two old and loved fandoms, one shiny and new
Fic for comment_fic prompts last week. That community makes me productive!
Title: Those That Stand In My Corner (X Men movieverse)
Rating/Warnings: PG13
Length: 384 words
Summary: for the prompt Rogue/Logan, Rogue is the cage fighter and Logan makes a bet.
Those That Stand In My Corner
He watches as the slim streak of nothing in jeans and a black bra slams her fist into the oncoming punch of her far larger opposition and because he’s got better senses than most he can see that it drains the guy much more than the girl, even though she’s the one that staggers back. There’s just something in the way the colour of the guy’s face seems to fade slightly and a smell of vulnerability.
“That all you got?” the guy demands, laughing.
She kicks out with a bare foot and veins pulse under the guy’s skin briefly where she connects, rising to the surface. He grabs her ankle, wrapping both hands around it, and throws her against the wall of the cage nearest to Logan. A small smile darts across her face as she slams into it.
“Fifty dollars on the kid,” Logan says around the cigar clamped between his teeth, handing his money to the bookie as he wanders past, and proceeds to watch her wear her rival down until a solid hit to the jaw sends him to the floor unconscious.
“It’s unnatural,” he overhears the fight organiser say when she tries to collect the cash she’s owed and is refused the full amount.
“For a bunch of guys to have less stamina than they reckon?” She tosses back a shot of vodka. “Honey, women always outlast the boys.”
“I know what you are,” the organiser insists.
“You don’t know jack shit.”
Logan follows her out when she leaves. He watches as she yanks on leather gloves and flings up her hood before fastening her coat, covering her skin before protecting herself from the cold.
“Hey, kid,” he asks, dropping the remains of his cigar on the ground with a small hiss as it hits the snow. “You got somewhere to be?”
“What’s it to you?”
Logan pops three claws out of the knuckles of his right hand, slowly extending them to their full length and ignoring the burn as skin splits and metal moves beneath his skin.
She watches him do it, examining him with her eyes.
“I could use a ride,” she says, in the tone of someone granting a favour rather than accepting one and Logan allows one corner of his mouth to twist upwards in reply.
Title: In Your Ministry, Putting Things To Rights (Harry Potter)
Rating/Warnings: PG
Length: 697 words
Summary: for the prompt Fred & George & Any, the twins go to work for the Ministry like their mother wanted and then that makes Molly worried...
In Your Ministry, Putting Things To Rights
All Molly has ever wanted is for her children to be healthy and happy, but she can’t hide her pride when Percy starts working for the Ministry like Arthur, even if the closer he moves to his idea of success the further he seems to move away from their family. After the war Ron follows Harry into the Aurors whilst Bill and Charlie start helping the Ministry with rebuilding, and Molly hums to herself as she cooks tea, dancing around the kitchen. The war does so much damage, but it brings Percy back in the end and she’s so proud of all her boys, working for the good of the Wizarding World and putting things to rights. She knows that it won’t last, that Bill will go back to the Goblins and Charlie to his dragons. She isn’t any less proud of them for that, but in her heart of hearts she’s perhaps just a little more proud when they’re doing Ministry work.
Then the twins announce that they’ve ‘gone into the family business’ and, yes, she’s proud, but she’s also worried. Of all of them, she never thought that Fred and George would ever be the Ministry’s type.
“Are they helping with the rebuilding efforts?” she asks Bill and Charlie as they pull off their heavy-duty work boots and leave them by the backdoor. “I know that joke shop of theirs was part of the Alley that was destroyed. Is that where they are?”
“Sorry Mum, I haven’t seen them around,” says Bill, squeezing past her into the kitchen and Charlie shakes his head for ‘no’ as he follows.
“Have the Aurors found a use for Fred and George by any chance?” she asks Ron and Harry as they step out of the floo, Harry still a little unsteady on his feet, poor dear, not being as used to that form of travel as the rest of them.
Ginny waves to them from where she’s curled up on the couch, home for the holidays and wearing far too short a skirt for winter but looking lovely in it.
“You have to apply to be an Auror,” says Ron, “they don’t invite you, whatever talents or uses you’ve got. They didn’t even invite Harry.”
