Hello Captain (Steve Rogers)

Photographs

Sarah's POV

We finally left Jace's after supper. Things were starting to wind down and everyone had started to go home. Also, I wanted time to talk to my parents.  It was already almost 8 and they generally went to bed between 9 and 10 pm.

    "Mom, Dad. We're back!" I hollered as we came in the front door. I kicked off my shoes and looked around. The lights were on, so I knew they were home already. I found them in the living room; dad was watching TV and mom sitting next to him, leafing through a photo album. They looked up when we came in and dad switched off the TV.

    "I got a phone call today from someone I hadn't talked to in a very long time." My mom, said slowly. "It's been a little over six years, in fact."

    "Who was it, Mom?"

    "Mr. Tony Stark."

    I nodded. "I found an old picture when I was at his house on Thursday night. He's part of the team I work with at the Triskelion."

    "He said you'd learned about Project Genesis and probably had some questions for us. Is that right?"

    I looked at Steve, who had turned to leave the room again. I caught his arm and met his eyes. "Stay?"

    "Are you sure?" he asked and I nodded. He took my hand and led me to the love seat across from the couch, sitting down next to me. I tucked my feet under me and twined my fingers with his.

    "Yes, I told Tony that I wanted to talk to you first before I did anything else. Were you really not going to tell me until I turned 21?"

    "We couldn't," my dad said, nodding. "It was the only detail Mr. Stark insisted on as part of the agreement when we adopted you. He never signed away his rights to you, Sarah; he technically only loaned you to us until you were an adult. It's going to sound cliché, but it really was for your own safety."

    "How did you become a part of the project, Mom? Was Dad part of it, too?"

    "Your father was a junior professor at NYU when we first met and got married. I had finished nursing school top in my class and was recruited by Shield to be a part of their medical teams. We were spread out in small groups over the tri-state area to treat Agents that were injured in the line of duty. The primary doctor I worked under, John Hopkins, was well known to Howard Stark, so when Howard asked him to join this project, Doctor Hopkins insisted that I be allowed to join as well. He said I had a calming way with patients, which would be beneficial, considering the emotional nature of this project." My mom took a deep breath before continuing the story.

    "Genesis was, without a doubt, one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I sat in on a panel that screened the applicants we got for the project. The parameters were quite specific: they had to be healthy, married, no prior children, unable to conceive but healthy. They ranged in age from 22-28. Once they were accepted for the project, we had to begin tracking their fertility cycles to know when would be the optimal time for implantation.

    I didn't have anything to do with the science part of the experiment - it was need to know only. I would then prep the subjects for implantation and do everything possible to make them comfortable. Then came the waiting. We had 3 subjects a month and one control, so I saw them weekly along with the OBGYN on the project. At first, I was optimistic because over a third of the subjects became pregnant. Then the difficulties would start...

    By the end of the first trimester, half of the subjects would miscarry. The other half made it through varying stages of the second trimester; however, the fetus' developed faster than the average fetus. They were very strong and sometimes did a lot of damage to the host mother. Broken bones, damaged organs, hemorrhaging, detached placenta, anything that could possibly go wrong – we dealt with it all, doing our best to keep the mothers alive when we couldn't save the babies.