Chapter 7
Hermione couldn't tell if her need to vomit stemmed from their most recent time jaunt or if it was because she hadn't healed her rib cage after Savage introduced it to his steel-toed boot. As she unlatched herself from her seat and leaned over to the empty space on her right, Hermione realized it didn't really matter either way.
The team made noises ranging from alarmed to disgusted as she began coughing up what little was left in her stomach— and the burn in Hermione's throat made her wish she had eaten more in the last few hours.
A hand came up to pull her hair away from her face. "You're okay," Rip comforted her and brought his other hand up to cup the back of her neck. "Deep breaths."
"What's wrong with her?" she heard Ray asking.
As Hermione sat back in her seat, she heard Sara muttering, "I thought she was used to time traveling."
"I detect multiple fractures in Miss Granger's rib cage," Gideon announced.
"You're hurt? I thought that you healed yourself from your fight with Savage." Jax demanded.
"I healed the knife wound," Hermione clarified in a rasping voice and reached for the bottle of water Carter handed her. "I did not, however, heal my ribs."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Rip asked softly.
"Did you forget you were injured?" Mick prodded.
She didn't think there was a right answer to those questions. "It's not that bad," she tried to deflect. "The time jump just aggravated the wound."
What Hermione hadn't accounted for, was Gideon. "With the level of damage she has sustained, it's highly unlikely that Miss Granger wasn't in any pain."
"Gideon, love, can you not?" Hermione pleaded.
"Were you just ignoring it?" Kendra asked, eyes wide.
Hermione knew what the right answer to that question was. "No," she denied as vehemently as she could. Which wasn't very much because it still felt like her chest was on fire. "I just underestimated the amount of damage I sustained. But now I know."
"When did this even occur?" Martin asked, as Rip and Carter slowly helped her to her feet. "When you were off galivanting with Jefferson, Snart, and Mr. Rory?"
"No, it happened when Savage booted her in the chest so hard it sent her flying halfway across the room, and slammed her into a wall," Leonard answered coolly.
Hermione flinched, and slowly looked up to meet his chill, level gaze.
"Did you see the bit where I stabbed him?" Hermione asked and automatically wrapped one arm around her chest despite knowing it wouldn't do her any good. "Because I don't want any of you thinking I didn't give as good as I got."
Carter placed a hand on the small of her back and began escorting her to the Medbay. "So, you healed the knife wound, but not your ribs?" And then added in a much softer tone, "Is it because your magic is still depleted? The spell with Aldus…"
"No," she hastened to reassure him. "That's not it. I won't lie and say that I'm completely restored, but I'm close."
"Then, what's the problem?" Rip prodded.
With a bracing sigh, Hermione admitted, "The Amun dagger was coated in poison. I was able to find an antidote, but taking it had some side effects- feeling groggy and lightheaded being two of them. Healing a bone break, especially in a place as delicate as the ribs, can already be complicated and dangerous enough on its own. I can't risk healing myself until I'm sure that I'm in complete control of my faculties."
The doors to Medbay opened and Rip ushered them inside. "Then why didn't you just have Gideon heal you?"
Hermione winced as Carter helped her up onto a bed. "I didn't know that was an option. Gideon can heal bone?"
"Yes, Gideon can heal bone," he snapped. "It might take longer, but it's certainly more comfortable than you sitting around with multiple rib fractures, waiting to be able to heal yourself."
A blue light appeared over Hermione's abdomen and she slowly sat back, watching as Gideon took a scan. "It wouldn't the first time I had to do it," she muttered.
"And what would you have done if something had happened to aggravate the wounds and sent your rib straight into your lung?" Rip retorted.
"Again, wouldn't be the first time."
"You have no sense of self-preservation, do you?" Carter asked, sounding vaguely amused.
"No— boarding school beat it out of me. Or, more precisely, slowly extracted it from me without my knowing until one day I found myself running away from a fully transformed werewolf after helping to save the life of an escaped serial killer."
Carter stared at her. "This happened at your boarding school?" he verified. When Hermione simply nodded, he glowered. "Who the hell was in charge of that place?"
"A monster who surrounded himself with sycophantic idiots," she grumbled.
Rip turned away from the screen Gideon was projecting of Hermione's scans. "They weren't all idiots," he absentmindedly chided. "At least two of them were the brightest of their fields."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "A truly bright professor might have gone, "Why are we making these defenses so easy a trio of eleven- and twelve-year old children could easily break through them?' or maybe, 'Why are we hosting a tournament that was originally stopped because the participants tended to die, or were murdered, during the games?'"
"What school did you go to?" Carter demanded.
"A bad one," Rip answered, before stepping away from Hermione's bed. "Right, we're going to go see about breaking into the Pentagon while you stay here and rest up. Gideon should be able to fix your ribs in a bit, but you'll have to refrain from doing anything strenuous for the next few hours."
"You're breaking into the Pentagon?" Hermione asked. "Sounds like a terrible time. I'm glad I'm not going."
When Rip and Carter reentered the room, they were immediately bombarded with questions about Hermione.
"Hermione is fine," Rip assured them. "However, her ribs need time to heal and as such, she will not be participating in our next mission. But I assure you, she'll be right as rain in a few hours."
