—chapter nineteen:
robots. it had to be
robots

"I, ROBOT WAS
A WARNING."

Jackson was the first to get up when the jet landed on the platform welcoming them back to the Avengers tower. "Ugh, I can't wait to get out of this thing!" she groaned as she walked out of the jet, tugging at the white, stretchy material that had stuck to her skin from all the sweat it had collected during battle. One would think that with a somewhat high-tech catsuit, it'd come with a ventilation system of some sort. "You'd think that in the three years I've worn this suit, I'd get used to the sticky feeling. But nope, it's just as bad as the first time."

     She then headed into the building and waited for the elevator to take her up to the residence floor to change. While she had been busy looking for apartments, Tony was nice enough to let her crash at the tower until she found a place. She found one relatively quickly, another loft that was within walking distance between the apartment building and the tower—walking distance for her, more like. If one considered a mile and a half "walking distance."

     It wasn't long until the elevator made its usual ding sound, notifying her that she was on the right floor. Stepping out, she found her room and began to undress, stripping herself of the catsuit and hopping into the shower.

     A little while later, when Jackson was fully dressed in a familiar-looking purple dress shirt (that she had stolen from Bruce during her move) tucked into a pair of pants, she waltzed into the lab with her hair pulled back in its usual half-up/half-down style, ready to do. . .something.

     Things were a little quiet around the Avengers Tower and she wasn't sure if Bruce and Tony were hiding something, if it was just a surprise, or if it was just truly nothing at all. She could figure it out for herself but with what happened the last time she did that, it was best that she didn't poke her nose where it wasn't needed—until things went south, that is.

     She had things of her own to deal with, anyway.

     After Bruce had left the apartment the night of their first official date, that was the last night she'd be sleeping there and, ironically, it had been the worst. Images of the gaping hole in the sky had flashed through her mind as she tossed and turned, remembering the giant. . .thing that had flown past her, putting her in horrific awe. She had remembered every single feeling she had felt that day, leaving her panic-stricken in bed and looking like the dead the next morning because she had slept so little and fitfully the night before.

     "How's Barton?" Jackson asked Tony when she got to him.

     "Unfortunately, he's still Barton," Tony responded and Jackson let out a faux gasp. "That's horrible."

     "Hey, is that my shirt?" Bruce questioned, walking over to and pulling Jackson into a side hug before kissing her temple, "I've been looking for it everywhere."

     Jackson pulled at the shirt she was wearing to examine it. "This old thing? I don't know, I found it in the back of my closet when I started packing all my stuff up to move."

     "I swear I have a shirt just like this one. Must've gotten lost in the laundry." Bruce pressed a kiss to Jackson's mouth before they were interrupted by someone's throat clearing.

     "What'd I tell you about workplace PDA?" Tony pointed between the two of them, scolding them as if they were a pair of kids in trouble. Jackson and Bruce both stepped away from each other before repeating monotonously, "That the two are mutually exclusive."

    "That's right. Save it for the after hours." Tony nodded before instructing his right-hand man. "All right, look alive, JARVIS. It's play time. We don't have a lot of time with this joystick so let's make the most of it."

    "I'm gonna go check on Barton," said Bruce, "make sure he's doing okay." And with a quick pat to Jackson's butt, he was off.

    "Update me on the structural and compositional analysis," Tony instructed JARVIS.

    "The scepter is alien," responded the computer. "There are elements that I can't seem to quantify."

    "Show me the elements that you can."

    "The jewel seems to be a protective housing for something inside. Something. . .powerful."

    Jackson's head snapped up at that. She was right. There had been something inside the little blue bulb this whole time. After a moment's pause, Jackson spoke up. "Hey, Tony. Remember when I asked that if we had the proper equipment, we could break open the hull to see what was inside?"

    "Yeah. . .what are you getting at, Marie?" Tony remembered reluctantly as he fiddled with his screen.

    "Would it be possible that we could try and open it now? Or does it have to go back to Asgard in one piece? Ooh, this could be related to the dream I had!"

    "You mean the little acid trip you told me about before the ship almost got blown to bits?"

    Jackson made a face before moving on. "Yeah. That one. But what if the blobs weren't just blobs? What if they were, uh, I don't know, gems or something? You know, the scepter could have one and maybe even the Tesseract, too!"

    "Oh, yeah?" Tony raised a curios brow, "JARVIS thinks it's a computer. Says he's deciphering code."

    "You wanna believe a computer over—" Jackson started but then realized what she was about to say. "Yeah, I'm not even gonna finish that sentence."

    As much as Jackson wanted to drop the guess that there were gems of some sort tucked away in both the scepter and the Tesseract, she just couldn't. Her gut feeling was too strong to have her let it go and be done with it. She followed Tony into the lab where pretty much everyone else was situated, all crowded around Clint and the regeneration machinery.

    "You sure he's gonna be okay?" asked Natasha as she stared the machine in wonderment. "Pretending to need to need this guy really brings the team together."

    Jackson snuck a smoothie out of the tray Tony brought in, sticking the straw into it and taking a sip. It was good. She didn't know what it was or what it was made of, but it was good.

    "This is so cool," Jackson complimented before taking another sip of her drink. "You're creating tissue, if I heard correctly?"

