Chapter 1: The Serum's First Stirring
The serum tasted like battery acid and regret. Thaddeus Ross knocked it back in one grimacing gulp, standing over his kitchen sink. He waited. He clenched his fists.Nothing. No surge of power, no satisfying crack of expanding bone. Just the same old ache in his shoulder from a old training injury and the dull hum of the refrigerator.
“Failed,” he muttered to the empty room, his voice flat. He tossed the vial into the trash. It clinked against a empty beer bottle. Another dead end. Bruce Banner’s shadow just kept getting longer.
He stalked down the hall to the bathroom, the sterile military neatness of his quarters feeling suddenly like a cage. He flicked on the light. The single fluorescent bulb buzzed and flickered, casting a sickly glow over the cold tile. He braced his hands on the edges of the sink, head bowed, and stared at the drain.
“Get a grip, Ross,” he told his reflection. The face that stared back was young, sharp, but weary—dark hair slightly messy, greenish-blue eyes shadowed. The light grey of his button-up was stark under the bad light. He looked exactly the same. Of course he did.
But then a warmth kindled low in his gut, a sudden, uncomfortable heat that spread outwards like spilled oil. He blinked. Was the room getting hotter? The dehumidifier in the corner groaned on, pumping out dry, stale air. He straightened up, leaning closer to the mirror. His skin… it looked flushed. Not just pale anymore, but with a faint, light red hue beneath the surface, like the ghost of a sunburn.
His muscles twitched. A spasm in his left pectoral, a flutter along his right forearm. He frowned. Heartburn. It had to be.
He thought of Banner. Not the meek scientist, but the other one. The roar that shook artillery platforms. The green back, wider than a tank, muscles like corded steel under a rage that was almost beautiful in its pure, destructive force. The jealousy was a rotten tooth he’d been poking with his tongue for years.
What I wouldn’t do to him, the thought came, unbidden and vicious. To teach him a lesson. If I was stronger. Bigger. If he was the one looking up.
The heat in his gut coiled tighter, dropped lower. A familiar, embarrassing stiffness began to press against the fly of his black jeans. He shifted, trying to ignore it. His mind offered up an image, clear as day: Banner on his knees on broken concrete, not in fear, but in… submission. That brilliant head bowed. And Ross, bigger, looming over him, his own body thick with power, forcing that brilliant, treacherous mouth onto…
“What am I thinking?” he hissed aloud, shaking his head. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t discipline. This was… sickness.
A sharp pop sounded, soft but distinct in the quiet room. He glanced down. The button of his jeans had shot across the room, strained past its limit. The grey cotton of his underwear was exposed, the bulge there now pronounced and undeniable, straining the fabric. A damp spot of precum was already darkening the material.
“Fuck,” he breathed. The heat was consuming him now. Sweat beaded on his forehead, trickled down his temple. His thoughts were a runaway train, pulsing in time with his pounding heart. Him sucking my cock… taking it all, tasting it so deep… his stupid, genius tongue…
He couldn’t control it. The fantasy welded itself to memory—the heat of a desert battle, the smell of smoke and cordite, the Hulk turning, those impossible eyes locking onto his helicopter. That day. The fire day.
A groan escaped him, part pain, part something else entirely. He felt a strange, pulling sensation across his shoulders, a deep ache in his lats. He looked at his arms. The light grey sleeve of his shirt was taut, the fabric stretching over his bicep. He watched, mesmerized, as the woven threads began to strain.
“F-fuck,” he stammered. “It’s always the same… he’s always the big one!”
Sweat was pouring off him now, soaking through the back of his shirt. Frantic, he grabbed the cuff of his sleeve and yanked it up past his elbow, then kept pulling, ripping the tight fabric up over the swell of his newly expanding bicep and onto his shoulder. The seam at the armpit gave way with a rough tear. His arm, slick with sweat and visibly larger, more defined, was now bare. The skin held that persistent, faint red tone.
He panted, staring at his reflection. He was taller. His head was closer to the top of the mirror frame. His shoulders broadened, distorting the line of his shirt. The collar was strangling his neck.
“W-what is this… feeling?” he whispered.
It wasn’t just power. It was a thick, syrupy pleasure, radiating from his growing bones, from the dense muscle fiber knitting itself anew. It pooled in his groin, a relentless, demanding throb. He looked at his right hand where it gripped the sink. The knuckles were widening. The fingers thickened, the veins on the back rising like cables under the reddish skin.
“Fuck… m-my hand. It’s growing!”
He clenched the growing fist. The sinews stood out, powerful and raw. A wave of dizzying euphoria washed over him. “The feeling is… excellent. The power running through my hands…” He brought the fist up before his face, turning it, admiring it. “The hands that will put the Incredible Hulk in his place.”
A fierce, ugly confidence surged through him, burning away the last ashes of his denial. He drew the fist back and drove it forward.
The mirror exploded. Silvery shards rained into the sink and onto the floor, reflecting a thousand fragmented, crimson-hued Rosses as they died. He stood amidst the wreckage, breathing heavily, his breath fogging the few jagged pieces left in the frame.
“It’s my turn,” he said, and his voice was deeper, a resonant growl that vibrated in his own chest.
He strode from the bathroom, a beast unleashed in a sterile hallway. The feeling built with every step, a cellular celebration. He walked into the living room, his frame now too vast for the space, sweat dripping from his chin onto the carpet.
“It’s my turn to give him what he deserves.” The fantasy was now a promise, vivid and obscene. “Every part of my body will be for him. Forever.”
The heat crested.
A surge of power, immense and devastatingly pleasurable, ripped through him.
“FUUUUUUCK!”
The cry was torn from him, raw and guttural. The remaining buttons on his shirt shot across the room like tiny grey bullets, pinging off the lamp and the television screen. His chest erupted, pec muscles swelling and surging against the torn fabric, which could only split further. The last two buttons gave up, the shirt falling open to reveal a torso matted with dark hair, skin glistening and flushed deep red, muscles monstrous and still quivering with growth. The sleeves were shredded at the pits, revealing sweaty, hairy caverns of muscle.
He grunted, back arching as another wave hit him. He leaned back, a colossal pillar of transforming flesh. The shirt, now just a rag, slid down his arms. His pectorals were free, huge slabs, defined and hard.
“This feels like… if I was…”
Another grinding, exquisite surge. His jeans, the black denim now pathetic, gave a prolonged, ripping tear from crotch to thigh, then down the other leg. The belt buckle snapped. He looked down, through a haze of pleasure, at the monstrous bulge straining the ruined grey cotton of his underwear, wet and darkened at the tip.
“Oh shit…” he moaned, the words slurred with ecstasy. “The pleasure… it’s amazing. Fuck!”
He stood there in the center of his living room, a ruined monument to his own hungry jealousy, growing larger, harder, and more powerful with each thunderous beat of his heart. The journey was just beginning.