"And what exactly is our next mission?" Martin asked.
Gideon's head appeared above the center console. "We've traveled here because I have a new lead on Vandal Savage's location."
Rip waved his hand and a scanned file appeared on the screen below Gideon. "Yes, Gideon managed to intercept this telefax concerning Savage's last known whereabouts."
"Tele-what?" Jax questioned.
"It's like an email," Ray explained. "On paper."
"Wow," Mick stated, taking in the black lines that covered every page of the file. "That's totally useless."
Jax nodded in agreement. "Dude, the whole thing's crossed out."
"Yeah," Rip nodded, turning to head towards the windows at the front of the ship. "Redacted by the U.S. government, which is why we are here to steal the original file on Savage back from those who are tracking him."
"Uh…" Ray started as the team followed him to see where they were. "That's the…"
"Now, now," Rip dismissed. "Don't worry. We are cloaked."
"You want us to break into the Pentagon?" Mick asked. "Sounds awesome."
Kendra disagreed. "It sounds crazy."
"And you want us to do this without Hermione?" Sara asked. "I'll be honest, I think we'd have a much better chance with her than without her."
"I'm sure the Pentagon has devices to detect magic," Ray told her. "Maybe it's better that we won't be risking it."
"Yes, but Hermione is also an expert at breaking and entering," Leonard reminded him. "She said that Savage's home wasn't anything like her usual targets; I'm gonna guess that a secured government building is more up her alley."
"Yes and no," Rip sighed. "While she does have experience breaking into government buildings, those experiences ended badly. And by badly, I mean she technically died the first time she broke in. The second time didn't end a whole lot better."
"Say what now?" Jax asked, alarmed.
Rip waved away his concerns. "It doesn't matter whether or not her abilities would be useful here; Hermione won't be going with you. While she is powerful and a very useful ally to have, it's important for all of you not to become too reliant on Hermione and her magic. She won't be able to solve all our problems with a wave of her wand. If she could, what would I need you all for?"
"Then, what's the plan?" Carter asked.
"The Fabricator will fashion you the necessary Pentagon credentials. Gideon and I will then walk you through the building plans and show you where you need to go and what you'll have to do. Timing is key here."
Ray grinned. "Oh, and don't forget our G-man disguises," he stated cheerfully. When the rest of the team turned to give him bemused looks, he continued, "I always wanted to be a spy."
"Too bad you're too honest and annoying for that job," Leonard sneered.
As the team left to infiltrate the Pentagon a few hours later, Hermione made her way to the main cabin where Rip was stationed, keeping an eye on everyone's trackers and the camera feeds from inside the building.
When he caught sight of Hermione standing in the doorway, he half-chided, "You're supposed to be resting."
"Yes," she agreed, walking over the empty space beside the doorway to Rip's office and settling down on the floor with a bottle of juice and her bag. "I've decided to rest in here. Figured now was as good a time as any to begin going through the papers I took from Savage's home.
"Good thinking," he agreed.
Linking into the team's comm channel, Rip told them, "Now, the file we're after is kept in a secure records room. In order to gain access, we're going to need to borrow a magnetic key card."
"Because this is so much easier than just shrinking down and stealing it," Ray grumbled.
"Maybe not," Hermione agreed loudly so that Rip's mic could pick up her voice. "But this does have a much smaller chance of you damaging the timeline again."
"Let me show you how it's done," Leonard told the billionaire. "Old school."
"What are they disguised as?" Hermione asked as she pulled a book from her bag.
"Janitors," Rip answered shortly as a faint clattering sound and a small squeak reached them.
A woman gasped and then Leonard was asking, "Are you okay, ma'am?"
"Yes," she answered. "I wasn't watching where I was going. Thank you."
"Just doing my job," he retorted smoothly.
"That's a nifty little trick," Ray told him, and Hermione assumed that Leonard had been able to pick the woman's pocket for her card. There was a pause and then he was hissing, "Really? We're trying to save the world and you're lifting wallets?"
"It's called multitasking," Hermione and Leonard said at the same time.
Rip turned to look over his shoulder at Hermione, one brow raised.
"Alright," she sighed. "I'll stop participating."
It was strange, knowing the team was out there while she was left on the ship. Hermione was grateful for the break, but she couldn't help feeling like a teenager skipping class again. Which she had not done nearly as much as Ron and Harry had, but had still done it more times than she cared to admit.
Hermione began flipping through A Christmas Carol, carefully pulling out every paper she found folded within it. Once she was done with that, she'd go through Sense and Sensibility and the book of Russian folktales.
"The records room has closed-circuit cameras," Rip told the team. "We need a diversion."
"Someone call my name?" Mick asked. A minute later, the sound of yelling and cheers rang through his mic.
"Double or nothing says I put this punk on the pinewood," he announced confidently, and Hermione tried to decide whether or not Mick had done something simple like an arm-wrestling match or if he had started an actual fight club. Either one was plausible.
"We got the file," Sara told them.
Once she was sure that she'd found all the papers hidden within the books, Hermione pulled out a notebook and began scanning through them, pausing only to jot down anything she found relevant. The read papers were then split into two piles: useful and garbage.
