Evening Time!
At Stacy's Apartment.
"Helen."
"Oh, God!"
Helen, upon opening the door and seeing Hawk following behind Gwen, let out a gasp: "Hawk, what happened to you?"
With a cast on his left arm and a sling, Hawk said in a light-hearted tone: "Nothing much, just fell while changing the curtains."
Helen gasped again, covering her mouth.
Faced with Helen's genuinely concerned gaze, Hawk suddenly felt a sense of guilt.
But...
It was all Gwen's fault.
Hawk glanced at his fiancée who had entered first.
Gwen ignored Hawk's look, her expression calm: "It's nothing, Mom, the doctor said it's a minor fracture, just a month of rest and recuperation is needed."
Hearing the commotion, George also came down from the second-floor stairs.
Helen quickly called out to George: "George, come quickly, Hawk is injured."
George came over, his eyes landing on the cast and sling on Hawk's left arm.
"What happened?"
"It's nothing serious."
Hawk kept it brief, since Gwen hadn't briefed him much, and he didn't know what George and Gwen had talked about.
So!
The less said, the better.
After all, he himself is usually a quiet and not very articulate person.
"Just like I said on the phone, I wasn't steady when changing the bedroom curtains, fell down, and then we went straight to New Amsterdam Hospital."
Gwen chimed in, looking at George: "Unless you thought I went to the hospital that night with Hawk just to enjoy the view?"
Yes.
That night, when they took Sharon Carter to New Amsterdam Hospital, they were seen, or to be precise, they were seen on their way back from the hospital, and the officer who saw them happened to be from the Twenty-First District, so George found out.
Daughter went to the hospital at night?
This is not acceptable.
George immediately called Gwen to find out what was going on.
Tell the truth?
That definitely couldn't happen; if George knew she was face-to-face with the infamous Hydra, and even escaped Hydra's threats twice, he would go crazy.
Moreover, Commander Victoria Hand and others were still at home at the time, and if George came over, it would have been really hard to explain.
So in the blink of an eye, Gwen came up with a perfectly reasonable excuse.
Hawk's left arm was fractured, and they went to the hospital for a cast and a sling.
This was why Hawk ended up looking like this.
When Hawk first heard Gwen say this, he was confused and a bit speechless: "Why am I the one injured and not you?"
Gwen's explanation was flawless.
"I've lived at home for so many years without getting hurt. After getting engaged to you, not even a year in, and my left arm is fractured; what do you think Dad's reaction would be?"
"...He would take you back."
After a moment of silence, Hawk gave this answer.
Empathy.
If he had a daughter in the future, and she ran off with a wild boar and moved in together, and within a year, her arm was fractured, and she went to the hospital in the middle of the night.
Yikes!
Hawk would blow up.
No doubt about it.
If Gwen claimed she was the one injured and went to the hospital, George would definitely explode too.
But...
Hawk, looking a bit conflicted, said to Gwen: "Do I really have to wear a sling for a month? Can't we just pretend for a bit? If worse comes to worst, I just won't meet George for a month."
Who is he?
Hawk Phoenix.
The Demon King recognized by both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, and he single-handedly thwarted Hydra's second ambition, even scaring Strucker so much that he ran away without looking back and hid.
One second he just defeated Hydra's plot, and the next, he's in a sling?
Does that make sense?
Hawk felt conflicted at the time, but Gwen's explanation once again made him willingly tag along with Gwen to New York S.H.I.E.L.D., and thus, he faked a broken left arm.
Gwen only said two things.
The first thing.
"Dad is an old sheriff, and if he doesn't see it with his own eyes, he might just go to the hospital to find out himself."
The second thing.
"Look on the bright side; although you have to pretend to be injured for a month, you don't have to do anything during this period, including on the bed."
"Deal!"
Hawk almost agreed without hesitation, and after Gwen finished those two sentences, his conflicted expression turned extremely serious as he looked at his fiancée: "Let's plan it out."
Planning was indeed necessary.
Because just as Gwen said, George is an old sheriff, and no one could guarantee he wouldn't suddenly decide to go to the hospital to check Hawk's medical records.
But there's no need to worry about that.
New York S.H.I.E.L.D. will handle it, taking care of not only the hospital's internal medical records but also getting S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to sort out the cast on Hawk's left arm.
