Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Marvel or the characters therein. Nor, sadly, do I make any moneys from the posting of this fanfiction.

Here's the next oneshot. Enjoy!

…

The Patient

Bruce carefully dabbed at the wound and wondered not for the first time why it wouldn't heal properly. He looked up to see her staring out to the snow that was drifting lazily down to the now already white ground.

"I doubt you'll be able to get back to New York tonight," she said quietly, turning to face him.

"What does Mudblood mean?" he asked her.

She swallowed thickly, clearly not wanting to answer. Taking a deep breath, she said, "Do you know of the western enclaves?"

He frowned. "No."

"There is a world of magic out there," she told him. "I've told you that before." He nodded. "I'm from the western enclaves in Great Brittan. We are witches and wizards. I think that's a misnomer, but who am I to correct something that has been around longer than most even think of as modern civilization?" She winced as he pressed the cleaning cloth to her still bleeding wound. "There was a war…"

"What?" Her words had clearly startled him. "When?"

"Actually there were two modern blood wars. Three if you include the one that took place during the time of World War II." She looked down to her arm, adding, "The first war started before I was born and it ended when I was two. I never knew anything about it until I went to school ten years later." Her lips went tight in pain and she even squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "It started back up again when I was in school." She looked into his eyes and saw the worry and sorrow there. "I-I don't even know if it was just one war or two. It was the same group of insane people both times." She waved off the thought. "It doesn't matter. Anyway, the blood war started all over again. Only this time, this time children were brought into the mix."

"Children?" he growled this time.

She reached over and took his hand into her own, whispering, "There's no one to be angry at anymore. Most of them are dead. And those who aren't…" A shiver when through her. "Are in a prison literally a shell of the people they used to be." She squeezed his hand gently. "My friend Harry, you met him?"

He nodded.

"There was a prophecy…" She rolled her eyes. "What a mess that turned everything. Long story short, the megalomaniacal dark lord thought Harry was going to be the end of him. He and his followers kept trying to kill him every year." She didn't want to speak about this, not even to Bruce. But he as her friend, as well as her healer, needed to know if nothing else. She cleared her throat and went on. "We went on the run when we were seventeen-eighteen years old. It's part of the reason I hate camping now. We were captured by a group calling themselves snatchers." She swallowed thickly. "Since I was born of parents without magic, something they thought of as stealing from them, I…I was picked to speak to." She didn't know she was crying, as she whispered, "Bellatrix LeStrange tortured me for over two hours." She motioned with her right hand to her left forearm. "She carved that into my arm with a cursed knife."

"Did you show this to Dr. Strange?"

She shook her head no. "If not for Tony grabbing my arm like he did, you wouldn't even be looking at it now."

"Wait…what?!"

"He was trying to stop me from leaving," she told him. "He grabbed my arm." She smiled slightly. "And I kicked him in the balls."

Bruce let out a crack of laughter. He put her arm down and pulled her into a hug. "I wish I could have seen that." It was as he was rubbing her back that he said, "You should see if Stephen can help you."

"I know," she admitted quietly. "I-I so just wanted to be thought of as normal."

"You are."

Perhaps she was, she thought, but at that moment she felt far from it.

…

Stephen, Wong, and Bruce sat in the living room in silence. Stephen had worked on Hermione's arm for an hour and could still hear her screams of pain.

"Do you think it worked?" asked Bruce, sipping on the tea he had been given.

"If only she had told us about the other torture she had gone through," Wong muttered, his face grave.

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked. "I only knew about her arm."

Dr. Strange looked to Wong and replied, "When she went silent, it wasn't because of her passing out. She was having a seizure. Afterwards, I used my magic to study her brain." He looked to the other man. "From what I was able to discover, she had been under a spell that causes such intense pain that it's been known to leave the person completely broken." He sipped on his tea and muttered, "Whomever tortured her, did quite the number on her."

Bruce could feel himself become furious at the thought of Hermione being hurt so. "Who can you get angry at with something like that?"

"I don't know," Stephen said crisply. "I'm finding it hard to keep my temper over this as well."

"We should meditate," Wong told them.

"Meditate?" Bruce asked.

Wong shrugged. "It's not like we have alcohol."

The three were silent a moment before Bruce said, "Sure. Why not? It's not like I have anything better to do."

TBC…

…

And another oneshot is away. Thanks for taking the time to read my writing. Hopefully this is keeping all you reading this entertained. Take care and be incredible (you thought I was going to say awesome, huh? Clearly I need a thesaurus).