Harry had dealt with heartache before. Breaking up with Ginny had been… tough. Looking back in hindsight, he couldn't even say it had been the right decision. They could have just faked 'breaking up' and kept up a secret relationship. But he hadn't been thinking logically at the time- he'd been terrified of losing her, and he'd acted irrationally.
Nat's rejection had stung, but giving it a day's work and a night's rest had really put a few things perspective.
First of all- all he'd really lost was an opportunity. When it came down to it, they'd only known each other a short time. They'd had some fantastic chemistry, and he was a hell of an impressive women in terms of martial prowess and resourcefulness. He fancied her, but couldn't really say he loved her, and after the sting of rejection had worn off, Harry found himself accepting the situation.
Things were different now- he felt better about his situation than he'd had in… years. There wasn't a Dark Lord trying to murder him, he was no longer alone and friendless, he'd even gotten his magic back. This new world had once been something like a prison to him, but now it was interesting- full of magic and possibilities of its own. Gods, aliens, technology that would make wizards green with envy, and Merlin knows what else. He had friends again- even if he and Nat never spoke again- he wouldn't be alone.
Something had happened while he'd been falling from the Helicarrier. He'd almost died, and realized that he didn't want to, he wanted to live- not just survive- live. It was like a veil being lifted from his eyes. He was alive still, somehow. He'd survived having his parents murdered, life with the Dursleys, every single on of Voldemort's attempts to kill him, and being dropped in an entirely different universe. His life had basically been one long running series of traumatic events, but no matter how many times fate had knocked him down, he had gotten up and dusted himself off again.
That wasn't the only reason his spirits were lifting. It takes one to know one. It had been his reminiscence about his breakup with Ginny that had given Harry the sudden revelation. He knew what it was like to stupidly break up with someone 'for their own good', and he'd be damned if that wasn't what Natasha was doing to him right now.
What goes around comes around- karma had a wicked sense of humor.
Her eagerness to talk to him, her willingness to bend Shield rules by fucking him when he was her mark, the attention she'd paid him all the way up to that conversation, and then the sudden shift partway through, her mask coming up. Frankly, he was chuffed with himself for figuring it out, almost all on his own. Clint's not so subtle remark that Nat 'might be a dumbass at times' may have helped clue him in.
The question was, what was he going to do about it?
He certainly didn't want to force her to open up to him if she wasn't ready for it. It didn't take a psychologist to imagine that an Ex-KBG agent might have some baggage. Trying to barge in might just cause her to withdraw, and even if they got into a relationship, their combined 'issues' would still be a problem. Merlin knows he didn't have the slightest clue how to address what was troubling her. He wasn't good with... emotional talks.
So it was with a bit of resignation that Harry concluded that he was going to do nothing- nothing at all, except try to be her friend.
-----
Harry's plan of doing nothing was going brilliantly. Perhaps he shouldn't pat himself on the back too much, as his- and most of the other Avengers- had been completely focused on rescue and cleanup for just over a week now and they were all bone tired.
Then there were the press conferences and reporters. The entire team lined up for photos, and he'd even gotten the chance to show off his new suit. It had been snug and flexible, like a second skin, almost. The colors still rankled him a bit, but he had remembered what Nat had said about it. Sure enough, when he first tried it on, she'd been looking pointedly away.
She might have been a world class liar, but perhaps that didn't extend to him. The thought tickled him, but he chided himself. He could just be seeing what he wanted to see, but even if he wasn't, she had freely admitted she was attracted to him, that wasn't the goal here. He was playing the long game.
The constant work did have the bonus of keeping Harry's mind occupied and away from pointless speculation about the inner life of Natasha Romanoff. He'd gotten a lot of work in on his magic. He was just rubbish at healing charms- he'd never put much work into him despite his tendency to need patching up, which he added as just another in a long list of things he wished he'd learned at Hogwarts while he had the chance. Reparo had been his workhorse this week- and he'd gotten it down pat. He could now do it silently. With barely a motion of his hand he could repair a pane of glass- with a more exaggeration movement he could fix large sections of wall. He'd also gotten quite good at levitation charms as he lifted out endless piles of rubble piece by piece. It was beyond encouraging, it showed just what he could do with his magic with enough rigorous practice.
Even with magic, it was long grueling work, but he contribution had certainly made more complete repairs than could have been imagined without magic. In some places, he'd managed to salvage entire buildings to nearly their original state- complete with personal belongings- those that had left enough of a trace for him to get an idea of what they were. There were limits- there wasn't much Harry could do with a smoldering pile of rubble- he couldn't repair something that had burned, or been exploded to dust, or if he didn't know how it had originally looked.