It's not heavy and is breathable, lacking the stuffy feeling of 99% of casts available on the market.
Sure enough.
As Hawk appeared with a plaster cast and arm sling, George gently reminded him to be careful. After wishing Hawk a speedy recovery, George didn't say anything else.
But Hawk believed that if it were Gwen entering the house with a plaster cast and sling,
the moment Gwen stepped in, George would have a Glock 19 pointed at his forehead.
Luckily, he managed to bluff his way through this situation.
Additionally, because of Hawk's injury, after dinner, Helen didn't keep them any longer. Instead, she urged them to leave early and specially reminded Gwen not to bully Hawk just because he was injured.
Hawk smiled.
Gwen was speechless.
When they got home, Hawk went to bed early. Although suddenly losing his left arm was a bit hard to adjust to, considering the reward for losing it, he thought it was no big deal.
Coming out of the bathroom, Gwen looked at Hawk lying on the bed, smiling warmly at her, and couldn't help but roll her eyes. But remembering her promise, she undid her pajamas and walked over.
The next day.
Feeling refreshed, Hawk lay on the living room sofa wearing shorts, smiling.
Of course.
His left arm was still in a cast.
Gwen, rubbing her waist, came downstairs and saw Hawk spread out on the sofa, looking paralyzed. She twitched her lips: "I suddenly regret letting you get hurt."
Hawk chuckled: "Then tell George the truth."
Still the same saying.
Pretend to be weak to trick the opponent?
What nonsense, showing off in public and overpowering others is how these new travel stories should start.
That's how he saw it and always acted.
But others didn't think so.
For example, S.H.I.E.L.D.
And Gwen.
S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't want him exposed to the public eye, even though Thor had appeared.
But Thor is an alien. Even if he's mighty, most people only admire or envy him at most.
But Hawk was different.
He was a native Earthling. Those who knew might admire or envy him, but more would undoubtedly hate.
Hate that they have, hate that he doesn't have.
Human nature is inherently evil; that's the mainstream.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had no doubt that if they let Hawk be exposed to the public eye, the first reaction wouldn't be worship like Thor but would be thinking if they could take his place, like capturing Hawk to discover his strength's secret.
Hawk didn't care about this.
In a word.
War, he loved war.
But S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't; after all, no one could guarantee that some genius might not anger Hawk into destroying Earth.
Although the odds were low, what if?
That's why S.H.I.E.L.D. actively helped hide Hawk's identity.
As for Gwen.
Gwen looked at the indifferent Hawk, rolled her eyes again, then seriously said: "Your secret can only be known by me."
Hawk knew this wasn't his fiancée's true thoughts.
But...
"Fine, you take the lead, I'll listen to you."
"Good."
Gwen beamed, then sat next to Hawk, glanced at his leg resting on hers, and changed the subject: "Hawk, with Hydra's second effort, is such a big thing just going to settle like this?"
Hawk laughed: "Big? Not really; if Sharon hadn't come to our home for help, you probably wouldn't even know what happened."
Hydra's second effort was happening within S.H.I.E.L.D.
S.H.I.E.L.D. itself was a secret organization.
Plus, thanks to his intervention, Natasha didn't completely leak S.H.I.E.L.D.'s information online.
So...
The most sensational news yesterday was the Insight Mother Ship crashing over Washington D.C., with Thor and Iron Man Tony Stark appearing again.
But the officials already explained it.
The Pentagon, Tony Stark, and Thor held a spontaneous joint exercise aimed at improving humanity's defenses for future space exploration risks.
Although that explanation sounded a bit off.
Most of the public bought it.
After all, seventy percent of the Federation's public followed the route of blissful ignorance, and people even believed in injecting disinfectant, so faced with the Pentagon's somewhat normal explanation, why not believe it?
Gwen blinked.
"So, Sharon and Commander Hand, they're okay too?"
"That I don't know."
Hawk shook his head, pondered, then looked at Gwen: "They probably won't be directly dismissed by the top five good people."
Given the Hydra incident, saying S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't affected is impossible.
But...
No matter how the Security Council deals with S.H.I.E.L.D., they certainly won't downsize it like in the original plot, nor let it naturally fade away.
The most crucial point.
Is still because of Hawk!
...