m/m Containment Parts 1-3 (A Continuation Of The 'hulk Smashed' Story

[AT2000]

Bruce Banner pulled the hood of his light parka over his head in an effort to ward of the increasing cold of a sunny, but frigid day in the woods of upstate New York.

 

He continued to make his way toward his isolated destination.  It was something of a struggle, and he had gotten lost more than a couple of times, but he felt sure he was closing in on the place that had once been his home in what now seemed like another lifetime.  He stopped for a moment to have a more careful look at his surroundings.  A familiar creek worked its way south not far ahead.  To the east - he recognized a series of glacial gorges.  Which meant, he thought to himself as he peered further up the side of the low rise he was currently scaling, that he was nearly there.

 

He quickened his pace and soon crested the shallow ridge.  He stood for a moment panting, allowing himself a small triumphant smile as he looked out over what remained of the Northwind Observatory.

 

A few moment's worth of inspection, even at a distance, was all it took to cause his wan smile to fade to a more melancholy expression.  There wasn't much left.  The forest had reclaimed much, undaunted by the massive chain-link and barbed-wire perimeter designed to ward off the occasional curious hiker or hunter.

 

The massive, revolving dome that once housed his gamma-scope's main collector appeared largely intact underneath a decade or so of vines and creepers.  Which, he knew, was more than could be said for the gamma-scope itself - the machine that had brought him back to this place.  But with a little help from a couple of old acquaintances, he hoped to change that.

 

He scanned the sky, then checked his watch.  He was a little early - plenty of time to make his way to the main gate of the perimeter fence.  He set off with a renewed sense of determination, now that his destination was in sight and had almost made it there when he first detected a subtle mechanical whine from overhead.  He stopped and cast a glance skyward through a gap in the tree canopy in time to see what looked like an ordinary automobile - except this one happened to be flying, its modified, swiveling wheels gimbaling to aim directional thrusters that vented out the wheel hubs.

 

Picking up his pace further, he emerged into a clearing in front of the main gate to find the car he had seen moments ago was now settled on the ground just in front of him on all four wheels.  For a moment, he locked eyes with the driver in the car's rear-view mirror.  Eyes that though familiar, he had not seen for years.

 

Bruce swallowed nervously as he heard the clunk of the car-door opening.  A slender, dark-haired woman of around his own age eased out of the car and turned to face him.  She smiled wistfully.  "Hello Bruce."

 

Bruce hadn't known what he was going to say until the words actually fell out of his mouth.  "It's good to see you Kate."

 

She let out a small bark of a laugh and looked away toward the ruined observatory as though she wasn't sure she believed that.  "You look like Hell."  She pointed out.

 

Bruce laughed at the directness of that.  Apparently, Kate Waynesboro had lost some of her reticence since they had worked together here, all those years ago.  But then again, at this point, he wasn't sure he remembered how much of that had been genuine and how much had been part of her cover.

 

"You don't."  Bruce replied.  "Looks like the life of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent agrees with you."

 

That brought a sharp appraising look from the woman.  Bruce got the idea that she was trying to figure out if he was daring to try and get flirtatious with this woman who had, at least once upon a time, had deep feelings for him...feelings he had never quite returned.

 

Bruce tried to preempt such a misunderstanding by earnestly holding her gaze as he spoke.  "You didn't have to come here Kate.  You didn't have to do any of this.  All I can say is, it's important that you did...and thank you."

 

Kate considered that for a moment and it seemed to satisfy her that Bruce was sincere.  A small smile returned to her face as she pulled back a stray lock of raven hair from in front of her eyes.  "You really do look like Hell, Bruce.  What is going on with you?"  She removed a small device from her pocket and approached the high gate.

 

Bruce fell in step behind her.  "I'm just going through a rough patch."  He said, not volunteering any specifics.

 

"Yes, well - it never was easy being green, was it?"  She asked dryly.  If Bruce was reluctant to have Kate drawn further into the circumstances of his life, that seemed fine with her.  She had been down that road before.

 

Kate placed the cylindrical device she held into a circular receptacle built into a panel on the gate.  It produced a series of beeps and flashes of colored lights that were then mimicked by the panel and the gate swung open with a rusty squeal.

 

Kate continued forward into the compound purposefully.  "I was able to retrieve most of the equipment you requested from where the Avengers had it warehoused, with Tony Stark's cooperation.  He must owe you a lot of favors."  Kate added as she led Bruce to a massive shipping container that rested near the center of the overgrown grounds.  "He manufactured replacements for the necessary equipment that had been destroyed and I calibrated everything according to the specs we used back in the good old days.  He choppered in the whole kit and caboodle an hour ago."  She finished, gesturing to the shipping container.

 

Bruce moved eagerly to the container and took hold of a large, heavy lever set into the metal door.  He heaved but it wouldn't budge.  He stepped back, dusting his hands and turned to face Kate with a reluctant look.

 

"What's wrong?"  she asked, crossing her arms.  "It's hard to keep track but aren't you currently able to summon and control your big green pal at will?"

 

He could, of course.  But ironically, as Kate had said before, it really wasn't easy for him to be green these days.  In fact, it took a tremendous amount of concentration to trigger and maintain his transformation into the Hulk.  These days, the primitive splinter personality that had always most directly controlled the savage power of the Hulk spent all of his time cowering deep inside Banner's subconscious mind, making the transformation difficult to affect.

 

But even if transforming had been a cinch, Bruce was hesitant to do so in front of Kate.  She had suffered some pretty rough treatment at the hands of the brute in the past.

 

He wasn't sure how to explain that the shame he felt over inflicting such abuse on a woman he did genuinely care for - though maybe never actually loved - would make it even more difficult to transform into his massive alter-ego in her presence.

 

"I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I think I need to do the rest of this...on my own."  Bruce offered delicately.

 

Kate considered that in silence for half a second, then blinked in mild surprise.  "Oh.  Sorry."  She fumbled the electronic key she had used to open the gate from her coat pocket and proffered it to Bruce awkwardly.  "I'll uh, leave you to it then."

