Hawk's answer was instantaneous. Unhesitating. Absolute. "Of course."
On the other end of the line, he heard Gwen's sharp intake of breath, followed by a soft, happy sigh. Her voice, when she spoke again, seemed brighter, clearer, imbued with a new, joyful energy. They talked for a few more minutes, the conversation drifting through mundane topics, but now underscored by a shared, unspoken understanding. Finally, reluctantly, they hung up.
Hawk sat on the edge of his bed, the silence of the room amplifying the echo of her voice in his mind. He looked down at the phone, then at his own reflection in the dark screen. Gwen Stacy. My girlfriend. The thought was still a fragile, unbelievable thing.
He knew why he had kept his feelings buried for so long, why he had maintained his icy distance since ninth grade. The old Hawk, the orphan fighting for scraps, the boy whose future was a terrifying blank slate—he wasn't qualified. He had nothing to offer her but his own struggles, his own solitude.
But the new Hawk… the Hawk forged in the crucible of a thousand days, the Hawk whose veins now pulsed with the power of a nascent cosmos… he was different. He had power. He had potential. He had, finally, earned the right to reach for something more than mere survival.
But qualification was not a static state. It had to be maintained. Defended. His current strength was formidable, yes, but the Marvel Universe was a place where gods walked the earth and cosmic entities decided the fate of galaxies. His power was a flickering candle in a hurricane. Complacency was death. The curtain had risen on the main act, and he felt a profound, driving sense of urgency.
He stood up, the warmth of his conversation with Gwen fading, replaced by the cold, hard discipline that had become his bedrock. He headed for the rooftop.
Under the vast, indifferent expanse of the night sky, Hawk began his ritual. The heavy sandbag, salvaged from the ruins of his old life and now hanging from a sturdy clothesline pole, swayed gently under his controlled assault. He wasn't just punching anymore. He wasn't training his muscles. He was training his mind, his soul.
With each rhythmic strike, he sought to quiet the noise of the world, to sink into the deep, meditative state where the boundaries of the physical self dissolved. He was searching. Reaching into the endless, internal darkness for that elusive spark, that higher plane of perception the Saints called the Sixth Sense. He knew it was there, a potentiality woven into the fabric of his awakened Cosmo, but it remained frustratingly out of reach, like trying to grasp a single grain of rice in an infinite void.
His eyes were vacant, his consciousness adrift, when the distant sounds began to filter through his meditative trance. Faint at first, then growing louder. Screams. The shriek of twisting metal. Panicked shouts carried on the night wind.
His focus snapped back instantly. The internal search was abandoned as his external senses flared to life. He turned, his gaze instinctively locking onto the source of the chaos: the Williamsburg Bridge, several kilometers away, spanning the dark expanse of the East River.
His vision shifted. The city lights blurred, space itself seeming to contract before his eyes. In the space of a heartbeat, the distant bridge leaped into sharp, impossible focus, as if he were standing right beside it.
It was a scene of pure pandemonium. Cars were overturned, some already burning. People were abandoning their vehicles, screaming and running blindly, caught in a desperate stampede. And moving through the wreckage, the cause of the terror, was a monster.
Massive, reptilian, covered in thick, grey-green scales. Its head was a grotesque fusion of lizard and man, its eyes glowing with a feral, yellow light. It moved with terrifying speed and power, leaping across the tops of cars, its long, powerful tail whipping out, hooking onto vehicles and effortlessly flinging them aside like toys. It seemed to be searching for something amidst the chaos.
Hawk's eyes narrowed. This is… Lizard? Dr. Connors?
The pieces clicked into place with a grim, ironic finality. The manic energy in Connors's voice on the phone. The "miracle mouse." The military funding cut. The pressure from Oscorp. It had all culminated in this. He had taken the final, desperate gamble.
And in that instant, another, far more personal realization hit Hawk with the force of a physical blow. My recommendation letter.
He had held in his hands a golden ticket, a key to the future he had once dreamed of. Now, thanks to Dr. Connors's transformation into a rampaging reptilian monster, that letter wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. NYU might overlook a lot for a promising candidate, but they drew the line at recommendations from wanted supervillains. The value of his hard-earned letter had just plummeted faster than any stock market crash in history.
He watched as the Lizard finally found its target. An Oscorp executive, impeccably dressed in a suit, was dragged screaming from his car by the creature's tail. The man clutched a briefcase, his face a mask of pure terror.
"You—" the man started to plead.
But the Lizard wasn't interested in conversation. A massive, clawed hand snatched the briefcase. Then, with a flick of its powerful tail, it sent the man flying through the air like a rag doll. He slammed against the bridge's steel railing with sickening force. A split second later, a snapped suspension cable, whipping through the air like a razor wire, sliced clean through the man's waist. His severed torso tumbled into the dark river below, leaving a spray of blood hanging in the night air.
Just as the Lizard seemed ready to make its escape, a flash of red and blue swung into view.
Spider-Man.
Peter Parker, clad in his homemade suit, launched himself from a web line, bringing both feet together in a powerful dropkick that slammed squarely into the Lizard's back. The creature stumbled, roaring in surprise and pain. It spun around, its massive jaws opening, its forked tongue flicking out as it faced the new arrival now clinging acrobatically to the roof of a car.
Peter didn't hesitate. THWIP! A strand of webbing shot from his wrist, slapping onto the briefcase in the Lizard's clawed hand. He yanked.
Enraged at the attempt to steal its prize, the Lizard let out another furious roar. Its tail became a weapon, grabbing nearby cars and hurling them, one after another, at the agile Spider-Man.
The battle erupted, a chaotic dance of webs, claws, and flying automobiles on the wreckage-strewn bridge.
Hawk watched, fascinated. Then, he remembered. His training. He hadn't finished.
He immediately turned back to the sandbag. His body became a blur, an explosion of motion. Countless phantom punches, moving faster than the eye could follow, rained down on the bag in a silent, thirty-second storm. He wasn't aiming for power, just completion. The ritual had to be finished.
Ten thousand punches. Done.
He breathed a sigh of relief and turned back towards the bridge, eager to watch the rest of the show without any nagging sense of incompletion.
But…
"Where'd they go?"
The bridge was still chaos, but the two combatants were gone. He scanned the area, his enhanced vision piercing the darkness. Then he saw it. A dark shape, moving with incredible speed beneath the surface of the East River, heading north. The Lizard was escaping underwater.
He watched Peter swing frantically along the riverbank, trying to keep pace, but the creature's aquatic speed was too great. Near Roosevelt Island, Peter finally lost the trail, landing on the rooftop of a tall building, his masked form silhouetted against the city lights as he stared down at the dark water in frustration.
Just as Peter was about to swing away, his head snapped up, his Spider-Sense clearly alerting him to an unseen observer. He scanned the nearby rooftops.
Hawk, standing on the roof of a ten-story building across the water, offered a small, knowing smile and gave a casual wave to the figure in the red and blue suit.