The envelope itself was relatively plain, lying as it was just inside her door. What it held, though, was anything but commonplace.
The parchment was thick, rich and of the finest quality that one could buy. The edges and corners were embellished with gold-leaf, enhancing the richness and importance of the invitation. For invitation was what it was.
Harry James Potter
and
Daisy Louise Johnson
Request the pleasure of your company at their wedding
Thereafter followed the details of where and when the invitees were to meet. Really, the only unusual part of the invitation was the statement that the guests would be transported to a secret location for the actual wedding and reception and that accommodation would be provided for those wishing to stay a few days.
The fact that the wedding was to be held in exactly eight days didn't leave much time for the guests to make arrangements.
"I knew that you and Daisy were engaged, but a little more notice would have been nice, Harry," Hermione groused to her invitation.
But then, this was Harry and if his middle name hadn't been James, then it would have been 'impulsive' or 'reckless' or 'jumping in without thinking'; she'd known that for years. Still, this was Harry, her best friend and there was absolutely no way that she was going to miss his wedding.
Her brain went into overdrive as she created a mental list of all the things that she'd need to do in order to be there: arrange time off work; pack; get a portkey to New York City; get a gift. That last one pulled her up short. What should she get? Harry'd always been happy with anything really, no matter how small, he'd cherished it all; a side-effect of his upbringing. But this was his wedding, it needed to be something special.
Even as she was considering options, Hermione was grabbing up her purse and heading for her front door. There were simply too many things to do in too short a time for her to leave starting them all until tomorrow.
ooo00ooo
The place where Francine found herself wasn't anything fancy. Nor was it what one might consider a 'traditional' hideout. It wasn't an old abandoned warehouse or derelict building or even a basement under a legitimate business.
No, where they'd gathered was Jack's apartment in a middle-class part of Queens. It was on the third floor, contained two bedrooms plus a bathroom, lounge, kitchen and even a small balcony. Never would anyone suspect that this was the 'headquarters' of a criminal gang. Which, when Francine thought about it, actually made it the perfect place for them to discuss their latest caper and to plan their next heist.
"Look at it!" Danny breathed, unzipping the bag and holding the sides open for the five of them around the table to see.
Inside the old, leather bag were dozens and dozens of pieces of jewellery. Necklaces, rings, watches, earrings, bracelets and bangles, cufflinks ... all of it of the finest quality and incredibly expensive.
"That is some haul," Glen whistled.
"And just the start," Gavin grinned. "With Francine here on our side, nothing's gonna stop us!"
Jack bustled to the side cabinet before quickly returning with a bottle of scotch and five glasses. It didn't take long for the glasses to be filled and for everyone to have one.
"To Francine! Saviour of our butts!" Glen exclaimed, raising his glass.
"To Francine, electro-whizz extraordinaire!" Danny agreed.
"To Francine, our Electro!" Gavin cheered.
"Electro!" the other three men echoed before all of them drank.
ooo00ooo
Getting the number of engines needed attached to the semi had been a task in itself, especially when it meant scrounging for the necessary parts, not to mention the dozens of simulations in order to make what he had in mind actually work. The cash he'd gotten from robbing the bank had helped. A lot. But there was a lot more cash needed if he wanted to become the best and to become unstoppable. That meant that he'd need to rob a bunch more banks. Unfortunately, in order to pull that off, he first needed more weapons. Thus, the need for retrofitting the semi.
Currently, Roderick was atop his glider, wearing the new armour that he'd been able to build from the portion of funds allocated to that particular part of his plan. With his knees slightly bent, he leant to the right, allowing the glider to follow the path of the river below him.
When it came right down to it, this was the best way in. He could follow the river right up to the very fence of the military munitions' depot without any annoying streetlights or cars or whatever spotting him. Glancing back, Roderick gave a satisfied nod – the semi was flying along right behind him, its movements mirroring the glider's.
Roderick, or Hobgoblin as he'd announced himself as back at the bank robbery, slowed as he came around the last curve and into sight of his target.
