Who Owns ‘Hawkeye’s’ Rolex Watch? Our Biggest Theories

Let’s talk about watches. This week’s Hawkeye episode, “Partners, Am I Right?,” will have a bunch of MCU fans Googling vintage Rolexes not because they want to buy an old watch, but because an old Rolex is suddenly a central piece in one of Hawkeye’s many, many mysteries. Let’s go on and throw up a SPOILER WARNING and get to analyzing!

So, the Rolex—! We first saw the Rolex back in the series premiere, as it was one of many superhero-adjacent items up for grabs at that secret auction. The Rolex, like Clint Barton’s Ronin sword and suit, were recovered from the wreckage of Avengers compound. And since the last couple episodes have been focused on Clint’s murder suit, we’ve forgotten about the Rolex.

Until now, that is!

At the request of Hawkeye’s wife Laura (Linda Cardellini), Clint and Kate go on a mission to retrieve the Rolex. As Clint tells Kate, the Rolex “belongs to someone I used to work with” and “they’ve been out of the game a long time but their identity is still attached to that watch” and if the Tracksuit Mafia discovers that, it would “blow their cover. Goodbye friend.” The Rolex turns out to be in Maya Lopez’s (Alaqua Cox) apartment, and the whole retrieval mission gets fouled up real quick when Maya and a Black Widow assassin get in Clint and Kate’s way.

So, whose secret identity is on that Rolex watch in Hawkeye? Is it Steve Rogers or Nick Fury?

No. For one thing, Steve Rogers’ secret identity is public… so he doesn’t have a secret identity. As for Nick Fury, none of Clint’s comments make any sense for Nick Fury. If anyone could protect themselves from the Tracksuit Dum Dums, it’s Nick Fury. Plus… Fury is in outer space! I don’t think the TSM’s van has the ability to leave Earth’s atmosphere. That’s why I think there is really only one candidate for the Rolex’s former owner: Laura Barton.

Yep, Hawkeye’s wife! Let’s break down the reasons!

Is the Hawkeye Rolex owner Linda Cardellini’s Laura Barton?

The Rolex is not on Clint’s mind whatsoever. He’s concerned with cleaning up his Ronin mess. It’s Laura who brings up the Rolex and tracks it down. And when she asks Clint about the Rolex, she does so in… I think Swedish? German? She knows multiple languages and knows when to switch it up so that people around her can’t decipher the conversation.

This is, mind you, in addition to the fact that Clint and Laura really tag-teamed that Sloan Ltd. mystery prior to the whole Rolex convo. All Clint had to do was text his wife to look into the inner workings of this shell corporation, and she came back with intel.

Then there’s what Clint Barton tells Kate. The Rolex “belongs to someone [Hawkeye] used to work with.” Considering that we just saw them work together to solve a mystery, it’s not farfetched to think that Clint met Laura while they were both working for S.H.I.E.L.D. They could have had a workplace romance!

Then Clint says that this person has “been out of the game a long time,” which, well, Laura Barton. She certainly isn’t an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. or anything else right now. Then Clint adds that the Rolex could “blow their cover.” And this is where, like at the end of The Sixth Sense, it becomes clear that Laura Barton has never been seen off of the family farm.

This explains why, when the Barton family went into the city to see a musical and do Christmas stuff, Laura wasn’t there. Her absence felt odd at the time, but now it makes sense: Laura Barton wasn’t there because Laura Barton can’t be seen in public, because Laura Barton is in hiding.

Is Linda Cardellini actually Bobbi Morse, a.k.a. Mockingbird?

And here’s the biggest indicator of all: in the comics, Hawkeye’s wife is S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Bobbi Morse, a.k.a. Mockingbird. At first, the reveal that Hawkeye had a wife and kids in Avengers: Age of Ultron was a reference to a version of Hawkeye that appeared in the Ultimate comics line, which is not part of the main Marvel comics universe. In that reality, Hawkeye had a wife named Laura. But in the main Marvel continuity, Hawkeye’s wife for most of the 1980s was Bobbi Morse. As Mockingbird, Morse brought her spy talents to the Avengers as a founding member of the west coast team. And if that name sounds familiar, that’s because Mockingbird was a series regular for a bit on ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., where she was played by Adrianne Palicki.

So, here’s the thing: Laura Barton’s name could be Laura Barton, and she could be an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and have zero ties to Mockingbird other than them both being spies. This would keep Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s already tenuous and dubious ties to the MCU intact-ish. Or it could be revealed that Laura Barton is an alias for Bobbi Morse, a.k.a. Mockingbird. This would be a big sign that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer considered canon in the MCU, but this is something that Marvel Studios has already been hinting for the past year.

Either way, if the Rolex belongs to Laura Barton because she’s in hiding after a career in espionage, it means that the absolutely fantastic and underutilized Laura Cardellini was not cast in the MCU to just play an Avenger’s wife who takes phone calls. Fingers crossed we get to see Linda Cardellini get a fight scene before this season is done!

Stream Hawkeye on Disney+