"Okay," Rip stated. "Now for the tricky part. All personnel are subjected to search upon exiting the Pentagon. Firestorm will divert the power long enough for you to exit."
"Ready when you are," Jax stated. A loud crackling noise was heard and then he grunted, "All clear."
Most of the papers weren't useful. A few were on the arms deal they had stopped, a possible location on where that time's Carter and Kendra were, and an itemized list of books apparently in storage. Hermione set the last one aside just in case.
The remaining pages she'd found seemed promising. At the very least, they were all important enough that Savage had written everything in code. It wasn't one that was familiar to Hermione, but she was confident that she would be able to crack it.
The sound of an alarm rang through the speakers in the room, and she glanced up at Rip.
"We have a slight problem," Sara announced.
"Where is that smoke coming from?" Rip asked and Hermione stood, striding over to the console.
On the screen, a winged-Kendra was plowing her way through multiple armed personnel.
"We've got the file," Rip snapped. "What the hell does Kendra think she's doing?"
"I don't think Kendra's in charge right now," Hermione told him, studying the figure on the screen closely. "We've seen her in action before; those moves aren't her usual fighting style."
"All right, wonderful," he hissed. "We've got a demigoddess who's gone completely berserk. Abort! I repeat, abort! Get back to the ship right now!"
Carter appeared on the scene, soaring over the Kendra before swooping down to drag her away from the guard she was ripping into with clawed nails. "I've got Kendra," he announced, and they disappeared from view.
"Roger that," Jax stated, and there was a loud booming sound as he broke his way through the roof of the building.
"I meant, 'Use the door'," Rip groaned.
Hermione shrugged. "Honestly, I'm surprised any of them used the doors. Two out of eight isn't terrible. Or one out of seven, if we're not counting Jax and Martin as separate beings."
Rip turned to glare at her, and Hermione held up her hands. "Just trying to help."
"Well, you're not."
"I'm more helpful than any of them are going to be," Hermione pointed out. "We both know this is going to end in pointless bickering and a nice round of the blame game."
When Leonard and the others walked into the room, it was clear that Rip wasn't pleased with them. While the rest of the team slowly moved to huddle around where their captain was glowering, Leonard moved to lean against the wall next to where Hermione was sitting on the floor.
"Having fun?" he asked, taking in the papers strewn around her.
"Not as much fun as you lot had," she answered, looking up at him. The tightness that had previously be on her face was gone, and Leonard was relieved to know that she was no longer in any pain.
He still wasn't thrilled about the fact that she had been in pain for hours and just hid it, but that was a bridge to cross at a later time.
"Instead of dwelling on what went wrong," Ray started nervously, "let's focus on the positive."
"What are you talking about?" Mick asked. "It was awesome."
"In the same way that tsunamis, earthquakes, and other natural disasters are 'awesome'," Martin responded tightly.
"We got the file on Savage," Kendra argued, visibly tense.
"Despite the hiccup with the alarm?" Martin asked, turning to look at his partner.
"Oh, so it's my fault now?" Jax snapped. "You know, maybe if you weren't always yammering away in my head, I could actually focus!"
"You have access to 60 years of knowledge and experience," Martin argued. "Why not just take advantage of that?"
"Because it's my body on the line out there, not yours!"
"Oh yes," Hermione laughed. "This is going so well."
"Hey, it's not your fault," Sara told Martin and Jax and then muttered, "Everything would have been fine if Big Bird over here hadn't freaked out."
"Excuse me?" Kendra demanded, taking a step towards Sara.
"Enough!" Rip interrupted. "There is plenty of blame to go around. Now, fortunately, Gideon was able to generate a low-end EMP, which erased all the Pentagon's magnetic media."
"Like security footage?" Ray asked.
Leonard hoped that Gideon had security camera footage of the look of utter loathing Rip shot at Ray. "Look, you're just lucky that the Department of Defense likes to keep incidents like this under wraps. Gideon, any luck with our purloined secret file? Please say yes."
"Yes, Captain," the AI answered. "According to the Pentagon, Savage has defected to the Soviet Union."
Hermione, who had been leaning against Leonard's leg for the past minute, stiffened, and he glanced down to see her staring forward with a blank expression.
"So, the most powerful evil the world has ever known has just gone red at the height of the Cold War," Martin summarized.
He watched as Hermione's shoulders carefully relaxed, and a more neutral look appeared on her face. Her hands were still clenched into fists on the ground, though.
"And now he's gonna help them cook up something that kills the future," Ray finished, tone solemn.
"Now you're just being over dramatic," Hermione chided, rolling her eyes. To someone paying less attention, she would have sounded completely normal. "Remember, Savage was a part of the Soviet Union before we interfered with the timeline. Which means that, since the Soviets didn't destroy the world in our current time, Savage did not help them create any sort of killing machine."
"Unless they just haven't used it," Mick suggested with a grin.
"You think the Soviet's created a weapon of mass destruction and then just, what? Sat on it for thirty years?" she asked. "I highly doubt it."
"But what if our actions in 1975 caused Savage to defect to the U.S.S.R.?" Ray argued. "What if we changed the timeline?"
