"Put me down... you... freak!" Abomination choked out, half-strangled and barely able to breathe in the violent air rushing past them.
He tried hammering at Clark with both arms, trying to force him to let go, but all he managed to do was make Clark frown slightly.
Hulk, meanwhile, said nothing at all. His anger was rising fast, almost fast enough to break Clark's grip outright, and he kept twisting and lashing out in Clark's hand.
"Alright, gentlemen," Clark said, "this flight is about to reach its destination. Please fasten your seatbelts. Not that either of you has one."
He locked onto the desert below. Nothing for miles except sand and rock. No buildings, no traffic, no innocent bystanders.
Clark stopped sharply in midair, then hurled both of them straight down.
The two heavyweights had no time to react before they slammed into the earth.
The impact thundered across the desert. Each of them carved out a crater dozens of feet wide. Behind Clark, his cape snapped in the wind as he slowly descended to the ground.
He had not brought them here just to protect the city.
He had another goal too.
He still wanted to complete the future Avengers lineup, whether he ended up building it himself or S.H.I.E.L.D. did. Either way, he wanted people like these to be ready when the day came to defend Earth from whatever version of Thanos was waiting out there.
He did not believe, at least not yet, that he could one-shot a Thanos holding multiple Stones.
Hulk was today's real target.
As for Abomination...
At best, a punching bag.
At worst, a backup option.
While Clark floated there in the air, chin in hand, thinking this through, Hulk was the first one back on his feet.
"ROOOOAR!"
His green eyes were nothing but rage. And the angrier he got, the stronger he got. In his whole life, he had never felt this humiliated, let alone multiple times in one day. He had just been carried around and dumped like a misbehaving puppy.
In the other crater, Abomination dragged himself upright too. He wanted his shot at Clark as badly as ever. Whatever remained of Emil Blonsky, decorated soldier and military golden boy, had been crushed completely under the weight of his new monster brain.
All that remained now was the urge to beat down everything in front of him.
As for this so-called S-Man, why shouldn't he be beatable? He was stronger now.
"I'm going to tear you apart piece by piece!" Abomination roared, his rage swelling so hard that the bony spikes on his back seemed to lengthen as he charged Clark head-on.
"Hulk! Smash!"
Hulk came too, springing off both legs so hard he almost looked like he was flying, both fists raised to cave Clark's skull in.
One from the ground.
One from the air.
Clark stood right between them.
And he still didn't move.
He didn't even use super-speed to evade.
He intended to overpower them.
Facing Abomination's charge, Clark raised his right arm and met the incoming punch with one of his own.
Boom!
Abomination's fist and Clark's fist collided, and the released kinetic force exploded outward from the point of impact. Clark sank a few feet into the sand beneath him, but did not give up a single step.
Abomination, on the other hand, felt his fist split under the force. A wave of agony tore up his entire left arm.
"How is that possible?!" Abomination stared at the blood running from his ruined hand into the sand.
"You still don't understand strength at all."
Clark's left hand flashed out and broke Abomination's trapped left arm completely. The thick joint twisted into mangled ruin.
While Abomination screamed, Clark yanked his arm free and drove a kick into his stomach hard enough to grant him temporary flight.
Abomination shot away like artillery fire, smashing through dozens of stone columns before finally collapsing in the wreckage.
Clark had dealt with him in under ten seconds.
But by then Hulk's strongest attack had already come down from above, and Clark made no attempt to avoid it.
Instead, he tilted his head up and took it full in the face.
Boom!
Hulk's two fists slammed into Clark's face and managed to leave behind only the faintest red mark.
"Not bad power," Clark said, looking at the stunned Hulk, "but... not mean enough. Although honestly, if massage places in New York hit this hard, business would be booming."
Hulk froze.
His not-especially-large brain was trying to process what had just happened.
Why?
Why couldn't Hulk smash the tiny one?
Hulk was supposed to be strongest!
Then rage swallowed thought again.
As soon as he landed, he got even angrier, and his strength surged with it. He started throwing punches wildly.
Straight punches. Hooks. Swings. Grabs. Tackles.
Hulk pushed every ounce of primitive instinct he had into the fight.
And Clark simply stepped around it all.
His super-speed turned Hulk's every attack into slow motion. He leaned away from a heavy punch, raised one hand to block a sweeping strike, sidestepped a lunge with almost casual ease.
"Too slow."
"Not enough behind it."
Clark dismantled Hulk's attacks as easily as an instructor correcting a student, commenting the whole time like this was some kind of training session.
"Shut up, tiny bug! Too much talking!" Hulk finally realized that the best he could do was make Clark admit something hurt a little, and sometimes Clark even sounded like he was enjoying it.
So Hulk switched to another move.
He clapped both hands together with all his strength.
The thunderclap attack.
A shockwave blasted outward, strong enough to rupture organs in ordinary people and tear nearby buildings apart.
"A while ago, that might've actually been annoying," Clark said, "but now..."
He drew in a deep breath, chest rising high, then exhaled straight at Hulk.
Super-breath.
A white, freezing hurricane burst from Clark's mouth and collided head-on with the shockwave.
There was no suspense at all.
Clark's super-breath tore through it effortlessly, then kept going and flash-froze Hulk into a gigantic ice statue with only his eyes left moving.
Hulk strained furiously inside, his strength still climbing, parts of the ice already starting to crack and melt.
"That's enough, Hulk. Recess is over."
Clark walked up to the frozen mass and flicked the outer layer apart.
The ice shattered instantly, freeing Hulk.
But before Hulk could launch himself again, Clark had already grabbed him by the neck.
Hulk thrashed and kicked, but with Clark finally using serious force, there was nothing he could do. It was humiliating.
At that moment, Abomination woke up too, dragged himself shakily out of the rubble, saw Hulk being held down, and burst into laughter.
"Ha! Hulk, you brainless idiot! Once I kill him-"
"Yeah, no. You're done."
Clark glanced at him and his eyes flashed red.
Two thick beams of heat vision slammed into Abomination's chest. The temperature burned straight through his defenses, and the force behind the blast drove him deep into the ground.
This time he didn't get back up.
Now it was just Clark and Hulk.
Clark held Hulk up, looking at the still-furious, still-unconvinced green giant.
His expression was different now, less cold than before.
"So," Clark said, loosening his grip and letting Hulk drop back to the ground, "you really feel like this is unfair, don't you?"