Chapter Text
October 19th 2015
A week.
It had been one week since everything went to hell and then collided spectacularly in his lap — his work life, his personal life, and the parts of his world he’d spent years keeping separate.
And Tony was acting like Hermione had always been hovering in the kitchen, correcting his potion terminology and stealing his coffee. He didn’t blink when she transfigured one of his coffee cups into a self-stirring one.
The others?
Mostly confused, mostly curious, mostly pretending they weren’t staring every time Hermione walked into a room.
And then Wanda came back.
Clint heard them before he saw them — Rhodey’s easy laugh, Vision’s calm commentary, Wanda’s softer footsteps. Training exercise wrapped, three of them entering through the west doors.
“Hey, Barton,” Rhodey called as they stepped in. “New recruit?” He nodded toward Hermione.
Hermione, who was standing in the kitchen with Sam, laughing at something he’d said while stirring an offensively large mug of cocoa.
Clint opened his mouth to lie — something easy, something smooth, something vaguely plausible.
And Wanda dropped her bags.
Her eyes went huge, wet instantly. She looked at Clint the way someone looks at a person who has betrayed them and surprised them in the same breath.
“I thought,” Wanda said, voice cracking as she took a step toward him, “she was supposed to be a secret from the team?”
Clint winced. “Yeah. She was. I mean, she— Look, it’s complicated.”
But Wanda wasn’t listening anymore.
She turned, and made a sound that cracked something in Clint’s chest. A kind of relieved cry-laugh-sob hybrid that Clint had only ever heard once — the moment she’d woken up on the homestead couch, safe, after Sokovia.
Wanda flew across the kitchen. Literally. Feet lifted off the ground, red energy flickering in the air like she forgot she even had it.
Hermione looked up just in time before an armful of Sokovian witch slammed into her.
“Wanda!” Hermione gasped, startled and delighted, wrapping her arms around her tightly.
They immediately fell into rapid-fire Sokovian, the kind of overlapping, emotional, too-fast speech Clint never had a chance of tracking. Hermione’s accent had sharpened over the months, little flourishes she must have picked up living in Novi Grad.
The room went silent.
Rhodey stared.
Sam blinked.
Vision tilted his head with polite fascination.
Natasha stepped into the room, and the noise cut off like someone had killed the sound.
Her eyes flicked to Clint.
Sharp.
Dangerous.
Clint groaned internally.
“Barton,” she said coolly. “Is there something you’d like to share?”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I mean… not really? But I think we’re doing this anyway.”
Natasha crossed her arms. Slowly.
Wanda finally loosened her grip on Hermione, stepping half a pace aside but staying close, fingers still wrapped around Hermione’s forearm like she wasn’t letting her disappear again.
Hermione shot Clint one of those apologetic grimaces that translated very clearly to sorry, but this is technically your fault.
Natasha arched a brow. “Explain.”
Clint exhaled long and miserably.
“Sokovia,” he said.
A murmur rippled through the room.
Tony perked up behind his mug. “Ah. Here we go. The… unauthorised humanitarian intervention arc.”
Hermione cut him a glare. He shut up immediately.
Clint tried again. “Hermione was working in Sokovia before it fell. And then she was helping during the evacuation. With… everything.” He gestured vaguely at Wanda. “They met. They got attached. I—uh—helped Wanda stay with us for a bit after.”
Wanda nodded fiercely, stepping forward like Hermione’s personal shield. “She saved dozens,” she said, her accent thickening. “She saved me.”
Hermione flushed. “I didn’t—”
“You did,” Wanda said, flat and certain.
The room went quiet again.
Sam broke it gently. “What exactly were you doing in Sokovia?” he asked Hermione, voice calm but curious.
Hermione’s lips quirked. “My work takes me all over the world.”
“And into trouble,” Clint muttered under his breath.
She rolled her eyes at him, affectionate and irritated all at once. “Sometimes it ends up being a little more unconventional than anticipated.” She glanced back at Sam. “I’d been working in Novi Grad for nine months before Ultron decided to turn it into a crater.”
Sam leaned back, studying her with that sharp, thoughtful look. “So you just… jumped in?”
“I’m a healer,” Hermione said simply. “I saw people dying. What else was I supposed to do?”
“Not put yourself in danger,” Clint shot back immediately.
She snorted. “I am not having this discussion again, Clint. You’re a total hypocrite. Shall I start listing all the times you ran toward explosions?” she finished sweetly.
“That’s my job, Hermione.”
“And my job,” she fired back, voice sharpening, “is to do my utmost to preserve human life. And that’s what I did. During the war. In New York. In Sokovia. And everywhere in between.”
“And every single one of those times,” Clint snapped, heat bleeding through, “I told you to stay put—and you almost died.”
Hermione went very still.
Then she straightened sharply. “I’m not having this discussion.” She stalked past him without another word, shoulder brushing his as she left the room.
That silenced the room again.
“So,” Sam said lightly, breaking the tension like he was afraid it might shatter. “How long have you two been having that particular argument?”
Clint didn’t even hesitate. “Since May of 2008.”
Sam blinked. “That’s… oddly specific.”
