The Amazing Spider-Man versus the Incredible Hulk had begun.
The space between them ceased to be space as a sonic boom rung. The Hulk had leapt. Spider-Sense screamed and drowned his nervous system. It pushed him to act in the most efficient method possible against this threat. Spider-Man was already moving before thought, before plan, before language. He was moving on pure reflex, pure terror-honed instinct.
The fist missed him by inches.
The shockwave did not.
The chamber howled. Bedrock groaned like a living thing. Steel pylons screamed as if flayed. The blue-red Spider-Man was thrown sideways and slammed onto a support column. He had negated any damage of his landing with his suit's automatic feet-webbing.
'Don't let him hit the ground—!'
If the Hulk struck bedrock cleanly—if even one full-force punch connected with the floor—the city above would feel it. When Felix landed, he pivoted hard to jump. The Hulk was already running at him too, eyes glowing like nuclear waste.
"HULK—KILL—SPIDER!"
Terrifying.
He jumped. The Hulk's punch came low this time. Smart. Pain-motivated intelligence. Felix web-slung under it, palms slapping the ground, and between his legs. The Hulk was twisting his torso. At this point, he understood the Spider-Man had greater mobility.
WARNING: BODY LANGUAGE INDICATING THUNDERCLAP.
So when he got through, he didn't deliver a punch. With five feet of space, turning around, he caused webbing to explode outward in a lattice that hardened instantly. It was carbon-silk, a shield built in less than a tenth of a second.
This web-shield met the Hulk's Thunderclap at pointblank range.
The concussive wave was destined to liquefy organs and shatter bone. Felix slammed both hands forward, teeth bared, Extremis flaring white-hot in his veins. The webbing shield stopped it in the sense that neither his organs or his bones were affected. The shield lattice detonated outward, vaporizing into superheated strands. Ultimately, it broke the wave, split it, and bled it into the pylons instead of the floor.
Although to say he came out unharmed was inaccurate. Spider-Man was hurled backward anyway, internals rattling like loose change.
The Hulk leapt to chase after him.
'But I'm not dead! Bastard!'
Spider-Man stopped his own momentum with his webbing and met him midair, repulsors flaring. Both arms were high up and about to slam down.
"HULK! SMASH!"
Not on his watch.
Web-lines snapped out from the black lines of his armour. Oh yes, it wasn't only his wrists capable of webbing. Every piece of his suit was capable of individual acts thwipping out webbing. He hit the face and eyes first, then the fists and shoulders. When the arms came down, Spider-Man was able to catch those ridiculously beefy arms. They hit bedrock and he swore his shoulder socket popped out. But it didn't matter. He blocked a two-armed attack from the Hulk.
The Hulk wasn't shocked. Just pissed.
This tiny human half his size was stopping HIM? Yes. Yes, he was. He snapped forward and kicked his knee, causing the Hulk to stagger back. He attempted to smash him and missed. Spider-Man was on his back, webbing him above like a spider. The webbing poured around him, starting most intensively from the slits of his wrist.
'Drain his gamma radiation, drain his gamma radiation—'
GAMMA RADIATION INCREASING.
Fuck.
He had to bounce off and start attacking. Again and again and again, he slammed into him and staggered him. Right when the Hulk could and would break out, he hit him again and made him roar.
From behind, he hit him as fast as he could, from ankle to the back of his knee to his thigh. Everywhere there, because compared to the Hulk, he was tiny. He could barely reach his upper thigh. The Hulk was getting bigger the angrier he got.
'I have to slow him down—!'
It was his only option. A hundred punches a second, microbursts of motion, nanite reinforcement screaming to keep up.
GAMMA CLUSTER POINTS LOCATED. GAMME CLUSTER POINTS BLOCKED.
Spider-Man became a supercomputer of himself, fists hammering nerve clusters, joints, pressure points that should not exist on something like this. The Hulk roared, broke out of the webbing, and swung back.
The pesky human wasn't there.
"Gah!"
He was hitting him on the sides. He swung—Spider-Man was gone again.
