❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁
Hawk had no idea what Gwen and the Ancient One were discussing.
The moment Wong led him into the secret vault housing the Time Stone—the Eye of Agamotto—the librarian had turned and left without a word.
Hawk wasted no time. He took the Eye of Agamotto from its pedestal and sat cross-legged on the stone platform beneath him.
The Eye of Agamotto, containing the Time Stone, slowly opened.
At first, a single drop of green light. But as the Eye opened fully and the Time Stone blazed to life, emerald radiance instantly engulfed Hawk's entire body.
The next second.
Hawk opened his eyes and surveyed his surroundings.
Stars stretched in every direction—but beneath him, a vast and magnificent river of time flowed like an endless current at his feet.
He stood suspended above this temporal river.
His river of time.
The moment Hawk saw it, he understood. This was his personal timeline.
His past.
His present.
And his future—all contained within this river.
No, wait.
There was no future.
More accurately, his future was visibly approaching the end of his timeline.
Though "end" wasn't quite right either.
Past that point, the river became fragmented—flowing in fits and starts, like a stream running dry.
Looking ahead, from where he stood to where the river extended outward, he counted 108,657 possible futures. Of those, 107,600 had already reached their terminus—and beyond that terminus, each one fragmented into discontinuous segments.
Well, damn.
In those 107,600 futures, I have no future?
Did I die?
But if I died, there shouldn't be any timeline at all.
Wait.
I must have succeeded.
Once he awakened the Seventh Sense and stepped into divine territory—once he broke through to the Eighth Sense—his Cosmo could merge with the Reality Stone he already possessed and truly become a parallel universe within the Marvel cosmos.
And once the Phoenix Parallel Universe came into existence, Hawk—as its Prime God—would subsume both fate and time into himself.
Therefore—
His river of time would naturally vanish from the Marvel Universe. After all, he wouldn't even be a Marvel Universe entity anymore. He wouldn't even qualify as a "person" in the traditional sense. The Time Stone simply couldn't perceive his timeline at that point.
Just like Odin.
The Time Stone couldn't reflect Odin's timeline in Yggdrasil's parallel dimension. Only when Odin appeared within the Marvel Universe could the Stone reveal his temporal stream.
Hawk considered this, gazing at the countless tributaries extending from the river beneath his feet. He fought down the urge to travel to one of those endpoints and take a look.
Because the past cannot be changed!
If he viewed his future, it would no longer be the future. A known future wasn't the future—it became the past.
And the past could not be changed.
Once he witnessed one of his possible futures, he would be locked into accepting that future—whether it was good or bad.
Hawk understood this perfectly.
Just like Odin and the Ancient One.
Those two were cautionary tales of people who had glimpsed their own futures and thereby made them immutable.
Odin had peered into the future and seen Ragnarök. That single act transformed Ragnarök from possibility into certainty.
That was why Odin had given up—allowing Loki to banish him to Earth without resistance.
Because Ragnarök had already arrived. He had no way to stop it.
The past cannot be changed.
The Ancient One was the same.
She had also used the Time Stone to glimpse her own future, transforming what might happen into what would happen.
But whether Odin had found a loophole, Hawk didn't know. He did know that the Ancient One had found one.
Well—she hadn't exploited it yet. But when Hawk recalled the Ancient One telling Gwen she planned to take a "long vacation" in the Phoenix Galaxy after next month, he was absolutely certain she was going to cheat the system.
Since the past cannot be changed, simply let the event happen.
A faked death was still a death!
As long as she "died" on the established timeline and never reappeared, her personal timeline wouldn't fall into paradox.
She was already living in seclusion on Earth anyway. Living in seclusion in the Phoenix Galaxy was no different.
Same result either way.
Put simply:
The Ancient One had seen her own future. Then, by examining other people's futures, she had chosen a timeline that let her circumvent her own fate.
After all, in the river of time, every living being's timeline flowed together, forming that vast temporal current.
Consider the future Doctor Strange—Stephen Strange.
He had used the Time Stone to see Thanos snap his fingers. He had seen the future where he himself vanished in the Snap.
That future became his past.
So no matter how many times Thanos snapped his fingers, Strange's disappearance was guaranteed.
For other beings, the Snap was a fifty-fifty chance of survival. But for Doctor Strange? One hundred percent certainty of vanishing.
