Well, happy to say that it's like the first half of this story. I really hope i'll finish it in time before the release of THOR 2, DW 50th anniversary special and BBC Sherlock season 3 xD

also, piacine took her time and did a fanart of jackie :D Link can be found on my profile ! :D

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC Jackie Walker

Chapter V

In Which Three Explosions Happened in One Night

Wearing many layers of warm clothes (that made us look like marshmallow), a map, some money, and a tourist guide we dared to walk around the cold ground of Rose Hill at night during the winter. Much to my surprise, it was rather lively during the night. Maybe that was because it's soon Christmas.

Once upon a time, thirty minutes ago, we heard the sound of car engine starting and came to the conclusion that Bertie abandoned us. We simply took it as a sign to get our lazy ass of the farm house and take a small sightseeing tour at the explosion place. It was the only interesting thing to see there.

"The sandwich was fair, the spring was a little rusty, the rest of the materials, I'll make do."

I rolled my eyes as Tony complained about my shitty made sandwich, though I'm simply blaming it on the tuna.

"By the way, when you said your sister had a watch, I was kinda hoping for something a little more than that."

To show us what he meant, he pulled up his sleeve, the pink Dora watch came to light.

I tried to contain my giggle and simply explained that it was a limited edition watch, he should be grateful he even got one. I'm pretty sure Harley's sister would be mad if she found out someone too her watch.

While Harley proceed to tell Tony about his six years old sister and bombed him with questions about the Avengers, I spotted the bomb site. Not interested in listening to their conversation I jogged toward the place.

Candles and flowers were placed on the ground, for remembering the people that died here, some even places photos of what I assumed to be the dead soldiers here. The sight of all the things here made me remember Coulson and Captain Stacey, and suddenly I just wanted to go home. Sure, major adventures always involved death of people, but witnessing the death of one person you thought you knew so well in front of you was just a completely different story.

Seeing as I bumped into Tony + recent terrorist attacks just smelled like trouble.

Slowly I walked up to the wall were five shadows of human shape could be seen. I slowly lifted up a hand and touched the cold wall. Beside me I heard of Harley told Tony the story about the explosion. Something about men in the military, going insane and then blowing himself up. Tony then pointed out that there were only five shadows, to which Harley explained that one of them landed in hell.

So this is what me and Bertie wanted to do for the school project? Wow, I did think it was an awesome idea, but now it's just plain dangerous.

I rubbed my forehead with my hand, thinking about my life before the whole ending-up-in-the-MARVEL-universe thing. I don't recall any comic character called the Mandarin. Probably because I never bothered to read the Iron Man comics. I was more an Avengers comic fan.

Back to topic. What I always thought was that I would know everything (being from a world where this was all just fiction). Turns out that wasn't the case at all. I may have watched some movies, but I wasn't such a big comic nerd. So I guess that was a 'mistake', because movies are usually based on comics and well, basically the information source about all the things happening around me.

Or maybe it was a good thing I didn't know anything anymore. For once, I think SHIELD might stop pestering me. Somehow Fury giving me a lot of freedom made me really suspicious.

My train of thoughts were interrupted by sudden heavy breathing sound that came off from the person standing next to me. Turning around I saw that Tony was having some sort of panic attack.

Okay, truth to be told, I have no idea how a panic attack looked like because I've never had one/witnessed one before.

"Tony, are you okay?!" I shouted and kneeled down to his eye lever.

Stark was clutching his chest, breathing heavily. I looked around for someone that could help us, and just when I was about to stand up and call the ambulance, Tony rose up.

"Ah man, you did it, didn't you?! You happy now?" He complained to Harley, who held up both hands in defense.

"What did I say?"

Good question, I'd like to know that too.

Instead of replying the billionaire ran away. Harley quickly grabbed my sleeve and we run after him. Tony was running quite fast, while we two kids were struggling with coming through the snow. It only slowed us down.

What was wrong with him? Why was he suddenly having a panic attack? Pepper never told me anything about it, and he didn't act weirdly the few times I visited him (and confronted him about my Peter problems). Whatever it was, it had something to do with what Harley said.