 

Bruce took Kate's hand along with the key she offered and squeezed it gently.  "Thank you Kate...for coming."  He nodded his head toward the cargo container.  "Thanks for all of it."

 

They locked eyes again and Kate offered him a final genuine, if brief, smile then turned and made her way back out of the compound.

 

Bruce stood, staring blankly, lost in thought and memory until he heard the faint sound of the S.H.I.E.L.D. flying car's turbines spin up, then fade completely into the distance.

 

Then he stripped off his clothing, leaving only his specially designed underwear.  He closed his eyes and concentrated, struggling to ignore the cold.  He knew that in a minute or so it would no longer affect him.  He felt his body burgeon; with size, with power, with near invulnerability.  At the same time he knew all that power was nowhere near enough.  He needed more and the gamma-scope would give it to him.

 

The only time he felt any stirrings from his brutish alternate persona these days was when he had this thought about the potential of the gamma-scope.  Otherwise, it remained humbled, cowering quietly in fear deep inside his mind.

 

This angered Bruce.  The idea that the Hulk would reemerge and try to take back control only AFTER Bruce had done all the hard work of repairing the gamma-scope and using it to vastly increase the gamma-spawned might of the body they unwillingly shared.

 

Bruce had been stunned by the might of young Christopher O'Malley but having the kid effortlessly humble him had done a real number on the Hulk persona.  The Hulk's very self-identity was largely rooted in being the "strongest one there was".  It had simply been psychologically devastating to be so thoroughly out-manned by the massive teen, who had devastated the Hulk in their first encounter and done so with little more than the almost playful flexing of his larger and far more powerful mutant muscles.

 

Banner returned to the shipping container and effortlessly flipped the thick metal lever of the locking mechanism.  It looked as though he had two fronts on which he might soon be doing battle.  Reigning in a potentially out of control, awesomely powerful muscle-teen and keeping the Hulk from gaining the upper hand once more in their decades old struggle for dominance.

 

As Banner stood lost in his thoughts before the huge open container, it suddenly began to levitate off the ground.  Bruce stumbled back a step in surprise and watched wide-eyed as the container rose higher into the air.

 

"Need a hand with the heavy-lifting?"  A male voice asked.

 

The container seemed to float up to a stop nearly level with the top of the Hulk's head.  The surprised behemoth could see that below the container, hoisting it effortlessly overhead with one hand, stood Leonard Samson.

 

Banner hadn't seen Samson in quite some time.  Bruce always felt a pang of jealousy everytime he laid eyes on the strapping, gamma-powered hercules.  Samson had been transformed into a muscular powerhouse by gamma radiation in much the same way that Bruce had been transformed into the Hulk.  But in Samson's case, the handsome psychiatrist had retained all his intellect, not to mention that his physique, though mightily enhanced, had not been distorted into a border-line grotesquery like the Hulk.

 

Instead Samson had become a perfect specimen of muscle and temperament, his only abnormal feature - green hair, which only seemed to add an exotic undercurrent to the man's otherwise classic good-looks.

 

"Leonard?"  The Hulk asked, blinking as though to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.  "What are you doing here?"

 

Samson grinned at the Hulk's confusion as he tossed the container up and down slightly.  "Kate consulted with me on your recent request for help."

 

Bruce's eyes narrowed.  "You're no physicist."

 

"No."  Samson agreed.  "Kate and Tony Stark were well up to the technical challenges, but she seemed to think that your...frame of mind might bear a little investigation."

 

Bruce crossed his massive arms and tried not to let it show how much that bothered him.  Until today, he had only spoken with Kate about his current predicament via telephone - and then only to cryptically ask for her help.  That the woman could still read him so easily, years after they had ended their association, bugged him.

 

Bruce snatched the shipping container away from Samson on the next toss, ultimately unable to hide his irritation.  He stumbled to maintain his balance as he accepted the huge weight of it (The way Samson had been handling the container made it appear lighter than it was) and stalked off toward the dock area of Northwind Observatory.  "Like I told Kate, this is something I want to do on my own."

 

Samson shook his head behind the Hulk, then started after him.  "Tough.  Until I'm sure you aren't up to something that could potentially destabilize your psyche, I'm not going anywhere.  You've only regained control of the Hulk recently and you haven't exactly been forthcoming about how you managed it this time.  But I aim to do everything in my power to make sure you retain that control."

 

The Hulk inserted the cargo container into a docking door and then turned his attention to a large set of metal double-doors set into the building near to the docks.  He threw the doors open to reveal a bank of large breaker switches and began to flip them all to the "on" position.  All the while he calmly ignored Doc Samson.

 

The hum of machinery began to emanate from various points inside the abandoned observatory.  As Banner threw the last of the switches, he was surprised to feel Samson grip him by the shoulder from behind and spin the Hulk around to face his former psychiatrist.

 

"Why are you trying to make the Hulk stronger?"  Samson asked point blank.

 

Apparently, Bruce's efforts to keep his objective here at Northwind a secret were for naught.  The surprise must have registered on his face.

 

"Yeah, I know what you're up to here."  Samson smirked as he crossed his muscular arms across his chest.  "I have enough experience with gamma-ray-spawned muscle to have figured that out, even if I'm not a physicist".

 

"Look Leonard, don't you know me well enough to trust that I'm doing this for a reason - a good one?  If this doesn't work - "

 

"Oh, it'll work."  Samson assured Bruce.

 

This brought Bruce up short.  "I’m not even sure this will work.  How can you be so confident?"  Bruce asked.

 

Samson sighed, ignoring the question.  "Big picture, Bruce; Until I'm satisfied that you aren't going to lose control of the Hulk again, I'm not letting you go through with this."

 

Bruce stared down at the shorter man incredulously.  "You?  Are not going to 'let' me?”  Bruce gave a short mocking laugh as he looked around.  "Just who is going to help you stop me?"

 

"My Pal, Lefty, should be all the help I need."  Samson brought up his left arm and flexed his biceps.  "But I brought back-up, just in case."  He added, bringing his right arm up and flexing it along with his other.

