A/N: Eeeek. Infinity Wars is coming out this weekend, and I can't function. We've all waited so long and now that it's here, I don't know what to do with myself. It's a bittersweet feeling. I can't wait to see it, but I'm dreading it at the same time. But come rain or shine, Saturday I'll be there likely getting my heart ripped out my chest, I'm sure.
I caved to the awesomeness that was Black Panther -I'm a failure-and put a couple of things in this chapter regarding it. I was careful, though. I feel comfortable enough in saying that the stuff I did put in aren't really spoilers.
Guys, can I just say...that we're getting very, very close to shiz hitting the fan? And I promise not to deprive you too long of this next coming chapter. It's already finished. Just needs editing and a kiss on the forehead.
Please, please, please comment. Tell me what you're thinking. I appreciate your thoughts a whole bunch. I really do. :)
Enjoy!
Chapter 21: Secrets Under Scars
Iraq, 2008
She's an hour behind schedule. Her chopper barely landed ten minutes ago on the base. Hermione's in the backseat of the car, turning her phone off and making eye-contact with the guard when her window rolls down. The gate opens, and the vehicle pull forwards. They park close to the front door. There are no lights on the property. Everything's pitch black. The slamming of the car doors sounds incredibly loud.
She makes out Ross' form and the two other agents and perks at the squeaking of door hinges. She follows them inside the house where here and there lamps are lit. There's an eerie feel to the place. The men she passes—military intelligence, black ops specialists—are quiet. They litter every available sitting equipment in a sitting room, makeshift office and rec room, and kitchen. They don't speak, and burnt popcorn permeates the air.
There's a harsh lethalness to the silence.
Only a handful bother glancing her way, and they all do a double-take. These men have been trapped between this house and base for three months. They haven't seen a woman at all during that time. More and more women enter the battle grounds each year, but none have yet reached their level of rank.
Ross takes her down stairs, and the temperature drops ten degrees. Hermione lets out a soft sigh, goosebumps erupting on her partially covered arms. Under her Kevlar vest, she's dressed in a loose, thin-material sweater and black trousers. Nestled at the base of her spine, her pistol.
The air smells of musty hearth, and she glides her fingers over the concrete wall as she passes, liking the coolness. She's hot and sweaty all the time. Iraq uncomfortable for her as are most of the middle eastern countries She misses Russia. She misses snow, trees, enriched earth instead of parched land. She's trapped on a ship in southern oceans, coming and going from warmers waters to arid deserts.
She and Ross come to a door. He puts his hand on the knob and looks at her expectantly. "Are you ready?"
"Sure."
He opens the door, and she walks inside the interrogation room. It smells of blood, agony, and dedication. Fadhil sits behind a cracked and bloodied table. His chair's imbalanced, and he's rocking. His face is soup and left shoulder is dislocated, and he's rocking. When the door closes behind her and Ross, he stops and looks at her. Black eyes, bruised and manic, hit her.
"Ved'ma," he hisses.
Fadhil doesn't say it quite right given the language barrier. He only speaks Persian and Arab, but she gets the gist.
"What did you call her?" Ross approaches the table, reaching across it and needlessly backhanding Fadhil which only makes him laugh.
"That's unnecessary, Agent Ross. He can call me whatever he likes." She braces herself against the table. The scar above her pelvis itching out of the blue. Word spreads about a young woman being the most talented interrogator. Rumors, true and false, bound to get thrown in the mix.
Fadhil spits a bloodied wad, hitting her in the face. Hermione doesn't even flinch, but she does close her eyes and use her sleeve to wipe the contaminated spittle off her face.
"Abegglen," snaps Ross. Impatient. There really isn't ever enough time.
She sits down, her own chair wobbly. "You're afraid, Fadhil. So much so, you'd rather be tortured again. You know who I am. You know what I'm capable of," she replies in his native tongue.
