"Being an adult? If that means turning into the people who raised us … I hope I die before I get old." – Runaways (Issue 1.6)
"Take my advice," Nico had once said. "When the world gets crazy you run … you runaway."
So when the mob and the press and the whole world turned against Captain America, and that mighty indestructible shield was meekly laid down at their feet, he ran. He ran and ran and did not stop, and he felt perfectly validated to do so.
While everyone else was getting arrested or pardoned before having their entire lives turned into a set of figures in a database, he found himself back in Los Angeles, a little world apart from the rest of the world. Next to no superheros, plenty of adventure and bad guys to take down, freedom from registration. It even had its own band of "Lost Boys" – in a manner of speaking.
It was kind of like setting foot in Neverland.
The Runaways had been keeping themselves out of sight, and so they had not been up to date on the news. When he told them what had happened, they fell silent. True, none of them had liked Captain America that much – not when he had them all sent into foster care – but to learn about his death was still pretty depressing. At least they had allowed him to hang with them for a while – just a little while, and not as Speed but as Tommy – until he cleared his head and was ready to go back to New York.
He found himself hanging out with Molly again. Sure, she talked a lot, was kind of a spoiled brat and was a pain at times, but she was still a good kid. She was the most honest in the entire lot of them – she was a kid who acted exactly like a kid should: curious and impulsive and so proud of herself for what she could do, whether or not she had lost her parents or was on the run with a bunch of older kids; never pretending she was anything else. He liked that that sort of honesty, missed being around it.
She was quiet now, and he found himself missing her usually endless spunk. Hugging her knees to her chest, she plopped her chin upon them and stared at the ground.
"I thought good guys are supposed to win," she muttered.
Once, when he was her age and had yet to blow up a school, he had thought the same thing. Once, when there was no superhuman-related tragedy in Stamford and no registration act and he was having the time of his life being a hero, he had believed it. There was nothing he could really say to her.
"What makes you think he was the good guy?" he asked instead.
"I dunno," she answered. "It just kinda felt like it."
"Not to the world," he replied.
She muttered something else under her breath, and then she asked a different question: "Don't you think he was the good guy?"
Didn't he? He had fought beside the man. How couldn't he?
Too bad things had changed.
"It doesn't matter anymore, Molly," he said. "It's over. We'll just have to accept that."
"Is this one of those 'right thing to do' things?," she remarked. He snorted.
"More like one of those 'grownup thing to do' things, actually."
He heard her soft, barely audible "oh", and then she was quiet again. It didn't last for very long, and for the only time he reckoned in his life, he was glad for it.
"I think growing up sucks," she declared.
Because growing up meant more than just accepting that bad stuff happened; it meant accepting that bad stuff happened a lot more often than good stuff. Because growing up meant living a life that was unfair and did not always go as it was supposed to; the heroes did not always win and the bad guys did not always lose, and if the bad guys became the bosses of the good guys no one punished them for it.
Because growing up meant becoming Iron Man; becoming the bad guy and being forced to make decisions that went against what he believed in, hurting so many friends and hoping desperately that even if it was not ultimately the right thing to do, it would at least be worth it.
Because growing up meant becoming Captain America; becoming the good guy who was not supposed to fall, bend, break or surrender, but doing all of those things anyway … and dying not as a hero in a glorious battle, but as a criminal on the steps of a courthouse.
Because growing up meant looking back on all that had come to pass and with a bowed head and tear-filled eyes, declaring, "If only …"
The more he thought about it, the more he wished he could stay here in Neverland forever. It felt so much easier to just run from the real world that expected him to grow up.
He knew he couldn't do that.
He wasn't a kid anymore.
"… Yeah, Molly," he answered. "Me too."