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Journal Entry 114,

A million years isn't much, as the galaxy spins. Stars are older. Nebulae are older. Drifting shards of unidentifiable matter and splinters of subatomic particles and wave-form properties we don't even have names for yet are considerably older still. For human beings, though, a million years is a very long stretch. It's a small step back in time, but one that extends way past our first feeble scratching as a civilization, before we could be counted as even a moderately intelligent species.
There ore other entities Out There, however, for whom a million years is a simple, measurable, comprehensible passing of time. Beings made of sterner stuff both mentally as well as materially. Intelligences straightforward yet vast, to whom are petty everyday concerns would be no more concern than those of an ant to a strolling human. Sometimes these behind pause to contemplate the universe. Sometimes they raise monuments and works that would stun into permanent silence the most imaginative amount us. Sometimes they embark on and bring to fruition good works.

And sometimes...sometimes they are not nice.

Harry Hansen stopped writing. He stared at the last line he had written and then shook her head, pen hovering over the small book with the brown leather cover. Then, with a sudden gesture, he lifted her head and threw the pen and book at the big bay window, where they bounced off harmlessly and landed on the upholstered window seat.

It was all so completely ridiculous.

Since when had he, Harry Hansen, been scared of speaking in front of people? Since when had he been scared of anything? He stood up angrily and thrust his arms into a blue blazer. he didn't even glance at the mirror standing in the corner; he knew what he'd see. Harry Hansen, young and dark-haired and rich, a genius among his peers. Who just now had an unaccustomed scowl on his face and a pinch to his mouth.

Some coffee and I'll calm down, he thought and grabbed her backpack, and went down the stairs.

In the kitchen, his new caretaker Margaret was cooking something at the stove. Margaret was the sort of woman who always looked vaguely flustered; she had a thin body, a beautiful face, and light blonde hair. Harry smiled at her and stuck a styrofoam cup under the coffee maker.

"You shouldn't drink that at your age, Mr. Hansen."

"I'll be fine," said Harry dryly. It was a conversation they had had every day since Margaret was hired to watch him while his mom was working on the other side of the country.

When the cup was filled, Harry popped a lid on and headed for the door.

"You should eat-"

"I'm not hungry today, you can have it."

"Harry-"

Harry was already at the front door, cup in hand. He closed it behind him, cutting off Margaret's distant protests and stepped out on to the front steps.

And stopped.

All the bad feelings of the morning rushed over her again. The anxiety, the fear. And the certainty that something terrible was going to happen.

5th street was deserted. The tall townhouses lining the steer looked strange and silent as if they might all be empty inside, like the houses on an abandoned movie set. They looked as if they were empty of people, and yet Harry felt like he was being watched.

That was it: someone was watching him. The sky overhead was not blue but dark gray, a warning for a coming storm. The air was stifling, and Harry felt sure that there were eyes on him.

He caught sight of something in the dark shadows of the home across the street. Just a small flicker of movement. Nothing that should have caused the hairs on his arms to stand, or send his heart racing.

Harry tried to tell himself that he was being ridiculous, that it was just a nosey neighbor, but somehow he knew. Today was the big day. He knew it had been coming. Ever since The Stark Expo, he knew it was coming.

It was inevitable that he made contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. His plan would put him on their watchlist and sooner or later they would come for him. He knew this. He had known this.

Before he realized what he was doing, he had dropped his backpack and picked up a stone from beside the steps. "Come out!" he said and threw the stone across the street.

There was an explosion of glass, but the house stayed silent. Harry stood, silent as he waited, and waited. But the house remained quiet. The S.H.I.E.L.D agents inside didn't come out.

Harry straightened up slowly, then glanced around. He took a deep breath and started across the street. He had been living with the weight of the world on his shoulders since the moment he was born. It was suffocating already, he didn't need the added stress of shadows at his back.

When he was halfway across the street, his nervous system began sending his brain alarms, each more frantic than the last. It took every ounce of control to override his training and millions of years of basic survival instincts that were embedded like code in the human brain.

There was a horrible screeching noise as the garage door of the house opened up. A black car shot out into the street. Behind him, Harry heard the garage of his next-door neighbors opening and the screeching of tires. In seconds he was boxed by two sedans.

