The Goblin and the Hulk.
0:05
The following events transpired in five seconds.
The Red Goblin charged and air snapped where he had been. The scarlet blurred forward, coat flaring behind him. On the other end, the thing inside Bruce Banner surged upward, furious and eager. Veins spiderwebbed across his arm in glowing green, muscle swelling grotesquely as bone creaked and stretched. The counter cracked under his grip.
0:04
The Goblin leapt over the counter. Bruce needed to step back. He needed space.
0:03
He slammed into Bruce and the man hit the wall. The Goblin shoved his amulet toward Bruce's throat. The metal kissed skin.
Bruce roared.
0:02
His transforming arm lashed out, fingers no longer fingers but thick and brutal and gree. He caught the Goblin's forearm mid-strike and ripped. There was a wet, tearing sound. Red coat shredded. The arm came free at the elbow in a spray of blackened blood and snapping cables, spinning away to clatter across the floor.
0:01
Chest heaving, the rest of Bruce was soon to join. Soon to become green.
The Red Goblin laughed. Because that arm had never mattered, it was bait. His other hand was what held what he needed. A needle flashed and punched into the side of Bruce's neck.
Bruce gasped.
0:01
Not pain—wrongness. Something cold flooded his skull, slicing through gamma fire like ice water poured into molten steel. His legs buckled as his thoughts fractured, the Hulk's roar turning into static.
0:00
"Hahahaha! I got you!"
Bruce gasped and heaved, and he dragged himself along the wall. Glaring, eyes completely green, his massive, half-formed Hulk arm slammed into the Red Goblin and blasted him through the brick wall and into the street. He bounced like a toy and he crunched into another store.
Smoke engulfed the Red Goblin. How he had landed did not matter, however. He was cackling. Bruce could hear it. Bruce fought against it.
The Red Goblin laughed and laughed. It bubbled up from the smoke and shattered brick, wet and delighted. As the dust settled, his mask cracked along one cheek and his arm was growing back. Blackened muscle twitched at the stump, fibers knitting together with a sickening patience, veins pulsing and remembering where to go. Bone pushed outward like a thought insisting on being finished. He flexed what was becoming fingers and sighed, pleased.
It was still only a skeleton. The tough part was the muscles. Beginning with the shoulders, they appeared and threaded together.
"Oh, don't strain yourself, Bruce," the Red Goblin called out. "It's done. You felt it, didn't you? That click in your head."
Inside, Bruce Banner screamed and the Hulk tore free into the world. The electronics store looked like it exploded as two fists slammed down like a gorilla. Brick walls bowed outward while rebar and signage were thrown aside like confetti.
The whole street shook from what was effectively the Hulk's introduction. Parked cars lifted on their suspensions. Neon finally died with a fizz.
The Hulk walked out of the demolished, enormous, chest heaving, eyes burning radioactive green. Over twelve feet tall, his muscles bulged and flared, the size of a small car. The monster's purple shorts were stretched and gave a human tint to what was otherwise a monster.
The Hulk opened his mouth, only to tear at his black mop of hair, screaming. "HULKKKK~!! HULK IS NOT—"
Anger, for once, did not help.
The Red Goblin pushed himself upright, muscle regeneration still crawling down to the bones of his fingers. "No use fighting it," he said pleasantly. "You're not losing yourself. You're just… sharing." His eyes gleamed. "Same way Gwen Stacy shared herself with Harry Osborn. Same principle."
The Hulk roared again and staggered forward, bare feet digging trenches into asphalt.
The Goblin laughed harder. "Ah-ah. Careful. You'll hurt yourself. Now…quiet."
The Hulk froze. Actually froze. Actually quieted down, cut off mid-bellow. His massive shoulders trembled as if resisting gravity itself. Slowly—agonizingly—his hands lowered from his head.
The Red Goblin tilted his head, delighted. "See? Listening already."
His green eyes flared.
The strongest had been tamed by the devil.
Thus, the angels sent their own agent. Above the street, a lamp post creaked under the dawn of their messenger.
"And it looks like the spider has finally come to play!"
Perched there was a man that the Red Goblin could only laugh at.
"And look at that! A new change of clothing! I like it, Spider!"
This was not the suit the world knew. These were not the colours the world knew, for this was the ultimate suit. The Spider-Armor Mark X—Felix Faeth's ultimate suit—was what hope was. The suit hugged his frame like liquid metal caught in the shape of a man. It was not bulky at all. It did not look like it was intended for battle.
