Marvel: The Enlightened One#173+174: Hydra's Two Brilliant Strategists, Peter Goes Missing Again

Alexander returned to his seat and closed his eyes, his right hand instinctively pressing against his temple.

After a moment—

He opened his eyes again, his face still dark as thunder. He grabbed the phone on the desk and called Anna again—the same Anna who had been promoted, transferred to Japan, and was supposedly running a secret facility there.

As Alexander spoke in that same low, serious tone, the voice that came through the other end this time wasn't Anna's.

It was a sharp, male voice—heavily distorted by electronic modulation.

"Did he figure out something happened to Anna?"

"I don't know."

Alexander's voice was grim. "But I do know that if he doesn't see Anna next month, we won't be able to hide it anymore."

He took a deep breath.

"How is Anna now?"

"Bad. She's on life support. But the machines won't keep her alive much longer."

"Goddamn Strucker!"

Alexander couldn't hold back his fury. "That bastard's going to destroy us all."

The electronic voice on the other end defended Strucker. "This isn't really Strucker's fault. No one expected that two-year-old girl to have that much potential."

"Motherfucker!"

Alexander completely lost it. "Zola, you and Strucker can keep doing whatever the hell you want. Strucker took the Demon King's blood and used it for artificial gamete synthesis, then actually let a test subject carry the pregnancy to term and give birth naturally. And you, Zola—you're even worse. You just had to keep pushing your goddamn cloning experiments. Go ahead. Keep going. When the Demon King finds out about all this, I'll just die right alongside you two morons."

In this moment, Alexander finally understood why Hydra's first uprising had failed.

You don't fear an enemy like a god.

You fear allies like pigs.

He'd thought that after experiencing their first catastrophic failure, these two Hydra leaders—one who'd survived since World War II through genetic engineering, the other who'd turned himself into a digital consciousness—would have learned their lesson.

He'd been wrong.

So wrong.

The lesson humanity learns from history is that it learns nothing from history.

Strucker and Zola were no exception.

The key reason Hydra had failed last time was because they'd taunted too many enemies at once. If they'd taken them on one at a time, they never would have lost.

And now? Same damn thing.

One of them had taken Hawk's blood, extracted the DNA, synthesized gametes in a lab under circumstances that should have been impossible, then somehow managed to get a test subject pregnant—and she'd actually given birth to a healthy baby girl.

Zola had gone even further.

Behind Alexander's back, he'd transferred Dr. Merrick—the cloning expert—out of the Black Site and secretly started working on a clone of Hawk himself.

Both of these things were explicitly forbidden by Hawk before the transaction.

Only God knew how much Alexander's soul had shattered when he'd accidentally discovered what these two idiotic teammates had been doing behind his back.

He'd been the one to acquire Hawk's blood. And his plan from the very beginning had been to stay on good terms with Hawk.

Even if they couldn't become friends, they absolutely could not become enemies.

Hydra couldn't survive a second failure.

And the facts had proven his strategy was sound. Anna—the operative he'd sent to make contact with Hawk—had successfully been accepted as Hawk's friend.

He'd had it all planned out.

Even if their operation failed this time, Hawk's promise to Anna meant that at the very least, their lives would be safe.

But then—

The backyard caught fire.

Alexander had accidentally discovered that Strucker had used Hawk's blood to synthesize gametes under nearly impossible conditions, resulting in the natural birth of a baby girl. His first reaction had been to immediately pull Anna out and send her to Sokovia to defuse this ticking time bomb.

After all, if this bomb went off unexpectedly, God only knew what would happen.

But when Anna went to Sokovia to put out that fire—

An accident happened.

Anna was critically injured and now lay in the facility's medical center, hooked up to machines keeping her alive.

And after seeing the baby girl's potential, Strucker had doubled down, protecting the child and declaring she would be Hydra's future.

Alexander had been so furious his nose had gone crooked. He'd planned to talk to Zola, get him on his side.

But then—

Zola had hit him with an even bigger bombshell.

Sure, Zola hadn't used Hawk's blood to create some baby boy.

No, he'd gone straight to the source and created Hawk himself.

Un-fucking-believable.

When he'd transferred the blood samples to Strucker and Dr. Zola, he'd specifically emphasized not to use Hawk's blood for any weird experiments. After all, Hawk had explicitly said that as long as they didn't mess around with strange experiments, anything else was fair game.

And Alexander had listened.

But these two geniuses—Hydra's dynamic duo of catastrophic stupidity—had apparently heard "don't do anything weird" as "only do weird things."

When Alexander had learned about this bombshell, his blood pressure had spiked so fast that if there hadn't been medication nearby, he would have dropped dead on the spot and gone straight to meet Mephisto.

But now—

Alexander looked back on the now completely snow-white, thoroughly cleansed Wakanda outside, and he couldn't help thinking he should have just died back then.

At least that would have been a gentler way to go.

Too bad he hadn't died.

And now—

Alexander rubbed his temples, trying to think of any way to salvage this disaster. "Can Dr. Merrick finish Anna's clone in two weeks? We only have two weeks left."

Hawk had already come asking. And while he and Dr. Zola had managed to deflect him with their pre-prepared contingency plan, that wouldn't work twice.

What about two weeks from now?

Have Anna leave Hawk waiting?

That could work. But there was a chance it would fail. And if Hawk sensed something was wrong and started pulling on that thread, only God knew what would happen.

So right now, Alexander desperately hoped to hear the answer he wanted from Dr. Zola.

His hopes were crushed.

"Not enough time."

"FUCK!"

Alexander's temple throbbed. "What? Didn't I tell you to rush Anna's clone? Wasn't this the contingency we planned for from the start?"

Zola explained, "Dr. Merrick successfully synthesized a more powerful super-soldier serum using a combination of Demon Hulk's blood and Hawk's blood. Version 3.0 is at the most critical stage right now."

Alexander felt like he was losing his mind.

"We're going to explode in two weeks."

"Actually..."

Zola's electronic voice paused, then continued, "We don't have two weeks."

Alexander's expression froze.

"What?"

"Hawk already knows about the cloning."

"What??"

Alexander's pupils contracted. He shot to his feet instinctively, then caught himself. "Impossible. If he knew, I'd already be dead."

SHIELD had been researching Hawk's personality.

Hydra had too.

And both had reached the same conclusion.

Neutral.

As long as you didn't provoke Hawk, he generally stayed neutral. His daily routine consisted of going to school and walking his fiancée home after class.

But when someone did provoke Hawk, his retaliation came fast. He didn't give anyone time to react.

So—

If Hawk knew about the cloning, would Alexander still be alive right now?

"Impossible. Absolutely impossible."

"But it's the truth."

Zola's electronic voice was matter-of-fact. "Maria Hill has already authorized Sharon Carter to retrieve Dr. Merrick from the black site. Once Sharon gets there and discovers Merrick is missing, we're exposed."

Alexander immediately responded in a harsh voice, "Then put Merrick back."

Zola flatly refused.

"No."

"What?"

Alexander actually laughed.

Sure enough.

When you're speechless, you really do laugh.

Zola's electronic voice explained, "Once Hawk 3.0 is complete—combined with the Cloth fragments we've collected—even the original Hawk won't be able to stand against us."

Alexander's face went blank.

"Are you sure about that?"

"The data doesn't lie."

"..."

Hearing that, Alexander's face didn't just lose its expression—even his tone lost the fury from moments before.

But there was no excitement or anticipation either.

Just complete resignation.

"So what do you plan to do?"

"The time has come."

"What time?"

"The time to launch our second uprising."

"Heh."

"Why are you laughing?"

"I just thought of something funny."

Alexander removed his glasses with a humorless smile and set them on the desk in front of him. He took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling, and spoke with cold, hollow eyes. "I was wrong. I was so wrong. If I hadn't been blind back then, I never would have joined Hydra. If I hadn't joined Hydra, I wouldn't have ended up like this..."

His expression turned terrifying. He gripped the phone, his voice dropping to a low, seething hiss. "I wouldn't have ended up working alongside two idiots so monumentally stupid they belong in a museum. Launch now? Are you trying to get us killed faster? Do you even realize Hawk is still in New York??"

Zola ignored Alexander's rage. "This is the best opportunity. The Insight Project is already operational. Tony Stark is in Korea. Thor is in New Mexico. SHIELD's top operatives—Natasha and Hawkeye—are still in Africa."

Alexander's face was stone. "Captain America is in Washington. And Hawk just flew back to New York."

Zola's electronic voice remained completely level.

"We have Vibranium weapons. Captain America is no threat."

"As for Hawk..."

"He won't be in New York much longer. This is our window. By the time he returns, Hawk 3.0 will be ready."

"..."

<><><><><><><><>

"Achoo!"

"God bless you."

In the Empire State University cafeteria, MJ glanced at Hawk, who'd just sneezed, and offered her blessing.

