—chapter two:
built on hope
(and painkillers)

"PRINCESS LEIA WOULD
BE SO PROUD OF ME."

Up until her relationship had gone to complete shit, Jackson was filled head to toe with hope. It was her MO. It's what got her out of bed in the morning, it's what made her have such a good outlook on life. And watching the Star Wars series—along with her birthday falling on May 4th—didn't help.

    Every single Halloween, she'd dressed up as some variation of Leia Organa, Princess and future Queen of Alderaan. And when she turned eighteen, her first tattoo had been a lovely script inking of her favorite Carrie Fisher quote that said, stay afraid, but do it anyway. It sat at the base of her neck, like some sort of "Made in China" branding that you would find on the bottom of a children's toy. She didn't regret the tattoo a single bit, although she did wish it had been in a different spot. Maybe a little lower and in between the shoulder blades would have been nice but no, she had to get it on her neck to piss off her parents.

    Jackson's parents were relentless and had exploited her for her intelligence and high IQ, putting her in every gifted class they could get their hands on. She was already reading at a college level before she even stepped into high school but she almost didn't make Principal's List her senior year because her fast-moving brain had come to a screeching halt and she had endured an identity crisis that year before settling for High Honors, instead.

    Her parents had been hard on her but she soon got back into her groove, picking up where she left off and graduating high school as Valedictorian with a perfect GPA. But she did it all for herself in spite of her parents and soon after got the tattoo as a reminder to have hope and to remember that she could find hope—and happiness—even in the darkest of times if she only remembered to turn on the light.

"You're nervous," Jackson stated. Bruce, who was seated next to her in the Quinjet, looked up. "Huh?"

     "You're nervous," she stated again. "I guess I am. How'd you know?" he replied.

    "You're wringing your hands." Jackson pointed to Bruce's hands that were tightly clasped together. "It's one of your tics."

    Bruce let out a hmph, seeming to register that fact. "Any chance you know why I'm nervous?"

    "I'd like to think it's because you're gonna be out of your element. You're gonna be around a lot of people and a lot of equipment and you're afraid you're gonna have an accident which is why you were so timid about going in the first place."

   "I asked for a simple answer, not a reading, Dr. Phil," said Bruce sarcastically, giving Jackson a look. Jackson returned the look. "Dr. Phil lost his license to practice in 2006 so does that really make me Dr. Phil?"

    "How do you know this?"

    "College friend and I had a bet. I won."

    "Clearly." Bruce did his best to bite back his smile. Jackson nudged her shoulder with his. "At least I got you to stop worrying so much. That's gotta count for something, right?"

    "I guess so. Hey, what's with the gloves?" Bruce nodded his head towards Jackson's leather-clad hands.

    Jackson looked to observe them, mouth working out a response. "They keep me safe," was all she answered with.

Stepping out of the Quinjet and into the sun, Jackson took a look around the base. People were running, things were moving, jets were flying. It was a lot for her to take in. She had read all about it but seeing it with her own eyes made a world of a difference to her.

    "You look about just as lost as I am," Bruce commented, laughing a little. 

    "It's just a lot to look at. I'm pretty sure this thing could take off at any minute," Jackson replied. The two of them were left to their own devices for the moment, looking like a pair of tourists lost in a foreign country without a map to guide them.

    "Dr. Banner!" a voice called. Turning to it, Jackson saw a man who was about 6'2" wearing a button-down, gray slacks, and a brown leather jacket. His hair was combed back and a golden blond and—

    That couldn't be.

    "Oh, no way," Jackson mumbled, in awe of who was standing before her and Bruce. "I thought you were dead." The phrase slipped out before she could stop herself from saying it while Steve Rogers's hand outstretched to meet Bruce's in the process. His hand came back to meet his hips, the look on his face a little passive. "And who might you be?"

    "I'm Jackson Edwards, chemistry extraordinaire. Or as someone else likes to call me, a stowaway."

    Steve looked confused, and before he could ask, Bruce cleared it up for him. "What she's trying to say is that she demanded she tag along even if it might be a little dangerous." Bruce turned to give her a look.

    "I can handle myself," Jackson assured him. 

    She could see Steve working to come up with a response, but he was stumped. Instead, he turned to Bruce to finally introduce himself. "I hear you're gonna help us locate the Tesseract."

    "Did you hear anything else?" Bruce rocked back and forth between his heels and his toes. "Only heard what I care about," Steve responded. Bruce looked at him a little quizzically, not really all that comforted by his statement. Then Natasha met up with the three of them. "I suggest you three head inside. It's gonna get hard to breathe in a couple of minutes."

