A/N This takes place a month or two after the final battle in the Harry Potter Universe and sometime between Steve being unfrozen and the Avengers movie in the Marvelverse. And yes, I know the timelines don't match up.

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own.

Warning: This story may contain in-depth descriptions of grief and PTSD. When I started this story I had no intention of going this detailed into the emotional impact, but as I started writing this I couldn't help but feel I wouldn't be doing justice to the toll trauma takes on children if I glossed over all the awful stuff that happens in canon. If there's anything I think might be extra triggering then I will try to put up a separate warning.

Chapter 11

Hermione strolled into the building in her new work clothes she had purchased two days prior. She tugged on the suit jacket as she entered the elevator. Her attire looked professional, but she wasn't used to wearing muggle business attire, having had little reason to do so before. When she went to press the button for the floor she needed, her hand paused above the metal, there wasn't a panel or any buttons to press. She glanced around for a second to make sure that the panel of buttons weren't on the other side of the elevator or something strange like that. She didn't find anything.

Just as her confusion was starting to grow a British voice came over a speaker within the elevator, "I'm having some difficulty identifying you. Which floor do you need and whom should I inform of your arrival Ms.?"

Hermione jerked back and held a hand up to her pounding heart when she heard the disembodied voice. She cleared her throat and spoke, "You must be Jarvis. I'm Hermione Granger and I'm here for an interview with Ms. Pepper Potts. I believe it was stated that I should meet her on the eighth floor."

"That is correct Ms. Granger. I apologize for startling you. I will let Ms. Potts know to expect you shortly. Please let me know if you require any assistance while you are here," the voice said.

"Thank you, Jarvis and it's my own fault for being startled. I had heard that Mr. Stark had an intelligence system as an assistant. I just hadn't expected you to be so integrated into the building itself. I will say, I find the concept absolutely fascinating though," she said as the elevator began its ascent.

"Thank you, Ms. Granger and Ms. Potts said she would be with you shortly," the system answered.

Hermione nodded absently at the information. "Obviously, you must present throughout the building if you can talk to both me and Ms. Potts at the same time; do you just keep track of who enters the building, or do you have the authority to shut down systems if you deem something suspicious?" she asked curiously.

"I inform Mr. Stark of the irregularity and he would authorize it."

Hermione tapped a finger to her lips as she considered the information. "Oh, interesting. So, you are able to make some judgement calls, but you still have protocols to follow. I'm assuming since you are a computer system Mr. Stark wanted to make sure there weren't entire sections of the building getting locked down or something over what turned out to be an employee sneaking out early. Hmmm, but you could miss whole big security issues if it wasn't something that Mr. Stark programmed you to find suspicious," she theorized with a frown. "That could be a potentially big oversight."

"Stark Tower has human security as well," Jarvis cut into the momentary silence.

"Well yes, but they can't be everywhere at once like you can," she said as she stepped off the elevator onto the eighth floor.

She grimaced as a thought occurred to her. Horcruxes were like that a bit, not quite a real person, but intelligent and capable enough to cause trouble on their own. "Probably giving you too much sentience would be a bad thing though. You should never trust anything that thinks for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain," she quoted Mr. Weasley with a pinched mouth. A very intelligent computer with sentience sounded more problematic than she wanted to deal with.

"I beg your pardon?" Jarvis said. He sounded offended which was strange to hear, since he wasn't a real person at all.

Hermione giggled into her hand, "I think you might be more British than I am Jarvis for all that you are a computer program."

"You must be Hermione Granger," said a tall, slim, strawberry blonde-haired woman in a tailored pant suit.

Hermione whipped her head around at the other woman's voice and smiled once she registered that she was being spoken to. "Yes, that's right. Are you Ms. Potts?" she asked while walking toward the other woman and holding her hand out.

"I am and please call me Pepper," she answered warmly as she shook Hermione's hand.

Hermione grinned. "Only if you call me Hermione. Being called Ms. Granger makes me feel like I forgot to turn in my homework or something." She kept her hands to her side determined not to wring them in front of her potential employer. She wasn't sure what SHIELD would do if she failed at her mission before it even begun. They hadn't talked about what would happen if Stark Industries failed to hire her. Besides, this was a job she was actually interested in attaining. She wished that she had found this job before she found SHIELD, because research was more in line with her interests than spy work, but even if she had found the opportunity first, she wouldn't have been able to get in without faking her records and she was sure that SHIELD was better at faking documents than she was even with her magic. So, it probably was for the best that it happened this way.

