In Your Eyes // Steve Rogers

41

A correlation between public heroes and acts of terrorism did exist. I never saw how one could ignore it; it was a fact. The way people wanted to take care of those acts differed. I, personally, believed it was those heroes that were best qualified to fight those terrorists. The urge to end threats to humanity wasn't because any of us were forced. In every case, it was a self proclaimed duty to use the abilities we had for the good of the world.

I didn't always feel that way. From the moment I learned of my abilities, I wasn't able to push past the belief that I was capable to be anything other than a danger. Being exposed meant the chance of hurting people. I never used my powers, I never tried to. The last time I had, a child was killed. It was a situation I never wanted to be in again, nor put anyone in. So, I hid. I stayed isolated from the public. I kept my powers inside.

For almost twenty years I felt that way. I was around twenty-one years old, almost finished with my second year of online college, when Director Fury came into my life. He approached as an employer. I hadn't known it was an interview for S.H.I.E.L.D. Alas, he was the one to wedge me from isolation. He taught me how to help people. He showed me how to stop being afraid of what I could do. He was the person who set me on the path of heroism I would forever walk along.

The issue, however, is that the path is not always black and white. I learned about a gray area in heroism. And how it started, I distinctly remember. How it ended... Well, although entirely cliche, it's true: nothing would ever be how it once as.

The day our world shattered started out as one would expect: normally. I was the first awake. I didn't bother waking the others. My research for finding other powered individuals continued. It had become something similar to an obsession. For the people living afraid of their powers, or people with the urge to help humanity, but no way to get there,I searched. Guidance for qualified individuals was within my power. At one point, I thought distributing my help, maybe, one day, might have meant getting to leave the hero world.

It couldn't happen until Steve was brought to peace in the hero world as well. Doing so meant finding his missing person. For two years, every day, I hadn't stopped searching for him. Security cameras, police reports-- anything and everything I could find, I did. It was nothing except dead ends.

The same couldn't be said for Brock Rumlow, or, as he now called himself: Crossbones. From the wreckage of the Potomac, he was pulled and saved. He hated us. His vengeance for Sam, Steve, Natasha, and I thrived, so much so that he committed acts of terrorism to spite us.

My days were spent flipping through the search for Barnes, the search for Rumlow, and the search for potential heroes. A majority of searching was letting the computers run. For Rumlow, I took time to analyze the patterns of his attacks, attempting to get into his head, figure out where the next one could be.

File folders lined my bed, crumpled papers occupied the floor, empty ink pens hid within the sheets. I scribbled similarities in the attacks in different notebooks, I watched security feeds of his attacks. I overloaded information into my head. Surprisingly, it took an overload to, at long last, make it all click.

I sprinted through a portal to the kitchen. I ripped a frying pan and a spatula from the cabinets. Standing in the center, I surrounded myself with portals into everyone's rooms. I banged on the pan. I danced with it, held it within specific rooms (Sam), until all groggy eyes were on me.

"Smiles," groaned Sam. "It's not even five--"

"Ah, ah, ah!" I shouted. Half of my team winced. "Because I am a minor insomniac, I was doing my research, as per usual, and guess who I found?"

Steve suddenly looked alive. "Rumlow."

"Where?" asked Sam.

"Lagos. It's in Africa."