A/N

Halt! Two more chapters were released today! If you missed them, you should read them!

1991, May, Stark Laboratories:

Howard sat back in his chair, dragging a hand over his face. So close. He was so close. He knew it, could feel it in his bones. But the damn stubborn chemicals just wouldn't do what he wanted them to. If only he'd managed to get one of the vials of Rogers' blood from the U.S. government. Or, at the very least, had convinced Peggy to give him back the one he'd been allotted. He sighed, trying to reset a little. This was just another problem - problems had solutions. He dropped his hand and looked back down at his notes with eyes that felt as dry as the Sahara, trying to make the words make sense again. Finally, though, he decided that he was in desperate need of sleep. Maybe things would look different tomorrow. He got up, his aging joints creaking, and pushed in his chair.

Down the hall, a door clanged open loudly - Howard's head jerked up a little, holding his breath for a moment as footsteps came running down the hall. He relaxed a second later as John Polansky came bursting around the corner of the doorframe and into the room, his cheeks red with excitement.

"Jesus, John, you're going to give me a fucking heart attack," Howard admonished, looking irritated, but John waved him off - an uncharacteristic attitude for the younger man. It silenced Howard.

"Heart attack, schmeart attack, Howard - I figured it out!" John half-yelled in his excitement, and Howard's gaze was drawn to the piece of paper in John's wildly gesticulating hand.

"Give it here, then!" Stark ordered, but there was an excitement in his slowly widening gaze, and John handed over the half-crumpled piece of paper with a bright grin, and Howard turned to flatten it on his desk, beginning to scan the paper, memorizing as he went. "Good god..." he breathed after he reached the bottom of the page, and he looked back up at John. "You're right. This... this will do it."

John's grin just grew wider, and he nodded. "I know! We can try synthesizing it tomorrow - begin animal trials soon after that-"

Howard cut him off with a shake of his head. "No animal trials. Not how we do it with this stuff, Polansky. It's not made for anything non-human. Besides, would you really want to try and contain a souped-up macaque? Imagine how far it could throw its shit at you. No - we'll start synthesizing tomorrow, and we'll start looking for candidates."

"But-"

"John, trust me. A good candidate will do a lot more for us than wasting serum on a monkey. We need to look for a man-"

"Or woman," John butted in helpfully, and Howard sighed, waving his hand.

"Or woman," he agreed, and continued, "Who models the extremes of good ethics, of good morals. This isn't a power that you give to just anybody or anything. If we produce anything like the original, it's imperative that we create a hero, not a monster."

Polansky nodded, the grin replaced by a more serious expression. "Then we'll find someone. Still, Howard... I don't know if we're going to make another Rogers."

Howard cleared his throat, turning with the excuse to pick up the paper of notes on his desk, bringing it up to look at again. Steve's disappearance was his greatest failure, and it still stung after all this time. On the days he felt like being a little more fair to himself, he told himself that the technology of the day just hadn't been conducive to finding Steve, but there was always a part of him that told him that if he'd just tried a week longer... If he thought that there was even a chance Steve could still be alive after these near-50 years, he would renew the search. But he was too pragmatic for that.

"There will never be another Steve Rogers. I know that. Hell, pretty sure my son's said the same thing to me during one of our arguments. But we can't give this to just anybody," he said finally, and handed the paper back to John. "Memorize that, and then burn it. The whole formula can't be on paper. It can't fall into the wrong hands."

John took the paper and nodded, looking far more somber than he had when he'd come bursting in. "Yes, sir," he said quietly, looking down at the paper for a moment, then back up at Stark. "Alright, well... Before this all kicks off, I'm going to go home to my wife and try to get some sleep. I suggest you do the same, Howard."

Stark sighed a little, but nodded. "I will. Get rid of that paper, and then get some rest. We have a busy day tomorrow."

John nodded, and after one last look at Stark, he turned and walked back out.

A/N

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