Pepper spoke, "Why don't you follow me to my office and we will do your interview there where we can sit down."

"Alright. Lead the way," Hermione said with a nervous smile as she began to follow the other woman down the hall. The office they ended up in was large and the floor to ceiling windows let in the morning sun. The room was infinitely more welcoming than the room she had had her last interview in even if she was feeling the same level of nervousness for both interviews.

There was everything she expected to find in the head of a company's office; stacks of neatly stacked documents, a computer, printer, and some abstract artwork on the walls to tie the room together. She took a seat a few feet away from Pepper's desk where the taller woman had gestured her to sit. Pepper sat across from Hermione and folded her hands in front of her. Hermione noted that she had immaculate posture even as she leaned forward on her desk. "So, tell me about yourself, Hermione."

Merlin how she hated interviews. That was a very broad question and she was going to have to omit a lot of information through it and probably most of the interview if all the questions were this open-ended. "I went to a boarding school in Scotland and then immediately went into the Military. I only served for a short amount of time before being discharged due to some injuries I sustained during a mission gone wrong. I've just moved to the States after being discharged and this was one of the first jobs that caught my eye."

"Oh, thank you for your service," Pepper said softly. Hermione fought not to squirm in her seat. She felt like such an imposter and that she didn't deserve the other woman's sincere thanks, so she merely nodded stoically.

Pepper continued without noticing the younger woman's discomfort, "What made you apply for this job?"

Hermione knew that the best lies were often founded in the truth and so she stretched the truth and omitted some facts while she formulated her answer, "After I was made aware of the opening, I did a lot of research on Stark Industries and I was fascinated by the possibilities of the technology the company and Mr. Stark are creating. I'm not qualified to work on the technology without more education and training than I currently possess, but I figured this job would be a good way to see if I was interested in pursuing a degree in this field later on. Right now, though I'm just trying to get on my back on my feet and this seemed like a golden opportunity I had to at least try for." Hermione excitedly leaned forward in her seat and gestured emphatically throughout her answer.

Pepper smiled gently at the young woman across from her. Hermione was so animated, and Pepper could hear the enthusiasm about the opportunity from her. "What exactly do you like about the technology and the company's vision?" she asked following up on Hermione's previous answer.

Hermione lit up as she spoke, "I actually like the humanitarian aspect the most, like the Clean Energy Initiative. It would be clean, sustainable energy that would help the environment, but also, potentially provide poorer regions with energy that may have previously, only been able to access unreliable or non-existent sources of energy."

Pepper nodded and began firmly writing down a few notes on a piece of paper. "That is something we're looking into doing if the project turns out to be successful. What do you consider your strengths?"

"Well, I know this is more of an assistant job than anything, so I would say that the best things I bring to the table are my organizational and time management skills. I'm also a generally reliable and down to earth person," Hermione said thoughtfully.

"What's an example of one of those skills?"

Hermione blushed a little as she answered, well aware that this would reveal some of her neurotic tendencies, "I'm a bit of a compulsive list and schedule maker. I frequently made color-coded study schedules and planned out lessons for myself and my friends in school and during my service time. I'll confess that my friends always said thank you, but I know that they were never as thrilled to receive them as they pretended to be." Hermione shared a self-deprecating grin with her interviewer.

Pepper covered her mouth to hide a grin. "Color-coded and everything?" she asked.

Hermione sheepishly answered, "Yes."

"Did it work on your friends?" she asked curiously.

A scowl crossed the younger woman's face as she remembered her friends blowing off their work for flying numerous times and she answered darkly. "It did when I made them follow it."

Pepper thought this was too perfect. Tony would hate having lists and schedules thrown at him. It would drive him absolutely insane, especially if this young woman could find ways to enforce them on him. It was exactly what Tony needed and as a bonus it would annoy him to no end, which Pepper thought, he completely deserved after hiring his last assistant on looks alone. Agent Romanoff had turned out not to be a terrible assistant, but she also hadn't made Tony engage with the day-to-day running of the company like he was supposed to at the time. Now since he had passed the title of the company to her that wasn't as much of a problem, but he did still have meetings and deadlines on things that he was horribly late to all the time, and she just didn't have the time to keep up with both her schedule and his.

