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Hermione nodded, her expression dead serious.
"Of course I know. Isn't that common knowledge?"
Natasha froze completely.
She glanced at Steve. He looked just as lost.
Even wizards know about Hydra?
She turned it over in her head. Had Hydra really gotten so notorious that word had spread all the way to the magical world?
Before she could work it out, Hermione paused, brow furrowing.
"Actually, that doesn't add up. Hydra is enormous — how could it hide inside S.H.I.E.L.D. without anyone noticing?"
"Because there are too many of them," Natasha said. "They've already taken control of S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Impossible!"
Hermione looked even more baffled. "There's only one Hydra. How could there be a whole group?"
Now Natasha was confused.
"Hydra is a group. Always has been. They're at the Triskelion right now."
"Impossible!"
Hermione's frown deepened.
"Your headquarters? That place is tiny. There's no way you could fit a Hydra inside it."
Natasha stared at her.
Steve, who had stayed quiet through all of this, finally spoke. His voice was careful, almost tentative.
"Wait."
He looked at Hermione, then at Natasha.
"Are you two... talking about the same Hydra?"
It clicked.
Natasha turned to Hermione slowly. "Hermione. The Hydra you're talking about. Which kind is it?"
"What do you mean, which kind?" Hermione asked, as if the answer were obvious. "Hydra. The monster. There's only the one, isn't there?"
She tilted her head. "As far as I know, Zeus imprisoned it near Olympus ages ago. How did it end up on Earth? And inside S.H.I.E.L.D., of all places?"
Natasha: "..."
Steve: "..."
"You're talking about the Hydra from mythology?" The disbelief in Natasha's voice was absolute.
"What else?" Hermione raised an eyebrow.
Natasha put her face in her hands.
The two of them, from the very beginning, had been talking about completely different things.
Natasha opened her mouth to explain, and then stopped dead.
"Hold on. You just said Hydra and Zeus. They actually exist?"
Hermione nodded, like this was the most natural thing in the world.
"Odin and Thor exist. What's surprising about Zeus being real?"
Natasha took a slow breath and forced herself to stay calm.
"The Hydra we're talking about isn't the monster from mythology," she said. "It's an organization. A secret one, founded by humans. It's been around since World War II."
She pressed on. "We thought it had been wiped out for good — but it turned out they had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. from the inside. Parasites, hiding in the shell of our own organization, using it to rebuild themselves."
"Right now, S.H.I.E.L.D., from the top down, may already be majority Hydra. Their goal is a plan called Project Insight. They intend to take control of the world."
Natasha finished. Silence settled over the room.
Hermione listened to all of it. Her expression shifted into something odd.
A few seconds passed. Then she let out a quiet sigh.
"Again?"
Natasha blinked. "...What?"
Hermione's tone carried the particular weight of someone who has already had this conversation too many times.
"Another one that wants to conquer the world." She shook her head. "Why is the world so unlucky? People are always conquering it back and forth. And using the name Hydra for their organization, did they even ask for permission?"
Steve couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Hermione!" His voice jumped. "This isn't some small matter!"
"Hydra wants to rule the world. Everyone who opposes them gets eliminated. A lot of people are going to die!"
His tone was urgent, insistent, trying to make the weight of it land.
Hermione blinked. That same slightly detached look.
"So?"
"So?!" Steve nearly came out of his seat. "Isn't this serious enough?!"
He genuinely couldn't understand. This was a conspiracy threatening the entire planet. Countless people stood to lose their freedom. Their lives. A crisis on a scale that should shake anyone to their core.
Why was she reacting like this? How was she so calm?
He looked at Natasha, hoping she'd say something.
But what Steve couldn't grasp, Natasha understood in that instant.
She looked at Hermione's clear, steady eyes and quietly sighed.
Right. She'd almost forgotten.
Hermione wasn't one of them. Not entirely.
Hermione tilted her head, as if she were genuinely thinking through Steve's point, then spoke at her own unhurried pace.
"Ruling the world... hmm. Sounds exhausting, honestly. Writing laws. Managing traffic. Collecting taxes." She wrinkled her nose. "Just thinking about it gives me a headache."
"And even if they pull it off — then what?"
She spread her hands.
"Muggles ruling Muggles. You change the name, swap in a new batch of people. Does it really make that much of a difference to the world itself?" A beat. "Isn't every country right now already run by Muggles?"
Pure curiosity in her voice. Like she was turning over a philosophical puzzle that had nothing to do with her.
There it is, Natasha thought. Just as I expected.
She'd spent enough time with Hermione that she'd almost stopped seeing it, that this girl, who seemed so familiar, was at her core a witch. Her lens on the world was fundamentally different.
For people like them, grinding along the fault lines of power and conspiracy and survival, who controlled the world was everything. It was the whole game.
For Hermione...
Natasha thought back to the times she'd actually seen Hermione act. An alien invasion. Someone foolish enough to provoke her directly. That was it. Terrorists, local armed conflicts, regional power struggles, Hermione had never once gotten involved. In her eyes, those things probably really were just Muggle infighting. Not her concern.
Steve reached the same conclusion a moment later. He and Natasha exchanged a look. They found the same helplessness in each other's eyes.
Hermione's attitude was... how to put it.
Like watching the neighbor's dogs scrap over a bone. A bit noisy. But nothing more than that.
Not that either of them had actually planned to ask her for help. During the Dark Elf invasion, they'd already picked up from her conversation with Professor McGonagall that Hermione's relationship with the Ministry of Magic was bad and getting worse. Helping stop an alien attack, and letting magic be seen by the whole world in the process, had already cost her. A lot of wizards were unhappy. The pressure on her had been real.
Steve let out a slow breath. The tension in his brow eased. His eyes settled into something quieter. More certain.
They couldn't pull her into this.
The invasion had been different. That was something else entirely.
This, this was their own mess. A tumor S.H.I.E.L.D. had grown inside itself. If they couldn't cut it out on their own, what right did they have to call themselves heroes? Were they going to run to Hermione every time something went wrong?
No.
They left together. Outside, they stopped and looked at each other.
"Captain," Natasha said. "What's the plan?"
➤ Next: Pierce's Confidence
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