Hawk answered quickly.
Without the slightest hesitation.
Obviously.
Gwen was also delighted by his answer, and her voice grew noticeably brighter.
After a while.
The two lovers, who had only officially confirmed their relationship a few days ago, finally finished their long phone call and reluctantly hung up.
Mostly Gwen was reluctant.
Hawk was...
Fine.
He was a little reluctant too.
But Hawk knew why he had liked Gwen as early as ninth grade, yet had waited until now to face those feelings.
In short.
He had not been qualified before, but now he had grown stronger. Now he was qualified.
So...
Whether it was to keep growing stronger or to continue deserving that qualification, Hawk felt that he should work even harder than before rather than slack off now.
He might be very strong now, but if he started slacking off at this moment, how long could that strength last?
A year?
Or two or three years?
The curtain of the Marvel Universe had already risen, so not only did Hawk not dare relax, he actually felt an increasing sense of urgency.
So after ending his call with Gwen, Hawk began his daily task of throwing ten thousand punches.
In truth, punching a sandbag no longer meant anything to him.
But Hawk was not punching the sandbag itself. He was using this method to calm his heart, allowing himself to continue searching within that stillness for the Sixth Sense he knew existed but could never seem to grasp.
On the rooftop of the apartment building.
The sandbag hanging from a clothes rack swayed gently beneath Hawk's fists.
Hawk's eyes were unfocused, his thoughts scattered. It felt as if he were searching through boundless darkness for something the size of a grain of rice.
Until...
Faint screams and shouts reached his ears.
The darkness swiftly vanished from Hawk's eyes. Once his gaze focused, he instinctively turned and looked toward the Williamsburg Bridge, where the screaming and shouting had come from.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Space rapidly contracted before Hawk's eyes. In the blink of an eye, Hawk, standing several kilometers away from the Williamsburg Bridge, could see the scene unfolding on it with absolute clarity.
The Williamsburg Bridge was a suspension bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn across the East River.
Many people crossed it to work in Manhattan during the day, then returned to Brooklyn on the other side at night to rest, so the Williamsburg Bridge was always busy.
Tonight was no exception.
But something had gone wrong.
Countless Manhattan white-collar workers trapped on the bridge screamed as they ran, listening to the constant sound of vehicles being overturned behind them.
Before his eyes.
A massive creature covered in gray-green scales, with a head shaped like a lizard's, was rapidly darting across the roofs of one car after another.
As it moved, its equally powerful long tail hooked cars one after another and flung them away as though they weighed nothing.
It seemed to be searching for something.
"This is..."
"Lizard?"
Hawk took in the scene before him, then raised an eyebrow.
At the same time, a thought appeared in his mind.
It was not about how Dr. Connors had turned into Lizard without a warning from The Amazing Spider-Man.
Rather...
Well, shit. Dr. Connors's recommendation letter is useless now.
New York University might recognize a favor from Dr. Connors, but it certainly would not recognize one from Lizard.
So, barring any surprises, the handwritten recommendation letter Dr. Connors had given Hawk had gone from priceless to less valuable than scrap paper the moment Dr. Connors became Lizard.
Even the stock market would not dare crash that hard.
Very soon.
Lizard, making his grand debut on the Williamsburg Bridge, seemed to have found what he was looking for.
A well-dressed elite businessman was hooked out of a car by Lizard's tail.
The middle-aged man, clutching a serum meant for delivery to a veterans' hospital, trembled violently as he stared at Lizard's glowing green eyes.
But he still gathered his courage.
"You..."
"Ah!"
Splat!
Just as the middle-aged man opened his mouth, Lizard snatched the briefcase from his arms with one claw. Then his tail whipped out violently, sending the man flying and smashing him against the bridge railing.
The next second.
A steel cable pierced through the man's waist and cut him in half. Blood sprayed through the air as the severed man fell toward the river below the bridge.
But at that moment.
Spider-Man...
Pah.
Spider-Man made his dazzling entrance.
Peter swung through the air while clutching the web line he had fired. He rapidly adjusted his body, brought his feet together, and slammed into Lizard, who had apparently been preparing to leave, like a cannonball.
Lizard staggered from the kick. Once he regained his footing, he turned toward Peter, who was crouched atop a car with both hands and feet gripping the roof. Lizard opened his huge mouth, his green tongue lashing wildly as he let out a roar at Peter.
The next moment.
Peter fired a strand of webbing from his right wrist. With a wet slap, it stuck to the briefcase in Lizard's arms, and Peter yanked hard.
Lizard watched the briefcase leave his grasp and became utterly enraged. He immediately hooked up the cars beside him with his tail and hurled them at Peter one after another.
The war between Spider-Man and Lizard swiftly began.
Hawk stood atop his apartment building and watched with great interest.
But then he remembered something. He turned toward the sandbag, and his entire body instantly became an afterimage as countless fist shadows landed lightly upon it.
Thirty seconds later.
After rapidly finishing today's ten-thousand-punch task, Hawk finally let out a breath of relief. Then he looked back toward the Williamsburg Bridge, ready to enjoy the show without any psychological burden.
But...
"Where's Lizard?"
"Where's Spider-Man?"
"Where did they go?"
Hawk stared blankly as he looked at the Williamsburg Bridge again, still intending to watch for a while.
But he soon noticed the water beneath the Williamsburg Bridge.
Under the surface, a shadow seemed to be moving rapidly.
It was fast.
Peter had swung after Lizard the entire way, but by the time he neared Roosevelt Island, he had still lost Lizard's trail.
The sky was too dark, and Lizard truly was incredibly fast underwater.
Peter stopped on the rooftop of a skyscraper and shook his head as he looked toward the place where he had lost Lizard.
Just as he was about to leave and head home, he suddenly sensed something and walked to the edge of the rooftop.
Before his eyes.
He saw Hawk standing on the rooftop of a ten-story building not far away.
Hawk smiled and waved at Spider-Man, who was crouching at the edge of the rooftop and looking this way.
Before you continue