"Did you know that instead of drinking water, frogs soak it into their body through their skin?" the little boy next to Jackie questioned.
"I didn't know that Jeremy," Jackie told the young boy.
Jackie was sat on a school bus next to Jeremy, one of Maggie's students on her way to their Oscorp field trip that Jackie had agreed to help chaperone. They were almost in Manhattan and all of the kids were very excited. Meanwhile most of the parents looked exhausted and not happy to be spending their Saturday morning on a field trip with a bunch of rambunctious five year olds.
Jackie was doing her best to keep the kids busy and they were loving the attention she was giving them. They kept asking her questions and trying to impress her.
Jackie wasn't sure what to expect from the field trip. She had only seen the Oscorp building from the outside as it wasn't too far from the Daily Bugle building. Her plan was to at one point break away from the group to ask about Mark Raxton and to look out for anything she thought was suspicious. That being said, she knew that security would be at an all time high after the Molten Man attacks so she had to be very careful.
"You look like Ms. Carter," the girl in front of her with bangs and a bob haircut named Ramona commented.
"That's because she's my sister," Jackie informed Ramona who looked awestruck.
"Ms. Carter is the most beautiful bestest teacher ever," Ramona told Jackie matter of factly which made Jackie smile.
"Alright everybody!" Maggie said loudly from the front of the bus, Jackie saw all of the kids sit up a little more to pay attention to Maggie. It was amazing to see Maggie in her element with the children. She was so good with them. "We are almost to Oscorp now. What are we going to do when we get there? Yes Beatrice?"
"We are going to get off the bus and then find our buddy," Beatrice, who was sitting towards the front chimed.
"Very good," Maggie nodded, "And then you are going to find your group adults. We are going to break up into two groups right? Do you all remember which group you are in?"
"Yes!" all of the children chorused.
"Great," Maggie said and then looking out the window said, "We are here, so please file of the bus in a quick and orderly fashion!" Maggie said, and the children did as they were told. They were all wearing their puffy winter jackets and hats and scarfs and backpacks with various cartoons printed all over them.
The Oscorp tower was very impressive. It was one of the tallest buildings in the city and had a sleek modern design that made it stand out amongst all of the other skyscrapers. Everything appeared to have been cleaned up from the Molten Man attack and everything was back to normal. Various employee's were exiting and entering the building. Jackie couldn't help but wonder if any of them were the employee that she had heard talking to Big Man.
"Which one is yours?" A mother asked interrupting Jackie's train of thought.
"Oh I'm not a mom," Jackie answered very quickly, "I'm Maggie's… I mean Ms. Carter's younger sister. I'm Jackie."
"Oh right!" The mom said looking a little embarrassed, "I did think you looked pretty young."
"What about you?" Jackie asked.
"I'm Tyler's mom, my name is Erica" She said looking fondly at her son, "Are you in group two?"
"Yeah," Jackie nodded. Maggie was in charge of group one and her assistant teacher, Michael, or Mr. B as he was called by all of the students, was in charge of group two. The chaperones were pretty much there to make sure none of the children wandered off and got lost.
The inside of Oscorp was just as impressive as the outside. Everything was very chic and utilized the newest technology. There were different screens all over the place, projecting the news and other goings on at Oscorp. Everything seemed to be made out of glass and the Oscorp logo was printed everywhere. It wasn't too busy, due to it being a Saturday, but there were still people coming and going.
Maggie was signing everyone in and meeting with the tour guides while the kids formed into their groups, each holding hands with a buddy. Jackie was happy to see that Jeremy and Ramona were both in her group.
"Did you know that there are spiders on every continent except Antarctica!" Jeremy asked Jackie.
"I didn't know that bud," Jackie told him honestly, "How'd you get so smart?"
"My daddy reads me to me from my encyclopedia at night!" Jeremy informed her.
"Wow," Jackie said, "And you remember all of those facts?"
"Yes of course I do!" Jeremy said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Jackie smiled but her heart sunk a little bit. Jeremy reminded her a lot of Peter.
She and Peter still had not talked since their fight. School had been pretty awkward. Peter had stopped eating lunch with her and Mia. Jackie had only passed by him in the hall twice. Both times he looked like he was going to say something to her but then just kept walking. Otherwise it seemed like he was avoiding her. It hurt. He didn't want to be friends with her anymore and it sucked to loose him. She missed him but was very angry with him at the same time.
Jackie was so glad that she still had Mia. Mia seemed confused by the fight but said she wasn't taking sides because she thought that Peter and Jackie were both being stubborn. And she was right, they were both being stubborn, but Jackie wasn't going to forgive him until he told her what he was hiding.
She pushed all thoughts of Peter aside. She'd been trying her best to think about him as little as possible, it only made her sad. Instead she decided that it was time to buckle down and focus on Oscorp.
