Hermione opened her eyes with difficulty. They were like two leaded shutters, and her whole body felt like nougat actually, but the smell and sounds around her were familiar.

Hospital, she thought and the spike of adrenaline at the realization had her eyes shoot open. Tubes and wires hung off her, disappearing beneath a hospital gown. She didn't look injured and was confused for a moment as to why and how she got there. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, recalling to mind what she last remembered before waking up here. Images came to her with uncanny clarity: Bucky and Steve hovering over her, worry etched into their faces. Around them, the HYDRA base in Sokovia was in shambles. Before that… the pain! She recalled it so vividly she flinched like she could feel it again wrap around her, cling to her magic, burrow there like the Tesseract had, and it was all too much… she had just wanted it to end, to not feel the pain anymore, to not feel anything.

"Oh, no…"

She had… fled? She'd abandoned Steve and Bucky in the middle of a battle they definitely had not been winning, surrounded and outnumbered.

"No, no, no…" Hermione's eyes flew open, not wanting to see her cowardice anymore, her hands clinging to her hair and pulling.

How could she? She had apparated, no doubt to this very place, to escape the pain. Judging by the floaty feeling she was experiencing as she moved, a liberal dose of painkillers was still coursing through her veins too. She let go of her hair and pulled out all the tubes and wires from her body instead. She deserved the pain. If anything happened to Steve or Bucky, she'd never be able to forgive herself. She'd just abandoned them…

She had to know.

Taking a few unsteady steps, Hermione looked around for her clothes, finding them in a labeled plastic bag beneath her bed. She dressed, then apparated back to the HYDRA base, but the battle was over and she couldn't deduce who had won from the wreckage. She had to get back home then, and hope she hadn't hurt anyone, but fear and doubt began gnawing at her.

Her portkey took her home, right in the middle of their living room, but she could tell at a glance no one had been back since they'd left. The green plants looked especially sad, drooping and turning brown at the edges. Bucky would never have let them get this bad if he could help it, and the reassurances she had been telling herself tasted as foul as lies.

As usual, her anger, even if it was directed at herself, flared, magic crackling around her, but before she could twist to apparate away so she didn't damage the home Bucky and Steve had made for them with one of her magical discharges, she tripped on her own feet and fell.

Or she thought she did… it felt like she had, so she was very confused when she landed on her own two feet again, exactly in the same spot. Maybe she was still dizzy from whatever drugs the hospital had given her. Once more, she focused, twisted, and apparated.

She'd been aiming for the landing pad on Stark Tower, but it was chaos when she reappeared. Not the chaos from battle, which she knew well, but as if reality itself had folded on itself. The world looked like an origami. Nothing was cut or damaged, but disappeared around a corner, continuing as if it was normal for half the tower to be looming over her while half of it veered off at a 90 angle. She walked, with some pain, to the entrance to Tony's place, all the while feeling disoriented and seasick. Once inside, things looked more normal, but looking back, she could see the very place she had apparated to was the exact point of origin of all the distortion.

She stared, unable to make sense of it, of any of it. It was like she was going mad, unable to differentiate reality from fiction. She would like to blame it on the drugs, but she could tell they were wearing off by now.

"Jarvis?" she called, because if anyone could figure out what was going on, it would be Tony.

However, he didn't answer, causing her pulse to accelerate, because this was yet another anomaly. Nothing was right.

"Jarvis!" She called again in desperation. "Tony? Steve?" She hesitated, seeing where she was, but called for him anyway, just in case. "Bucky?"

She ran from room to room, sometimes having to navigate around a fold in reality, pretty sure she had walked horizontally at one point, until finally, she found Tony in his lab.

Finally, something normal.

"Tony!" she called, knocking on the wall glass protecting his lab, waving her arms when he didn't seem to hear her.

The glass could be soundproof, but she was pretty sure they were see-through both ways, although she wouldn't put it past Tony if they weren't. Normally, she would just apparate next to him, but seeing what had happened on the landing pad, she didn't want to imagine what would happen to Tony's lab or even to the man himself if she apparated there. So she was careful when she simply turned the glass sliding door to sand, apologies at the ready, but Tony didn't even react to her entrance.