It took us a while to catch up with Tony. He then stopped, slumped down, grabbed a handful snow and throw it into his face, in the way I did earlier with the bully today. That finally calmed him down. Still sitting in the snow, we approached him.

"What the hell was that? Since when do you have panic attacks?" I immediately confronted him.

Instead of answering Stark childishly threw a bunch of snow at me. As a payback I kicked snow at him.

"Your fault, you spazzed me out." He pointed at Harley, who looked down somewhat ashamed. "Okay, back to business. Where were we? The guy who died… Relatives? Mom?" Mrs. Davis, where is she?"

"Where she always is."

I'm guessing that this had something to do with what those two talked about at the explosion site when I tuned them out, but obviously Harley meant that this Mrs. Davis been drinking for a long time.

It also made me thing that Rose Hill was actually one of those towns where everybody knew everybody. Kinda spooky.

Tony stood up again and dusted off the snow, mumbling: "See, now you're being helpful." Hearing that Harley smiled again. "And now go home." He dropped that smile.

Seeing that, Iron Man sighted. "Look kid, I appreciate your help do far-"

I coughed loudly, signaling he forgot who made his damn sandwich.

"- And Jackie, thanks for the sandwich. You'll make a wonderful housewife."

Not what I expected but it could do for now.

"You two should go home now. I don't know what made you want to do a school project about an explosion site, but I'm sure you'll get new ideas." He chastised me while I rolled my eyes annoyed.

"Hey, it's not my fault that my project partner wasn't smart enough to stop me from vomiting stupid ideas."

"Your ideas, you're to blame."

Wow, that actually stung. Hard.

I opened my mouth to throw an insult at him, but then shut it again. He was right, somehow. And I hate it when other people were right.

I sighed in defeat and said: "Take care." Which Tony took as a sign that me and Harley will go home.

"Bye." He said.

"See ya." Both me and Harley replied at the same time and watched him walking off.

A long silence followed where only the wind blowing could be heard.

"… Are you going to follow him?" Came the silent and slightly chattering voice of Harley.

"Duh."

oOoOoOo

"Sir, we have a situation here."

"Yes?"

"Erik Salvin who has been sighted at the Chinese Theater explosion has just been reported to be in Rose Hill, Tennessee, along with Ellen Brandt."

"Rose Hill? Isn't that where Jacqueline Walker and Roberto Spencer are right now?"

"Yes sir. And apparently Tony Stark has also been sighted there."

"Which means he's alive."

"Should we send our agents to retrieve them?"

"… No, that won't be necessary. Just keep an eye on them. If something happens, report immediately."

"Understood, sir!"

oOoOoOo

Maybe five minutes waiting were too long? I mean, normally if you wait five minutes and the go after someone they shouldn't make it too far, right? Or was I just too slow and not careful enough with my search?

How does one even lose a noisy billionaire playboy philanthropist?

I knew I should have followed him right after he disappeared behind that corner.

And before people start to wonder about Harley, I ditched him few seconds ago. Or he ditched me. Either way, we went separate ways, but I don't think he was going home anyway. I just hope nothing bad will happen to him.

Stopping under a dim lit street lamp, I looked around. People were walking around me, but luckily I was able to spot Tony from far away. The pink Dora watch was a dead giveaway. He hushed into a bar, were Christmas songs were coming off loudly, and the smell of alcohol.

I scrunched my nose at the thought of having to go inside in the bar. Never really liked bars. Not that I have been in many though. But those few times already taught me to stay away from those kind of places.

Time out.

Do I really want to go after Tony and get caught up in whatever mess he was in? Hasn't past experience taught any better?

No apparently not. Or else I would have done what Stark ordered me to do and went home, pretending nothing of this has ever happened.

I guess there was just something alluring about the thought of getting into dangers again. Or maybe it wasn't me who was making all the decisions in my life, maybe God was simply playing Sims again.

Right, gotta go after Tony now.

Just when I was about to enter the bar, I crashed into a red haired woman. She managed to maintain her balance while I unelegantly tumbled down onto the ground. Something dropped down beside me.

