Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments!

Some of this chapter is heavily inspired by the writing of Kiersten White, "The Chaos of Stars".

March 10th 1944

Bucky's 27th birthday passed two days later without much revelry.

The Howling Commandos, Hermione, Howard, and Peggy met outside the mess lodge, long after dinner time. They sat themselves down on rickety wooden benches around a quickly lit and then blazing fire pit, most wearing their thickest jackets, scarves, and gloves to block out the cold Austrian winter air.

Hermione and Steve sat thigh to thigh among their friends and teammates while they smoked their cigars and cigarettes and sipped through several bottles of genuine whisky. After their heated moment in Hermione's cabin, Steve had courteously set her back down on her feet and then bid her goodnight after a round of restrained kisses. Disappointment had filled Hermione when he'd left, but she understood their positions. They both had their faces to maintain, and in a place where no one wanted a woman to succeed in a male dominated industry, Hermione had every motive to make sure she was untouchable in her climb.

Since their confessions however, a change had come between Hermione and Steve. They maintained a professional distance in every public area, but in the privacy of the Howling Commandos or in their own company, they stood near as shadows to each other. Trading smiles, and simple overt touches. Enjoying the confidence in their proximity, and the intimacy in their understanding.

She didn't fall in love, Hermione was not the type to descend anywhere without her research and planned reasons, but she did walk into it. With eyes wide open, and choosing to take every step. She had found, in all the world- perhaps in every world and in any reality, a heart that was made for her to love in a world where there was no love like hers.

Hermione felt it in every inhale of her breath, and as if it were seeping from her pores and circling the rounds of her curls. She smiled in the glow of the fire pit, thoroughly consumed in her own joy, and she felt the soft arm around her back pull her in ever closer.

Their friends and teammates smiled around them, and it lightened the midnight air as the coveted alcohol was passed around. Jokes were tossed back and forth above the flames, and laughs echoed off the timber houses.

Bets were made on the Dodgers chances for winning this year's League Series and it was heatedly argued. Logan was a staunch Pittsburgh Pirates fan, and both Steve and Bucky went for blood. Those born out of the States apparently had heard enough on all the teams, and they too joined the debate.

Toasts were then made about Bucky, the War, and the downfall of Hydra and the Nazis.

Happy Sam Sawyer passed around the newest Captain America comic strip. Steve mentioned the new Bucky Bears that were released last month to the public for the war support.

And Hermione was happy.

She smiled through it all. With Steve's arm around her waist, and the warmth of his body heat and the alcohol in her blood, her eyes misted. She wished that she could stay in this moment forever.

Hermione knew that the War would end in just a little over a year from now. Only one more round of birthdays and holidays. On September 2, 1945, the end of the 6 year World War would be declared over at long last. At least it had been in her world.

Here, who knew? Perhaps the defeat of Hydra would make it end faster? Or perhaps something would happen and it would lengthen the time to a decade. To a never ending war. Hermione didn't know what the future held, but when she looked around at the faces tipped upwards in laughter and the hidden smirks behind glass bottles, she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she wouldn't ever see this, be in this moment of content, ever again.

Bucky nudged her. "Whatcha starin at?" he asked quietly as his teammates staggered to their cabins, dawn a few short hours away. "Been quiet."

Hermione, Steve, Bucky, Howard, and Peggy were all that was left around the dying fire. However, Howard was deeply asleep from the amount of alcohol he'd consumed. He clutched an empty bottle close to his side, with his chin tucked into his chest. Peggy was at his side, staring into the flames, lost in her own thoughts, while Steve examined the stars, content in the quiet that filled the area as his team left for their beds.

After the rowdy energy of their celebration, the peace of the night felt like a calming blanket. Hermione tipped her head up. The warmth of the fire seeped across her jaw and neck. "Nothing," she said as she took a last sip of the whisky bottle in her hands. She felt the fire of alcohol slide down her throat and it ignited her insides, keeping her warm. She grinned at Bucky, slightly tipsy. "Although you know, I've got a present for you."

Bucky's eyebrow raised. "For me?"

Hermione softened, her own depressing thoughts of the night disappearing. She reached inside her jacket and brought forth a gleaming copy of his dog tags. She'd made them a few months back in order to experiment on a new form of protection charms, primarily using the metal as the base, and had found some success during her months of trial and error.

He blinked. Then whistled appreciatively. "A matching set of my own tags, huh?" he asked. He winked at Steve. "Watch out Stevie, your girl has been holding on to my dog tags."

Steve's deep laugh permeated the air and Hermione suppressed a roll of her eyes. "It's for protection," she said hotly, a blush climbing her face while she passed Bucky his gift.

Bucky's eyebrows raised again and studied the dangling necklace. "Did you-?" He wiggled his fingers suggestively.

"Magic them?" Hermione asked. "Yes."

He rotated the metal in the firelight, as if he could see her spells. "Huh. Alright, I'll bite. What does it do?" he asked.

Well, that was the question, wasn't it? Because it was keyed to only work for Bucky, Hermione hadn't ever been able to truly test anything. "Hopefully, It'll protect you from .. whatever might happen out there."

