Chapter Text
Upon reflection, they both felt that they should have known better than to hope that anything would change.
Harry thought that they couldn't really blame themselves that much for not noticing at first. After all, two long, bloody wars should have been enough of a lesson to teach people better. Hermione disagreed. She had insisted since the day she entered the wizarding world that magical folk didn't have an ounce of common sense shared between the lot of them, far too used to magic solving all of their problems instantly. She often complained, at length, that the lack of any real rational problem solving situations was the most devastating aspect of their world, and, well.
Harry couldn't say she was wrong. It was just impressive how long his hope for her to be wrong for once lived.
When the dust settled after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry had hoped for a few days to retreat into the wards of Grimmauld, at the very least. He thought that a long vacation somewhere not Britain, far from his blood-drenched memories, would have been far better. It was no surprise that he didn't even get that much before something from the world outside his front door intruded, but damn it, he had hoped .
Harry and Hermione both had gone back to Grimmauld the morning after the Battle, intent on letting the Weasley family grieve Percy, their fallen son and brother. As much as they had always insisted the two of them were honorary family members, it didn't feel right to intrude until at least a couple of days had passed; the claims of being family were all well and good, but at the end of the day the two teens that had grown up lonely (one an abused orphan and the other an only child rejected by her peers) just couldn't see themselves that way, at least not enough to intrude upon what should have been their time to say goodbye before everyone else did. Therefore, the two friends ran to the old house, locked down the floo, warded against any incoming owls, and settled in to grieve on their own.
Instead, less than a day had passed before Ron and Ginny were pounding on the front door. Harry and Hermione both were disgusted, but sadly unsurprised, that both Weasley children were barging in with demands that they immediately get together with their respective and expected partners (Ginny was already talking about setting up a wedding).
The last thing Harry's tired, traumatized mind had room for at the moment was the demands of a relationship. Especially with someone who clearly did not have his well-being in mind, let alone as a priority.
As for Hermione, now that she was no longer in a high-stress, panic-filled, potentially fatal situation, she felt far less inclined to consider Ron as a romantic match. Oh, she didn't fully blame him for leaving them in the middle of the horcrux hunt, she was logical enough to realize that the locket was messing with their minds as much as it could; but, as she was quick to point out, the locket played up on the most dominant negative aspect they each had. Hermione herself had been far more anxious and pushy than normal, Harry's temper was nearly impossible to manage, and Ron...
Well, Hermione emphasized that it was hardly the first time Ron had turned his back on his friends and abandoned them. That even on the best of days his jealousy was stifling. That, aside from their shared traumatic events, they had nothing in common and personalities that conflicted so terribly it had the potential to be nuclear (not that Ron understood what that meant).
Predictably, the two red heads were immediately red faced as well, screaming about what was owed to them, that they deserved their expected relationships (“Harry, you promised when the war ended we'd get back together!” “What was that kiss then, for the whole house elf thing, huh?!”), volume rising higher and higher until, in a state of panic, Harry called Kreacher, who immediately banished the two Weasleys from the house and locked down the wards against anyone other than Harry and Hermione.
It took hours for Hermione to help him dispel the resulting panic. Harry was not okay and he hadn't even had time to think about how not okay he was.
Hermione, bless her, did what she did best and made a plan. Seeking professional help for both of them was, unfortunately, discarded. They couldn't trust any mind healers at the moment, and no muggle therapist would be able to fully help since there was no way to discuss details with them without breaking about a hundred laws, not the least of which was the Statute of Secrecy. So, after a marathon of digging through catalog after catalog, they ordered as many magical and mundane self help books on trauma and PTSD and everything else they needed as they could.
While they were at it, Hermione figured she may as well catch up on her mundane studies, on the off chance they had to leave the magical world and stay lost. Harry had nothing better to do and figured he may as well join her.
A few years passed like this, and by the time the were 22 they had only seen the outside of Grimmauld a handful of times, could count the number of people they still kept regular contact with on one hand, and had studied far beyond their A-levels (which they slipped into the mundane world to take and pass) and were slowly becoming very well educated in physics and various other sciences and mathematics (Harry was becoming particularly skilled at engineering, which did not surprise Hermione at all; he was always quite good with anything hands-on). Neither wanted to risk attending uni; there was far too much of a risk of being spotted, especially if some other mundaneborn (Hermione had refused to use the term “muggle” anymore after studying on its history and learning it was essentially a slur that everyone seemed to have forgotten was a slur) happened to decide to attend uni after Hogwarts as well. It had been over four years since the Battle of Hogwarts, but they both knew that it may be decades before they are forgotten enough to emerge in society again and, honestly, the townhouse was starting to become a little stifling.
It was shortly before Harry's 23 rd birthday that the Potter luck struck again.