"I'm sorry!" I apologized as I got up and picked up her dropped cell phone, handing it back to her. Out of sheer habit, I stole q quick glance at it. The cell phone looked like custom made technology, and it had the letters AIM graved on it. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

The woman took it with a smile. "Thank you."

Relieved she wasn't causing a scene like I'd expect people normally would do, I smiled uneasily at her. She had short red hair and some burn marks on the one side of her face. It didn't make her look ugly though, in fact it gave her an air of a heroic but tragic background story.

Noticing that I was staring at her burn marks the red haired woman smiled somewhat strangely and explained vaguely: "An accident. But most of the scars have healed."

I gave off a naïve 'Ooooh', nodded my head and then pointed at the bar. "I need to go look for my uncle now. Bye!"

And with that she walked away and I continued my quest to look for the fallen Man of Iron.

One thing I didn't like about bars were those dim lit rooms. I didn't like it when there were lots of people in a room, but barely any light source. It made me uncomfortable. So far the first few minutes I just stood there awkwardly at the doorway, not knowing what to do, or where to start to look for Tony.

What was he doing here anyway?

Just when I was about to take a step further into the room, the all-too familiar whooshing of the TARDIS echoed through the room, signaling someone was calling me on my cell phone. Instantly everyone stopped with their chattering and turned their head toward the source of that unpleasant noise AKA me.

Embarrassed and a bit angry at the bad timing I quickly stepped out of the bar, just as the same red haired woman from before walked in.

"What?!" I whispered harshly into the phone as I stalked off to a quite place, away from the noises. That phone totally destroyed my James Bond mood!

"Merry Christmas to you too." Came the rather unamused voice of a star-strips-spandex-man.

Fuck.

In panic I looked around for a hiding place, thinking if I his myself Steve Rogers wouldn't be able to hear me at all. But that was probably just as dumb as closing your eyes, thinking no one could see you this way.

Well, I'd just love to hang up on him, but this was Captain America we were talking about.

One simply does not hang up on Captain America.

Not even Tony.

So I took up all my courage and decided to answer him: "Steve! How are you?"

"What did Peter mean with 'You're on a road trip with Bertie?"

I bit my lower lip. "Well, it's just like he said. I'm in Tennessee. With Bertie." I explained, or rather avoided to tell him any more details. I don't think he'll appreciate it if I tell him that I was here for a school project.

"Do you even know how dangerous this is?"

Yeah, I actually do, I simply chose to ignore it though. Mentally I prepared myself for a lecture and scolding, something that happened regularly when I did something that according to Steve was stupid.

For the next minutes I simply leaned against a wooden fence, pretending to be listening what Steve was telling me, while just nodding me head along to it and giving off my 'Yeah, I got it' from time to time.

Until I saw Tony running out of the bar in panic. Followed by a familiar looking ginger head. Maybe it were the lights, but from my point of view it looked like her hands were glowing.

"Hey hot wings, you wanna party?" Tony provoked her "You and me, let's go." And he ran away with her on his tail.

I followed them with my eyes, and then interrupted Steve: "Steve, I gotta go now, Tony's in trouble." Before he could ask me what happened, I stopped the calls and put my cell phone back into my pocket.

So Tony was chased by a red haired chick. It was definitely not a playful chase, more like a 'Sie sind das Essen und wir sind die Jäger' chase, which in my opinion was really bad.

The adrenalin rush kicked in. Or at least I think it was the adrenalin rush, because when I prepared myself to run after them, my head suddenly got really dizzy and I had to grab onto something so I wouldn't fall flat down onto my face.

Annoyed that I slowed me down and made me lost my motivation to go after the chase, I saw a silver car driving by, and then a person stepped out of it. He was holding something in his hand, I couldn't make out what it was, but it wasn't anything good. And it didn't look like he was here to help Tony. In fact, I'm pretty sure he worked together with that red haired woman.

It wasn't until that guy raised his arm and pointed the thing at Tony I realized that it was a gun. My eyes widened in shock and fear and I opened my mouth to give him a warning shout, but someone threw himself at the man, making him miss the shot.

That someone just happened to be Harley.

Meanwhile Tony smashed himself into a shop while the lady calmly followed him.

