[June 1940 - Sterling Enterprises Medical Wing]
The screaming started at 3:47 AM.
Alexander Sterling arrived to find Isaiah Bradley strapped to a reinforced medical bed, his enhanced muscles straining against restraints designed to hold a car. The soldier's eyes rolled wildly, seeing enemies that existed only in the fractured landscape of his mind.
"GET DOWN! THEY'RE IN THE TREES!" Isaiah's voice cracked like thunder. "THE TREES HAVE EYES!"
"Sedative's not working," Dr. Erskine reported, hands trembling as he adjusted dosages. "His metabolism burns through it faster than we can administer."
"Double the dose," Alexander ordered.
"That could kill him!"
"He's killing himself." Alexander moved closer, studying Isaiah's dilated pupils. The enhancement had worked—too well. His body could bench press a truck, but his mind was fragmenting like glass under pressure. "His neural pathways are overloading. The serum enhanced everything, including his capacity for trauma."
"We should terminate the project," Erskine whispered. "This is inhuman."
"This is necessary." Alexander's voice carried the weight of futures only he could see. "Isaiah, can you hear me?"
The soldier's head snapped toward him with inhuman speed. For a moment, clarity flickered in his eyes. "Doc? The trees... they're watching. Like back home, when they'd string us up and—"
"You're safe, Isaiah. You're in New York. In my medical facility."
"No... no, I can smell the burning. Always smell the burning." Tears streamed down Isaiah's face. "You made me strong, Doc. Made me strong enough to tear down those trees. But they keep growing back."
Alexander felt something crack in his chest. In his first life, he'd read about Isaiah Bradley in comic wikis. A footnote. A tragedy summarized in bullet points. This was different. This was a man breaking apart in real-time, paying for Alexander's ambitions with his sanity.
"Increase the neural inhibitors," he said quietly. "Keep him sedated until we can stabilize the psychological effects."
"If we can stabilize them," Erskine corrected.
"When." Alexander turned away from Isaiah's wild eyes. "I won't lose another one."
But he knew the truth. Without the herb extract, they were just creating broken weapons. Beautiful, powerful, and completely unsustainable.
[Sterling Enterprises Secret Lab - Sub-Level 3, Later That Morning]
The private elevator required three different keys and a blood sample to access. Alexander descended into his secret kingdom, where impossible things grew under artificial suns.
The herbs thrived in specially modified chambers, bathed in radiation frequencies that mimicked the unique properties of vibranium-enriched soil. Each plant represented millions in black market acquisitions and carefully orchestrated "archaeological expeditions."
"Afternoon, beautiful," Alexander murmured to the nearest specimen, checking its growth with the attention of a parent with a gifted child. "Ready to change the world?"
The herbs didn't answer, which was probably for the best. If they started talking, he'd have to seriously reconsider his life choices.
He moved to the extraction station, where concentrated essence waited in climate-controlled vials. The purple-tinged liquid held the key to everything—stability Erskine's formula lacked, power without the price of madness. Three drops could enhance a mouse to the point of beating a cat in single combat. Five drops had made said mouse explode like a tiny, very confused grenade.
Fine line between enough and too much—story of my life.
Alexander pulled up his private notes, encrypted in a cipher that mixed three languages and comic book references no one in this timeline would understand:
Erskine's serum + 0.003% herb extract = stable enhancement. Margin of error: ±0.0001%
Too little: standard failure
Too much: explosive cellular reconstruction (purple)
The math was elegant. The ethics were not.
He prepared a fresh batch, measuring with the precision of someone defusing a bomb. The herb extract merged with Erskine's formula like it had been waiting for this marriage all along. The chaotic molecular structure suddenly made sense, stabilizing into fractal patterns that suggested divinity was just chemistry with better PR.
Alexander prepared two identical vials—one with the perfected formula, one with Erskine's original.
When the time comes, a simple switch. Erskine gets the credit, I get the formula, everyone wins. Except the people who try to replicate it without the secret ingredient.
[Sterling Enterprises Training Facility – Early Afternoon]
Steve Rogers hit the mat for the seventh time in ten minutes, breath coming in desperate gasps. His instructor—one of Oleg's protégés—looked bored.
"Stay down, little man. No shame in knowing limits."
Steve pushed himself up on trembling arms. "I can do this all day."
"That's what you said six falls ago."
"Still true." Steve raised his fists, stance wrong but spirit unbreakable.
Alexander observed from the observation deck, making notes. Every other candidate focused on their strengths—muscle, speed, aggression. Steve had none of those. What he had was something rarer.
"Getting your money's worth?" Peggy Carter materialized beside him, silent as always.
"Steve? He's an investment in potential."
"He weighs ninety pounds soaking wet. Your enhancement subjects need to survive the process."
"Physical survival, yes. But the serum amplifies what's inside." Alexander nodded toward Steve, who was getting thrown again but somehow smiling. "Most men would have quit by now. He's been here three hours."
"Stubbornness isn't strength."
"No, but it's the foundation strength is built on." Alexander turned to her. "Tell me, Agent Carter—would you rather have a soldier who follows orders or one who refuses to give up?"
"I'd rather have one who can actually fight."
"Fighting's just physics. Weight, leverage, momentum. All solvable problems." He studied Steve's determined expression. "That? That's unsolvable. You either have it or you don't."
"You sound like you've already chosen him."
"I've chosen to give him the same chance as everyone else." Alexander headed for the stairs. "Whether he takes it is up to him."
He found Steve in the locker room, pressing ice against blooming bruises.
