Hello everyone,
Soooo yeah! Rick Jones in the MCU, properly this time, if I do say so myself. You'll notice some
Follow me on instagram at wtmcdonaldauthor! If you are feeling generous, and wish to donate to my writing career, you can find me at under the same name for early access to chapters!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"I already told you once you lunatic, I talked to Bruce ONE time at a get-together at Betty Ross'!" I practically screamed at the man behind the glass.
I thrashed one more time, but the restraints that kept me on the bed were so tight that I couldn't even dislodge the tubes connected to at least 10 different parts of my body. The bastard hadn't even given me morphine or a sedative to help me with the pain of whatever fucked up shit he was about to do to me. The needles in my skin were already freakishly long.
"I truly am sorry, but I KNOW that I can perfect it. And you were an easy target Mr. Jones. They don't call you LUCKY for no reason, you know." The freak, the man with the green skin and cranium larger than my ass said to me from beyond the glass window in the cell I was in.
"That is my fucking username on a dating site you stupid fuck!" I screamed back at the fucker behind the glass. It was useless though, the red light was off at the top of the glass, signaling he couldn't hear me. I was fucking muted, by someone with so much brain that he had actually became stupid.
"I'm going to die in this fucking place." I said to myself, as my fighting spirit diminished slightly.
"Procedure commencing in 3…"
"Please don't kill me." I said, panic taking over every fiber of my being.
"…2"
"NOOO! Please!"
"1."
The blue-green liquid shot through the tubs connected to my body faster than I could react. As soon as it touched my veins, it was like liquid fire filled my entire being. I was a cop that had apparently fucked the wrong professor, Betty Ross' friend. I was not what most would consider a bitch…
But even still, I screamed like one.
It was a dream. Everything was hazy and I couldn't tell what I was looking at. Was this my childhood?
I saw myself grow up in Nevada, and then in Texas. I saw myself play baseball, basketball, get my ass kicked in football surrounded by a loving family. I saw myself go to school and get a degree. I saw my families joy. But I also saw myself bounce around from orphanage to orphanage before finally growing up and moving to Massachusetts and becoming a cop in Cambridge.
Everything flashed in front of my eyes. It took ages, but it also happened quickly. The experience was only what I could describe as dreamlike. I had lived two different lives, but only one…
My vision took on a blue tint and pressure built up everywhere on my body, as if I was too big to fit in my skin. I felt like one massive infection was about to burst.
"AAAHHHHH!"
When I opened my eyes, I wasn't the same person that was strapped to the table with tubes shoved into his body. I was two people in one, merged. I was Rick Jones, and also a man from our world thrown into the Marvel Universe.
Not just any Marvel universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or at least something resembling it. Because I knew for a fact that I did not exist in the same capacity of the MCU as I did now.
Rick Jones in the MCU was a nobody, thrown in the 2007 Hulk movie for nostalgia purposes for the comic book reader. Rick Jones in the MCU did not become A-Bomb from the comics.
But that's what I was. Samuel Sterns had somehow escaped with his life during the Hulk's fight with Abomination. And he had gotten a hold of me, experimenting on me to 'perfect' the serum that was used on Bruce Banner and Emil Blonsky.
How did I know all of this, if I was the experiment?
Well when I woke up I was lying in a crater caused by my own body. A body that was close to 9 feet in height and with more muscles than I could properly describe. I did not have skin, but a dark blueish scale like exterior that was common for me in the comics.
And the best part? I did not have an uncontrollable rage dictating my every move either.
My name is Rick Jones, and A-Bomb has arrived in the MCU Bitches!
And A-Bomb needs a nap!
When I opened my eyes I was not in a crater surrounded by fallen trees and debris. Nor was I a big blue scaled muscle monster. I was in my normal body, although a bit more muscular than I remembered, and laying on a cot …naked.
"I'm glad you're awake."
I jumped in surprise at the voice and instinctively covered my lower bits up. I turned to the manly voice that had spoken to me. Imagine my surprise when a familiar face sat there staring down the lens of a microscope.
"Bruce Banner." I breathed out. Sterns had shown me pictures of his face for days before he actually began experimenting on me, wanting to know if I had any contact with Bruce. I didn't but the maniac didn't care in the slightest. I was an easy excuse for a science experiment.