Harry blushes and waves back at Ginny.
“Did you try asking Bill or Charlie?” he says, eager to help. “Everyone’s been helping with the rebuilding, apart from the Department of Mysteries, so one of us has probably seen them.”
“I don’t suppose you have any idea where Fred and George have gotten to?” Molly asks Percy, who deliberately arrives home just a fraction later then Arthur, because he wants to be seen as working the hardest.
“They’re not home yet?”
He frowns, beaten, and she gives him a hug to show him that she appreciates him all the same.
“Well, I’ve got much more important things to be concerned about anyway,” Percy says, pressing one hand to her back and then stepping away quickly. “There was an explosion in the lower levels. Something to do with the Department of Mysteries.”
“The twins told me that they’re working for the Ministry,” she says later as her and Arthur settle down in bed. “None of the others have seen them though. You don’t think they’re, well, up to something, do you?”
Her husband wraps his hand around the back of her head, gently threading his fingers through her curls, and guides her head down to rest on his shoulder. Molly snuggles up against him.
“They told me that as well.”
“And?”
“And when I next saw Kingsley I asked him what they were up to. I mean the Ministry has enough of our children already, don’t you think? Thank Merlin Ginny hasn’t got any plans in that direction.”
Molly lets her hand wander across Arthur’s chest until it rests against his heart, the beat steady under her palm.
“And what are they up to?”
“Something in the Department of Mysteries apparently. Although rumour has it that the Department are finally starting to take an interest in the rebuilding efforts after all this time, particularly in Diagon Alley funnily enough.”
He sounds proud and Molly smiles.
Title: Absolute Menace (Avengers)
Rating/Warnings: PG
Length: 484 words
Summary: for the prompt Steve/Tony, babysitting because Natasha said, "Keep him out of the way."
Absolute Menace
“I can’t believe they have us doing this,” Tony complains, letting his upper body slump backwards into the sofa. He runs his fingers through his hair, dislodging dust and chips of wood and tile, left there from when he was inspecting the latest damage to the mansion that Dr Banner had caused by getting a touch too emotional.
“Doing what?” asks Steve mildly, sitting down at the other end of the sofa with his back perfectly straight.
“Keep him out of the way,” Tony says in an attempt at mimicking Natasha and Steve looks at him oddly. “Honestly, I think negotiations with the repair team would go significantly better with the Hulk involved. That way they’d be able to see exactly why they keep getting called out here. What they’re up against. It’d be educational. We may even get a discount.”
“I’m sure Natasha can manage,” says Steve.
“Of course Natasha can manage,” says Tony, shoving his right hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out his Stark smartphone. “That isn’t the point. The point is I thought we were a team. You said we were a team. So we should be doing things together, right?”
“I think,” Steve says carefully, “that dealing with the repair people would be one of those problems best solved by splitting up and delegating.”
Tony taps away on his phone, fingers flying.
“I still can’t believe that we’re the ones babysitting the Hulk,” he says. “That’s not what I’d call good delegation, Captain. Besides, it’s not like he needs much watching,” he adds, waving one hand at the large, green man sat on the floor cross-legged between them and staring fixedly at the television. “Keep him out of the way. Honestly. Turn on the box and he doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Um.” Steve looks anywhere but at Tony. “Natasha wasn’t referring to the Hulk.”
He hears a pause in Tony’s typing.
“I will have you know,” Tony says in a deceptively calm tone of voice, “that I have always been an absolute menace to babysitters, nannies, and so on.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Steve, “Pepper seems to survive.”
He sneaks a glance at the other man out of the corner of his eye. Tony seems about to declare that Pepper isn’t his babysitter, but then he shakes his head and smiles.
“I’m an absolute menace to her as well. She’s just the only one that never left.”
Steve settles back into the sofa, allowing himself to relax.
“Well I happen to be a pretty good babysitter, if I do say so myself. At least as good as Pepper, I’d say.”
“Really?” Tony tosses the phone onto a coffee table and turns sideways to face Steve, dumping his bare feet in Steve’s lap and giving him his full attention. “Convince me.”
