SmilinKujo
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Chapter 96 – The Spark Before the Roar
🕑 Added 2025-05-26 18:25:54 +0000 UTCThe alarm didn’t go off. It never needed to. Donald Blake was already awake. He lay still, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for his thoughts to settle into shape. The early light filtered in through the half-closed blinds, cutting the room into golden stripes. His room was small—single bed, one desk, one bathroom, no posters—but tidy. Immaculate, really. Every book was squared, every pen placed like it mattered.
Today would be the start of his final semester. One more gauntlet: Clinical Rotations.
He sighed, slowly sat up, and reached to the side. His fingers found the wooden cane resting where it always did. He leaned on it carefully, habitually. The rhythm of rising, always the same. It was part ritual, part necessity. “Here we go,” he murmured, standing fully. He limped to the bathroom. The cane tapped softly on the floor.
Steam curled off the mirror. Blake stood shirtless at the sink, drying his hair with a towel, body slim and wiry—not weak, but weathered. One leg bore the long-healed scar of a life-altering break. His movements were methodical, nothing wasted. He shaved. He brushed. He dressed. Dark blazer, dark slacks. Plain tie. Crisp lines.
He ate alone. One hand on his cereal, the other flipping through a textbook titled: "Cellular Morphology: Red Blood Cells and Clinical Variants." He already knew the chapter. But repetition wasn’t boredom—it was protection. “Let memory rot,” he whispered, “and knowledge dies with it.” His voice was quiet, but firm. He turned the page.
Blake stepped outside, hat on, bag slung across his shoulder, cane tapping once more. The cool morning air met his face like an old friend. Then—arms wrapped around him from behind. “Donald,” a voice teased, “didn’t I tell you being disciplined was attractive? But this is getting ridiculous.”
He smiled without turning. “Why is that?”
Milo, his old friend, theatrical and always late, spun around in front of him with a grin. “Because every day, eight a.m. sharp, you emerge like some Harvard phantom. Meanwhile, I can’t make it down a flight of stairs without gasping. And I have great legs.”
Donald put a hand to his chest. “Ouch. That hurts. And for your information, I only have one bad leg.”
They both laughed. “You want to come with me?” Milo asked.
Donald raised an eyebrow. “Where?”
“Culver University.”
“Why?”
Milo flashed a grin. “My new girlfriend goes there. I want you to meet her. She’s studying astrophysics or… astromath. Something with stars. Point is—she’s smart and gorgeous, and I want to brag.”
Donald hesitated. “I have to finish my internship application.”
Milo put both hands together like a pleading saint. “Pleaseee. Come on. You’re top of your class. Hospitals from Boston to Baltimore are already whispering your name like it’s a holy incantation. You can finish that application tonight. Just… come with me. Give me this one accomplishment—I landed a woman who didn’t laugh in my face.”
Blake stared at him a moment. Then sighed. “Okay.”
“YES. Let’s go now.”
Donald blinked. “Wait, what? Right now?”
Too late. Milo was already grabbing his sleeve, dragging him toward the sidewalk. Donald stumbled slightly but didn’t resist. He just laughed—low, genuine, and rare.
“Milo… you’re impossible.”
“That’s why we are friends.”
They disappeared into the morning, just two friends walking toward a detour neither of them knew would lead to something very, very large.
…
“HOW COULD MY HOUSE BE IN THIS STATE?”
The shout rang like a slap across tile and stone. Several Jack clones—lazier copies in tank tops, sweats, and mismatched shoes—looked up from their card game, expressions ranging from guilt to smugness.
The real Jack Hou—sharp, spine-straight, draped in a shimmering jet-black cheongsam, his tail twitching behind him like a warning—stood in the middle of the mess. Candy wrappers. noodles. Open books. Was that a ferret in the fountain? “Did none of you clean?!”
One of the clones, chewing a skewer of grilled squid, didn’t look up. “Shut up, you Ip Man wannabe.” The others snickered.
SNAP. A small stone zipped through the air and struck the squid clone right in the forehead. “OW! What the hell, man?!”
Jack rolled his neck, flexed his fingers. “You’re children. Lazy, undisciplined children. And like children, you’re snooping around in things that aren’t yours. What is it, pirate hour now?”
