02:14 PM – Atlantic Coast, Approaching New York City
The six escape pods screamed through the atmosphere, trailing fire like dying stars. They weren't slowing down. The guidance systems were fried, the thrusters locked. Trajectory calculations flashed red on every S.H.I.E.L.D. screen in the region: Impact Zone: Manhattan. Casualties: Catastrophic.
Below, sirens wailed. People ran. The sky turned orange with re-entry heat.
Then, a red-and-blue blur shattered the sound barrier.
Superman arrived.
He caught the first pod—Reed's—with one hand, arresting its momentum instantly. The metal groaned but held. The second—Victor's—he cradled against his chest, using his own body as a heat shield. The third, fourth, and fifth—Susan, Johnny, and Ben—he guided gently onto the deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D. recovery ship that had just arrived offshore.
"Medical team! Now!" Clark shouted, his voice cutting through the panic.
Agents swarmed. Nick Fury pushed through the crowd, eye narrow, counting. "Five pods," he muttered. "Wait."
He looked at the sky. The sixth pod was still falling. Unchecked. Aimed directly at the Baxter Building.
Clark's eyes glowed red. X-ray vision pierced the metal casing of the falling pod.
His breath stopped.
Inside, curled in a fetal position, was Bruce.
But it wasn't just Bruce.
Clark watched in horror as the bruce's body changed in real time.
In the pod, Bruce's skin was no longer just pale. It was translucent, revealing veins that pulsed with violet light instead of blood.
His bones were shifting, densifying, then lightening, as if his skeleton couldn't decide what state of matter it wanted to be.
Muscles tore and re-knitted in seconds, fibers weaving themselves into something stronger, darker.
His heartbeat wasn't just fast. It was accelerating. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Like a drum solo speeding into a frenzy. But beneath that rhythm, Clark heard something else—a second heartbeat.
Bruce's cells were screaming.. A microscopic chorus of pain and rebirth. DNA strands were unraveling like spooled thread, then rewinding with new patterns, new codes.
The spider-mutation he already carried was being overwritten, upgraded, fused with something ancient and volatile.
Energy arced across Bruce's skin—violet lightning that didn't burn but transformed. Where it struck, the air warped. Gravity bent. Inside the pod, small tools floated off the walls, orbiting Bruce's body like moons around a planet.
His hair floated, charged with static. His fingers twitched, and the metal floor beneath him dented inward, not from impact, but from gravity intensifying in a perfect circle around his hands.
Clark saw the moment the change peaked. Bruce's back arched, spine elongating slightly before snapping back.
His mouth opened in a silent scream as his eyes flashed white—not glowing, but empty, like two tiny voids. For a split second, Bruce wasn't human. He was a conduit. A living wire for the Cosmic Spark.
Then, the energy receded. Settled. But the change remained. Bruce's body was now a fusion of spider-DNA and cosmic radiation. A hybrid. A weapon.
" What's going on , how bruce is here! ," Clark growled, his voice low and dangerous.
He shot upward, catching the sixth pod inches above the skyline.
The heat from re-entry singed his cape, but he didn't flinch. He could feel the radiation pouring off the pod, thick and intoxicating. It called to him, even through his invulnerability.
He turned, pod in hand, and vanished into the clouds before Fury could blink.
"Wait!" Fury exclaimed, staring at the empty sky. "Who is this man in the pod?!"
But only the wind answered.
Clark flew fast. Faster than he ever had. Straight to bruce home.