"Banner, wake up. The sun's already up, ti to rise and shine."
Bruce Banner stirred groggily, dragged from the depths of unconsciousness by Tony Stark's voice. He felt like a man waking up from a brutal hangover—his skull pounding, as if a steel rod had been jamd in and stirred violently. His thoughts were hazy, fragnts colliding without order.
Slowly, Banner pried open his eyes. The sight that greeted him was chaos. What had once been the immaculate Avengers Tower was now a ruin, its pristine halls reduced to wreckage. Shattered stones and twisted steel surrounded him. Several of Stark's luxury cars lay in pitiful heaps, their glossy finishes ruined beyond recognition, their mangled fras scarred and beaten. If not for the logos, no one would have believed these wrecks had once been cars. A few lonely tires rested in the corner, like silent witnesses condemning the destruction that had just unfolded.
"Tony?" Banner croaked. His unfocused eyes gradually cleared, coming to rest on Stark's armored figure. "What… what happened?"
"You're in Avengers Tower," Stark cut him off, his tone sharp with annoyance. "And all this? The wreckage, the ss, my priceless car collection? Yeah, that was you."
Banner frowned, his mories from his transford state always fragnted—perhaps rcifully so. Part of him never wanted to confront what he beca as the Hulk. Still, there were flashes: escaping from General Ross's base… encountering a strangely disproportionate figure… losing control… chaos exploding inside Avengers Tower.
"Samuel Sterns," Banner muttered, anxiety flickering across his face. "What about the others? Are they alright?"
"That, my friend, is thanks to ," Stark said proudly, his voice dripping with self-congratulation. "Courtesy of this brand-new suit, I kept the Hulk's butt in check long enough to drag you back out."
Banner blinked, staring at him in disbelief. "Really?" he asked cautiously.
It wasn't that Banner distrusted Stark—but history spoke for itself. Every previous encounter between Iron Man and the Hulk had ended the sa way: Stark beaten into the dirt. His suits were cutting-edge marvels of technology, yes, but no one had ever been able to defeat the Hulk head-on with human science alone…
No one—except one man. The one called Black Devil.
"It's… complicated," Stark admitted, disengaging the Genesis Armor piece by piece. The massive suit unfolded, its seamless integration with his body breaking apart in a dazzling display of engineering. Banner's eyes widened, stunned by the sight.
"This… what kind of technology is this?" Banner asked, awe written all over his face. "And the material… what is it made of?"
The Genesis Armor had displayed power beyond anything Banner had imagined.
"That's a story for another ti," Stark said with a smug grin and a shrug. "Right now, we've got bigger problems. Like you said—the guy calling himself the Leader left behind a gamma radiation emitter in Avengers Tower. It released a burst that mutated so of the Avengers. In short—they're a little greener. And bigger."
Banner's expression hardened. "You an… they've undergone gamma mutations?"
"Exactly," Stark nodded. "Which makes fixing them priority number one."
Banner's mind worked quickly. "It shouldn't be irreversible. Their exposure ti was short."
"Good," Stark said with relief. "Then let's get moving."
Their conversation was cut short by a sudden shift in the skies outside. Clouds darkened, thunder rumbled, and lightning slashed across the heavens like silver serpents. The storm heralded a familiar arrival.
A red-caped figure descended in a flash of lightning, his boots smashing into the Tower's floor with such force that the ground cracked beneath him. Electricity danced across his fra, silver arcs wrapping around his armor like living threads of power.
"Co forth, vile green beast!" Thor bellowed, Mjolnir sparking with fury. "Face the wrath of the son of Odin—"
He stopped short, blinking at the sight of Bruce Banner sitting harmlessly among the wreckage. "…Ah. You are yourself again. That is… most fortunate." His tone wavered with embarrassnt.
"Lightning Boy, you just wrecked my floor again," Stark muttered, rolling his eyes. He didn't waste ti with Thor, instead turning back to Banner. "Co on. We need to move."
Things were spiraling out of control—completely beyond his grasp.
anwhile, aboard a cloaked aircraft high above the city, Samuel Sterns sat in thought.
His gamma radiation device… a disappointnt. He had designed it to be flawless, to unleash waves of radiation capable of blanketing all of New York. Yet reality mocked him. The system had overloaded almost instantly, the spread barely reaching beyond Avengers Tower before shorting out.
And the Hulk—another letdown. Sterns had believed Hulk's power represented the absolute peak of this world's strength. Yet Stark's technology had proven astonishing, capable of standing toe-to-toe with the Hulk in a frontal clash. Sterns had resorted to using his emotional regulator to stimulate Hulk's central nervous system, driving him into further rage, but even that yielded lackluster results.
Still… this was only a test. Sterns never gambled without a backup plan. From the mont he interfered with Hulk, he had prepared his escape. When it beca clear Hulk would find no victory against Stark, Sterns had already slipped away aboard this very aircraft.
Failure ant little. The experint had proven sothing critical: gamma radiation could indeed induce human mutation. All Sterns needed to do was refine the emitter, expand its range to engulf entire nations, and mass-produce the devices. When that day ca, this blue planet would drown in green. And then—he would rise as its ruler.
The thought thrilled him to his core.
But then… his pulse froze.
Through the reflection of a cabin window, Sterns saw it—soone standing in the shadows behind him.
Black armor rged seamlessly with the dark, the figure's presence nearly invisible. From the V-shaped visor glowed two crimson lights, burning like the eyes of a demon.
Sterns's throat tightened. He inhaled sharply, trying to steady himself. "Who… who are you? How did you get—"
The armored stranger casually raised a hand. In his palm, a radiant light blossod.
Seconds later, a thunderous explosion tore through the sky. Fire engulfed the cloaked aircraft as it broke apart, black smoke trailing across the clouds. Shattered debris rained from above, crashing down in a storm of ruin.
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T/N:
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