After several days of repairs and rebuilding, everyone had finally moved back home.
Clark was lying in bed, staring at the moon and wondering why moonlight, which was really just reflected sunlight, didn't seem to make him any stronger.
Did he only grow stronger under direct sunlight?
Was this somehow psychological?
Maybe one day, if he focused hard enough on light itself, he could grow stronger without needing the sun at all.
Then he heard someone climbing down the outside wall using the drainpipe.
At first he assumed Peter was sneaking back in late and didn't bother with it.
But then a dark figure appeared at his window, along with a perfume scent he knew very well.
A soft click.
The window opened.
Clark, who had been about to drift off, suddenly felt very awake.
The little devil in his head had already changed into a flashy silk robe, holding a wineglass and whistling.
"Whoa. Midnight entertainment."
The little angel, meanwhile, looked like a strict churchman, clutching a cross and sprinkling holy water in an attempt to keep Clark calm.
Curious about what this senior girl actually wanted, Clark decided to pretend he was asleep and kept his eyes shut.
Felicia slipped into the room with the easy grace of a real black cat.
The moonlight was bright tonight, spilling through the window and laying a soft glow over her silver hair.
She stepped lightly to Clark's bedside and looked down at the boy who was "sound asleep."
"You really do sleep hard, big guy," Felicia thought with a silent laugh. Sleeping Clark was unfairly cute.
Ever since the first time she had seen him, he had carried a strange pull she couldn't explain, like she had somehow known him before.
And after what happened in the Oscorp warehouse, when Clark had lifted her into the air like it was nothing, after seeing what he could do, her curiosity about him had reached its limit.
She absolutely did not believe this was just some shy, honest-looking boy who blushed whenever she teased him and wanted to live an ordinary life.
At this point, she was almost convinced that Clark, with his fake innocent act, was the very same "S-Man" the city had started treating like a god.
Even she thought that sounded a little insane.
But that was what her instincts were telling her.
"Heh... let's see what's really hiding under that harmless face of yours..."
Felicia leaned down closer, looking at Clark's closed eyes.
She could even feel the heat coming off him.
She reached out, meaning to test the muscle under his shirt. If he really was the man who had dominated Manhattan, then his body would have to be obviously different from an ordinary person's.
Closer.
A little closer.
Her fingertips were less than an inch from his chest.
Clark still had his eyes shut, but in his senses, every movement she made was painfully obvious.
He sighed inwardly.
Absolutely not.
There were lines you just did not let people cross.
The instant Felicia was about to touch him, Clark switched from breathing through his nose to breathing through his mouth.
Then he exhaled.
A soft burst of air hit her with a force she had no chance of resisting.
"Ah!"
Felicia felt an irresistible gust sweep her up before she could even finish yelping.
The wind was strangely gentle, though. It lifted her cleanly and sent her right back out the way she had come in.
Her arms and legs flailed as she flew out through the second-floor window, traced a graceful arc through the air, and landed with a soft whump on the newly laid lawn in the Parker front yard.
She didn't even damage the grass.
Then the strange gust was gone, and Clark was alone in the room again.
He got up, shut the window, and grumbled just loudly enough for the girl below to hear him.
"What kind of weird draft was that? Man... winter's really coming. Cold."
Down below, Felicia sat on the lawn for a second in a daze, then slowly stood up and looked toward the second-floor window. Then she looked around at the dead-still night air.
A draft? Draft my ass. There wasn't even a breeze outside.
"Clark Parker..." Felicia muttered through gritted teeth.
Before tonight, she had been maybe seventy or eighty percent sure.
Now she was ten thousand percent sure.
"That's fine... I'll get you eventually. You're the brightest jewel in New York City, and I'm a thief. Which means you're exactly what I'm after."
She brushed the grass off herself and disappeared back into the street.
Early the next morning, Clark stretched, got out of bed, washed up, and went through the usual routine.
After breakfast, his mother handed him a mission: pick up spices after school because she wanted to make beef stew that night.
She even gave him the exact store, one all the way up in Harlem.
Clark gave her a mock salute and accepted the assignment with a grin. It wasn't like he had anything especially urgent going on anyway.
But when he saw the address, he was mildly surprised.
Harlem.
That part of town had not been especially calm lately.
By now the military's hunt for Bruce Banner had fully spread into New York.
Trying to cure himself of the Hulk, Banner had risked coming back to the city to find Mr. Blue, the one scientist who had claimed he could help.
"Lot of military activity today," Clark muttered as he walked the streets, noticing helicopters overhead and a larger number of armored vehicles on the roads.
He thought back to the Hulk appearing at Culver University a couple days earlier and immediately understood what was happening.
Ross's people were in New York, hunting Bruce.
"Listen up! Don't give him room to breathe! Tear gas, flashbangs, use everything! The second that green monster shows his face, I want him hit hard!"
Ross was almost feverish with obsession.
He wanted the Hulk's power badly.
Especially after the appearance of the S-Man over the last few months, after the military had been humiliated over and over in public.
He needed Hulk blood to restart the super-soldier program.
He needed to prove to the world, and to the government, that the U.S. military wasn't just a money pit that generated disasters.
Their enhanced soldier, Emil Blonsky, had nearly been beaten to death by the Hulk in the previous confrontation.
This time, though, they had already found Mr. Blue and secured his cooperation.
Very soon, a sample of Hulk blood would be injected into Blonsky's body, making him even stronger, maybe strong enough to fight the Hulk on equal terms.
The moment the blood entered his system, Blonsky screamed.
His body began swelling in grotesque ways, his spine forcing out jagged protrusions, his muscles turning a sick yellow-green as his size surged past ten feet.
Something even more violent-looking than the Hulk itself was born inside Mr. Blue's home.
The Abomination had arrived.