I wrote almost the entirety of this during my breaks during work. (Heh.. sorry it took so long for this chap.)

A quote in this chapter is taken directly taken from "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan. At the time of release in 1963, it was a book that grew popular because it rebuked the pervasive post-World War II belief that women would find the greatest fulfillment in the routine of domestic life, performing chores and taking care of children.

I found that Maria Stark, being the 15 year difference that she is from Howard's generation, would have ABSOLUTELY read about the systemic analysis of society undermining women in order to keep them at home. She would have RUINED people in her arguments, as a baddie does. (My version of Maria Stark)

Muriel was a commonly loved cigar brand in the 70s, also expensive

WARNING TAG: This chapter deals with childbirth/near death of the mother. It's not super descriptive, but If you don't like this/find it traumatic in any way, I recommend you disengage and go to the summary at the end.

1965 - New York - 20 Years After Hydra's Downfall

HERMIONE GRANGER

Hermione sat slumped in her hospital bed, mind whirling. After a very lengthy talk spread over three days, the Ancient One had finally left back to her dimension. And because of the time difference in this world and reality, the elder woman didn't know when she would be able to come back. She had her own life to live, a body to feed, and apparently some kind of school to co-teach, but she promised Hermione that she would return when she could.

Hermione hoped so.

Now that she was awake and aware of herself, it was not long until her sorrow swallowed her whole, leaving her curled into herself and unmoving.

Not only had Hermione been 20 years asleep and gone from her home, as the Ancient One had informed her, but Steve - wonderful, loving, hardworking, unremitting Steve - was also dead. The love of her life. Her closest everything. Her person. He was gone - died in a plane crash to save the world apparently, and Hermione's heart broke. Then rebroke in every stuttering second after.

She wept for what had been, what could have been, and for her own foolishness. Her regret filled every pore, her grief every breath. She was so angry with herself, with Johann, and even with Steve and his unselfishness that she felt she could fill the world with her tears of rage and echoing sobs in the days afterward.

He was dead and she had lost.

She had lost everything.

Except for the War itself. That one they had won, the Ancient One had smiled at her. The Allies had triumphed, Japan had surrendered, and the world had spun on. The tesseract had been taken back by Howard Stark, but the Ancient One didn't know much more than that about him or the object. She had been silent about Peggy and Erik as well, either because she didn't want to upset Hermione more, or because she truly hadn't heard of them.

Either way, Hermione's people were out of reach. She was truly by herself, exempting the Ancient One, for the first time in her life. The last time she had lost a significant amount of time had been in her second year at Hogwarts when she had been paralyzed by the basilisk. When she woke, she knew that she would have Harry, Ron, and her parents to welcome her back.

If- when she woke up this time, who would be waiting?

After twenty years, Merlin, after whenever she woke back up, Peggy and Howard would have surely moved on with their lives by then. Her family was - gone, dead - her friends would have grown into their lives after the war… What did she have after all this time? Who would she be?

In every scenario that she had ever thought about during the war, skipping time had not been one. Now it was the only thing that filled her days after she had spent herself of the tears and the rage. She did not get hungry, or tired, only bored and sad. She filled her time with learning how to gain control of what little magic- energy - she could in this dimension from her body in the other.

As the days - weeks - months passed, she began to gain a better sense of her new world and how she could affect it. Time moved quickly here, much more so than the real world, and she learned that to a point, she could manipulate it with her thoughts. If she willed herself and consciousness to slow, she could actually slow time long enough to solidify the hazy lines inside the Astral Dimension to see her nurse's smile lines or hear the ghost of her voice. If she didn't, Hermione found that she was moving too fast in her own dimension to pick up those senses and extra details that were otherwise obvious in reality.

She also learned that it hurt sometimes, to slow herself down. Doing so for too long was like pressing a hot poker into her skin - all over her body, inch by inch. She hypothesized that it was her body's way of fighting back and saying that controlling time required using her magic, and her magic was still in turmoil with the tesseract's energy, even dimensions away. She couldn't touch it for long, but she tried. She tried to enjoy a sunrise, to hear her nurse's smiling introductions in the morning, or to even read her own medical chart. With nothing else to occupy her time, eventually she got good at it.

In addition, her time as a dimensional-soul ghost-thing (Hermione had not decided on the correct term for this yet), she had figured out the Rules and Limitations of this dimension.

