Unsung Heroes

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: Follow-up to The Hitchhiker's Guide to Canada.  As the saying goes, Xander wakes up not dead.  He's a little confused about this fact.
Word Count: 940
Rating: Gen

 

        Xander wakes to what sound like a cacophony of voices and there’s someone crying.  “’m fine,” he mutters, and realizes his teeth are chattering.  And there’s a blanket around his shoulders.  Several blankets, upon inspection with clumsy fingers.  He pulls them closer.
        There’s a change in acceleration, but he’s not quite at the point where he can process that yet.  And a voice talking to him.  It’s reassuring.  It’s also more than a little bit concerned.  He reaches for that point of consciousness—
        Well, whaddya know, it worked.  And smiles.  It’s not silent anymore.  Slowly, the others are waking up too.  It’s great to hear from you, Prime.
        Likewise, he responds, and finally is making out words from outside his own head.
        There’s two teenagers, yammering, freaked out, and there’s a four-year old or something, barely talking but also anxious, and—
        “…found you frozen like a statue.  You all right?”  He glances up.  Slowly.  Not everything’s responding, yet, to the same level it should be, but.
        He’s struck by the warmness of the smile, the worry on her face.  A mother, in her thirties, probably.
        And then the inane thought that she looks like Oprah pops in his head, and it’s all he can do not to laugh.
        “Would you believe I had engine trouble?” he asks wryly, emotion coming through the voice modulator.
        He concentrates and finds his magic responding a lot less sluggishly than even his fingers.  It surges, ready and eager, and he smiles.  It seems his long nap helped replenish his spiritual strength.  He uses it to warm himself up from the inside, taking special care to heal any damage to cells or organs.  There’s a lot less worrying damage than he’d expected.  He hears the hiss of the car heater.  She’s cranked it up probably as far as it would go.
        “That seems an odd trouble to have, but if everything runs on something, then I can believe it.”  He notices her voice shakes a little.  And that in turn brings the realization—she’s putting herself at risk, all to save a stranger.  He could be a supervillain or an invading alien or a demon.  She doesn’t know.  But she’s sticking her neck out, risking even her kids, just because she saw someone in trouble and couldn’t just drive away.
        That kind of heroism deserves a reward.  Not that he can do anything at the moment, but between the rise of Knight Innovations and knowing where to invest thanks to a little handy future-knowledge, he’s not poor, and being what looks like a single mother with…four kids?  She could use a little monetary gratitude.
        “Are you a superhero?  Like Iron Man?”  Apparently the littlest one had stopped crying long enough to ask him questions, wide-eyed. 
        He resists the urge to chuckle.  “Yep, that’s me,” he answers.  “I’ve got a problem, though.  Maybe you can help me.  I’m new at this whole superhero gig, and I don’t have a superhero name yet.”
        “Iron Man!” the kid answers promptly, and this time he can’t keep the laughter inside.  He shakes his head, though.
        “That name’s already taken, little buddy.”  The mother’s hands on the driver’s wheel have gotten simultaneously more relaxed and more tense.  He’s not sure how she does it.  Must be a mom thing.
        The kid thinks for a bit, then tentatively adds, “War Machine?”
        There’s a good role model.  “War Machine’s awesome, but also taken, and I wouldn’t want to fight Rhodey over the name.  He’s too awesome.  He’d win.”  He catches a bit of a glare from the front mirror and hastily adds, “But then, you know what?  I’ll tell you a little secret.”
        That brightens the four-year old up immensely.  He leans in and whispers in the stagiest of whispers, “What?”
        In a matching tone, just so the mother can hear too, he continues, “Anyone who makes the world better is a hero.  Even—you know the awesome people who make movies?  Those brighten your day, right?”
        “Yep!”  He kicks his shoes.  They light up.
        “Well, they’re helping you out, right?  Literally saving your day.  So they’re heroes.”
        “That’s so cool!” he yells, loud enough it hurts even with sound dampening filters.  “You hear that, Mom?  I wanna be a hero when I grow up!”
        “It’s up to you to figure out what that means for you, though,” he corrects, and looks back at the mother.
        “So you’re a lamebrain cosplayer, big whoop,” the teenage daughter complete with teenage attitude adds from the passenger seat.  “Newsflash: there aren’t any cons for miles and miles.”
        “Aubrey!” the mother scolds, but he waves it off.
        “If I’d had power I’d strut my stuff, show off with the repulsors, but as it happens…”  He shrugs.  “I’m grounded.  In the most literal sense.  So I might as well be a ‘dumb cosplayer’.”
        “Your suit flies?”  The two twins—fraternal, it looks like—glance over at him, briefly abandoning their phones—and, yep, no signal.  Good to know.
        “Yep.  When it’s working.” 
        They respond only with a soft, “Cool,” and look a bit more respectful.  Aubrey doesn’t, but whatever, he didn’t build this suit to impress unimpressible teenagers, he did it, first and foremost, to save lives.
        He looks back up.  “Maybe you’ll get angry, say something about how it shouldn’t be unusual, but the truth is, not everyone would have stopped back there and saved my life, so thank you.”
        She bites back the comment, but meets his eyes, trembling beginning to disappear.  “You’re welcome, young man.”  It’s soft, and even almost a bit shy, but it’s real and that makes it all the more precious.