"It took me a while to recognize you, Rick. It seems you do not have that problem." Bruce said in a mild voice but did not move.
I took a look around the room, and the cot that I was on. It was little more than a shack. The walls were just wooden planks nailed together and stood up to protect from the weather. The cot I was on was also wooden, and designed like old WW2 medical cots.
"Where am I?" I asked, deciding that Bruce would have more answers than I could deduce.
"South America." Bruce answered, continuing to look into the microscope.
South America? Isn't that where SHIELD found him hiding out. I thought as I sat up. Muscles that I hadn't had in either life flexed with the simple movement and my body responded quickly. I looked down to my chest to see that I was absolutely shredded.
"How did I get here?" I asked, trying to ignore the fact that I looked like Chris Evans when he got out of the pod in his first movie, pecs and all.
"I was hoping you could tell me that." Bruce said as he finally pulled his eyes away from the microscope and towards me. He did not look like Mark Ruffalo. His face was narrower, and dark rings surrounded his eyes. He was handsome, but not as much. He was also much skinnier than I expected.
But his eyes weren't brown like I expected. They were green, signaling that he was mad.
That's why he hadn't dressed me like I would have expected. He had seen my A-Bomb form, and I had a suspicion that he was looking at a vial of my blood through that microscope. He knew who I was and what I was. He thought I was sent here to capture him, or worse, kill him.
I decided to tell the truth. "I don't know. The last thing I remember was being strapped to a bed by a green guy with a head the size of a basketball and having tubes shoved into places I don't want to mention." I told him seriously and quickly. As much as I was confident in my new body and transformation, I had a few problems.
The first being that this was the fucking Hulk, the king of strength. There was no iteration of A-Bomb that was stronger than him and I wasn't cocky enough to think I was the one that might be. The second being that I didn't want to fight Bruce, as this provided a stellar opportunity. Where else would I go in this universe, now that I was A-Bomb. I would be hunted by General Ross, SHIELD, or worse if I started fighting crime as A-Bomb.
But Bruce had run from governments for years at this point. Not to mention the fact that I could help him become what he had in End Game. Imagine Professor Hulk way earlier in this universe. The things Bruce could do with his mind and the Hulk's body.
"Sterns survived?" Bruce asked, keeping his composure but with green shining irises still looking at me.
"I don't know. All I know is that he started a procedure, I passed out from the pain, had a gnarly dream, and then woke up in South America… How did I even get here?" The question was a real one. Had I run the whole way? Had someone dropped me off hoping I would fight the Hulk?
"From what I could deduce, you must have fallen." Bruce said as he turned around and grabbed some small pictures on the desk. It was blurry and unfocused but you could clearly see my massive A-Bomb frame laying in a smoking crater. It was the type of picture you had to wave in the air to get to finish, so it was not a great one.
"What is that?" I said playing dumb and frowning at the photo.
Bruce's eyes narrowed at me, but I continued to play it off and stare at the photo. I looked very similar to the comics in my transformed state. I did have blue scales instead of skin like some of the other gamma radiated beings of this universe.
"You really don't remember?" Bruce asked, confused.
"No I don…"
"Ah!" Bruce roared.
Bruce faked me out, jumping towards me like a brother would do to a younger sibling to make them jump. I did jump, and true panic coursed through me.
At that moment, I felt it. It had been there since I woke up, in the back of my mind, but I hadn't searched for it. It was a slumbering power that my mind perceived as a blue energy. I grabbed for it instinctively trying to defend myself from Bruce, someone I perceived to be very dangerous and a threat.
Before I realized it, I had pulled the power into my body and I was growing. The sense of being way too small for my skin perused through me. Everything began to shrink as I got bigger. My skin itched as it transformed from normal human tissue to some scaly exterior that a bullet would bounce off of.
Strength, indescribable strength coursed through my veins like a narcotic. I felt amazing, more amazing than I had ever felt.
When it was done, the cot beneath me had collapsed and I was on the floor with one hand outstretched towards Bruce, showcasing a massive blue-scaled fist with black claws attached to it.
Bruce was out of his seat and he was staring at me, without the green tint in his eyes. He stared at me with a glint that I didn't recognize. The rings from his eyes had disappeared and he looked rejuvenated. He was fascinated with my transformation and he was studying it.
