Chapter Summaries

Tony imposed strict cleanliness, monitoring, and protective-suit rules on everyone in the Deep Sea Barrier, while Steve accepted them without protest. Rumlow recognized that the precautions would make Hydra’s plans difficult and endured the restrictions as the four Iron Man suits continued to shadow him.

• Rumlow complained to Steve that four Iron Man suits watched him even when he went to the bathroom, but Steve said Tony had his reasons.
• Tony explained the Deep Sea Barrier’s environmental controls and tracked, sealed waste-disposal system, leaving Rumlow worried Hydra could not intercept or replace the samples.
• Tony required everyone to shower three times daily and wear monitored Nanofiber protective suits in the Core Area.
• Steve, Natasha, and Clint accepted their suits, and Rumlow reluctantly took his while suppressing his anger.
• Over the following days, Rumlow felt increasingly suffocated as four red-and-gold suits followed him everywhere.

Rumlow endured Stark’s relentless surveillance and humiliating safety measures while Steve defended them as necessary precautions. The chapter left Rumlow questioning the Biomass Processing Unit’s enormous cost and indignity, while Steve calmly insisted that humanity’s safety came first.

• Rumlow tried to evade the armored suits and resist their restrictions, but every attempt triggered tighter surveillance and warnings.
• Stark watched Rumlow’s confinement with amusement and mocked him while speaking to J.A.R.V.I.S.
• Steve, Natasha, and Clint followed the rules, leaving Rumlow isolated as Steve acted as their enforcer.
• Steve explained that even minor biological contamination could interfere with the fortress’s instruments and justified the precautions.
• Rumlow pointed to the Biomass Processing Unit and questioned its cost and the indignity of using it.
• Steve said personal comfort and dignity were secondary to the crisis humanity might face.

Steve recalled how Tony had convinced him that the Biomass Processing Unit’s terrifying suction was necessary to protect the Abyssal Core, leaving him wary of the toilet. In the present, Rumlow teased Steve about his earlier reaction, and Steve defended his caution.

• Rumlow reminded Steve that he had not said the same thing back then.
• Steve recalled his first encounter with the Biomass Processing Unit in Tony’s deep-sea base.
• The unit’s suction startled Steve, and he braced himself against the bathroom walls.
• Tony told Steve that the suction prevented contamination that could trigger the Abyssal Core and endanger the Pacific.
• Steve grew anxious about using the unit and repeatedly checked that he had left no odor behind.
• Steve told Rumlow that the circumstances were different and that Stark had clearly explained the risks.

Rumlow discovered that Steve's waste cost $300,000 per use and realized Stark's costly sanitation system was also keeping him under relentless surveillance. Trapped in his Living Pod with a secret Data Storage Needle, Rumlow struggled to find a way to send Hydra's intelligence while Tony monitored his rising stress.

• Rumlow told Steve that one use of the sanitation system cost $300,000, and Steve left in shock.
• Rumlow returned to his Living Pod, where Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta remained stationed outside under Stark's surveillance.
• Rumlow concealed a Data Storage Needle containing intelligence about the Barrier and considered ways to transmit it.
• Rumlow struck the pod wall in frustration, prompting Delta to issue a warning.
• Tony watched Rumlow's surveillance feed and suit sensors, tracking his growing stress.

Tony monitored Rumlow, Steve, Clint, and Natasha under his strict hygiene and surveillance protocols, amused by Rumlow’s distress and impressed by Steve and Clint’s composure. Natasha saw through Tony’s staged experiment and turned the surveillance game back on him, leaving him unsettled but intrigued.

• Tony recorded Rumlow’s stress and declining tolerance during the isolation protocol.
• Tony watched Steve calmly read under Sentinel surveillance and Clint work with professional detachment.
• Tony noticed Natasha silently mocking the surveillance while maintaining steady physiological readings.
• Natasha’s knowing look made Tony realize she understood his intentions and had taken an active role in the psychological contest.
• Tony acknowledged that Nick Fury’s agents had real skill and felt renewed interest in Natasha’s challenge.