Harry had woken early, a habit he never had managed to shake, and was on his way to the kitchen to start a kettle for the both of them (Hermione was never far behind when he woke in the morning) when a resounding BOOM echoed through the house, shaking the walls and glass and ceramic Black heirlooms. He stumbled into the wall, briefly stunned, before his reflexes earned through the war kicked in, urging him to make a mad dash for Hermione's room. Even upstairs he could hear and feel the continued booming blasts against the house. Hopefully the idiotic wixen outside had put up some of their own anti-mundane wards at least.
Fortunately it was clear Hermione had already been up and dressed. She was dashing down the hallway from their rooms, clutching the emergency bags they had kept packed and stocked since the day after Ron and Ginny's visit. They had always suspected there was a chance they'd have to run again, and having been through the experience once had taught them both valuable lessons. Hermione handed him his bag and his end of the rope portkey they had (illegally) prepared for a day like today. “Time to go! Honestly I'm surprised it took them this long to start trying to pull down the wards.”
Harry shook his head. “At least we're ready for this. Can't say I'm sad to see the back of Grimmauld, at the end of it all.” They both wrapped a firm hand around the rope between them, and said the activation word together.
Harry shook his head and slowly stood up from where the portkey had slammed them into the ground. They had set the portkey to deliver them to a forest somewhere in Germany; it was one of many places they had hidden during the horcrux hunt when it was just the two of them, not trusting any location that they had stayed at when Ron was with them. The warding spells flowed from his lips and wand with the ease of practice even though it had been five years since the last time they had been needed, while Hermione magically set up the tent (a vastly improved model compared to the one they had used before). Once finished, they both entered the tent and stared in awe of the space they had created together.
“You know,” Harry started, “fuck the wizarding world and all that, but damn if I don't love magic.”
The inside of the tent was a sprawling three story home that had taken the two of them months to complete. The first floor held primarily common areas, such as a kitchen, lounge, dining room, game room, and such. The two floors above held their more personal rooms, an entire floor to each of them. Bedrooms, guest bedrooms, studies, libraries...and their pride and joy, carefully protected and situated on the second floor closest to the stairs, a state of the art mundane laboratory and workshop.
Hermione let out a happy little sigh and set her bag on the table in the entryway. “Oh Harry, we should have done this years ago, this is much better than Grimmauld.” She set off quickly for the kitchen, Harry close behind. “Good thing, too. We should lay low here for a few weeks, get out of Wizarding Britain's line of sight, then set off for a more permanent location.”
“Still good with America?”
“Yes, I think that's the best option.” She leaned against the counter in the kitchen while Harry set the kettle to boil. “Europe is just too close and connected to them to stick around, English is still the primary language, and it's big enough that we can hopefully fly under MACUSA's radar in the event that they share certain opinions with the idiots back home.” She huffed. “Well. Not home anymore, I suppose. And good riddance.”
Harry slung an arm around her shoulder. “Good riddance. We'll have a nice cup of tea, get a message to the twins through the mirrors, and then maybe we can take another crack at that improved runic relay for magical-to-electric energy conversion, yeah? No time like the present.”
Just as he'd hoped, Hermione sighed happily and lost the tension in her shoulders. The irony was not lost on them that here, in a magical tent in the middle of a foreign forest, was the safest and happiest they had felt for years.
“YOU WANT ME TO PUT THE HAMMER DOWN?!”
Tony Stark winced in trepidation as the bulky newcomer launched at Capsicle, though he was admittedly curious on whether the legendary Mjolnir or Cap’s shield would be stronger. The curiosity was short lived, however, as both objects held strong and created a forceful wave that blasted the men apart. He had been behind Cap, reluctantly moving into place for support (sure, so far they didn't get along all that well, but they were maybe-kinda-sorta on the same side), resulting in the two of them being blasted into a nearby clearing – though, for a second, it felt like he got caught on something mid-air – until they landed side by side, right next to -
“Uh. Did Sparky back there give me a concussion or is there a tent here in the middle of nowhere?”
Rogers shook his head as if he was wondering the same, but squared his shoulders on standing. “Doesn't matter. We have to get back and grab Loki before the other guy does.”
Tony waved him off. “C'mon, Cap! You gotta be curious. Besides, if they saw anything, good ol' Fury won't like that he didn't get to threaten- I mean, talk to any witnesses.”
He sighed, but acquiesced and poked his head into the tent to check for any campers. “Tony.”
Well, that was an interesting tone of voice. “Dead body? Recent grads getting frisky?”
“Is- is this just a new type of tech nobody's told me about yet? Because if so, I'm disappointed. And I want one.” That was just about the most human sentence he'd heard from Cap so far, and he sounded...excited?... as he finally pushed his way inside.
“Tech?” Tony went to follow him, and-
“What the fuck.”