But only for a moment. Eventually his gaze turned hard as he realized what he had done. He thought I would rage out and he would have to stop me. Well I was in control here, and I had to show him that.
"Stop." I said. My voice was deep, much deeper than normal. Bass that I didn't know I could produce flew out of my throat.
Through pure instincts, I grabbed the blue power in my body, and drug it back into my mind. I could not let Bruce transform and destroy wherever it was that we were. I could fight, but could I fight the Hulk to a standstill while saving wherever we were? Doubtful.
The detransformation was faster than the transformation, and soon, my bare ass was being poked by splinters of the cot that was underneath my A-Bomb frame. I stood up quickly and once again covered my nude form from Bruce's gaze.
"You can control it.." Bruce whispered as all anger left his form. "I thought I would have to…"
"You don't Bruce." I said, deciding that the innocent route was getting me nowhere. I needed him to know that I wasn't some lost puppy. I could help him. "They showed me what you can do. I'm not like that." I said, trying to defuse the situation.
"They sent you!" Bruce growled, as he let the anger take him for a moment.
"NO!" I said before I thought about it. They could have watched me transform, assumed I would rage out and then decided to drop me off next to Bruce for us to fight to the death.
"Well maybe!" I corrected. "But I'm not with them, they kidnapped me and experimented on them. I am not with that freak." I told him before he could do anything drastic.
"How do I know you're telling the truth!?" He asked, as the rage in his voice faded slightly.
"Because I didn't attack you when I had the chance!" I argued, pointing out an obvious flaw in his argument.
"You could be waiting for me to drop my guard." Bruce countered, making a decent counterargument.
"I'm not! I'm a victim of them just like you are Bruce!" I told the genius. My own anger was getting the best of me now. Now that I thought about it, I bet I could take the coward. That was all he was after all, a coward that ran from himself.
I shook my head, warding off those thoughts. It seems that I wouldn't get off so easy on my own transformation as I thought. Those were testosterone filled thoughts that I did not want to have.
"You don't know what I am!" Bruce roared for a moment before he turned away from me and put his head into his hands.
I stood there awkwardly as he kept moaning words to himself and shaking his head, trying to let go of the anger inside him. After what I just experienced with my own thoughts, I knew that this was probably a hundred times worse. He was at war with himself, no wonder it caused a split personality.
"Not to interrupt a special moment, but do you have any clothes I could borrow." I said, trying a different method to get him to calm down than normal.
Bruce snorted, finding the humor in my words and let me know just what he thought about them.
With a middle finger pointed in my direction.
There was a knocking at the door, so insistent that I had no choice but to sit up rapidly and consider it a threat. Bruce's hand rose in a placating manner. I did not transform like I wanted to, but I did grab on to the blue energy in my mind in preparation.
"Sir! Sir!" I heard outside the door. Although I immediately translated the speech from Spanish. A language I had learned in a different life enough to understand it but rarely form coherent sentences.
Bruce opened the door at the young voice and spoke quietly to the child. "Show me." He responded in perfect Spanish before she turned around and ran in the opposite direction.
Bruce turned and grabbed a bag by the door, before he turned around and began jogging after the girl. She looked suspiciously like the girl that Black Widow used to lure him to a shack outside of town and there was no way that I was going to miss that window of opportunity. Bruce wouldn't leave South America without me.
So I jogged after them. As I left the shack that Bruce lived in, I realized a few things. We were already very far on the outskirts of the town he lived in. Which made sense if he wanted to protect the town from one of his episodes.
We are either in the Amazon, or very close to it. I thought as I was assaulted by leaves from various vegetation of the region. Trees surrounded the natural dirt pathway that had been carved out from the people of the area. I caught up to them without problem, as the girl was small and could not run nearly as fast as I wanted to.
I could feel how strong I was in my base form, and I wanted to test the limits of it.
About three minutes later, we finally arrived at the town, which calling it that felt incorrect. It was more like a collection of 20 or so huts beside a decent size river that they no doubt drank from, and shit in.
It was amazing how some of the world was living compared to America. No wonder Bruce hadn't moved on yet. There were basic concepts that could change these peoples lives.
