Let me just start off by stating that Elton John's 'Your Song' in this chapter is COMPLETELY fanservice to MYSELF because I love that song with an unabiding passion and I will not be taking complaints or slander of it any point, ever. so.
Enjoy :)
July 22nd, 1971 - Asclepius Care Center, New York - 26 Years After Hydra's Downfall
PEGGY CARTER-SOUSA
Peggy watched as one of the machines 'beeped' and the group of scientists wrote something down on their clipboards beside Hermione's bed. Beside them, Howard oversaw all of their movements, his sharp eyes moving from Hermione, to them, and back again. She shifted her arms behind her back, and it caught his attention. When Howard got to her side, Peggy made sure to keep her voice low enough to where no one else but them could hear. "How goes it?" she asked.
"Slow," he answered back just as quietly, tightened eyes showing his frustration. "Her fingers twitch- at the oddest of times- sometimes like it's in response to auditory instruction, other times as if by random. It's hard to tell whether any of our tests have made any difference."
Peggy nodded in commiseration, her own brows furrowed. It was beyond frustrating for them at this point.
Fourteen months had passed since Maria's communication with Hermione.
Ten months since Howard had accepted their meeting as an actual occurrence rather than a 'mental disruption caused by the side effect of a hard birth'.
Eight months since the creation of Howard's specialized team dedicated to waking Hermione back up.
Eight months later with the best scientists Howard could gather and almost nothing to show for it.
In the beginning, Maria had been frantic, grateful, nearly spiritual in her belief that she had met, actually met with Hermione when her heart had stopped during Tony's birth. Howard of course had consoled his wife without taking it to heart as Maria had nearly died in the very hospital that Hermione lay in and dismissed the supernatural 'encounter' as fiction of an overwhelmed mind. It was not until several months later, Tony securely in her arms, her health back in perfect condition, and her temper back in its formidable place when she snapped at him, "I know what I saw! What I heard! She spoke as if she knew me, had watched over us- talking of Merlin of all people-"
And then Howard's jaw had dropped.
Comically stopped stupid, his brain obviously turning off for a brief moment and then back on like the computers he liked to work with. He'd opened his mouth, closed it, and then turned on his heel and marched out the door.
He never questioned her again over the legitimacy of her memory. He never apologized over it either. Instead, he replied by putting together a scientific team while Maria hired highly reviewed mediums around town. They were in agreement, Hermione was alive- awake somehow, and they needed to figure out how to physically wake her in the real world as well.
Every person in their expanding team went through severe background checks and multiple NDAs. Now all hands were on deck from both heads of the Stark family.
Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be enough.
August 1st, 1971 - Asclepius Care Center, New York - 26 Years After Hydra's Downfall
HERMIONE GRANGER
Hermione let out a long sigh, her chest hollow and her shoulders drooping.
The tests that Howard and his team of scientists and doctors asked of her were difficult to manage and it was taking a physical toll on her for the first time since she'd regained her mind. She felt exhausted despite not having a body.
While ecstatic that Howard knew she was there, they all knew she was alive, physically waking up was proving to be a bigger issue than she had originally thought. She had to slow down time to understand the tests they needed from her, she slowed downtime to concentrate and perform the tests they asked from her, and all the while, performing those tasks took an enormous amount of her own energy and power to complete.
The amount of will she had to channel, the need she had to strive to do for a single movement, was like trying to raise a tsunami with her palms. Just making her fingers twitch in her physical body was a herculean effort. Asking her to communicate through twitches or counts of breath like her care team wanted? Nearly impossible.
But she tried. And tried. And exhausted herself. The hot poker of pain lancing through her body when she over-exerted herself was a familiar friend now. When she was too tired to do anything more than exist, she would release her hold on time and fall back into her physical body, like she was going to sleep.
The Ancient One didn't approve and warned her of the dangers of pushing her body too far, but Hermione could think of nothing but to try harder. The years were passing, and she was still asleep. She was not guaranteed time with her friends, her life, on the other side and if it meant oblivion while recovering between tests, then she would welcome it. She would keep working to wake up. She would keep trying until it happened.
