"Captain America? Really, Matthew?"
Mary had only glanced over her shoulder but it had been enough time to see Matthew fidgeting with the neckline of the skin-tight shirt, the deep blue bringing out the darker color in his eyes that usually only she could see- when he was moonlit, above her, when he moved a hand to her hip. She continued ratting her hair with the brush, although her dark hair seemed stubbornly resisting her efforts to frizz and she scowled, sighed and shrugged in quick succession, all in keeping with her own choice of character.
"What? You don't like it?" Matthew asked, slightly muffled as he bent to pick up the silvery plastic shield that lay near his feet.
Sybil and Tom had been throwing the Halloween costume party since they'd gotten together four years ago and now that they were no longer saving for a wedding, they'd gone all out, from custom, laser-engraved invitations to specialty cocktails, a so-called Halloweenie-tini that was garnished with a sliver of pumpkin and drizzled with cinnamon schnapps. A simple Venetian mask or pink fright wig wouldn't cut it anymore, so she and Matthew had, without consulting each other, scoured the Internet and the local shops to put together costumes that wouldn't embarrass them. At least, that had been the intention. Edith had texted that she and Bertie were coming as Virginia Woolf and Oscar Wilde and Mary had decided to burst her bubble by asking how Bertie felt about coming to the party in drag. There had not even been an emoji as a response so she felt, not even obscurely, that she had won. Again. Edith was so easy to needle and it always brought a small ray of light into an otherwise dull day as her latest case dragged on, though Mary had learned over time that true cruelty hurt them both and had started pulling her punches. She'd memorized some Wilde and Woolf so she could make them each smile, Edith with genuine surprise and Bertie with the wry grin she liked best about him. If Edith was determined to be in a snit, Mary had some particularly apt Vita Sackville-West to deploy and she was confident of the reaction she'd engender, "Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this -But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that.."
Mary'd not spent much time considering who or what her husband would dress as, busy with work and catching up with Anna who'd just gotten back from Singapore, jet-lag not dimming her righteous indignation or the spark when she mentioned a new colleague named John. When she'd taken the time, Mary had thought Matthew would pick something more…quirky? Intellectual? Cultured… like a living Dali painting with cunning face-paint to suggest the way time melted or conversely, so banal (an M&M or Killer Klown) he could only be making a comment on the current state of the world. She hadn't expected an Avenger and certainly not Steve Rogers. Though the tights were quite…fetching.
"I wouldn't say that, darling. Just… I hadn't expected it, it doesn't seem 'you' in some way, I couldn't say how, don't ask me, especially not while I'm trying to get this tie straight," Mary replied.
She was making a declaration of sorts with her choice and she thought he would be pleased with her, certainly Sybil would be. Her youngest sister had decided to dress as Dr. House from the American programme "for I'm big as one and no one would argue with that, no matter how kind you mean to be, Mary." They had all been reassured, repeatedly, that Sybil was carrying only one baby but Tom had not been joking it seemed when he mentioned his brother and cousins who were all six footers; Sybil was approaching becoming a perfect sphere, a state never before achieved by a human but she had always liked a challenge. Uncle Carson had positively blanched the last time he saw her at Sunday dinner and Aunt Elsie had had to hit him on the back, several times, when he seemed to choke on his tea when Sybil referred to her belly as Goliath; Mary was not sure he'd needed to be struck quite so many times, but Aunt Elsie had rather a gleam in her eye and every marriage was its own mystery…
"I don't think anyone will expect you to come as you are dressed either, Mary. Or would you prefer me to call you 'Granger?' I don't quite see it, you've always seemed so unabashedly Ravenclaw to me," Matthew said.
His voice was affectionate, relaxed, he was sitting on the edge of their bed now, watching her trying to achieve maximal follicular bushiness and failing abysmally. The pushy woman at the shop had tried to convince her to pick the Daenerys costume or even a Maleficient with the great horned headdress, but Mary had balked. She'd never admitted her fondness for Harry Potter before to anyone but Matthew and Sybil, it was too common, but she did love it as she loved PG Tips and Marmite for tea and Coronation Street when she had even the slightest cold (and even when she didn't) and she was finally ready to show it; she was a Gryffindor no matter what Pottermore said and she'd damned well arrive as Hermione Granger if she liked!
"No? Who shall I go as then? Hypothetically, of course, since we're due there in 20 minutes and I have no intention of changing?" Mary asked, settling the Time-Turner around her neck and then standing to adjust her skirt. She heard the breath Matthew took as she hitched the kilt a little higher and a bit more toned thigh appeared between hem and sock; it would all be covered by the robe but he deserved a bit of fun before the Monster Mash playlist at Sybil's party invaded their very souls.
