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New Amsterdam Hospital. VIP ward.
After sleeping for about an hour, Sharon Carter refused to go back to bed no matter what anyone said. With Gwen's help, she propped herself up against the headboard, her gaze drifting through the window toward the night sky outside.
Sharon looked deeply worried.
Gwen, sitting beside her, saw the expression on Sharon's face and smiled reassuringly. "Sharon, don't worry. If Hawk promised, he's not going to break his word."
When Hawk said someone was going to die, that person died.
No exceptions. Guaranteed.
Sharon heard that and pulled her gaze back from the window, looking at Gwen. She managed a strained smile and shook her head. "I'm not worried about that. I'm wondering if I need to start looking for a new job."
Gwen froze.
"What?"
"Do you think SHIELD will even exist after HYDRA's second uprising? Even if this whole thing gets resolved?"
"Uh..."
Gwen heard Sharon's question and fell into thought.
Just then, Hawk appeared in the hospital room, catching the tail end of Sharon's question. He let out a soft laugh. "That's definitely not happening."
Gwen's eyes lit up when she saw Hawk return.
"Hawk."
Sharon also snapped to attention when she saw him. She braced her hands against the bed, her expression caught between wanting to speak and holding back.
Hawk knew what Sharon wanted to ask. He cut straight to it. "Victoria Hand is fine. And I got your Operations Center back for you."
Sharon's heart surged with emotion.
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it. From here on out, it's up to you guys."
Hawk smiled.
Once he pulled the plug on Dr. Zola, he was done. He'd go home, sit with his fiancée, and watch this whole thing play out from the sidelines.
"Oh, right."
Hawk remembered something about Zola. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Sharon. "Before Cap took the super soldier serum, didn't he train at some military base in New Jersey?"
Sharon nodded instinctively. "Yeah."
Hawk immediately followed up. "Do you know which base? Where is it?"
He knew about all the major events in the Marvel Universe—past, present, and future.
But his knowledge wasn't exactly encyclopedic.
For example, right now, he knew that Arnim Zola had converted himself into a digital consciousness and had been hiding in SHIELD's original server room all these years.
But he didn't know the exact location of SHIELD's founding base.
After all, neither the movies nor any history book spelled that out.
No problem, though.
Other people might not know, but Sharon Carter—who was at least tangentially connected to Captain America—definitely would.
Sure enough—
"Camp Lehigh. Third Army Base in Jersey City."
Sharon answered without even thinking. "It's about thirty kilometers east of Jersey City. But that base was decommissioned back in the nineties. Why are you asking?"
Hawk smiled faintly but didn't answer. Instead, he looked Sharon over. "How are you feeling right now?"
Sharon was curious why Hawk was suddenly asking about this, but she nodded anyway.
"A lot better."
"Good."
Hawk nodded. He was about to say something when he seemed to sense something. He turned his head toward the hospital room door.
The next second, A knock sounded.
Gwen's heart jumped.
"HYDRA?"
"SHIELD."
Hawk said flatly, looking at the door. "Come in."
The door opened.
The female SHIELD agent Hawk had seen earlier at the New York Operations Center stepped in, along with a male SHIELD agent.
The female agent looked at Hawk. "Mr. Phoenix."
Hawk nodded.
Sharon, sitting in bed, craned her neck to see who was at the door. When she saw the female SHIELD agent, her face lit up. "Martha!"
The agent—Martha—also saw Sharon in bed. Her expression softened with relief, and she quickly crossed the room. "Sharon, thank God. You're okay."
Sharon asked urgently, "How's Commander Hand?"
Martha glanced at Sharon, who was still hooked up to a transfusion, and smiled. "Same as you. Getting blood. But don't worry—the Commander's fine."
Sharon's worry disappeared completely. Then she looked at Martha. "I want to go back to the base and be with you guys."
As she spoke, Sharon instinctively glanced at Hawk.
Hawk laughed.
"I'm not HYDRA. I'm not holding you prisoner."
Hawk joked, then turned to Gwen. "Alright, Sharon's people are here. Let's head home."
He still needed to get his fiancée home safely, then run off and pull the plug on Zola.
Gwen nodded and looked at Sharon. "Sharon, we're heading out."
Sharon hummed in acknowledgment. "Thank you, Gwen."
