Ace Pilot

As Clint stepped away to let Harry fly the jet solo, he was impressed. The kid had a natural grasp, so it seemed, of anything flying. He'd given him the basics of flying the plane, and was now watching as the kid flew all by himself. Loki looked a little nervous, which wasn't surprising, considering what Clint had cooked up next, with Thor's – dubious, hard gained and given with many, many caveats – blessing.

He switched on a simulator, which caused the jet to rock, and Clint to fall and play the helpless bystander. The best way to stay in role is to actually feel like your character would. In this case, in pain. This pain was provided by a shoulder hitting a bulkhead and the bulkhead winning.

"Kid! We're under fire," Clint cried, as the jet simulated the feelings of taking fire. Loki and Thor had plausibly worried, unnerved expressions on their faces, Loki's mostly simulated, Thor's not remotely. Clint reckoned that the kid would freeze. There was no crime in that. Very few people were really cut out for combat and one of the main reasons Thor had agreed was a shared knowledge that only a very small number of people would react well under fire without training, and this was vital knowledge where Harry was concerned.

His jaw almost dropped as he watched Harry's expression turn into one of fierce concentration as he sent the Quinjet into a fearsomely fast descending barrel roll, sending them spinning towards the sea, before regaining control and slamming the throttle forward to three quarters of top speed as they scudded over the sea. Harry had just done several things that serious pilots would blanch at doing, and had done them without even breaking a sweat. What he'd heard from his contacts was right. The kid definitely got a lot better and a lot more dangerous under pressure. And he could fly, oh how he could fly. If he hadn't been who he was, Clint would have recommended him to SHIELD as a potential future agent.

Then the jet began to jink across the sea in a classic evasion pattern, purposefully hard to predict, but controlled enough that the jet actually stayed in control. Harry was managing to deal with a phantom pursuer well enough, which triggered the next part of the simulation. Two blinking dots appeared on the radar.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"Missiles," Clint said, staggering to his feet.

"WHAT?"

"Heat seekers. They're locked on."

Harry stopped for a moment, and he looked at Clint with fear on his face. Had he frozen? Better trained, older, more skilled men and women had done the same under lesser circumstances and Harry had done fantastically so far, far exceeding Clint's fairly jaundiced expectations.

"All right," Harry said, tone determined. "Let's go." He pulled up sharply, directing all power to the VTOL propellers to launch them practically straight upwards, then punched the power all the way into the primary thrusters, sending them rocketing upwards at Mach 2.5 and climbing. "CLINT!" he called over the noise as the 'missiles' dropped back, then closed. "I'M GOING TO TRY SOMETHING! CAN WE, YOU KNOW, DISTRACT THEM WITH ANYTHING?!"

"FLARES!" Clint called, pointing them out.

Harry nodded. "CAN YOU TAKE OVER?!"

"NOT IN TIME," Clint said, and it was true. In real life, a pilot changeover would take too long. "IT'S YOUR SHOW, KID!"

Harry looked grim and nodded. The altimeter continued to spiral upwards, and the missiles closed. Harry's eyes were fixed on the 'missiles' progress, finger hovering over the flares. Suddenly, he cut all power, and fired off the flares. As the plane dropped away, Harry carefully directing it into a dive, wrestling with the controls as the jet threatened to spiral out of control – if Clint hadn't know that Loki could arrest their descent with a word, he'd have been genuinely frightened. As it was, his potential fears went unrealised, as, with a cry of effort, Harry pulled out of the dive, thumping the power up to full, pulling out one hundred feet above sea level, before lowering the speed.

"Are they gone?" he asked.

"They were never there, kid," Clint said, grinning, flicking on the autopilot, letting it take them up to cruising height and speed.

"What?"

"That was a simulation, one we pull randomly on SHIELD agents at least fifteen to twenty years older than you. Well, they have to run to the pilot's chair as well and disengage the auto, but that's another matter," Clint said. "I wanted to know if you could fly as well as they say." He reached over and ruffled Harry's hair and chuckled. "And kid, you more than live up to the hype. You're a natural and it shows. Thor! Your kid's a natural."

"It was all… all a game?"

"No. I genuinely wanted to know how good you are. Thing is, Thor, Loki and Bruce can't fly one of these things for sh – uh, neither love nor money. Steve tends to have an unsurprising aversion to flying planes considering what happened last time he flew one. The day I trust Tony with flying one of these things is the day I sign up for multiple heart attacks, because Tony is a demon when he's behind the wheel of anything. If me and Natasha aren't able to fly one of these, it may come down to you one day. That, and I wanted to know how you perform under pressure. Way your dad tells it, you've got bad people after you, and the remains of a dangerous organisation that's still active. Not only that, but your dad has enemies, your uncle has enemies, and the Avengers all have enemies who would be more than happy to hurt you and use you," Clint explained. "We – the Avengers, will help protect you and teach you. But to do that, we need to know what you can do." He winked. "Besides. You gotta admit, it was fun."

Harry paused, then nodded. "Yeah, it was." He looked thoughtful. "It was a lot like Quidditch, really."

"That's… the game with seven a side, four balls and broomsticks, right?" Clint said. He was more familiar with Quodpot – which had convinced him that all wizards were insane adrenaline junkies - having had to infiltrate a couple of wizarding communities in the states on an assassination, but he'd gained a very passing familiarity with the more European sport.

Harry nodded. "Yeah. The missiles kind of reminded me of bludgers." He shrugged. "That's how I knew how to dodge them. Classic Seeker tactics."

"What does that say about me?" he asked, a little worried.

"You're an adrenaline junkie, like the rest of the Avengers, minus Bruce," Clint said casually. "It's a good thing, if you can control it. Tony generally doesn't."

—-Chapter 7, First Impressions