"Savage lives for war and chaos," Carter reminded him. "Yeah, the U.S. was ready and willing to fight the Soviet Union if they needed to, but they didn't want to."
"If you're a psychopath searching for a new battleground, you don't stick with the side that doesn't want to go to war," Leonard said. "You go to the side that's looking for a fight."
"Gideon, set a course for the Soviet Union," Rip ordered solemnly.
Glancing out the window, Leonard could see the ship's speed increasing as it banked upwards into the clouds.
Something pressed against his thigh and he glanced back down to see Hermione's head resting against it. It was only for a moment and then she was straightening up again, but Leonard knew that there was something wrong.
What was in the Soviet Union that had Hermione so worked up?
After Rip made the call to head for the Soviet Union, most of the team wandered out of the room. Martin had said something about further reviewing Savage's file, while Carter and Kendra had disappeared. Probably to discuss what had happened at the Pentagon. Hermione would have been more worried about Kendra's actions if Carter hadn't seemed so calm about it. They had been reincarnating for 4,000 years- it was highly likely this was a problem they'd encountered before.
Leonard had stayed behind and shifted to sit down beside her. While Hermione continued working on the coded notes, he began flipping through the book of Russian folktales.
"Any idea what kind of code that is?" he asked, after Hermione had tossed aside another sheet of scribbled on paper.
"No," she growled. "Honestly, if I didn't know better, I would say that this is a taunt. It feels like Savage is mocking me, and I will not stand for it! I am going to solve this even if it kills me and so help me, if this turns out to be nothing more than Savage wasting my time, I will hunt him down and scalp him!"
"Ooph," Leonard hissed, amused. "That's cold, even for me."
Hermione set her things aside and sighed, stretching her legs out in front of her. "I can't even say for sure if this is a code and not some sort of archaic language that I'm not familiar with. There are at least two variations of Ancient Greek that have never been deciphered and another from the Indus Valley. While both of those languages were written and spoken long before Savage was even born, it's still possible that he could have learned them after he left Egypt as long as there was someone in the area still fluent in it."
"Like the Native American languages currently going extinct," he responded, much to Hermione's surprise. "Since so few people are still around who know them, they're likely to disappear soon." Spotting the look on her face, Leonard shrugged and told her, "I pay attention. That, combined with the fact that I have a very good memory, means I'm a fountain of random bits of information."
She hadn't thought he could get any more attractive. "Any of that random information include codebreaking?"
"Unfortunately, no. But they haven't built a safe yet that I can't crack."
"Well, if I ever need that particular service, I'll let you know."
Hermione went back to trying to decipher Savage's notes while Leonard resumed reading.
A few hours later, as they were flying over Poland, Leonard had finished the collection of folktales and began looking over the notes Hermione had set aside as possibly important. She almost stopped him but decided that it couldn't hurt for Leonard to also take a look. Something that she had missed on first glance might stand out to him.
After scanning several pages, Leonard turned and leaned over Hermione to grab one of her pens and a piece of mostly blank paper she'd tossed.
"Captain," Gideon announced, "we've just crossed into Soviet airspace."
"Don't worry, Jefferson," Rip said, and Hermione glanced up to see Jax staring at the center console with a concerned expression. "We are moving far too fast for anyone to track us."
"I'm afraid that's not true," Gideon responded. "Someone is tracking us."
"I thought the ship was cloaked," Rip snapped, walking around Jax to get a better look at the screen.
"It is."
Jax seemed to notice something on the screen. "Boba Fett's back," he announced,
Rip scowled. "Chronos must have followed us when we made the jump from the 70s."
"He's closing fast," Gideon warned. "Captain, what would you like me to do?"
Without missing a beat, he ordered, "Slow down, drop our cloak, and make as much noise as possible."
Leonard finally looked up at that, brows raised in surprise.
"Whoa," Jax interjected. "That's like top three on the list of things we definitely shouldn't do."
"Just trust me," Rip responded.
"That is quite the ask," Leonard said, rising to his feet and walking over to stand a few feet behind Jax beside the seats.
The hallway doors slid open and Ray entered asking, "Is something wrong?"
"Chronos is still in pursuit," Gideon stated. "Weapon systems tracking."
"Look," Jax warned. "If this is your idea of trying to lose him then maybe-"
"Uh-huh," Rip crowed, heading back to the console. "The Soviet Air Force to the rescue. Now, let's see how badly Chronos wants to follow us."
Hermione stared at him in shock for a moment before grabbing her wand and silently casting sticking spells on all the papers, pens, and books around her.
"Wow," Ray said, standing in front of the windows. "It's a MiG-21. No one's ever been this close to one before?"
Leonard's head tilted slightly to the side. "Are you quoting 'Top Gun'?" he asked with a grimace.
"Maybe."
"I've got heat-seeking missiles closing at a distance of less than a mile," Gideon told them.
Rip didn't seem concerned. "Which is why I'm going to need you to cut the engines."
"Wait, don't we need those to land?" Jax asked.
"I said, 'Cut them,' Gideon."
The ship jerked and then began a sharp descent towards the ground.
"Missiles are now targeting something else," Gideon announced.
Jax finally realized what Rip was doing. "Chronos."
"I suggest you all strap yourselves in," Rip told them, racing for his chair. "It's going to be a bit of a bumpy landing."
Ray and Jax moved to sit down, but Leonard glanced back at Hermione before doing so also.
"Sit down," she waved him off, climbing to her feet. "I'm coming."
The ship began violently shaking as they gained more speed. Hermione started towards a seat when the ship jerked violently, slamming her painfully into a seatback. Once she got her feet back under her, Hermione threw herself forward and strapped herself in.
"Initiating emergency landing protocol," stated the AI.
"How's it going, Gideon?" Rip asked.
"There's not much more I can do. Elevation is 5,000… 4,000… 3,000…"
"When I said 'bumpy'," Rip started. "I meant, 'Prepare for crash landing'."
Moments later, the ship slammed into the ground, sending everyone slamming forward.
Blinking the spots out of her eyes, Hermione glanced around to make sure the four men in the room with her were fine. She was relieved to see that they all appeared to be alright, but she worried that the rest of the team hadn't fared as well. Hermione had no idea if Gideon had been able to alert the rest of the team what was coming so that they were able to try and fasten themselves down. Hopefully none of them had been too badly injured.
As everyone began unstrapping themselves, Gideon announced, "Good news, Captain. Despite our rough landing, the ship is still fully operational."
"That's surprising," Hermione commented as she tilted her head from side to side in order to stretch her neck. "Considering we literally nose-dived into the ground."
"We were lucky," Rip answered shortly. "Welcome to the U.S.S.R."
The doors opened and Martin stormed in. "If it were up to me, they would revoke your pilot's license!"
"'They are more than welcome to," their captain responded. "Considering that I don't have one." When he saw what Martin was holding, he leapt to his feet. "Did you get anything on Savage from the Pentagon file?"
Martin nodded, setting the file down. "It appears our friend has been quite busy since we last saw him."
Leonard walked over to Hermione and knelt down, studying her carefully.
"I'm fine," she told him with a half-smile. "Lucky for me that my ribs were fully healed by the time Chronos found us."
"I'm more concerned with whiplash." He reached out and gently cupped the back of her neck. "Any pain?"
"I told you I'm fine. Are you alright?"
He nodded, but Martin and Rip's conversation caught their attention.
"Svarog is the god of fire in Slavic mythology," Martin was explaining. "It's the name of a secret project the Soviets are working on. Considering Savage's involvement, most likely some sort of weapon."
Ray had picked up the file and was reviewing it himself. "Valentina Vostok. Graduated top of her physics program and then just dropped out of academia."
"To help develop Savage's new weapon, no doubt," Martin said.
"The Cold War's up for grabs," Ray muttered. "And Miss Vostok is the linchpin."
"I say we put two in the back of her head and call it day," Leonard announced, straightening up and holding out his hand to Hermione. She raised a brow at such a gentlemanly display but took it without comment.
Ray frowned at Leonard as they made their way towards him. "We have no idea who this woman is or what her effect may be on history. She may be the next Madame Curie for all we know."
"I feel like you're still not understanding the whole 'time travel' business," Hermione told him, leaning her hip against the console and folding her arms across her chest. "Our traveling back in time doesn't automatically change things. If you can't name any of Vostok's accomplishments right here and right now, it means that she didn't have any. Possibly because the Russians buried them, but more likely because not all scientists go on to matter. It's sad, but true. If her name doesn't mean anything to you coming from thirty years in the future, then she's not going to have an effect on history. If we are going to bother ourselves with her, then it should just be to kill her."
"She's working for Savage," Leonard reminded him. "That's all we need to know."
"She probably has no idea who's backing her research," Ray argued. "Just let me approach her as a scientist, and we'll see what she knows about Savage's weapons program."
"You have the subtlety of a nuclear bomb and she's probably not a stupid person," Hermione retorted flatly, glancing down at the photo of a beautiful brunette. "She won't tell you anything. Try thinking with the head on your shoulders and not the one in your pants."
Ray turned red. "I can be subtle!"
"No, you can't," Leonard told him. "It's 1986, you're American, and you don't speak Russian. She'll have you pegged as a spy in a second."
"Perhaps I can help with that," Rip interjected, walking over to them with a small black case. When he opened it, they saw that it was filled with what looked like tiny green pills. "Ingestible translators. They attach to your larynx via neural interface. Swallow one and you'll be able to speak and understand any language spoken to you."
Ray and Leonard both reached out and took a pill and, after hesitating for only a moment, swallowed them.
"Seriously?" Hermione asked, staring at Leonard. "Someone tells you to take a pill and you do it, no questions asked?"
"Hey now, if Rip was going to kill us, he wouldn't have waited this long to do it," Jax joked.
"True, but he also gave almost no information about it. How long does it stayed attached to your larynx? How do you remove it? Can you remove it? What happens if it glitches? Can it adjust the language spoken based on the time period you're in? All questions you might have waited to have answered before swallowing the funny green pill."
"How do you turn it on?" Martin asked, watching as Ray winced while swallowing repeatedly.
"Gideon," Rip called. "Switch them into Russian." When Ray just stared at him blankly, he prodded, "Go on. Say something."
