Skye grimaced and turned away from her screen. Sifting through the data that Hydra had left behind wasn't just a monumental task, it was one that she had to mostly do on her own. Truthfully, Jarvis was doing most of the work, sorting through the terabytes of data to find what was worthy of attention. The task of looking through the dossiers, documents, forms, and transcripts fell to Skye mostly because the roster of verifiably trusted ex-Shield personnel was quite thin, and of those she was the best hacker. As much as she'd love the help, or even company, there was still the risk that one of the Shield techs they would bring in would be a Hydra sleeper agent and destroy all the data they had recovered.
So Skye was shouldered with the mind numbing work of going through it all. Worst of all, this task gave her plenty of time to think.
Already, Coulson had pitched the idea of rebuilding Shield from the ground up. It was a plan that the Avengers had less than no enthusiasm for. This issue somehow had Steve Rogers and Tony Stark in solid agreement, and even the (former) Shield Agents of the team had formed a united front against the idea.
Fury had regained consciousness, but was, as always, tight lipped on his plans. Maria Hill had jumped ship, though. Rumor was she was applying for a position at Stark Industries. It didn't take an espionage mastermind to see that she was going to become part of the Avengers' support staff.
And now Skye found herself caught in the middle. She didn't want to say no to Coulson, the first person to see her, to give her a chance. She didn't want to leave her team- Fitz, Simmons, May, especially not after Ward had betrayed them. They were her friends, the closest thing to family she'd ever had.
But something was pulling her away from them, and it wasn't just Harry. She had powers. She could be an Avenger. Through everything that had happened in the past month, she hadn't fully embraced the implications that her new abilities and her new relationship had. She'd be famous, she'd be a target, she'd probably have to fight aliens, or monsters, or… multidimensional cyborg wizards.
She tried to imagine going back to Shield. Working with Coulson, to rebuilt trust in the organization like gluing together shattered china. Maybe she'd be the number two person at the reborn organization, maybe she'd be the cavalry, running point on the most dangerous missions.
But she wouldn't be an Avenger. As important as Shield had been to her, as much as she knew she was wanted… needed by Coulson and the rest of her old team, she couldn't refuse this call. She had these abilities and staying with whatever was left of Shield felt worse than holding herself back… it felt like shirking her responsibility.
So really, she already knew the answer she would give Coulson. At this point she was just putting it off. There were plenty of convenient excuses- she was needed here after all, and Coulson was in D.C. for the time being anyway. But soon, Coulson's team would be moving out, and she would still be needed here, and she would have to give Coulson her answer.
She didn't want to disappoint him.
Skye was driven from her thoughts by the sound of the door opening behind her. Coulson sometimes stopped by, when he had a free moment, as did Fitz and Simmons as their new labs weren't far from her. More often though, Harry was the one to visit her, plying her with drinks and snacks, or enticing her to eat outside with him. Skye was only a little surprised to see Natasha in the doorway.
Skye's feelings about Natasha were… complicated. For a while she had been an idol- the legendary Shield agent who'd managed to earn a spot on the Avengers without any superpowers. And in a lot of ways, she lived up to the hype. She was… as amazingly talented, impressive, and attractive in person as from afar, if not more so. What had surprised Skye was her relationship with Harry. Skye had been floating for the entirety of her and Harry's relationship- they had amazing chemistry both inside and out of the bedroom, and frankly she'd never been with a man so… good and kind-hearted. Not that he wasn't infuriatingly stubborn and had a worrying self-destructive streak, but those flaws just seemed to accentuate his character. She'd thought it was the perfect relationship, until he saw him with Natasha.
Nat seemed to get him in a way that Skye wasn't able to. She knew how to comfort him with a look, a word, a touch. She could tell him off, get him to see her side of any issue. And he had the uncanny ability to tilt the master spy. The way she'd reacted when Wanda had taken him down… the murderous fury, only to be tempered by Harry's own intervention, it spoke to the connection that they had. She didn't feel threatened about their friendship, Skye wasn't that petty or insecure. But all this had made her realize exactly what was missing from her whirlwind romance with Harry.
