Gwen stared at Hawk, her mind racing, processing his words with the speed of a supercomputer. Breakthrough... happy... severed tail...
"What did you just say?" she asked, her voice sharp, cutting through the cafeteria noise.
"Uh… I don't know?" Hawk replied, confused by her sudden intensity.
"No," she insisted, leaning forward, her eyes locked onto his. "What did you say Dr. Connors used? The mouse?"
"A little white mouse with a broken tail," Hawk repeated slowly, frowning. "Didn't I mention that on the phone?" He watched her expression shift from confusion to dawning horror. "Gwen? What's wrong?"
She didn't answer. Her mind flashed back to the chaotic moments after the lab accident two months ago. The darkness, the explosion, the injured researcher. And something else. A small, white lab mouse, scurrying out from under the wreckage, its tail clearly broken… licking at the few drops of dark blood that had fallen onto the white floor. Hawk's blood.
Hiss. A sharp breath hissed through her teeth. It couldn't be. It was too improbable, too… comic-book. But the pieces fit with a terrifying, undeniable logic.
She needed confirmation. Without a word to Hawk, she pulled out her phone, her fingers flying across the screen, dialing a number from memory.
Hawk watched her, his eyebrows raised, sensing the sudden shift in the atmosphere.
The call connected. "Hello, Elsa?" Gwen's voice was calm, controlled, masking the turmoil within.
"Gwen?" Elsa's voice on the other end was cautious, wary. "Are you calling about… you know? Sorry, Oscorp made us all sign NDAs this morning."
"No, Elsa, it's not about that," Gwen lied smoothly. "I just needed to confirm something for my own notes. The successful regeneration… it was on the mouse with the broken tail, right?"
There was a pause. "…Yes," Elsa finally confirmed, her voice still hesitant. "But you can't really call it a success. It only happened once. We haven't been able to replicate it. We don't even know why it worked."
Gwen pressed on, her heart pounding. "And it was the same mouse? The one that escaped during the accident?"
"…Yes. That one."
Bingo. Gwen's mind screamed. She thanked Elsa calmly, exchanged a few more pleasantries, and hung up.
Hawk watched her put the phone away, his expression carefully neutral, though his internal alert level was now at maximum. "Is there something different about that mouse?"
Gwen met his gaze, her own eyes filled with a mixture of awe, fear, and intense scientific curiosity. She took a deep breath. "Do you remember the lab accident? When the centrifuge blew?"
"I remember."
"Your hand," she stated, not a question. "It was injured. Bleeding."
"No," Hawk denied instantly, reflexively.
Gwen didn't argue. She just held his gaze, her blue eyes unwavering, silently calling him out on the lie.
He met her stare for a long moment, then sighed, breaking eye contact. "Okay. Let's say, hypothetically, it was. Continue."
"Those few drops of blood you left on the floor," she said, her voice low and steady. "They were licked up by the mouse with the broken tail."
Silence descended between them, thick and heavy. Hawk frowned, processing her words, connecting them to the other anomalies, the other impossible facts.
Gwen watched him, waiting.
Finally, he looked back at her, his voice tight. "You suspect… that the only successful mouse… was the one that ingested my blood?"
Gwen shrugged, the gesture conveying a grim certainty. "It's the only uncontrolled variable, Hawk. Why else would dozens of identical experiments fail, only for that one specific mouse to not only survive but achieve perfect regeneration?" Her mind flashed again to the impossible sight of the inverted waterfall. To the bear, killed with a single blow. The evidence was circumstantial, but overwhelming.
Hawk didn't speak. He silently pushed his half-empty soda aside, clasped his hands on the table, and leaned forward, his gaze intense. He remembered Peter's words from the rooftop. The Lizard monster had your aura on him. He had dismissed it, explained it away through indirect contact via Gwen. But now…
The accident. The blood. The mouse. The serum derived from that mouse. Connors injecting himself.
The chain of causality was horrifyingly clear. The faint trace of his aura on the Lizard hadn't come from Gwen. It had come directly from him, passed through the blood, through the mouse, into the serum, and finally into Connors himself.
He shook his head, the implication almost too absurd to accept. "My blood… it shouldn't be that exaggerated, should it?"
"There's one way to find out," Gwen said, her voice regaining its scientific focus.
"What?"
"The Stark Building. Building Three. It has a state-of-the-art blood analyzer. Donated by Stark Industries, obviously. We can get a full panel, results in thirty minutes."
They walked into the deserted, high-tech lab in the Stark Building, the air humming with the quiet power of advanced machinery. The centerpiece was a sleek, chrome device bearing the Stark Industries logo—a rapid blood analyzer that looked like it belonged on a starship.
"Okay," Gwen said, powering up the machine. "I need a sample."
Hawk looked at the sterile lancet she held out. He simply raised his right thumb to his mouth and bit down, hard enough to draw a single, bright drop of blood. He held it over the machine's intake port.
Gwen watched, fascinated, as the tiny wound on his thumb visibly sealed itself closed in less than a second, leaving no trace it had ever existed.
The machine whirred to life, drawing in the sample. As they waited, the silence in the lab felt charged. Gwen finally broke it, asking the question that had been burning in her mind since Maryland.
"Hawk… did you mutate? Like Dr. Banner?"
He met her curious gaze and let out a soft laugh, shaking his head. "I can assure you, Gwen. I am one hundred percent pure human." Just… enhanced. "I awakened something," he admitted, choosing his words carefully. "But it wasn't an accident. It wasn't radiation. It was… earned." He wouldn't, couldn't, explain the Cosmo. But he refused to be categorized with the Hulk, a creature born of chaos and tragedy. His power was the result of will, of discipline, of a thousand days of deliberate suffering.
He paused, then added with a wry smile, "And whatever I am, I'm definitely not a mutant like Spider-Woman. And please, don't compare me to Banner. He's not worthy."
Gwen's heart skipped a beat, catching the deliberate slip. "Spider-Woman? You mean Spider-Man? He's a mutant?"
Hawk blinked, realizing his mistake, then grinned and made a zipping motion across his lips. "My point is, I'm not revealing his identity, Gwen."
"If you won't tell me, I'll find out myself," she retorted, rolling her eyes, though her mind was already furiously sifting through the list of potential candidates.
Beep beep beep!
The analyzer chimed, interrupting their verbal sparring. A small report slid out from a slot. Gwen snatched it up, her eyes scanning the results. Hawk leaned over her shoulder.
Red blood cell count. White blood cells. Platelets. Hemoglobin. Every single value was off the charts, exceeding maximum human parameters by factors that were biologically impossible.
Hawk blinked. Well, he thought. That makes sense. A Saint's body was a temple forged for cosmic power.
Gwen, however, looked utterly stunned. She took a deep breath, her scientific mind struggling to comprehend the data. She looked up at Hawk, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and profound fear. "Hawk… do you have any idea what would happen if anyone else saw this? If the government, if Oscorp, if anyone found out what's running through your veins?"
Hawk met her terrified gaze with a calm, unwavering smile. He gently took the report from her trembling hand.
"Gwen," he said softly, his voice holding a certainty that was both reassuring and chilling. "Others won't be able to collect my blood so easily."