Disclaimer: The Avengers universe and all its characters belong to Marvel. Likewise with Harry Potter.

Beta: Michelle T.

Chapter 9: In which things are not as simple as good and bad

"Good men can be tempted."

It took more than half a day for SHIELD to find the immobile Natasha and the knocked out alien wizard next to her in a small cove off the West Coast. Half a day. That said something to the wizard's ability because this was the organization with its fingers and feelers in almost every country in the world. The same one that tracked down and surveillance-tagged a fleeing Bruce Banner within no more than two hours of him leaving the ruined Harlem streets in the wake of his face-off with the abomination of Emil Blonsky.

As Natasha was being carted off into a medivac, Nick Fury stood by her. "You did good, soldier," he said, nodding towards where they were sealing the alien wizard into a sub-zero C degree tank. "We could not have asked more of you."

"How are things?" she asked.

"Quiet," he replied. "Well of course, the media is having a field day. Half the the city's electric grid is offline. There were damage reports on several energy hubs. Some kids managed to snap pics of the warhead, just a lil dot in the skies and vague as shit, but that's enough for the conspiracy theorists. Some people are calling it a botched terrorist attack, which… well, it isn't that far off really. At least the military-reported theft of the warhead is not public information."

Ah, the same old media dance then. Natasha figured a dozen terrorist groups must have already claimed credit for the so-called attack. She'd guess Al Qaeda, or any other such religious paramilitary groups who had demonized the developed world in their bid to grasp power. Fury paused there for a second before continuing on.

"Loki is quiet."

If her body weren't in tatters and already wrapped in too many bandages and casts to move, Natasha would have shrugged.

"He's licking his wounds," she said. "Last time I saw him, he was taking two feet to the face and plummeting to the ground fifty feet down below."

"... Or… he's wary," replied Fury. "Our forces are depleted. Many of our operatives are compromised. I am under political pressure for pulling that stunt in downtown New York. If I were him, I would attack now while too many things divide the attention of my enemy. But he doesn't. Why? If our initial tests are right, Evans's power is a directly opposite force of Loki's sorcery and Asgardian technology. By that principle, materials harvested from Evans can be weaponized against the likes of Loki. If I were Loki and knew that Evans was in the hands of my enemy, well, then I wouldn't act so rashly as to jump right into battle without some sort of ace up my sleeve."

Yes, and that was the reason why they had gone after him in the first place. Had they discovered him in any other time, soft contact would have been the first, second, third and fourth plans to peacefully integrate him into their roster of humans (or humanoids in this case) with that little extra oomph. Evans's ability to invalidate Asgardian weapons such as the Tesseract and Loki's sorcery however, made him too tactically valuable an asset to leave undefended.

"What will you do with him?" asked Natasha as SHIELD agents lifted the subzero tank and loaded it onto a priority tagged helicopter.

"Keep him safe, that's my first priority…" Nick Fury hedged. He paused there and went quiet, then nodded at Natasha.

"You rest, soldier. Your part is done. From here on out, it's my responsibility."

Keep him safe, said the director, but to Natasha, that was code word for 'We'll get the most out of this opportunity'. She didn't have to think especially hard to know what they wanted and would do to Evans now that he was comatose and in their grasp. His blood alone, only a trace amount extracted from Banner's body, had performed miracles. The whole, living body would be the holy grail for the scientists in their organization and then some.

Two weeks into Natasha's rehabilitation, Hawkeye came by. Sitting in the stool by her bedside, he looked at her with sunken eyes that spoke of his time under Loki's influence.

"So I hear you brought in an alien wizard the other day? Heard he was the biggest scientific discovery after Cro-Magnons learning to use fire."

"They like to exaggerate," she replied airily, shooting him a fond look. SHIELD colors suited him so much better than Loki's. "But yes, I did bring in an alien wizard."

"And is he the biggest scientific discovery since Cro-magnons learned how to use fire?"

"I don't know about that, but he was pretty impressive, yeah."

"If you're saying he's impressive, then I guess this guy really is huh?"

"I don't know if you can call him a guy and get away with it. He called Thor a kid… well… a brat."