And really, Skye didn't exactly envy whatever position Nat had in Harry's life. Despite the way they clicked, there seemed to be something holding them back, causing them to pull away just as they were getting close. She knew for a fact that Harry had physically tucked Natasha in last night, but today he acted as if nothing had even happened. There had to be some history there, some reason they felt they couldn't get too close to each other. She got the sense that she was walking into a mess and was now trying to pick through the scattered debris.
Skye let Natasha take her out to lunch. The cafeteria food was already getting dull, but security trumped all else at the moment- the number of Hydra cells and operatives they'd uncovered in the US alone was alarming.
"I actually did want to talk with you about something." Natasha told her, her tone straddling the line between casual and serious. Skye groaned "There's not much to report on the data, its slow going."
"This isn't business." Nat intervened, raising a hand "It's about Harry."
Skye raised an eyebrow "Oh." She processed this development "Wait. Is this the 'hurt him I die' talk?"
"Yes." Natasha said bluntly "Hurt him, you die."
Skye was torn between laughing and quailing under the force of her stare, so she settled for shifting awkwardly in her seat. "You know that's not how relationships work." Not that Skye had that much experience in established relationships (as opposed to flings, which she had far more experience with) but she suspected she might have more under her belt than Natasha did. "I'll do everything I can to not hurt him."
Natasha wasn't satisfied. "How much has he told you about his past?" She asked.
"Some stuff." She hedged "He tells stories sometimes, but I know I don't have the full picture."
Natasha grunted in response "He's had a rough go of it."
"Funnily enough, I figured that one out myself." Skye snarked. She may not know as much about Harry as Natasha did, but she knew that. Their relationship was new, not nonexistent.
"He's lost a lot; he's never really gotten love or affection." Nat elaborated. "But that doesn't stop him from reaching out. His heart is so open, it's astonishing." The fondness in her gaze hardened as she refocused on Skye "So don't you dare take advantage of that. Enough people have broken his heart already."
Perhaps she was a little offended by getting the first degree, and perhaps she wanted to get to the bottom of what Harry and Natasha's issues were. Regardless, Skye's next choice of words were not the most well thought out. "What, like you did?"
It was a guess, but a devastatingly accurate one, as it turned out. Natasha's face crumpled so fast it gave Skye whiplash. Skye gaped at her, shocked that her guess had been right "Wait, seriously?" The spy's expression hardened, but Skye couldn't find it in herself to be intimidated "What happened?"
If anything, her expression closed down further, but it wasn't because of anger… she was masking heartbreak, Skye realized. "We had a connection. He wants children, I can't give that to him."
"Wait, so he broke up with you because you can't have children?" Skye felt justified in being a little skeptical, it didn't sound like Harry.
"Not exactly."
Realization dawned. "You didn't talk to him about it, did you? You just broke things off without explaining." She had no desire to have kids, thank you very much, but she wasn't about to break up with Harry out of the blue over that. It was something they could talk about later. Apparently Natasha saw things differently.
Her silence spoke for her, and as Skye looked at Natasha Romanoff, who was without a doubt one of the most competent, talented, and impressive people she'd ever met, she came to one inescapable conclusion. "Oh my god, you're an idiot."
"And what would you have done?" Natasha challenged.
"I don't know, talked to him about it!"
"He would have said it was fine, even though a family is what he wants more than anything, he'd have accepted losing that for my sake. That's not fair. He deserves someone who can give him everything."
"You know you can adopt. That's a thing you can do." Skye said sharply. She didn't spend her entire childhood being cycles through foster homes to not have a bitter awareness of that option, and how few people bothered to consider it.
"I just wanted him to be happy." Skye could see something in Natasha wavering, a growing vulnerability behind her eyes that threatened to spill out in tears.