We arrived at a hut right next to the riverbed and Bruce wasted no time in entering to see the issues. I followed right behind him, ready to lend any aid I could. I paused as soon as I saw the states that the sick was in. Fever like you wouldn't believe and spot all over them. Wouldn't my new gamma abilities protect me from any illness? I thought for a moment before I realized I was most likely immunized from vaccinations as a child.
It was a risk I was willing to take, so I kneeled next to Bruce as he opened his case and got to work.
When I walked out of the hut, it was dark out.
I paused for a moment and took a deep breath. The air was crisp outside, free of mold and mildew that permeated the cabin. No doubt it was the source of this families discomforts. When I was done I looked around to see the child from earlier sitting on the ground staring into nothing. She was so tiny and obviously starved.
I turned to Bruce. "Do we have any food?" I asked, wondering how this child would eat tonight with her parents and brother sick inside.
"No. I'm not much of a hunter." Bruce said sheepishly as he rubbed his neck tiredly.
"Anything to worry about around here?" I asked vaguely towards him. I was really asking if there was anyone watching us like SHIELD or government agencies.
"Probably." Bruce answered as his feet hit the road, headed towards his hut on the outskirts of the town. "But the Amazon is that way. Plenty to eat there." Bruce's hand rose and pointed downstream. Perhaps the river would lead me to some wildlife.
Oh wait, I don't have any weapons… I joked to myself as I gripped the blue energy inside of me.
Better do it away from prying eyes, though.
"Holy shit this is amazing!"
I slowed to a stop, creating craters in the earth where I slid to a halt. I had covered a lot of distance in a couple of moments. My legs were full of muscles that could propel me very very far.
I crouched, wondering how high I could jump, before launching myself into the air. I jumped significantly higher than the trees and I had honestly held back. At the peak, I had to be around 100 feet in the air.
Although I really didn't have a gauge for my strength, this being the first time I had truly transformed so I did not expect for a massive forest to be underneath me on the way down.
Time to test durability. I thought as I came crashing down into the trees. I couldn't help but close my eyes when I hit the treetops. The initial impacts were much more anticlimactic than I expected, being only small pinches of pressure where I bulldozed my way through branches and tree trunks. Briefly, with a bit of arrogance, did I realize that the world was giving way under my might.
When I finally hit the ground, it was a jarring impact that destabilized my equilibrium more than it hurt. My feet sunk into the ground, causing topsoil and local vegetation to uproot.
I couldn't help but admire myself even more in the moonlight.
'Bruuuuhhh'
My enhanced hearing picked upon the sound, and experience told me that it was some form of food for the children of the village. A flash of brown through the leaves of the forest around me, and I took off.
The impact hit me before the sound did.
The feeling of the bullet against my skull was similar to a single knuckle from an older sibling to the head. It didn't do any damage, and it didn't really hurt. But man did it make me pay attention.
I took stock of my situation quickly, and looked around the area for the source of the sound and rifle. In both of my arms were two Amazonian brown brocket deer, a local species of wildlife that I had taken to hunting most often during my time with Bruce so I was forced to lay them on the ground at my feet.
No reason to ruin good meat because of a fight. I thought as I spotted the trailing form of a human running through the woods.
I set my feet and didn't waste any time taking off in a slight jog. I really didn't want to hurt someone, and I couldn't blame them for being scared of me, not that it was a reason to try and kill me. I was more fascinated that someone had a firearm this deep into the Amazon and I wanted to investigate a little more.
Wouldn't want them to find my little village and conquer them would I? Nor would I want them to learn of Bruce.
As it turns out, I walked straight into an ambush.
I rounded a particularly dense piece of tree and shrubbery to find an army waiting for me with an assortment of single-fire weapons in a small clearing. Shotguns made up the bulk of the weapons, and I understood why quickly.
"Oh shit!" I said as the sound of about twenty shotgun blasts hit my ears.
Being hit by that many shotgun pellets, and at a range of about twenty yards would have killed 99.9% of the people on this planet. To me, it felt like a couple of light punches smacked me in my chest. I didn't even have to try to stand my ground.
I would have focused on the fact that someone was trying to kill me, but the first thing I noticed about my attackers wasn't the fact that they looked like normal South Americans, but rather that their eyes had no irises or pupils. Women, men, teenagers, and even the elderly stood there in cotton garments with guns in their hands pointed at me. None of them showed emotion on their face, and none of them looked surprised that I was still alive.
