Widow's vengeance - Chapter 17

Chapter 17 - Really?

"Your familiar is a nightmare?!" Susan Bones gasped as all the Hufflepuffs looked at Knight like he was a ticking bomb.

"Yes, he is." Harry said patiently as he continued to pet Knight who seemed to content to ignore the others in favour of Harry.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid grinned as he gestured to Knight.

"Not the word I'd use." Zach Smith, a frowning Hufflepuff boy, said.

"Yeah, well you're hardly an expert on beauty." Natasha sniffed before walking past him and walking up to Knight. "Hi Knight." She said gently before slowly raising a hand. Knight eyed her for a second before allowing her to join Harry in petting her.

"I can't believe it," Hannah Abbot whispered to the others. "it's an actual nightmare and it lets them both touch it."

"Well, that's because of Harry," Hagrid explained, having heard her. "he'll let Harry touch him because he is Harry's familiar, and he lets little Natasha over there touch him because she is close with Harry."

"So, we can touch him because of Harry?" Susan asked.

"Not really," Hagrid sighed as he shook his head. "just because you know Harry does not mean that you'll be allowed to treat Knight like a regular horse. I often say that most 'dangerous' magical creatures are simply misunderstood, and I truly believe that. But with nightmares, well...even I wouldn't try to tame a nightmare. They're notoriously unpredictable and violent, honestly it's nothing short of amazing that Knight hasn't even attacked Harry. Only the bravest or stupidest person in the world would go near an untamed nightmare.

Now, Knight will obey Harry but that doesn't mean that he won't want to attack anyone who would come close, Harry stops him from doing so, but that doesn't mean that Knight likes it. And because of their relationship, Harry cares about Knight as well, he won't want to make him anymore uncomfortable than necessary. That's why he didn't let me pet him" Hagrid said, saying that last part in a disappointed voice, looking like a giant, hairy kid that had been denied his chance to have his favourite food for dinner.

"But...isn't it dangerous?" Wayne Hopkins asked as he watched the nightmare play with Harry's hair.

"Of course it's dangerous," Hagrid snorted, looking at Wayne like he had just asked if the sky was blue. "but so long as Harry is here and you keep your distance, you should be fine. Don't ever go near it without Harry, in fact don't ever try and go near any nightmare you might be unfortunate enough to stumble upon in the wild, it may just be the last thing you ever do."

"Personally, I think they're all just exaggerating a bit, Knight's really nice." Harry whispered to Natasha, both having listened to Hagrid's conversation with the others.

"Yeah, but you're not really unbiased when you say that." Natasha pointed out with a grin.

"Never said I was." Harry grinned back.

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SHIELD agent Natasha Romanoff, AKA the Black Widow, was currently standing on the platform of the shield helicarrier, she kept her face neutral, not showing any emotion despite how worried she was. Ever since she had been told that Barton was compromised she had been in a constant state of worry and fear, her mind kept conjuring horrific images and scenarios against her will, mostly centred around Barton being dead. She had been briefed on what had happened, apparently Loki (brother of Thor) had managed to enter a shield site through a powerful device known as the tesseract, a device which he then stole.

She wasn't sure what Fury was planning to do but she did know that the man was definitely planning something big, because not only had he called her in but he had also called in Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, a super soldier and living legend that had been frozen in ice near the end of the second war and had only waken up recently. Add to that he had also called in Bruce Banner AKA Hulk, Bruce banner being one of the world's most intelligent scientists, he was a man who possessed the ability to transform into a creature that everyone referred to as the Hulk, a thirteen foot behemoth that was strong enough to tear apart tanks with his bare hands. Fury had told her to bring him in so he could track the tesseract, this made sense to her since the tesseract gave off gamma radiation and Bruce Banner was the world's top mind when it came to gamma radiation. However she couldn't also help but think that he had wanted the Hulk as well.

Thankfully she had managed to bring him with her without a fight, fighting him was the last thing she wanted. She had admittedly been rather skittish around Banner even if she thought that she had hid it well enough, in her defence it was hard not reacting when you have a man capable of turning into a green giant who can throw army vehicles and was unable to be harmed by bullets.

As of the moment Banner was currently standing a small distance away, trying to stay out of the way of everyone which was hard given that there were soldiers and pilots and all manner of people walking around. He seemed genuinely nervous which made sense to her, he had a history of soldiers trying to shoot at him and his psychological profile and past history showed that he preferred to stay alone in remote places where the risks of harming civilians was minimalized.

A couple of seconds later she saw another jet land, she walked towards it, knowing that this was the jet that would have Captain America in it. She also knew that Coulson would be in it and would likely have fan-boy over him the whole time. As the jet opened she saw Coulson and Steve Rogers exit, Coulson was dressed in a suit as always while Cap wore clothes that were quite old fashioned, not horrible or even bad looking, but old fashioned, he evidently hadn't completely adapted to modern life.

"Coulson," She said as they approached. "they need you on the bridge, they're ready to run facial ID." She told him. Coulson nodded and mouthed a thank you to her before saying goodbye to his hero and walking off. "Captain." She greeted the man while extending a hand.

