The next morning I was up and early, getting ready to swipe some food from strangers and open shop windows. Like everyday, I couldn't afford to pay for food, so I just stole. I never used my abilities for this, though, because it was really noticeable really fast.

New foods had been introduced to me through this, like oranges. I had orange flavored things back at the tower, but never an actual orange. The real thing? So good, it's not even funny. They were just so good and didn't leave behind any waste since it's all natural! Okay, so I have a love for oranges. Sue me.

I had a very small pile of clothes to choose from, and went with a pair of blue jeans, a black crop top, a bulky sweater that was white, gray, and black, and some black combat boots. The layering was just in case I needed to do a quick change to get away from someone who saw me stealing or recognized me. I also had a hair tie on my wrist, ready to put my hair up if needed.

Leaving the building carefully, I went ahead and tried to see if anyone was holding or carrying any food. The quick look gave me a "no" so I went ahead and walked down the street to the same place I always go.

This was the closest area to the building I lived in that had the most restaurants and grocers. It wasn't like an open air market by any means, but there was enough stuff just sitting around outside that it wasn't too hard to just grab something and go.

Today it was a bit cooler, so there weren't as many people I could blend in with. In addition to that, I noticed less food sitting out.

The cooler part of autumn and winter are approaching, and it does get pretty cold in New York, so I didn't know what I was going to do when it got too cold outside for food to just be sitting out in the open. My anxiety peaked a bit at the thought, but I shook my head and it went away. What I needed to worry about was getting food now, not the future. It doesn't do me any good to stress about something so far away right now.

At the first shop, I grabbed a paper bag and some little bags of chips to go in it. At the next one, it was mostly fruits, so I grabbed a few of those (including a couple extra oranges). The next place was a little bakery and was harder to steal from, so I just admired the smells that met my nose as I passed.

I played with the hem of my sweater as I got closer to another store with some snack foods outside, like granola bars and bags of chips. There was a store next to it that had drinks sitting outside it. People were crowding around both, passing the stuff outside and going inside as well. I merged into the crowd seamlessly.

At the first store, I found it easy to grab some snacks and slip them into my bag. Another thing I had learned the past few months: most people really don't care if they see you steal. If you look dirty and poor enough, people will turn a blind eye to you taking a few snacks. I have gotten a few glares and side eyes, but nobody has ever really spoken up to store owners/employees.

At the second store, I needed to be a bit more careful with my swiping. Bottles and cans like these were somehow harder to grab without getting noticed. I always went after water at the very least, because people don't care too much if I steal that. Now, if I stole some precious person's Coca-Cola, they wouldn't be as happy. And when I grabbed the first bottle, I would take a sip and then put it away, followed by me taking more.

There was a middle-aged woman standing near me as I grabbed a water bottle. She gave me a strange look as I opened it and drank some, before slipping it into my bag. The last action caused her to glare at me, and I saw her walk away. Again, that had been the worst thing to happen to me so far, so I didn't care too much.

I grabbed a couple more bottles, then eyed a bottle of soda. It looked really good, and I remembered having a bit back at the tower. It was a rare treat back then, too, because it wasn't healthy and I was training; the two didn't exactly go together.

Today, I wanted to get myself a little something- a little motivation for the search I'd be conducting later. Without any more hesitation, I grabbed the bottle and slipped it into my bag, then gave myself a small smile. I'm pretty sure a small kid watched me, but I didn't care.

"Hey!" The shout caused my head to snap up and look in the direction it came from. I saw a very tall, lean, angry man staring me down and pointing at me accusingly, the middle-aged woman from earlier behind him with her arms crossed and a smirk plastered on her face. "You better pay for those!"

I couldn't, and I bet he knew that, because he started to stomp over to me. My heart rate picked up slightly. There was no thinking for the next few minutes of my life. Because rather than putting them back or trying to find enough money to pay for at least one, I turned my back to him and bolted.