     Helen nodded. "The nanomolecular functionality is instantaneous. His cells don't even know they're bonding with simulacra. His girlfriend won't even know the difference. If you brought him to my lab, the regeneration cradle could do this in about twenty minutes."

     "Science is so cool. It may have almost killed me while I was trying to pursue a degree in it while in I was in college with the number of lab reports I had to write, but it is so cool."

    "This is the next best thing, Tony," said Helen with full confidence, "your clunky metal suits will be left in the dust."

     "That's what I'm hoping for," Tony concurred, nodding. "And, Helen, I expect to see you at the party on Saturday."

    "Unlike you, I don't have a lot of time for parties." After a pause, Helen spoke again. "Will. . .Thor. . .be there?"

After some time, figuring that Jackson wasn't needed for the time being, she dropped herself onto a seat of the couch and cracked open a newspaper she found lying around, combing through the pages and skimming the titles to find something interesting. She debated skipping the articles and heading straight for the comics, so that's what she did. She had already seen enough of the news to last her a year so she tried for something different.

     Growing up, books had been her friend for a long time. From novels to short stories and everything in between, she had read a little bit of everything she could get her hands on. So switching it up and deliberately looking at "Pearls Before Swine" comics was refreshing and easy on her eyes. If this is what a break felt like, she could certainly use a few more of those.

    "Hey, Raven," Bruce called from above, "come up here for a sec."

    "Did you just call her Raven?" Tony asked, raising a brow at Bruce before he started connecting the dots. "Does that make you Beast Boy? Does that make me Cyborg? Wait, why are you calling her up here?"

    There was a clanking of noise of boot against metal and the two of them turned to see Jackson climbing the railing before hopping over and standing up straight.    

    "We have stairs, Edwards," Tony faux-scolded her, "feel free to use them next time."

    Jackson shrugged. "It wasn't my first time."

    Before Tony could ask, Jackson switched gears. "So, what'd you need me for?"

   Tony raised his brow at Bruce once more, warning him. Bruce shook his head at him and Jackson looked between the two of them, squinting and then saying, "You guys do remember that I'm a human lie detector, right?"

     With a weary look on Tony's face, he sighed and conceded, waving a hand to give Bruce the all-clear.

     Bruce nodded. "Tony found something interesting and he wanted to show us." He brought Jackson over to stand beside him and waited for Tony to go ahead.

    "I've been analyzing the gem inside the scepter and. . .meet the competition." Tony scanned the hull of the scepter and gave his handheld a flick, maximizing the scan and out came this blue orb, pulsating, almost like it was—

    "Breathing," Jackson uttered, "it looks like it's breathing."

    "Like it's thinking," Bruce agreed, moving around to get a better look at it, "but it's not a human mind."

    Tony nodded. "While I was down in Strucker's lab, I found something that looked to be some very advanced robotics work. They deep-sixed the data but it looked like they were knocking on a particular door."

    "Artificial intelligence."

    "So. . .robots," Jackson piped up. "Uh, quick question: are you planning to do something with this? Because worst case scenario, this could easily turn into the sequel of 'I, Robot'. Or—worse than that—'Terminator'."

    "You had a, what, four-point-oh grade point average in high school? How did you even have the time to watch all these movies?" Tony questioned, wondering how many references Jackson had stashed away in her pop culture arsenal.

     "Back in my day, I was a very popular babysitter."

     "And there it is."

     Jackson shook her head. "No, but really. What are you thinking of doing with this?"

     "I'm afraid I can't tell you that," Tony denied.

     "Human lie detector, remember?"

     "Well, it's a good thing I'm a great liar, then."

     "Tony," Bruce sighed. Tony shook his head, his lips tight. "No. We don't have time for a city hall debate and I don't wanna hear the 'man was not meant to meddle' medley."

     "I'm not trying to stop you," Jackson pointed out, "I just wanna know what you want to do with it, is all. I just want to see if my gem theory is less outlandish by comparison."

     "Hold on a minute," Bruce piped up, turning to look at Jackson, "gem theory?"

     Jackson nodded. "I had this weird dream a while back where I saw these six, different colored blob-looking things—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. And, uh, then I saw this nebula cloud that looked like a fist and when it snapped its fingers, I woke up. But it all seemed a little too elaborate to be just a dream. I personally think that there are these gems scattered all over the earth that each have some sort of ability. And when you collect them all. . .something happens. Like Dragon Balls, kind of. And. . .now that I hear myself, robots sound like a much more feasible idea. I haven't been sleeping much."

    Bruce's eyebrows creased as he frowned before he pulled Jackson away to talk to her. "You haven't been sleeping?"

     "It's nothing." Jackson shook her head. "Just a few bad dreams, that's all."

    "Okay." Bruce nodded, albeit not believing her. He'd ask her later.

    "Uh, I guess I'll let you guys get back to work on your world peace or domination or whatever."

    Bruce smiled, kissing Jackson's forehead before he went back to talk to Tony.

     Before Jackson even had the chance to leave the room, the gears in her head were already beginning to turn.

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 .｡.:*

late update, oops
jackson's off to kill another cat with her curiosity
but it's not about what you think it might be ;)

n.e. way, i hope you enjoyed !