"... unaging immortal huh?"

"He does age. He does die too, but then he's not dead anymore and… it's a phoenix kind of a deal as far as I can understand. Anymore than that and you'll have a better chance talking to one of the smart people, Banner or something. I'm just a simple girl..."

"... who knows her way around guns and knives and can probably run circles around them scientist types. I know you, Natasha," said Clint, smiling at her. His smile was tired and highlighted the age lines around his eyes, but his face lit up when he did. He wasn't model material, but he really did look good like this. And he did indeed know Natasha, this man who took her from the Red Room and gave her the key to go where she wanted. Clint's column in Natasha's ledger book was still as red as ever.

"So… what do you think they are are doing to him?"

"Well, his blood apparently has a lot of uses." A lot of uses would be an understatement. Natasha and Clint were among the high level agents allowed into the secret behind Captain America's Super Soldier Serum; the substance that made Captain America the hero he was today, was synthesized from the blood and flesh of a dead alien specimen code-named Guest Host. To say that Evan's biological materials held more promise than Guest Host's would be a monumental understatement. "I've got no idea about his flesh or other… tissues… but based on what we have already seen, I'd say I know some scientists who would commit murder ten times over for just his nail sample. And then… there is that reality bending field he apparently emitted without being conscious that he was doing it in the first place."

There had been… incidents where the scientists and biologists attempted to scan Evans's body using high-tech equipments only for aforementioned equipments to come up in flames. It was the same anti-technology effect the man had going on while he was awake, only a little weaker, a little more irregular. It was giving the scientists a tough time now, but Natasha had no doubt they would crack that nut soon and once they did, they would turn it into a weapon to be aimed at whoever was the enemy of the moment. Like a nuclear warhead, only a little less messy. She imagined a SHIELD fighter dropping off a device built on the principle of Evans's force field on top an enemy facility and watching the entire area just switch off like a light. Every computer, every com terminal, every piece of technology that enabled operation. And then SHIELD soldiers sweeping in on the neutralized faction. That would be one of the cleaner products that could… would… come out of studies on Evans's unique biology. As for the less clean ones, well, who knew what their scientists could cook up if given sufficient reasons? Such as a war that must be won at all costs, for example.

"Hmm… you think anything good will come out of it, Nat?"

Boy was that a loaded question. Clint was shooting her an intense look, sitting by her bedside and leaning over the recuperating Natasha. If her healing rib cage allowed it, she would have smacked him on the head. He was lucky she wasn't in any condition to do so now.

"You can be honest with me, Nat. Besides," he bobbed his head once, gesturing vaguely. "The cams in your room are off for the moment."

"Uh huh, aren't they?" she said, then paused. "We're soldiers. Wars don't allow for ideal choices. You know that Clint."

"Don't have to tell me twice."

"We were at war with an alien god and his world breaking MacGuffin cube… are in war. Evans was a tactical asset we could not let fall into his hands. We had to act. Our first plan called for a peaceful approach. It didn't work. Situation got out of our hands. Hard containment was the right call."

"Well, is it still the right call now?"

"His sheer presence in our base right now is holding Loki off from detonating whatever doomsday construct he had with him, and I don't doubt for a second that he does have one. He just figures he can't use it now that we have Evans and his tech-breaking body with us."

"..."

"... But… if you ask me... if things were going a different way, I'd prefer we never found out about him at all."

Having experienced Red Room, Natasha well understood how men could sometimes think themselves gods and attempt to play with forces beyond their control. This time with James Evans had all the hallmarks of men's hubris wreaking havoc.

A grin broke out on Clint's face then. For all that he was an excellent agent, he had never liked the dirtier aspect of their trade. Clint Barton fancied himself the every man, the guy who fought the good fight, went home and ate apple pie with his family. He knew right and wrong and was graced with the ability to tell which was which. At the moment, she knew what he was thinking. Whatever they were doing to Evans, it would only herald troubles of their own making. Clint would want to do the right thing, like what he did to her before she wore SHIELD's colors, choosing not to kill her, choosing to recruit her to a different path. He always saw alternate paths, harder but ultimately better paths. That was the kind of man Clint Barton was. Natasha found this part of him endearing, not that she would ever admit that of course.

