Bruce Banner wanted one thing the world would not let him keep: a quiet place to hide. He worked in a borrowed lab because a general had offered him a deal. Rebuild the serum, and the soldiers might stop hunting him. Banner did not trust the offer. He took it anyway. Every day in the lab was a day he was not running. The general's name was Ross. He came each morning and stood too close to the glass. He wanted the serum for his own army. He did not care what it cost Banner to make it. "The gamma readings are stable," Banner said. He kept his voice flat. Stress was the enemy. Stress woke the other guy. "Give me another week." "You have tonight," Ross said. So Banner ran the test on himself. He believed the new serum might fix him. It might quiet the green thing forever. He set the dose. He watched the gauge climb. Then the power surged, and the chamber overloaded like a small bomb. The serum failed. Worse, it fed the very thing it was meant to kill. Banner's skin split green. His shoulders tore his shirt. He grew until the ceiling cracked above him. Ross shouted for his men. The Hulk went through the wall. Bullets bounced off his back. A truck flipped. Soldiers scattered. He did not want to hurt them, but the man inside was gone for now. He smashed the lab that held Ross's dream of an army. He smashed the serum too. When he leaped, the ground fell away, and he was miles gone before the dust settled. Banner woke in a field at dawn, human again, torn purple shorts on his hips. The deal was dead. The serum was dead. Ross would never stop now. Banner had traded a cage for a hunt. He stood, and he started walking. Somewhere far off, he would build a place no one could find. That was the only plan left. Ross did not chase him with soldiers this time. He knew soldiers had failed. Instead he pulled a thick file and stamped it and shipped it north, to an outfit that made hunters out of men. The file said one word on the cover. HULK. The man they gave it to read it once, in a cold room, under a bare bulb. He wore a torn uniform and old boots. Three claws slid out of one fist with a wet sound, then slid back. He had hunted things that would not die before. He did not ask why. He closed the file. "Where's he headed," Logan said. It was not a question. Nobody answered, because nobody knew. Logan stood and reached for his coat. He would find the trail himself. He always did.

Banner walked north for days. The cold suited him. Snow muffled sound. Empty land meant no crowds to hurt. He built a lean-to from ice and old driftwood and told himself he could rest here. No general. No soldiers. Just wind. But something felt wrong. For two nights he sensed eyes on him. Tracks in the snow that were not his own. He told himself it was nerves. He was wrong. The attack came at dusk. A shape burst from the drifts, tall as a tree, white fur over cracked bone. Its jaws opened wide. Banner had heard old stories of a thing called the wendigo, a hunger that walked. He did not believe them until its claws raked his chest and threw him into the snow. Fear did the rest. Banner's skin split green. His body swelled and tore his shirt. In seconds the Hulk stood where the man had knelt. The monster lunged. The Hulk caught it by the throat and slammed it down. Bone cracked. The two crashed through ice and stone, trading blows that shook the ground. Then a second figure dropped from a ridge. He wore a torn army uniform and old boots. Three metal claws slid from his fist with a wet sound. This was Logan, the hunter Ross had sent to find Banner. He had tracked the Hulk here. But the wendigo came first. Logan drove his claws into its back and tore. "Hit it high," Logan said. Nothing more. The Hulk hit it high. Logan hit it low. The monster shrieked and fell. Its bones went still in the red snow. For one breath the two stood over it, enemies who had just fought as one. The breath ended. The Hulk turned on Logan. He did not know friend from foe. He only knew the small thing with metal claws had cut something, and everything near him was a threat. He swung. Logan rolled clear and came up slashing. They fought through the night and into the next day. Nearly a full day of it. Logan's claws opened wounds that closed as fast as they came. The Hulk's fists broke bone that knit again. Neither could win. Neither would stop. At last the Hulk grabbed Logan and leaped high. He drove down at a mountain wall, meaning to crush the man against the rock. The strike missed flesh but split the slope. Snow broke loose above them. It came down in a white wall and swallowed them both. Banner woke buried, human again, torn purple shorts on his hips. He clawed up through packed snow and dragged himself into open air. He was alive. So was the hunter, somewhere under the same slide. Banner did not wait to learn where. He let the fear take him one more time, went green, and leaped. He cleared the valley in a single jump and was gone before Logan broke free.