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"What did you just say?"
"Uh, I don't know?"
"No, you just said the experiment succeeded with what?"
"A mouse with a severed tail. Didn't I tell you about that last time?" Hawk frowned, looking at Gwen's stunned expression. "What's wrong?"
Gwen didn't answer. Her brow was furrowed in thought.
A successful experiment.
A mouse with a severed tail.
For some reason, an image flashed in Gwen's mind: two months ago, after the lab accident, a small white mouse had escaped its cage and licked up the drops of blood Hawk had left on the floor.
If her memory served her correctly...
That mouse was missing its tail!
Hiss.
Gwen drew in a sharp breath. She glanced at Hawk, then pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed a number.
Sitting across from her, Hawk's eyebrows shot up.
A moment later, the call connected.
"Hello, Elsa."
"Gwen? Are you calling to ask what happened? I'm sorry, the company made us all sign NDAs."
"No, that's not it, Elsa. I wanted to ask... the Doctor's successful experiment, was it on a mouse with a severed tail?"
"Uh... yeah, it was."
Elsa, who was still at Oscorp having just signed her non-disclosure agreement, nodded on the other end of the line. "But you can't really call it a success. It only worked that one time. We've been trying to replicate it ever since, but we keep failing."
Gwen pressed on, her voice urgent.
"Was it the mouse that escaped its cage that day?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
I knew it.
Gwen thought to herself. She exchanged a few more pleasantries with Elsa and then hung up.
Hawk watched her, his curiosity piqued. "Was there something special about that mouse?"
Gwen put her phone away and looked at Hawk.
She considered her words carefully.
"Do you remember the accident in the lab?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"Your hand was injured. You were bleeding, right?"
"No."
Hawk shook his head without hesitation.
Gwen said nothing. She just stared at him.
Hawk met her gaze, held it for a moment, and then sighed. "Okay, fine. Let's say I was bleeding. Go on."
Gwen's stare was intense.
"The drops of blood you left on the floor... that mouse licked them up."
"..." Hawk's brow furrowed as he looked at Gwen.
Gwen looked right back at him.
Their eyes locked.
Hawk broke the gaze first, drawing in a slow breath. "You think the successful test subject... was the same mouse you saw that day?"
Gwen shrugged. "It's the only variable. Otherwise, why would the Doctor run so many animal trials, with only that one mouse surviving?"
She didn't understand the connection, not really.
But—
In her mind's eye, she saw it again: the image of a waterfall in the deep Maryland woods, raging in reverse, defying gravity.
And Hawk, standing at the center of it all, the cause of the impossible.
Hawk remained silent. He quietly set down the large soda cup he'd been holding and folded his hands on the table, leaning forward slightly.
He thought about what Peter had told him on the rooftop last night.
The Lizard has your scent...
At the time, Hawk had assumed it was just because Gwen had been near Dr. Connors.
But now, it seemed he was wrong.
The lab accident... he'd bled.
The escaped mouse with the severed tail had ingested his blood and become the sole survivor of an experiment that had killed every other subject.
Dr. Connors had then used that mouse to create a new serum.
And then...
Dr. Connors became the Lizard.
Hawk frowned, staring at Gwen, who was watching him with an unblinking gaze. He opened his mouth to speak, then just shook his head, a look of disbelief on his face.
"My blood can't be that special, can it?"
"There's one way to find out."
"What?"
"The School's Stark Hall has a blood analyzer. We could get the results in half an hour."
"..."
Stark Hall was the nickname for the School's Building Three, the experimental science wing donated by Howard Stark. Most of the equipment inside was state-of-the-art, also donated by Stark Industries.
That included the fully automated, rapid blood analysis machine—a device that looked like it cost a hundred thousand dollars but was actually worth over a million, complete with a gleaming Stark logo.
Hawk stuck his finger in his mouth. When he pulled it out, the small pinprick had already healed over.
Gwen had already booted up the machine.
It whirred to life.
As they waited, Gwen turned to him, her curiosity finally getting the better of her. "Are you... a mutant? Like Dr. Banner?"
She had wanted to ask for a long time. But she'd never had the chance.
Hawk met her curious gaze and let out a short, incredulous laugh. He shook his head. "I can guarantee you, I am one hundred percent, pure human."
He had just awakened his Cosmo...
That's all.
A mutant? He would never admit to that.
Mutation was a crutch for the weak.
He was strong because he had made himself strong. He had earned his power through a thousand days of relentless, back-breaking effort.
The sweat from a thousand days of ten thousand punches had finally watered the flower of his potential.
Hawk paused for a moment, then looked at Gwen and added, "I'm definitely not a mutant like the Spider-freak. And don't lump me in with Bruce Banner."
"..."
Gwen's eyes lit up, seizing on the key part of his statement. "The Spider-freak... you mean Spider-Man? He's a mutant, too?"
Hawk just blinked, then raised a hand to his mouth and mimed zipping his lips.
"My lips are sealed, Gwen."
"Fine, don't tell me. I'll figure it out myself."
Gwen rolled her eyes.
Just then.
Beep, beep, beep!
The half-hour analysis was complete. The machine chimed, signaling it was finished.
Gwen hurried over and took the printout from the machine.
Hawk leaned over her shoulder to look.
He saw it immediately.
Red blood cell count, white blood cell count, platelet count... every value was completely off the charts.
Hawk blinked.
The results... were about what he'd expected. The path of the Saint was the path of perfecting the self.
Gwen scanned the report, then took a deep breath and looked up at him. "Hawk... do you have any idea what would happen if the outside world ever found out about this?"
Hawk just smiled. He looked her straight in the eye. "Gwen."
"No one else is going to get a sample of my blood that easily."
"..."
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