"Alright, Monica Rappaccini..." I started skimming through the information, but the SHIELD file had way more on her than my dad's file. This might take me a minute. "Dated Bruce Banner, stole his research, went on to join- holy shit, went on to join AIM? Ana, am I reading this right?"
"Yes, you are. The most current information from SHIELD says Monica Rappaccini recently took over as Scientist Supreme for an enemy organization known as Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM."
"Oh my God... she's a full-blown supervillain. How did my dad not know about this?"
"AIM is largely restricted to SHIELD jurisdiction," said Ana. "SHIELD prefers to keep the Avengers out of the details of their business."
"Ugh, yeah, I guess. Reason number fifty-two that I'm not joining up..." I clicked through the file for a little longer, eventually getting to a page on personal information. "Okay, here we go, known relatives... father, who cares, mother, who cares, son... oh my God."
I stared at the screen, not quite able to process what I was reading. I knew the name Rappaccini because I'd spent most of my summer with Monica Rappaccini's son. My obnoxious teammate-turned-friend Jackson Rappaccini was the child of one of the biggest evil masterminds in the world.
"Ana... are we sure this is right? There's no mistake, there's no way that this is a different Jackson, nothing like that?"
"No mistake. Everything you're seeing is correct, to the best of SHILED's knowledge."
I swore under my breath, trying to process this information. How did this happen? How did I not know? And what the hell did this mean?
Did Jackson know about magic? Had he known the whole time?
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The only way for me to get answers was to find Jackson, and I couldn't do that if I was caught in a mental spiral.
"Okay, Ana, is it fair of me to assume that our mystery figure in the storm is Jackson?" I asked. I needed to take this one step at a time.
"Yes, based on DNA and other readings such as the size of our figure, there is a 99.7% chance that our mystery person is Jackson Rappaccini."
I nodded slowly, trying to think about what that meant and what I needed to do next.
"Okay... okay... Jackson is the guy in the storm... that means he has magic, and he has a chip in his head that's starting to kill him... which means he probably recently figured out that he has magic, and that's why he's suddenly some crazy modified obscurial when this wasn't a problem before."
I thought my words through a few more times to make sure they actually made sense, and eventually I decided they did. Something relatively recent had made Jackson aware of his powers, and because of that he'd been spiraling out of control ever since.
"Fuck, Ana, what if I did this? God knows I did a horrible job of covering up Hogwarts... what if I'm the reason he's in this spiral right now?"
The more I thought about it, the more that made sense. He started showing up just after break, which was the last time I'd seen him.
I started to panic. What if this ended up killing him? It would be all my fault. I was supposed to save people, not kill them!
I was ripped out of my panicked thoughts by a literal, physical shock from Ana.
"I'm sorry Alexa, but it seemed like you needed it. You're no help to anyone if you get lost in your own worries and what-ifs," she said.
I let out a deep breath I didn't even realize I was holding.
"Thank you Ana. You're right. I need to get my head in the game if I'm gonna save lives. I can kick myself for mistakes later." I closed out of the SHIELD file and pulled up a broader map. "Okay, first step in fixing this: I need to find Jackson.
"Ana, grab his last known position. He was beat to hell after that last explosion from his storm, so I can't imagine he got far. Start searching the forest if you can, see if you can find any human-like shapes hiding out. Use everything we already have on Jackson to help you."
I sent Ana and the suit out the window of the Astronomy Tower without me to do a flyover while I looked at everything she sent back. Jackson would be much easier to find now that we knew all the specifics of who we were looking for.
At least, in theory. In practice, it was getting dark and we still hadn't found him.
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. My eyes were still trained on the screen of my Stark glasses as Ana sent me back more and more arial footage of the Forbidden Forest. My friends were probably celebrating the end of the school year, while I was here tearing my hair out and looking at the same thing over and over.
It was all starting to blur together.
"Okay Ana, we need to try something else," I said, looking away from the screens and rubbing my eyes. "What do you think the chances are that this kid still has his phone on him?"
"The odds of Jackson having his phone physically with him at this point are one in four-hundred and fifty-seven point two."
"Great. I'm calling him anyway."
I pulled out my phone and dialed. Couldn't hurt to try, even if he didn't pick up. At this point, I was running out of options.
"I'm picking up a faint signal."
I shot upright and searched the screens frantically, trying to see what Ana was seeing. Did that shit seriously just work?
I saw a tiny blip on Ana's scans before my call went to voicemail. Jackson wasn't picking up, but apparently he still had his phone on him. Or else this was the most frustrating coincidence ever.
"Ana, circle back around to the area we saw that blip. I'm gonna call him again, and we'll see what we get."
I waited for Ana to get in position, then redialed. To my delight, a tiny dot lit up on my screen again.
"Ha! Yes! We got him! Ana, can you tell if there's movement down there? What's he doing?"
"As far as I can tell there's no movement, but the tree cover is very thick here and there may be some magical interference in my way. Either way, I don't think I'm going to be able to fly you in from above."
"Alright, that's fine. Mark that location and then get back here as quick as you can. We have an obnoxious ex-teammate to save."
While I waited for Ana to get back, I forced myself to take deep breaths as I tried to walk off some of the nerves. I needed to be as calm, cool, and calculated as possible. Jackson's life was on the line, and this time no one else would be around to save the day.
It was all on me. No freezing.
Ana and the suit came in through the window, and I didn't waste a second before suiting up and launching back out. I didn't have a minute to waste, especially since I had to go through the forest the long way. Jackson hadn't blown up in a while, and if the past few storms were any indication, he was due for an incident.
