Indigo Blues 🪼✔

5 - Consequences of Actions

*TANNUS*
That no good, dirty, revenge seeking bitch was wrong. Whatever that tweak in growth thing was that Delilah was talking about was wrong. I'm sitting in the living room with Oliver and his girlfriend, when I stretched to get something behind me and Madeline pointed to me.
"You're not working out anymore, Tan?"
"Huh?"
"Your stomach."
Oliver looked over at me and I pulled my shirt down. I hadn't told Oliver yet because I needed a place to stay for a couple more weeks before I went back home by myself; just in case I got really sick again like I did before.
"I have to admit, you look like you're kind of letting yourself go." Oliver commented.
I sighed. I couldn't tell him about Delilah's experiment... I mean, I don't know if it's public or not.
"I'm just not feeling very fit."
"That's a laugh. You're a nut about that sort of stuff." Madeline says with a chuckle.
They were starting to piss me off.
"Maddy's right. Are you okay? I mean, what's going on? You haven't been the same since you had that fall in Delilah's lab."
"I'm pregnant, okay?!" I finally yell, not able to take all the accusations at me.
The two looked at me and then started laughing.
"You're hilarious!" Madeline said.
"I'm not joking." I growled, standing up. I turned and lifted my shirt to show them. "That is not fat. Feel it."
I pushed my stomach at them. Oliver looked up at me, confused, but he touched my stomach and his eyes widened.
"Th-that's scientifically impossible!"
"No shit. Thanks to Delilah, it's not. Fun. You have a freak for a cousin."
"You really believe this?" Madeline asked.
"I have a sonogram picture and a passed out sonographer to prove it."
"B-but how?!" Oliver yelled.
"Not really caring. It happened with not sex and has her DNA. So I am a bit pissed. I didn't even have fun while doing this!"
"Can I touch it?" I pointed my stomach at her and she touched it. "Wow..."
"How um... far along are you?"
"A month but it looks like I'm friggin two or something."
"And it's Delilah's fault? How?"
"Some project she's working on that involves a secret ingredient that takes the DNA of the person and is supposed to make a sperm for a woman. She said she had no idea it worked in the opposite direction. I ate the jelly beans with her DNA in them and tada..."
"Does the company know about this?"
"Me or the jelly beans?"
"Both or whatever..."
"The jelly bean thing yes. Me, no... not that I know of. Then again, I've been sick up until now."
"What are you going to do?"
"What can I do?"
We all looked at each other and Madeline leaned forward.
"You want to keep it?" she asked.
"You mean will I abort it? Of course not, it can't help it."
"Will you raise it? I mean, you and Delilah hate each other."
"I have no idea what the future is going to hold."
"If you have second thoughts, then Oliver and I can take it off your hands. We'll go away or something and-"
"No. Don't do all that. I'm fine; I can handle it, I think. All I can think of right now is that I've been pretty blessed with no huge girly hormonal attacks."
"But you did eat all the cupcakes." Oliver pointed out for me.
"And they were tasty." I snapped.
Oliver smiled at Madeline and I ran my fingers through my hair. At least they took it better than I would have thought.

*DELILAH*
"Dr. Manchester, what is the meaning of this?!" a boisterous voice yelled outside my lab door.
I squeak and duck down behind one of the cages holding a very active monkey couple. Rose was busy working on some formulas and her iPod so she wasn't aware of the division boss until the door burst open and she jumped about a foot. She yanked the earplugs from her ears and rounded on our division leader, Thomas Matthews. For a guy who is a scientist, he's the biggest man I have ever seen. He's like The Beast from X-Men, hulking size and all.
"You, where's Dr. Manchester?" he grumbled, sounding like a drill sergeant as he pointed at the vulnerable Rose.
"Uh, uh, she was right here like six minutes ago." She stumbled.
"Delilah!" he growled.
I lifted my lip and stood up, wiping myself off and I stepped out from behind the cage.
"What is it, Hank?" I said softly.
"I told you not to call me that. And that's not the least of your worries, Delilah. What the hell happened?! How could you let this happen?! And to a man, no doubt! And not just any man, one of my scientists who happens to be working on a very important thing for us! What if you had killed him?!"
"Chill out, Hank, or you'll get all hairy." I say calmly. The vein in his neck bulges in anger. "Look, in my defense it wasn't my fault. I didn't ask him to eat it, for the human trials aren't ready yet. They were set aside to test out and he came and here and decided he wanted to do what he wanted. He took it upon himself to come in here and look through my things and eat the experiment."
"And you didn't keep it under lock and key?"
"Normal people wouldn't just walk into a scientific laboratory and start eating random jelly beans, sir. I mean, really? The fact that there's jelly beans in this room should throw a suspicion up in the air."
"From what I heard, he is actually... with child?"
"That was... unexpected."
"Why was your DNA in the purple jelly bean anyway?" he snapped.
"I was just throwing it all in there. I didn't think it would actually activate in him."
"The secret ingredient doesn't discriminate from woman to man. This will definitely have to go in the warnings section..."
"Great then, we have it all figured."
"Oh no we don't." Thomas snarled. "What about my scientist?"
"I'm sure Tannus will be back soon. He's a big boy, I think he can handle a little body weight. Besides, are you guys that dumb that you can't do payroll?"
"We got payroll just fine. But because you let this get out way before it was supposed to, and in the worse possible way, you will be helping Dr. Bracken and his assistant until otherwise."
"What?! But I have this to do?!"
"His project has an earlier deadline than yours. I hope you can put aside your sandbox differences and work together."
"Errrrr..." I growled.
"Now, now, She-Hulk."
"Look, do we have to work together?"
"Until the job is done. Tonight you will tell him."
He left and I frowned after his hulking frame.
Rose looked at me and smiled.
"What are you grinning at?"
"You and Dr. Bracken working together is kind of like a match made in heaven. Besides, your DNA is in him, you are making a jelly baby haha."
"It's not funny. Wanna see that check go down a few numbers?"
"Take a pill, jeez. Besides, it's kind of good. Now we have really found a flaw in the experiment. I mean, if it had happened after the fact, we would have been bankrupted."
I had to admit that this obstacle was a good one, though it was strange. But the price was anything to be desired.