"Tony?"

Nothing. It was as if she wasn't even there. Tony liked to joke around, sure, but this was not his brand of humour, so she slowly raised a hand and tried to touch him, terrified she had actually died during the last mission, that her hand would go right through him, meaning she was just a ghost now, invisible to all.

Her hand closed the distance and wrapped around Tony's shoulder, making contact. He was solid, so was she. She could feel him beneath her palm, warm and breathing, but… Tony didn't react at all, and maybe that was worse, because she didn't understand. Hermione moved Tony's stuff, messed up his papers, tried to trip him up, but it didn't seem to matter at all, like whatever she did was inconsequential. Tony just went about his business.

She followed him when he left his lab, waiting for the glass door to slide open despite the evidence of it having turned to sand at his feet. All this nonsense was hurting her logical brain the more she tried to understand what was happening, but since she didn't know what else to do, she followed along as Tony pressed the button to an unfamiliar level, surprised to walk into another living quarter when he walked out.

Then nothing seemed important when Tony met Steve and an unconscious Bucky in his arms, wearing the dusty uniforms she'd last seen them in.

"Steve?" she sobbed, feeling tears prickle her eyes, then fall when he didn't so much as glance at her.

She'd known by now he wouldn't, but it still hurt. Her eyes slid to Bucky, unconscious but physically unhurt, so she immediately feared for the health of his mind, which was by far his weak point. She checked his temperature, too high, skin clammy, even his pulse was too elevated, but not enough to be a health concern. Could be indicative of him having a nightmare though, right there in front of her eyes, but she was powerless to do anything to help, because she wouldn't take the chance to turn him into an origami. If all she could have was this unbroken window to look at them, she'll be content with that. For now.

A loud clang startled her. Steve had dropped a metal box at Tony's feet, telling him to hide it, even from SHIELD. She knew what it contained, the way Steve looked like he wanted to destroy it with his fists. It was the yellow stone that had attacked her, and he confirmed as much, but here, right now, she couldn't even feel it, and since it was staying in its box, it likely couldn't feel her either. Because she wasn't here. She was trapped in some kind of bubble, unable to interact with others, with the real world. If this was even the real world. She might as well be Alice wandering about the looking glass, like… another dimension?

The idea wasn't so crazy. Not since she already came from another dimension herself without realizing it for the longest time. Who was to say she hadn't simply slipped into yet another? One that was so close to the last, she walked in a reflection of it. The wall between the two had to be so fine, it shouldn't take much to break through, right? Maybe that's what had happened at the landing pad.

Letting her mind untangle her situation, Hermione watched the scene unfold, the two bickering over the stone before Steve rudely sent Tony away, which became understandable when he broke down on the sofa next to Bucky, and all Hermione could do was hold his hand in ghostly comfort.

The next day, she was famished so she abandoned her sleeping companions to go in search of food, raiding Tony's fridge, not thinking too hard about the logistics of taking things in this dimension, yet them still being available in the other. It was too weird thinking she was in the reflection, because then she'd have to figure out how she was eating the reflection of a food, breathing the reflection of oxygen…

She had to get out.

She had to get out or she was going to lose her marbles over the lack of logic. So she left the tower, by foot, to avoid folding the building any more than she already had. She walked as far as her patience allowed her to walk. She entered the first available building, and went up to find a closed, deserted office space. She touched the blank wall, checking that it was as normal as everything else seemed to be, before she held her wand up to it. If this dimension was just the flip side of a mirror, then breaking it seemed like the best way to get out.

"Bombarda Maxima!" she yelled, putting all of her focus, despair, and strength behind the spell.

The wall shattered into thousands of shards, which, predictably, folded over and over and over, bringing the whole room around that one point of impact, making her so dizzy she had to close her eyes. She opened them again once she got her bearings, because she had to check if it had worked, not all that surprised when there was no crack to slip through into her own reality. It really would have been too simple. Bar that, she turned to leave, but the door… it wasn't there, or was everywhere, folded a thousand times so that she had no idea how to get through it. As her last resort, she apparated to the front of this building so she'd at least be outside and wouldn't risk locking herself into another room.

