Harry's brief experience with teaching was nonetheless a deeply impactful one, even after all these years. He still took a special pride in 'Dumbledore's Army', and the thought that the time spent on the club might help even one person make it through the war had been something he'd clung to even during his darkest moments.
Skye had made incredible progress in just a week. She no longer needed to be unbearably aroused to call on her powers, they worked on command (more or less). She could select targets to vibrate and even create sonic shockwaves in the air. Control was still an issue for her, however, and frankly Harry felt they were only scratching the surface with her abilities. Regardless, it was easy to see just how useful Skye would be in a fight.
His lips curled into a smile as he watched Skye, arm outstretched as she focused on the hotel room bed. 'I want to tell everyone we broke the bed in every hotel we stayed in.' She had told him cheekily.
Yeah, she was definitely Avengers material. She even had the tragic backstory for it.
Skye hadn't just impressed him with her powers. It was easy at first to forget that she'd gotten her start with Shield as a hacker, and she'd put those skills to use in covering their tracks, ensuring that no one would find footage of them with metro station surveillance or with a roadside cameras. He'd asked her once what exactly she was doing, and her explanation went over his head to the point where he felt stupid. Of course, then she dumbed it down for him, but he could sense the teasing lilt in her voice, as if she were explaining it to a child.
'Give me a break.' He'd told her 'My school was a castle. We wrote with quills.'
She'd guffawed at that, and the discussion had shifted to how backward wizarding society had been. The medieval aesthetic- the carriages, parchment, torches, quills- had all felt so enchanting as a kid. Then, as the years passed it had become almost a background, it was the way it was, why would it be any different? He'd been immersed in the culture; it had been normal. Only with the benefit of hindsight and distance from his world did Harry begin to grasp how weird it all was.
The conversation had eventually transitioned to sex, as pretty much any private interaction between them eventually did. Neither of them could really keep their hands off the other, and Skye was so receptive to his advances. It was immensely flattering and made it impossible to resist advancing. He'd never had a relationship like this before. His relationship with Natasha wasn't much more than a few flings, with a ton of unresolved tension (sexual and otherwise) hanging around him. He and Ginny had endeavored to spend every possible moment with each other, but with classes and the constant presence of their friends (and overprotective brother) they never got much time truly alone together. They'd only had sex on his seventeenth birthday, after they had supposedly 'broken up'.
But with Skye, it was always just the two of them, and it wasn't just the sex. Spending so much time with her… he couldn't help but telling her more and more, often just with things dropped offhandedly. Skye probably knew more about his past life than anyone in this world. Though there were still things he hid from her- the prophecy, the horcruxes, the Deathly Hallows.
Their situation was… isolated. This was what he had wanted, he didn't want to risk something even inadvertently getting back to Shield through his teammates. It was just… more comfortable going it alone, than having to rely on them. He often wondered and worried about how they were doing. Would Tony's surgery going to go alright? How many movies off of his 'to watch' list had Steve watched with him? Where was Nat?
He'd never felt the isolation more keenly than when Skye had dragged him to her laptop, showing him livestream footage of London. They'd been there not even a week ago, and now it was a warzone. It was like some sort of twister replay of New York- an alien ship, some sort of portal. He'd spent an hour in restless agony, watching along with the rest of the world, catching glimpses of Thor in the newsfeed. He'd been at the edge of turning around, of calling Natasha or Hill to get a quinjet straight back to London to help.
It turned out that Thor had the situation well in hand, neutralizing the threat even before Tony could make it across the Atlantic. It was a cold comfort- they'd been completely blindsided, a city wrecked and thousands dead with no warning whatsoever. There would always be that sword of Damocles hanging over them, Harry realized. He suddenly had more sympathy for Tony's paranoia, his obsession for building more and better suits. He was preparing, and Harry couldn't find it in himself to fault him for it.
-----
She found them in Salzburg.
He had been good at staying underground, better than she'd expected. Picking up that hacker girl had certainly helped, judging by the lack of video evidence of them anywhere. But removing yourself from the world digitally left behind a shadow where you once were, and Natasha had contacts, relationships she'd cultivated both before and independently from Shield, and she hadn't been shy in calling in favors, or throwing around the funds that Stark had siphoned to her accounts.
