The storm breaks early.
Not the literal one—those clouds are still gathering, still building toward something catastrophic. This storm is immediate, internal, breaking over the Avengers like a wave we're too exhausted to dodge.
The temporary command zone is half command center, half triage ward. Folding tables covered in maps and tablets. Medical supplies scattered across improvised treatment areas. The smell of disinfectant mixing with smoke and blood.
Sirens echo nonstop—a soundtrack to disaster that's become white noise.
I'm sitting on the edge of a supply crate, ribs taped, knuckles bandaged, watching Cap coordinate with S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel while Natasha fields questions from emergency services and Tony stands alone near the perimeter, armor's faceplate up, staring at nothing.
Everyone looks like I feel—hollowed out, running on fumes and stubbornness.
Then the report comes in.
"Gamma signature detected. Sector Seven. Old research district."
Cap's jaw tightens. "He's moving again."
I stand, ignoring the protest from every muscle. "He changed direction?"
"Yeah." Natasha pulls up a holographic map. "Was heading northeast. Now he's doubling back west, toward—" She pauses, checking data. "Toward the Culver University research campus. Or what's left of it."
My spider-sense hums faintly. Not danger. Recognition.
"He's not lashing out," I say quietly. "He's going somewhere."
Everyone looks at me.
"What makes you say that?" Cap asks.
"Because random destruction doesn't have a destination. This does." I point at the map. "He's targeting places tied to Bruce. His past. His work. His guilt."
Tony finally speaks, voice hollow. "Culver's where it started. Where the accident happened. Where Bruce became..."
He doesn't finish.
Doesn't need to.
A portal opens.
Orange sparks, perfect circle, appearing in the middle of our command zone without warning.
Doctor Strange steps through, and he looks wrong.
Not injured. Not tired. Just... disturbed. Like he's seen something he wishes he could unsee and knows he's about to see it again.
His eyes track something invisible—scanning the air, following patterns only he can perceive. His hands move in small, unconscious gestures, casting diagnostic spells that flare and fade.
"You're late," Cap says, not unkindly.
"I was tracking the source." Strange's voice is clipped. Professional. "I'm still tracking it. But I can't find the caster. Only the... wound."
"What wound?" Natasha asks.
Strange looks at her, and his expression is bleak. "The one someone's deliberately keeping open. Feeding. Using to weaponize Bruce Banner's grief."
Silence.
"Can you stop it?" Cap asks carefully.
"I can't stop what I can't see clearly." Strange turns toward the map, toward the blinking indicator showing Hulk's position. "But I might be able to listen. Get inside the effect, trace it back to the cause."
"That sounds dangerous," I say.
"It is." He meets my eyes. "Which is why I'm telling you now—if this goes wrong, if I lose control, you pull me out. By force if necessary."
Tony steps forward. "What are you planning?"
"A mid-battle magical intervention. I'm going to try to reach Bruce while the Hulk is still active. Get inside his mind. See what's driving this."
"That could make it worse," Tony says flatly.
"Yes. It could."
"And you're doing it anyway."
"Do you have a better idea?"
Tony doesn't answer.
Strange nods once, grim. "Then we move. Now."
We find Hulk at what used to be Culver University's Advanced Physics Research Facility.
The building is already half-demolished—not from Hulk, from budget cuts and time. It's been abandoned for years, scheduled for demolition that kept getting delayed.
Hulk is finishing the job.
But he's *different* now.
Slower. Movements heavy, like he's moving through water. Each strike is less explosive, more *desperate*—like he's trying to destroy something he can't quite reach.
I watch from a rooftop three buildings away, Ice Man and Nighthawk flanking me, as Hulk tears a wall down with his bare hands.
Then pauses.
Just... stops mid-motion, hands still gripping twisted rebar, breathing hard.
"Is he... hesitating?" Nighthawk asks quietly.
"Yeah," I whisper. "He is."
Hulk roars—but the sound cracks halfway through, jagged and *wrong*. Not the primal bellow of pure rage. This is something breaking.
My spider-sense tightens, but it's not warning me of danger.
It's warning me of pain.
Strange appears beside us in a flare of orange light, Cloak already billowing. "Everyone back. Give me space."
"What are you going to do?" I ask.
"Something stupid." He raises his hands. "When I tell you to hold on to something real—do it. Don't question. Just anchor yourself."
"That's not ominous at all."
He doesn't smile.
Strange descends slowly, Cloak carrying him down to street level, positioning himself fifty feet from Hulk.
The rest of us spread out—Cap coordinating positions over comms, weapons ready but not aimed, everyone tense.
Hulk turns, sees Strange, and for a moment I think he's going to charge.
But he doesn't.
Just stands there, fists clenched, breathing hard, eyes glowing that sickly green.
Strange begins casting.
His hands move in complex patterns, mandalas spiraling outward in golden light, layering over each other, building something intricate and fragile.
The air *bends*.
Sound distorts—like reality is holding its breath.
A glowing sigil erupts beneath Hulk, geometric and alien, pulsing with light that shouldn't exist in this spectrum.
Hulk roars, but the sound is muffled, distant.
My spider-sense collapses inward—not warning, not screaming—pulling.
Like I'm standing at the edge of a cliff and gravity just reversed.
"PARKER!" Strange shouts, voice echoing strangely. "HOLD ON TO SOMETHING REAL!"
I grab the rooftop ledge, fingers digging into concrete—
And the world inverts.
I'm falling.
Not physically. My body is still on the rooftop, still gripping concrete.
But I'm falling through darkness that stretches in every direction, weightless and terrified.
