The moment Hawke returned to New York City.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, covertly guarding 521A Palm Street, silently departed after receiving the signal.
Gwen, who was holding a shovel and digging in the backyard garden, suddenly saw her vision go dark, and then a pair of warm hands covered her eyes.
The next second.
A deep, bubbly voice spoke.
"Guess who I am."
"Mojo Jojo?"
"Mojo Jojo… who's that?"
"A madman who wants to rule the World."
"Oh, I'm not. Guess again."
"Dr. Drakken?"
"Drakken… who's that now?"
"Blue skin, wearing a blue robe, a scientist obsessed with conquering the World."
Gwen shrugged, playing along with her fiancé who was covering her eyes.
Hawke, standing behind her, twitched his mouth.
"So, in your mind, I'm just a villain who wants to rule or conquer the World?"
"Mojo Jojo is from 'The Powerpuff Girls,' and Dr. Drakken is from 'Kim Possible.'"
Gwen smiled and turned, looking at Hawke who had appeared behind her: "Although Mojo Jojo wants to rule the World, his nature isn't bad; he just wants to get Professor Utonium's attention through crime. Dr. Drakken is also just too radical in his thinking. But my Hawke's nature isn't bad, and his thoughts aren't radical, are they?"
Hawke looked at Gwen, who was smiling at him with a pair of expressive emerald eyes, and shook his head.
"You're just saying that to make me happy."
"Yes."
Gwen smiled, took off her gloves, put her arms around Hawke's neck, kissed him, and then said, "Are you happy now?"
Hawke looked up, thought for a moment, then looked at Gwen.
"I am."
"Then I'm happy too."
Gwen's smile was radiant. She kissed Hawke again, then felt his hands moving up her body and handed him the small shovel: "Help me with the work."
Hawke looked down at the shovel in his hand, blinked, then looked at Gwen, who was gesturing with her eyes. He couldn't help but chuckle, shook his head, and squatted down to help Gwen dig the unfinished hole.
Gwen, meanwhile, put her gloves back on and sat on a small stool nearby, cleaning the flowers and plants that had been shipped back from her grandfather William.
"It's okay if Dr. Merrick wasn't caught, Hawke. You can fail countless times, but he only needs to fail once to be caught by you."
"Dr. Merrick has been dealt with."
"What about the clones…"
"Also dealt with."
"Uh…"
When Hawke covered her eyes, Gwen already knew it was him, and she also knew he wasn't in a great mood.
Because if Hawke was in a good mood, or just normal, he wouldn't play this game.
So she guessed it might be because things didn't go smoothly with Dr. Merrick, which was why she played along with Hawke.
As a result… Gwen looked curiously at Hawke, who was digging a flower hole for her: "Then what was it about?"
Hawke shrugged and looked at Gwen too.
"Alexander Pierce. I really want to grind his bones to dust."
"Alexander…"
Gwen blinked, then realized.
"Isn't he already dead?"
"Yes, his soul is still suffering in the frozen hell, and this time Merrick is among them, and their punishment will be eternal."
"Then you…"
"This time I gave Alexander Pierce another chance to tell me where Anna was imprisoned by him. After all, HYDRA's plan to clone me, then kill me, and then conquer the World has already been declared a failure. Do you know how he replied?"
"He refused you."
Gwen chuckled, looking at Hawke: "If he had agreed, you wouldn't have that expression. But why?"
Hawke frowned.
"I suspect it might be related to Strucker."
"Strucker?"
"Wolfgang von Strucker, the one from last time when I went to Sokovia and the place was empty. He's also considered an old-school HYDRA."
"Reason?"
"Strucker probably has another plan targeting me, and Anna, if nothing unexpected happens, will also be with Strucker. This is also why Alexander Pierce didn't say anything. Clearly, he still holds out hope."
"He's willing to die for HYDRA, that's understandable."
Gwen analyzed calmly: "But, another plan? Didn't you suspect Merrick and this Strucker were working together before? Didn't Merrick say anything?"
Hawke scoffed: "No, Merrick said he was just a fool whose brain was muddled by being conned. I swear to God, if he told me everything, I'd let him go, and he believed it. Didn't he know God had already provoked me?"
Even if he hadn't used his words to confuse Merrick at the time, Merrick wouldn't have survived anyway.
God?
Please, Merrick's God had chosen to provoke him, he was eager for that old black man, God, to appear before him after he broke his oath.
"But in the final confession, when I asked Merrick if he knew where Strucker was, he said he didn't know. Clearly, they weren't working together."