“My sister is nothing if not consistent.”
Tony leaned back against the counter, folding his arms with a grin that meant he was about to say something deeply unhelpful. “You should’ve seen them when she got attacked in her apartment. He—”
“Tony, stop.” Clint cut him off sharply.
The room froze.
Clint immediately exhaled, dragging a hand down his face before glancing around at his team. Really looking at them. “There’s a reason we kept her off the radar,” he said more quietly. “And if I can help it, I’m going to keep it that way.”
That silenced the room again.
Natasha’s gaze softened. Barely — but enough that Clint noticed. “You left a lot out.”
He shrugged, helpless. “Was kind of busy at the time.”
Her eyes flicked toward the doorway Hermione had disappeared through. Something unreadable passed over her face. Something warm. Something sharp. “I suppose I’ll ask her myself.”
Clint wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed or relieved.
Tony clapped his hands together, breaking the moment with practised ease. “Well! Now that we’re all one big emotionally dysfunctional family again — who wants lunch?”
Natasha had learned long ago that the most dangerous thing a person could do was assume they understood someone just because they were quiet.
Hermione Granger wasn’t quiet in the obvious ways. She spoke when spoken to, argued when pushed, laughed easily with Sam and Rhodey, and corrected Tony without fear or apology. She moved through the compound like someone who knew exactly where she was going.
Natasha watched her closely. Everyone did, though few of them realised it.
Hermione catalogued exits out of habit, not fear. She slept lightly but deeply. She didn’t startle at sudden movement; she tracked it. Her hands were steady. Her voice never wavered when things got tense. She didn’t posture, didn’t overcompensate, didn’t try to prove anything.
Natasha recognised it because she’d seen it before — in veterans who had already buried the worst of it and decided to keep living anyway. In people who had learned the difference between fear and panic, and refused to let the latter win.
Hermione wasn’t fragile.
She was dangerous in the quiet way that came from competence.
And still.
Natasha’s gaze flicked, inevitably, to Clint.
He hovered without meaning to. Always within line of sight. Always half a step too close. His attention snagged on Hermione without him even realising it — tracking her movements the way he tracked threats, the way his body had learned to do without conscious thought.
It didn’t matter how well-adjusted Hermione was.
She was Clint’s baby sister.
Natasha had watched Clint face down gods, monsters, and aliens. Watched him crack jokes while bleeding out, watched him walk into impossible odds with nothing but a bow and stubbornness — and she had never once seen him afraid this way.
Not until Hermione.
Not until now.
She was making tea when Sam joined her, the kitchen quiet in that rare, almost domestic lull that settled over the compound in the mornings. He handed her a spoon like he’d been doing it for years.
“So,” he said casually, leaning against the counter. “Your soulmate is Clint’s sister.”
Natasha hummed, stirring slowly.
“You’ve been watching her,” she said.
Sam didn’t deny it. “So has everyone. She’s the biggest secret that’s been kept from the team since Ultron. Might even beat that.”
Natasha lifted her mug, eyes never leaving the far end of the room where Hermione was explaining something animatedly to Rhodey, hands moving as she spoke.
“What do you think?” Natasha asked.
Sam exhaled through his nose, thoughtful. “It’s not a normal sibling bond. They’re not actually related, but that platonic soulmate thing… it made something else. Something deep.”
He paused.
“Stronger than blood, maybe.”
Natasha said nothing.
“It’s obvious she’s been through hell,” Sam continued. “But she didn’t come out jagged. She came out… functional, mostly. That’s rare.”
He glanced at Clint, who was pretending not to watch Hermione while absolutely watching her.
“They’re both dangerous,” Sam said quietly. “But together? That’s a whole different level.” Natasha’s fingers tightened around her mug.
“Hermione might be more powerful,” Sam went on. “But Clint’s the more dangerous one.”
He met her gaze. “She’s his little sister. Doesn’t matter how capable she is — that’s how he sees her.”
Natasha swallowed.
She would have protected Hermione anyway. Because Clint loved her. Because she was family. Because that was what Natasha did.
But Hermione wasn’t just Clint’s soulmate.
She was hers.
That realisation had settled in her chest, slow and inexorable. A weight. A promise. A vulnerability she hadn’t had in a long time — maybe ever. Hermione was composed. Resilient. Brilliant. Perfectly capable of surviving without Natasha.
That didn’t change a damn thing.
“And where does that leave you, Red?” Sam asked gently. “Being her soulmate and all.”
Natasha’s lips curved, sharp and knowing. “You know I’m more dangerous than Clint, Sam.”
She let the silence stretch.
“So if Clint becomes infinitely more dangerous when his sister is threatened,” she added softly, “imagine how her soulmate might be.”
Sam let out a low whistle. “So you’re all in.”
Natasha dropped the spoon into the sink. The clink echoed louder than it should have. “Of course,” she said. “But it’s her choice. How she wants me. And when she wants me.”
Not that Natasha wouldn’t do everything in her power to make sure Hermione knew exactly what was being offered.
Sam smirked. “Should I brace myself for Clint going full big-brother on you?”