     Jackson then heard the noise of whirring engines and she made her way near the edge. "Is it a submarine?" Steve commented, he and Bruce showing up alongside her. "I don't think it's a submarine, Steve," Jackson replied, timid.

    "Why wouldn't you think it was— " Steve started but then was cut off by the whirring of the engines getting louder and stronger as they began to propel themselves out of the water. "Oh, no this is much worse," Bruce said, shaking his head. They all backed away and headed inside, as Natasha recommended.

    The inside of the helicarrier was magnificent. It reminded Jackson of a lab, crowded with people and important chemicals moving back and forth between them. Everyone was at work, all on computers and answering all sorts of calls and commands. "This is where the fun begins," she mumbled. She wanted to touch everything, to really get hands-on experience but she needed to know what she was looking at first before she could have her field day. If they'd allow it.

    "Protocol one-nine-three point six in effect," an agent called before turning to her boss, a black man with a leather coat and an eyepatch to match—Nick Fury. "we're at level, sir."

    "Good," he said, confident, "let's vanish."

    "Engage retro-reflection panels." From the sound of command, Jackson guessed that it was some sort of cloaking device to shield them from wandering eyes and potential threats. There was some public information about S.H.I.E.L.D but there wasn't a lot about their inner workings. Which was fair because they wouldn't want that falling into enemy hands.

    Jackson made her way over to stand by Bruce, who was starting to look a little fidgety again. They were airborne and he was a little out of his element, surrounded by a number of fragile equipment. He had a right to be nervous.

    She let out a low whistle. "This is so much better than the labs at Harvard. And they're state of the art."

    "Yeah, well, S.H.I.E.L.D is the crème de la crème when it comes to science and technology," Bruce replied smartly.

    "Wow. If only the STEM majors could see me now."

    "Birdie, you were a STEM major." Bruce turned to look at her, cracking a smile. Jackson blushed at the nickname. He hadn't used it on her much, thinking that saying it too often would ruin the specialty. So he had kept it to a minimum. There wasn't much weight to the term of endearment, it had just rolled off the tongue that one night when he was teasing her about her Master's degree. When Jackson had later asked what he meant by it, it had caught him by surprise, since he hadn't thought much of it.

     "Oh," he had said, "I just saw a bird this afternoon and thought of you."

     "Doctor, glad you could make it," said Fury, coming up to Bruce and shaking his hand. "I see you've brought a friend." He made direct eye contact with Jackson, who shifted her weight from one foot to the other nervously under his intense gaze. If his looks could kill with only one eye, Jackson didn't want to imagine him with both. 

    "Thank you for asking nicely," Bruce thanked him and then pointed to Jackson. "This is Jackson Edwards. She's been assisting me with my work in India. She knows her stuff."

     "Nice to meet you." A curt nod was all she got.

      "How long am I staying?" Bruce inquired afterward, his eyes questioning. 

     "Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the wind."

     "How's that going, if I may ask?" Jackson piped up, walking over to the little banister. "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops, if it's got a satellite then it's eyes and ears for us," replied Agent Coulson from below.

     "It's still not gonna find them in time," Natasha interjected. "You have to narrow your field," Jackson was quick to respond.

     Bruce pointed at her as if to say, She's got a point. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

     "How many are there?" asked Fury. Bruce was swift to take off his jacket as he gave out orders. "Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof, and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. That way, we can be able to rule out a few places. Do you have a place for me to work?"

     Instinctively, Jackson reached out to take his jacket, which he gave her like he had done a million times over before they had set to work. He was wearing his purple dress shirt and it was a very specific shade that Jackson had grown to like so much. There was also something about the way he had effortlessly removed his jacket while maintaining an even tone as he sounded off regulations. It truly was a sight for Jackson to see.

     "Romanoff," Fury ordered, "show Banner to his laboratory." The two of them went off, Natasha leading the way. Which left Jackson standing next to Fury. "Aren't you going to follow them?"

    Jackson waved a hand dismissively. "He'll show me later. I'm still trying to take it all in. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?"

    The two of them were silent for a moment before Fury spoke up. "What's with the gloves?"

     Jackson looked down at the leather that encompassed her hands, getting a little irritated that that was the only thing about her that intrigued almost everyone. "My hands get cold easily," she lied through her teeth. She kept it at that because she knew better than to respond to a man in a leather trench coat and an eyepatch.