Marvel: The Awakened One

”I don’t fucking care!”

”Strucker... I’m genuinely curious—where did you get the delusion that you could threaten me with children?”

”Just because I care about my family?”

”Sure... I care about them deeply.”

”But—”

”If you think caring about them means you can use them as leverage against me, you’re dead wrong.”

”I don’t give a single damn.”

”So—” Hawk’s gaze pierced through the satellite hovering overhead, as if meeting Strucker’s eyes directly. His lips curved into an amused smile. ”I want to play a game with you. Let’s see which one of us cares less.”

With that!

Phoenix Ray!

Hawk’s eyes blazed crimson. A Phoenix Ray blasted directly into Werner’s right shoulder as he hung suspended in the air.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

”AHHH!”

”NO!”

Werner’s agonized scream tore through the air. Inside the Hydra base, Strucker watched his son’s right arm get severed on-screen. His eyes bulged with fury. ”FUCK! FUCK!”

Strucker was losing control.

Why had he raised his son separately, kept him hidden away? Precisely so that if Hydra ever fell and his identity was exposed, his son would still live a good life.

But now his son had been found anyway. And right before his eyes, Werner had just lost an arm.

Strucker trembled violently, his gaze locked on the satellite feed.

”Fuck! Stay away from my son! You have a problem with me, take it up with me! Let him go—I’ll give you your children back!”

”Too late.”

”What?”

”You heard me.” Hawk’s lips curved upward. Listening to Werner’s screams like sweet music to his ears, his tone remained perfectly calm. ”I told you—I won’t use your son to threaten you into anything.”

He wasn’t a villain, after all.

Only villains used the protagonist’s loved ones as leverage.

Strucker ground his teeth.

”Then what do you want?”

”I told you. A game. I don’t care about those three children in your hands. You’d better not care about your son either.”

Hawk’s smile widened. Crimson energy gathered in his eyes, preparing to give the now one-armed Werner a quick end. He spoke into the phone, voice distant and cold. ”Watch closely. Don’t blink. Because the moment I finish speaking, you’ll never see your son again.”

The words fell.

Phoenix Ray fired.

Werner—suspended in the air, still screaming—exploded in a burst of crimson light.

Hawk released the satellite phone, letting it plummet toward the ocean below.

In an instant!

The screaming stopped.

The crimson light faded, taking Werner—struck dead center by the Phoenix Ray—with it. Gone without a trace.

”NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—”

SPLASH!

Even Strucker’s soul-rending howl through the satellite phone cut off the moment it hit the water.

Hawk hovered in midair above the Pacific. He looked up at the spying satellite one last time, then fired another Phoenix Ray. It pierced the clouds and struck the satellite with pinpoint accuracy.

BOOM!

CRACKLE!

”Sir, the satellite’s been destroyed. Should we redirect anoth—”

The Hydra operative watched the screen dissolve into static. He turned instinctively toward Strucker—then immediately swallowed his remaining words.

What he saw:

Strucker stood frozen, eyes wide, staring at the static-filled screen as if in a trance.

But looking closer, his lips were trembling uncontrollably.

His mouth moved, trying to form words, but his throat seemed constricted. All that escaped were broken, toneless sounds. ”Hhhh... hhhh...”

He couldn’t believe it. His mind kept replaying that moment—the Phoenix Ray striking his son without mercy, Werner’s body dissolving instantly.

In the span of a heartbeat, blood vessels burst in the whites of his eyes.

His son—

Dead?

No!

How dare he.

How dare Hawk kill his son—didn’t he know Strucker held three of his children hostage?

Right.

His three children.

Strucker snapped back to reality. His breathing grew ragged. His eyes turned bloodshot. Then he released an inhuman shriek of primal fury.

”AHHHHH—!!!”

”I WANT YOU DEAD, HAWK PHOENIX!!!”

Strucker had lost all composure.

Only one thought consumed him now.

Staring at the static-filled screen, teeth clenched, eyes crimson with rage, his voice seemed to crawl up from the depths of Hell.

”Fine!”

”You want to play? I’ll play!”

”You killed my son.”

”Then your three children won’t survive either.”

”Bring those three kids to me.”

”I’m going to kill them!”

”KILL THEM!”

