Chapter Text
Hermione had only wanted some air.
No mission. No artifact hunt. No dark wizard to chase through alleyways or time zones. Just a few precious hours of quiet after a week of consulting for MACUSA, tucked away in a rented brownstone near Prospect Park.
But peace didn’t come easily to her—not anymore. So, she’d taken to wandering rooftops late at night. High above the city’s noise, out of reach, free.
That night, she Apparated to what she thought was an empty building. It had all the right qualities: flat, high, with a perfect view of the skyline. But the second her boots hit the gravel, something felt off.
Hands seized her.
She was yanked to the ground, her back scraping across the rooftop. But it wasn’t the fall that had her heart pounding. It was the bow pressed against her throat, the string taut across her windpipe.
A sharp breath caught in her throat, but she couldn’t move. Her arm was pinned in a grip that was surprisingly strong for a man who seemed to be lurking on a rooftop in the middle of Brooklyn. Her wand was holstered—too far out of reach. And there was no magic here. No magical signature.
This wasn’t a magical threat.
It was something else. Something... mundane.
“Don’t move,” a voice warned, low and calm, no louder than a whisper. The pressure of the bow remained, the string biting into her skin. “You’re gonna blow my cover.”
Hermione froze, her breath quick and shallow, mind racing to catch up with the situation. The words echoed in her mind—sharper now, more familiar than anything else. She didn’t know who this man was, or why he was here with a weapon trained on her, but she knew those words.
The first words her soulmate was meant to speak.
She’d spent years wondering what they might be, what form they might take. As a teenager, she'd found the idea baffling, and the words almost absurd out of context. As she got older, the sentence had morphed into something darker in her mind—espionage, danger, a spy, maybe even a remnant of the war. She’d braced herself for the worst.
But this?
This wasn’t it.
Being tackled to the ground by a man in a purple hoodie on a rooftop in Brooklyn? This wasn’t anything she could’ve imagined.
Her mouth opened before she could stop herself.
“You’re the one in a purple hoodie on a roof,” she snapped, her voice tight with irritation. “You’re going to blow your own cover.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then another.
Clint blinked.
He hadn’t expected that. Not the attitude, not the voice, and definitely not the words.
His grip on the bow loosened instinctively, the tension in the string easing. He stepped back just enough to let her breathe but didn’t lower the weapon entirely. His eyes flicked over her—assessing, suspicious, a little stunned.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered.
She was staring up at him, curls scattered across the gravel, gaze sharp and defiant despite the shallow, rapid rise and fall of her chest. There was something about her. Not just the look in her eyes, but the way she held herself—like she was already planning five different ways out of this, none of which involved surrender.
“Clint,” he said, nodding once.
“Hermione.” She tilted her head slightly, her voice still clipped. “I take it… you have my words stamped on you somewhere?”
Clint exhaled through his nose—a dry sound. “Yeah. Left ass cheek. Real romantic.”
Hermione’s look was unimpressed. “You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was.”
“Right ribcage. More dignified, I suppose.”
“Debatable.” Clint muttered, finally lowering the bow fully.
They stared at each other for a moment, neither one sure what to do next.
“You tried to strangle me with a bowstring,” Hermione pointed out.
“You dropped in on my covert op,” Clint countered, his voice flat.
“You were wearing a bright purple hoodie; that colour isn't exactly stealthy.”
“It’s stealthy in certain lighting.” He shot back.
Clint didn’t move—not for a beat.
He just stared down at her—this woman who’d literally dropped into his stakeout, mouthed off with a bow at her throat, and somehow turned out to be his soulmate.
She didn’t look like much of a threat, lying there in dark jeans and a long coat, curls half-wild from the scuffle, gravel sticking to her sleeves. But there was something about the way she held herself, even now. She was calm—too calm. Like she wasn’t rattled at all. Ready.