"Hmmm, not Pansy or Bellatrix and you're far too dark to be Narcissa, too elegant to be Molly… you're too young for the film version, but McGonagall, I would have thought. She has your same… spirit and she's a woman, not a girl, not like Hermione or, or Luna or Ginny. And you both can be wonderfully feline when you choose," Matthew said, gulping at the end as she'd walked over, flicking her hair over a shoulder, closer than Captain America could expect to be to a witch, the most powerful of her year, a hat-stall and the brains of the operation.
"Shall I be an older Hermione, for you? Say, Minister of Magic? Would you like that better?" Mary said, satisfied with how his color rose as she spoke, the sheen in his eyes that Steve had only ever had for Bucky.
"Yes, that would be…I'd like that, but I won't be Ron or Harry. Or Snape, God!" Matthew said as she sat on his knee. Why did people say that? It was his thigh she perched on, snug in royal blue spandex and not really comfortable for either of them, but deliciously uncomfortable for her; she hoped his costume had some give to it as he appeared to need that in a way the pure, repressed Avenger might not be expected to.
"No, you wouldn't, would you? You'd be…Neville, always doing the right thing, underestimated unless you couldn't be anymore with that sword in your hand, facing down He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named," Mary said, a little more softly, settling in and sighing when Matthew-slash-Captain American dropped his faux-vibranium shield to help her steady herself on his lap. Who couldn't love Steve? It made sense to her now, Bucky and Peggy and Natasha and Tony, even the way Pepper might have given him the side-eye when he helped clear the table, so earnestly polite. "Ma'am" could never have sounded so wonderfully filthy. Perhaps she should abandon the idea of Neville altogether and just go where Matthew indicated with his sure touch, the playful intensity in his gaze.
"I think Hermione would just say 'Voldemort.' You know, the power of language and all that. And she Obliviated her own parents, she wasn't exactly a shrinking violet," Matthew said. Except his breath was at the open neck of her button-down and her ratted hair was all around them and they didn't need spells or serums to feel the power thrumming between them, the warmth and the acceptance and God, how would they ever get to this party? Sybil would laugh riotously when she saw them mussed and askew, their collective pride only saved by her urgent need for a wee and Tom's greater generosity, his longer memory of late arrivals, flushed cheeks, the time he and Sybil had let the hors d'oeuvres they'd gone to "check on" set off the smoke alarm.
"We don't have any shrinking Violets in this family, as you well know. And we'd best continue this conversation in motion. I'll drive," Mary offered, rising as gracefully as she could and adjusting the drape of the robe, her Prefect's badge, snagging the wand from her dressing table. Matthew gave her a quizzical look at her proposal though he simply followed her to the front door where her keys lay in a scalloped silver dish.
"I'm not drinking any of those vile Halloweenie things and I don't fancy the Tube in costume," she said, not quite answering the question he hadn't asked, except with his look.
She hadn't been ready to find out an answer, but perhaps in the morning. It was the weekend and they had no other plans, whatever they discovered would be mischief more easily managed with the prospect of breakfast in bed, the paper strewn about the dark coverlet, picked to disguise ink-stains. They'd only just agreed to try and Mary couldn't truly believe it could be so easy, so many other things hadn't been and she didn't think the universe owed them anything.
"That Time-Turner's a fake, so I suppose we ought to be going," Matthew said, much closer to her than she'd expected he would be, close enough for a kiss; Hermione didn't require much make-up so they might risk it, she was starting to shift and lean toward him in invitation when he bent his head to speak right into her ear, "Though I'd rather we were coming… the evening's young yet, I guess and I'll remind you we've only rented these costumes and I have certain…preferences and they don't include school-girls. Superheroes are another matter," he finished, his hand suddenly at her lower back and then curving to squeeze her bottom, making her yelp a little and he laughed, all the fatigue and stress and guilt over from the months he'd spent working in Syria and with the refugees fading, leaving behind the Matthew it was easiest to love.
"Oh, Mary, it's such fun being married to you! Perhaps you are a witch, how you make everything come right!" he exclaimed. She thought Peggy would know how she felt to hear him say it, and Bucky as well, Scully and Lily Evans, James T. Kirk and Rey and Bernie Wolfe, anyone real, fictional, factual, fanciful, who'd had a beloved and seen them smile after such a long time when it was terribly difficult.
"You are as sentimental as Captain America—I rescind my earlier objections. But this wand is a fraud and I've always thought splinching sounds so painfully undignified- let's talk in the car, oh! you wicked man," Mary said as Matthew persisted in defining her shape beneath the robe with knowing hands. "I shudder to think what Thomas will say if we're much later and I want some of Beryl's Cornish pasties. You can have your treat when we get home," she added with a wink, knowing there was a set of lingerie inspired by Wonder Woman waiting in her drawer and that Matthew was not such a purist that he would refuse a Marvel-DC universe crossover in any way, shape or striving, breathless form.