"I don't know if you'll ever see this, Mr. Stark. I mean - Tony. Heh, I guess I'm not used to being so affirmative in my actions. I've made this as a way to prevent me doing something emotional and stupid, which I am bound to do as you know. I just want you to know that I'm sorry. I think the world of our partnership and I want the Enforcers to be the greatest hero team anyone has ever seen. I don't blame you for Venezuela. I don't blame you for anything. I just want to be friends again."

The old piece of notebook paper crinkled in the gentle breeze from the empty hallway. Aaron Palmer's laboratory stood as a bulwark of technological superiority in the wake of Stark's resurgence into corporate territory. A safehouse, of sorts, that housed the Eciton units 01 through 87, every other model having been dismantled as per Stark's order. The original eighty-seven were as silent as statues, but maneuvered in the darkness.

Their purpose had finally been achieved as an eighty-eighth model appeared out of the bioengineering chamber, its mental capacities not fused with the DNA of an ant but of a scientist who was very familiar with them. Cracking open like an egg, the eighty-eighth Eciton served as little more than a shell for an embryo - an embryo that had reached completion.