Office Hours, Monday

[screwyoumarvel]

Steve was holding a special set of office hours this Monday, the better to lecture the hell out of at least one teenage costumed hero. Possibly two, if that blonde girl showed up, but he didn't know who she was and was pretty sure she hadn't known who was behind the Captain America uniform, so he wasn't really betting on that one.

But if Tony Stark didn't show he'd go and find him.

((NFB due to sekrit identities, please!))

Comments

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

If you could call them auditions, they hadn't been judged solely on the strength of Steph's own costume-making skills, that was for sure.

"The police can't be everywhere, and they can't stop everything," Stephanie countered (which was a logical sort of conclusion to come to when a force was as overworked as the poor GCPD), "and if I remember correctly you had a fancy costume of your own when you showed up."

She took a breath. "There's a lot of kids who are in bad situations, and they can't fight back, or get themselves out. There's a lot of people who just walk by and ignore that, or they're too afraid to do something to help. Well, I'm not, and I'm not going to stand around and let their lives get ruined."

[screwyoumarvel]

"I was commissioned into my role as Captain America as a member of the US Army," Steve said calmly. Which meant it was a uniform, not a costume, excuse you. "I'm retired now, but I still break it out on special occasions." Like when Tony called squawking about mind control.

Then he leaned back in his seat and said, "So you decided that the best way to help those kids was to run around in a costume, risking not seeing eighteen--especially with that cape, talk about a choking hazard--instead of becoming a social worker or something. I can't say I don't understand the impulse. I used to work with a lot of people like that." Although at least one of them was also a social worker. "The difference is, they were adults."

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

"I don't see why that makes a difference," Stephanie argued, because when it came to this sort of thing there was a fundamental disagreement between Marvel and DC. "There's a lot of kids my age, and younger, who do what I do."

She scowled. "What is it with people and their thing about the cape, anyway? And there's nothing wrong with being a social worker, but the kind of crap we have to deal with at home? There's not a hell of a lot those social workers can do when the creeps running the whole villain show keep getting to do their thing. I started doing this to stop my dad, because they kept letting him out of jail, so if I don't have a whole lot of faith in the system, excuse me."

[screwyoumarvel]

Yes, because Marvel had the death of Bucky Barnes as one of its underpinning principles, and a giant scar across Steve's psyche, and DC had...Jason Todd. Eventually. Which was why Steve stared at her for a long moment, unable to even engage that, before saying, "'Other people do it, so it's okay'?"

"And I don't know about your world, it sounds like it's not very well-run, if teenagers have to do the work the authorities should, but you're not in your world any more. You're on Fandom."