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"Yes, I can!" When Jean's small voice piped up, the others might have missed it, but Sharon's face lit up.
"Where is he right now, Jean?"
"I don't know."
"..." Sharon's expression froze.
Wanda turned to her daughter, her face serious. "Jean..."
"I can feel Daddy, but I can't tell where he is." The little girl shook her head, looking up at her mother. "But I think Daddy is on a tree."
Wanda blinked. "A tree?"
"Uh-huh." Jean nodded. She then looked over at Bruce Banner. "Daddy is going to be just fine."
Bruce Banner looked at the little girl, noted the lack of warmth in her gaze, and managed an awkward smile.
"I'm sorry."
"There's a monster living inside you. But it feels very sad right now." Jean studied Bruce with innocent curiosity.
Wanda, having processed the news of Gwen's disappearance, noticed Bruce. She turned to Sharon, confused.
"Who is this?"
"Dr. Bruce Banner," Sharon replied.
"Bruce..." Wanda looked at him, surprised, then turned back to Sharon. "Wait. I thought Hawk killed him. Did Hawk bring him back?"
"No, he's not our Bruce Banner." Sharon shook her head. "He's the Bruce Banner from a parallel universe. We don't know how he ended up in ours."
Wanda stared at him, intrigued.
Bruce, feeling like a zoo animal under her scrutiny, cleared his throat. "We fought side-by-side once. In my universe, I mean."
Wanda gave him a suspicious look. "Are you sure about that?"
"Yes."
Bruce then launched into a condensed version of his history: how they had raided the Sokovia fortress, how Wanda had used her chaos magic to scramble Tony Stark's mind, which led to the creation of Ultron, and the crisis that followed.
Listening to the story, Sharon looked at Wanda. "Your chaos magic can do all that?"
Wanda shook her head, looking just as lost. "I have no idea."
And she didn't.
Her life had gone from being a lab rat in a Hydra facility to being a devoted mother in Westview.
Chaos magic?
She knew she was powerful, but she had never done anything close to what Bruce was describing.
Nearby, Pietro, who had been listening the whole time, couldn't hold back. He turned to Bruce. "Wait. Did you just say I died getting shot?"
"Yeah."
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Pietro let out a disbelieving laugh. "I'm Quicksilver. You're telling me I couldn't dodge a bullet?"
Bruce shrugged. "In my universe, you died."
Pietro's lip curled. "Well, in this universe, you're the one who died."
Seeing the tension rising between the two men trading death notifications, Sharon stepped in. "Guys, the 'who died where' debate can wait. We have bigger problems."
"Where is Gwen, and does Hawk know she's missing? That is Priority One. And Priority Two is this 'Thanos' guy you keep mentioning."
"..." Bruce Banner stared at Sharon, astounded that she was prioritizing Gwen's disappearance over the Mad Titan. "Thanos is the threat. He's coming."
Sharon met his gaze. "I don't know if Thanos has the power to destroy the Earth or not. But I do know that if Gwen is missing and Hawk doesn't know about it... the Earth is going to be destroyed."
"Uh..." Seeing how serious Sharon was, Bruce looked over at Doctor Strange. "Is this Hawk guy worse than Thanos?"
Strange thought back to the apocalyptic montage he had witnessed in Hawk's timeline. He looked at Bruce. "You have no idea..."
"Then why are you friends with him?" Bruce couldn't make sense of it. He turned to Tony Stark. "Where's your Anti-Hawk armor?"
Tony frowned. "My what?"
"In my universe, you thought I was too dangerous, so you built the Hulkbuster armor to stop me. You don't have a Hulk here, but you have a Hawk. You must have built a Hawkbuster, right?"
"I never said Hawk was uncontrollable." Tony replied, though a calculating look crossed his face as he stared at Bruce. "That's an interesting idea, though. A Hawkbuster."
Bruce was baffled.
Seeing his confusion, Sharon chuckled and offered a brief explanation of Hawk's operating logic.
'You stay in your lane, I stay in mine.'
As long as no one provoked him, Hawk was happy to obey local laws and act like a model citizen.
But the moment someone crossed a line or tried to test him, he would explode. A minor offense got an entire family line erased; a major offense got a species wiped out.
