Chapter Five Part One:
It started as a tickle.
Kara's eyes drifted open slowly, her body still heavy with the pleasant fog of sleep. The pillow was soft beneath her head. Thor's careful arrangement of cushions had been... oddly comforting, embarrassment aside. For a moment, she simply existed in that space between sleeping and waking, content and—
The tickle became a whisper.
Her brow furrowed. Something was wrong. Not danger—not yet—but something cold creeping at the edges of her awareness. A word. Distant. Repeated.
The whisper became a breeze.
Cold now. Distinctly cold. The kind of cold that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with primordial dread. Kara's eyes opened fully, pupils contracting as her enhanced senses began to parse the sounds filtering through the Helicarrier's walls.
"...I mean, she's pretty smol, right?"
"Dude, she's like five-foot-nothing. Definitely smol."
"Smol and deadly. The best combination."
The breeze became wind.
Kara sat up slowly, the pillow sliding off her chest. Her head tilted, listening. The word kept appearing. Again. And again. Smol. Smol. Smol.
She didn't know what it meant.
But the universe itself seemed to recoil from it.
The wind became a blizzard.
Her breathing quickened. The temperature around her—or perhaps just the feeling of temperature—plummeted. It was as though reality had opened a door to the absolute depths of thermodynamic death, where entropy reigned and heat itself went to die. Absolute zero. Below absolute zero. Places where only cosmic beings of endings and entropy could walk.
And that word—that forbidden word—
Smol.
—was aimed directly at her.
Kara's mind stuttered. Then rebooted. Again. Her consciousness fragmented, splintered, trying to process the existential horror of whatever designation this was. Her Kryptonian brain overclocked itself, running simulations, analyzing linguistic patterns, searching her downloaded databases for context—
ERROR. ERROR. UNDEFINED PARAMETER. EMOTIONAL RESPONSE: MAXIMUM.
She sat frozen on the couch, eyes wide and unblinking, a faint pale blue beginning to creep across her cheeks like frost spreading over glass.
The word echoed.
Smol.
Her left eye twitched.
Outside, somewhere on the Helicarrier, a technician said it again.
Kara's brain rebooted for the third time in as many seconds.
She didn't notice the aircraft approaching.
She didn't hear the distinctive thwick-thwick-thwick of arrows being loosed.
She didn't hear anything except that word, reverberating through her skull like the death knell of civilizations.
And then her world exploded.
The blast hit the Helicarrier's hull with surgical precision.
Explosions rippled through the lower decks—fire, smoke, metal shrieking as bulkheads tore open. Alarms screamed. The ship lurched violently to one side.
Time slowed.
Not metaphorically. Not perceptually.
Kara's overclocked mind grabbed hold of reality and wrenched it down to a crawl.
The world became a painting in motion—flames spreading frame by frame, shrapnel tumbling through the air in lazy, beautiful arcs. She saw every detail. Every rivet. Every fragment of torn steel.
And she saw her.
The red-haired woman—Natasha, her mind supplied—falling through the floor of an adjacent room, the deck beneath her having given way in the blast. She was tumbling, arms reaching instinctively for purchase that didn't exist, her expression caught between shock and grim acceptance.
Thirty feet to the deck below.
Kara moved.
She didn't think. Didn't plan. Her body simply was where it needed to be.
She flew through the smoke and chaos, her hands moving with impossible precision. A jagged piece of metal hurtling toward Natasha's head—nudge. A spinning fragment of bulkhead—poke. A chunk of burning debris—slide.
Every obstacle redirected. Every danger neutralized.
Kara felt a surge of pride bloom in her chest. She was helping. She was—
Natasha was falling face-first toward the deck.
Oh no.
Oh no.
Kara's eyes widened. She dove, arms outstretched, and wrapped herself around the spy's body just as they crossed the threshold of the broken floor.
For exactly half a second, everything was perfect.
Then Kara's brain—overclocked four times in as many minutes, running calculations at speeds that would make quantum computers weep—hit its limit.
Mental fatigue slammed into her like a freight train.
Her vision blurred. The world tilted. Strength fled her limbs.
And she fell.
Kara was dimly aware of Natasha in her arms—mostly in her arms, her grip was slipping, everything was slipping—and then impact. Multiple impacts. She crashed through obstacles she couldn't see, felt Natasha being jostled against her, tried desperately to shield her—
They hit the ground.
Kara felt hands on her. Felt herself being moved, positioned. Her vision swam, colors bleeding together like wet paint.
Blink.
Blink.
The world slowly came back into focus.
She was on her back. Natasha was... somewhere. Above her? Nearby? Kara's eyes wouldn't quite cooperate.
She blinked again, harder this time, and reality snapped into place.
Natasha Romanoff was staring down at her, very much alive, looking mildly disheveled and entirely too calm for someone who'd just fallen thirty feet.
Kara's brow furrowed in confusion.
Then Natasha's hands moved.
Natasha's POV
One second, Natasha had been standing in the corridor.
The next, she was in freefall.
They say when you're about to die, the world slows down. Natasha had died enough times—or come close enough—to know it was true. Time stretched like taffy, and her mind catalogued every possible outcome with cold, clinical precision.
Impaled on that support beam. Severed spine. Instant.
Crushed by that fallen panel. Internal bleeding. Thirty seconds, maybe less.
Split open on that jagged edge. Femoral artery. Eight seconds.
She saw all the ways to die.
And then, in a blink, they all disappeared.
Debris that had been hurtling toward her simply... wasn't. Obstacles vanished from her path as though an invisible hand had swept them aside. And then the girl—Kara—was there, arms wrapping around her, expression panicked and determined.
For a heartbeat, Natasha thought they were safe.
Then the girl's eyes rolled back, her body went slack, and Natasha realized with grim clarity that she was now in freefall while being held by an unconscious Kryptonian.
God dammit. Are you kidding me.
Natasha grabbed onto whatever she could—an arm, a shoulder, fabric, anything—and tucked herself in as close to Kara's body as physically possible. If they were going down, she was going to use every inch of this invulnerable alien as a shield.
They smashed through deck plating.
Through support beams.
Through things that made Natasha wonder what the hell is this girl made of and just how damn heavy is she?
The impacts were brutal. Natasha felt her ribs protest, her shoulder scream, her head ring like a bell. But she held on.
They hit the ground floor with a final, catastrophic CRASH.
Natasha's world spun. Pain flared hot and immediate in a dozen places. She groaned, taking stock—nothing broken, probably, definitely bruised, possibly concussed—and realized her face was pressed into something warm and soft.
She blinked.
Oh.
She was face-first in Kara's cleavage.
Natasha lifted her head slowly, testing her neck. Everything still worked. Mostly. She glanced down at the girl beneath her—still unconscious, breathing steady, looking far more battered than before but very much alive.
An idea formed.
It was unprofessional. Possibly cruel. Definitely entertaining.
Natasha was nothing if not thorough in her intelligence gathering. And the best way to learn about someone was to see how they reacted when they weren't in control.
Kara's eyes began to flutter.
Natasha moved quickly. She shifted her weight, positioned her hands, and just as Kara's gaze focused—still hazy, still confused—Natasha grabbed.
Both hands. Full contact. Deliberate.
Then she winked.
Kara's face turned blue.
Not red. Blue.
A pale, almost luminescent azure that spread from her cheeks to her ears to her neck in the span of a heartbeat.
"Same size as me," Natasha said, voice low and playful, giving a slight squeeze for emphasis. "But yours are nicer. I like."
She blew a kiss.
Kara's face went from pale blue to deep sapphire.
Then it started strobing.
Light blue. Dark blue. Light blue. Dark blue.
Natasha watched, fascinated, as the girl's entire face pulsed like a malfunctioning neon sign.
Two seconds.
That's all it took.
Kara's eyes rolled back into her head. Her expression went completely slack. Her body began to glow faintly—gold light pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat, steady and strong.
Natasha released her and sat back, brushing dust off her tactical suit.
She threw up a thumbs-up to no one in particular.
Somewhere in the ether, the word FATALITY appeared in bold, glowing letters, accompanied by a sound effect that shouldn't have existed.
Natasha smirked.
The moment was ruined by a deafening ROAR.
Bruce/Hulk POV
The last thing Bruce Banner thought before the explosion was: "Hmm. 'Smol' describes her well."
The next memory he had was hitting the floor, his body already burning, already changing, and the Hulk surging up from inside him like a tidal wave of rage.
Bruce fought.
He always fought.
But this time, the Hulk wasn't fighting back.
Both of them—man and monster, scientist and beast—froze.
Because directly in their line of sight was the strangest thing either of them had ever witnessed:
Natasha Romanoff—the Black Widow, sly and deadly and cold as winter—groping the young Kryptonian girl.
The girl's face was strobing blue.
Her eyes had rolled back.
Her soul looked like it was barely clinging to her mortal shell, held in place by sheer cosmic embarrassment.
The part of Bruce that had been fighting the Hulk looked at the green giant.
"Nope," Bruce said. "I'm out."
And he just... gave up the fight.
The Hulk blinked.
Confusion rippled through his limited consciousness.
Confusing things made him angry.
He ROARED.
The Hulk had been chasing the tiny godling for what felt like forever.
Bitty? he thought. Itty-bitty?
