Hawk listened to the dead dial tone for a long moment, the silence in the taxi suddenly profound. Gwen was going into his apartment.
His mind, a finely tuned machine for threat assessment, immediately began to race. He wasn't worried, precisely. More... analytical. He ran a rapid, systematic inventory of his new home, searching for liabilities.
Inappropriate materials? None. He owned no posters, no magazines, no vices that required a physical form. He was too poor for such luxuries, and more importantly, too disciplined. In his younger years, when restless energy had demanded an outlet, his solution had been to go to the rooftop and punch the air until exhaustion claimed him.
Things unsuitable for Gwen to see, then? This was the more pertinent question. The five Chitauri energy weapons were the only real secret his apartment held. But they were wrapped tightly in the old, thick bedsheet from the previous tenant and tucked deep into the shadows under his bed. She was there to drop off an envelope, not to conduct a search. The probability of discovery was low. Acceptable.
Satisfied, he decided to let it be. His focus snapped back to the immediate, whimpering problem pressed against his dashboard. The gentleness that had been in his eyes while he spoke with Gwen vanished, replaced by a gaze as cold and empty as the void between stars.
The man in the driver's seat, whose mouth was still covered by Hawk's hand, looked up, his eyes wide with a primal, animal terror.
Hawk enjoyed that terror for a moment. The corners of his mouth curved into a beautiful, predatory smile.
"Now," he whispered, his voice a soft, chilling purr. "It's my turn to rob you."
Meanwhile, in Queens, Gwen put her phone back in her pocket and approached the fire escape on the side of Hawk's new apartment building. With the practiced ease of an athletic and determined young woman, she ascended the iron rungs, arriving at the top-floor window. A pair of worn, grey shorts—clearly converted from a pair of long pants—was hanging in front of the half-open window. She gently moved them aside and slipped through the opening into the apartment.
Her first impression was one of disciplined order. The living room wasn't large; a simple second-hand sofa and a folding table, upon which sat a laptop, occupied most of the space. But it was clean. Not spotless, but well-organized. There was no clutter, no personal knick-knacks, no decoration of any kind. It was the spartan, almost monastic living space of someone with zero attachments. It should have felt cold, but instead, it felt strangely comfortable, imbued with a sense of calm and control.
She took the envelope Dr. Connors had given her from her pocket, intending to place it on the folding table, when her gaze was drawn to the laptop's cover. It was adorned with several faded, sparkly stickers of cute animals. A laugh escaped her lips.
"Too cute," she murmured, her mind immediately picturing the transaction. A girl, probably around her age, had sold this laptop to Hawk. There was no other explanation. The idea of Hawk, the perennial iceberg, choosing to decorate his possessions with glittery bunnies was a physical impossibility. She also dismissed the idea that a girl might have given him the laptop. No one, she thought, understood his stubborn pride better than she did. He would never have accepted it.
She smiled to herself, placed the envelope on the table, and turned to leave. As she moved, the sleeve of her open jacket billowed out, creating a small gust of wind. The light paper envelope was caught in the vortex. It lifted from the table, fluttered unsteadily through the air, and drifted into the adjacent, open doorway of the bedroom, disappearing from sight.
With a small sigh, Gwen walked over. She found the envelope on the floor, having drifted almost completely under the bed. She knelt, reaching for it. As her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light in the under-bed shadows, her peripheral vision caught something strange. A faint, rhythmic, sickly green pulse of light, emanating from a large, cloth-wrapped bundle deep in the darkness. It was barely there, like a firefly seen through a thick blanket, but it was undeniably wrong.
What is that?
Just as her curiosity was piqued, her gaze shifted and was caught by something else, something far more personal. On the small, simple nightstand next to the bed sat a single, somewhat broken photo frame.
The photo inside was of a younger Hawk, perhaps fourteen, taken in the bright, chaotic heart of Times Square. He was smiling. It wasn't the small, wry, guarded smile she occasionally saw now. It was a wide, genuine, unburdened smile of pure happiness, the smile of a boy she had never known. And clinging to his arm, her own face alight with that same joyous energy, was a girl of the same age. She was pale, perhaps a little frail, but her eyes held the same light as his.
Gwen instinctively recognized the faded grey pants Hawk was wearing in the photo. They were the same ones she had just moved aside on the window ledge, the ones he'd worn for three years before finally converting them into shorts.
But who was the girl? Gwen frowned, her detective instincts kicking in. She saw the familial resemblance now, in the shape of their brows, the structure of their eyes. A sister? But Hawk's file, the one she had access to as a student assistant, listed no living relatives. He had never mentioned a sister. Ever.
A sad, logical conclusion settled in her heart. Passed away. It would explain everything. The walls he built around himself, the profound solitude, the refusal to form attachments. It was the grief of a boy left completely alone.
Feeling like an intruder, she gently placed the photo frame back on the nightstand, stood up, and walked out of the bedroom, her mind reeling with this new, tragic insight into his past. She was halfway across the living room when she stopped, slapping her forehead. The envelope.
She turned and walked back, kneeling by the bed again. The slight breeze she'd created when she stood up had pushed the envelope fully into the shadows. With another sigh, she extended her arm into the darkness, her fingers searching for the smooth paper.
She swept her hand through the dust bunnies, her fingertips finally brushing against the edge of the envelope. At the same time, they also made contact with the large, mysterious bundle.
The sensation was immediate and shocking. It wasn't the soft, yielding feel of folded cloth. It was hard. Unyielding. And colder than it should be.
It was the distinct, unmistakable feeling of metal.