*Chapter 33*: Chapter 33

April 23rd, 2012

Harry stared at Loki as the god sat in his cage unmoving. He, of course, knew the god was alive but you wouldn't be able to tell normally. There was no rise and fall of the chest that could normally be seen on a living person. Harry didn't know if the man simply did not require oxygen or if he developed a technique to slow down his breathing to unnoticeable levels. After a few more moments of staring, he entered the glass cage.

"Hey, Loki. How are you feeling buddy?" Harry asked as he approached the god.

"I will kill you for this insult," Loki stated as if it were a fact.

"Sure you will. Look, I don't want to point fingers, but when you start messing up your neighbor's backyard, you best be prepared for your neighbor to come out of the house with a shotgun. That's just straight-up common knowledge." Harry said matter-of-fact like.

"There will be nowhere for you to hide from me," Loki said once again. Harry just rolled his eyes.

"Whatever you god damned cry baby. Don't move so I can heal your eyes." Harry said as he closed the distance between him and the god. Loki said nothing at Harry's approach.

Harry reached out and put his right hand over the men clothed, eye sockets. He immediately flooded them with soft warm magic that worked to recreate tissue that would grant him new eyes and reconnect their nerve endings. It was a process he could finish in several minutes if he really concentrated. As he continued, a sudden thought crossed his mind that he decided to put into effect. He lifted his left hand and laid it on Loki's forehead before concentrating more magic in a different kind of way.

"I didn't realize two hands would be needed for the procedure." Loki shot at Harry suspiciously.

"Shut up. I'm using the blueprints your mind has on what it remembers your eyes to be so that they can be regrown into exactly what they would have been before our little altercation." Harry said to the god as he continued to pump some magic into the god.

"Impossible. My mind is not so easily entered." Loki said. Harry slightly shook his head.

"It's less of me entering your mind and more of your mind giving the prints to me. Not an easy task mind you. You have to show it that you mean the mind no harm for one and actually mean to help it for another. It's why this is the only technique I know that allows for such a relationship with another's mind." Harry said. Loki stayed silent after that and let Harry continue to work. After several minutes of this, Harry finally put his hands down.

"You should be fine. Take a few moments to adjust to your new eyes." Harry said as he left the cage and closed the door. He simply stood outside and watched the god. He wanted to be around for what happened next. Loki took off the cloth covering his eyes and immediately smiled. It was clear that he could once again see. He smiled for a few more moments and then frowned as he looked at his reflection in the glass. He then whirled around with a furious expression on his face.

"What is this? What is this symbol you have put on my head?" He yelled at Harry. Indeed there was a new symbol on the god's forehead that was not there before. It looked like a spiral made of obscure letters that seemed to be constantly changing into other letters. It was clearly magical in nature.

"Oh, that's just a little array of mine. You see, I've had my fun with you Loki. I know what you are capable of and while you are incredibly powerful, you just aren't quite at my level yet. You are, however, powerful enough where you may catch me off guard and do me harm. So, I have taken a few precautionary measures against such a thing from happening. That's where the runes come in. You see, where I come from, there are ways to deal with shapeshifters like yourself. No one quite like yourself though. This is a slight modification on what the people I know use to contain their little shapeshifters. To make a long story short, you can no longer shapeshift into any form while you have that rune on you. The only way to get rid of it is through me. I mean c'mon! You must have seen this coming. All that bullshit about needing to access your brain for the blueprints. That doesn't even sound close to being a real thing you gullible bastard." Harry smiled at the god. Loki look horrified at the loss of such an ability.

"How dare you! I had thought to play with you when I took over but no! I see that was a mistake. You must be shown no mercy. When I take over I shall give you to my son, Jormundgand, and he shall feast on you as I kill all that you know and love on this wretched planet." Loki screamed. Harry just stared. He wasn't very frightening. It reminded him of a kid having a tantrum in Walmart because their parents refused to get them a toy.

"If you say so, man. I'm going to go. I have to do, literally, anything I want because I'm not stuck in a glass cage like a Lil bitch." Harry said as he walked out of the room, leaving behind a pathetic screaming god. Natasha was waiting for him outside, leaning against the wall.

"So what did you do to him?" she asked casually. Harry smiled innocently.

"Shouldn't you know?" he asked

"Funnily enough, all of our recording devices for both sound and video surveillance seemed to be malfunctioning as soon as you stepped in the room," Natasha said. Harry pretended to be shocked by the news.