Hawk pinched the bridge of his nose, his voice slightly nasal.

"Thanks."

"Are you coming down with something?"

Gwen, sitting beside him, looked concerned. "You've been sneezing a lot these past few days. When you got home the other night, and over the weekend at home, I kept hearing you sneeze on and off. Are you actually getting sick? Should we go to the hospital this afternoon and get you checked out?"

Getting a hospital checkup was a time-consuming nightmare.

You could schedule an appointment before you had cancer, and by the time they actually saw you, they'd diagnose you with cancer.

After all, medical care in a capitalist society wasn't a necessity. It was a luxury item.

But luxury items were relative—only expensive for ordinary people.

For the old Hawk, maybe. But for the current Hawk? Definitely not.

Setting aside Hawk's current power level, just the fact that his bank account had over forty million sitting in it meant he didn't need to go looking for medical resources. Medical resources would come knocking on his door.

Don't ask why the money had increased.

The answer was simple—hazard pay from the Security Council.

And Hawk had earned it.

After all, he'd genuinely helped the Security Council solve a massive problem.

While they'd still been negotiating and negotiating, Hawk had already handled all their difficulties for them.

A pristine, snow-white piece of real estate, just waiting for them to move right in.

So—

A week ago, the moment Hawk got home, the Security Council's payment had hit his account. They'd even specifically noted it was after taxes, so he didn't need to worry about the IRS coming after him.

Hawk was quite satisfied with that.

He hadn't been thinking about getting paid when he'd acted. But the Security Council's attitude still made him pretty happy.

There was just one downside.

Ever since he'd received that payment, his nose had been inexplicably itchy for the past few days.

Hawk had the distinct feeling someone was talking trash about him.

Not a feeling, actually.

Someone was definitely talking trash behind his back.

Hawk had a pretty good idea who.

Probably some people bitching in private, saying the Security Council paying him was a sign of weakness, that it would only encourage his arrogance, that they should have taken a harder stance instead.

There were definitely idiots like that out there.

After all, the world was just one giant circus run by clowns.

But Hawk didn't really care.

Everyone talks trash sometimes. He talked trash about Mephisto all the time behind his back.

Besides, these politicians got where they were by running their mouths anyway. When it came time to actually do something, they folded.

Talk was cheap. As long as they didn't try anything, it was fine. Because if they actually made a move, he'd have to make one too.

Hawk thought about all this, then waved off his fiancée's concern about going to the hospital.

"No need."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

Hawk confirmed firmly, then quickly changed the subject, turning to MJ's new boyfriend—the former high school bully who had, in Hawk's estimation, somewhat redeemed himself by stepping up at the gymnasium that day—Flash Thompson. "By the way, what were you saying before?"

Flash blinked, then said, "I was asking what happened after I passed out."

He'd been knocked unconscious by that bald Black woman's staff and woken up in the hospital.

Later, Flash had been told that the three bald Black women were escapees from a mental institution who'd been subdued by police who arrived on the scene. But something about that story felt off to him.

He was Flash Thompson, for God's sake.

If a mental patient could knock him out cold with one swing, what kind of psychiatric facility had the honor of housing three women built like tanks?

Hawk listened to Flash's question and turned to Gwen beside him. "Oh yeah, Gwen—what did happen after that?"

Gwen looked at Hawk's curious expression, completely speechless on the inside.

MJ, sitting across from Gwen, watched Hawk play along with Flash and couldn't help rolling her eyes internally.

But neither of the girls told Flash the truth.

Poor Thompson.

Soon enough—

The muscle-bound, simple-minded Thompson had been thoroughly convinced by MJ's explanations—with Gwen backing her up—that those three women really had been mental patients.

Hawk just sat there watching the two girls gaslight Flash.

Sure, Flash stepping up that day had improved Hawk's opinion of him. But only somewhat. Not enough to tell him the truth.

After all, right now Flash Thompson was just Thompson. He wasn't Agent Venom Thompson yet. Even if Hawk told him everything, it would just give the guy unnecessary stress.

And so, Hawk just watched quietly until his phone rang.

He pulled it out, glanced at the unknown number on the screen, and answered, bringing it to his ear.

"Hello..."

"Mr. Phoenix, this is the butler, Orr, from the Osborn—"

"I know who you are, old timer. What's up?"

"Could I trouble you to come to the Osborn estate? Miss Hardy and Mr. Parker may be in trouble."

"...Alright."

