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Hulk waited.
Puny Banner screamed at him, demanded that he appear, but Hulk refused. The strange man, the magic man, had whispered in Hulk's ear as he flew through space on the wake of a rainbow.
If you appear, the magic man had said, Thanos will change his path, and there will be no hope of defeating him. He must not know that you are prepared to strike.
Hulk had shivered. Thanos stronger than Hulk.
The magic man had reassured him. My strength will be your strength, you will smash him with my magic and your fists combined, at the right moment, at the perfect moment. I will give you the signal, the words, these words....
And so Hulk had waited, and waited. He had watched as puny Banner fought in his metal suit, he had watched as everyone turned to dust and blew away. He had waited for the magic man to appear and say the words.
He would come soon, Hulk was sure of it. Thanos was here, confused, enraged, wounded: the left side of his face was a coruscating mass of blood and shattered bone. Banner was in the Titan's blind spot, silently begging for Hulk to appear. But not yet. Not yet...
Banner cowered on the last battlefield beside a flaming shrubbery – or person, he wasn't quite sure. Earth's remaining heroes (which somehow still included him) had gathered to make one final strike against Thanos, and it really looked as though they had failed. The sky shimmered purple overhead, and the air was thick with the smell of alien blood.
He clenched his tiny, pathetic human fists, and tears tracked down his face. Hulk had gone, had never emerged, and now everything was lost. He saw the ashes that had been his friends, the gore and bone that had been their allies, and he saw an impossible man, a dead man, leap out of nowhere, hovering over the battlefield, his red cape floating behind him.
It was Doctor Strange!
Banner felt something tickling his fingers. He looked down and saw tiny symbols, gold and green, glittering and sliding over his skin. He opened his mouth -
Doctor Strange shouted, "HOSTESS FRUIT PIES!"
Thanos had barely started to raise his remaining eyebrow when the magic-accelerated green fist struck and crushed the eyebrow, and the eye, and his entire head, into ruin.
Hulk SMASHED.