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The Ancient One arrived quietly.
And she left just as quietly.
Hawk didn't try to stop her. According to her, she had a massive mess to clean up in the future, thanks to a few certain brats tangling up the timeline.
He felt a distinct pang of guilt.
It felt exactly like having a teacher drop by for a surprise parent-teacher conference—you just want them to say their piece and leave as quickly as possible.
But...
Her visit had answered the burning question of how Doctor Strange had managed to reverse time on such a massive scale.
In truth, it wasn't entirely his doing.
At least, not a feat he could replicate under normal circumstances.
Strange had essentially surfed a cosmic tsunami. He had capitalized on the massive, chaotic energy spike created at the exact moment Earth's independent timeline violently merged with the primary flow of the Marvel Multiverse.
To put it simply: Right place, right time, right spell. Strange had found a loophole in the chaos—the precise window where the 'new future' and 'new past' were still solidifying—and used that ungodly amount of ambient energy to rewind Hong Kong to its pristine state.
But it was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke.
There would be no encore. Even if there were, Strange wouldn't be able to pull it off and walk away completely unscathed like he had this time.
When Hawk resurrected someone, he went through the proper channels. He cloned a body, then went down to Hell to formally retrieve the soul.
What Doctor Strange had done? That was daylight robbery. He had snatched those souls right out of Mephisto's hands.
After the Ancient One left, Hawk contacted Mephisto—who was now back at full strength after digesting the Heaven Dimension—to ask about it.
After all, the souls of Earth belonged to Mephisto's jurisdiction.
Hawk was curious if the Lord of Hell knew he'd been robbed.
The answer was yes.
And Mephisto's reaction was hilarious.
When he first noticed someone forcibly yanking souls out of his Hell, he assumed it was Hawk and was fully prepared to look the other way. When he realized it wasn't Hawk, he had flown into a rage, ready to show the petty thief the true meaning of eternal suffering.
But then, he received a direct message from upper management.
"Let it go!"
"Let it go?"
"Yeah. If I had to guess, the big boss decided to call it a wash. I get to keep the Heaven Dimension, and in exchange, I look the other way on the Earth time-reversal thing."
"Eternity talked to Death?"
"Hah."
Mephisto had laughed, then lowered his voice, sounding unusually cautious. "Brother, let's keep it down. I know your timeline is independent now, and they shouldn't be able to hear us, but let's play it safe. Our universe hasn't even officially manifested yet. Better safe than sorry, right?"
You couldn't blame him for being a suck-up.
Any Dimensional God presented with the opportunity to become the true, undisputed 'God of Death' of a brand-new, expanding multiverse would be kissing ass just as hard.
Ambition is nothing to be ashamed of—
In a way, having secured Hawk's promise, Mephisto was even more eager to see the Phoenix Universe manifest than Hawk was.
Hawk rolled his eyes but let the subject drop.
"Did your boss say anything else??"
"Nope. Just that one sentence."
"Alright."
Hawk ended the connection with Mephisto and stood silently above his River of Time.
He didn't actually care about Earth's timeline merging with the primary multiverse, or about Doctor Strange playing with the rewind button.
Hawk only cared about one thing.
When this "new past" was generated... where the hell did Time—Eternity—put his best friend, Peter Parker, and his family?
He better not have just erased them.
If he had, Hawk was going to...
Wait.
His godson.
Ben Hawk Parker.
A thought struck Hawk. He remembered the gift he had given his godson at his baptism—a pendant containing the Cygnus Bronze Cloth—and his strict instruction to Peter never to take it off the boy.
His gaze instantly locked onto the Cygnus constellation, shining brightly within his Cosmo.
The Northern Cross!
The next second.
Hawk's physical form melted into the cosmic backdrop. The colossal, spectral image of the Phoenix materialized, its fiery eyes fixing on the Cygnus constellation.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Light streamed backward through his golden pupils at an incomprehensible speed.
Hawk's vision pierced the veil of reality. He watched as bubbles representing countless parallel universes flashed past his eyes.
Soon.
Following the faint, resonant glow of the Cygnus Cloth connected to his universe, Hawk's gaze pierced through a specific dimensional bubble, descended onto an Earth, tore through the atmosphere, and landed squarely in the suburban Osborn Estate in New York.
His vision pushed through the walls of the mansion.
And finally!
He saw them. Peter and Felicia, huddled together, speaking in hushed, urgent tones, clearly reeling from a sudden, inexplicable displacement.
And...
Little Ben Hawk Parker, clutching his Cygnus pendant, completely oblivious to the fact that his entire reality had just shifted.
Just as Hawk was about to project his voice to them...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
His Sixth Sense screamed a warning. He violently yanked his gaze back, just in time to see a temporal trap surging up his River of Time, attempting to ambush him in the present.
Hawk sneered.
"So, that's what this is about."
