stormbird. ( steve rogers, rewriting! )

twenty three.

Steve Rogers

I unlocked the door to my flat in downtown Brooklyn. It was near my childhood home, maybe four or so blocks from there.

I would have asked her to come here with me, if she didn't have any place to stay.

If she was even still alive, anyway.

Thor had just left, and everyone had parted ways once again. Thor couldn't afford to leave Loki here on Earth for much longer, so he wouldn't be able to make it to Shay's funeral. No one blamed him, but he seemed disappointed that he wouldn't be there for Shay's burial.

Which reminds me.

Its in two days.

I sighed and sat down dejectedly on a wooden chair in front of my desk. I had collected all my things from my room in the Hellicarrier. While I was packing up all my things, I found a wrapped box with my name on it.

I had decided to open it up at my new flat in Brooklyn, so that I'd have something to look forward too, and to keep my mind off of Shay's recent death.

Which is what I was holding in my hands right now. A cardboard box wrapped in newspaper.

I ripped the newspaper and tape off and found a box filled with files.

Stacks of files, and a letter on top.

I took the white envelope and opened the flap, pulling out folded up papers.

I recognized the handwriting instantly, a choking sound escaping my lips quietly.

Steve,

If you're reading this, that means I'm dead. Sorry for the bluntness, but I suppose you should just recognize that now. I'm dead. Probably six feet under at this point.

Its hard referring to yourself like that. Even in a letter. Telling someone to recognize that you're dead. But my entire life, I guess you could say I've been obsessed with death. Okay, well not really death itself, but my death. How would I die? Would I go out fighting, standing side by side with the people I cared about? Or would I die like a coward, hiding in a building as the world fell away around me?

As a kid, people would always ask me how my parents died. Some people even went as far as asking if I had killed my parents.

It haunts me to this day that, if I had answered them truthfully, the answer would have been yes.

As an infant, my powers were uncontrollable. I didn't know how to keep from using them. As a child, I didn't know what I was doing.

I was five when my parents died. And contrary to what I'd have people believe, I remember every detail of the night they died.

My parents were scientists. They had created a serum that would give a human being powers. Powers of manipulation. But the power to manipulate what, was the question.

Most of the time, people don't just agree to be experimented on. Especially when there was a six percent chance of survival.

So, my parents took someone who couldn't refuse, someone incapable of the speech needed for refusal.

A newborn baby.

Me.

They injected me with their experimental serum, and it manifested in my body into the ability to manipulate the elements. Fire, water, earth, and air. For five years, my parents kept me locked up in the basement lab of our house, trying to help me control my powers.