The quiet after the collapse is worse than the battle.
Emergency crews swarm the battlefield—medics, S.H.I.E.L.D. containment specialists, structural engineers assessing what's left of three city blocks. They work around Bruce's unconscious form with specialized equipment designed for gamma exposure, gamma-shielded stretchers, sedatives measured in industrial quantities.
The Avengers stand scattered across the ruins. Not together. Not coordinating. Just... existing in the same devastated space.
Ice Man sits on rubble, hands still glowing faintly with residual cold, staring at nothing.
Tigra leans against a crumpled car, fur matted with dust and blood that might be hers or someone else's.
Quicksilver hasn't moved in three minutes—just standing there, breathing hard, finally forced to be still.
Nighthawk hovers at low altitude, wings barely maintaining lift, running diagnostics on damaged systems.
Tony stands apart from everyone, faceplate still down, posture rigid. He hasn't spoken since the shot.
Cap moves among the wreckage with quiet efficiency, coordinating with emergency services, but his movements are mechanical. Going through the motions because someone has to.
Nobody celebrates.
Nobody says "we won."
Because we didn't. We just... stopped losing for a minute.
And the air feels wrong.
Heavy. Charged. Like the city itself is holding its breath, waiting for something it can't name but knows is coming.
I notice it first—spider-sense humming low and constant, not warning of immediate danger but anticipation. The way the air tastes before lightning strikes. The pressure change that makes your ears pop.
"The storm didn't leave," I mutter to no one in particular. "It just stopped making noise."
Clouds roll in.
Not slowly. Not naturally.
Fast.
Dark masses spiraling inward from every direction simultaneously, converging over our position like something alive and hungry and deliberate.
Wind kicks up—sudden, violent, shoving debris across shattered pavement with enough force to make me brace.
"Uh, guys?" I call out. "Weather's getting weird."
Tony's sensors spike audibly—alarms blaring through his armor's external speakers before he mutes them.
Doctor Strange appears from nowhere—portal snapping open, stepping through mid-stride—and his expression goes from concerned to sharp in the time it takes to see the sky.
His hands move instinctively, beginning to trace defensive spells, mandalas flickering to life—
Then he stops.
Just... freezes.
Stares upward with an expression I can't read but don't like.
Before anyone can ask what's wrong—
Lightning slams into the ruined street.
Not a bolt. A column.
Pure white-blue energy that tears reality in half, deafening, blinding, so bright my mask's lenses automatically polarize and still barely filter it.
The ground splits—asphalt fragmenting, concrete vaporizing, bedrock cracking in geometric patterns that radiate outward from the impact point.
The shockwave hits like a physical wall.
I fire webs reflexively, anchor myself to a support beam, barely stay upright as wind and displaced air and raw kinetic force wash over everything.
Ice Man gets thrown backward, skating wild to regain balance.
Tigra goes into a defensive crouch, claws extended.
Quicksilver blurs to a safer position without thinking, pure survival instinct.
Nighthawk's engines scream as he fights to maintain altitude against the turbulence.
And through the light, through the noise, through the chaos—
A silhouette.
The lightning clears.
Leaves behind a figure standing in the center of a crater that wasn't there three seconds ago.
Tall. Armored. Red cape snapping violently in wind that doesn't touch anyone else.
Mjolnir crackling in his grip—not passively, actively, electricity arcing between the hammer's head and the ground in constant discharge like it can't quite contain the power running through it.
Thor Odinson.
God of Thunder.
And he looks furious.
His armor is scorched—not from this arrival, from something before. Battle damage. Scorch marks and dents that suggest recent combat somewhere else, somewhere distant.
His eyes glow faintly blue—residual lightning or divine power or both, I can't tell—and underneath the fury there's something else.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For us. For this. For whatever he's seeing that made him come here now.
I can't move.
I've seen gods before. On screens. In footage. In aftermaths where they saved the world and left before you could ask for autographs.
This is different.
This feels like standing next to a thunderstorm that knows your name and is deciding whether to acknowledge you or just obliterate everything in a three-mile radius.
My spider-sense hums—not danger exactly, just scale. The recognition that I'm sharing space with something fundamentally different from me, operating on frequencies I don't have the biology to fully perceive.
"Okay," I whisper. "Wow. So... that's Thor."
Nighthawk lands beside me, voice tight: "You've never met him?"
"Seen him on TV. Does that count?"
"Not even close."
Thor's gaze sweeps the battlefield—taking in the destruction, the wounded, the emergency crews working frantically around Bruce's unconscious form.
His jaw tightens.
The fury doesn't leave his expression, but something else joins it.
Guilt.
Thor moves.
Not walking—striding, each step deliberate, covering ground with the kind of economy of motion that comes from centuries of practice.
He approaches Bruce slowly, carefully, like he's approaching something sacred that might shatter if handled wrong.
Then he kneels.
The God of Thunder kneels in rubble and blood, one hand hovering over Bruce's chest—not touching, just... present. Close enough to feel the shallow breathing, the weakened heartbeat, the life that's barely clinging to consciousness.
His voice, when he speaks, is quiet. Devastated.
"I should have been here."
The words hit harder than the lightning strike.
Not dramatic. Not theatrical.