"Well, maybe you should have let him decide what made him happy." This came out much less forcefully than Skye had intended, but it still had Natasha looking down. Really, she should be grateful that Natasha had thrown Harry away, but instead she could only be sad. As incredible as Harry was, as happy as she was to have found him, she hadn't been lonely before him.
Not like Natasha had been.
She'd probably thrown away one of the best things that had ever happened to her for nothing, and Skye was watching all the justifications that Nat had told herself unravel, leaving her only with the cold, bitter truth.
Natasha's shoulders shook, and Skye was suddenly concerned that she was going to cry, right in the middle of the cafeteria. Instead, Natasha abruptly rose from her seat. "Take care of him, Skye. I sure as hell didn't."
-----
"How's he doing, Steve?" Harry asked.
"About the same." He replied levelly. He'd gotten used to spending hours in the observation room overlooking Bucky's living quarters. He knew, intellectually, that it wasn't healthy, but every time he was away his mind was always back here, worrying and fixating. "Are you sure that you and Wanda can't…" He trailed off, not even knowing how to finish that sentence. Wanda and Harry had both tried to peer into Bucky's mind, but they found no magic that controlled him.
"Whatever they did to him, it was science, not magic." Harry told him "Its not like with Loki's staff. There's no evil presence to fight off. They just… warped him. Turned him into this."
"There's got to be a way." He refused to believe that this was it. That he'd found his closest friend again, only for him to be truly lost forever. There were glimmers of the old Bucky beneath the Winter Soldier. The occasional flashes of recognition, moments where he was off balance, clearly searching his memory for something. Steve hoped it wasn't just wishful thinking. He had to believe it.
"There is." Harry told him without a hint of doubt "Who knows, maybe Skye and Jarvis will find something that'll tell us what Hydra did to him. Even if they don't, though, we'll get there." Steve wondered how many years of therapy it would take to get Bucky back, if he ever fully recovered. He wondered if even asking for a 100% return to normal was asking for too much, if he should just be grateful having Bucky alive at all. "I'm sorry we couldn't make this easy. Sometimes life doesn't work out that way."
"Don't I know it." Steve chuckled without humor.
"You know, I did come here for a reason." Harry told him. When Steve sent him an inquiring look, he elaborated "Movie night."
Steve sighed. "I don't know."
"Look, I know we got out of the habit what with… everything going crazy. But this is in the name of team building. Wanda and Pietro want to join."
"I didn't expect them to be interested in, you know, Hollywood movies." Steve loosened up and let Harry lead him away. If this was to help strengthen the team, how could he say no? He didn't need to keep watch over Bucky 24/7.
"Well, not movies per se." Harry said with a smile "But it turns out they're massive fans of old sitcoms."
And that was how Steve Rogers was lectured on the finer points of 'I Love Lucy' by two Sokovian teenagers.
-----
It had taken Harry a while to recognize it in the chaos following Hydra's attempted coup, but it soon became apparent that Thor's excessive drinking wasn't merely celebratory. A quiet conversation with Nat had revealed to him that both Loki and his mother had died just weeks before in the runup to the battle with the Dark Elves in London.
Harry never would have guessed, but now that he knew it, he could see the grief clinging to him, tinging everything he did. Nat had cast a knowing look at him as he went off in search of Thor.
There were only so many places in the facility where they could find privacy, and the Avengers took advantage of every one of them. Harry eventually found Thor on the roof, sitting in a lawn chair with a six-pack of beer on the ground beside him. He'd ditched the formal battle armor for more comfortable earth clothing.
"Nice view." Harry remarked. The DC skyline was pleasant to look at, though it didn't hold a candle to his old dormitory's view of the Hogwarts grounds.
"Asgard's is nicer." Thor returned, unknowing echoing Harry's sentiment.
"There's no place like home." Harry agreed, he looked down at the cans of beer "Are you going to drink all of those?"