"What are you going to do, Clint?" She knew he had the utmost loyalty towards Nick Fury, but she also knew that Clint also wouldn't shy away from telling the man to his face whenever he saw Fury going down a path he would later regret.

"Me?" he said, leaning back on his chair. "I'm just a guy who shoots arrows at stuff, Nat. Alien wizards and scientific discoveries really aren't my things. Why would you even think I'd be able to do anything about it?"

And then he grinned impishly.

It took until two months later for Natasha to figure just what exactly Clint had done to shake things up. She saw it in the form of Bruce Banner on a warpath.

The repaired Helicopter was buzzing with activities and new visiting scientists. New faces outnumbered old ones by a good margin. Still, everyone recognized Bruce Banner on sight as the one person they wouldn't want to piss off. As the man himself walked the corridor from his quarters to Nick Fury's office, he carved a path through the crowd as people frantically jumped out of his way.

Natasha took but a second to survey the emotions going on on his face, frustration, aggravation, determination, before falling into step right behind Banner. An emotional Bruce Banner was a dangerous Bruce Banner. A dangerous Bruce Banner required supervision. A couple minutes later, a humming Tony Stark joined her.

"Morning, Miss Romanoff," said Stark airily as a tech worker threw himself from his workstation in an attempt to stay clear off the advancing Banner's way. He hit something on his way down, creating a cacophony of stuff breaking and people yelling in surprise.

"What are you doing here, Stark?"

"I forgot to bring popcorn. You have some? Hey Bruce! Looking good up there! Is that a new hairstyle?"

Bruce Banner ignored him as he continued to march onward. A security intern standing before a door attempted to reason with him.

"Doctor Banner, the director explicitly said that that you are not in any condition to…"

"Miss, do you want to make me angry? Do you want to see me angry?" said Bruce succinctly, looking her in the eye.

Said intern immediately beat it before she had the honor of seeing Banner going green in the face. Bruce pushed the door open and was joined by Captain America and Thor, the both of them falling into step behind him and aside Natasha and Stark.

"It sure is getting crowded back here," remarked Stark as he dodged a jovial wave from Thor's meaty, muscled hand.

"Morning gentlemen, ma'am" greeted Steve Rogers, ever the one with the best manners of them all.

"Good morning, earthlings," Thor rumbled. "A little man told me something was going to happen and that I would like to see it happening."

"Did you now?" said Steve Rogers. "I also got the same memo. Said I should be there and it would be this morning."

… Oh Clint…

She knew then exactly what he had done. Well, not like she could stop it now… or if she even wanted to. Then they were in front of Nick Fury's office and with a particularly violent shove (which said something considering Banner's usually gentle demeanour) from Bruce Banner, the door was open wide. Inside, Nick Fury was sitting at his desk and going over some files with a group of white coated scientists.

"Nick Fury, we need to talk," said Bruce Banner, beating right to the bush. "You need to release James Evans."

Nick Fury looked up from his file. He shot Banner a look, then his gaze swept over the people behind Banner. "Should I, Dr. Banner? I see that you got most of the team with you here today. Came prepared, didn't you?"

"Oh no, we're just here for the popcorn, Nick," said Stark matter of factly. "We have no idea what Brucie here may want with you at all. Not a clue, I tell you." Neither Banner nor Fury paid him any attention, by now already used to his attitude. Thor, on the other hand, leaned in to whisper hopefully, "There's food?"

"You are doing the wrong thing, Director. This is wrong. You are holding a sentient being against his wish. He has done nothing wrong to you, to me, or to anyone. You… you people are exploiting him!" said Banner passionately, hands thrown up and pointing at Fury and the scientists in the room.

"Wait, we are holding James Evans?" said Steve Rogers "The reports sent to me said he had fled the premise when SHIELD located agent Romanoff."

"So was mine apparently Steve," said Banner, glaring daggers at Fury. "And so was Thor's and Stark's over there if I'm not wrong. But we've all been duped. Evans's here. Right now. Being taken apart and studied by these…. these freaks to fuel their power-grasping ambition!"