Rule 1) The length of which Hermione could travel away from her body was dependent on how settled her magic was or how strong she was. EX: As of now, she could travel the entirety of the building she was in, but if she took one step out of it, she was sucked right back to her hospital bed like the end of a rubber band.

Rule 2) Hermione could not directly affect the physical world no matter how hard she tried. EX: Hermione could not open a door. Now, she could pass through a door, or a wall, or even a person, but she could not open it if it was not already open in the active reality.

Rule 3) Hermione could pick up the copy of an item (the Being or soul of it as the Ancient One explained) and interact with that instead. EX: If tea was brought into Hermione's hospital room, she could pick up the copy of the beverage and roughly feel and taste it in her palms and across her tongue. It wasn't necessarily real, but she could interact with it.

Rule 4) Rule 3 did not affect any living being. Animal, plant, or human. It boggled Hermione's mind because atoms were a thing and it shouldn't matter if fundamentally all things were the same- but somehow , it mattered in the Astral Dimension. She couldn't do anything to living beings from the Astral Dimension.

Before the Ancient One made a visit back to Hermione, some three weeks later, Hermione was visited in real life by someone who she recognized as soon as his figure stopped for a breath of a moment in her doorway, suddenly achingly familiar. In a neatly pressed light gray, three piece suit with a bright red tie, tailored pants, and shiny oxford shoes, came Howard Anthony Walter Stark. She gaped for a moment, wondering if she was really seeing what was in front of her, and hurried to slow time. When she did, all she could do was stare.

He's so much older now, was her first thought when she floated over to him at her door. In sudden clarity she could see that his hair line had risen and his chin had become wider and more defined. He was thinner, maybe a little taller, and his deep hazel eyes were wrinkled where they had never been once before. The image of a powerful man, easy in his skin, used to his world and who he was. A leader.

Hermione's eyes watered. Her friend, Howard, was truly a man now. He'd always been one, true, but she had never seen him so … settled. Sharp, perhaps, and reminiscent of an elder professor instead of her peer and coworker. It was disorienting and saddening. He looked to be… so much more.

She reached out as if to touch his cheek, but was interrupted when he turned his head to talk to someone over his shoulder, waiting at his back. Two other people stood behind him, Hermione realized. She tipped her head to the side in wonder, and cleared her mind so that she could hear the ghostly noises of their conversation.

"... know that I've kept things from you both, but that stops now. You deserve to know as some of the most important people in my life." He held an arm out as if to welcome them into her room.

A woman with pale blonde hair, incredibly blue eyes, and who was distinctly younger than Howard was the first to step into the room, leaning naturally into his arms. "Howard, dear-" she said, and Hermione's mind stopped for a split second.

Her eyes slid down without thought to the woman's left hand, and then to Howards, and noticed that they both wore wedding rings. Incredibly expensive, obviously designer, that matched as a couple… She gaped again. Howard was married.

Her mind restarted.

Oh, how wonderful! Hermione smiled and felt her nose tingling in preparation for tears. Howard's married! I knew he'd find someone! I knew it!

Looking closer at the woman who'd taken her friend's heart, Hermione realized quickly that she had a kind looking face. Heart shaped and delicate, with proud rosebud lips and regal cheekbones, the classically pretty type of woman who looked made to stand resolutely at his side. She tipped her head back as she looked at her husband, and smiled cautiously.

Howard tucked the woman's arm close into his like he was reassuring her, and then gazed down at her, obviously in love, endeared and familiar. Hermione could only smile softly after them, heart feeling full for the first time since waking up. The other man waiting in the hallway stepped in after the first.

"Howard this is… all very impressive," the other man said. He was tall, wore an expensive suit as well, and had dark brown hair that was thinning at the top. His eyes scanned the room with amusement and surprise. "I couldn't have known that this was a hospital from the outside. So much equipment and personnel! Where are all the other patients?"

Howard mentioned Hermione's prone body on the bed. "This place is less a hospital and more like a private clinic. It only extends the top three stories of the building, and in total, the only patient in The Asclepius Care Center is her. Hermione Granger."

The woman beside Howard gasped, recognition crossing her face and widening her eyes. "That's- that's Hermione Granger?"

"The woman who'd helped inspire so many of our weapons during the War?" the taller man asked with equally wide eyes, stepping closer to her bed.

Hermione frowned. Howard was still in the weapons business? Whatever happened to the Stark Expo and the ideas he'd had of the future? What about getting out of the weapons business?

