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Peter remained silent.
Thor, on the other hand, was starting to feel awkward.
He had come here to stop Malekith, only to find that both the Dark Elf and Hawk—the man who had saved his girlfriend and now carried the Aether—were gone.
If he were here alone, it would be one thing.
But he was stuck with a stranger who seemed completely uninterested in conversation.
Thor wanted to leave.
But...
This was the focal point of the Convergence. He didn't know where Malekith and Hawk had gone, but if they had left from here, there was a good chance they would return here.
With that thought, an idea struck him. A broad grin spread across his face. "So, do you know Tony Stark? We fought together in New York."
Mr. Stark?
Peter's gaze shifted upward. "He's a billionaire."
Thor frowned.
"And...?"
"I'm just a kid from Queens. I know who he is, but he doesn't know me."
"..."
Thor drew in a sharp breath at the bluntness of the reply. Then his eyes lit up again. "What about the Hulk? You know the Hulk, right?"
The big green guy Hawk killed twice?
A strange expression formed under Peter's mask. He just nodded.
"I know him."
"Excellent!"
Thor beamed, snatched from the jaws of a social deep-freeze. He was just about to tell Peter that he and the Hulk were also good friends when three black Chevy SUVs pulled up behind them.
Natasha and Clint stepped out of the lead vehicle. They saw Thor and New York's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man standing amidst the ancient stones, exchanged a look, and walked over.
"Thor."
"Natasha!"
Thor turned, his face lighting up at the sight of his friends. He then turned back to the still-silent Peter. "See? Not only am I friends with the Hulk, but these are my friends, too. When your friend Hawk gets back, we should all get together."
Friends with the Hulk?
Get together with Hawk?
Peter's expression became even stranger.
Natasha, hearing Thor's cheerful suggestion, shot him a strange look. She lowered her voice. "Uh, Thor... the Hulk is dead."
Thor's smile froze.
He stared at her. "What? Dead? How?"
Natasha glanced at Peter—publicly, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, privately, Hawk's good friend, then turned back to Thor.
"The Hulk's battle with the Abomination was the cause of Hawk's sister's death. Late last year, after you left, Hawk found the Hulk and killed him."
Thor's jaw dropped and instinctively looked at Peter.
Peter just met his gaze and, after a moment, gave a slow, deliberate nod.
"..."
"So Bruce is dead?"
"Uh..."
Clint stepped in to bring him up to speed. "Not at first. Betty Ross tried to get revenge for her father by kidnapping Hawk's girlfriend. That plan went south, and Hawk killed her, too. Then Bruce Banner went after Hawk for revenge... and he died."
Clint paused, then, seeing the utterly lost look on Thor's face, added, "So, yeah. The Hulk and Bruce are both dead."
He and Natasha had just gotten back from Africa, so they knew all about Hawk's battle with the Demon Hulk on the savanna. They'd been in London for a debrief when S.H.I.E.L.D had notified them of Thor's appearance at Stonehenge.
Thor listened to Clint's debriefing, his mind reeling.
He had only been gone for a year. But it felt like a lifetime.
The Hulk is dead?
Just like that??
He shook his head, trying to process it all. He looked at Natasha. "So, who is this Hawk? What is he, the bastard son of some god?"
He had fought alongside the Hulk. He knew his power...
No mortal on Earth could have defeated him.
It had to be a demigod. After all, his father had told him stories of the old days, when the gods of the cosmos would often visit Earth for a "beautiful encounter" with mortal women.
He had done the same thing, hadn't he?
Natasha opened her mouth, about to explain that Hawk was, as far as they knew, just a man, when a violent, chaotic wave of energy erupted from the center of Stonehenge.
The next second, with a deafening roar, Hawk materialized in a flash of fire and magma from Muspelheim. He shot out of the portal like a meteor, slammed into the ground, and carved a kilometer-long trench of fire into the pristine grass.
At the end of the trench, he lay in a smoking heap, his Saint Armor cracked, shattered, and glowing with embers.
As for Malekith?
He had appeared with him, and he hadn't fared much better. The right side of his face was now as hideously scarred as the left.
But compared to Hawk, he was still standing.
"Child."
"Give me the Aether."
The last vestiges of Malekith's gentlemanly facade were gone, burned away in the fires of Muspelheim. The energy of the Convergence was reaching its peak. If he didn't use the Aether to plunge the Nine Realms into darkness now, he would have to wait another thousand years.
Hawk struggled to his feet, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead. He looked at the scarred, hate-filled face of the Dark Elf.
His answer was the same as before.
"You'll have to kill me first."
"Fine. I will accommodate you!"
Malekith's ruined face twisted into a sneer. He raised his right hand, and the Aether pulsed within it like a dark, beating heart.
Nearby, Thor snapped out of his shock.
"MALEKITH!"
He gripped Mjølnir and with a roar, he leaped into the air, bringing the hammer down in a devastating arc, aiming to perform an impromptu craniotomy on the Dark Elf.
But just as he was about to strike, Hawk threw a punch.
Not at Malekith, but at Thor.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
"..." Malekith froze.
"..." Peter froze.
"..." Natasha and Clint froze.
And Thor, who had been sent tumbling to the ground, the afterimages of a dozen fists still shimmering on his armor, stared at Hawk in disbelief. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??"
Hawk's face twisted into cold rage. He locked eyes with Malekith, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
"He's mine..."
"You want a shot? Get in line!"
He had fought this long. He wasn't about to let someone else steal his kill.
With that, he shot a final dismissive glance at Thor, then stomped his foot, shattering the ground, and charged at Malekith once more.
"Let's finish this!"
"Heh, you rush to your own death."
Malekith sneered, his eyes blazing with a cold, murderous light. He met Hawk's charge with a fist wreathed in the dark, swirling energy of the Aether. The instant their fists collided, Malekith rewrote the very laws of physics, turning the air around Hawk as dense as diamond.
In that instant of slowed time, Malekith's Aether-infused fist slammed into the chestplate of Hawk's Saint Armor.
CRACK!
A sharp and clear sound—like shattering glass—echoed across the battlefield.
Ptui!
Hawk's face went flush, and he coughed up a spray of blood.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
He was thrown backward, the upper half of his Saint Armor disintegrating, its golden fragments falling to the ground like dead fireflies.
Malekith had used the Aether to change his armor's property from 'Indestructible' to 'brittle as glass.'
A True Gold Cloth would have been immune—
—Forged in the heart of a sun, its golden sheen embodied the very light of a star. Even if Malekith had drained himself completely, he still could not have affected it.
But Hawk's armor??
It might have looked golden, but its essence was still Bronze.
And so... It shattered.
Hawk landed on his feet, his body a canvas of raw, bleeding wounds. The pain was immense—a chorus of agony screaming through his mind.
Thump.
Thump.
He could feel his own heart slowing, each beat a struggle.
It reminded him of the bottom of Culver Lake, of the moment the Hulk had nearly beaten him into his first rebirth...
But that had been a near-miss.
This was the real thing.
Deep within his Cosmo, the spectral image of the Phoenix appeared, its wings spread wide, wreathed in a silent, eternal flame.
The rebirth sequence had been initiated.
But...
Where's the enlightenment that's supposed to come on the edge of life and death?
I'm about to die. Where is the Sixth Sense?
He felt no fear of death.
Perhaps because he knew, deep down, that this wasn't truly the end.
With his last ounce of strength, he looked up at Malekith, his vision blurred by blood, and sighed.
Peter, watching from a distance, felt his heart skip a beat.
The next second, as Malekith and the others watched, Hawk's eyes closed.
And then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next—
Something changed...
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