She took a good look at the other woman. She hadn't looked too closely at the other female candidates because it was apparent that most of them had come in looking to provide other types of services to Tony that certainly weren't in the job description. However, Hermione Granger didn't look like she had even considered such a notion. Even though she was the youngest candidate to apply she was dressed properly for a serious job interview and seemed more interested in the work the company was doing than in Tony himself, which was already a point in her favor over the other candidates. She was pretty and it was inevitable that Tony would flirt with her, but Hermione seemed unlikely to take him up on it. From what she could gather from the interview so far, Hermione seemed rather no-nonsense and more likely to put Tony in his place than try to sleep her way to the top.

Pepper sighed at her thoughts and hoped what she was about to say wasn't going to turn the woman off the job, because she actually seemed perfect for it and she wasn't sure any of the other applicants would do, now that she had interviewed Hermione. "The truth is that this job won't be very glamorous. If you take it, you'll mostly be in charge of Mr. Stark's schedule and Tony can be...," Pepper pursed her lips as she looked for a good word.

"Tony can be eccentric. Getting him to follow a schedule will be like herding cats I'm afraid, and he frequently finds himself in trouble," she said finally with an eye roll and a toss of her coppery hair. She knew that rolling her eyes wasn't very professional, but honestly, Tony often frustrated her beyond her limits, and she was the boss now so it wasn't like he could fire her over it.

Hermione cocked her head waiting for the other woman to finish. She waved a hand dismissively at Pepper's statement. "Honestly, I'm accustomed to that. My two best friends served with me and I was constantly keeping them on track and out of trouble. I swear they had to be looking for trouble with how often they had to be saved from it. One day we were out in the woods on a mission and they very nearly ate hallucinogenic mushrooms on accident before I stopped the two of them. It would have been a disaster for our mission as we were supposed to be lying low. I don't know how they even managed to stumble across the bloody things," Hermione said half-exasperated and half-fondly.

Pepper let out a peal of bright laughter. "Alright Hermione. If you want the job, it's yours. I don't need any other convincing. That's exactly the same type of trouble Tony would get into if no one kept an eye on him."

Hermione smiled in relief. That was the first part of her assignment completed. She would have to email Phil later to let him know. Mostly she was just excited to be working for a company that could make a difference even if it was under false pretenses initially. "I would love to take this job," she said.

"Excellent! When do you think you could start?" asked Pepper.

"Would next Monday be soon enough?"

"Monday would be perfect. Come in around nine o'clock and have Jarvis bring you back up to my office. I'll get your paperwork started and show you around after that."

"I'll be here at nine o'clock on Monday then. I look forward to the opportunity," Hermione repeated back. She stood up from her seat as Pepper got up out of hers. They shook hands one last time and Hermione made her way out of the building thrilled with the turn of events.

Back in her office Pepper finally let out the laughter that she had been holding in for half the interview, "Color-coded schedules and notes. Tony isn't going to know what hit him."


The next Monday Hermione promptly met Pepper Potts in her office on the eighth floor with all of her current identification and emigration documentation. While she waited for Pepper to enter her documentation in the computer Hermione surreptitiously examined her arm. Her shirt sleeves were short today, so she had glamoured the arm that the Mudblood slur was carved into. It was the first time that she had glamoured her scar with her new wand and the aspen wand had covered the scar flawlessly. Her arm didn't even itch underneath the magic which had happened every other time she had covered the slur with magic before and she wondered if it really was that the old Walnut wood wand had disliked covering its former masters handiwork. She would have to keep an eye on how long the magic from her new wand would hold, it wouldn't do to have her scar appear halfway through the day when it hadn't been visible before.

Hermione covered a yawn and rubbed at her eyes. A nightmare had woken her up in a panic last night and she hadn't been able to fall back asleep until hours later. She had made sure to carefully cover the bags under her eyes this morning before she left her apartment. After a what seemed like longer than it probably actually was, the clacking of keys from Pepper ceased and she handed back Hermione's identification papers. Pepper stood up and gathered a couple of folders from the edge of her desk. "Would you like to see your office now?" she asked Hermione.