Going by Thor's stupendous expression and Steve Roger's stiffening posture, Banner was right on the money. Tony Stark on the other hand wore the grimly satisfied expression of a man whose expectation had come true… and wasn't that an aggravating thing to see? To know that Stark thought quite lowly of Natasha's organization, and that on most accounts he would be right. They were committed to Earth's security and would go to lengths to defend it.

"I beg your pardon, sir!" hissed the man in a stained white lab coat standing by Fury's desk. "I take offense at that title. None of us here are freaks, unless you take to looking into the mirror at yourself."

"Ooh, touche," Stark commented, throwing the man in the stained white lab coat a look. "Who might you be and what are you doing here? I ain't never seen you around, and I've been around here a lot. Didn't think I'd miss anybody important."

"Dr. Hollander, at your service. I'm the biophysicist in charge of the team studying subject Neutralizer's unique biology."

"Neutralizer? You gave him a code name? What is he? A specimen on a lab dish? The man has a name, Hody. It's Evans, James. Use it!" Bruce Banner growled, face screwing up in agitation, only to be corrected by the biophysicist who sniffed daintily at his general direction while fixing his glasses.

"It's Doctor Hollander, Dr. Banner. Referring to the subject by its given name is unprofessional conduct. Considering the aim of our study, it does not do to form emotional attachment to…"

"Like I care if your name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio and you just became the bloody Pope!" Bruce Banner snarled, hands twitching alarmingly. "Go back to grad school, you overblown baboon!"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen. You are both smart and pretty. Now can we talk like civilized men?" Tony Stark jumped in, eyes going from Bruce Banner who was visibly restraining himself, to the fuming Dr. Hollander and the cowering scientists in lab coats at his back. "Hody, I don't know a whole lot about you, but I doubt you want to see Brucie here go green in the face, would ya? And Bruce, I really like you, but I would like you a whole lot more if you, you know, calm yourself down a little right now and keep your little buddy to yourself. Letting him run wild here wouldn't really help your argument, would it?"

"Bruce has a point though," said Steve Rogers, breaking the tense stand off between the biologists in the room. "This… I never even knew before today. Fury, you have been keeping James Evans here? Against his will and… experimenting on him? That is true?"

"Oh it's true alright. Hody over here just admitted it too, if you have been paying attention Cap," said Stark.

"But... how? Evans can teleport at will. How do they keep him in one place?"

"By pumping him full of drugs," Banner answered, his expression twisting in disgust. "By sealing him into a subzero C degree tank. Apparently he won't die from that alone but the condition is enough to force him into a coma during which they get to do whatever they like to him. It's disgusting!"

"It is for science!" Hollander protested. "You have no idea the kind of knowledge we learned from studying the subject's remarkably robust physiology. The things we can do with that knowledge. A cure for cancer, a cure for death, a cure for every imaginable disease, prolonged life span, genetically engineered endurance, even… even immortality by a pill! Imagine!"

"Yes, I can imagine just fine," Bruce snarled. "It doesn't change the fact that what you are doing is barbaric! This is not an application of the scientific method," he punctuated his words with heavy hand gestures, holding and expelling each word carefully. "Human experimentation on an unwilling subject. This is the kind of fucked up shit done by brute-force researchers. Disgusting, unethical, sloppy. This has no place in proper science! You should be ashamed of yourself! Director you need to shut this down."

"Well you would know a thing or two about human experimentation now, would you? Seeing that that's exactly what you did to yourself," Hollander hissed back, going red in the face. "You have no say in this project. So why don't you just walk out while you are at it, Mister Hide?"

"Hoo boy! I came here for popcorn and I'm so confused by this cat fight right now," Tony Stark butted in with a dry comment and a look thrown at Nick Fury. "Do something about this Fury. It's your cats that are fighting." Then at the faces in the room. "Besides, you don't resolve this soon, you aren't likely to get that dream super hero team you were so keen on making a couple months ago."

He was right again, annoyingly. Natasha noted. Aside from Hollander, the scientists around Fury's desk looked reasonably cowed by Bruce's rant. As for the members of the still forming Avengers Assemble. Thor looked downright incredulous. He said nothing out right but his expression more than let her know how low his opinions of earthlings had nosedived. Captain America on the hand looked plainly upset and as soon as Stark said his piece, he stepped in right away.