The laughter died. CLANK. The manor’s front gate opened. From the morning haze stepped Nick Fury—black trench coat, cold presence, eye patch already judging everyone within a five-mile radius. “Came to see if the real Jack was still here,” Fury said as he walked forward. “And from the looks of it, you are.”
Jack tilted his head. “You sure? You didn’t bring a test tube? Maybe one of those brain scans?”
“Figured I’d recognize the one not playing dice with a ferret.”
Behind Jack, the clones had suddenly become very interested in sweeping leaves that weren’t there. Jack raised an eyebrow. “So… you need something?”
“It’s going to be a long talk.” Fury’s tone made it clear: he expected an invitation inside. A chair. Maybe tea. Cooperation. Jack didn’t move. He stared. Then—He lightly hopped off the ground and crossed his legs mid-air like he was settling into a floating lotus. His tail curled underneath, supporting him just high enough to hover like a smug, airborne Buddha.
Fury’s one eye tracked the motion. “That your mutation?”
Jack smirked. “I don’t see myself answering that question.” He floated a half-turn.“You came to talk. So talk.”
Fury exhaled slowly, measuring his tone like a man threading a needle in a lion’s mouth. “Okay. I’m here to inform you… the matter of the illegal sanctions and blockade on your territory has been—handled.”
Jack floated lazily a few feet above the courtyard floor, still seated cross-legged in midair like some smug monk possessed by jazz. He tilted his head, mock curiosity blooming across his face. “You mean the bodies floating with the satellites?” From behind him, a couple of clones snickered. One mimed a corpse doing jumping jacks in zero gravity.
Fury’s face didn’t change. “Yes. Those. Whether or not it was your little windstorm that did it, it was only a matter of time before certain countries connected the dots.”
Jack waved a lazy hand. “Who cares. They’re the ones who poked the monkey in the first place.”
Fury nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching like he’d expected that answer. “Maybe. But even with their absence, the damage was done. Resources choked off. Infrastructure stalled. People hurting.” He took a step forward. “That’s why SHIELD is stepping in. We’re offering support. Quietly. Supply lines, protection. We know your territory has peaches growing out of every pavement, but you and I both know that’s not real sustenance.”
Jack’s smile faded slightly. His tail flexed behind him. “Oh, but this doesn’t come free, does it… Director?”
Fury didn’t answer with words. He reached into his coat, produced a single manila folder. The folder skidded to a stop beneath Jack’s hovering form. On the front: "AVENGERS INITIATIVE"—stamped in bold.
Jack stared at it. Then—He laughed. Not a chuckle. A full-bodied, spine-bending, manic little explosion of mirth. “KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE—you want me to join a boy band?” His feet dropped gently to the ground, the humor still in his voice but his eyes sharpening. “Sorry. I work alone.”
Fury’s jaw tightened. “Then I can’t promise our support will last.”
Something changed. Jack’s smile froze. His golden eyes ignited—a soft, supernatural flicker at first, then a full pulse, blazing like twin suns behind his pupils. Fury flinched, instinctively reaching for his sidearm. But Jack didn’t attack. He simply looked.
In that single moment, Fury felt something press against his mind. Not a push, not a shove—more like a gaze that went through him, peeled him like a fruit. Jack saw. He saw the council room—the five holograms. He saw Pierce, Malick, Rockwell, all of them. He heard the words: “Don’t antagonize him.” He saw it all. SHIELD’s mission wasn’t diplomacy. It was containment by recruitment.
The glow vanished. Just a blink. Barely a second. But Jack had seen everything. His grin returned. Too wide. Too calm. Then—CRACK.
Suddenly, Nick Fury was on the ground, flat on his back, wind knocked out of him. The folder fluttered in the air above.
Jack stood over him, shoving a rolled-up newspaper into Fury’s mouth like a rebellious cat owner disciplining a dog. “You see this? ‘Comeback of the Prince of Crime’—front page, baby.”
Fury gagged slightly. His hand twitched near his gun, but didn’t draw. Jack leaned closer, his voice velvet-wrapped in venom.
