Charlie Simmons, a hapless bystander about to get very lucky

You know, most people who were in a life-threatening situation talk about how their life flashed before their eyes. In my case, I didn't have much to reflect on. Really, all that was going through my mind was Goddammit, why do I have to die on my day off?

Probably should back up a bit and introduce myself. My name's Charlie Simmons, I'm a 25 year old cashier, and I'm in free-fall God know how many hundreds of feet over one of the busiest streets in Metropolis. Not by choice, mind you: the bus I was riding in had been picked up and hurled at Superman by whatever bad guy he happened to be fighting today, and while he managed to heroically catch it in midair, I happened to be sitting just a bit too close to the emergency exit which had popped open on impact. And since I didn't brace myself properly, or wear a seat belt for that matter, I went flying right out the door.

Considering the Man of Steel had his hands full holding an entire city bus loaded with other civilians, I didn't have much hope that he'd be able to rescue me before I ended up splattered all over the pavement. Strangely, the thought of dying didn't terrify me nearly as much as it should have. In fact, other than the earlier mentioned annoyance over this happening on my first day off in almost a week, I was pretty at peace with my fate. I closed my eyes and awaited my landing.

Unexpectedly, I felt two leanly muscled arms catch me in a bridal carry, and my descent quickly started to slow. I then heard the voice of an angel tell me, "I've got you."

Opening my eyes, I'm greeted to a glorious vision. A young woman with golden blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes was looking at me with a reassuring smile on her face. The royal blue outfit and red cape were just the final confirmation I needed that I had just been rescued by Superman's cousin Supergirl.

Suddenly, her eyes went wide, and she hugged me close to her body as she shouted, "Hang on!"

Before I could ask her why, something rocketed past in a black blur, narrowly missing Supergirl. The gust of wind created by its passing hit like a punch to the gut, sending the two of us flying backwards. I wrapped my arms around Supergirl's neck and pressed myself against her chest, hanging on for dear life as my survival instinct rushed back into me all at once. Thankfully, Supergirl was able to reorient herself in the air before colliding with anything, and drifted back down to the ground with me in tow.

"Are you okay?" Supergirl asked, after she managed to pull me off of her.

"I... I... I think so," I stammered, shakily setting my feet on solid ground once more, "I... uh... thank you."

God, this was embarrassing. I was a sweaty, disheveled mess, barely avoiding pissing myself while standing in front of one of the only superheroines that called my city home (or had she moved to National City? Suppose when you're as fast as a speeding bullet, the commute wasn't that long). To her credit, if Supergirl thought I looked pathetic, she didn't show it.

"No problem," she said with a warm smile, before getting a serious look on her face, "Now get somewhere safe, fast."

"You don't have to tell me twice," I replied.

"Good to hear," she said, lifting off the ground one more, "And by the way, I like your cologne."

"Oh, uh..." I started, but before I could even tell her I wasn't wearing any, the Maid of Steel gave me a wink and flew up, up, and away.

After that, I managed to find some paramedics who were looking over civilians that were caught in the crossfire and checking them for injuries. Once they heard that I fell out of a flying bus, the EMT lady was quick to give me a once over. Luckily, it seemed that other than a bruise on my shoulder from where I hit the door on my way out, I was unharmed, so I was given an ice pack and ushered aside to make room for less fortunate victims.

Not really having anywhere else to be, and thinking it would be foolish to try and navigate the street alone in the middle of a Superman fight, I stuck around and watched as much as I could from a safe distance. From the looks of things, the bus throwing culprit had been none other than General Zod, who had somehow managed to escape from wherever he was holed up for what I think was the third time in two years. Eventually, Superman and Supergirl were able to take him down with good old fashioned teamwork, and Zod was restrained with some kind of metal arm cuffs STAR Labs cooked up, and by then I was pretty much done. Honestly, there was a big part of me that was really hoping Superman would end up snapping that bastard's neck during the fight, but alas that didn't end up happening.