Clint watched as Hermione brushed the gravel off her coat, her movements sharp, calculating. Every action seemed deliberate, even the way she adjusted her stance as if preparing for something. She wasn’t scared—not angry, either. Just… poised.
Her hand hovered near her side, fingers flexing in a way that made Clint’s instincts flare. He knew enough not to take his eyes off her. She didn’t reach for any visible weapons, but there was something about the way she stood—like she was already thinking two steps ahead.
His gaze narrowed on the bulge pressed against her coat, hidden from view. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he wasn’t about to underestimate her. Whatever it was, she knew how to use it. And Clint trusted his instincts—she wasn’t someone to be taken lightly.
“Right,” she said, brushing dust from her coat, her voice calm despite the lingering spike of adrenaline. “This has been… wildly inconvenient.”
He blinked at her, clearly thrown. “That’s what you’re going with?”
Hermione raised an eyebrow, already cataloging him in her mind—arrogant, sharp-eyed, twitchy fingers near a weapon even now. “Well, yes,” she replied coolly. “It’s not exactly my idea of a good time.”
To her surprise, Clint let out a quiet huff of laughter. Dry, but real.
She was already shifting her weight, calculating the cleanest point to Apparate from, wand still holstered, but her fingers twitching near it. He didn’t know what she was about to do—Hermione could feel that in the way his muscles tensed, his hand tightening around the bow like he expected her to pull a knife or a bolt.
He had no idea what kind of weapon she carried. No idea she could be halfway across the borough in seconds. That ignorance gave her a strange kind of leverage—and a small pang of guilt.
She straightened to her full height, brushing a final fleck of grit from her sleeve. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you’re surveilling?”
His eyes narrowed. “Nope.”
“Didn’t think so.”
There was a beat of silence. Hermione gave him a polite smile.
And then, with a practiced flick of her fingers, she disappeared.
The rooftop cracked with the sudden vacuum of displaced air, the sound sharp and final. She landed with a soft thud, knees bending to absorb the motion. Home—or at least, what passed for it these days. A borrowed brownstone, a borrowed city, borrowed time between crises.
Hermione let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
She pressed a hand to her chest, grounding herself, her fingers brushing the edge of the holster hidden beneath her coat. Her heartbeat was steady, but her mind was racing.
Soulmate.
The word scraped against the inside of her thoughts like sandpaper.
She hadn’t meant to say it. The words had simply fallen out of her mouth—sharp, instinctive, and his. The moment she’d heard that low, strained whisper—“Don’t move. You’re gonna blow my cover”— something in her had just… responded.
As if the words had been waiting there, coiled on her tongue since the day the Mark had first appeared.
She turned and paced across the rooftop, her boots crunching softly on old gravel. That man. The bow. The expression he wore like a second skin—watchful, guarded, like he’d seen too much and didn’t trust any of it. Including her.
He hadn’t even blinked when she talked back to him. Hadn’t tried to lie or apologize. Just stared at her like she was the unexpected variable in a plan that couldn’t afford one.
And then—Clint. That was his name. She remembered it from the news, whispered in MACUSA security briefings, buried in footnotes. Clint Barton. Ex-SHIELD. Avenger. Archer. A man with a thousand shadows behind him and a bow in his hands.
And apparently, a soulmate mark on his—
She pressed her palm to her forehead and groaned softly.
Left ass cheek. Of course.
Hermione stopped at the edge of the rooftop, looking out across the city, its lights a constellation of distant lives. Somewhere down there, Clint Barton was probably still crouched behind some chimney or skylight, back to work like she hadn’t just turned his life sideways.
She bit her lip.
She hadn’t meant to complicate his night.
And yet… here they were.
Her mark itched faintly just below her ribs—a phantom pull, like a magnet humming beneath her skin. The connection had sparked. Whatever came next, it couldn’t be undone.
Hermione folded her arms over her chest, tucking her chin into her scarf as the wind picked up again. Soulmates weren’t supposed to be this complicated. But then, neither was she.
“Brilliant,” she muttered to herself.