"Wow. Sounds like a major security breach. You might need to check that out." Harry said as they started to walk aimlessly down the halls.

"That's what I was doing," she mumbled to herself. Harry pretended to not quite hear her.

"What was that?" he asked

"Nothing. So did you find any information that you would be willing to share?" she asked.

"I can confirm that he has a giant snake son who may or may not be willing to feast on his enemies while Loki kills everything that the person loves and holds dear," Harry said. Natasha raised an eyebrow.

"That sounds like a very specific thing for him to reveal. May I ask what led him to reveal such specific information and phrased in such an interesting way?" she asked. Harry shrugged.

"He wasn't happy with me for some reason or another. Could be for one or many things I may or may not have done to him in the last 24 hours." Harry said.

"I see. Well, I'm next up to talk with him so I best get prepared. Are you going to watch?" she asked. Harry shook his head.

"Sorry. If I had a fetish for watching sexy women tricking powerful men into giving them everything that they want, I would go watch porn." Harry said. Natasha got closer and leaned next to his ear.

"Trust me...the quality can't even be compared," she whispered into his ear. Harry felt a shiver go down his back at the way she said that. Natasha then gave him one more sexy smile and sauntered off. Harry watched her go.

"I'm almost 100% sure she is purposefully seducing me at this point... I can't actually tell if it bothers me though." Harry said to himself before shaking his head to clear his thoughts. He then walked off to the geek lab where he was sure that Tony was located. It took him little time to arrive at the lab doors.

"Harry, my main man. To what do we owe this incredible honor?" Tony asked with too much enthusiasm. Harry just rolled his eyes and threw himself into the nearest chair.

"You want to catch me up on the shenanigans you have been up to?" Harry asked.

"What, you mean after I heroically carried you all the way to a bed and protected you all night from any foe who dared try and disturb your rest?" Tony asked while puffing up his chest.

"Except for red-headed super spy's of course." Harry pointed out looking at the man. Tony shrugged.

"Well, that was just in case," Tony said. Harry looked at him.

"In case of what?" Harry asked calmly. Tony smiled.

"In case you woke up a little...stiff." Tony finished. Harry leaned forward and rubbed his temples.

"You're an idiot." Harry finally said.

"Wow, are you trying to tell me you would rather wake up to see my handsome face than a sexy redhead? Look I mean, we're friends Harry but, I mean, I got Pepper so..." Tony trailed off.

"That's right. You do have Pepper, don't you? Well, I'll be sure to inform her all about the lady you keep calling a 'sexy redhead'." Harry replied. All the blood drained from Tony's face before it came back and he smirked triumphantly.

"Nice try Harry but I know Pepper will take my side on this. She thinks you need to find a love partner too." Tony said. Harry looked at him quizzically.

"Love partner?" Harry asked.

"Well I was going to say girlfriend but with all this new information, I wasn't so sure if maybe you preferred another term instead." Tony hinted innocently.

"I will mount your balls on my mantle," Harry said while glaring at the man.

"See, there you go with those mixed signals again," Tony said.

"Ladies, ladies, please. You're both beautiful." said a man that Harry had been ignoring till this point. He looked over to the slightly nervous looking Dr. Banner.

"Dr. Banner right. Sorry about that. Sometimes, Tony and I, forget others are around us." Harry apologized with a polite smile. Banner smiled back.

"I can see that. Sadly we do need to continue our work." Banner said. Harry nodded and stood. He saw Loki's spear and approached it.

"Find out anything on it?" Harry asked, gesturing to the spear. Banner shook his head.

"Not much. The readings it gives off are similar to the tesseract and both are like nothing I have ever seen before." Banner said. Harry nodded before waving his hand over the spear or scepter, if you will, to try and get his own readings. Banner was partially right. It wasn't the scepter giving off the readings, it was just the gem at the top. The power flowing through the rest of the scepter was just a side effect of the gem. The gem itself reminded him greatly of the tesseract's power. He didn't delve too deep into it though. He could not sense an end to the power of the gem and that scared him frankly. There should be a limit to how much power something can hold.

"Hmm. Well, don't let me stand in your way." Harry said. Right after the words left his mouth, both Natasha and Fury came rushing into the room.

"Excuse me, Dr. Banner, would you mind coming with us," Fury asked but everyone could tell that it was actually a demand. Banner looked at them suspiciously.

