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"Because you're my friend."
"..." Natasha stopped in her tracks at the door of Hell's Tavern when she heard those words.
Hawk chuckled softly and gestured to an empty barstool. "Take your time. We're right between life and death. However long you stay here, it'll only feel like a moment outside."
Natasha saw him smiling. After a long pause, she came back and sat across from him.
Hawk lifted his glass and tapped it against hers. "Remember when you came to Palm Street a few weeks ago? You asked me who was in the driver's seat. Me, or the Hawk you knew."
"I remember."
"Then you should remember my answer..."
"I am me. And he is me." Hawk looked at her. "No matter which Hawk it is, Natasha... you are my friend."
That was the honest truth.
In his original universe, he hadn't spent much time with Natasha.
But that didn't mean she wasn't a friend.
At the very least, her number was saved right after Sharon's in his phone. If she wasn't his friend, she wouldn't have been Gwen's bridesmaid.
And this universe's Natasha was his friend too.
When Hawk called someone a friend, he meant it.
Even more important, some say there is no Marvel without Iron Man.
But without Natasha, there wouldn't be any Avengers.
She was the only one who really saw the Avengers as a family. She kept everyone together so things wouldn't fall apart.
And most important of all, what was the point of being a transmigrator if you couldn't fix a few regrets along the way?
Hawk put his glass down and looked at her calmly. "You aren't going to die."
"...But if I don't die, the Soul Stone won't appear."
"Correct."
"Then..."
"But I can flip the table."
"What?" Natasha blinked, caught off guard.
A moment later, Hawk shifted his gaze to the tavern door. He smiled. "Death. Want to come in for a drink?"
Death??
Who was that?
Natasha instinctively turned her head toward the door.
She saw it.
The tavern doors burst open, pushed by an eerie wind.
A woman walked in. She wore a robe that looked like it was made from the night sky. Her eyes were empty sockets, but she had a human nose and mouth. Her skin was pale and gray—half-human and half-skeleton—but she gave off a powerful presence. She moved through the bar with graceful steps.
It was her!
She was the source, creator, and controller of all souls in the main Marvel multiverse. She was the living symbol of the end of all life.
One Of The Five Cosmic Entities!
Death!
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"..." Death stepped inside. Her hollow eyes focused on Hawk.
Hawk gestured to an empty stool.
Death looked at the stool. In an instant, she was sitting there, perfectly poised.
A moment later, Death spoke.
Her voice didn't come from her mouth. It seemed to come from everywhere at once—raspy, calm, gentle, and ruthless.
"Mephisto. You killed him."
"I didn't want to." Hawk smiled. He grabbed a fresh glass, poured a shot of bourbon, and slid it across the bar. "I gave the Devil a million chances. But it was like he had auto-dodge turned on. He ignored every single exit ramp."
The bottom line was this:
He might have killed other people by mistake.
But Mephisto? Hawk could swear on his life he had been beyond merciful with him. Hawk always left his enemies a single sliver of survival. But for Mephisto? He left forty-nine slivers.
But the Devil still chose the one path that led to his death.
What else was Hawk supposed to do?
Letting him go again would have just been an insult.
As Mephisto's direct boss, Death knew his personality perfectly well.
She even knew that this specific Hell Dimension had been dragged here from the multiverse.
Death's bony face formed an elegant smile. "Mephisto was a very unique Lord of Death."
"I thought so too." Hawk nodded in total agreement. He raised his glass to her. "If I had a choice, I wouldn't have killed him."
Despite the Devil's natural trickery, Hawk actually liked having drinks with him here. He enjoyed hearing Mephisto call him 'Good Daddy' and 'Good Brother.'
But unfortunately, things changed. No one in the tavern called him those names anymore.
That was why Hawk hadn't bothered to fix up the Hell Dimension.
Maybe he really did miss the old bastard.
Clink.
Hawk and Death touched glasses. They both took a drink.
A moment later, Hawk set his glass down. He glanced at Natasha, who sat frozen in silence, then looked back at Death. "I'm not trying to steal a soul from you. You can see it yourself. Her soul was reserved by me a long time ago."
Death rested her chin on her hand and slowly looked over at Natasha.
Chirp!
Deep inside Natasha's soul, a fiery Phoenix slept in the flames, waiting to be reborn.
It came from a Golden Phoenix Feather hidden deep at her core.
Now that his golden Phoenix Micro-Universe was fully set in this world, anyone with a Golden Feather would avoid real death. They would burn to ash and come back to life.
Death just glanced at it, then looked back at Hawk. Her lazy voice sounded cold. "Your divine authority precedes mine. Fine. Her soul does not belong to me. But by that same rule, the Soul Stone will not manifest."
"NOO!" Natasha finally spoke up, panicked. "Take my soul. Give me the Soul Stone."
Death didn't even look at her. She just leaned on her hand, smiling silently at Hawk.
Her eyes said everything. "Look. Your follower is ungrateful."
"She's not my follower. She's my friend."
Hawk corrected her. He quickly changed the subject. "I'm curious. Why did this universe's Thanos wipe out half of all life? Was it for you? To stop the Celestials? Or did he actually believe the universe needed balance?"
Death kept her chin propped up. Her empty eyes stared at him. "The Celestials? Eternity's little playthings?"
She stopped for a moment.
A beautiful but frightening smile appeared on her face. "It seems the Thanos in your universe acted to stop the Celestials."
Hawk met her hollow gaze.
"Thanos said the Celestials banished you and Eternity from our reality."
"HA! HA! HA!... HA!" Death burst into loud laughter.
The sound... it felt like a love call—a laughter so deep, it could reach through the soul and make it tremble.
"..." Hawk didn't laugh.
Everyone had their own version of the truth.
When Thanos died telling that story about the Celestials exiling the cosmic gods, Hawk was surprised. But he never believed it completely.
"Eternity is the physical manifestation of all time across the entire multiverse."
"I am the physical manifestation of the end of all life across the multiverse."
"If your universe thinks we were banished by the Celestials, it only means one thing." Death's voice was cold and calm. She took a sip of her drink and smiled. "Your universe is utterly insignificant. It's so irrelevant that when our projections vanished from it, we didn't even bother checking why."
Hawk raised an eyebrow.
He was itching to argue. However... He really had to acknowledge it. When pitted against the last words of Thanos, Death's rationale was much more reasonable.
"Besides..."
"The Celestials want to multiply. That's natural."
"Eternity allows them to use lesser universes as incubators. Because honestly? Better the Celestials get them than letting that constantly starving idiot eat them."
"..."
The constantly starving idiot?
Galactus?
It made sense...
Compared to the other four cosmic entities, Galactus—the Devourer of Worlds—was basically a relic from a dead universe.
Hawk rubbed his chin. "So that runaway Celestial, Gargaratus. After I beat him half to death, he hid in this universe?"
Death smiled. "When a child gets beaten up outside, they run home to find their parents."
Hawk locked eyes with her.
Suddenly, a wide smile spread across his face.
"I love it when I kill the son, the dad shows up, and when I kill the dad, the grandpa rolls in."
"Me too."
Death kept her chin on her hand and smiled at him. "Eternity has been missing lately. I wanted him to make a few Celestials for me to use as servants, but I can't find him. Why don't you kill a few and give them to me as a gift?"
Hawk grinned. "Deal. Give my friend the Soul Stone, and I'll send an entire batch of Celestials down to be your new toys."
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