Marvel: The Awakened One

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Inside Oscorp’s Bio-Industrial Lab.

Peter stared at the empty space where Hawk had just been standing. He’d barely had time to process Hawk’s abrupt ”Give me a sec” before the man vanished.

Whoosh!

Hawk was back. And he wasn’t alone. He’d brought two people with him.

Hank Pym and the original Wasp, Janet van Dyne.

Peter gaped at Hank Pym, who looked stern and had white hair.

”You are—”

”Hank Pym, this is Peter,” Hawk cut in fast, rapid-firing the introductions. ”Peter, this is Dr. Hank Pym, and this is his wife, Janet van Dyne.”

He immediately turned his intense focus back to Peter. ”You said you needed Pym Particles. I brought you Dr. Pym. How long to get me into the Quantum Realm?”

This couldn’t wait.

When he realized the prime universe had hidden his memories of the Quantum Realm on purpose, he knew he had to act fast, before it caught on.

The Quantum Realm technically wasn’t outside the main multiverse; it was a fold inside it. But from a functional standpoint, it existed entirely off the grid.

Which meant Hawk wasn’t the least bit worried about what he’d find down there.

The Phoenix never dies. It just rebirths.

As for how he would get back? He didn’t care... He’d figure that out later. Cross that bridge when he got to it.

Peter looked at Hawk’s frantic urgency. ”Hawk, I know you’re in a rush, but you need to calm down.”

Hawk’s face was completely deadpan. ”How long?”

”Uh...”

Peter’s mind raced as he searched for an answer. He glanced at Hank, who was already checking out the rough quantum lock-and-jump rig Peter had built with Felicia’s grant money, then looked back at Hawk.

”Be right back,” Peter said, jogging over to Dr. Pym.

Janet van Dyne looked at the rig, then turned to Hawk and gave him a serious warning. ”The Quantum Realm is not a good place, Mr. Phoenix. Trust me. Once you’re down there, you will regret it...”

Janet had survived there for decades, so she knew exactly what was hiding in the dark.

But she’d only been back in the real world for a week, so she had no idea who Hawk was.

Hawk heard her warning, looked at the original Wasp, and smiled faintly.

”Ms. van Dyne. Trust me. I am far scarier than that Black man you met down there.”

Janet’s pupils constricted violently. She stared at him, frozen.

She pictured a man in battered green and bronze armor, with a shaved head, a calm but fierce face, and eyes that seemed to see through everything. He was what she feared most.

Her brain struggled to process Hawk’s smirk. ”You... have you met him?”

”I haven’t,” Hawk said casually, watching Peter eagerly show off the rig to Hank. ”But I know who he is. A loser. A prisoner exiled to the Quantum Realm.”

Exactly. A prisoner.

Everyone knew the multiverse meant endless Earths and endless versions of people.

A 31st-century variant of Kang the Conqueror discovered the multiverse and was naturally recruited into the already-established Council of Kangs.

At first, he acted friendly and learned advanced tech from his other selves. But names can be deceiving, reputations can’t. There’s a reason he’s called the Conqueror. A conqueror never shares power.

His plan was simple: wipe out every other variant and become the only Kang.

Honestly? Hawk respected the hustle.

He truly did... When Hawk first entered the multiverse, his first thought was to hunt down and get rid of every other version of himself too.

But that idea only lasted a moment.

The reason was simple. Only Hawk ’the transmigrator’ was special. The other versions were just regular Hawks, not worth the trouble.

Back to the point.

Kang’s plan got found out. The Council decided he was a threat to the entire multiverse, teamed up, crushed him, and sentenced him to eternal exile.

The Quantum Realm is the perfect natural supermax prison. Without very specific tech like Pym Particles or a working multiverse engine, you can’t get in, and you definitely can’t get out. For a Kang with a broken time ship, it was a true black hole—a cage with no key.

Hawk knew Kang’s backstory because he watched the movies.

Janet knew the backstory because she lived it. She’d even come terrifyingly close to repairing Kang’s engine once, before realizing who he truly was at the last second and secretly slipping a dampener into the core, breaking it all over again.

Hawk was going down there for one reason: to punch through to another universe, violently tear open the door to the Eighth Sense, transcend this cosmos, and find the road to Earth-828 to bring his wife home.

So he didn’t care about the exiled Kang, or any Kang, even the one who built the Sacred Timeline. If any of them challenged Hawk, he figured it would only take one punch. Two at most.

As for the Sacred Timeline, Hawk had his own timeline now.

Since he hit the Seventh Sense and pulled his personal timeline tight, his time belonged exclusively to him. Nobody got to time-travel prank him anymore.

”Peter!”

Hawk finished his staring contest with Janet. He smiled politely, then turned toward Peter, who was now deep in academic nerd-out with Hank and had apparently forgotten why Hawk brought the man there in the first place.

Peter snapped his head around.

Hawk kept it flat. ”How long?”

It wasn’t Peter who answered. It was Hank Pym.

”Three hours.”

Hank was looking at Peter’s low-power machine with genuine awe. ”Dr. Parker’s quantum positioning rig is impressive. Smaller footprint, lower energy consumption than my design. Fit it with properly tuned Pym Particles, and it’ll fire.”

Hawk arched an eyebrow, staring pointedly at Hank’s right pocket. He didn’t need to speak.

Hank pulled two vials from his pocket. ”These are Pym Particles, but they aren’t calibrated for this machine. I need to go back to my lab and synthesize a new batch using Dr. Parker’s parameters.”

”Then let’s go,” Hawk said instantly. With a thought, he grabbed Hank and Janet, preparing to teleport them back to San Francisco.

——————————

San Francisco, Three hours later.

Hawk took possession of four freshly synthesized, perfectly calibrated vials of Pym Particles from Hank Pym.

Hank took off his glasses. ”Listen carefully. One vial to go down, one to come back. If you lose them, you’ll be stuck in the Quantum Realm forever.”

Hawk nodded. ”Thanks, Dr. Pym. I owe you one. Anytime, anywhere, you can collect.”

”I’ll remember that, Mr. Phoenix.”

”See you.”

Hawk shook his hand, turned, and disappeared from the lab.

When he reappeared inside Oscorp, Peter was waiting on the couch. The second Hawk materialized, Peter jumped up.

”The Pym Particles?”

”Here.” Hawk tossed two vials straight at him. ”With these, how long?”

Peter caught them and quickly walked to the rig. ”Give me a minute. Less than an hour.”

When Peter said less than an hour, he meant it.

Fifty-nine minutes later.

Peter handed Hawk a heavily modified wristwatch. ”Protect this watch with your life. You lose this, you don’t come back.”

Hawk took it, noticed the two tiny vials of Pym Particles securely slotted inside the casing, and strapped it to his wrist. Then he looked at the platform. ”I just step up?”

Peter nodded. ”We haven’t run any live tests on this thing yet. Maybe we should try sending a test subject first just to make sure it doesn’t—”

He didn’t get to finish.

Hawk was already standing dead center on the pad.

”No time. Hit it.”

”...Put on the damn quantum suit,” Peter groaned, his eye twitching as he stared at Hawk, who was wearing nothing but street clothes. ”Are you kidding me? This is a prototype! If the calibration is off by a fraction of a percent, you’ll be instantly compressed into atomic paste!”

Hawk stared back at him, completely unfazed.

”The Phoenix never dies. Neither do I... Hit the button. Now.”

”Shit.”

Peter muttered a curse, feeling helpless, and hit the main activation switch.

The next second.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Hawk vanished from the platform in a flash of blinding light.

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