Rory and Steve had a fierce argument.
Peggy Carter was curious why Steve was so familiar with Rory, while Howard Stark on the other side had picked up on something else.
"Hey, hey, hey! Please wait a moment, you two. What were you just talking about... technology beyond this era?"
Steve froze for a second, then immediately said, "Sorry, Howard, and Peggy. I'd like to speak with him alone, if you don't mind."
Out of respect and trust for Captain America, Peggy Carter and Howard swallowed a thousand questions and left the space to Steve and Rory.
After Peggy and Howard left, Steve closed the door firmly.
He turned back around and asked, "Rory, I don't want you doing any dangerous experiments."
People are just like that: when you reason with them, they talk to you about strength and use authority to pressure you, but when you break the rules, they turn around and lecture you on reason.
Actually, people like this understand everything; they just habitually stand on the side of self-interest rather than absolute justice and fairness.
Having given up on reasoning, Rory asked bluntly, "Steve, tell me the truth, what on earth do you want? Do I need your permission for everything I do?"
"Of course not, but I have a duty to supervise you."
Steve didn't understand the mechanics of time travel; he just subconsciously assumed that changing history was wrong and that history should run its course as it did before.
Yet he completely forgot that he was also a part of history.
Rory gave a sarcastic smile. "According to you, I should just be an ordinary person, right? I'm curious, when Dr. Erskine created you, did you consider these issues back then?"
Dr. Erskine had also created the Red Skull, who almost destroyed the world, yet his work was hailed as a righteous cause.
*Click.* Rory latched his briefcase and held it by the handle. "Alright, let's leave it at that. What you choose to do is your own business, and I have no obligation to explain myself to you. If you take me for a bad guy, find evidence of me doing bad things. If you think I'm a good guy, then please stop intruding on my life from now on. I really would appreciate it."
He bypassed Steve, opened the office door, and glanced at Peggy Carter and Howard standing outside.
Then, he said to Howard Stark, "Mr. Howard Stark, I will find another investment firm to partner with for this drug. Please give me some time; I will return Stark Industries' investment funds. As for the collaboration... let's end it here."
After Rory left, Peggy entered the room, patted Steve on the shoulder, and comforted him, "Don't think too much about it. I'll arrange for someone to keep an eye on him. The moment something seems off, we can arrest him anytime."
"I'm fine, and... thank you, Peggy."
Stepping out of the Stark headquarters building, Rory let out a quiet sigh of relief.
True to form, Steve had no intention of letting him off.
Steve himself was a beneficiary of the super soldier serum, yet he wouldn't allow anyone else to develop one. Rory found that completely baffling.
Fortunately, this was the Big Apple, and there was no shortage of speculative capital.
With research results in hand, he didn't have to worry about finding buyers.
For the entire day, Rory went through several major investment banks, only to be told each time to go home and wait for news.
It wasn't until dark that he finally returned to the South Street Seaport in the Lower East Side.
*Clang.*
Pushing open the laboratory door, Rory was instantly dumbfounded.
"What?!"
The laboratory looked like it had been ransacked. It was a complete mess, with various test tubes and flasks shattered all over the floor. The steel plate box holding the white mice had a hole punched through it, and the mice inside were long gone.
"Oh no..."
Approaching the wreckage, Rory discovered the carcass of a giant mouse with a drastically altered appearance lying behind the workbench.
He put on gloves, picked up the mouse carcass, and placed it on the workbench for inspection.
The incisors in the mouse's mouth had fallen out, replaced by a full set of sharp, pointed teeth—no wonder it was able to bite through the iron plate cage.
Its white fur had turned into a dull, lusterless gray, and every single strand of fine hair had become extraordinarily hard.
It also possessed blade-sharp claws that matched the scratch marks on the steel plate precisely.
"Significant changes in physical characteristics, genetic sequence tampered with, suspected mutation."
"Causes of death are as follows: one, insufficient energy; after breaking out of the steel box, it depleted all its energy and starved to death. Two, rejection reaction caused by genetic mutation, pushing past the limits of organ endurance and dying of sudden death."
Rory then ran a blood sample test on the mutated mouse.
The results confirmed his earlier hypothesis.
"Inability to properly carry genetic traits caused mutations in the genetic sequence, posing obvious uncontrollable risks... Sigh."
After finishing the tests, Rory put on a hazmat suit and protective mask, cleaning up the mess in the lab piece by piece.
As he picked up a shattered flask, his gaze suddenly locked.
A small amount of liquid remained inside the broken flask, and its immediate impression on Rory was that it possessed vitality.
The liquid emitted a faint blue shimmering light, with flecks of starlight moving about as if it contained the entire universe.
The bright light flickered on and off, just as if it were breathing.
Rory carefully poured the liquid into a test tube, then used an extractor to take a tiny drop and place it onto a microscope slide.
Leaving the trash all over the floor, he immediately sat down in front of the microscope to observe.
"Damn it, what the hell! Oh—this is amazing."
This was indeed a serum made from Thanos's blood sample. Perhaps when the mouse knocked over the workbench, it caused certain neutralizing substances to merge, accidentally cracking the genetic code.
If Thanos's chromosomes were a safe, then the genetic code was the key to open that safe, and inside lay Thanos's powerful super genes.
Now that the safe had been accidentally opened, Thanos's formidable super genes were exposed right before Rory's eyes, ready to be edited however he wished.
Reaching his conclusion, Rory was beyond excited and immediately threw himself heart and soul into the experiment.
The door to the safe was open; all Rory had to do was extract Thanos's genes from the safe, then insert those genes into his own chromosomes to develop a brand-new growth factor.
This factor would wear the disguise of Rory's chromosomes while packing Thanos's genes inside.
That way, it could integrate perfectly into Rory's body.
The only drawback was that Rory would no longer be able to replicate this mutant serum.
Because there were at least a hundred experimental materials on the workbench, Rory had no way to perfectly recreate which specific material or combination of materials had triggered the mutation.
Fortunately, this batch of serum was enough for a single dose, with even a little left over to run one live-animal test.
Rory worked through the night, and by daybreak, the serum was finally finished.
Looking at the serum, which had stopped glowing, Rory felt a profound sense of accomplishment.
"This might be the last live test. Let's begin."
Rory fetched another white mouse, set up a new containment device, and immediately started the experiment.