[This first chapter is a setup for a non-canon M/M superhero adventure, with erotic content to follow. Please let me know if you’re interested in collaborating in this story!]
Captain America crept stealthily down the darkened hallway of the empty building, focused only on what was in front of him, and forgetting everything that lay behind. The risks of the clandestine mission that brought him to infiltrate this ultra-secret Chinese science lab on the outskirts of Tiānjīn were now forgotten; even the guards he evaded a few minutes ago were. He was focused only on his goal, to gain access to “Research Laboratory 27B”, capture a titanium flask he’d been shown a picture of at the start of the mission, escape with it, and get it safely back to the USA. That was all he needed to remember. That was all he was told. With China and USA now toe-to-toe in contest of wills over who would be the dominant world superpower, this mission was fraught with peril, and even mighty Captain America was told only what he needed to know.
His photographic memory of the building map now told that his journey of thousands of miles was only a few steps from ending; the doors to Laboratory 27B were at the end of a long, unlit hallway. By now he’d snuck through so many levels of security that he was sure the last remaining door guarding his prize would be trivial to get through. Maybe it wouldn’t even be locked!
Pausing to collect his thoughts and plan his next steps, he heard behind him in the utter silence of the deserted building the sound of a footstep on the floor behind him. Actually, it wasn’t even a footstep. It was as if his superhuman hearing picked up the crunching sound of a foot squashing the carapace of a single small, meaningless bug that was unlucky enough to find itself under the foot of someone with much bigger things on their mind. But who’s foot was it? Had they seen him in the darkness? Were they following him? Would this mission finally devolve into a fight? The hairs stood up on the back of his neck.
Captain America stood perfectly silent and still, the next best thing to being invisible. He resisted the urge to turn around, knowing that any motion might give away his presence in the darkened hallway. Instead, he listened carefully and heard… nothing. He decided to take a careful step forward to duck into an alcove in the hallway that would hide him from whoever or whatever might have been behind him. And as he did, he heard the sound again. The soft crunch. Whoever it was, was going to follow him step for step. Again he froze and listened as carefully as he good.
Nothing.
And then, right at the limit of his superhuman hearing, he detected the sound of… breathing. Deep, slow, restrained breathing. Captain America’s own breathing quickened involuntarily.
Suddenly a voice from behind him punched through the silence and almost made him jump out of his red white and blue uniform.
“If you can hear me breathing, you must know I can hear you breathing too.” The voice was soft, deep, somewhat melodious, completely calm, inscrutably devoid of emotion. It was spoken in English, albeit tinged by a Chinese accent. The words were measured, the voice somewhat cold. The Chinese accent gave the words a sound of precision.
That was it; Captain America knew he’d been found. And it was as if the person had read his mind: he’d commented on hearing breathing only seconds after Captain America had heard the breathing for himself. Was that just luck, or had he met a truly implaccable, mind-reading foe?
Who WAS it? A rank and file guard wouldn’t speak such perfect English, and they’d be quick to raise the alarm. Was it one of the Chinese scientists? Captain America pictured a short, slender, bespectacled man in a lab coat — easily neutralized. He didn’t stop to consider that the sound of the voice he heard was deep, masculine, powerful, and confident. Hardly the voice of a startled scientist who came back into work late at night, picking just the wrong time.
Naively confident the situation could be handled, he turned around to face the challenge, and what he saw… made him gasp.
There, standing in the doorway of the far end of the hallway 50 ft long, was nothing but a silhoueette, an inky black shape against an almost as dim background. But it was not the silhouette of a short, slender scientist clad in a labcoat. Nor was it the outline of a lithe, young Chinese guard like the hundreds he’d evaded already. It was the outline of someone large. No, huge. Virtually as tall as the doorframe. The v-shaped torso of the ghost was almost as wide as the portal he was in. The shape had thick legs, set in a wide, powerful stance.
“Who… who are you?” Captain America was shocked to hear himself ask out loud as his voice echoed in the empty hallway. He knew he’d been discovered, so there wasn’t much to be lost by speaking now, but why did he ask?
The looming hulk at the other end of the hallway waited coolly for a long moment, then finally asked, with a slight tone of derision, “It is careless to ask questions you don’t know the answer to.”
Captain America blushed red. It was bad enough he’d let himself get caught by surprise, but to be chastized? He wasn’t used to that. The precise-sounding accent on the words closed around Captain America, reminding him he was far, far from home.
“Ah! Now I know who you are,” Captain America said, in a complete bluff. His heartbeat was growing quicker.
“Either you know who I am, and are now rightly terrified. Or you don’t know I am, and are growing equally terrified. Either way, I can hear your heart pounding.”