December 20th, 1973 - Asclepius Care Center, New York - 28 Years After Hydra's Downfall
OBADIAH STANE
It was expectedly easy to integrate himself in Granger's rehabilitation. Why wouldn't it be? He was one step down from the face, the name, of the company himself, and everyone knew it. He had the funds, the access, the power to do what he wanted and turn the tables on anyone who questioned otherwise.
So when he 'took a greater interest' in Granger's case with Howard and his team of scraping doctors and airheaded scientists, he was welcomed. Encouraged even.
He'd heard all about Maria's moment with God or whatever she was insisting happened but believed it about as far as he believed that Nixon would outmaneuver his incoming impeachment.
He learned what they were testing the vegetable-woman on, how they were doing it, the results that kept coming up, and he nearly laughed as the months passed. Nothing had changed. Not really. There were some coincidences in bodily twitches and orders that they had confused for communication, but Obadiah was not the kind of man to sit back when opportunities were ripe to capitalize on.
And Howard might not see it now, might not ever really like it, but Obadiah was doing him a service, a favor even. Seeing things for what they were instead of what everyone else was wasting money and time on. That was, actually, the original reason he'd been hired on to Stark Industries after all. He was just doing his job.
He grinned as the scientist on his payroll handed him the spinal fluid sample. He placed it into its foam placeholder next to the other vials lining the case and took cautious care when closing it all up. The moments after a large 'test result' always meant that Granger's vegetable state would worsen with no additional twitches or brain activity increases for some weeks afterward and that was always when Obadiah and his special team made their moves. This was their second extraction of Granger's bodily information.
He'd continue on until they had an answer to her immortality.
February 16th, 1975 - Stark Mansion, New York - 30 Years After Hydra's Downfall
MARIA STARK
Maria Stark watched as Howard fiddled with another wire at the board of Hermione's bed. They had just relocated it to face the garden window at the back of the mansion. He'd been recalibrating and running tests since early afternoon, making sure that all of the equipment was in working order for the nursing team that would be in tomorrow, and it was now close to dinner time. Tony sat on the ground at the foot of the bed, putting together God-knew-what with his bits of metal and wires, and Maria looked on at the whole of the scene with a small smile. She herself had her knitting needles in hand and was busy making Hermione's annual Christmas mittens that she would accomplish for the fourth year in a row.
It was a Christmas tradition now that Hermione received a pair of hand-knit gloves from Maria, and that Howard or Tony would take a picture of the moment on Christmas morning. The idea to move Hermione completely into the mansion had been Tony's this Christmas prior, as 'Aunt Hermione would be lonely' if she had to spend the majority of Christmas alone again.
Howard of course had taken one look at the four-year-old's practiced pitiful look and had caved immediately. Maria decided not to comment on either side and praised her son for his thoughtful thinking. Now, Hermione was truly a member of the family, residing in the Stark household within their newly converted library (the only room truly big enough to include all the medical machines that had to be moved with her).
Tony, in a rare moment of altruistic awareness, looked up from his invention on the ground to his father. "What is the wires on Auntie Mione's head for?"
Maria followed his line of sight and watched as Howard fixed the electrodes at Hermione's temples. Before Howard could start a scientific explanation, Maria jumped in. "It's 'what are', Tony. 'What are the wires on Aunt Mione's head for?'" she corrected, and Tony's intelligent hazel eyes came to her. "The singular verb 'is' does not agree with the plural subject of 'wires'. You must change the verb form for the subject-verb agreement so it may make sense correctly, do you understand?"
"Yes, momma," Tony answered, absorbing her words, and then turned back to Howard. "Dad, what are the wires on Aunt Mione's head for?"
Howard answered with the tone of a professor, calm and serious. "These are called electrodes," he started and touched the metal discs at her head. "They take the measures of the voltage fluctuations from the ionic current within the neurons of our brain," he said. Then he motioned to the 6-foot tall minicomputer attached into the corner of the room behind her bed. "From there, the information transfers to the PDP-11 and records the brain's electrical activity over a period of time. This is to help doctors figure out what's going on in her head so that we can figure out why she's still asleep."
Tony nodded, not at all lost on the process, and Maria once again had to marvel at the sheer intelligence of her little boy. "Is it helping?" he asked, and Howard sighed.