The words didn't fit right in his head. He'd figure it out later. Right now, he wanted to wipe that stupid smirk off her face and show her that HULK WAS STRONGEST.
She was so fast. So nimble. And she hit hard—harder than anything had a right to, harder than things bigger than her.
It pissed him off.
His anger was peaking, building like a storm about to break—
And then he remembered the word.
The one Banner had thought. The one all the little humans kept saying.
The Hulk's mouth split into a vicious grin.
He stopped chasing. Planted his feet. Drew in a massive breath.
"YOU SO... SMOL!"
He roared it at her. Loud enough to shake the Helicarrier. Loud enough to make the word echo through the broken halls.
The girl froze.
Completely. Utterly. Like someone had pressed pause on reality itself.
Her eyes went wide. Her face shifted through three shades of blue in rapid succession. Her mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out.
She just... stopped moving.
The Hulk grinned.
Stupid weak godling. Too slow now.
He planted his feet, pulled back his massive fist, and put everything he had into it.
Every ounce of rage.
Every bit of strength.
"HULK SMASH!"
The right hook connected with her jaw.
Perfect.
Beautiful.
Her head snapped to the side. Her eyes went blank, lifeless. A tiny cut opened along her jaw, a single drop of blood welling up.
The Hulk's grin widened.
This was it.
His moment.
HULK WAS STRONGEST. HE KNEW IT. HAHAHAHAHA—
The girl started to fall.
But she didn't fall far.
Her other leg moved—so fast the Hulk almost missed it—and slammed into the deck beneath her. Metal shrieked. The floor erupted upward in a crater of twisted steel and shattered support beams.
She didn't fall.
She didn't even sway.
She just stood there, braced, muttering something to herself as she ran her thumb over her cheek.
The cut closed.
Just like that. As though it had never existed.
She licked the blood off her finger.
Then she curled her right hand into a fist.
And looked up.
The Hulk felt something he had never felt before.
Fear.
Absolute, bone-deep, primal fear of this tiny person.
Her eyes had been glowing red.
Now they shifted—blue, then brighter, then gold. The color of the sun itself, blazing in her skull like twin stars.
The ground beneath her feet began to cave in from the pressure alone.
"Who," she said quietly, "are you calling smol?"
The Hulk took a step back.
"WOULD EVERYONE STOP FUCKING WITH ME!"
The shout was so loud, so violent, that it became a physical force.
A shockwave ripped outward from her position, tearing through metal, throwing debris, obliterating everything in its path. The Hulk raised his arms instinctively, felt the wave hit him like the aftershock of a nuke—
She appeared in front of him.
One moment, she was ten feet away.
The next, she was there, inches from his chest.
Just above a whisper, she said: "Never call me smol again."
Then she punched him.
The Hulk had been hit before.
By gods. By monsters. By things that could crack mountains.
This was different.
The punch didn't break his skin.
It didn't need to.
The force traveled through him—a wave of kinetic energy so absolute that it bypassed his hide entirely and went straight for what was underneath.
The Hulk felt his insides liquefy.
Organs ruptured. Bones fractured. His entire chest cavity became a soup of biological matter held together only by his impossibly tough exterior.
He flew backward.
Through a bulkhead.
Through another.
And another.
And another.
He sailed for over a mile before gravity remembered he existed and he began to lose altitude.
The pain was... indescribable.
But the Hulk had one last trick.
One final act of pettiness.
BANNER'S FAULT, the Hulk thought with grim satisfaction. HE SAID "I'M OUT." LEFT HULK HERE WITH THAT MONSTER.
Well. Two could play at that.
The Hulk grinned through the agony.
He'd let Banner have some of his strength. Just enough to survive.
But the impact?
The pain of healing?
That would belong all to Bruce.
Hehehehe.
Maybe he should thank the little godling.
She'd just shown him how to get back at Banner.
The Hulk's form began to shift, shrinking, skin fading from green to pale human flesh.
Bruce Banner came to—mostly.
He still felt half-Hulk. His body was in agony, every nerve screaming, every cell trying to knit itself back together in real-time.
Then came the impact.
He crashed through an abandoned warehouse, plowing through concrete and rebar and brick, finally skidding to a halt in a crater of rubble and dust.
Bruce closed his eyes.
It hurt too much to do anything else.
Too much to move. To think. To breathe.
He could feel himself bleeding everywhere. Could feel the Hulk's regeneration kicking in—slower now, without the Hulk's full power behind it, but still there.
Maybe I'll just pass out for a bit, Bruce thought distantly.
Darkness claimed him.
His healing accelerated the moment he lost consciousness.
The Hulk, tucked away in the back of his mind, grinned.
Petty, not mean, he thought.
After all.