They skidded to a stop on his left and right. The passenger door of the sedan on his right popped open. Harry got a good look at the agent in the driver's seat before a black bag was shoved over his head and he was forced into the car.

If this had happened at any other time Harry would have been beside himself with worry. He was too young to be kidnapped and murdered, and there was still so much he had to do. Without him the Earth...no the entire universe was screwed.

And that wasn't an exaggeration.

Thanos was going to wipe out half of all living beings in the universe. Harry was the only one with the knowledge to stop him. He couldn't afford to die so young.

But I don't have to worry about Coulson. He won't kill me. Harry thought as he felt the sedan he was in start to move. S.H.I.E.L.D was full of HYDRA moles, but Coulson wasn't a double agent. He was one of the good ones still loyal to Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.

Harry leaned back in his seat and stayed quiet as one hour passed and then another. He had a feeling that since it was Coulson who had been sent to retrieve him, Director Fury would be waiting at wherever Coulson was taking him.

No doubt to talk to me about my requisition of Hammer Industries, Unbeknownst to his driver, Harry smiled underneath the bag over his head.

As a minor, it was completely illegal for him to own Hammer Industries. And how he had obtained it was also illegal. Harry had stolen money from the company itself, as well as from Justin Hammer's personal accounts and the offshore accounts of criminal syndicates and corrupt government officials. His fortune wasn't his at all.

Not that he cared. Everyone he stole from deserved it. Still, the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D, a government organization knew about his illegal dealing's should have worried Harry.

Should have.

Harry wasn't worried at all. He was fairly certain he knew how his meeting with Fury was going to go. And it wasn't going to end with him in handcuffs.

It had been two weeks since Fury's Big Week. Between the Stark Expo, the Hulk and Blonsky ruining Harlem, and Thor's arrival, S.H.I.E.L.D was looking for a lifeline.

The World Council wanted S.H.I.E.L.D to focus on Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. Fury was trying to make the Avengers Initiative viable.

Harry was going to give Fury a third option.

"You can take the blindfold off," Coulson's voice broke the silence in the car.

Harry pulled the bag covering his face off. He glanced at Agent Coulson who sat like a statue in the driver's seat, dark sunglasses hiding eyes, then he looked out the window. The black sedan he was shoved in hours ago was rocking it's way down a rutted dirt road, a plume of dust corkscrewing into the hot air.

He stared out the window at the line of trees that bracketed the lane. Even with the bright sun, he couldn't see more than twenty feet into the dark maze of trees and underbrush.

A foreboding premonition wormed its way into his thoughts and sent Harry's mind diving into a place he did not want to go. At least not this afternoon. Still, a frown creased his brow as Harry wondered how many men had died in this particular forest, and he wasn't thinking of men who had fought in the Revolutionary War hundreds of years ago. No, he thought, trying to be completely honest with himself. Death was too opened-ended a word for it. It left the possibility that some accident had taken the life of a person, and that was a convenient way to skirt the seriousness of what he was getting himself into. Executed was a far more accurate word. The men he was thinking of had been marched into these woods, shot in the back of the head, and dumped into freshly dug graves never to be heard from again. That was the world Harry was about to enter, and he was utterly and completely at peace with his decision.

Still, a sliver of doubt cut through the curtains in his mind and caused a flash of hesitation. Harry wrestled with it for a brief moment and stuffed it back into the deepest recesses of his brain. It was far too late for second thoughts. He'd be over this, under it, and around it. He'd studied it from every conceivable since the day he had woken up in this world and began his new life. In a strange way, he had known from almost the first moment he opened his eyes.

He had been waiting for someone to show up, though Harry had never told anyone that. Or that the only way he could cope with the burden that was future knowledge was to plot to save the world. That every single night before he went to sleep, he thought of the network of people who had to die so the world could live. It was all logical to him. Enemies needed to be killed, and Harry was more than willing to become the person who would do that killing.

The car began to slow, and Harry looked up to see a rusted cattle gate with a chain and padlock. His brow furrowed with suspicion.

From the driver's seat, Agent Coulson glanced at him and said, "You were expecting something a little more high tech?"

Harry nodded. It was S.H.I.E.L.D after all.

Coulson put the car in park and said, "Appearances can be deceiving." He flipped down the visor above his head and pressed the small button on the gray box clipped to it. The gate swung open. Coulson pulled the car through the gate. One hundred yards later, he slowed the vehicle to a crawl and maneuvered diagonally in an effort to avoid a large pothole.

