A breath of cool air rushed into Felicia's lungs.
She jolted awake, gasping sharply and sitting up fast.
Sunlight poured across her bed. it was too bright for her. Her head spun. Just moments ago, she could've sworn she was drowning in the Hudson River, chaos and gunfire ringing in her ears. Now she was... home.
She turned, wide-eyed, to the person at her bedside.
"Mom?" she whispered, barely able to believe it.
Lydia Hardy let out a shaky sigh, brushing Felicia's hair from her forehead.
"You're safe," she murmured in worry. "Your classmate brought you home last night. You'd passed out. You wouldn't wake up. But your breathing and pulse were steady, or I would've taken you to the ER."
Felicia's brow furrowed as fragments of memory rushed back—flashes of water, Bullseye, panic, blackness.
"But last night... we were—"
"It's been handled," Lydia broke in, her tone gentle yet unyielding. "We secured the scene. You don't need to think about it anymore."
She softened, tucking a loose strand behind Felicia's ear. "But Kingpin isn't finished—not by a long shot. You're staying in until the situation calms down. I already told school you're on medical leave."
Felicia didn't bother to argue; her mother's mind was made up. She only nodded, then looked up, a question in her eyes.
"What about my classmate? The one who got me home?"
"He left once he made sure you were okay. Gave me a quick account of what happened and vanished before I could thank him." Lydia's gaze sharpened, worry turning to something more calculated. "Felicia... what do you think of him?"
It was no casual question. Lydia had seen just enough, and suspected more.
When Daniel had carried Felicia home, she'd still been unconscious. Lydia had tried to thank him, but he disappeared before she could. The moment Felicia was safe, Lydia moved fast—dispatching a team to the riverbank via the car's tracker. What they found was carnage: bodies scattered across the scene.
Cleaning it up was impossible to hide, but Lydia wasn't about to do Kingpin any favors. Instead of calling the police, she reached out to an old ally—Gideon Malick. Within hours, S.H.I.E.L.D. descended on the area.
Ballistic evidence and street surveillance quickly started pointing toward one name: Daniel.
That's when the situation got complicated.
In S.H.I.E.L.D. records, anything about Daniel was locked to only the highest-level agents. When investigators tried to dig deeper, their searches tripped alarms that summoned the Deputy Director personally. If Nick Fury had been in town, he would have called.
Lydia learned everything S.H.I.E.L.D. would share... which, by her standards, wasn't much, but it was enough to grab her attention.
Daniel was no ordinary student.
Felicia hesitated, piecing together her impressions. "He's... strong. It doesn't matter how bad things look, he keeps his head. His aim is crazy—he shot through solid steel. But I don't think the guns are his real power. There's something more."
Lydia nodded, already lost in possibility. "He's valuable," she murmured, half to herself. "And dangerous."
S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't come after him. That alone spoke volumes.
Felicia leaned in, her voice determined. "Let me handle this, Mom. He saved my life. If anyone can figure out what he's really capable of, it should be me."
She hesitated, then pressed, "Besides, I want to know what happened after I blacked out. Do you know what he did next?"
Truthfully, Daniel hadn't planned for the Hardys to focus on him so soon. He hadn't tried to hide, either. If Kingpin or S.H.I.E.L.D. or HYDRA pushed, they'd find traces, but always hit a wall: official records confirmed only one thing, he was a mage.
That's what Daniel wanted.
He didn't fear discovery. What mattered was what came next.
But his true focus was somewhere else—far from the streets of New York.
Kunlun.
A legendary city, the cradle of the Hand. A place wrapped in myth, rarely glimpsed even in a world of gods and heroes. Asgard and Olympus were mighty, but Kunlun's secrets were lost even to them.
Maybe, once, Kunlun had its own gods. But now, only their shadows remained.
Daniel intended to find them.
He was already moving in secret, dismantling the Hand's agents before they could react. He wouldn't be ambushed.
But he wasn't the only one watching.
Across the country, another observer paid close attention—Steve Rogers.
Captain America had finished his run in quiet D.C. streets, grabbed a quick breakfast, and headed to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. Within an hour, he was in the Tri-Wing's records division.
Adjusting to modern life, Steve had a lot to learn. He spent hours poring over S.H.I.E.L.D. files, getting a feel for the dangers of this new century.
"What's this?" he asked, stepping into a snug records room where Agent Blake waited. Steve eyed the plain folder set out for him.
The room was small, lined with screens tracking threats worldwide. Here, the real facts were kept unedited.
Blake looked up from his screen. "Straight from New York. Some incident. Someone involved might have a history with you."
He shrugged, but Captain America paid close attention. Nick Fury had placed him here for a reason.
After Steve's relocation from New York—an escape S.H.I.E.L.D. had swept under the rug—he'd been told it was reorientation. Steve knew better: someone was always watching.
Still, this file was a new connection, even if just a whisper, back to the night's violent confusion.
He opened it with interest and began reading it.
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