dysphoria
(n.)
an unwell feeling

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"those who do not believe in magic will never find it."

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The morning was cold. The room was dry and dark. Everything smelled deliciously of peppermint and warm cinnamon. Through the curtained window, white snowy light from the street lamps peaked. It was still early in the morning and much of the neighborhood was still sleeping.

In this particular house, there were three. A self made billionaire who had invested too much of himself into his job and country. An act that would ultimately kill him. And man who was but will most likely never be acknowledged as an American hero. Too many of his early days were filled with women and sarcasm.

His wife was once a beautiful broadway actress and founding Ford model. She had found her billionaire and somehow tamed his restless soul. She had followed him like religion. An act that would ultimately kill her.

And their son. A personality identical to his father. Only he was heir to the empire his father had built. It was resting on this young man, built up of genius and asteism. His fatal flaw was so different that that of his parents, however. He felt responsible for everything. And he never gave up. He never retired. He never slept. And though this moment was far from near, it would be his downfall.

Maria, the wife, had fallen asleep with the most anxiety she had ever retained within her small body. She was expecting her death today. But she wanted to avoid it. Not because she was scared of dying. She knew her son needed her. She knew that her son, the most outstanding, extroverted, outspoken man on the island of Manhattan was only a giant ball of anxiety that had armed itself with a couple spikes for an illusion of toughness.

He wasn't ready to be away from his parents. And Maria knew it all too well. She knew it well enough to steal sensitive files from her husband's job. She knew it well enough to give a former Soviet assassin and current hired assassin/hitman one million dollars to avoid her death.

She met with the ominous woman a week prior an entire ocean away. She promised she would contact her before they left. And knew Maria and her husband were to leave in hours. No words from her assassin.

But Howard would know something was wrong if she did not sleep. He knew her well enough to tell if she was faking. So she slept with nightmares and
anxiety buried with her under her smooth silk sheets and wool stuffed comforter instead of staring out the window all night long at absolutely nothing. But the thing that woke her that morning was a ringing phone.

2:36 a.m.

Maria's eye exploded open as she crawled out of her bed in a cold sweat, trying her best not to wake her husband. He was deep sleeper, so she wasn't too worried. Her silk gown had bunched around her waist as she slept, so as she walked to her phone, the cold silk dropped down her legs to her ankles.

"Hello?" she whispered through the phones.

"You two just drive. Don't worry about anything. I'll be ahead of you in the city and to the side in the country," her assassin told her over the phone. It was no problem at all for Natalia to call her. She didn't want to meet up. She decided that Hydra would be keeping tabs on Howard Stark and his closest relationships.

And besides, electronics were a breeze for the young seeming spy. "Mr. Stark still doesn't know you hired me?"

"No," Maria answered with a shake of her head. She looked over to her sleeping husband. "He can't know. Or else you'll have some inconveniences."

Mark knew that Howard would feel as though it were his duty to as co-founder and member of the S. H. I. E. L. D council to do something about knowing the whereabouts of one of the most internationally wanted criminals alive.

"Alright," Natalia's voice came over the phone. "I'll be here as soon as you leave."

"Thank you so much," Maria told her.

"No need," said the spy. "You're paying me."

Then she hung up. Maria laid  the phone down on the cold wood table and looked around she and Howard's bedroom lovingly. The kind sized solid frame bed the Howard has made specially for them during the fiat year of their marriage. The brilliant chandelier that hung over the bed. The cold, clean wood floors beneath her feet. The window seat that she had read on countless times.

There was a large chance she'd never see it again. She got dressed in a powder blue two piece that she had worn to church the previous Sunday. She did he make up classically and packed her bags incase they made it. But by then, it was 4 a.m.

She nudged Howard awake so that he could do the same.

She hoped to God that Tony would be home before they left. Walking into their living room, she saw him. She saw her son. Her baby boy. She let him sleep a bit longer as she walked around the house and lit all the Christmas decorations.

She wanted to wake him in a way that he would remember if he never came back. She sat down at the grand piano in the room and placed her fingers on the keys. The she let her mind take over, playing the lullaby she used to sing to Tony when he couldn't sleep at night.

"Try to remember the kind of September..." she sung sweetly.

Tony could hear the piano sing. He knew it was his mother. And that she was waking him up. But he didn't want to wake up. He wanted to keep listening to her song. When she began singing the the familiar tune, he decided to never wake up. Just to lie down on that couch and let the music sink in.

"...where the grass was green," Maria continued. She heard Howard enter. "Wake up dear. Say goodbye to your father."