The male tour guide came over to group two and started talking about Oscorp's founding and Norman Osborn. The tour guide was very peppy and appeared to be in college. Jackie suspected that this was for college credit or through an internship program. He left out several major parts to the story, the parts that would make Oscorp or Osborn look bad, such as his illness and the Dr. Conner's attack and the more recent Molten Man attack.
"The Oscorp tower is 108 stories tall," the tour guide explained, "Their are many different programs that we work on at Oscorp, such as chemistry, engineering, biology, robotics and physics as well as a lot of other programs. Over the past few years, Oscorp has become one the most successful technology company and does its best to give back to the rest of the world," the kids nodded along to the prattling about the building "Now if you will follow me we are going to go take a look at the elevator system!" The tour guide began to walk towards the elevators and all of the kids and parents began to follow, however, Jackie had something that she needed to do.
"I think I saw a bathroom back there! I'll be right back!" Jackie quickly told Erica, "I'll catch up with you all in a moment!"
"Okay," Erica nodded, "Don't be too long though!" she warned to which Jackie nodded.
Jackie quickly slipped away from the group and went to the front reception desk. A very prim lady wearing a very professional looking suit and who had her hair up in a tight knot behind her head, looked up the second Jackie reached her and met her with a friendly, but fake smile.
"Hello," the woman greeted her, sounding slightly robotic, "How may I help you?"
Jackie quickly thought of a lie and stated, "My old friend Mark Raxton works here. I'm here with a tour and I was wondering if you could tell me what department he works in. I would love to see him again if possible."
"Do you have a guest slip?" the receptionist asked.
"Yes!" Jackie said pulling out the slip that Maggie had given her at the beginning of the trip.
The receptionist looked it over for a few seconds, "Okay," she nodded, "What was your friends name again?"
"Mark Raxton," Jackie repeated and the receptionist typed it in to her computer.
She quickly shook her head though, "I'm sorry we don't have any record that Mark Raxton ever worked here," She informed Jackie, to which Jackie frowned.
"What?" Jackie had seen a picture of Mark Raxton working for Oscorp in the article that she'd seen on the Daily Bugle website. He'd been a lab assistant in the robotics department.
"We have a list of every registered employee that has ever worked for Oscorp and he is not registered anywhere," the receptionist informed her.
"Oh," Jackie nodded dumbly, "Well that's strange I could have sworn…. Thank you for your help," She quickly thanked the receptionist and went to rejoin the tour. Oscorp had erased Mark Raxton from their records. Jackie wasn't really that surprised but it seemed like very solid proof to her that Oscorp was involved in Mark's disappearance and was covering it up.
Now the question was what had happened to Mark and was he Molten Man? Jackie was still hesitant to say that Mark was Molten Man. Appearance wise, it was hard to tell. Jackie had only ever seen one picture of Mark, from the Bugle archives and the new pictures of Molten Man were very hard to distinguish and pull out specific features. But the fact that Molten Man had been heading for the robotics floor and Mark Raxton had worked in robotics seemed like it was more possible than not that Mark was Molten Man.
Jackie mulled this over this as she went to go catch up with the rest of the group two. She found herself not really listening to what the tour guide was saying for a while, thinking about how crazy it was that she had become mixed up in all of this. She had to wonder who else knew about Mark Raxton. Were his parents worried about him? Did he have friends who were concerned about his whereabouts? Was she the only person in the world who cared about where Mark Raxton was?
Soon Jackie was pulled out of her daze when she saw a man who she recognized standing next to the tour guide. He had been in the picture from the Daily Bugle with Mark Raxton. He was the man who had been looking over Mark's shoulder and smiling. Immediately Jackie was attentive and looking around.
They were on the robotics floor, where the Molten Man attack had occurred. Like the front, everything had been patched up already and there was no sign of Molten Man or Spider-Man anywhere. Jackie wondered which window that Spider-Man and Molten Man had crashed out of. Where was the fire hydrant that had caused such a big commotion? It was amazing how quickly Oscorp had been able to cover everything up.
The man was fairly old, with very piercing pale blue eyes. His hair was a strange shade of white blonde and his face was creased with wrinkles. He wore a lab coat. Although he was older, he was still in very good shape, however he looked tired and worn down. He looked like he did not particularly want to be at Oscorp on a Saturday, as part of a children's field trip, like he probably had better things to be doing.
"This is Dr. Spencer Smythe, the Director of Robotics," the tour guide introduced with a very wide smile that looked very fake.
"Hello everyone," Smythe nodded, sounding very forced, "I hope you are enjoying Oscorp. Our robotics program is ranked to be the best in the United States and we take a lot of pride in our achievements and accomplishments here."