The glint of the metal flashed across his face. "I don't mean to mean to sound ungrateful here, but what does that mean?" He looked up, hands dwarfing the metal tags.

Hermione could understand the trepidation. "Well, it can never be forcibly removed from you, for starters," she listed quietly, her mind shuffling through scenarios where it might come in handy. Bucky's imprisonment with Hydra had been one of her biggest motivations for the charm, inspired by Harry's moleskin necklace from her school years.

"And if I'm dead?" Bucky asked impassively.

Steve reared back, almost like a flinch. "Buck-"

"It'll fall off, completely useless. No one else will be able to use it." She swallowed and cleared her throat. Clinically, she started again. "The dismemberment of a body would have to be very severe for the enchantment to no longer process-"

"Hermione!" Steve exclaimed.

Bucky nodded. "So it'll always stay on nice and tight, gotcha."

He made to pull it over his head, but Hermione stopped his arm.

"It's also nearly impervious to any damage," Hermione informed him. "I've had it sitting in a solution that I've been fiddling with for some weeks, and I've charmed it to near combustion." She bit the side of her lip. "Theoretically, hopefully, this will act as an all around protection charm. It will make you feel as if you're very lucky." The solution Hermione had made the metal soak in was the most basic form of a potion she could create without the magical ingredients needed. It had made the metal more tolerant for enduring long lasting enchantments and had been a process learning how to metalwork with layered charms and protections. A lot of collapsed spellwork and rebounded magic had left Hermione with a new appreciation for Goblin metallurgy.

"Bullets might somehow miss hitting you. Knives will glance off instead of penetrate. Fires or explosions won't hurt you as bad." She met his eyes. "It'll be the best of every protection offered, but it won't make you invincible. You can still get shot, or stabbed, or burned. You can still die," she said seriously. "This'll just - make it a lot harder for others to kill you. Hopefully."

He held the necklace in his palm. "Sounds too good to be true."

Well he wasn't wrong. Hermione tried to smile, and nodded at the metal. "It's completely up to you if you want to accept this, but the only way for the dog tags to work as powerfully as I wanted them to, for as long as possible, is by making it- power off of you, basically."

Bucky's eyebrows came together across his head. "Like off my soul? Cause that-"

"No!" Hermione nearly laughed. Catholic boy indeed, deep down. "The enchantments that hold this together will be based off of your own energy. What you give off unintentionally as you live day to day. What you exert just by breathing."

"You can do that?" Steve asked from behind Hermione.

She shot him a soft look. "Like I said, theoretically. The maths adds up on it at least, and I couldn't test it on myself." Steve frowned.

"Will it - I don't know- hurt at all?" Bucky asked, looking into her eyes.

"No," Hermione answered with a frown. "It should be passive energy collection, and only used when something physically tries to get through your skin."

Bucky nodded. "Bullet, knife, fire," he recalled.

Hermione nodded along with him. "The thing is, this is my first finished prototype. It took me months to get everything right, and even then, the protection isn't perfect. With this, once the energy collection starts, it won't ever stop."

He paused. "That's why it can't be taken off," he guessed.

She swallowed. "Not even by you," she said, steadily informing him. "Once you put this on, it will never come back off again. It's a protection for life."

Steve stood up at this, righteous as his first beating. "Buck-"

"Don't you think that's his decision, Captain?" Peggy said from across the fire. Hermione had nearly forgotten she was still here, she had been so silent.

"It's forever. He'll have no choice if he says yes," Steve argued. His eyes flickered from Bucky back to Hermione. "Isn't there someway-" he started softly.

"So it's kind of like a tattoo then, right?" Bucky stared right back at Hermione, his eyes far away. "That doesn't sound too bad. You know-" he said, "in every Hydra compound we destroy, there's always at least one person we find that's already dead inside."

Steve's eyes flickered to the flames, the fight frozen in his shoulders.

Hermione did not like the dull glaze in Bucky's eyes as he talked about his missions. She took one of his hands softly between hers. "You don't have to put it on now," she said, leaning forwards. "You don't have to put it on ever, if you don't want to. This is the first of it's kind and if you're not comfortable with it, it can be destroyed." She looked across the fire. "Or I can try and pawn it off to Peggy."

The Agent raised an eyebrow. "Wear his dog tags for the rest of my life? My grandmother would roll in her grave."

Bucky half smiled and massaged the metal between his fingertips. "A forever protection," he mused.

Steve's eyebrows pulled down over his face. "Buck-"

"You remember what it's like, in every compound," Bucky interrupted. "Every time, there's always been at least one," he remembered, half living his own memories. "Tortured. Experimented on. Driven insane." He shook his head. "And that was me for a little while, inside those camps. I lived that. Except I was also one of the few who ever get rescued. I got to walk out," he said, and looked to Hermione. "So if I wear this, and it saves me from ever having to go -" he looked down at his lap and swallowed, before forcing his eyes back up. "From living through that again. I think that this is the smallest price anyone could have asked me for," he continued. "I'll gladly wear it. Until I die, in this War or in peace."

Hermione felt his conviction in her bones. His solemnity in her heart. Bucky and Hermione smiled.