"Anything that collects more data helps, Tony. We'll keep it on as long as she's asleep or until we think of something better."
Tony's eyes focused on Hermione's sleeping face seriously for a moment before he answered, "Can we build …something that takes a picture of her brain from the inside to see?"
Howard stopped what he was doing and smiled. "That, son, is called a Computed Tomography, or what the fellas in Britain are calling: a CT scan. Just invented four years ago in fact." His grin stretched. "More good ideas like that and we'll have your Aunt up in no time."
Tony's answering smile was blinding and infectious. Anything he could say or do to win Howard's approval was something that Tony would hyper-fixate on. Maria's grin turned a little bitter at the thought. She would have to watch carefully from now on with what Tony wanted to build or to learn more about, lest he do something to one of Howard's experiments already set up for Hermione and anger him.
They continued their discussion by talking about the many other machines that stood stacked around and under Hermione's bed. The digital heart monitor, the IV catheter, the urinary catheter, the EKG wires, and everything else that was attached to Hermione. Luckily, for whatever tesseract infused reason, Hermione did not sustain muscular atrophy, and that was another interesting discussion that Tony was interested in knowing of as well. To Maria listening in, it was like he could learn a million things in a moment and nothing would be too much for him.
Soon, however, Maria could tell that Tony's unending questions were starting to grate on Howard's concentration. Before they both delved into a conversation that would trigger something neither were ready for, she turned their attention to the TV, sitting on top of one of the many bookcase-lined walls. Without drawing attention to herself, she turned the volume up with the remote.
A man wearing a white satin suit with a bright yellow shirt underneath and large pink-tinged sunglasses smiled at the interviewer across from him. The audience was clapping from whatever had happened previously, and Tony's attention turned to the new noise.
"Okay, last thing! Now- now, Elton," the interviewer said with a half-smile Maria found to be mildly sleazy. "There was an, uh, an interview some odd months ago - two I think it was- you know what I'm talking about?"
Elton John looked at his feet and with a smile and nodded. "I think I know where this is going, Murph."
"Okay, so we're on the same page, that interview. It was about your inspiration, right, for 'Your Song' you released a couple of years back, the end of 1970. It was skimmed over back then, but you know, I wanted to bring it back up since we've been talking about the inspiration for this year's 'The Bitch is Back'. So, let's get right to it, what can you tell us all about what inspired that song? It sounded like it really touched you. That was your biggest hit of the next year- your fans- I mean, it really influenced a lot of people."
"Oh I just love Elton John, I know exactly what song he's talking about," Maria smiled, and she could almost feel Howard's good-natured roll of the eyes behind her back.
"Yes, yes, I know exactly how they feel. It did the same to me when I first read the lyrics all the way through for the final time and just-" he shook his head and the interviewer nodded along.
"Hit you in the chest, huh?"
"It did, " Elton nodded.
"So what was the inspiration, that first spark?"
"Ah- " Elton smiled.
"Oh, I heard all about this, it's just adorable," Maria looked over her shoulder at Hermione. Howard stopped his fiddling and turned his attention to the TV with the rest of his family.
"-It was the letter's release, do you remember, that 'Captain America's Secret Love' scandal that happened back then all over the papers and radio?"
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Howard said under his breath. Maria laughed, and she bet Peggy would have as well if she were here.
" How could anyone have missed it, huh? Right folks? It's 'America's Greatest Mystery' according to The New York Times!" the interviewer turned back to the crowd and smiled, feeding off the sudden swell of applause that followed. "Everybody loves a good mystery, and if you throw in a little good ole, American Boy turned Super Soldier with a Missing Leading Lady- and there you have it- the greatest love story ever untold." The crowd laughed with him. He turned back to Elton. "Course I remember it, we all do. What bit of, uh, everything released inspired that song?"
"One particular letter, actually," Elton answered, looking off from the camera in thought. "It really stuck with me. I saw it on the museum's opening day with some friends. It was dated February 5th, 1944. Now, if you remember your history, just over a year later is when the Captain died." There was suddenly hushed silence among the audience. "And this letter I was reading over for the first time was written from our Mystery Woman."