A twitch at Cap's eyebrow suggested he wanted to remark at his colorful choice of words, but was a bit speechless at the moment, for good fucking reason.
They were standing in what looked like the entrance hall of a large house. A set of double doors in front of them opened into a spacious living room, with an elegant spiral staircase at the back with multiple doors around the walls. The floor was a rich, dark wood. The walls were covered in elegant damask wallpaper with multiple paintings and even a handful of tapestries here and there. The furniture looked luxurious and old, made of intricately carved wood and delicate fabric. A fire burned in a fireplace in the center of the back wall, with a Persian rug and high-backed armchairs positioned just so, like a scene out of some Victorian period piece.
Tony darted back out of the tent, then back inside, vibrating within his suit. A slightly hysterical giggle escaped him. “I really, truly can not believe I'm actually getting to say these words in real life, but – 'It's bigger on the inside!' It's not a police box, but still-”
“Midgardians, are you unharmed? I -” The tall blond they had been fighting entered the tent behind them, drawing up short. “What sorcery is this? I was not aware that there is magic on Midgard!”
Tony swallowed, too stunned by what they were seeing to object to the sudden presence of the maybe-god he was just in a brawl with. “Yeah, neither were we. Still not convinced. Think Reindeer Games out there will keep for a sec while we take a look?”
Rogers grimaced. “I don't think we should-”
“C'mon! He stayed through our little Fight Club rendition out there, so obviously he knows better to run-” and yes, he was fully aware of how suspicious that was, “-and hey, if this is magic, how do we know he's not involved? Far as we know, he's the only thing magic around here.”
“I- fair point.” Rogers ran a hand over his face. “Alright, quick check. For all we know, this is his real base of operations and if we're lucky, the Tesseract is here.”
Tony barely waited long enough for Rogers to quit talking before he started jogging through the house as quick as he could in his suit – pointedly ignoring Cap's hissed “Be careful!” - eager to try and solve this tricky little puzzle. Interestingly, the blond tank followed them, equally interested in the rooms around them. A search revealed all of the rooms you would expect in any house, including a fully equipped kitchen that somehow had wall sockets with active electricity and bathrooms with full indoor plumbing. Jarvis was doing his best to find anything out of the ordinary, but outside the tent he picked up nothing, and inside the tent/house it just seemed to be any other house. Really, the only thing that made it weird was the fact that the bigger thing of the two was on the inside of the smaller.
That is, of course, until the three made it to the second level, and turned into the first doorway to find an impressively outfitted lab and workshop (and oh, how his fingers twitched) with two figures hunched over a metal plate with engraving lasers in hand. Rogers, with all the subtlety of a hand grenade, loudly cleared his throat to catch their attention.
A black-haired man and brown-haired woman shot their heads up, eyes round as they took in the three of them. The male proceeded to smack a hand over his face and huff.
“Bugger.”
“Really, this isn't necessary-”
“I swear, total coincidence, we really are just camping-”
“No idea who that is, honestly -”
“If we could just go now-”
“At the very least let me pack the tent, it took months to make-”
Hermione huffed as they were guided off of the small stealth jet they had been forced into by the three – gods above, actual superheroes, this is what she gets for not paying attention to mundane news for the last few years. The handcuffed Slytherin wanna-be in front of them was trying his hardest to play off cool and collected, but he kept casting odd looks over his shoulder at them, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
She angled her steps so that she'd be just a bit closer to Harry. “I love you, little brother, I really do,” she whispered, “but I am sick and tired of your family luck.”
“ You're tired of it?” He hissed back. “You've at least only dealt with it for twelve years! I got the full-”
“Quiet!” One of the agents behind them jabbed the barrel of a rifle in his back, which, rude . If it weren't for the Statute of Secrecy...
“What is this?” They emerged onto what looked like the bridge of the flying helicraft they'd been manhandled to (which, what the hell , this thing was huge ). In front of them were several other individuals who stood out from the rest, all wearing everything from what looked like costumes to plain mundane clothing, as opposed to the men and women running around in black uniforms. Standing by what had to be the helm (controls? Master computer? Whatever) was a dark-skinned man in all black, including a long coat, with a black eye patch. She could almost feel Harry physically restraining himself from making a snarky comment about color palettes and/or pirates.
The red, white, and blue dressed one, Captain America they'd been told, stepped forward. “Stumbled on these two while retrieving Loki. There was an...argument on who was capturing him and found them during the crossfire, along with a tent that should be impossible.”
Eye Patch cocked an eyebrow. “An impossible tent?”
“There was an entire two story house inside.”
Hermione huffed. “ Three , thank you very much.” Harry looked at her in exasperation. “What? We worked hard on it.”
Eye Patch threw a look at the screen beside him that was displaying the inside of some type of glass cell. “And just what is their relation to Loki?”