Tony prepared to welcome Bruce Banner and begin the next stage of his Insight plan, while J.A.R.V.I.S. detected an enormous metallic-looking object approaching the undersea base and misclassified it as a harmless whale. The unidentified mass remained under surveillance without alerting Tony.

• J.A.R.V.I.S. told Tony that Bruce Banner had arrived at the airlock and was completing entry checks.
• Tony left the control area to greet Banner and use his Gamma expertise for the Insight plan.
• J.A.R.V.I.S. detected a vast object near the base with unusual sonar, optical, magnetic, and thermal signatures.
• J.A.R.V.I.S. judged the object was probably an unusually large whale, logged it as non-threatening, and withheld an alert from Tony.

Bruce Banner arrived at Tony Stark’s deep-sea base, Neptune's Eye of Insight, to help investigate PX-114, a powerful energy source linked to the Battle of New York. As Tony showed him the target data, a colossal creature stirred in the abyss beneath the base and watched the human outpost.

• Bruce Banner arrived at Neptune's Eye of Insight carrying a reinforced alloy briefcase, and Tony Stark greeted him warmly.
• Tony led Bruce through the base and explained its deep-sea defenses and position 3,712 meters below the surface.
• Bruce examined the holographic chart of PX-114, where readings showed a massive, highly active energy source.
• Tony revealed that PX-114's energy signature matched a target associated with the Battle of New York.
• A colossal armored creature moved in the darkness below the base and opened its orange-yellow eyes toward the human outpost.

Norman Osborn, now a deep-sea Godzilla-level behemoth, learned that Connors had survived the nuclear blast but was gravely wounded and set out to grow strong enough to kill and devour him. After feeding on nuclear waste, fuel, and warheads, Norman turned his attention toward Tony Stark’s underwater base.

• Norman sensed Connors’s faint bioelectric signal and concluded that Connors had survived the nuclear blast, hidden beneath the seafloor and near death.
• Norman realized that Tony Stark’s Neptune’s Eye of Insight was searching for Connors and identified the steel fortress as a human forward base.
• Norman raided deep-sea nuclear waste sites, abandoned facilities, and remote fuel depots to absorb radioactive materials and strengthen his body.
• Norman attacked guarded missile silos and storage bases, devouring several nuclear warheads and their weapons-grade fuel cores.
• Norman’s body grew larger and more powerful as its biological reactor intensified, and he locked onto Stark’s steel base as his next target.

Osborn awakened in the Mariana Trench and headed toward the undersea fortress, intent on devouring Connors and claiming his power. Inside Poseidon's Eye, Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner monitored Connors, whose destructive nuclear reaction Chang Wei had contained but whose radiation continued to strain Tony's shielding.

• Osborn awakened in the deep and fixed on Connors as the target of its vengeance.
• Osborn silently sped through the sea toward the undersea base, driving the creatures along its path into a panicked flight.
• Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner observed Connors from Poseidon's Eye while the fortress's layered defenses protected them from the deep-sea environment.
• Chang Wei's fields held Connors's nuclear reaction near the point of eruption and confined its deadly energy.
• Tony Stark's filtration layer strained under the radiation, and Cherenkov Radiation glowed bluish-purple across its surface.

Tony Stark and Bruce Banner examined the restrained, radioactive corpse of Connors and discussed the dangerous science behind Chang Wei’s suppression field. Their debate was interrupted when sensors detected an unknown giant organism approaching Poseidon’s Eye at high speed.

• Tony Stark showed Bruce Banner data indicating that Connors’s runaway nuclear reaction had reached the equivalent of fifty million tons of TNT.
• Tony explained that Chang Wei had used a Molecular Motion Suppression Field to halt Connors’s reactions and contain its radiation.
• Tony and Banner discussed Connors’s extraordinary biology, with Banner warning that studying its destructive power was dangerous.
• Poseidon’s Eye detected an unknown giant organism approaching from the west-southwest at 85 knots, with an estimated contact time of fifteen minutes.