Driven to the brink of madness, Strucker whirled on his assistant, screaming and stomping with uncontained fury.

The assistant faced Strucker’s murderous bloodshot glare, shuddered violently, and immediately barked into his headset—ordering agents to seize Jean, Billy, and Tommy.

The Hydra operatives stationed on Wanda’s floor received their orders. Without hesitation, five agents sprinted toward her quarters.

BANG!

The door exploded inward. Quicksilver and Wanda—who had dropped the illusion and were sitting in the living room—stared at the five operatives who burst in radiating killing intent.

Quicksilver reacted fir—

THUD!

One instant he’d entered the Speed Force. The next, he came crashing out, his body rigid, convulsing on the floor.

Wanda—hands just beginning to rise—suffered the same fate. Her entire body seized as if electrocuted. Like Pietro, she collapsed, twitching uncontrollably.

The lead Hydra operative glanced at the ”Nano-Bug Control Device” he’d just activated. He nodded to his four companions.

The four operatives stepped over Wanda and Pietro, racing upstairs.

With the nanobots in their bloodstreams activated, Pietro and Wanda—struggling against the electrical current—forced their gazes toward the upper floor.

BANG!

The four operatives kicked down the door. Three of them immediately converged on three-year-old Jean.

BOOM!

Scarlet light erupted from Jean’s body—only to be absorbed by the Vibranium shields the three operatives had already drawn from their backs.

The next second.

WHAM!

Jean was only three years old. She was knocked unconscious instantly.

Once the three operatives had Jean secured, the remaining two turned their attention to Billy and Tommy crawling on the carpet.

But the moment they reached for the twins—

Everything changed.

The source wasn’t Billy or Tommy.

It was the rose-gold Andromeda Cloth necklace in Wanda’s pocket downstairs—still not delivered to the boys—while she convulsed under the nanobots’ assault.

Hawk had given this Andromeda Cloth necklace to Gwen.

Gwen had then given it to protect Billy and Tommy.

Just as Thor had once commanded Mjolnir to protect Jane Foster.

The Andromeda Cloth—entrusted by Gwen to safeguard Billy and Tommy—sensed danger to its charges. It blazed with radiant light, whooshing out of Wanda’s pocket as it disassembled into countless components, streaking upstairs.

The Cloth pieces phased through the floor. With wet thuds, they punched clean through two Hydra operatives—entering at their groins and exiting through their skulls.

A third operative—about to fasten something around Jean’s neck—heard the whistling air and turned. By then, a Cloth fragment had already pierced his throat.

Simultaneously.

The instant the Cloth activated, the Cosmo energy it carried annihilated the nanobots inside Wanda.

Her internal nanobots disintegrated before the erupting Cosmo.

As four muffled impacts sounded from the room above, Wanda found herself free.

She didn’t hesitate.

Motherhood transforms the meek into warriors.

”AHHH!”

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. The moment the Cloth’s radiance appeared, before the operative downstairs—the one controlling Wanda and Pietro via nanobots—could even react, Wanda’s eyes had turned completely scarlet. Her hands thrust toward him.

Crimson energy—like a force palm—slammed into his chest.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The operative at the doorway went flying backward, his spine crashing against the railing outside. Then he plummeted toward the lower levels.

Wanda didn’t spare him a glance. She was already racing upstairs.

Pietro—freed from the nanobots when the operative went down—worried desperately for his niece and nephews. The instant he scrambled up, he entered the Speed Force.

But even he couldn’t outpace a mother’s instinct.

Still—

When Wanda saw the life-sized rose-gold Cloth standing in the room, she froze.

The next second.

She heard Billy and Tommy’s voices coming from within the human-sized Cloth—wrapped protectively in its chain.

Giggling. Babbling. As if they found this all tremendously fun rather than dangerous.

”Billy!”

”Tommy!”

Wanda heard her sons and snapped back to reality. She rushed forward.

Pietro had already scooped up the unconscious Jean from nearby.

As for the four Hydra operatives who’d stormed in?

They lay scattered across the room. Dead beyond dead.

Meanwhile.

BLARE!

BLARE!

BLARE!

Alarm klaxons erupted throughout the Hydra base.

But—

Not because of Wanda and Pietro.

Because Hawk had arrived...

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

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