The SSR facility in Brooklyn hummed with tension, pride, and far too much optimism.
I stood with Julius and Lincoln on the observation platform, surrounded by generals, politicians, and men who thought they understood power because they controlled budgets and armies. Lincoln was in his element—smiling, shaking hands, flattering egos, weaving influence as easily as breathing. Every word he spoke nudged America closer to where we wanted it.
My attention, however, was elsewhere.
Steve Rogers.
With my fae sight open, the truth of him was impossible to ignore. His body was a battlefield long before any war—diseases layered upon diseases, genetic weaknesses stacked like curses from birth. It was almost impressive he was still standing. Frail. Small. Broken in every way that mattered physically.
And yet.
There was something unyielding in him. A core that refused to bend.
I watched Howard Stark adjust the machinery, lights flaring as power surged through the chamber. General Phillips stood stiff and watchful, arms crossed. And Dr. Abraham Erskine—nervous, brilliant, hopeful—gave Steve one last look before sealing the chamber.
The experiment began.
Energy roared. Vita-rays flooded the capsule. Steve screamed as his body was torn apart and rebuilt in real time. Bones lengthened. Muscles surged. Diseases burned away like impurities in a forge. The chamber opened, steam spilling out—
—and Steve Rogers stepped forward reborn.
Silence.
Even the politicians stopped breathing.
The Super Soldier stood tall, broad, powerful—everything Erskine had promised and more. A miracle made flesh.
Then everything went wrong.
A gunshot cracked through the facility.
Dr. Erskine collapsed.
Chaos erupted.
Hydra had been hiding in plain sight.
Before anyone else could react, I was already moving.
I knelt beside Erskine's body—lifeless to all appearances, blood pooling beneath him. Around us, alarms blared as Steve gave chase to the Hydra agent fleeing into the streets of Brooklyn.
To everyone watching, Dr. Erskine was dead.
He wasn't.
I opened a portal beneath my hand, space folding silently as I pulled Erskine's real body through—alive, unconscious, intact—teleporting him directly to Site-19. Medical teams would already be mobilizing. He would live.
What remained behind was a lie.
SCP-408 activated instantly.
The illusory butterflies swarmed, unseen, weaving light and perception into something flawless. A corpse that bled. A body that cooled. A death that would pass every test. To the world, Abraham Erskine died that night in Brooklyn.
To the Foundation, he was secured.
Minutes later, Steve returned, dragging the Hydra agent behind him—only for the man to pull the trigger on himself before capture could be made. Another silence. Another dead secret.
Steve stood there, breathing hard, staring at Erskine's "body," grief written openly across his face.
I watched him carefully.
The serum hadn't just made him strong.
It had made him dangerous—not because of what he could destroy, but because of what he would protect.
And as the politicians mourned a man who wasn't dead, and history quietly shifted onto a new track, I knew one thing with absolute certainty:
Tonight, the Foundation had stolen the future—
—and no one in the room even realized it.