Captain America blushed deeper. This adversary, this silhouetted giant, was taking apart his confidence, using nothing but one calm, confident sentence after another. Captain America listened as carefully as he could, but he couldn’t hear his adversary’s heart beating. In the darkness, he instinctively took a step back. He saw the huge, looming form shifting as he matched his move with a step forward. Another step back, another step forward.
Finally Captain America ran up against the door of the laboratory he’d been heading for, and there would be no more steps backwards. There was nowhere to go but into the lab. But how would the ghost at the other end of the hallway react to that?
“This doesn’t involve you,” Captain America said, as much trying to convince himself as anything else.
“Oh,” the voice said with a laugh, “but it does involve me, more than you can imagine… Captain America.”
Shit. Whoever this was, knew his identity, while all he could see was a black shape. For the first time in his career, Captain America started to feel panic.
“If you know who I am, you know better than to cross paths with me,” Captain America said, mustering all the confidence he could.
“You must not know who *I* am, then,” said faceless voice, sounding somewhat disappointed.
“I really don’t think it matters,” Captain America said, casually brushing it aside.
The hulking silhouette was now moving forward continuously, drawing closer to Captain America, one measured step at a time. Captain America’s back was pressed flat against the door to the lab. Ironically, it appeared his only path of escape — other than charging at the barely-seen behemoth coming towards him — was to go into the lab to complete his mission.
“It was so wreckless of them not to tell you about me before sending you on this mission,” the voice said. Now the voice sounded oddly sympathetic, as if he were taking Captain America’s side, against his incompetent handlers. “Perhaps they didn’t trust you to understand the adversary you would meet?” He wouldn’t be trusted? That was insulting. But… why hadn’t they told him more? One statement after another from this mystery opponent sapped his confidence.
Now Captain America saw the shadow reach out with a massive thick arm to flick a light switch on the wall. A single spotlight in ceiling at the center of the hallway came on, casting a narrow cone of yellow light onto the floor directly below it, but blinding Captain America’s view of the silhouette on the far side of the light. He felt like a battleship whose radar had just been knocked out.
And yet he could hear the footsteps continuing, drawing closer. Captain America’s mind was churning like an adding machine, trying to come up with options but unable to decide to fight or flee. He was caught between two uncertainties — he didn’t know who he was fighting, and he wasn’t sure how he could flee. So he stood, feeling the cold of the metal door behind him, touching against his spandex clad back, as the footsteps told him his adversary was drawing closer and closer.
“If they didn’t tell you about me, then perhaps they didn’t even tell you why they sent you,” the voice mused, sounding even more sympathetic. From the sound of it, his opponent had closed about half the distance of the hallway now.
“No, they didn’t…”
“I will explain both of those things to you, Captain America,” his opponent offered, sounding patient. Just at that moment, he strode into the cone of light in the middle of the hallway, and revealing himself in full form, detail, and color.
Captain America gasped.
Before him, now bathed in harsh overhead light, was his opponent. There, clad in a form-fitting red uniform with striking black accents, stood an awesomely tall, fearsomely muscled, seductively handsome young Chinese man. Except, to call him a man was an understatement. Everything about his body exuded perfected masculinity and raw power. Judging by the closeness of his spikey jet black hair to the ceiling, the man was well over six and a half feet tall. The skin-tight uniform hid not a single bulge on the figure’s body: each muscle looked as ready to explode out of the tight spandex as its next neighboring bulge. The grazing incidence of the spotlight overhead matched each sharp muscle bulge with an equally sharp shadow further down the body. Between the man’s thick, muscular thighs stood the most impressive bulge of all. No effort had been made to hide the heavy, round package that shifted powerfully between the man’s quads as he continued to walk forward. Captain America couldn’t take hiseyes off of it. This did not go unnoticed.
“Is that all you’ve noticed?” the man said, mockingly.
Captain America blushed deeply to be caught red handed. He lifted his eyes higher. On the chest of his adversary, set boldly against the red breastplate of his uniform, were the five yellow stars of China’s flag. His opponent traced Captain America’s line of sight and challenged him again.
“So now you know what I represent.”
Captain America looked up further still, and saw the square jaw and radiantly clear skin of a the man’s handsome Chinese face. Perfectly masculine, yet porcelain smooth, his faint smile exposed dimples in his tan cheeks. Even his smile seemed muscular. His eyes were almond-shaped and a deep brown, at once fierce-looking yet serene, piercingly intelligent yet deeply perceptive. They seemed to drill right into Captain America’s startled blue eyes. For some reason, it was hard to look into them and still feel defiant, but he couldn’t look away.
“You are China’s superhero,” Captain America said, as if only just figuring it out.
