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 13

Hermione put her feet up on her desk and slumped back into her chair. She pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off a headache that was building. It had taken Hermione several days to fully settle into the rhythm of her job. It was now the end her second week of working at Stark industries and she had worked nearly every day including the weekends. The work wasn't complicated and she seemed to be making good progress developing a friendly and professional relationship with both Pepper Potts and Tony Stark. She dropped in the lab several times to discuss his work and the textbooks he had lent her throughout the week. They both enjoyed the interludes and it often gave Hermione a chance to make sure that he was eating properly throughout the day. She noticed that like her, if Tony was in the middle of a project, he would skip meals without realizing.

She hadn't worked out a good work-life balance for herself yet, because Tony frequently had events throughout the entire day and sometimes late into the evening which meant that she had spent a couple of twelve plus hour days at Stark Tower. A regular workday left her tired, but the longer days had her dropping into bed immediately after she got home. She was frustrated with the still frail state of her body and how slowly it was recovering, even with the nutrition potions she was regularly downing twice a day.

Luckily, on the evil villain, Stark blowing himself up, or the world up fronts, it was quiet at the moment. Granted she hadn't been there long but, nothing had happened that she couldn't take care of. It had just all been routine muggle job stuff; lots of organizing, going over documents, and scheduling. It was nice to not be worried about attempts on her life, keeping Harry alive, evil teachers, or Voldemort. This job was a breath of fresh air that let her feel like any other young adult in comparison to her life before.

Tony walked into her office at that moment. Hermione snapped her eyes open at the sound of his soft shuffling on the carpet. He was frowning at her. She quickly swung her feet off her desk as a dark blush rose on her cheeks.

He shook his head realizing that she had probably assumed he was upset at her, but he had actually been frowning at the pinched look on her face and ashen quality of her complexion. "I put my feet up on the desk all time. I certainly don't care if you do too." He gestured to her head, "Are you not feeling well?"

"I'm fine," she said.

"Now I know your lying. If a woman tells you she's fine that's an enormous red flag," he teased lightly.

"It's nothing. I'll be okay to finish out the day," she answered resolutely.

He raised a brow at her. "Jarvis, how many hours has Hermione worked this week?"

"Ms. Granger has logged fifty-nine hours since Sunday," came Jarvis' disembodied British voice.

Hermione scowled and grumbled, "Tattletale."

Tony raised a brow at her silly behavior. "Don't you think that's enough for this week? You're arguing with my AI system. It's Friday afternoon. Why don't you take the rest of the day off and Saturday too. I'm certain Pepper didn't hire you intending you to work yourself to death. I'll speak to her about working out some sort of scheduled days off," he said.

"But what if I'm needed?" she asked.

"Do I even have anything important scheduled during that time?"

Hermione pulled out her color-coded daily planner and cross-refenced the calendar on her desk. She looked at the two unhappily. "No, but your calendar seems to have events pop up at a moment's notice."

"If there's nothing important scheduled right now then it's unlikely that something important will come along when it's practically already the weekend. Besides, I'm a grown man and I can take care of myself."

Hermione looked at him like he was insane. He was terrible at taking care of himself. That was why she had even been hired in the first place. The man might be able to save other people, but he wouldn't be able to keep himself alive if his life depended on it. He had terrible eating and sleeping habits. She wasn't sure how he had managed so long, behaving so recklessly with his health. She knew her health wasn't the best at the moment, but it was due to circumstances outside of her control. Tony seemed incapable of noticing his own needs at the best of times.

He rolled his eyes knowing precisely what she was thinking. "Well, you don't have to look at me like that." He came around her desk and gathered her brief case up and reached toward her elbow to help her out of the seat. She jumped up from her seat with a racing heart before he could touch her. "Er, sorry I must just be more tired than I realized," she breathed out.

He held his hands up non-threateningly. "It's fine, but that's exactly why you need to take a break. I don't want to see you here until Monday morning."

"Alright," she acquiesced quietly knowing there was no easy way to explain her jumpiness.