Despite that, he was slowly becoming aware that he was developing a reputation. Pepper had quickly put together a media team (and was well on the way towards assemble a host of other support staff teams for the Avengers). As a result, they now got daily reports about media and outreach.
Harry shouldn't have been surprised to see that he'd developed a following, but he hadn't been expecting it regardless. He hadn't been the flashiest of the Avengers during the battle itself, but in the days after it, he'd drawn more and more attention. He shouldn't have been, Pepper had explained. Nat and Clint both worked more behind the scenes, attempting to prevent picking and looting from underground groups. Stark used both his suits and his money in the operation, but at the same time he was a known quantity. Bruce certainly wasn't going to transform, which just left Harry and Thor. Thor was powerful, but his abilities were more useful in battle than in a cleanup operation. Harry- Pepper had said- was the utility, and he was shining in the cleanup. Several videos of him had gone viral, with the biggest of them showing up walking slowly down the street, repairing blown out windows, dented cars, and loose stonework as he went. He didn't even remember the incident, but he had to admit that with the look of focus on his face, and the way he slowly, deliberately moved… he looked cool.
Thor had taken off once the repairs were well under way, and had returned later that day with Jane Foster in his arms. She had a shocked, winded, euphoric expression on her face, much like she'd just gotten off a particularly thrilling broomstick ride. There might have been a bit more to it than that, because as soon as they touched the ground, she began snogging the life out of Thor.
Harry sighed to himself, though the couple was oblivious, he knew this was going on camera.
-----
Another couple of weeks, and things were beginning to wrap up. New York was not back to normal, but it was getting to the point where they could no longer help. The Chitauri had been rooted out, rescues had been made, buildings had been cleared or repaired- the rest would be up to the city and communities.
Thor had left with Tesseract, along with Loki in chains. Some people at Shield had been very angry about this. Harry felt like leaving Loki's Scepter with them was a good compromise, one that the Avengers had worked out themselves, going right over Shield's head. They had presented it to Shield as a fait accompli and they weren't really in a position to say no, even if Pierce, who believe or not was Fury's superior had made a go of it. At the end of the day you couldn't just say no to the people who just saved the world and could completely crush you if they wanted.
Harry had tried to get more information out of the trickster god, but had come up with nothing. Thor had promised him to look into Harry's questions about ancient runes and the origins of the wizarding world in his world- or rather, he'd added sheepishly, have someone else look into it for him.
To Harry's chagrin, Loki's Scepter had just vanished. He'd gotten assurances from Shield that it was in their hands, but nothing else. He'd approached Natasha about this, and she had frowned thoughtfully.
"I would have thought they'd at least have you take a look at it." She agreed "It is strange. I'll look into it for you."
Harry didn't like it, one bit. It reminded him of when Dumbledore and his Order had tried to shut him out during his fifth year, and he couldn't imagine that whatever reason the faceless Shield organization had were even close to as good as Dumbledore's had been, which really was saying something.
It had him questioning where his future was. He was still employed by Shield, and the benefits of being in the organization should have been great. Access to inside information, artifacts, action- but if they were going to stuff him in a box, he'd be getting none of the benefits and all of the many downsides.
Steve was slowly being brought into the fold, though. He'd had his doubts, but Harry had seen him come around to it gradually, in real time. They'd had a lot of time to talk during the recovery operations and their downtime. Steve had worked himself harder than any of them, to the point that Harry- of all people!- had to be the one to drag him off to the tower to rest.
"You know that Shield is shady as hell, right?" Harry had asked him. "And I work for them." They'd both been pissed about Shield's secret weapons program using the Tesseract, after all.
"I know there are problems with Shield, but…" He sighed "I need to do something. I'm not just going to sit around a wait for the next disaster to happen."
Harry frowned in thought as Steve continued "I get that there are bad actors at Shield, but maybe people like you and me can change that. Peggy built this place, after all, it can't be all bad."
It was hard to argue with him. He didn't know how he'd react if he'd found some small part of his old world- he'd probably cling to it and try to rehabilitate it to the bitter end. Moreover, he didn't want to be sidelined, and leaving Shield seemed to guarantee just that, at least until what Tony and Pepper had planned reached its fruition. Unless and until that happened, the best that they could do alone was react, and probably only react when it was already too late.
So Harry shelved his doubts away. He, along with Steve, Natasha, and Clint- dutifully agreed to return to Shield headquarters in D.C where they would make up a new Shield taskforce. Tony hadn't been happy. He'd grumbled, and launched pointed barbs at Steve for 'abandoning his hometown'. Despite the promises all around that if they needed each other, they'd be just a call away, splitting up still felt like a poor omen to Harry.
