Sokovia had all the trappings of a city at war. Building were abandoned, if not outright bombed out, the people walked the streets cautiously, if they did at all. Armed police and militiamen were a common sight.
Natasha had informed him that this tiny country had long been a hotspot. It had hosted a Hydra base in World War II, it had been a constant friction point between the US and Soviet Union during the cold war. Since the USSR's collapse, the country had been in almost constant turmoil, resulting in (and perhaps perpetuated by) a string of interventions by peacekeeping forces.
It had clearly taken its toll, and the people of this city were, a counterintuitive mix of on-edge and worn down.
Harry could relate.
His budding relationship with Skye had been the perfect distraction to the looming threat ahead of him, but now that they were at the precipice, nothing could ease his nerves. Natasha's presence had been a godsend in actually navigating Eastern Europe and identifying their likely target, but there was still something unresolved between them. She carried an air of sadness and regret towards him, but Harry was at a loss for how to address it, or even if he should address it. It didn't help that now he and Skye had had far less alone time now. He didn't fault Nat one bit for this, but it was certainly true that one of his best methods of stress relief had been limited. He and Skye would have to be content with subtle touches, longing looks, stolen kisses, and the occasional quickie for the time being.
The fact that the three of them had located Loki's Staff had to make up for any lapse in Harry's sex life. Between Skye's infiltration of Shield's network, Natasha's in depth knowledge of Shield operations, especially in Eastern Europe, and Harry's tracking spell they'd narrowed it down to an old Hydra fortress outside of Sokovia that had been repurposed by Shield after the war. The base was a black box. There was nothing about it on Shield's servers except that it existed, and Natasha couldn't dig anything up on it either.
It reminded him of the many times he's charged recklessly into a situation he doesn't fully understand. Harry had had no idea what lay beneath the trap door that Fluffy guarded. He'd had no idea who the Heir of Slytherin had been, or how he was supposed to fight a basilisk. He'd run blind into the Department of Mysteries with nothing to go on except a vision Voldemort had planted in his head. His track record was… mixed.
They'd spent nearly a week in Sokovia, trying to make up for their lack of knowledge. Skye digging into Shield activity in Sokovia, sifts through local records. Natasha on recon, slipping in close to the facility, observes patrols, plants bugs. Harry felt useless, just itching to jump into the fight, but as long as Skye and Natasha are making progress, he can't justify it.
So he trained. Healing magic was still a weak spot for him, but he felt compelled to channel all of his anxiety and nervous energy into improving. If it let him save a single life, it'd be worth the effort. It would even be worth the sheer horror on Skye's face when she caught him with a knife in hand, carving a wicked cut across his arm.
She gaped at him for a moment, and then hissed "What are you doing?" The knife began to shake violently in his hand. Harry reflexively dropped as if it had scalded him, but not in time for Natasha to come in behind Skye and see what he was doing.
A host of emotions washed over Natasha's face in the span of a coupled of seconds, only to be replaced by a look of determination. Both women shared a glance, and seemed to come to a silent agreement.
"Its not what it looks like!" Harry tried to explain. Natasha paid no heed as she grabbed him by the elbow, turning his forearm to examine the self-inflicted injury.
"Why the hell would you do this." She said flatly, he couldn't begin to identify the undercurrents in her voice. She sounded terrifying, and when she shifted her gaze up to him… he could barely speak.
"Practice." He managed, and to demonstrate he waved his free hand across the cut on his arm, healing it. "I'm not- I'm not trying to punish myself. This is just training."
He was surprised when neither woman seemed more than partially mollified. Skye was shaking her head "You're hurting yourself, to get better at healing magic."
"It could save lives." He said by way of explanation "It'd be worth it."
"That's not the point." Natasha bit out. Despite his cut being healed, she hadn't released his arm. "If you want to practice healing magic, you could volunteer at a hospital."
That was… actually a completely logical point that he hadn't even considered. Why had he immediately jumped to healing his own cuts, rather than trying to heal other people? He felt uncomfortable with the implications of this train of thought. "Can't exactly do that at moment." He muttered, knowing the argument didn't hold water.
"You've been doing this longer than you've been on the run." Nat said, her eyes piercing him. He really couldn't hide anything from her, could he?
"Look its not that big of a-"
"Like hell it is." Nat spat. "This stops now."