Martha also turned to Gwen. "Thank you, Miss Stacy."
Gwen smiled, waved at Sharon and Martha, and then followed Hawk out of the room.
The black Audi A8 tore through Manhattan's streets, making it back to the garage at 521A Bleecker Street in under twenty minutes.
...
Back in the living room.
Gwen turned on the lights, then turned to face Hawk with a smile. "Alright. I'm home. You can go take care of business now."
Hawk raised an eyebrow at her.
Gwen smiled. "Sharon doesn't know you that well, but I do, Hawk. You're not the type to ask random questions for no reason."
Hawk looked at Gwen with exaggerated shock.
"Nothing gets past my dear fiancée."
"Quit the sweet talk."
Gwen gave him an amused eye roll, then said, "Go on. Get it done. I'll make us something to eat. Come back soon."
"Yes, ma'am."
Hawk straightened up with mock seriousness, gave her a salute, then suddenly appeared right in front of her, leaned down, stole a quick kiss, and vanished before she could react.
Gwen instinctively covered her mouth, watching the spot where Hawk had just been. She let out a quiet laugh, shook her head with a smile, then turned on the TV and headed toward the kitchen to make a late-night snack for when Hawk got back.
Just as she took her first step toward the kitchen—
Hawk had already appeared in the airspace above the abandoned military base thirty kilometers east of Jersey City that Sharon had mentioned.
The next second, he was standing in the middle of the decommissioned base, which was now overgrown with waist-high weeds.
Hawk's gaze locked onto a munitions warehouse in the distance.
It wasn't because he vaguely remembered that Captain America Steve Rogers had noticed something off about a non-existent warehouse.
It was because every door in the entire base was shut tight and locked—except for that warehouse. Its large door was wide open, practically impossible to miss.
After all, Hawk wasn't blind.
When Hawk saw the warehouse door standing open—as if someone had beaten him to it—he paused for a moment, then realized something.
The timeline for Captain America: The Winter Soldier was actually pretty similar to Thor: The Dark World. Both were short.
Wait... Thor 2's plot was compressed into forty-eight hours. Cap 2 happened over seventy-two.
HYDRA had officially launched their second uprising yesterday. Today was day two.
So, If he wasn't mistaken, Captain America Steve Rogers and Black Widow Natasha Romanoff had probably already found this place.
Hawk thought to himself as he took a step forward. In an instant, he was standing at the entrance to the wide-open munitions warehouse. His form flickered again, and when he reappeared, he was already inside.
THUD.
Captain America, who had only recently arrived and had already found the secret elevator and was currently talking with Dr. Zola—learning the truth behind Project Insight—seemed to sense something. He looked up at the ceiling.
Natasha, standing nearby and equally shocked by what Zola had revealed, noticed Cap's movement out of the corner of her eye. She snapped out of her daze and followed his gaze upward.
"Cap, what is it?"
"Someone's here."
Captain America Steve Rogers said in a low, serious tone.
Natasha immediately shifted into combat mode. The tactical pistols holstered at her sides were drawn in a flash, and she scanned the room with sharp, cautious eyes.
Just then—
The bulky computer screen behind them was suddenly flooded with streams of data. At the same time, the ancient server racks filling the entire room started humming at full capacity, their cooling fans whirring loudly.
Natasha noticed the change. She spun around to look at Dr. Zola, who seemed to be calculating something.
Cap also reacted. He turned to face the screen displaying Zola's digital face.
"Zola, what are you up to?"
"..."
Zola didn't answer. He was analyzing.
But no matter how much he analyzed, he couldn't figure out how Hawk had pinpointed his location this quickly.
Even if John Garrett had sold him out, it wouldn't matter.
Because Garrett didn't know his exact location either.
Unless...
Dr. Zola's data streams quickly zeroed in on a ten-minute gap in Alexander Pierce's signal records.
He nearly crashed.
Because Zola couldn't understand why Alexander Pierce would do that either.
Just then, Captain America, still watching Zola, caught a spatial distortion in his peripheral vision—right by the elevator entrance.
No hesitation.
WHOOSH.
With a sharp twist of his core, Cap's shield was already flying toward Hawk, who had just silently materialized at the elevator entrance.
The shield spun through the air.
The force behind it was enough to cut a normal person clean in half at the waist.
...
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