Found What They Weren't Looking For
Disillusioned with the idea of soulmates when she thinks she's lost her soul, Hermione may be on the verge of giving up on dating. Harry suggests she take a vacation.
Bucky, sure the Winter Soldier doesn't have a soul, happens to bump into a pretty gal looking for a closed restaurant.
A touch sets off sparks. Things get a bit emotional.
Pairing: Hermione & Bucky, Hermione/Bucky (pre-relationship)
Rating: general
Warnings: none
Tropes: Soulmates, Soulmarks, Meet-Cute, No Blip, No Infinity War, No Endgame, Post-The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, fluff, angst
Words: 3.657
Original Release Date: 01 MAR 2022
Hermione added a splash of milk to her tea and gave it a few swirls with her spoon. Setting the spoon aside, she sipped at the tea. It wasn't the best brew, but it gave her something to do while she waited. She didn't have to wait long, however, because soon she caught sight of a head of messy black hair heading towards her bistro table at the end of one of the Diagon Alley side streets.
Harry smiled as he approached and greeted her with a soft, "morning," as he settled into a chair. In a pastel purple sling across his chest was his newborn daughter, Lilian. He leaned forward so Hermione could see the baby, cosily pressed against his chest; her mouth partially open as she slept.
"How'd your date go last night? Muggle fellow, right?"
Hermione set her teacup down and let her posture sag a little. She leant forward to rest her arms against the table. "The same as they usually do. Small talk over starters: where we're from, what we do, the weather... sports." She rolled her eyes as he grinned, knowing she didn't follow any sports except the Quidditch teams that both Ron and Ginny were on. "Halfway through the main course, soulmarks came up. What his means, what he thinks it means about his soulmate. And then the inevitable questions about mine."
She sipped at her tea again as she watched Harry pour himself a cup from the pot on the table.
"And?" he asked, looking up from his task.
"The awkwardness of saying I don't have one." She looked around, still slightly paranoid about the paparazzi and a certain-registered-beetle animagus.
"But you did have one. Why do you say you don't?"
"Because it's easier to explain. Especially to Muggles. How do you think they'd react if I told them that I was the one to accidentally expose the Magical world to the Muggle one with one epic miscalculation; resulting in the entire Muggle population learning about soulmarks at the expense of my own?" She shook her head. "Plus, hiding that I'm Magical is a hard habit to break."
"Maybe you should stop trying to date Muggles?" Harry said. Lilian made a soft noise and he brought his hand up to cup her head through the sling. He kissed the baby's forehead and then focused back on Hermione.
"I like the anonymity it gives me."
"Clearly you don't, though."
She gave a non-committal hum and sipped her tea again.
"You should go on vacation."
"Harry?" she asked, wondering where that thought had come from.
He heaved a put-upon sigh and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Luna bought a portkey to New York but changed her mind about using when she ran into Neville last week. Gave it to me to see if anyone else might be able to use it. Since you don't have anything keeping you here, I thought you could use it as a vacation of sorts."
"You mean because I'm unemployed."
"I didn't want to bring that up."
"I'm over it, Harry. It's been seven months. Seven long months, but I've come to terms with it. I screwed up, I admit it. I changed the world a lot more than I intended. I got fired for it. It's fine."
He raised his eyebrows at her. "You don't sound over it."
Hermione took a deep breath and released it slowly. She bit at the inside of her lip in thought. A vacation might do her good. There were several museums she could visit to relax as well as a thriving Magical community just outside of the city. She'd been there briefly a few years ago for her Arthimancy mastery. "When does the portkey expire?"
"You'll need to activate it before 4 tomorrow afternoon."
Hermione drained the dredges from her teacup and set it down with a decisive clink. "I guess I'm going on vacation."
Harry grinned at her.
Bucky rolled his creeper out from under the classic Ford he was working on and sat up. Wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his right wrist he glanced over at the TV. It had been seven months, and talk about magic this and magic that, soulmarks and soulmates, was still all over the news. Didn't they have more important things to cover? Hell, he'd prefer politics to this, and he hated politics.
"Isn't there anything else on?" he called to his coworker, the owner of the car shop, Ted.
"Nah," Ted said, coming around the side of the next car wiping his hands on a shop towel. "'less you want to watch soaps?"