Silently, Skye nodded her agreement. Harry let out a frustrated breath. He still didn't know how to deal with people caring like this. He absently fingered the scar from Umbridge's blood quill that was still carved into the back of his hand. The way his friends had reacted when they had realized what he meant when he said he was 'writing lines' had been overwhelming. Apparently he still wasn't used to… this.
"Right. Sorry." He said dully, looking down at the floor.
Skye then stepped forward, coming to his other side and resting a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"I'm-"
"I swear to god if the next word out of your mouth is 'fine', you're going to get a lot more practice with healing magic." Natasha cut him off abruptly.
Harry shook his head, almost amused. She was every bit as good at shutting down his denials as Ginny had been. "Its hard for me, to sit here and do nothing. I want to feel useful."
For a moment, disbelief crossed both women's faces. "Harry." Natasha interceded, speaking like she was explaining something very obvious to someone who should know better. "The entire reason we can even be here right now is because of you. We'd still be completely oblivious without you." She paused to let that sink in, before continueing "Part of being in a team is understanding that your skill set won't always be the most relevant one. Do you think I felt particularly useful next to you, Stark, and Thor when aliens dropped out of the sky?"
Harry nodded his acknowledgement. Intellectually, he knew they were completely right, that didn't change the gnawing urge in his gut that told him he wasn't doing enough. "Besides." Skye continued "While we've been scoping things out, you've taken care of everything else. The room, the food and supplies… plus, you give great head."
Harry coughed and sputtered at her forwardness. He shouldn't be surprised, yet Skye always managed to catch him off guard. Natasha rolled her eyes "Don't I know it." She murmured, almost inaudibly.
A small smile spread across his face. "Right, I get it, I get it." He held his hands up in mock surrender. "No more hurting myself in the name of magic. No more beating myself up over not having anything to do."
Skye smirked "I wouldn't say you don't have anything to do." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Natasha chose that moment to take her leave.
-----
Baron Von Strucker relished his newfound importance. The hierarchy within the nebulous Shield-Hydra organization had never been set in stone or straightforward. He'd had to jockey, undercut, and backstab to get his hands on Loki's Scepter. From there, sheer ruthless determination had gotten him far.
He had the twins. They alone made him one of the biggest names in the Hydra organization. With a bit more training, they two of them would be able to wipe the floor with every other super-solider in Hydra's arsenal simultaneously. He'd been looking for an Avenger killer, and he'd found it.
His possession of the Scepter had gotten him more attention than he'd bargained for, but even that had become a blessing. When Harry Potter had quit Shield, defecting Agent in tow, and began making bee-line across the continent… it wasn't difficult to figure out where he was heading.
How he knew the Scepter's location was more than a little unnerving. Pierce had been livid when it became clear that somehow Harry Potter had begun to pick apart the layers of deception masking Hydra from the world. The fury was a mask, of course, for fear. Both the fury and fear were quelled by the apparent reality that Potter had cut contact with the other Avengers as well. He'd even left Romanoff high and dry. As long as that remained to be the case, they could still salvage the situation if they acted fast.
The plan was simple- set a trap. Let Potter barge into his facility, guns blazing, without so much as a plan, his psych profile indicated he was unlikely to do anything else. He'd be easy pickings. Despite Potter's best efforts, they never completely lost track of his location, at least not at first. Somewhere in Austria he'd just dropped of their radar entirely. That was… disconcerting. As the days, and then weeks passed with no sign of him suspense and anticipation morphed into anxiety. His plans and goals had all been relying on a quick victory against Potter. Without that… it was only a matter of time before he was upstaged, before someone else took advantage of his weakness and undermined him.
Strucker didn't know what the rest of Hydra was planning, just that machinations that had been in place were accelerated- a trap set to spring closed around the scattered, unsuspecting Avengers and prone Shield organization. With a lone Avenger on route to his facility, Strucker had been in an excellent position. He'd asked for more manpower, he'd gotten it in spades. He'd been lent two Winter Soldiers. The briefing had been short- they had been Hydra's best agents even before injection with the serum. They were nearly unstoppable, just… unreliable. The serum had rendered them unstable, difficult to control, so they'd been put on ice. This was why he was only getting two of the assets- it was explained- it wasn't safe to have too many of them in one place.