 

Bruce actually felt his jaw collide with the top of his bulging green pecs as his mouth fell open.

 

Though Samson was shorter, he now sported biceps that were as big as the Hulk's.  Bruce swallowed nervously as he reluctantly conceded to himself the possibility that they might actually be even bigger.

 

 It took Bruce several long seconds to compose himself.

 

Dr. Leonard Samson now stood before him with a subtle, but distinct look of challenge on his face as he displayed mightily flexing biceps that somehow seemed to loom over Bruce's current manifestation of the incredible Hulk - even though the Hulk was easily taller than the green-haired Samson.

 

"You - you exposed yourself to the procedure?!”  Bruce slowly began to shake his head.   “You could have been killed!"  He finally bellowed.

 

Samson ceased his phenomenal flexing and returned his arms to his side, laughing.  He seemed a little too proud of himself for Bruce's taste.  "Now Bruce, you may be the undisputed expert when it comes to the effects of gamma-radiation on biological tissues, but Kate Waynesboro is no slouch.  And with the advances in biotech that Tony Stark has made since you last powered up the gamma-scope, setting up a trial run of the procedure you outlined was a cinch."

 

As he finished explaining, Samson's maddening, too-pleased-with-himself grin broadened as he bounced up on the balls of his feet like a smug school boy.  He alternately flexed his pecs rapidly to show off more of the results of the successful deployment of Banner's gamma-scope.  Immediately the threads holding the single done-up button of the collar of the casual pull-over shirt Samson wore snapped, sending that button whizzing by Bruce's head.  It didn't take very long before the fabric too succumbed to the pulsating expansion and a jagged tear parted the shirt from the collar to a point near the bottom of the psychiatrist's left pec.

 

"Ha!"  Samson barked.  "I've always wanted to be able to do that."  Despite the cold, he stripped off the remains of the ruined shirt and inspected his broad, thick pecs.  "I think I might still be getting bigger."  He added more analytically.

 

"How nice for you."  Bruce responded with a slight sneer and turned toward the dock entranceway to Northwind Observatory.  "I don't have time for this."

 

Samson reluctantly tore himself away from his self-evaluation and followed Bruce.  "Look, seriously Bruce, see reason here.  You know what the Hulk is like when you aren't in control.  Now imagine him on a rampage with the kind of power you apparently want to impart to yourself."

 

Bruce laughed hollowly.  "Unlike you, I don't have to use my imagination to know what that kind of out-of-control muscle can do."

 

"You're missing the point."  Samson insisted.  "If you lost control after such an augmentation, the damage could be far worse than anything the Hulk's done in the past."

 

Bruce turned on Samson, his impatience mounting.  "No, YOU are missing the point...I'm not talking about the Hulk!"

 

Samson blinked for a few moments as he sorted out what Bruce was getting at.  After a few speechless seconds, Samson had to struggle to keep a grin off his face.  "Someone kicked your ass."

 

Bruce rolled his eyes, turned away from Samson and continued stalking toward the entrance to Northwind.

 

Samson persisted, following close on Bruce's heels.  "That's it, isn't it?  Someone managed to take the Hulk down.  And from how it's rattled you, I'd guess they took him down pretty hard."

 

Bruce pulled the locked door of the dock entrance off it's reinforced hinges and tossed the heavy metal bulk of it aside with ease.  "You know, it may not be my field of expertise, but I've always thought that you had an unhealthy fascination with the idea of being stronger than the Hulk."

 

Still paying as little attention to Samson as he could, Bruce pressed the button that would raise the door to the dock where he had placed the shipping container, clearly intending to bring inside the gamma-scope and the support equipment held within.

 

As the door rattled upward on its tracks, Samson interposed his muscular frame between Bruce and the doorway.

 

"Hey, you stick to your 'field of expertise' and I'll stick to mine."  Samson said, leveling his gaze as much as was possible at the taller man.  "Unhealthy fascination or not, I am stronger than you now Bruce."  He added smugly.

 

The submerged primitive persona of the Hulk surged with anger somewhere inside Bruce's mind at hearing this declaration.

 

Bruce sighed wearily.  "Leonard,  we've been down this road before.  It's highly unlikely that you and Kate were able to get the kind of yield I am expecting to achieve with the gamma-scope.  I didn't share all the details of the collection protocol - new details that I have never incorporated before.  Kate couldn't have known about them."

 

"All the more reason for you to back off of this whole project until I can get up to speed on your current situation.  I'll conduct an evaluation and if everything seems kosher, then I'll let you proceed."

 

"There's no time for a stupid evaluation!!"  Bruce shouted angrily, before struggling to reign in his temper enough to continue.  "And the point I'm trying to get across to you is that you may have been able to pull off a rudimentary execution of the gamma-ray infusion procedure, but face it Samson, you've never really been in my league and I doubt that you are now, even after whatever boost you may have gotten from the gamma-scope.  So you can dispense with the posturing and intimidation".

 

"Stupid?"  Samson repeated, raising an eyebrow.  "That's a nasty, demeaning word.  I don't think I've ever heard you use it before, Bruce."  Samson rubbed his jaw with exaggerated thoughtfulness.  "Now who does like to toss that word around a lot?"

 

"I am going to tell you this one time Samson."  Bruce growled menacingly.  "I am in control here."  Bruce moved closer to Samson as he spoke.  "Now, you are going to move aside."  Bruce continued, now glowering down at Samson.  "Or I'm going to move you."

 

"If that's how you want this to play out."  Samson played at giving an ambivalent shrug.  "Your call."

 

Bruce could tell that despite the other man's implication that any fight between them would be Bruce's own choice, Samson was the one itching to test himself against the Hulk once again.  Bruce realized that Samson wasn't going to stop until he got what he wanted.

 

So be it.

 

The first thing Bruce needed to do was make sure their tussle didn't damage any of his equipment.  "Fine, you win."  Bruce pretended to relent, acting as though his bluff had been called .  He placed what he hoped seemed like a friendly hand on Samson's thick shoulder.  "I realize that you only want what's best".