“Hush,” says the Hulk and he points to the television with one huge finger. “Best bit!”
Title: Those That Stand In My Corner (X Men movieverse)
Rating/Warnings: PG13
Length: 384 words
Summary: for the prompt Rogue/Logan, Rogue is the cage fighter and Logan makes a bet.
Those That Stand In My Corner
He watches as the slim streak of nothing in jeans and a black bra slams her fist into the oncoming punch of her far larger opposition and because he’s got better senses than most he can see that it drains the guy much more than the girl, even though she’s the one that staggers back. There’s just something in the way the colour of the guy’s face seems to fade slightly and a smell of vulnerability.
“That all you got?” the guy demands, laughing.
She kicks out with a bare foot and veins pulse under the guy’s skin briefly where she connects, rising to the surface. He grabs her ankle, wrapping both hands around it, and throws her against the wall of the cage nearest to Logan. A small smile darts across her face as she slams into it.
“Fifty dollars on the kid,” Logan says around the cigar clamped between his teeth, handing his money to the bookie as he wanders past, and proceeds to watch her wear her rival down until a solid hit to the jaw sends him to the floor unconscious.
“It’s unnatural,” he overhears the fight organiser say when she tries to collect the cash she’s owed and is refused the full amount.
“For a bunch of guys to have less stamina than they reckon?” She tosses back a shot of vodka. “Honey, women always outlast the boys.”
“I know what you are,” the organiser insists.
“You don’t know jack shit.”
Logan follows her out when she leaves. He watches as she yanks on leather gloves and flings up her hood before fastening her coat, covering her skin before protecting herself from the cold.
“Hey, kid,” he asks, dropping the remains of his cigar on the ground with a small hiss as it hits the snow. “You got somewhere to be?”
“What’s it to you?”
Logan pops three claws out of the knuckles of his right hand, slowly extending them to their full length and ignoring the burn as skin splits and metal moves beneath his skin.
She watches him do it, examining him with her eyes.
“I could use a ride,” she says, in the tone of someone granting a favour rather than accepting one and Logan allows one corner of his mouth to twist upwards in reply.
Title: In Your Ministry, Putting Things To Rights (Harry Potter)
Rating/Warnings: PG
Length: 697 words
Summary: for the prompt Fred & George & Any, the twins go to work for the Ministry like their mother wanted and then that makes Molly worried...
In Your Ministry, Putting Things To Rights
All Molly has ever wanted is for her children to be healthy and happy, but she can’t hide her pride when Percy starts working for the Ministry like Arthur, even if the closer he moves to his idea of success the further he seems to move away from their family. After the war Ron follows Harry into the Aurors whilst Bill and Charlie start helping the Ministry with rebuilding, and Molly hums to herself as she cooks tea, dancing around the kitchen. The war does so much damage, but it brings Percy back in the end and she’s so proud of all her boys, working for the good of the Wizarding World and putting things to rights. She knows that it won’t last, that Bill will go back to the Goblins and Charlie to his dragons. She isn’t any less proud of them for that, but in her heart of hearts she’s perhaps just a little more proud when they’re doing Ministry work.
Then the twins announce that they’ve ‘gone into the family business’ and, yes, she’s proud, but she’s also worried. Of all of them, she never thought that Fred and George would ever be the Ministry’s type.
“Are they helping with the rebuilding efforts?” she asks Bill and Charlie as they pull off their heavy-duty work boots and leave them by the backdoor. “I know that joke shop of theirs was part of the Alley that was destroyed. Is that where they are?”
“Sorry Mum, I haven’t seen them around,” says Bill, squeezing past her into the kitchen and Charlie shakes his head for ‘no’ as he follows.
“Have the Aurors found a use for Fred and George by any chance?” she asks Ron and Harry as they step out of the floo, Harry still a little unsteady on his feet, poor dear, not being as used to that form of travel as the rest of them.
Ginny waves to them from where she’s curled up on the couch, home for the holidays and wearing far too short a skirt for winter but looking lovely in it.
“You have to apply to be an Auror,” says Ron, “they don’t invite you, whatever talents or uses you’ve got. They didn’t even invite Harry.”
