The monster returns louder.
No warning. No pattern. Just Hulk erupting through the East Side residential district like a living earthquake, demolishing buildings that aren't symbolic or strategic—just *there*.
Homes. Apartments. The kind of structures where families live and kids sleep and people keep everything they own.
They crumble faster than evacuation orders can reach them.
I'm swinging ahead of the destruction, spider-sense screaming constant warnings, making impossible choices every three seconds:
Pull this woman from wreckage or save those kids trapped in a car?
Web that collapsing wall or catch the falling debris about to crush that man?
There's no right answer. Just less-wrong ones. And I'm making them on pure instinct because thinking takes too long and people die in the time it takes to think.
"MOVE!" I scream at a cluster of civilians frozen in shock. "RUN! DON'T LOOK BACK!"
They run.
Behind them, a four-story brownstone collapses inward, folding like origami made of brick and screaming steel.
Dust cloud swallows everything.
I web-zip through it blind, following spider-sense more than sight, and pull two more people from rubble before the secondary collapse buries them.
This isn't grief anymore.
This is what happens when pain snaps.
Cap's voice cuts through comms, commanding despite the chaos: "All units, converge on sector twelve. Priority evac, then engagement. Ice Man—structural support, NOW."
"On it!" Bobby's already moving, skating on self-generated ice paths, hands extended, flash-freezing collapsing structures mid-fall—arresting momentum with crystalline reinforcement that holds just long enough for people to escape.
A building tilts, groaning, windows shattering as gravity wins.
Ice erupts from the foundation, coating support beams, buying thirty precious seconds.
Tigra blurs past me, moving with predatory grace, claws tearing through twisted metal to reach civilians trapped in crushed vehicles. She pulls a family free—mother, two kids—carries them bodily away from the impact zone.
Quicksilver is everywhere, burning himself out, moving so fast he's just silver afterimages and displaced air. He drags people from impact zones before the debris even lands, deposits them blocks away, then blurs back for more.
He's going to collapse. I can see it—the way his movements are getting sloppy, the way he's skidding instead of stopping cleanly.
But he doesn't slow down.
None of us do.
Nighthawk's voice over comms, tight with controlled fear: "Aerial view confirms—he's not slowing. He's escalating. Trajectory suggests he's heading toward—" Static. "—Christ, the hospital district."
My stomach drops.
Cap responds immediately: "All units, intercept before he reaches medical facilities. We engage now."
We hit him with everything.
Ice Man generates barriers—twenty feet of reinforced crystalline structure designed to slow, not stop.
He doesn't smash through anymore. He strikes the weak points—structural joints, stress fractures—bringing them down with brutal efficiency.
Tigra flanks, going for hamstring strikes, trying to limit mobility.
Hulk pivots, tracks her movement, swats her aside before she can connect. Not wild. Calculated.
Quicksilver tries the speed approach—three angles simultaneously, creating confusion through velocity.
Hulk waits.
Times it.
Swings where Pietro will be instead of where he is.
The impact doesn't connect fully—Pietro's too fast for that—but the shockwave sends him tumbling through a storefront, momentum arrested by crashing through inventory displays.
I fire webs, trying to bind joints, create openings for the others.
Hulk rips through them and uses the torn webbing as weapons—whipping the strands like flails, forcing me to dodge my own attacks.
He's adapting.
Not just fighting. Learning.
Every mistake we make, he catalogs. Every pattern we establish, he breaks.
And I realize something that makes my chest tight:
He's fighting like someone who wants it to end.
One way or another.
Iron Man ascends.
I see it happening in my peripheral vision—Tony rising above the battlefield, gaining altitude, separating himself from the immediate chaos.
His movements are too controlled. Too deliberate.
He's not repositioning for a better angle.
He's making a decision.
My HUD links into the Avengers tactical net, and for a second—just a fraction of a second—I see what Tony sees:
His own HUD.
The targeting systems.
The locked weapons compartment highlighting in his interface.
And the bullets.
The ones Bruce designed.
The ones meant to kill him if nothing else could.
Tony's hands shake inside the armor—servos compensating automatically, stabilizing his aim despite the tremor.
He loads them.
I watch it happen through the tactical feed, and panic hits harder than any of Hulk's punches.
"Tony—" I start.
He cuts the feed.
Cap sees it.
I know he does—his tactical awareness is too sharp to miss Tony ascending, weapons charging, the change in his flight pattern.
But he says nothing.
No command. No permission. No order to stand down.
Just... silence.
The kind of silence that means the decision is being left to the person who has to live with it.
Natasha's voice cuts through comms—quiet, steady, more devastating than any scream:
"You'll live with either choice."
That's worse than an order.
Because an order means someone else made the decision.
This? This is all Tony.
And we all know it.
I can't.
I just—I can't.
I web-zip directly at Hulk, bypassing strategy, abandoning coordination, acting on pure desperate instinct.
My spider-sense screams warnings I ignore.
I land on Hulk's shoulder, gripping with enhanced strength, and I scream over the chaos:
"BRUCE! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! FIGHT IT! PLEASE!"
Hulk's hand comes up—not fast, not angry—just inevitable, like gravity.
He swats me aside like I'm nothing.
I fly backward, web-line firing automatically, catching myself mid-tumble, swinging wild to arrest momentum.
When I stabilize, I see Tony.
Two hundred feet up.
Weapons armed.
Targeting reticle visible even from here—that distinctive red glow of locked acquisition.
"TONY!" I scream into comms, raw and desperate. "DON'T! PLEASE! DON'T DO THIS!"
He doesn't respond.
