5. The First Time I Saw Me

Dear Friend,

The first time I saw me—

Or the new me—

Or whatever I am now—

I didn't recognise myself.

It was like waking up from a dream, but instead of shaking off the fog, everything was too sharp. Every sound was louder, every colour brighter. Colours I didn't even know existed floated before my eyes, and I was just staring at everything, taking it all in. The wave of green uniforms. Stark's dark brown eyes staring at me in a mix of admiration and concern. The creams and beiges of the experimentation room. The array of coloured lights across the circuit boards. The chocolate locks of Peggy's hair, thin veils of auburn filtered through the curls, pushed back from her face. Her bright red lipstick...

My own breath felt strange, my heart pounding like a drum inside a body that wasn't mine.

I sat up too fast and the room lurched around me. Someone tried to hold me steady, but my arm shot out on instinct, and suddenly, they weren't just pushed away. They flew across the room.

That's when I saw my hand.

Bigger. Broader. Steady.

It didn't tremble the way it used to. It didn't ache from cold or crack from scars left by too many fights I couldn't win.

I flexed my fingers, and it felt like I was borrowing them.

I wondered if they could still make art like they used to.

Then I saw my reflection.

I should have known it was me staring back at me in the reflection in the window. Should have realised, logically, that the man staring back at me was me.

But he wasn't.

He was tall. Muscular. Shoulders squared, chest broad, face clean of bruises or cuts.

I had spent my whole life looking up at people. At bullies, at officers, at doctors shaking their heads. But now, if anything, I was too tall. Too much.

I stepped closer. Reached out.

Touched my own reflection.

Was this always within me?

I should have felt something—pride, maybe, or relief.

Instead, I just felt… wrong.

The room was chaos when it happened, when I stepped out of the chamber. I barely had time to take in the looks on their faces—Phillips muttering a stunned "My God", Peggy Carter watching me like she already knew I'd be something more from the moment she met me.

And then the gunshot.

Doctor Erskine, the man who seemed to have breathed life into me with this serum, with this experiment, dropped to the floor, dead. He didn't move, blink, breathe, and I stared at him, my own breath hitching.

I saw red.

I didn't think.

Didn't hesitate.

My legs moved before I knew what I was doing, carrying me faster than I had ever moved in my life. I chased the assassin out into the street, across cars, through crowds. Every step was too easy. My lungs didn't burn. My legs didn't shake. I was running faster than I ever thought possible.

It should have been exhilarating.

It wasn't.

Because I didn't stop him.

Erskine was dead.

The man who saw something in me—who believed I was more than just some kid from Brooklyn—was gone.

I keep replaying it in my head. The way he looked at me before he died. Like he was trying to tell me something, one last time.

No words. Just a nod.

Like he knew I'd understand.

But I don't.

Because I don't know what I am anymore.

And I don't know how to be what they need me to be.

Yours,

Steve