Marvel: The Enlightened One-Chapter 55: [] - An Eye for an Eye!

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I have some good news to share: starting from Chapter 72, the Chapters will be longer, almost double the usual length!

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The sewer walls were slick with a sticky, unidentifiable slime, and the stench—a foul mix of rust, raw sewage, and rot—filled the tunnel.

Hawk shut off his sense of smell entirely. Heat was manageable. Cold was nothing. But this kind of stench, this was his kryptonite.

He looked at the masked figure leading the way through the muck, a genuine curiosity in his voice.

"How in the world did you find this place?"

"I followed the lizards," Peter explained, his own voice muffled by his mask, likely a welcome filter against the overwhelming stench. "It’s just up ahead. Around this corner."

During their fight at the school two days ago, he’d noticed some of the smaller lizards scrambling out of the sewer grates.

With nothing better to do on his weekend, Peter had decided to investigate. He’d spent the better part of a day navigating the labyrinthine sewer system until, finally, he had found it:

Dr. Connors’s temporary lab.

His first thought had been of Hawk, figuring he would be interested. And so, he had swung by his apartment and invited him on a "Weekend Adventure into the New York Underground."

Soon, They rounded the corner and saw it.

A bird’s nest of spliced wires, held in place by gobs of some unidentifiable slime, ran up the wall, powering a few bare light bulbs. The weak light illuminated a makeshift lab—two laptops and an assortment of scientific equipment scattered across a table.

Hawk stepped onto the platform, his eyes scanning the setup. "So where’s this video you were talking about?"

"Here."

Peter was already at one of the laptops. He typed a few commands, and a video file opened on the screen.

[STATIC]

"That blood... it has to be Hawk’s."

"I should call him..."

[STATIC]

"No... no, he’d never give it to me."

[STATIC]

"Wait... Gwen."

"I can take Gwen. Force Hawk to give me his blood."

[STATIC]

"Yes... that’s it. I’ll take the girl. Then he’ll have no choice."

"Get Gwen..."

On the screen, Dr. Connors looked like a man possessed. His clothes were filthy, his hair matted to his head with sweat. He paced and muttered to himself, his image flickering with static.

In the final moments of the video, his eyes wild with a feverish desperation, Connors grabbed the last three vials of the regenerative serum and plunged them into his own body.

A series of guttural, inhuman roars ripped from his throat, and in a final, agonizing transformation, the Lizard was born.

The video ended there.

A strange, almost amused expression crossed Hawk’s face.

So, this was the reason the Lizard had been hunting Gwen. It was all to capture her and force him to hand over his blood?

The logic was so twisted, so utterly insane, that Hawk could only come to one conclusion.

"The lizard serum completely fried his brain."

"Would you have given it to him?"

"What?" Hawk looked at Peter.

Peter’s question was genuine. "If Connors had just called you and asked for your blood, would you have given it to him?"

Hawk’s brow furrowed slightly.

Would he have??

Hawk considered it for a moment, then gave a slow, deliberate nod. "A small amount, yes."

"Why?"

Peter’s eyes widened behind his mask. "I don’t know what’s so special about your blood, but it was obviously the key to him becoming the Lizard. Knowing what would happen, you’d still give it to him?"

Hawk looked at Peter, his voice calm and even. "Him using my blood to become the Lizard would have been his choice. Me giving it to him would have been mine."

Peter just shook his head. "I don’t get it."

"You and I... we both grew up without parents. But yours existed. You had them, and you still have your aunt and uncle. Me? I’m an orphan. Always have been. That’s why you can be a hero, Peter. And why I never can be."

"Why not?"

"I’m not as good a person as you are," Hawk said with a small, self-aware smile. "But I’m not evil, either. I just live by a simple code: a kindness must be repaid, and a wrong must be avenged."

"When I was let go from Oscorp, it had nothing to do with Dr. Connors. But he still wrote me that letter of recommendation."

"Even though the letter is useless to me now, when he wrote it, he had nothing to gain from it. That was a favor, freely given. So..."

Hawk’s smile returned, this time with a hint of irony. "A vial of blood? It’s nothing to me. I would have given it to him. What he does with it... if he saves the world or burns it to the ground... that’s on him. My conscience would be clear."

Peter listened to Hawk’s explanation, a thoughtful look on his face as he nodded slowly.

A thought then occurred to Hawk. He looked at Peter. "What, are you interested in my blood now, too? I can give you a vial if you want."

Peter’s head snapped up, and he shook it vigorously. "No, no. I’m good."

"Alright then."

Hawk chuckled, then scanned the platform one last time and shook his head. "This is what I mean. His brain is fried. He could have just asked me for it. Instead, he did all this. Come on, let’s go."

Now that he knew Connors’s motive—as insane as it was—it was time to leave. Considering the doctor’s mental state in that video, it almost made sense.

The logic of a madman. You can no more predict the thoughts of the insane than you can predict the whims of a cat.

Time to go...

He still wanted to see if he could unload those five Chitauri weapons today, and this little field trip had already taken up half his day.

Peter looked around the makeshift lab. "What about all this?"

Hawk considered it. "Burn it."

"Burn it?"

"The man is dead. Let him rest. Besides, if we leave this stuff here, who knows what kind of monster might crawl out of it next. But it’s your call. I don’t really care either way."

"...You’re right." Peter thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

"Good. Then I’m leaving it to you, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man." Hawk gave him a mock salute, then turned and walked away without a backward glance, disappearing back into the darkness of the tunnels.

After Hawk was gone, Peter took one last look around the lab, then left as well.

He needed to find something to start a fire.

And after they were both gone, on the platform, the tiny, blinking red light of a hidden camera went dark...

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