Bucky shook his head before laying back down on his creeper and rolling back under the car. He'd taken to mechanics when he'd been helping Sam and Sarah with their boat. He'd taken to it pretty well and had asked if Ted had needed any help when he'd brought his motorcycle in last. It had meant to be a temporary thing, but they worked well together and Bucky hadn't needed to fight anyone in the year and a half he'd been working here. He wasn't sure if he'd call this peace, but it was close.
He heard the babble on the TV return to talk about soulmarks and tried to tune it out. It had been such a strange day when that whole thing went down. He'd woken up to shocked people everywhere, exclaiming over new tattoos appearing overnight and by the next day, the news was out that there was an entire magical world that had been hiding inside the regular one and that the tattoos everyone seemed to have were called soulmarks. Something to do with soulmates. There had been a lot of confusion about platonic soulmates and romantic soulmates as well as lots of over-worrying by everyone about witches and wizards taking over the world.
Bucky had given himself a once over in the mirror in his bathroom, concluded that he didn't have a soulmark and moved on with his life. He assumed that with all the horrible things he'd done he wouldn't have a soul. Or it had been destroyed somehow in the making of the Winter Soldier. The world hadn't moved on, however. Now, soulmarks were in almost every conversation he had with anyone, even casual conversations over coffee or dinner. Worse was attempting to date.
His bad date with Leah, that Yori had set him up on, couldn't even compare. If his age wasn't brought up, then his lack of soulmark was. He could say something about not having an arm, but then he'd have to confess about having a metal arm and with that all of his other baggage. He didn't think it was worth it. He'd been alone this long, right?
Who was he kidding? He was lonely.
After his shift at Ted's, Bucky headed out into the cool spring air. It was humid and he hoped it would rain later in the night. He debated going home but remembered he hadn't bought groceries recently. He thought about all of his favourite haunts but couldn't decide on what he wanted. When he stopped at the crosswalk of the next intersection, someone bumped into his left side. He turned to see a woman with brown hair pulled back into a braid.
"I'm sorry," she said, folding the paper map in her hands. "I wasn't looking where I was going."
"It's okay," he said. Though, for some reason, he focused on the map in her hands.
She noticed. "Oh, my mobile got fried on my trip here, and I haven't bothered to get a new one." She glanced past him and up at the street sign, then frowned.
He smiled at her. "Were you looking for something specific?"
"Yes, actually. The last time I was here, I dined at this lovely little Italian restaurant that I thought was at this junction, but it doesn't seem to be here now."
"Antonina's?" he asked. That restaurant had been there since the '40s, and it'd felt like just another thing of his previous life had been taken from him when it closed. He stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"Yes, do you know it?"
He gave her an apologetic smile. "Yeah, unfortunately, they closed last year."
Her frown deepened. "Well thank you for—"
"There's another Italian joint about five blocks south. Not quite as classy as Antonina's but still good. I can walk with you there if you're interested." He should have expected the cautious look on her face. He was a stranger after all. He raised his hands as if to say he understood if she said no. "I hadn't decided on dinner yet and I haven't had Italian in a while."
Her expression shifted from cautious to curious. "Yeah, okay."
He grinned and she matched it. He glanced up and noticed the crosswalk sign was lit. "All right, let's go."
The first half block was quiet between them as they settled into a good walking pace that wasn't too fast for her but not a meandering stroll either. "On vacation?" he asked after they had crossed the next intersection.
She smiled and nodded, answering, "Yes. Last-minute sort of thing. Normally I'd have been more prepared with directions and an up-to-date map."
The sun was setting and the orange sky cast a golden hue on her skin. Bucky thought she was quite pretty. "Not one for spontaneity?"
"Not really. You?"
"I guess it depends on what's happening. Having a flat tire, bad, bumping into a pretty gal who needs directions, good."
She laughed, "Yeah, I guess some spontaneous things are okay."
The walk didn't take long, and soon they were entering the restaurant. Bucky held the door for her out of habit.
The hostess looked up and asked, "Table for two?"
"Actually—" Bucky started, but his companion spoke over him.
"Yes, please."
"This way," the hostess said, leading them past a few tables to a booth in a less crowded section of the restaurant. She lit a candle on the table and set their menus down. "Your server will be right with you," she said and then left quickly.
Bucky sat down opposite his companion, watching her. "I wasn't, this wasn't—" he tried to say something but she just shrugged.
"Why sit separately and alone when we can have company. I'm Hermione, by the way."
"Bucky."