Howard nodded. "The one and only."

"But she's so- darling, she's so young."

Hermione stopped. Her eyebrows furrowed. Young? She looked .. young? Well, perhaps against Howard, but 20 years had passed since she'd-

Her scrunched expression flattened, and her lips parted as she turned back around to face her own body. Twenty years had passed and she- she-

For the first time, Hermione took a closer look at the body laid out in the hospital bed. She scanned herself from head to her covered toes, taking in every curl of her hair, every exhale from the nose, and every line on her face. A breath left her without notice, and the fingers of her hand shook as she traced the slope of her own sleeping face.

Howard was right, Hermione realized. While the marking of time was clear on Howard's face, Hermione's body hadn't seemed to have aged a day. Her hair had gained no gray, her face no new wrinkle or line. She still looked to be in her middle to late twenties. She should be fifty now. Thirty when she had confronted Johann, then adding twenty years asleep to the world. Wizards and Witches might age more slowly than muggles, but this was ridiculous.

"And that's exactly why you're both here," Howard acknowledged, and extended his arm out as if he was gesturing to all of the room. "Maria, Obi, you both are closer to me than anyone else in Stark Industries and at home, and I need for you to be able to handle things in case me, or my backup plans go belly up. You both need to know some of my most important projects just in case Peggy Carter-Sousa and the Agency can't handle it and I'm gone."

The woman named Maria looked horrified. "Howard, you're not saying-!"

He comforted his wife with a soft pat on her back. "Doll face, nothing's gonna happen to me, cross my heart. But just in case … you both need to know. As head of the Stark household if I'm gone," he said to Maria, "and as head of Stark Industries," he said to the other man, Obi. He motioned to Hermione's body again. "There are some things that need both parts of Stark money to look after them, should the worst happen, and Hermione's care is one of them."

"What happened to her?" his wife asked. "I thought she died in the Hydra base with Captain America."

"For those that know her name, that's what's been documented under the highest clearance we have. For those who don't, she doesn't even exist, and this is why."

Hermione's breath caught in her chest. She didn't exist to the public? A clearance level? Hermione could understand the need for discretion with the tesseract because of its destructive energy, but for herself? Her heart sank, and rumbling thoughts like thunder rolled through her mind.

Unfortunately, it would make sense, at least in the eyes of the SSR. The tesseract had infected her, and she was prone because of it. Of course she would have been stricken from the record and hidden. This was the outcome of underestimating outer terrestrial energy.

He led both new people further into her room so that they were standing above Hermione's bed. "For whatever reason, after tesseract contact in the Hydra base, Hermione became comatose. No external stimulation has changed that in the twenty years she's been here. She breathes on her own, all of her biological functions are in order, but she hasn't regained consciousness since she was laid here. The only thing that's changed is her increased brain activity in the past five years."

Obi's eyebrows rose. "Interesting. Does that mean you think she'll wake soon?" he asked.

Hermione's eyebrow rose and she smiled.

" We… really don't know. It's possible, of course, but it's also possible that this is a high before an incoming low for her brain, meaning death. She's been here so long, her body might never wake back up and this is the body's way of announcing its plans. We don't have any other tesseract induced studies to go off of, so it's a day-by-day basis."

Hermione's face fell. She didn't feel like she was dying, the Ancient One said that if anything, she was getting stronger as both of her internal energies settled.

"And why does she look so young?" Obi further asked.

Howard shook his head. "Another mystery. The tesseract perhaps? We're not entirely sure, but she's, again, the only one who's ever been in this situation before. All we know is that her insides and her outsides aren't aging at the proper rate they should be."

"Jesus, Howard," Obi said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Maria tipped her head to the side and looked down at Hermione with said, wide eyes. "Oh Howard, I'm so sorry. I can't imagine how this must all feel. She was such a close friend in the War."

"She's alive, darling, and that's what matters right now," Howard answered with an upturn on his lips. His arms came round to keep his wife close to his side. "It's my job to take care of her until she wakes back up, and that's why you're both here. In case I'm not able to, I need both of you to finish my work."

Maria let out a low, concerned breath and held Howard's arm between her hands. "Of course we'll look out for Miss. Granger," Maria promised. "She's basically family at this point, isn't she?"

Howard turned to his wife with a look that melted Hermione's heart, and then tucked her hand into his elbow. They shared a private moment as only one can when you know the other as intimately as your own breath, and then he turned to Obi with a small smile. "And you, old friend?"

