"Banner, wake up. The sun's already up, time 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 jammed in and stirred violently. His thoughts were hazy, fragments 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 frames 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 mess, my priceless car collection? Yeah, that was you."
Banner frowned, his memories from his transformed state always fragmented—perhaps mercifully so. Part of him never wanted to confront what he became 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 me," 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 same 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 time," 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 some of the Avengers. In short—they're a little greener. And bigger."
Banner's expression hardened. "You mean… 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 time 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 frame, silver arcs wrapping around his armor like living threads of power.
"Come 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 embarrassment.
"Lightning Boy, you just wrecked my floor again," Stark muttered, rolling his eyes. He didn't waste time with Thor, instead turning back to Banner. "Come on. We need to move."
Things were spiraling out of control—completely beyond his grasp.
Meanwhile, aboard a cloaked aircraft high above the city, Samuel Sterns sat in thought.
His gamma radiation device… a disappointment. 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 moment he interfered with Hulk, he had prepared his escape. When it became clear Hulk would find no victory against Stark, Sterns had already slipped away aboard this very aircraft.
Failure meant little. The experiment had proven something 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 came, 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—someone standing in the shadows behind him.
Black armor merged 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 blossomed.
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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