I recognized the symptoms of the people in front of me almost immediately.
"Please don't shoot." I said as I held my hands out towards them. I would not attack them, knowing who they were and who was controlling them, but I really didn't want to make this person an enemy as soon as I arrived in this body.
"Never seen one of your kind talk before." A vaguely Scottish accent said from one of the members of the crowd.
He blended in well, but I should have noticed him sooner. He was about six foot tall, and held himself with pride. His chest and chin were poked out into the world, with the look of a leader and a ruler. Black hair graced his head, and the same eyes as the others looked straight at me. Although his face showed surprise, unlike the others.
Druig, a fucking Eternal, thinks I am a Deviant… great.
"I am one of a kind." I said. "There are no others like me."
"There was once, before we eradicated you all." The man responded quickly and with confidence. He hadn't moved, and luckily he hadn't given the order for them to shoot again.
"I don't know who you are, or what you think I am, but you're wrong regardless." I argued, thinking of a way to prove it to him that I wasn't a Deviant.
"All you need to know is that I was sent to eliminate your kind Deviant, and I will fulfill that mission." Druig countered.
Before I could respond, the people under the Eternal's control fired. Once again I was peppered with shotgun pellets. I couldn't help it, annoyance rolled under my skin. How dare he just shoot at someone without repercussion. Human's were not his play things.
"Please don't do that. I can prove I am not a Deviant." I said, cutting to the chase.
He did not respond, but the people under his control all cocked their shotguns once menacingly. A loud 'chik-chik' rang out in the clearing before they pointed their guns at me. Druig just stared at me, like the others waiting.
I took it as my que, and I pulled the blue energy from my body back into my mind. In about three seconds I was back into my normal, baseline human form with my hands in the air.
Druig, a normally stoic individual, couldn't help but let his surprise show on his face.
Nothing happened for a few moments. Druig was processing the information with a tilted head and eyes that hadn't left my form. After about a minute and a half of silence, he turned around without warning, prompting his mind-controlled village to do the same. He spoke one last sentence as he and his village disappeared into the forest.
"Apologies for the confusion. Do try and stay away from this place in the future, would you?"
"I thought you wouldn't come back this time."
I made the last cut that I needed, and proceeded to lay the meat next to a pile just like it. The villagers had other things they could do to the deer carcass to get more use out of it. The antlers would make a good handle for a knife or sword they wielded. The fur could be used in any number of ways. The possibilities were plentiful.
"I told you I'm not leaving without you." I responded to Bruce, finally turning around to look at him.
"I'm never going back." Bruce retorted confidently. "Why would you give up your life for a stranger like me? A monster!"
"You're not a monster Bruce." I told him. "Look at what you're doing here." I said as I spread my arms out wide. All the people in the village were close by. There were a multitude of fires about 50 yards from us, with families and friends gathered around them eating and laughing. "A lot of these people would have died without you."
"They would have survived." Bruce argued as he turned away from me, and began heading back in the direction of his hut.
I followed after him. "What is your IQ, Bruce?" I asked him.
We had been doing this for over a month now. A full month of Bruce moping around the amazon, hating himself and wishing he had never been born. Wishing that he could kill himself, but being unsuccessful. All his brain power went to thinking of ways to off himself.
"I don't know." Bruce said, not really caring for the question. He almost scoffed at it, in fact.
"300 plus." I answered for him, remembering the crazy statistic from my past life. Bruce Banner's intelligence had always been vastly overshadowed by the raging green monster hiding in the back of his mind. "There is a plus there, because no intelligence test has been able to properly measure it, isn't that right?" I asked, rhetorically.
Bruce didn't answer, he just kept walking, hunched over. He acted like the world was sitting on his shoulders. I just couldn't help but think this wasn't the man that the movies portrayed. Sure Bruce was awkward and timid, afraid of getting angry, but he wasn't straight up depressed.
"Do you know the good that you can do with that?" I asked him. "What are some of the things that these people need?" I asked, trying to make a point to him.
"Hope, for one." Bruce answered almost without any time to think about it.
I made note of that. He had spoken too quickly to be talking about anyone but himself. Bruce thought he had no hope in his life anymore? Is that why he was so depressed?
"Access to electricity, for two. Plumbing, for three. Education, I can go on and on." Bruce fired off answers back to back to back.
