in which a war seemed the perfect place for a super-soldier full of hope, though a ballerina with a troubled past would beg to differ.
(captain america : the first avenger)
(cover by @overture-)
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Being the assistant to a genius often meant sixteen hour days, but Ginny hadn't felt the urge to rip her hair out just yet.
Her tasks were menial and similar to that of a new parent; feeding, organising and cleaning up mess. Howard was spectacular at losing himself within his work, so Ginny credited herself with keeping the man alive.
"Ginny, give me a hand?" Howard called for the twelfth time today. Ginny set down the newspaper she had retrieved during her run for sandwiches and wiped the ink stains onto her brown dress. She dashed down the metal stairs from the viewing booth, designed to oversee Howard's mad experiments.
It seemed strange that these two opposite minds became kindred souls, but all it took was one moment of observation to know that street smarts could spar with scientific innovation and live to tell the tale.
Howard needed help stacking vials of crystal blue serum, the task too much for the man to handle. Ginny rolled her eyes as she grabbed a tray, that shade of blue no longer a frightening curiosity. Howard had been developing this alongside a German scientist, Abraham Erskine, and Ginny was immune to the mini-explosions and groans of frustration.
Although the information was highly classified, Ginny had been given the standard brief on the situation at hand. Howard trusted her, and managed to convince those involved that she had a right to know. Relentless checks had concluded that she was of no importance, clearing her to hear the babbling mouth of the man without committing treason.
The Strategic Scientific Reserve acquired Erskine in hopes of creating a 'super soldier' with immense power and capability. Howard was only so smart. The extraordinarily-mad experiment had been professionally labelled as Project Rebirth, and the soldier of choice was to be genetically modified with the serum that had taken months to perfect.
Ginny slotted the vials where they couldn't be moved, stacking them gently in the sturdy black box. Resting it on her hip, she rolled her eyes at Howard's laziness and popped open the metal door of the laboratory safe, sliding the vials onto their designated shelf. Just seeing the lack of a lock was enough to make the girl groan, but she froze when a new addition caught her eye.
"Howard, what's this?" Her fingers delicately grasped the sealed beaker full of purple liquid, pulling it from the shelf and examining it. It was almost three times the size of the blue vials, the colour just as intimidatingly fluorescent.
Howard turned to see what Ginny was so fixated on and bolted over the moment he caught a glimpse of the purple. He immediately extracted the beaker from her fingers, tucking it back onto the shelf without a second glance. Ginny raised an eyebrow in suspicion and Howard shot her an easy grin as he rested a hand on the small of her back. "That, my dear, is a secret."
"And since when were secrets hidden from me?" Ginny retaliated, turning towards him and examining his form. Howard faltered as he faced his most trusted companion, and opened his mouth to answer her when the door to the laboratory swung open with a bang.
