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Hawk listened to the dial tone for a moment, then pocketed his phone.
The next second, his mind was racing.
He wasn't worried about Gwen being in his apartment. He was worried about what she might find. He quickly ran a mental checklist of anything embarrassing or incriminating.
Embarrassing?
Nope.
He didn't own any posters, let alone magazines or videos.
He was too broke.
In his younger years, when he had too much energy, he would just go up to the roof and punch the air until he was too exhausted to think, then go back inside and sleep.
Incriminating?
He didn't think so.
The five Chitauri weapons were wrapped tightly in a bedsheet and shoved all the way under his bed.
She probably wouldn't find them.
So—
Whatever. Let her.
Time to deal with the problem at hand.
With that thought, Hawk's focus returned to the present. The warmth in his eyes from his conversation with Gwen vanished, replaced by a chillingly cold indifference.
The young driver, his mouth still covered, stared at Hawk with wide, terrified eyes.
Hawk savored the fear in the man's gaze. A slow, handsome smile spread across his face.
"Now..."
"It's my turn to rob you."
"..."
...
After hanging up, Gwen put her phone away and walked over to the fire escape on the side of Hawk's building. She climbed effortlessly to the top floor.
She pushed aside the pair of shorts that had been hanging in the half-open window—shorts that, on closer inspection, looked like they had once been a pair of sweatpants—and slipped inside.
She looked around.
The living room was small. A secondhand sofa and a folding table with a laptop on it took up two-thirds of the space.
But it was clean.
Not spotless, but neat and orderly.
Gwen's first impression of the place was that it was... comfortable.
She had never been to Hawk's old apartment, and this was the first time she'd seen his new one.
But as she pulled Dr. Connors' envelope from her pocket and set it on the folding table, her gaze was drawn to the closed laptop.
It wasn't that she was surprised he owned a computer.
It was...
The stickers on the lid.
"Are these..."
"Unicorns?"
Gwen couldn't help but laugh, looking at the cutesy, girly stickers plastered all over the laptop. She wondered which of his female friends had sold him the computer.
It never even crossed her mind that Hawk might have put the stickers on himself, or that a girl might have given him the laptop as a gift.
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
No one knew Hawk better than she did.
She had no doubt that if she had tried to talk to him after giving him the phone, he would have just handed it right back to her.
That was why she had deliberately avoided him for the past few weeks.
With that thought, Gwen's eyes returned to the envelope on the table. She turned to leave.
But as she turned, the sleeve of her open jacket caught the air, creating a small gust of wind that lifted the envelope from the table.
It fluttered through the air and drifted into the adjacent bedroom.
Gwen sighed and walked into the room. She bent down to pick up the envelope, which had landed just short of the bed. As she stood up, a faint, greenish light pulsing from under the bed caught her eye.
She froze.
Her eyes darted to the space under the bed.
She could just make out the shape of a large, tightly wrapped bundle.
The bedsheet it was wrapped in was clearly cheap.
It wasn't opaque.
A faint, greenish light was pulsing from within, like a slow, rhythmic breath.
The light was dim.
Even in the daylight, she wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't caught it out of the corner of her eye.
What is that?
Gwen crouched down, peering under the bed, her brow furrowed in curiosity.
Just as she was about to stand back up, her gaze shifted. She saw a cracked picture frame on the nightstand.
Inside the frame was a photograph.
The background was Times Square. The subjects were a boy and a girl, both looking to be about fourteen years old, their clothes slightly faded and worn.
The boy, Gwen recognized.
It was Hawk.
He was smiling. A wide, genuinely happy smile.
Gwen couldn't remember ever seeing him smile like that.
But the girl?
Gwen's frown deepened. She put the envelope down and picked up the photograph.
The picture must have been taken when Hawk was fourteen, not long after he started at Midtown.
Gwen was sure of the date.
She recognized the pants Hawk was wearing in the photo.
They were the same ones she had just been mentally teasing him about—the ones he had worn for three years, and when they got too short, had cut into shorts instead of throwing them away.
The very same shorts that were still hanging in his window.
But who was the girl?
Gwen studied the photo, her eyes drawn to the girl with the pale complexion, who was also smiling happily, her arms linked tightly with Hawk's.
His sister?
He's never mentioned a sister.
Gwen saw the subtle family resemblance in their features.
She racked her brain. Hawk had never, ever mentioned her.
Is she gone?
Gwen thought of the most likely reason for his silence. She gently placed the picture frame back on the nightstand, stood up, and walked out of the room.
As she reached the living room, she stopped, slapping her forehead.
She had forgotten the envelope.
"Huh?"
"Where'd it go?"
Gwen walked back into the bedroom, confused. The envelope was no longer on the floor where she'd left it. Then, she realized what must have happened. She crouched down again.
Sure enough.
The envelope had slid under the bed, probably blown there by the breeze when she rose.
Gwen sighed, reached under the bed, and felt around for it.
Soon.
Her fingertips brushed against the edge of the envelope.
And at the same time...
They brushed against the tightly wrapped bedsheet.
The moment her fingers made contact, she felt it. A cold, hard sensation, like touching metal, shot from her fingertips to her brain.
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