The red-haired woman in a, quite frankly, scandalously tight body suit shrugged elegantly. “It just seemed a pretty big coincidence that two unknown figures in what, from description, appears to be a magic tent just so happened to be in the middle of the forest where Loki landed after Thor grabbed him.”
That caused the man who had been piloting the red and gold suit to pause (which, house pride aside, Hermione was itching to take a look at the tech behind that , and she was sure Harry was right there with her with his deep love of engineering, not to mention it was Tony Stark - they may have been out of the loop for the last few years, but they still knew who Tony Stark was). “Wait, are we suggesting that Point Break here is in cahoots with the Evil Overlord?”
Thor immediately had a face of immense offense. “What?! Of course not!”
The Captain narrowed his eyes at Stark. “What are you suggesting?”
Harry sighed next to her. “We weren't even there for the whole thing and it's obvious.”
“Oh?”
“You just said Loki didn't escape to that section of woods, Thor brought him there.” Harry shrugged. “So, unless you're suggesting Thor did that on purpose, it really is just a weird coincidence.”
Hermione beamed at him. “Look at you, being all logical!”
He scowled back at her. “Oh, get stuffed, Mione. We've spent the last five years doing nothing but being giant nerds, without a certain idiotic distraction. What did you think was gonna happen?”
Eye Patch cleared his throat to bring attention back to him. “To be clear, by 'what is this' I meant why is the most famous, now infamous, pair of wix on my helicarrier?”
While most of those around them just looked confused, Harry and Hermione froze in fear.
“NO!” Hermione snarled. “You are not sending us back there, fuck the Statute of Secrecy, we'll apparate in front of every fucking mundane on this planet before we'll go back!” To the further shock and confusion of most of those around them, Harry and Hermione whipped out their wands, raising them in shaking hands and trying their best to retreat towards the door without anyone at their back.
Except, they forgot the soldiers (agents?) standing behind them. With rifles. That were now all aimed at the two of them.
“Sir.” A quiet, weary voice called out from behind them. A very unassuming man walked forward to stand beside Eye Patch. “With all due respect, I think that was about the worst way you could have handled that.”
Eye Patch huffed, but didn't react much otherwise. “Fair enough. Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger, I'm gonna have to ask you to lower your wands.” Everyone pointedly ignored Stark's derisive “Wands?” in the background. “Do that, the nice men and women behind you will lower their weapons. Agreed?”
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, hand still shaking. “No tricks? Seriously, we're not going back to Britain. That's not negotiable.”
He nodded his head, and everyone slowly lowered their arms. “My name is Director Fury, and no, I'm not going to take you back to Britain. On the contrary, since you're here, I'd much prefer your help.”
Harry's stance was still defensive, ready for a fight. “Why us? Why should we? How do you even know about us?”
Fury stepped forward, though he stayed a respectful distance away. “I know for the same reason the Queen of England knows, and most presidents, and every other country's leaders. It's need to know basis, and SHIELD needs to know, at least to some level.” He huffed. “I know you are both more than capable of assisting. I've been briefed on the war. Those aware in SHIELD wanted to step in and help, but our contemporaries on your side of things in Britain before the takeover stubbornly disagreed with any outside involvement.”
Harry snorted. “Shocker, that. Trust me, the Ministry was corrupt to the core long before the Death Eaters took over.”
To everyone's shock, Fury's lips quirked at that, as if he was trying not to smile at the snarky young man. “As to why, well, I'd say a worldwide hostile alien takeover is everyone's concern, wouldn't you?”
Hermione's eyes widened. “Oh. Yeah, I think that'll do it.”
Harry grinned self-deprecatingly. “Well, to be honest, I probably wouldn't have even needed that good of a reason. It's been an educational but boring few years.”
Fury actually did chuckle at that, causing a few of the agents on the bridge to choke a little. “Welcome aboard, then. Join the brief, I'll be back shortly.”
Bruce sighed after they turned off the surveillance video from Loki's cell. “He really grows on you, doesn't he?”
Steve sighed as well. “He's going to drag this out. Thor, what's his play?”
“He has an army called the Chitauri.” Thor crossed his arms. “They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return for the Tesseract, I suspect.”
Steve looked stunned. “An army? From outer space?”
Harry groaned. “Sure. Just so I can go ahead and fill the bingo card that is apparently my life, I can finally cross off 'alien army' for 'weird ass shit I've dealt with'.” It did make him feel a little better when that drew a startled laugh out of Tony.
Bruce scratched at a cheek. “So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for.”
“Selvig?” Thor murmured.
“He's an astrophysicist.”
Thor frowned. “He's a friend.”
The redhead, Natasha, finally spoke. “Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours.”