Ray scoffed before beginning to speak in fluent Russian. Martin stared at him in amazement, and Ray looked back at him in confusion before seeming to realize that he was no longer speaking English. He then began grinning like a loon.
"Now you're annoying in multiple languages," Leonard drawled.
"Gideon, switch him back to English," Rip ordered.
"The language barrier was only one of the issues," Hermione reminded them. "This woman works for Savage, a man who either inspires incredible loyalty or outright fear. And you expect Ray to just, what? Walk up to her and name-drop Savage and Svarog in the hopes that she'll start talking? It's not going to work. All you're going to do is alert Savage to the fact that there's someone out there asking questions about him and his work."
"All he has to do is lead the conversation towards Valentina's work," Rip argued.
"She's working on a top-secret project for a government that is well known for making anyone who even slightly displeases them disappear," she responded. "I know this may be hard for you to grasp considering you recruited two scientists who enjoy flaunting their work to the world, but Vostok won't be like that. If she talks, she dies, and no amount of what will undoubtedly be awkward flirting from Ray is going to make her forget that."
"I can flirt!" Ray interjected.
Hermione looked over at him. "Really? Prove it. Flirt with me."
"I…" Ray stuttered, before clearing his throat. "I'm not going to flirt with you. What would even be the point of that? You hate me and don't find me even remotely attractive."
"I don't hate you," Hermione told him. "I'm just very underwhelmed and unimpressed by you. Which will most likely be Vostok's reaction to you as well, so this'll be good practice."
"Well, if you don't think this is a viable option, then do you have any ideas on how we should proceed?" Martin asked.
"Yes," she responded. "Anything that won't alert Savage to our presence. Anything at all. Or, at the very least, send anyone other than Ray to speak to her. Sara, for example, would be an excellent choice."
"We're not sending Sara," Rip stated. "We're going to do this and, if it doesn't work, then we'll try something else. But what we won't be doing is wasting time arguing. Now, according to Vostok's file, she's a big fan of the ballet. She has box seats at the Bolshoi and attends every performance."
Gideon pulled up a poster of the ballet currently being performed at the Bolshoi. "It seems the final performance of 'Le Roi Canduale' is today."
"Dr. Palmer, you will engage Vostok at the ballet," Rip instructed before turning to face Leonard. "Whilst you, Mr. Snart… you're going to be his wingman."
Leonard glared at Rip. "Oy."
"I better go bone up on Vostok's CV," Ray stated cheerfully.
"I guess I'll bone up on the ballet," Leonard mocked. "Gideon, bone me."
Hermione rolled her eyes and strode back towards her work still littering the floor by Rip's office.
This was absolutely ridiculous. It was a plan that had no chance of success. Vostok was never going to reveal any information about Savage's plan and anyone who had half a functioning brain would know that.
Or, perhaps, just anyone who could muster up the energy to look beyond a pretty face. She honestly couldn't help wondering if Ray would have been so adamant about not taking out Vostok if she had been either male or unattractive. What was it Tolstoy had once said? 'It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.'
With a wave of her wand, Hermione summoned her things to stack neatly into her bag before sweeping out of the room. She needed to find a place with a few less idiots.
In her quest for solitude, Hermione found Sara sitting in a room full of storage containers, sharpening her knives.
When she spotted the distant look in the blonde's eyes, she couldn't help asking, "Everything alright?"
Sara's head snapped up. "Hey. What's up?"
"You tell me."
Looking back down at the blade in her hand, Sara said, "I'm fine."
Hermione watched her for a moment before sighing and walking further into the room to take a seat near Sara. "Let's skip the part where I pretend to believe that, alright? I just spent the last few minutes arguing with Ray and Rip about the stupidity of approaching a woman working on one of Savage's projects. Apparently because she's pretty and a scientist, she can't possibly be evil."
That finally made Sara set aside her things and fully face Hermione. "Is that really what they said?"
"Not word for word, but it was certainly in the subtext. Ray's going to try to speak to her 'scientist to scientist'."
"Do they not know where we're at?" Sara asked. "I really doubt that the Soviet government is in the business of hiring idiots. Especially not female ones."
Hermione grinned. "Finally, someone who gets it. It's a ridiculous plan, made only worse by the fact that Ray is the one who's going to be doing the talking. I told them you'd have a better chance than him, but they didn't go for it."
"Yeah, Ray's 'winningly naïve' persona is only effective in certain situations. And most of those don't pop up in our line of work."
Scooting back on the container she was perched on, Hermione pulled her legs up and crossed them. "Have you and Ray worked together before?"
"Uh, briefly. I wasn't really around when the Atom was taking Star City by storm."
"Oh? What were you up to?"
Sara looked away again, but Hermione was willing to wait. Clearly something was bothering her. From what she had seen though, Sara didn't appear to be one that enjoyed talking about her feelings, and she didn't seem all that close to anyone on the ship who might have a better chance at making her do so. Hermione was sure that talking to her had to be better than nothing.
"Rip said that you died," Sara finally told her, meeting her gaze again. "When we were making a plan to break into the Pentagon, he said that it was probably good that you weren't going because you had a bad history with breaking into government buildings, and that the first time you'd broken into one you'd died."
