History Maker – Dean Fujioka
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Dear Diary,

I'm not entirely sure how this whole diary thing works, but my dads tell me it's worth it and to trust them because they've been logging their day-to-day since the '30s... and they didn't mean the 2030s, either.

They're pretty well known at this point in their lives, if not for their published books than for their time as members of the Avengers... or fugitives of the world, either one, but probably both.

I guess that's why I'm so unsure about keeping a diary myself. They, along with everyone else on the planet, are going to expect me to be so well-spoken and for my story to be epic like theirs are. I know I won't be able to live up to their lives, and I almost feel like they expect me to, even though they'd never say it out loud.

Seriously, there's no other epic romance like theirs in the history of the world, there's no way I could possibly transcend that even if I wanted to.

To further my point, I was named after two incredibly important women; my grandmother Sarah Rogers, and my aunt Rebecca "Rikki" Barnes. But that's not even the half of it.

Ever since I was born, there were expectations placed upon the rest of my life. You see, I was the first person to ever possess not only one but two variations of the super soldier serum coursing through my veins. I've always had super strength, accelerated metabolism, enhanced reflexes, and a healing factor like my dads, and that's a lot to deal with as a little kid.

We never told anyone for the sake of a 'normal' school process for me, especially because it was easy to tell everyone I was adopted considering how biologically old both my dads are. And, to that end, my name was never mentioned in documents regarding my family; in other words, I've only ever been mentioned as 'the adoptive daughter of Captain America and The Winter Soldier' or something equally as ambiguous. Not only that, but I couldn't allow myself to be outed and, as a result, get bullied... or someone would get seriously, physically hurt over it- and that person would likely not end up being me.

I've also been 'training' since I could walk. It wasn't even my dads' idea- it was my Aunt Natalia's. She thought a young girl with enhanced abilities like me should never have to lose control; her husband, my Uncle Bruce, agreed wholeheartedly and understandably so.

So, every day after school was (and sometimes still is) training time with my dads and/or aunts and uncles with ballet lessons a few times a week. They've been the best possible trainers I could ask for, but I wish I could be normal sometimes, too. Normal in more than just the obvious.

The fact that I even have two dads still shocks people. Like, news flash, it's 2046, not 1946. And I refer to them as my dads when people ask, but when it's just us three, it's:

Steve Rogers-Barnes = Dad, because he's as much of a classic American dad as it gets.

and...

James "Bucky" Rogers-Barnes = Papa, because I've been speaking Russian since I was a kid, and in Russian, dad is either Papa (папа) or Papochka (папочка).

The story of which parent I'm actually related to is never mentioned in conversation with anyone outside of the family because there's a lot involved, and most people know to assume that I'm adopted... even though that couldn't be farther from the truth. Although, before I get into that, there's actually a rumor I wanted to address regarding, well, my birthright.

Before the resurgence of The Winter Soldier, but after the reanimation of Captain America (so, between the years of 2011 and 2014), a rumor surfaced that Steve Rogers wasn't as fully homosexual nor as faithful a partner to his thought-to-be-dead boyfriend, James Barnes, as he said he was in his later-released-book. It was said that, while James was in a relationship with a woman known later as Natalia Romanova during his disappearance, Steve was in a relationship with an unknown woman as well. She was spotted leaving his private residence on numerous occasions during that time and was described as a tall brunette who was not yet identifiable as a powered person. After the blip and the publication of Steve's Diary, the rumor grew to state that this woman was Peggy Carter because the people of Earth grew to know that time travel was possible and assumed Steve and Peggy had been using that to their advantage well before the public knew it was a possibility. The woman thought to be Peggy stopped showing up when The Winter Soldier reappeared, but many assumed it was because she had become with child and started living somewhere else for her and the baby's safety. There have been few reports on the mystery woman and her supposed child since 2014, but many still believe that Captain America has a 32-year-old biological daughter, that she's namelessly out there, powered and using the alias Crusader.

That's a complete lie, though, none of that ever happened, but we let everyone believe it did so that they can assume without question that I'm adopted and, by default, not powered.

What really happened was, back in 2029, my dads decided they wanted a kid (that's me) but they weren't sure how they could go about it seeing as they didn't want only one of them to be fully related to me.

Papa's first instinct was to ask Aunt Nat because she always knew what to do. She even said she would've been a surrogate for them if she had a uterus to offer. Since she didn't, though, they started on a search for a woman who would know what to do with their goal.

Dad's idea was to ask Aunt Wanda, who proceeded to tell them that being a surrogate wasn't a good idea for her- seeing as she was practically doomed to only be able to birth twins like my cousins Billy and Tommy (who have already become fully realized heroes of their own creation).

Either way, Aunt Wanda said she had an idea that could still help.

Her name was Anna Marie.

Her hero alias is Rogue, and since my birth, she's actually married a man named Remy LeBeau (whose hero alias is Gambit). She (and her husband), like Wanda, is a human mutate- a Mutant if you will. She knows Dad from a while back and said she'd volunteer once she heard the extent of the circumstances.

Basically, Aunt Wanda used her chaos and reality-warping magic to bind Dad and Papa's DNA before placing it within Aunt Anna. She was then pregnant for 9 months like any normal person and there I was, on November 17, 2029; a natural-born hero.

16 years later, here I am, writing in this damned diary about my life up until this point for no reason at all. It's not like I don't know my story already. It's almost as if I'm preparing these pages to be published like I'm nearly certain they will be by the time I'm done with them.

I mean, I'm in high school and I have superpowers, which sounds like the beginning of a terrible drama TV show (but isn't, I promise). Sure, some of my dads' friends' kids are at the same high school as me, but there's still a vast majority of 'normal' people there surrounding us. We're definitely in the minority as much as that may seem untrue.

And high school is the same for all of us: annoying, boring, and full of all different kinds of people and cliques. And there are some people I've just wanted to punch in the face over the past few years, but we all know how that would end: them with a broken, busted face and me suspended with their blood on my hands.

I haven't come up with an alias yet, but I'm sure I'll have to pick one eventually if I want to fight crime like Billy (Wiccan) and Tommy (Speed) and all the others. There are so many hero groups out there right now that want me to join them- especially here in New York City, with headquarters at the Baxter Building and Stark Tower, as we all still call it. Perhaps I'll just go out there with my actual name, like Jessica Jones, or a new version of my name like Luke Cage... or maybe I won't fight crime long-term at all. Who knows?

I have so many decisions to make and so many restrictions to put on myself to not seriously injure my classmates sometimes that it's hard to deal with classes and homework and all that kind of 'normal teenage stuff,' too.

But I have a good feeling about this year, about my friends and about my classmates.

Hopefully, my intuition is right.

~ Sarah R. Rogers-Barnes