It felt strange, traveling alone to an unfamiliar place for the first time.
Bella had only ever done anything like it once before, going to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier before the battle of New York. But that was different. Here, she was on her own if anything went wrong.
She dropped down outside of the town and removed a small bag from a compartment in the suit, used in case of emergency. She emptied the content into the snow and selected a small, oval black object. She pulled it apart, sliding one piece into her ear and brushing her curly hair over to cover it, then slipping the other piece in over one of her back teeth.
"JARVIS? Are you there?"
"Yes, Miss Stark."
She eyed the rest of the objects, various ways to disguise herself if she needed to. She selected a pair of glasses and put them on. Tony had said she was being paranoid when she added this extra feature.
She jerked out of her thoughts. No thinking about Tony. This needed to be finished, and grieving wasn't going to help. She stuffed the rest of her possessions back into the compartment and folded up the armor into a suitcase.
"Alright. I'm going in."
She shivered, glad she'd brought a warm jacket, though at the time she'd been thinking less about warmth and more about how it would make her look less thin than she really was. She wasn't used to cold, having lived in warm areas of the world nearly her whole life.
She walked down the street, keeping to the shadows. Few people walked by, and none seemed to notice her. Snow covered the sidewalks and streets, crunching under the boots she'd had the foresight to pick up on the way there. Her foot hurt from the pebble she'd put in her shoe – to make herself walk slightly differently. The less she looked and acted like Bella Stark, the better. Not that she drew attention to the way he had, but being the daughter of a superhero and one of the richest men in the world, and a superhero herself, people tended to recognize her.
The sight of the explosion seemed like a good place to start.
This had been a crazy plan. She didn't know what she was doing. She had nowhere to stay, nowhere to run, the Mandarin probably wanted to kill her… what was she doing?
She sat down on the edge of the curb and buried her face in her arms. She didn't cry – couldn't, somehow.
Tony was gone. She was alone now. She couldn't rely on him to tell her what they were doing, to give her instructions. For the first time in her life, she was coming up with what to do.
You're a genius, the smartest person in the world, maybe, or one of them at the very least. You can do this.
She stood up. She needed to go the memorial. Where the deaths had occurred. Mourning would have to wait. Tony wouldn't like it if she mourned him when work needed doing.
Bella had seen sights where explosions had taken place, where people had died. This time, however, she wasn't the one who was indirectly responsible. That didn't make it any easy to see the shadows on the walls. Five people had died. Five people, who had left behind families.
She felt sick for a moment. This, combined with her recent loss… it was almost too much. She leaned against the wall for a moment.
"Are you alright?" asked a voice behind her. She spun around. It was a boy, maybe about ten.
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm just… not feeling all that well." She did her best to use an American accent rather than her real British one. She didn't want to stand out any more than she had to.
Don't think about all the people who died. You're here to figure out what caused the explosion. There's a crater in the floor, possibly where he was standing… No sign of a bomb, the report had said. Five shadows. Six people had died.
Bella frowned and turned back to the boy. "Six people died, right? Why five shadows?"
"They said the shadows are the ones that went to heaven," said the boy.
Then it hit her. That was it. The shadows… the lack of debris from the bomb… what if the bomb was a person?
Bella didn't have it in her to find an idea sickening anymore. She'd seen worse – designed worse. But what would have caused a person to explode? That, she didn't know. Maybe she could contact S.H.I.E.L.D.?
But she should also check in with Pepper. Pepper was probably worried about her.
She left the memorial, found a small alley, and asked JARVIS to call Pepper.
"Hello?" said Pepper.
"Pepper, it's me."
"Where are you?!"
"I can't tell you. Where are you?"
"At a hotel with Maya Hansen. She works for Aldrich Killian, and she thinks he's working for the Mandarin."
Bella froze. "What?"
"Yes."
And then a couple of the puzzle pieces fell into place in Bella's mind. "Pepper, I need to talk to Miss Hansen."
"Sure," said Pepper.
There was a pause.
"Miss Stark?" asked Miss Hansen.
"What do you know about Extremis?"
"I helped develop it."
"Right, good. Miss Hansen, Mr. Killian explained the basic idea of Extremis to me. But it wasn't finished, was it? It wasn't stable. That's what he wanted Stark Industries to work on with him, wasn't it?"
There was a short silence.
"You work things out fast."
Bella couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it before. But she'd been so awed by the project she hadn't even thought through the flaws.
There was a sudden crash on the other end of the line. Pepper screamed.
And the line went dead.
Bella fought the urge to scream. She dialed again, praying there was some logical and less scary option than the ones flying through her imagination. No answer on the other end.
She was torn. Should she stay, try to solve the mystery, try to stop the Mandarin? Or should she go help Pepper?
She looked around for Tony for a moment, to tell her what to do. And then she remembered he wasn't there. She was making the choices now.
She wanted to go after Pepper. But how would she track them? How would she find her?
She stood for a moment, frozen with indecision.
A heavy object connected with the back of her head and everything went black.