"Rough session?"
Steve jumped, then straightened despite the obvious pain. "Dr. Sterling. I was just—"
"Getting your ass handed to you. I saw." Alexander sat on the bench. "Most candidates try to impress me with how strong they are. You're impressing me with how many times you stand up."
"Not sure that's worth much in a fight."
"You're not here to fight. You're here to become." Alexander studied him. "Tell me, Steve—why do you want this?"
"Same as everyone. Want to serve my country."
"Bullshit." The profanity made Steve blink. "Everyone says that. I'm asking why you want this. The real reason."
Steve was quiet for a moment. "You ever been helpless, Dr. Sterling? Watching bullies hurt people and knowing you can't stop them?"
"Go on."
"I've been small my whole life. Weak. Sick. Watching guys like those instructors push people around because they can." Steve's jaw set. "If this serum works, I could stop them. Not just here—everywhere. Every bully who thinks might makes right."
"And if it doesn't work? If you die on my table?"
"Then I die trying to be better. That's gotta count for something."
Alexander stood. "Be here tomorrow for the final candidate evaluation. 0600 sharp. Don't be late."
"Yes, sir." Steve paused. "Dr. Sterling? Why are you doing this? The program, I mean."
"Because the world's about to get much more dangerous than anyone realizes. And when it does, we'll need people who keep standing." He headed for the door. "Even when they shouldn't be able to."
[Sterling Enterprises Training Facility – Next Day, 0600]
The volunteer evaluation was a circus disguised as science. Twenty-seven men in various states of undress, being poked, prodded, and put through paces by Erskine's medical team. Alexander studied the proceedings from the observation deck, making notes.
"Hodge is the obvious choice," Phillips said, appearing beside him like a camouflaged criticism. "Look at him. Ideal soldier material."
Alexander observed Gilmore Hodge doing one-armed pushups while winking at a nurse. "Ideal arrogance material, maybe. The serum amplifies what's inside, Colonel. You really want to amplify that?"
"I want to amplify someone who can survive the process."
"Survival isn't just physical." Alexander nodded toward the obstacle course where Steve Rogers was failing spectacularly but refusing to quit. "Sometimes it's mental."
"The Rogers kid? You're joking."
"I'm considering all options." Alexander made another note. "Tell me, Colonel—what wins wars? Individual strength or unbreakable will?"
"Bullets. Bullets win wars."
"Bullets fired by men. And men break. All of them, eventually." Alexander kept his eyes on Steve as he fell again, rose again, tried again. "Except maybe the ones who are already broken and choose to keep going anyway."
Phillips grunted. "Philosophical bullshit won't stop German tanks."
"No, but it might create soldiers who can." Alexander spotted Howard Stark entering the facility, already three sheets to the wind despite it being barely afternoon. "Excuse me, Colonel. I need to prevent Howard from proposing to the nursing staff. Again."
He intercepted Howard by the water cooler, where the inventor was making a martini with medical alcohol and stolen olives.
"Bit early, isn't it?"
"It's five o'clock somewhere." Howard raised his improvised cocktail. "Specifically, in my liver, where time has no meaning."
"The evaluations—"
"Are going perfectly. Everyone's very healthy before we inject them with super-soldier juice and hope for the best." Howard took a sip and winced. "Maybe I should stick to scotch."
"Maybe you should stick to water until after we've selected candidates?"
"Where's the fun in that?" But Howard set down the martini. "Fine. But only because you asked nicely. And by nicely, I mean you look ready to throw me off the roof."
"Only the third floor. You'd probably survive."
"Probably isn't very comforting."
They watched the evaluations continue. Steve Rogers was getting lapped on the track by everyone, including a man with a prosthetic leg, but he kept running.
"Why him?" Howard asked quietly. "I mean, I get it. Heart of a lion and all that. But the process might actually kill him."
"The process might kill anyone. At least with Rogers, we know what we're amplifying." Alexander thought of Isaiah in the medical wing, sedated and broken. "Sometimes the strongest steel comes from the weakest iron."
"That's not how metallurgy works."
"It's a metaphor, Howard."
"A bad one."
"All metaphors are bad if you think about them too hard." Alexander checked his watch. "Speaking of thinking too hard, have you solved the Vita-Ray calibration problem?"
"Mostly. Probably. Maybe." Howard shrugged. "I've got it down to a fifteen percent chance of cellular combustion."
"Fifteen percent chance of our volunteer bursting into flames?"
"When you say it like that, it sounds bad." Howard brightened. "But hey, eighty-five percent chance they don't!"
"Your optimism is terrifying."
"Your realism is depressing. Together, we make one functional human being."
They watched as Erskine called the volunteers together, beginning his speech about the honor of service and the risks involved. Steve Rogers stood at attention despite exhaustion, focused on every word.
"You know," Howard said suddenly, "sometimes I wonder what would happen if we just... stopped. Told Phillips it can't be done. Went back to making flying cars and better radios."
"Schmidt wouldn't stop."
"No," Howard agreed. "He wouldn't. That's the hell of it, isn't it? We do terrible things because someone else is doing worse things."
"The arithmetic of war." Alexander turned from the window. "Come on. Let's make sure your Vita-Ray chamber doesn't cook our volunteers. Literally."
As they headed for the lab, Alexander caught one last glimpse of Steve Rogers.
Hold on, Steve. One more day. Then you get to become who you were always meant to be.
And I get to become someone who makes miracles happen by letting others take the credit.
Fair trade, really.
Probably.