Senator Brandt was having a terrible day, and it hadn't even started yet. He had been sleeping comfortably in his bed with his wife when the jarring sound of the frantic knocks on the door had woken both of them up. Instead of getting up to see what the problem was, he just lay there muttering, wishing for the disturbance to go away. Squinting at the clock on his nightstand in the dim moonlight coming through the curtains revealed that it was almost three in the morning, an obscene time of night to disturb someone's sleep. The knocks continued. Eventually there was shouting outside his door.

"Senator Brandt," the call came, "you're needed immediately!"

Unpleasantly assured that the interruption of his night would indeed continue, he threw on his housecoat and went to the door. Irritated, he blinked the sleep out of his eyes and squinted at the man at his door. Choking back his first impulse to scream at the man, he took a moment to see who it was who dared to disturb him at his home. As he looked at the stressed face illuminated by the faded yellow porch light, recognition sparked in his mind; he'd seen that pale thin face before, and frequently.

"You're the intern for Doctor Erskine, right? What's so urgent?" As he looked at the intern's baggy eyes and unusually grave expression, his heart began to sink. "What has happened?"

"Not here, you need to come with me. All I can tell you is" at this he leaned in and began to whisper "there was an incident at the lab tonight. Doctor Erskine has been shot by a Nazi agent."

Chilled at the potential negative repercussions of the event on the Super Soldier program, the senator took a moment to throw on a suit, kiss his wife, and then rushed out to the black car.

.

The City that Never Sleeps was unusually sedate that night. It was a quiet ride to the lab hidden in the city. The intern had refused to state anything beyond what he had already said besides a quiet "Just prepare yourself" that only instilled a deeper worry within Brandt.

They came to the shop, a front for the experimental science below, windows dark and room empty. After unlocking the door, and quietly making their way through the back, they had made it to the lab.

Despite the fact that there were only six people the large room, it was chaos. Scientists and doctors rushed back and forth, white lab coats flying behind them, as they shouted medical jargon to each other in frantic voices. After a closer look, the senator realized that there were two patients, not just Doctor Erskine.

To the right was a cot inhabited by an incredibly built young man; he seemed to be unconscious, as he didn't acknowledge the men monitoring his condition. On the far side of the room was another cot which held the dying Doctor Erskine. Brandt rushed over, as the situation seemed much more dire on this side of the room.

The old man had held on surprisingly long for such a serious wound, but his heart was beginning to fail. Seeing the senator, he grabbed his arm and with as much strength as he could muster he pulled him down to whisper his last words: "Tell him I'm sorry..." he paused as a wheezing rough cough rattled his body, "tell Rogers ... I'm sorry ..." he gasped for his last shallow breath and his words trailed off as he lost consciousness for the final time.

In that brief moment before his death, he had felt guilt, such a horrid feeling. It was also a new sensation, that uncomfortable tightening in his gut that said, 'I did something horribly wrong and unforgivable'. Never before had he regretted the amorality of anything he had done. It was assuaged enough by his apology that, for a moment, he was calm. Then he was no more.

.

The scans were in progress, and Howard Stark stood watching over them, scrutinizing every detail to see what the data presented. He knew he could do nothing about Erskine's condition, so he was going to get as much data on their subject before he either died or was taken away. He may not have been a biologist -chemistry and engineering were much more his forte- but he still knew valuable information when he saw it. He was somewhat disgruntled, in a callous sort of way, when Senator Brandt made the announcement that the doctor had died. It was interrupting his train of thought. It didn't mean anything to him; their alliance had been temporary, until the program was done, and he was much more interested in the science he could observe in front of him. He wasn't given this liberty because the senator had come to see who was the other source of the flurry in the room.

The first thing Senator Brandt noticed as he was walking toward the occupied cot was the strain on the young occupant's face. The eyebrows were scrunched together in some unidentifiable emotion, even though the man was obviously still completely unconscious. What next became apparent was the rapidly dimming sunburn on all the exposed skin he could see. What had been cherry red as he had entered the room was dimming to a rich tan, covering the developed abdominal muscles of the exposed torso.

"Who is this?" He quietly posed the question to Stark. He had requested that any attempts at the super soldier program be approved through him, as he was the senator who had gotten the permission, and the grant, they were using. Stark hadn't wanted to be publicly connected to the project, so his funds were off limits. Obviously they had gone around his orders.

"His name is Steve Rogers," the answer was returned just as quietly. The normal bravado associated with the name Stark was absent. Calmly spoken, the attempt was to head off the rage to come, if only for a few minutes.

"Why haven't I heard about him before? You both knew that I expected the candidate for the serum be approved by me before going into trial. I'll ask you again, who is this, and why wasn't I informed about him?"

While Howard Stark was not one to be intimidated, he knew he was already going to deal with consequences. He didn't want to add a point against him by refusing to cooperate with simple questions. The police didn't need to be involved, and if he could possibly ensure that, then he could relax. If they were involved, there would be a much higher probability of the news reaching the media, which he absolutely did not want. He geared himself up, ready to face the wrath at what they'd done.

"His full name is Steven Grant Rogers. Erskine hadn't wanted to risk such an extreme failure as he had in the past, so we deemed him an acceptable test, a weaker specimen of humanity that would really show the full potential of the changes the serum would induce. And it did, as you can see: he's no longer the 90 pound man in a child's body that he was. Erskine drugged him, I had them picked up, and we injected him with the serum and powered up the ultraviolet rays. It was a full scale test, an exact trial of what we planned on doing to the actual candidate. And this time, it seems it was successful."

"So you're saying that you kidnapped a small man, a civilian, and forced an experimental medical procedure on him, without his consent!" His voice steadily rose towards an angry yell. "Look what's happening NOW! You have a super soldier, one who is here UNWILLINGLY, whom you've ALIENATED!" Dropping down to a furious hiss, he made his final statement, "I'm taking over. You're losing all of your jurisdiction here, all of you. This project is officially over. You better pray to God that this man doesn't try to press charges for all you've done to him, because I'll be behind him entirely."

.

Both men were oblivious to the man behind them, whose heart beat was rising, quickly. Eyes cracked open, as Steve Rogers once again woke to unfamiliar voices and surroundings.