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The baptismal ceremony ending didn't mean the christening was over.
There was still a communion meal the church had prepared for the attending guests.
Hawk, of course, sat at the head of the table.
And during the pre-meal prayer, it was Hawk who led the congregation.
"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name."
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven."
"...forever and ever."
"Amen."
"Amen."
Gwen, Peter, Felicia, Aunt May, and the other guests followed in unison.
As Peter bowed his head and murmured "Amen," his eyes cut sideways toward Hawk.
Hawk's expression was solemn. Reverent. He looked more devout than any true believer.
That would have been convincing—if Hawk hadn't just whispered in Peter's ear that he'd killed God.
Sure, Hawk had followed up by saying he was kidding.
But—
Peter's spider-sense told him Hawk hadn't been joking.
And he had sensed something strange earlier. Just for a split second—a flash of something his spider-sense had caught before his hair could even stand on end. Then it vanished.
Peter's mind churned. He desperately wanted to ask Hawk what had really happened.
But the timing was wrong.
This was a church. Asking Hawk here whether he'd actually chopped up God seemed... incredibly inappropriate.
So—
The moment the communion ended and Aunt May and Felicia went to see off the departing guests, Peter grabbed Hawk and dragged him to the cemetery behind the church.
Hawk didn't resist.
After all, his sister's grave was here. And because he lived right next door in the Palm Street community, the area around Anya's headstone was always immaculately maintained.
Hawk crouched down, his fingers tracing the photograph of his sister on the headstone. Then his consciousness dipped into his Cosmo, where he saw Anya—surrounded by Blood Elf Kayla and several other Blood Elves—touring the Blazing Prison.
"Wonder how that Merrick clone is doing with the replication experiments."
The real Dr. Merrick was suffering in the Frozen Prison.
But cloning wasn't a skill only Merrick possessed. His clone knew how to do it too.
Back when the real Merrick had wanted to fool S.H.I.E.L.D. into thinking he'd been captured, he'd transferred all his memories to his clone.
So theoretically, his clone was equally capable.
But Hawk didn't like surprises.
Especially when it came to his sister. So the Merrick clone was currently conducting replication experiments under S.H.I.E.L.D. supervision.
Dr. Helen Cho was also involved, providing technical support to ensure nothing went wrong.
Once S.H.I.E.L.D. confirmed the cloning process was viable, the next step would be opening his sister's coffin, extracting her DNA, and bringing her back.
So—
It shouldn't be much longer before Anya could truly return to the land of the living.
Hawk thought this to himself, withdrew his hand, and stood. He turned to face Peter, who had dragged him out here.
"What's up?"
"..."
Peter had been waiting. Now, watching Hawk turn around with that preemptive smile, his expression blanked for a moment. His lips twitched. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
Hawk made a sound of acknowledgment. He didn't hide anything from Peter—just laid out how God's projection had descended and tried to recruit him as an Archangel.
Peter listened with mounting disbelief.
He was curious about something.
"You refused?"
"Obviously."
"Why?"
"Because God doesn't have a beard."
"God doesn't have a bea—" Peter's eyes went wide. His volume spiked instinctively, but he caught himself and looked at Hawk. "That's impossible."
Hawk smiled, then gave Peter the abbreviated version of Dr. Merrick's scheme—how Merrick had cloned Hawk's body en masse under God's orders, attempting to replace quality with quantity and completely overwrite Hawk's soul.
Peter was even more shocked and incredulous after hearing this.
But not because he doubted Hawk.
Rather—
Peter thought about how devoutly Hawk had just called upon God, honored God. He looked at Hawk with genuine confusion.
"Then why were you so... reverent just now?"
"What about it?"
"God tried to—"
"Oh."
Hawk didn't let Peter finish. He already knew what Peter wanted to say. He waved his hand dismissively.
"Believing in God and killing God are two separate things."
"Who says believing in God means you can't chop him up?"
"Besides."
"God is God. Yahweh is Yahweh."
"Once I kill Yahweh, I'll be the new God."
"At that point, believing in God means believing in myself."
"So why wouldn't I believe in God?"
When the time came, killing God wouldn't affect Earth in the slightest. As long as Hawk kept quiet about it, the Vatican probably wouldn't even realize their object of worship had changed hands.
Not that Hawk would bother informing the Vatican. He wasn't about to announce that their Lord and Master had switched from Yahweh to Hawk.