It was a big, sprawling complex with security all over it. Ten foot high fences topped with barbed wire surrounded it. Huge spotlights lit up the perimeter, although these were spaced much closer together on the far side where the supposedly only entrance was. There were even guard towers on that side.
But here, on the river side, the only extra security was an eight foot vertical concrete wall along the bank of the river before the wire fence began. As if either of those heights could do anything to stop him, even added together.
A shift of his heel had the glider – and subsequently the semi behind him – rising ten, twenty, thirty feet into the air. Hobgoblin cut his engines as much as possible to continue forward momentum but also to remain silent so as to not alert the guards below. It was a delicate balancing act but somehow, he managed.
As more and more of the facility came into sight, he used the enhancements on his goggles to get a good look at the place, noting the number of guards and their placement. Finally, he had what he was looking for: a window of opportunity to set down where he and his semi wouldn't be seen.
Hobgoblin managed to keep his glider half a meter off the ground even after the semi was grounded giving him the manoeuvrability that he needed, just in case. It was then a matter of getting the warehouse door open and directing the semi inside before shutting the door again.
Turning about, he scanned the building and couldn't help but rub his hands together. He'd hit the jackpot. A lot of the stuff in there he could use as is and the rest would be child's play for him to modify into his own designs.
Checking his watch, he saw that dawn was five and a half hours away.
Time for him to get to work.
ooo00ooo
It was the sudden upsurge in volume from the four House Tables that alerted the Hogwarts professors to something being out of the ordinary. Each of the Heads looked firstly to their own tables even as the other professors scanned the Hall in general, all looking for any potential trouble.
What they saw was that the entire student body was looking upwards. The fact that it was the middle of breakfast and thus the normal time for the owls to arrive with the daily post and newspapers could account for some of that interest, but certainly not all of it.
"Woul' ye loo' at tha'," Hagrid breathed.
Well, breathed for Hagrid. To any normal person, it would have been closer to the volume of a normal speaking voice.
"Albatrosses. And not just one, but three," Neville agreed.
Post albatrosses were incredibly rare, only being used for intercontinental flight, and incredibly expensive to boot. Really, though, albatrosses were the perfect means of sending mail from one country to another, with their wingspan being the widest of any bird on the planet, not to mention the fact that they could travel up to ten thousand miles in a single journey.
As the entire hall watched mesmerised, the three albatrosses circled the Hall well above the smaller owls, once, twice and a third time before diving towards the staff table. Instantly, professors were moving plates, bowls, cups and platters out of the way, giving the large birds room enough to land in.
Just as with normal post owls, once landed, the three albatrosses lifted a leg to the recipient of the letter that they carried. Almost in unison, Minerva, Neville and Hagrid untied their letters and opened them.
Neville's eyes widened before a grin spread across his face.
"Headmistress," he said formally, his eyes still darting backwards and forwards across the words on the high-grade parchment as he read and reread the words there. "I would like to request a leave of absence for next week."
"Yes, I thought that you might," Minerva replied, a small smile upon her own lips. "Hagrid?"
"Yes'm, I'd like ta request tha same," he boomed. "There's no way, tha' I'm gonna miss Harry's weddin'! I'll take it withou' pay, if'n tha' helps."
Hagrid's words instantly spread up and down the House tables. 'Harry' was getting married. And Professors Hagrid, Longbottom and McGonagall had all been invited. There was only one 'Harry' that could have send those invitations – Harry Potter.
"I think that the castle and students can do without the three of us for a week," Minerva replied.
ooo00ooo
After four attempts at getting dirt on the Avengers, Mac had realised how pointless an exercise it was. At least using this current strategy.
The Avengers had well and truly gone to ground. Rarely were any of them ever seen out in public – and that included the self-proclaimed diva: Tony Stark. Of course, some of the masked ones could be walking around among normal people without their costumes, but who'd know? No, instead, they stayed either within the Tower where the briefest of glimpses using high-powered telescopic lenses was the best that one could get or else at their upstate facility that no one could ever get near or at their rumoured other, secret base.