He gathered her jacket from the back of her chair and held it open for her. As she turned around and put her arms through the sleeve, he noted that she was finely trembling and her whole body was clenched tightly. He narrowed his eyes in thought behind her back at the display. He wasn't sure he bought her excuse that she was jumpy and trembling just because she was tired. If he was a betting man, and he was, he would bet that she hadn't just starved during that mission gone wrong.

"You know you can use Jarvis to sync the calendar and remind you of important appointments?" he asked amused and to hide the fact that he was scrutinizing her behavior.

"I do know that, but I prefer to have a handwritten copy on paper. Do you know studies show that handwriting something improves your ability to recall that information?" she asked.

"Does that have anything to do with your on-going war with the printer? I've replaced the printer twice in the two weeks you've been here. And also, I don't have to remember if Jarvis will remember for me," he said as he took her arm, guided her out of her office, and into the elevator.

She winced and spoke ruefully, "It's not my fault the printer is so frustrating! I have no idea why it keeps malfunctioning on me. I also don't trust that you wouldn't mess with the Calendar I uploaded just because you could."

He put his other hand to his chest in faux shock. "Who? Me? Why I would never. I can't believe you would impugn my honor like that," he said with a wild grin that was at odds with his words.

She chuckled lightly, "You would most definitely do so, and I bet Pepper would back me up on this too."

Tony steered her down another corridor and she followed him without thought. He wasn't prone to introspection, but he was glad that she seemed to trust him enough to let him lead her around without being wary now that he hadn't startled her. She always seemed just a little too on edge while she was working, but she didn't seem so on guard with him right now even though she likely hadn't been to the area that he was taking her. He noted that the more she conversed with him the more relaxed she became. She was no longer trembling at least. "Hmm, I don't have to be a genius to see that you and Pepper getting along so well is going to cause me no end of headaches."

"Well if you behaved like a responsible adult…" she said playfully.

Tony gasped, "Strike those words from your mouth! Being a responsible adult is no fun."

She shook her head at him in fond exasperation. When she looked up, she noticed that she didn't recognize the area of the building they were in until they passed through one more set of doors. She raised a brow at her companion as she spoke with mild confusion in her voice, "Tony, why are we in the garage. You know I don't drive here I take public transportation every day."

"I do know that, but I would feel better if Happy took you home today," he said seriously.

"I can get home by myself," she replied

Tony gestured at her as he chose his words carefully, "I know you can, but you look dead on your feet and I would hate for something to happen, because Pepper and I didn't realize how much help we actually needed or how much of a workaholic you are."

"Are you sure? I don't want to put Happy out or take away your security detail if you need it," Hermione asked hesitantly.

He made sure to meet her eyes as he answered, "Yup. It's no problem at all. I'm not planning on leaving the tower and Happy has been sitting around all day in Stark Tower. He didn't seem to mind when I suggested it either."

She found herself softening at his words. The truth was that she was tired both from work and several sleepless nights due to nightmares and on one memorable occasion she had unthinkingly gotten up and gotten dressed in the middle of the night in preparation to switch watch shifts with Harry. It would be nice if she wouldn't have to worry about missing her stop or someone trying to take advantage of her fatigued state on the subway. For all that her Tony had a difficult, defensive, and egotistical personality he could be deeply kind sometimes too.

"Alright then, a ride would be nice. Thank you, Tony. It was kind of you to think of it," she said as a car drove to the doorway they were standing at. Tony opened the car door for her and gently assisted her into the back of the vehicle. He put her briefcase in next to her on the floor.

"No problem, Kitten. Get some rest."

Before he closed the car's door he told Happy, "Stop for food or anything else she if she wants to."

"Alright Mr. Stark."

As the car drove off Hermione thought that her next few days of rest could be spent getting in contact with Phil Coulson to see what the actual expectations of her job were and seeing if Steve was around town. She had told him that when she had time away from her assignment, she would seek him out. She didn't get much further than planning on contacting them though before a wave of tiredness swept through her now that she was sitting down comfortably. Hermione leaned her head back against the back of the seat and despite the sun light streaming in through the cars' windows and hitting her face Hermione fell asleep within a matter of minutes.

