Dayton, Ohio. Some shitty bar off the street.
Two men were sitting at a small table by the window.
One of them was in a sharp suit, sporting a short beard, with a sleazy, playboy look in his eyes. The other was in a military uniform, gray hair, just one look at his face and you knew he was a cold, calculating, ruthless son of a bitch.
"General, I'm telling you again," The suited-up Tony Stark said, his expression serious. "My father shut down the Super Soldier program for a goddamn reason. The tech is fundamentally flawed."
"Is that so?" Lieutenant General Ross sipped his whiskey. "You say it's flawed, but you're forgetting Captain America was the first, and best, goddamn superhero in history."
Tony looked pissed and snorted. "Captain America was a one-in-a-billion fluke. Not everyone's going to get that lucky."
Ross just smiled, his expression mocking. "Fine. Let's say I listen to you. We scrap the program. Then what? Who takes out Jason? Who takes out his fucking organization? You? In that tin suit of yours?"
Tony's face twitched, his eyes flashing with anger. "The program is a goddamn crapshoot. My suit is way more reliable."
Hearing this, Ross just gave a noncommittal little laugh and drained his glass. "Whatever, Stark. You've got your projects, I've got mine. Let's not waste any more of each other's time."
Tony shrugged. "I'm just here as Fury's mouthpiece. I don't really give a shit what you do."
"He couldn't convince me, and neither can you." Ross stood to leave.
Tony frowned. "One and done?"
Ross was already walking. "I've got a genius in the lab who wants to be his own guinea pig. I need to be there to watch."
"Hmph. A fucking bunch of lunatics," Tony scoffed. He raised his own glass, sniffed it, and put it back down, untouched.
*
A secret military lab.
A team of geniuses, all on the military's payroll, was scrambling to check the equipment.
In ten minutes, the secret experiment—one so secret even the scientists didn't know its real purpose—was about to have its first human trial. The test subject? The team's head brain, a top-tier physicist with seven goddamn PhDs: Bruce Banner.
Banner stood supervising the checks, his girlfriend, Betty Ross—who also happened to be General Ross's daughter—at his side.
"Bruce, are you nervous?" Betty asked.
Banner just looked at her and smiled, completely relaxed. He didn't have to say a word; his confidence was practically radiating off him.
The door hissed open, and Ross walked in, his face slightly flushed from the alcohol. "Geniuses. Are we ready?"
"General," Banner nodded. He looked around at the team.
"Check!"
"OK!"
"We're green!"
All systems checked. Banner turned back. "We're ready, General."
Ross clapped his future son-in-law on the shoulder. "Bruce. All these years... it all comes down to this."
Banner gave a serious nod, walked into the test chamber, and lay down on the gamma emitter. Assistants strapped him down, powered on the console, and got the hell out.
Monitors were green. Through the observation window, Banner nodded at Betty. She gave him a thumbs-up.
"Let's do it," She said.
Click. The assistant hit the switch. The emitter hummed to life, bathing Banner in a green, gamma-ray light.
Ross moved to his daughter's side, his eyes locked on Banner. His entire goddamn career... it was all riding on this.
Ten seconds in, a red light flashed on the console.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
A piercing alarm shrieked through the lab.
"Shit, shut it down! Now!" Betty's face went pale. She ran to the console.
Another fucking failure. Ross looked down, his face a mask of disappointment.
BOOM!
The emitter exploded, a flash of fire and black smoke. In that one instant, a massive, ungodly dose of gamma radiation—way beyond the test limits—blasted Banner's entire body.
"AHHH!! AHHHH!!"
Banner's eyes screwed shut, his face twisting in pure agony as his whole body convulsed against the straps.
"BRUCE! What's happening?!" Betty slammed her hands on the glass, her face frantic.
Ross yanked her back. "Betty, get away from the glass! The radiation!" He knew this wasn't just a failure. This was a fucking disaster. A dose like that... Banner was a dead man.
But, impossibly, Banner wasn't dead. He was thrashing, harder and harder.
Green veins bulged across his skin, and his whole body... his skin was turning green. And he was growing. Fast.
"Oh my god!" The other scientists fucking bolted, scrambling out of the room in terror. Only Ross and Betty stayed.
Betty was horrified, her face a mask of grief and worry.
But Ross... Ross was calm. His mind was working.
Banner kept expanding. The emitter buckled and crushed under his massive weight, and he slammed onto the floor.
When he stood up, a teen-foot-tall, thousand-pound, roid-raging green monster was standing where Banner had been.
"HULK!!!" The monster roared, baring its teeth.
Ross and Betty were just... frozen. Scared fucking shitless.
The Hulk took their silence as a challenge. He grabbed a piece of the wrecked emitter and hurled it at the glass.
"Look out!"
CRASH! The glass exploded. Betty wasn't fast enough. The shrapnel and debris clipped her, knocking her to the floor, out cold.
"ROAR!!" The Hulk beat his chest, then smashed his way out of the chamber.
Metal doors, concrete walls... it didn't fucking matter. He tore through them like they were wet cardboard.
Guards burst in, opening fire with their sidearms. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Hulk had been heading for Ross, but these... bugs... were annoying him. He backhanded Ross, sending him flying, and stalked toward the guards.
The guard just... looked up... at this thing... and fucking froze.
"ROAR!!" Hulk roared and punched down. The guard was instantly reduced to a red smear on the floor.
Done with the bugs, Hulk smashed his way out of the lab, heading for the exit. His speed, his power... nothing could stop him.
The bullets from the other guards just bounced off his green hide like spitballs. It didn't hurt him. It just pissed him off.
BOOM!
He didn't even bother with the door. He just blew right through the goddamn outer wall of the building, crashing to the ground outside.
He crouched, his legs coiled, and then leaped... clearing the base's perimeter fence in a single bound, vanishing into the night.
Ross lay on the floor, clutching his dislocated arm. But his eyes... his eyes were fucking gleaming.
.
.
.
.
You can read advance chapters and view R-18 images of the characters on pat reon page.
pat reon.com/GreenBlue17
500 power stones.
Top 50. All time.