Earlier.
General Thaddeus Ross’s office.
“So the kid’s clean?” — setting aside the file he’d just reviewed, asked the father of one very ill-advised young woman who’d decided to tie her life to the wrong person.
Or should it be — the wrong non-person?
Damn that Hulk!
“Yes, sir.
Exactly that, no genetic enhancements, no abnormalities, no drugs, no gamma radiation, nothing.
A clean human being, and you can’t even say he’s at some peak-human level.
Everything’s within normal range.
Slightly greater bone density, but that’s also within normal parameters, and could plausibly be an effect of using his life energy to reinforce his body, which is indirectly supported by the rest of the body scan data.
But even that’s nothing out of the ordinary.
Nowhere near Captain America’s level, or the later, less successful projects,” answered the man in the white coat, somewhat younger than the general himself.
“Well, at least someone’s not one of these freaks.
Alright, that means we can use him as bait, the monster’s sister has clearly taken an interest in him.
And it’s worth keeping an eye on him regardless, his training methods, and possibly a lead to his master, could come in useful for us.
Especially with our current opponent being the damn Hulk,” — despite the fact that in recent events Thaddeus had himself brought Hulk back to life, precisely in order to fix his own mistake and stop his subordinate from running amok, that meant absolutely nothing on the bigger scale.
Worth repeating Sterns’s invention, maybe Banner could be cured again…
even if it meant threatening him.
Or otherwise bringing his subordinate back to normal — one who, unlike Hulk, hadn’t been in any hurry to return to human form even after losing consciousness.
The general’s calm train of thought was interrupted by his work phone ringing.
Which already hinted the caller wouldn’t be a simple one.
Given the General had already reported on recent events, the call was a bit odd.
Which was confirmed almost instantly, the moment he picked up.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
A murky little outfit, struck off the military chain of command and answering directly to the White House.
And its head, Nicholas Fury, who was firmly requesting that they “leave the kid alone.” Looked like he wasn’t as clean as the checks had shown.
That’s what the General assumed at first.
But he was given more information than that, rather than being stonewalled with “exceeding your clearance” and “access denied,” the way that outfit liked to do.
Which only confirmed further that Lucian Taylor wasn’t one of their agents — Fury would’ve defended his own far more aggressively, thereby revealing to anyone paying attention that there was something there worth hiding.
It turned out to be mundane, in the end — son of a businessman who worked for the army, who’d inherited a company…
that supplied medical drugs and stimulants, including to S.H.I.E.L.D.
And to Ross himself too, as he found out later, so leaning on the kid or making use of him really would be somewhat…
unethical.
Or simply not worth it.
On top of that, Fury went on to be forthcoming again — while he had no intention of recruiting Taylor into his outfit for now, the kid being too young, a point Ross agreed with himself, the boy had already been flagged by S.H.I.E.L.D.
previously, having already popped up on their radar once, and a proposal would indeed be coming his way a bit later.
Well, Fury wasn’t alone in that — Thaddeus wouldn’t mind having an instructor in his own forces teaching life-energy manipulation, whose effectiveness had been demonstrated to the General himself no more than four hours ago.
So we’ll just have to see who ends up with him.
With those thoughts, General Ross hung up the phone and made himself a note for later.
If they couldn’t find or recruit his master, the kid himself would do just fine.
“Stimulants…
and Erskine’s serum, but nothing like that was found in the teenager’s blood.
Although…
there is one possibility!
But could it really be?” the scientist muttered to himself, having heard the whole conversation between his superiors and gotten lost in thought.
“Do you have something to add to your report, Professor Sh—” Thaddeus began, but was interrupted.
“Yes!
Yes!
It could be a genetic stimulant!
Although, given our current level of development, that’s still purely theoretical — we’re a good twenty or thirty years off from being able to develop anything like it.
But if the teenager’s father had succeeded, and applied the drug to his son…
it explains everything!
An organism stimulated by the serum let him awaken his ancestors’ genetic memory.
His father’s, or someone else’s in the family, and that’s what triggered the boy’s physical changes!
His father was tall and well-built too, and if he was the base template, it explains the changes, and why the boy looks so different now compared to a couple of months ago!” the scientist rambled, joyful, almost a little unhinged.
“Can this be put to use somehow?” the general frowned.
“Not for military purposes.
Or only indirectly.
But it could treat all sorts of pathologies that show up in descendants, but weren’t present in their parents!
Or, as in the case of the Taylor couple, when two tall and, frankly, good-looking parents end up with a short, scrawny mess of a son.
The drug could very well correct what nature handed down, for the better,” the overexcited scientist answered in something close to a verbal sprint.
“And what’s the upside for the army in that?
Our troops get better-looking?” Thaddeus snorted, not sharing the scientist’s enthusiasm.
“Hm?
Well, that too.
But the main upside is that it would reduce the number of people suffering from severe malnutrition or obesity, meaning a much larger percentage could be made eligible for the draft,” the professor explained his reasoning.
