A Successful Failure (Prologue)
Summary: Howard Stark has dedicated himself to recreating the serum that produced Captain America. His son, Tony, is a successful failure.
There had been failures.
There had been so many failures. Good men, good soldiers, that had believed in the necessity of this project, that jumped at the chance, at the idea of it, and that paid for their eagerness with their lives. Failure was a bitter pill to swallow and Howard Stark had swallowed it so many times that it seeped through his entirety like poison.
The problem, he at last decided, was the stress of the change upon the body. His chemical formula was not an exact copy of Doctor Erskine’s, for he only had the man’s notes to work with and he had never committed the final formula to paper. He had determined it to be too risky and, at the time, Howard had agreed with him. Now, it was frustrating to no end that Howard had only preliminary information to work from. The only formula he had managed to create that was in any way stable was also more potent and volatile than the good doctor’s. The damage it caused to the molecular structure of the human body was just not something someone could survive. The changes were too drastic, too overwhelming.
The solution came to him on a rare night spent at home instead of in the lab. His wife -it was a political marriage. He married her because her family was obscenely wealthy and he required the funding her father was willing to give him, and she married him for the connections, so that she could be the wife of Howard Stark, the most brilliant man of his age -was pregnant and not enjoying it in the least. She was not happy with what the pregnancy was doing to her figure, not pleased that she had to weather such an inconvenience when surely they could have paid someone to have the child for them. It was all about image, Howard had needed to remind her.
Her belly was swollen, though she had many months left to go. Howard stared at it. If he could introduce the formula to a fetus, perhaps it could endure the change and unite with the formula. It could not only be revolutionary, it could be evolutionary; Howard could very well be creating the next step in human evolution. It all seemed very possible.
Maria miscarried the first child just minutes after the formula was administered. The second and third fetuses each lasted longer than their predecessors, but neither made it to the third trimester. The fourth was stillborn, a near success.
The fifth child was Howard’s last hope. Maria had put her foot down, if this, too, was a failure than it was the end of it. She would not lose another child to Howard’s experimentations. But, there was no need for such antics. Anthony Stark was born in perfect health and Howard was overjoyed. At last, a success.
Of course, Howard was a scientist. He would need to see how Anthony grew, to see if he would survive to adulthood, before he even attempted to publicize his work.
As Anthony grew, Howard was more than pleased with his progress. His metabolism ran at nearly three times the rate of an average child his age, his cognitive abilities were frankly astounding, and he never got sick. He was walking and talking at nine months, building basic robotics before most children started school, and began his undergraduate work at the tender age of fourteen. When he was injured, he healed remarkably fast; bruises disappeared within minutes, his broken arm at age eight healed in less than two weeks.
There were disappointments; though limber and certainly physically fit, Anthony didn’t appear to have any form of superior speed or fortitude. His best reflex seemed to be his mind. He wasn’t any faster or stronger than any other teenager with his size and muscle mass. He was hardly Captain America and Howard realized by the time Anthony was ten that more adjustments would need to be made to the formula during future experiments to achieve the outcome they’d witnessed in Steve Rogers.
Still. He would deem his son a successful failure, if nothing else. He would announce it to the world, as well, just as soon as Anthony turned eighteen.
It was perhaps a good thing that Howard and Maria Stark died seven weeks before that happened.
There had been failures.
There had been so many failures. Good men, good soldiers, that had believed in the necessity of this project, that jumped at the chance, at the idea of it, and that paid for their eagerness with their lives. Failure was a bitter pill to swallow and Howard Stark had swallowed it so many times that it seeped through his entirety like poison.
The problem, he at last decided, was the stress of the change upon the body. His chemical formula was not an exact copy of Doctor Erskine’s, for he only had the man’s notes to work with and he had never committed the final formula to paper. He had determined it to be too risky and, at the time, Howard had agreed with him. Now, it was frustrating to no end that Howard had only preliminary information to work from. The only formula he had managed to create that was in any way stable was also more potent and volatile than the good doctor’s. The damage it caused to the molecular structure of the human body was just not something someone could survive. The changes were too drastic, too overwhelming.
The solution came to him on a rare night spent at home instead of in the lab. His wife -it was a political marriage. He married her because her family was obscenely wealthy and he required the funding her father was willing to give him, and she married him for the connections, so that she could be the wife of Howard Stark, the most brilliant man of his age -was pregnant and not enjoying it in the least. She was not happy with what the pregnancy was doing to her figure, not pleased that she had to weather such an inconvenience when surely they could have paid someone to have the child for them. It was all about image, Howard had needed to remind her.
Her belly was swollen, though she had many months left to go. Howard stared at it. If he could introduce the formula to a fetus, perhaps it could endure the change and unite with the formula. It could not only be revolutionary, it could be evolutionary; Howard could very well be creating the next step in human evolution. It all seemed very possible.
Maria miscarried the first child just minutes after the formula was administered. The second and third fetuses each lasted longer than their predecessors, but neither made it to the third trimester. The fourth was stillborn, a near success.
The fifth child was Howard’s last hope. Maria had put her foot down, if this, too, was a failure than it was the end of it. She would not lose another child to Howard’s experimentations. But, there was no need for such antics. Anthony Stark was born in perfect health and Howard was overjoyed. At last, a success.
Of course, Howard was a scientist. He would need to see how Anthony grew, to see if he would survive to adulthood, before he even attempted to publicize his work.
As Anthony grew, Howard was more than pleased with his progress. His metabolism ran at nearly three times the rate of an average child his age, his cognitive abilities were frankly astounding, and he never got sick. He was walking and talking at nine months, building basic robotics before most children started school, and began his undergraduate work at the tender age of fourteen. When he was injured, he healed remarkably fast; bruises disappeared within minutes, his broken arm at age eight healed in less than two weeks.
There were disappointments; though limber and certainly physically fit, Anthony didn’t appear to have any form of superior speed or fortitude. His best reflex seemed to be his mind. He wasn’t any faster or stronger than any other teenager with his size and muscle mass. He was hardly Captain America and Howard realized by the time Anthony was ten that more adjustments would need to be made to the formula during future experiments to achieve the outcome they’d witnessed in Steve Rogers.
Still. He would deem his son a successful failure, if nothing else. He would announce it to the world, as well, just as soon as Anthony turned eighteen.
It was perhaps a good thing that Howard and Maria Stark died seven weeks before that happened.