Over the next two weeks Hermione found herself spending much of her free time with Tony, who would often explain things to her as she sat in his lab, and twice more they went out for dinner and drinks because they had found themselves working late together and agreed that they needed a break from the tower. She found him thoughtful, witty, and, at times, flirty, and nearly forgot why she had been sent to Stark in the first place as he seemed so normal. But there were times, often after he had been forced to do work pertaining to the company as a whole, that he became sullen and short-tempered, and because their friendship (if that's what it was) was still young she usually cleared out. One morning he glumly left her lab so he could attend to a video conference he had set up with Pepper and a couple board members, and Hermione didn't see him the rest of the day. She wasn't surprised when she found no one on the party deck when the elevator doors slid open at nine that night. It wasn't as though she had an appointment, she just wanted to drop off her latest budget figures before leaving for the weekend.

"Tony?" she called out, walking toward the desk with the intention of just leaving the papers there if she got no reply.

"Granger!" a slurred reply came from a couch, and Tony's head popped up, but quickly sank back out of view.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, walking toward him, but it was reply enough when she nearly tripped on an empty scotch bottle.

"Want a drink?" he asked, offering her another partially-empty bottle without a glass. He was sprawled on the couch, one leg hanging off, looking worse for wear.

"No, thank you, I'm fine," she replied. "And by the looks of it you are just about finished yourself," she added, prying the bottle from his hand.

"Don't be like that, Granger," he murmured, taking a swipe at the bottle but missing by several inches.

"Don't be like what? Concerned about you living through the night? Sorry, that's not in my nature. Let's get you upstairs."

"I'm good here," he motioned vaguely to himself. "Care to join me? I have room on my staff, so to speak."

"In your state your staff probably isn't ready to rise to the occasion," she shot back. "And that was a bloody pathetic attempt."

"You're right," he muttered. "But it was worth a shot. A man has a pretty, intelligent witch tending to him. How often does that happen?"

"Did you just refer to yourself in the third person?" she asked, wrapping one of his arms around her shoulders and lifting him into a sitting position.

"Maybe."

"You're going to need to do some of the work here or I'm going to have to levitate you, and I know you'd probably vomit from the experience."

"From levitation?"

"Well, I could Apparate us to your room, but then you would certainly vomit, and it doesn't matter how quickly you clean it, that smell lingers."

Shakily he managed to get to his feet and, leaning on Hermione, they slowly made their way to the elevator. Once inside she rested him against a wall as she took a few deep breaths to ready herself for the next time she'd have to move him.

"One thing I can't figure out, Granger: Why did a witch like you go to work for Nick Fucking Fury? There had to be others willing to give you a job and get you out of that place."

"Because I stayed in my world long enough to realize we fought a war for very few, if any, things to change," she replied softly. "The pureblood supremacists might be forced to treat me like an equal, but no one just drops a prejudice that quickly. So many people are dead, and I was smiling in photo ops with people who pretended they weren't dying. I couldn't stay, and then Fury came into the picture. It was time for me to move on, and with him I got a fresh start."

The doors slid open to his penthouse suite, and she put his arm around her shoulders, but noticed he drew her in a little closer than before. She maneuvered him down a hallway and into his bedroom, where she carefully lowered him onto the bed. She helped him remove his shoes, and he laid back as far as he could against the pillows.

"I've got something you'll probably want," she said, pulling her wand to summon a phial of purple liquid from her bag and placing it on the table next to him.

"What is it?" he asked, taking the phial and studying it cautiously.

"I'm poisoning you, Stark. I'm only here in an attempt to make a hostile takeover of Stark Industries," she smirked.

"You'd make a horrible villain. You're not supposed to tell me your plan until after I take the mysterious substance," he pointed out.

"It's a hangover solution," she sighed. "It won't stop you from being drunk tonight, but you should wake up feeling well enough tomorrow."

"I don't get hangovers."

"If those bottles are any indication you just drank enough to give a bull elephant a hangover. Take the bloody potion, Stark."

"The amount in the bottles is a bit misleading. They were already open when I started with them. You are remarkably bossy, aren't you?" he asked before uncorking the phial and throwing back the liquid inside.

