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Description

alfred f. jones

a.k.a

the united states of America

became one of the most powerful nations in the world.

he goes to boring meetings with other nations.

this is what he does when he's not at the meetings.

it's a lot more interesting.

  England is probably going to kill me.

  It’s chilly, but Alfred doesn’t mind. He loves this city. New York City. His heart.
  Well, actually, it’s a little bit above his heart, but close enough.
  The city is lit around him, cars and taxis speeding by. Just this street had changed so much since the old days. His hands dug deep into the pockets of his old brown bomber jacket. The jacket he had splurged on nearly 75 years ago. With proper care, these things really could last forever.
  Coming to a stop in front of a bright blue neon light he gripped the small thin piece of paper in his jacket, pulling it out to see if the name on the paper matched the name on the door of the bar. It did: Musket & Spoke.
  Around the corner from his new apartment was a small bookshop. Antique in appearance, books both young and old lined any and all open space. With a policy more like a library than a bookstore, Alfred had already spent quite a bit of time in and out of the shop.
He had begun to speak with the steampunk-clad woman behind the counter, and she ended up inviting him to have a beer with her and her friends seeing as he was new in town.
  That’s what he had told her anyway.
  It was going to be the first time in nearly as long as his jacket’s life that he was going out to a bar with people who didn’t know him and didn’t find him inherently annoying.

  I tried to do this in the 1920s. Move my house, live normally, get friends. I made it through one week in a crappy little studio apartment in Boston before stumbling home from a speakeasy just to find England sitting on my futon.

  “He seems like a nice guy, eccentric,” a woman with dirty blonde hair and dyed blue tips leaned over the table of the booth she sat in across from two friends- Bridget and Pierce. A power couple who had been with each other since at least high school. She adjusted the nice black blazer she wore over a gray vest, “He started coming into my shop and we got to talking. He said he would drop by.”
  “Taking in more strays, are ya? Thought you learned your lesson and stopped that nonsense after me,” a second voice accompanied the sound of a beer bottle being set unceremoniously on a wooden table.
  “Manners, Dante,” with tousled curls bobbing, Bridget lightly scolded the younger man as she picked the bottle up and placed a coaster underneath it.
  “I have a thing for found items,” Laurel adjusted her seat, “anyway, he seemed like he could use some friends.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” His accent thick and his eyebrows terrifying.
  “I just had beer with some friends, no big deal.”
  “Friends?” England seemed to have been expecting that answer, yet his tone was
shocked. Like he had known but didn’t want to believe.
  “Yeah. They’re those people that you hang out with who, you know, like you. As a person.”
  “Alfred, you can’t have friends.”
  “Uh, I don’t know where you’re getting your facts from, Arthur, but I thought I was pretty clear that I just got back from drinking with them.”
  “You can’t be friends with mortals.”
  “Challenge accepted.”
  I thought I was being hilarious and witty. England’s angry purple face said I wasn’t. The next morning I had been moved out and I was back in that stuffy mansion haunted by dead presidents and Benjamin Franklin. Not the White House. Out in the country, no one around, just me, myself, and I.
  I wonder if they wondered where I went.

  “Who invited Captain America to this place?” Pierce’s gaze caught sight of a bespectacled man wearing a bomber jacket and khakis, moving the group’s attention towards the newcomer. Laurel didn’t even have to look to understand who Pierce was talking about.
  “That would be me,” Then she turned, standing up in the booth, waving her hand to grab the man’s attention. It only took a moment before she was noticed. With a smile he made his way over to the booth,
  “Everyone, this is Alfred. Alfred, this is Bridget, Pierce, and Dante.”
  Alfred already knew their names. They were all a part of him, though they couldn’t possibly know that, “Nice to meet ya,” he smiled, “Call me Al.”

  It’s been a week and Arthur hasn’t found out yet so I beat my old time. I wonder just how long I can go without coming home to his angry purple face on my futon?
  Maybe he’s decided to stop trying to run my life?
  Nah. I’m just better at keeping secrets.