"Why no security?" Harry asked.

"The high-tech systems...more often than not...they draw too much-unwanted attention. They also give a lot of false alarms, which in turn requires a lot of manpower. That's not what this place is about."

"What about dogs?" Harry asked.

As if on cue, two hounds came galloping around the bend. The dogs charge straight at the vehicle. Coulson stopped and waited for them to get out of the way. Moments later, after snarling and baring their teeth, they turned and bolted back in the direction they'd come from.

Coulson took his foot off the brake and proceeded up the lane. "Director Fury," he said. "The man you're going to meet."

"The guy who decides whether I live or die?" asked Harry sarcastically.

"The Director isn't going to kill you. You're just a kid."

Harry thought about that statement for a moment and said, "I want to believe that, I do. But I can't."

He had made a calculating risk not hiding from S.H.I.E.L.D. Harry didn't think he could save the world alone, no he knew he couldn't. If he wanted to stop Thanos he was going to need the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D.

But nothing in the world was guaranteed.

Fury was the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D and he had a duty to the world. S.H.I.E.L.D had already killed a child when push came to shove. Harry had thrown his dice, now he had to deal with the consequences.

Coulson as silent. Then he spoke. "The Director's not going to kill you. I'm sorry about what happened in New York."

Harry disagreed with that but kept his mouth shut and his face a mask of neutrality.

"Just try to remember...you're more valuable alive," Coulson said.

Harry smiled inwardly. That's where you're wrong, he thought. I'm more dangerous alive. When he responded, however, he was compliant.

"I will," said Harry in an easy tone. "Anyone else going to be joining us?"

That was what worried him the most about this meeting. The other people would be there. Harry had no idea who Fury could be bringing to the meeting and S.H.I.E.L.D was crawling with Hydra agents.

Around the next bend, the landscape opened up before them. A freshly mowed lawn roughly the size of a football field ran along both sides of the lane all the way to a two-story cabin. The place looked like a rural postcard complete with a set of rocking chairs on the porch.

A man appeared from inside the house. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a manila folder in the other, his black trench coat flapping behind him.

Harry looked through the bug-splattered windshield at the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Even from across the yard, he could see the displeased look on the Director's face.

"Wait here for a moment," Coulson said as he put the car in park. He unbuckled his seatbelt and exited the vehicle, casually walking across the gravel driveway. Dressed in his black G-man suit, he looked out of place in the middle of the woods. Stopping at the base of the porch, he said, "Director, I brought him."

Nick Fury glanced down at Coulson and felt a twinge of guilt. The rookie he had met in '95 was one of the few people in the world he trusted. He'd known Coulson longer than any of his trusted agents. He'd watched him grow from a rookie to a veteran agent, even helped train him before he became Director.

Fury was well aware that Coulson wasn't a typical S.H.I.E.L.D agent that would blindly follow orders. It was why after '95, he took a special interest in him. He also knew that Coulson would not be happy about kidnapping a child. No matter who the kid's father was. So he kept things brief and simply said, "We'll handle it from here, Coulson."

Coulson had been expecting and dreading this moment. Usually, Fury would have kept him in the loop about potential recruits. Barton, Romanoff, even Stark. So he asked, "What are we doing, sir?"

Fury ignored his question, and pointedly asked, "Why is he still in the car."

"I told him to wait," Coulson admitted, and then he said, "Sir, S.H.I.E.L.D isn't a Boy Scout Camp."

"No, we're an extra-governmental military counter-terrorism and intelligence agency tasked with maintaining both national and global security." Fury retorted. "And we are failing at our jobs. The world is filling up with people and technology that we can't match, Coulson."

"And you think the kid is our ticket into the big leagues, sir?"

"Do you know anyone other than Stark capable of creating Arc Reactors?" Fury asked rhetorically.

The normally stoic or smiling Coulson allowed a bit of irritation to show. The only other person capable of recreating Stark technology had blown himself up in New York weeks ago trying to kill Stark.

Fury looked down at him. He could see Coulson was unhappy with him. I didn't become Director by winning a popularity contest. He thought, and so he held his ground. "I think you should take a drive agent."