"To Steve Rogers," the interviewer clarified.
"Right," Elton nodded. "To the Captain, and in the previous letter, Captain Rogers had written her a line saying, 'So if they ask me, I could draw, About the way you walk, and whisper, and look' a play on Sinatra's original work, right? So they had this back and forth -"
"Right, right. Very cute."
"Very," he nodded again. "And our Mystery Lady says back to him in her letter, and I quote," he said smiling, and laughs were heard from beyond, "'... A few lines have been repeating in my mind that I believe you'll find to your liking: I hope you don't mind. I hope you don't mind. That I put down in words, How wonderful life is, Now you're in the world." He breathed out a laugh, touched with a soft smile. "I mean, you can't make this stuff up. It was just so-"
"Beautiful."
"-breathtaking," the international star agreed. "I read it, heard it in my own head, and knew it had to be in a song. Had to be told." Clapping erupted from the people watching from the audience and Elton waved them down with a smile. "And 'Your Song', as I'd like to believe, is a love letter from the Captain back to his lost love."
"What do you mean, like-"
"The lyrics, throughout, yes," he nodded and smiled. "When saying 'I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do, my gift is my song, and this one's for you', it was really inspired by the drawing that we're all told was attached to his original letter, his little bit of art to her was all he could do, really, in the War, so-"
"Wow," the interviewer shook his head. The strongest wave of applause yet swept through the TV. "Wow. I mean I've got shivers- that was so-"
"It's amazing the kind of things that inspire the best of work," Maria commented with a soft smile.
Howard had left Hermione's bedside at some point and stood behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. His fingers were warm if calloused on the ends, but they were hands she knew as well as her own. "If there was anyone in the world to do it, it was them," he answered her. "They had the kind of love that inspired a lot through the years together, not just the weapons and the research."
Maria sighed softly, her lips falling into a sad tilt of acknowledgment. She knew what he meant. He missed them, her. Hermione had been his closest friend, he'd always told Maria, but she knew better. A woman's intuition was hardly ever wrong when it came to studying the frottage of a man's previously broken heart. She knew the impression of Hermione's choice and how her subsequent coma laid within him, partly in old feelings - never requited, but always there. More than friendship drove him to the extremes his experiments and patience elicited. She knew this. Had accepted this long ago.
But in the end, it was his to work through and it was not something she could grasp with both hands and neatly fix or wipe away. Pain of the heart was rarely so easy to rebuild within the hands of the next woman.
Maria hadn't realized she'd been lost in her own head until the volume of a military airplane taking off on the TV roused her with its loud rumbling. She nearly jumped out of her seat. Tony had changed the channel in her absentmindedness and it was now on - of all things- the news. He'd gotten bored apparently because he was back to playing with his bits of odd ends and circuitry.
An ABC anchorman in a dark suit appeared on the screen just beyond Tony, and Howard tensed behind her. "And coming up next in our daily special- President Ford's address on the retreat from Vietnam, a nearly twenty-year War finally coming to a close ladies and gentlemen. Then, the Stark World Exposition, no plans made to renew? This reporter has the insights on this now discontinued production and what that means for the future. Then finally, as we wrap up tonight, a closer look at the underbelly of our society. 'Mutants'. How many are your neighbors? Why they stand for communism- and we'll talk to CIA operative William Stryker Sr. about how to combat the rising birth rates of these individuals."
"Jesus fucking Christ," Howard said in between the silence of the man on the TV and Maria pushing the power button off.
"Howard," Maria admonished without any real heat. The words of the reporter were ringing in her ears and leaving her nauseous. To speak about people in such a way- just because of the way they were born-
It was awfully close to how smart Tony was just born the way he was. He couldn't help it. A genius of terrifying degree. They had tested him, of course, just in case, but he was born without the X Gene. He was just born incredibly smart, a prodigy. And if she as a mother would have had to deal with the discrimination that other mothers did because of the way their children were born- She shuddered. It was all awful. Completely awful.
"Ever since the pitch of those Sentinels to Congress, the anti-mutant movement has seemed to just get worse," Maria whispered. Howard's eyebrows lowered and his jaw clenched.
