I have read each and every one of those reviews, and I am about halfway to making a decision. The word vomit below will explain what I've come up with so far, if you're interested. Or you can just skip to the good part.

I have already elected not to make this story slash, mainly because a) it would detract too much from the main plot, and b) I can't justify a sexuality change when so much is already going on. The fact is that writing slash between canonically straight characters would draw too much attention away from the main plot points, which I want to avoid, never mind the inevitable OOC issue. However, no multi-chaptered Harry-centric fanfic would be complete without strong bonds of love and friendship. His need for love and acceptance is one of his defining character traits, and denying him such relationships would be downright cruel. In this particular story, the same issues that would scare him away from relationships of any sort also make positive relationships all the more essential. He's a single parent with a huge burden of responsibility on his shoulders, he knows that his primary source of emotional support is counting down the days to her own demise, and he's young, so it would be OOC for him not to want the sort of comfort and support a romantic partner would provide. That doesn't mean he's going to be some hopeless romantic, of course, but the point still stands. At the very least he needs at least one close confidant he can count on the way he counted on Ron and Hermione. Therefore, a certain pair of future Avengers will end up being Harry's best friends (three guesses who), and while, for obvious reasons, he won't have any romantic entanglements for a long time yet, that doesn't mean he won't eventually find love. My rule of thumb is that it will be written such that if I were to nix the romance, the overall plot would remain unchanged.

And that's that, no substitutions, take-backs, switches, or blatant lies. I've laid my thoughts bare for all to see, so I feel justified in saying that my decision is final. A bit ironic that I made such a big deal about what will end up being a minor plot point, perhaps, but that goes to show how much it actually bothered me. Then again, I've been told I have a penchant for being dramatic. The Poll I made is now closed.

Kudos to those reviewers have correctly guessed Tom's real identity! Also, since at least one reviewer alluded to it, let me clarify something: I hate the Drarry ship with every fiber of my soul, and I will continue to hate it until my dying day, as anyone who has thoroughly read my profile ought to know.

Please note that any political figures mentioned in this story are fictional. Some are creations of Marvel, while others, such as the one in this chapter, are my OCs, who will not be recurring characters. I have no desire to bring real world politics into my writing; my goal is to entertain, not to spread an ideology.

I do not own any of the source material for this story. Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.

...

Four Seasons Hotel, Houston, Texas, August of 2003

Natasha Romanoff had spent most of her relatively short life assassinating people like Senator Yasnah Grant. Young, idealistic, and honorable, especially compared with her peers on the modern political stage, Grant was a tall, willowy woman with coppery skin, lustrous black hair, and rather plain features. Rumor had it that Grant held Wakandan ancestry, a notion encouraged by her confirmed biracial status and the lack of information on her parents; as an infant she had been found on the doorstep of an orphanage in a pile of dirty blankets with her name on a card tucked into the folds.

Natasha didn't particularly care about the juicy gossip surrounding the senator or her history. What she did care about was the fact that Alexander Pierce had ordered her death to prevent her from "making trouble," for Thaddeus Ross, who was, apparently, "too useful a pawn to be allowed out of office."

The knowledge that SHIELD was compromised affected Natasha far more deeply than she was willing to admit. She had been developing a genuine fondness for the organization, and she was beginning to think of Clint as the older brother she had never had. Phil Coulson had been a phenomenal handler, and she had a healthy respect for Nick Fury. She had only worked with them for a little over three years, yet, in defiance of everything her upbringing had taught her, she trusted them.

Everyone else, well… She liked some of her colleagues and some of them liked her, and while she didn't exactly think of most of them as friends, there was a certain camaraderie that only formed between people who routinely worked together in life-threatening situations. The idea that all of those little connections and bonds might be built on lies reminded her uncannily of what the Room had been pulling in the months leading up to her first meeting with Clint and subsequent escape. Needless to say, she was eager to stamp out the nest of vipers she had helped uncover.

When Fury had arranged a meeting between the four of them to discuss the matter, and how to deal with it with Phoenix seemingly out of reach, Natasha had immediately put herself forward for the role of bodyguard for Senator Grant, which was how she found herself holding a flute of sparkling apple juice in lieu of champagne as the senator gave a speech condemning the war in Iraq and General Ross's abuse of power by taking American soldiers into Canada. Natasha didn't normally care for politics either way, despite part she had once played in the more visceral side of the game, but even she had to admit it was incredibly stupid of Ross to do what he did. To say that the Canadians were furious was a bit of an understatement. Senator Grant certainly had plenty of ammunition, and those who agreed with her were starting to speak up, emboldened by her speeches, such as the one she was making now to a crowd of wealthy, like-minded celebrities. It was no wonder she had made enemies.

