Who Owns The Mysterious Rolex Watch In Hawkeye?

Four episodes ago, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) had big plans to quickly take down whoever was prowling the streets dressed as Ronin and retrieve the black suit now haunting his life. With that taken care of, he'd be free to fly home for Christmas and spend some much needed quality time with his family. Unfortunately, Clint must've missed the memo that his Marvel series "Hawkeye" spans a full six episodes — meaning he has lots to overcome before he can bask in the twinkle-lit Christmas glow.

Pretty much nothing has gone right for Clint since the series started. In fact, the obstacles being thrown in his course have pretty much tripled in size, with a new enemy around every corner and the stakes rising with each passing episode. One of the many problems the Avenger now has to solve is getting his hands on a vintage Rolex watch. Why is Hawkeye so intent on keeping this watch safe? And who did it once belong to? Put on your speculation cap, because we have a couple of theories to burn through.

Spoilers ahead for the first four episodes of "Hawkeye."

We first saw the mysterious Rolex way back in the series premiere, when Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) was creeping around the black-market auction that kickstarted her adventure with Clint. While #1 Ronin stans ​​Jack Duquesne (Tony Dalton) and his uncle Armand Dunquesne III (Simon Callow) were busy bidding on the suit and sword that belonged to a post-blip Clint, the Tracksuit mafia were preparing to blow up a wall in search of, drumroll please... the Rolex! Four episodes of insight hints that Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) might've been so keen on getting this watch that she sent her crew in to bring it back. But this episode also reveals that Jack is wrapped up in the Tracksuit Mafia, and may have initiated this search himself. But however smoothly things were supposed to go, it all fell apart when Kate donned the Ronin suit and reignited Maya's need for vengeance.

The watch went unmentioned for a few episodes, but reemerges in "Partners, Am I Right?" when Clint realizes that watch was amongst the items stolen from the Avengers compound wreckage. Given how quickly he reworks the plan to retrieve the watch, the owner is someone close enough to our hero to inspire a real sense of urgency. All will probably be revealed in the upcoming final two episodes of the season, but waiting is very un-fun, so we're gonna get the creative juices flowing with a couple of possibilities.

So far, most of the rocky roads in "Hawkeye" lead back to Ronin. Why should this be an exception? Clint's dark past life as a destroyer of all things in the criminal underworld saw him blowing off all that my-whole-family-blipped steam and making a ton of enemies. He's already doing his best to gather up the related artifacts — his sword and suit — so maybe that's also the deal with this watch. But all things considered, this answer is both boring and pretty unlikely. None of the other hints to the watch really align with the Ronin identity — why would he tell Kate that the Rolex belonged to someone "close to him," when she's already realized Clint and Ronin are one in the same? If he just let her know that it was another piece of the Ronin puzzle, she might ask a few less questions. Sure, Clint rarely choses to be straightforward with Kate, mostly offering cryptic non-answers, but it feels like the watch is pushing us towards an exciting revelation.

A Rolex, you say? Of the vintage variety? Who do we know that enjoys the finer things in life, expense and all? Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a reasonable guess based on taste alone, especially when you consider that this artifact was uncovered from the Avengers compound. Also, Tony kinda has a thing for nanotech and Clint tells Kate that the watch gives away its owner's identity. If someone moves a dial and some Iron Man armor comes out, I'm guessing that would be a major tell at the man behind the watch. But then again, Clint also expressed a lot of concern about someones cover being blown and um, I dunno if that would be a big problem for Tony Stark given his current ... circumstances. On the other hand, the "Hawkeye" series is about to reveal that Tony Stark is alive and well, living on a beach in total, secret bliss. That's the canon that I've always accepted, I just didn't think the Kevin Feige's of the world agreed!

Along these lines, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is another possibility. She fits Clint's description of someone who's been "out of the game" for a while, so maybe this was once her version of the Iron Man wrist-gauntlet that Tony showed off back in "Captain America: Civil War." Pepper Potts spin-off, anyone?