Hermione snapped her head up at that. “Spell? He's making them do things they wouldn't normally do, then?”
Everyone nodded, wary.
She huffed. “That sounds disturbingly like the imperius curse, though if it's allowing Selvig access to enough of his own mind to build a portal without detailed instruction, it's probably more closely related to a seriously overpowered compulsion charm.”
Natasha leaned forward, eyes showing interest. “Is that charm removable?”
“Well, sure, they both are, though they each have their strengths and weaknesses; the imperius is certainly much harder to fight, but compulsions are harder to identify and can have longer lasting effects. Considering this seems to be alien tech, I'm not going to assume they're using Earth-based magic spells, but the similarities may be enough to give us a starting point to work on a counter.”
Harry shrugged. “If it is genuinely alien magic and not pure alien tech, I'd be interested to see if a standard finite incantatum would work. If so, it makes our job much, much easier.”
“I wanna know why Loki let us take him,” Steve cut in. The magic talk was going over most of their heads, so the new additions could figure that out after the brief. “He's not leading an army from here.”
Harry snorted at that. “On the contrary, Captain. I mean no disrespect, but in this scenario Loki's more like a general than anything else, and especially these days those tend to fight battles sitting on their arses at a desk while they tell everyone under them what to do. Particularly if this spell has allowed any kind of mind link with the others under compulsion, he's in the perfect place to give orders, especially if anyone here goes in there to try and get anything out of him. I mean, he's the God of Lies and Mischief, he'd probably get far more out of us than us out of him...” Harry faded off before his face fell a little.
Steve furrowed his brows slightly in concern. “What's wrong?”
Thor sighed. “Loki is known on Midgard as the God of Lies and Mischief, but he is also frequently referred to as the God of Magic as well. I imagine it is a blow to the two mages that the deity that represents them has caused such destruction.”
Hermione huffed. “You're not wrong, but it's more than that. As wixen, we have several deities of magic we follow, including Hecate, Lady Magic herself. But...well, pranks and mischief kind of runs in Harry's family, and is the driving force for two of our closest friends. The twins, our friends, look up to Loki as a source of divine inspiration, and the Potters have long considered him a patron deity for their house.” She looked around, seeing the faces mixed with a bit of sympathy and a lot of confusion. “In short, it’s like having someone you thought of as your hero betray you. Wixen culture is a long and complicated lecture, we'll get into it later. You know, when the world isn't under threat of alien invasion?”
Tony chuckled. “We'll hold you to that, Glinda.” She just rolled her eyes but a corner of her mouth did twitch upward.
Bruce sighed. “I don't think we should be focusing on Loki anyway. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell the crazy on him.”
Thor frowned. “Have a care for how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother.”
“He killed eighty people in two days,” Natasha deadpanned.
Thor paused. “He's adopted.”
Harry froze. “Wait, that...that would actually make some amount of sense. Not the adoption bit, which, rude, adopted family is still family.” Thor had the good grace to look properly chastised. “I mean, sure, he's the God of Mischief, but everything he's doing doesn't scream mischief, all of this chaos is more war chaos than trickster chaos. I mean, in any story when gods go mad, the result isn't pretty. Could that genuinely be what's going on here?”
“Does it really matter?” Banner shook his head. “I don't want to sound cruel, but whether he's sane or not it doesn't change what's happening now. That being said, what's the iridium for?”
“It's a stabilizing agent.” Tony pushed himself off of the slouch he'd been in against the wall and started pacing around with nervous energy, clapping a hand on a pouting Harry’s shoulder as he passed. “Keeps the portal from collapsing on itself like it did at SHIELD. Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants.” His pacing brought him up to the control panel where Fury would normally stand. “Raise the mid mast, ship the top sails! Wait, that man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did!”
Harry and Hermione tucked their heads together and snickered.
Tony continued on, covering one of his eyes. “How does Fury do this?”
A brown haired officer, Maria Hill, deadpanned, “He turns.”
“Well, that sounds exhausting.”
Harry's eyebrow ticked up minutely as he caught the sleight of hand trick Tony used to place some sort of device. He'd spent far too much time with the twins to miss that little maneuver.
“The rest of the raw materials, Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major components he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube.”
Maria still didn't look amused, though Harry thought there was a little telling gleam in her eye that said otherwise. “When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?”
“Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?”
Hermione cleared her throat. “While Harry and I are new additions and didn't receive any of the homework, we did study this ourselves recently. The theories on energy utilization and conversion have actually been extremely helpful with our own latest project, especially with Platonymous Sym's most recent notes on runic patterning in conjunction with elemental conversion.”
Tony and Bruce both perked up at that, clearly curious, but Steve was frowning. “Right. Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?”
Banner nodded. “He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier.”
Tony turned his pacing towards Banner. “Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect.”
“Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet.”