The senator was holding court in a small ballroom of the Four Seasons hotel, which was luxurious enough to be mistaken for a queen's palace, with polished grey stone floor tiles covered in plush rugs the color of fresh snow, dark wood furnishings with cream, grey, and navy upholstery, and crystal chandeliers. Just under four dozen guests filled the room, listening to Grant's impassioned speech with almost comical rapture. They hung onto her words like fish on baited hooks, shouting in assent or condemnation in all the right places, and reminding Natasha so vividly of a flock of sheep that she had to suppress a snort. She had long since perfected the art of looking avidly interested in what was happening around her while inwardly being anything but, yet it didn't change the reality.

Eventually, the speeches came to an end, and the crowd dispersed to focus on the mixture of hand-shaking, casual conversation, and forced camaraderie that characterized a political gathering. Soon, the guests were milling about in their fancy suits and dresses with flutes of champagne or glasses of wine in their hands, their conversations creating a buzz of noise that Natasha could have done without. She herself had managed to fool the crowd into thinking she was well on her way to getting as drunk as anyone else by filling her own champagne flute with sparkling apple juice, swaying deliberately when she walked, but doggedly shadowing the movements of the senator.

Eventually, Natasha found herself seated at the bar, her left arm resting on the black and white marble counter, a stone's throw away from the senator, who was engrossed in what appeared to be serious conversation with an oil tycoon whose name Natasha couldn't remember. She hid a grimace as she sipped her sparkling apple juice and scanned the room. To most, she looked like just another rich guest invited for political reasons and dressed suitably for the occasion in a simple yet elegant black silk dress that fit her snuggly enough to show off her figure and an elaborate shawl of thick black fur (artificial, she had been assured). The shawl seemed a strange choice of apparel given the heat and humidity outside, but Houstonians seemed to think that the best way to counter their city's infamous summer heat waves was to turn every indoor public setting into a freezer.

Natasha had long since learned how to ignore the heat or the cold when necessary, but she was more than happy to use the excuse of temperature related discomfort to carry the shawl wherever she went, as it concealed what her revealing dress could not, a set of knives in arm sheathes on her upper arms. Her elaborate leather bracelet and shiny silver watch each hid one of the special taser launchers she favored, affectionately nicknamed her "Widow's Bite," which delivered a shock that could knock out an angry bull with one shot. She'd dyed her hair platinum blond and styled it short and wavy, and she'd applied garish red lipstick so that she looked like a vampire. Her glossy black purse was barely large enough to hide her pistol, and the heels of her matching shoes could be easily snapped off to turn them into slippers. She hoped the little ensemble would be enough.

Her precautions were probably unnecessary, though. It was highly unlikely that the 'Asset' would strike now, when the target was surrounded by so many high profile figures. A public assassination would draw too much inconvenient attention.

Then again, the assassination order itself seemed an inelegant, even foolish decision on Pierce's part. A young, charismatic politician with a tantalizingly mysterious past speaks out against the old fashioned, decorated, possibly war mongering general who has just ruined the relationship between the United States and the nation with which it shared its largest (and most peaceful) border, only to be suddenly assassinated just as her cause begins to gain real traction. Such a turn of events would only turn the senator into a martyr and make those who agreed with her shout that much louder in her memory, especially in the wake of such scandals as Watergate, which had shattered much of the American population's faith in its leaders. A man with Alexander Pierce's position and responsibilities ought to know that, yet he'd ordered the senator's death regardless.

Why?

Natasha continued to silently ponder the question even as she accompanied a half drunk senator Grant back to her suite in the hotel's penthouse, surrounded by a squad of four secret service agents. The five of them were the only ones in the hotel, the only people in the state for that matter, who knew that Natasha was not, in fact, the senator's new personal secretary hired for her pretty face, but rather an extremely dangerous agent of SHIELD tasked with preventing a possible assassination attempt.

As soon as they reached the relative safety of the senator's penthouse, Natasha dropped her drunken mask, as did the senator. The Black Widow hadn't been the only one who'd been sipping sparkling apple juice in that room.

"Did you see anything?" Grant asked intently.

Natasha shook her head, depositing her furry shawl onto a white duvet and rolling her shoulders. "I didn't expect anything to happen in there," she said with false nonchalance. "Whoever this is, whatever they want, they can't risk drawing too much attention to themselves, and there were too many high profile people in that room. If they made a move while you were in there, nothing short of a suicide vest or a cyanide pill would save an assassin from the interrogation room."

"I still don't understand why anyone would want me dead," the senator groaned as she flopped into an armchair. "Killing me won't do Ross any favors. If anything, it will make him look worse. Even if he had nothing to do with it, an assassination would still turn me into a martyr."

Natasha smiled thinly as she pulled off her dress, revealing a thin black underoutfit that hugged her body and left nothing to the imagination. They had had this discussion before, but she hadn't dared voice the most plausible theory aloud for fear of discovery (only three other people were supposed to know her current whereabouts, and Alexander Pierce wasn't one of them; even the senator was ignorant of her true identity and her employers).

