The city is a war zone.
Not metaphorically. Actually. Literally. The kind of destruction you see in footage from places where civilization collapsed and nobody bothered cleaning up the pieces.
I'm swinging through streets I don't recognize anymore—landmarks gone, replaced by rubble and twisted metal and fires that emergency services have given up trying to contain. My wrists hurt, I can tell I'm running out of webbing. My ribs ache from an impact I don't remember taking. Every muscle screams that I should stop, rest, let someone else handle this.
But there is no one else.
Just me, the Avengers, and the Hulk.
And the Hulk is moving again.
Three blocks ahead, Hulk demolishes a courthouse.
Not the whole building—just specific sections. The records vault. The archive wing. Places where documents live, where history is stored in filing cabinets and forgotten memories.
He moves with purpose now. Not the random destruction from before, not the grief-fueled chaos. This is *targeting*.
My spider-sense hums as I swing closer, staying high, staying mobile. Below me, Cap's voice crackles through comms, trying to coordinate a response that's always three steps behind.
"All units, Hulk is heading northeast toward—" He pauses, checking coordinates. "Toward Columbia University research facility. Ice Man, I need you on structural support. Nighthawk, civilian evac priority. Quicksilver—"
"Already there!" Pietro's voice, breathless and manic.
I swing past the courthouse ruins, and something catches my eye.
A memorial plaque. Half-buried in rubble. Bronze, engraved, commemorating the rebuilding effort after the Ultron invasion.
*Dr. Bruce Banner — Lead Scientific Consultant*
My stomach drops.
"Cap," I say into comms. "I think I know where he's going."
"Explain."
"The courthouse—Bruce worked here. Pro bono legal consultation for victims of gamma exposure cases. And that research facility? That's where he did his doctoral work."
Silence on the line. Then: "He's hitting places tied to his past."
"Not just his past. Places tied to *guilt*. Memory. Identity." I web-zip to a higher vantage point, tracking Hulk's path. "This isn't smashing. This is... targeting. He's destroying parts of Bruce's life."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Copy that, Spider-Man. Updating tactical response."
But I can hear it in Cap's voice—he's updating nothing. We're reacting, not leading. Playing defense while Hulk writes the playbook.
We're losing tempo.
And losing tempo means losing control.
The Columbia research facility explodes.
Not from bombs. From Hulk.
He punches through the main support columns with surgical precision, and the building doesn't collapse so much as *fold*—steel bending, concrete crumbling, glass raining down in glittering cascades that catch the firelight like diamonds.
I'm already moving, firing webs to catch falling debris, creating safety nets for civilians still fleeing the building.
A woman falls from a third-story window.
I catch her mid-air, swing her to the ground, set her down running.
"Go! Don't look back!"
She runs.
Hulk emerges from the building's skeleton, and he's *different*.
His movements have sharpened. No wasted motion. No hesitation. He strikes, and the impact creates shockwave rings that ripple outward—visible distortions in the air, expanding circles of force that shatter windows six blocks away.
"Oh no," I whisper.
Hulk turns.
Looks directly at me.
I feel my spider-sense scream—not warning, not danger signal—just raw, existential *alarm* that makes every nerve fire at once.
Then he *moves*.
I've fought fast opponents before.
This isn't that.
Hulk doesn't move fast—he moves *inevitably*, like gravity, like a landslide, like something that was always going to happen and you were always going to be in the way.
I web-zip sideways as his fist craters the pavement where I was standing. The impact creates a vacuum burst that pulls loose debris inward before exploding outward in a shrapnel cloud.
I'm already swinging, firing webs at his joints, trying to bind his arms, slow his movement.
He rips through them.
I go vertical, wall-crawling up a building, using height advantage.
He *leaps*.
Three stories. Straight up. Hands reaching.
I jump, web-swing away, twist mid-air—and his fingers brush my ankle.
Just a graze.
It spins me like a top, sends me tumbling through space, webs firing blindly to arrest my fall.
I catch myself on a streetlight, hang upside down for half a second, breathing hard.
Hulk lands where I would've landed.
Waiting.
He *tracked* me.
"He's learning our patterns!" I shout into comms.
"We noticed," Tony's voice, flat and exhausted.
Below, Hulk claps.
The sound is a physical force—a thunderclap that creates a vacuum wave, air pressure dropping so fast my ears pop and my lungs compress.
I web-zip away before the shockwave can catch me fully, but the edges still hit—enough to rattle my ribs, blur my vision, make my spider-sense go haywire with overlapping warnings.
---
In the Sanctum Sanctorum, candles extinguish themselves.
Not from wind. Not from natural causes. They just... stop burning. Flames dying in unison like someone flipped a cosmic light switch.
Artifacts rattle on their shelves—ancient relics sealed behind wards, dormant for centuries, suddenly vibrating with sympathetic resonance to something happening blocks away.
The Cloak of Levitation tugs at Doctor Stephen Strange urgently, collar pulling at his shoulders like a dog on a leash sensing danger.
Strange freezes mid-spell, hands still positioned in casting formation, mandalas half-formed in the air around him.
His face hardens.
He turns slowly toward the eastern wall, seeing through stone and space to something beyond.
"That scar shouldn't be bleeding," he whispers.
Not to anyone in particular. Not to the Cloak. Just... stating a fact that shouldn't be true but is.
He raises his hands, and golden light spirals outward—diagnostic spells, mandalas rippling through dimensions, searching for the source of the disturbance.
The spell shows him layers.
The physical plane—destruction, fire, the Hulk.
The astral plane—Bruce Banner's consciousness, fragmented, screaming.
And underneath both: something *else*.
Ancient magic. Parasitic. Feeding.
Not a curse—those leave signatures, patterns, identifiable casters.
Not possession—that would've triggered the Sanctum's wards immediately.
This is something older. Hungrier.
Something exploiting a wound that was already there.
Strange can't see the caster. Can't trace the source. Just the *effect*—invisible teeth buried in Bruce Banner's psyche, drinking his pain, amplifying his grief, weaponizing his guilt.
"Show me," Strange commands the spell.
The mandalas flicker, trying, failing.
Whatever's doing this knows how to hide.
At the edge of the room, partially hidden in shadow, a young woman watches.
Wanda Maximoff. Dark eyes intense with concentration. Her hands move slightly—not casting, just... practicing. Telekinetic exercises Strange assigned her. Small objects levitate, spin, settle back down with increasing precision.
She's struggling. But focused.
When the candles die, she flinches. Looks to Strange for guidance.
He glances at her—brief, assessing.
"Stay here," he says. Authority, not request. "Do not follow."
Wanda nods. Worried, but obedient.
No explanations. No names spoken. Just understanding.
Strange has taught her enough to know when something is beyond her current capability.
This is beyond her.
Hell, it might be beyond him.
The Cloak wraps itself around Strange's shoulders without being summoned.
He raises his hands, and a portal spirals open—not toward the battlefield, not toward the Hulk.
*Around* him.
Strange isn't tracking the symptom.
He's hunting the source.
As he steps through the portal, the Sanctum goes silent.
Wanda stands alone among extinguished candles and trembling artifacts, watching the space where her teacher was.
Outside, the city burns.
Inside, something darker stirs.
Cap is coordinating from a makeshift command post—three parked SUVs and a S.H.I.E.L.D. mobile unit that's missing its roof.
"Ice Man, collapse that building *before* Hulk reaches it. Buy us thirty seconds."
"On it."
"Nighthawk, evac corridors are compromised. Reroute through—"
A portal opens.
Orange sparks, perfect circle, appearing in the middle of the command post like someone tore a hole in reality.
Doctor Strange steps through.
He doesn't join the fight. Doesn't offer reinforcements. Just stands there, Cloak billowing, expression grave.
"This isn't the Hulk," he says without preamble.
Cap turns, shield up reflexively, then lowers it. "Doctor Strange. About time. We could use—"
"This isn't the Hulk," Strange repeats. "This is something *feeding* on him. Using his grief as fuel, his guilt as a weapon. Someone is exploiting Bruce Banner's trauma."
The command post goes quiet.
"What kind of something?" Cap asks carefully.
"I don't know yet." Strange's hands move, casting rapid diagnostic spells that flare and fade. "Ancient magic. Parasitic. Intelligent. And it knows I'm looking for it now."
"Can you stop it?"
"Not from here. I need to find the source. The caster." He turns, portal already forming behind him. "Until I do, all you can do is survive."
"Wait—" Cap starts.
But Strange is already gone, portal snapping shut, leaving nothing but displaced air and the smell of ozone.
Tony's voice over comms: "Did he just tell us we're on our own?"
"Essentially," Cap confirms.
"Great. Love that for us."
---
Two minutes later, the formation collapses.
Ice Man creates a barrier—twenty feet of reinforced ice, crystalline structure optimized for impact absorption.
Hulk punches through it like it's sugar glass.
Shards explode outward, and Bobby barely creates a shield in time, ice fragmenting around him as he skates backward.
Quicksilver tries to flank—three approach vectors, attacking from different angles simultaneously.
Hulk times it.
Waits for Pietro's return arc—the fraction of a second where momentum forces him to follow a predictable path—and swings.
Pietro dodges, but barely. The air displacement alone sends him tumbling through a storefront window.
Shadow phases in from below, trying the same darkness-binding technique that failed before.
This time she's faster. More controlled.
Hulk still catches her.
Slams her into the ground hard enough to create a crater.
I'm already moving—web-lines firing, yanking her free, swinging her to safety as Hulk's fist crashes down where she was.
She's unconscious. Again.
"Medic!" I shout. "Someone get her clear!"
Nighthawk swoops in, grabs Shadow, carries her toward the perimeter.
And I'm alone with the Hulk.
Hulk stands in the crater, breathing hard.
Not from exertion. From pain.
He clutches his head—both hands, massive fingers digging into his scalp like he's trying to tear something out.
A sound escapes him. Low. Guttural.
Not a roar.
A *whimper*.
And I see it clearly now.
The way his hands shake. The way his eyes flicker—green to brown to green again. The way he staggers, like he's fighting something inside himself.
Hulk isn't attacking the city.
He's fighting something we can't see.
"Bruce," I say. Not shouting. Just... saying it. "Bruce, I know you're in there."
Hulk's eyes snap to me.
For half a second, they're brown.
Then green floods back, and he roars—raw and agonized—and charges deeper into the city.
I swing after him.
Not attacking. Not trying to stop him. Just... following. Because if I lose sight of him, people die. And if people die, it's because I wasn't fast enough.
Behind me, the Avengers regroup. Cap issues orders. Tony calculates trajectories. Ice Man patches wounds. Quicksilver recovers.
We're battered. Exhausted. Losing.
But still moving.