Time doesn't actually slow.
That's a movie thing, a narrative convenience.
But my perception fractures—spider-sense and adrenaline and desperate focus combining to stretch the moment into something I can process in excruciating detail:
Tony hovering. Perfectly still. Targeting reticle locked on Hulk's center mass.
Hulk below, mid-roar, unaware or uncaring that he's being aimed at by the one weapon that can end this permanently.
The Avengers frozen in combat stances, watching, waiting, unable to intervene.
And Tony's finger—visible through the armor's translucent energy readouts—moving toward the firing trigger.
He exhales.
I see it in the way his armor's posture shifts, the way targeting reticles flutter for just a fraction of a second.
Then he adjusts.
Last-second trajectory change.
Barely noticeable. Maybe three degrees. The difference between a kill shot and something else.
He fires.
The bullet is wrong.
Not like normal ammunition. This thing moves faster, hits harder, carries force that shouldn't exist in something so small.
Gamma-calibrated tungsten. Biometrically keyed. Designed by Bruce Banner to kill Bruce Banner.
It tears through the air with a sound like reality tearing.
Hits Hulk's left leg—thigh, not heart—and the impact is catastrophic.
The shockwave cracks pavement in concentric rings. Car alarms scream. Windows shatter for three blocks.
Hulk roars.
Not fury. Not pain.
Betrayal.
The sound is so raw, so human, that I feel it in my chest like a physical blow.
His leg buckles—bone and muscle damaged beyond even his regeneration's immediate capacity to compensate.
He collapses.
The ground craters beneath him, asphalt and concrete fragmenting, entire street section dropping six inches as displaced mass settles.
Dust clouds explode outward, swallowing everything.
Nobody moves.
The Avengers stand frozen—weapons ready, bodies tensed, waiting to see if Hulk gets back up.
My spider-sense is quiet.
Not because the danger's passed.
Because it's uncertain.
Through the dust, I can barely see Hulk's form—massive, green, still.
Scanners spike across the tactical net:
Gamma radiation levels fluctuating wildly.
Heartbeat erratic but present.
Respiratory function compromised but maintaining.
He's alive.
Barely.
Tony descends slowly, repulsors firing in controlled bursts, landing fifty feet from where Hulk fell.
His armor's weapons are still hot—heat distortion visible around the firing mechanism.
He doesn't speak.
Doesn't move toward Hulk.
Just stands there, faceplate reflecting the fires burning around us, trembling visible even through the armor's stabilization systems.
Cap's voice over comms breaks the silence, and he sounds old:
"Stand down. All units."
Nobody celebrates.
Nobody high-fives or cracks jokes or breathes sighs of relief.
We just... stand there.
Like survivors of something we shouldn't have survived.
Like people who came within three degrees of crossing a line we can never uncross.
Ice Man drops to one knee, exhausted, ice constructs melting around him.
Tigra leans against rubble, breathing hard, claws retracting slowly.
Quicksilver finally stops moving and immediately collapses, just sits down hard in the middle of the street.
Nighthawk hovers overhead, wings barely maintaining altitude, engines sputtering.
And I web-zip toward Hulk's fallen form.
I land near him carefully, spider-sense quiet but attentive.
Up close, Hulk looks... smaller.
Not physically—he's still massive, still gamma-irradiated muscle and rage.
But diminished somehow. Broken.
His chest rises and falls—shallow, pained, but steady.
The leg wound is catastrophic—bone visible, tissue torn, blood pooling beneath him in quantities that should be impossible.
But he's alive.
Bruce is alive.
And I realize something that sits heavy in my chest:
This wasn't mercy.
This was restraint.
Tony had the shot. The clean shot. The one that would've ended this permanently, saved the city, prevented future casualties.
And he chose not to take it.
Chose three degrees of trajectory adjustment and the bullet in the leg instead of the heart.
Chose to live with whatever comes next instead of the certainty of having killed his friend.
And somehow... that makes it harder.
Because mercy with a loaded gun isn't mercy.
It's just deferred consequences.
Sirens return—different ones now. Medical teams. S.H.I.E.L.D. containment units. The machinery of aftermath grinding into motion.
They move in with specialized equipment—gamma-shielded stretchers, containment fields, enough sedatives to drop an elephant (which won't be enough, but they'll try).
Tony turns away from the battlefield.
Doesn't look back. Doesn't check vitals. Doesn't coordinate with medical.
Just... leaves.
Armor's repulsors fire, carrying him up and away, disappearing into smoke and sky.
I watch him go.
And I think about choices.
About the ones we make when there are no good options.
About the difference between mercy and restraint.
About what it costs to pull the trigger—and what it costs not to.
The shot was fired.
The monster fell.
And somehow... nothing feels finished.
Just paused.
Waiting for the next crisis.
The next impossible choice.
The next time we have to decide who lives and who dies and who we become in the process of making that decision.
Around me, the city burns quietly.
Emergency crews work.
The Avengers disperse.
And Bruce Banner—broken, unconscious, alive—breathes shallow breaths beneath a dust-filled sky.
We survived.
But I'm not sure what we survived as.
Or if the people we were before this are even the same people standing here now.
The gun is empty.
The bullet is spent.
And the weight of what almost happened is heavier than any of us are willing to acknowledge.
So we don't.
We just move forward.
Because that's all we can do.
Even when forward means carrying the weight of shots not taken and choices not unmade and friends we almost killed to save.
The storm hasn't passed.
It's just changed shape.
And we're still standing in it.
Waiting for the next lightning strike.
Hoping it doesn't find us.
Knowing it probably will.