"Good." I said, grabbing on to the second answer. "How could these people get access to these things? Electricity for example."
"Well, for such a small settlement like this, solar or wind would work. Something to keep them warm during the winter and cool during the summer would do wonders. Water towers are easy enough to build, it just requires skilled labor and money once you have the energy. Education is much harder." Bruce rambled.
I watched his body language closely as he began to explore ways to fix the issues of this place. It began with his posture. He slowly began to straighten up, as he unconsciously looked up as he thought, a tell tale sign of visualization. His hands rose from their slouched position to become more active when he spoke.
This was a thinker, and a problem solver. A man with a brain comparable to Tony Stark, Hank Pym, and other legendary figures. He could make real change in the world. If only someone could help him get over his demons. Hulk was a manifestation of his rage from his childhood and his fathers abusive tendencies. Hulk was something he had to come to terms with.
"Look at yourself." I interrupted him.
Bruce looked over to me, as I broke his train of thought, and then he looked at himself. "What do you mean?" He asked.
"You were meant to solve problems Bruce. You weren't meant to run from them." I told him seriously.
"I'm not Tony Stark, Rick. My specialties lie in Nuclear Physics, and radiation. Biology even. Not engineering." Bruce retorted, as his frame began to sink back down in his depressed state.
"Perfect, humanity has neglected nuclear energy for far too long." I told him, manipulating him to keep talking and not being depressed. "Have you ever thought about that?" I asked, knowing the answer.
"Have I ever thought about that?!" Bruce said as if I was a dumbass. "It was my life's purpose. When I was 25 I improved upon 10 different designs, leading to at least a 20% increase in energy while making it nearly impossible to overload and chernobyl everything. Every single government agency turned me down!" Bruce practically roared.
"Well there you go, that's your first problem." I said, taking his anger and rolling with it. "Why would you take a design from someone half as smart as you, made almost a century ago, and present it to the government. First principle thinking Bruce, redesign the whole fucking thing!" I retorted very enthusiastically.
"Impossible, just because I'm smart doesn't mean I should throw away designs that are tested and work." Bruce replied, waving his hand at me in a dismissing manner.
"Bullshit." I said as I pointed to him. "Have you ever looked into Tesla and SpaceX? The Model S is set to come out later this year. It's fully electric and can go further than any other electric vehicle ever produced, and it's only getting better! And SpaceX, is set to make the first private docking at the ISS this year as well! Tony Stark built a fucking flying metal suit and completely revamped his company from building weapons to tech. Don't tell me it's impossible, it just takes hard work and a brain like the one you have!" I was getting a little too excited, but damn it was hard because of the exciting things going on in the world.
I knew where Tesla and SpaceX were going because of how well they did in my other life. I knew how well Tony Stark would do because of my other life. But it could be even better. Sure this world would face obstacles, but it would overcome, that doesn't mean innovation just stopped.
"Nobody wants me for my brain, Rick! They only want me for the other guy!" Bruce yelled at me, while a tint of green spread through his eyes.
"Well that's not true."
Bruce and I both looked towards the voice that had obviously come from inside the hut we had been sharing. The first thing I noticed was how drop dead gorgeous the woman was. Her red hair flowed down to her shoulders in perfect curls. Her breasts were just the perfect size, not too big and not too small. Legs from years of kicking peoples ass and assassin work led to a rear end that was worthy of things I would rather not mention. The things I would do to this woman should never be spoken of in casual conversation.
"Who are you?" Bruce asked, breaking me out of the naughty thoughts I was having of the woman.
Well things just picked up a bit, didn't they. I thought as the woman answered his question quickly.
"Natasha Romanov, SHIELD sent me."
A/N: Boom!
So I like Siegfried, but there was a reason I didn't put it on a schedule. It's an interesting idea that can lead to some awesome battles, and a decent story. But damn if this idea didn't take over my mind quickly.
The SI is still powerful, as A-Bomb is a gamma being making him strong and durable. But Rick Jones is not the Prince of Asgard, and is not a god. He has more weaknesses and has further to go than Thor. He is not tied to Asgard or its people either giving him more freedom to explore this universe and world like an SI should.
Idk, maybe this won't go anywhere, but now I have satisfied my mind and put it to paper.
Let's talk about it in the reviews!