Over a quickly and magically prepared meal, the team's curiosity about Clint's wife continued. "How did you two even meet?" Bruce asked.
"Budapest!" Hermione and Clint said at the same time, but Hermione was the one who explained further.
"As the Deputy Minister at the time, I was there for diplomatic purposes at the same time that Clint and Nat were apparently there on a mission. Of course, the usual chaos that always seems to surround all of us occurred and we all ended up being pinned down together under gunfire. After a bit of a…kerfuffle… I ended up saving Nat and later she returned the favor and saved me. Then we both had to go rescue Clint when he bit off more than he could chew...as usual.
After that…well…the rest is history. In between bouts of saving our worlds, we grew closer and Clint and I eventually got married. Nick helped us to set up this safe house in order to try and keep our life here together completely separate from both of our outside worlds. Somehow, we have managed to make it all work, though, despite our very different lives. Love is a strange thing, isn't it?" She gave Nat a quick significant glance with an almost imperceptible nod towards the doctor before turning back to her husband who just grinned cheerfully at her.
"Nick?" Steve suddenly asked as he made the connection. "Wait a minute…are you talking about Director Fury?"
"Oh yes!" Hermione smiled. "He is an old friend of Kingsley, the former Minister of Magic who officiated at the simple ceremony that we had here at the farm in order to keep it quiet. Therefore, Nick and Nat were able to stand up with Clint that day while my best friends, Harry and Ron…and their wives…came over from London."
"Why all of the secrecy, though? If you don't mind me asking?" Bruce politely inquired. Hermione could see why Nat liked him. He had intelligence and such lovely manners. In fact, he could probably give Clint a few lessons.
"Yeah!" Tony, however, was less polite with his questions. "Since you are married to old Eagle Eyes here, why aren't you one of us? We have been…and still are…in plenty of tight places where magic could have helped us out!"
"She has her own problems to deal with, Tony." Nat came to the defense of her friend.
"What could be a bigger problem than Loki, the Chitauri, the whole mess with SHIELD and Hydra…and now Ultron?" Tony countered aggressively.
"Ultron? Do I even want to know?" asked Hermione as she glanced at her husband before she shook her head and looked back at the man with all of the questions. "How about the kind of problems that you could not possibly handle with just your fancy suit, Mr. Stark? Problems like dark evil wizards who want to cause the wholesale slaughter of nonmagical people? What about the containment of the kind of deadly monsters that you have only read about in mythology books…or seen in your nightmares? What about keeping the magical secret of 1% of the world's entire population in order to prevent widespread fear and panic…and possibly war?" Hermione answered him calmly and politely. She was used to dealing diplomatically with hotheads. Merlin, it is practically my job description! she thought.
"So you have handled all of this personally, have you?" Tony continued in a patronizing tone, as if he did not understand or care about the danger of insulting a witch. Nat just rolled her eyes in exasperation at the man – especially when he continued to try and fit his whole foot into his mouth with every word he spoke. "That's why you have been too busy to help your own husband."
"That's enough, Tony." Clint stepped in to defend his wife. "Of course, she has handled all of that personally…she is the Minister of Magic in Great Britain, you know. The British Prime Minister himself does what she tells him to do."
That finally shut Tony up…for a moment. "You're the Prime Minister of Magic?" he asked in a quieter voice this time as he realized that she had said that she was the Deputy Minister at the time and that Fury knew the former Minister. "You're in charge of…like…all the witches and what…wizards?…in Great Britain?" He quickly did some quick math in his head…after all, she had said that 1% of the population were magical. The results were staggering.
Both Clint and Nat nodded their heads to verify his statement. However, Hermione demurred…as was her nature. "I would not say that I was in charge…per se," she answered. "However, I do like to think that I guide the magical people of Great Britain…and Ireland…since we don't have that religious divide problem in the magical world that the Muggles have…as well as influence the rest of the world's wizarding population…in a way that brings us, as a united front, even further away from the issues that brought about the Wizarding Wars in the first place."
"Wizarding Wars?" Steve asked curiously. He was the super soldier, after all.
"That's a story for another time," Hermione answered wearily. "But I am no stranger to combat, Tony. I have the scars, both mental and physical, to prove it. Therefore, don't you dare suggest that I don't care about my husband…or the rest of the world! I certainly have sacrificed enough for it to prove otherwise. Whenever he needs me, I will be there in a heartbeat to help him…if I possibly can. However, it is your job to keep the world safe from physical threats and it is mine to keep it safe from magical ones.
"Well, what about Loki, then?" Tony was not quite through with arguing yet. "He used mind control magic on your husband! Are you telling me that the Minister of Magic herself could not handle that?"
"Shut the hell up, Tony!" Clint said threateningly and the man looked back at his usually mild-mannered friend with surprise. When he saw the man's clenched fists, he finally realized that he might have come off too strong towards the witch…and maybe he should not have brought up such a sensitive subject around his fellow Avenger, either. However, in his defense, he really did want to know the answer.
"No. It's okay, Clint," Hemione put a calming hand on her husband's shoulder, but her voice was even more weary now with no trace of the animation that it had previously held. "He just doesn't understand...and it does sound a bit strange when he puts it like that."
"May I?" Nat asked in a gentle voice to Hermione, even while she shot daggers with her eyes at Tony. It was no secret to anyone in that room that she was considering using real weapons to do the same thing. Therefore, Tony paled considerably as Hermione nodded and stood up to leave the room.
"Clint, Dear, will you help me to get the upstairs bedrooms ready for our guests? I am sure that everyone is tired and would like to get cleaned up and rest. I wasn't expecting company and none of those rooms have been used in a while. In fact, I have been staying in the London flat for the past couple of weeks and even James and Albus made and slept in a pillow fort in the lounge over the weekend instead of staying in their usual room."
Clint stood up hurriedly, even though he knew that his wife could ready those rooms with just a wave of her wand. That meant that she just really did not want to be in the room while Nat told the story…and he could not blame her. In fact, he did not want to hear it either. Therefore, he just kept the conversation light while they left the table and made their way upstairs. "I bet Auntie Mione let them have all kinds of snacks, too, didn't she?"
"Of course, I did. James is my godson and I just adore little Albus…and you know that you do, too! If you had been here, I bet that you would have been right in that fort snacking with them!" Clint could not deny the truth of that. He did love those boys and only regretted that he and Hermione could not have their own – even though they did plan to adopt as soon as her term for Minister was over and he retired from the Avengers. Then they were going to live their own lives for once…and let others take care of the world, both sides of it, for a change. He smiled at the happy thought, but he still made the point of stopping and holding his wife close as soon as they were out of eyesight of the others. "I'm alright," she said quietly and he watched with admiration as she gathered her inner strength and calmed herself down. "I was just caught off-guard by the…memories." Then she kissed him sweetly before she pulled out her wand and changed the subject. "Now, talk to me while I freshen up these rooms a bit…and I need to make sure that I put Nat next to Dr. Banner. How long has that been going on?"
"What? Nat and Banner?" Clint asked incredulously.
Hermione sighed at her clueless husband. "Never mind! I'll just explain when you are older…Hawkeye, my foot!" she said with a little giggle and Clint was happy that he could make his wife smile…even if it was at his own expense. The smile faded, though, at her next request. "Now, why don't you tell me what is really going on out there that is bad enough to send even the Avengers into hiding?" He just nodded solemnly, however, as he proceeded to do tell her all about the situation with Ultron and the Maximoff twins. He knew that his strong wife could handle the information. She could handle anything…simply because she had always refused to give into that which threatened to break her. It was just one of the many reasons that he loved her so much.