Hawk listened to the butler's voice on the other end, raised an eyebrow, felt something stir in his mind, then calmly agreed. He turned to Gwen beside him. "I'm done eating. Heading out."

Gwen glanced at Hawk and nodded.

"Drive safe."

"Yeah."

Hawk smiled faintly, kissed his fiancée's forehead, said goodbye to MJ and Flash, then walked out of the cafeteria. He climbed into his Audi A8, floored the gas, and drove out of Empire State University.

Then, he headed straight for the Osborn estate.

...

By the time he arrived, he hadn't even fully parked before the butler—who'd been waiting anxiously at the manor's front entrance—was already hurrying down the steps toward him.

The butler watched Hawk push open the car door and step out, his voice urgent.

"Mr. Phoen—"

"Hawk."

"...Right. Hawk." The butler knew Hawk had changed his surname, which was why he hadn't used his first name like usual. But hearing Hawk correct him, he immediately switched back to the old way. "Miss Hardy and Mr. Parker may be in trouble."

Hawk frowned, walking with the butler toward the manor's main building. "What do you mean 'may be' in trouble?"

The butler explained, "Normally, Miss Hardy contacts me once a month to handle some company business remotely. But it's been over a month now, and she hasn't called. And I can't reach the experimental facility on my end either."

Hawk's curiosity deepened.

"Where did Peter and Felicia go? They've been gone a long time, haven't they?"

"Osborn's offshore research platform in the Pacific."

The butler led Hawk into the study as he spoke, then pulled up a projection. Instantly, an image of an oil-rig-like experimental platform constructed in the middle of the vast ocean appeared before Hawk's eyes.

Hawk stared at the projected platform, genuinely impressed.

"Building a secret facility like this couldn't have been cheap."

"This was overseen by Mr. Norman Osborn when he was still alive."

"Fair enough."

Hawk nodded, then asked curiously, "What about the other people on the platform? Can't you reach them either?"

The butler shook his head. "I've tried every method I can think of. Otherwise, I wouldn't have called you."

Hawk instinctively glanced at the rueful butler.

"Who told you calling me would solve anything?"

"Peter did."

The butler explained to Hawk, "Peter said if he and Miss Hardy ever lost contact, once it was confirmed, I should reach out to you immediately. He believed you'd find him. Miss Hardy agreed. So after confirming they were out of contact, I called you right away."

Hawk actually laughed at that.

"Didn't think of me when they went off to play, but the moment something goes wrong, here I am?"

"Hawk, Peter—"

"I'm kidding. Relax, old timer."

Hawk watched the butler, who'd immediately started defending Peter, and chuckled. Then he looked at the projection of the platform floating in the middle of the ocean and got down to business.

"You have coordinates for this place?"

"Yes, yes, I do."

The butler perked up immediately, nodding repeatedly, then rushed over to the computer and projected the offshore facility's coordinates.

Hawk glanced at the coordinates, nodded, then pulled out his phone, preparing to call his fiancée and give her a heads-up.

Because the moment he'd seen those coordinates, he'd felt something.

A premonition.

This trip wasn't going to be as simple as going there and coming right back.

But, It wasn't a bad premonition. It was a good one.

Like this time, if he went, he'd obtain something he'd been hoping for.

But the feeling was vague. He couldn't pin down what it was exactly.

Soon enough—

The call connected.

"Hawk?"

"Gwen, Peter's missing. I'm going to find him."

"What—alright. Be careful."

Gwen had instinctively started to exclaim, then seemed to catch herself. Her voice became calm. "When will you be back?"

Hawk answered honestly. "Not sure. I've got a feeling this might take a while."

Gwen went quiet for a moment.

"Is it dangerous?"

"No. I'm the strongest on Earth. You know that."

Hawk spoke with complete confidence.

Because it was the truth. Looking at the present moment, how many Earth-based superheroes could actually go toe-to-toe with him??

The Ancient One didn't count.

She was a cheat code.

Gwen laughed at Hawk's confident answer. "Alright. Just take care of yourself. I'll call in sick for you tomorrow."

Hawk hummed in acknowledgment, then hung up.

The butler, who'd been waiting impatiently the entire time, immediately spoke up the moment Hawk ended the call. "The private jet is ready. We can leave anytime—"

Hawk pocketed his phone and looked at the butler. "Jet? Don't need it."

The butler froze.

The next second—

He watched as Hawk, standing right in front of him, gradually became transparent. His mouth fell open. His pupils visibly dilated.