Disclaimer: Neither Harry Potter nor Avengers are mine.

Natasha

Natasha Romanoff — agent, assassin, spy — the infamous Black Widow — was worried, confused and scared — all at the same time. And she was right to be. Almost a week had passed since the chain of events leading to her current situation had been set in motion. A week since Clint Barton — Hawkeye — had been compromised — put under some form of mind control by a supposedly otherworldly aggressor. A week since she had been pulled out of her investigation of illegal arms dealers and forced to fly halfway across the globe to recruit a certain Dr. Bruce Banner.

Throughout her career, Natasha had dealt with all sorts of craziness — especially since she had defected to SHIELD. The likes of enhanced humans, mutants or cyborgs didn't really faze her anymore. But this was on a different scale. How does one deal with someone who was, until recently, considered a mythological being — a god — for all intents and purposes? Someone who could take away one's free will and force them to do their bidding effortlessly?

Ever since her defection to SHIELD, Barton had been her partner on almost every non-solo mission. He was the only person who had shown her real empathy — the only one she could call a friend — the only one she could trust to an extant — the only one in the land of living anyway. Barton, in return, had trusted her with his family — something he kept hidden even from SHIELD. Natasha had colleagues, of course, but her reputation caused them to keep her at an arm's length. In fact, her getting close to someone was often considered a sign of their impending doom. She had, after all, a very specific skill set and had no qualms about using any means at her disposal to complete her mission.

Not that Natasha cared — it was one of the lessons drilled into her throughout her Red Room days. Relationships and sentiments are dangerous — to be avoided at all costs. One never knows when they could be asked to dispose of someone they've known, or even worked with, for years. It was a lesson Natasha had learnt the hard way — she had been forced to take the life of someone she had come to care greatly for. She still couldn't think of the incident without guilt flaring up her chest. It was one of the primary reasons she had opted to defect to SHIELD when Barton had offered — instead of killing her as his mission had stipulated — a debt she doubted she'd ever be able to pay in full.

So when Loki had been captured in Germany and had been brought to the helicarrier, she had visited him in captivity — hoping to find a way to release Barton from his control — or at least have his life spared. She wasn't entirely lying when she had professed her attempt to save Barton to be a by-product of her desire to wipe the red from her ledger — although she liked to think she cared just a bit more about Barton than that.

Needless to say, the meeting had not gone the way she had wanted. Loki had turned out to be even worse of a monster than she had imagined.

"I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you! Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear! And when he'll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I'll split his skull! This is my bargain, you mewling quim!" Loki had screamed at her when she had tried to appeal for Barton's life. It was evident that Loki hadn't so much been captured as he had allowed himself to be taken — a sentiment Fury had echoed.

"Then why do I feel like he's the only person on this boat that wants to be here?" Fury had said in response to Thor's declaration about Loki being a prisoner.

Fortunately, her parting comment about Loki being a monster had caused him to reveal his immediate plans — which involved Banner going green and rampaging across the helicarrier — something that would cripple SHIELD for the foreseeable future. While it was a solid strategy to disable potential opponents before they had a chance to act, there had to be more to it. If Barton had told him everything he knew, Loki could easily cripple SHIELD without letting himself be captured. The only thing she could think of was that he wanted their attention focused on himself while his subordinates did his biding — he was stalling for time. And he clearly had confidence in his ability to walk out of his prison whenever he wanted.

But that was something they could analyse later. Her first priority was to have Banner isolated. Hulk rampaging across the helicarrier would cause hundreds of deaths — most of the SHIELD personnel were ordinary people. Highly trained, no doubt, but certainly not capable of surviving a fall from tens of thousands of feet — she doubted she could survive that kind of a fall — despite her enhanced endurance. And she certainly didn't want Banner to be a guilt-ridden wreck when he came around — not on her watch — not when she was the one to persuade him to come out of his self imposed exile.

Having informed SHIELD of Loki's plan, she sprinted over to the lab where Stark and Banner were supposed to be working on locating the Tesseract. What she witnessed upon her arrival caused her blood pressure levels to skyrocket. Instead of doing anything to avert the catastrophe, the so called Avengers appeared to be busy bickering amongst themselves — with Fury thrown in for good measure. Stark and Rogers were at each other's throats, while Fury, Thor and Banner were shouting at each other. Fury appeared to be on the defensive though — now that was a rare sight.