  “So, Al, what do you do?” Bridget asked, trying to disrupt the awkward silence that had occurred shortly after the initial introductions. The bar around them lively, people coming, going. It was the first time in a long time Alfred had been in a position with his people that made him this relaxed. That question though… what did he do?
  “I’m… I’m in… in um… government,” close enough.
  “Government?” Dante raised an eyebrow, “Like, you’re a politician or?”
  “What? Oh… oh, no, I’m in uh… foreign affairs. Just like… foreign relationship…
stuff.” He could tell by the way the others glanced at each other that they felt they weren’t getting the full truth, but Alfred wasn’t going to let this of all things screw up his chances at normal friendships.
  “That sounds fascinating,” Laurel spoke slow before she tilted her head, “What do you do for that?”
  “Foreign… stuff.”

  Oh. By the way. There are actually three secrets I’m keeping right now:
  One from Arthur.
  One from Laurel, Bridget, Pierce, and Dante.
  One from everyone.

  Once the conversation moved from him to normal bar talk, Alfred felt himself relax even more. It was almost creepy how… how normal this all was. He wasn’t America here. He was Alfred. All these people around him knew was that he was Alfred, a guy who went to Laurel’s shop frequently and lived in an apartment nearby. He wasn’t that guy who started a war for his independence some two hundred years ago, he wasn’t the annoying one of the North America brothers, he wasn’t the guy that everyone loved to hate. He was just Alfred.
  And, to his surprise at how happy it made him, it seemed that the people around him… liked him. They were having fun with him. He was having fun with them.
  “Hey, by the way, did you guys hear about this?” Pierce pulled out a newspaper from that day and dropped it on the booth. The front page had a picture of a man with a blue mask in a deep blue spandex suit. Red lined the seams of the outfit as the man pulled some kids out of a building, “This guy has been going around lately- saving people and helping take down gangs and robbers.”
  “I was watching something about that the other day,” Dante glanced at the front page of the paper, “They’re saying he’s not part of the police force, and he doesn’t seem like just a normal human dressed up.”
  “On the internet there was a poll to name him, as he apparently didn’t have one,” Bridget leaned over, scanning the article, “Yeah, see, there- they decided on ‘Night Eagle.’”

Okay. So I might be taking on a bit much here. But… go big or go home, right?

  “Hey, Cap,” Pierce’s nickname for Alfred seemed to have stuck, and the guy grinned, “Is there something you’re not telling us?”
  “I can’t reveal all my secrets at once, can I?” Alfred gave a chuckle back. Pierce accepted it as a jest and returned to the discussion about the new hero’s name.
  There was a small, very small but noticeable tinge Alfred felt in his body. Over the past month or so that he had spent building up to this decision in his life; he had listened closer to his body than he ever had before. He learned what each ache and pain he felt meant. This one, in particular, meant there was trouble three streets over.
  “Sorry guys,” He stood up, putting the free-standing chair he had pulled up for himself back at the table behind him, “I totally forgot about an early meeting I have tomorrow.” Not a whole lie. There was a meeting. “I have to go.”
  “Okay, Al, see you around?” Laurel smiled.
  “Of course!”
  “Sure you can’t stay for a bit longer? Seems like you just got here.” Dante took another drink from the glass of beer in front of him.
  “Positive. I really need the sleep.”
  “You can sleep when you’re dead,” Dante taunted lightly.
  Alfred just smirked, tilting his head. “See you all later!”

  Besides. I’m supposed to help my country in some way, right?

  Exiting the bar, Alfred hurried his step, slipping down an alley. He picked up his pace, demonstrating the quick change he had mastered.

  Being a nation, I have super strength, super speed, quick healing, and invulnerability. I am basically already Superman.
  Okay. More like Captain America.
  Alfred pulled out the sleek blue motorcycle that England had told him not to get from behind what appeared to be a tall pile of boxes. This motorcycle had made going back to that stuffy mansion bearable- he had spent hours in the garage working on this thing.
  Now it looked pretty damn cool if he did say so himself, blue like his outfit with red accents and the white outline of an eagle in flight with a red eagle in the center- his emblem- placed on the sides of his motorcycle.
  Swinging his spandexed leg over the seat, he felt himself breathing a sigh of relief that the motorcycle had actually still been there (He still had some kinks to work out with this superhero stuff). The engine revved and the machine shot down the alley, whipping around the corner and flying into the night.
  Either way, England is definitely going to kill me.

