The city has a rhythm at night.
I've been doing this long enough to recognize it—the pulse of traffic, the distant wail of sirens, the hum of eight million people living their lives in overlapping chaos that somehow manages to function. Crime follows patterns too. Muggings peak around 11 PM. Domestic disturbances spike after midnight. Drug deals cluster in the same three neighborhoods, rotating predictably.
It's almost boring. Almost.
I'm mid-swing between a parking garage and an office building, half-listening to the police scanner crackling in my ear, when I think about how quiet things have been. The Young Avengers are stable—mostly. Wiccan's practicing control. Patriot's frustrated but focused. Constrictor is... helpful. Too helpful, maybe, but nothing concrete enough to justify the paranoia that keeps me up at night.
Everything feels manageable. Controlled.
That's usually when the universe remembers I exist and decides to mess with me.
A low rumble rolls through the air.
Not an explosion—those are sharp, immediate, violent. Not thunder—the sky is clear, stars visible in the gaps between light pollution. This is something deeper. Subsonic. The kind of sound you feel in your chest before you hear it with your ears.
The ground *breathes*.
That's the only way I can describe it. Like the earth itself took a sudden, shuddering inhale and held it.
My spider-sense doesn't scream—it vibrates, low and constant, like static building before a storm.
"Okay," I mutter. "That's new."
The shockwave hits three seconds later.
Not earthquake-level. Not building-collapsing, ground-splitting catastrophe. Just a ripple of force that rolls through the city like an invisible tide, strong enough to make glass rattle in windows and car alarms shriek to life in cascading waves.
I'm mid-air when it hits.
My trajectory goes wrong—web-line goes slack as the building I'm attached to sways slightly, and suddenly I'm falling at the wrong angle, reflexes scrambling to compensate. I fire another web, catch a fire escape, swing wild, and barely manage to land on a rooftop instead of face-planting into an air conditioning unit.
I crouch there, breathing hard, hands pressed flat against the roof like I can feel the city's heartbeat through concrete and rebar.
Car alarms are screaming now. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all triggered simultaneously in a wave spreading outward from... somewhere.
Buildings shudder. Windows flex. Nothing collapses, but everything *trembles*, like the city is standing on the edge of something it can't quite see.
My spider-sense levels out—still present, still humming, but no longer spiking.
"What the hell was that?" I ask the empty rooftop.
The rooftop doesn't answer, which is probably for the best.
My comms crackle to life, overlapping voices fighting for priority.
"—reports of structural damage in the industrial district—"
"—civilian casualties unknown—"
"—requesting all available units—"
I tap my earpiece. "Spider-Man here. What's the situation?"
The dispatcher's voice is clipped, professional, but I can hear the stress underneath. "We've got an incident developing at the Red Hook shipping yards. Major property damage, possible casualties. Emergency services are en route but we need superhuman response."
"What kind of incident?"
There's a pause. Then: "We're receiving conflicting reports. Recommend visual confirmation."
Which means they have no idea what's happening, and someone needs to get eyes on the situation before they can figure out how to respond.
Great.
I web-zip to the nearest high point and pull up my phone, scanning news feeds. It takes maybe ten seconds before the first live footage hits.
A shaky camera phone video. Someone filming from inside a car parked a safe distance away. The image is grainy, motion-blurred, but clear enough to see:
Steel crumpling like aluminum foil.
Shipping cranes—massive, industrial, built to lift tons—folding inward on themselves like origami.
Workers running, stumbling, some carrying others.
And then the camera pans, and I see him.
The Hulk.
He's tearing through the shipping yard with a precision that makes my stomach drop.
This isn't the Hulk I've seen in footage—the raw, chaotic force of nature that smashes everything in reach until the threat is neutralized or he calms down. This is deliberate. Surgical, almost. He picks up a shipping container—forty feet long, twenty tons easy—and *throws* it with the kind of accuracy that suggests intent, not rage.
It crashes into a crane's support structure. The crane buckles, collapses in on itself with a screech of tearing metal that I can hear even through the phone's speakers.
The Hulk isn't roaring.
That's what gets me. That's what makes this wrong.
He's silent. Eyes glowing with something I can't name from this distance—not just anger, not just gamma radiation. Something darker. Colder.
I've never seen Hulk fight like this.
"Oh no," I whisper.
I run through mental checklists while web-slinging toward Red Hook at maximum speed.
**Alien invasion?** No reports. No ships. No energy signatures.
**Gamma accident?** Bruce Banner hasn't been near any research facilities in weeks. He's been working with the Avengers on diplomatic outreach, for God's sake.