Though it would take time, he would find that those instincts had been right.
-----
The Shield team had struck pay-dirt.
Marcus Davies had never felt more accomplished in his life. This wasn't just an achievement, it was vindication. He'd been considered… well, not a crackpot, but certainly strange by the mainstream seismologists. He had detected an anomaly in the seismic data in the crust deep beneath London. No one had noticed the small deviation, and when Marcus brought it to their attention they considered it a glitch.
They couldn't see what he saw, and no matter how patiently he tried to explain to them that he knew better than them, they always seemed to become irrationally upset. The establishment just doesn't like having their cushy status quo challenged he had grumbled to himself many a time.
Eventually he'd decided to go public. He rented a web domain and spent all day polishing his presentation- the graphics, getting the wording just right, deciding whether to name drop and how badly to trash the scientists who had gotten in his way. He'd gotten exactly no attention, not a single comment, nothing!
That was, until a Shield agent had woken him up one morning knocking on his door.
She was quick to get to the point. Her name was Agent Elisa Sinclair, Shield had discovered his research and thought it had promise, they wanted hear from him and have him lead an investigational team. She actually listened to what he had to say, indulging in his tangents and nodding along at his jabs to his colleagues. He'd spoken himself hoarse, and at that point told him that she'd like him to report to her base of operations tomorrow morning.
Things had gone blindingly fast. Their facility already had state of the art excavation equipment, more than state of the art, truly, this was space age stuff. Laser drills that could carve through rock like butter were the flashiest examples, but at every level the amount of money that had gone into this project was clear. The manpower was less impressive- just a small team of a few Shield agents. The entire thing was hush-hush, he wasn't allowed to breath a word of this to the outside world, and they'd had him take his website down.
He should have wondered why Shield was so interested in this, but he was too caught up in the moment to push Agent Sinclair on it. She'd given him vague, flattering answers that didn't actually answer anything, not that he realized that until well after the conversation was over.
The battle of New York had been stunning. Aliens, superheroes… Jesus. Marcus, for one, had stared at shock at his screen for most of the day, until it was clear that the Avengers had the situation in hand. Marcus' team, however, seemed to use it as motivation to redouble their efforts.
He'd started hearing whispers from his usually silent team members (Agent Sinclair was the only one who really spoke with him)- 'artifact' 'weapon'. Pieces began to fall into place, Shield was after something that could be used to fight the aliens, to defend the planet.
They had worked tirelessly since the invasion, to the point of near-exhaustion, but their efforts had been worth it. They were a kilometer down, deep enough for them to feel the geothermal heat. It was sweltering and cramped, and while they were working on extending ventilation and cooling equipment to make things more livable, for now they just had to suffer through it.
That was when they'd finally broken through. Rock had given way to a cavernous space- a chamber. It was almost entirely empty, aside from the archway.
For once, he and the Shield agents seemed to be of one mind, awestruck, they silently filed forward. As he stepped over the threshold into the chamber, Marcus shuddered as the temperature suddenly shifted, from uncomfortably hot to cool. It felt undeniably refreshing in the moment, but it was still creepy as anything.
"What the hell?" He asked no one in particular. The archway might have been unremarkable at first glance, other than the fact that it was inexplicably here. It seemed to be made of simple stone, but it still gave him goosebumps. If he squinted, he could just make out something shifting there, like between the arch hung a translucent curtain. What? Just what?
"Looks like Potter was right after all." One of the agents said. The statement registered with him, but filtered out of his mind just as rapidly. He couldn't keep his mind off the archway, another one of the agents was just as affected- reaching a hand out to it. He could feel it too, what would happen if he just…
"I wouldn't." Agent Sinclair said sharply. Marcus whirled around and the agent in question jerked his hand back, he hadn't even been aware that she'd entered the chamber.
"Agent Sinclair, do you know what this-" She silenced him with a finger pressed to his lips, and Marcus' mind went… fuzzy.
This is nice. I like it here.
"Do you think we can ask Potter about this thing?"
"Unlikely, he'd work out that we found something." Sinclair rejected "We need to figure this out ourselves."
"Strucker would love to see this." Another suggested.
"Let him play with his new toy. If he thinks he can make an Avenger killer" She said derisively "Let him try."
This managed to trip up Marcus' mind. Wait, Avenger killer? "Wha? Huh?" He uttered dumbly.
Sinclair smirked. "Oops." She said, clearly not at all bothered by this development. "We might as well start experimenting, shouldn't we, Marcus?"
Without another word, she thrust her arm out in his direction and Marcus found himself flying backwards, back into the archway. Oh god, what was going to happen to him? What-
And he was gone.