Chapter 21: Constant Vigilance

"Sir?"

Nick Fury could only stare at the note in front of him. He felt like he must have stared at the writing for over an hour when, in reality, only a couple minutes had tick by.

'She was real nice and beautiful!'

He could only be speaking about Agent Thirteen.

'Sadly her charms don't work on me, and neither will the Black Widow's'

He knew of Romanoff and their plans to use her to seduce him. Even worse, he seem to have been aware of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s existence. He wasn't sure how that was even possible. S.H.I.E.L.D. was top secret, even from the C.I.A. Only the President of the United States and other World Leaders were given knowledge of their existence. It led to questions as to who told him and how he found out about S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place.

'I'd appreciate it if you approached me personally on matters regarding me, though'

There was no way he would approach a possible enemy. He wasn't that stupid. Even if he wasn't a possible Enhanced, the risk wasn't worth it. He certain wasn't going to meet someone who dropped of a note to him in such a potentially threatening way. He could have simply given the note to Agent Barton to pass onto him. He still couldn't figure out his angle.

'You know where to find me,

Harry.'

Nick could tell he was not afraid of S.H.I.E.L.D. No sense of fear or even wariness. He was being totally carefree, as if the consequences of his actions didn't matter. It was almost as if he knew S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't catch them.

"Lock this place down now!" Fury shouted.

An alarm klaxon began to sound as agents around the room scrambled to their assigned emergency positions. Then, suddenly, over half of the computer screens in the room went blank.

"Sir, our system has been disabled." A tech said.

"Disabled?" Fury repeated in a dangerous tone of voice.

"Yes sir, everything is offline. Cameras, mics, locks. Everything just went offline. We're blind." She replied.

"Bring them up." Fury said with barely contained rage.

Fury looked at the security monitor only to see a black screen. It wasn't possible. S.H.I.E.L.D. had the greatest security system in the world and it was taken offline without their knowledge of a hack.

"Bring us back online immediately!" Fury ordered.

At that moment, Agent Sitwell walked in to the bridge gingerly holding his jaw.

"Sir, we have a breach." He said without preamble.

Harry paused for a moment as he heard the alarm before quickly casting a freezing charm on the room's annoying klaxon to silence it. Harry pulled the USB cable out of the stolen phone and disapparated back to the meeting room, disillusionment and notice-me-not charm in place, just in case. Feeling a little cheeky, he placed the phone smack-dab in the middle of the desk's keyboard tray with a scrap of paper underneath it before apparating outside.

Harry sat for a bit on top of the tower and enjoyed the smell of the ocean breeze, having never really visited the ocean before his jaunt through the portal. He remembered dreaming of going when the Dursley's would go, rarely truly with them but at least alongside them. When they returned, Dudley would brag about how he had made the biggest sand castle on the beach. He'd been so envious that Dudley had gotten everything and he'd been left with scraps when he was lucky.

It wasn't as if Hogwarts had really helped that at all. Merlin forbid they ever do something as revolutionarily muggle as a field trip.

Now he was finally free. Free to do what he wanted.

It felt good, yet strange.

Harry knew both his spells and his temporary suspension of their security system would wear off soon. It would be best if he left quickly if he didn't want to fight a small army.

Harry cast his self-transfiguration into the golden eagle form once more and took off back towards the city and his apartment. He needed to go through the information he'd gleaned from Fury's phone.

He also needed to see this: 'Tony Stark'.

Harry flapped his wings and soared into the clouds.

"Sir, our system is back online." The tech reported as the monitors came back to life.

"Get me Agent Hill." Fury ordered.

"Understood." The tech responded.

Hill came onto the command bridge with her ever-present professional facial expression. The short-lived alarms had alerted her to a problem, but one look at her boss told her that this went beyond a simple "problem."

"Read this." Fury said, handing her the note. Hill took it and read it, the color draining from her face as she did so.

"Sir, how?" she asks, slightly croakily.

"Two ways. Both are disturbing. One is that there is a traitor on board who managed to make the switch. The other, even more serious… is that this Harry managed to come aboard and switch the note and my phone without my knowledge."

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