He lets out a soft chuckle, his expression relaxing. Like she triggered peace within him. He fists his good hand and hits himself hard right below his ribs and how? How could she miss it?
"He's a bomb!" She grabs Ross's arm and tugs him towards the door, sprinting.
Fadhil detonates, and her bracelet's frequency is on too high. She can't create a proper barricade, opting for kicking the door down in time to fall on top of it, Ross over her. Protecting her like a fucking idiot. His blazer's on fire. She shoves him aside and tears it off him, becoming acutely aware of the ruckus going on upstairs.
"We're under attack," she announces to Ross's half-conscious self.
"It's a coup," he garbles. Then like a switch, clarity washes over him. "My boys!"
Ross' got to have a pair of bruised ribs. Even a twisted ankle. But he runs fast to inevitable death, and Hermione admires his sheer stupidity. Shaking her head.
Before running after him.
There are men on the stairs. Not theirs. Ross takes head shots, not messing around. He barrels up the steps, she on his tail and what they are greeted with is utter chaos. Ross turns around, grabbing her arm.
"Go back down!" he orders. "There's a cellar you can get do going left. It'll take you back to base—"
"Are you kidding me?!" she yells, grabbing her gun from her waistband and flicking the safety off. She knocks her shoulder into Ross and darts towards the noisiest part of the house. Bodies and injured soldiers cross her path, and she ignores the latter. For now. She thumbs the raised tab on her bracelet and thrusts her mind outwards, searching. The attackers who cross her path, she's ready for them. Three down like that.
She comes across a friendly and his trigger-happy finger. She jerks out of the way, shouting at him to hold fire. He does and throws himself against the window and entering the war grounds outside, taking out four attackers on the front lawn before he even hits the ground. Hermione takes a moment to be impressed by his enthusiasm, but that's only four attackers. There's still six more and one of them aims at the soldier. She guns him down flat and is about to take out another when a disturbance blips her frequency.
She's too slow to react but quick enough to only get in the chest where her Kevlar protects her. The blow makes her sway, the gunshot being almost close range, and warm, uncomfortable pain blooms between her breast. The attacker fires again, and she can only move enough to get hit below the ribs.
She doubles over a bit. The bastard's out of ammo now, thank God. He wasted his last two shots. Should've gone for the head, and she won't make the same mistake. He's dead. She dives out of the broken window and summersaults into the fight, popping to her feet and killing two attackers before losing her gun somewhere and having to show the remaining assholes a real good time.
She's a peach with an unpretentious knife.
Just saying.
She grabs her lucky knife from the strap at her ankle and throws it in the neck of the attacker about to pepper her friendly with his rifle. She takes it back with a good yank while simultaneously wrapping her legs around that bad man's neighbor's neck and body slamming him to the ground with a violent twist. His neck snaps.
Thre—no. Two more to go now. The soldier kills one.
Hermione wastes no time in disarming one of the two attackers, pleased and annoyed this one's a fighter. Young and agile and full of hate. He hates her. She reads his thoughts. The entire coup was to kill her and the CIA's most precious black ops unit. Two pains in the asses for Al Quade in the same building. Too much of an opportunity to pass up.
The attacker is skilled, and Hermione's disarmed. Her knife taken from her and then used against her. She's got her arms crossed, preventing him from gouging her face. In her peripheral, the soldier struggles. He's been shot in the leg, and in the shoulder, not to mention the bullets wedged in his Kevlar. He's likely got bruised and possibly cracked ribs.
It's not her job to protect him. She's an interrogator. A liaison for the CIA but an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a near-lifetime follower of HYDRA. A dead CIA operative means one less to worry about when the time comes for her people to shine.
Then why is she fighting?
Why didn't she go along with Ross' orders and flee to base? To prove she isn't just a pretty, little girl who's good at asking the wrong people the right questions? No.
Is she fighting because these bastards are Al Quade and they're enemies of HYDRA, too? Maybe.