As amusing as it was, Fury had put a lot of hope in the Avengers Initiative — even though it had officially been shut down. And despite not knowing about the initiative — Fury was waiting for another to arrive before going for the introduction — she had expected a bit more maturity from the members. It didn't take her long to come to the conclusion that without something to bind them together, the initiative was doomed. Other than Rogers — not that he was behaving any better — they were dealing with civilians with egos the size of Mount Everest. She suspected that by the time they would manage to get their act together — if they ever did — it would likely be too late.

Thor had indicated that they were likely to be invaded by an advanced warring race of aliens. If that were the case, they needed a united front to counter them. She highly doubted even enhanced individuals like Rogers and Stark could stand against space-faring invaders on their own. Cursing Fury for putting her in a situation like that, she prepared to put her foot down and put an end to the bickering. But she didn't need to — someone beat her to the punch.

"It's his MO, isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time-bomb," Banner was raging.

"You need to step away," replied Fury, in a forcefully calm voice.

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" asked Stark, putting his arm around Rogers, infuriating him in the process.

"You know damn well why! Back off!" snarled Rogers, pulsing Stark off.

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," replied Stark, stepping into Rogers' personal space, coming face to face with him.

"Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage."

There was a pause before Rogers continued.

"The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire."

Rogers smirked, "Always a way out... You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle," shouted Stark. Rogers' last comment had hit a nerve, it seemed.

Before Rogers could respond to the snark, an authoritative voice reverberated across the room. It wasn't particularly loud, but the tone was unmistakable — the speaker was beyond annoyed. Strangely enough, the voice seemed to have no definite origin. It seemed to be coming from the very walls of the room.

"That's enough!"

Natasha paled — she knew that voice. She could recognise it anywhere — despite not having heard it for a long time. It was the voice — and the face associated with it — that had haunted her nightmares for years.

A man stepped out from the shadows.

"Are these the morons you're betting the entire planet on, Fury?" asked the newcomer, his voice barely above a whisper. Yet it carried across the room as if he had shouted out loud.

The room seemed to be stunned into silence. Naturally, it was Stark who broke it in his usual brash manner.

"Who the hell are you?"

It was Fury who responded, "He is the last member of the team I've been waiting for…"

"What team? I sure as hell am not teaming up with a bunch of numbskulls who are in the middle of a dick measuring contest while a potential global extinction event is at our doorstep…"

There were cries of outrage. Natasha would have found the situation comical — had she not been struggling to come to terms with the arrival of the newcomer.

"Who the hell do you think you are, kid?" Rogers was the loudest.

"Harry Potter — he is…" Natasha found herself speaking, when no one else seemed to be in a hurry to do the introductions. But she couldn't continue — unable to bring herself to say any further — not sure what she could say without making the situation worse.

The newcomer turned around.

"Ah, I was wondering if I would see you around, Natasha…"

"But how?" Natasha couldn't help but blurt out.

The newcomer — Harry — snorted derisively. "That's for me to know, isn't it? I am hardly going to expose all my secrets to the infamous Black Widow."

Natasha reeled back as if physically slapped. Harry Potter had been one kill she had always regretted. She had never forgotten the look of abject betrayal on his face when he had realised what she had done. She had been assigned to his case when three assassins sent after him had vanished without any trace. Her mission had been to seduce, extract information and kill — nothing she hadn't done before. In fact, those were here specialities. Unfortunately, none of that had worked on the mystery that was Harry Potter. Instead of seducing him, she had ended up falling for him. His sincerity, his maturity, his non-judgemental and caring nature and his willingness to put his life on the line for those he cared for had proved too hard for her to resist. Before she met Harry Potter, she never believed anyone would ever truly care for her — especially when they found out the exact nature of her work. But Potter — Harry — had accepted her for what she was — even when he had found out her real identity — thanks to an attempt at her life. He had protected her, cared for her when she was injured and even offered to help her escape her handlers if she so desired. In exchange, she had slipped a poisonous needle into his neck and watched the light leave those haunted green eyes looking accusingly at her while her victim lay paralysed.