No, Mac now knew that trying to get dirt on them using photos or video or even laser mics wasn't going to cut it. If he wanted to get something on them for Jameson to use, for the whole world to see what a menace they were, then he had to change tactics.
Thankfully, he had a better idea. One that Toomes and Stillwell had provided.
After driving into the underground carpark beneath the block across from Avengers Tower, Mac had slipped into the back of his van and suited up.
It truly was a work of art. The body armour was out of the world strong, especially compared to how much it weighed. And the fact that it covered his entire body provided him with a high degree of safety – not only from being injured but also from being identified. And then there was his tail. Mac simply loved his scorpion-like tail, especially what it was capable of.
Climbing from the van, Mac looked about. Nothing, the place was completely deserted. Grinning to himself, Mac strode across the carpark to the rear stairwell that would take him to the street directly across from his target.
Well, target in an extremely loose sense of the word. After all, his plan was simple – if he couldn't get to the Avengers to get dirt on them, then he'd make them come to him and implicate themselves.
Stepping out of the closed door onto the sidewalk had an immediate reaction that had his grin widening: screams. Lots and lots of screams. Every single person who saw him, instantly let loose at the top of their lungs and bolted. It was such an intoxicating feeling, one that Mac was sure that he could get used to.
Unfortunately, that was precisely when his plan went pear-shaped.
One of the cars that happened to be passing at just that moment was a cop car. The fact that they'd seen him was a given simply by the way that they screeched to a halt, their tyres smoking with how hard their breaks had been slammed on.
With a shrug, Mac marched towards them. If this didn't bring the Avengers running – cops being attacked by a suited 'villain' on their very doorstep, then nothing would.
Both cops were already scrambling from their car, one of them screaming into his shoulder-mounted radio, their guns drawn, when Mac's razor-sharp tail slammed down into the middle of the car's boot. With a thought, he dragged his tail backwards, cutting through the metal as though it was butter and causing even more bystanders to run screaming from him.
And then the first bullet struck him, high on the right shoulder. Mac flinched with the impact but was otherwise unhurt, the armour doing its job perfectly. With a roar of his own, he advanced on the cop that had attempted to shoot him.
One vicious swipe of his tail cut the door that the cop was hiding behind in two. Bullets peppered him, but Mac ignored them, instead grabbing the cop's hand and gun and squeezing. That's when Mac found another benefit from that serum that Stillwell had injected him with: enhanced strength. The cop screamed in agony as the bones in his hand were crushed while the gun that it was holding became nothing more than a mashed piece of metal.
A hail of bullets slamming into his back spun Mac around, only to find that two more cop cars had arrived on the scene, their occupants currently standing behind their open car doors and firing at him.
Ignoring them for the moment – after all, they weren't any threat to him – Mac looked for his true targets.
But there was no sign of them. Not even a single red and gold suit flying around the top of the Tower watching. Worse still, the entrance to the Tower had been sealed up tight, every window now had metal across them and the doors themselves were hidden behind plates of shiny silver.
As a third police car arrived, Mac knew that his plan had failed.
Activating the mini-rocket launcher within his tail took no more than a thought. Firing a pair of the rockets at two of the cop cars was enough to cause mayhem, explosions and even more screams. Exactly what he needed to slip away.
Next time. Next time, he'd find a way to draw them out and to show the world exactly why those Accords were needed to stop people like the Avengers from being the menace to society that they really were.
ooo00ooo
Luke was still on the first page of chapter three of The Invisible Man and thus, his attention was elsewhere when DW burst into Pop's Barber shop, skidding on the linoleum and only staying upright by grabbing onto the door itself.
"Slow down, kid," Bobbi stated with a slow shake of his head from where he sat at the table contemplating the chess game that he and Pop were in the middle of. "The world ain't gonna end if'n you don't get where you need to go simply by walking."
"It might not end, but there's no telling if it'll survive what's coming," DW wheezed.