Is she fighting because she cares because that can't be right? She doesn't know any of these men. Only Ross and maybe she does have a soft spot for him, but she's not in the house covering his six. She's here outside. Kind of helping this nobody.
Hermione doesn't take another second to dig deeper into her actions. She blows out the attacker's knee with a kick and then punches him in the throat once, twice, and then where his ribs meet. He's falls to his knees, the knife falling into her awaiting hand. She spins around and uses the weapon against him. Slitting his throat, warm liquid flowing down his front and onto her sleeves. He falls and so does the knife. His discarded gun finds its way to her, and she opens fire at the soldier's attacker.
The fallout could've been worse, Hermione tells herself, as she and the remaining drive to the next safehouse thirty minutes away. They can't risk returning to base out a fear of being monitored, and it's easier to shake a tail in an hour than ten minutes.
Aside from she and Ross, five soldiers out of twelve are alive.
Ross is livid. His men. His boys, as he likes to call them despite a few of them being as old or older than him, are dead or wounded. What pisses him off the most, though, is that she's fine. He likes her well enough, but he'd gladly trade her existence for one of the men they had to leave behind. Because after all, she's Red Trash. Or so he likes to call her in his head.
So Hermione doesn't sit in the front passenger side of the vehicle. She's in the very back seat, and the soldier she saved, his head is on her lap. He hadn't really intended to do that. In fact, he'd been resting his head against the window when Ross took a sharp turn, and the soldier teetered the opposite way. She tried moving him, but he's injured and pretty much dead weight.
For the last few minutes, she's been trying to wake him. Smacking his cheeks lightly and flicking his nose and ears. Hissing. It's dangerous to lose consciousness, and he's lost a fair amount of blood. The others are unconscious, too, or nearly there, but she can't do anything about them. Not anything ethical, anyway.
When they finally pull up to the safehouse, and a several medics spill out, she goes for brutal. This guy has got to get off her, or there will be a comical struggle getting out of the vehicle. She presses her thumb an inch above the bullet wound his shoulder, and he jerks awake with a pained growl. She pays his cursing no mind and climbs over the seat into the narrow cargo hold and opens the hatchback. Finding the lever on the side of the bench, she flattens her seat and then beckons the soldier to her after she hops onto the ground.
They have to reverse what they did to get in the car.
He's leaning on her, heavy and unrelenting. His feet are all but dragging, but she manages fine. They get inside the house, following one of the medics into—thankfully—a lower level bedroom sporting two cots and miscellaneous medical supplies on a table. She dumps him on one.
"Help me get his gear off him," she asks the medic, a young man no more than twenty.
"Do you know his blood type?" he asks, grabbing the sheers from the table.
Hermione now bothers to make a grab at his dog tag and gets a name with a face. Stevens. "O positive." She moves to his boots, unlacing and tossing the aside along with his socks. With the help of the medic, they're able to get him down to his boxers in seconds flat. Bruises litter his torso.
"How are you in removing bullets?" asks the medic.
She frowns. "How are you?"
"I'm in training and on-call." He helplessly holds up a wad of gauze. "I'm good at applying pressure."
"The leg." At the table, she grabs the forceps and then returns to hold his good shoulder down as she extracts the bullet from the other. Her hands are steady and quick, and she sends a quiet thanks to her early S.H.I.E.L.D. days post rehabilitation. The Red Room nor KGB gave her first aid knowledge outside of CPR and bandaging lacerations. S.H.I.E.L.D. taught her how to extract bullets from non-critical areas and sew or staple up wounds. It's crude and scarring, but life-saving in the end.
And judging by the nodule-like smatterings on his wrists and creeping up his forearms, this one may not mind marring.
When Hermione approaches him, rubbing alcohol and the surgical stapler in hand. She pours the liquid over it, and the soldier hisses. She pauses. It dawns on her he can still feel pain. The staples are going to damn near make him see God if she continues.
