(Rowan's POV)
Location: Queens, New York City — August 2011
It's weird how a world can burn under your feet, and then you blink, and suddenly you're dodging pigeons, bodega smells, and a taxi with a dent shaped like it lost a fight with the Hulk.
Queens.
"Smells like pizza grease and broken dreams," Bucky muttered, glancing out the window of our new apartment.
"Feels like safety," I replied.
He snorted. "For how long?"
The SHIELD breach in Berlin had forced us underground. the World Security Council had tagged both of us as "meta-human flight risks." Fury had gone dark. Probably cleaning up Talos' mess.
So Bucky had purchased us IDs on the black-market. Clean papers. New names.
Well, one name was already taken.
"Rowan Skywalker?" the landlord had said when we signed the lease. "That's... a hell of a name, kid."
"Thanks," I said.
"Some kind of Norse thing?"
"Sure."
"And who's Mr.Grumpy"
"Him, oh he's my dad James Skywalker "
Thankfully There were no Star Wars movies in this universe. No Jedi. No Darth Vader. Not even a George Lucas. My name wasn't a reference here.
The apartment was a third-floor walk-up over a laundromat. The kind of place that came with duct tape in the window frames and cockroaches that had seen war.
But it was ours.
I stared out the window, watching the sun set over low rooftops. I could feel the hum of a city full of people too busy to notice gods bleeding into their skyline.
Bucky tossed a duffel onto the couch and cracked his neck. "you'll need to blend in."
"Right," I said, turning from the window. "As a high schooler."
He held up a packet: Midtown School of Science and Technology. School ID. Class schedule. Clean transcripts. A forged vaccination record.
"I hate this plan."
"You're seventeen," he said.
"Eighteen."
"Still legally a kid."
I gave him a look. "You're technically over a hundred, gramps."
"Don't push it."
[System Notification]
You have entered a Low-Alert Zone.
Force detection minimized. Leviathan signals suppressed.
Civilian protocols active.
[Optional Mission: Maintain Cover – Midtown Student Persona Active]
Reward: Stealth XP + Civilian Integration Bonus
Great. Jedi Simulator now has a high school DLC.
Midtown was... fine.
The kids were brilliant, bored, or both. A couple of them whispered when I walked past. I'd already heard one girl call me "The Transfer Viking." Another said I looked like I'd bench-pressed a car.
They weren't totally wrong, or maybe that just my ego talking
The school's STEM focus made things easier. I picked up tech stuff quickly. The Force helped fill in gaps when I didn't understand something, letting me cheat without cheating. And I stayed quiet. No lightsabers. No mind tricks. No giving away I was one angry Force vision away from vaporizing the math wing.
Still, something gnawed at me.
Not fear. Not pressure.
Boredom.
And maybe loneliness.
I was a god-tier system user sitting in a classroom with kids who still thought Tony Stark was the coolest person alive. They had no idea the cosmos was splitting at the seams.
But even gods need lunch.
That's when I noticed the guy watching me.
Skinny. Awkward. Sharp eyes hidden behind nerd glasses.
Peter Parker.
I didn't know it yet, but my gut said that kid was going to be a good servant- I mean Friend.
Midtown High wasn't exactly Hogwarts, thankfully, I mean what kind of school host an annual dark lord deathmatch?, but it had its own magic—mostly in the way no one seemed to notice how weird it was that a government ghost and a force-wielding anomaly had just quietly enrolled and rented an apartment above a laundromat.
I mean, it was New York. They'd seen worse.
By Thursday, I'd mapped out the school's social ecosystem.
Jocks? Rare. Midtown was a STEM school. You flexed your calculus scores here, not your biceps.
Unless of course you were Flash Thompson.
Drama kids? Loud. Passionate. Obsessed with staging Hamilton or Phantom of the opera despite having a budget the size of a sock drawer.
Science nerds? The ruling class.
And sitting squarely on that nerdy throne: Peter Parker.
We'd had two classes together—physics and computer science. And he'd spent most of both staring at me. Not aggressively. Not even creeper-level. Just... fascinated.
And not in a gay crap that-guy's-hot kind of way, by the way (pun intended).
Friday lunch. Cafeteria.
I was halfway through a protein bar when he finally sat down across from me.
"Hi," he said.
I blinked. "Hey."
"You're Rowan, right? Rowan Skywalker?"
"Yeah. That's me, what's yours oh is it Tom holland."
"um er no, I'm Peter, peter parker"
He hesitated, eyes flicking around like he expected to be ejected from the table.