"May I ask why?" Banner responded

"We would like to remove you from any environment that may be viewed as hostile or stressful for the time being," Natasha explained calmly.

"Confinement? Isn't that what you just described?" Harry asked curiously. Natasha shot him a look that clearly said that he was not helping.

" Why all of a sudden?" Banner asked, clearly not happy. The next part of the conversation was to fast for Harry to understand correctly. He should rephrase that. Harry was missing some key elements to exactly what the argument was about to understand what was happening correctly. All he knew was that the Captain barged in with a big ass gun and said something about 'Hydra'. Tony immediately jumped on board the Hydra conversation. Something about a nuclear deterrent. The conversation had lost him completely in total honestly. He was more focused on the gem that was on the scepter. It appeared to be doing something. He could see the little magical tendrils coming out of it and connecting to everyone in the room, even him. He immediately noticed the argument start to escalate even further. Thor had even come and joined in at some unknown point. He continued to divert all his attention to the gem until it became clear what it was doing. It was compulsion for them. Feeding their frustration and anger while making them argue harder.

"SHUT UP." Harry finally yelled and all the arguing stopped immediately.

"Keep quiet. Look at it. It's the gem." Harry said. Everyone knows looked over at the scepter.

"What about it?" Fury demanded.

"It's affecting you. All of you. It seems to be geared toward trying to make you more frustrated and angry. I have never seen anything quite like it." Harry said as he approached the scepter and continued to stare.

"How is it doing it?" Natasha asked quietly.

"From what I can see, it is almost like it's sentient somehow. Not like you or I but enough to have a certain amount of...awareness if you would. It has been tampered with though. My guess would be by Loki. It can naturally affect your minds but Loki has almost programmed it to affect it negatively. He probably was trying to make us argue and fall apart from the start." Harry said.

"This must have been his plan for the Hulk as well," Natasha said with a sudden realization. Harry turned and looked at her, clearly telling her to go on.

"When I was interrogating him, Loki revealed that..." She never finished as a large explosion rocked the ship. A loudspeaker sounded.

"WE'VE HAVE BEEN HIT. ENGINE ONE IS DOWN. ALL SHIELD PERSONNEL, WE HAVE INTRUDERS ON BOARD THE HELICARRIER!"

Harry looked in shock. He should have easily been able to sense men approaching the ship with hostile intent unless... He looked back at the gem. Had the fucking stone hampered his senses? Before he could continue, an explosion rocked where they were and the whole lab exploded. Harry had just enough time to shield himself as he flew out the window and down a floor along with Natasha and Banner.

'That damn gem IS screwing with my senses!' Harry thought to himself as he stood and found himself surrounded on all sides by debris. He transfigured the metal shrapnel around him into the sand and watched it dissolve to the ground. He then looked around. He saw Natasha stuck under some more debris and Banner breathing heavily some feet away. He quickly ran to Natasha.

"Yo, red. Talk to me! You alright?" Harry asked as he got over to her. She groaned.

"Yeah, I'm good. But we have to get out of here," she said as she nodded over to Banner. Who was looking like he was about to rip out of his clothes and turning...green?

"Is he about to do the rage monster thing?" Harry asked as he got her out of the debris and shrapnel and standing on her feet.

"Looks like. We need to get out of here." Natasha said. Harry had other ideas though.

"You go on ahead. I'll hold him off." Harry said, trying to pretend he was brave.

"Bullshit. You just want to say you fought him." Natasha said.

"Just go," Harry said with a smile while not denying her. She hobbled away as fast as she could. Harry turned and faced the almost fully formed green giant.

'This is going to either really suck or be really fun.'

Banner turned right to him and roared. That made Harry step back in surprise. The hulk immediately tried to run towards him but Harry blasted him back with magic. The hulk crashed on his back but immediately got back up. Harry narrowed his eyes. He summoned his chains and started wrapping each on of the man's limbs up. Fighting this rage monster would not be like fighting Loki, especially because he didn't really know how much harm would come to Banner if he hurt the Hulk. He kept summoning chains until the Hulk could only struggle a little.

'Not so hard. Now I just have to calm him...'

The hulk roared even louder than before and pulled with all his might on his right arm until the chains holding it finally broke. Harry's jaw dropped.