The soldier's settles his scowl on her. "Do it, bitch!" he says, his teeth clenched.
"I'm going to hold your other shoulder down again." Clip, clip, and one more for good measure.
He lets out a choppy howl, but it's louder than the one he bellows when she removes the bullet from his thigh and sutures the wound.
Hermione lets the medic give him the IV, rolling her eyes and wishing for a smoke as he misses four times before hitting a vein.
"Can you change bags?" asks the medic, gesturing to the blood bags. "I got to check on the others."
"Yeah."
"Can you hook up ghetto heart monitors?" He points to the ancient machine from the late 80s in the corner on the floor.
"I guess."
"Can you use a stethoscope?" He takes one from the table, wiggling it at her.
She takes it from him. "Sure."
"Gladwell!" A blonde woman pops her head into the room. "We need your pressure magic."
The medic disappears after her.
"Hey," says the soldier on the cot, weak and a tad disoriented.
She looks over her shoulder at him. "Hm?"
"I didn't catch your name."
"It's Bitch."
His laugh is short-lived. Groaning, he palms his chest and ribs and then sinks further into the cot. "Name's Stevens," he mumbles. His head lolls to the side, eyes lingering on her bottom but soon slide shut. He's out for the count, and darn, she can't tell him she's actually fresh on the market as of a week ago. She takes in the chiseled torso and pretty face and thinks she could do a lot worse. Hell, she's done worse. A flurry of all the old and unfortunate men she's had to bed for work comes to mind. Very few times has she ever had to seduce a man as pretty as the guy in front of her. And the times she did, most of them were out of their fucking minds.
Ross enters the room, a limp in his step. "How is he?"
"He'll be okay."
He rubs his cheeks and then chin, eyes distant. "They were aiming to kill you. The unit was a bonus." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Now I got seven families to notify."
He says that like it's her fault.
"You did good back there, you know," she offers, regardless of his misplaced resentment. "You need me to set that ankle?"
"Uh." He frowns at his foot. "I'll let the medics do it."
"You need be wrapped." She gestures to his middle.
They find a bathroom, and he's slow to take off his shirt, so she has to help him. He curses, his broken ribs jostling beneath this skin. His skin pinks underneath her scrutiny, but she's not sparing his form any lingering looks. He's got nothing to be ashamed of. What he lacks in remarkable physicality, he makes up in other ways. He's fairly green to be running this grand of a show, therefore, charismatic and a brilliant strategist. Mostly. Patriotic and ignorant. Unafraid to get his hands dirty—but not too dirty—in the name of the stars and stripes. Yet, there's a childlike naivety he clings to. He's a believer in, not what his country is, but it what it should and could be.
In a lot of ways, he reminds her of Coulson.
"Yeah, I know. I look nothing like that GQ model in there." He tries to break the non-existent tension.
She snickers. No, but she's not one to compare her 'patients'. "How're things with what'shername?"
"Ah, she left me." He shrugs as she begins to prepare the wrappings. "Guess I'm not surprised, but she took the cat. And you? You and what'shisscaryface on the outs again, I hear."
His phone rings, and he quickly answers, his stricken features turning sour. "Right, sir. Here she is." He holds the phone out to her. "It's Nicholas Fury. How the hell did he get my number?"
She takes the phone. "Yes?"
"I need you on the helicarrier as of yesterday."
"Can't, boss. On lunch."
Ross frowns and mouths 'lunch?'
"I got a good one for you. A hard case for you. It may be the hardest you've ever come across."
"You've got him in holding?"
"Don't get too excited. He's got a way of getting into people's heads."
"You do know who you're talking to, right? And don't get excited? You called me."
"If you're able to figure out what his endgame is, I'm pulling you from your post. You'll no longer be considered for the Avengers Initiative. You'll be a part of the team."
