Restart, Spider-Man! [142]

S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.

“Attention, he’s on the loose,” Nick Fury’s voice crackled through the agents’ earpieces.

Outside the towering building, a monstrous green beast crashed through the wall. It soared out, flailing and roaring, its initially dazed eyes widening in terror as it plummeted downwards.

“Arghhh!!”

With an earth-shaking crash, the green beast landed squarely on the rooftop helipad, creating a web of cracks beneath its massive feet. Concrete splintered and scattered across the area, pelting the nearby helicopters in a hailstorm of stone.

“Grah?”

The green beast stared down at the ground, confusion slowly replaced by a gleam of calculation and simmering rage.

Something primal stirred within him: the urge to establish his place on the food chain through sheer force and destruction. His eyes narrowed, his hands reaching for the tail of a nearby helicopter.

“ROAR!!”

With a bellow, he swung the multi-ton helicopter like a toy, hurling it toward the oncoming agents.

“No! Move, get out of the way!” Agent Hill yelled, signaling the agents behind her to dive for cover.

“Boom!”

The massive helicopter missed the agents by a hair’s breadth, skidding past to wreak havoc further down the helipad.

“Crash!!”

Finally, the helicopter smashed into another, entangling both into a twisted wreck.

“Damn it, he’s at least as strong as Spider-Man,” Coulson muttered as he arrived on the scene, his expression grim. Tapping his earpiece, he radioed in.

“Director, we’ve located him. His strength is… well, none of our weapons are going to make a dent.”

“Phil, you haven’t actually fired anything at him, right?” Fury’s voice replied.

Coulson fell silent.

In the sky above, a helicopter hovered in place.

“Nick, that creature is Dr. Banner. You have to understand where the agents are coming from,” Natasha murmured.

Most people might get pushed around a bit, but anyone with eight doctorates got a little more respect. Barton adjusted his normal arrows to something heavier.

“I’ll test his durability first,” he said calmly, aiming at the green behemoth below. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill him.”

The arrow sailed down, striking the green giant’s leg.

Thunk.

The arrow fell to the ground, barely a scratch on the Hulk’s leg.

Frowning, Hulk scratched at his leg like a mosquito bite, scanning around him.

“What was that?”

Barton scowled. “Well, now we know. Even a missile wouldn’t leave a mark.”

“You might be relieved, but I’m very worried,” Fury said from the command center, taking a steadying breath.

“I never thought an experiment of Dr. Banner’s would go so wrong. If that thing gets loose, it’ll destroy everything.”

Natasha shook her head. “Director, we should’ve given Banner less work. If he’d had a proper break, this gamma accident might never have happened.”

Barton leaned over, whispering, “Not like you didn’t have a hand in the workload.”

Natasha: “…”

Suddenly, the pilot shouted, “He’s targeting us!”

With a sharp turn of the controls, the helicopter narrowly dodged a giant boulder.

“Where’d he get a rock from?” Barton asked, shaken.

“He pried it out himself.”

Through the sky streaked a green flame trail as Harry arrived on his glider.

“Oh my God, he’s my color scheme twin,” Harry quipped, diving down to release a rain of pumpkin bombs.

In an instant, the helipad was engulfed in flames, the massive explosions swallowing the green figure whole.

“RAWR!!”

Yet, with a deafening roar, Hulk launched himself skyward, rocketing up toward Harry.

“Damn, he can jump that high?” Harry exclaimed, jerking his glider up just in time to avoid the green giant’s grasp.

BOOM!

Hulk landed again with a mighty crash, looking down at his legs in amazement.

Even he hadn’t realized he could leap that far.

The agents around him stared, frozen in fear. No one dared approach.

Hulk grinned. He was at the top of the food chain! He could do whatever he wanted!

“ROAAARR!!”

He let out an exhilarated howl, his legs springing him forward in another hundred-meter leap.

As Hulk bounded toward the city, Agent Hill went pale.

She could already imagine the destruction a monster like him would bring to the streets.

“Director, what now?”

Gritting his teeth, Fury said, “Phil, go find Tony Stark. Whatever he demands, agree to it.”

Coulson nodded, immediately trying to contact Tony.

The helicopters chased after the rampaging Hulk, Natasha watching him with increasing worry.

“If only Captain Carter were here…”

Barton shook his head. “Word from her family is that she’s severely injured. No way she could handle something like this.”

“He’s not a monster, Clint. He’s Banner.”

“Fine, fine. He’s Banner. My mistake,” Barton replied, adjusting his quiver. “But you know as well as I do, even if she were here, she wouldn’t be enough. Only one person can stop him.”

“Yes, I know. Only Spider-Man can handle a rampaging Hulk.”

Natasha kept an eye on Hulk’s movements, though her tone held little hope.

“We have no idea when Spider-Man will even revive. He doesn’t exactly stick to a schedule.”

At that moment, Agent Sitwell’s panicked voice cut through their earpieces.

“Spider-Man’s alive! And he just killed one of our agents!”

“What?!”

Everyone froze, then erupted into cheers.

“Fantastic, Spider-Man’s back! He can beat that monster!”

“Wait, what did he say? Spider-Man killed one of our agents?”

“That’s impossible! He’s friends with Captain Carter. We’re allies now—he wouldn’t do that.”

“Could he have been affected by the gamma radiation too?”

“Maybe. Spider-Man’s body was in Banner’s lab, right? If Banner turned into a monster from gamma rays, maybe Spider-Man did too…”

The agents’ speculations were quickly interrupted by a response.

Inside the Lab.

BOOM!!

The gene disruptor shattered, flashing in the dimly lit lab.

The razor-sharp fragments, laced with a gene-breaking serum, tore through the lab, obliterating equipment.

In the shower of debris, a small piece of vibranium punctured the nanotech suit, allowing the gene disruptor’s serum to seep into Spider-Man’s bloodstream.

But as the faint purple veins began to glow around the wound, a soft purple radiance pulsed through the injury, merging with Spider-Man’s Titan Body Phase II. His body was evolving.