I carried my luggage as I descended the steps from my room and set them by the front door. Dr. Erskine would be here soon, which meant I would be leaving soon. I sat in the living room, looking out the window, waiting for the Doctor to magically appear. A very fancy car pulled up to the front of the house, and Dr. Erskine stepped out, along with another, younger man. I had seen him somewhere before, but I wasn't sure where.

"Mom! Dad!" I called. "He's here!" 

I turned away from the window and something on the coffee table caught my eye. A magazine, and on the front cover was a man. I looked down then shot my head back towards the window to look at the other man with Dr. Erskine. 

"Oh my God," I muttered. I looked back at the magazine with Howard Stark's face on it in disbelief. "This guy knows everyone."

My parents came down the stairs and joined me at the front door. I decided not to tell them that Howard Stark was about to walk into our house, I just really wanted to see their reactions. Dr. Erskine knocked on the door and my dad opened it. 

"Good morning, Mr. Flint." Dr. Erskine smiled and stepped inside. 

"Good morning." Mr. Stark followed and both my parents stood in their places, dumbfounded.

"Mr. Stark vill be our transport today, Eleanor. He's been helping me with my second project." Dr. Erskine said to me. 

"As long as the trip isn't long." I nodded.

"Think of it as a road trip, Miss Eleanor Flint, a pleasure to meet you." Mr. Stark nodded to me. "I read all about you in the newspaper, and I must say I am fascinated with your abilities." 

"Thank you, Mr. Stark. We have a magazine on our coffee table, and it includes articles about your inventions and I am very impressed." I smiled. "We get it every month." 

"I hate to break the socializing, but we are on a tight schedule, Eleanor, now vould be a good time to zay goodbye to your parents." Dr. Erskine said.

I turned to my parents, and my mom was already tearing up. It took a lot in my power not to break down right there, I knew I had to be strong for my parents, show them that I was ready to take the next steps. 

"Hey, I promise to write to you both, and remember I will see you again," I said. 

"We know what you're doing is for the greater good, and be sure those letters are constant." My dad put his hands on my shoulder and kissed my forehead.

"Hey mom, at least I won't complain about the fireplace." I turned to my mom. 

"Oh stop." Tears fell from her eyes as she grinned. "I know you'll help our country, just be safe." She looked at Dr. Erskine. "You keep her safe, you understand?" 

"I vill do my best, Mrs. Flint." He smiled. 

"Go, before I keep you here." My mom wrapped her arms around me and I did so as well but lifted my hands from her back. My dad joined the embrace before they let me go, and Dr. Erskine, Mr. Stark, and I were walking towards the car.

Mr. Stark opened the door for me, and before I got in, I turned and waved to my parents, and blew them a kiss. Dr. Erskine put my luggage in the trunk and got into the passenger seat while Stark got into the driver's seat. Only when we left my neighborhood did I start to cry. I quickly wiped the tears from my face with my coat sleeve before they froze to my face, it has happened before. 

"Vould you like us to set your mind on something else?" Dr. Erkstine noticed my tears. 

"Please," I said. 

"What shall we talk about, Miss. Flint?" Stark asked. 

"Tell me about your second project and the new dictator," I replied. "And, you can call me Ellie."

Dr. Erskine reached to the side of his seat and pressed a button, which turned his seat around to face me. "Alright. The second project iz one that I have been vorking on for quite some time, it iz a serum, that I hope vill turn an ordinary man into a Super Soldier, in which their strength vill be enhanced, their speed, and metabolism. An almost perfect human. I'm hoping that if I find the right man, he can defeat the new dictator with your help. Now this new dictator, he vas once known as Johann Schmidt, he leads a Nazi Group known as HYDRA. Schmidt got a hold of the Serum before it vas fully perfected and he obtained the powers, but through great cost." 

"You want me to kill a man with superhuman powers?" I repeated.

"Vith the help of our Super Soldier." Said Erskine. 

"And that is?" I asked. 

"We don't know yet, Abe has been on the hunt, recruiting men for the Army that he thinks are worthy of the Serum." Mr. Stark replied. 

"Huh." I nodded.

Dr. Erskine turned his seat back around, we were now driving through downtown Manhattan and towards the airport. 

"Wait, I didn't know we were taking a plane, I don't have any tickets, did you get tickets? I might freeze the entire plane." I leaned forward in my seat. 

"Calm down, Ellie." Mr. Stark laughed. "I have my own plane, it'll be a nice, quiet, private trip to New Jersey." 