Hermione takes a step away from Ross, not wanting him to hear this. The CIA doesn't need to know about Fury's pet project and who's cool enough to make it on the roster. "I…had no idea you were even considering me in the first place, sir."
"I've been considering it since that Kabul fiasco."
"That was a disaster—"
"It could've been worse. You did good for a one-woman army."
He really has no tangible idea the disaster it really was. Her thoughts dip on the memory of the Winter Soldier. The kiss they shared, as brief and weak as it was, still haunts her. He still haunts her. She dreams of him. Not as often as she once did after that operation, but every now and again. They're not pleasant dreams. In fact, they qualify as nightmares. He kills her in most of them, and she wakes frazzled and even a little scared in the middle at whatever hour of the day she's managed to nod off.
He kills her because he can't forgive her for not relieving him of the life he's cursed to live. He kills her because he regains his memories, and she's the enemy. He kills her because she's ungrateful he saved her. He kills her because HYDRA's had enough of her, and she's served her purpose. He kills her because they know her insecurities and how she's slowly becoming disenchanted.
Brock had been the one to really jump-start her self-awareness, though he hadn't meant to in such away. His constant reminder of how HYDRA's initial promises wore her down. It also didn't help that Pierce arranged another bracelet to be slapped on her two weeks post Kabul, and Brock voiced his disgusted opinion on that matter, too. But where his belief holds strong in the bigger picture, her belief waivers. She had been promised greatness and if Pierce and Malick hadn't let doubt in her overcome them, maybe a crisis like what happened in Punete Antiguo and hell, even Harlem, wouldn't have been such a big deal. Maybe, just maybe, if they believed in her even half as much as she believed in HYDRA, she wouldn't be so bittersweetly flattered by Fury's consideration.
"A quinjet will be there at the safehouse in twenty. Be ready" Fury remarks. "I don't want to have to send in Romanoff. She's good, but this guy's got a thousand years of better on her."
Click.
A thousand years?
By the time Hermione reaches the helicarrier via quinjet, she's too late.
Phil Coulson is dead.
Arms folded, back against the wall, Hermione watches as the medical unit gurney the body bag out of the makeshift coronary room. She follows them onto the tarmac and sees them disappear onto the quinjet she came on. He'll be going back to for D.C.
She'd been too late.
"You were late, Agent," Fury says from behind her. "I said yesterday."
Hermione turns around to glare at him. Wordlessly, she storms passed him, making sure to hit his shoulder with her own. "You should've contacted me the moment you had Loki in custody." She sneers over her shoulder. "Don't follow me."
"Agent—"
"Coulson is dead because of you."
"Coulson is dead because of Loki."
"Who was your responsibility. If you would've had your shit together, I could've been here to interrogate him yesterday. What exactly did you accomplish by sending in Romanoff?"
"Not enough, but something."
"Was it worth Coulson's blood?"
Fury lets out a sigh. "We know he's planning something big. We're still working out the details as of where."
Hermione takes the narrow metal stairs, a cold rush of thin air hitting her when she enters the place Coulson died. Her eyes fall to the sticky blood stain, and a deep sadness washes over her. She wasn't supposed to get attached, and she did. Her secret, silly crush. Coulson had been special to her but what an idiot he was for taking on that thing alone.
"I know how much he meant to you," says Fury, squeezing her shoulder. "He meant a lot to others, too. He was a good man."
"Probably the best. He thought…" Her throat tightens, and she clears it. It feels like it was just yesterday they were in an overheated room, and he was feeding her Baltic Sprat. "He thought I was good. Or could be."
"Everything he said about you was true."
She flinches away from Fury because she knows he doesn't really believe that. She's felt his apprehension towards her. His distrust. His solid belief in his gut that she's hiding something. Consideration for the Avengers Initiative or not, he still took a lighter to her Kabul report three years ago in front of Pierce and called bullshit.
Her boots hit the walkway, and she looks down over the railing at the drop. "Who was in the cage?"