It was…pleasant. It was hopeful. It rejected the darkness in favour of the bright classical tones of the original Spider-Man, even if perhaps Felix did not know it. Blue legs and portions of his back and arms with red gloves, boots, mid-section, and mask. A web pattern covered the red portions of the suit, starting from the mask. A black spider lay in the centre of the chest while a larger red spider was tattooed on the back.
Coincidence? Fate? Perhaps.
BOTH TARGET CONFIRMED AND LOCATED.
'I know. I see it, Herbie.'
This classic red-blue suit was not spandex, however. It wasn't fabric at all, but a lightweight metallic nanofluid, threaded with adaptive lattices and reinforced at stress points with microscopic traces of adamantium. The panels shifted and sealed soundlessly along his arms and torso. The lenses of his mask adjusted, narrowing, sharpening, processing a thousand data streams at once.
It was intended to bond with the Symbiote. But, there was no Symbiote today.
'It's just me.'
His white lenses narrowed in on the Red Goblin. His white boney fingers waggled at him.
"This is our second encounter, correct? You were the man at the auction, Spider-Man."
"..."
"Oh, don't be surprised. I have this uncanny ability to know who is and isn't superhuman." Because he was born around them, that was why. "The way they walk, the way they talk…it's just so obvious."
The Hulk roared again, the presence of the Spider-Man lighting him up, and grabbed his skull—
"Stop," the Goblin said, casually. "We're trying to speak here."
The Hulk stopped. Spider-Man's lenses widened by a fraction. Even muted behind the mask, disbelief hit him like a punch. The Hulk—the Hulk—stood waiting for permission. The second coming of the Lizard, of Creature Z, had been tamed.
The Red Goblin's burning eyes had never left the Spider-Man. "Impressive, right?"
He didn't see it coming. In what was a blur to everyone, Spider-Man rocketed at him, repulsors boosting him, and his foot slammed the Red Goblin down to the ground. The Goblin's mask grew another crack as he grunted and gasped. He couldn't breathe.
"Haah…haha…ahahahah!" The Red Goblin's hands snapped at his leg. He couldn't so much as budge it. "You just cracked my ribs! I really can't keep up with you, can I?"
"....you can't, Harold."
His laughter died a horrible death. The Red Goblin's fighting hands stopped as well. He lay there, just staring. ".....hm."
Felix was glad to see something other than over-assured arrogance in his voice. For once, it was him with the upper hand. All that work to infiltrate the SHIELD Facility suddenly felt good. "Surprised?"
"By you speaking or you knowing? Who told you? I made sure to hide everything…" He clicked his tongue. "You really are impossible, aren't you, Spider-Man? You have everything both the gods and humans wish for."
"..."
"And this is your city," the Red Goblin continued. "I knew from the moment you defeated Creature Z that killing you would be almost impossible."
Kill him. Crush his ribs—or, no, his voice box. Wait, no, he overheard him talking about a bond. Were vocal commands necessary?
'Is killing him necessary?'
"I want to talk," Felix said, speaking not as a hero but as a human.
"I don't."
"Why?"
"Why do you think I've been hiding? I've been hiding from you! Getting back into this outside world, I was more than equipped to do what I wanted. Following your fight with that monster, it was a simple affair to establish a black market. So much chaos, you know? It was just so easy. Although, haah, it also radicalised me, I suppose. My face was what made it all so simple, not me. Not Harold. Harry Osborn, the boy with the golden spoon."
"..."
He cackled. "You get it, don't you? It's so stupid. Me simply wearing that face makes a night and day difference, even though I lived none of his life. Ah, but I suppose you don't care. For you, it explains why I was able to slip through facial software or whatever it is you have." He waved a lazy arm, laughing. "I'll admit it, in a straightforward encounter, there's no way I can beat you. I doubt there's anyone in the world that can—aside from my little beast there. Oh, just for the record, no." He could feel the grin breaking under the Goblin's mask. "Killing me won't stop a thing."
"....I told you, I'm not here to kill you. I want to talk."
"For now. But you're going to kill me. Otherwise, we'd be on the same side sharing champagne."
"....would we really?"
"We would. But looking at you, you want to rework the system. I knew it from the way you responded after the attack. You didn't act as Spider-Man. You acted as…whoever you are. You let the city take care of itself and let the richer become rich. But me? I want to break the system. But, again, I know you hate it because I killed poor innocent Pepper Potts and some other unworthies. An oil baron, maybe? Ugh, there's so many of these, aren't there? I really wished I got some more under my killing spree."
"..."
The Red Goblin candidly spoke to his crimes and what he wanted. There was no illusion about his position or his philosophies. None at all. "Hierarchies are fine. Men are sheep that must be led by a greater sheep. But men are not insects. Men are not supposed to live in poverty while a handful drink champagne and dump it all over their homes."