Harry shrugged. “If he's even going about this the mundane way at all. He has magic, and magic by its nature often bends the normal laws of physics and achieves the impossible, though one could still potentially count it as a science as it does so in, typically, predictable ways. It's more likely he's going to go the mundane way, though; this Selvig has probably already figured something out, whereas a magical solution would take a little more time, be only executable by Loki himself, and run the risk of being less stable, not to mention the fact that he doesn't seem to be aware of there being wixen or even ambient magic on Earth. In fact, if he isn't, that really supports the theory that something is going on with him mentally, as he should be able to sense something like that.”
Tony beamed at them both. “Finally! Someone who speaks English, though I definitely want to learn more about the whole magical science thing later.”
“Is that what just happened?” Steve muttered as Tony dragged Harry over to Bruce, obviously hoping for a little meeting of the minds.
Hermione shook her head. “Don't worry about it. Once you get really knowledgeable about something it's hard to remember how to translate it to someone who hasn't studied the field extensively; I used to really struggle with that myself. It essentially boils down to 'Loki can use the cube to open a portal for the army, normally he'd need an insane power source to do so, one that possibly doesn't even exist, but Selvig possibly figured out how to do it with just about any decent power generator.'”
Steve thanked her with a small smile.
“It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. You too, Mr. Potter,” Tony shook both of their hands. “Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled, doctor. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”
Banner looked uneasy at that. “Thanks...”
Harry snickered and bumped his shoulder. “I wouldn't worry, doctor. I get the impression he's genuine in his pleasure at meeting you, I doubt he's the type to scare easily,” Harry whispered into his ear. “Besides, you wouldn't believe what all there is in the magical world. Your problem is a bit less unique than you might think.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow at him. “Really?”
“Sure,” Harry smiled, though there was a bittersweet note to it that both Tony and Bruce swore to remember for later. “The sort of thing I'm thinking of is slightly more predictable in timing, but otherwise not much different. In fact, my studies into the condition might prove to be useful to you. We'll talk more about this later, yeah?”
Banner nodded, feeling a bit more excited than he had in a while.
Director Fury joined them at that moment. “Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping Stark could join him, though I suppose Potter and Granger might be helpful in that too.”
“Let's start with that stick of his,” Steve stated. “So far it sounds like it's more magic than technology, but it does work an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.”
Hermione tipped her head to the side. “There's no reason it can't be both. From what I understand, HYDRA has a lot of its roots in the fascist Nazi movement, and there was a lot of occult research and experimentation during that time period by the Axis powers. On occasion, they'd actually stumble upon an artifact from the wixen side of things, normally with the aid of one of Grindelwald's men, so I wouldn't doubt that some of their weapons found a way to utilize them.”
Fury stared hard at her. “How do you know about HYDRA?”
“There's no need for the paranoia, Director.” Hermione gave him an unimpressed look. “As I said, Grindelwald and his men worked with them on occasion. He was a dark lord that was waging a war on the magical side of things at the same time as Hitler and his allies on the mundane side. While your average historical text in Wizarding Britain doesn't mention HYDRA, there are those that go deeper into the history of dark lords and Grindelwald himself that do, if only because it's a very rare example of dark wixen willingly working with mundanes. The idea of secret intelligence agencies isn't a common one in the wixen world, and the only group that is known to be secretive is the Unspeakables, who research undiscovered or untested magic. Honestly, I'd say most of those who wrote about HYDRA on our side of the fence didn't even know it was something they weren't supposed to know of or talk about.”
“Fine.” Fury sighed. “The staff does at least seem to be powered by the cube. I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.”
“Monkeys?” Thor asked. “I do not understand.”
“I do!” Steve shouted, causing Hermione and Harry to snicker at each other again. “I understood that reference.”
Tony clapped his hands and made his way to the door. “On that note, shall we play, doctor? Merlin and Glinda too.”
Hermione guffawed at that, amused at Harry's resigned expression.
Tony frowned. “Was it something I said?”
“Oh, Stark,” Hermione laughed. “If you only knew.”
Harry paced back and forth in front of the staff in its stand. Behind him, Bruce, Tony, and Hermione were each working away at separate stations, tracking the cube or – in Hermione's case – catching up on the details of the situation through reports and recordings. Harry did duck to the side, though, when Banner stepped over with a scanner he waived over the staff.
“The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract, but it's gonna take weeks to process.”
Tony shrugged while digging in a cabinet. “If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops.”
Bruce snorted. “And all I packed was a tooth brush.”
Hermione chuckled, though Harry was too focused on the staff to enjoy the joke. “If nothing else, we can always pop out the tent and check the lab if we're missing anything we need.”
“You have no idea how badly I want to see that for myself!” Bruce grinned, a light in his eye she hadn't seen yet. The man just seemed so tired most of the time. She could relate.