 

The smug, expectant look vanished from Samson's face, replaced by one of confused disappointment.  "Uh yeah, I'm er...glad to see you come around on this."

 

Having took down Samson's guard, the Hulk's grip on the man's shoulder rapidly ramped up in power until his massive green hand was exerting the crushing force of a hydraulic press.  The Hulk then quickly whirled around and hurled Samson through one of the empty docking bay doors.

 

The door was torn apart like tin-foil as Samson blasted through it and sailed through the air to land near the perimeter fence far across the compound from the docking bay.

 

The Hulk tore through the ragged hole left by Samson's body enlarging it further and leaped after him, landing almost on top of the recovering man.

 

"Stay down, Leonard!"   Bruce warned as he forced Samson onto his back by planting a massive green foot on the prone man's chest.  To prevent possibly being kicked, the Hulk had pinned both of Samson's ankles to the ground by standing on them with his other foot.

 

"Ungffff!  You've...learned some rather dirty tricks since the last time we scrapped."  Samson grunted as he pushed at the Hulk's foot.  "I wouldn't have thought you had in it in you.  Don't know whether to be impressed or disappointed."

 

"As long as you stop interfering with me, I don't care one way or the other."  Now it was Bruce's turn to be smug.  God it felt good to win a fight again.  "Do we have a deal?  Are you going to stop resisting me?"

 

"Unghh...depends..."  Samson replied.  "Today's Wednesday, right?"

 

"Huh?  Umm, yes.  I mean - what's that got to do with -"

 

"I work abs; Monday, Wednesday, Saturday."  Samson quipped.

 

At that, Bruce felt the area of Samson's abdomen pinned by his heel harden exponentially.  Samson stopped shoving at the Hulk's foot and put his hands behind his head and slowly started sitting up, forcing against the Hulks foot and leg.

 

The inhumanly thick muscles in the Hulk's quads and calf flared to even greater girth as the Hulk drove his foot harder against Samson's chest.

 

Samson gritted his teeth, snarled and pushed back forcing his shoulders up off the dirt and forcing the Hulk's massive leg to lose ground against him.  With a burst of effort, Samson sat almost all the way upright.  "Oh, yeah."  He grunted.  "One."

 

The sudden movement had the Hulk struggling not to pitch over backward when suddenly Samson clamped both hands on the top of the Hulk's foot, pressing it firmly against his chest as he relaxed and settled back onto his back once more.

 

Holding the Hulk's foot to his chest like someone might hold a free-weight plate for resistance, Samson grunted and then the Hulk barely had time to fully regain his balance before once again the Hulk felt pressure mount beneath his foot as Samson started to sit up again.

 

"I said STAY DOWN!!"  The Hulk shouted and shifted his weight more directly over Samson as he simultaneously pressed the outer edge of that green foot - massive as a bridge pylon - against Samson's throat.

 

With a flex of his bare pecs, Samson forced the Hulk's foot up and away from his throat.  He fixed Bruce with his eyes.  "Now that was a nasty move, I don't recall ever seeing you this determined."  Samson observed as he powered up to nearly a full sitting position again.  "Two."  He added, with satisfaction.

 

As he both struggled to maintain his balance and fight back against Samson, every giant muscle in the Hulk's mighty legs surged huge with effort, but Samson didn't yield.  "I usually do a few hundred of these, Bruce."  Samson said haughtily, then lowered his heavily muscled torso back to a prone position.  "Hope you have some time to kill."

 

Bruce flailed for balance.  "Let go of me!"  He insisted angrily as he finally managing to wrench his foot out of Samon's grip.  His temper getting the better of him, Bruce then drove his freed foot hard into Samson abdomen.  Samson, caught between flexing his superhuman abs, had the wind partially knocked from his sails by this vicious attack, but even so, he laughed almost giddily as his lower torso was driven a couple of feet into the ground.

 

Bruce retreated a few steps, taken aback by how his temper was getting away from him.  Samson's head, forearms and lower legs protruded almost comically from the shallow crater Bruces stomp had embedded him in.  The effect was enhanced by his continued laughter.  The man sounded more like he was recovering from a bout of intense tickling than from being stomped into the ground by the Incredible Hulk.

 

Samson hopped gracefully to his feet, dusting the dirt from his backside as his laughter abated.  "I've really got you riled up, huh Bruce."

 

Bruce visibly willed himself to calm down.  "I'm through letting you goad me into fighting, Leonard."

 

"What's wrong?  Did I bruise your ego?"  Samson asked smarmily.  He held Bruce's stare as he rubbed one hand over the rippling cobblestone wall of his abs.  "Along with your poor wittle footsie?"

 

Samson advanced on the Hulk confidently.  "If you are as completely in control as you say you are, then you should be able to keep your intellectually challenged alter ego in check, even as I provoke him in the most potent way possible - by demonstrating that "puny Green-hair" is now the strongest one there is."

 

"I don't care, make any claims you like!  I'm willing to stipulate to that if you'll just leave me alone!"  Bruce replied.  He tried to sound indifferent on the subject, but couldn't quite pull it off.

 

"Your reasoning self might say that, Bruce - might even wish it were true."  Samson acknowledged as he closed on the Hulk.  "But we both know that there is a side of you that does care - a side that won't ever accept being weaker than anyone else.  The savage Hulk may not be ascendent, but he's never truly gone because he is an aspect of you.  A part of you."  Samson punctuated this last point with a couple of stabbing jabs between the Hulk's pecs with an accusing finger.

 

As Samson had often done in the past, the skilled psychiatrist had brought Bruce up short with his insight.  Could what Bruce was doing here at Northwind really be more about returning the Hulk to the pinnacle of sheer, brute-force muscle than it was about any potential threat Chris O'Malley might represent.

 

In the end did it really matter?  The solution to Chris's potential threat was to have that threat checked by the power of the Hulk.  Bruce created the problem and he had to solve it.

 

"You're right, Samson."  Bruce conceded flatly.  "In the end I guess all of us are really no more than the sum of our parts."