"You! You! YOU! PESKY HUMAN!"
Dodge, combo, dodge, combo. Spider-Man was above, below, behind—every counter met with absence, every rage-driven blow tearing empty air. Pain sharpened the Hulk. Made him faster. Smarter.
Felix felt it.
'Why isn't he slowing down!?'
The answer from Herbie was harrowing: WITHOUT RASH, WITHOUT THE SYMBIOTE, I BELIEVE WE ARE SLIGHTLY UNDERNEATH WHAT IS REQUIRED TO SLOW DOWN THE HULK'S FLOW OF GAMMA RADIATION.
The flow. Everything had to flow, had to follow some kind of science and logic. The Hulk was no different despite seeming the opposite. He wasn't magic. He was science pushed to the extreme.
His webbing, his punches, his dodges, everything was planned in advance in order to slow and stop the bodily flow of Gamma Radiation. The webbing produced in this suit was specially made for the Hulk, for the sole purpose of being anti-gamma radiation. It was high in density, sacrificing rapid firing for construction and effectiveness against gamma radiation.
He had studied for this…!
'Next phase then!'
Oh yes, he had prepared for this. He had back-ups in the event the Symbiote wasn't here to aid him.
Extremis flooded his bloodstream, burning like liquid sun, rewriting muscle fiber, reinforcing bone, and accelerating synaptic fire. Numbers scrolled behind his eyes and in the suit: strain thresholds, damage accumulation, and gamma absorption rates.
GAMMA SYPHON ACTIVE. WARNING: NEURAL PAIN SPIKE IMMINENT.
Since he couldn't stop the flow, then it was up to the Mark X armour to drain him of gamma radiation.
Invisible conduits along Felix's suit flared as they began siphoning gamma radiation straight from the Hulk's skin, bleeding off the energy that made him him. Felix felt it immediately.
Agony.
Gamma radiation was not heat or bioelectricity. It was, for him, wrong. A screaming frequency that his body rejected at every level. His skin burned. His nerves sang. His organs spasmed as if trying to escape his ribcage.
For a moment, he slowed and the Hulk seized that opportunity. He grabbed his leg and slammed him down. Slam, slam, slam! Like a doll, he whipped him down again and again until he realized it wasn't enough. He held Spider-Man with one arm, growled, and then slammed his fist into his side.
His vision went scarlet. Felix tasted blood. He felt his arms and legs break. He felt his organs turn into mush.
He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe anymore. Pieces of his armour fell.
One mistake. One mistake and he was nearly dead. Head down, gallons of blood leaking like he was some dried-out sponge. A sickly, pathetic thing that was red from blood and exposed muscle, dripping and dripping until there would be nothing left inside.
The Hulk held the limp, feeble human toward his face. He growled.
Then the white lenses lit up and he shocked him with red bioelectricity. Felix screamed, fists barely clenching and releasing everything he had inside himself. The Hulk released him, gasping and grunting.
ZZZZZZT-THRAACKKK!
Pure red bioelectricity negated healing. The Hulk howled and gasped the longer it went on. The longer it went on, the more Felix could heal. He was floating, the bioelectricity keeping him up.
Then he gasped and dropped.
"Haah…haahh…"
Through bloody eyes, he looked up. He had stunned him. He had momentarily slowed the Hulk, who was wheezing and continuing to put distance between himself and the insect. It was like poison to him.
On his knees, Spider-Man blinked through the blood. 'My arms…' The shattered bones were returning, but so was his armour. The armour could break due to the tiny linked gaps, but the material itself did not break. The pieces that had fallen on the floor magnetically snapped back to him, bit by bit.
GAMMA RADIATION LEVELS DECREASED. 90% REMAINING.
Felix's heart leapt.
'T-that worked, huh?' His legs were starting to work now. Good. Great. He struggled up, swaying left to right, while green smoke flared out of the Hulk's nose.
The Hulk let out a mighty, dark roar. "HULK! WILL! KILL! YOU!" Rage fed the loss. Muscles swelled again, veins blazing brighter, gamma flaring harder as his body compensated.