**Mind control?** Possible. But who? And why now? Why no warning?
**Emotional trigger?** Standard Hulk protocol says you look for the trigger—what made Bruce angry enough to transform. But there's no trigger. No incident. No catalyst.
This came out of nowhere.
I tap my comms, switching to the Avengers emergency frequency. "Spider-Man to Avengers Tower. We have a situation."
Tony Stark's voice comes through first, unusually terse. "We know. Satellite picked up the thermal signature three minutes ago."
"What's the play?"
"Stand by."
Steve Rogers cuts in, calm and commanding. "All units, this is Captain America. We're mobilizing now. Priority one is civilian evacuation. Priority two is containment. Do not engage Hulk directly unless absolutely necessary."
"Quicksilver already en route," Pietro's voice crackles through, slightly distorted by speed. "ETA two minutes."
Natasha's voice follows, clinical and precise. "Requesting air support for evacuation coordination. We need the streets clear before this escalates."
There's a beat of silence, and then Tony speaks again. His voice is different—quieter, almost hesitant. "Parker. You're closest. Get eyes on Banner. I need to know if he's... if he's still in there."
The unspoken question hangs heavy: *Is this still Bruce, or just the Hulk?*
"Copy that," I say, and push myself faster.
I reach the edge of the industrial district four minutes later.
The damage is worse than the footage suggested. Entire sections of the shipping yard are flattened—containers crushed, cranes toppled, concrete cracked in spiderweb patterns radiating outward from multiple impact points.
Workers are fleeing in all directions. I drop down, web-zip a man who's limping badly, pull him out of the path of a rolling shipping container, set him down behind cover.
"Get to the perimeter," I tell him. "Don't stop. Don't look back."
He nods, terror-pale, and runs.
I repeat this a dozen times—pulling people from wreckage, redirecting evacuations, webbing unstable structures before they can collapse on anyone. My spider-sense guides me, pointing toward danger, helping me prioritize.
But I keep one eye on the Hulk the entire time.
He's fifty meters away now. Close enough to see details. Close enough to realize how wrong this is.
He's tearing apart a freight train car—ripping through reinforced steel like tissue paper, methodically dismantling it piece by piece. No roaring. No wild swings. Just deliberate, focused destruction.
And then he pauses.
Hands still gripping twisted metal, shoulders heaving, head bowed.
His hands are shaking.
I zoom in with my mask's lenses, enhancing the image, and I see it:
He looks *lost*.
Not angry. Not raging. Just... broken.
The Hulk lets out a sound—low, guttural, barely audible over the ambient chaos.
Not a roar.
Not anger.
Something closer to *pain*.
Realization hits me like a physical blow.
"This isn't rage," I whisper.
My mind races through possibilities, through every interaction I've had with Bruce Banner, every story I've heard about the Hulk, every psychological profile I've read in Avengers briefings.
Rage is explosive. Uncontrolled. Chaotic.
This is controlled. Focused. Methodical.
This is grief.
Someone—something—hurt Bruce Banner so badly that the Hulk came out not to fight, but to *mourn*. And mourning, for something with the power to level cities, looks like destruction.
My comms crackle. "Spider-Man, report."
"He's not fighting," I say, still watching the Hulk's shaking hands. "Cap, I don't think he's fighting. I think he's... grieving."
Steve's voice is careful. "Explain."
"The destruction is deliberate but not targeted at people. He's not attacking—he's expressing. And that sound he's making? That's not rage. That's pain."
There's a long pause. Then Tony: "Banner lost someone."
"What?"
"I just got confirmation from S.H.I.E.L.D. Betty Ross. Car accident three hours ago. Bruce was on his way to the hospital when—"
He doesn't finish. He doesn't need to.
My chest tightens.
Grief. Loss. The kind of pain that doesn't care about control or protocol or the carefully constructed barriers between Bruce Banner and the monster he becomes.
The Hulk isn't destroying because he's angry at someone.
He's destroying because he doesn't know what else to do with the hurt.
Sirens converge from all directions. Fires burn in scattered pockets. Smoke rises. Screams echo.
Everything blurs together—sound and light and movement—and I'm standing at the edge of chaos, watching something I recognize in a way I wish I didn't.
Steve's voice in my ear: "Parker. We're thirty seconds out. Hold position."
"Copy."
But I'm already moving forward.
Not to fight. Not to contain.
Just... toward.
Because grief, I know how to handle.
Or at least... survive.
I've had practice.