Pressing her lips tightly together, Hermione forced herself to remain calm. "I really need to get my hands on whatever file he has on me," she muttered. "But yes, I died. I was hit with a curse that attacked my internal organs. It felt like I was being burned alive."
Sara took a deep breath. "I was shot multiple times in the chest and ended up falling off a roof. It didn't hurt though. It just felt very… quiet. Lonely."
Hermione gave a small, bitter smile. "It's odd, isn't it? Silence is supposed to be calm and peaceful. But I've never felt more scared than in moments of silence."
After the war, silence didn't feel like safety and didn't mean that there were no enemies. It just meant that she hadn't noticed them creeping up behind her yet.
"Yeah," the blond agreed. "Neither have I." She shifted in her seat and lean forward, hands clenching on her knees. "How did you do it? How did you come back?"
"Magic," Hermione sighed. "I don't know how they did it. I don't even know how long I was dead. I asked but was told I was better off not knowing." And the exhaustion in Professor Snape's eyes told her that he was probably right.
"Do you remember anything?"
"Not really. All I can remember is coming back and being angry. I was so angry at everyone and everything. And the more I tried to bury that anger, the stronger it got."
It had felt like the fire from Dolohov's curse that had torn its way through her still lingered in her bones, feeding on that anger. There were days when it felt like her anger was burning her alive again. And then, there were days when all she wanted to do was let out that fire and burn the world to the ground as recompense for all the ways she was wronged.
Sara's knuckles were white from the force of her grip. "I was brought back by something called the Lazarus Pit. It brought me back to life, but it left me with this need to kill. I can't control it. Before, when Rip and I were caught by Savage, we had been investigating where Savage kept his money and what he was spending it on. I thought that if we could take away his funds, that would at least hurt him long enough for us to get an edge. But the bank was a front, and we were attacked. I ended up killing multiple people and Rip…"
Hermione reached out and took one of Sara's hands. "Talk to me."
Surprisingly enough, Sara did.
The witch listened silently as the assassin explained everything- dying, the Lazarus Pit, the return of her soul, the never-ending bloodlust.
It had been a long time since she'd heard anyone speak of the Lazarus Pit. A magical pit filled with water that could bring the dead back to life. It was something both magical and non-magical people alike dreamed of possessing. Yet, in the few fragments of stories that described such a thing, the one consistency was that it never ended well for the ones who used it. And generally speaking, the ones getting dumped in its waters weren't able to consent. They were paying the price for magic they never asked for.
More importantly, the Pit returned life to a body, but it couldn't return a soul. Anyone brought back using the Pit would be left as little more than a mindless machine. It was lucky that Sara's family had found someone with the ability to retrieve her soul from the other side. Though, Hermione planned on having words with John Constantine for doing something so reckless and foolish.
She listened as Sara further explained her trip to the bank with Rip and what had occurred there.
"I told Rip that I was a monster before we left, but it's like he didn't get it. And now he does. He saw what I did. And when I told him that there's no magical cure out there to help me not be a monster, he told me that there is: it's called being better."
Hermione snorted, breaking the fragile air that had fallen around them. "I hadn't realized that Rip was one of those people. The ones who say that the cure to addiction is simply to stop doing it. As though all it takes is willpower." Shifting to meet Sara's gaze, Hermione stated, "It's not about being better, Sara; telling you that implies that there is something wrong with you, that you're consciously making a choice when your bloodlust takes over."
"Aren't I?" Sara asked softly, a hollow tone to her voice. "I know what's going to happen every time I start a fight, but I do it anyway."
"All magic comes at a cost- just like everything else in the world. And no one gave you a choice on whether or not you were willing to pay it. You died. You died and were brought back to life using the darkest of magics and that kind of magic leaves a mark you'll never be able to erase. And your friends may have managed to retrieve your soul but the fact that you died means that Death still holds it."
Sara's brows furrowed. "What does that mean?"
"It means that you should still be dead," Hermione informed her bluntly. "It means that every day you walk this earth, you are clutching to something that doesn't belong to you. It was given to you by magic and now magic is forcing you to pay the piper."
"But you're not dealing with this!" Sara responded, pulling away from Hermione in frustration. "You're fine!"
"I was only dead for a short while," Hermione reminded her. "And I wasn't brought back using the Lazarus Pit. That pit is unnatural, and the side effects are severe. Yes, the Pit does leave those who use it with a need for violence, for blood. But it also takes every negative emotion you have and dials it up to ten. It makes everything feel so much more intense and painful. When you're angry, you could literally destroy an army and still feel like it's not enough to ease your rage. When you're scared, you are soul-crushingly terrified.
"When someone attacks you, Sara, and you begin fighting back, it feels like the Pit is taking over your consciousness when really, all it's doing is making your emotions so heightened that your mind shuts down to protect itself. They attack you and a little part of you feels scared, because once upon a time you thought you were invincible, and you were wrong. But then you get angry because you know you have nothing to be scared of, and then the Pit takes those emotions and floods your mind with them, and your instincts take over. Your conscious shuts off and your Pit-fueled emotions take over and make it so that you don't just want to keep your attackers from hurting you, but that you want to make them suffer for even thinking to touch you. Does that make sense?"