'Those are supposed to be indestructible...' Harry thought to himself

The Hulk grabbed the chains on his other arm before tearing those off as well. Harry quickly thought of another way to hold him down. He would just have to calm him down while the man was on offense. Not a position he would have preferred but it didn't seem like he had a choice. As he pulled off the chains on his feet, Harry was already casting what calming charms he knew at the creature. It seemed to have only minor effects on him. It would slow him down for a second before the anger pushed through the calm and came to dominate once again. Harry was still hesitant to use flames on the beast. It was clear it was strong but he wasn't sure if even the rage monster could handle it. He would have to do something drastic. As the Hulk was coming to from the last spell, Harry devised a plan. If a simple charm wouldn't work, he would have to attack at the source. The Hulk charged at him. Harry threw up a shield and watched as its fist came down on the shield. There was so much force behind it that Harry could feel his teeth rattle and his legs almost give out but he held on. Before the Hulk could bring down his fist again, Harry caused the shield to explode outwards and blast the hulk backward. It didn't keep the creature down for long but it didn't need to. It just gave Harry enough time to throw a strong mind probe at it.

Going into the creature's mind was almost as scary as fighting it. Any normal wizard would have been overwhelmed by the pure rage that Harry was feeling from the Hulk. Harry, however, was no normal wizard. He was the most powerful wizard and on top of that, was probably one of the most powerful mind specialists out there. He tried to test his limits at first and see what he could easily control. It seemed that directing the anger would be much easier than purging it. Harry had to try though. He pushed deep into the creature's mind until he pierced the anger and saw...Banner?

"Banner? What the hell! How are you here?" Harry asked. Banner looked startled to see him.

"Harry. How are you here? Is this a dream?" Banner asked very confusedly.

"No. I was looking for a way to stop the Hulk or you I guess. I'm trying to calm it down." Harry said.

"So you're actually in our head?" Banner asked.

"Our?" Harry questioned.

"Me and the hulk are two different aspects. Two sides of the same coin I guess. It's closest to multi-personality disorder I suppose. He stays in my head until he takes over and vice versa. Neither has control while the other is active." Banner said.

"I see. I thought it was just an angry you, to be honest." Harry said as he looked at the aspect that represented Banner.

"Common misconception. I can assure you it is the furthest thing from the truth." Banner said. Harry nodded slowly.

"Whatever. It doesn't really matter. Do you know how to calm him down then." Harry asked. Banner shook his head.

"The Hulk only calms down when there is nothing left to be angry about." Banner said.

"Fuck. Well, that just won't do since if I can't find a way then I will be turned into a pancake." Harry mused. Banner said nothing, he just looked on sadly.

"Well everyone has something that makes them calm down. What is the most relaxing and calming thing you can think of?" Harry asked. Banner just shrugged

"Nothing comes to mind. At least, not what you are asking for" He said.

"Don't be pathetic Banner. When is the happiest you can ever remember feeling?" Harry asked. Again Banner shrugged. Harry's facepalmed.

"This is probably why big green can't be stopped you know," Harry said. Banner tried to say something but Harry cut him off.

"Don't say anything. I will be back. I'm going to browse your mind until I find something the makes you happy." With that, Harry left Banner and continued into the memories that he had. Harry had to admit, the man was never really that happy. There was a woman he had something for but Harry did not think it would be enough. He just kept going deeper. Some of the things got pretty dark. His dad murdered his mom in cold blood when he was just a kid. Before that though, there seemed to be a lot of him and his mom. He finally found one. It was a memory that Bruce probably didn't even remember. It was him and his mother playing at a park when he was really young. The memory didn't seem like much but the way his subconscious was latching on to it, meant that it was important and meant a lot to him. He took the memory and broadcasted it all over Banner/Hulk's mind till it was all they could think about. Soon the red haze and anger surrounding the mind seemed to fade until it was nothing. Harry decided that his work was probably done and exited the mind.

After leaving, the first thing he saw was that he was straddling a naked Banner who had tears of what looked like sadness and joy at the corner of his eyes. The next thing he noticed was the Shield agents that had come to investigate and were eyeballing them with jaws to the floor. Harry flipped them off and then got off of Bruce.

"Feeling better big guy?" Harry asked as he reached out his hand for Bruce to take.

"How did you do that? I didn't even remember that memory." Bruce asked in wonderment.

"It ain't an easy process. Next time you are feeling mad beyond your control, think of that memory. It should help." Harry said to the slightly weeping man. Harry checked his surroundings and tried to reach out with his senses but still found that he couldn't feel anything, not in the immediate area.