"That would be great," she said as she stood to follow the other woman.

As the two women made their way towards the elevator Pepper began to speak, "Now since you'll primarily be in charge of overseeing Tony's schedule you'll be located on his floors. The upper ten levels below the penthouse are all dedicated to research and development, but his personal labs where he spends the most time are the last two floors. Tony and I both have offices on that floor and there are a few other empty offices on those floors. However, neither of us spend much time in our offices on this floor. I only have one up here in case I need some solitude and I honestly think Tony just uses his office as a place to store all the paperwork he'll never even think of looking at again. I'm sorry to say that you won't have any other colleagues with offices near yours."

Hermione shrugged at that information. "That's not a big deal to me. I'm not much of a socializer," she said self-deprecatingly. "Does that mean he spends most of the time in the lab portion of this floor?" asked Hermione as she committed the nuances of her new bosses' behaviors into her memory.

Pepper shook her head. "Not exactly? He doesn't keep regular hours. Sometimes he works through the nights and gets up later in the day."

Hermione bit her lip. That would make her job significantly more complicated and it sounded like that would mean she might have some oddly scheduled work weeks. "I see," she said simply.

"We'll look at those empty offices now and you can have your pick of whichever one you'd like best," Pepper said getting back on task.

Hermione nodded and said, "That sounds good to me."

Pepper took her around to the empty offices on the research floor. There were three open offices available on the same floor as Pepper's and Tony's offices. The empty offices were basically the same, but Hermione preferred the second office the best. That office had more windows and the sunlight practically illuminated the space. It was a little smaller than the other two offices she had been shown, but it was equidistant to both Mr. Stark's and Pepper's offices on this floor and it wasn't far from the elevator either.

"I'd like this one please," she told her new boss.

"Great. I'll have maintenance move a desk in here. What other furniture do you think you might need?" Pepper asked glancing around at the completely empty room.

Hermione eyed the room critically and did some mental sizing up of the room, "Would it be possible to get a bookshelf, and maybe a small end table?"

Pepper gave a sharp nod, "That can definitely be arranged." Pepper pulled out a list from the stack of folders she was carrying around. "These folders will be for you to keep once we get your office set up. This is a list of which floors have assigned functions and which ones you will have access to. Since half of your assignment is tracking down Tony from whatever hiding spot he's found and herding him to whichever function he's supposed to be attending you'll have access to most of the floors right away."

"I'll be sure to look over those either later today or first thing in the morning," she said seriously.

"Hmm what else am I missing?" asked Pepper with flattened lips. "Oh yes, you'll have a computer, phone, and printer assigned to you hopefully by tomorrow. If you make a list of any other office supplies, you'll need I'll have someone acquire those for you from our supply closet too."

"Okay. I can make that list today. Is there anything else I should do?" she asked.

"I don't think so. There really isn't much for you to do today and your office isn't quite ready yet so, I was just going to give you a tour of these two floors and then let you go home after lunch. Tony is supposed to meet us for lunch, and I will introduce you to him then if we don't see him in the lab." she said with a shrug.

Pepper did her best to show Hermione around the labs, but it was clear that she had no idea about any the details of the technology that was strewn throughout the lab. She did manage to show Hermione where a fully stocked kitchen was that she was welcome to use, as well as the bathrooms, an indoor gym, and access to the balcony, which she would most certainly be staying off of since there were no guardrails and she was still terrified of heights.

True to Pepper's prediction, by the time they finished their tour of these two particular floors it was just about lunch time. They hadn't seen hide nor hair of the infamous inventor during their tour. The two women made their way toward the elevators and waited. Pepper checked the watch on her wrist. "I told Tony to meet us here at this time."

"Maybe he got caught up with something. I don't mind waiting a bit," Hermione said with a careless shrug of her shoulders.

Pepper clenched her jaw and was visibly annoyed. "It's more likely he forgot."

"Jarvis," said Pepper.

"Yes, Ms. Potts," came Jarvis' disembodied voice.

