Xander Headcanon

[madimpossibledreamer]

Don't worry, there is a chapter of Shadowed Suspicion coming, I'm waiting on news from beta-senpai.  I had to share my realization though and yeah, maybe I'm slow and this has been talked about before, but.  /flaily motions
also.  WARNING FOR TALKING ABOUT HYDRA/NAZIS.

 

Okay, I was reading about the whole #SayNotoHydraCap debacle again because a friend suggested ‘it could have been done well as a critique of neonaziism is insidious (see the current state of America) and while yes, that’s a good topic to explore you don’t do that with Cap, and was hit by a sudden feels-train when I got to the Holocaust Museum thanking people for donating with money they would’ve otherwise spent on marvel comics (there are a couple of screencaps of this) and.

Joss Whedon is a coward.  Yes, these things are related.  Because Sunnydale is inexplicably white for a California town.  (Part of why I introduced Alisha.  Sure, I could’ve just relocated Kate, but.  Diversity is important, y’all.  Part of why I’m emphasizing Aura so much in Bloody Petals & (will be once I actually post the thing) in Slayer’s Mad Whelp (she’s one of the lieutenants if you missed it) because she really needed to have a bigger role.  I am 90% certain that Willow would have experienced some antisemitism in her life.  We could’ve been shown that, had it dealt with in a thoughtful manner (oh wait this is Whedon we’re talking about nuance very probably wouldn’t exist).

So, just.  Imagine it.  Little Willow (who I’m not sure would’ve heard about these things on her own; her parents didn’t seem big into the sharing especially as they weren’t there a lot) and Xander, learning for the first time about WWII.  About the Holocaust.  Willow coming to the realization that her family or friends of the family just a little while ago probably had people die in the camps.  Having a mini-breakdown as Xander tries desperately to cheer her up in his I Am Trying But Am Made of Fail fashion.  Going home and researching it and confirming it and having another breakdown.

And Xander and Jesse go to the comic store, and are browsing.  And Xander finds an issue of Captain America.  Here’s a hero, punching the bad guys that made his best friend cry.  Jesse gets it kind of, but Xander?  Xander’s all over it.  He spends money he can’t afford on the issue just so he can bring it back to show Will.  They playact it for a bit and have Very Deep Conversations about how even an awesome superhero can’t save everyone.  But Steve Rogers?  He’ll do everything in his power to save everyone.  And he’ll fail, and he’ll get up again, and he’ll try some more.  Because even the little guy can stand up and make a difference, just by saying no.  It doesn’t get easy, but it hurts a little less, and they move on, just a little, though Willow gets all teary when little Xander shows up next Halloween to escort the Peanuts ghost trick-or-treating in a Captain America outfit cobbled together.

So, uh, headcanon accepted.  Cap is officially Xander’s fave (except for in Self-Made Hero for reasons that are entirely Howard’s fault, because while Cap is his fave, Iron Man especially MCU Iron Man is a painful mirror to his home life).