Whatever Alexander Pierce and his co-conspirators were up to was not meant to come to fruition for many years. They were playing the long game, content to wait patiently for all the pieces on their chess board to fall into place of their own accord and nudging them along in the right direction only in the most subtle and covert ways; a bribe here, a convenient death there, a piece of withheld information when it suited them. Their plan, whatever it was, mirrored the effects of a slow acting but lethal poison, or perhaps a cancer cell. Hidden in plain sight, yet spreading slowly and inexorably through a system. At first, the victim simply wouldn't feel right. Then they would fall ill and ultimately succumb, sometimes in dramatic fashion. Yet, something, or rather someone, had inadvertently begun administering an antidote to Pierce's poison. Namely, a green clad telekinetic who called himself Phoenix and was, apparently, far more powerful than initial assessments had indicated.

In the reports they published after meeting with the mysterious being, Fury and Coulson recounted how Phoenix had effortlessly found and destroyed the listening devices which had been smuggled into the warehouse before he'd even sat down at the table. According to Phoenix, Dr. Bruce Banner's monstrous green form was strong enough to set off catastrophic earthquakes if provoked, confirming that the creature was a far greater threat than previously thought. Further, Phoenix was, by his own admission, growing more powerful by the week and that in a few years he could "flatten" Banner as effortlessly as he'd disabled the listening devices. The World Security Council had been less than pleased with this news, not that Natasha blamed them, but for her the most interesting part was Phoenix's determination to start a kind of civil rights movement for people with superhuman abilities.

Natasha wasn't sure how she felt about that. She wasn't heartless enough to claim that having special powers made one sub-human, but everything she had been taught by both SHIELD and the Red Room told her that anyone could be a threat. Anyone could be a danger to society simply with their regular human abilities; Clint was proof enough of that. Add in superhuman powers, and an individual's inherent threat level increased considerably, no matter their disposition. Hell, simple logic dictated that a serial killer who could make things move without touching them was infinitely more dangerous than one who could not, regardless of their personal foibles and eccentricities.

It didn't help that there was something undeniably inhuman about Phoenix himself. She had felt it when he'd confronted her and Clint in Nepal, felt the way his mere presence had filled her with the urge to flee for her life. Still, Natasha had to admit that Phoenix had a point about the social inequality between regular people and those with superhuman powers.

After the second World War ended, there had been an explosion of attempts to replicate the legendary super soldier serum. Everyone and their mother wanted their own version of Captain America, and so human experimentation became frighteningly popular, especially in the two decades immediately following the war. Hundreds of people had been kidnapped and subjected to horrifying experiments in genetics and body modification. Most of the victims died, and many of the survivors went insane. Very few actually developed powers, and the results were either inferior to the original perfected serum or caused the recipient to self-destruct after a few weeks. Many of the survivors of these experiments had started families and inadvertently passed on some beneficial mutations to their children, giving birth to much more powerful and stable mutants in the process. Still, regardless of how they had come to be, all of them faced discrimination and fear from everyday people, and worse at the hands of criminals and less scrupulous governments.

Some fourteen years ago, a Ukrainian man had discovered he had the ability to manipulate and absorb radiation who had taken to sneaking into the Chernobyl exclusion zone, using his powers to cleanse the region of the vast amounts of radiation it had been soaked in. He never hurt anyone, and in fact it was suspected he had used his abilities to heal the construction workers who built the containment structures around the remains of the destroyed nuclear plant. As far as Natasha was concerned, that made the man something of a hero, but when his secret was discovered by the community, he was shunned and subjected to discriminatory behaviour reminiscent of the Jim Crow era southern United States. By the time SHIELD intervened it was too late; the man had been murdered by an off duty soldier, who got off scot free despite the overwhelming evidence against him.

Natasha vividly recalled dismantling an illegal lab where a man who could produce pheromones that soothed strong emotions was being harvested alive in hopes of creating potent mind control drugs. In one of his first missions for SHIELD, Clint had rescued a pair of hollow-boned teenagers with wings sprouting from their backs that allowed them to fly from a sex trafficking ring. The very mission that ended Natasha's probationary period with the organization had involved a child with the ability to change her appearance who had been abandoned by her own parents, been treated as subhuman by the foster system, and ultimately ended up in the merciless clutches of a Russian lab affiliated with the Red Room. She still occasionally had nightmares about what she'd seen on that misadventure, and in the aftermath, nothing had been done to punish the foster parents who had abused the girl in the first place.

Yes, Natasha thought. As terrifyingly dangerous as superhumans could be, it was undeniable that they needed to be protected from ordinary people just as much as the latter needed to be protected from them.

No sooner had Natasha reached this conclusion than the sound of glass shattering snapped her out of her musings. "And there's that assassin," she said in a bored tone as she sprang to her feet. Immediately the four secret service men moved to surround the Senator, and they retreated towards the suite's foyer.