"Would you tell Tony he's late for lunch with me?" she asked.

"I regret to inform you Ms. Potts that I cannot. Mr. Stark muted me until later this afternoon unless it was an emergency that included loss of life," Jarvis said primly. Hermione would later swear that although Jarvis wasn't a real person, he still sounded annoyed and put out by the restriction.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione could see Pepper's face taking on the tell-tale shade of red that gave away a redhead's temper. In fact, it so reminded her of Ginny, that Hermione backed up a step from the other woman. Pepper rubbed her forehead with the heel of her palm and grit out under her breath, "I will show him loss of life."

She checked her watch again and noted that he was now nearly fifteen minutes late. She tapped her foot against the hard floor several times. "I'm going to go personally drag him down here. Wait here for me, I should be back soon." Pepper walked off without waiting for a response.

Hermione leaned back against the wall and looked around at all the technology that she could see from her position. She was excited to be able to observe and learn about all of it. She had a feeling that her new job was going to be more of a handful than she had originally anticipated, but she also had a feeling it would be worthwhile. It just went to show that she should be careful what she wished for; she had wanted something to occupy her time and now it looked like she was going to get more than she bargained for.

She pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off the headache she could feel building between her brows from the lack of sleep she'd had last night. Her breath stuttered at the remembrance of the mad witch over her prone, cruciatus-weakened body from her nightmare. For a minute she could smell the other witch's rank breath ghosting over her form like she was still in the Malfoys' drawing room.

"Well, hell-o lovely. Are you lost? This is a restricted floor and I would definitely remember if I granted a pretty thing like you, clearance," said a smooth masculine voice.

Hermione turned at the sound of the voice to see Mr. Stark eyeing her up appreciatively. She let out the breath that had been strangled in her throat from when she had started to panic. She was almost grateful for the interruption of her previous thoughts. She took a moment to assess the man she was essentially supposed to babysit and noted that he was only a few inches taller than her with dark hair and intelligent, but wary eyes. He was wearing dress pants, a white button down, vest, and a tie, sans a suit jacket.

"I'm not lost. I'm your new assistant that Ms. Potts just hired and I'm entirely too young for you," she said turning up her nose.

"That's never stopped women from throwing themselves at me before," he said with raised brow and a smirk.

"Clearly they were throwing themselves at you for your money and not your sparkling personality," Hermione retorted with a sniff.

Tony grinned puckishly. "Oh! The Kitten does have some claws."

"Do not call me that," she said sharply and immediately realized she had made a mistake. Stark would probably not call her anything else now that she'd made it clear she didn't like it. And Merlin did it hurt to hear that pet name. Sirius used to call her that when he was teasing her and hearing that name from another dark-haired, devil-may-care, playboy of a man had felt like someone had lodged a dull knife deep into her heart and then twisted it mercilessly. They had often traded insults back and forth like this too.

She rubbed at space above her heart. She thought Sirius probably would have approved of Tony too, in a kindred spirit type of way. He was a rebel son, spending his ill-gotten wealth on humanitarian causes just like Sirius had spurned his family. They dressed with a similar style and even from this distance Hermione could tell that Tony smelled of whiskey, motor oil, and metal shavings which Sirius had smelled like too after he had snuck a ride on his enchanted motorcycle. The only difference was that the whiskey Sirius had drank was Firewhiskey which had a warmer, more potent smell to it.

It had hurt her terribly to lose Sirius, but she had pushed her pain aside to help Harry. Sirius was one of the first adults that hadn't treated her and Harry like misbehaving children all the time. It had been relieving to have an adult in their corner after all the times that adults had failed her in the previous years. Sirius Black was also the first person that Hermione had directly saved and to lose him only two years after they had met him, when his life up to that point had been one tragedy after another, had disillusioned Hermione to how unfair and backwards life in the wizarding world could be.

"You didn't give me your name, so how could I call you anything else, Kitten?" he asked emphasizing the pet name.

She sighed, "You didn't give me yours either. My name is Hermione Granger and you were supposed to meet Pepper and me for lunch today."

Tony had a queer look on his face as he spoke slowly, "Everyone knows who I am."

"Of course, Mr. Stark, but it's called being polite."