They shared smiles. Before Bucky could come up with a suitable topic the server brought fresh bread. Bucky made sure that their tabs would be split before he started glancing over the menu. He tried not to feel ashamed as he ordered two salads, double entrees, and extra meat. Hermione didn't seem too bothered though the server looked at him like he was crazy.
"I missed lunch," he said as an excuse.
He almost thought he saw the curve of a smile on Hermione's lips, but it was gone a moment later.
As they plated up some of the bread, Bucky noticed his glove smelled like grease. Wrinkling his nose a little, he debated whether he could stand eating with that smell and decided against it. He slipped off the glove on his right hand and tucked it into his jacket pocket.
"What do you do for a living, Bucky?" Hermione asked after she finished chewing her first bite of bread.
"I'm a mechanic. Though I've been other things in the past."
"Have a favourite type of car or do you just work on whatever comes into the shop?"
Bucky finished his bite a took a sip of water before answering. "The shop, mostly. I've got a soft spot for antiques, but you rarely see that sort of thing around these days."
"Model-T era antiques?"
He shrugged. "Late 30s early 40s, really." She hummed in response. "What about you? What do you do?"
A subtle mix of emotions filtered across her face. Shame, anger, and finally embarrassment. "I'm in between things at the moment. I worked in research and development for a while though... before they let me go."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
She figuratively brushed it off with a slight wave of her hand. "It was my fault. I made a mistake in one of my calculations."
Bucky raised his eyebrows. "Seems odd to fire you for a single mistake."
A mirthless chuckle escaped her lips. "It was a really big mistake. Endangered a lot of people." She swallowed. "A lot of people called for my job. Some even wanted me in prison."
He could tell she didn't want to talk anymore about it. "Have you been enjoying your visit to the city?"
The cloud of negative emotions in her expression dissipated and she smiled again. "Yes, very much. There's a lot of culture here. I love the libraries and the museums. It's nice to immerse yourself in learning."
Bucky smiles. He can vaguely recall a memory from before the war when he and Steve were in school. Even though he always had stuff to do, he always made time for reading. Though it wasn't always a textbook. He asked her about her opinions on the current exhibitions that were up in the Met, as he'd visited a month or so ago.
Hermione was fun to chat with and seemed to have plenty of opinions on the art and social commentary the Met tended to focus its exhibitions on. Their dinner arrived and talk shifted back to their favourite parts of the city—if she'd done the whole tourist thing with Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center, the Empire State building. She'd done a few of those things years before but hadn't this trip.
Soulmarks never came up.
It had been so strange to not hear a word about them, but Bucky also felt relief. If they didn't come up, he wouldn't have to talk about not having one.
When the server brought their respective cards and their receipts back, he only brought one pen.
Hermione was reading over her receipt, seeming to tally up the itemized list of her order. "Tip?" she mumbled before realization came over her face. "I completely forgot about tipping."
"Yeah?" Bucky asked, grinning at her.
She smiled back and rolled her eyes at her potential faux-pas. "Yes. It's not a problem, but if they didn't have the little line there to remind me, our server would have been quite displeased." She filled in the line and signed then held the pen out for him.
He reached for it and almost knocked his water glass over. He caught the glass with his left hand and at the same time, the bare fingers of his right hand brushed hers.
She gasped and dropped the pen, right hand going to her left forearm in shock. "Did you feel that?" she asked, her brown eyes wide as she looked at him.
Confused, he said, "I felt... something."
"Excuse me," she said, standing up quickly, "Please don't leave, though." Then she hastened towards the restrooms.
Bucky had felt something in the mechanics of his left arm. Something like an electric shock. He had felt something like that before; when the HYDRA technicians would have the plates off and working with their torches and tiny welding rods, the welding sparks crackling annoyingly. The Wakandan arm Shuri had made him had never needed that sort of maintenance.
Once in the bathroom stall, Hermione pulled up her sleeve. The cursed scars from Bellatrix's torture were still there, lines of red that would never go away, but under that, her soulmark, that she never thought she'd see again, was illuminated with brilliant colour like a 15th-century manuscript. Watercolour-esque colours ran and blended the drawing of a book with a five-pointed star on the cover.
She thought that with her miscalculation it was gone forever. The spell that was supposed to make a soulmark appear on a Muggle didn't work on her. But it was back, and despite the scars, it was beautiful. She'd been trying to remove the scars when she'd removed her mark. And when the spell didn't work, she thought she had somehow lost her soul.
