The perimeter takes shape in less than three minutes.
That's how fast the Avengers move when the situation demands it—not chaos, not panic, just ruthless efficiency born from experience and way too much practice dealing with world-ending threats.
I land on a rooftop adjacent to the containment zone as Cap's voice crackles through comms, calm and commanding despite the screaming civilians and collapsing infrastructure in the background.
"All units, listen up. Objective is containment and evacuation. We slow him down, we get people out, we do *not* escalate. Clear?"
Chorus of affirmatives, mine included.
"Ice Man, you're on infrastructure. Freeze escape routes—create safe corridors for civilians, not barriers for Banner. Tigra, ground coordination. Get people moving, keep them calm. Quicksilver, mass evacuation—prioritize the elderly and injured. Spider-Man, debris control and civilian assist. Iron Man, aerial overwatch and backup."
Everyone acknowledges except Tony. There's a beat of silence before he responds, voice tight: "Copy."
I notice how Cap doesn't say *stop* the Hulk. Doesn't say *neutralize* or *subdue*.
Just *slow*.
Like we're buying time for something none of us want to name.
Ice Man is already working when I drop into street level.
He's skating on self-generated ice paths, hands extended, freezing the ground in geometric patterns that channel fleeing civilians away from the industrial district and toward designated safe zones. Not barriers—*corridors*. The difference matters.
"Move, move, move!" he shouts, voice steady despite the adrenaline I can hear underneath. "Follow the ice! Stay together!"
People run. Some stumble. Some carry children. Some are bleeding from cuts they probably don't even feel yet.
I web-swing past, pulling a woman who's fallen back to her feet, redirecting a man who's running the wrong direction, catching a piece of falling signage before it can brain someone.
My spider-sense is a constant hum—not screaming danger, just baseline *everything is wrong* at a frequency that makes my teeth ache.
Fifty meters away, Hulk picks up a shipping container and hurls it into a warehouse. The building crumples inward like cardboard, and the sound is deafening even over the ambient chaos.
He still hasn't roared.
Tigra moves through the streets with the kind of grace that makes you forget she's technically a mutant and not actually a giant cat.
She's guiding people out with a combination of calm authority and raw speed, appearing beside panicked civilians, pointing them toward safety, physically carrying those who can't move fast enough.
"You're okay," she tells an elderly man frozen in fear. "I've got you. Come on."
She lifts him—gently, carefully—and bounds toward the perimeter in three massive leaps.
I swing after her, webbing a taxi that's blocking the evacuation route, pulling it aside like a toy.
"Spider-Man," she calls as she passes. "Section C has trapped workers. Can you—"
"On it."
I'm already moving.
Section C is a nightmare. Half-collapsed warehouse, exposed rebar, groaning metal that sounds like it's one vibration away from complete structural failure.
Three workers trapped under a fallen support beam.
I drop down, assess the situation, and start webbing structural supports to take the load. Then I lift—spider-strength making the impossible merely difficult—and the beam shifts enough for the workers to crawl free.
"Go!" I shout. "That way! Follow the ice!"
They run.
Behind me, Hulk demolishes another crane.
He's not even looking at us.
Quicksilver is a silver blur cutting through the chaos so fast he's more concept than person.
He evacuates entire city blocks in seconds—appearing beside people, grabbing them, depositing them blocks away in safe zones before they can even process what's happening.
"Got you!" he shouts mid-run, voice doppler-shifted and manic. "And you! And you! Hey, nice shoes! You're safe now! BYE!"
My comms crackle. "Quicksilver, slow down. You're going to miss someone."
"Relax, Cap! I've got this!"
He doesn't slow down.
I watch him blur through a collapsed storefront, skirting around debris, and then—
He clips a wall.
Not hard. Just enough to send him tumbling, momentum carrying him through a chain-link fence and into a stack of pallets that explode into splinters.
My heart stops.
"Pietro!" I shout into comms.
"I'm fine!" His voice is strained but defiant. "Totally fine! That was intentional! Strategic fence demolition!"
"That was a crash!"
"Semantics!"
He's already moving again, and I can't tell if he's limping or if that's just how he looks when he's pretending he's not hurt.
Cap orders the first direct engagement over comms, voice tight with control.
"We need to redirect him away from the power substation. Limited engagement only—do not escalate. Ice Man, create a barrier. Tigra, flank left. Spider-Man, high ground support."
I swing to an elevated position just as Ice Man generates a massive ice wall between Hulk and the substation—twenty feet high, reinforced, impressive.
Hulk glances at it.
Then he punches the frozen ground at his feet.
The ice shatters, sending shards flying like shrapnel. Bobby barely dodges, skating backward, hands up to generate a hasty shield.
Tigra leaps from the flank, claws extended, aiming for a non-lethal strike to get Hulk's attention.
He catches her mid-air.
Not violently. Not crushing. Just... catches her. Like she's a baseball and he's barely trying.
Then he pivots and throws her—controlled, precise—sending her tumbling into a snowbank Bobby generates just in time to cushion her landing.
