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"Amy Chloe."
"Birth name: Amy Oliver."
"Orphan."
"Born 1973. Currently forty-two years old."
"Social Security number..."
"Registered address: Orpes Community, Queens..."
"This is her most recent registered address."
"However..."
"This address is a year old."
Sharon Carter sat at her workstation in SHIELD's New York hub, eyes scanning the financial records displayed on her monitor. "Eight months ago, Amy Chloe's finances collapsed completely. She's bankrupt. Every credit card under her name has been frozen."
After leaving the church, Hawk had brought his Audi A8 along and appeared silently on a street corner in the Orpes Community that Sharon had mentioned. His gaze settled on the weathered five-story tenement building across the road. He acknowledged Sharon's report, thanked her, and ended the call.
The next second.
He pushed open the car door, crossed the street, and approached the entrance of the tenement building. A glance at the intercom panel—broken for God knows how long—and he pushed straight through the front door.
The smell inside the building was like stepping into another world entirely.
But Hawk had already shut down his sense of smell. Expression unchanged, he made his way up the equally decrepit staircase beside the entrance. The steps creaked and groaned beneath his feet as he climbed toward the fourth floor.
Why not take the elevator? Not because it was broken.
The elevator worked fine.
But...
Every ride cost money. It was one of the few sources of income for whoever managed this crumbling building.
Soon enough.
As Hawk rounded the corner of the stairwell, the moment his right foot touched down again, he found himself standing inside a cramped apartment—roughly three hundred square feet at most. Room 405, fourth floor.
The place was full of life's little details.
Old.
But clean.
It reminded Hawk of the room he'd seen when he'd contracted his timeline and traveled into the past.
The difference was—if that room had been old but clean, this apartment carried something else entirely.
Its owner seemed to be living in the past.
Yellowed photographs lined the top of a battered cabinet—a couple's portrait, a pregnant woman, a family of four. Each one sat in an equally aged frame, propped against the worn surface.
A stuffed animal so old its fur had mostly fallen out on its own.
And in the corner, taking up far more space than it should in such a tiny apartment, sat an antique crib.
Hawk swept his gaze across the layout—small enough to take in with a single glance—then walked over to the kitchen counter. Pill bottles crowded the surface, an overwhelming array of medications.
He moved closer, examining the labels.
Some bottles were nearly empty. Others hadn't been touched yet. The ones that still had pills in them alone numbered at least eight different prescriptions.
Just then.
Footsteps echoed from outside. A moment later, the sound of a key sliding into the lock made Hawk turn toward the apartment door.
The next second.
A woman stepped inside.
Her hair—once golden—had dulled to a brittle, faded yellow. Her complexion was pale, her lips tinged with an unhealthy purple. She looked frailer than most women her age, her frame worn thin by time and hardship.
Amy Chloe.
After pushing his Cosmo to the Gold level, Hawk had unlocked additional processing power from the Reality Stone. He used it now to suppress his presence to nearly nothing.
Not that it would have mattered either way.
Amy Chloe had more pressing concerns at the moment.
The instant she stepped inside, she hurriedly shut the door behind her and threw the deadbolt.
Bang bang bang.
Pounding erupted against the door immediately.
Amy—forty-two years old, but living alone since she was twenty-three—flinched at the sudden noise. Her already pale face went a shade whiter.
Hawk's gaze shifted to the hallway beyond the door. A man who looked to be around thirty, tattoos covering both arms, stood outside, knocking insistently.
He looked rough, but his voice didn't match his appearance.
"Mrs. Chloe."
"Open the door. I swear I'm not here about the rent."
"You're eight months behind. My boss came by today with his guys. He's not as understanding as I am."
"I told you yesterday—leave early, don't come back today. Why didn't you listen?"
Vance was frustrated.
Sure, he was a low-level gang member, but he wasn't like the truly vicious ones in the crew. That's why his boss had stuck him here as building manager in the first place.
This tenement was one of the gang's properties.
The actual owner was more than happy to let them handle collections. Other people's money could be stalled—but nobody stiffed a gang and got away with it.
And yet...
Vance thought about Amy Chloe's circumstances. He'd felt sorry for her, so he'd only ever nagged her about paying up. He'd never reported her to his boss.
Until a few days ago, when his boss had called him in to review the books—and found out.
Thinking about his boss's brutal methods, Vance snapped back to the present. He looked at the still-closed door and sighed.