"This is where Molten Man was right?" Jeremy suddenly asked, his eyes growing wide. All of the kids began to murmur in excitement at this realization. They began looking around wildly as if Molten Man and Spider-Man were actually in the room with them. Two of the little boys started pretending to punch each other, and the chaperone behind them scolded them and shushed them.
"Did you see him?" A little girl questioned..
"Spider-Man was here!" Ramona yelled excitedly, causing some of the other lab workers to stare.
"Did you meet Spider-Man?" Tyler questioned.
"I did not see Spider-Man actually," Smythe answered, looking frustrated and angered by the mention of the fight, "Let's continue," he said coldly. All of the children groaned, wanting to know all of the details about the Spider-Man fight, but it was obvious that Smythe was not interested in telling them anything about it. Smyth began to talk about what robotics was which Jackie tried to pay attention to, but she found her eyes wandering around the room. The lab assistants looked just like Mark Raxton had in the picture, with their lab coats, contentedly working on some project. Did they know him? Did they realize he was gone?
Jackie wished she knew more about math and science so that she could make sense of what the robotics team was working on, but to her, they all just looked like different machines.
"Alright!" the tour guide inserted himself after Smythe was done. The kindergarteners all looked bored out of their minds at Smythe's long winded and very technical explanation of robotics, "Let's have a look around the room and thank Dr. Smythe!"
"Thank you," the children chorused, even though it was very obvious that they were not thankful at all.
Smythe gave a curt nod and moved away from the group.
The rest of the group moved to go look at one of the machines, but Jackie knew she needed to talk to Dr. Smythe. He was the only person that she knew had any sort of direct connection to Raxton at Oscorp. He was the only lead she had.
"Dr. Smythe," Jackie called after him, and he stopped and turned.
"Yes?" He questioned in his deep, drawling voice as Jackie walked over to him.
"I just wanted to say hello," Jackie told him, giving him her most non-threatening smile, "I saw a picture of you in the Daily Bugle a while back."
"Oh did you?" He seemed a little bit surprised.
"Yeah it was a picture of you with your lab assistant," Jackie explained to him. Smythe's eyes narrowed a little bit, and he looked her up and down, as if trying to place her. Jackie didn't let it phase her though, "Is he here? He looks like this guy I knew growing up and I would love to-"
"I have a lot of lab assistants," Smythe quickly dismissed her.
"Oh what was his name?" Jackie said, pretending to think about it, "I think his name started with an M or something? I just couldn't figure out where I knew him from!" Jackie shook her head before asking, "Do you remember him?"
"I think I do. He doesn't work here anymore," Smythe said with a tight lipped smile.
"Oh that's too bad!" Jackie said, pretending to be shocked by this revelation, "Was he fired?" She questioned.
Smythe paused, thinking about how to answer her question for a moment before answering, "Yes. It was very unfortunate. He's not around anymore though so I wouldn't worry yourself about trying to find him." Jackie nodded and was about to excuse herself when Smythe suddenly asked, "You work for the Daily Bugle don't you?"
Jackie had to keep her jaw from snapping open and she felt as though her heart had dropped out of her chest, "S-Sorry?" she managed to get out.
"I recognize you from the news reports about Ms. Mercado," He told her. Jackie found herself instinctively taking a step back. His eyes looked slightly sinister, but he had a strange smile on his face. He all of a sudden looked a lot more menacing.
Jackie didn't answer him, her jaw locked. Her heart started beating very quickly.
"You should be careful," Smythe warned with the same strange smile, "You don't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time like Ms. Meracdo was."
Jackie gulped a little bit and nodded, forcing out a laugh.
"Jackie!" Erica called in the distance, "We're going!"
"It was nice to meet you Mr. Smythe," Jackie said with as much confidence as she could muster.
"It was nice meeting you too," Smythe nodded, giving Jackie another tight lipped smile, "Maybe we will see each other again."
I hope not. Jackie thought to herself. She turned to go join the rest of the group. She snuck one last look at Smythe, who was still looking after her. She felt like she might have a panic attack but Jeremy quickly started rattling off animal facts to her, so she tried to keep calm.
She spent most of the rest of the tour trying to calm herself down. Why had Smythe recognized her from the Bugle? She was just an intern. He had also seemed to know a lot about Joy and her attack, which was concerning. He must have been involved in some way, but how, Jackie couldn't say. She didn't think that Oscorp would have sent their director of Robotics to go beat up a Bugle reporter, but he must have known about it or had some sort of interest in it to be able to recognize Jackie. Everything was starting to feel much more dangerous now that Jackie wasn't just an intern. Someone knew that she knew about Mark Raxton.
After the field trip was over and Jackie had said goodbye to all of the kids, she and Maggie drove home. Maggie talked about how successful the trip had been and how much fun her group had been. Jackie listened but mainly tried to peace things together in her head.