Two years ago, a foreign weapons manufacturer of the name Bolivar Trask had pitched to Congress the idea of selling America thousands of robot 'identifiers' he called Sentinels that had the ability to scan people and pick out those with the X Gene, those that were mutants. Horrified, Maria and Howard's friends in Congress had wrestled with the extremists among them for a vote on the purchase of those machines. Howard and his business partner Obadiah were against it of course, Howard for the moral practicality of it, Obadiah for the thought of a different weapons manufacturer getting their claws in the American market.
Soon after Congresses decline of the Sentinels, however, fear grew in the American minds. Anyone could have been born with the mutant gene, and sometimes they weren't as obvious as the color of their skin or the shape of a nose. They could be the person standing next to them, and never be the wiser. And inevitably, as fear grew, so did hate.
"Wait until they all find out that within 300 years, there will be more births of mutants than not!" he said. "The next evolutionary step for mankind and we kill each other over it. Typical." Howard shook his head in disgust.
Maria shook her head with him. While not necessarily a secret, that information wasn't widely accepted or offered to the public freely just yet. In the time they were currently in, such knowledge would likely cause a riot. Or a genocide.
However, the mention of mutants did give Maria a sudden pause. Mutants. Powers. Hermione. She blinked at the obvious answer to her years-old question. Oh God, she'd been so blind! So so stupid!
She'd spent so much time hiring mediums to get answers to Hermione when there were literal people on this earth that had abilities that no other could do. Someone somewhere must be able to talk to spirits. Right?
"Howard!" she exclaimed, getting to her feet and letting her knitting fall to the floor. "Mutants!"
April 4th, 1975 - Stark Mansion, New York - 30 Years After Hydra's Downfall
HERMIONE GRANGER
Hermione was excited. More than. She was absolutely ecstatic.
It was all because of Maria. A month and a half ago she'd had the idea to ask help from established mutants in communicating between dimensions. With all of the powers that were possible for mutants in this world, Hermione was astonished not to have thought of it herself. Once Maria had brought it up, Howard got in contact with … well someone, and in the time between, Hermione had watched as the reality of having a conversation with someone outside of the Ancient One became real. (Of course, having her wisdom and teachings with Hermione's growing energy manipulation was one thing - but the woman had a busy life as Supreme Sorcerer and couldn't always stay for long.)
It had been years since she'd had anyone to speak to outside of the Ancient One's visits and her own mind. Listening to the world and its conversations wasn't the same as living them, and she'd forgotten how nice it felt to be heard. Hermione could slow time down now for days, could 'travel' as far as the next state over if she wished, but creating physical reactions on her body was still nearly an impossible feat. She just wasn't strong enough. The connection from the Astral Dimension to the Physical was incredibly difficult to affect. All together, Hermione was a mite lonely to be perfectly honest.
Today was the day this mutant would try to 'contact' her with their help. Hermione had no idea what to expect.
Maria and Peggy were the only others standing inside her room as all of the scientists had been excused for this meeting and Obadiah was in China at a meeting. Hermione hovered (literally) at the edge of her own bed. She could have floated out the door to the driveway where the unknown mutant was being escorted in, but she wanted the experience of seeing and meeting them the same as Peggy and Maria. To truly meet him. Soon enough, the library door was opened, and Howard led through the door.
Following him was an aging man in a wheelchair. He wore a three-piece suit, would have been tall if not for his condition, was completely bald, and had very kind brown eyes. For some reason, Hermione immediately liked him, as she had immediately liked Abraham Erskine. Something about him emanated trustworthiness, kindness. He felt gentle to Hermione upon first seeing him, but also determined and tempered. A strange mix of Dumbledore perhaps, and Mr. Weasley. His eyes fell to Hermione's body first as he rolled into the room, and his head tipped to the side.
Maria approached the man and held out a hand. "Maria Stark, thank you, Professor Xavier, for seeing us on such short notice," she said as he greeted her with a handshake. "I know how busy of a man you must be, and I appreciate you taking the time to see us."
"Please," he smiled with an air of light humor, "it is a pleasure to make new acquaintances, especially ones as determined as your husband."