As Hermione had been speaking, Sara had begun tearing up. Her hands lifting up to wipe at her face, Sara whispered, "The League taught me how to fight, how to protect myself and make sure that what happened to me never happened again. But I don't know how to not be scared anymore."
"It's alright to be scared, Sara. And it's alright to be angry. But you're never going to learn how to control your emotions if you can't accept them. That bloodlust? It's never going away. Just like my anger never will. But those are our emotions. We control them, not the other way around. It's up to us how we use them, and when we let them out. For me, channeling my anger resulted in me becoming a criminal mastermind who attacked the society that tried to break me.
"Once you learn how to handle your bloodlust, those other emotions you feel so cut-off from will come back. You'll remember what it was like before, when you could feel everything. No matter what happens though, Sara, you're not alone."
Sara closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Her tears slowly stopped and her shoulders slowly relaxed. When she opened her eyes again, she only met Hermione's gaze for a moment before looking away, seeming almost ashamed of her vulnerability.
"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to go off on you."
"It's fine, Sara. I'm happy to help. I went through all of this on my own and it was hard. I had friends who tried to support me, but they just didn't get it. I don't want you to have to suffer the way I did."
Hermione was surprised by how much she meant that. She was an intensely private person and always had been, but she was willing to open up to Sara about her experiences if it meant that Sara could have an easier time of it than she did.
"I'll keep that in mind." Sara stood up and collected her knives. "I should go see if Rip needs me for anything."
"Of course," Hermione nodded, also standing. "I have more papers I need to go through, so I plan to hide out in my room until I either find something, or until my presence is required."
"Have fun with that."
When Leonard dropped by Hermione's room, he found her sitting on her bed and staring blankly at the wall in front of her, a sheet of what looked to be parchment dangling from her fingers.
"Turns out the ballet isn't as boring as I thought it was going to be," he told her, leaning against the doorframe. "Still not exactly my cup of tea, but not mind-numbly terrible."
Hermione started, turning to look at him while simultaneously tucking the paper out of sight. "Are you two heading out then?"
"Yep," he answered, wondering if that parchment had been something she'd picked up from Savage's place. "If nothing else, watching Ray get shot down should be slightly entertaining. Want to tag along?"
Her lips pulled up into a smile that was clearly forced. "No, I still haven't figured out Savage's code and you know that Rip's not the most patient of men."
Leonard nodded, straightening up and walking into the room. "That he's not. But that's not what's bugging you."
Hermione's expression instantly went blank. "What do you mean?"
Coming to a stop in front of her, Leonard asked, "What's with the paper you're trying to hide?"
Turning her gaze away from his, Hermione answered, "Nothing you need to concern yourself with."
"We're a team," Leonard reminded her. "If it's bugging you, it's bugging me."
For a long moment, it seemed as though Hermione wasn't going to answer. "I'm not sure if I should be blaming karma or fate right now. You got the chance to face a difficult part of your past, and now I do too. For years, I wondered what I would do if I ever got a chance like this but now it's here and I just don't know."
His jaw clenched at the reminder of his encounter with his father. "It didn't change anything. If that's what you're wondering. Instead of being caught robbing the museum, he got caught trying to pawn the emerald off to an undercover cop. Seems you were right- time wants things to happen a certain way."
Hermione sighed, eyes turning sad. "I'm sorry, Leonard. I know that's not the outcome you were hoping for."
"No, it wasn't." Leonard sat down on the bed in front of her, leaning forward slightly so he could have a better view of Hermione's eyes. "What outcome are you wanting if you do this?"
She huffed, eyes turning cold. "I want revenge. I just want to hurt someone at least a fraction as much as they hurt me. Even if they'll never know that I was the one who did it."
Leonard studied her for a moment before straightening up. "In that case, I say go for it. Bit of revenge is good for the soul."
That finally seemed to pull Hermione out of whatever mental spiral she'd trapped herself in. A small smile played on her lips as she raised a brow and retorted, "Bold of you to assume I have one."
"Oh, I know you do. You'd be a lot less fun if you didn't."
"Did you already forget me telling you that I'm not a good time?"
He smirked, reaching out a hand to trace the length of her jaw with the tips of his fingers. "I think under the right circumstances you'd be a very good time." Hermione's lips parted in surprise and his thumb came up to brush her bottom lip. So tempting… "Unfortunately, we'll have wait until later to find out. I've got to go play support to an idiot scientist, and you have a revenge plan to perfect."
The heat in Hermione's eyes almost made Leonard tell Rip to find another sucker to be Ray's wingman, but he knew their captain's resulting nagging would kill the mood anyway.
Hermione pressed a light kiss to the pad of his thumb before reaching up to pull his hand away. She kept ahold of it, the tips of her fingers lightly tracing his palm. "Be careful," she finally said. "If Valentina is knowingly and willingly working with Savage, then she's probably going to be more dangerous than expected."
Leonard captured her fingers and squeezed gently before releasing her hand and standing. "Don't worry, I'll come back to you."
She froze, eyes wide. He wondered if he had said something wrong before her face expression softened. "I'll be waiting," she murmured, and it sounded like a promise.