Mark Raxton worked for the robotics program at Oscorp with Dr. Smythe. Something had happened which had caused Mark Raxton to leave Oscorp and he was somehow involved in the mysterious fires happening around New York.
There was some sort of gang lead by'Big Man' who were being paid by Oscorp to cover up information that Norman Osborn didn't want to get out. Big Man had infiltrated or were somehow involved with the cops, journalists, and detectives. Big Man was looking for the man who had burned down the buildings in the fires.
Joy Mercado had been attacked while trying to look into information about the fires and Smythe knew about it.
And there was a man made of fire who was possibly Mark Raxton who had tried to break into Oscorp for an unknown reason.
If Mark Raxton was Molten Man, like Jackie suspected, then something had happened at Oscorp to turn him into Molten Man. She assumed that he wasn't working for Oscorp as he had broken in.
There was still so much missing from the narrative though. Several important details were missing, like how had Raxton turned into Molten Man, and who was Big Man. With all of the Mark Raxton drama, Jackie had almost forgotten about the whole Big Man debacle that had started everything. Thinking about him now reminded Jackie of how Big Man promised to "quickly silence" anyone who had any knowledge. Even though Jackie was still very confused, trying to piece the story together, she definitely fell into the category of people with knowledge.
"You okay?" Maggie asked Jackie as they got closer to the house.
"Just tired," Jackie lied, "And finals are coming up so I have a lot of studying to do!"
Maggie nodded, "I totally understand. Let me know if I can help though."
"Thank you Maggie," Jackie smiled weakly. She hated the idea of possibly putting Maggie in danger. She had to be more careful.
Once they were home, Jackie quickly went up to her room and looked up Dr. Smythe. The internet was full of pictures of him and named several awards he'd won over the years and his various accomplishments.
After a few minutes of searching Jackie found something that made her stomach drop.
It was piece from the Bugle titled "Tech Beat: Exploring Mobility" and was written by Joy. It was a very short piece, just a few quick questions, not even a full article.
Jackie highlighted a few lines from the piece. In it, Joy asked what Smythe was working on, to which Smythe replied, "mobility" and then elaborated that they were working on "manned flight technology."
Jackie made a mental note to look into this more but Smythe went on to say that he wanted there to be enhanced artificial intelligence machines making informed, logical choices at greater speeds, which to Jackie sounded like something out of dystopian, sci-fi movie.
According to Joy, the NYPD was interested in Smythe's machines, to which Smythe had replied, "Well, if you want to catch the right fly, you have to spin the right web," which Jackie thought was a very odd metaphor to make.
So Smythe had met Joy before and was working on artificial intelligence robots that could work for the police. Jackie hated thinking about everything that Oscorp could do with robots like that. After everything she had learned, it was pretty terrifying to think about.
Jackie scribbled all of this down in a notebook where she had started keeping all of the other information about her investigation. It was not a very organized book but she had started making small profiles for all of the people who she knew were involved which included Big Man, Mark Raxton and now Smythe.
After making her notes, Jackie began looking through more internet sources but stopped when she found a picture.
It was a picture from some sort of event from a few years prior. Dr. Smythe was wearing a nice suit and smiling towards the camera. To Smythe's left was Dr. Curt Connors, pre-Lizard melt down. Smyth and Connors had their arms around each other and seemed to be quite close. This was an interesting development in the story, that Smythe knew Connors. It was who was to Smythe's right that surprised Jackie most of all though. Standing to Smythe's right was unmistakably, J. Jonah Jameson.
A/N: Another kind of short chapter but pretty full of information. Unfortunately some of what is being mentioned is from several chapters ago so let me know if you are confused or have any questions! The plots getting pretty complicated and because I update so infrequently I totally understand if you are confused. I hope that by the end everything makes sense!
If you don't remember, when Jackie first looked up Mark Raxton there was a picture of him with a man standing in back of him, that man we now know is Smythe.
Pretty crazy stuff happening with Smythe though! What did you think? And what about J. Jonah Jameson's involvement with everything? What do you think that's about?
Not sure how I feel about this chapter but I just really wanted to post something! Also as per usual I only lightly edited so let me know if there are anything embarassing typos or mistakes.
I don't like having Jackie and Peter fighting! Peter is not really in this chapter too much but he'll be back next chapter which I actually might be able to post really soon because I've written about half of it (but as always I'm hesitant to promise anything so just stay tuned.)
Thanks to nellie511, mun3litKnight, SurvivorTierEXO, Ally, BrightEyesStoneHeart, the guest and an especially big thanks to Just Watch Me Fly! Literally cried reading Just Watch Me Fly's review! So thankful for all of the kind reviews!