I drove up to Oliver's house and knocked on the door. It opened swiftly but the look I received was not welcome.
"Hi."
"You're not the pizza guy." Oliver said.
"No..."
"WHERE'S MY GOD DAMNED PIZZA!!!" I heard from the background.
I looked behind him and saw Tannus sitting on the couch.
"What's going on?"
"Well, we were alright until the hormones hit. Now he's... unbearable."
"So... you know..."
"How could we miss? He mentioned something about a tweak in growth? Well..."
I gulped because I said tweak but he sounded like it went farther than that.
"Is my pizza here?" Tannus sniffled as he looked up. When he saw me he started crying uncontrollably. "I hate you! Look what you've done to me you weirdo jelly bean chick!"
I looked at Oliver who just shook his head.
"Um... I'm really sorry-"
"No, this is not even funny! Now I'm hormonal and crying over a frickin pizza! Plus, I'm huge! I thought you said there was just a little tweak in growth?" he whined.
I looked at him and he covered himself up.
"No. I don't want you to see."
"Stop being a woman and let me take a look." I snapped, which sent Tannus into another wave of tears.
I moved his hands and looked at his stomach. Well, he was growing alright. He looked almost three months.
"Delilah, what's going? Why am I so big?"
I felt around his stomach, which felt so weird to do, and rubbed it to make sure that there were no lumps or anything bad.
"I'm afraid this is my fault as well. Again, this is what you get for eating other people's stuff. I hadn't exactly perfected the secret ingredient. See, it matures into a sperm quickly so that the pregnancy can start but the growth rate of the child... Well, I never got it timed correctly... Besides, even if that were the case, you shouldn't be this big. I guess the amount of jelly beans is the amount of babies..."
"WHAT?!"
"You only ate two, right?"
"Yeah!"
"Then no worries." He groaned and Oliver went to get the door. "Um, there's another matter that has to be addressed."
"Oh what now? Is that my pizza?!"
"Yes..." Oliver said, bringing over two boxes of pizza.
Tannus smiled, sniffling, and opened the top one taking out a slice and eating it.
"Continue."
"Thomas said that because my experiment is keeping you from your project, I have to help you finish it now."
"Great, not only do you get me pregnant with your stupid jelly beans, I have to work with you. How much worse can my life get? Did I mention how much I hated you?"
"Yes. Fervently." I reached for a piece of pizza and he smacked my hand away. "Hey!"
"Mine."
"Anyway, I need to keep an eye on you anyhow, now that I know the growth rate is increased a little. Maybe I will be able to get it under control and we can slow it down."
"How is he supposed to go in public? He's going to have to present that project if it gets off the ground, you know." Oliver pointed out. "And how is he supposed to do that if he's pregnant?"
"I don't know. I didn't think this would ever happen."
"Neither did I. And with your DNA too... Some luck I'm having... And we didn't have sex for crying out loud! At least I should have had some fun if I was going to get stuck with this." He munched on his pizza and sniffled again. "Do we have to get married?"
"Ew, no. Custody will be a completely different issue... if you even survive."
Tannus looked at me and I almost felt bad for him. The look of shock and complete hurt was plain and almost adorable.
"You want me to DIE!!!!" he cried out, balling up and sobbing.
Oliver sighed and just ate his pizza and I snuck a piece too. This was going to be a long, long journey.