Tony and Banner faced Norman Osborn, an extinction-class monster drawn to Connors inside the Deep Sea Barrier. Norman shattered the base’s shield and blasted a breach in its hull, then charged straight into the opening.

• Friday identified the approaching creature as Norman Osborn and classified it as an extinction-class threat.
• Tony activated the base’s defenses and ordered personnel to evacuate while Banner analyzed Norman’s energy signature.
• Norman roared at the barrier and fired a dark-blue Atomic Breath at the base.
• Norman’s blast overwhelmed the active defense shield and melted a twelve-meter hole through the outer hull.
• Norman ignored the flooding breach and rammed its body into the opening.

Norman Osborn’s colossal beast tore through the Neptune's Eye of Insight base toward Connors’s containment unit, threatening to reach and devour him. Tony Stark urged Bruce Banner to unleash Hulk, and Bruce began transforming as the base continued to collapse.

• Norman Osborn’s beast struck the base, cracked the Eye of Neptune viewport, and began tearing a path toward the Core Area Containment Zone.
• Tony Stark identified Connors as the beast’s target and warned Bruce Banner that their fusion would create an apocalyptic threat.
• Tony urged Bruce to release Hulk and hold the beast back while they searched for another way to stop it.
• Bruce Banner’s body began changing as he shouted that Hulk hated big guys and roared, “Hulk... smash!!!!”

Hulk transformed and charged through the damaged base to confront Norman Osborn's giant beast in the ten-thousand-meter-deep sea. As Steve Rogers and the others tried to reach escape pods, Hulk struggled under the crushing pressure and lack of air, then blamed his pain on Norman's creature.

• Hulk transformed in the Main Control Room, locked onto Norman Osborn's beast, and smashed a path through the base to the outer breach.
• Steve Rogers told Tony that Hulk had drawn the beast away, while Rumlow warned that Hulk could get himself or the team killed.
• Tony directed Steve, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, and Rumlow to clear a blocked escape passage leading to Seahorse escape pods.
• Clint blasted the wreckage, Natasha cut a sparking cable, Rumlow pried open debris, and Steve shielded the group as seawater rose around them.
• Hulk burst into the deep sea, where the crushing pressure and seawater left him in pain and struggling to breathe.
• Hulk's pain fueled his rage, and he blamed Norman Osborn's creature as it noticed the intruding green giant.

Hulk interrupted Norman Osborn’s Atomic Breath charge with a powerful punch that cracked his armor, while Steve Rogers and Tony Stark hurried the team toward deep-sea escape pods. As Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton boarded, Brock Rumlow lunged for the newer pod, leaving Steve behind as the base continued to collapse.

• Hulk struck Norman Osborn’s armored neck and shoulders, staggering him and disrupting his Atomic Breath charge.
• Steve Rogers held the escape passage open with his Star Shield while Tony Stark cleared debris and directed everyone to the Seahorse escape pods.
• Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton boarded separate pods, whose hatches sealed automatically.
• Brock Rumlow shouted for Steve to go first, then lunged for the newer escape pod.
• Tony Stark urged Steve to hurry and destroyed falling concrete that threatened him.

Steve escaped Neptune's Eye in a Seahorse pod while Tony used his armor to blast toward the surface as the base collapsed. Hulk remained locked in battle with Norman Osborn in the crushing depths, struggling against the pressure and suffocation.

• Steve leaped into the last intact Seahorse pod and saw that Tony had stayed outside in his Mark L armor.
• Tony activated the Deep Sea Leap protocol and rocketed upward through the collapsing passage.
• The four Seahorse pods launched from the base as Neptune's Eye of Insight collapsed under the battle's damage and the deep-sea pressure.
• The observation window shattered, and rushing seawater crushed the base's corridors, laboratories, and server arrays.
• Hulk and Norman Osborn continued fighting amid wreckage and powerful currents while the Deep's pressure threatened to suffocate Hulk.