Description

alfred f. jones

a.k.a

the united states of America

became one of the most powerful nations in the world.

he goes to boring meetings with other nations.

this is what he does when he's not at the meetings.

it's a lot more interesting.

  England is probably going to kill me.

  It’s chilly, but Alfred doesn’t mind. He loves this city. New York City. His heart.
  Well, actually, it’s a little bit above his heart, but close enough.
  The city is lit around him, cars and taxis speeding by. Just this street had changed so much since the old days. His hands dug deep into the pockets of his old brown bomber jacket. The jacket he had splurged on nearly 75 years ago. With proper care, these things really could last forever.
  Coming to a stop in front of a bright blue neon light he gripped the small thin piece of paper in his jacket, pulling it out to see if the name on the paper matched the name on the door of the bar. It did: Musket & Spoke.
  Around the corner from his new apartment was a small bookshop. Antique in appearance, books both young and old lined any and all open space. With a policy more like a library than a bookstore, Alfred had already spent quite a bit of time in and out of the shop.
He had begun to speak with the steampunk-clad woman behind the counter, and she ended up inviting him to have a beer with her and her friends seeing as he was new in town.
  That’s what he had told her anyway.
  It was going to be the first time in nearly as long as his jacket’s life that he was going out to a bar with people who didn’t know him and didn’t find him inherently annoying.

  I tried to do this in the 1920s. Move my house, live normally, get friends. I made it through one week in a crappy little studio apartment in Boston before stumbling home from a speakeasy just to find England sitting on my futon.

  “He seems like a nice guy, eccentric,” a woman with dirty blonde hair and dyed blue tips leaned over the table of the booth she sat in across from two friends- Bridget and Pierce. A power couple who had been with each other since at least high school. She adjusted the nice black blazer she wore over a gray vest, “He started coming into my shop and we got to talking. He said he would drop by.”
  “Taking in more strays, are ya? Thought you learned your lesson and stopped that nonsense after me,” a second voice accompanied the sound of a beer bottle being set unceremoniously on a wooden table.
  “Manners, Dante,” with tousled curls bobbing, Bridget lightly scolded the younger man as she picked the bottle up and placed a coaster underneath it.
  “I have a thing for found items,” Laurel adjusted her seat, “anyway, he seemed like he could use some friends.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” His accent thick and his eyebrows terrifying.
  “I just had beer with some friends, no big deal.”
  “Friends?” England seemed to have been expecting that answer, yet his tone was
shocked. Like he had known but didn’t want to believe.
  “Yeah. They’re those people that you hang out with who, you know, like you. As a person.”
  “Alfred, you can’t have friends.”
  “Uh, I don’t know where you’re getting your facts from, Arthur, but I thought I was pretty clear that I just got back from drinking with them.”
  “You can’t be friends with mortals.”
  “Challenge accepted.”
  I thought I was being hilarious and witty. England’s angry purple face said I wasn’t. The next morning I had been moved out and I was back in that stuffy mansion haunted by dead presidents and Benjamin Franklin. Not the White House. Out in the country, no one around, just me, myself, and I.
  I wonder if they wondered where I went.

  “Who invited Captain America to this place?” Pierce’s gaze caught sight of a bespectacled man wearing a bomber jacket and khakis, moving the group’s attention towards the newcomer. Laurel didn’t even have to look to understand who Pierce was talking about.
  “That would be me,” Then she turned, standing up in the booth, waving her hand to grab the man’s attention. It only took a moment before she was noticed. With a smile he made his way over to the booth,
  “Everyone, this is Alfred. Alfred, this is Bridget, Pierce, and Dante.”
  Alfred already knew their names. They were all a part of him, though they couldn’t possibly know that, “Nice to meet ya,” he smiled, “Call me Al.”

  It’s been a week and Arthur hasn’t found out yet so I beat my old time. I wonder just how long I can go without coming home to his angry purple face on my futon?
  Maybe he’s decided to stop trying to run my life?
  Nah. I’m just better at keeping secrets.

