Secret Bit of Right From Wrong

*A.N. A shout out to otaku330 for the idea and the greenlight to use them.  Another shout out to singer Ryan Kelly, whose brilliant song inspired the title.  I also don't own that, by the way, nor do I make money telling you that's where I got it. However, should Mr. Kelly be a fan of Marvel fan-fics and want to send me an autograph I can't stop him...(HINT HINT)*

 

It was a total accident.  They thought he could help a friend, no harm done.  I mean, the guy was courting a heart attack, and a little blood donation could give him another option.  It went so wrong.  And it wound up ending so right.

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              “Ok, lay this out for me again, slower and with smaller words.  We aren’t all brilliant scientists.” Actually, Steve didn’t think any of the three men were brilliant scientists.  Tony Stark was as rightfully cocky as Howard, but less friendly and not a true scientist like his old friend.  Banner was a scientist, but the brilliant part was debatable, evidenced by the reason for this meeting.

Tony ran his hands through his hair in frustration.  For a guy who was once a professional lab-rat Rogers was putting up heavy resistance to a little blood draw. “Cap, you got given the Erskine serum.  Bruce got dosed with another version and gamma.  The only other person running around with the Erskine version and gamma in him is Emil Blonsky, who is a certifiable nutcase.  You don’t Hulk out, Blonsky can’t UN-Hulk; both are stable states. If we look at the sample of Blonsky’s blood, compared to your blood and Bruce’s blood, we might know how to stabilize his reactions.  In the middle there is a solution other than your friend and mine keeping his blood pressure so high he’s liable to kill himself!  Or get stuck in a perpetual cardiac arrest, if he can’t die.”

               “Steve, really, you don’t have to…” Banner knew that Steve was worried about this because the last time someone took his blood for study the Army used it to create the Hulk and the Abomination.  The man had every right to be nervous.

               “Can it Banner, he does, he can and he will.  I once thought I was dying a slow death like this, and Pepper has never let me forget that I could have died on her.  You will not die on my watch, or I’ll have to put up with that shit from Betsy too.  I refuse to be the most hen-pecked man on Earth!”

Sensing oncoming histrionics, Steve headed off the narcissist. “Fine Stark, but I’m agreeing for Betsy and Bruce, not you.  Don’t make me regret this.”

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                Three weeks later, Steve was relaxing with the New York Times when the wall started talking and the paper got ripped in half as the super soldier jumped.  Even though he had been introduced to the system they called Jarvis, the wall talking still freaked him out.  He was irritated about the ruined newspaper; Tony had tried to get him to watch the television (or use the computer) for his news, but the feel of reading a paper was soothing to the man from the past.  Still, he was raised to be polite and the wall, Jarvis, seemed so much like a person he felt bad being rude to it.  Sighing and trying not to feel like an idiot talking to an empty room, Steve asked what was going on.

                “Your presence has been requested in the seventh sub-basement laboratory, sir.” It really was amazing how British the disembodied voice sounded.  It made him miss Falsworth, the Englishman from his old unit.

                “I’ll be right there.”

Steve had originally thought Stark might be a bit paranoid, building so many isolated underground labs.  Then something had blown up and Bruce went Hulk, and Steve decided that it was a genius stroke of foresight.  That still didn’t make the elevator ride more pleasant.  It moved too fast by his reasoning, and felt an awful lot like falling.  The supposedly soothing “mu-zac” that played in the background was yet another thing that reminded him he was not from this time.  When he arrived at the seventh sub-basement he took a left and then the second right, thankful again for his near perfect recall. The lab on this level had double thick walls with a metal layer made from adamantium, a metal that had been in the alloy that made his shield. This was where Banner worked on anything related to his transformations.

                “Ah! Rogers! You’re here, perfect. Stand over here, behind the blast shield. I’m almost done with calibrations.” Steve really could see Tony as Howard’s son when he worked. The energy the two men put off while engrossed in a project was similarly stunning.  Exhausting, but stunning.  Banner was on the other side of the room prepping him-self for the procedure, which seemed to involve immobilizing himself on a chair type device.  When he was strapped in with metal reinforced restraints, the chair swung in an arc on a cleverly hidden track in the floor.  The final position of the chair was much closer to the clear, foot thick blast shield. Across the room robotic arms positioned a thing that might emit a beam, to the direction of Tony.  Although the rampant use of robotic labor sometimes unnerved Steve, he had to admit the arms dealt with Tony’s hyper perfectionistic verbal abuse, and a human might not.

                “Ready to go Doctor?”

                “As ready as I’ll ever be, Tony.  Let ‘er rip.”

A vibrant gold light struck Bruce, causing his skin to ripple as the Hulk attempted to break free.  The reaction was thwarted by the metallic straps and slowly the ripples abated. The light stopped, and the thin scientist looked passed out.  Then the super senses and reflexes kicked in and to Steve’s mind, many things happened at once.  One of the robotic arms by the machine shook slightly as it pressed buttons on that wall, Tony yelled out “Dummy! What the hell are you doing?”, and the beam machine started glowing on the business end.  Frightened for his friend, he snapped into Captain America mode and barreled across the room, knocking the chair over.  He was hit by a violet stream of energy and felt very tired. So tired, he was just going to sleep a few minutes.