“You’re catching on. You’ll come to find out I’m much more than just that,” the man said. “In fact, I’m the reason you’re here.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Captain America challenged condescendingly.
The Chinese superhero shook his handsome, square jawed face as if in in disapointment.
“I see they’ve told you absolutely nothing. You poor American soldier,” he said, sincerely sympathetic. He sighed, now thoroughly disappointed in Captain America’s handlers. “I will tell youinstead.”
Captain America was offended to find himself being “man-splained” by this Chinese superhero opponent, and his anger surged. He was mentally preparing a battle plan that involved charging his oppenent headlong and levelling him with a punch, but by that time, the Chinese superhero had drawn so close that Captain America could tell he was only as tall as his opponent’s shoulders. He had to tilt his head back to meet the gaze of the Chinese man facing him, and he couldn’t look away from those eyes. The battle plan went out the window.
“You see, I know who you are. You’re just a scrawny kid from Brooklyn. But a dose of Super Soldier Serum changed that. Isn’t that right?”
“I see you’ve read my bio,” Captain America responded, flattered but trying to sound condescending, and wondering why this confrontation came with so much dialog.
“Did it ever occur to you China might succeed at just the same kind of serum?” his opponent asked.
Now Captain America knew he was wise to hold off on his frontal attack. The man he was facing was not just huge, he was a superhuman too. When a smaller superhuman challenges a bigger superhuman, the victory would at best be pyrrhic.
“So, you stole our serum? Is that it? And you’re just a cheap Chinese knock-off?” Captain America taunted, dredging up a hackneyed insult. “If that’s the case, you’re going to break at any minute!” Now Captain America grinned smugly, convincing himself it was a devastating and clever comeback.
His opponent stopped walking, absorbed the insult, and appeared to be considering it. “So if you’re Captain America, and I’m a ‘cheap Chinese knock-off’, I guess that makes me Captain China,” he said, as if thinking through the implications of the American superhero’s insult.
“Yeah, and just watch out for copyright infringement, buddy.” Oh, now he had the upper hand, Captain America thought. But then his opponent strode further forward, closing more distance.
“Captain China, I like that. But… do I look like a cheap knock off to you?” the Eastern superhero asked in a measured, deliberate voice.
The American hero felt his pride wounded as he allowed himself to look over his adversary. Everything about him was… better. He was much taller. His uniform was tighter. His muscles were far larger and much more sharply defined. All that power, despite being younger. And… my god, that bulge between his legs. Captain America had to look at it again. It made him feel like a boy by comparison. He pushed that thought out of his mind.
“No… not… a copy,” he finally croaked, his throat dry. Was it dry with fear, or dry with jealous? He clearly was *better*.
Captain China smiled in satisfaction. “I’m glad you can admit it, xiǎo nánhái.” Captain America couldn’t understand the last phrase, but sensed from the tone that he was being insulted, and was powerless to respond.
“So now that you know who I am, perhaps you’d like me to tell you why you’re here.” Captain China suggested, sounding supremely confident.
“Sure, why not.”
“Let’s go into the lab, then.”
Captain America looked up at his Chinese foe in shock. Was that a trick? Why would he be allowed in without a fight? Captain China encouraged him with a nod. Suspicions and in disbelief, Captain America opened the door — sure enough it was unlocked — and let himself in, with Captain China following close behind.
As soon as they were in the laboratory together, Captain America saw his goal right in front of him. The shaving cream-sized titanium cylinder he’d been asked to retrieve was right there for the taking.
“There it is, what they asked you to steal. You should grab it,” Captain China encouraged. Captain America burned with anger at the terrible irony that his foe was now so confident as to taunt him to complete his mission. How could Captain China have known that was his goal? How much DID he know?
“What is in it?” Captain America asked. He’d never been told.
“A thousand doses of the serum that made me who I am,” Captain China explained with a quiet pride in his voice.
A *thousand* doses? The implications were awesome. America only managed to create one supersoldier — him. China was now ready to make a thousand more just like Captain China. A numb feeling flooded Captain America as the concept of such an overwhelmingly superior force fit together in his mind. The worst part is, he believed Captain China’s explanation was not a bluff, or else why would he have been sent on this mission?
“You’ll never get away with this,” Captain America yelled, involuntarily re-using the most cliched statement in every battle of good versus evil.
“That’s right. So, you’ll have to steal that cylinder and take it back to your country before China can use it to create a brigade of super-soldiers to devastate the USA.” Hearing his abstract fear spoken out loud only intensified the numbness. China devastating USA. That’s what he was sent to stop.