Howard walked over to the couch where Tony was sleeping as he put on his jacket. He lifted the blanket to see Tony's face. Maria wasn't the only one who figured they wouldn't be coming back. Tony was wearing a Santa Claus hat that had obviously came from what ever Christmas party he had crashed on the couch after. Peggy just could keep him from it.

"Who's the homeless person in the couch?" Howard asked rhetorically, a lot colder than Maria would have liked. Tony rolled off the couch and stood before his father and mother.

He wore sweatpants, a Mister Softee shirt, and of course the Santa hat. Everything a billionaire business owner's son and heir should be expected not to wear. He did disappoint Howard. But not the the degree Tony thought.

They were simply just too alike.

"This is why I love coming home for Christmas right before you leave town," Tony countered his father. Maria sighed as her fingers still tickled the keys. They were too much alike.

"Be nice, dear," Maria told Howard. The last thing she wanted was for them to fight before she and Howard left. "He's been studying abroad."

Howard made a false surprised face. "Really? Which broad? What's her name?"

Tony rolled his eyes and looked down at his feet in embarrassment. "Candice."

"Do me a favor," Howard said. "Try not to burn the house down before Monday."

"Okay, so it's Monday," Tony said holding his hands up in relief. "That is good to know. I will plan my toga party accordingly."

He walked away from his father to the other side of Maria as he stuck his hands in his pockets. "Where are you going?"

Maria stopped playing the piano and looked at her son. "Your father is flying us to the Bahamas for a little getaway."

"We might have to make a quick stop," Howard added.

Tony rolled his eyes. "At the Pentagon," he said sharply. "Right?"

He bend down in Maria's face. "Don't worry. You're gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary," he told her sarcastically.

Howard stood behind his wife and threw another shot at his son. "You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. It that's true, you're going to be a great man someday."

Tony rolled his eyes at he father and turned his back to him as he leaned on the threshold to the foyer.

"I'll get the bags," Howard told Maria.

Maria just stared at her son as her husband walked back down the hall.

"He does miss you when you're not here," she revealed to Tony, hoping he would hear what she was trying to tell him. "And frankly, you're going to miss us."

She stood up and walked over to Tony. "Because this is the last time we are all going to be together," she told him, hoping to God she was wrong.

She put her purse over her shoulder as Tony looked up at her. "You know what's about to happen."

Tony tried his best to hide his sadness. But everyone he loved was leaving him. Peggy and his mother was hitting him the worst.

She grabbed his arm pleadingly. "Say something," she begged. "If you don't, you'll regret it."

Howard stood behind him, waiting for Maria to come. He looked back at his father. He wanted to say his loved him. Because home did. But he didn't want to give the man the satisfaction. Tony knew he didn't love him. So hé turned back to him mother and waited for them to leave.

Maria, almost in tears, left a kiss on Tony's cheek and left with Howard out of Tony's life forever.

And Tony had always regretted not saying anything. The young man watched helplessly as his mother turned his back to him and walked out the door with his father.

Though it was only a moment, his brain seemed to stretch it out over a year. It seemed like it took three months for the cursed door to shut. To shut his favorite person out of his life forever. He body went numb. He let himself slide to the floor, burning his face in his hand, silently sobbing the morning away.

Outside, Natalia watched Stark open the passenger door for his wife for her to sit. The he loaded the trunk with all their bags. Included the steel, locked, and guarded briefcase that contained the serum that the entire world seemed to be after. She watch as Howard sat in sat in the drivers seat and crank the engine to life.

Natalia did the same, staying ahead of the couple, scanning for ever possible change of assassination. She knew it would mnt happen in the city. She knew the Winter Soldier's head. No witnesses. Most likely a staged accident. If the Winter Soldier was ever the one to be doing this.

They drove for about thirty minutes until they had to cross the bridge. In order to get there, they had to go over a backroad. And it was so early in he morning. Natalia knew it would happen here. She knew it in her bones.

She turned down a dirt road where she hid a motorcycle. It was easier for get around with it. She drove in the wooded area alongside side the road that Howard and Maria would so drive down.

Everything was so dark. The air was so cold. All that lit the night were the dull street lamps placed here and there. But with all this, she could sense his presence already. James. No. Not James.

The Winter Soldier.

The wind carried the scent of wet metal, used leather, and musk. His smell. She could her the soft clinks of him fidgeting impatiently with his dominant hand. There were fresh imprints in the dirt from another bike. It was him. With a strong dysphoria, Natalia tuned her bike off. If she knew he was here, then there was no doubt he knew the same.

And the Starks were less than an hour and a half away.

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