 

Bruce suddenly laid into Samson with a ground-shaking, surprise punch to the solar plexus.  Immediately after his strike Bruce started forward, intending to follow up the devastation of this attack with a flurry of similar blows until he had put an end to Samson's meddling once and for all.

 

But surprisingly, Samson didn't budge an inch and the Hulk collided clumsily with the unaffected target of his assault.  Samson seized Bruce beneath his massive green arms and shoved him backward until the larger man was at arms length.  "Steady there Bruce, don't get ahead of yourself."  With that Samson lifted the Hulk into the air, pulling him completely off his feet and then, incredibly - almost casually, he tossed the Hulk high into the air.

 

Very high.

 

The sheer acceleration shocked the Hulk.  The initial force of Samson's throw made him feel as if his muscles were going to shear away from his skeleton.  The flesh of his face rippled and distorted like that of a test pilot undergoing training in a multi-g centrifuge.  Of course, his body immediately began to slow due to friction with the air around him, but the rate of deceleration was almost imperceptible and he was near the edge of the Earth's atmosphere before he finally slowed completely to a stop and began his fall back.

 

Bruce could not remember a time, at least when he was in control of the Hulk, when he had been hurled so high into the atmosphere.  He had never purposefully attempted to leap such a distance straight up.  He wondered for a minute if he would be able to do it, but that was ridiculous.  Of course he could.  There was no way Samson could accomplish something with his arms that was beyond the power of the Hulk's massively muscular legs.

 

He flailed to keep himself oriented right-side up as he peered past his feet to the Earth below him.  As he slowly picked up speed, he noticed that Samson had demonstrated a remarkable amount of accuracy and control.  He had kept him perfectly geosynchronous.

 

A few dozen miles below the surprised Hulk, Leonard Samson lowered his gaze from watching Bruce Banner become a vanishing speck in the air over his head.

 

"Damn." He said with a short laugh as he surveyed the wilderness that surrounded the Northwind Observatory. "Might have put a little too much muscle into that."

 

He noted an impressive relic from the last Ice Age a few hundred meters beyond the perimeter fence, narrowing his eyes as he took its measure before returning his attention to the sky above him.

 

"Sorry Bruce, but I really do need to establish that you are in full control of the Hulk." Samson declared to himself as he picked out the tiny dot that was the plummeting green behemoth - a dot that was rapidly growing in size now.

 

"And if my goading does cause the mighty green meanie to come out and play..."

 

Without shifting his gaze, Samson flexed his right biceps and ran his left hand over its steel-hard peak, grinning. "...then I get to see how the savage Hulk fares against me now in a full-on, rage-fueled rampage."

 

"Uh-oh." Samson added worriedly when he realized the speed with which the Hulk was hurtling earthward. "The big guy's comin' in hot."

 

Samson took several steps backward, just clearing the immediate area as the Hulk slammed into the ground.

 

Leg muscles used to absorbing phenomenal amounts of energy from leaps that could propel the Hulk across big chunks of a State were not quite able to compensate for the kinetic energy imparted by the power of Samson's throw.

 

They were only able to redirect some of the Hulk's momentum and send him stumbling forward. The ground broke up beneath his impact, tripping up the Hulk and sending him sprawling forward onto the ground near Samson's feet.

 

"Ouch. Ten's all around for height, but you really need to work on that dismount." Samson said with a smug grin as he offered the Hulk a hand up.

 

Bruce's adrenaline levels were spiking from the ordeal of a near re-entry level fall from the sky. He choked on the dust kicked up by his landing, causing him to cough out his words as he slapped away Samson's hand.

 

"I...don't need...your help, Samson." Bruce clambered to his feet and struggled to clear his lungs and get control of his coughing fit.

 

Samson shrugged and placed his hands behind his head. As Bruce got to his feet the herculean psychiatrist took a deep breath and looked around, casually admiring the beauty of the clear, if freezing-cold, day. "I'm curious, Bruce. That last hit - how much did you put into it?"

 

Bruce glared at Samson as the other man stood before him. He couldn't stop his eyes from shifting to either side of Samson's face where even relaxed, the handsome doctor's enormous biceps loomed like a couple of planetoids in mutual orbit.

 

There was no denying it. Samson had always been a heavy hitter, but the gamma-scope procedure had amplified his brawn prodigiously.

 

Bruce tried to quell an eerily recognizable feeling of dread as he considered how to answer Samson's question. The way his punch had just been stopped cold by Samson's thick, muscular chest was all too familiar. Maybe it hadn't been the Hulk's most powerful effort, but Samson had never before been able to take a punch like that to no effect at all.

 

"You can’t be as strong as him." Bruce muttered, not really intending to express this thought out loud.

 

But Samson caught it. The strapping powerhouse dropped his arms and cocked his head in attentiveness. "Can't be as strong as whom?"

 

Bruce's mind raced. This whole situation was spinning out of control and he didn't have an unlimited amount of time. If Chris knew where he was and what he was up to, Bruce wasn't sure what the kid might do. He had barely been able to convince Chris to lay low for a while and be content with sparring with the Hulk until he had the hang of wielding the planet-cracking might of the kid's newly manifested mutant muscles.

 

Leonard Samson's persistent need to test his physical prowess against ever more powerful opponents would make seeking out Chris a nearly irresistible draw and Samson was no fool. He would quickly deduce the mutant origins of Chris's might and Bruce was sure that Chris's reaction to the discovery of this fact could be downright catastrophic.

 

"C'mon Bruce. I was right, wasn't I. Someone has had the Hulk on the ropes lately." Samson moved closer, confidence emanating off him in waves.

 

"I'm handling it." Bruce insisted. "You can't get involved in this Leonard, you'll only make things worse."

 

"Sounds to me like you're in over your head." Samson countered. In a flash, he grabbed the Hulk's thick forearm and yanked the Hulk forward, sidestepping and slipping behind Bruce, Samson clamped a full-nelson onto the Hulk.