"Oh." Thor "Well, I've been trying to sample every variety of Midgard's spirits."
Harry chuckled "You've got your work cut out for you."
"It's quite a task, but it has to be done."
"Truly." Harry said dryly. He hadn't exactly gone up here with a plan, but could he really just improve comforting someone for their loss? Then again, Luna had essentially done the same thing for him, after Sirius had died. Maybe it was just that simple?
"Did you here about what Hydra uncovered in London- the Veil?"
"Yes, it was something from your world?"
"Yeah. The first time I saw it, my godfather fell through it."
Thor froze, realizing now where the conversation was going. "I almost jumped in after him."
"Why didn't you."
"Oh, I had to be physically dragged away. I didn't know it at the time, but wizards consider the Veil to be a direct portal to the afterlife."
"Which is just another way of saying it instantly kills you." Thor remarked.
"Yeah, naturally when they realized that they decided to use it as a method of execution. Until they turned to the far more monstrous practice of having a Dementor eat your soul." Harry let the bitter irony seep into his voice. The more distance he had, the easier it was to accept the terrible parts of wizarding society.
"That's horrible." Thor said bluntly.
"Yeah, it is." Harry agreed "My godfather spent over a decade in a prison guarded by them. You can ask Coulson what being near one of them for even a few seconds was like, if you want." Harry shook his head "Two of his best friends had just died because another friend had betrayed them. The entire world thought he was the one responsible, and then he was sent to hell on earth. Somehow, he didn't go completely mad. He told me it was the conviction that he was innocent that saved him, and the knowledge that I might still need him." Tears stung his eyes "I got to say goodbye to him, though. After he died."
Thor snapped to attention. "With magic?"
"There's a relic in my world, called the Resurrection Stone. Supposedly it was gifted to a ancient wizard by Death herself." Referring to 'Death' as female came naturally to him now, which was disconcerting. "I brought back my parents and Sirius. They weren't more than ghosts, but I got to say goodbye. I got closure. I wish I could give that to you."
"What I wouldn't give for one last conversation with her." Thor murmured distantly, before shaking himself. "That sounds like a… monstrously powerful artifact." Thor refocused "On the level of an Infinity Stone." Harry had no clue what an 'Infinity Stone' was, but they certainly sounded powerful, so he nodded in agreement.
"The point is, I don't know what happens after, I can't promise you'll ever see them again, but I can promise you that they aren't suffering right now. I hope that can give you some piece of mind. You don't need to pity them. Pity those who are alive, those who live a life without love. Maybe they don't grieve when someone dies, but they're already living a fate worse than death."
Harry was surprised when Thor suddenly pulled him into a hug. Out of all the Avengers, Harry had felt the least attachment between him and the Asgardian- but that had changed today. It was with genuinely lighter spirits that Thor told him "Come, Harry, I've got something for you."
They left the rooftop, the beer completely forgotten, and Harry followed Thor back to his room. He shuffled through his desk for a minute, before coming up with two thick tomes. "What are these?" Harry asked, noting the indecipherable Asgardian lettering on the cover.
"Well, this one belonged to my brother. It's a textbook on runic spellcasting that he annotated." Thor shrugged "I have no ability at it, but I know that you were interested. Loki would- we'll he'd hate for you to have it. What kind of brother would I be if I didn't aggravate him even past the grave?"
Harry favored him a small grin as he took the first book "Thank you, though I'm not sure how I'm supposed to translate this."
Thor shrugged "Ask Tony, or Jarvis, or someone. I'm sure they can figure it out." Thor was probably right, Jarvis at this point had a truly staggering amount of processing power. He then handed Harry the second book "If not, I can certainly lend a hand in translating. I also asked my mother about your people, Harry, and after some digging, she found answers."
Harry whipped his head back up to Thor, staring at him in shock. "Seriously?"
"They're in here." He said "My grandfather's war journal. I think you'll find the tale… interesting."