The businessman put his hands in his tailored trouser pockets and grinned. "Of course, bud. Whatever you need." He looked over to Hermione's body and his eyes narrowed. "I'm your guy."

And although Hermione heard his promise and knew that it was meant as a declaration of support, Hermione couldn't help the shiver of feeling something wrong slide down her proverbial back. His power-hungry eyes said more than his words did and they turned his oath slimy. She felt as if she wanted to flinch back from him.

However, right at that moment, the pain in Hermione's stomach of a hot poker slowly being shoved through her ribs came roaring to life and she released her hold on time. Howard, Obi, and Maria began moving and speaking again faster than she could see and hear and she was left in the rapid pace of time. She watched with sad eyes as they left as one back into their own lives, and Hermione stood left behind, alone, once more.

OBADIAH STANE

Obadiah got into his separate limo after the 'clinic' with a thousand thoughts rattlin against his brain.

He had finally gotten the man to get back into manufacturing weapons last year after the whole Anton Vanko fiasco when the man had been accused of espionage by selling the Arc reactor design to the back market and getting Howard to have him deported as a spy. It had finally put them back on track that had made Stark Industries so much money, and Obadiah meant for them to stay on their new industry course.

But the woman, hell, the legend from Howard's own voice was not only still alive, but damn near immortal. She hadn't aged a single day past the photo that Howard had once shown him in the safety of his study, late into the night, and more than tipsy a few years back.

She was still young. Untouched by time, and Howard - brilliant but erroneously stupid at the absolute worst of times- Stark, wasn't doing a damn thing about it. They practically had the elixir of immortality in their hands! And what, Howard didn't want to dig deeper because he knew her once upon a time?

He lit the end of his cigar and shook his head.

The girl was a vegetable, plain and simple. 20 years a vegetable at that! Perfect for taking a little of something and using it for the rest of humanity.

He scoffed and then puffed. He let the smoke of the Muriel fill his breath and calm his racing nerves.

Hell, he was even willing to bet that if he could sell her little gift in a bottle to the rest of the world, he'd make it more valuable than even the Captain America super-soldier-serum, and people all over the world were selling their souls to get even the worst grimes of that lost artifact.

Smoke filled the long cabin of his limo, the taste smoky-sweet on his tongue, lingering and deliciously, and then, he smiled.

Well actually, that was a hell of an idea.

February 1970 - Asclepius Care Center, New York - 25 Years After Hydra's Downfall

HERMIONE GRANGER

Five years passed. Less than that for Hermione, but in the outside world, much had happened since Hermione's awakening.

Colonel Phillips died the year before, and Hermione found out through Peggy who visited before his funeral. She left her a tulip at the end of her bed, and then exited with a sour smile on her lips. Hermione watched her leave with her heart hurting, knowing that the man she had respected for so long was no longer here, and who she would never be able to see again. It was as if she lost another small piece of herself, her history, as Peggy walked out her door.

But still, that was not the worst of it. Even more heartbreaking was the news from the Ancient One of Erick Lehnsherr, the boy who was supposed to be her son. He'd grown up to be a murderer.

As a full man now, he'd named himself Magneto in her absence and created a terrorist organization filled with beings now named in the world as mutants, who fought for mutant supremacy over humans. A far cry from the traumatized boy who was tortured by Nazis for his parent's religion. His Brotherhood killed humans for the 'mutant revolution', all under his name, and she learned that as more of the world learned of mutants and began to fear their extra abilities, the more mutants gathered under his banner. And so, the vicious cycle of violence and hatred continued, originating from the person she had imagined a sweeter future with.

If she had a stomach, she'd have thrown up. As it was, when she cried her despair at his rotted bitterness and the grief of him losing the light she had tried to nurture, her body in the physical dimension did as well. Streams of tears fell down her pale skin and flooded the cotton of her pillow. Silently. Abruptly. And unfortunately, it also scared the daylights out of her nurse, and later Howard, when her tears endured through several grief-ridden days.

He visited Hermione while she was settled deep in her own self-loathing and disappointment after the Ancient One's news of Erick. She watched him at the opening of her doorway with itching red eyes, and sniffled lowly. "Howard," she croaked and floated uneasily to her feet. She reached within herself, grabbed hold of whatever tether was growing stronger within her, and slowed time.