STRENGTH OUTPUT INCREASING FROM ADRENALINE.
He…he still couldn't move, at least not at the level he needed to. The Hulk tilted back and then smashed the first foot in. The first step forward.
'Rash, I NEED you!'
Gamma radiation absorption through the suit would have best worked with the Symbiote. With Rash, it would have been easier to heal too, but now—
The Hulk snatched him. One hand closed around Felix's torso, fingers digging in, armor shrieking as adamantium traces bent and warped. Felix felt ribs crack. Felt something pop.
The second hand came up.
Felix didn't think. He bit down again. Bioelectricity surged. Red arcs tore from his suit straight into the Hulk's grip, detonating through nerve and muscle alike. The Hulk roared, reflexively loosening—
Felix twisted free, stomach screaming, and slammed both feet into the Hulk's jaw. The monster reeled.
'I'll have to do it on my own! Even my nervous system burn!'
Felix landed badly. One knee buckled. His vision swam.
WARNING: ORGAN TRAUMA. WARNING: MUSCLE TEARING. WARNING: BONE STRUCTURE FAILURE.
WARNING—
"I know!"
The world did not seem to bless his rage as a backhand swatted Spider-Man. It felt like being hit by a continent. He flew.
He couldn't stop himself from hitting the wall this time. Steel ribs bent inward like paper. His back screamed. His armor failed in places with the panels sloughing off.
"C-c-come on…come on…" His stomach churned and he vomited something out. It wasn't just blood. Felix dragged himself upright, shaking, one hand braced against a pylon.
The Hulk loomed. "YOU! YOU! YOU MAKE HULK WEIRD!" Each step made the chamber tremble. "BUT HULK IS HULK! HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!"
Spider-Man laughed. It came out wet.
"Yeah," he coughed. "That's… that's about right."
Extremis kicked in. His arms and legs were good to go.
The Hulk slammed both fists down. Red bioelectricity bubbling and arcing solely on his arms, Felix caught them. It was only for a second, however, a synchronized effort from his improving strength, the bioelectricity twisting into the Hulk's heart, and his suit's webbing. It was a two-step process in less than the blink of an eye. The bioelectricity surged, the Hulk neared and slowed, and the suit reacted and jumped. Layers upon layers of webbing stacked in milliseconds, spreading force laterally, anywhere but himself and the ground. Felix's arms screamed as Extremis pushed past redline, muscles tearing and reforging even as they worked.
The impact cratered the Hulk's own fists into the web-mass. Spider-Man's heels dug trenches in stone.
Something inside him tore.
He held. For two whole seconds.
GAMMA RADIATION LEVELS DECREASED TO 75%!
Huh?
Just seventy-five percent? His organs seemed to freeze up from the fear and the Hulk pushed.
Spider-Man was driven backward, boots smoking, armor peeling away in molten flakes. Gamma radiation flooded him, a tidal wave of poison fire. His Spider-Sense flickered. The Hulk ripped the web-shield apart and was about to swat him again. He jumped over it.
Spider-Sense was supposed to go off, but in all the pain, he couldn't feel it as strongly. He was sluggish and the Hulk's knee came up and slammed into his upper body brutally.
Something ruptured. Something ruptured again.
'Can'thealfastenough—!'
Spider-Man folded mid-air, gasping, vomit and blood spraying inside his mask. The world went black at the edges. His armor howled warnings he no longer had the capacity to read.
He hadn't even hit the ground when the Hulk grabbed him again. Spider-Man dangled, broken, barely conscious, gamma radiation pouring into him.
He saw a number.
'77%.'
It was increasing again.
This battle felt…impossible. It felt so far away.
Then Felix thought of Creature Z. Of the city burning. Of being too slow.
'Don't you dare give up when you're this far!'
It wasn't just Extremis, Felix wanted himself to adapt. He needed to. And suddenly, black thunder engulfed the Hulk. The green monster was ready this time, or at least he thought it was. This wasn't the burning red bioelectricity; this was black. This was absorption, this was weakening him and nothing more.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!
Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick! Held up the way he was, he delivered supersonic-like kicks to his collarbone and neck, and it worked.
'The only I'll die is my brain is destroyed! So come on, Extremis! DO IT! TAKE IT!'
His heart thundered like a bomb. No longer was his suit doing the absorption, his body was as well. Biologically pulling the gamma radiation inside him, forcing every siphon wide open, with bioelectricity.
The Hulk's single hand squeezed him. His organs were getting crushed.
So what?
"I'm going to TAKE IT ALL!"
The pain was indescribable. Gamma fire ripped through him, searing nerves to ash and rewriting them faster than they could die. His Spider-Sense died completely. He just kept kicking.
"Gah!"
At sixty-five percent drainage, a foot slammed into the Hulk's jaw and Spider-Man was released. He did not and could not waste this opportunity. He suicidally charged right at the Hulk and punched him in the abdomen. Black electricity surged. The Hulk grunted, feeling little pain, and wanted to knee him again. Spider-Man escaped, narrowly, as his fist turned into a palm and he flung himself into the Hulk. He crawled up his face and back, while the Hulk's hands chased after him.
He crawled down to his legs, never letting go. Black bioelectricity continued crackling and sucking the Hulk dry. Pissed, the Hulk swung his leg forward as if to kick him away. But the Spider-Man was a different kind of superglue. He wouldn't fling away like some bug.
He was an arachnid, after all.
The Hulk's leg muscles bulged. He was going to leap! Jump and then slam down to hurt him! "Not on my watch!" He leapt off the back of his leg the moment he understood his intentions and thwip, thwip, kept a line of webbing connected and kneed his temple. The Hulk grunted but was otherwise satisfied that that spider wasn't running and hiding.
Spider-Man was to his left, the webbing the sole connection between them. The Hulk tugged at it—nope. It was already cut off and Spider-Man was charging at him, leaving behind bloody steps.
He fought blind.
The Hulk roared at him.
The white lenses of the Spider-Man dimmed as he struck and dodged. Struck and dodge. He needed the black lightning and the suit to keep absorbing.
Each punch weaker than the last, each movement agony, armor sloughing away in burning sheets. "Gah!"
A furniture-sized fist struck his upper body again. His Spider-Sense was effectively useless because it was marred with pain and Extremis prioritising his regeneration and his life over its existence. His suit aided and accelerated his healing where it could. The suit itself was losing, however.
Half his torso was exposed, skin blistered and reddened, and a smoking hole was torn through his waist plating. The squeezing and intimate contact with gamma radiation melted his suit.
Spider-Man didn't stop.
'Just keep punching! Just keep punching! Don't stop! Don't stop!'
The punctuation of his fists and legs meeting the Hulk's green skin felt pathetic. It did. But it was all he could do.
Just punch.
'Don't…!'
Keep punching. Keep trying.
'Don't stop! Don't stop! Don't stop!'
Never give up.
"Bah!"
"Gah!"
He got two more times. Every time he did, he bounced back. Blood was gushing out? His lower body was practically held up by a string of muscle?
It. Did. Not. Matter.
He hit until his arms stopped responding. Until the monster before him shrunk. Until…
"Ah…"
Green faded to gray, muscles receded, and the roar became a groan.
Bruce Banner was left, panting and eyes coloured green. "Y-you…you…!" He stood there in the scrappy purple shorts. "How did you…?"
Felix threw himself forward and swung a desperate hook to his cheek. The wide-eyed Bruce's neck nearly snapped from the blow and he flung onto the ground hard. Felix would have joined him there if he hadn't managed to land on his knee. Through will power alone, he kept himself up. Even though reality ordered blood to pour out from him and demanded his organs to cease, one fist remained afloat in a stubborn refusal to fall. To die.
He eyed the fallen doctor. The person formerly known as the Hulk.
Bruce didn't even twitch. He wasn't dead, he was breathing, but...he wasn't moving. His veins weren't lighting up green either.
Spider-Man…Spider-Man had won.