“Well, regardless of whether or not it's needed, I'd be happy to give you both a proper tour later. Perhaps the other Avengers too, if they're interested.” Hermione clicked through a few more files, digging for something in particular.
“All of you should come to Stark Tower sometime,” Tony said, clutching a bag of dried blueberries from who-knows-where, since the cabinets seemed to be focused more on lab supplies than food. “Top ten floors, all R&D, you'd love it, it's candyland.”
Bruce hunched in on himself a little. “Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem.”
“Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tensions, no surprises.”
“Not to mention,” Hermione broke in, “if you really wanted, I could supply you with calming draughts. They're a potion that settles strong negative emotions, including anger. It's not a long term solution, since they have a slight ability to become addictive and that much magical emotional manipulation can become psychologically damaging, but it'd at least be an 'in-case-of-emergency' option if it eases your mind a little.”
“Yeah, see?” Tony said right before poking Bruce with a little electrical prod.
“Ow!”
“Nothing?”
“Hey! Are you nuts?!”
They all looked over to see that Steve had joined them. Well, all but Harry; he was still frowning and staring at the staff with an increasingly disturbed expression.
Tony, naturally, ignored him and spoke to Bruce instead. “You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?”
Hermione snickered. “If it's that last one, I have an excellent source for something a little more effective...”
Before Tony could do more than lift an eyebrow in interest at that, however, Steve cut in. “Is everything a joke to you?”
“Funny things are.”
“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor.”
Bruce sighed. “No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things.”
Tony chimed in. “You're tiptoeing, big man! You need to strut!”
“And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark,” Steve said, frowning.
“We are, Captain,” Hermione said, trying to cut off the obviously impending argument. “I'm researching through the currently accumulated evidence to catch up and make sure we're not missing or overlooking something, Harry is scanning the staff for any magical information, Bruce is running the programs that will allow us to trace the Cube with the staff, and Tony is digging through SHIELD's files to find out what exactly we aren't being told after that nifty little trick with the probe earlier.”
Tony beamed at her and tossed a blueberry over at her. She caught it in her palm with a wink.
Steve's brows furrowed. “You think Fury is hiding something?”
“Why did Fury call us now?” Tony shot back at him. “Why not before? What aren't we being told? I can't solve the equation unless I have more of the variables. He's a spy, THE spy. His secrets have secrets. It's obviously bugging Glinda, and I'm sure it's bugging the good doctor and Merlin back there, too.”
Harry, predictably, didn't answer, but Bruce just ducked his head a little. “Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and...”
“Doctor?” Steve asked.
Bruce sighed. “'A warm light for all mankind', Loki's jab at Fury about the cube. I think it was meant for Tony. Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news.”
“Stark Tower? That big ugly-” Tony gave him a look , “-building in New York?”
Hermione huffed. “I apologize for being blunt, Captain, but that's a bit rude. It may not be your architectural cup of tea, but a lot of work went into it, and it's a technological marvel.”
Tony beamed at her again for the defense, and fortunately Steve looked slightly more chagrined than upset.
“It's powered by arc reactors,” Bruce elaborated. “Self sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?”
“That's just the prototype,” Tony shrugged. “I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now.”
“Right,” Banner said. “So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?”
Hermione snorted. “Oh, I very much doubt they are. What do you think an intelligence agency more or less self-charged with the defense of America and/or the planet would do with a cube of limitless power that was previously used to produce weaponry?”
Tony finger-gunned at her. “Precisely. And I'll have proof of that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files.”
Steve huffed. “And you're confused on why they didn't want you around? Loki is trying to wind us up, start a war, and if we don't stay focused he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them.”
Hermione sighed. “Captain. A word, if I may?”
Maybe it was because she reminded him, just a little bit, of Peggy, but Steve acquiesced pretty easily. The two of them stepped out of the door slightly, for a bit of privacy.
“Captain,” she sighed again, “I would like to just say something, and I ask that you listen and not interrupt if at all possible, please?”
Steve nodded, though he had a slight furrow on his brow.
“The first thing I did when I had access to the files regarding this whole mess so far was read through the files about each of the Avengers. If Harry and I are expected to work with you, we need to know about you, and please know that means if you need to know something about us to be on the same playing field, just ask. I can imagine that closing your eyes in the 1940's and then reopening them in the 2020's is incredibly painful and disorienting. The people you know are either old or gone, everything has changed, the technology is far more advanced than what you're used to.”
She placed a hand on his shoulder, clearly trying to communicate that she was not saying this to be cruel. “I can understand the need to fall back on what you know to try and establish a little bit of stability. You are a soldier, a captain. Stability for you is orders, given and followed. Structure. But, you are the only traditional soldier in the group.” Hermione shrugged. “Harry and I probably would be your best bet for someone in the group that would take it in stride, maybe Miss Romanov as it seems she's been working with SHIELD for a while and is therefore used to following orders.