“Listen to me, baldy. I’ve killed one shiny-headed, self-important kingpin in this world already. Don’t you think I won’t make it a trend.” His energy shifted. Not a scream. Not even a threat. Just pressure. Fury’s vision blurred. His ribs vibrated. It felt like the ground under him was alive, like a giant was stepping on the Earth with him under its heel.
Jack whispered. “No blackmail. No threats. No manipulation. Or I will rip the secrets out of your soul and hang them from every streetlamp in D.C.”
Then—It stopped. The weight vanished. Jack stood, brushing off his sleeves. The newspaper fell softly to the ground beside Fury like it, too, had no more business here. “Have a safe walk home, Director.” The clones snickered.
One mimicked Fury’s fall with dramatic flair. Fury sat up slowly, breath uneven, face unreadable—but his eye gleamed with something between fury and respect. Then he left. Quietly.
…
The campus was alive with students, coffee carts, rustling papers, and bad parking. Trees shaded wide paths. Flyers flapped on bulletin boards. The usual hum of higher education in motion. Donald Blake and Milo strolled in, dwarfed by the historic brick buildings of Culver University.
Donald’s cane tapped lightly on the pavement. “Do you even know where the faculty building is?”
Milo grinned. “Nope. But I got connections to find her.”
Donald side-eyed him. “What connections?”
Milo tapped his chest. “You can’t feel it, but I can. It’s intuition.”
“That’s not scientific.”
“Of course not. It’s all in the heart, baby.”
They rounded a corner. Students passed them, laughter bouncing off the ivy-covered halls. Somewhere, someone was playing guitar very badly. As they crossed a footpath, Donald accidentally bumped into a pizza delivery man, nearly knocking the box sideways.
“Sorry,” Donald said instantly, reaching to steady the man.
The delivery man—baseball cap pulled low—froze for half a second. Then quietly replied. “No, I’m sorry.” His voice was flat, almost whispering. He adjusted the cap further down and walked away quickly.
Donald and Milo watched him go in silence. “Well that’s not suspicious at all,” Milo muttered. Donald nodded. “You don’t say.” But before the thought could linger—“Hey! That’s her!” Milo pointed excitedly.
Donald turned just in time to see a brunette—cheerful, sharp-eyed, carefree—waving from across the lawn. Beside her stood a blonde girl, arms full of thick folders and lab sheets, squinting at the sunlight.
Milo bolted ahead like a puppy off-leash and wrapped the brunette in a dramatic hug. She yelped, laughed, mock-punched him in the ribs.
Donald approached more slowly. But his eyes weren’t on Milo or the brunette. His gaze was locked on the blonde beside her. She wasn’t looking at him. She was sorting through the papers, half-listening to Darcy’s retelling of a weird dream she had about a planet made of tapioca. But to Donald, it was like the world had blurred, narrowed, focused.
That voice in the back of his mind—the one that always asked clinical questions—went dead silent. Milo noticed. He smirked. “Donald, this is Darcy Lewis—my girlfriend and certified bad influence.”
Darcy elbowed him. “Damn right.”
“Darcy,” Milo continued, “this is Donald Blake, my bestest friend and walking encyclopedia of polite trauma.”
Donald blinked, shook himself. “H-Hi, Darcy. I’m Donald Bl—”
“Ahem,” Darcy cut in, picking up the vibe with all the subtlety of a shotgun. She jerked her thumb toward the blonde, who had just looked up. “This is Jane Foster. She’s majoring in nursing.”
Jane looked at Donald. Donald looked at Jane. They both blinked. “Hi,” Jane said simply. “Hi,” Donald said at the same time. He looked like someone who just forgot his name.
Then—BOOOOOM. The shockwave tore through the quad. People screamed. Birds scattered. The air seemed to punch inward on itself, like God had slammed his fist on the table. Everyone turned. Smoke. Fire. From the far side of campus, one of the lab buildings had exploded.
Metal peeled back like paper. A huge shadow emerged. Then—A monstrous roar shattered the sky. And stepping through the flames came something green, massive, and furious. The Hulk. Shirtless. Snarling. Muscles like coiled stone. Eyes burning with confusion and rage. He roared again. And the world—once filled with laughter, flirting, and daydreams—changed.
Comments
Vrael333
Oooh. Hulk angry 😤!!! Thx for the chapter :)