Without her ability to apparate, she could have died, stuck in that broken room, without food or water. This place was more dangerous than she had realized.

By the time she walked back to Stark Tower, she had a new plan in mind. Brute force did not work in the place, it only broke it a little more, and so far, there was no evidence it could put itself back together.

She found Bucky on the same level, but set up in a room much like the one she'd fled in the hospital in Sokovia, but with two extra nurses at his side, bustling around his bed to get him cleaned up, his scrapes taken care of, gentle with their touch despite their bulging muscles. This was, without a doubt, Tony's doing. When they left, Hermione went to check on Bucky. He seemed alright, better than before. The vitals displayed on all the machines seemed acceptable, beeping quietly around them. It was the perfect place to try out her next plan of escape.

Meditation did not come naturally to Hermione since her brain was always a maelstrom of activity, but time was the one thing she had more than enough of in this dimension. When she failed to achieve even this simple step, she had to remind herself, again and again, that this was the soft way, the only way, and if Lavender Brown could do it, then she could bloody well do it too.

So she started over, stripping every stray thought away, stripping everything about herself down to her very core. It wasn't easy, especially since she had that prickly feeling at the back of her head that she was being watched. She would lose focus and have to start over again. Again and again, until she felt like a huge weight had suddenly been lifted off her shoulders. Opening her eyes, Hermione gasped at seeing herself out of herself. The next second, she snapped back into her body, like a rubber band pulled too taut. Head spinning, Hermione crawled over to the garbage can and emptied her stomach, then lay sprawled right there on the floor on her back, contemplating the impeccably smooth white ceiling above. This was going to be a lot harder than she thought. Even if she had managed an astral projection for a few seconds, which was already an exploit in itself, she had no idea whether it was visible on the other side. So next time, she had to be ready to try it when someone was actually around, or at least awake, to talk to them. If she could do that, she was halfway out of this prison of a dimension. Bar that, she would at least feel a little less lonely, and could ask for help.

After hours of training, Hermione was pretty confident she could project herself at will. For a day's work, that wasn't bad at all. However, she tried talking to Bucky, and even the nurses, but without luck. She was missing something. She needed a way to project herself to the other side, but try as she might, she couldn't figure it out.

Then Steve walked in, changed out of his uniform into a loose fitting shirt and running pants, but it was a brilliant blue light around his wrist that caught her attention. Irked by the Tesseract-blue shade, she couldn't ignore such a coincidence, so she projected herself and latched into it. The difference was undeniable, like being pulled in two directions, where her body sat, and where Steve was. He was acting like some kind of anchor to the real world, and judging by how he moved protectively between her and Bucky, he could see her, or at least, something.

"Steve, it's me! Can you hear me?"

But his eyes only reflected worry and confusion, and a few seconds later, before she could even try touching him, she was snapped back into her body. Reeling at the unexpected return, she tumbled sideways and retched once more into the garbage can before vanishing the mess.

Despite the setback, it had been worth it. The other side was not completely out of her reach, and she even smiled for the first time since she landed herself there when she heard Steve tell Bucky she had visited him. She closed her eyes, too exhausted to even move a little finger, let alone clean up or raid Tony's fridge. She was probably going to sleep right there on the floor where she lay.

"At this rate, you'll end up killing yourself," a woman said.

With no idea where she found the strength, Hermione jumped away from the voice, wand at the ready. A woman stood at the entrance of Bucky's room, with a shaved head and gaudy yellow robes, similar to wizarding fashion in style, yet very different in cut. That she was blocking the only escape did not reassure her one bit, and she wasn't even sure in what dimension she stood, whether she was a danger to her or her lovers.

When the woman looked directly at her, and Steve failed to react to her presence, she knew.

"Who are you?" Hermione demanded, stepping away from Steve.

"The Ancient One," the woman said, her voice even.

Hermione scoffed. What kind of person introduced themselves by their title. When Harry had tried that with her when she'd berated him about choosing a date for the Yule Ball, saying something inane like "I am The Chosen One", she'd knocked him over the head with her book. Hermione had a feeling this would not work in this case however, because whoever this was, she practically oozed power.

Hermione took another step to the side, glad when "the Ancient One" copied her movement.