Harry blushes and waves back at Ginny.
“Did you try asking Bill or Charlie?” he says, eager to help. “Everyone’s been helping with the rebuilding, apart from the Department of Mysteries, so one of us has probably seen them.”
“I don’t suppose you have any idea where Fred and George have gotten to?” Molly asks Percy, who deliberately arrives home just a fraction later then Arthur, because he wants to be seen as working the hardest.
“They’re not home yet?”
He frowns, beaten, and she gives him a hug to show him that she appreciates him all the same.
“Well, I’ve got much more important things to be concerned about anyway,” Percy says, pressing one hand to her back and then stepping away quickly. “There was an explosion in the lower levels. Something to do with the Department of Mysteries.”
“The twins told me that they’re working for the Ministry,” she says later as her and Arthur settle down in bed. “None of the others have seen them though. You don’t think they’re, well, up to something, do you?”
Her husband wraps his hand around the back of her head, gently threading his fingers through her curls, and guides her head down to rest on his shoulder. Molly snuggles up against him.
“They told me that as well.”
“And?”
“And when I next saw Kingsley I asked him what they were up to. I mean the Ministry has enough of our children already, don’t you think? Thank Merlin Ginny hasn’t got any plans in that direction.”
Molly lets her hand wander across Arthur’s chest until it rests against his heart, the beat steady under her palm.
“And what are they up to?”
“Something in the Department of Mysteries apparently. Although rumour has it that the Department are finally starting to take an interest in the rebuilding efforts after all this time, particularly in Diagon Alley funnily enough.”
He sounds proud and Molly smiles.
Title: Absolute Menace (Avengers)
Rating/Warnings: PG
Length: 484 words
Summary: for the prompt Steve/Tony, babysitting because Natasha said, "Keep him out of the way."
Absolute Menace
“I can’t believe they have us doing this,” Tony complains, letting his upper body slump backwards into the sofa. He runs his fingers through his hair, dislodging dust and chips of wood and tile, left there from when he was inspecting the latest damage to the mansion that Dr Banner had caused by getting a touch too emotional.
“Doing what?” asks Steve mildly, sitting down at the other end of the sofa with his back perfectly straight.
“Keep him out of the way,” Tony says in an attempt at mimicking Natasha and Steve looks at him oddly. “Honestly, I think negotiations with the repair team would go significantly better with the Hulk involved. That way they’d be able to see exactly why they keep getting called out here. What they’re up against. It’d be educational. We may even get a discount.”
“I’m sure Natasha can manage,” says Steve.
“Of course Natasha can manage,” says Tony, shoving his right hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out his Stark smartphone. “That isn’t the point. The point is I thought we were a team. You said we were a team. So we should be doing things together, right?”
“I think,” Steve says carefully, “that dealing with the repair people would be one of those problems best solved by splitting up and delegating.”
Tony taps away on his phone, fingers flying.
“I still can’t believe that we’re the ones babysitting the Hulk,” he says. “That’s not what I’d call good delegation, Captain. Besides, it’s not like he needs much watching,” he adds, waving one hand at the large, green man sat on the floor cross-legged between them and staring fixedly at the television. “Keep him out of the way. Honestly. Turn on the box and he doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Um.” Steve looks anywhere but at Tony. “Natasha wasn’t referring to the Hulk.”
He hears a pause in Tony’s typing.
“I will have you know,” Tony says in a deceptively calm tone of voice, “that I have always been an absolute menace to babysitters, nannies, and so on.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Steve, “Pepper seems to survive.”
He sneaks a glance at the other man out of the corner of his eye. Tony seems about to declare that Pepper isn’t his babysitter, but then he shakes his head and smiles.
“I’m an absolute menace to her as well. She’s just the only one that never left.”
Steve settles back into the sofa, allowing himself to relax.
“Well I happen to be a pretty good babysitter, if I do say so myself. At least as good as Pepper, I’d say.”
“Really?” Tony tosses the phone onto a coffee table and turns sideways to face Steve, dumping his bare feet in Steve’s lap and giving him his full attention. “Convince me.”
“Hush,” says the Hulk and he points to the television with one huge finger. “Best bit!”