'Stupid gem. If I wasn't so sure that it would explode violently if I tried to destroy it, it would be history.' Harry thought to himself as he left Banner to the Shield personnel and started to search the ship. He was instantly, 100%, lost. He normally relied on his senses to getting around by just keeping at a direction where he knew his target was but since he couldn't sense anyone, he was flying blind. He started to hear some panting and as he turned to a different corridor, he found the source. Natasha was on her knees panting with clear exhaustion while a downed Hawkeye was in front of her. Harry came to the conclusion that they battled and that she had won. He jogged up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, you okay? No injuries?" Harry asked. She shook her head.

"Just some bruises here and there." She said as she started to finally catch her breath.

"How's Robin Hood doing?" Harry asked as he looked at the man's downed form for a second.

"He's alive. He tried to attack me. I had to knock him out. We need to restrain him so we can undo whatever Loki did to turn him against us." Natasha said. Harry nodded.

"If we can set him down somewhere, I can get to work on reversing the process," Harry told her. She looked up at him.

"Another one of your mysterious abilities?" she asked. Harry smiled and helped pull her to her feet.

"Something like that. I'll grab him. I think the fighting has already died down. Where is the infirmary on this place?" Harry asked. Natasha pointed and then led the way.

Within 10 minutes, both were in the infirmary with Harry purging Loki's influence from Clint's mind. He saw some other stuff too. Stuff that he could tell the man would not be happy he saw. Not like he could be blamed though. It was the man's subconscious that kept throwing up images to the forefront of the man's mind. He was most likely dreaming about them. Harry finally retracted his hand from the man.

"There. He should be fine. Far as I can tell, Loki has been totally purged from his mind. Still...might want to keep him locked up just in case I missed something." Harry said to Natasha. The redhead nodded and sighed.

"Well this has been a rough day," she said out loud. Harry nodded.

"It's probably not over yet," Harry commented. Just then, Fury entered the room. He looked at both of them and then at Clint.

"How's he doing ?" Fury asked. Harry could literally hear the man's tiredness in his voice so he decided to just be straight with him.

"Should be fine when he wakes up. I've purged Loki's influence from his mind. We only have him locked up in case I missed something." Harry said to the man. Fury nodded.

"Coulson is dead." Fury said. Harry heard Natasha take a quick intake of breath. He looked at her then back at Fury.

"Whose Coulson?" He asked.

"He was one of our top agents. He was the handler of Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton. He was also the one who dealt the most with Tony in the same way that Agent Romanoff deals with you." The one-eyed man explained. That triggered his mind. He remembered Tony showing him some footage of his Shield handler and how he made fun of the man with a friendly undertone. He would not take the news of his death well.

"Does Tony know he has passed?" Harry asked. Fury nodded.

"Loki has escaped as well. He and Thor seemed to battle and, from our footage, it would seem he tricked Thor into stepping into his cage and then dropped it." Fury said. Harry frowned. Didn't sound like much of a battle. Though Harry couldn't really imagine Loki winning a fair battle against Thor, Especially without his shapeshifting.

"Do we know where he is?" Harry asked.

"No, and he took the scepter with him." Fury continued. Harry nodded, a little happy at that. He may finally get his superior senses back when the effects of the gem wore off.

"So, I guess this means we need to come up with a new strategy." Harry mused as he looked up and thought of what this turn of events meant. Loki had planned to be here, he already knew that. He probably didn't plan for Harry but still. Now he was doing something with an object that had almost unlimited power. Sounded like every bad guy in every movie ever.

"Loki will show himself soon enough. He likes to be seen. It's one of his weaknesses. If we can't find him then I guess we will just have to wait." Harry said.

"You may be right. I need to go and plan our next move from here. The council also wants an update. If you will excuse me." Fury said before leaving. As soon as he left, Harry looked at Natasha.

"You okay?" He asked her.

"Yeah it's just...he was a friend," she said. Harry nodded in understanding. He didn't say anything he just gave her some time to deal with the death. He suddenly felt mad. Loki, the son of a bitch, had hurt someone he cared about. What was worse was that he did it on a personal level. It made him mad. Mad, not only at Loki but at himself. He had Loki in the palm of his hand. He could have crushed him but he didn't and now look. People were dead and his friends were hurting. It angered him to the point where he clenched his fingers.

'Loki, I swear to all that exists that when I find you, and I will, I am going to make you regret taking a single step on this planet. This I PROMISE!'