“Interesting.
But I’ve got plenty of people as is.
And something like that, at least on the second front, can be achieved without resorting to dubious drugs that may not even exist, or for which no records even survive,” the more down-to-earth general sighed.
“How can you say that?
You just don’t understand!
This is—” the scientist launched into his usual routine, one Ross was well used to by now.
Who reacted strongly to plenty of things…
and a good chunk of it came to nothing.
So the general didn’t hold out much hope, or optimism, over any of it.
Lucian again.
What can I say, it had been nice with 2B, but she’d unfortunately already gone home.
At least she’d thawed a little by the end and stopped needling me — not sure how, not verbally, not even with a look, but it was noticeable all the same!
In short, she’d stopped voicing her displeasure over my little stunt.
After that, my other relatives came to visit.
Auntie stopped by half an hour after Yorha left, and Uncle Francis couldn’t make it at all, calling my new cellphone (my old one got smashed in the fight, but Russell had already taken care of that too) that evening, and sending an assistant with gifts the following day.
And somehow I wasn’t too eager to try them.
Not sure, with this much sugar, I’ll end up giving myself diabetes.
I’ll just stick to the apples.
And it seemed like, despite all the positivity that pair radiated, they’d checked in on me purely as a formality, not actually worried in the slightest about my health.
Strange, I used to think otherwise.
Was that first impression wrong?
Or am I just being too paranoid right now?
Jen visited me too.
Though she only dropped by for about ten minutes, and most of those ten minutes felt like some light flirting.
By the way, in a funny coincidence that wasn’t really a coincidence, I ended up in the very hospital where my mother used to work.
Which made sense, my house had specifically been chosen so that, in case of an emergency, I’d be brought precisely to her hospital.
Given that the whole mess with Abomination had also happened in that same district, this was the nearest hospital.
In other words, my odds of ending up here had been better than fifty percent.
And that’s partly a good thing.
Since I used to visit my mother often and knew a lot of people here, and they were well-disposed toward me too, how could they not be, some of them had literally watched me grow up right before their eyes.
So the nurses let quite a bit slip to me in confidence.
Including the fact that the three relatives who’d visited me had called the reception desk fairly quickly and in sync right after the incident.
Except while Russell asked how I was, what condition I was in, and whether I needed anything, then paid for everything, arranged everything, and rushed over here himself, the other two asked “when will he wake up,” and only inquired about my condition last, and not very extensively.
Yeah…
so much for the friendly, good-natured types.
I also finally found out what happened to that little girl I’d been protecting…
a shame carrying her out of there would’ve been a bad option at the time, since that would’ve meant showing my back to Abomination, which could’ve ended badly in principle, and also trying to run, given its lunges and jumps…
anyway, losing sight of it just wasn’t an option.
Learning the girl was fine brought a considerable sense of relief.
Though I did get scared for a second at first that she was in the hospital.
But no, she just hadn’t wanted to leave her mother’s side, who’d also apparently been successfully stabilized.
Though she’d remain disabled for life — the arm was beyond repair.
There’d also been cases of a few patients dying right here in the hospital.
And I can’t say I didn’t feel guilty about that.
If I hadn’t hesitated from the very start, that cursed bench would never have crippled anyone.
And as if mocking me, the next day the media painted me as practically a hero, the Daily Bugle ran a headline reading “Heroes Among Us,” laying out the exploits of an ordinary teenager who’d just happened to be passing by.
Looked like Jameson took a hit to the head…
or someone had paid him off specifically.
Though, not entirely — there were some biting comments aimed at Spider-Man in there too.
Couldn’t do without those, could he?
She-Hulk got a little of that treatment too, but not much.
Seems JJJ (J.
Jonah Jameson) and Peter have some kind of personal vendetta going on.
I couldn’t care less about their squabbles.
Remembering the wounded and the dead, having learned from the nurses about several deaths right here in this hospital, that whole article felt like…
a slap in the face.
What kind of hero am I, seriously?!
Just a miserable coward!
It took a good long while to calm down.
And the moment I noticed an article, or heard something about it on TV, or had one of the medical staff jokingly call me a hero, my mood would crash right back down.
At least I never snapped at the doctors over it, they clearly meant no harm, didn’t understand the full picture, and weren’t at fault for any of it.
So it’d be stupid to take out my anger at myself on someone else.
And honestly, this whole ordeal made it pretty clear to me that I’m still very weak.
And that I could get killed very easily.
Which is why I hadn’t used regeneration yet — it would’ve been too conspicuous and strange if someone who was only supposed to be discharged from the hospital in a week and a half, and fully recovered even later than that (yeah, the prognosis for the arm is good, but I won’t be waving it around much for at least a month, and right now it’s my legs, or rather their condition, keeping me from leaving the hospital), suddenly made a full recovery within a couple of hours of the fight, against every prognosis.
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There are chapters ahead.
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