The victim — who was standing feet away from her — looking as if nothing had happened. She couldn't understand how — she had verified the kill before leaving the hotel he was staying at. The guilt in her chest was replaced by fear as she realised the precarious situation she found herself in.

"Romanoff! Romanoff! You alright?" Fury was shouting from across the room. She had missed some of the conversation, but Fury seemed to have made the introductions and reassured the others of Harry's presence to the point where they were no longer pointing their weapons at him, although the looks of distrust and hostility remained.

"I'm… I'm fine," she found herself replying. As much as she wanted to run away from the accusing stare of Harry Potter, they had bigger problems. Perhaps, if she survived whatever was coming, she might be able to ask for forgiveness. How does one ask someone forgiveness for their betrayal and attempted — almost successful — murder, though?

"So, what do we know about crazy bastard's plans?" asked Harry.

"Have care how you speak!" shouted Thor. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is a prince of Asgard!"

"Is Asgard taking responsibility for his actions?" asked Harry calmly, but not giving an inch.

Thor bristled, "He'll face Asgardian justice."

"He has committed war crimes on Earth. Asgard can have what's left once we are done with him."

"He's my brother!"

Harry turned towards Fury, "Do you typically allow people with clear conflict of interest to attend your confidential meetings? How do we know he's not going to side with his brother in the upcoming conflict?"

"He does have a point," piped in Stark. "Point Break here has already tried to rescue Loki once — without a care for who he hurt in the process."

There was some more bickering about whether Thor could be trusted until Phil Coulson arrived to vouch for him. Fortunately for Thor, Coulson was someone Harry appeared to be willing to trust — for reasons unknown.

"Alright Coulson, I am willing to take your word for it. But remember this, I do not take betrayals lightly."

Natasha gulped — was he looking at her when he said that?

"Now take me to Loki," continued Harry as if nothing had happened.

Thor appeared angry but held his tongue.

"He hasn't been very cooperative…" started Coulson.

"He'll sing like a canary once I am done with him," smirked Harry.

Thor bristled, "And what exactly…"

"Let me explain something to you — Thor, was it?" Harry cut across. 'Your brother came to our planet uninvited and killed almost eighty humans — half of whom were civilians," he paused for emphasis, "despite — as you said — not being at war with us. I don't know how laws in Asgard work, but attacking civilians — even during war times — is considered a grave crime almost everywhere on this planet… After all that, you do not get a say in what we do to protect our planet."

Everyone stood stunned for a moment.

"Please turn off all cameras," he said to the room at large.

"I can't condone torturing people, Potter," started Rogers, getting up from his chair.

"So you'd rather let seven billion people die? Or would you prefer enslavement?" challenged Harry. "I don't particularly enjoy it, Rogers, but unless you have a way to make Loki speak — and quickly at that, I suggest you get out of my way…"

"Let me speak to him," Thor pleaded — looking like wind had been knocked off his sails, "I'm sure I can get him to see reason…"

"Be my guest," replied Harry, "but hurry up, we don't have a lot of time."

Thor nodded and left with Coulson — presumably to wherever Loki was being kept.

"Romanoff, can you show Mr. Potter to him room?" asked Fury after a few minutes when it looked like nobody had anything else to say — seemingly oblivious to the tension between the two. Harry had chosen not to elaborate on their previous encounter.

As she led Harry to his room, Natasha's mind was in turmoil. This was very different from the Harry Potter she had once known. Was it all a facade? Or had he changed after the incident? Fury had mentioned he had some skills suited to the Avengers Initiative. What could he have meant? Had he been experimented upon somehow? That could be the only explanation for his survival. He must have been taken right when he was on the brink of death. She wondered what horrors he had witnessed.

More importantly, what did it mean for her? He wouldn't just let it go, would he? She wanted to talk to him — to get answers to all the questions running through her head — but she had lost that privilege when she had — against her better judgement — slipped that needle into his neck.

"Don't worry Natasha. If I wanted you dead, you'd have died a long time ago," replied Harry grimly, almost as if he had read her thoughts. "I've always known where you were, after all."

They were called for a full briefing about the situation about an hour or so later — once Banner and Stark had managed to locate the Tesseract. Something about it seemed to be causing a lot of distress to the usually mild mannered scientist.