  “So, Al, what do you do?” Bridget asked, trying to disrupt the awkward silence that had occurred shortly after the initial introductions. The bar around them lively, people coming, going. It was the first time in a long time Alfred had been in a position with his people that made him this relaxed. That question though… what did he do?
  “I’m… I’m in… in um… government,” close enough.
  “Government?” Dante raised an eyebrow, “Like, you’re a politician or?”
  “What? Oh… oh, no, I’m in uh… foreign affairs. Just like… foreign relationship…
stuff.” He could tell by the way the others glanced at each other that they felt they weren’t getting the full truth, but Alfred wasn’t going to let this of all things screw up his chances at normal friendships.
  “That sounds fascinating,” Laurel spoke slow before she tilted her head, “What do you do for that?”
  “Foreign… stuff.”

  Oh. By the way. There are actually three secrets I’m keeping right now:
  One from Arthur.
  One from Laurel, Bridget, Pierce, and Dante.
  One from everyone.

  Once the conversation moved from him to normal bar talk, Alfred felt himself relax even more. It was almost creepy how… how normal this all was. He wasn’t America here. He was Alfred. All these people around him knew was that he was Alfred, a guy who went to Laurel’s shop frequently and lived in an apartment nearby. He wasn’t that guy who started a war for his independence some two hundred years ago, he wasn’t the annoying one of the North America brothers, he wasn’t the guy that everyone loved to hate. He was just Alfred.
  And, to his surprise at how happy it made him, it seemed that the people around him… liked him. They were having fun with him. He was having fun with them.
  “Hey, by the way, did you guys hear about this?” Pierce pulled out a newspaper from that day and dropped it on the booth. The front page had a picture of a man with a blue mask in a deep blue spandex suit. Red lined the seams of the outfit as the man pulled some kids out of a building, “This guy has been going around lately- saving people and helping take down gangs and robbers.”
  “I was watching something about that the other day,” Dante glanced at the front page of the paper, “They’re saying he’s not part of the police force, and he doesn’t seem like just a normal human dressed up.”
  “On the internet there was a poll to name him, as he apparently didn’t have one,” Bridget leaned over, scanning the article, “Yeah, see, there- they decided on ‘Night Eagle.’”

Okay. So I might be taking on a bit much here. But… go big or go home, right?

  “Hey, Cap,” Pierce’s nickname for Alfred seemed to have stuck, and the guy grinned, “Is there something you’re not telling us?”
  “I can’t reveal all my secrets at once, can I?” Alfred gave a chuckle back. Pierce accepted it as a jest and returned to the discussion about the new hero’s name.
  There was a small, very small but noticeable tinge Alfred felt in his body. Over the past month or so that he had spent building up to this decision in his life; he had listened closer to his body than he ever had before. He learned what each ache and pain he felt meant. This one, in particular, meant there was trouble three streets over.
  “Sorry guys,” He stood up, putting the free-standing chair he had pulled up for himself back at the table behind him, “I totally forgot about an early meeting I have tomorrow.” Not a whole lie. There was a meeting. “I have to go.”
  “Okay, Al, see you around?” Laurel smiled.
  “Of course!”
  “Sure you can’t stay for a bit longer? Seems like you just got here.” Dante took another drink from the glass of beer in front of him.
  “Positive. I really need the sleep.”
  “You can sleep when you’re dead,” Dante taunted lightly.
  Alfred just smirked, tilting his head. “See you all later!”

  Besides. I’m supposed to help my country in some way, right?

  Exiting the bar, Alfred hurried his step, slipping down an alley. He picked up his pace, demonstrating the quick change he had mastered.

  Being a nation, I have super strength, super speed, quick healing, and invulnerability. I am basically already Superman.
  Okay. More like Captain America.
  Alfred pulled out the sleek blue motorcycle that England had told him not to get from behind what appeared to be a tall pile of boxes. This motorcycle had made going back to that stuffy mansion bearable- he had spent hours in the garage working on this thing.
  Now it looked pretty damn cool if he did say so himself, blue like his outfit with red accents and the white outline of an eagle in flight with a red eagle in the center- his emblem- placed on the sides of his motorcycle.
  Swinging his spandexed leg over the seat, he felt himself breathing a sigh of relief that the motorcycle had actually still been there (He still had some kinks to work out with this superhero stuff). The engine revved and the machine shot down the alley, whipping around the corner and flying into the night.
  Either way, England is definitely going to kill me.