Tony watched Happy drive off with his young assistant that he was quickly coming to think of as a friend or as a younger sister. She was brilliant and after he had given her his old textbooks to read, she had practically devoured them, and she came into his lab several times just to discuss the implications of the theories or to ask insightful questions. He also found that he was eating healthier and more regularly, because she kept slipping food within his reach while he was working. He'd be in the middle of fixing his Iron Man suit and then suddenly find that he'd slipped a couple of fresh berries into his mouth or that there was a plate of sandwiches within arm's reach.

He wasn't sure if he was thankful or not yet that she was brutally efficient at her job. She not only organized his schedule, but also coordinated and revised Pepper's schedule to match, so that weren't double booking meetings or having other businesses trying to bypass Pepper and going to him to approve an idea that she either had no idea about or that she had already turned down. On one hand he'd never made it to so many meetings on time in a row and on the other he'd never had to sit through so many boring meetings in his life. After all, there was a reason he'd started skipping the meetings entirely when he was the boss. However, as an added bonus, Pepper had never been so thrilled with him before and they'd had far fewer arguments in the past two weeks than at any point in their relationship prior to this.

He made his way back into his lab and decided he would investigate Hermione's military records to see if he could shed some light on her past. He was curious what he could dig up about her service. It might help him understand her better or shed some light on whether she needed any accommodations that he could casually add for her. Aside from that first time they had met when she'd told him off about being too judgmental about her eating habits, she hardly ever dropped personal information into conversation. He didn't know where she served or lived before, she had moved to America and he was concerned about how easily she startled. She was very independent for being so young and he was sure that she wouldn't ever ask for help even if she needed it.

He thought that it was likely that her records were encrypted, but that had never stopped him before. He pulled up the website for the UK's Ministry of Defense and typed in a few lines of code to get him behind the encryption. He hadn't often had reason to hack the UK's defense websites, since he used to deal more frequently with the American Department of Defense rather than their allies overseas.

Once he was in the database he typed in her name. She was the only Hermione Granger that populated on the list, so he clicked on her name. He frowned thoughtfully at the information, or rather the lack of information in her file. The file was barely worth reading. There was hardly anything there that he would expect to see. In fact, the information contained wasn't much more than what was listed on her resume. The only differences were that it listed her rank and honorable discharge date. He was surprised to learn she was a Lieutenant since she hadn't listed or mentioned that anywhere either in her resume or during the time that she had worked for him. There were also no recorded missions or areas served in her records.

Her records indicated that she was younger than he had initially guessed. He had never bothered to look at her age, but she was only listed as nineteen years old according to her birth year, which made it extra suspicious that she had been honorably discharged without more of an explanation listed; like a medical or mental health reason.

He skimmed the short file looking for anything else. It didn't even list her next of kin or a home address. Which was strange, since she had to have come from somewhere and she only been seventeen when she'd joined the service according to this documentation, so she should have had a parent or guardian listed.

Tony typed in some more code and clicked onto another page that let him view some of the metadata for her file. He reread the page when he observed that all the data that had been inputted into Hermione's file had been entered entirely on the same day and after she had been supposedly discharged. He crossed his arms and raised both brows. That was unusual for there to be only one submission date. He supposed that there could have been a clerical error, but it seemed unlikely to him. He pressed his lips together and hummed quietly. This looked more like his young assistant had been involved in some top secret undercover mission or that she was a top secret experiment which might explain her weird fight with the printers in the office, the way the Stark Tower model had initially experienced an anomaly at her touch, and why she was so hesitant to touch the model even now.

"Jarvis run a search about anything mentioning or pertaining to Hermione Granger on the web and also pull who she listed as her next of kin on her insurance paperwork," he said.

"Ms. Granger did not list a next of kin on any of her paperwork Mr. Stark and the only reference to her on the internet is this news article," returned the AI's disembodied voice.