"Oh, don't bother trying to teach him that Hermione. It's a lost cause and I doubt I could pay you enough to even try. And Tony, you are going to owe me flowers and a bottle of wine for forgetting our lunch plans," said Pepper, her heels ferociously clacking on the floor behind Tony.

Tony turned to Pepper and turned his back to Hermione, excluding her from the conversation. "Was that today? I was sure you said tomorrow," he said trying to wheedle his way out of trouble.

Pepper crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her hip. "Yes, and now, you better apologize with an even better vintage of wine."

"Fine," he said with a pout.

"This is why I need your help Hermione. This man is impossible," said Pepper drawing her back into the conversation.

"I'll do my best," she said dubiously.

"I don't need an assistant," Tony said scowling at Pepper and once again excluding Hermione with his body language.

The restaurant they went to was two buildings down the street from Stark Tower. It was clearly an expensive restaurant with white linen tablecloths and waiters in uniform. The tables were well spaced out and the restaurant was very clean and modern looking. Once they were led to their table Tony started back up to Pepper insisting that he didn't need nor want an assistant. "I don't need anyone to remind me of meetings that's what Jarvis is for."

"Whom, when I asked Jarvis to contact you today, informed me that you had muted him," Pepper whisper shouted across the table.

"I forgot I had done that," he hummed thoughtfully. "I worked very late last night."

"Which is precisely why you need an assistant, someone who even if you tell them to go away doesn't have to listen to you."

Tony shrugged and picked up a menu. "I could just fire Ms. Granger."

Pepper smirked triumphantly. "Actually, you can't. You transferred the company over to me months ago and I'm the one who is employing Hermione, not you."

"Damnit, there goes half my plans. I knew that transfer was going to bite me in the ass one day," he muttered.

Hermione let an amused smile play across her face from behind her menu. This was excellent entertainment and honestly it seemed as though Stark was all bluster. He did seem to be somewhat of a womanizer, but she thought it more of a defense mechanism than anything else. Besides, he was brilliant, and Hermione would put up with quite a lot to have the opportunity to learn, after all she had put up with Snape and Umbridge during Hogwarts. She suppressed a grin as she thought that she supposed if worse came to worst and Stark did do something she didn't like then she could always find a herd of centaurs or something else equally traumatizing to drop him into.

The waiter came back around again and the three of them placed their orders. Hermione had ordered light, because her stomach had been acting up all morning mostly likely as a result of stress and her poor quality of sleep the evening before. The other two occupants at the table scarcely stopped their arguments to place their orders and as soon as the waiter left, they went right back to arguing. Tony arguing that since he wasn't head of the company anymore his appearances shouldn't be required and Pepper retorting that he needed to make appearances as a figurehead and that he couldn't just stay up in his lab tinkering all the time. It went on and on and the only thing that kept it from making her headache worse was the fact that the two of them were being relatively quiet about it. Hermione sipped lightly at her goblet of water throughout their exchanges and wondered when the two of them would realize that they were being ridiculous in front of their new employee.

Within a few minutes the waiter came back out with their plates of food and set them in front of the correct people. Hermione noted that the other two had ordered full entrees complete with sides. She waited for the waiter to leave before she and the others at her table started in on their food.

"Listen, I don't need someone snooping around and annoying me all the time, besides the last assistant I had ended up being a spy," Tony said grumpily shooting a glare at Hermione before he took a bite of some type of gourmet burger.

Hermione opened her mouth to say she wasn't a spy, however luckily Pepper beat her to the punch because, Hermione was an absolutely shit liar. "That was entirely your own fault Tony. You hired Natalie Rushman because of her modeling pictures, which you didn't even bother to verify if they were real or not."

Stark turned towards Hermione and opened his mouth, but Hermione cut him off before he could say anything, "You'll find that all my credentials will check out." Coulson and the letter from the British General had assured her of that. As long as Stark didn't dig too deeply and only checked out the references SHIELD had provided on her resume, he wouldn't find her overly suspicious except for, perhaps, her young age.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "We'll see about that."

"If your pattern holds true, you're likely to forget to even check," Hermione said with a lazy shrug.

Pepper grinned. "She's got you there Tony and I had Happy run her credentials already."