Maria laughed as societal niceties dictated, and Peggy introduced herself at her side. "Peggy Carter-Sousa, Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."
There was a small pause between the English-bred individuals. "A pleasure as well, Director," he answered a little slower, more cautious now, and shook her hand. "I wasn't aware this meeting had to do with counter-terrorism and world security."
Peggy motioned to Hermione's body. "Agent Granger is first and foremost an Agent within our division. Her presence is top-secret, as I'm sure you're now aware with the amount of paperwork you signed on your way in, so everything to do with her condition and additional information must be treated as such."
To Hermione listening in, that made sense. It clarified why none of the scientists on Hermione's care team were here, or why only Professor Xavier was allowed within her room among his several companions left at the gates of the Stark mansion.
"Despite our best efforts, science hasn't been able to explain why she's like this. As the foremost expert in … your area of study," Howard stumbled, "you are the most qualified to help. Our last resort at this point."
The wheelchair-bound man folded his hands together over his lap. "You've said her brain activity remains high despite her body's reluctance to wake. How long has she been this way?" he questioned.
"Thirty-five years," Peggy answered solemnly.
Professor Xavier's eyebrow rose. "Decades? How young was she when she fell into her coma?"
"She was thirty-two years old," the SHIELD Director answered again. "Give or take."
Questions flitted across the man's face and surprise rose his eyebrows even higher. "Interesting," he stated lightly and turned to review Hermione in a whole new light. "She doesn't physically look older than her mid-twenties, and yet… Have you tested to confirm the presence of the X Gene? It might explain her extended life while confined in her own mind. She would-"
"She does not have the mutation," Peggy interrupted, and the professor turned back skeptically. "Her DNA does not differ from Homeo sapiens, but she does have extra… abilities she was born with that extend beyond the normal limitations of humans. During her time as an Agent in the Second World War, she was exposed to an extraterrestrial energy that infected her and her given abilities. Since then, she has not woken and we have no idea if she ever will. We hope that you can help us with those questions."
Professor Xavier paused. "Abilities without the X Gene," he mused heavily, eyes going far away. "This is an interesting development, and something I'd agree with caution over for anyone else to know about. Information like that could change the world."
"Which is why the mountain of NDAs on your way in was so crucial before beginning," Howard agreed stiffly.
The professor nodded. "I'd agree." Then he sighed deeply, looking as if a weight had passed over his shoulders. He looked up to Howard with a gentle smile. "Well then, should we get started? I don't know how far I'll be able to help, but I'll try my best."
"Do you need anything before you start?" Howard asked.
"Just a moment of your time," the mutant answered, and Hermione straightened, excitement crawling up her throat. "My mutant ability gives me the power to mentally slide into other dimensions should I focus. You will see my body seemingly fall asleep. Try not to disturb me while I am unconscious or it may disturb the process - and I should say, give me a very fine headache when I'm back," he smiled.
"Of course, professor," Maria agreed immediately.
"Whenever you're ready," Howard nodded, but Hermione could see that his hand was fisted in his trouser. Nervous, the whole of them, waiting for an answer to a decades-old question.
The professor did not respond back, but turned his head down towards his chest, and breathed out like he was sighing again. Hermione only saw his face go blank, then take several breaths before she realized suddenly, that she was not alone.
Looking from his wheelchair to her own physical body on the other side of the room, Hermione's eyes widened. The astral form of Professor Xavier stood tall on his feet beside her physical form, looking strong and confident in his suit and on his feet while physically looking directly, pointedly, at her. Not over, through, or to the side, but at her. Fear and excitement measured arguably the same filled her chest and raced down her back. " Can you…" she whispered, her tangled feelings choking her. "Can you really see me?"
"You must be Agent Granger," he smiled kindly in answer.
Hermione's tightly wound body deflated like a balloon. Sensations swirled, grief and relief swelled and rolled like waves on a beach with her, and she breathed raggedly, trying to find balance within it all. Merlin, he could see her. "H-Hello," she tried to smile.
He walked over as if everything happening was all a normal occurrence and smiled down from his suddenly impressive height. "It's a pleasure to meet you," he said, and Hermione could feel the genuine kindness in the curve of his words.
