#microfanfic

CHOSEN

Harry’s mouth trailed down the pale, wiry arm thrilling at the familiar tremble that met his lips every time he brushed the marked forearm.

The breathy gasp, the silent whimper, the gripping fingers that tugged at his hair—all of it—was his.

You sit down at the canteen to have your peas and your cannoli. A looming shadow drifts over to sit across the table from you. An image from your past that seems to sit on the tip of your memory. Blonde, teased out hair, a small nose, small ears, wide pink lips, and luminous yellow eyes. An eight foot tall Barbie doll setting her tray down to eat. You see she has cannoli and peas too. You nervously take a bite and watch her mirror you. She wrinkles her nose at the taste of food and begins eating the fork instead. You watch in fascination and horror as she starts chewing the tray next, mechanically moving a jaw with far too many sharp teeth. She blinks at you and tells you, “It wouldn’t make you happier if you kissed Augustine, but it would make you less tense about it.”

---

He had to go back in there. 

Brown muck swirled past. The smell was rotten and biological, with a tang of benzene. The suit, not even with all its advanced filters and hood, could keep out the smell, or the ever-present sensation of dampness leaching through. His skin crawled. 

And he had to go back in there. 

The mechanical room was a tiny oasis of normalcy. Here, behind a locked door, the amenity of an old folding chair and battered wooden worktable offered rest. He sat on the chair and rested his arms on the table, and for one minute he was a physicist again, updating facility records and experiment data. He could walk out that door and up the stairs, just doing his job. Lunch hour would come. He’d eat his sandwich and drink his soda. Listen to the scientists talk. Go- no, if he pictured home now he’d never make it.  

Out that locked door were monsters and man-killers. Dying scientists and ineffective security guards. How many men had he shot, stabbed, murdered? Sewer water had washed most of the blood from his suit, but not all of it. If they caught him, they’d kill him. No quarter asked or given. Monsters, military, radiation, malfunctioning machinery, a scared guard or a paranoid scientist, today one of them would end him. 

He was so tired. 

The crowbar fit easily in his hand. It was a tool, familiar and purposeful. Gore spattered its pronged end, some alien and some human. He wiped it off, leaving a smear of oily muck on the work table. 

Some signature, he thought, and wondered if he’d ever hold a pen again. He sat on the sewer canal ledge and eased himself back in. The liquid was tepid, at least not icy cold. Small favors. 

Peter: Hey, Mr. Stark! I knew you would want some, so I made a pot of coffee.

Peter hands him a mug full.

Tony: That’s sweet, kid.

Tony takes a sip. Suddenly, his entire nervous system wriggles. Even his toes curl against the assault of sugar.

Tony: That’s. really. sweet. kid.

Peter: I didn’t know how you drink it, so I just made it like I like it.

Peter drinks from his own mug. Tony gags quietly behind his hand.

Tony: How much sugar did you put in this?

REACQUAINTED

“You know,” Harry speaks softly against Draco’s shoulder, “It was your wand that helped me defeat him. Helped me survive.”

Draco pulls tighter into the hug, tears streaming unbidden down his face, as he grips his newly returned hawthorn wand.

“Oh, and uh….happy birthday,” Harry whispers.

Draco pulls away, perplexed at how Harry knew it was his birthday. How could he? He was always in the hospital wing every year during it. Draco conjures a tissue to wipe his tears. “How did you—”

AFTER ALL THIS TIME

Draco should be nervous. It’s normal. Everyone is with things like this.

But, Draco doesn’t hesitate as he drops to one knee, looking up into those bright green eyes, that he still gets lost in.

That crooked smile that sends tingles down his spine.