My name is Captain Stephanie Marie Rogers. My father, Joseph Rogers, served in the 1st battalion, 107th infantry during the Great War. He was one of the original Blue Spaders. I wanted nothing more than to enlist in his regiment. I don't remember him all that well. I know he loved to laugh and he smelled like applesauce. He died in 1926 at thirty-three from Influenza. A few years later, The Great Depression started. I remember one day our landlord put all of our stuff on the street. At that time landlords didn't have the resources to evict people twice. Some members from the local communist party chapter came by and helped my mother move everything back inside. It made me realize something: that compassion can come from anywhere and anyone. Even from communists; but rarely from Dougie Huggins. He lived in the basement apartment two doors down. He gave me Indian burns every day twice every Friday, tugged my hair, and pinched me. I was always too small to fight back. I got sick a lot. It seemed like I couldn't run from that place, except through the pages of a fantasy novel. My momma had no such escape. She worked two jobs just to make ends meet. We'd sit inside as she scrubbed dishes listening to the radio. Her favorite song was boogie woogie bugle boy. She always told me, while she wrapped a strand of my hair around her finger, I had beautiful hair and I should never cut it. I'd draw pictures for her, just to make her smile. She never did smile; she just faded away.
"When you get better, I'm going to take you to the country mamma. You'd like that." I told her one day while drawing her flowers.
"I drew this for you-" I showed her the flowers.
"Eat your stew, Steph. It's good food." She told me.
"I don't want it momma." I whispered.
"You be strong, now. Eat your food."
"I don't like it. It has carrots in it."
"Carrots are good for the memory. I want you to pay attention and learn; you keep studying and drawing like you do and you'll be someone."
"Why would I want to remember this? I'd just as soon forget." I said, tears pooling in my eyes.
"Oh, Stephanie, I want you to remember." She said grabbing my hand in hers. "Always be proud of who you are and where you came from. Never forget the people who helped you get to where you're going."
'Never forget.' That was the last thing she said to me before she died.
I was alone. I went against my mother's wishes and cut my hair to look like a boy. I enrolled in school as a boy and took their classes. I was one of the smart kids. I was bad in the athletics classes though. When I reached the age of thirteen, I started . . . changing. I would bind my chest and in the locker rooms, I never changed in front of the guys. I grew up as 'another one of the guys,' but I was still picked on. In the schoolyard, the boys would beat me up. I never backed down though. I didn't like bullies.
Eventually I graduated and was old enough to enlist. That's when things got crazy.
AN-
So this is the prologue for One Step at a Time. A lot of this is not mine, I actually used it from a comic I had gotten about The Avengers, before they became who they were. If you want to look into it's called The Avengers: Mythos. It's pretty nifty. Tell me what you think in the review section!