Maria missed going out, and, granted, Howard had never said she couldn't go out and do grocery shopping, sit in the quiet corners of street cafes with a good book and the occasional cigarette, just so long as she didn't track ash and the scent of smoke back into the house. But she was sick of wearing huge, dark sunglasses to cover up black eyes, red rimmed from crying, was sick of wearing long sleeved shirts and turtlenecks in the humid New York summer to hide the black and blue marks of fingers clenched tightly around flesh in drunken anger.

She was tired, above all things. She sat in front of her vanity every day, applying pancake makeup, rubbing it in circles into her skin and trying to make Howard's anger disappear like the amber liquor he tossed, burning, down his throat in the evenings and afternoons. As she looked at herself in the mirror every morning after waking up, she wondered if Howard was right, and every morning, without fail, she managed to convince herself that he was.

She was stupid, she wasn't going to deny that. She didn't have some prestigious university degree from a fancy Ivy League school like Howard did; she hadn't read various works of philosophy, like Howard had; she had no head for numbers and couldn't manage a multimillion dollar company like Howard could. She was nothing, Howard was fond of saying, and she ought to be grateful that he had rescued her from that little diner in Brooklyn where she'd been working as a waitress with no foreseeable future.

Was she a coward? she mused as she smoothed foundation over the planes of her cheeks. She supposed she was; she would have gone to somebody, would have talked to somebody about this if she wasn't. Jarvis had tentatively skated across the subject with her one afternoon while Howard was on an international business trip, had tutted as he examined her slender wrists that still bore a circlet of black and blue.

"Mistress, I may be a bit presumptuous in saying this," he had said, "but perhaps you ought to talk to someone about this? This is not right. I could do it for you, if you would like. Alert authorities."

His fingers had been smooth against her skin, had been kind and gentle, but she had flinched away all the same and told him that it wasn't any of his concern, that she was handling it.

Was she a bad mother? She didn't personally think so. Sure, she was prone to fantasies and daydreams, and enjoyed storybooks with huge pictures and text and creamy colours, but that didn't make her a bad mother, she didn't think. Tony was happy, she thought, smiling to herself behind her sunglasses as she watched him play in the sandbox with a few other toddlers. He was growing up to be a very fine boy, with a mass of dark curls on his head that tended to fall into his eyes, with an infectious smile and lovely little dimples and a knack for managing to ask at least ten questions containing the word "Why" for even the simplest of conversations. It was his favourite word. That, and "How."

She supposed it was the scientist in him; he simply couldn't help it, not with all the science texts Howard read to him and all the electronic equipment strewn around the nursery amidst brilliantly coloured blocks and toys. She watched him play make believe with a Captain America action figure, and silently prayed that his budding sense of creativity and curiosity would never be squashed. She wasn't going to let Howard do that, she determined, her mouth set firmly. Not to her son. She might have let it happen to her, but she'd sooner throw herself off the Brooklyn Bridge than see it happen to Tony.

The only concession Howard made towards child-appropriate things was a fat stack of Captain America comics that Maria always made sure were lined carefully in Tony's bookshelf at the end of the day, spines facing out, numbers all in order. Tony loved reading the books, would convince her to lie down on the nursery floor with him while he read out loud in a high-pitched, stumbling voice that tripped over big words. He would pick up a Captain America action figure, would fly it through the air and make all the sound effects with his mouth twisted in all sorts of shapes, and Maria couldn't help but smile.

"Mama," Tony said, "is Captain America better than Superman?"

Maria smiled down at Tony, already all of two years old and growing faster and faster by the day. Soon he'd be off to some sort of accelerated pre-school and the house would be dead quiet in the mornings; she stored the sounds of his round vowels and syllables in her memory so she wouldn't be too lonely when he inevitably went off.

"Hmm," she said, pretending to think very hard. "I don't know. What do you think?" she asked him.

"I think Captain America is better," he said quickly, as if he had been waiting for her to ask him all along.

"Why do you say that?" she asked him, smoothing an errant curl behind his ear. She would need to take him to get a haircut soon; it was growing rather long.

"Superman is so silly," he said, as if that explained everything. "He has bunches of powers and is super strong and super fast, but if he puts on glasses and a blue shirt he isn't Superman anymore. How come, Mama? And how come no one knows he isn't Superman?"

Maria smiled sadly. "Well," she said, tapping her chin thoughtfully, "I suppose he puts on a disguise so that people don't see he's Superman."

"But whyyy?" Tony asked, looking up at her curiously. "Why wouldn't he want to be Superman all the time?"

Maria shrugged. "Maybe Superman is very sad," she said. "He probably misses his home - because Superman's not from this planet, remember? He's from somewhere far off. He probably misses his home and his mum and dad, but he doesn't want anyone to know he's sad, because he's supposed to protect them, so he has to put on glasses and a blue shirt and they make him feel better."

Tony frowned, processing the information. "I guess," he said unsurely, after a long pause. "But I still think he's very silly."

Maria smiled, leaning over to press a soft kiss to Tony's forehead. "Yes," she agreed. "I think he is very silly, also."

I'm starting to hear things all the time now. I wish I could tell you why, or how, or who they are, or even what's going on. I'm not even sure if these voices are real, or if they're just some auditory hallucinations or the like.

I don't remember a lot. I know my name is Steve Rogers; I know I couldn't go to war because of the draft and my physical condition, my reports all stamped across with big, glaring F's; I was born on July 4, 1920 in Brooklyn; my dad, Joseph, died when I was a kid, so I don't remember much of him; and my mum died when I was...fifteen? because she had pneumonia. My best friend is Bucky Barnes; he got selected to fight, of course he did, Buck was always good like that, perfect, strong physique, smart, intelligent, had a way with the girls.

I wonder where I am? Maybe it's a set of recurring dreams that somehow make progress every night.

That woman really does sound sad, though. She cries a lot after she puts her son to bed (I'm pretty sure it's her son, unless Tony is a girl's name now), when she thinks nobody can hear. I want to tell her that I can hear her, but my lips are still kind of stiff. I've been trying to mouth words, but it's still rather hard to move my mouth and tongue around to form the sounds.

She was talking about Superman and a man named Captain America with her son today. I've heard of Superman, sure, every kid's heard of Superman, but who's this Captain America fellow? He sounds like a great guy, really patriotic, really knows what this country's all about.

I wonder what his civilian name is? It's probably something cool. With a superhero name like that, it has to be cool.