Tony's scowled petulantly. His gaze zeroed in on Hermione and he scrutinized her sharply. He nodded towards her meal of a fresh salad with lightly seasoned chicken on it. "You know, I'm paying for the meal you could have ordered something more filling."

Hermione's shoulders tensed up from being called out like that. She paused for a second and said, "That wasn't something I considered, but it wouldn't have changed my order either way."

He rolled his eyes. "Pepper, I don't need an assistant, especially one that looks like she just got out of high school and can hardly take care of herself."

"Excuse me?" Hermione said through gritted teeth that had been a deeply personal attack and he had so far shied away from that, but that comment had hit too close to her trauma for her to let it go.

Tony waved a careless hand. "You're excused. You clearly have some type of eating disorder judging from your ordering preferences and the lack of meat on your bones." He leaned back in his seat and had a satisfied look on his face by the end of his statement.

"Tony!" Pepper gasped.

Hermione held up her hand to stop whatever the other woman was planning on saying. Merlin was she starting to hate how judgmental all these Americans were. That made both Romanoff and Mr. Stark who had accused her of the same thing. She knew she didn't look entirely healthy, but she didn't think it was that obvious just by looking at her, especially since she had used magic to cover up the worst of it. She was so sick of hearing people's stupid assumptions on her eating habits already. She could feel her anger rising and she was glad for it, because if she wasn't angry then she might start crying. Angry tears gathered in her eyes anyway. She didn't want to explain this to anyone else, but she would have to yet again, this time due to Mr. Stark's apparent rudeness and condescension. Why couldn't other people just be nice? Or at least mind their own business?

Hermione took a deep breath willing away the moisture in her eyes before she started to speak, "I do not have an eating disorder. I nearly starved for eight months in the wilderness during a mission gone wrong and I've only been able to access consistent meals for less than two months at this point. I'm still working on it, and this is one of the suggested meals on my nutrition plan that the doctor recommended." Hermione nodded to her plate of food. She was even angrier now. It was no one else's business but hers and her doctors, but people just kept putting their noses in places where they didn't belong.

Pepper had a hand covering her open mouth clearly appalled at what Tony Stark had forced the younger woman into revealing. She had never imagined that was what Hermione had meant when she said that she had been discharged for medical reasons.

Tony ran a hand through his hair and grimaced. He had really put his foot in his mouth this time. It wasn't the first time, and it certainly wouldn't be the last time he fucked up, but this was one instance that he immediately regretted. He had known it was wrong the instant he realized what he had what he said. He wasn't even sure what he had been thinking. Even if Ms. Granger had an eating disorder exposing her like that was likely to exacerbate the problem and it had been cruel and potentially dangerous of him to lash out at her like that, just because he hadn't been getting his own way. God, how many times did he have to let his temper get away from him before he learned?

Hermione took a few more bites of her meal. The food might as well have tasted like sawdust in her mouth with how unappetizing it was for her, so she placed her silverware down on her plate and gathered her napkin from her lap and set it on the table. She met Pepper's still shocked gaze. "I believe I was only supposed to work until lunch today?" she asked coolly.

Pepper nodded slowly, "That's right. I have to get someone to move your office equipment into the correct room."

"Then if it's alright I'm going to head home now. What time should I come in tomorrow?" she asked stiffly.

"Ah, of course. That might be for the best. It's been an unexpectedly long day already. Just meet me in your office at eight am tomorrow. We'll go through everything and then you can get officially started," Pepper recovered with an aplomb she didn't feel.

She stood up from the table and Tony stood up with her. "Let me walk you out," he said intending to apologize privately.

"That won't be necessary," she said icily enough that Tony sat back down immediately. She said her goodbyes to Pepper and walked away. She wasn't very far away when she heard Pepper speak furiously, "Anthony Edward Stark! I don't think I'm the only woman you are going to owe flowers to today!"


A/N Another chapter! and it's even a long one! Over 6K words for this chapter. I was going to split it in half, because of the length, but I decided that it was better all together.

Thank you all very much for the condolences and well wishes. I really appreciated them. Hopefully I will feel up to writing some new content soon rather than just posting some of the backlog I have already written. I'm going to be better about responding to reviews too.

As always, thank you for reading and reviewing.

-Blushin