"Thor." Fury joins her. "He'll be all right."
"Banner?"
"MIA for now. He'll be all right, too." He glances at his watch.
"What's your next move?"
"If you want, you can escort Coulson's body to D.C. The jet leaves in five. You'll make it."
She forgoes returning to the tarmac and heads down a hallway, finding a bathroom to splash water on her face. She stares at her reflection and tries searching for what Coulson saw. What did he see when he first saw her? Beyond somebody worth giving out a second chance? Did he see the same thing he saw in Natalia? A woman trained to manipulate and kill housing a hardened orphan in desperate need of a way out?
Hermione knows what he didn't see. He didn't see her truth. He didn't see her skull and tentacles and in hindsight, she's kind of relieved he died now than when HYDRA could no longer contain itself in the dark corners of S.H.I.E.L.D. Sitwell heard from Stern who heard from Pierce that they're looking at 2014. The funds Cruz-Gesenko stole were never recovered and set them back two more years than initially planned.
Bitterness lingers at the back of her throat. The big reveal used to excite her, even make her anxious. Now, she's not sure it's the way. But she does know S.H.I.E.L.D. and the entire western intelligence community must be overthrown. It's the only direct way to smother the chaos and unify the world. Now, she fears HYDRA's endgame might be tainted by corrupt, power hungry people. Like John Garrett who blindly sold his product to Al Quade sympathizers in exchange for an extra buck. Men like him, their intentions are not pure. They have multiple agendas; one just happen to coincide with HYDRA's.
In times like these when her morose feelings want to sway her further down the path of doubt, she reminds herself to be strong. To not let the way others practice effect the way she does. That's weakness. Letting one's self to bend because others disappoint is shameful.
Exiting the bathroom, Hermione comes across Steve Rogers skulking down the hallway and if Coulson hadn't died half-hour ago, she could've been inclined to snicker. His outfit's absurd, but Hermione doesn't even grin or salute. Captain America had been a hero to Coulson, and he couldn't even save him. Hermione had never believed in the mythos surrounding him—she's HYDRA, after all—and there certainly wasn't a reason to now.
She sighs. Coulson's death isn't Rogers' fault. It's Loki's. She will not become one of those people who blame bad things on anyone or anything beside the person responsible. Rogers is here, sure, and an easy target just like Fury. But why waste the bullets when the real criminal is still out there?
"You all right, ma'am?" he asks, his blue eyes scanning her form for any injuries. His brow furrows at her non-uniform clothing. She's not in a body suit or the helicarrier's designated garb. She's still in her dusty trousers and boots. She's not suited to take orders nor fight any battles on this craft. She's just an interrogator from the Lemurian Star who got there too fucking late.
"Have you seen Natalia?" she asks.
"Natalia?"
She lets out a breath. "Romanoff, I mean."
He's about to tell her but then stiffens, jutting out his chin and squaring his shoulders. "Who's asking?"
He doesn't know Hermione, and he probably barely knows Natalia, but he's smart enough to not be handing out locations of top S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to just anybody.
"Agent Abegglen."
The name means nothing to him, she senses, even though she's supposedly a candidate for his team and the best interrogator these people have to offer. Interesting.
Tony Stark pops his head out from around the corner of the hallway Rogers came from. "Fury wants a meeting."
Stark's about to disappear around said corner but pauses when seeing her. Hermione unabashedly stares back at him, head on and neutral-faced. "Hello, Mr. Stark," she says primly. "It's nice to see you again."
His dark eyes narrow, recognizing her immediately. He walks up behind Rogers, clapping him brief but rough on the shoulder. No friendship in the gesture but almost like he's dealing out a hint to other man. A warning.
Beware, Rogers. Danger is closer than you think.
"And here Natalie was the only one I stressed over. Melissa, right? But that's not your real name. Because of course, it wouldn't be." He exhales, ragged and heavy. "God, I can't believe Fury…You know what? I can."