Tony exclaimed, "What? How did we miss that she hadn't listed anyone? I thought the paperwork couldn't go through Human Resources without that filled out."

Tony opened the article and skimmed it quickly. It was useless and vague. It only stated that Hermione had supposedly done a great service to her country. Much of it seemed more like supposition since she was listed as a civilian instead of as a service member. There were no named sources cited in the article and Jarvis hadn't picked up any prior photographs of her on the internet. For a woman as brilliant as he suspected Hermione was, it was strange that she never showed up in any of the local newspapers for any academic accomplishments or even on the lists of honor roll students. The deeper he dug the more confused he was about her previous life. He could find a birth certificate, but there were no parents listed on it, which made no sense. She definitely didn't strike him as the type of person that didn't know who her parents were or had grown up in a bad household, she was too confident in herself and well-adjusted to have parent problems in his opinion.

Next Tony pulled up her list of references and what the Human Resources Manager who had contacted them had written down when they had spoken to the listed references. The HR manager noted that she was given a glowing recommendation from all three of her military references although they had cited security concerns for reason not to go into depth on Hermione's service. Perhaps he could contact Rhodey and see if he could get him anything else with his security clearances.

He was curious and wanted to confront Hermione about the lack of information in her past, but that would mean he would have to admit that he snooped through her information. He didn't think that would go over well since in the short time he had known her she had shown herself to be an intensely private person about her personal life. In addition, he hadn't thought he would, but he did like having her around and she made his days run more smoothly and provided him with intelligent conversations throughout the day, which he hadn't realized that he sorely missed.

He would, however, mention that her insurance and sign-on paperwork had come back to the company, because of the lack of a listed next of kin. Perhaps that way he could get a name to search more into.

"Jarvis, Get Colonel James Rhodes on the line," Stark commanded.

"Right away, Sir."

"What mad scheme is it now Tony?" Rhodey sighed from over the phone connection.

Tony grinned on the other side of the phone. "No mad scheme today ol' buddy. I just want to see if you could get me some information on someone."

There was a long pause before James answered suspiciously, "Just information? Don't you normally just hack into whichever database you want to if you need that?"

"I would never admit to that on a recorded government phone line and I'm shocked you even accused me of it Rhodey," he said lightheartedly as he rocked back and forth on his heels.

"Alright Stark, who's the poor soul you're so interested in?" he asked with resignation in his voice.

"I knew I could count on you! I need information about a Ms. Hermione Granger. She sounds like a Brit and she looks about nineteen or twenty."

"I swear if this is some model you slept with…" James started.

"It's not," Tony interrupted.

"Why do you want to know then?" he asked.

Tony hesitated unsure of how to explain without revealing his suspicions over a potentially recorded line. He didn't want the US government actively looking into Hermione if they weren't aware of her already. "Pepper hired her a while back and I couldn't find information about her the regular way."

James rumbled lowly, "You don't think she's dangerous, do you?"

"No, nothing like that. She's one of your types," Tony chirped out.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"Oh, you know, one of your do-gooder military types," Tony said with glee evident in the tone of his voice.

James sighed again. He had no idea why he continued to be friends with Tony Stark. If it was temporary insanity than it had been going on for much too long. "I'll take a look Tony. That's all I'm promising. I'll call you back in a couple of days," he said before hanging up the line.

Hermione rose from her bed the next morning after falling into it as soon as she got home the afternoon before. Her stomach rumbled fiercely having skipped dinner the evening before. She grabbed some fruit and sat down on one of her couches. It was still early in the morning, but Hermione figured that it wasn't too early to text Phil or Steve.

She sent off a request for a phone conversation or short meeting with Phil and she asked if Steve would like to meet her for lunch or dinner. While she waited for them to text her back Hermione did a few easy stretches and then settled down in a cross-legged position on the floor. She focused on her breathing and bringing her thoughts inward. When she could visualize her mind, she began to build up her occlumency shields; adding barriers and obscuring her thoughts. She was tired of relying on half-assed shields that were too draining to maintain, because they weren't finished. She was resolved to practice for at least a few minutes every day.