"Maybe he was lying to you."
"He's very stupid. I made a casual promise, and he believed it. Trust me, he doesn't have that kind of intelligence."
"That's true."
Gwen looked at Hawke's confident face, thought for a moment, and nodded in agreement.
Anyway, if it were her, if someone found her and said that if she confessed everything she wouldn't die, she wouldn't believe a single punctuation mark.
"So you suspect Strucker has a plan targeting you too?"
"That's the only explanation."
Hawke held the shovel in his right hand and spread his hands towards Gwen, saying, "Anna is even in Strucker's hands. This is also the only explanation why Alexander Pierce, even after seeing Merrick, still chose not to confess."
Gwen's eyebrows furrowed into a knot.
"Is Strucker also trying to clone you?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I initially suspected that too, so I confirmed it with Merrick. The core of Merrick's cloning technology is only in his own hands. Not even the clone he created at the time to mislead S.H.I.E.L.D. had mastered it."
This was also why his Sixth Sense reacted when he considered letting that Merrick clone help him clone his sister Anna's body.
Let's put it this way.
If that Merrick clone really cloned his sister, what he would get wouldn't be a perfect body, or even a body at all. He would only get a mass of rotting flesh that looked perfect from a distance but would burst if poked.
So… "Strucker won't be cloning; it will be something else."
"Something else? What else could he do with your blood?"
Gwen, sitting on the small stool, frowned: "Use your blood, extract your DNA, and then create a DNA bomb adapted to you?"
Hawke shook his head.
"I'm immune to all poisons, my dear."
"My dear, I'm talking about a DNA bomb, finding a flaw in your DNA and making a biological weapon out of it, not a virus."
"That's not possible either."
Hawke shook his head, looking at Gwen.
"Even if I stood at the center of a nuclear explosion, a nuclear bomb couldn't harm me, and nuclear radiation couldn't even give me a cold. Do you think a biological bomb they concocted that acts on DNA could be more powerful than nuclear radiation?"
"That's definitely impossible. No biological weapon's power can compare to the devastation of nuclear radiation on human DNA."
Gwen said, then sat on the small stool, thinking about what HYDRA could do with Hawke's blood.
But besides cloning and biological weapons, she couldn't think of anything else.
Of course.
She did think of other things, such as the simplest one: framing him.
Faking a crime scene, leaving Hawke's blood behind, making him a globally wanted man, and isolating him.
But… this method might work for others, but it's the most useless for Hawke.
The reason is simple.
Hawke really dares to kill people.
So, this method is useful for Iron Man or Captain America and Natasha, but it's most useless for Hawke.
Gwen thought it over and finally shook her head.
"I really can't figure out what else they could do with your blood besides these two things."
"If you can't figure it out, then don't think about it."
Hawke looked at Gwen's troubled expression and said with a smile, "Do you know why I really wanted to grind Alexander Pierce's soul to dust, but didn't do it?"
Gwen met Hawke's smiling face and chuckled: "You want to catch Strucker, and you want to see Alexander Pierce's expression after he sees Strucker."
Otherwise, why would Hawke, who so badly wanted to grind Alexander Pierce's soul to dust, not do it?
It couldn't be because of love.
Hawke smiled radiantly.
"I said Dr. Merrick's cloning plan had no lethality against me."
"And facts proved that to be true."
"Strucker is the same."
"No matter what he's planning."
"Just like when I went to Sokovia, and he projected himself to meet me, I told Strucker."
"He'd better hide for the rest of his life and pray he's never discovered by me."
"Otherwise…"
"He'll die a miserable death."
Hawke was only angry because his good friend Anna was still missing, not because of Strucker.
Even if Strucker still had the Mind Stone that he wanted.
But… he wasn't in a hurry.
Even if he wanted the Mind Stone, he wouldn't show it.
Success comes from secrecy!
Failure comes from disclosure!
He mistakenly took Alexander Pierce for Anna and revealed the Mind Stone, which resulted in Strucker disappearing with his Mind Stone.
The same trick is ineffective against a saint seiya.
Because—
A saint seiya will not make the same mistake twice.
"I believe you."
Gwen looked at the serious Hawke for a while, then smiled slightly: "Alright, then let this pest hiding in the soil come out on its own. Do you know what you should be doing now?"
Hawke's eyes lit up at the words.
"Sleeping?"
"No, you should take off that S.H.I.E.L.D. T-shirt. We should go to Mom and Dad's house."
"We brought gifts back."
"Remember?"
"…"
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