"I can't believe it worked," was all she could say back, caught in her shock. She felt winded like she'd been running for a long time, and had just stopped to catch her breath. Now that she was here in front of him, able to fully communicate, she didn't know what to say. How to continue. She swallowed. "It's… a pleasure to meet you too, Professor Xavier."
His eyes crinkled at the corners. "Call me Charles. Your friends have been very worried for you."
"Then- Hermione," she answered. "And I- I've missed them."
"Do you expect to tell them that yourself soon?"
Will you wake up soon? Her eyebrows furrowed. "I'm trying. Everyday."
The professor folded his hands in front of himself. "Sounds like a difficult dilemma."
"It has been."
He paused. "My students generally need to talk over their problem when they need a hand at fixing it."
She looked to her physical body, wrapped in tubes and blinking machines. "I wouldn't know where to start."
He slowly sat down on her other side. "If you could find it in yourself to trust me, I think it generally helps if it's at the beginning."
They did not look at one another, and Hermione wondered at the truth. Telling him everything.
Who alive was left to know her story? Abraham, Colonel Phillips, Bucky, Steve... they had all died. The Beastly Brothers had never come to visit her, so she didn't know what had happened to them. All that was left who knew her was Howard, Peggy, and the Ancient One. It left a bitter taste in her mouth and an aching loneliness in her heart. 30 years she'd been gone from this world, and she had lost so much in between.
She wanted to tell him. Just one person. About her old life, and what she'd found in this new world. So that someone would know what she'd accomplished, who she used to be. Why she did what she did.
She just needed to talk to someone.
And as Merlin would have it, not only was Charles Xavier one of the few people on the planet who could reach her in this state, but he was also a very excellent listener.
"Magic?" he echoed as if the word itself did not make sense. "A whole school, strictly dedicated to it?"
"Truly," Hermione nodded with a smile. "It's similar, is it not? To your school?"
"... well when you put it like that."
He stared back at her with somber eyes. "He... sounded like a wonderful man."
"He was like a father."
"I'm sorry."
Hermione tried to smile back.
"...well, I'm having a difficult time wrapping my head around it honestly," he said bemused.
"The Hydra weapons?"
"That I'm talking to 'Captain America's Secret Love'!" he answered.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake-"
"I've cracked one of America's Greatest Mysteries, give me a moment!"
His eyes were far away. "I've never heard of the 'Ancient One'."
"I don't think you're meant to, to be honest."
He nodded as if that answered a question. "Can anyone wield this power as she does? Like you?"
Hermione frowned. "I... I don't know. In my world it was different. Here, I've no idea."
It bought up an interesting idea though, if nothing else.
"Do you know how long it'll take- to 'become one with the energy' or however she puts it?"
Hermione shrugged, aware of the very American gesture she did now without thought. "My physical body sometimes will reflect my astral projection. I've learned how to project myself as far as Maine. I feel a little stronger every day."
He frowned. "But?"
She kept her hands loosely folded in her lap. "But, there is no definite date or time. It just is what it is until I'm back."
His eyes reflected her hopeless frustration. "Sounds lonely. In the meantime?"
She swallowed. "I read. Explore. Run tests."
He smiled softly. Encouragingly, and entirely without pity. "You would be welcome at the Institute, in either form, if you would like. There is a library you could get lost in. Others who are different, like you and me."
"I am not a mutant," She smiled half-heartedly.
"No, but I don't think anyone would mind either way."
Hermione stood from the bed she had been comfortable on now for some time. "You'll tell them for me?"
"Every word," he smiled back.
She clutched at her chest, her own smile wide enough to hurt her cheeks if she felt pain anymore. "Thank you, Charles. You couldn't possibly know how-"
"We'll speak again in a month. The Institute."
"Alright," Hermione agreed with another smile, perhaps the first true smile since Tony's birth, as Charles Xavier left the Astral Dimension. And Hermione felt hopeful.
Charles Francis Xavier: A mutant with Alpha Class Telepathic abilities (the second-highest class there is, meaning he is VERY strong), the leader and creator of the X-Men, and the founder of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Also, a scientific genius. One of those people who see 'the greater good' in situations. so.