"Bruce is right. This is not what I signed up for. This is the stuff over which we fought HYDRA. I thought this organization was created to protect the world, not conduct unethical experiments on unwilling people."

"Oh like you know…" Hollander started… only to be stopped cold by the director of SHIELD.

"That would be enough doctor. They aren't the ones you are upset with. It does not matter what we do after this, project Neutralizer will not come through. It is simply not sustainable."

Oh? Now this was new development. Natasha crossed her hand, leaned back against the wall of Nick Fury's office suite and waited to see the play unfold.

"But Director! We need only…"

"The containment does not work anymore. He is adapting. Regardless of your opinion on the matter, James Evans, your research subject, is waking up," said Fury calmly as he took a sip from his morning coffee mug.

"Adapting?"

"Amazing isn't it? We pumped him full of chemical tranquilizer, then stuck him into a sub-zero ice box and all we accomplished was to put him to sleep for only a little over two months. He is adapting. His body is adapting, against every rule we know about the human body. There comes a point where we either pass a certain line and administer a solution that would cause his death and regeneration, or we let things take its course and he wakes up."

Putting his cup down on his desk, Fury regarded them. "For you all to be here, somebody must have been impatient with me."

Oh please. Like Fury didn't already know he that would be, thought Natasha. They had worked with each other for so long that they would recognize the marks of their fellow spy's hands in their sleep. For any other agents, this would have been cause for disciplinary hearing and behavioral supervision. From Hawkeye to the Big Boss however, it was merely a tap. Hey, I saw what you did there. I don't think that's the good way to go about thing. Hawkeye meant to say with this stunt.

"Before you jumped the gun however, you should be aware that if you had waited for one more day I would have invited you here for a briefing meeting myself. Barton?" said Fury.

"Right here, boss. You can go on ahead and get them all up to date." A hologram screen switched on by itself by Fury's desk, showing the face of Hawkeye in it. His background indicated that he was in one of the archer's nests he made for himself around the Helicarrier.

"You mean it's all true then. You captured James Evans, did not tell us about it, and then proceeded to perform questionable experiments on him," Steve Rogers pushed, unwilling to let the issue drop.

"True and true and true," said Fury. "I apologize for the deception, but the secrecy regarding James Evan was necessary."

"Explain to me exactly how lying to us was necessary."

"We are in a war, Captain. With your brother, Thor. If you haven't noticed, we have not so much as heard a blip from Loki for the last two and a half months. Why do you think that is? Despite our best effort, SHIELD may still be compromised. We could not risk the chance of a rogue agent stealing Evans from us. During first contact with James Evans, you nearly went rogue Thor. You left yourself open to your brother's manipulation. The last time Evans saw you, you were trying to smash his head in. And Cap, with all due respect, if we were to tell you the truth, how would you have helped?"

"I.."

Nick Fury didn't wait for his answer however, as he immediately turned to Bruce Banner. "Dr. Banner, are you even aware that you are standing in front of me, completely human, while looking one poke away from popping a vein?"

That… was interesting. At once, the attention turned to Banner who just now was realizing that he had stayed flushed with anger for a whole ten minutes and still had not turned green. That, as far as Natasha knew, had never happened after his first transformation into the Hulk.

"We have been secretly feeding you with a prototype suppressor serum created from Evans's unique biochemistry, the very same that managed to suppress the Hulk when we first discovered you after the incident in New York. Knowing this, can you still dismiss the fruits of Dr. Hollander's research out of hand so quickly? And that is but a single byproduct of the researches we have performed on James Evans."

Banner looked shaken at this new piece of information. His technological counterpart, Tony Stark, was not nearly as impressed however. Pointing an accusing finger at Nick Fury, he kicked off an impromptu speech.