Natasha slammed her shoes hard into the floor, one after the other, snapping off the high heels and adjusting her posture to one suitable for combat. She had her pistol in both hands when a grenade rolled through the open door to the senator's bedroom. At once she lashed out with her slippered foot, kicking it back the way it had come before diving for the wall beside the doorway.

The grenade detonated with a deafening BANG that almost made Natasha drop her weapon. The explosion shook the entire floor of the hotel, and small flames billowed out from the bedroom. Motes of dust rained down from the ceiling, and smoke enshrouded the entire suite.

Shaking her head to clear it, Natasha raised her pistol as a shadowy figure emerged from the doorway, seemingly unscathed by the detonation, aimed at where the head seemed to be, and fired. To her astonishment, her shot ricocheted off of something metallic in a shower of sparks and shattered a light fixture. Immediately she changed tactics. In an enclosed space like this a gun was just as dangerous to the wielder as to anybody else, so she pulled a knife from her arm sheathe and darted forward, striking at her opponent's midsection.

The other assassin was quick. They lashed out with one hand, and Natasha's bewilderment increased when she felt cold metal fingers close around her wrist, squeezing so hard it was all she could do not to drop the knife. Refusing to let her shock show she lashed out with her other hand, intending to slam the butt of her pistol into the other's face, but they leaned out of the way and twisted around, throwing Natasha across the room like a ragdoll. She slammed into an overturned armchair, and pain shot through her back as one of the wooden legs splintered slightly with the force of her impact.

Disoriented, Natasha groaned as she struggled to force herself back to her feet. She fully expected the assassin to finish her then and there, but she felt no cold metal close around her throat, no booted foot slam into her rib cage. Instead, she heard rapid foot falls, shouts of alarm, and gunfire.

By the time Natasha had recovered fully and moved to retrieve her weapons, cursing when she found that her pistol had been crushed into a misshapen hunk of useless black metal, the fight had moved out into the hallway. Emerging from the penthouse suite, she saw one of the secret service men slumped against a wall with his neck hanging at an unnatural angle. Further down, she saw a male figure she didn't recognize brutally slam a metallic fist into another agent's face, smashing his nose and likely shattering cheek bones.

As the assassin turned away from his second kill, Natasha got her first full frontal look at him. He was tall, of a height with Clint, and had shaggy brown hair that hung to his shoulders. A simple black mask covered his face and neck from the nose down, and a set of goggles hid his eyes. He wore black combat fatigues of a cut she didn't recognize and had an assortment of knives and hand guns on his belt, though it was clear he didn't feel the need to use them just yet, as his hands were empty. Most striking, however, was his left arm, which appeared to be completely made of metal, unadorned save for a red star painted over the shoulder. For an instant Natasha wondered if it was encased in armor of some sort, but the dimensions didn't match that assessment; it was exactly the same size as his right arm, which meant it was a mechanical prosthetic, and when she realized that, Natasha's blood ran cold.

The intelligence community was rife with rumors and ghost stories, the remnants of unsolved instances of espionage. One of the most infamous such ghost stories was the Winter Soldier, an extremely dangerous assassin credited with dozens of kills going back all the way to the sixties and identified solely by his signature metal arm. Natasha had always secretly wondered how well she might stand up to the Winter Soldier in a fight, but she'd never had any real desire to find out.

You can't always have what you want , she thought dryly as she brought her Widow's Bite to bear. She fired two taser discs in quick succession, each aimed at different limbs. To her astonishment, the soldier leaped into the air and spun like an acrobat, neatly avoiding both projectiles, which slammed harmlessly into the far wall, narrowly missing the fleeing senator Grant and her surviving guards.

Natasha charged, firing a third taser disc at the Soldier, who rolled along the carpeted floor to avoid it before leaping to his feet to redirect Natasha's first punch with his flesh arm. Then Natasha's perception of events became a blur as she fell back on combat instincts that had been drilled into her since she was six years old. Her every move was pulled from muscle memory, her mind oddly disconnected from the fight.

The Soldier was bigger than her, yet he moved so fast it was all she could do to avoid getting her face smashed by his bionic arm, and she knew instinctively that even his flesh limbs were significantly stronger than she was. In seconds she was on the defensive, struggling to evade strikes that whistled through the still air with such force they left faint winds in their wake.

The Soldier aimed a punch at her throat with his bionic arm, and Natasha barely slid to the side. As the metal fist smashed clean through the painted sheetrock of the wall, she pulled another knife from her shoulder sheath and plunged it towards the Soldier's flesh arm. Instantly he'd brought his hand up and caught her wrist, stopping the attack cold. He yanked his bionic arm from the wall, showering them both with dust and leaving behind a ragged hole, but Natasha ducked under the blow and jabbed her free hand towards his throat. He released her knife hand and deflected her strike with his gauntleted wrist, then leaned backward to avoid a slash aimed at his face.

