Title: The Great Escape

Author: Evil Little Dog

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: So very, very not mine.

Notes: Written for the LJ community, Comment_Fic.


New York, being New York, wasn't about to forget its heroes (at least not for a few months, all right?). But these people, these six people (just six) took on an entire armada of aliens and, okay, broke the city some, but also saved it.

You don't go forgetting something like that.

You also don't go forgetting their faces.

Not when they're plastered on newspapers and news reports and tabloids and the graffiti artists are slinging likenesses up on walls and sides of train cars and they're just. Eve. Ry. Where.

So when you spot one on the El, it's hard to be cool.

"You're Captain America!"

He blinks and smiles. Has a boyishly handsome grin. Exactly like he does in the newspapers. He's nice, too, he shakes your hand and lets you take a selfie and is okay with you sharing it with all your friends and hey, could he sign your newspaper? Because it does have his photo but oh, he doesn't have a pen and dam - er, darn the luck, you don't either and you're the only two on this car so there's no one else to ask. You think to yourself Tony Stark probably carries extra pens around for signing autographs or legal summonses but this is Captain America and well, at least you have the selfie to remember this by.

"There isn't any danger anywhere right now, is there?"

Cap shakes his head but his eyes have a tinge of something in them and you remember he was in the military - some sort of special forces - back in the day and probably he sees danger the way your Uncle Morty does - it's there, it's all the time, lurking, waiting, and you'd best be ready to attack. You wonder how Mort is gonna feel when you show him the picture of you and Cap. Probably he'll bitch about it.

"I wanted to say thanks for everything you did." Protecting the city, protecting the people - well, yeah, there were some casualties. You have a co-worker who's aunt didn't come home. You'd heard some grumbling that, couldn't the fight have taken place in the slums rather than downtown Manhattan? For that, couldn't have taken place in someplace like Indiana, where there're more cows and corn than actual people?

Cap's okay with the thanks, says he was just doing his job. Kinda nice to hear with other folks trying to pawn off their jobs on other people or blame others for their issues with doing their jobs but you kind of think you need to take a look at yourself and doing your job...maybe tomorrow, Friday at the latest.

And then the window to the El pops open and a red-headed woman in black slides through like an eel in leather. "Busy?" she asks Cap, barely glancing at you.

"Not really," he says, getting to his feet. "What's up?"

"Tell you on the way," she says and gestures at the window. Cap leaps through and she pauses long enough to wink at you before she dives after him.

And you leap up and try to take pictures of them both but by the time you're on your feet and at the window, they're long gone.

Escaped this normal world just like that.

Uncle Morty would be proud.


~ end ~