Evening settled over Queens, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. On the rooftop of his new apartment, Hawk leaned against a cool ventilation pipe, the day's ten thousand punches complete. He took a long, satisfying gulp from a can of Coke, the cold carbonation a sharp, pleasant sting.
He set the can aside and, as if recalling something, opened his right palm, turning it over in the fading light. He looked at the spot where, just that morning, there had been a patch of unnaturally new-looking skin.
It was gone. The flesh was flawless, unmarred, bearing no trace of the jagged piece of shrapnel that had pierced it.
His awakened Cosmo had transformed him into something far beyond the realm of mortals. Without even consciously burning his inner universe, his base physical attributes were staggering. His strength could treat concrete and steel like clay. His speed, if he wished it, could break the sound barrier. And his physique… his durability was immense, but it was his regenerative ability that was truly profound. His body was a self-repairing engine, capable of healing from wounds that would kill an ordinary man in a fraction of the time. The incident in the lab was a perfect testament to that.
If he hadn't acted, that piece of the centrifuge would have killed Gwen instantly. He knew that with an absolute certainty. But that wasn't what troubled him. He rubbed the center of his palm, the phantom ache of the impact a distant memory. What troubled him was the instinct. For years, his every action had been governed by a single, ruthless principle: self-preservation. Yet, in that moment of chaos, without a shred of conscious thought, he had placed himself in harm's way for someone else. It was a new, unfamiliar, and deeply unsettling impulse.
A sharp, electronic ringing cut through his thoughts, a jarringly alien sound in his quiet world. He looked over at the phone Gwen had given him, its screen lighting up for the first time since he'd activated the SIM card.
He answered. "Hello?"
A muffled voice on the other end. "…Yes, it's me. You're here?" he replied, his tone all business. "Okay. I'll be right there."
He hung up. His computer had arrived.
With a silent whoosh, he vanished from his seated position, reappearing by the fire escape in a blur of motion. He slipped back into his apartment through the window, opened his backpack, and counted out five hundred dollars in crisp bills.
Ten minutes later, he stood at the entrance of Queensboro Bridge Park. The park was deserted at this hour, cast in the long shadows of the twilight. He pulled out his phone, found the only number in his call history, and dialed.
Across the street, the headlights of a parked, beat-up van flickered twice.
Hawk's eyes narrowed. He walked towards it. The driver's side door opened, and a young woman stepped out. She looked no more than twenty, with thick brown hair and sharp, intelligent eyes that seemed to take in everything at once. She waved her phone at him in greeting.
Hawk's eyebrow raised in recognition. Skye. The future Quake.
"Ad said 'delivery faster than a speeding bullet'," she said, her voice a mix of street-smart confidence and playful challenge. "Guess that's you?"
"Yes," Hawk nodded, his expression unreadable.
"Cool." She didn't waste any more time, reaching into her van and pulling out a used laptop. "As described in the chat. Three years old, ninety percent new, fresh OS install. Check it. If it's good, you pay."
He took the machine from her. In a normal transaction, he might have waived the inspection, but this was a five-hundred-dollar investment. He methodically booted it up, checking the specs and running a few diagnostic programs. The absurdity of the situation was not lost on him. He was buying a used laptop, described in the online ad with the faintly absurd phrase "a beautiful woman's own," from a woman who would one day have the power to level cities with a gesture.
Everything checked out. He closed the laptop and handed over the five hundred dollars. Skye took the five Franklin bills, fanning them out and checking them with a practiced eye. Satisfied, she pocketed the money and extended her hand.
"Pleasure doing business," she said with a grin.
"Pleasure doing business," Hawk replied, shaking her hand. Theirs was a transaction of the fringe, no small talk necessary.
She gave a short nod, got back into her van—which he now saw was a fully equipped mobile command center—and drove off into the night.
Back in his spartan apartment, Hawk placed his new acquisitions on the small folding table. The "beautiful woman's own" used laptop, bought from Skye. And the "beautiful woman's own" used phone, given by Gwen. He looked at the two devices, a fleeting, wry thought passing through his mind. Gwen is still better. He frowned, shaking the intrusive thought away.
He connected the laptop to the phone's hotspot. It was time to get to work.
His target: Quantico.
He pulled up a satellite map webpage, zeroing in on the coordinates of the massive military base in Virginia. Much of it was censored, blurred out for security reasons, but that didn't matter. He was looking for something old, something abandoned. He spent half an hour cross-referencing declassified reports, old news articles, and the frantic blog posts of Hulk-spotting enthusiasts from 2009.
And then he found it. On the outskirts of the main base, a single, dilapidated building surrounded by a high fence of corrugated iron, marked on the map as a hazardous material containment site. Bruce Banner's old gamma lab.
He leaned back, his hand resting on his chin as he stared at the screen. The path was clear, and it led directly over a line he had sworn to himself he would not cross. His moral bottom line. He would have to break it ahead of schedule.
He had no money to bribe his way in, and even if he did, the US military was not in the business of selling its most dangerous secrets. But he needed what was inside that building. It was the key to his Saint Cloth, the key to his ultimate survival. The logic was as simple as it was brutal.
If they won't give it, he would have to take it.
He considered the risks. Stealing from Quantico was not the same as his theoretical plan for Wakanda. His strategy for the Vibranium was one of geopolitical chaos. By exposing Wakanda's secret wealth, he would ignite the greed of the world's superpowers. The UN, the Security Council, every major nation would descend upon the small African country, demanding access. The resulting global firestorm would provide the perfect cover for his own acquisition. He would be the spark, and the world's greed would be the forest fire that hid his tracks.
But stealing from Quantico… that was a different beast entirely. It was a direct assault on the United States military on its own soil. There would be no cover, no one else to blame. The full, terrifying, and technologically advanced weight of the US intelligence apparatus would come down on him and him alone.
He stared at the grainy satellite image of the abandoned lab, the prize and the trap. His eyes flickered. The fear of the consequences warred with the absolute necessity of the mission.
The fear lost. A cold, burning determination settled in its place.
The gamma stone. He must have it.