As he spoke, the Hulk's breathing grew heavier. His anger was resonating with Harold's anger.
"And you could never live with that," Felix finished.
"I couldn't. Never. In that prison, they all said the same thing. All my friends and all my family…over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again…"
The Red Goblin's eyes burned.
"End my suffering."
The Hulk attacked.
Spider-Man moved because his Spider-Sense screamed.
The air where he had been ceased to exist—collapsed inward under the force of a punch that should not have been possible. Shockwaves rippled down the street like water disturbed by a thrown stone. Cars skidded. Windows imploded.
Spider-Man twisted midair, red-and-blue blurring, nanotech flowing with him, and landed sideways on a traffic light. He was elegance itself.
The Hulk was not. Nose flaring, he turned up at him. The Red Goblin's movements matched him as he stood. The Goblin should have been dead. Any living being near the Hulk should have been swatted away. Yet the Hulk tolerated his existence. More than tolerate, he momentarily looked at the Goblin, muscles bugling, before glaring fiercely at the Spider-Man.
The Hulk leapt. That was the terror of it. Not just the strength—the speed. The way mass that large should not move like that and yet did.
Spider-Man shot forward instead of away, webbing snapping out to the road and meeting him even faster. He grabbed the Hulk's huge fist with both his hands.
The catch rang through Felix's bones as the both of them slammed down on the ground. The Hulk did not care to be surprised by his successful effort. The Hulk swung again.
Rash was no longer responding at all. It was just him. All him and the ultimate Spider-Man armour.
The street buckled beneath them as Spider-Man caught the second punch, knees bending, suit reinforcing his joints. The ground cratered around his feet. His arms screamed.
But he held.
The Hulk snarled, eyes burning, shocked—offended—that something had stopped him.
'Third punch coming…!'
He had to count for this. Amateur fighters were most strongest in their first two punches and then dipped. It was the same for the Hulk, if dipping in strength actually meant increasing in strength and the increase in muscle adding the tiniest of imbalance.
Thwip! Webbing to his huge shoulders, he snapped forward and over the Hulk's shoulder in a maneuver drilled into his muscle memory a thousand times in simulations. He had been training for this, on how to handle larger enemies. Spider-Man landed behind him and his Spider-Sense flared. His knowledge flared too.
A backhanded savage wave of his arm was hurling at him. Spider-Man ducked, felt the wind shear peel paint from a parked car, then grabbed the Hulk's thigh and jumped, flipping backward and firring webbing.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Distance was good. Distance was safe. Cables of webbing wrapped around the Hulk's torso, shoulders, neck—strong enough to stop tanks.
The Hulk flexed. His webbings snapped like string.
'Herbie, he's WAY stronger than we calculated.'
AFFIRMATIVE. AS WE EXPECTED, HIM DRAINING RICK JONES OF GAMMA RADIATION HAS MADE HIM STRONGER THAN THE SHIELD FILES INFORMED US.
As he spoke and strategized, he never stopped moving. Thwip! Thwip! Before the Hulk could fully turn toward him, he launched himself, arms crossed in an X, and delivered a nasty two-legged kick to the cheek. The Hulk's neck most certainly snapped. It also most certainly healed.
Growling, the Hulk swung. He did not expect Spider-Man to dodge and uppercut him with a giant spiked ball of webbing. It appeared and formed in a fraction of a second!
And…and it made him bleed.
The Hulk roared and swung again. Both hands caught the first, and he flipped himself onto his wrist. He then ran up the Hulk's arm, vaulted off his shoulder, and slammed both knees into his face. His Spider-Sense warned him this had been a shitty idea though.
"Ghhh—!"
The Hulk grabbed him with one hand, fingers wrapped halfway around his torso. The twelve-foot monstrosity was about to add another hand and crush him, if not for the webbing that suddenly hit his eyes. Like a child, the Hulk grunted and delayed that second hand long enough for Spider-Man not to physically break out, oh no.
His blood boiled. His lenses turned red and blue.
BZZZZT-CRACK! ZZZZAP!
Smoking the Hulk inside and out, his nervous system and skeleton system was momentarily rewired. He was finally weak enough for the little spider to swing his foot into his chin and make him bleed a second time. The moment his feet touched the ground again, he followed up with a devastating combo.
'Keep attacking, keep attacking—!'
Thirty punches to his abdomen, a kick to his ankle, and as he dropped to one knee, he dodged his head-butt and web-swung him to knee him in the temple…!
'Keep attacking, keep attacking—!'