In a shocking display, Captain China stepped back and all but ushered Captain America forward to steal the cylinder. The two regarded each other closely for a moment, then Captain America reached forward and grabbed the cylinder. Indeed, Captain China did nothing to stop him. In fact, he took yet another step back, leaving a clear line of escape for the American hero. Out the door, down the hall, past the guards, out of the city, and back to USA.
“Why… would you tell me all of this?” the American asked incredulously, hefting the cool metal flask.
Captain China paused with a smirk on his face, collecting his words. At last he spoke. “My orders were only to stop you. The assumption was I’d end you with a single *dim mak* strike and move on to other more important things. But that seemed like such a waste of an opportunity…”
What opportunity could he possibly mean, Captain America wondered. And what ‘more important things’ would be left after vanquishing his American foe?? Captain America decided this was neither the time nor the place to sort out those questions. He didn’t want to wait long enough for Captain China to snuff him, and he hastened for the door. He was supremely confident that as long as he didn’t have to fight Captain China, he could hold his own. And Captain China seemed to be… letting him go.
“Aren’t you ashamed about it, though?” Captain China asked, just as Captain America started to turn the door handle.
“Ha. What?! Ashamed to protect my country from a communist totalitarian–” His objection was cut short.
“Ashamed to be stealing someone else’s innovation, only to make ‘cheap knock offs’ you can’t even understand? Is that what America has come to now?”
That insult was the most perceptive and thus most crippling yet. Yes, it *did* seem wrong. Why couldn’t America have come up with more super soldier serum on its own? A helpless sense of frustration and defeat flooded Captain America. But then the response occurred to him.
“No, to keep it out of China’s hands! Looks like you’ll never have the army you wanted.”
“Ahh,” Captain China nodded his head back, as if figuring it out. Then the resolve returned to his face. “Your country is awash in a sea of hundreds of millions of smartphones, all manufactured here in China. Do you really think we haven’t managed to produce another thousand doses, somewhere else?”
Captain America’s skin went cold. The logic of that argument punched through and made too much sense to ignore. He still grasped the door handle but didn’t turn it.
“And you’re going to tell me where those are, too,” Captain America demanded, trying to bluff confidence.
“Oh, am I? But what if… China has already made… 1.4 billion doses of it,” Captain China mused.
Captain America now felt faint. 1,000 super soldiers were frightening enough. 2,000 were already an insurmountable foe. The idea of the entire population of China being rendered superhuman would be… a new era of world history. One in which his own country would be left behind like nothing more than a doormat in the rain. He felt a sense of anguish to imagine such a change.
The gravity of the situation left his mind sharpened. Now he understood, it didn’t matter if he lost his life to bring this cylinder back to scientists in the USA. China’s diabolical plan HAD to be stopped somehow. He twisted the doorknob and threw open the door.
“But aren’t you at least curious?” Captain China called after him
“Curious about WHAT, you Commie freak?” said over his shoulder, making his exit.
Captain China grimaced slightly, as if the insult had hurt him personally. At last he answered, “Curious why I am so much bigger than you? So much stronger than you? So much… better… than you.” As he made the last statement, he spread his mighty legs to accentuate the prominent bulge between them. Looking over his shoulder now, Captain America’s eyes darted to it involuntarily.
Captain America brushed the question aside, saying “Maybe you just ate your Wheaties.” The reference was lost on Captain China, but he continued to explain.
“Western science has taken the world so far, for centuries. But China will now use its ancient Eastern wisdom to take it even farther. Yes, our serum has added ancient Chinese techniques. Whoever takes the serum will grow strong, yes… but their power will continue to grow even further as the power of their society grows.”
And as if to explain, Captain China struck a pose and flexed. The laboratory filled with the sound of spandex stretching across skin as the Chinese superhero’s body grew several inches taller still, as the yellow stars of China’s flag on his chest stretched farther apart while the pecs underneath them swelled, as his shoulders broadened and his arms and legs thickened, as his lats splayed out even further. And as the heavy round bulge between Captain China’s legs swelled to show the outline of an even more ominously thick cock. Captain America’s eyes were glued to it as he saw it swell. “Jesus…” he whispered under his breath, feeling himself stiffen at the sight of it.
“Now that you understand completely, I won’t stop you, Captain America. You can leave the lab with the container. I won’t follow you. I’m quite certain you can evade those silly guards, you’re so much more clever than them. But before you do that, before you give the flask to your scientists, before you let them copy it and give to your army, ask yourself this. What might be the effect of such a serum be if your society is *not* growing more powerful any more?”
After a long pause, Captain America let go of the handle, and the door to the laboratory slammed shut.
Captain America couldn’t decide if he’d just met his most implacable enemy, or a new ally. He knew he had to stay and find out…
[To be continued! Let me know your thoughts so far]
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/i20on1/mm_captain_america_adventure_in_china