"A trait I've been informed of several times, often delivered with much more venom than you can muster at the moment," she smiled sweetly, then pointed her wand at a pillow on the other side of the bed, summoning it to her.

"What's that for?" he asked.

"I'm kipping on the couch. That hangover potion has a sleepwalking side effect, and while I normally don't think it's an issue, most people who take it don't have access to a flying robot suit. The last thing I need to do is to try to catch you in that bloody thing. I'm going to go tell Jarvis to lock the suits down for the night, then I'll be just out the door if you need me," she stood to leave the room.

"I don't need a babysitter, Granger," he said firmly behind her.

"Good, because if I wanted to be a caretaker for someone older than me I have a few casualties of war back home who are more deserving," she shot back. "But if you go flying around the city in your suit while sleepwalking on that potion it's going to be my wand. I'm not willing to risk it."

"I don't mean tonight," he said seriously. "I know why you're here. Fury didn't give up someone like you because he wanted you to focus on stuff for the team. He sent you here to babysit me. Banner isn't doing it, he knows I don't listen to Rogers, and Romanoff and Barton won't even try. But you, you're caring and kind. You see a sick puppy on the street and fuck anything else you have to do that day, you're going to save the goddamn dog. Fury told you some bullshit about me being some pathetic shell of my former self and you came running, determined to help me."

"Are you done?" she asked calmly, hands on her hips.

"I'll yield the floor for now."

She took a deep breath. "Yes, Nick asked me to come here because he was concerned about you. But I came because I wanted to come and work here, not because Fury sent me on some mission to pull you out of whatever hole you're in. Do you really think he was going to let me walk away if I insisted on not coming? He made a point about my talent being put to better use, and after thinking it over I realized he was right. I got the real reason out of him, but that doesn't mean I came here to babysit you. I'm working ten hour days, I don't have the time, Stark."

"What did he say?" he asked. "About me, I mean. Why did he think you were the one to come work on me?"

"Because he thought we had been through similar situations. We were both in horrible situations we only got through on luck, intelligence, and a lot of making things up as we went along. We both have dealt with fighting a war we had no intention to fight, and we both lost people we loved because of that war. And we have both been through shit that no person has no need to experience."

"And what was your experience, Granger? Fighting a war as a teenager? Do you think you were effected that much differently than anyone else who has fought a war at a young age?"

Her brown eyes studied him wearily for a moment. "What I went through was far beyond war," she replied evenly.

"Really?" he asked, sounding skeptical.

In reply she walked back to the bed, rolling up her left sleeve as she went. As she reached the side of his bed she touched her wand to her forearm, removing the glamour over her 'mudblood' scars, which were still an angry pink as though they were only a week old, not several years. "This is my reminder of who I am, of what I am to some very important people in my world. The woman who gave it to me made sure I would never forget my place. And that's not the worst of what she did to me."

He stared at her arm for a long moment, eyes sliding in and out of focus. Then his gaze shifted upward, and his eyes met hers, and even in his drunken haze he was surprised at how hardened she looked at that moment. Without a word she turned and strode from the room.

XXXXXXXXX

He found her the next morning, on the couch as promised, though she had made some changes to make it more like a bed and she had either changed into a pair of pajamas or used magic to transform her outfit. Her left wrist was tucked under her head, so 'mudblood' was displayed next to her face. It was that image that he stared at for a long time, and he realized that Hermione looked much closer to her mid-twenties when she was sleeping, as though the years of stress dissolved in her sleep, only to return when she woke once more. Feeling a pang of guilt for the night before he went further to study her body, a habit he had gotten himself out of for Pepper's sake. She really was quite beautiful, more in a timeless sense than a modern one. An oval face with soft angles and just a hit of color to her cheekbones, thin lips, but not so thin as to not be noticeable, eyes that never failed to betray her emotions. She was thin, but not disturbingly so as her curves were subtle. He noticed for the first time a scar that extended across the top of her right breast and disappeared under the t-shirt she was wearing. Her hands, too, bore signs of being used, with some visible scars. All in all Hermione was a mysterious and alluring woman, made even more desirable because of her intelligence and kind nature, traits that were even more enhanced by the air of intrigue surrounding her. Younger Tony would have chased the woman all over the globe, begging for time to spend with her, though he knew she would never have given that Tony the time of day. That Tony was too arrogant, too reckless, too untrustworthy as to be invited into the confidences of a famous young witch. He had matured since then, but the previous night showed he still had some growing up to do. He shouldn't have questioned her motives, Hermione was not the type to go squealing to someone like Fury for behavior like his the night before. She worked hard, and to that point she hadn't pushed him for personal information, nor did she seem to be trying to push friendship on him. Some people were caring by nature, and Granger happened to be one of those, and for that he should be grateful and not suspicious, but that was one trait that hadn't fully matured quite yet.