The Soldier's bionic arm snapped forward once more, but Natasha ducked again and aimed a vicious kick at his groin. To her surprise, he allowed the blow to connect, and he barely flinched when it did. A split second later he was lashing out with a lateral kick of his own, meant to sweep Natasha off her feet and send her crashing to the ground. Instead she back flipped, taking advantage of their proximity by deliberately slamming the tips of her feet into his maked chin.

As the Soldier's head snapped backward in retreat, Natasha landed, somewhat clumsily by her standards, sprang up with her arm extended, and activated her Widow's Bite yet again. This time, the taser disc struck the Soldier directly in the center of his chest, and he spasmed like a victim of an epileptic seizure as the intense electrical charge coursed through him.

For a moment, it seemed Natasha had won. Then, to her astonishment, he began to move his flesh arm up towards the disc. Immediately Natasha fired a second one into his leg, and he stumbled but, incredibly, remained on his feet.

A single taser disc should have left him unconscious, jerking and twitching on the floor. Two should have killed him outright. Natasha's goal was to protect Senator Grant and capture the so-called 'Asset' if possible. No one had suspected that it was the Winter Soldier, and all hopes she'd had of beating him were evaporating. He was just as skilled a combatant as she was, but he had the advantage of being significantly faster and stronger than her; too strong and fast for an ordinary human.

Decision made, Natasha leaped forward over the Soldier's twitching head as he yanked the first taser disc off his chest and wrapped her legs around his neck, sending them both crashing to the carpeted floor. She rolled with the impact, flipping forward on her hands like a gymnast and landing in a graceful crouch. Then she was running as fast as her slippered feet could carry her down the hall to the elevators.

If the Senator and her remaining protectors were following the plan, then they had taken the stairs down towards the parking garage. Sure enough, when Natasha yanked open the door to the stairwell and looked down, she caught sight of the trio rushing down the flights of concrete steps a few stories below. Immediately she took off down the stairs in pursuit, her mind racing. If she stuck close to them, the Soldier would only have to go one direction to get to them. She had to lead him on a wild goose chase, or it would all be for nothing.

The secret service man behind the Senator almost shot Natasha when she caught up with him. She waved away his apology. "Take the elevator down."

"Are you out of your mind?" the Senator demanded. "He'll catch us before it arrives!"

"Not if I lead him away," Natasha corrected, shoving the nearest door open to another hallway. "I need your spare pistols," she added, looking at the secret service men. "Get to the parking garage. I'll meet you at the street exit. There's no time to argue. Go!"

To their credit, the agents immediately passed her the extra pistols concealed in their suits' inner pockets and began hustling the Senator out into the hallway beyond. She deactivated the safeties on each of the guns as the door closed behind them and turned, pointing them upward into the stairwell. A split second later, the door to the highest level, three stories up, banged open. The Soldier leaned over the handrail cautiously, clutching a minigun, but Natasha was already firing her new pistols.

Instantly the Soldier jerked backward out of range of the hail of bullets so that they sprayed against the metal handrails and concrete walls, generating sparks and puffs of dust as they ricocheted. Natasha moved down the stairwell, keeping her eyes trained on the Soldier and firing intermittently, uncaring of the numerous ricochets; she had a nasty feeling that even if she stopped, the Soldier would keep firing regardless of the risk to himself, and he had the advantage of an elevated position.

Sure enough, the instant her barrage of intermittent fire faltered he was leaning over the side of the safety rail and firing his own weapon, and it was all Natasha could do to dive down a flight of steps to a platform directly underneath the Soldier's own position, where he could not see her. She could hear him rushing downward, his footfalls much louder and more rapid than what should be humanly possible, and she rushed down another flight to the nearest door.

Kicking it open, she dashed out into the hallway and deliberately slammed it shut behind her. He would know where she'd gone, and that was exactly what she wanted. Turning, she saw a startled looking family of four staring at her, wide eyed. The father hastily leaned down and scooped up his small children, a boy and a girl who didn't look a day older than four. They looked as if they were just returning from a long day at the pool.

"Get back to your room and hide!" she ordered. "There's an active shooter coming this way. Go, go!" The parents, fortunately, didn't need to be told twice. They turned tail and ran.

Natasha ran the opposite direction, heading for the corner of the hallway where it followed the shape of the building's exterior. As she ducked behind the wall the doors to the stairwell from which she'd come banged open, and she peered around the corner to find the Soldier stalking out into the hallway, still clutching his minigun. It was impossible to see his expression behind that mask and the dark goggles, but Natasha had the distinct impression he was irritated.

The Soldier's head twitched, and he brought his gun up. Now it was Natasha's turn to lean back behind cover as bullets zipped past her to blast holes in the wall. Crouching beneath the line of fire, she leaned around the corner and fired a few shots of her own, but the awkward angle threw off her aim. Worse, the Soldier had spotted her, predicted the trajectory of her shots, and was already halfway out of the line of fire by the time she pulled the triggers of her pistols.