After the fight, I hung out for a little while longer, mostly to see if I could recognize anyone from the bus I was on. I think I saw the bus driver being carted off in a neck brace, but thankfully no one else seemed injured, and surprisingly I didn't hear of anyone actually dying. From what I saw, Supergirl was mainly to thank for that, as she had spent a good chunk of the fight running interference and rescuing the people that Superman couldn't get to so he could focus on taking down Zod.

Speaking of Supergirl, she actually dropped by a couple of times after the fight to see how I was doing. Well, not just me, she checked up on other people too, but she seemed particularly interested in me specifically. She never stuck around for very long, but each time it seemed she was a bit more hesitant to fly off, and the last time she came by she even brought me a coffee from a place halfway across town (and that was away from the fight). I wasn't sure what to make of it, so I mostly just made small talk with her, told her my name, and thanked her too many times to count for saving my life. She'd always just smile and laugh at that, then go off to talk to someone else. Eventually, she stopped her visits entirely to focus on helping her cousin clean up the mess made from the battle, and seeing that the action was pretty much done I began the long walk back to my apartment. And for most people, that'd be the end of their story about how their life was saved by a superhero that one time.

But it's not the end of mine. Not even close.

A couple of nights later, I was in my modest apartment getting ready for bed. Other than the bruise on my shoulder, which was much smaller now than it had been at the time, my life had pretty much returned to the average routine of wake up, go to work, go home and surf the internet for a few hours, then go to bed. I hadn't forgotten what had happened of course, but by now I had relegated it to a cool story I could tell people over drinks at the bar, maybe even lie a little and say I got a kiss from Supergirl before she flew off. Didn't happen of course, but hey, it made the story slightly more awesome, and besides all drinking stories have a little 'embellishment' to them.

Anyway, just as I was tucking myself into bed, I heard someone knocking at my window. Now, this immediately set off alarm bells in my head, because my apartment was on the eighth fucking floor of my building. Hesitantly, I made my way to the window, and was greeted with the surprise of a lifetime: Supergirl, in full costume, hovering right outside.

Opening the window to talk to my savior, I greeted her with the totally not lame, "Hey."

"Hi Charlie!" she said, a big smile appearing on her face when I spoke, "I'm so glad I found you! I've been looking for you for the past few days."

"Why?" I asked, unsure of where this was going.

"Because I... um..."

Supergirl trailed off, looking downwards to avoid making eye contact with me, "I, um... I wanted to check to make sure your shoulder was doing okay. So, um... is it?"

"Yeah," I said, suspicion creeping into my tone.

"That's good," she said, still avoiding eye contact.

Unable to stop myself, I asked her, "Do you normally check up on people like this after you save them?"

"No," she mumbled, before her face went red and she tried to correct herself, "I mean yes! I mean... uh... okay, that's not why I'm here. Well, not the main reason anyway."

I raised a brow, "And that would be...?"

"I wanted to see you again," Supergirl said. Upon seeing the shocked look on my face, she continued rambling, "I mean... well, when we talked, I didn't get your last name, or your number, or anything, and you seemed like a nice guy, so I've been trying to find you again, and really I found you on patrol yesterday, but I was too nervous to approach you, so I followed you home and-"

"Wait wait wait, hold up," I interrupt, "You followed me?"

"Only a little," she admitted sheepishly, "Just to see where you lived. And... well, I may have used a bit of X-ray vision to figure out which apartment you were in. But that was it, I swear!"

"That's..." I wasn't sure whether to say 'flattering' or 'creepy', so I settled for, "...something."

Supergirl sighed, "Look, I'm sorry, really. I just really wanted to talk with you again, and I didn't know how else to find you. And... well, I figured, maybe..."

Supergirl bit her lip anxiously, and for the first time I realized that her body language was nothing like the confident woman I had seen just a few days previously. In fact, she looked far more like a schoolgirl talking to her crush in the hallway between classes.

Wait a minute... was she crushing on me? Did Supergirl think I was cute? I was just an average looking guy barely keeping in shape, there's no way she'd...

"If it's okay with you, I'd prefer to... um..." Supergirl said as she glanced around nervously, before looking at me again and asking softly, "...can I come inside?"

Oh yeah, Supergirl totally had a crush on me.