"Can you help me out of here?" Hermione asked. "I don't belong in this dimension."

"No, you don't. And I've been observing you since I first felt your presence in 1943."

Hermione was too stunned for words, blindsided by the revelation. Now that she thought about it, today was not the first time she had felt eyes on the back of her head, but she'd always chalked it up to a bad feeling or paranoia. She continued stepping to the side. If she kept the other woman talking and mirroring her movements, she could soon reach the door and escape without breaking the reflection where she could watch Bucky and Steve.

"So you are more ancient than you look, or you can travel through time?" Hermione didn't know how to interpret the narrowing of the woman's eyes, so she asked the only question that mattered. "What do you want with me?"

"If I had the means I would send you back to where you came from. I mean you KO harm, but you shouldn't be here. You're tipping the precarious balance of this dimension. You're marked as one who could bring chaos and destruction to this world."

"Could? So you don't actually know," Hermione argued. "What are you basing this off of? A prophecy? Because I can tell you from experience how unreliable those are…"

The Ancient One didn't look moved. She was so impassable, Hermione had to wonder if she was actually human.

"Why not take me out immediately then? Back in 1943? Why let me get attached to this world?"

To Steve, and Bucky, and everyone else. Now she was going to fight tooth and nail to get back to them, no matter what this woman said, no matter how powerful she appeared. Hermione would die trying if it came to that.

"I… wasn't sure," the Ancient One admitted. "But your threat has been growing with each interaction you've had with… certain artifacts. One, yes, it happens… but three of them have left their mark on you in a short time. You were already powerful, child, but now, you are dangerous."

"We'll agree to disagree," Hermione shot back, storing all this information to analyze for later. "I've always fought for the light, I'm not a threat to this world, or to anyone!"

"No one is safe from folly. There's no accounting for anyone's actions then, and with your powers…"

Hermione could see she would never set her free willingly. The Ancient One had appointed herself judge, jury, and executioner in her case. The path to the door was now free, the two of them having circled one another until their positions were reversed, but Hermione wondered if it was even worth the trouble.

Firstly, because it seemed the Ancient One had been the one to lock her into this fake dimension prison, so could she even hide from her? Secondly, because she might not be in any life-threatening danger from her, which is exactly what she asked next.

"So what? You're just going to keep me here forever?"

The Ancient One didn't answer. There was barely the flicker of an emotion on her face she couldn't even decipher, but her silence was answer enough.

"You might as well kill me, it would be less cruel," Hermione spat.

Again, no reaction. It was infuriating.

"Coward," Hermione taunted.

Still nothing. Hermione sighed, leaned against the wall and slumped down in a pile near the door. If she didn't find a way out of here, she might actually die of old age with only her friends' reflections for company, although she was pretty sure she would turn mad long before that. This dimension was a comfortable prison, with any she could need, granted, but it was still a prison.

"I wish there was another way, child," the Ancient One said before raising her hand and walking out through the distorted window on whatever floor they were currently on. Hermione ran towards the window, but it had already returned to normal and the woman was nowhere to be seen. Was it that easy for her to leave this dimension?

"Now that's just plain cruel," she muttered.

Hermione refused to be defeated. She went to far off places she knew to try out spells to escape, but which risked folding the spaces, wanting to preserve the places where she could see Steve and Bucky.

All her attempts were fruitless for now, and she had shattered the HYDRA base in Sokovia, as well as London, and most of Scotland was folded into oblivion.

She had even tried tapping into whatever power the artifacts had supposedly given her, if the Ancient One was to be believed, but that was a bust too. Not to mention she was annoyingly puzzled by which was the third one. The Tesseract was obvious, and the yellow stone had acted and felt similar, but right after that, she had been locked into this dimension, so whatever the third artifact had been, she had encountered it before their last mission. However, for the life of her, she couldn't figure it out, and she hated not knowing. She almost hoped the Ancient One dropped by to visit again. She wasn't the most talkative, but maybe she could guilt her into telling her more about those artifacts which had gotten her sentenced to this prison.

On the bright side, Hermione knew what not to do now, so all was not lost. And after a few more trial runs and some preparations, she was ready. All she needed was Steve, her anchor to the other side.