Damn. Even she couldn't dodge bullets that easily.

The Soldier maintained a steady stream of fire as he advanced, forcing Natasha to remain behind the wall. Once he reached the corner, though, it would be all over. Unless…

Natasha set down one of her pistols and reached for the tiny utility belt of her black shift, pulling off a taser disc that was significantly larger than those fired from her wrist launchers. She fiddled with the activation dial and then, carefully, reached around the corner and rolled the disc down the carpeted floor like a grenade.

The stream of gunfire faltered, and Natasha took off down her own stretch of empty hallway. As she reached the next corner she heard a sharp snap-crackle sound and groan of pain from behind, and she allowed herself a grim twitch of her lips. The larger taser discs were known to become highly magnetized when activated, which wasn't good if you happened to have a metal limb and got near one.

As the Soldier struggled with the taser disc, Natasha made a beeline for a bank of elevators down the hallway and frantically pressed the call button for down. She didn't really expect it to arrive in time, but it wouldn't matter either way. As the Soldier's footsteps resumed, she began her own barrage of intermittent gunfire, strafing the corner wall behind which she'd initially hidden herself. The Soldier's approach faltered. A few seconds later, the elevator doors opened with a pleasant chime.

Instantly Natasha dived inside and jammed her finger against the close button. Seconds later, the Soldier had placed his bionic arm between the closing doors, warping the metal with a horrible groaning sound. Without hesitation Natasha shot him in the chest and stomach. She would have aimed for his face, but the position of his arm was guaranteed to deflect any bullets. As it was, her shots made the Soldier stagger backward, clutching his torso, and the doors began to slide closed. Natasha shoved the close button down again with her thumb, holding it there until the doors slid closed once more. She heard the Soldier banging his fist against them outside, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that he'd just been shot, but she pressed the button for the ground floor, and the car began to descend.

Natasha took the opportunity to reload her pistols and move her last pair of knives to belt sheathes. Her outfit was so thin it was a wonder the weight of the blades didn't pull it off her shoulders. The elevator chimed as it reached the ground floor, and Natasha hastened out, ignoring the startled looks of the hotel guests who had been waiting outside to board. She made her way through the luxuriously appointed lobby and out into the driveway.

The hotel staff manning the valet parking service stared at her in what was either astonishment, lust, or possibly both. She ignored them too. Distantly she heard a faint crash and guessed that the Soldier had reached the lobby. Come on , she thought desperately. She had known from the beginning that her ruse would not last long. And then, blessedly, the glossy black senatorial limo shot out of the yawning mouth of the parking garage. Natasha made a beeline for it, and the door to the back seat jerked open at her approach. As she jumped inside and slammed the door shut behind her she heard the sound of approaching police sirens.

Glancing around the limo as it slid into traffic, Natasha saw Senator Grant huddled on the other side of the back seat, her clothes spattered with blood. Up front sat exactly one secret service agent. "What happened?" she demanded.

"The assassin brought friends," the agent replied grimly. "Four guys in combat fatigues I've never seen before showed up in the middle of the parking garage just before we got to the limo. They pinned us down for a bit until I shot the fuel tank of a parked car and blew it up. That got their attention long enough for us to escape, but my partner didn't make it. He took a few bullets meant for the senator"

"Where's the rest of the security team?"

"No idea. I tried to comm them several times, but they never responded. I'm guessing they're dead."

Natasha stifled a groan as she reached down under her seat. She fumbled with a latching mechanism there until a hidden panel sprang open, spilling a black burlap bag onto the floor between her legs. Opening the bag, Natasha pulled out a fresh set of combat fatigues, complete with a new pair of pistols and Widow's Bites as well as a few extra bits and bobs. Ignoring the wide eyed look from Senator Grant, she began to strip out of her current outfit while at the same time barking instructions to the agent at the wheel. "We have to assume the regular rendezvous points have been compromised. They knew exactly which room to find us in, and the assassin got in from the outside easy as pie."

"Where are we going, then? City Hall?" he demanded in clear agitation.

"HPD headquarters. Then at least we'll have numbers on our side."

The agent growled but didn't argue. As the limo shot through the streets of Houston, ignoring speed limits and even stop lights, Natasha deftly wriggled into her spare outfit, a two piece black bodysuit with matching combat boots. Hearing the wail of approaching sirens, she adjusted her new weapons and glanced out the rear window to find a pair of police cruisers chasing them, closely followed by what appeared to be a black van, though Natasha couldn't be certain in the poor nighttime lighting conditions.

There was a flash of fire from the side of the van, and a hail of bullets spattered against the rear window, striking the same spot in quick succession until the last one broke through, streaking so close to Natasha's face she felt it tug her hair before crashing into the windshield and stopping cold. More shots peppered the armored limo, and Natasha cursed her inability to fire back without risk of hitting bystanders. She hated car chases.