"I'd rather stay, sir," Coulson said, stood like a sphinx, refusing to yield his position.

The Director took a step back and turned to walk back into the house. "Bring him in," he said over his shoulder. "Romanoff doesn't like to be kept waiting."

In the car, Harry watched Fury vanish back into the house, his trench coat last to cross through the doorway. Coulson waved him up, and after a brief moment of hesitation, he opened his door and stepped out of the vehicle.

He walked up to the house, past Coulson at the porch, and through the doorway. Coulson followed behind him, trapping him in the house in case he decided to run. He wouldn't. Harry had been waiting his entire life for this meeting.

Fury obviously didn't care that he was a child, or he wouldn't have had Coulson kidnap him. That was what he needed. He didn't have time to wait until he was eighteen. By then, Thanos would have snapped his fingers, and half the world would be gone.

In the kitchen of the cabin, Fury was eating a plate of dinner at the table. Potatoes and steak, with a glass of milk. Behind him, bent over, looking through the fridge was a red-hair woman in a skin-tight black outfit. Harry assumed she was Natasha Romanoff.

She stood up and turned around. I was right. Harry thought as he stared at the beautiful woman. He couldn't believe he was actually in the room as the Black Widow.

"You didn't seem surprised to see us," Fury said, piercing a potato cube with his fork. He pointed the food at Harry. "You knew we were coming for you."

"I did," Harry confirmed. Lying wouldn't help him here. Not in front of three spies who lied for a living. "When I took the Hammer Drone, I always knew it was a possibility S.H.I.E.L.D would come for me."

Natasha pulled up at a chair and sat down at the table, pushing Fury's plate across the table. As she leaned forward, her suit tightened around her body, making her breasts more pronounced. Harry averted his eyes. He had a feeling he knew what Fury was doing. Natasha was here to distract the little boy who couldn't control his hormones. Well, that's not going to work on me. He thought. A pair of breasts wasn't enough to distract him from all the plans he had made.

He glanced back down. No matter how nice a pair they were.

Natasha's lips curled in a slight smile as she leaned back in her chair. "Hi," she said.

"Hello," Harry said with a smile of his own.

Fury reached his arm out and pulled the plate back to his side of the table. "You're in a whole lot of trouble, kid," he said, slicing into the steak.

Harry glanced away from Natasha. The Director was staring at him, and Harry decided to have a little fun.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to get off on the wrong foot," he said. "Am I supposed to look at the eye or the patch?"

Fury scoffed and leaned back in his chair. Natasha's smile twitched, and her eyes flicked to Fury. Harry knew why. He had just said the same thing Tony Stark had said in Iron Man 2, almost word for word.

"What do you know about your father, Mr. Hansen?" Fury asked, tapping the manila folder lying next to his dinner. "Do you know who he is?"

"You mean do I know that he is Tony Stark," Harry said. "Or do you mean that he probably doesn't remember my mom? No, maybe it's, 'do I know' that Obadiah Stane paid my mother a ridiculous amount of money every year to keep me out of the spotlight because it would be bad for my father's business?"

"You seem pretty confident," Fury's eye narrowed. "You have no idea how much trouble you're in, do you? Let me make it simple, kid. You were caught on American soil with a weapon of mass destruction. I could put you in a hole and throw away the hole, and no one would bat an eye."

"You could, but you won't," Harry said. "If you were going to do that, I wouldn't be here. You want something from me. And I'm inclined to give it to you."

"What makes you think you know what I want?" Fury asked, pushing the plate of dinner across the table again.

Harry took it as a sign that he had the Director's attention. "It's pretty obvious what you S.H.I.E.L.D wants. What it needs really," he said, reaching across the table for the extra set of silverware Fury hadn't been using.

"What's that?" Natasha cut in. Her voice smooth, and the slightest bit seductive.

"Better technology. Stronger agents." Harry pierced a piece of steak Fury had cut with his fork. "I think it's not a stretch to say that we're not alone in the universe. That shit-show in New Mexico is proof of that. Proof that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

Fury sat up in his chair. Harry knew the Director agreed with his assessment. Hell, Fury would have said those exact same words if he hadn't said them first. Maybe he still would.

"Go on." the Director said.