But before the briefing could take place — or indeed anyone could talk about anything at all, the entire carrier was rocked by an explosion and the lab was filled with smoke. Natasha found herself disoriented — and more importantly, trapped beneath something heavy. There was some indistinct chatter about one of the engines being down and everyone hurrying towards their respective stations. When the smoke finally cleared, Natasha found herself — still trapped beneath one of the heavy pipes — with Banner on the floor, clearly on the verge of going green. She had to furiously wave away some of the SHIELD agents — who bolted for their lives. It wouldn't do for Hulk to perceive them as threat.

"Doctor... Bruce, you gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're gonna be okay. Listen to me…" she found herself rambling — anything to keep the doctor from turning. "We're gonna be okay. Right? I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never..."

"Your life?"

His voice had changed — the bitter amusement giving way to a growled threat. Another explosion rocked the carrier — and he turned to look at her, starting the transformation just as the lights went out. Around the same time, she noticed multi coloured jets of light hitting the transforming Banner — the source just outside her field of vision. Whoever was using the prototype laser weapons clearly had no clue what the Hulk was capable of. It wasn't likely to do anything other than enraging him — which made her situation decidedly worse. Cursing the stupidity of whoever had fired those lasers, she redoubled her efforts to free herself. Caught at an awkward angle beneath the machinery, the Hulk would pulverise her with absolutely no scope for defence…

Natasha blinked. Instead of angrily smashing things as he was normally prone to, the Hulk was… rolling on the floor… laughing? At least that was what it sounded like — not that it was any less terrifying. That's when she found the pipes being lifted off her. Twisting around, she found Harry standing behind her holding a stick pointed at the pipes which were floating in the air. Harry's voice brought her out of her stupor.

"Run!" shouted Harry, "I can't hold him forever!"

Turning around, she looked on in disbelief as a lot of broken equipment — mostly pipes — floating around and forming a — cage — around the laughing Hulk who seemed to be oblivious to it.

"How?" she turned open-mouthed towards Harry.

"Really? That's what you want to know right now?" retorted an annoyed Harry.

"Never mind," replied Natasha contritely. "That won't hold him, you know? He can punch through inches of solid steel."

"I know," replied Harry, "I am just buying us some time."

The cage, which was now complete, momentarily glowed blue.

"There — it's the best I can do for now — it will take him more than a few minutes for him to break through… Now tell me where Loki is held — I have a really bad feeling about this…"

"Follow me!"

As they ran towards the Loki's cage, Natasha had — once again —thousands of questions running through her head. The Harry Potter she had known certainly did not have these super powers. Or had he simply hidden them? This could not possibly be the result of any kind of scientific experiment, could it? It was almost like — magic. Did Fury know about it? Was that why she had been tasked with his assassination? She had merely been told that he was a threat of the highest level and had to be eliminated — she had known better than to question her superiors. During the time she had spent with him, she had figured out that he was keeping secrets, but he had always seemed like a harmless mild mannered person — not unlike Coulson.

Her thoughts were disrupted by the arrival of a figure clad in black wielding a bow and arrows, running towards them.

"Barton!" she found herself shouting.

"Is he friendly?" asked Harry.

She was saved the trouble of having to respond by Barton firing an arrow at them with deadly accuracy. Harry was faster — a translucent white dome had surrounded them before the arrow was even halfway through — which was just as well — the arrow exploded on impact. Had the dome not existed, the explosion would've knocked them out even if they had managed dodge it.

Harry dropped the dome as Barton ran towards them with a knife — clearly not having expected them to be on their feet.

"No stop — don't kill him," cried Natasha as Harry raised his hand.

A red beam of light hit Barton in the chest — who was too surprised — and too close — to dodge. He was blasted off his feet, landing in a heap about ten feet away.

"He's not dead," remarked Harry, correctly interpreting Natasha's look of dispair. "He'll wake up in a few hours. Take him to the hospital — I can make my way from here."

The next time Natasha saw Harry was in the briefing room a few hours later. Barton had indeed woken up in a couple of hours with nothing worse than a concussion. Whatever Harry had done had removed Loki's control over him — something everyone was immensely grateful for. He was distraught about the damage he had been forced to do under Loki's control.