Could it be?! Could Linda Cardellini actually have something to do in the MCU besides being Clint Barton's super secret and extremely understanding wife? This episode offered a rare moment of interaction between Clint and Laura Barton, in which we actually got a little bit more insight into their dynamic. Like a pro, Laura answered a phone call with her husband, ready to speak cryptically about sensitive information. With his suspicions growing, Clint shot his wife a text about looking into Sloan Limited, and she very quickly reported back. I'm guessing that the info she gathered wasn't just waiting on the first Google search page, so it seems like Laura did some real digging. It sounds like this isn't her first time investigating classified information.

"They've been out of the game a long time," Clint tells Kate of Rolex owner, "but their identity is still attached to that watch." Funnily enough, when Laura first arrived on the MCU scene in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," Tony's response to seeing Clint kiss his wife was to quippily guess, "This is an agent of some kind." Maybe the man best known for being a genius was onto something. When she asks if anything else might've gone missing from the compound, Clint immediately understands that she's referring to the mysterious watch. Concealing his wife's past secret identity sounds like the kind of thing that would jump high up on his priority list, so his determination to secure the watch lines up.

Given that we've never actually seen Linda in action, she also fits the bill of someone "out of the game," with a secret identity that needs to be hidden. As a former S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Laura may have used an alias now tied to the watch — she might even be Mockingbird, the comic character who fought crime alongside Marvel's Hawkeye, and eventually married him. The watch being found in Maya's apartment thus makes a lot of sense, given she's already digging into Clint's family.

This makes next to no sense, but hear me out: deep in the recesses of your brain, you may recall the part of "Doctor Strange" where Stephen (Benedict Cumberbatch) — our new favorite arrogant rich guy — pulls open a drawer of watches, as he prepares to attend a fancy conference. In that drawer we see many a Rolex, so maybe this is just one of the many from his stash. Now I'm not sure if Strange actually has a secret identity to conceal — it seems like he's just abandoned his past life and all who were involved to become a wizard, but who knows? Maybe he occasionally performs a surgery or two and really doesn't want anyone to know.

Old Man Steve (Chris Evans and lots of makeup) must be protected at all costs. He may be a super soldier, but he's all wrinkled and fragile now, so he might not be able to fend off the Tracksuit Mafia all by himself! And more importantly, he's supposed to be dead to the public so he can live a quiet life of peace in the boring suburbs, dancing to old timey music and yelling at kids to keep off his lawn. Old Man Steve checks a lot of the boxes that Clint referenced, as someone who's been undercover and used to work closely with the archer. Plus, his old teammate is certainly someone Clint would risk his life to protect — we've seen him do it many times before.

Maybe Chris Evans lied and is getting his Marvel reintroduction after all! You might think that "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" would've been a better place, but maybe you're not on the same galaxy brain wave length as me. This series starts by revealing an entire musical named after Steve Rogers — the bread crumbs have been leading to him all along! Well, the single bread crumb, anyway. And fine, a Rolex doesn't really sound like Steve's style, but it's vintage and Steve is old, so ... close enough.

Now that Kevin Feige has sort of (but not really) confirmed the return of Charlie Cox, I'll do pretty much anything to justify his immediate entry into the MCU. And if he's the owner of the mysterious Rolex in question, that means I get more Matt Murdock in my life as early as next Wednesday, so yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and make the case for Daredevil's return.

The tracksuits crashed the party (ahem, auction) in search of the watch, long before the return of Ronin was on their radar. It seems like the potential reappearance of the man who murdered her father is what made Maya go a little rogue, so the initial order to retrieve the watch may not have been hers after all — it could've come directly from someone higher up, like her Uncle. And who do we suspect is at the top of the Tracksuit Mafia food chain? Kingpin himself! Wilson Fisk being the archnemesis of Daredevil, it makes a lot of sense that he would blow up a wall or two in search of an item leading him to his least favorite spandex-wearing baddie. This would imply that Matt and Clint have worked together in the past, which isn't something we've ever been aware of but hey, maybe Matt will show up, reference their longtime friendship and all will make sense in the end! If it sounds like I'm grasping at straws, please keep that to yourself because I so badly want this to be true.

"Hawkeye" airs new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.