Rory returned to New York half a month later.
Coming out of a dental clinic, he headed back to the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan with the tooth he had just had extracted. His laboratory was located in a disused rubber factory near the the seaport. After the factory went bankrupt, it had been repossessed by the bank and left vacant, and Rory had rented one of the bays to use as a lab.
Sealing the laboratory door, Rory put on his white lab coat, cap, mask, and goggles. He walked over to the workbench and carefully took out the extracted tooth. Hidden inside the tooth were several capsules, and inside those capsules were blood samples belonging to Thanos and Jessica Jones.
That was right—this was the method he had used to smuggle blood samples from the future into this era.
Including the blood sample of the frozen Captain America, all three different blood samples were placed into vessels to begin re-culturing and cloning. Lacking computer processing power and the precision instruments needed for analysis, Rory's research progress was excruciatingly slow.
With Captain America's and Jessica Jones's blood samples to work with, and after countless rounds of trial and error, Rory finally developed a relatively mild serum sample. This serum was not a hybrid of Captain America and Jessica Jones; it was a pure Thanos serum. Their blood samples had merely served an auxiliary research role, acting to dilute and reduce the overwhelming potency of the Thanos serum.
What Rory wanted was the pure ancestral bloodline of the Eternals, not some haphazardly fused monster lineage.
The current serum sample could not be used directly; it required much more refined genetic programming. This step merely unlocked the door to creating the ultimate Thanos-strengthened formula. However... since the door was already open, completing the true enhancement formula was only a matter of time.
***
Peggy Carter brought Steve Rogers to the headquarters of Stark Industries.
"Hello, I have an appointment with Howard Stark."
After checking the system, the assistant led the two into the elevator. When they arrived at Howard's laboratory, Howard Stark was bent over his work, deeply engrossed in his research. He only instinctively raised his head when he heard Peggy cough.
"Oh, Peggy, long time no see..."
Howard walked over, intending to greet Peggy with a warm hug, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Steve Rogers standing beside her and froze in his tracks.
"You're... Steve?"
"Hey, long time no see," Steve Rogers said, raising a hand in greeting.
Howard Stark said in disbelief, "Oh, I can't believe it. You're still alive."
Steve gave a bitter, helpless smile and shook his head. "To be honest, I didn't expect to be alive either."
Frozen for seventy years, waking up to find that the world had completely changed and his familiar friends had passed away one after another—after fighting battle after battle, he had somehow returned to this exact point in time that he had accidentally missed. Everything felt so surreal.
"How did you..." Howard wanted to ask how he had survived and where he had been all these years.
Intending to steer the conversation elsewhere, Steve Rogers interrupted, "That's a long story. To be honest, I'm here today because there's something else I need your help with."
"Steve, the war is over. What you should be doing right now is enjoying life," Howard said, glancing at Peggy with a teasing smile.
Peggy naturally slipped her arm around Steve and replied with a smile, "I think you should put down your research, go home, and pay some attention to your wife, because you're about to become a father."
Steve Rogers felt a strong sense of displacement across time and space. It felt as though he had been fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Tony Stark just yesterday, yet today he was already hearing the news of Tony Stark's impending birth. This intense sense of detachment served as a constant reminder to Steve that he did not belong in this world.
"You're right. All right, let's hear what kind of help you need."
Howard took off his goggles and gloves, walked over to the coffee table to pour two glasses of whiskey, and handed them to Captain America and Peggy Carter while waiting for them to speak.
Steve Rogers blurted out anxiously, "Stark Industries has invested in someone named Rory, but I can't find him. So I want to use Stark Company's name to set up a meeting with him."
Hearing this, Howard stared wide-eyed and spread his hands. "Just this little thing?"
"It might seem like a small thing to you, but it's very important to me. This man named Rory poses a huge risk." Steve Rogers hoped he was just overthinking things, but looking back, something had always felt a bit off. To make sure Rory wouldn't cause any trouble, Steve Rogers felt it necessary to check on him in person.
Howard turned to look at Peggy Carter. Seeing Peggy nod, he smiled and said, "Fine, fine. After all, you're the Captain. I'll arrange it."
Howard Stark was also one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D. Though he didn't understand why Steve Rogers was looking for this person, since Peggy nodded, she must have her reasons. Howard Stark immediately contacted the investment department to have Rory's investment file sent over.
As he looked through the file, he said, "Rory is researching in the field of biochemicals. He accidentally discovered a medicine that can treat mental illness, and through Stark Industries' channels, he obtained the clearance for clinical trials... See for yourselves."
Steve and Peggy Carter began reading it together. At first glance, they didn't spot any problems; even Steve began to think he was just being paranoid. But when Steve read through it a second time, he seemed to notice something amiss.
"Howard, is the experiment completion time recorded here correct?"
Howard took a glance and nodded. "That's right. The projected timeline for the first phase of the experiment is three months, and Stark Industries will inject secondary investment funds based on the experimental data. Is there a problem?"
"Yes, a huge problem. If Rory wanted to create a medicine like this, he wouldn't need three months at all. He might only need three days..."
"How is that possible? What kind of joke are you playing on me?" Howard declared that was completely impossible.
Howard himself was a scientist, and he knew that experimental research required an immense amount of time and energy. It was certainly not as simple as Steve Rogers made it sound.
Steve didn't want to expose the existence of time travel, and he had no way to explain that Rory was someone from a future timeline. Rory himself was a researcher. If he truly came from some future temporal node, then creating a medicine ten years more advanced than the present should be an absolute breeze. Yet Rory hadn't done that; instead, he had set up a lab under the guise of research. This couldn't help but arouse Steve's suspicions.
With a grave expression, Steve said, "Howard, you have to trust me. This person is not as simple as you think."
***
At that moment, Rory was in the middle of an in vivo experiment.
Holding a syringe in one hand and a white laboratory mouse in the other, he injected the subject and placed it back inside a tempered glass enclosure. He locked the lid, turned on the camera, and intently observed the physical changes in the mouse.
"Squeak... squeak..."
The mouse scurried randomly inside the tempered glass box, its little nose twitching from time to time. After about twenty seconds, the mouse suddenly became agitated, darting frantically and crashing into the walls of the tempered glass box.
It seemed to feel no pain, or perhaps the agony had exceeded the physical limits of its body. The tempered glass enclosure echoed with relentless banging that showed no sign of stopping.
"This isn't an allergic reaction, but... it's abnormally aggressive."
Just as Rory was puzzled, the fur on the mouse began to fall out—shedding in large, continuous patches. Within seconds, it was completely bald.
"The genetic sequence has been altered!"
The frantically darting mouse suddenly stopped, convulsed twice on the spot, and instantly stopped breathing.
"It looks dead, but the physical transformation still hasn't stopped."
The lifeless mouse lay motionless inside, but its muscle tissue began to undergo fibrosis and swell.
"It strengthened the body, but the organs couldn't withstand the enhancement—or is it... that there isn't enough energy?"