The laboratory was deathly quiet.
Steve Rogers stood with his shield raised, breathing slow and measured. Across the room, Hulk stood perfectly still. The creature's massive chest rose and fell in an unfamiliar rhythm. The chaotic rage was gone. In its place, a hollow blue light
Loki stepped back, leaning casually against a sparking console. He twirled the golden Scepter in his hand and smiled.
"Kill him," Loki commanded softly. The two words echoed loudly in the silent room.
Hulk moved.
He didn't roar. He didn't pound his chest to gather his fury. He simply launched himself forward with terrifying speed.
Steve dove sideways purely on instinct. The massive green fist struck the exact spot where he had been standing a fraction of a second before, punching a ragged hole clean through the reinforced steel deck plating. Steve rolled, came up on one knee, and threw the shield in a flat arc.
The vibranium disc hit Hulk square in the jaw. It bounced off with a dull clang without leaving so much as a red mark.
Hulk did not flinch. He did not slow down. He simply swung again.
Steve caught the blow on his shield. The impact drove him backward across the lab, boots carving furrows through the metal floor. His arms screamed. His shoulders felt like they were being pulled apart. He held his ground anyway.
Hulk ripped a bolted console out of the deck and threw it. Steve ducked. The console hit the wall behind him and exploded into sparking components. He used the distraction to turn and sprint, cutting through the shattered lab toward the corridor beyond.
Hulk followed without a second of hesitation. The steel walls bent outward as he forced his enormous frame through the doorway.
Steve ran. He used the Helicarrier's narrow, winding corridors to slow the giant's pursuit. He turned tight corners sharply, ducked efficiently through low maintenance hatches, and bought precious seconds with every tactical maneuver.
It was nowhere near enough.
Hulk simply stopped using the doors and began running straight through the solid walls.
A massive green fist punched through a bulkhead and caught the edge of Steve's shield. The blunt force spun him sideways. He hit a wall, bounced, and came up swinging. He drove the shield into Hulk's knee.
Hulk barely registered the strike. A casual backhand caught Steve across the chest and sent him crashing through a sealed door into the Helicarrier's main command center.
The massive room was lined with dozens of glowing screens. Tactical displays. Global communications arrays. Structural status monitors blinking in the dim light. The bridge crew had already evacuated under Fury's orders. The room was empty, except for the trail of destruction Steve had just dragged into it.
Hulk tore through the ruined doorway and advanced.
"Is that truly the absolute best Midgard's first superhero can do?" Loki mocked from the sidelines.
Loki had followed them through the corridors at a leisurely pace. His Scepter was propped against his shoulder like a walking stick. The whole pose was the relaxed comfort of a man watching a play from the best seat in the house.
"I confess, Captain, I had much higher expectations," Loki drawled. "Though the beast is magnificent, is he not? All that raw, unadulterated rage. All that world-breaking strength. Locked uselessly inside a fragile mortal's body for so long." He laughed. "Human kindness is such a pathetic leash."
"You talk a lot," Steve grunted, pushing himself upright and raising his shield.
"I'm told it is a failing. I find it is mostly a kindness to my lessers." Loki's smile turned fond, almost pitying. "But kindness is over. Beast. Finish him."
Hulk closed the distance in four impossible strides. He raised both fists, ready to smash the super-soldier through the deck into the ocean below.
At that exact moment, a blinding blue streak cut sharply across the dark room.
The repulsor blast caught Hulk square in the side of the jaw. It was a full-power shot from the Mark X at point-blank range, and it barely turned his head.
But it turned it just enough to see what was coming at him next.
Iron Man slammed into Hulk at supersonic speed.
The full weight of the Mark X suit at maximum thruster velocity slammed into the creature's side and sent him flying across the command center. Hulk crashed through two support columns, brought down a section of ceiling, and disappeared under a pile of rubble and twisted steel.
Tony landed between Steve and the wreckage, boots skidding on the broken floor, both gauntlets raised and glowing.
"Cap, you alright?"
"I've been better," Steve grunted, wiping a streak of blood from his chin. "Hulk isn't holding back. He's completely under Loki's control."
"Yeah, I gathered that." Tony saw the massive pile of rubble begin to shift and heave. "Prepare for round two, Captain."
The rubble pile exploded. Hulk burst free, roaring, and charged straight at them.
Tony shoved Steve sideways and met the charge head-on. A double repulsor blast hit Hulk in the chest and slowed him for half a second. Tony used that half-second to get airborne, rising just above Hulk's reach. He fired from above. The beams struck Hulk's shoulders, his back, the top of his head. Each blast hit with enough force to stagger the creature, but Hulk shrugged them off and swiped at the air.