Unfortunately, Harry had been too late to prevent Loki from escaping. In fact, Barton had been on his way back after helping Loki escape. Loki had apparently managed to trick his brother and throw him off the carrier — in addition to stabbing Coulson in the back. Fortunately, Harry had managed to put him in some form of stasis before he could bleed out — giving the medics a chance at saving his life. He was not out of the woods though — and there was a good chance of him ending up paralysed for life even if he did survive. The injury was way too close to the spinal cord.

Surprisingly enough, Hulk had not gone on a rampage. He had fallen asleep inside his cage and had eventually reverted to Banner. The doctor was amazed and grateful to Harry — and was in the middle of thanking Harry profusely when she had arrived. He looked far more cheerful than she had ever see him.

Despite Banner's uncharacteristic cheerfulness, the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. Coulson's injury seemed to have hit everyone hard. Almost all of them had known him personally at some point or the other.

Fury was being his usual self, attempting to use Coluson's near death to manipulate events in his favour — although she detected a hint of sincerity in his voice.

"We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming," Fury was saying. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea — Stark knows this — called The Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to — to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson was ready to die — will likely still die — believing in that idea, in heroes…" Stark walked off, not wanting to hear it anymore. "Well, it's an old fashioned notion."

Stark walked back into the room a few minutes after Fury had left with his posse — leaving Natasha alone with Harry and Rogers — Banner having gone back to the lab.

"Does he have a family? Is he married?" asked Rogers.

"No. He was seeing a… uh... cellist, I think," Tony replied uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man."

"He is an idiot."

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone."

"He was doing his job."

"He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have..."

"Sometimes, Stark, you have to choose between what is right and what is easy," spoke Harry, his voice hollow — almost painful. Natasha wondered how he knew Coulson. "Sometimes there is no way out."

"Right. How did that work for him?" sniped Stark.

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" asked Rogers.

Stark turned around sharply, "WE ARE NOT SOLDIERS! I am not marching to Fury's fife!"

"No we're not," replied Harry, "but tell me, Stark… Tony… can you walk away from a tyrant hell bent on murder and mayhem and subjugation of our planet? Knowing there the the slightest chance you could have helped? Tell me, are you willing to run — to go into hiding when Loki attacks with his army? Knowing there is every chace you might die? Can you live with yourself if you do?"

Both Stark and Rogers were staring at him, the former looking shameful, the latter puzzled.

"You speak like someone who has seen war," spoke Rogers.

Harry laughed — it was a hollow, bitter laugh, "My entire life has been a war..."

"What?" asked a horrified Rogers.

"Now is not the best time Cap — let's focus on Loki for now," replied Harry.

"Right," interjected Natasha, coming back to the problem at hand, "Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list..."

"Why did he attack us?" Stark asked out of nowhere.

"What?" asked Rogers, startled.

"Why did he attack us here? Right where we live?" Stark rephrased his question.

"He does have a point," added Natasha.

Harry snorted — causing the others to stare at him, "Oh, I know his type. He doesn't just want to beat us — he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience…"

"Right, I caught his act at Stuttgart," muttered Rogers.

"That was the trailer, this is opening night. He wants to break us in front of the largest audience he can muster, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered..." Harry continued bitterly.

"Son of a bitch!" cursed Stark.

As the boys — the Avengers — were busy suiting up, Natasha was facing a conundrum of her own. As much as she wanted to join them — and she know they needed all the help they could get — she was not a front line fighter — she was a spy, an assassin. As Barton had rightly pointed out, direct combat was not her forte. Sure, she could hold her own against humans, but they were talking about space faring killing machines. What hope did she have against those?

And yet, she had already changed into her combat gear — her catsuit — and was strapping on her weapons. She just couldn't not go — if there was the slightest chance she could make a difference. Harry was right — she wouldn't be able to live with herself otherwise — not that she'd be allowed to live for long if Loki won anyway. She just hoped not to be a liability.

"Can you fly one of those jets?" asked Rogers when they met on the way to the hanger.

"I can," someone responded before Natasha could. Hawkeye was already waiting for them.

Rogers looked at her, silently asking if it was a good idea to take him. She nodded. Harry, on the other hand, was frowning, but chose not to speak.

"Let's go!"

Thanks for reading! Please drop a line to let me know what you think.

Published: 2019-09-12