He went to make some coffee and, when he heard her starting to stir, poured her a cup, adding just a touch of cream and sugar, knowing Jarvis once mentioned that's how she took it in her lab.

"Morning," he said softly, placing the cup on the table in front of her as she sat up and stretched.

"Good morning," she replied with a stifled yawn. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Perfectly fine, actually," he replied, without acknowledging that the only reason he was feeling okay was her potion.

"Good," she said, picking up the cup and taking a cautious sip. He watched in amusement as her eyes closed, her other hand wrapped around the mug with the first, and she let a smile play across her face. "This is bloody fantastic coffee," she said before taking another sip.

"It should be for what it costs," he said, sitting in a chair across from her. "So... Can I hear the story behind the scars?"

She frowned for a moment, her right hand moving to rub her left forearm as she considered the request. "During the war my friends and I were captured. Once the men who captured us were sure they had Harry they took us to the mansion the Death Eaters were using as a base. They weren't going to kill Harry, that was for Voldemort to do, but they were going to kill Ron and I until they saw we had a sword with us, a sword one of them, Bellatrix, was sure was in her bank vault. She wanted information, and decided that, because I have no magical lineage, I was the more expendable of the two of us, so she would still have Ron to try to get information from if, well, more like when I died in her attempt. They locked Harry and Ron away, and she... she tortured me. First she used a spell, the torture curse, which, from what I've heard, she was particularly strong at casting because she enjoyed using it so much. Then, when I was too weak to put up too much of a fight, she carved this into my arm. She said I should be labeled, so when they showed our bodies to the public they would know it was me, because she was going to give me to this werewolf named Greyback and my face probably wouldn't be recognizable after that."

"Shit," he breathed.

"We got out before that happened. I've tried everything to make it go away, but I think she cursed the blade. As it was it took us nearly three hours just to get it to stop bleeding," she murmured, looking down at the scars. "I usually cover it with a glamour charm, because I don't want people to see it and ask questions. It still looks fresh, doesn't it?"

"It does," he admitted. "I wouldn't say more than a month or so."

"I've learned to live with it," she shrugged. "It's certainly much better than living with..." she nodded towards the arc reactor.

He watched as she took another sip of coffee. "You know I meant it last night. When I said I don't need a mother, I mean."

"Bloody hell, Tony, if I said I wasn't interested in being your babysitter what in the hell makes you think I'd want to be your mum?" she sighed.

"You could just tell Fury that anytime now."

"I'm not telling Fury anything," she said, finishing the cup and standing to put it in the sink. "I know what Fury wanted when I came here, but I'm not interested in any of that. I stayed here last night not because I was overly concerned about you being pissed, you're a grown man and you can handle your liquor however you want, but I was concerned about a friend getting hurt. And breaking the International Statute of Secrecy, but that was secondary, and using it as the reason shut you up. I'm not here to be your mum, Tony. Friends, if we'd both like, but I'm not going to force anything, and I'm not going to tell you what to do or how to cope. And as a friend I will say this now and shut up about it: I know what it's like to hold onto something too long, and I know how it can completely wreck a person, because I've been there. And, again, speaking as a friend, I would hate to see you continue down that path, though if you want to walk that road I'm not going to stop you. I'm not going to tell you to get over it, I'm not going to tell you how to deal with whatever feelings you're having about everything that's happened to you, that's up for you to decide. I'm here if you want to talk, and I'll stay away if that's what you want. But, take it from me, this is a barrel of which you don't want to see the bottom. The further down you go, the harder it's going to be to get back out."

He replied with a noncommittal grunt.

"I'm going to get a couple things done in the lab before I leave," she announced, turning her pajamas back into street clothes with her wand. "I'm taking tomorrow off. I've spent far too much time in this tower. Need anything before I go?"

