Bewitched by You (A Marvel/Harry Potter Crossover) COMPLETED

Chapter Three: Culture Shock

Bucky looked over at Hermione, under the shifting, sporadic orange light of the occasional street lamp passing overhead. After their talk, she'd fallen silent, and was now preoccupied with a scroll of parchment open in her lap.

"Bucky."

The sudden break in the silence jarred her and she jumped a little. Looking up from her map, she said, "Sorry, what?"

Chuckling, he shook his head, but kept his eyes on the road. "My name is Bucky. I realized we hadn't introduced ourselves."

"Bucky?" Her gaze flicked over him and she nearly laughed, herself. There seemed something odd about someone who . . . well, frankly someone who looked like him having such a name.

He bit the inside of his lip against the urge to scowl—not like he'd never gotten that reaction before—and gave a quick roll of his eyes. "James Buchanan Barnes, but friends call me Bucky."

Yawning, she stuffed the parchment into her tiny bag. "So, we're friends, then?"

Bucky shrugged, repressing a yawn of his own. "Only if you don't make fun of my name, again."

With a tired smile, she nodded. "Fair enough. My name's Hermione."

His brows shot up and he darted a glance in her direction. "Hermione? And you just made fun of my name?"

She cast him a narrow-eyed look and he held in a chuckle.

"So, James," she said, not sure she could make it through calling him Bucky with a straight face. "You're aware we need a plan."

He shook his head. "No, what we need right now is rest. We've been driving for hours, and you're still injured. We're not going to come up with anything strategically sound until we can think clearly."

Strategically sound. Hermione winced. She recognized soldier-talk when she heard it. God, she wished that aspect of her life didn't keep popping up.

"So," she started, unable to help her curiosity as her gaze landed on his metal hand. "Super-soldiers need sleep like the rest of us, then?"

"I am still human . . . ." Before she could say anything, he spared a moment to flex his cybernetic fingers. "Okay, mostly still human."

He graciously smiled and shook his head as Hermione snickered.

"Well," she said nodding—she didn't like it, but he was right about needing a break, first. Her moments of dozing as a result of getting knocked unconscious didn't count as rest, as much as she'd prefer it that way. "I'm not sure we'll even be able to come up with a good plan, then, considering we're trying to plan around Loki. Loki, who, by all accounts, is completely barking."

Bucky furrowed his brow. He knew she'd said the word earlier, but he hadn't really been paying attention that first time. "Barking?"

"Insane."

"Oh. Well, still." He shrugged as he pointed to a road sign coming up on their right. "There's a motel not too far up ahead. Plan right now is pull over, get some food and rest, switch cars, continue on."

Hermione frowned as she deflated a bit. "Continue on to where?"

He was pretty sure the question, itself, was more a reflection on her situation than it was to do with the discussion of where to next. Putting that aside, he said, "Any place that's far away from where we left Loki."

She nodded as she noticed a sign for a fast food restaurant, that according the first board Bucky had pointed out, preceded the motel by only a quarter of a mile. That was when it occurred to her . . . . While she'd been on the run for so long now, his departure from New York City—as, she assumed from his accent and inflections, was where he lived— was rather abrupt.