Fic: Potential
Title: Potential
Author: Wyndewalker
Xover Fandom: Captain America
Series: Al'ek'sander
Challenge: twistedshorts August-Fic-A-Day - Day 23
Authors note: Inspired by the clip leaked of the Peggy Carter short to be released on the Iron Man 3 Blu-ray.
Rating: PG
Warning: Implied slash
Word Count: 1,048 words according to Word
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Captain America or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All rights belong to their owners and I merely borrow the characters for your amusement.
Summary: Xander offers Peggy Carter training.
Walking into the base cafeteria, Xander wasn’t surprised by how empty it was. Howard had kept him late in the lab trying to weasel as many details about the future out of him as he could. He’d probably still be there evading questions if Bucky hadn’t shown up looking for him because he’d missed dinner. Now the two men were trailing after him bickering over a modification Howard wanted to make to Bucky’s sniper rifle while Bucky insisted it was just fine the way it was, thank you very much.
Xander grabbed a tray loading it with a couple of sandwiches, a cup of tar masquerading as coffee, and some kind of dessert pastry before heading over to where he’d seen Agent Carter sitting by herself. He hadn’t gotten more than a few steps before Bucky was blocking his way.
“Where’re you going?” Bucky asked, his tray only half filled. Xander quirked an eyebrow at him.
“I wanted to talk to Agent Carter.”
Bucky frowned at him. “She’s Steve’s girl.”
“You do know they haven’t been on a date yet because Steve can’t say five words to her that *don’t* involve military strategy without putting his foot in his mouth, right?”
Bucky rolled his eyes because everyone knew that. Even Hydra probably knew that. “She’s still his girl and I won’t have you messing things up for him.”
“You’re so cut when you’re being overprotective,” Xander grinned at him, then clapped him on the shoulder as he stepped around him. “Don’t worry. After my last girlfriend tried to kill me I decided I was better off batting for the home team from then on. She’s completely safe from me.”
Bucky stared after him trying to figure out what he meant. “What does that mean?” He finally demanded following him.
Xander just laughed as he put his tray on the table across from Carter. “Mind if I join you, Agent?”
“Please,” she invited, gathering up the paperwork she’d been working on. She raised an eyebrow when Bucky and Howard joined them but didn’t object. “How may I help you, Mr. Harris?”
“I was actually wondering if you could answer a couple questions for me. I’m trying to see just how close this reality is to mine,” he said, unwrapping one of his sandwiches.
“And you think I can help? I’ll try but I don’t know how much I’ll be able to answer,” Carter said, picking up her cup of tea.
“I think you’ll be able to answer these though I was hoping to do it without Waldorf and Statler hanging around.”
“Who?” She asked blankly. Bucky and Howard also looked at him blankly.
“Never mind,” he waved it off. “Future pop culture reference. Anyway, you have a birthmark just above your collarbone on your right shoulder, yes? A mole?”
Her hand automatically moved to cover it before she could stop herself. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Yeah, how could you know that?” Bucky demanded. Howard just looked interested.
“Relax,” Xander assured them. “I haven’t been sneaking peeks. Back home girls with the potential for certain abilities were born with that specific birthmark. You remind me of those girls, Agent Carter. Fighters, every one of them. I spent most of my life fighting beside or training them. Were you ever approached by a group calling themselves the Council about training, claiming that you had the potential to be the Chosen One?”
“No. I can’t say as I ever was. Nor do I recall my parents ever mentioning such a group. Should I have been?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Xander shrugged. “This reality is different from mine and I suspect I know why. Have you at any point experienced a surge in your strength and speed? Needing to relearn your instinctive reactions to certain things?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” she replied mystified. “Is there a reason behind these questions?”
“Are you staying she’s like Steve?” Bucky asked, looking between the two of them.
Xander shook his head. “Not exactly. My reality was a nexus point for dimensions and we had several weak spots in the dimensional barriers called La Boca Del Inferno or Hellmouths. The creatures out of nightmares and legends existed in my world but there was a girl Chosen in each generation to beat back the forces of darkness. Well, there was a single girl until in a desperate bid to win against the worst evil we’d ever come up against we activated them all. A couple thousand girls around the world went from being normal to super-powered in the blink of an eye.”
“You think I’m one of these girls?” Carter asked in shock.
Xander shrugged. “I think you have the potential. As far as I can tell from the digging I’ve done the weak spots in my world don’t exist here. Magic seems to be possible but you don’t have the demons and creatures of the night that we did. So while you have the potential to be a Slayer there’s nothing here to cause it to activate. Which is kind of nice. I’ve been fighting the supernatural for close to 15 years and it gets tiring after awhile.”
“I could imagine,” Carter said softly. They’d all been born either during or just after World War I, growing up in the Roaring 20’s and then the Depression. They understood hardship but none of them had spent more than half their lives fighting for survival and couldn’t really comprehend it.
“So I was thinking that while it’s unlikely the potential in you will ever be activated you seem the sort who’d be interested in having every advantage in a fight. I know you’re already quite good with firearms but if you want I can teach you hand-to-hand fighting. And before anyone starts freaking out about propriety feel free to bring whomever you want with you to feel comfortable. It won’t be easy and you’ll walk away with more than a few bruises in the beginning but it’ll give you a distinct advantage in a fight. Think about it and let me know.” Finishing off his sandwich and pastry, Xander rose from the table. He bussed his tray taking his second sandwich and coffee cup with him from the cafeteria. The others stayed behind contemplating what they’d learned.