But the other Avengers didn't know their own futures.
So Strange only had to ensure that the fact of his disappearance would occur—then select, through other people's futures, a timeline where he would return after vanishing.
After all, the Snap was a fifty-fifty coin flip.
And under those odds, getting the exact right combination of survivors—Ant-Man to provide time travel, Hulk and Iron Man to build the time-travel device, Black Widow to secure the Soul Stone—was extraordinarily difficult.
That was why, when Iron Man asked how many times they'd won—
Strange answered: Once.
All of this boiled down to two rules.
The past cannot be changed.
The future must not be viewed.
Hawk drew a deep breath, suppressed the burning curiosity within him, and turned around. He faced the immutable past—his river of time flowing behind him—and unified his mind with his spirit.
The next moment.
The Mind Stone materialized at his brow, radiating soft golden light, amplifying his consciousness.
Without hesitation, Hawk stepped off the edge—and like a stone in free fall, plunged directly into his personal river of time. He sank to the riverbed and sat cross-legged upon it.
Using the Mind Stone—which could amplify consciousness—and the Time Stone—which allowed free movement through temporal streams—these two cheat-code artifacts would help him rapidly comprehend the Seventh Sense's true essence: Time Perception.
The Fifth Sense's essence was material perception.
The Sixth Sense was heart perception.
And the Seventh Sense was time perception.
Gold Saints were powerful precisely because they could perceive time—and transcend it. For them, time could be frozen in place. Equally, time could shift in the blink of an eye.
And the best way to comprehend time?
Walk the river of time itself.
Destination:
The beginning of his existence in this universe.
WHOOOM!
Hawk's consciousness trembled. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a dilapidated room that reeked of mold and something metallic.
"Push!"
"It's coming!"
"PUSH!"
"Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!"
"There we go—wait, there's another one! Push!"
A baby's cry filled the room.
Hawk had materialized in the space, invisible to everyone present. He witnessed his own birth—and his sister Anya's birth moments later.
Of course.
He also saw the woman lying on the bed. Golden hair, drenched in sweat.
The moment Hawk saw her face, he finally understood where his sister Anya had inherited those eyes.
Clearly.
This woman was his and Anya's biological mother.
As for his father—
Hawk glanced at the man carefully lifting infant-him into his arms.
Work coveralls.
Full beard.
Hawk withdrew his gaze and surveyed the decrepit room—especially the gaps in the roof where wind whistled through. He now had a pretty good idea why he and his sister had been abandoned.
As for why they had no birth certificates—he'd suspected the reason for years.
Hospital births generated records. But in 1995, plenty of women still gave birth at home for religious or other reasons.
This family had done it because they were poor. No money for a hospital, so they delivered at home.
And because they were poor, he and his sister had ended up on a church doorstep.
Hawk accepted this without much emotional turmoil.
He'd never been particularly curious about his biological parents in this life. Anya had asked questions when she was little, but as she grew older, she'd stopped asking.
They were doing fine now. That was what mattered.
Hawk watched the bearded man cradle newborn-him with obvious joy. He watched the woman on the bed—exhausted but smiling. Then he turned away, passed through the shabby bedroom, crossed the equally worn living room, stepped through the front door, and looked back at the house number.
The next second.
When he opened his eyes again, he had arrived at Christmas Eve, 1995.
Same house.
Same woman.
But now she had wrapped two bundles in swaddling clothes. Her expression was hollow as she walked toward the street outside.
Hawk watched the direction she went.
Reluctance.
Sorrow.
Pain.
He sensed her emotions. Then he withdrew his gaze and returned to the house.
Same house—but compared to his first glimpse, which had been poor yet warm, all warmth had been utterly extinguished.
Hawk also sensed an emotion of loss.
He frowned. With a thought, time reversed around him. The scene rewound like a videotape playing backward, images flickering rapidly through his perception.
Then—
He saw the woman at home, caring for infant-him and infant-Anya. She smiled as she opened the door—and found two police officers standing on the threshold.
The moment those officers appeared, the smile vanished from her face. Then she collapsed into sobbing.
Hawk's gaze settled on the younger officer to the left.
He knew that young cop.
George Stacy.
His—
Future father-in-law.
"..."
❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁
~# 70 Advanced Chapters Available on my Patreon!
https://p-atreon.com/dragonnx
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)
~# Bonus Chapter every 300PS