"Please, call me Steve." He said, shaking her hand. She noted that his handshake was formal, and everything from his facial expression to voice and body language told her that he was completely all business.

"Steve it is." She nodded before she started walking away from the jet with Steve following after her. "You know, it was quite the buzz finding you, I thought Coulson was going to swoon, did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards?" She asked with an amused smile.

"Trading cards?" Steve chuckled while giving her a questioning look.

"They're vintage, he's very proud of them." She shrugged just as they stopped next to Bruce Banner. "Steve, meet Bruce banner."

"Oh, hi," Bruce said awkwardly as he shook Steve's hand, the genius having clearly realised who he was greeting. "they um...they told me that you were coming."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, word is that you can find the cube." Steve replied.

"Is that...is that the only word on me?" Bruce asked knowingly.

"Only word I care about." Steve said without missing a beat, Natasha looked at the man and could tell that he honestly meant it when she looked at Banner she could see that he had clearly come to the same conclusion.

"Well, I...wait, what the hell is that?" Bruce asked as he pointed past them, out to the sea.

"What the..." Steve trailed off as he saw something approaching them, something fast. Steve, unlike Natasha and Bruce, could clearly make out what the fast approaching object was, most likely due to his enhanced senses. "It's a man...on a horse..." He trailed off and gave the two a questioning look, Bruce looked just as confused as Steve while Natasha let out a small sigh.

"He's one of ours," She said when they both looked at her. "as of this moment he is our biggest and most dangerous gun. Maybe even more dangerous than you." She added to Bruce who looked doubtful at that but didn't say anything as the figure got closer, the trio watched as suddenly a large stream of water rose into the air and turned into ice, making a ramp that connected to the helicarrier.

A couple of seconds later Knight ran up the ramp and landed on top of the helicarrier with Revenant sitting on top of him, every pair of eyes on the platform turned to look at the two, if they noticed then neither of them acted like it. Revenant slowly got off Knight, he whispered something into the nightmare's ear before taking a step back. The horse whinnied and gently bumped his head against Revenant's before turning and running down the ramp before it ran straight across the water. Natasha felt just as stunned as everyone else but had been able to recover quickly enough.

"Everyone back to work!" She barked, and suddenly every person around her was moving again.

"That was amazing." Bruce breathed out as Revenant walked towards them. "What kind of horse was that?"

"Honestly? I don't have a clue." Natasha admitted as Revenant stopped in front of them. She looked at Revenant and nodded in greeting before gesturing to Steve and Bruce. "This is Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, and this is Bruce Banner, AKA the Hulk. Fury brought them both in to help with the tesseract situation." She explained, it was most likely unnecessary given that he probably already knew that but it served the purpose of starting a conversation. "Gentlemen," She said to Steve and Bruce before gesturing to Revenant. "This is Revenant, he operates alongside shield, assisting in high risk mission mostly."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Steve said, holding out a hand. He waited and waited, though Revenant didn't move, causing him to awkwardly lower his arm. Revenant grabbed Natasha's arm in a gentle manner before pulling her to the side, a couple of feet away from the other two. Natasha was about to speak when Revenant flicked his wrist and his wand appeared in his hand, he waved it around them and Natasha suddenly felt like someone had blown some air all over her body.

"What the hell was that?" She frowned, trying to see if anything had happened to her.

"What is Fury planning?" Revenant asked, speaking in a distorted voice.

"What do you..."

"He brought a world class spy, a super soldier, the world's strongest man and me all in one place." Revenant replied. "Any other man and that could be pushed off as a coincidence, not him. What is he planning?"

"You'd probably know more than me," Natasha sighed. "and right now I honestly don't care as long as we get Barton back, safe and sound." She added honestly. Revenant stared at her for a couple of seconds before nodding, he waved his wand and she felt another breath of air blow all over her before he turned and walked away. She shook her head before walking back to Steve and Bruce. "Sorry about that." She apologized.

"I'm sorry, but what happened?" Steve frowned, looking quite confused.

"What do you mean?" Natasha asked.

"I couldn't hear anything you two were saying," Steve answered. "it just sounded like a bunch of static." Natasha frowned, she knew that with his enhanced senses the man should have easily been able to hear them, heck even a normal person could have heard them given that they weren't that far away. Why couldn't he hear them? Was...was that why Revenant had waved that stick of his around? Did he somehow block sound? She pushed the thoughts aside as she and the other two walked after Revenant.

"Excuse me," Bruce coughed as he walked alongside Revenant. "sorry but I have to ask, that horse of yours, how on Earth was he able to run that fast? I mean he ran on water! Is he even a real horse?" Bruce asked, he was about to say more but Revenant turned his head to face him. There was a moment of silence before Revenant finally spoke.

"If you give me any reason to believe that you're going to transform then I will kill you." He said before looking away. Bruce, Steve and Natasha stopped walking upon hearing that but Revenant didn't, either not noticing that they stopped or not caring.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Natasha said after a bit of awkward silence. "he doesn't really like anyone."

"Really?" Bruce asked in a dry voice.

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A.N: Okay, just want to say this before anyone starts reviewing, I know that Revenant-Harry seems like a bit of a dick and it is intentional. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.