"What are you on about, son?" Pop asked.
"The TV. Turn on the TV," DW instructed.
Luke lowered his book with a frown. There was no way that he could concentrate with the racket that the kid had brought with him. More out of something to do than any other reason, he looked up at the set that Pop was just reaching up to turn on.
As the old, slightly-fuzzy screen came on, Luke couldn't help but frown as he attempted to work out what he was seeing.
The view was from a helicopter looking down on the city. And while the picture kept jumping about somewhat, it mostly stayed focussed on a truck with some kind of flying thing zipping from side to side after it. Bringing up the rear were a convoy of police cars, lights flashing and, he was sure, sirens blaring.
Unexpectedly, the truck swerved, taking a sharp corner in an obvious attempt to evade the flying thing. That was enough to give the viewers a better look at what was going on as the camera angle in the helicopter changed.
"Sweet Christmas!" Luke murmured, rising from his chair to approach the TV.
The truck wasn't anything special, apart from the fact that it belonged to a security company. The flying thing, though, that was something else. It was a man in some sort of old-fashioned flying suit and goggles but with massive mechanical wings strapped to his back and some kind of engines attached to them that allowed him to fly.
The flying man dipped to one side, his wings momentarily going almost vertical to the ground rather than horizontal before he corrected, gaining height in the process. And then, like some kind of strange vulture, his wings angled backwards and he swooped down, directly at the truck.
By some miracle, the man managed to momentarily land on the top of the truck and shoot out a grappling hook that attached him to it. Luke couldn't really see what the man did next but when next he veered slightly to one side, it was to reveal a square hole cut into the roof of the truck. Unexpectedly, the man dropped from his wings, disappearing directly into the truck itself.
"Luke! They're heading into Harlem," DW announced.
And they were, Luke realised, recognising not only some of the buildings, but also shops. What was worse was that the truck seemed to be veering from one side of the road to the other, as though the driver was only just barely managing to keep control of the vehicle.
"Oh, hell!" Luke swore.
"A dollar," Pop stated automatically, pointing at the Swear Jar on the shelf.
"I'll pay when I get back," Luke promised even as he was already reaching for the door, ready to race out to do what he could to make sure the people of Harlem stayed safe from whatever that was coming right at them.
ooo00ooo
"Miss Rodriguez is the thirteenth Inhuman that we've now encountered," Coulson stated.
"What's her abilities?" Fitz asked.
In reply, Coulson brought up Rodriguez' file on the main monitor.
"She's fast," Coulson replied simply.
"Like Pietro Maximoff?" Jemma asked, leaning forward.
"Yes and no," Coulson replied. "Miss Rodriguez has the added limitation of only being able to use her super speed for the space of one heartbeat before she is forced to return to the place where she started."
"A real yo-yo," Mack commented.
Any reply was cut off by the appearance of a bundle of envelopes, tied together with string, appearing in the middle of the conference table with a blue glow.
"Well, that's new," Coulson remarked.
"Don't!" May commanded, making Jemma pause with her arm outstretched towards them. "We don't know what they are or who sent them or even how they appeared."
"Of course, we know who sent them," Jemma countered. "They're from Daisy. Or more specifically, Harry."
"You know I really hate magic," Fitz groused. "It doesn't obey the laws of nature."
"Fitz, magic is just science that we don't understand. You know that," Jemma admonished.
"Arthur C. Clarke," Fitz sighed. "Still, I'm allowed to hate magic."
"Well, you won't hate this," Jemma smiled at the letter in her hand that she'd opened. "Here."
Quickly, she distributed the right envelopes to the right people seated at the table.
"A wedding invitation?" May asked, clearly surprised.
"Come on, May, it'll be fun," Coulson smiled.
The look that she shot him told all there that she clearly disagreed.
ooo00ooo
"Miss Morbeck? Director Rettero will see you now."
Melissa smiled up at the secretary as she stood, smoothing her skirt as she did so.
"Thank you," she said.
Picking up her case, she strode into the inner
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