"You saw I wasn't going to play ball, wasn't going to follow your little script, so you pull this stunt."
"You know my timeline is collapsed. My past is absolute. You couldn't erase the people who were anchored to my past."
"So you dumped them in a parallel universe."
"You figured I'd panic, go looking for them, and you could ambush me the moment I projected my consciousness across the dimensional boundary."
"Let me guess. The second I connected, you were going to shove that 'glorious future' right in my face, weren't you?"
Tch!
"I'm giving you one choice."
"Bring Peter Parker back, and I'll pretend this never happened. You can keep the World Tree's timeline and fold it into your multiverse. We walk away clean."
"..."
After delivering his ultimatum, Hawk watched his River of Time with cold, flat eyes. He watched the temporal trap, having missed its window of opportunity, slowly recede back into the murky depths of the 'future.'
The trap sat there, motionless, trying to pretend it was just a natural temporal eddy.
"Fine!"
"We'll do this the hard way."
Hawk smiled, unbothered. He dropped the threat, pulled his consciousness upward, and slowly opened his physical eyes.
And then...
Gwen, who had been sitting at the kitchen island running searches on her laptop since they got home, heard him stir. She turned to look at him on the sofa, her eyes wide with anticipation.
"Well?"
"Peter isn't in this universe anymore."
"What does that mean?"
"New future. New past."
Hawk gave her the abbreviated version of his conversation with the future Ancient One inside his Phoenix Universe.
Gwen listened, her expression shifting from confusion to disbelief, and finally, she gritted her teeth.
"Damn Time."
"Yeah. My thoughts exactly. But it'll pay for this eventually."
A gentleman can wait ten years for revenge.
Back when he was seeking justice for his sister, Hawk had endured four years of grueling, relentless training before finally achieving his goal.
He wasn't a reckless brute. He didn't pick fights he wasn't strong enough to win.
He had officially added Eternity to his shit list. The moment he had the power...
Eternity was going to learn that Hawk's fury didn't just burn—it crushed.
But, Gwen frowned. "Did the Ancient One explain what she meant by 'not the Peter Parker we know'?"
Hawk shrugged. "She was about to."
Gwen blinked. She stared at Hawk, waiting for him to finish the thought. When he didn't, she glared at him.
"And?"
"And then she had to rush back to the future to fix the timeline because a couple of brats were tearing it apart."
"Tearing it apart..."
Gwen opened her mouth, a look of utter exasperation on her face. "Seriously? You almost get ambushed by Time itself, and in the future, whoever's in charge can't even keep the timeline organized? How do you let some brats mess up the timeline? And shouldn't time be, I don't know, sacred? How could some kids..."
Hawk's voice was perfectly calm as he cut her off. "The Ancient One said they were our kids."
Gwen, mid-rant, froze. Her eyebrow shot up. She let out a small, strangled "Oh," and met Hawk's amused gaze. She coughed, nervously tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, her voice suddenly very small.
"Really?"
"Yep. You're going to have to do a better job disciplining our kids in the future, honey."
Hawk kept a straight face as he stood up, walked behind the bar, and opened the liquor cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of Thunder Bourbon—a gift from Mephisto on New Year's Day, celebrating Hawk's official entry into adulthood.
He was twenty-one now. He could legally drink.
Just then.
Gwen, sitting on the barstool with her back to him, seemed to realize something. She spun around and stared intently at Hawk as he poured his drink.
Hawk didn't flinch. He just kept pouring.
Suddenly.
"Hawk."
"Yeah?"
"Your glass is overflowing."
"Oh, shit!"
Hawk snapped out of his forced calm, quickly lifting the bottle. He grabbed a towel and started wiping up the bourbon spilling across the counter.
Gwen crossed her arms, a triumphant smirk on her face. "What were the Ancient One's exact words, Hawk?"
Hawk didn't look up. "What words? I just told you what she said."
Gwen didn't say a word. She just fixed him with that gentle, piercing gaze that saw right through his bullshit.
They stared at each other.
Hawk opened his mouth, but under that gaze, he folded instantly. He picked up his glass, took a sip, and mumbled, "The Ancient One said you tried to discipline them, but I stopped you. I said kids are supposed to be mischievous, and it didn't matter if they tangled the timeline because the God of Time was there to fix it anyway."
Gwen burst out laughing.
"So it's your fault! Why did you try to blame it on me? I knew that didn't sound right. If I was in charge of discipline, there's no way I'd raise a bunch of little terrors."
"Okay, okay. I was wrong. I'm sorry."
Hawk apologized without hesitation.
Gwen shook her head. "You were definitely wrong. So now we know: when it comes to the kids' education in the future, you are banned from interfering."
Hawk blinked, wisely choosing not to argue. He set his glass down, looked at Gwen, and smoothly changed the subject.
"Let's go."
"...Go where?"
"Aren't you curious to see who Peter Parker is in this 'new past'?"
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