The world snapped back into crisp awareness. Wearing a three-piece suit, a neatly trimmed mustache, and a leather briefcase in his left hand, Howard cautiously approached Hermione's bed. His eyes zeroed in on her sleeping face, tears leaking out of the corners of her closed eyes. His lips downturned.

From behind Howard, her new nurse, who Hermione had figured out was named Nora Palmer and had recently married a doctor in town, followed after him. The nurse Hermione had originally woken up with and that had been by her side since she'd arrived from Germany had retired some years prior.

Nora's hazel eyes travel worriedly from Hermione's body to the billionaire at her side. "She's been this way since yesterday morning. Out of nowhere- crying-"

"Any new independent variables introduced to her room?" he asked briskly, bringing a hand to Hermione's forehead as if testing her temperature.

Hermione did not feel the warmth of his hand or the comfort offered.

"Perfume, spicy food, brand of antiseptic?" he continued.

"So, sir," Nora answered. "Everything has been the same as long as I've been with her, and that's been almost three years now, sir."

Howard hmmmed under his breath. "Not an allergic or stimulated reaction then. Actual tears? Phycological?" he said to himself, though both women in the room could hear him.

"Is she waking up, sir?" Nora's eyes widened.

Howard blinked, looking taken aback before swallowing thickly. "I doubt it, Mrs. Palmer. Miss Granger has not been awake for 25 years… Although, I do wonder-" he sighed sharply through his nose and wiped a tear from Hermione's cheek. "Have a television placed in this room. A radio too. Keep one of those active, at low volume mind you, from now on. If her mind is becoming more active and stimulating physical reactions, it could be a sign her brain needs more motivation than the silence in here."

Hermione's heart soared at the information. She would be able to watch the news! Hear songs! She nearly cried in relief, it felt like one step closer to being alive again.

To her credit, Nora didn't even blink. "Yes, sir, of course."

The door to her clinic room opened again, and Hermione turned without thought to the intruder.

Then, she gasped, and for the first time in what felt like forever, her tears stopped. Because behind Howard Stark, standing in the doorway of Hermione's room, was Maria Stark. And she was obviously pregnant.

May 29th, 1970 - Asclepius Care Center, New York - 25 Years After Hydra's Downfall

HERMIONE GRANGER

Maria held the red-bound book in her hands, slowly moving back and forth on the hastily placed rocking chair at the corner of Hermione's room, lightly rubbing the curve of her enormously protruding stomach. Hermione sat on the armrest next to the woman, reading over her shoulder.

She had been here for about an hour now, and Hermione did not so much as feel a tingle of hurt from holding back time for so long.

"In almost every professional field," Maria read aloud from the tomb, "in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens."

Peggy sat at the end of Hermione's bed next to a vase of blooming flowers where her stack of work folders lay, forgotten. She had one hand fisted and holding up her head to look out the window, with her other outspread and resting on Hermione's unmoving shin. Her eyes kept coming down to a newspaper at her elbow, rolled up from recent frustration.

Both women had a cup of steaming tea beside them, and Hermione was purely enjoying their company. They were good friends, it was obvious to Hermione, and she was glad that Peggy had found someone like Maria to help alleviate the pressures of her job.

"It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination–" Maria continued on, and Hermione closed to eyes to the sound of her voice. "-tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she 'adjust' to prejudice and discrimination. "

"Hear, hear," Peggy said softly. Her eyes did not leave the spring landscape below.

Maria smiled and rubbed the side of her belly. "My book club will have the same reaction, I'm sure."

"We all should," Peggy smiled back and looked over her shoulder to the woman. Her eyes dropped to Maria's hand at her stomach. "Any pain again?" For the last several months, Maria had been experiencing extreme pain from the pregnancy, on and off, though nothing life-threatening.

Hermione looked down at the woman beside her, awaiting her answer as well.

"Not today," Maria answered and laid a gentle hand over her unborn child. "He's been very good for me so far."

Peggy raised a brow. "He? Howard's convinced it'll be a little you. A mini Maria."

Maria struggled not to roll her eyes. Hermione didn't even try. "He would, wouldn't he? No, I'm sure of it, he'll be a little Howard."

"Gods help us," Hermione muttered.

Peggy smiled, almost as she had heard Hermione's crack at the man, and sat up in her chair. "If that's true, we must ready the world. Who knows what he'll do with Howard's brain and your determination."

Hermione snorted.

