The Captain's Choice | Rogers ² ✔️

2 - break some eggs

Morgan Stark POV

You could hear a soft piano playing. My grandmother, Maria Stark was the one playing the beautiful tune. Meanwhile, my father was on the couch wearing a Santa hat and pjs. What a fashion drab.

"Try to remember the kind of September. When grass was green . . " My grandmother sang beautifully. She stopped when she noticed my grandfather, Howard Stark walk into the room, however she continued to play the tune. "Wake up, dear, and say goodbye to your father."

"Who's the homeless person on the couch?" Dad chuckled at grandpa's remark. I wish they were still alive. "This is why I love coming home for Christmas . . . right before you leave town." Dad said.

"Be nice, dear, he's been studying abroad." Grandma said. "Really, which broad? What's her name?" Grandpa asked.

"Candice."

Grandpa pulled dads hat down. "Do me a favor? Try not to burn the house down before Monday."

"Okay, so it's Monday. That is good to know. I will plan my toga party accordingly. Where you going?"

"Your father's flying us to the Bahamas for a little getaway." Grandma said excitedly.

"We might have to make a quick stop." Grandpa added.

"At the Pentagon. Right? Don't worry, you're gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary." Dad said. Grandma then stopped playing the piano. "You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you'll be a great man some day. I'll get the bags." Yikes. I knew Grandpa and dad had a bad relationship...but dang. He walked out of the room and grandma stood up.

"He does miss you when you are not here. And frankly, you're going to miss us. Because this is the last time we're all going to be together. You know what's about to happen. Say something. If you don't, you'll regret it." Grandma said. Grandpa walked back in.

"I love you, Dad. And I know you did the best you could." Dad said. Grandma leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. When she leaned back, I saw my real dad in the distance. He looked much older then the other one in the hologram.

"That's how I wished it happened. Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or BARF. God, I gotta work on that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to . . . clear traumatic memories. Huh." He then walked towards the front of the stage. I continued to stay silent in the wing, watching it all happen. He blew a candle and everything around him shimmered, and then dissolved.

"It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport . . . or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief, but . . ." He took off his glasses. "Plus, 611 million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? No one in the right mind would've ever funded it. Help me out, what's the MIT mission statement? "To generate, disseminate . . . and preserve knowledge. And work with others . . . to bring it to bear on the world's great challenges." Well, you are the others. And, quiet as it's kept . . . the challenges facing you are the greatest mankind's ever known. Plus, most of you are broke."

The crowd chuckled.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Rather, you were. As of this moment . . . every student has been made an equal recipient of the Inaugural September Foundation Grant. As in . . . all of your projects have just been approved and funded." Everyone stood up and applauded and cheered. "No strings, no taxes... just re-frame the future! Starting now." I noticed the teleprompter above the audience read 'Now I would like to introduce the head of the foundation: Pepper Potts.' Dad stared at it sadly.