His angry shouts followed me as I sprinted down the street, clutching my bag to my chest with one arm and moving people out of my way with the other. As I ran, I could hear him shouting behind me more and more. There were police officers straight ahead who looked over to see the commotion. The man shouted, "Thief!" That word grabbed the officers' attention, and they moved to stop me.

As I said earlier, I wasn't thinking over the next few minutes. With my abilities, I awkwardly slid something across the ground to trip up the officers as they tried to make their way to me. For the man chasing me, I made him trip over his own feet. He fell with a loud 'oomph' and I turned the next corner I could.

Just because I stopped them temporarily, doesn't mean I'm in the clear. After turning a couple more corners and finding myself far away from where I was, I took my sweater off and tied my hair up in a bun. I abandoned the sweater in a trash can and started to walk like a normal person.

I heard some yelling from behind me and recognized it to be the man chasing me. Rather than turning to look, I just kept walking away, hugging my bag to my chest so he wouldn't see it.

So much for trying to lay low.

~~

I got back to 'my' apartment a little while later, but only after I was sure nobody was following me. After losing the police and the man, I walked around for hours. My abilities had been used in the wide open- surely that attracted some attention. After the second hour, I was pretty sure no one was following me. After the fourth, I was 100% sure no one was following me. After the sixth, I found my way back to this crappy little room I called home.

Even after all of that fun, I managed to keep all my stuff mostly in tact. The soda was shaken up quite a lot, so I left that to calm back down.

My biggest downside to my arrangement, something I deal with every time I go out for food, is that I have no refrigerator for my perishables. So I have to drink to soda quickly (for it to taste any good) and eat the fruit today and maybe tomorrow. The waters and the other snack things can wait. Not a healthy diet, but I don't have many other options.

I glanced over to the laptop, tucked away in the bag, sitting on the desk. Even though I was waiting to research until I had a much better way to record it, I could still be productive on that laptop.

Grabbing an orange and the soda, I walked over to the desk and got the laptop out and open, then started working on the orange. My mind raced as I wondered what to start looking up first.

My first thought was to look up doctors that were extremely skilled- skilled enough to help me. I should have waited in Wakanda and gone through cyro. I shouldn't have left so quickly when I knew this was something I had to get rid of. After leaving Wakanda, I knew I had fucked up big time; I mean, who leaves one of the only places that can help you when you're a danger to society? Me, that's who.

But then, a large part of me wants to look up the others I hadn't earlier- the half that get to live normal lives and not get locked up in some water prison where they get shocked until they die. The half I was supposed to be a part of.

I don't know how I'll react to seeing Stark again. He was there and I opened up just a bit to him, but enough to tell him why I had signed the Accords. My heart rate picked up as I flashed back to the cells I had been kept in at Hydra and the one I was wrongly put in at the Rift. I wonder if Stark even knows what happened to me after the airport. Did anyone tell him that Ross attacked me and shoved me in a prison cell where I got shocked a little bit too often? Part of me wants to believe he'd care about what happened to me. The pessimistic part of me said he couldn't care less.

Curiosity got the best of me, and I searched up 'Tony Stark' to see the most recent news on him.

The first thing that came up was an article about a rumor that he was moving out of the tower. I didn't pay much attention to it, and moved on. There was an article about Stark's involvement in the Sokovia Accords and things that happened at the airport- a lot of people wanted him to answer for what happened there.

After a few minutes of searching around, I realized I was just wasting my time. There just wasn't anything going a lot in his life that I cared about or that affected me heavily. I already knew I wasn't going to be getting many results if I looked up any of the others who signed.

Time for the second part of my researching journey. With my sticky squares and a pen to my right, I got to work on researching the best doctors and surgeons in the world.