Quicksilver tries next, blurring in from three different angles, trying to confuse Hulk with speed.
Hulk waits.
Times it perfectly.
Swings where Pietro *will be* instead of where he *is*.
Pietro barely dodges, the wind from Hulk's fist creating a shockwave that sends him skidding out of control into a dumpster.
I fire webs, trying to bind Hulk's arm, create openings for the others.
He rips through them like they're cobwebs.
And I realize something that makes my stomach drop:
Hulk isn't just strong.
He's *learning*.
The fight—if you can call it that—devolves into Hulk systematically dismantling our strategy.
Ice constructs? He smashes them faster each time, adapting to Bobby's patterns, knowing where the structural weak points are before Bobby even finishes building them.
Tigra's hit-and-run tactics? He starts anticipating her angles, positioning himself so she can't get clean strikes.
Quicksilver's speed? He stops trying to track Pietro and instead predicts the patterns, swinging at where he'll arrive instead of chasing where he's been.
And my webs? He doesn't even bother breaking free anymore—he just ignores them, ripping through like they're not there.
My spider-sense is screaming now—not from danger alone, but from *unpredictability*. Hulk's movements are evolving mid-fight, adapting, improving.
"He's learning our patterns!" I shout into comms.
"I noticed," Cap replies, frustration bleeding through his control. "Fall back. Regroup at secondary positions."
Hulk starts using the terrain against us.
He uproots industrial equipment—cranes, forklifts, shipping containers—and uses them as mobile cover, blocking lines of sight, creating obstacles that force us to waste time repositioning.
Ice Man tries to lock down his movement with frozen ground, but Hulk just smashes through it, creating more shrapnel, more chaos.
Every strategy we deploy, he counters within minutes.
And all the while, he's moving deeper into the city.
I catch a glimpse of Iron Man high above the battlefield.
Tony's hovering, armor gleaming in the firelight, repulsors charged but not firing.
He's just... watching.
I tap into the tactical frequency. "Tony, you seeing this?"
"Yeah." His voice is hollow. "I'm seeing it."
"You gonna help?"
Silence. Then: "I'm running scenarios."
"What kind of scenarios?"
"The kind I don't want the answer to."
The connection cuts.
I watch Tony hover there, motionless, and realize he's calculating outcomes. Best-case scenarios. Worst-case. The point where engagement becomes necessary versus the point where it becomes fatal.
He's deciding if he can stop his friend without killing him.
And he hasn't moved yet because he doesn't like what the math is telling him.
A crane collapses.
Not from Hulk hitting it—from structural failure after everything else. It tips, slow at first, then accelerating, tons of metal falling toward a construction worker trapped beneath rubble.
I don't think.
Just move.
Web-zip to the crane, fire every web-shooter I have, anchor points spreading across three buildings, trying to arrest the fall.
The webs go taut.
Strain.
Start to *snap*.
My shoulders scream. Spider-strength is enough to slow the crane but not stop it.
"Come on, come on—"
One more web. Anchored to a support beam. It holds.
The crane stops six inches above the worker's head.
I drop down, pull him free, drag him to safety.
My hands are shaking.
I look up.
Hulk is standing fifty meters away, staring at his own hands. Confused. Like he doesn't understand what they just did.
The moment stretches.
Then it passes.
Hulk turns and continues his march deeper into the city.
I swing past Natasha as she coordinates evacuation from a makeshift command post.
She's talking to Cap over a secure channel, but I catch fragments as I pass:
"—didn't just snap. Something *pushed* him—"
That lands harder than any punch.
Because if Bruce didn't just lose control—if something or someone *made* this happen—then we're not just dealing with grief.
We're dealing with a weapon.
And someone just aimed it at New York.
The containment perimeter collapses sixteen minutes after it was established.
Hulk breaks through the ice walls, the evacuation corridors, the carefully positioned response teams, and heads deeper into the city proper.
We can't stop him.
We can barely slow him.
Cap's voice over comms is the sound of a man accepting an impossible situation: "All units, fall back. Regroup at designated safe zones. We're going to protocol seven."
Nobody asks what protocol seven is.
We all know.
It's the one where we admit containment failed and start planning for damage control instead of prevention.
I perch on a rooftop, breathing hard, watching Hulk disappear into smoke and fire and the skeletal remains of industrial infrastructure.
My spider-sense is still humming, but quieter now. Not because the danger has passed—because we're too far away to matter.
Around me, the city burns in small, controlled ways. Fires that emergency services can handle. Collapses that won't cascade into larger disasters.
We saved people tonight.
But we didn't stop him.
And for the first time in a long while, I feel *small*.
Not weak. Not inadequate. Just... finite. Human, despite the powers and the mask and the responsibility I carry.
The Hulk is grief given form, power without outlet, pain that can't be contained or reasoned with or stopped.
And if this is him *holding back*—if this is him destroying property instead of people—
What happens when he stops?
I don't want to know the answer.
But I think we're going to find out anyway.