Radioactive

enough to make my systems blow

You squint and groan as the light from outside harshly breaks your sleep. You roll over to try and find some darkness, but with the curtains open it's pointless. You huff in annoyance.

Reaching out, you search the bed for the other warm body that was supposed to be there. All you feel is a cold pillowcase. You crack open an eye and there's no trace of her.

You stretch, tight muscles lengthening and joints cracking, reveling in the familiar ache between your legs.

You bolt upright, realizing with a start that your ribs no longer hurt. *they were broken, how is that possible?* you think.

You look down at your chest. The bruising has seemingly vanished, and pressing on your ribs doesn't even hurt a little bit. Strange.

You roll out of Nat's bed and pad over to the shower. You sigh in relief as the warm water relaxes your aching muscles, and you enjoy being able to properly get clean without your ribs hurting. As you wash yourself you find the love marks Nat left; thankfully they can all be covered by a shirt.

Once you're clean and dry, you throw your wet hair in a bun. As you're looking for clothes to wear, you catch sight of yourself in a mirror and are taken back. You look more in shape than you ever have in your life. Where soft curves used to be are now well defined abs, chiseled shoulders, arms and legs. *what the hell?*

You find a long-sleeve shirt and some sweatpants to wear and you walk out of the room, in search of Nat, or better yet Tony- who maybe has some clue as to what's going on.

You take the elevator down to the main floor and hear Nat, Steve and Tony in the kitchen. They stop talking when you walk in.

"Hey, question for you-" you begin but get cut off as Sam and Bucky announce themselves loudly, coming in with boxes of pastries and muffins.

"Breakfasttttt" Sam sings, setting out the boxes on the table and throwing you a muffin.

You shrug, but start eating it. Tony walks over to you, his eyes still locked with Nat's.

"Can I talk to you kid?" Tony says quietly, avoiding the flying food thrown between Sam and Bucky.

You raise your eyebrow at Nat, who's expression you can't read. "Sure, I have a question for you too."

You walk to the lab with Tony. He sits you down on a chair and turns on a screen with a video of a microscope with a bunch of cells on it.

"So these are your cells" he says pointing to the big blobs on the screen. "And this I believe is the serum. " he says pointing to a purple-looking film surrounding your cells. "But it looks like whoever made it tried to change the original serum to give whoever got it enhanced abilities. Kind of like additional powers on top of the strength and speed of a supersoldier."

You look at him in confusion. "What kind of powers?"

Tony scratches his chin. "I'm not too sure. It looks like the cells will randomly change on a molecular level. Completely changing their DNA sequence, like an entirely new being. They do change back to your cells afterward, thankfully."

"So.... like a shapeshifter?" you ask, eyes glued to the screen.

Tony sighs. "I have no idea." he looks very frustrated.

You frown. "Okay so how do we test this? I mean, I do feel stronger, and my ribs are completely healed. So if it's already changed me then all we have to do is figure out what make's me change. "

"You're not doing anything." Nat's voice comes from behind you. You jump and turn around to face her. She walks over and stands beside you.

"Nat we need to figure this out. We have to know what this serum can do." Tony argues. Nat opens her mouth to respond but you cut her off.

"Okay what if we just test my strength now? Like see if I can lift something heavy and go from there." you offer, not wanting them to argue.

Nat looks at you, her expression softening. "Are you sure?" you nod.

Tony claps. "Alright let me get Bruce" he quickly scurries away, giving Nat a wide berth.

_______________________________________

You're in the training space. It was huge, lots of weights, equipment and padded flooring for sparring. You're standing in the middle, Tony and Bruce are off to the side with their clipboards, and Nat watches you intensely.

"Alright kid, whenever you're ready." Tony says, starting a stopwatch for whatever reason.

The task was simple; keep trying to pick up the weights until you can't. They have a bunch of round weights set up with handles, the heaviest being about 1000lbs. You were very uncertain about this.

Stretching your arms pathetically, you decided to just go for it. You reach down and grab the lightest weight (which was 400lbs) and expecting it to be really heavy, you lifted it up as hard as you could.

It was definitely not as heavy as you thought, because you ended up launching it directly up into the air. The momentum of the throw made you stumble back, and the weight came crashing down onto the floor just inches away from where you just stood.

You stand there wide-eyed, and look over at Bruce and Tony staring open-mouthed at you. Nat was laughing hysterically beside them.

"I'M SO SORRY" you yell and you run over to try see the damage. Thankfully because of the mats, everything was intact.

"Alright so I think it's safe to say the super strength is a go." Tony says, smiling. "Now let's test out the speed."

Steve walks in, probably to see what the noise was from. "Oh perfect, you and Steve can race." Nat says with a smirk. Steve looks over at you confused, you shrug at him, and follow Bruce and Tony outside.

The outside of the compound was really beautiful, there was a track that runs around the perimeter, and a large field with forest on either side. You and Steve stand side-by-side near the break in the trees, facing the field, while everyone stands on the track where you were told you run by.

"Okay so just run across the field as fast as you can." You hear Bruce yell. Tony gets a blowhorn ready as Bruce sets up the stopwatch.

"Try not to make me look too bad Steve." you say with a nervous smile. He laughs.

"3...2...1" Tony yells and blows the horn signaling you to go.

Startled by the noise, you falter as Steve takes off already way ahead of you.

"Shit!" you yell and start trying to run after him.

Now you were never a runner. Like, NEVER. The most running you did was away from the jerks in highschool who always tried to spray you with silly string. But once you found a rhythm, your legs started propelling you forward and the wind in your ears was so loud it was deafening. In no time, you flew past Steve and he let out a startled yelp.

Everything was a blur as you started running faster and faster. It felt so freeing and you've never felt so powerful.

All of a sudden you heard something rip, and you felt so much faster and stronger. You look down and where your feet used to be, are now huge white paws. Wait... paws?! You slam on the brakes, but lose your balance and crash to the ground, dirt flying as you fall ass over teakettle.

Groaning, you rolled onto your stomach and shook the dirt from your face.

You hear yelling, and look over to see Steve and Tony running towards you, while Nat is dragging Bruce inside for whatever reason. You tilt your head in confusion.

"Hey.... kid??" Tony asks, slowly walking towards you with his hands up.

"What?" you ask but they don't seem to hear you. You stand up, and are startled when you realize you're towering over them, at least a few feet taller.

You look down again and see the same white paws that you saw when you were running. Spinning around, instead of seeing your ass, you see hind legs and a tail.

"Okay what the hell is going on?" you ask again, freaked out. But Steve and Tony exchange looks and don't respond.

You run over to look at your reflection in the mirrors of the compound. And staring back at you is a huge white wolf the size of a horse, with glowing purple eyes.