One sentence summed it up.
Dimensions needed faith.
He—Hawk—Phoenix Cloth Saint, Lord of the Phoenix Parallel Universe—needed no one's faith.
Faith was poison, same as incense offerings.
Just look at La Magra.
He'd played the faith game with his Blood Clan. And he'd lost. The moment Deacon Frost died—the last person who knew his divine name—La Magra met his final fate.
...
After finishing, Hawk looked at Peter's gaping mouth, raised an eyebrow, and clapped him on the shoulder with a smile. "Keep this to yourself. You don't want the roughly 2.4 billion believers worldwide to have an existential crisis when they learn the truth."
With that.
He patted Peter's shoulder once more, then walked toward Gwen, who had come looking for him through the back door.
Gwen watched Hawk approach, then glanced at Peter—who had turned away, expression somewhat dazed. She looked at Hawk curiously.
"What were you two talking about?"
"God."
"Oh. Was he curious why you're going to kill God but were so devout just now?"
"Mm." Hawk nodded, looking at Gwen. "How'd you know?"
Gwen smiled faintly. "Because I was pretty curious too."
Hawk shrugged.
"Render unto God the things that are God's. Render unto Yahweh the things that are Yahweh's."
"And besides—"
"I came up through the church choir. Of course I'm devout."
Hawk said this casually, his thoughts drifting to childhood days with his sister in the church. He glanced at Gwen. "After all, if you didn't act pious back then, you went hungry."
Gwen heard this. She pressed her lips together and pulled Hawk into a hug.
Hawk hugged her back.
Half an hour later.
Church entrance.
Gwen was cooing at Little Ben—who sat in his stroller, clutching his golden cross and giggling—while chatting with Felicia. "I've reviewed the personnel files you sent over. I picked out a few and forwarded them to your email. Those four should be enough for now. We can add more later if needed."
During Gwen's collaborative research on regeneration experiments with Dr. Helen Cho, she'd drawn on Dr. Connors's prior work on lizard regeneration theory.
And that intellectual property belonged to Oscorp Biologics.
Gwen had obtained Felicia's authorization beforehand. Dr. Cho had also agreed that any commercial applications would prioritize Oscorp.
And so—
After Gwen finished her doctorate, the commercialization of regeneration research was finally getting on track.
Gwen had landed her first post-doctoral position.
Still at Oscorp.
But no longer as someone's assistant. She'd be working at the Stacy-Phoenix Biological Laboratory, fully funded by Oscorp.
These past few days, Gwen had been in frequent contact with Felicia, coordinating lab equipment and preliminary staffing.
Felicia nodded.
"Alright. I'll have HR send out offer letters based on your selections."
"Perfect."
Gwen smiled, looking at Little Ben giggling in his stroller. She reached out with both hands and squished his chubby cheeks. "Aww, our Little Ben is so adorable."
Hawk was Little Ben's godfather. Once she and Hawk got their marriage license next year, she'd naturally become Little Ben's godmother.
Once again.
A godmother's word in Little Ben's life planning carried more weight than Felicia's.
By now, Hawk had finished shaking hands with the priest and saying goodbye to Peter. He walked out of the church.
A short while later.
Peter and Felicia got into their car. After a wave goodbye, the driver pulled away from the church.
Hawk and Gwen watched them go, then turned and headed toward 521A Palm Street.
Half an hour later.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A rainbow streak of light erupted from the backyard of 521A Palm Street, reaching the upper atmosphere in the blink of an eye. Then it surged forward with explosive acceleration, punching through a sonic boom cloud before breaking free of Earth's atmosphere entirely.
At S.H.I.E.L.D. New York Command Center, alarms blared across the main screen.
Just then.
Sharon opened her office door and stood in the corridor, glancing down at the alarm on the big screen below.
"Cancel the alert. Execute Operation Shackle."
"Yes, ma'am."
The alarm died instantly. Simultaneously, a squad of elite S.H.I.E.L.D. agents departed the command center, racing toward 521A Palm Street to execute the protection protocol for the Devil King's Shackle.
Sharon returned to her office.
She'd already received Gwen's call earlier. She knew Hawk was leaving New York for a bit.
"By the way, Gwen—where's Hawk headed this time? Is there anything we can do to help?"
"Uh... you really can't help with this one."
"Hawk said Mephisto's squatting on his turf."
"He's going to tell Mephisto to move."
"..."
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