Bam, bam, bam! He flipped into kick after kick, appearing like seven afterimages as he kicked and dodged, kicked and dodged. His bicep, his nose, his ankle, his spine, his nape, nothing was spared. Flipping in and out of view, blocking his eyes with a thwip of webbing, Spider-Man was hurting the Hulk.
'Keep attacking, keep attacking—!'
He was also making him angry.
'...!'
Stormy green eyes white-lenses. The Hulk saw Felix about to land another kick to his bicep and was about to intercept. Felix added a blast of bioelectricity into his flip, soared over the Hulk, and covered his face in webbings yet again. He ripped it off even easier than before.
Felix's stomach dropped.
'He's getting stronger.'
Already faster than projections. Already adapting. And this was New York and he was doing it without Rash. Without his Symbiote. He didn't have time to think about the loss of the alien experiment. The Hulk was looking at him.
The Hulk was looking at him.
When up against the Hulk, don't think. Act. Fight.
His arms came together into a cross. There was nothing he could do but block as the Hulk slammed his hands together and hit him with a Thunderclap. A hurricane-like force that lifted him higher up. The Hulk's legs tensed up.
'Oh no—!'
He was going to jump after him. No. No, no, no. Every second this fight stayed above ground was a countdown to catastrophe. To skyscrapers, subways, and millions of people stacked falling. Creature Z had taught him that lesson in blood and ash.
Spider-Man could NOT let him jump and land. That alone could destroy a street. No, thwip, thwip, he had to keep this here.
Fortunately, he hadn't been twiddling his thumbs. The Hulk and Bruce Banner, he had always been prepared for a confrontation.
The blue-red blur flew down faster than the Hulk could launch and slammed his foot down. The road gave way.
Anyone with two could tell something was wrong. The street dropped out from under both of them too naturally. Felix turned to dive down and the Hulk followed, if only to chase him.
They crashed through the first level, or at least would have if Felix had not Felix flipped and slammed both feet down again.
Another collapse.
They headed deeper.
This was not an accident. This was by design.
During the reconstruction of New York, Felix planned for this. With some Herbie trickery and fuckery, he convinced certain areas of private company reconstruction that this was what the government really wanted. Felix even had Czarina go in disguise and personally aid him in buildings these. He told her at the time that it was for securing areas that were strong in space-time bubbles. It was complete bullshit, space-time bubbles did not exist. Czarina didn't know that.
So, all this was set-up.
A trap for gods. They fell through a third level, then a fourth. Everything grew darker and heavier. There was no light there. Why would there be?
The six floor was reached. The final one.
Spider-Man and the Hulk landed in a cavernous underground chamber, half-constructed with massive pylons driven deep into bedrock. Emergency lights flickered to life, bathing everything in harsh white.
When the Hulk hit, he created a crater under his feet. When Spider-Man landed, it was in a three-point landing.
Above them, far, far above, the Red Goblin's voice echoed down through the broken shaft like a sermon from hell.
"Look at you preparing all this! Hah! I'm impressed!"
"Won't you join us!?" Spider-Man quipped, lenses narrowing.
"Nope! Philosophy aside," Harold called, amused, amplified by distance, "there's simply no use in keeping rich people or superhumans like you around. Best that you kill each other, frankly."
"Because it causes the hierarchy to grow and fester with corruption!?" Spider-Man yelled.
The Hulk was waiting and growling. His master seemed to have him on a leash. A very strong leash. His Spider-Sense was ringing low, but that could very easily change.
"Exactly! Superhumans and their abilities will lead to greater hierarchies! Felix Faeth has recently managed to perfect the Super Soldier Serum! Do you know who will gain access to it? The rich! The kings! The same way T'Challa did! It will cause war! Suffering! And I'm here to stop the genie before it burns the world!"
The white lenses never left the Hulk. "And what about you, Harold?" he shouted upward. "You're superhuman too, aren't you? What are you going to do about yourself? Huh? Where do you fit in all this? You think you're not corrupt!? You think every single kill is right!? All of them!?"
The Red Goblin laughed until it became a soft, sad thing.
"What about me, Spider!?" Harold replied. "So you learned my name, my birth, my home, just to not realize why I'm doing all this!?"
Spider-Man's head tilted up. "What are you talking about!?"
"I'm dying, you fool! The genome to accelerate my age has not stopped! For me, a single year of life is equivalent to ten years!"
….!
"I won't live to the end of this decade. I won't live to see anything. So I will at least fight for what I cannot see. I will kill every bastard that has made people without dignity. Like me. I'll close the hierarchy that has strangled this world."
From far above, in darkness, a single bony finger pointed down at him.
"Which is why you must disappear. Kill him now, HULK."