 

Spanning the sheer muscular bulk of the Hulk's lats taxed even a large man like Samson's mighty limbs but Samson didn't let go, even though his feet no longer quite touched the ground.

 

"You're a smart guy Bruce. But you've always had a blind spot when it comes to realizing that you're playing a weak hand." Samson increased the pressure of his hold. "I'm betting that you would benefit from having someone with a more objective perspective in on the situation."

 

Bruce felt the dense musculature of the Hulk's straining torso deform under Samson's onslaught. "I'm warning you, Samson. Let go of me!" Bruce grunted.

 

Bruce lunged backward, slamming Samson through one of the concrete uprights that supported the perimeter fence. He felt Samson tighten his hold more and winced as the Hulk's ribs began to buckle inward.

 

Samson's feet occasionally made contact with the ground, altering Bruce's course, but he sped up, racing blindly backward until he had slammed Samson into something very solid a few meters beyond the fence with a force that sent a considerable shock-wave rippling across the country-side.

 

Infuriatingly, Samson just chuckled. "You're just proving my point here Bruce."

 

But to Bruce's relief, Samson did release him.

 

Bruce turned on Samson and by planting one thick green hand in middle of the shorter man's chest, he shoved him against what appeared to be a high granite outcropping - partially obscured by small trees and other shrubs that had managed to get footholds in the thin soil that had accumulated in the cracks and crevices of the rock-face.

 

Bruce cocked his other arm, threatening a punch. "I'm giving you one last chance to butt out here, Leonard. Please take it." Bruce growled.

 

It took Bruce a few moments to fully comprehend what happened next. Samson squatted and like Atlas shouldering up the sky, he gripped the face of the rock behind him. There was a deep rumble in the earth.

 

Samson straightened his legs, pressing upward and his jeans merely exploded off him as quads and hamstrings flared to a girth that Bruce suspected the Hulk's own mighty limbs couldn't quite match. Calves that were also suddenly surpassing the Hulks in sheer size rippled with power as they fine-tuned Samson's balance.

 

What Bruce had taken for an outcropping of the bedrock that lay beneath the shallow top-soil of the area began to rise into the air. Rise and pitch forward over the stunned physicist.

 

It was no outcropping.

 

Samson straightened and locked his knees. Shrugging his shoulders to balance his burden a little better.

 

Samson had uprooted a colossal erratic boulder, deposited on the ice-scoured bedrock of the ancient landscape by the last retreating glacier that had covered this area thousands of years ago. It had the sheer size of something that wouldn't have seemed out of place on a city block in lower Manhattan. From a distance, it appeared that a new mountain was heaving itself into the sky.

 

Bruce felt cold fear wash over him along with the shadow of that massive chunk of geology. Could even the savage Hulk at his most enraged support that kind of weight on his shoulders?

 

He'd been under that kind of tonnage only once before. At the time, he'd been slowly losing his control over his brutish alter-ego and was therefore able to access some of his rage-fueled might, but even then, it had been all he could do to simply brace a fraction of such a weight for a short time.

 

But Leonard Samson wasn't finished.

 

Giant flakes of granite the size of manhole covers sheared off the boulder where Samson's hands pressed into the rock as he shoved ever upward. When the surface stabilized enough before his grip, Samson transferred the weight from his shoulders and slowly pressed a rock that in some parts of the solar system might be classified as a small moon fully over his head.

 

"It's one of those times Brucie. You've been dealt the weaker hand here." Samson smiled smugly. "Now you are going to start cooperating with me or I swear, I'll toss this pebble right on top of Northwind."

 

Bruce's face went white with fear and disbelief. He looked from Samson toward Northwind. Through an unsettlingly distant curtain of falling dirt and debris that marked the edge of the staggering mass of solid granite currently being suspended above him, he could see the facility that represented almost every scientific advancement he'd been able to achieve since being transformed into the Hulk.

 

"I've got nothing to lose by flattening Northwind and if doing it will keep you from possibly unleashing an out-of-control, powered-up Hulk on the world, then all the better."

 

Though right now, wielding such a massive weight and not even topping out, part of Samson relished the idea of having a go at such an augmented Hulk. His grin broadened at the thought of it. Who knew, he might yet get that chance.

 

Bruce swallowed reluctantly, as he held up his hands in defeat. "Okay!...Alright - You win, What is it you want from me Leonard?"

 

Samson beamed triumphantly. "Now that's more like it." He chuckled and for a moment turned his attention more directly to evaluating the negligible degree of challenge posed to his strength by the immense boulder he'd lofted overhead.

 

"I know! How about we play Atlas and Hercules?" Samson suggested, doing an impression of an excited kid playing pretend at recess. "I'll be Atlas." Samson stepped closer to the Hulk, causing the solid bedrock beneath him to audibly fracture as he made as if to hand off the staggering weight he was wielding.

 

The Hulk blanched and stepped back nervously.

 

Samson laughed heartily. "Wow, the look on your face, Bruce." He lowered and pressed the weight slightly a couple of times. Controlling it with little effort. "Would this fleck of granite really be too much for the Hulk to handle?"

 

It was galling enough, capitulating to Samson, but having him continue to rub his victory in the Hulk's face was starting to rile Bruce enough to reconsider. If there was one thing about his dull-witted alter ego that Bruce did admire, it was that the brute (with one major exception) never gave up. He always (again, with that same major exception) found a way to overcome any physical challenge he was presented with.

 

Bruce knew that this potential for accessing greatly increased strength was somewhere within him. Both he and Samson had always suspected that it was his scientist's predilection for dispassionate analysis that was the road-block that kept him from achieving the unfettered power his more instinct-driven side tapped into so naturally. In a way, rationality and reason were like the Hulk's Kryptonite and Bruce Banner had rarely been able to abandon either and was therefore incapable of power beyond the Hulk's considerable but limited baseline strength level.

 

But in that moment, Samson's taunting interference on top of several exhausting weeks of being utterly crushed in one contest of strength after another by a mere teenager combined to cause a momentary lapse in Banner's control.

