All right, I've been thinking of doing something like this forever. Today, I had some free time, so I sat down and wrote it. It's not as angsty as my other stuff, hooray!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers, the concept of the super soldier serum, or Erksine.

They didn't get it wrong. The serum, I mean. The serum was always perfect. What they didn't understand was the recipient. They always got the recipient wrong.

There was a reason I didn't just give the serum to anybody. The serum will latch onto the person, not their body, but their mentality. It will bring out the best and the worst in you. In your mind, not your body.

Steve… Steve was a good kid. Humble, kind, and strong. He wasn't muscular or heavy, no. He was resistant, and moral. Righteous.

So the serum took that and gave it a bodily form, and Captain America was born. Good, strong, and wise. Quick, agile, and smart. He was Steve Rogers, and nothing more. He was the Steve that was meant to be.

But the others… They weren't all good, like Steve was. Like they needed to be for the serum to be "successful."


Bruce Banner. He was a good man, yes. But he had anger management issues. So the serum latched on to that, and turned Bruce Banner's soldier into one triggered by rage.

He had a major inferiority complex, so the serum latched onto that, and turned Bruce Banner's soldier into one that felt the need to prove his strength.

He was brought up in an abusive household, so the serum latched on to that, and turned Bruce Banner's soldier into a monster.


Natasha Romanoff. Or, at the time of the injection, Natalia Alianova. Natalia had the potential to become a great person, she really did. But with the way she was raised and taught, she was not.

At the time of the injection, Natalia was young, and there was not much for the serum to latch onto. So it took her basic identity and enhanced that.

Natalia was beautiful, but in a youthful manner. The serum took that, and warped it. She grew and became a beautiful woman, but in the span of a few minutes rather than years. Her skin stayed clear and pale, her hair long and lush, her body full and desirable.

Natalia was clever. The serum took that, and boosted it. She became a manipulator rather than a soldier. A spy, not a fighter.

Natalia had a fire in her soul. The spirit of a fighter. But because the serum had already made her a spy, it couldn't make her a fighter. So it made her stronger and hardier.

In essence, the Red Room took the super soldier serum and made it into a super spy serum.


And finally, there was Tony Stark.

The serum was injected into Tony just a minute after he was born, by an overzealous father that wanted his almost-son back.

Tony Stark was different from all the others, in the sense that the serum did not make its changes apparent. Yes, he received the full benefit of the serum, but he hid it.

He hid it and it looked like it went away, but it was always there. The serum doesn't let go that easily.

Anthony was smart; there was no doubt about it. Even before the serum, Anthony had a genius-level IQ. So when Howard injected the serum into the squalling baby that was his son, that was the first thing the serum went for.

It enhanced his brain to a level no human on Earth could even begin to comprehend. Not Bruce Banner, not Reed Richards, not Bruce Wayne. Anthony had such an advanced brain that he was thinking and talking in full sentences before he left the hospital.

Anthony was strong. He had, born with him, the inborn ability to take anything life threw at him and turn it to his advantage. So the serum took that, and turned it into an almost supernatural ability to get back on his feet no matter what happened.

But because Howard couldn't raise Tony like Steve had been raised, Tony's greatest ability had been locked.

Tony just couldn't be a good person.

He tried, he really did. But when the serum was working its hardest, when Tony was a toddler, he wasn't raised to be good. Instead, Howard, for the most part, ignored him, leaving Tony sarcastic, tough, and incapable of feeling human emotions.

It's a shame, really. Tony would have made a great Captain America.


There were countless others that tried recreating the perfect super soldier. They all failed, of course, but that's what you get when you don't read the instructions.

The ones in Moscow, Beijing and Rio de Janerio were particular disasters. Mutants, horrible mutants, all of them, with barely the ability to think in a normal human fashion.

Some of them only enhanced a tiny part of the recipient. Like Clint's eyesight was the only thing changed about him.


Nobody really understood it, I guess, when I wrote heart and brain over body. I guess they just dismissed it as a doodle. I meant it, though, what I wrote.

Everyone else was chosen for something other than their heart and brain. Usually it was the body, but sometimes it was just luck. It was always the wrong person, though. Always.

They never really saw my notes, I made sure of that. There were a few things in those notes that were just not meant for the general public, but they saw enough.

I made sure heart plus brain over body was in those notes. Yet they ignored it. Bruce Banner, the Red Room, even Howard Stark ignored it.

I guess it might have been a good thing, though. It brought the ragtag group of five experiments (plus one Asgardian god) and made them into a group of heroes. The Avengers.

Heh. That's catchy.

And maybe, when they… perish, they'll come here too. They'll come to this place, where time and space mean nothing, where the only thing there is to do is think. The place that is white and pristine and pure and clean. Yes… I think they really will come here.

I really would love to see Steve again, such a nice boy. And I'd love to officially meet Natasha and Bruce and Tony and Clint. I really actually do hope they come here.

To the place where all super soldiers meet.