Both women shared a warm, huffed laugh together, and Maria reached out to sip from her tea. "I meant to say it earlier, but thank you, for joining me here today. I know the request was last minute," she said, "but I saw how deep in your folders you were and thought not to disturb you…" Without giving Peggy the time to respond, she followed up with, "How goes the fallout? I saw the newspaper this morning."

"Oh," Peggy said, shaking her head with a deep sigh, "-don't you worry. Paperwork is never-ending, so it's nice to suffer through it in a new environment every once in a while, especially with everything going on." She smiled tightly. "As for the breach of security, well, there's not much we can do about it now, can we? It's out there and it can't be taken back."

Hermione grimaced. Maria sighed in sympathy. Recently, somehow, a chest of Hermione and Steve's personal effects from the war had found themselves in the hands of a reporter. Said reporter wanted to release the letters, drawings, and personal statements from the things she had found, but seeing as how Hermione had been completely removed from all records for her own safety, the deliverance of her identity would cause an enormous intelligence issue. So in the past couple of days, Peggy had apparently been trying to mitigate the damage of the irreproachable evidence, while also trying to keep one of her Agencies biggest secrets.

A deal was made and the outcome of all her work had been released only this morning. Hermione and Steve's letters were announced to the public, but any document that had anything to do with Hermione herself, or evidence of, was redacted. Any pictures with Hermione had her face covered, and any drawings that might have been made of her from Steve's hand were treated similarly. Hermione and Steve's love story was told, but with no mention whatsoever of the woman herself.

Of course, the blocks of black redacted text and the surrounding secrecy of Hermione's identity stirred the country into a curious frenzy. Newspaper reports of 'Captain America's Secret Love' hit the front pages faster than the announcement of the Beatles' breakup. Every radio host in America had an opinion, and every news station too. This was just day one, and surely, things would get worse.

Thankfully, both the TV and the radio were turned off in Hermione's room.

"I'll cross those bridges when I get to it, but in the meantime, all of our objectives have been met. We'll just have to adjust. However, I was surprised at the invitation to come here this morning," Peggy said, eyes scanning the hospital room. "I wouldn't have thought that you'd want to meet again in something as sanitized as a medical office. Troubles on the homefront?"

Maria nodded her head and put down her now empty cup. "Well, this office is different from a normal hospital, I'll give Howard that, and it's quiet, isn't it? Private. Truly private. Everywhere else, even in my own home, people want to ask how I feel, if there's anything they can do or fetch for me, constantly in my shadow. It's been exhausting."

If Hermione could have patted her back, she would have. "Howard's just worried because of the baby pains," she acknowledged with a sympathetic frown. Peggy echoed her with nearly the same words.

"Oh, I know," Maria sighed. "But don't get me started with him either. My emotions have been all over the place recently, and it seems to just be getting worse as Little Howard waits to make his appearance. Why just last month I told Howard that he had to eat in the pantry at dinner because I didn't like the way he chewed!"

Hermione's eyebrows raised before she burst out into laughter, and Peggy did as well.

"I feel as if it's just been maddening by not ever being by myself anymore, and of course, Howard wants me to remain in New York in case the baby comes… So, the best I could come up with off the top of the head was a private clinic that doesn't exist," she smiled at the end.

"Ah," Peggy smiled. "Well," she gestured to the otherwise empty room, "-you weren't wrong."

They laughed, and Hermione enjoyed the sound of their shared communion, relishing the energy they seemed to share over their daily activity.

"You feel better at least?" Peggy asked..

"Oh, much. It's been good for me to just sit and read without someone interrupting every other page," she smiled and Peggy reflected her good humor. Maria stood up from her rocking chair slowly, keeping a hand steady at her stomach, and said, "I think I'll grab another cup of tea, would you like-"

And that was when Maria's water broke.

All three women in the room stared at the rapidly releasing liquid soaking Maria's tights and pooling on the floor for a moment in total astonishment before Maria released a little "Oh!" and the shock of her voice cut through their haze. Peggy and Hermione jumped to their feet.

Maria's knees bent and she held the curve of her belly like she was bracing herself. Pain passed over her face. Hermione froze for an entirely different reason. Maria clenched her eyes closed and shuddered. Her hands strained across her extended flesh. "It's not-," she gasped and opened her eyes. Tears had gathered and looked fresh to fall. "-it's not supposed to hurt-"

And with that, Hermione's excitement turned into icy fear.