 

It was almost like that brief feeling of admiration for the berserker within him became a psychological conduit through which the traumatized psyche of the Savage Hulk - roused to action by the infuriating boasts of one of his most persistent opponent's - somehow seized partial control.

 

Suddenly a passenger in his own body, Banner found himself charging Samson, who somehow seemed unsurprised. With a knowing smirk, Samson tossed his burden into the air just as he was bulldozed by his opponent.

 

They became a tangle of massive, muscular limbs and Samson was pitched onto his back, landing hard with the Hulk on top of him. Roaring in Samson's face, the Hulk leaned forward, in an attempt to use the leverage of the giant's greater bulk to keep Samson's shoulders pinned to the ground as Bruce Banner's bifurcated psyche waged battles on fronts both internal and external.

 

Like a neophyte surfer learning to harness the awesome power of the ocean and turn it to his own purpose, Banner sought to take advantage of the surge in strength brought on by his savage self's attempt at re emergence without having his conscious control totally swept away.

 

It was difficult not to give in to the rage. Even as he struggled to subdue Samson, Bruce cringed inwardly - awaiting the sickening sound of his Northwind Observatory being obliterated beneath the thousands of tons of solid rock he'd glimpsed Samson hurl high into the sky just as the Hulk had charged him.

 

Instead, just as the Hulk tried to push himself up and separate from Samson enough to demand the other man's surrender, he felt Samson thrust his arms upward with incredible force and had just enough time to suspect that the other man was trying to clamp another submission hold on him when he felt a tremendous impact against the entirety of his upper back. The force of it slammed him bodily back down onto Samson with what felt like the force of a gamma-bomb detonation. Bruce's massive and inhumanly muscular frame rebounded upward like a rag-doll, only to immediately collide with something of a total and unyielding solidity before he fell back onto Samson, where it took him a few moments to fight off a slide towards unconsciousness.

 

Bruce shook his head, trying to clear the stars from his vision. Planting his hands on the ground on either side of Samson, he made an unsteady second attempt to push himself up. It was difficult maneuvering to support himself with Samson's arms jutting straight upward on either side of him like thick marble columns. He didn't rise very far before something stopped him and then began to press him inexorably downward, The Hulk's arms trembled, trying to resist but slowly lost ground forcing him into Samson and pinning them both down with tremendous pressure.

 

At least, this is how it seemed to the Hulk from his limited vantage point.

 

The Hulk wheezed as he found himself having to struggle for breath. He felt the muscles of Samson's torso surge and somehow the pressure abated slightly.

 

"What...was that?" Banner managed, catching his breath. "What hit us?" Banner asked wondering what could have hammered the both of them with such power.

 

"Now that was reckless, Bruce." Samson warned with a grunt. "What if you had made me lose control of this little paper-weight."

 

Bruce felt something solid and rough again press down on his back - the pressure concentrated where the Hulk's torso was thickest - at the shoulders and chest.

 

Then Bruce finally pieced together what had happened. They weren't pinned down, at least, Samson wasn't - he'd somehow managed to catch that towering boulder as it had crashed earthward and he was now pressing it above the Hulk's back with both hands.

 

A feeling of elation washed through Bruce. "Northwind? You didn't smash it?" He was sure he'd lost the observatory and everything in it. He wanted to push himself up and inspect the structure, but again that massive rock being suspended above his back prevented him.

 

"Northwind is the least of your worries." Samson advised. "You've tried to fake me out twice, Bruce. So now, I'm going to take more drastic measures to demonstrate how little choice you have in the matter of cooperating with me."

 

The Hulk felt the compacting pressure being exerted on his lats by Samson's ramrod-straight arms lessen as they began to bend slowly at each elbow.

 

Small fissures in the bed-rock beneath the Hulk's palms zig-zagged out as more of the boulder's mass was transferred to Bruce's back. As Samson continued to slowly lower his arms Bruce could feel the gritty, granite surface of the rock bite into the skin of his shoulder-blades as the rock settled lower.

 

Until that moment, Bruce had - for the most part - been able to brace himself, supporting himself over Samson's prone torso with his arms. But those mighty arms simply couldn't handle the weight being forced on them now and the Hulk was slowly being pinned with more and more weight directly against his opponent.

 

"Remind you of anything Bruce?" Samson asked with a grin. "Like when you were that spindly little adolescent in gym-class and the coach couldn't coax even a single pushup out of you?"

 

As the Hulk strained mightily to keep himself from being forced lower, this comment drove home to Bruce the degree to which Samson was getting carried away. Under normal circumstances the highly competent psychoanalyst would never use information gleaned from a patient's personal sessions in such an unprofessional manner. It was evidence that the other man was far too caught up in exploring his new-found strength level.

 

Bruce wondered if pointing out this lapse might be enough to snap Samson out of this bout of ego-mania, but it was all he could do to keep from being overwhelmed by the tonnage Samson was slowly lowering onto him.

 

"You are really being a pill with this whole situation Bruce. To top it off, you're forcing me off my workout schedule. I'm not supposed to be working chest and arms until tomorrow."

 

Teasingly, Samson pushed the boulder upwards slightly, giving the Hulk a moment's respite as he bantered.

 

"On the bright side, I've always found bench-pressing a good warm-up weight to be invigorating." Samson lowered the boulder once more before the Hulk could fully recover. Letting it sink lower and placing more pressure on Bruce than ever.

 

The triceps of the Hulk's faltering arms flared under the onslaught, his super-humanly thick tendons audibly thrummed as the inconceivable tension being forced on them ramped up to an even higher level. The pressure of the slowly descending rock was forcing his ribcage into Samson's. The other man may have had a smaller overall skeletal frame than the Hulk but there seemed to be just as much muscle packed onto it now. Being forced relentlessly down onto Samson's pecs was like being slowly crushed against a couple of massive anvils.

 

Despite his supreme effort, the Hulk's arms quickly gave out. He was driven painfully down onto his elbows and air was forced from his massive lungs as he was smashed down even more into Samson's unyielding physique.

 

"...stop..." The Hulk wheezed, barely able to manage that single word.