Harley and the man were struggling on the ground, but obviously Harley was being overpowered by him, I picked up an ice covered stone and threw it with all my might at the asshole. It hit him at the side of his head, making him bleed. He stopped fighting and touched his bleeding head. Inside I was doing a victory dance, but then something weird happened.

The wound started to glow in a red-orange light, and then it closed itself.

At the same time the man slowly and creepily turned his head toward my direction with a smirk, that basically told me I was in deep shit.

It couldn't be the lizard serum from Curtis Connors, could be? I mean, that man looked pretty human to me, not like a reptile.

He stood up and like a predator walked toward my direction, why I slowly backed away.

"You can't hurt me, you know?" He told me as he took another step forward. "You see, I have this gift that can heal every injury I receive in no time."

Yeah, I just saw that, but guess what, I have Tesseract energy in my blood. Which actually pretty much sucks because I never know when it will act up and when not.

He continued: "It means I am above you."

I kept backing away from him, until my back hit something that felt like wood. In moments liked this I wonder why I never just make a turn and ran away, instead of just stupidly backing away.

"Weak people should be destroyed." With a sadistic smile and madness in his eyes he lifted up his hand, which started to glow in the same sickening red-orange color as earlier.

I didn't know what kind of secret superpower he head – or whether he was a mutant or now -, but I know that his glowing hand could possibly burn my skin. There was no way out for me so I closed my eyes and prepared myself to get scarred for the rest of my life. But the next thing that happened took me completely by surprise.

Remember how in Stuttgart Loki tried to blast me to death but there was that invisible shield protecting me, or when there was that lizard serum in the air but I wasn't infected at all? This was all thanks to the Tesseract energy inside me. It was nice to see that despite having something alien in my blood it was still some use to me.

Just like right now.

My face was still the same as before and I didn't feel any pain. What I did feel was only the tiny sensation of thousand of needled poking my skin when one of your body parts fall asleep. Someone was screaming in agony.

Opening my eyes, I saw that the man was holding his hand, hissing in pain. His hand was glowing in the familiar Tesseract blue color, before it turned back to red-orange, obviously healing itself.

He was staring at his now fully healed hand with a big question mark on his face, and then he looked at me with hatred.

"Who- What are you?!" He demanded to know. I sucked in a deep breath, refusing to answer his question.

Before anyone of us could do the next move, something behind us exploded, throwing us completely off guard and off the ground. It took me a few seconds to understand that Tony most likely did something in the shop that went BOOM! Wouldn't surprise me at all, I bet he could make explosives out of ketchup and mustang

I landed rather ungracefully on the ground, face planted right in the snow. When I lifted up my head, I couldn't move my lips and nose. It didn't help that when I tried to feel them with my hands there wasn't any pain. For a while I was worried my lips and nose somehow fell off.

Convincing myself that this was just my mind messing with me, I looked around and saw that the shop was a pile of trash in fire now. There was no trace of the red haired woman, which means she got killed in the process.

Somehow that thought made my stomach feel uneasy. Sure I know Tony used to produce weapons that were used in wars and killed lot of people, but not witnessing something like this made me think bad about him. I know that woman was out to kill him, but stil…

"Help me! Help me!" Someone screamed

I looked around and found the source of the sound, it was someone sitting in front of the pile with a boy in his lap.

Harley and that asshole. Upon taking a closer inspection I realized someone was stuck under the pile, not able to move.

"Mr. Stark, I am so sorry!" Harley yelled.

At this point I didn't know what to do. I could try to help him but I think that would only get us into more trouble.

Tony saw me standing behind the man and Harley (they probably forgot I was there) and gestured me not to make a sound and back away. For once I did as he told me and silently took few steps back. Stark then turned his eyes back to Harley and said: "It's not your fault kid. Remember what I told you about bullies?"

I raised an eyebrow and wondered when that conversation happened, but then another explosion went off, which blasted the man onto the ground. It didn't do all too much damaged, but ti was enough time for Harley to free himself. Immediately I raced toward him, grabbed his arm and ran off.

Another blast echoed behind us, but we kids still kept running until we were sure we were safe.

People would say we were abandoning Tony, but those who really knew him (and followed his movie partly) know that he'll always find a way out of sticky situations.