Chapter 78: Always quip before you punch.
One final chance is what Bruce Banner had when he lay on the makeshift operation bench in Stern's private lab. One chance to solve his green problem is to lift the curse and when he wakes up after going through a tremendous amount of pain and fighting against the raging Hulk trying to survive, he finally stops feeling the presence.
The presence of a burning fire, a raging bull asking him to take control of the situation, to break something, to yell back at whoever it is, to hit back whoever hits him, to make them pay the price tenfold, to let him out just once.
I tried my best to fight back but I always gave in and the monster went through walls, people, and whatever stood in its way. Now the punch hurts but the rage is subdued "Tell me where is it? Bring it out" the man punches Banner once more hoping for an answer. Hoping to see the beast again.
But Banner was quick to explain that he didn't have the power he was looking for "I cured it" but all he received for that was a punch to his face and the room was filled with an angry scream. The man kicked the prone form of Bruce Banner as he yelled "It wasn't a disease you imbecile, it was power, SO MUCH FUCKING POWER" but all he received was silence and a whimper.
The man turned towards the sound and found a man in a blue t-shirt leaning on the countertop, the man moved with a speed unseen grabbed the man by his throat, and slammed him onto the table "Do you know what happened to his powers?" The choking man held up a bag filled with some green liquid as he said in a choked wheeze "In this" The man let go of him and asked him "Give me that power Mr..."
The man on the ground taking deep breaths replied "Sterns, Samuel Stern's and it's Dr." The man smiled at the gasping Sterns before introducing himself "Emil Blonsky the strongest human alive" Somewhere across the ocean Steve Rogers sneezed the hardest in his life.
As Dr. Stern sets up the biggest experiment in his life, his mind floats with a couple of ideas to make Blonsky more than Hulk, instead of the usual blood transfusion, there is a method to push block body towards what it is naturally good at which I noticed has been his speed.
The speed at which Blonsky seized my neck, Stern's did not like it very much but impressed him all the same so instead of the usual way to administer the blood straight through the spine, Stern's opted for a more efficient approach to Target the muscle response speed.
Samuel took only half of the dosage and administered it into Blonsky's blood vessels. It's not every day you get a volunteer for your scientific research, if this works he would be the next Erskine and if it doesn't he can claim that he was forced to do this by the Maniac in military uniform.
As the blood entered his vessels he screamed before the pain even registered as every single cell in his body was broken, repaired, broken repaired, and so on until Blonsky felt himself be unmade and made again and again, his body swelled unable to accommodate the growing number of cells until finally, silence reined once again.
Blonsky got off of the bench and Stern watched as the towering visage of the abomination he created disappeared in the blink of an eye Stern wondered if there was enough gamma radiation in Blonsky's body to teleport him into another dimension before he felt the wind go past him and turned to find Blonsky looking at himself in a mirror.
The speed at which he moved made Stern pat himself on the back but before he could gloat on his experiment being successful he was again choked by a familiar grip albeit a far larger hand. The grip tightened as the abomination growled as he questioned him "Why am I not taller than him?" Stern would have answered and told him that his spine had bent rather than straightened because of lacking skin tissue but the grip tightened as Blonsky asked once more "Why?"
As the loss of air was about to take away the life of one Dr.Samuel Stern, a voice penetrated through his fading ears "Your pronouns are he, because you'll never be him" and he felt the grip loosen as the abomination he created was punched out of the building by... Spiderman? What the hell is he doing here?
-Spiderman POV-
3 hours ago
I thought I had time to deal with what happened today, to grieve, to prepare for something like this happening again but Tony put a wrench in my plans by revealing that The Incredible Hulk was going to happen tonight and I even got ready to apprehend the bugger Blonsky and get it all done with but turns out Samuel Stern wasn't running a gamma radiated blood camp in his own home, so I had to wait and listen both for the Hulk and Tony's incessant chatter "So, what's the plan here? You take the left, I take the right type of thing".
I take in one long breath as I ask him "Why are you asking me again?" He tried to sound nonchalant but I could hear the respect in his reply "Well, you are my senior when it comes to this whole superhero thing" I frown at that as I didn't remember him being so respectful and shit to anyone before "Aren't you the whole 'I am a lone wolf' type of guy" Stark stays silent for a few seconds before he starts saying "Before the whole Stane shit show, that was true but after that, I realized that you were doing the heavy lifting in that fight and I didn't want to be a burden anymore."
I nod at that before I ask "Why were you a lone wolf again?" Stark chuckles as he says "Because my ego is too big to handle someone telling me I'm wrong" I shrug and look off into the distance as I ask him "Then why did you ask me to be your intern?" His face plate opens up as he assures me "That was genuine, I wanted you to work for me ever since our first conversation itself" I look at him in suspicion and my suit reticules narrow down to show that emotion, a new upgrade I made to the suit.
"AND?" I emphasize to make him tell me the rest of the reason "And I needed an assistant inside the lab to make sure I don't stay there too long, now that Pepper is CEO" I look down and shake my head in fondness at Tony's explanation "I'll take it" I decided but I was quick to say before he gets too happy "But only after I complete highschool" he raises his hands in surrender "As you wish".
I look off into the distance as I ask him "Did you find anything about them?" He put a hand on my shoulder as he said "I didn't get access to any shield device that is connected to their servers, I can still access their data if I brute force it but they will know what I'm looking for" I was quick to stop him with a hurried yell of "NO" I cough to control myself before I tell him "It's fine, do it when you can not when you can't" I sigh as he sits down next to me on the edge of the building.
"Does your work involve sitting still for long periods?" I sighed as he was back to his original, goofy, questioning, childish self again. I laugh as I notice something and tell him "You know what's funny?" "What?" "The first time we met all we talked about was banner" he laughs too and I hear a giant roar almost 8 miles away and launch my web to swing west at full speed, I cross a mile before Tony catches up with me and we rush to find wherever Banner might be.
We reach a complex where I can see a few silhouettes In the dark holding Sniper rifles, I line up with their aim and figure out the building that banner might be in, I swing around the windows dodging the sniper fire until I hear Tony talk over a loudspeaker "We are trying to help, Stand down" they back off knowing that hurting a former military mogul might hurt them a little.
I look into each window of the building before I find Samuel Stern's blood lab, I jump inside only to find The Abomination holding Stern by his throat as he growls "Why am I not taller than him?" I throw in my quip as I crash into his rib cage feet first kicking him through the building and onto the road.
I turn to find Stern falling over onto the green liquid and fire a web to stop him from becoming the leader "Woah there Dr. Looks like you made your own Frankenstein here" he shakes his head as he says "He made me do it" I shake my head as I pat his shoulder "I heard most Nazi scientists said the same thing to get a job in the U.S maybe you can do that too" I look behind me as Tony lands through the broken window and I tell him "Always quip before you punch, throws them off and makes them too angry to think properly" before I jump in through the Abomination sized hole.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone