"Cough... cough, cough!"
Just as Yang Ming was figuring out how to squeeze every last drop of potential out of Dave, Dave suddenly broke into a violent coughing fit on the ground.
His eyes flew open, and he gulped down air like a fish that had just been tossed back into the water.
"Mortal, you're awake?"
Thor immediately dropped to one knee beside Dave. His usually arrogant face now held a rare warmth and respect.
Dave looked around blankly.
There were no white hospital walls, no pungent smell of disinfectant.
He was still lying in that filthy alley.
Instinctively, he touched his chest.
It didn't hurt?
The baseball bat had broken his ribs. He remembered the suffocating sensation of them piercing his lungs perfectly. Yet now, aside from a huge hole in his wetsuit, there wasn't even a bruise on his chest!
"I... I'm not dead?" Dave's eyes widened, his voice trembling.
"With my boss around, he could drag you back even if you had one foot in the grave." Jessica stood over him with her arms crossed and snorted.
"You've got some nerve, though, kid. Dressing up like that and going out to play vigilante?"
Dave looked up toward her voice.
He saw Jessica in her short black dress with its plunging neckline, the bare-chested, heavily muscled Thor, and Retsu Unohana, gentle as water in her dark green cheongsam.
Finally, his gaze settled on Yang Ming, standing beneath the streetlight in casual clothes and gold-rimmed glasses.
At first, Dave only thought they looked vaguely familiar.
But when he saw Yang Ming's habitual gesture of adjusting his glasses, along with Jessica's unabashedly fierce presence...
Dave's pupils contracted sharply!
The live broadcast from Harlem he had watched on television a few days earlier flashed through his mind.
*That woman in the