Steve was back on his feet. He threw the shield in a flat arc that caught Hulk behind the knee. The creature stumbled forward. Tony fired a concentrated unibeam into the opening, hitting Hulk squarely in the chest.
Hulk went down to one knee.
For exactly one second.
Then he was up again, angrier than before. He reached down, grabbed a chunk of deck plating the size of a car door and hurled it at Tony. The metal slab hit the Mark X mid-flight and sent Tony spinning into the ceiling. He crashed back down, rolled, and came up firing.
Steve and Tony fought together. Shield and repulsors. Ground and air. When Hulk focused on Tony, Steve flanked and hit from behind. When Hulk turned on Steve, Tony blasted him from above. They coordinated wordlessly, two soldiers who had been fighting for less than a day communicating through instinct and necessity.
It wasn't enough though.
Hulk caught Steve's shield mid-throw and used it to swat Tony out of the air. Then he threw the shield into a wall hard enough to embed it six inches deep in the reinforced steel. Steve lunged to recover it and took a backhand that sent him flying.
Tony fired every weapon the Mark X had. Repulsors, micro-missiles, shoulder lasers, the unibeam at full power. The combined barrage drove Hulk back three steps. The creature lowered his head, leaned into the onslaught, and kept walking forward.
"Sir," JARVIS's voice was calm but urgent. "At this current rate of engagement, the suit will reach critical failure in under two minutes."
Tony quickly calculated his options. The Mark X was advanced, but it was built for speed, energy projection, and standard combat. It wasn't built to wrestle a nine-foot-tall rage monster.
"JARVIS," Tony said sharply. "We need the heavy lifter. Call in the Harlem package."
"Deploying now, Sir."
After the devastating fight with the Abominations in Harlem, Tony had identified the glaring flaw in his arsenal. Standard suits were useless in a grappling match against giant, enhanced targets. He had built something much bigger.
The pieces came through the holes Hulk had already made. Heavy armor plates, each one the size of a small car, dropped into the room on independent thrusters and locked onto the Mark X in rapid sequence. Legs. Torso. Arms. Shoulders. Helmet.
Tony Stark had come to the Helicarrier incredibly prepared.
In seven seconds, he went from a man in a sleek metal suit to a twelve-foot armored giant.
The Hulkbuster's chest reactor blazed. Hydraulic joints whined as the massive suit planted its feet and caught Hulk's next punch without moving an inch.
"Yeah," Tony said from inside the heavy cockpit, his voice booming through external speakers. "Now we're talking."
The fight that followed shook the Helicarrier to its bones. The Hulkbuster matched Hulk blow for blow. Each impact buckled floors and cracked walls. The deck plates buckled. Support columns bent. Two more walls collapsed completely under the collateral damage.
Tony was holding. The suit was built for this. Every lesson from years of analysing the battle with the Abominations in Harlem had been designed into the armor. He could take the punishment. He could dish it back.
But the Mind Stone had stripped away every limit Hulk had. No restraint. No self-preservation. Hulk hit harder with every swing, operating at absolute maximum output with no concern for the damage he was taking.
And while Hulk did not tire... the suit's power reserves did.
"Blunt force isn't working, Tony," Steve yelled over the noise of grinding metal. He had been staying out of the direct line of fire between the two battling giants. "We're just making him mad."
"I noticed, Cap," Tony grunted, checking his HUD. His heavy armor was already taking serious damage. "I can't knock him out. He's too durable. We need to wake him up."
"How?"
Tony took a glancing punch to the jaw that rattled his teeth; a shrill warning blared through the cockpit. He shoved Hulk back to buy a few precious seconds of breathing room. He desperately needed a new angle. He couldn't out-punch the beast, and he certainly couldn't outlast him.
What would Arthur do? Tony thought frantically, dodging another swing.
Arthur never fought a losing battle head-on. The wizard always found a backdoor. Now he had to do the same. Not how do you stop him. That was the wrong question. Who has ever actually reached him?
Then a specific memory flashed through Tony's panicked brain. Harlem.
Arthur had stayed hidden that night; he hadn't been the one who calmed Hulk down. It was a woman with an impossibly steady voice who had walked right up to the beast and talked him down.
"JARVIS," Tony said, taking a heavy punch to the jaw that rattled his teeth. "Hack the SHIELD comms array. Connect to Eileen Hayes. Put her on every single screen in this room. Now."