The easiest start was to simply look up 'Best Doctors in the World' and then go through each link. For hours I read through top ten lists, writing down each doctor on a sticky square, the area they specialized in, and stuck them to the wall. When a doctor showed up a second time on another list, I wrote a little more about them and stuck that second square under the first. Admittedly, I did use my abilities to move the first squares higher up and be able to add more squares under. I really had to with one doctor.

Doctor Stephen Strange. His name showed up so many times, possibly once on each list I looked at. He was ranked at many different spots, but mostly in the top five. His column of sticky squares was the longest with each one talking about a different achievement, high-level surgery, and just his skills in general. This man was seriously skilled.

Based on some quotes I saw from him as well, he's extremely cocky. Doctor Strange knows he has skills and wants everyone else to know that, too. Part of me wants to respect that, and that was the part of me that solely cared about getting better and getting these curses out of my head. The triggers needed to go for sure, and the abilities are going to get me caught. If I don't have either, maybe I could be free to live my own life.

My mind was made up, and I was sure that I had to find Doctor Strange was the man to help me. He could find a way to help, he was brilliant for fuck's sake. If I had a way back to Wakanda, I'd go back there. Sadly, however, I don't. So Doctor Strange will have to work.

The next step was to look up where he worked. At this point, I'd go anywhere- Japan, Korea, England, France, across the country- I was desperate. Somehow I could find my way across the ocean.

I was shocked to see that he was in New York City. That was maybe the best case scenario, the one I was sure was not going to happen. And yet, here we are. I only have to travel a few blocks and I'm at the hospital he works at. My first step, however, was to contact this man. And by the way he sounded during my searching, that would be a bit difficult.

There are some things Hydra taught me, however, that I didn't mind. Like how to find things out... I was pretty good at that.

~~

After an hour and a half to two hours of searching around, I found a personal cell number for him. Now all I needed was a phone. Either I could steal one and then dump it somewhere or use some change and a payphone. No matter what, I was ready to start moving on. I was ready to forget my past as the Shadow Soldier and begin a life as Reyna-Rose.

I didn't plan on coming back to this place, so I packed up my sad amount of belongings (most being stolen) and got ready to go. The stuff pretty much fit into my food-gathering-bag, the exception being the laptop bag with the laptop inside.

The one other thing I had in the laptop bag was a picture. It was just the photo itself- no frame, no extra things- and I put it in there to assure it would stay flat and in good shape. I had only dwelled on the picture for a few minutes when packing up, because looking at Wanda's face again was nice and painful at the same time.

I had both bags over my shoulders and was ready to leave. My combat boots were on and I had a discreet outfit on. My blue jeans were the most reliable pants I had, and with that I had a black t-shirt and gray, cotton, zip-up hoodie. Not only was it comfortable, but it was what almost every young person in New York City was wearing.

My plan was in action, and I couldn't help but feel a bit giddy. The next step: find a payphone or steal a cellphone- whatever happened first. I honestly didn't care. After that, in which I mean after I convince Doctor Strange to fix me, I will meet him at the hospital he works at (Metropolitan General Hospital) and we will figure out where to go from there. He's the best doctor in the world, so he's got to be able to do something, right?

The moment my back was turned, the windows behind me were smashed. My instincts took over at this point; duck, cover head, put up forcefield. I looked to my bags that had fallen to the floor, and shoved them into a corner far away from the fight. There was no way I was letting what little things I have get destroyed or taken by whoever just broke in.

Speaking of, I looked up and over to the people who just landed on the floor of the apartment. I counted 5 men, each armed with AK-47s and handguns on their hips. What made me go cold was the bright red symbols on their chest. My fear came true: someone saw me use my abilities and now they're coming for me.

My forcefield stayed up as we all stared each other down, the silence deafening. The five of them staring at one of me. Even though they were covered head to toe in gear and I couldn't identify a single feature, I knew they had looks to kill. Hydra agents always did.

"Gentlemen," I greeted.

A/n: I think my plan will be to post a chapter every night until I run- which will either be when I've caught up to where I've stopped writing or when this book is over.