The chase took them through darkened streets, past late night drivers who honked at them in indignation as they zoomed by. Occasionally the agent would have to take sharp turns or make unexpected detours to avoid roadblocks set up by other groups of police cruisers, more than once sending Senator Grant crashing into Natasha and vice versa. Still, she had to admit he was good at this.

By the time they reached a street intersection adjacent to the police headquarters, an austere skyscraper that was more concrete than glass, they had a small parade of law enforcement vehicles chasing them on top of the Winter Soldier and whatever allies he had at his command.

"Stay out of sight," Natasha told the senator as she kicked open her own passenger door and rolled outside, pistols in hand. Behind her she heard the Senator and the last secret service man emerge from their side of the limo to make a mad dash for the headquarters building.

The unmarked black van had stopped outside the ring of police vehicles, and it was only from the way his bionic arm gleamed in the light of the streetlamps that Natasha was able to spot the Winter Soldier as he emerged from its rear. He was holding a grenade launcher.

Oh come on!

The Soldier aimed his new toy not at the Senator's limo but at the nearest police cruiser and fired. Natasha ducked back behind cover and shut her eyes. The explosion seemed oddly quiet amid the din of wailing police sirens, and when Natasha peeked around the limo door again, she saw a pair of overturned patrol cars lying blackened, burning heaps, leaving the Winter Soldier a direct path to the limo and the building beyond. Behind him, Natasha could make out two more assailants, big, brutal-faced men carrying assault rifles. This, however, the boldness that had served them so well at Four Seasons backfired. In seconds the remaining police vehicles had emptied, and their occupants poured outside, pouring gunfire in the assassin's direction.

Incredibly, the Soldier ignored the swarm of new opposition. He exchanged his grenade launcher for one of his helpers' rifles and charged Natasha's position so fast that the police were unable to track him with their shots and were ultimately forced to desist or risk hitting each other.

The Soldier leaped atop the limo and aimed his rifle down towards Natasha, but for once she was quicker. This time when she shot him, she scored a direct hit on his flesh and blood shoulder, striking the weakest point in his body armor dead on. The Soldier jerked and faltered, but instead of letting go of the rifle, he used his bionic arm to throw it at her.

Natasha rolled back away from the now useless cover of the limo door, then rolled again to avoid the Soldier's bionic arm as he leaped down, slamming his metal fist into the pavement with such force it cracked like an egg. Then they were engaged in hand to hand yet again, and Natasha was dismayed to realize that the Soldier's injured shoulder didn't slow him down nearly as much as it should have. As before, they were equally skilled, but he was so physically superior that it was like fighting ten men at once. They danced viciously across the darkened pavement, circling the concrete support columns that ringed the ground floor of the police headquarters until it stood between them and the window walls.

What are you , Natasha thought frantically. Some kind of Super Soldier?!

The question seemed to answer itself. In one fluid motion, too fast for Natasha to follow, the cyborg assassin kicked her in the chest with such force her sternum shattered, and she flew for ten feet before crashing into the bullet proof glass wall of the headquarters building. Dazed and in pain, she realized she'd accidentally bitten down on a false tooth at the back of her mouth. Oh great . As the coma-inducing toxin poured down her throat she heard a series of sharp cracks split the night air.

Natasha expected to feel bullets slam into her stomach, or metal fingers closing around her throat. When she didn't, she forced herself to look up. The Winter Soldier was ignoring her now, using the concrete support column he'd all but chased her around as cover as the police poured gunfire in his direction.

As the contents of the false tooth carried her off into a dreamless slumber so deep, not even a defibrillator could reverse it, her last thought was a desperate hope that Clint would get to her before she ended up in a body bag.

Under the Triskelion, Washington DC, August of 2003

Alexander Pierce watched impassively as the Winter Soldier was led back to a restraining chair, where he would be kept sedated for the return trip to Siberia. That bunker was growing increasingly inconvenient, Pierce mused. It would probably have to be abandoned soon in favor of a more practical base of operations for the asset.

Pierce turned to his co-conspirator, Gideon Malick, who had only just been promoted to one of the Heads of HYDRA and was well on his way to joining the World Security Council. "You think Fury's onto us?" he asked.

Malick shrugged. "I don't see how, unless our copy of Phoenix's new communication phone isn't as perfect as we thought. He does have an eye for that sort of thing."

Pierce ignored the pun. "He knew we'd sent the Asset after Senator Grant. How else did Romanoff end up getting in the way? She was listed as being on leave in Florida, but instead she fought the Asset head to head and almost saved the Senator. I wish she'd survived. We could have gotten some useful intel out of her."

"Well, she didn't," Malick said. "But just in case, we should have Fury disposed of, put someone more malleable in his place. He's getting a little too cozy with Phoenix for comfort. And maybe Coulson too."