Because of that rigid code, even though Hawk was brutal, he was considered "manageable." No one in power entertained the idea of trying to take him out.
In fact, the opposite was true.
The five global superpowers quietly viewed Hawk as Earth's deterrent—the weapon securing their expansion into the cosmos.
Like right now.
"You said Thanos is coming for the Infinity Stones."
"He's going to be disappointed."
"Hawk has two of them, and he's not on Earth. So what is Thanos going to do here?"
"Uh..." Hearing Sharon's logic, Doctor Strange looked down. The Eye of Agamotto hummed, revealing the emerald glow of the Time Stone. He looked back up at her.
Sharon stared at the green gem around Strange's neck and drew in a sharp breath.
Just as she was about to speak.
The house began to shake.
Pietro reacted first. In a blur, he vanished out the front door and reappeared a second later, eyes wide. "There's a massive alien ship hovering right over the town."
The room froze. Then they rushed outside.
Looking up.
A ring-shaped alien transport ship hovered in the sky, casting a shadow over Westview.
"Hiss!"
"Initiate Westview Emergency Protocol Alpha. Evacuate the Chloes and Anya Phoenix."
"Yes, ma'am."
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents redeployed to Westview after Sharon's reinstatement sprang into action.
Sharon turned to Wanda and Pietro, her face grim. "Wanda, just to be safe, you need to leave too. Now."
Before Wanda could nod, Pietro vanished. When he reappeared, he had Billy under one arm and Tommy under the other.
As for Olek and Iryna Maximoff, they had gone across the street to visit Andrew and Amy Chloe shortly before Sharon and the others arrived.
Minutes later—
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hammered on the Chloes' door, ushering the bewildered families out of the house.
"Wanda!"
"Jean!"
Anya, about to climb into an armored transport with her parents, spotted Wanda standing on the porch across the street. She broke away, running over to hug Jean, then looked at Wanda. "What's going on? Where did that alien ship come from?"
Wanda shook her head.
Sharon, busy coordinating the evacuation, had just finished reporting the incident to Headquarters. She turned to Anya. "Anya, can you reach Hawk?"
Anya looked at her, confused.
"Hasn't he come back yet?"
"No."
"What about Gwen? Can she reach him?"
"..." Sharon's mind raced. She decided not to mention Gwen's disappearance yet. "These aliens are likely looking for your family to use as leverage against Hawk for his Infinity Stones. You need to get out of here. We'll hold them off."
She gave a sharp nod to the armed S.H.I.E.L.D. detail standing by.
Wanda looked up at the spacecraft, her heart tightening. She nodded. Flanked by agents, she, Pietro, and Anya climbed into a waiting armored vehicle.
The moment the convoy carrying the Maximoffs and the Chloes sped out of Westview...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Two columns of white light shot down from the hovering ship, slamming into the main street of Westview.
As the light faded.
Two figures stood in the street. One was tall, gaunt, and moved with an unnerving elegance—Ebony Maw. The other was a hulking beast with skin like iron—Cull Obsidian.
Doctor Strange reacted fast. His hands flashed through mudras, casting a Mirror Dimension spell that pulled the town of Westview into a parallel reality.
This ensured that no matter how destructive the fight became, the actual town would remain unharmed.
Tony Stark analyzed the two aliens, who had stayed still since arriving. He frowned. "It doesn't look like they came for Wanda or the Chloes."
At first, he had assumed this was a kidnapping attempt to extort the stones from Hawk.
But—
Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian had waited until Hawk's family was evacuated before making their entrance.
A coincidence?
Or a deliberate choice? Were they trying to avoid the wrong message, knowing that targeting Hawk's family would trigger a response beyond anything they could handle?
After all, arriving while Hawk's family was present sent a different message than arriving after they had left.
But if they weren't here for Hawk...
Tony turned to Doctor Strange.
"They're here for you—"
"I know." Strange had come to the same conclusion. They weren't after Hawk. They were after him.
But what's the point of taking the Time Stone?
If you don't have the guts to face Hawk and take his stones, getting mine still won't give you a full set.
Strange's mind worked, trying to figure out their angle.
Ebony Maw, moving with that same unnerving elegance, raised a long spindly finger. He pointed first at Doctor Strange, then shifted his finger to Bruce Banner. "Hand over those two, and we will leave this place in peace."
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