The intervening week had cooled her anger. She was upset at Harry for making such a momentous decision without talking to her, talking to anyone about it. She was convinced that he really was on to something, it was possible that disappearing like this might be the best way to get the drop on their enemies… whoever they were.
But they were supposed to be a team damn it. The concept, that she was part of a team, was still new to her, a little terrifying, but a lot exhilarating. Harry's apparent lack of trust felt like a slap in the face. But she was better than lashing out at him for his decision. She knew he had his own baggage and reasons for how he acted as much as any other member of the team did. She knew that blind fury wasn't going to solve anything.
She opted for a more… cautious approach. When she found Harry and his new accomplice, she didn't immediately confront them- she watched, and learned.
It was immediately obvious that they were smitten with each other. The way Skye hung off his arm was too genuinely affectionate to be a cover. As Natasha kept track of their… almost touristy window shopping, followed by a stroll through a park, the pieces began to fit together in her mind.
Coulson had been floored by Skye's decision to desert them. Natasha knew Coulson as a good judge of character, and he had personally vouched for Skye to the agency, backed her to the hilt. She'd acquitted herself in exemplary fashion, not just with her hacking talents, but in how quickly she had learned the ins and outs of field work, undercover work, and combat. How had Harry managed to lure away such a promising young agent?
Simple, he had seduced her. She didn't know whether to be annoyed or impressed.
Or envious.
The general public often misconstrued seduction, at least as far as espionage was concerned. There was far more to seducing someone than being sexually appealing, or making someone want to have sex with you, or even fucking them. None of those things would get you what you wanted- unless what you wanted was sex. No amount of sexual tension could have turned Skye to Harry's side. But what sexual attraction did do was… nudge. It made people more open to hearing what the object of their desire was saying, even leading people to hearing what they wanted to hear.
Sex appeal was the bait, but the trap was the hard part, coming up with a convincing story, something that the mark could fill in the blank to. And what better story was there than a true one? Natasha had no doubt that this is what happened. Harry hadn't led Skye astray under false pretenses. He'd been completely honest with her, and that was simultaneously incredibly rare in espionage circles, and in Harry's hands, incredibly potent.
The longer she watched lovebirds go on what was unmistakably a date the harder it was to deny to envy bubbling up. It was a caustic, insidious feeling that seemed to seep through her chest until it burned her throat. She hated this, and she had no idea how much she'd hate it until it was staring her in the face.
Finally, as they shared a simple kiss she turned away, clenching her fist. She shouldn't be upset. This was what she wanted. She'd wanted him to move on with someone who could give him a family.
You asked for this. You asked for this. You asked for this.
She wasn't angry at Harry. She didn't begrudge Skye. It wasn't Skye's fault that she had what Natasha so desperately wanted- the genuine affection of a kind, wonderful man, and a hope for a future that would forever be beyond her reach.
Part of her was angry at herself, for letting Harry slip through her fingers. Mostly though, her impotent rage was directed at the Red Room, her handlers… Dreykov. Dreykov… it was a pity she couldn't kill him twice.
Reigning herself in, she wiped a lone tear from her cheek. She was acting like a child, petulantly whining at the unfairness of it all. There was no point in wishing things were different or raging about what couldn't be changed. She vowed to herself that she wouldn't begrudge Harry and Skye for their relationship. Harry deserved to be happy. Skye would have been an idiot not to try to be the one to give that to him. She wouldn't come between them.
She just… she just wished she could have that too.
By the time that Natasha had slipped into Harry and Skye's hotel room (single bed, she couldn't help but note) she'd pushed down her inner turmoil. She had a job to do, after all.
And when the two runaways returned, she affected a cool smirk as they boggled comedically at her. She reclined in her chair and acting as if of course she belonged here, what exactly were they expecting?
"Sorry, am I interrupting something?"
-----
It took Harry's brain a moment to reboot. Then, as he tried to formulate a response, his thought process promptly crashed again, and he was forced to open and close his mouth uselessly as he stared at the Avenger, spy, assassin, and ex sitting in their hotel room.