 

To the Hulk's relief, Samson did stop, he even raised the boulder slightly making it easier to breath.

 

"I'll make a deal with you Bruce. I promise not to bring this thing any lower. I'll give you that promise as a freebie. Now all I want from you is a sign that you are willing to admit that I have valid reasons to want to monitor your psychological state and your actions at Northwind."

 

"I...<pant>...I can see...<pant>...where you might have...concerns." Bruce relented between gasps for breath as he scrambled to push himself up away from his intimidating proximity to Samson. But his effort yielded nothing. Samson may have backed off slightly from crushing the Hulk, but he still wasn't letting him go anywhere.

 

"There.  You see, Bruce." Samson encouraged. "Was that so bad? There are harder things than cooperating with me. Now do you agree to submit yourself to an evaluation?"

 

"Yes." Bruce responded tersely.

 

"Now we're getting somewhere. You are also," Samson continued. "going to fill me in on this encounter you have apparently had. The one where the Hulk got his butt handed to him. If I'm right, these things are probably all interconnected. I'm going to need the big picture if I'm going to be of any help."

 

Bruce's answer was a strained silence. He clenched his jaw shut in determination not to give in on this point. The last thing he needed was an encounter between Chris and Samson before he was ready. Not to mention the principle of the issue. He had promised Chris that he would not reveal his mutant nature.

 

"I'm gonna have to insist on this, Bruce." Samson warned.

 

"I can't!" Bruce grunted. "Now, I've never known you to go back on a promise, Leonard." He continued defiantly. "And I doubt that you can suspend that thing over us indefinitely so I suggest that you let me out of this ridiculous situation and be satisfied with the concessions I've already made."

 

"Hmm" Samson paused as though considering whether or not Bruce had a point. "Actually, I probably could wait you out here, but I'm familiar with your stubborn streak and frankly, I've no interest in investing that kind of time." Samson chuckled. "Besides, I may have promised not to lower Mount Warm-up any further..."

 

Without warning, like a boot-camp inductee being berated by a belligerent drill sergeant in his first lineup, Samson stuck out his thick chest, driving the Hulk's upper body sharply higher and once again grinding Bruce's battered back into the solid granite of that immense boulder.

 

"But I didn't say anything about not raising you." Samson chuckled at his own cleverness.

 

"N-no." Bruce protested, struggling to find away to free himself.

 

"You know the secret to a great chest routine Bruce? It's to squEEEZe the muscle with every rep." Samson explained, flexing his pecs thicker by the second and compressing the Hulk's larger but out-muscled torso into the suspended boulder with greater and greater force.

Samson leveled off flexing his unstoppable chest for a moment to gauge the effect it was having on the Hulk. The Hulk's eyes bulged and his mouth was open in a futile effort at speech, but he simply didn't have the breath. His face was turning red even through the green hue of his skin.

 

This seemed to satisfy Samson. "You, know, I really do think that I'm still getting stronger." He mused. "Now, do you tell me what I need to know or do I see how high I can bounce both you and this pet rock of mine?"

 

Still unable to speak, the Hulk nodded in panicky agreement.

 

"Atta boy, Bruce." Samson praised. But he didn't immediately reduce the punishing flexing of his bulging pecs.

 

"Oh, and Bruce..." Samson added, then he actually flexed even harder before continuing. Any resistance the Hulk was offering by way of flexing his own muscles crumpled before this surge and Bruce's vision began to go dark as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness. "...I'm confident that this time you aren't trying to trick me, right?"

 

The Hulk managed a weak shake of his head as his eyes began to roll back into his head.

 

"Good." Samson concluded with a brisk nod.

 

He relaxed his chest, allowing the Hulk to suck in some air. At the same time, he sent the boulder rocketing skyward as easily as a normal man might pass a basketball.

Samson sat up gently, so as not to hyperextend the barely conscious Hulk's back, but scrambled quickly to his feet once he'd disentangled himself.

 

Bruce lay flat on his back, recovering. He managed to raise his head enough to keep Samson in his sight.

 

He watched wide-eyed as Samson again caught the mountainous boulder as it fell from the tremendous height he'd tossed it to. The force of it actually compressed the solid bedrock beneath his feet, deforming it visibly.

 

Hey Bruce? "Did I ever tell you that I almost made the Olympic shot put team my junior year as an undergrad?" Samson narrated as he bent his head to avoid the boulders bulk.

 

For a moment, he steadied the tonnage with both hands, then incredibly, he balanced the entire thing using only his right arm and with a shove so powerful it defied comprehension, hurled the entire massive bulk of it cleanly off the surface of the Earth with enough force that it was set on a trajectory that would eventually carry it completely out of the gravity well of the Sun itself.

 

As Samson steadied himself from the recoil of his effort, he dusted his hands, scanning the sky in the direction of the vanquished boulder. "Now that was a good session."

 

He turned around regarding the Hulk with a satisfied smirk.

 

"I think we made some real progress today, Bruce."

[Guest]

Love the muscle in this little fic! A pity there wasn't any ecstatic screams of ecstasy from Doc Samson, or aggressive sexual gratification. You could be straighter than an arrow and STILL get a massive hard-on from beating the The HULK!

[Shade]

I'm definitely hoping you have time to write more of the Containment storyline. It's been a great ride. You can really feel the Hulk's frustration.

[Guest]

Agreed. I must confess that my favorite character in the storyline is Doc Samson! I've read this story about, Nine times and I STILL can't get enough of him!

Someone should write a Muscle Growth story around him as the Protagonist!

[kadan]

Please we want more...did you write anything new?

[Bel0w6rade]

I keep waiting for the finale where Chris and Samson meet each other... or any sequel of any kind, really.

[Guest]

I keep waiting for the finale where Chris and Samson meet each other... or any sequel of any kind, really.

I just wonder why no one else has written a Muscle-Growth story with Doc Samson!

Here's hoping that one day, someone, if not AT2000, will write a well written series of Marvel Muscle-Growth stories featuring the Superheroes getting bigger, BUFFER, and losing any sexual inhibitions they might have!