"No," he replied with a shake of his head.

"Have a good day, then, Tony," she flashed him a forced smile before starting toward the elevator.

"What was his name?" he called after her.

Her step faltered, and she hesitated with her finger extended toward the button. After a second she turned slowly back to face him. "What do you mean?" she asked, trying to sound casual, but there was a strain in her voice.

"You're showing all the signs of having lost someone you loved very much. You throw yourself into your work, at the expense of any relationship you may have been able to start. You told me there have been a number of dates, but none of them were what you were looking for, which is somewhat surprising considering you don't seem the type to waste your time going out with someone you didn't feel any potential with, and you admitted that it ended in the bedroom so they were at least good enough for that. So, either you have a line of horrible lovers, or there's something blocking you from letting it get any further for some reason, and I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the picture of that redhead you have by your desk."

She bit her lip and looked out the window for a moment, and he could see her putting up walls to prevent herself from looking too emotional.

"His name was Fred," she said, so softly he almost didn't hear her. "And he was my fiance."

"Fiance?" he repeated in surprise.

"Yes. We had been seeing each other for two years, and got engaged three days before I had to go on the run with Harry. I had known him since I was eleven. He was funny, kind, generous, brilliant.. truth be told he was a lot like you. And I loved him, more than I thought I could love a person."

"What happened?" he asked softly, almost afraid of the answer.

"He was killed in the final battle. We were battling some Death Eaters in a hallway. He was in the middle of cracking a joke," she said with a half-smile before she bit her lip and her face darkened. "The wall just sort of blew up. It was that quick, just hearing his voice and then... nothing." Her eyes were out of focus and cloudy with tears, and he instinctively knew she hadn't talked to anyone about Fred's death in a long time, and he knew to keep quiet. She took a deep breath and then finished, "He was still smiling. He died as happy as someone could be in that situation. I didn't get to say goodbye, but I guess that's okay because it means he didn't suffer.

"I know it's not the same as things between you and Pepper, because there is that element of choice," she added, her voice a little stronger. "Death is final, at least, you know you're not going to run into each other at a function, or you don't have to deal with them running your company and still needing to talk to you because of that. I don't understand your situation because of that, Tony. But I understand how much it hurts to lose someone you love so deeply, and I also know that it will consume you if you let it. And if you weren't so bloody stubborn about accepting help maybe you can prevent that. I get nightmares, too, of the war, and the torture... and of Fred. The ones with the battle and the torture, those aren't the worst. Because at least when I have those dreams, the pain ends when I wake up. The ones with Fred..." she trailed off. "I'd hate for that to be you, Tony."

She didn't say good-bye, just turned and jabbed the button to the elevator. The doors slid open immediately, and she didn't turn around as she entered and they snapped shut behind her. He watched the number indicating where the elevator was drop, past the level her lab was on, speeding toward the ground level.

"Jarvis?" he asked.

"Yes, sir?" the computerized voice responded.

"Pull up the security footage from outside the elevators on the ground floor."

In front of him a hologram flickered to life, just in time for him to watch the doors to Hermione's elevator open to reveal an empty interior.

XXXXXXXXXX

For the next two weeks Hermione and Tony only talked when it pertained to work, and even then they waited until they couldn't communicate by terse e-mail. After a week Hermione decided it was for the best, she was Tony's employee after all, even if that title was pretty much ceremonial and only entitled her to a paycheck. She started keeping regular hours at the office rather than spending most of her time in the tower, and she took one Friday off to close on her condo and move her things from the hotel and a storage unit she had rented for appearance purposes into her new place. As she was living in a Muggle building she hired some movers to be the ones to do most of the work and busied herself putting things away.

"Knock, knock," she heard a hesitant voice call from her doorway, and she turned to see Tony standing just inside the door holding a bottle of wine and wearing a sheepish smile.

"Hullo," she replied, keeping her face emotionless.

"Listen, Granger, I'd like to talk, and I'm offering to do so while doing manual labor of your choice."

"Okay," she nodded. "Help me arrange the bedroom?"

"Oh, we're going straight there, are we?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She rolled her eyes and tried to look stern, but chuckled. "I asked for that one," she sighed. "Come on."