Skye was also momentarily floored, but this was quickly replaced with… "Oh my god!" She fangirled "Black Widow, the Black Widow?" She beamed, whipping her head from Harry to Natasha, who had started an impromptu staring contest. "This is amazing."
Harry lost that contest, of course. "I guess I should have expected this."
"You mean, you didn't think I'd find you?" Natasha raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
Harry scratched his head bashfully "Not my best judgement call?"
"How about running off without telling anyone, anyone in your team, any one of your friends, where you were going or why?"
Skye's eyes bounced between them much like a child's would when their parents were fighting. "Uhhh…"
"I didn't have a way to contact anyone that was secure." He defended himself "I had no idea what or who was compromised. I get why you're pissed, I get it. But the risk of what we're after getting out is too much."
Natasha nodded, her eyes level on his. "Why didn't you wait?"
"Err, what do you mean?"
"I missed you in London, by hours. You could have stayed, talked to me." She said, her tone soft but piercing.
"I was… afraid you'd try to stop me." The admission fell from his lips before he could stop it. It wasn't something he'd wanted to admit, but the way her eyes held him… it was impossible for him to lie.
Natasha stared at him in silence for a moment, her expression unreadable. "You're an idiot." She finally declared.
Skye snickered.
Natasha wasn't done. "Harry, if you'd just waited, I'd have gone with you."
It was Harry's turn to stare in disbelief, utterly stunned by her declaration. "Really? You would have left with me, just like that?"
"In a heartbeat." She vowed.
He believed her, the way she was looking at him… Harry blinked, his eyes stinging with emotion. "Oh." A beat as he struggled to collect himself "What about the others?"
"We're all on board."
He was suddenly reminded of one of the worst days of his life. They day he'd run off to the ministry to 'rescue' Sirius. At first, he'd insisted on going alone, but his friends wouldn't allow him the option. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Neville- they had all followed him in a heartbeat. He hadn't deserved his friends' trust then; he didn't think he deserved it now, but it moved him nonetheless.
They trusted him implicitly. The least Harry could do was trust them in return. Blinking back tears, he met Natasha's eyes again, this time repentant. "I'm sorry."
They had a lot to talk about.
-----
Something big was happening. Wanda didn't need her nascent abilities to know that. Even without the occasional flashes of insight from the minds of their… allies. The rise in activity was unmistakable. But why?
She and Pietro had joined Hydra- though they hadn't known the true identity of the organization until after they'd gotten their powers- for good reasons. They'd wanted to end the war, the American occupation in their country. Tony Stark and the Avengers were just an extension of that imperialistic ambition. The idea that Captain America would be a neutral peacekeeper was laughable. The fact that the man who was complicit in killing her parents was being hailed as a hero made her sick. She hated them, she hated them all.
But she had to admit, she was growing impatient. She wanted to go back to Sokovia. She wanted to start fixing things and use her newfound abilities to destroy anyone who got in their way.
"I can feel you stewing, you know." Pietro remarked, nudging her shoulder playfully. Despite herself, Wanda grinned.
Really, Pietro was the only thing that made this bearable. If he wasn't here, or if he hadn't made it through the experimentation… she didn't think she could bear it. He was the one constant in her life, she didn't even know how to be without him, without his quips, his teasing, his complete belief in her.
"I'm the one who's supposed to read minds." She quipped back.
Pietro rolled his eyes, and Wanda instinctively knew what he was saying. I'm your brother, I don't need to be able to read minds to read yours.
"I'm getting impatient, too." He said instead.
That was an understatement. Pietro's patience had worn thin far soon than hers had, but he'd remained committed to the cause. There wasn't a sliver of doubt in either of their minds that whatever they did, wherever they went, they would do it together.
But for now, there was nowhere else for them to go. If they wanted to get justice for their parents and for their country, Hydra was the only option. As much as they both itched to go out and do something, they knew that if they tried to go it alone Shield and the Avengers would pick them off. She didn't like how Hydra kept them in the dark about their plans and presumed control over every aspect of their lives, but they needed Hydra's support and protection if they wanted to survive.
She just hoped that whatever Hydra's plans were, they would be involved. Ideally in wiping that smug grin off of Tony's Stark's face.
Notes: