A/N Hi guys! Many thanks for your support as always!
Her mind was fitful.
Red and black shadows chased her every move. But where she was running from or running to, she had no idea.
A three-way fork appeared in the road ahead of her. She hesitated before choosing the left fork. The red and black shadows circled around her, clawing her back to the fork. She tried the centre path and then the right, but each time she was dragged back to make the choice again and now there were no other options left.
But there was…
Hermione turned around to face the red-tinged darkness head on and let it surround her as she accepted her fate...
When she opened her eyes, for a moment, she thought she was still dreaming.
The Aether swirled in the air above her, small streams of it coming down to probe at different parts of her body. She gasped and used her hands and feet to scuttle backwards until she met something solid. With a start, she realised that it was Malekith she was leaning against as he controlled the Aether above her. She let out a startled yell and scurried away from him.
Malekith drew the Aether back within himself and again gazed at her questioningly.
"Within you there lays power to do remarkable things, child," he said. "The Aether can feel it. From where does it come?"
Hermione glared back balefully.
"Answer me," he ordered. "I will not hold back from hurting you."
At her continued silence, a burst of the Aether hurled her spinning backwards into the far wall and she landed awkwardly on her wrist, eliciting a sharp cry of pain.
Malekith looked surprise that she should be injured so easily. "You are not of Asgard," he said. "How can one as weak as you hold such power?"
Hermione righted herself and leant against the wall with a huff. "If you're going to turn the universe to darkness, what does it matter?" she argued bitingly.
"You are right, of course, for it is no consequence," Malekith replied calmly, "but I desire the answers to my questions and there is time enough before darkness descends. Your attack on my ship caused no more than superficial damage."
Hermione's spirits lowered at his words but then he pulled her wand from his cloak and her pulse quickened, even though she knew there was little chance of her getting it back.
"There is some power in this," he continued, "though it is different and not as strong."
If she could get her wand back and find the right room on the ship, she knew that the damage she could cause would be a lot more than superficial. Without it, there wasn't much more she could do but apparate or change into a falcon, neither of which would help her too much on an alien ship in space.
Malekith snapped her wand between his fingers and Hermione let out a strangled cry of disbelief. He gazed back at her, unmoved by her distress. "As you said; what does it matter?" He peered at the splinters in his hand with mild interest while Hermione tried to calm herself down. Remember your training, she reminded herself. You might be without your weapon but you're still a witch and an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D and you're damn good at both.
With a crushing relief, she remembered that she'd transferred her magical pocket to the Asgardian robes she was wearing; apparating and animagus were just the tip of the iceberg of what she was capable of now. Within that pocket were all the potions, trinkets and SHIELD equipment that she always took on an assignment and, somewhere, there was also a spare wand. The only problem would be finding it amongst the hundreds of other items…
Malekith threw the destroyed wand to the floor and Hermione set her jaw, deciding that she'd had enough of cowering. He said there was power within her, well, it was time to show him some.
Ignoring her throbbing wrist, she used her flying-apparation to stream away from him (grabbing her wand shards as she went) and flew throughout the ship, looking for a place to gather herself before employing a full-on assault.
The Aether pursued her but there was only so far that Malekith could disperse it without putting his ship in danger and she soon lost it as she sped further up the vessel. She passed Dark Elves on more than one occasion but she was travelling so fast they barely had time to register the white smoke, let alone try and stop her.
At length, Hermione found somewhere to pause and started rooting around in her pocket. She pulled out a number of objects including her phone, a notebook and some potion phials – one of which was for pain relief. She swallowed this to soothe her wrist but disregarded the other items as unimportant.
Hermione delved twice more into her pocket and was luckier this time, finding a few incendiary items of both muggle and magical invention, as well as a device FitzSimmons had given her that would come in handy should she be unable to find that elusive spare wand.
Footsteps and shouts sounded far closer than she liked and she stuffed her items into different pockets to be able to grab them more easily when in flight.
She took off, shooting past the Dark Elves; the blasts of their weapons about two seconds too late to hit her. One of them threw a small spherical device after her and she veered dramatically. She'd heard talk in Asgard that the round weapons created a small vortex that pulled anything in its range into an abyss.
More Dark Elves appeared in front of her but she streamed by, almost without concern, and reasoned she must be close to the control centre of the ship. A minute later, she came across it; a wide, circular room with various electrical stations and holographic displays. Focused on their tasks of running the ship, these Dark Elves were not expecting her smoky presence. She primed the explosive devices and threw them in various places throughout the room, leaving just before the first detonations took place. She could hear the booms as she flew along the corridor and she paused in a dark corridor before she returned for another assault. Then another noise, a shockingly familiar one, caught her attention: the notifications were coming up on her phone! How was that possible when she was in space?!
Hermione was tempted to retrieve the device from her pocket but recognised that it wasn't exactly a priority at that moment. Armed with bottles of Explosion Potion in each hand, she flew to the control room to see what damage she'd inflicted and what more she could do. It was a hectic mixture of smoke, flames and twisted wreckage. There were a couple of prone figures too and Hermione tried to pretend that the sight of them didn't prickle at her conscience.
She was about to throw her potions at the navigation panel when she realised that she recognised the 3D holographic buildings it was portraying. Unless the smoke fumes were doing something very strange to her head, it looked exactly like the tall buildings of Canary Wharf!
What was Malekith doing on Earth, and in London, no less? If he unleashed the full power of the Aether here, her whole world would be destroyed!
Hermione returned to her hiding place and stored the potion back into her pocket. Destroying the ship was no longer important; somehow, she had to stop Malekith.
The ship quaked and groaned alarmingly, forcing Hermione to hold a hand against the wall to steady herself. Her attacks were not strong enough to have caused that. The ship must be landing.
She desperately searched her magical pocket again for her spare wand but was unsuccessful. With a bitter sigh, she pulled out her phone and typed a quick message to alert S.H.I.E.L.D. to the emergency taking place in London. Some backup would be nice but she knew it would take some time for anyone to get to her.
The ship ground to a halt and she disapparated, reappearing on the roof of the O2 Arena to gauge exactly where the aircraft had landed. As it towered over all the nearby buildings, it was easy to spot in the midst of Greenwich's Old Royal Naval College.
Pulling up the hood on her cloak, Hermione apparated to a small dome on top of one of the buildings to get a closer look at what Malekith was up to. There were two startled yelps at her arrival.
"Hermione?" a female voice asked in surprise.
Turning, Hermione saw that the two people she'd alarmed were Jane and Erik Selvig. She'd had no clue what had become of Thor, Jane and Loki when she'd taken on the Dark Elves' ship and had hoped that they'd be all right, but she certainly hadn't expected to come across them here in Greenwich – not that she wasn't infinitely relieved that she wouldn't be going up against Malekith alone.
Hermione found herself on the receiving end of a quick one-armed hug from Jane. "Oh, thank God," Jane muttered. "We thought you were dead for sure. Thor's going to be so happy to see you."
"But how did you know Malekith would come here?" Hermione questioned them both.
Erik pointed over her shoulder and she turned, eyes widening at the large portal that had appeared in the sky. "The Ancients left us signs to the location of the Convergence," he explained.
"From here, Malekith can unleash the power of the Aether on all of the Nine Realms at once. With the worlds connected, the weapon's impact is hugely amplified," Jane added gravely as the Dark Elf in question strode confidently from the ship, followed by a score of others carrying weapons.
"So, what's the plan?" Hermione asked, returning her gaze to Jane and Erik. "There is a plan, right?"
Jane's explanation of causing distracting gravimetric anomalies with Erik's devices was punctuated by the sudden arrival below them of Thor, ready to confront and delay Malekith.
"And what about Loki?" Hermione enquired, looking around for a sign of the trickster.
"Dead!" Erik said cheerfully.
Hermione didn't quite know how to feel about that news so she brushed it aside. If she managed to live past the next few minutes, she'd think about it later.
More portals started appearing in the sky as Jane ran to the other side of the dome to check how Darcy and Ian (Darcy's intern) were getting on with grounding the devices around the site. Below them, Malekith was assaulting Thor with the Aether; blasting it at him as he had done with Hermione earlier. Luckily, the Asgardian didn't feel the effects of the power as much as she did and he seemed relatively unscathed after each attack.
Hermione looked up at the portals thoughtfully. "If I could transport Malekith to another part of the world, he wouldn't be able to use the convergence to destroy the Nine Realms, would he?"
Jane and Erik shared a calculating look. "No," they said in unison.
Hermione felt rejuvenated at the prospect of a solution that she could actually carry out without her wand; there was hope for the universe yet.
"Just beware of the anomalies," Jane warned as she fiddled with an electronic device looped around her neck. "Physics is going to be a little crazy for the next few minutes – not that its laws necessarily apply to you the way they do everyone else."
Hermione nodded and pulled out the Night-Night gun she'd been given by FitzSimmons. Should the anomalies accidentally transport her amongst her enemies or to another realm, she didn't want to be caught unprepared, and the weapon would deal with her foes without compromising her morals. With a nod at Jane and Erik, she apparated down to the grounds below but was a second too late as Thor had used Mjølnir to launch Malekith in a powerful arc across the courtyard; her fingers grasped nothing but empty air.
Thor gave a joyful shout at her appearance and she gave him a brief, encouraging nod before turning back to the invaders.
A number of Dark Elves had been caught in Malekith's path and were sprawled on the floor but those that weren't, raised their weapons at her. Hermione quickly fired the Night-Night gun at a couple of the creatures before apparating to roughly where Malekith had come to a stop.
A typical black London taxi had borne the brunt of Malekith's momentum and had nearly been torn in two by the force of the impact. Hermione had apparated just a few feet from him and desperately surged forwards to grab him. She doubted Malekith knew what she intended to do but, when he caught sight of her, he started summoning the Aether, intending to launch it at her. Knowing that she would be unable to protect herself against it, Hermione quickly flew away, aborting her attack.
Her place was taken by Thor, who landed smashing Mjølnir into the ground. Lighting crackled along the surface of the road and up Malekith's body, turning the rest of his face black too.
Hermione wished she could talk to Thor for just a moment, to tell him she could get Malekith away from London if she could only grab the dark elf. She could call out to Thor, of course, but that would rather give the game away to Malekith as well.
However, with Malekith being kept occupied by battling Thor, now might by the moment to strike – she'd just have to try and avoid being caught in the crosshairs of their rather volatile battle.
Having been circling around their heads for the last few seconds, Hermione dove at Malekith, intending to take on her solid form at the last moment.
Out of the blue, she impacted hard into a cool, tiled floor and there were shouts and screams of alarm around her. Dazed and struggling to draw in breath, it took Hermione a moment to realise that she must have slipped through one of those anomalies Jane had warned her of.
"Do – do you think she's OK?" a concerned voice whispered nearby.
"Don't go near her!" another voice said in alarm. "How do you know what side she's on?"
"It looked like she was trying to take on the big baddie out there," a third voice pointed out. "You know, before she turned into smoke."
Quickly tucking the Night-Night gun into a normal pocket, Hermione transformed into her falcon form before any of the muggles got too close. A number of expletives were let loose at her change.
"Bloody hell! I've just realised who she must be!"
"That's the Sorceress!"
Their amazement turned to more screams when all the windows in the room shattered. Hermione circled around the ceiling once and then soared through the remains of a window, careful not to cut herself on any glass.
Thor and Malekith were just a few feet away and she wondered which was the safest way to get to them without travelling through one of the anomalies. Her deliberation was stalled by the sight of Thor and Malekith disappearing through one of the glitches. She landed on the nearest roof and transformed into human form. She waited a few seconds for them to reappear but there was no sign. Hermione tried to take that as a good omen – if Malekith wasn't here then he couldn't unleash the Aether on the Nine Realms. She'd stay close by in case either Thor or Malekith reappeared but there were still the other Dark Elves to take care of. A couple of the creatures were running on the path below her. She quickly dropped them with the Night-Night gun and listened out for further sounds of commotion.
Nearby screams echoed to her left and she ran along the roof and straight through another anomaly. Hermione shivered and gaped around at the freezing, wintry landscape she found herself in. Enormous jagged, dark, vertical stones sprouted haphazardly around her, looking eerily beautiful – but that beauty wouldn't stop the extreme cold freezing her to death in a few minutes' time. Hermione stumbled quickly through the snow, hoping to come across another glitch to take her back to Earth – or at least somewhere warmer!
Suddenly, the world around her changed again. She dropped a few feet to the ground, the unexpected change in orientation causing her to roll down a grassy slope. Amid the familiar surprised yells at her arrival, Hermione winced as she threw out her injured hand to stop her momentum.
"Oi!" an annoyed voice shouted. "Get off the grass! Can't you read the signs?"
Hermione managed to somehow glance around her surroundings while pulling her cloak further over her face at the same time. With a gulp, she realised she was right in the inner part of the Tower of London. Plenty of tourists were milling around the area and she was very relieved that they hadn't noticed the firearm she was holding in her other hand. Seeing as they'd already witnessed her sudden arrival, she didn't see the harm in making a quick getaway either, so she disapparated to get back to Greenwich.
Judging by the rocky outcrop she found herself standing on, overlooking dense, green woodland, she hadn't quite managed to reach her destination…
Hermione managed to repress a growl of frustration at the unpredictability of the situation and instead swept her gaze along the horizon to determine whether she was on Earth or one of the other realms. If she was on her own planet then she could apparate back to London (providing the Convergence would let her!).
A huge, curved stone structure in the distance caught her eye and she frowned; it didn't look particularly Earth-like.
She flew off in apparation mode, hoping to get lucky with another anomaly and narrowly avoided abruptly colliding with the Dark Elves' flagship that was still parked in Greenwich. She veered downwards and landed in a sprawled heap at the base of the ship. Looking up, she saw that the portals were growing larger as the Convergence reached its peak. Hermione got to her feet and resolved to stay where she was. If she had managed to get back to Greenwich then there was every chance that Malekith would too and she'd be here to stop him.
And it seemed like the fates were finally on her side, for Malekith appeared on the ground not even ten feet away from her. He hadn't seen her, so she sprinted forwards and lunged for his arm, getting a decent hold on him. She twisted, thinking of a remote part of Lapland she'd once had to visit… and found herself amidst Jane, Erik, Darcy and Ian.
They let out strangled yells at her arrival and when they saw what she was clutching in her hand they yelped even louder. Hermione glanced sideways, expecting to see Malekith but there was just his arm! Somehow the disturbances of the Convergence had caused her to splinch him.
"Great," she muttered sarcastically as the others continued to gape at the limb. "It didn't work."
Something shifted in the air behind them and Hermione turned to look over her shoulder. Grimly, she saw that losing his arm hadn't particularly troubled Malekith because he had started to unleash the Aether.
Hermione thrust the arm in Darcy's direction.
"Ew! Gross!" she protested, flinging the limb at Jane instead.
"I'm going back to try again," Hermione said to the four of them. "You should all get as far away from here as possible."
Before any of them could respond, she disapparated, aiming for the spot she'd just vacated. She was close, but not close enough. Malekith saw her coming and kicked her forcefully in the chest. Her silver breast plate bore most of the impact but she was still propelled back a dozen feet. From her aching and winded position on the floor, Hermione raised the Night-Night gun and fired it at the Dark Elf. She didn't expect it to make much of an impact should it hit him but it was all she was capable of doing at that moment.
The rising swirl of the Aether rapidly increased in ferocity and the air around her was nothing but a savage black and red gale. Hermione strained to get to her feet, to move even an inch, but the strength of the Aether was too much. She could no longer see Malekith. There was only red and black.
And then there was only black.
Only the darkness.
Hermione gradually became aware of a sensation of weightlessness. Was this death? If it was, then it wasn't so bad. She felt almost protected, secure.
Slowly, her other senses began to develop. There were distant sounds, possibly voices, and she realised that something solid was supporting her back and underneath her knees. So she wasn't dead after all – someone (she assumed Thor) was carrying her. She tried to open her eyes or make her mouth function to tell him that she was fine and he could put her down, but she had no strength to even whisper.
The sounds around her began to become clearer. And there was something else; something that made her happy but her brain couldn't quite comprehend what it was. She puzzled over this for a moment and then her mind finally made the connection: Steve. The scent she'd been breathing in for the last few minutes was definitely his. With a jolt of adrenaline she forced her eyes open and gleefully saw that she was right.
He hadn't noticed that she was awake and, even though the light was somewhat overpowering for her eyes, she could still see how tense his jaw was. She tried to lift her arm to place a comforting hand to his cheek but had to settle for putting it against his chest instead. His eyes flashed down to her and she saw most of the tension drain away immediately.
"Hey," he said softly, bending down to press his lips to her forehead. "It's over. Thor stopped whoever it was you were fighting."
She peered up at him drowsily. "You're not Loki, are you?" she mumbled.
Steve's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Loki?" he repeated.
Hermione shook her head slightly as she remembered. "Never mind; he's dead."
"He is?"
"Long story," she murmured.
"Seems like it," Steve replied and Hermione sensed an aggravated edge to his voice.
"You're mad?" she questioned.
"No!" he protested quickly, shifting her body position so she was sat more upright. "Just… frustrated. You left the hotel and then never came back. I didn't know what to think!"
"It was Thor's fault," Hermione pointed out.
"Yeah, I know," Steve sighed. "He's already explained. But you can't expect me not to worry when you disappear like that."
"I worry about you on assignments too!" she protested.
"But even S.H.I.E.L.D didn't really know what was going on this time," he added. "You normally send me your otter to let me know you're OK but this time it was just a waiting game; I've been on edge for nearly three days."
"I couldn't exactly send a patronus across space!" she grumbled.
Steve kissed her forehead again. "Ignore me. I'm so relieved you're going to be alright that I'm just talking nonsense."
Hermione laid her head on Steve's shoulder but her mind dwelled on his concerns. She considered how she would feel if the situation was reversed and her stomach twisted sickeningly at the thought of him being MIA for even a couple of hours. She supposed that them both being in the same line of work didn't make things any easier because they knew precisely how much danger each other faced on a regular basis.
"The medical team are on their way to look at you," Steve said softly. "Apparently London's come to a bit of a standstill."
"How'd you get here then?"
"I ran as soon as S.H.I.E.L.D let me know you were in Greenwich. I arrived about a minute after it was all over."
"But…our hotel's in Covent Garden!" Hermione said in amazement at the distance he had travelled in such a short time.
"That's why it took me so long to get here," he replied simply. "You were in a pretty sorry state – you still are, really. I brought you in here for a bit of privacy."
Hermione glanced around at the wooden pews and ornately decorated ceiling. "Are we in a church?"
"Chapel," Steve corrected. "The battle took place just out there," he explained, nodding towards the door, which was suddenly thrown open to admit Thor, Jane, Darcy, Ian and Dr Selvig.
"Hey, Captain Gorgeous!" Darcy called. "Is she awake yet?" Darcy noticed that Ian was frowning at her. "What? I say it like I see it. You're totally still my hero." It looked very strongly like the two of them were about to engage in a passionate bout of kissing but Jane diverted their attention by shouting that Hermione was conscious.
"You're one tough cookie," Jane said admiringly as she came to kneel on the pew in front of Hermione and Steve. "That's the second time in a few hours that I've been convinced that you'd died!"
Hermione felt Steve tense against her.
"Ha!" Thor barked. "Even exposure to the full force of the Aether is not enough to stop our supreme Sorceress!" His buoyant demeanour was tempered for a moment as he regarded her. "You were prepared to die for the people of the Nine Realms, Hermione. They all owe you a debt of gratitude and I will make sure your praises are sung from Asgard to Nornheim!"
"That's really not necessary," she insisted.
"But of course it is! You battled Malekith and the might of the Aether even without your weapon of choice –"
"You didn't have your wand?!" Steve interrupted incredulously.
"Malekith broke it," Hermione muttered, not meeting his gaze.
"And seeing Jane with his dismembered arm helped me realise I could use the anomalies themselves to defeat him," Thor continued.
"The victory belongs to us all," Hermione maintained and Thor smiled widely at his friends.
"Indeed, it does," he agreed. "And I'm glad I was able to get you back to your betrothed in one piece."
"Just about," Steve muttered.
Thor nodded grimly. "I congratulate you on your engagement, my friend," he said, shaking Steve's hand. "And I promise to give you fair warning the next time I abscond with your fiancée."
The rush of adrenaline Hermione had felt at the sight of Steve was definitely waning. She realised just how sore her wrist was and how much her body ached.
"Hold up," Darcy said. "You two are getting married?"
Hermione hummed in confirmation and closed her eyes.
"Well, we're all invited to the wedding, right?" Darcy asked hopefully.
"Sure," Hermione sighed, starting to drift off to sleep.
"Yes!" Darcy cried. "Verbal confirmation – no backsies!"
Hermione strode through the corridors of the Triskelion, barely able to stop herself skipping in excitement. She nodded her head at various colleagues, some of whom knew her simply as ordinary S.H.I.E.L.D worker Saskia Hailsham-Grey, others who knew she was the Sorceress and fewer who knew she was truly just Hermione Granger.
She made her way to Operations, knowing that's where she would find Steve. In this part of S.H.I.E.L.D's Headquarters, everyone knew who she really was because they were the people she worked with week in, week out. For the first couple of months after she'd become an agent, stares would follow her wherever she went. They were discreet about their fascination but she wouldn't be a good operative if she wasn't aware of them. Interest in her was rejuvenated slightly after the battle of New York but that was more because a good number of her fellow agents didn't have clearance to know what had really taken place in Midtown. And then, two months ago, after Greenwich, she'd felt their eyes on her back again because the world finally had footage of the Sorceress. Thankfully, there wasn't much and the amateur footage hadn't been of high enough quality to show the part of her face that wasn't hidden under the hood of her cloak. Muggles in Greenwich had used their phones to record a small part of her initial attempts to confront Malekith and her transformation into a falcon. A couple of startled tourists had even caught her sudden arrival and departure at the Tower of London. The images and videos of herself and Thor had been uploaded onto social media and shared worldwide far too quickly for S.H.I.E.L.D to do anything to stop them.
When Hermione had first become aware of the unwanted attention a few hours later, she'd very nearly descended into a panic attack, believing that the muggle world would find out who she was, the wizarding world would discover that she was working with muggles and she'd most likely be sent to Azkaban! Not understanding the reasons for Hermione's panic, Darcy had shown her the footage and Hermione had almost sunk to the floor in relief. You couldn't identify her in any of the media and her lack of wand was actually a blessing in disguise. Any witch or wizard who happened to catch sight of her in the muggle news would probably be suspicious of someone who could change form into an animal or instantly disappear, but if she didn't arm herself with a wand, they would dismiss her as the latest muggle capable of incredible things. At least that's what she hoped.
The very few magical people who were already in the know about her collaboration with muggles would have known her for what she truly was. Kingsley had summoned her for a discussion to get a first-hand account of events, the same as he'd done after New York, and he agreed that they'd been very fortunate. And, so far, Harry and Kingsley had reassured her that there had been little chatter about the Sorceress in the magical world except to scoff at what a phony she was.
Reaction in the muggle world had been somewhat different. The cries of, 'Aliens!' were a lot stronger this time than after New York. One of the side effects of the Convergence had meant disruption to signals and satellites in the British capital, but in a relatively low-rise city such as London, a huge space ship wasn't exactly hard to miss. However, the security forces and intelligence agencies were quick to point out to the public that there was no ship. Well, not anymore, at least, for Dr Selvig had used his technology to send it to another realm. The people in charge of the cover up stated that the vessel and the 'creatures' that emerged from it, were a very elaborate hoax by an unknown terrorist force to spread fear and cause panic. Thanks to Hermione's message of warning, S.H.I.E.L.D had been very quickly on the scene and had locked down the area to control the situation as much as possible. The initial cries were one of a cover up but, just as they did after New York, the clamouring died down quickly. Humankind was far happier to deny something that was staring them in the face because admitting they weren't alone in the universe was a terrifying prospect that would completely revolutionise the world (even Thor wasn't believed to be alien by a huge majority of the human population!). No, it was far easier to go on pretending that nothing had changed.
There were, of course, plenty of people who weren't buying the official story and Hermione suspected that S.H.I.E.L.D had been happy to confirm that the Sorceress and Thor had been present in London in order to appease these individuals. This was the first time that the existence of the Sorceress had been formally established to the world (despite exceedingly strong rumours after New York) and it was the first time she'd been caught on camera. Focus in the media lasted a lot longer on her than it did on the 'aliens' angle because she was a much more credible story. When she'd first returned to the Triskelion after her enforced layoff after London, there had been front pages of newspapers from all over the world stuck up on various walls of Operations, all bearing various grainy images of her cloak-clad figure. Hermione had borne plenty of teasing from Ron, Fred and George over the years so she was able to just let the attention bounce off of her, but she still found it embarrassing.
Hermione spotted Steve casually chatting to Clint and Brock Rumlow. She felt another thrill of excitement at what was to come but hid it so as not to give anything away.
Clint was the first to see her and he grinned widely before bowing elaborately. "All hail the mighty Sorceress; defender of the Nine Realms!" he cried, eyes twinkling from where he looked up at her.
"Shut up you ben tian sheng de yi dui rou," Hermione casually retaliated, causing Brock to raise his eyebrows in surprise.
Clint also looked stunned for a second and then he straightened up and laughed in delight. "You guys actually listened to me and watched Firefly?" he asked, looking enthusiastically between Hermione and Steve. "They've got the best swearing in TV history and no one even knows because they do it in Chinese!"
Brock looked at her curiously. "What did you call him?"
"A stupid, inbred stack of meat," Hermione replied serenely and Clint clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
"Wong ba duhn, Hermione; you can't even make yourself curse properly in another language!" he protested before turning to Steve. "What about you, Cap? You got any good Mandarin swears you're willing to say?"
Steve shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm quite fond of, qing wa cao de liu mang: frog-humping son of a bitch."
"Well, that's slightly more like it, I suppose," Clint muttered, still not that impressed. "You here for an Op?" he asked Hermione but she shook her head.
"No, I'm here to take the birthday boy out for lunch," she replied, beaming at Steve.
"Oh, hey, many happy returns. I should've known that Captain America was born on the fourth of July of all days," Clint said slapping his friend on the back and Brock did likewise. Then Clint stared at Steve with a thoughtful expression on his face. "So, how old are you exactly? You into three digits yet?"
"I'm ninety-five if you go by my birth certificate," he replied.
"Man, that's old," Clint claimed, eyes wide.
"But, biologically, I'm twenty-eight," Steve pointed out, which was the number that both he and Hermione were more comfortable with.
"That number is a lot less crazy," Brock commented wryly.
"Yeah, but you should have said something," Clint protested. "Otherwise I would've got you a present… Or probably just a card… Maybe."
"Thanks, Barton," Steve said sarcastically.
"Well, I do have a gift of sorts," Brock said, walking over to a work station. "But it's for you, Granger. Sorry, Cap." He came back with a relatively large, sealed metal box.
"What is it?" she asked in surprise.
"I don't know," Brock replied, handing it over. "It got dropped off this morning."
Curiously, Hermione used her wand to cut away the protections on the package and lifted the lid, the three men looking over her shoulder. Her eyes widened at the contents.
"Huh," Barton said simply. "I wasn't expecting that."
Hermione reached into the box and lifted up the dress that had been neatly folded inside. "Is this some sort of joke?" she asked, her eyes seeking out Brock.
He held his hands up defensively. "It's got nothing to do with me."
Hermione frowned down at the material in her hands. Judging by the silver breastplate that was part of the ensemble, whoever designed the outfit had obviously taken inspiration from the clothes she'd been seen wearing at Greenwich. The top half of the dress was a dark navy, decorated with miniscule silver stars. The very bottom of her skirt was of the same blue, but gradually lightened until it met the adjoining fabric at the hips. The breastplate was engraved with tiny whirls apart from two large, red symbols that formed a strange, swirly cross in the centre of the plate.
"Wow. S.H.I.E.L.D obviously make more of an effort in the style stakes with your superhero outfit if you make the front pages," Clint said, looking admiringly at the dress.
"Are those crossed symbols supposed to be S's for Sorceress?" Steve asked, pointing to the red marks on her breastplate.
Brock tilted his head one way and then the other. "Yeah, could be. Hey, look, there's more in here too." He pointed inside the box which Hermione had put on the side. She passed the dress to Steve and took out the remaining items: a silky silver cloak, complete with hood, and a pair of white, knee-high boots.
"New uniform to be worn on future assignments," Brock read from the bottom of the box.
"Well, go try it on then," Clint suggested eagerly. "I want to see how badass you look." When Hermione didn't respond, Clint looked at Steve. "She's not saying anything. That's not good, is it?"
Steve shook his head minutely. He knew full well that a quiet Hermione wasn't normally a happy Hermione.
"Bao bei?" Steve prompted, using the Mandarin term of endearment they'd adopted.
Hermione looked up at him, still frowning. "Why would they make me wear something like this? On assignments I take Polyjuice potion or disillusion myself so as not to draw attention. This uniform completely contradicts that!"
"Hey, don't think for a second that you're going to stop taking those precautions," Brock gruffly reassured her. "I still run your assignments and my priority is for you to succeed in the most efficient way possible."
"But seeing how you always manage to find trouble, there are bound to be times when the inconspicuous methods won't be the right call," Steve pointed out. "And in those times, a superhero deserves a super-suit." Hermione sent him a sharp look. He knew very well that she didn't consider herself in the same league as her fellow Avengers. She was just a witch – there were plenty of others like her around the world. Whenever she was called a superhero, she felt like a fraud.
"The world wants to connect with you," Clint shrugged. "It's hard for them to do that with just a few fuzzy images. You're a brand now. Hey – you might get your own action figure after all!"
"So this is about making money out of me?" Hermione asked, holding up her cloak and boots and wrinkling her nose.
"No!" Clint objected. "Well, maybe for a few people. But do you have any idea how many little girls I've seen around the world wrapping sheets or towels around themselves, pretending to be you?"
"What sort of places do you hang out in?" Brock asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You don't have to look hard," Clint protested. "They're out there in the streets imagining casting spells and turning into animals. They love you."
"And it's not just kids," Brock added. "What about all those newspaper front pages people were sticking up to support you when you got back from London?"
Hermione stared at him. "But… they were making fun of me, teasing me… weren't they?"
"You know, for someone so smart, you can be quite dense sometimes," Brock claimed. "The people here are proud of you, dumbass."
"Yeah, and don't tell him," Clint stage whispered, "but you might even be more popular around here than Captain America."
"Woah, that's a big call," Brock claimed, holding out a protesting hand. "But he's right. I've never heard anybody say a bad word about either of you. It's sickening."
Steve put a comforting hand on the back of her neck and Hermione buried her face in the silky fabric of the cape for a second, head buzzing with what Clint and Brock had said.
"When I first got the Captain America name and costume, I was little more than a joke," Steve explained softly. "But that suit and shield ended up being something far bigger than me."
Hermione nodded. "You give people hope."
"And you do the same," Steve pointed out, "except up until a couple of months ago you've been able to do it from the shadows. You're not going to wear this suit on assignment all the time – that would be recklessly stupid. But I get the feeling that the last couple of years have only been the beginning. The people of this world are going to need all the strength they can get; let them take some of it from the idea of the Sorceress."
Hermione sighed and nodded again. "Thank you, all of you. Can we, er, forget this mini moment ever happened?"
"Sure, Mei-Mei," Clint agreed. "As long as you try on the suit!"
"Fine!" Hermione relented, taking the dress back from Steve and walking in the direction of the nearest toilets. "But no laughing!"
She apparated back to them a couple of minutes later, eager for as few people to see her as possible. The three men were so used to her instant arrivals that none of them even flinched at the crack.
"Happy now?" Hermione asked Clint, hands on her hips.
"Hell, yeah!" he replied with a grin. "You look awesome!"
"You really do," Steve agreed, a look of pride on his face.
"Boss?" she asked, turning to Brock.
"I don't like the cloak," he said bluntly. "It's going to be a nuisance and get in your way."
"But the hood helps shield my face," she replied, which was something she was very keen on. "And the dress is too restricting for me to spell on one of my pockets; I need the extra layer to carry around all my things.
Brock shrugged. "I'm just saying what I think but, at the end of the day, it's your suit."
"You know, you are so lucky that when the world finally saw you, you were wearing a decent outfit to begin with," Clint pointed out. "Imagine if it had all kicked off when you were dressed in horrible undercover clothes and you had to wear them for the rest of your active missions because 'that's what the Sorceress wears'!"
She was lucky, she had to agree with him there. "Well, the outfit designers obviously weren't a fan of turquoise," Hermione pointed out. "That was the colour scheme of the original dress."
Clint's eyes suddenly widened and he burst out laughing. The other three looked at him in confusion.
"What's so funny?" Hermione asked self-consciously. "I told you not to laugh."
Clint was bent double by this point, clutching at his stomach. "I don't believe it!" he rasped between laughs. "It's too good!"
"Anybody have any idea what he's on about?" Steve asked but Hermione and Brock shook their heads.
"You've got matching Mr and Mrs supersuits!" Clint wheezed, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye.
"What?!" Hermione yelped, looking down at herself and then over to Steve. He wasn't wearing his latest Captain America suit but she'd seen it enough times to have it memorized, and she realized that its dark navy colour scheme was exactly the same as hers. And then there were the white boots and the red symbol on her breastplate! She hadn't worn anything red or white in Greenwich…
"Please, please, tell me you're going to wear those outfits on your wedding day!" Clint begged and then descended into laughter again with Brock joining in.
"I still think you look great," Steve maintained, which only made the other two laugh harder.