She still had probably six months more of constructing and fortifying her mind before she could say her mind was adequate enough to withstand a direct attack. She didn't have a Master Legilimens to test it, so she couldn't be sure, but her mind was shaping up to be like the books that she had read described. In addition, she could feel her shields gradually taking up less and less energy to maintain the more she worked on it. She could feel the magic of it building like a correctly cast spell on the tip of her wand.

She continued practicing until she was faintly panting with the exertion. With a loud gasp she dropped her focus. She leaned forward on her hands and caught her breath. She pushed herself up and grabbed her cell phone that was on the table. She had missed messages from both men she had texted earlier.

Phil had texted to say that he was in the field but that he would call mid-morning if his mission allowed. Steve had agreed to meet for lunch which she was glad about. She didn't have many friends in America. She wanted to be friends with Tony and Pepper, but she was finding it difficult to let go of the fact that she was technically spying on them enough to fully relax in their presence.

Steve though, had butted into her life over and over on his own volition starting when he had stopped to talk to her in the park a few months ago. She smiled softly, for being of such an intimidating size he was a true gentleman. He was gorgeous too, especially compared to someone like her. She was aware that she still looked malnourished, but even before her year on the run she had hardly taken the time to primp every day. Her hair was frequently a wild mess and she knew she dressed older than her age most of the time.

He was very kind though and Hermione knew that she was lucky to count him among her friends. She didn't think she was really in the right state of mind for romance yet anyway and certainly not with one of her only friends on this side of the pond. That had been a large part of why Hermione had left the Europe in the first place. Right after the final battle and the funerals Ron had wanted to take their friendship into a romantic relationship, but everything about that felt all wrong. It felt too soon to her, and she wasn't sure that she trusted Ron to stay when the going got rough after he had abandoned her and Harry to starve in the forest.

She continued leisurely getting ready for her day while she waited for Agent Coulson to call her. She put on clothes that were nice, but not too formal for a causal lunch meeting. Hermione also had a small favor to ask Steve during their meal.

When Coulson finally called it was a few minutes past the time he had indicated that he would call. Hermione let the phone ring just long enough to see the caller ID flash his name across the screen.

"Hello," she answered pleasantly.

"It's Phil. What can I do for you Hermione?"

She cleared her throat, "It pertains to my assignment. When it was given to me it was very vague. Am I supposed to check in at all or anything?"

He sighed tiredly, "I was wondering when this would come up. There are two reasons this mission is so vague, the first is that Fury apparently made it up on the spot. It's true that we were intending to get another set of eyes and ears to watch over Stark, but no one had thought to do it so soon. The second reason is more complicated and basically boils down to the fact that SHIELD has employed you more as more of a consultant. We do need someone to keep an eye on Stark, but more than anything we need him not to be hostile to us after the Romanoff Situation."

Hermione could hear the caps in that statement. "So, what are you hoping I can tell you about Stark?"

"Honestly, we only need to make sure he doesn't blow the world up on accident. Other than that, we don't need you to report on his daily or weekly activity. You're there just in case something happens. We're hoping that you can just make it so that he doesn't tell us no immediately if we ask for his assistance and actively spying on him would be counterproductive to that. So, you don't need to check in with us and we'll contact you if we have another job that you need to be consulted on," Phil answered.

Hermione exhaled and let the tension drain from her body. This conversation had gone a lot smoother than she had hoped. "I think I can manage that then. When we spoke last time, it hadn't occurred to me that we might have different ideas on what just keeping an eye on the situation might mean."

She paused for a second and considered what had been said. "When you say that I'm being kept as a consultant what exactly I am consulting on?" she asked slowly.

"The extent of that is still being determined," he answered with a vague and practiced ease.

"I see," she hummed.


A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it. No Steve this chapter, but he'll be in the next one.

-Blushin