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Car chase? Backseat shenanigans? Backseat shenanigans DURING a car chase? It's all up to you! This week's prompt:

A story that takes place entirely inside a vehicle.

Drivers, start your engines! This prompt runs until Saturday morning!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dira

MCU/The West Wing. Steve Rogers, Josh Lyman.
Content warning for current events in US politics.

"If you tell me one more time that my country needs me," Steve said firmly, "I will throw myself out of this car."

He saw Mr. Lyman's eyes dart to the bulletproof glass of the windows, the heavy doors that had audibly locked as soon as they were both inside, and then the shield propped up at Steve's feet.

"Okay, okay, that line's been overused, got it," Mr. Lyman said. "I realize that the totally insane circumstances and the basically apocalyptic consequences if we fail don't actually make it a good idea. But I figured potentially disastrous longshots were kind of your specialty and I honestly don't know who else could pull this off."

Steve grimaced, but didn't actually argue. When he put it that way, it almost did sound like fun. Just another USO tour, right? Except this time he'd be able to control the script.

"Look," Mr. Lyman said. "It's not even like you'd have to do it. Pick somebody sane and halfway qualified as a running mate, and if you get elected you can resign five minutes after you take office, let them step in."

Steve frowned.

"Or, I mean, hey, go for it," Mr. Lyman redirected quickly. "If the American people choose you, maybe that's what they should get. You're smart, you're a tactical thinker, you look great on camera, you can assemble a team around you who can supply all the formal education and political expertise you could possibly need. It's been done, believe me, and in retrospect it really didn't turn out that badly. I mean, I think half the Secret Service would resign on the spot rather than contemplate trying to serve as your protection for four years, but hey, that's a hell of a job creation program to knock off on your first day, right?"

Steve scowled. "I fail to see how driving loyal people out of their jobs by making their jobs impossible creates anything at all."

Mr. Lyman just stared at him for a second, lips slightly parted, and then he visibly shook himself. "Yeah, see, if we could just get you to do that on TV--I swear to God, Captain Rogers, we could have this thing in the bag."

Steve frowned at that too, struggling to articulate even to himself what rubbed him so wrong about Mr. Lyman's confidence. "I really... really don't like this idea."

"Yeah, I know. And that's why you're the guy for the job." Mr. Lyman sat forward. "People say sometimes, no one who wants this job should be allowed to have it, you know that? And you're the only person I know of in maybe this entire country who can say believably, that you don't want the job but you're trying to do what's best for America."

"If I did this..." Steve looked into his eyes, willing him to be able to understand genuine honesty when he heard it. "That wouldn't be a line. That would be exactly why."

"Well, yeah," Mr. Lyman cracked a little smile. "And that's exactly why. I mean, honestly, if that's what this is going to come down to--if it's unqualified demagogue versus unqualified demagogue, I'm on Team Cap, anybody who has a--"

Steve scowled harder, and Mr. Lyman shook his head and put his hands up. "No, I'm just saying. A lot of people are going to be on Team Cap."

"You can't call it that," Steve said reflexively, and he caught the little gleam in Mr. Lyman's eyes that said he had caught Steve's shift from arguing about whether he would do it to arguing about the script.

"We won't call it that," Mr. Lyman agreed, sitting back, actually relaxing a little.

"We won't even explicitly bring up the thing where you punched out Hitler over 200 times, we'll just put you on a debate stage across from this clown and let people work it out for themselves when he talks about wanting to kick out immigrants and religious minorities. And if he doesn't get the nomination, this is a weird conversation you had on the way to a state dinner, and we never have to talk about it again. I just need you to say it once, so I can start laying groundwork if it comes to that."

Steve took a deep breath. He thought about the logistics, the limitations, the exciting new ways the press would find to tear him apart, the very real possibility of people dying because of attempts on his life. He thought about spending five minutes in January commanding the power to issue pardons with the stroke of a pen. He thought about the consequences of standing aside and doing nothing.

"Okay," he said, and grinned as Mr. Lyman pumped his fist and did an entirely undignified little dance in his seat. "Okay, I--wait, am I actually even old enough?"

"You were born in 1918, and the Constitution doesn't say a word about how much of your life you have to have spent awake, believe me, we've got this. Please, please, Captain Rogers, if I can't ask you to save the country I'll just ask you to save me from my ulcers and my wife from my insomnia. Just say the thing."

The car pulled up to a stop; the uniformed Marines approached the door. At the very last second before the door opened and this little bubble of privacy shattered, Steve nodded and said it.

"Yes. If called upon, I will run for President of the United States."

Edited Date: 2016-04-02 04:14 am (UTC)