Pierce shook his head. "Getting rid of both of them at the same time would look too suspicious. We already played this a little too recklessly going after Ross's opposition the way we did." He wanted to argue further that they still needed Nick, but Malick was right about that part. "I'll recall the Asset," he sighed, and moved to speak with the Soldier's handlers.

Greenwich Village, Manhattan, August of 2003

"And play nice with the other kids," Harry was saying to a slightly pouting Teddy as he brushed nonexistent dust from his shoulders. They were standing outside the daycare Harry had selected for Teddy to attend while he was at work, which was only two blocks away from their house. Teddy wore a vivid Captain America t-shirt and blue shorts (Harry had joked he was betraying the queen by joining "those rebel colonials" when he picked it out that morning), while Harry was clad in a white workout shirt and black sweatpants. Teddy absolutely refused to wear the charmed amulet that concealed his metamorphosing abilities while at home, not that Harry would ever force him to, but it was a necessity while the boy was out and about at this age, when his abilities were still developing.

"I promise I'll play nice," Teddy promised dutifully. It was clear from his expression that he didn't approve of Harry leaving him here, but he needed friends his age, and Harry had put his foot down.

Satisfied, Harry led Teddy through the glass doors and, after speaking with the kindly receptionist, gave Teddy one last hug. "I'll see you later, kiddo," Harry promised. "Love you."

"Love you too, dad," Teddy said, voice muffled slightly as he buried his face in Harry's much broader shoulder. Then they were separating, and Harry watched somewhat forlornly as his son was led deeper into the place. He was due to start American kindergarten in a few weeks.

Shaking his head, Harry bade the secretary a good day and hastened back outside. He half-jogged to the street where he lived, but instead of going home he made for a business. Marauder's Oven , the sign read. Sliding into a back alley, Harry unlocked the employee entrance with a touch and entered, transfiguring his clothes into a baker's uniform as he did so.

As a child he had often been forced to cook for the Dursleys, and while they never admitted as much, he was actually very good at it. However, while Aunt Petunia was happy to make Harry cook all the meals, she seemed to draw a line at him making treats such as biscuits and cakes. She seemed to think that he would enjoy making something sweet and wanted to deny him that, as even back then it was clear he had a bit of a sweet tooth. On learning as much, Hermione and Mrs. Weasley had both insisted on teaching him to bake with and without magic, and it transpired that he had enjoyed it very much. Once he'd taken a trip to New York and come across a bakery owned by the Scamanders that catered to both muggles and magicals by selling confections styled in the shape of various magical beasts, and he'd liked the idea so much that he'd decided to revive it from its grave in the Dark Dimension by creating a similar establishment here, albeit one that was mostly restricted to catering.

Knowing that Harry could not trust regular employees not to question his frequent and sometimes unpredictable trips around the world, the Ancient One had helped him seek out former students of Kamar-Taj who had, for one reason or another, chosen to abandon their training and go back to their normal lives who also happened to be close to Harry's age. As a result, he had a staff of four helping him round the clock, and they often tried good-naturedly to get him to loosen up.

"Hey Harry," called Jason, a handsome college student with a penchant for flirting with every unmarried person he found attractive regardless of gender, who was on opening duty that day. "We've got a big order for a Dragon's Horde on the list today."

"Already?" Harry said with a slight smile. He hadn't been advertising very hard when he first opened, but his signature combination of dragon-themed cookies and cake for birthday parties was gaining rapid popularity by word of mouth. He didn't think he'd have to worry too much about his income if Marauder's Oven was already doing this well.

A few hours later, a steady line had formed in the middle of the bakery as customers filed in, most waiting to pick up their special orders. As Harry passed a young woman her box gryphon-shaped donuts he overheard snatches of an odd conversation further down the line.

"..Yeah, the way I heard it, that Senator who's been criticizing the war and general Ross was shot at the Houston Police Department," a man was saying to his friend. "Bit convenient, dontcha think? The loudest voice opposing the government's agenda silenced by an assassin's bullet? I thought this was a free country."

Harry kept his face impassive, but internally, he was suddenly very worried, and he had to stamp down on an overreaction from the Phoenix Force. Clearly, he had more enemies than he realized. He restrained an impulse to apparate home and call Nick Fury to discuss this development. He could afford to spend a day getting his elbows covered in flour. Still…

Harry told Jason to take over counter duty, claiming a bathroom break, but he gave the other man a significant look that said a lot more. Jason's expression didn't change beyond a tightening of his eyes, but it was clear he understood.

Harry headed to the back rooms of the bakery, set up a privacy ward, and called the new burner phone he'd given Nick Fury at their meeting weeks earlier.

It rang and rang, but nobody answered. Frowning, Harry called again, and once again he received no answer. This was not normal.

With a sinking feeling, Harry began to wonder if the looming threat of Kaecilius and his zealots was truly his most immediate problem.