They went to the bedroom and she started surveying the room. "Bed against that wall?" she asked, pointing to the side opposite the door.

"Honest opinion? I'd put it between the bathroom and closet door. You have beautiful french doors overlooking your patio, might as well enjoy the view."

She considered it for a moment. "I think you're right. Help me move it?"

"Okay," he nodded, putting the wine on top of a box and taking off his jacket.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked, picking up one side of her headboard.

"Us," he replied.

She stopped where she was, shooting a quizzical look at him.

"I don't like this new business relationship we have going on," he quickly added. "I liked spending time with you. I liked the talks we used to have. I'm suffering from a severe deficit of British accent in my life right now, all I have is Jarvis and he's gotten short with his answers for some reason. What do I need to do to get us back to where we were before?"

"Ask," she replied as they placed the headboard, and, after checking to make sure the movers weren't watching, tapped it with her wand to keep it in place. "I thought I had gone too far with what I had said, and that's why you weren't speaking to me."

"What you said... needed to be said," he assured her. "I didn't like hearing it, but that doesn't mean you should feel like you shouldn't have said it."

"I'm usually much better at delivering advice," she replied with a weak smile.

"In the past, then?"

"Agreed," she nodded.

"Good. Now, what do you want to do with that monster of a dresser?"

An hour later a worker came in to announce everything was off the truck, and had Hermione go through the condo to make sure everything was in the proper place. She thanked them, and paid them, then went onto the terrace, hoisted herself onto the brick wall, balancing precociously on a small ledge.

"Do I want to know what you're doing?" Tony asked as he stood behind her.

"I want to watch to make sure none of them are going to come back up for something," she replied.

He didn't hide the fact that he was looking at her rear as he said, "Not that I'm complaining about the view, because it certainly is a good one, but why are you so concerned about making sure they're gone?"

"Because I need to make sure they're gone before I do this," she said, turning around and holding out a hand for him to help her down. As soon as she was on level ground she pulled out her wand and started waving it as she walked through the condo. He watched, wide-eyed, as furniture sprung into place, plates and silverware went flying into cabinets and drawers, and pictures hung themselves. It took her less than fifteen minutes for everything to put itself away, and the boxes to fold themselves until they disappeared once empty. By the time she was done it looked as though she had been living there for years, not minutes.

"Why did we do all that work?" he asked as she finished in the bedroom.

"To keep up Muggle appearances," she replied falling onto the bed. "I have to be very careful about how much magic I use while living in a Muggle building."

"Why not live in the magical community, then?" he asked, lying next to her.

"My employer is a Muggle, and that is a problem for many in the Magical community," she said, and he remembered the looks they got while walking through the Magical street. "I'm toeing the line by working as a witch for a Muggle organization. It's only because of the nature of the work that I haven't been arrested for breaking the Statute of Secrecy, and even then I think the pull of my name has been the deciding factor. It doesn't sit well with some people, so I'm persona non grata to some and I've had Kingsley, the Minister of Magic in the UK, insinuate it would be best to distance myself from the magical community as much as possible."

"Wait, so you saved them, and they thank you by telling you to get lost when you want to continue doing that?" he asked incredulously.

"You're looking at it as a Muggle," she turned so she was facing him. "Magical people have been in hiding for centuries, and for good reason. My work threatens to expose us. That's made plenty of people upset. I've voluntarily withdrawn from the Magical world, though I haven't given up my friends, and I haven't stopped myself from going shopping at Magical shops. It's worked for me. I feel like I've finally found my balance between the Magical and Muggle worlds."

"Their loss, our gain," he smiled. "They have given us one fantastic woman."

She smiled, a blush crossing her face for a second. "I'm knackered," she announced. "I'll treat you to pizza and firewhiskey in thanks for your help."

"That I think we can do," he nodded.

Their pizza arrived a half hour later, after they had each gone through a bottle of butterbeer and a drink of firewhiskey. They ate, drank, laughed, and flirted on her terrace for most of the night, until Hermione started nodding off. Tony helped her to bed, and sat on the edge next to her for several minutes after she fell asleep, wondering if he should leave, and realizing how much he didn't want to go. In the end he called for a car, and brushed a lock of hair away from Hermione's face before heading down to the street.