Steve sat back down at Hermione's side, eyes on the necklace. She felt the heat of his palm at the edge of her hip as he looked over her shoulder. "You sure, Buck?"

His friend rubbed at the metal in his hands again. "We don't know how much longer this all is gonna last," he grimaced. "Months? Years? If it gets me back home - I'm okay with it." He winked at Hermione. "I trust your girl."

Steve nodded, his chin lightly leaning against the skin of Hermione's forehead. She tipped her head up to see his eyes, and Steve squeezed lightly when his cornflower gaze met hers. The edges of his mouth turned up, accepting Bucky's choice and thanking Hermione in the same curling smile. "I just don't want you to feel like you've got something to prove," Steve signed, eyes back to Bucky.

Hermione agreed. He was already a great shot, a fantastic soldier, and a loyal friend.

The sergeant rolled his eyes. "Right, because we don't know anybody who would let a scientist experiment on them to be stronger for the War."

Hermione huffed, and Steve dropped his head with a nod. "You got me there pal."

Bucky returned the grin. Then he pulled the necklace over his head, and the glint of the fire highlighted Bucky's name dangling from his chest. His eyes looked over his hands after a few following moments, like he expected to see physical evidence of her magic over his skin. He flipped his palms over in his examination. "That it?"

Hermione took out a small pocket knife from her jacket, and opened the small blade. "Give me your hand."

There was no hesitation when Bucky stuck out the offered appendage. His trust warmed something in Hermione that she hadn't known was cold and dead.

She gently pricked the tip of Bucky's pointer finger and let three drops of his blood fall onto the metal. She closed her eyes and whispered one last spell, binding Bucky's life force to the protections of the necklace. The fire roared higher as her magic was released, and the heat of the flames enveloped her. She opened her eyes as the flames fell back down, and watched as Bucky put a hand to his chest, right over his necklace.

"That's - I mean I can feel-" he breathed out, breathless. He blinked several times, and the sincerity in his gaze left her stunned. "Thank you, Hermione."

Pleased, but embarrassed, Hermione nodded softly. "Always."

These were her people. Her friends. The War could take a lot, but it would not take this from her. She had already lived through so much, in both worlds. She would not do it alone. Not again.

The night ended, and those sober enough to walk, left back to their cabins. Steve walked her to her door and kissed her goodnight, his eyes light and awe filled. "I love you," he whispered softly, only for themselves.

Her heart swelled, her face heated, and she clasped his hands. "I love you, too."

When she closed the door behind her, exhausted from the night but wound up from the feelings coursing through her body, Hermione sat at the edge of her bed and smiled into the darkness.

As if the universe had heard the echo of Hermione's joy, it retaliated in kind with one fell action.

On April 16th, 1944, Hermione and Howard received word that General John McGinnis' soldiers raided Stark laboratories and stole the unstable Midnight Oil gas, and all pertaining research.

Three days later, using Air Force planes, they flew over the Eastern Front, near the city of Finow, Germany and released the gas onto a Soviet army who had been tasked to crush the German defenses in the area. 247 Soviet Armed Forces soldiers were massacred as the gas ripped through their bodies, turning the soldiers mad with one sole thought on their minds - to kill everyone around them.

In the report afterwards, dubbed the Battle of Finow and twisted to look like a Hydra attack for the public, evidence suggested that the poisoned Soviets had started behaving like animals: biting each other, slitting each others' throats, gouging their eyes out, and cutting their skin. In the end, the field was filled with dozens of bloody corpses. There were no listed survivors.

Howard raged. Face red, and yelling at anyone he could get his hands on. At General McGinnis' demotion in England, Hermione heard that he had punched the General in the face several times before he had been bodily pulled off while yelling threats.

Hermione had been sick. Her hands had helped create this devastation. Her work. Her mind. Her equations and time. She had created a deadly armament that killed nearly 250 soldiers in a single moment. It was worse than the Killing Curse, or any of the Unforgivables. It had been her, and the trenchant destruction of her own work was like a disease in her heart.

She couldn't look at her projects, her weapons without nausea. When Steve was scheduled to return from his most recent mission, Hermione requested for transfer at a Allied field hospital in Italy to work on the medical applications she had made. She would not be able to look him in the eyes.

And while Howard justified his participation in the massacre by the weapon being stolen from him, Hermione could not turn her back so easily on her involvement.

She felt broken, gutted, and furious.

She was not sure how she would move forwards, her taint in history already so bloody, but she knew one thing with absolute clarity: She would never let her work be used against her ever again. She would make sure that what she created, what she did in this world, was only for the betterment of people forever more. She would never, never create another weapon so dangerous.

If there were another magic user she could have contacted, she would have asked for an Unbreakable Vow to swear for it. But she had none in this world, alone as she was, so Hermione wrote with stone and steel in her mind, and swore to herself.

She was not going to be a weapon for this War, she would be salvation, even if it bloody well killed her.

*You will not have to watch the Agent Carter TV series to understand anything moving forwards, but I will be using parts of it to work with Hydra/Widow Training/Mind Control in this story. I will explain everything in this story as it progresses!*

~Missmusicluver