Natasha huffed, picking up her tea. “Clint knows better.”
Natasha chose the sunroom deliberately.
It was small, glass on three sides, quiet in the way spaces became when no one expected anything of them. Hermione sat curled into the corner of the sofa, legs tucked beneath her, a mug cradled between both hands. Steam rose in lazy spirals. She stared out at the training field without really seeing it.
She noticed Natasha immediately.
That alone told Natasha more than most introductions ever did.
“Mind if I sit?” she asked.
Hermione turned, blinking once as if coming back to herself. “Of course.”
Natasha took the opposite end of the sofa, far enough to give her space. She waited. Let the quiet stretch. People filled silence when they were uncomfortable with it.
Hermione didn’t.
“So,” Natasha said at last, voice mild, conversational. “How long have you been a healer?”
“Almost eight years.”
No pause. No recalculation. No glance away.
Natasha hummed, eyes lowering to Hermione’s hands.
Eight years put her barely out of adolescence when she’d started. Too young. She knew what that did to a person — what learning to keep others alive before you’d learned how to live yourself could carve into you.
Her thoughts snagged on something Hermione had said earlier. In New York.
“When you mentioned New York,” Natasha said carefully, “were you working there, or—”
Hermione exhaled slowly, like she’d known this question was coming. She set her mug down with deliberate care, as though grounding herself in the small action.
“It was 2012,” she said. “And Phil Coulson had just called to tell me that my brother had been compromised.”
The word compromised landed with surgical precision.
Natasha’s gaze sharpened. “You knew Phil?”
A flicker of warmth crossed Hermione’s face — fleeting, genuine. “He was a very lovely man.”
Natasha felt something tighten behind her ribs.
“I was very sorry when he died,” Hermione continued quietly. “I was in New York when he—” She stopped. Inhaled. “If I had known—”
The sentence fractured under its own weight.
If I had known. Natasha had heard that phrase in a hundred voices, in a dozen languages. It always meant the same thing: If I had been there sooner. If I had been better. If I had been enough.
“I could have—” Hermione started, then stopped herself. Guilt flashed across her expression, sharp and unguarded.
Natasha watched her closely. “Could you have saved him?” Natasha asked softly.
Hermione shrugged. A small, economical movement. “Maybe. I’d been a healer for several years by that point. But even my abilities can only do so much.”
There was no false humility in her voice. No bravado either.
Just acceptance.
“You were in New York,” Natasha said again, slower this time.
Hermione’s finger tapped once against the rim of her mug. “Clint was mad with worry.”
Of course he was.
“How do you think he got more arrows?” Hermione added, a hint of dry amusement threading through her tone. “Or why he was almost completely fine despite swinging through reinforced glass twenty stories up.”
Natasha lifted an eyebrow despite herself.
“Fury?” she prompted.
Hermione huffed quietly. “Tried to recruit me that evening. I told him very nicely to bugger off.”
That earned a brief, startled laugh from Natasha — gone as quickly as it came.
“How often,” Natasha asked after a moment, “have we been in the same vicinity and the team just didn’t know you were there?”
Hermione thought about it. Actually thought. “Not that often, I think. Clint and I agreed it was safer for both of us if we kept his professional life and his private one completely separate.”
Natasha nodded. She understood that calculus. She’d lived it.
“That arrangement,” she said mildly, “has clearly failed.”
Hermione shrugged. “He was dying.” She met Natasha’s gaze directly. “I’d rather have him and risk the fallout than not have him at all.”
That wasn’t recklessness.
That was clarity.
Hermione hesitated then, studying Natasha in a way that wasn’t defensive — it was careful. Measuring.
“If you would like—” she began, then stopped. Her hands shook, just slightly, betraying more than her words ever would. “I know Clint has kept this from you for a very long time. And for what it’s worth… I’m sorry he felt he had to lie.”
The apology wasn’t about Natasha.
It was about loyalty. About trust fractured by necessity.
“If you’d like,” Hermione continued, voice steadier now, “I can ask Tony to give you what’s left of my file.”
Natasha felt the weight of that offer immediately.
Files were control. Files were leverage. Files were how people like them survived.
“I expect it’s quite out of date,” Hermione added, a familiar glint returning to her eyes, “but Phil’s perspective is probably interesting.”
A beat.
“And I’ve irritated Fury enough over the years that I’m sure he added a few things.”
“You’ve never read it?” Natasha asked.
Hermione slipped her hand free of Natasha’s touch gently, not pulling away, just simply reclaiming herself. “Tony destroyed it. I wasn’t particularly interested at the time.”
Natasha leaned back, reassessing everything she thought she understood.
“I don’t need the file,” Natasha said finally.
Hermione looked at her, surprised.
“I’ll learn who you are,” Natasha continued, softer now, “the same way I learn everything important.” She shifted just enough to turn toward Hermione fully. “By watching what you do when it matters. And by listening when you decide you’re ready to speak.”
Hermione met her gaze, something open and uncertain there now, the shield briefly lowered.
“That might take a while,” she said quietly.
Natasha’s mouth curved, not sharp this time. Steady. Certain.
“I’m very patient,” she replied.