She worked to contain the tears of relief she felt and the overwhelming elation that came with realizing she still had a soul, she was still worthy of another person's love. She didn't even know if this was a platonic or romantic mark—she would have to go back out there and ask about his.
As she returned to their booth, she noticed how confused Bucky looked. She muttered to herself, trying to reason her joy back down to the stratosphere, "The first date—not even a date, a pseudo-date—with someone where soulmarks aren't even mentioned and it happened." Then she addressed her dinner companion. "I, umm, can't quite believe this, but... you're my soulmate," she said, unable to contain her smile, though it deflated a little at his continued confusion.
He shook his head. "I don't... I don't have a soulmark."
"Of course you do. Everyone has one. Magical and non-magical," she reassured him. Feeling all the dread she'd felt over the last seven months when she'd had to tell a date she didn't have one. "Mine's here," she raised her right hand to her left forearm but didn't pull up the fabric. The scars were still unsettling to most people and she didn't want to scare him off more than it seemed she already was.
"I checked when it all happened. I don't have any tattoos." He raised his gloved left hand and combed it through his hair, a sign of nerves maybe.
She swallowed, feeling an odd fear creep over her to combine with her dread and joy. Then she focused on that gloved hand before he settled it back down under the table. She had noticed when he'd taken off the right one to eat, but he'd kept the left on. Hidden. Her gaze lingered on his left arm for a moment and she could tell he noticed.
"Are you missing a limb, Bucky?" she asked, her throat feeling suddenly dry.
He seemed to freeze in place, his gentle breathing stuttering before inhaling sharply. "Excuse me, I've got to—"
Before he could get up she had jumped up as well, reaching out to touch his jaw. He almost flinched back but stilled, and that confused look returned. She could feel her mark tingling, but the feeling spread out over her skin, a thrum of energy in her blood. "You can feel that," she said softly. His nod was slow. "Just because you can't see a mark, doesn't mean it's not on your soul. I can... I can show you," she said, thinking of the spell she'd used on herself months ago. "We should probably do this in private."
His grey eyes were cautious, curious, but he nodded with more conviction this time. "My apartment is a couple of blocks away."
She let her hand slip from his jaw, down his neck, shoulder, and arm, then took his right hand in hers, not wanting to break contact with him. The thrum of their compatibility continued to simmer.
He led her out of the restaurant and into the drizzling rain of the evening, silent as they traversed the distance to his place. It seemed very intimate but also dangerous, to be following this near-stranger back to his private space, but she didn't feel afraid.
Once there, he pulled his keys out with his left hand and unlocked the door, seemingly uninterested in letting go of her hand. She was a bit marvelled at his dexterity. He walked further in, dropping his keys on an entrance table and pulled off his jacket. He turned and looked at her, standing in the dark of his foyer for a moment before he hesitantly pulled off his long-sleeved Henley. He wore a white sleeveless vest underneath, stretched taut across well-sculpted pectorals and abs but what caught her attention was his left shoulder. His left arm in general.
Black gleaming metal, with gold between articulated plates. It was a beautiful piece of work and if she hadn't guessed at the loss of appendage, she might have been fooled into thinking it was a full sleeve tattoo. As she stared, he clenched his fist and the plates shifted. Light from further into the apartment glinted off the curves of it.
After seconds that felt much too long to be anything other than gawking, Hermione drew her wand from her pocket. She held it out, letting him see, but he didn't seem bothered by it. She cast the spell, twisting her wand for the movement. His entire body glowed a vibrant gold before settling back down to shimmer around him.
She walked closer to him and touched his face again, then let her fingers glide lightly down his right arm, across his stomach and up the left, pausing at his forearm. Illuminated just like hers in the golden glow of the aura was a drawing of a book, with a five-pointed star on it. A perfect match to hers. A romantic soulmark. She swallowed against the lump in her throat and looked up at him. He was looking down at his hands, his left hand, in something like awe.
She pushed her left sleeve up, letting the fabric pool at her elbow to show off her own mark. The mark, the cursed scars spelling out a blood slur, the horrible slashed mess Bellatrix had created when she'd seen it, screaming about how only Wizards and Witches had marks, and as a filthy Muggle it couldn't possibly be a soulmark.
Bucky's gaze was on her arm, then looked up at her face. "I... how can..." he shook his head as the glow around him started to fade. It left the room darker feeling. Something like a smile slipped across his lips, tremulous but real. "Thank you."