The fluid down Maria's leg was no longer the soft straw color of the fluid she was supposed to be releasing, but tinged with red and becoming darker in color.

Peggy did not hesitate and walked straight past Maria. She opened the hospital door with the efficiency of an Agent and yelled, "HELP!" down the hallway outside. "SHE'S GOING INTO LABOR! WE NEED HELP!"

Footsteps and the clicks of heels from several people suddenly came echoing down.

Hermione went to Maria's side and reached to help hold her up, but her hands passed through her arms. She paused, nearly gasped at her own forgetful moment, and felt a shiver run down her back. Useless. She was useless in this situation.

Peggy came back into the room and did what Hermione could not. "Hold on," Peggy whispered under her breath as the urgent squeak of a wheelchair was heard with the incoming footsteps. Hermione wrapped her arms around herself as Peggy leant the woman her strength. "Just hold on."

"Howard-" Maria groaned. "Howard needs-"

"I'll get him on the phone, and if I can't do that, I'll fetch him myself."

"No!" Maria shuddered again. "No, stay. Stay. Just- tell Howard."

"I will," Peggy promised. Hermione couldn't help but echo.

There was blood on the floor and it was unmistakable now as nurses and other hospital personnel flooded the room. Their carefully hidden looks passed over the laboring woman, and everyone could tell that the other was thinking the same thing. One, Maria was going into labor, immediately, and this clinic would have to do. Two, there was a very fine chance that neither mother nor son would live through this.

May 29th 1970 - Asclepius Care Center, New York - 25 Years After Hydra's Downfall

MARIA STARK

Looking back, Maria did not know pain before then.

She could not grasp the enormity of what was happening to her body or the actions instinctually done. She had never felt something like it before now and she did not have the presence of mind to concentrate on everything occurring.

All she knew was pain, and then loud, anxious voices, and spots of darkness. Flashes of light, and slivers of words. Consciousness and unconsciousness, both filled with an undercurrent of fear.

My son.

She knew something, everything, was wrong. If the pain did not alert her to it, her soul understood.

Let him breathe if her body failed them. Let him live if she did not.

My son.

Maria's head fell to the side, sweat sticking to her cheeks and down her forehead. Her eyes were open, but she could see nothing. There was calm somewhere beyond, she could feel it, but not in this place on her own. There was only pain and a fighting desperation she had never known dormant beneath her skin.

My son.

The calm rose within her, drowning the urgency of her fear, and she knew that if she gave in, she would not break the surface of life again. So she screamed the darkness away. Grasped consciousness with brawling slivers of her fingertips. Battled with kicks and claws against the strength in her bones that threatened to leave her.

She would not go. Not blindly like this. Not without knowing-

"Hold on!" she heard. An echo, a flowing ripple, but clearly there in her ear. "Don't leave!" it screamed at her, a woman. Begging and desperate. "Stay here!"

It was not Peggy, nor any voice she recognized, but it felt like safety. Like home did after she had closed the doors behind her. Enveloping, knowing, and down to her soul. She reached- reached - beyond the pain, the calmness, and her own fear, and-

"MARIA!"

Her eyes snapped open, and she saw haze. Hazy things. Things that were there, but not. The clinic lights, the ceiling, and -

Her sight focused on the shape of a person at her side. Then she felt as if she couldn't breathe, or as if she dared not to, in case it disappeared. Because- she would know those curls from anywhere. Had stared at that face more times than she could count. Knew intimately what she looked like with her eyes closed and unmoving. Hermione.

She wanted to cry without knowing why.

The other woman's face was set in panic and stone lines of determination as if carved from marble. She reached out to Maria like she was going to hold the sides of her face, but stopped herself before they touched.

"You have to go back," she said to her, and the British lilt of her voice was somehow the most important part to Maria for a moment. "Do you understand me?" Hermione asked again and clenched her hands at her head. "You can't go just yet- they need you!"

"Who?" Maria asked back. The calmness was in the outer edge of her consciousness again. She was right, something was important, but she couldn't quite recall what. Why.

"Your son!" Hermione cried. "Remember you're son! He lives and waits for you- but you have to go back to hold him. Howard needs you to go home- your baby needs you. Go back!"

My son?

"Go back!"

Who was she?

"You must remember. Hang on for the sake of your family, they need you! GO BACK!"

My son? My son.

And then Maria remembered. She remembered what the pain felt like, and the fear. How the grey and the calmness had blinded her, hiding her vision and softening her determination. She remembered the need she had to open her eyes. The why.