"Mrs. Chloe..."
"This the place?"
"Yeah, boss. 405."
Just as Vance was about to tell Amy she was on her own, his boss arrived—a hulking brute in a leather jacket, the same tattoo on his arms, flanked by two enforcers, one black, one white.
Vance stiffened. Thinking of the woman inside—over forty, husband dead, children gone—he shook his head, forced a smile, and stepped forward. "Boss, Mrs. Chloe already transferred me the rent—"
"Get out of my way!"
His boss shoved him aside and strode straight to Amy's door. Without breaking stride, he raised his foot.
Hawk watched Amy—back pressed against the door, face ashen, clutching her chest, expression twisted in what looked like genuine pain—and frowned.
The next second.
He saw the brute outside raise his foot to kick the door down.
The door...
Didn't budge.
What moved was the man trying to kick it. The instant his foot connected, his entire body launched backward, slamming into the hallway wall with a heavy thud.
Vance stood frozen.
The two enforcers flanking their boss went rigid.
The brute picked himself up off the floor, shaking his head. Confused but undeterred, he marched back and threw another kick at the door.
CRASH!
This time, nothing unexpected happened. The door flew open under the impact.
And then—
The brute found himself staring at Hawk, who stood in the middle of the apartment cradling a frail older woman in his arms.
"Amy?"
"...Who the hell are you?"
Vance had followed his boss over. The sight of Hawk—appearing out of nowhere inside the apartment of a woman who lived completely alone—left him visibly shaken.
Hawk looked down at the unconscious Amy in his arms, then lifted his gaze to the brute. His eyes were ice cold.
The brute met Hawk's stare, let out a low chuckle, and decided to make the first move. He stepped forward with his right foot—
The next instant.
Instant vaporization.
Pff.
A flash of golden light, and the brute vanished from existence on the spot.
Vance standing nearby went rigid.
The two enforcers beside him—who'd been planning to drag the "traitor" Vance back to face consequences—stood paralyzed with shock.
Hawk spared the remaining three a glance.
Pff!
Pff!
Vance felt the sudden blast of heat beside him. His body jerked. Then he stared at Hawk—still holding the unconscious Amy—with the kind of expression usually reserved for witnessing the divine.
Just then.
The sound of urgent but rhythmic footsteps on the stairs reached his ears. Moments later, three SHIELD agents Hawk recognized appeared at the top of the stairwell.
The lead agent spotted Vance standing frozen in the doorway and hurried over. But when he saw Hawk inside, holding a woman, he paused in surprise.
Hawk noted the SHIELD arrivals and withdrew his gaze from Vance.
"The rent. Settle it with him."
"Secure this location."
"...Understood!"
The lead agent processed the orders, nodded, and acknowledged.
Hawk vanished from sight, taking Amy with him.
The lead agent exchanged a look with his two colleagues, stepped into the apartment, and immediately noticed the yellowed photographs arranged on the wooden cabinet.
Then—
His eyes landed on the family portrait. On the infant boy swaddled in the arms of a young couple.
The next second.
The agent drew in a sharp breath.
Back at SHIELD's New York hub, Sharon watched through the agent's body camera feed. The moment she saw the infant in that photograph, she inhaled sharply too.
She'd only learned the name Amy Chloe a few days ago.
Hawk had asked her to look into it.
The delay had a simple explanation—SHIELD's systems had been undergoing a major upgrade.
Stark Industries had sold SHIELD an "Intelligent System."
This had been the Security Council's suggestion. Howard Stark may have been one of SHIELD's founding members, but Tony Stark wasn't.
And while SHIELD's systems held no secrets from JARVIS anyway...
Protocol was protocol.
So Stark Industries had sold SHIELD an AI system codenamed "Friday."
It was a backup program Tony had written years ago when he'd first created JARVIS. Unlike JARVIS's male voice, Friday's was female.
Which fit the current SHIELD quite well.
Amy Chloe's records had only been pulled up after Friday officially came online.
At that same moment.
As the agent's camera feed lingered on the photograph, Friday's analytical systems kicked into high gear.
Soon.
A classified file was retrieved and cross-referenced. Among its contents—a group photo that appeared to be from some church choir.
The image of a four-year-old boy from that photo was placed side by side with the infant in the family portrait.
The result—
[INTELLIGENT ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
[MATCH PROBABILITY—]
[100%]
...
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