I got as close to Jackson as I could before touching down, but I was still stuck at the boarder of the forest. Normally, I would've gotten out of the suit for better mobility, but with everything people said about the Forbidden Forest I decided I needed a metal suit of armor more than I needed agility.
"Alright Ana, lemme see the path to Jackson. How am I getting through all these stupid trees?"
"Just follow the blue glowing road." Ana used my Head's Up Display to give me a light blue line to follow deeper and deeper into the treeline. I said a quick prayer that she wasn't horribly off track (I did not want to get lost in here), then I started walking.
***************
By some miracle, I managed to walk most of the way without incident. I kept my head on a swivel, constantly scanning my surroundings, but nothing came out of the shadows to attack. With every step where nothing went wrong I felt my muscles tense more. Things never went this smoothly.
Ana kept a distance measure in the top right corner of my display, showing me how close I was to Jackson. It kept ticking down until I got within twenty feet. Then, as predicted, something went wrong.
"ALERT: I'm getting readings that match those from the beginning of the previous storms," said Ana. "It appears to be coming from the same place as Jackson's last known position."
I swore. "You have got to be kidding me. Ana, time to sprint to the finish."
I did everything I could to pick up the pace, jumping roots and knocking low-hanging branches out of my way. It didn't take me long to cover the distance, but already I could feel the winds getting stronger and pushing against my suit.
I ended up at the edge of a small clearing with the storm just starting to pick up. Jackson stood in the middle, but I barely recognized him. Jackson was 6'1" and he normally had the muscle and weight to back it up. Now, he looked as thin as the twigs matted in his hair. His eyes were sunken, all the color and life had drained out of his face, and he looked ready to fall over at any minute. He looked broken.
I flicked up my face plate and called to him, screaming to be heard over the wind.
"JACKSON! IT'S ALEXA! I'M HERE FOR YOU BUT I NEED YOU TO TRY TO STOP THE STORM BEFORE IT GETS TOO BIG!"
I met his eyes but he looked right through me. I wasn't sure if he didn't recognize me or if he didn't even see me.
"Ana, what do I do?" I asked, clicking my face plate back down. "This storm's gonna blow us back into the lake if it gets much bigger, but I can't just leave him here."
"All vital readings that I can get seem to be much worse than the last time," said Ana, instead of answering. "Alexa, I don't know if he's going to survive this storm. And at this range, you won't survive it either."
My breath hitched and my mind went blank with panic. Jackson was going to die. Jackson was going to die unless I did something, and I had no idea what to do.
I was going to fail. I would fail, Jackson would die, and I would too if I didn't abandon Jackson, which I wasn't willing to do.
As I frantically tried to come up with some genius plan, I thought of my dad of all people, and about all the stuff he already put on his shoulders. He'd blame himself if something happened to me, too.
I couldn't let that happen. My dad wasn't the only one who put stuff on his shoulders; it ran in the family. Part of taking responsibility for everything meant stressing about everything, but it also meant stepping up to the plate and doing your job when people needed you. I could worry about myself and my own emotions later.
Right now, I had hero shit to do.
I glanced around the clearing, trying to see anything that could give me inspiration. I came up empty handed, and I thought that might be it, but then I had an idea.
"Ana, you remember that electric shock you gave me earlier?" I asked.
"I do."
"You think you could ramp it up a little? Make it powerful enough to knock somebody out?"
"I could, but I don't think that's the solution to your problems."
"Not mine. Somebody else's."
As long as Jackson was conscious, I had no way to shake him out of this trance he was in. The easy way around that: make him unconscious.
I had no idea if it would work, but I figured it made sense that knocking him out would stop whatever the hell else his body was doing. Maybe the shock could shut off that bio chip too. Either way, this was the best (and only) idea I had.
"The shock is prepared. Ready for delivery."
Time for the hardest part of my plan: actually getting to Jackson through the growing storm.
I surged towards Jackson with everything I had; all of my strength plus every ounce of the suit's power that wasn't needed for the shock. Slowly, I started gaining ground.
I almost got within arm's reach of Jackson, but just before I did the wind built up enough strength to knock my feet out from under me. Thankfully, I was Iron Man's daughter. The thrusters picked up the slack and kept me from going backwards. I stretched as far as I could, until finally, I managed to rest a few fingertips on Jackson's shoulder.
"Sorry Jackson. I promise it's for your own good. Ana, hit him."
The shock leaped out of the suit and into Jackson, knocking him out cold. The storm stopped abruptly as Jackson crumpled to the ground. Unfortunately for me, my thrusters were still operating at full-strength and were absolutely not ready for a sudden resistance drop to zero.
I went flying over Jackson, crashing straight into a tree on the opposite edge of the clearing.
"Ugh, that hurt." I sat up groggily, rubbing my head. Then, my eyes fell on the calm clearing and Jackson's sleeping body in the middle of everything. Vital signs normal.
I did it.
I smiled and slumped back against the tree. At some point, I'd have to get Jackson out of here and deal with the whole AIM-chip-in-your-head-supervillain-mom thing. But not now.
Now, I was going to rest. Or at least, I thought I was.
"PERIMETER ALERT." A bright red danger sign lit up on my display, and I looked over to the other side of the clearing to see an honest-to-God werewolf look at Jackson and then lock onto me.
"Biometric signature identifies the target as Professor Lupin."
You've gotta be kidding me.