Suffice to say, Hermione didn't keep the suit on much longer. She wasn't at all embarrassed about her connection with Steve; she just didn't appreciate her relationship being manipulated by the S.H.I.E.L.D top brass. If she ever found out who had made the call to match her suit to his, that person could very well be on the receiving end of an unwelcome jinx.
In the wake of uniform-gate, she'd almost forgotten why she was there and why she'd been in such a good mood a few minutes earlier. Steve was waiting for her outside the toilets and she brushed her various feelings about the suit aside, determined not to let them overshadow his birthday.
"Are you alright?" he asked when she emerged and Hermione flashed him a brilliant smile.
"I'm fine," she insisted. "It was just a bit of a shock, that's all." She laced her fingers through his, something she wouldn't normally do when they were at work together, and started tugging him towards the lift. "Let's go to lunch; I'm starving."
He looked a little surprised at her insistent behaviour. "OK. You know it's going to be difficult to negotiate the traffic with the parade road closures, right? Maybe I should leave my bike here and you can use your shortcut to get us around," he suggested, referring to her apparating ability.
"Oh, no, I'm sure it'll be fine," Hermione replied, pressing the button that would take them down to the car park. Steve accepted her confidence and absentmindedly ran his fingers over the ring he'd placed on her left hand as they quickly descended to the right level.
Walking amongst the vehicles, Hermione's smile became genuine again. She pulled a small, wrapped box from her pocket and held it out to him. "This is for you."
He paused, surprised by the suddenness of the presentation. "But…" he looked between her and the gift in confusion. "You already gave me this watch this morning!" Obviously thinking she'd somehow forgotten, he showed her the silver time keeping device on his wrist and even pressed the button that revealed its double function. In response to Steve's justified concerns regarding her abrupt departure from Earth with Thor, Hermione had thought about how she could offer him reassurance about her welfare when she was on assignments. Her solution was to give him a version of Mrs Weasley's clock back at The Burrow. When Steve pressed a specific button on his new watch, the face would change to show a single dial that would point at one of ten words to reveal her current location: work, shopping, travelling, holiday, socialising, lost, mortal peril, appointment, off world or home.
Hermione shrugged. "I wanted to give you this too."
"You're spoiling me," he claimed but he took the gift anyway.
"You deserve it," she said in reply and bobbed excitedly on the balls of her feet as he unwrapped the box and opened the lid. He stared at the key inside for a moment and then looked up at her. "What…?"
Hermione stepped aside and, with a flourish, indicated the vintage motorbike she'd been standing in front of. "I told you I'd think about it, didn't I?"
When he realised what she was referring to, Steve gaped at her. "You mean… this is a flying motorcycle?"
Hermione nodded, beaming. "I had some help to get it done. Harry had a much greater idea about the magic involved so he helped me with that side of things. I also had some assistance from a couple of S.H.I.E.L.D agents to add on some more advanced muggle technology too."
Steve had slowly walked down the length of the bike, gripping the handle bars and crouching down to inspect the bike further.
"What do you think?" Hermione asked tentatively in wake of his quiet reaction. She stood next to him. "I've written a manual for you so you know what the different – " The rest of the sentence was cut off by her squeal as Steve lifted her in his arms and spun her around.
"Whatever did I do to deserve you?" he asked in amazement as he lowered her down. Hermione twined her arms around his neck and kissed him sweetly.
"That's not the right question," she claimed.
He raised an eyebrow. "No?"
Hermione shook her head and pulled away from him to sit astride the motorbike. "You should have asked me where you should fly us for lunch."
Steve chuckled, kissed her again and sat in front of her on the bike. Hermione wrapped her arms around his waist. "I told you we didn't need to worry about the traffic and road closures!"
A/N Wooo, long chapter! Sorry if that was a bit of a slog!
The Firefly reference is a shout out to Joss Whedon and also to my sister who was begging me to watch the show for years before I actually did. I don't know whether Steve and Hermione would have actually watched that particular show but it's only thirteen episodes and a film so it wouldn't have been a particularly huge commitment. If any of your were wondering here are the translations of the terms they used (or what the internet tells me they mean!) :
Bao bei – Precious, darling, sweetheart, treasure
Mei-mei – Little sister
Wong ba duhn – Son of a bitch
I was totally against Hermione having a superhero outfit for a long time for the reasons that she states above - she doesn't need one! But it already annoys me how little females are represented in superhero films so I wanted to give her the credit she deserved. I drew her outfit (very badly) and my incredible sister took that and turned it into the most amazing picture. So, if you want to see Hermione's outfit take a look at my author picture. Isn't it awesome! I love you, Hannah!
One reviewer said that I like knocking Hermione out which, I suppose, is kinda true - not that I like causing her pain but because she's so much stronger than everyone else that it's pretty much the only way to stop her! If that's something that bothers you, you're not going to be much happier as we go (pretty extensively) through Winter Soldier!
Please drop me a review, either for the chapter or my sister's artwork! :)
Lil Drop of Magic