This isn't a memory.
This is a dream.
Bruce's dream.
I see flashes—disjointed, overlapping, bleeding into each other:
A laboratory. Equations on a whiteboard. Bruce's face, younger, hopeful, staring at data that promises everything.
Then gamma radiation. Green light. Screaming.
The images skip, corrupt, like a damaged film:
Bruce running simulations on a computer. Each one ends the same way—FAILURE.
Over and over and over.
A thousand simulations. A thousand failures.
And voices whispering underneath:
*"You weren't enough."*
*"You broke everything."*
*"They're afraid of you."*
The voice isn't Bruce's.
It's something else. Something using Bruce's own doubts, his own guilt, feeding them back to him in an endless loop.
I try to speak—try to call out, reach Bruce, tell him it's not real—
But my words drown under the weight of the guilt.
The darkness shifts.
I see faces now. Familiar ones.
Tony Stark, turning away. Expression cold. Final.
Civilians screaming, running, looking at Bruce—at me—with pure terror.
Betty Ross, backing away, hands raised, tears streaming.
And Hulk standing alone amid ruins, surrounded by the bodies of everyone he couldn't save, everyone he destroyed trying to help.
The dreams twist, becoming accusations:
"You destroy what you love."
"You're a weapon. That's all you'll ever be."
"The world would be safer if you didn't exist."
I feel it—not intellectually, but viscerally. The crushing weight of believing you're fundamentally broken. That your existence causes harm. That everyone would be better off if you just... stopped.
And underneath it all, something is feeding on this pain.
Something ancient. Patient. Deliberately deepening the wound, keeping it fresh, using Bruce's trauma as fuel for something I can't fully see.
I try to reach for Bruce—try to find the man buried under the guilt—
But the darkness is too deep.
And I'm drowning in it.
Back in the real world, Hulk drops to one knee.
I can see it from inside the psychic echo—two perspectives overlapping, reality fracturing.
His roar shakes the street—buildings tremble, glass shatters, car alarms scream to life.
But it isn't rage.
It's agony.
Raw emotion made physical, surging outward in shockwaves that crack pavement and warp steel.
The Avengers hesitate—I can feel their uncertainty, their fear, their inability to process whether they should attack or retreat or just... witness.
Cap raises his hand, signaling hold position.
Tony's weapons charge but don't fire.
And inside the darkness, I feel Bruce screaming.
Not the Hulk.
Bruce.
Screaming for help no one can hear.
The spell snaps.
Not gently. Not controlled.
Violently.
Like a rubber band stretched too far, releasing all at once.
I'm thrown backward—psychically first, then physically—flung across the street, tumbling through air, slamming into rubble hard enough to crack ribs that were already cracked.
Pain explodes through my chest, my vision whites out, and for a second I can't breathe.
When I can see again, I'm staring at the sky, breathing in shallow gasps, tasting blood.
Strange is on one knee fifty feet away, barely maintaining control, mandalas flickering unstably around his hands.
His face is pale. Drawn. Horrified.
He mutters something I can barely hear: "Something... powerful is feeding him... deepening the wound."
Hulk rises.
Slower. Heavier.
Like a man carrying weight no one else can see.
He doesn't attack the Avengers.
Doesn't charge. Doesn't roar.
He just... leaves.
Like a man running from his own thoughts.
Bounding away into the smoke and distance, disappearing into the labyrinth of the broken city.
We don't chase.
Can't. Everyone's too shaken, too uncertain about what just happened.
Cap's voice over comms is quiet: "Let him go. Regroup. We need to reassess."
No one argues.
I lie still longer than necessary.
Not because I'm hurt—though I am—but because I can't process what I just experienced.
My hands are shaking.
I've seen fear before. Rage. Loss.
But this?
This wasn't a monster losing control.
This was a man being buried alive.
And someone—something—was shoveling dirt on top of him, keeping him trapped, feeding on his suffocation.
Strange approaches, Cloak steadying him, moving like a man who just ran a marathon while solving impossible equations.
He crouches beside me. "Can you stand?"
"Yeah." I sit up slowly, ribs screaming. "What... what was that?"
"Bruce Banner's mind. Or what's left of it." His expression is grave. "Whatever this is—it isn't random. It's patient. Deliberate. Someone is weaponizing his guilt, using his trauma as a power source."
"For what?"
"I don't know yet." He helps me to my feet. "But I know this: magic like that doesn't just happen. Someone cast it. Someone is maintaining it. And they're very, very good at hiding."
"Can you find them?"
"I'm trying." He looks toward where Hulk disappeared. "But every time I get close, the trail goes cold. Like they know I'm looking."
"So what do we do?"
"We survive. We protect as many people as we can. And we hope I find the source before Bruce runs out of sanity to burn."
He opens a portal and steps through without another word.
I'm left standing in rubble, watching smoke coil against the darkening sky.
Nighthawk lands beside me. "You okay?"
"No." I don't lie. Can't. "Not even close."
"What happened in there?"
"I saw..." I trail off, trying to find words for something that doesn't have them. "I saw what it's like when someone turns your dreams against you. When guilt becomes a weapon."
"That's—"
"Horrifying. Yeah."
We stand in silence for a moment.
Then I look toward where Hulk vanished.
"If someone can do that—if they can reach inside your head and twist your worst fears into reality—then nowhere is safe. Not even inside your own mind."
Nighthawk doesn't respond.
There's nothing to say.
The storm is still building.
And we're standing right in its path.
But now I know the truth:
The real battle isn't out here.
It's inside Bruce's head.
And we're losing.