Hulk struggled against Norman Osborn’s overwhelming attacks and the crushing pressure of the deep sea as oxygen loss weakened him. Osborn spotted the glowing Heart of Poseidon, where Connors’s imprisoned consciousness had become a radiant, unstable energy form, and prepared to consume him.

• Norman Osborn repeatedly battered Hulk and forced him deeper into the collapsing Eye of Neptune wreckage.
• Hulk’s strength remained formidable, but the pressure, oxygen deprivation, and Osborn’s attacks drained his energy.
• A bright radiance emerged from the wreckage and revealed Connors’s transformed body at the Heart of Poseidon.
• Osborn recognized Connors’s power as a path to becoming the ultimate Godzilla and roared his name.
• Osborn opened his jaws toward Connors, intent on eating and fusing with him.

Norman Osborn charged toward Connors’s gravity-frozen body, intent on devouring him and evolving into the strongest Godzilla. Unable to swallow Connors whole, Norman prepared to use his unusually human-like teeth to bite and tear into the sealed body.

• Norman Osborn sensed the blue glow and abandoned his pursuit of Hulk to rush toward the Heart of Poseidon.
• Chang Wei’s Gravity Freeze suppressed Connors’s molecular motion and fission reaction, trapping radiation inside a gravitational prison.
• Connors’s frozen body shone like a blue star but gave off almost no heat.
• Norman realized he could not swallow Connors whole and would have to bite and tear him apart.
• Norman’s human-derived teeth gave him a precise way to attack the gravity-frozen body.

Norman Osborn tried to bite through the Gravity Freeze surrounding Dr. Connors, and his attacks triggered the frozen Heart of Poseidon’s fission chain reaction. The blast erupted from Connors’s body in a devastating pillar of energy that began tearing through the deep sea.

• Norman Osborn struck Connors’s frozen barrier with his tongue and teeth, but its immense gravitational rigidity resisted his bite.
• Norman focused nuclear flames and high-frequency cutting with his front teeth, gradually loosening the warped space barrier.
• The impacts from Norman’s attack reached the frozen Heart of Poseidon and destabilized its suspended chain reaction.
• The Heart of Poseidon’s fission reaction resumed and erupted from Connors’s body in a pillar of gamma rays, particles, and intense heat.
• The expanding blast decomposed and ionized the surrounding seawater into a field of million-degree plasma.

Connors’s Destruction Light Spear erupted inside Norman’s mouth, triggering a fierce collision with Norman’s nuclear energy. The resulting blast hurled Hulk into a rock wall and overwhelmed his healing ability, leaving him suffering severe radiation damage as the battle continued.

• Connors’s Destruction Light Spear scorched Norman’s teeth and tongue, but Norman tightened his bite and tried to tear Connors apart.
• Norman concentrated his nuclear energy in his mouth to counter and digest Connors’s energy torrent.
• The blue-white and ghostly green energies collided, creating a destructive sphere that boiled the surrounding seawater.
• The shockwave hurled Hulk into a volcanic rock wall and cracked his skin.
• Radiation and particle currents tore through Hulk’s body, forcing his healing factor to fight constant destruction and leaving dark-red burns spreading beneath his skin.

Norman endured the annihilating energy inside his mouth and recognized the Heart of Poseidon’s core origin within Dr. Connors. He tore a spacetime fragment containing that power from Dr. Connors and held it fast in his jaws despite the pain and danger.

• Norman sensed the Heart of Poseidon’s primordial origin seeping through a crack in Dr. Connors’s frozen body.
• Driven by his evolutionary instinct, Norman abandoned defense and used his jaws and claws to tear at Dr. Connors.
• Norman’s Death Spin and the erupting core energy shattered the spacetime structure sustaining Dr. Connors’s body.
• Norman ripped a blue, unstable spacetime fragment containing the Heart of Poseidon’s origin from Dr. Connors.
• Norman clamped the fragment in his mouth as its freezing energy reacted with his Nuclear Energy Blood and burned him further.