“But Stark? Banner? Thor?” She continued, walking them a little further away from the lab. “The first one turned what should have been a traumatic incident into an opportunity to right wrongs and help people but has so far done so completely solo, the second has been living in isolation in the name of fear and safety for his fellow man, and the last is a prince and essentially a god in his own right. None of those types of people are going to deal well with being given orders and being expected to 'follow or else', especially when the order is to essentially disregard their intuition and intelligence, the latter of which is Stark and Banner's greatest strengths, and yes, I'm counting the Hulk in that.”
“I...I'll admit, I didn't think of it that way.”
“That much is obvious, Captain, but that's fine as long as you think of it that way going forward. You are a soldier, and you should absolutely play to your strengths, but you have to remember you are on a team of individuals who are all vastly different with different strengths and weaknesses. Even if you are the one who ends up officially leading the team, it's important to remember that what you have to work with is a group of individuals who are all very capable in their own right, and not a group of soldiers who have been trained for long periods of time to do whatever you say.”
Hermione paused. “Additionally...granted, I've only known all of you for a couple of hours, but Harry and my backgrounds left us both pretty good at reading people, and the profiles for you all have filled in the rest of the blanks, even if I think a couple of them are wrong on several points.” She placed a hand on a cocked hip. “Case in point, Tony Stark. We grew up around a lot of people who were just kids but had been trained by their families from day one on how to wear a mask in public, so that no one really can figure them out or dig out any weaknesses, especially if they're rich, well known, in the public eye frequently, powerful, or all of the above, all of which absolutely applies to him. Mr. Stark's mask is good, but he has nothing on a Slytherin.”
She shrugged and plowed on before he could ask what that was. “I think Mr. Stark has a lot more positive characteristics than the people around him thinks he does, and it's not hard to guess that his day-to-day life and history makes him think he can't show any of that. It's not what anyone expects of him.”
Steve winced, well aware that she was definitely including him in that tally.
“However, that being said, I think the root of the problem between you two is much more simple than that. You both have a very particular defining characteristic, and they're ones that, without acknowledgment, are at odds with one another. As I said earlier, you are very structured, and on the other side of the fence he is fiercely independent. Neither are bad traits to have, by any means, but a certain amount of understanding is needed in order for two people like that to coexist peacefully, be it as friends or team mates.” She suddenly cleared her throat, looking embarrassed. “Sorry. Er, I've always had a history of going on and on and being incredibly nosy and bossy. So, I apologize if I was out of line.”
“No! No, you've given me a lot to think about.”
Hermione nodded. “Good to know all of those self help books Harry and I studied are useful to you, too.” With a laugh, she turned around to go back into the lab.
After she left, Steve just stood there for a moment. It was hard to admit, but he just felt so ashamed of himself. He had really lost his temper in the lab, and honestly had been pretty needlessly unkind. It wasn't hard to realize why he was so focused on Tony Stark, either.
Howard Stark had been a good friend, but he could be arrogant. Thoughtless. He had had so much hope that his son would be different, better, and was disappointed when he seemed to be just like his father. But, Miss Granger had made a good point. Tony had done a lot of dangerous things as Iron Man, but much of it was to right the wrongs of his company, of Howard's company. As soon as he truly realized how much damage their weapons were doing? He shut down the weapons division and chased down the shipments so they couldn't hurt anyone else. When his own godfather turned out to be the one double dealing and hurting even more people? He stopped him himself, someone he cared about, so that he couldn't anymore and no one else would be responsible to do so. He could have sat back and let someone else take care of it, but he hadn't taken the coward's way out.
After getting out of that cave, he could have just led a life of leisure off of his fortune, let things go on as they were, and never worried about it again. He could have used the technology he invented, the smaller reactor and suit, to build a new empire of weapons by providing them to the army. But he didn't. He guarded it closely, doing everything he could to keep the information from falling into the wrong hands (and yes, Steve was a soldier, but even he could admit the army could not be trusted with this much firepower), despite the heaps of trouble it gave him from the government and military, and when backed into a corner found a way to give them what they wanted while limiting the damage they could do with it.
He had read about all of this in the profile for Tony Stark. And, somehow, instead of seeing all of this for what it was, a good man hiding in plain sight, all he saw was Howard. All he saw was the Black Widow's less than complimentary remarks contradicting the actions of a fairly selfless man, calling him anything but. And he believed every single one, when he of all people should have known better.
Steve straightened his shoulders. Tony, Bruce, their two new additions...they were working hard to give them what they needed to resolve this. They all suspected that SHIELD was hiding something. Maybe he could help, the old fashioned way.