Her vision cleared, and it was like the woman at her side sharpened into crystal clarity at her side. Her long curls seemed fuller, her skin full and flushed, and her eyes more aware. She looked as alive as Maria was beginning to feel. Both radiating hurt and joy, shadows and light. "Hermione," she remembered the woman's name again, and her hand lifted in welcome.

Hermione's wide brown eyes watered. She smiled and tears fell over the crinkles of her relief. She reached for Maria too, and their hands met somewhere in the middle. Warmth and solidarity. Safety and acknowledgment. Maria felt as if something long lost had been found again. Hermione Granger was alive!

Howard's lost friend held her palms desperately, like they were the tether of life itself, but then pushed them back to Maria's chest, like she could bundle Maria up from the haze around them.

"You have to go back," Hermione cried with a smile. "Let yourself return now, just fall, before it's too late."

"You're here," was all Maria could say back. Howard would be so happy, she knew how he still hurt after the War. He would be so glad. "You're here."

The once slumbering woman pressed her lips together in a resigned smile. "I've always been here," she whispered. "And will be for some time more. It's your time now."

Maria tried to argue, but then stopped at the knowledge in the other woman's eyes. She smiled sadly. Hermione knew when she'd return, and it wasn't now, but Maria had to leave. "Give Peggy my love, and Howard my appreciation. Merlin willing, I'll see them both soon."

"I will," Maria promised, swore to herself to remember when she woke. Hermione smiled again, and let go of her hand. "Goodbye-"

But then her eyes were closing, the haze disappeared, and when she opened her eyes once again it was to the operation spotlight above a rough hospital bed. She was - back? Alive-

"She's conscious!" someone yelled urgently, and then Maria's eyesight was filled with people. Not one of them Hermione. Nurse and doctors, blood splattered on the edges of masks or gloves. All shuffling around her, relief in their eyes and fatigue across their shoulders.

She tried to smile, to lift her head, but it seemed her body had other ideas. All she could do was ride through the waves of exhaustion and pain, echoing from the deepest parts of herself.

Someone pushed through the crowd to her left, and as she tipped her head to them, she could see her husband's face. He was not the kind to cry, she could count the number of times she'd seen him on one hand throughout their years together, but there was no mistaking the glint in them before her. His hands came to hold her face, and he lowered himself to touch his forehead with hers. "Thank god," was all he said, whispering barely above the noise of the others, but it was enough.

She managed to raise her own hand to caress the side of his face, and when he leaned back to look into her eyes, she asked after the only other thing that mattered. "The baby?" she croaked.

"Is fine," he answered and held tighter to her for a moment longer. "Look for yourself." Then he turned and motioned for someone behind him to come closer.

It was then that Maria Stark first caught sight of her child. Wrapped in white from some unknown cloth and held close to Peggy's chest as she walked to her side, was her baby.

Peggy lowered the bundle into her arms and Maria could do nothing but stare. The slopes of his cheeks, the puffed lids of his eyes. The thick wispy lines of his dark, cleaned, hair. Scrunched and near alien-like, but hers. Hers and Howard's.

A love like nothing she had ever held before in her life exploded from within. There were no words for those feelings, only a bottomless understanding. She was his mother and there was nothing in this world, in this universe or the next, that would hurt him with her here. She would protect him and love him, nurture him and defend him. She would raze the world to keep him safe and destroy any who wanted to harm him. She was his mother, and she loved him.

"Congratulations Mrs. Stark," a doctor Maria didn't recognize said from her other side. "It's a-"

"-boy," Maria smiled softly. "He's a boy."

"Y-yes," he answered, but Maria did not spare him a glance, too busy promising her son everything she would give him in this world.

"Does he have a name?" the nurse at the doctor's side asked with a clipboard in hand.

Howard opened his mouth to answer, but Maria beat him to it. "Anthony," she announced.

Her husband paused, then smiled. "His name is Anthony Edward Stark."

Unbeknownst to anyone in the building, the corners of Hermione Granger's lips upturned on the hospital bed.

Summary: Maria gives birth to Tony in Hermione's clinic, after a very hard birth - nearly dying- she sees Hermione from the Astral Dimension and makes a connection with the woman. Hermione urges her back to her body so that she continues to live, and Maria remembers Hermione when she wakes up. Tony Stark is born. Maria is never able to have children again.