Apparently this qualified as enough of an emergency to mobilize them, Hydra was putting every card on the table. All the better for him, with these resources, he might even be able to set himself up as the new head of Hydra when this was over. Pierce had formidable sway, but if he could take down Potter… well the possibilities were endless. For a moment he allowed himself to dream of conditioning Potter as they had the Winter Soldiers. Having such a powerful asset as his personal puppet, combined with the prestige of delivering victory to Hydra, would ensure his supremacy. But the situation was a two edged sword. As much as he stood to gain, he had just as much to lose. He knew that Hydra would never put all its eggs in one basket. If anyone else's plans got the initiative, he'd be left out in the cold.
Which was why he felt nothing but fury at the most recent communique from Headquarters.
Stark just went under. No more waiting.
-----
"Missiles incoming."
Jarvis' matter of fact delivery did nothing to blunt the impact of the announcement. "What the-" was all Pepper could get out before a cacophony of explosions cut her off. "Christ!" She shrieked as the reverberations echoed in her ears and rattled the office supplies arrayed on her desk. "Is everyone alright?"
"The defense system is working as intended, though additional measures will need to be taken." Pepper had developed a surprising fondness for the AI. Though Jarvis did have the dry wit necessary to verbally spar with Tony, he was always direct and to the point when needed. It was a refreshing reprieve from Tony's near constant need to veer off topic and take nothing seriously.
"Looks like evil secret organizations don't let you take sick days." Tony, speak of the devil, joked as he lurched into her office. He, for a change, hadn't been in his workshop or any of the labs. They had relocated their offices to a secure location at the center of Avengers' Tower for just this sort of eventuality. The change also helped with his cover- employees would see that Tony Stark wasn't at his usual office or other work locations. Pepper had to admit, the plan of feigning Tony's surgery to lure their enemies out had been successful, maybe a little too successful. "Jarvis, what are we up against?"
"It appears that Avenger Tower is under attack by modified Hammer Industries prototypes." Projected in front of them was a feed from outside the tower, along with several still shots. Pepper wasn't an expert on the technology, but they certainly looked like they were based around the Hammer Industries drones that Vanko had hijacked and nearly killed Tony with. "I am monitoring the situation for any additional hostile contacts."
Tony, of course, didn't take the threat nearly as seriously. "Wow, they must be desperate. I could probably take those down with year old technology. Wake me up when we get a real threat."
"Be careful what you wish for, Sir." Jarvis chimed in, ever so helpfully as he brought a new feed on screen.
"Is that…" Pepper frowned in confusion "How would they even get him here?"
"Well, whoever they are, there's no questioning their commitment." Tony mused "Call Banner."
Pepper's frown deepened, shock and disorientation giving way to anger. The Abomination was supposed to be securely locked up by Shield. What they hell had happened? Once this was over, heads would roll.
"Bruce, buddy. Looks like one of your old friends is back in town. Do you think you two could meet up and try not to wreck Harlem a second time?"
"What…" Bruce uttered over the comms, at a loss for words as he took in the situation. "Oh, hell."
"Are you going out, Tony?" Pepper asked, her tone clipped.
"I was thinking we keep our trump cards in the back pocket for a bit. See how the situation plays…" Tony trailed off, his eyes flickering back to the news feed along the side of holographic projection. "Jarvis, what exactly is going on in D.C?"
Pepper cast her mind back, there was a report of an incident in D.C. earlier that day. Strangely, no official news sources had picked it up, but it had gotten their algorithm's attention, and brought it to Pepper's feed- a car had been ambushed with an overwhelming level of police force. Following a series of frankly incredible maneuvers, the car had been pursued across the city in a chase that had ended with it being blown up. It had been a strange incident that she'd forwarded to Steve and Clint, but hadn't put much thought into it. She was swiftly re-evaluating that assessment.
"I figured informing you was of lower priority, considering that we are taking fire as we speak."
"The taking fire was obvious. Nick Fury being assassinated is not!"
----
Just like that, days of preparation and planning came to a head. Natasha had no qualms with barging into Harry and Skye's room and waking them. She wasn't the least bit phased by their nudity, the urgency of the situation demanded nothing less.
As Harry blinked grogginess from his eyes, her words registered, sending him straight to alertness "Fury's dead."
"We need to move."