I Like Holding Your Hand

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"Hey! Whatchya think you're doing? This is MY tree!" Vanellope snapped at the boy only a few feet below her. And, being nearly fifteen feet up the tree, it was beginning to feel like an invasion of privacy.

The boy shrugged.

"Didn't have your name it. I was just wondering what you were doing." he said.

Vanellope tilted her head, but her scowl didn't waver.

"How'd ya know I was up here?" she inquired suspiciously.

The boy sheepishly smiled and held up a drone. Vanellope's cheeks flushed, but before she could monologue in anger, the kid defended himself.

"I promise I wasn't spying on you! I was just testing it, and I found some random girl sitting in a tree and I... uh, got curious."

Vanellope's flickered down to the pretty well-made drone.

"What kind ten year old has a drone?" she asked.

The boy smiled, "I'm a genius. And eleven. Besides, what kind of ten year old girl carries around 50 voltage batteries in their back pocket? Do you have a death wish?"

Vanellope's hands flew to her hoodie pocket.

"How'd you know they were in there?" she squeaked.

Hiro held up his drone again.

Vanellope grit her teeth.

"The batteries are for emergencies. Now leave me alone!" Vanellope looked at the "branch" the boy's next step would land on, "Or you'll regret it."

"Like what?" the kid rolled his eyes.

Vanellope rolled her eyes.

"Um, it's pretty obvious."

The boy looked at the multi-colored branch and then back up at Vanellope, his eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, I agree."

Vanellope cringed as he missed her booby-trap branched and climbed closer. She stood up on her branch, trying to get further away from this kid.

"Hey, you got what you wanted. Info. Whatever. Can't you just leave me alone?" She asked.

The kid stopped for a moment.

"Why?" he asked.

Vanellope leaned up against another branch for support and crossed her arms.

"I dunno 'bout you, but most people that sit by themselves in a tall tree want to be alone."

The boy thought about it for a moment and shrugged.

"Touché."

The kid began climbing down on the tree and Vanellope sat back down on her branch, relieved it was over. She didn't like very many people. Strangers were just one of them. And one of the biggest (but not THE biggest. That was a special place reserved for Taffyta). Vanellope powered back on her tablet to continue playing with car structures, and trying to create the best, fastest model. She'd been close too (part of the reason she'd been such a crabby-pants). Suddenly, a snap was heard. Vanellope quickly turned her head to see that the kid had forgotten about her "special" branch and was falling. Not wanting to let her tablet fall, she hooked her knees onto her branch, held her tablet in one hand, and caught the boy's hand in the other.

They dangled there. They boy's face was contorted with horror, but it wasn't until he tried grasping to a stable branch and letting go as quickly as humanly possible, did she realize the reason for the full extent of it.

Vanellope sat back on her branch as quickly as possible, hiding the hand she'd caught the boy with deep in her hoodie pocket. She averted her attention to him to her tablet, wanting to really just disappear.

The boy sat there in silence for so long that Vanellope thought he'd actually just decided to leave. But he finally spoke up and Vanellope's hope was lost.

"Your... hand...it's..." he stuttered.

"I don't want to talk about it." Vanellope muttered.

"Is that what the batteries are for?" he asked.

"I said: I don't wanna talk about it!"

There was another silence. Vanellope didn't know if he was there or not, so she tried her best to refrain from crying.

"Awesome." The boy finally said.

Vanellope's eyebrows stitched. It didn't sound sarcastic. Or one of those nervous oh-dear-god-let's-not-anger-the-freak-now tones. It sounded... genuine. That... wasn't possible. Not even Ralph was like that.

She turned her head ever so slightly to see the kid's expression.

"What?" she asked slowly.

"C'mon! You're part my favorite thing in the entire world. The highest achievement of science! I can't believe I just met a cybor---"

"SHHHH!" Vanellope hissed, "Okay, okay, I get it. You think a lot of cyborgs are cool. Well, a lot of people don't."

The boy tilted his head and thought about it.

"Yeah, I can see that... my name's Hiro, by the way."

Vanellope stopped looking at his (and she'd die before admitting it) cute, little gap-toothed smile and into the distance.

"Hiro. M'kay. I'm Vanellope. Well, it's Caliphatis. But call me that, and you'll be needing a nose job."

Hiro climbed in front of her, ignoring the glare she was giving him for being on her branch. Instead, he held out his hand for her to shake, making it so she'd have to shake with the metal hand. Vanellope gulped, but refused to be a scaredy-cat and shook his hand.

Even for years after that, Hiro always liked holding her metal hand.

A/N: And that's a wrap. You can also guess I read Cinder. Anyways, this is for Vaniro week, day 1. The theme for today was "holding hands", if you didn't know. I decided to give it a... creative turn. It was 894 words, my expectance was about 500. That's a little bit bigger (a lot). Hope anyone reading like it!

~totalanimationfreak

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