"Yadda yadda yadda. You are trying to dress it up as wartime practicality, tough guy. But I've heard a lot of that 'it was necessary' talk. You know who I heard it from? From the warmongers that bought my bullets and rockets, Nick. They all sing the same song while they are trying to bomb each other into oblivion. All I'm hearing from you is that you got lucky and managed to catch the guy while he's out cold. You figure then that whatever you do, which ever part of him you cut off he's not gonna know or be able to say anything about it anyway. So, you and your grabby hand scientist pals over here, couldn't help yourself when the one in a million year chance is practically presented to you on a silver platter, could you? But now you find he's going to wake up regardless of how much drug you pump into his blood, so you got worried. Maybe he's going to be pissed when he does. Maybe he's gonna go gunning for the last top dog he talked to before he went under. And so you come to us now, for help, 'cause you think you may not be able to take one pissed off alien wizard alone. Am I right or aren't I right?"

The office suite went deathly quiet. All eyes were on Nick Fury's face and all ears waited for his reply. Natasha thought to herself. Leave it to Stark to be the one pointing out the elephant Nick doesn't want to acknowledge.

"That…" said Fury, slowly, carefully, hands in front of him and clasped together on his desk. "... is also true."

Immediately, the room descended into cacophony with people roaring accusations, complaints and defenses. "THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH!" roared Nick Fury as he attempted to rein in the small crowd in his office.

"All experiments on Evans will stop," he said once the noises from displeased Avengers and scientists died down enough for him to be heard. "I will not apologize for the decisions I made however. We have lost many good men and women in our fight against Loki. We will lose many more in the future. If it weren't for researches on Evans, you all would not have seen as many faces in this base as you do. And you, Banner, would not even be able to stand here and voice your disagreement like a normal man would."

He stood up then and for the first time in a long time, Natasha actually saw the tiniest falter in Nick Fury's expression.

"I do admit that my decisions could have been better. When we captured Evans, many of my men and women were grievously injured and dying courtesy of Loki. They would have died if we had not done anything. The situation now is delicate. We need a plan to handle James Evans when he wakes up. So if you want to complain without contributing to a better solution, then you should not speak at all."

There was a brief moment of silence during which the members of the fledgling Avengers Assemble digested what Nick Fury had just said. Then he turned to the single Avenger who had not spoken a word since the begining.

"Agent Romanoff, you were the one who brought in James Evans. You convinced him to cooperate with you and hold off Loki. Perhaps you have ideas?"

End Chapter 9

1. Hello again after one and half year of hiatus. I got lost on the track of life you see. Only recently did somebody give me a good hard kick to the behind and make me veer back to this story. I wrote it in 3 days.

2. Did you see Age of Ultron? Did you like the BrucexNatasha romance going on? I could only wince when I thought of the flood of Hulkxwidow kink fic that movie paved the way to. Hoo boy, I so do not want to read about Black Widow playing hide the zucchini with Hulk.

3. SHIELD as well as Nick Fury's characterization in this chapter is very much 'fine gray line between good and dubious'. If you watch the movies (Winter Soldier, etc…) and the TV drama (Agents of SHIELD), you will see that the canonical SHIELD is very much a good idea corrupted by bad people (HYDRA). It was founded on pure intention: to protect Earth against extraterrestrial and extraplanar forces no single country could deal with, but it was also corrupted by human vices and HYDRA sleeper agents. The things that SHIELD in Mirror Mirror do, the canon SHIELD can or have already done. They did the sentient being experimentation thing with the Kree Corpse (project T.A.H.I.T.I). They attempted to create weapons of mass destruction in the first Avengers movie. They tampered with people's mind and memories and held them against their will.

As an ideal and an organization, SHIELD is… complex, and so is the man at its head, Nick Fury. And that makes it interesting to me. Don't be so mad at them though. In the end, they are an organization that attempts to defend a planet under the constraints of reality. Ruthless calculus of war (sacrifice one to save a thousand, which is how Fury rationalized his first decision to carry on extensive experiments and harvest on poor Harry. Good thing Harry is immortal no?) is something they must accept to even attempt the task.

4. I went and wrote that Naruto x Starcraft fic I mentioned. Actually, I went and wrote like a bazillion more fics during the last 1.5 years. Check it out. I think you are going to like it.

5. Next chapter: In which the Titan wakes.