"I think I'm missing something," pitches Rogers.
And just like that, Stark's over it and over her. There are bigger fish to fry than realizing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been a pain in his ass longer than he could ever realize. Fury likely has a pull-at-the-heartstrings speech to get them going. And does he play them well with the blood-spattered collecting cards. Hermione eavesdrops, hoping to catch Natalia who isn't there.
Hermione finds her outside a medical-recovery cabin looking like she needs a smoke or twenty. She's visibly shaken, even a little sweaty, indicating she's gone a couple rounds both physically and mentally.
"Got a cigarette?" asks Natalia, her voice raspier than usual.
"I should've become one of those quitters who always keeps one around for times like these."
"A flask of vodka, then." The woman exhales, leaning back against the door. "The world's been going crazy for a while now, huh? I guess I didn't know just how much until now. What happened in New Mexico was so abstract. An unbelievable tale you knew was true, but you weren't there, so…yeah. Gods are real, and so are giant green monsters." She lets out a strangled laugh. "We weren't trained for this, Milas. How the hell are we supposed to fight them?"
The answer is to evolve because the world may seem to be going crazy, but it's always been like that, hasn't it? And to make up for such chaos, people must transform. Captain America lives. Gods walk among them, and giant angry men exist. Fury must be thinking, 'What a time to be alive.'
"Barton in there?" Hermione nudges her chin at the door.
"He'll be coming out of it pretty soon. I should check on him. Are you sticking around?"
"My assignment jumped ship, and I have no leads. Better get back. Finish my lunch or something."
"The world might end. Fury could use you now, and all your talents. We're going to get that lead soon, I bet you anything. We could use you on the forefront. Most of these idiots don't know what a good shot you are."
"The trenches aren't for us."
"We're fighters. Doesn't matter how you look at it."
Not even twenty minutes later, she watches Natalia, Stark, Rogers, and Barton sneak on a quinjet and take off for New York City. Hermione doesn't go with them, and Fury stares at her like he's come to a decision. She's not Avenger material, and that's a shame. Coulson's death wasn't enough of a push for her to join them, but Fury doesn't understand. She can't take her bracelet off again, and she can't let anyone see her fight. They can't know how easy it might be for her to win or how fast she can run. Natalia hasn't even seen Hermione land a punch since their KGB days, and she had to be careful then.
There's not another quinjet available for the Lemurian or even D.C., so she's stuck on the helicarrier until the next morning. From a computer, she watches what will be dubbed the Battle of New York and concludes she's not needed as an Avenger. The team is already complete.
Hermione doesn't receive closure for Coulson's death. Loki's in custody for all a few hours before being dragged back to Asgard by Thor. She wanted to know his secrets because surely, he had more than the Chitauri are coming, the Chitauri are coming.
It's after eleven the next morning when she's stumbling into Natalia's apartment they share on occasion. She hears the shower on down the hallway, and Natalia's clothes and boots are strewn all over the place. Ever the neat freak Hermione is, she bends down and begins to gather them. They're casual wear, but Hermione sees the blood spots on them. Natalia's still scraped up from the battle, and why wouldn't she be? She literally fought in a war yesterday.
The clothes are taken to the laundry room where Hermione rinses the garments in cold water before hanging them over the sink. She can't wash them with Natalia being in the shower.
Hermione gets to the bathroom, the door ajar. She pushes it open further and walks in, sitting on the toilet to free her feet from her boots.
"Can't believe you got home before me." She removes her blazer next and unbuttoning her blouse. "I should be at work. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s in a mess. I should be, like, helping or something."
"I'm going on vacation," announces Natalia. "You should come."
Hermione stands up, looking at her through the glass of the shower door while removing her blouse. "Where are you going?"
Nat snorts. "I think Stark's taking Rogers to Disney World. I thought about going with them. I've never been, but…Laura's pregnant. She's due any day."