"It's not even just space that is leaving S.H.E.I.L.D. behind. Stark, Banner, whatever the hell Ross turned Blonsky into," Harry said around a mouthful of food. "The world is filling up with people who can't be matched."

Fury raised his eyebrow. "You seem to know a lot."

"I hacked S.H.I.E.L.D," Harry shrugged. "And the Army. Hammer industries too. The only thing I couldn't break into was my dad's company."

Mostly because he didn't try. Now wasn't the time for Tony Stark to know he had a son.

"All of what you just said is highly illegal." Fury said. "Why admit it?"

"You already said if you wanted to, you could put me in a hole and throw away the hole," Harry said. "What's the point of playing coy?"

Fury folded his arms and thought long and hard before he spoke. "And what can you offer us?"

Harry had to physically resist rolling his eyes. Instead of doing that, he asked, "What do you want?"

"What do you have?" Fury countered.

God, he's really dragging this out. Harry thought, setting his fork and knife down as he said, "I can give you Arc Reactor technology...and Super-soldiers."

Fury's hand smack down onto the table, his fork bounced away with a loud clang. "This isn't a game. You've stepped into a world a lot bigger than you, kid. A world you don't understand."

Harry frowned. "I thought you'd be excited at the prospect of more super-soldiers. Granted, they're not going to be Captain America, but they'll be stronger than any normal human."

"You can make more super-soldiers?" Natasha asked. "People have been trying to recreate Dr. Erskine's serum since the forties."

"And that's the problem," Harry said. "They were trying to recreate a serum. My Project O.R.I.O.N. biochemically augments the human body."

He could feel the skepticism in the air. It was practically palpable. Harry didn't blame the agents for their disbelief. Captain America had been the only successful super-soldier in history. Every other attempt had been a disaster. Banner and Blonsky were the latest of probably a long history of screw-ups.

"I understand if you're reluctant to believe me," Harry said. "I've never actually augmented someone before, but my math's never been wrong before either."

"Oh, I believe you." Fury said, his words contrasting with the deep frown on his face. "You're being awfully complaint for someone who we just threatened. Why?"

So suspicious. Harry sighed. He couldn't say he was surprised. The MCU had made it very clear that Nick Fury was a paranoid and suspicious man.

"If my calculations are right, and again, they always have been," he said, "The likelihood of our next contact with the extraterrestrial being hostile is 92%."

It was a complete lie. There wasn't any math that pointed to such a thing. Harry just needed a way to warn Fury about the Chitauri invasion.

"That's why I'm willing to offer my help," Harry said, "Despite our...rocky start."

"What about this?" Fury pulled another file from his leather coat. He set it on the table and flipped it open. "Think you can do something with it?"

Harry pulled the folder towards him. The Tesseract. He flipped through the photos, each taken at a different angle but always being centered on the glowing blue square.

"The Tesseract." He said with a nod. Howard Stark had studied it for decades. "Give me a few months. I think I could figure something out. I'll need access to my lab though."

"Lab?" Fury asked. "You think your basement has better tech than S.H.E.I.L.D.?"

"No, I think I can turn Hammer Industries labs into something respectable. And better than S.H.E.I.L.D." Harry replied.

"Why would you have access to Hammer Industries labs?" Natasha asked.

Harry could have smirked. So they didn't even know about Hammer Industries.

Thanos had been half right when he spoke on Titan about knowledge being a curse. Living with the knowledge of the future and what would happen to the universe in less than a decade sucked most of the time, but other times it was extremely helpful. Like when he knew to siphon money from Hammer's offshore accounts and use it buy up stocks in Hammer Industries after Stark's senate hearing.

"I own the company." He answered. "Well, not me me. But a fake adult I created. It's all legal. Except for the fake adult part."

"And where'd you get the money to buy a multi-million dollar company like Hammer Industries?" Natasha smirked. "Stane didn't send that much money."

"Hammer made a few donations before he started working with a terrorist. As did a few other unsavory organizations. I'm going to make much better use of the fortunes."

"I don't care." Fury said. "If you can do what you say you can, we'll let you keep Hammer Industries."

"Guess we're partners then."

Fury stood up and held out his hand. "We're going to do a lot of good things together, Mr. Hansen."

Adopted from LordofAdmirals117!

I'll be posting art of what Harry Hansen looks like Pre-augmentation in few days. Check my profile page for the link!

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