Just true.
The admission of someone who's failed before and recognizes the feeling.
Cap steps forward first.
No speeches. No explanations. No blame.
Just: "Good to see you, Thor."
Simple. Direct. The kind of greeting between people who've fought together before and know words are inadequate for moments like this.
Thor nods—acknowledgment without breaking focus from Bruce.
Then his head snaps up.
Not toward Cap. Toward Strange.
The movement is sharp, predatory, and his eyes lock onto the Sorcerer Supreme with an intensity that makes the air feel heavier.
Strange doesn't flinch.
Just meets Thor's gaze with equal weight.
Thor speaks low. Urgent.
Meant only for a few.
"My brother moves unseen."
Four words.
They hit Strange like a physical blow.
I see it—the way Strange's expression hardens instantly, the way his hands curl into positions that suggest he's about to cast something defensive, the way every muscle in his body shifts from ready to combat-ready.
He replies just as quietly, voice tight with controlled fury:
"That explains the scar."
I don't know what scar.
Don't know what they're talking about.
But I know it's important because the temperature around Strange drops five degrees and the Cloak of Levitation bristles like a living thing sensing danger.
Thor clenches his fist around Mjolnir.
The hammer responds—lightning crackling brighter, discharge patterns intensifying, power bleeding off into the ground in visible sparks.
For the first time, he says it.
One word.
"Loki."
No theatrics. No speeches about brotherhood or betrayal or complicated family dynamics.
Just the name.
Delivered with grim, absolute certainty.
I don't hear it clearly—I'm too far away, wind and ambient noise obscuring the conversation—but I see the reaction.
See Strange's silence become weighted with implications I don't understand.
See Tony's posture stiffen, armor's sensors probably picking up the name through audio analysis even if he can't hear the conversation directly.
See Cap's expression flicker—recognition, understanding, something that looks like resigned acceptance.
They know this name.
And they're not happy about it.
Thor straightens slowly, scanning the city like a battlefield he recognizes too well.
When he speaks again, his voice carries—not shouting, just projecting, the way someone used to commanding armies makes themselves heard without effort.
"This was not rage. It was corruption."
Strange confirms, stepping forward so his voice reaches the assembled Avengers:
"Ancient magic. Patient. Cruel. Someone weaponized Bruce Banner's grief."
No one presses further.
Not now.
But the implication hangs heavy—this wasn't random, wasn't natural, wasn't just Bruce losing control.
Someone did this.
And they're still out there.
I stand back, suddenly very aware of how small I feel.
Gods. Sorcerers. Monsters.
And me—a man in a torn red-and-blue suit who barely held things together, who saved civilians one web-line at a time while cosmic forces played chess with human lives.
Thor and Strange are having a conversation I'm not part of. Cap's coordinating with them, Tony's running analysis, Natasha's probably already compiling intelligence reports.
And I'm just... here.
Useful in the fight. Necessary for evacuation.
But standing next to this? Gods discussing magic and ancient threats and brothers who move unseen?
I think: If this is the level the world's playing at now... what happens to people like me?
The friendly neighborhood Spider-Man suddenly feels very neighborhood and not very friendly to cosmic threats that weaponize grief and corrupt gods.
Thor looks up at the clouds—now slowly dispersing, breaking apart like whatever called them here has finished its purpose.
He grips Mjolnir tighter.
Lightning dances between his fingers and the hammer's surface, restless, eager.
He says, quietly enough that I almost don't hear:
"He will not stop."
Not a warning.
A fact.
Delivered with the weight of someone who's fought this enemy before, lost to them before, knows their patterns and capabilities and absolute refusal to quit.
I feel the truth of it settle in my chest like a stone.
The storm didn't end.
It evolved.
Changed shape from Hulk's rage to something else, something older, something that knows how to hide and wait and strike when you think you're safe.
Around us, emergency crews continue working. Civilians are evacuated. Bruce is loaded onto a specialized transport, still unconscious, still barely alive.
The immediate crisis is contained.
But containment isn't victory.
And we all know it.
I watch lightning fade from the sky—residual sparks dying slowly, leaving only normal clouds and normal darkness and a city that will take months to rebuild.
Thor, Strange, and Cap are talking in low voices near the transport. Making plans I'm not privy to. Coordinating responses to threats I don't fully understand.
Nighthawk lands beside me again. "You okay?"
"Define okay."
"Fair."
I look at the sky one more time. At the place where lightning struck. At the god standing among ruins who arrived too late to prevent the disaster but just in time to name the enemy.
And I whisper to myself, quiet enough that only my mask's internal mic picks it up:
"I always thought the worst thing was being too late. Turns out it's realizing the fight was never just here... and we were swinging at shadows."
Nighthawk doesn't respond.
Doesn't need to.
We both know the truth now.
The battle we just survived?
That was the distraction.
The real threat—the ancient magic, the patient corruption, the brother who moves unseen—
That's still out there.
Watching.
Waiting.
And we've been fighting the symptom while the disease spreads unchecked.
The storm changed shape.
And we're standing in the eye of it, thinking we survived, not realizing we're just in the calm between devastations.
Thor said it best:
He will not stop.
Neither will we.
But for the first time since this started, I'm not sure that's enough.