Chapter 227. Captain America? He's Been Dead for Years, That's Just a Cosplayer
"We cannot thank you enough for your assistance!" an exhausted firefighter shouted, his voice cracking with emotion as he gripped Rogers' hand. "If you hadn't arrived when you did... we would have lost everyone in that basement. The structural beams were ready to snap."
The Chitauri invasion had left the city a jagged landscape of broken glass and twisted rebar. Hundreds of civilians were still trapped in the lightless bellies of collapsed tenements, their cries muffled by tons of concrete. The rescue crews were drowning; they lacked the heavy lifting gear and specialized tools needed to clear the path, and reinforcements were bogged down in the gridlock of a city in panic.
But in their darkest hour, a man had emerged from the smoke, dressed in the iconic, star-spangled uniform of Captain America himself. He had performed feats of strength that defied logic, heaving massive slabs of granite and steel as if they were made of balsa wood. Beside him, a girl with hair the color of a summer sky and a mask across her eyes had moved with a haunting, supernatural fluidness. In a world that had just been invaded by reptilian aliens on flying sleds, the appearance of two superheroes felt almost... normal.
"It's no trouble at all. We're just doing what needs to be done," Rogers replied, his chest heaving as he took a moment to breathe.
He was a mess. The pristine blue of his suit was buried under a thick layer of grey ash and pulverized brick. There wasn't a clean patch of fabric left on him, but he didn't care. He looked around at the soot-stained faces of the rescue workers and felt a profound sense of kinship. They were all in the dirt together. To his surprise, the work had been strangely efficient; they had pulled dozens of people from the wreckage, and nearly all of them were in remarkably good health, given the circumstances.
The firefighters whispered among themselves, attributing their luck to the strange phenomenon they had witnessed earlier—a shimmering, divine figure that had appeared in the heavens during the height of the storm. They called it a blessing, convinced that some god had looked down and knit the wounds of the fallen, giving them the strength to wait for the light of day.
"I'll leave the rest of the clearing to you boys. I'm going to head north and see where else the line is thin," Rogers said, snapping his vibranium shield onto the magnetic harness on his back before disappearing into the haze.
"Hey, Cap," one of the younger firemen whispered to his captain, watching Rogers' broad shoulders vanish into the smoke. "Does it... does it strike you that guy looks a little too much like the real Captain America? I mean, the way he moves, the way he talks... it's uncanny."
"Don't be a damn fool, kid! Have you lost your mind?" the captain barked, though there was no heat in it. "Captain America died in the drink seventy years ago. Even if he'd survived, he'd be a hundred years old and rattling in a wheelchair, not tossing cars around like he's at the gym! He's just a fan, kid. A dedicated cosplayer with a big heart and a lot of protein shakes."
The captain reached out and playfully cuffed the younger man's helmet, sending it sliding down until the protective goggles covered half his face.
"I'm just saying, Captain... is anything we saw today actually real?" the kid muttered, adjusting his gear. The world had gone mad; he'd seen dragons made of metal and warriors from the stars. A dead hero coming back to life didn't seem so far-fetched anymore.
"Maybe you're right, son. But right now, reality involves you picking up that hose. Get to work!"
The captain shoved him gently back toward the pile of rubble, but as he turned away, he lingered for a moment on the empty space where the man in blue had stood. The silhouette had been a perfect match for the graining newsreels of his childhood.
"Yeah... a hell of a resemblance," he whispered to the wind.
...
"Noah, shall I summon Gwen back to our side?" Lissandra asked, noticing that Noah had accepted Tony's invitation to the feast. She knew how much he valued the girl's presence.
"Gwen?" Noah paused, his mind reaching out. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, using a thread of arcane energy to sweep the city, searching for the specific resonance of her soul.
"Yes, tell her to come," he said with a nod. "She has earned a night of celebration as much as any of us."
Throughout the battle, Gwen had followed her own compass, weaving through the chaos to pull civilians from the brink of death. She had avoided the high-altitude dogfights, choosing instead to be the shield for those who couldn't protect themselves. Along with Rogers, she had cleared entire blocks of survivors, ensuring the death toll was a fraction of what it should have been. Now, the emergency services were finally taking over.
Lissandra nodded, her eyes glowing with a faint, crystalline light as she established a telepathic link.
Far across the city, Gwen stood perched atop the crumpled roof of a yellow taxi, her eyes scanning the ruins of a collapsed storefront. She was trying to be helpful, but she was also frantically searching for her magical Hat. It had been with her at the start, a faithful, grumbling companion, but in the heat of the struggle against a particularly nasty Chitauri brute, it had vanished.
A crowd of onlookers stood at a respectful distance, watching her with wide, starstruck eyes. They had seen her command the very fabric of reality to crush the alien monsters, and now every movement she made was scrutinized with a mixture of terror and adoration.
Just as she prepared to leap to the next roof, Lissandra's voice echoed in her mind.
"What? Noah's back? A party?" Gwen's eyes widened behind her mask. "Mmm... okay, tell him I'm coming! But I have to find the Hat first. I can't just leave it out here—it'll probably try to eat a pigeon or something."
"Understood. We shall see you soon," Lissandra replied, the connection fading. Gwen gave the surrounding ruins one last, desperate look.
"Where are you, you grumpy old rug...?"
"What's that?"
"Look!"
Surprised shouts erupted from the nearby crowd. Gwen spun around, her hand dropping to her waist, but then she saw it: a streak of vibrant, neon-purple energy zipping through the crowd. It moved like a caffeinated firefly, dodging between the legs of startled pedestrians and weaving through the open doors of an ambulance. It was moving too fast for human eyes to track, a blur of violet light.
The flash of magic headed straight for Gwen. She didn't flinch; instead, she reached out her hand and caught the projectile mid-air, just before it could collide with her chest.
"Hat! There you are!" she laughed, holding the squirming, magical headwear in both hands. "Where did you go? I thought I'd lost you!"
The Hat didn't answer in words, but it began to thrash in her grip, its brim contorting into a makeshift "mouth" that flapped indignantly. It let out several puffs of acrid, purple smoke, as if it were telling a long, harrowing tale of being stepped on, ignored, and mistreated by the common folk.
"Oh, stop it. I have no idea what you're saying," Gwen said, tilting her head with a grin as she tucked the grumpy artifact under her arm.
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