"And you want to bring me?" Bra and underwear go next, and Hermione opens the shower door. "Move over. I'm disgusting. I haven't showered in four days."
She hasn't slept in that time either, aside from ten minute power naps in various bathrooms on the quinjet from Iraq and then on the helicarrier. The last twenty-four hours, she spent the rest of her time on the craft cleaning and stitching up wounds and helping repair the mainframe damage of both Stark and Barton's coup.
"Laura wants to meet you." Nat moves out of the way of direct spray and reaches for the shampoo, pumping a glob into her hand and lathering it into her dark red tresses. Hermione takes a turn under the water, glancing at her friend's battle wounds. Scrapes and bruises everywhere. Dark blue and purple splotches on her knees and the back of them. Those are the biggest ones while the others are smattered and smaller. Along every nodule of her spine, there's a deep reddish-brown bruise.
"You look glorious," Hermione remarks. "Did you take some ibuprofen?"
Nat pumps another round of shampoo into her hand. "Come here." Hermione tilts her head back, letting out a sigh as the other woman massages the gel into her hair.
"I should be doing this to you. You're practically invalid."
"You can wash me."
Lips brush against Hermione's shoulder, and an arm encircles her waist. Natalia rests her cheeks right above Hermione's shoulder blade. "When's the last time you've even been with a woman?"
She lets out a laugh. "A while." Her arms reach behind her, somewhat awkwardly encircling Natalia's waist. "You. Way back when things were simple."
"Were they?" Her voice is soft, jaded, but then she perks up, nuzzling her skin. "Can I ask you a question? And promise…promise not to laugh. What do you think of Rogers?"
A small smirk appears on Hermione's face. "Assuming I've met this man, are you? I think it'd be more appropriate for me to ask you what you think of him."
"He's the first person of S.H.I.E.L.D. that hasn't judged me for what I used to be."
"He's not S.H.I.E.L.D."
"He's going to need a paycheck. Social security isn't going to cover an apartment here on the east coast."
"He could room with us," Hermione jokingly pitches. "He could be, like, our pet. I take it you'd prefer him all snuggled at the foot of your bed."
Skilled fingers rub at her lower back. She winces when Natalia finds the knot resting there, kneading thoroughly. "Fury," she starts with a forlorn exhale, "is going to recruit you for something."
"Avenger related?"
"No. He's going to ask you to be Rogers' friend. Ever since he resurfaced, Fury's been planning a companion for him to help him adjust. I," Nat cleared her throat, "volunteered, but Fury said no."
"That was before yesterday. It'd make sense now if it were you."
"Sitwell referred you to Pierce who pitched the idea to Fury. Whether it makes sense or not, I don't have the CEO and Stern's lapdog nominating me."
"It's Fury's idea. He's going to do what he wants." Hermione moves away from Natalia to rinse her hair and then switches places with her, so she can do the same.
Natalia rings out her hair and then applies conditioner before snatching Hermione's shaver from the shelf, forgoing her own. "So are you coming with me to Barton's?"
Hermione applies her own cream rinse, this one twice as expensive as Nat's and designed to tame beastly curls like her own. Nat's got naturally curly hair but not quite like Hermione's. Hers doesn't naturally bounce or flow. It just…is chaos ninety percent of the time. Kind of like her current thought process. She can't go to the Barton's house. Visiting would run the risk of exposing his home and family to HYDRA because she may be followed if she decides to leave on an abrupt vacation with Natalia. She won't do that. Barton's not a friend, but he means a lot to Natalia.
"I'm flying out to Kuwait tomorrow with both S.T.R.I.K.E. units."
And things are left there. Natalia can't ask, and Hermione can't divulge. As Hermione dries off and Natalia begins to pack for her trip, she contemplates the notion of 'breaking in' Rogers.
Wrong choice of words, but she can't help but inwardly snicker. Oh, what fun she'll have with him.
To be Continued...
