"Dr. Banner, thank you for coming. We really appreciate it." Fury stepped forward, his tone genuine.
Banner pushed up his glasses and gave an awkward smile. "I should be the one thanking S.H.I.E.L.D. Last time... you let me off the hook."
"We're nothing like those military types." Fury waved it off.
Tony cut in from the side. "Honestly? When you turned into the Hulk, it was seriously awesome."
Banner just smiled politely and let it go.
Fury moved on quickly. "Dr. Banner is here primarily to help us locate the Tesseract. As for anything else..." He shot Tony a look. The message was clear: shut up.
"Oh, what a shame." Tony shrugged, looking thoroughly unimpressed with himself for shutting up.
Mid-conversation, Tony caught a familiar CRUNCH CRUNCH from somewhere behind him.
He spun around.
Hermione was sitting in a swivel chair, munching on an apple.
"Are you kidding me! Bald Egg, you said you weren't dragging her into this!" Tony bristled instantly.
He's calling him Bald Egg now too... Fury noted internally.
"Well..." Fury looked mildly pained. "Miss Witch came of her own accord. She's only here to offer advice. She won't be participating in actual combat."
"Advice." Tony snorted. He clearly wasn't buying a word of it.
He knew Hermione too well. That girl was sharp as a razor. There was no way she showed up just to "offer advice." She had something to gain. She always did.
Steve stood off to the side, listening to all of this, completely lost.
He moved closer to Fury and lowered his voice. "Fury, when did S.H.I.E.L.D. start hiring children? Who is this kid?"
"Captain, if there's something you need to know, I'll tell you." Fury's answer landed exactly nowhere.
Translation: don't ask.
Steve opened his mouth to push back, but Jasper Sitwell's voice cut across the room. The little bald man looked toward Hermione. "Sir, facial recognition has results. We've found Loki's location."
Fury turned to Steve. "Captain. Time to show what you can do."
Steve frowned. He still had plenty of questions. But he also knew this wasn't the moment for them. He gave a short nod and turned to go.
The moment the group filed out, the noise drained from the command hall.
Fury's face stayed composed. But this was the Avengers' first real operation, and whatever calm he projected on the outside, his insides were a different story.
Hermione could feel the tension coming off him.
Natasha's voice crackled through the communicator, easy and unhurried. "Done. Loki's in custody. Cap and Stark moved on him together. He barely put up a fight."
Fury exhaled. The knot in his shoulders loosened, just slightly.
Now they just had to wait.
Then, before he'd even finished that breath: "We've got a problem. Thor just showed up and grabbed Loki. Stark and the Captain are already in pursuit."
Fury's brows pulled together hard. He looked at Hermione without meaning to.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed whatever he'd been about to say.
Hermione kept her eyes on her apple.
The seconds stretched. Every one of them felt longer than the last. Fury waited, and the waiting was its own kind of weight.
Finally, the communicator crackled again. Tony's voice, and he sounded very pleased with himself. "Mission accomplished! Had a little scrap with the big guy. In the end, the suit made the argument for me."
Steve's voice followed. "Reporting in, sir. Mission complete. Bringing Loki back now."
The three of them, meeting in the woods like something out of legend. Just like the original story.
What a load of bravado, Hermione thought, rolling her eyes.
Tony made it sound like a fun afternoon. But he knew exactly how that had gone. If Steve hadn't stepped in to break things up, the Mark suit would've ended up in pieces on the forest floor. Thor might still be in his early days, but his baseline was terrifying. He could crumple titanium alloy with his bare hands. Without the nano-suit, Tony had nothing to fight with.
Fury's shoulders finally dropped.
It wasn't long before the group returned, escorting Loki onto the helicarrier.
Loki's gaze swept across the control hall. It paused on Hermione for just a moment before agents moved him along toward confinement.
Thor noticed her too.
His eyes went wide as saucers. Then wider.
No subtlety whatsoever.
"Hermione? What are you doing here?!"
The sound hit like a thunderclap. Steve actually flinched.
Thor crossed the room in a few long strides, greeting her like they were old friends reuniting after years apart. Whatever had happened between them in Asgard seemed to have evaporated completely from his memory.
"About last time — I owe you an apology. Father told me I was being foolish. I've thought about it."
Reflected on it, sure, Hermione thought, rolling her eyes internally. More like you're scared I'll take Loki's side again.
"It's fine," she said. "Kids make mistakes. It happens."
Thor stared at her.
I am several thousand years older than you.
Steve's gaze moved back and forth between them. How does everyone here seem to know this girl except me?
He thought about it. Stark. Thor. Dr. Banner. Fury. Even Loki's reaction when he'd walked past her. Every single one of them had clocked her differently. Like she was something they already had an opinion about.
This girl is not what she looks like.
Steve filed the thought away and turned to what actually mattered.
"Thor." He looked at him directly. "What is Loki actually after?"
Thor's expression shifted. The warmth dropped out of it. "Loki says he has an army waiting. A race called the Chitauri. From outside the Nine Realms."
"Best guess — he made a deal with them using the Tesseract. He delivers the cube, they give him Earth."
"An army." Steve looked around the room, then back at Thor. "From outer space."
He hadn't been out of the ice long. The world had moved very fast without him.
"Cap, you might've been under too long." Tony drifted over, wearing the expression of a man who found this genuinely funny. "You're behind. What's so strange about aliens? Didn't a tin can fall out of the sky over New Mexico?"
"That was the Destroyer!"
Thor did not find this funny.
"Right, right, the Destroyer." Tony waved a hand. "Point is, they're both from space. What's the difference?"
"I don't know." Thor shook his head, and for once he sounded genuinely uncertain. "I've never heard of this race. They're not Asgardian. They must come from somewhere beyond the Nine Realms."
"The Chitauri..."
Hermione, who had been quietly working through her apple this entire time, spoke up.
"They're a race built around conquest and destruction. Their leader goes by 'The Other.' They operate out of deep space beyond the Nine Realms — no fixed home planet, no permanent base."
Fury, Natasha, Tony. Every head in the room turned. Every pair of eyes lit up at once.
Right.
How had they forgotten? There was a living encyclopedia sitting right there in that swivel chair.
➤ Next: Hermione's Magic Mini-Lecture: The Infinity Stones Chapter
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