"I've never flown in a plane before," I said. 

"I can tell." Mr. Stark looked at me in the rearview mirror, a smile glinted in his eyes.

At the airport, Mr. Stark parked the car in a hanger where a plane was with 'Stark Industries' painted across the side of it. We got out of the car and Mr. Stark got my luggage out of the trunk and handed it to a man who carried it onto the plane.

Dr. Erskine put his hand on my back. "If you are vorried about flying, you barely feel anything except for take-off and landing." He said. 

"Thank you." I nodded before we stepped forward and boarded the plane.

Inside, there were six comfortable looking seats, three on each side, and the front four faced each other with a table in between them. I looked into the cockpit and saw that there was no pilot in there.

"Excuse me, Ellie." Mr. Stark slipped past me and sat down in the pilot's seat. 

"You're the pilot?" I asked. 

"Yes, and a fine one at that." Dr. Erskine sat at a table. "Come sit." He gestured to the seat in front of him and I took it.

"Mr. Stark, you are clear for takeoff." A voice came from the cockpit on a radio. 

"Thank you." Mr. Stark replied.

~~~

There was a little bump and as I looked out the window, we slowly lifted off the ground.

"New Jersey, here we come." Mr. Stark called from the cockpit. "Stay in your seats until I say so."

I looked out the window to watch the airport and Manhattan get smaller and smaller. There goes my childhood.

"Alright, we're steady now, you can move about as you please." Said Mr. Stark.

"Vould you like some water?" Dr. Erskine asked me. 

"Yes please, and thank you." I nodded. 

He stood up and walked to the back of the plane where there was a rolling cart that had a canister of water and a tin ice bucket. He opened up a cabinet below and got out two glasses, filled one with ice, and was about to fill up the second one.

"Oh- um, Dr. Erskine no ice, please... Um, it tends to enhance my abilities to produce the stuff where we don't want it." I stopped him. 

"Of course." Dr. Erskine smiled and filled the second glass with water. "I vill take note of that."

He came back with the two glasses and set the iceless water in front of me. I hadn't taken my glove off yet, so I took the glass and drank the water. A bit a cool air came from my nose and fogged the glass, leaving a bit of frost.

"Whoops." I removed the cup from my lips and set it down.  

"Does that happen often?" Dr. Erskine asked. 

"Yes, I've learned to hold my breath in my nose but I get there's so much going on right now I forgot about it," I replied. 

"So let's say you blow on this glass vindow- don't actually do it- but what vould happen?" Dr. Erskine asked.

"Frost would spread across it." I looked at the window. 

"Is it just glass?" He got a notepad from his back pocket and a pencil and began writing.

From what I could read upside down and of his messy, quick writing, I got 'do not give ice in water.' 'Breath can also produce frost.'

"I mean I never tried, once my parents and I figured out I had these abilities, we tried our best to avoid me freezing anything," I said. "I know that I can freeze glass and metal. I've never tried on anything else." 

"How did you find out about these abilities?" Dr. Erkstine asked me. 

"I was slowly becoming cold to the touch when I was eight, it slowly went away throughout my entire body, but now it has concentrated in my hands," I explained. "My parents took me to a few doctors, thinking I was sick, all of them thought it was Raynaud's Disease, except my hands aren't sensitive to the cold and I don't show all the symptoms and there was no way I could have inherited it. After a while, they just sort of gave up and we found ways to cope with it."

"Ven did you first produce ice?" Dr. Erskine asked. 

"It was one of those few days when I could actually go outside, it wasn't too hot out and I had gotten bored, so I went outside to play with my friends in the street behind my house," I said. "My friend, Adam, had the idea to have everyone stand in a circle, and we'd bounce the ball to the person opposite us. At one point, the ball rolled out onto the main street, and Adam went out to grab it, I was the only one to see the car coming down the road, and before I could say anything, I reached out my hand and screamed his name, scared to move. Then, a shard of ice shot out from my outstretched hand and pierced the tire of the car, stopping it before Adam got hit. After that day, I was never allowed outside again." 

Dr. Erskine lifted his pen from his notepad and looked at me, he had written down "emotional trigger". 

"This shard of ice was able to pierce a car tire?" Mr. Stark asked from the cockpit. 

"Yes. Sharp as a butcher's knife." I confirmed. 

"Wow. Think of how many army trucks you could take out with ice like that!" He exclaimed. 

"I've only done it once, I doubt I can do it on command," I said. 

"We vill work on that." Dr. Erskine said. "Along vith some other things."