"You're in my programming class," he added. "You answered a question on neural networks last Tuesday that made the TA look like he was having an existential crisis."
"That was fun."
Peter gave a nervous laugh. "So.. where'd you transfer from?"
"Overseas."
"Where overseas?"
I gave him a look.
He put his hands up. "Okay, okay. Mystery guy. Got it."
There was an awkward pause.
Then he said: " wanna come to Robotics Club?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Is that a euphemism?"
"No!" he said, flustered. "It's not—it's—look, never mind."
"I'll think about it."
Peter smiled. "Cool. Yeah. No pressure. Just... you seem interesting."
He left before I could respond. I watched him go.
Awkward. Honest. Definitely too smart for his own good.
I didn't know if he was going to be my first real friend... or the guy who figured out my secret and sold it to SHIELD for a Stark internship.
Meanwhile, Bucky was not having a good time.
We met up that evening after school. He'd been tailing an old lead—a grocery store manager in Queens who had once been part of a Soviet sleeper network. Just to be sure there were no Hydra leftovers in our backyard.
"How'd it go?" I asked as I dropped my bag.
Bucky stared at the dented can of green beans in his hand. "Somebody asked if I was cosplaying."
"Cosplaying what?"
"A Terminator."
I snorted. "Did you say yes?"
He deadpanned: "I said I was retired."
I tossed him a bottle of beer from the fridge. "Civilian life's treating you well."
"This world is too soft," he muttered caching the bottle. "People get suspicious when you carry a combat knife."
"Yeah, I noticed."
He glanced at me. "How's school?"
That night, I sat on the fire escape.
The stars weren't visible. Too much light pollution. But I still felt them—like static in the Force. The world was too loud, too fast. But I had a quiet moment. And in that quiet, I reached inward.
[System Ping Detected]
Skill Progress: Coldfire State – Stable
Background Sync Enabled:
Passive XP accumulated through daily routine: +10
Hidden Trigger: "Choose Connection" — LOCKED
Prerequisite: Make a friend. Trust someone.
I stared at that last line.
Make a friend?
So that's what the system wanted now.
Fine in the name of the system I will get some lackeys- I mean friends.
Tomorrow, I'd say yes to Peter's Robotics Club.
Midtown Robotics Lab – Monday, After School
The lab was tucked behind the chem wing, a room that smelled like solder, energy drinks, and overclocked ambition. Peter waved me in like I was crossing a sacred threshold.
"Don't touch the spider bots," he said immediately. "Ned still hasn't forgiven me for the last time someone blew one up."
"Noted."
Half the club was already there—six other students, all absorbed in coding, circuitry, and petty design debates. I didn't speak much. Just watched. Observed. The energy here was different. Focused. Pure.
For a moment, I forgot about Force visions and ancient monsters. For a moment, I was just... Rowan. A student. A kid, well still a possible force god.
Peter grinned at me across the workbench. "You know, I thought you were going to ghost us."
"Consider me haunted."
He laughed. "Nice."
[System Alert: Social Integration — Tier I]
Progress: 42%
Hidden Trigger: "Choose Connection" — Unlocked
New Bonus: "Tethered Mind – Minor resistance to isolation effects and mental intrusion."
Huh.
Maybe pretending to be normal was helping.
Subject Zero POV – HYDRA Blacksite, Bavarian Alps
The clone watched a feed of Rowan seated beside Peter Parker through a cracked terminal screen. Surveillance tech stolen from half a dozen dead SHIELD satellites hummed behind her.
"Smiling already," she whispered, fingers tracing Rowan's face on the screen. "Fitting in. Pretending he belongs."
She paced, barefoot, half-dressed in modified armor, blood still drying from a skirmish offscreen.
"I'll tear that mask off one day," she said. "And when he sees the truth... when he remembers who we really are... he'll love me for it."
Behind her, a stasis pod hissed. Another figure stirred in the shadows.
Subject Zero didn't look back.
"They can't keep you from me, Rowan."
Her fingers hovered over a control panel. A destination: Queens, New York.
She smiled.
"Soon."
SHIELD Strike Observation – Queens Subway Tunnel
Agent Klein crouched beside a storm drain entrance, his tablet flickering with biometric overlays.
"We're picking up residual Force radiation," he said into his comm. "It's low-grade but unusual. Not standard mutant signature."
His partner, Agent Leary, checked the perimeter. "This match the kid from Berlin?"
Klein hesitated. "It's... cleaner. More stable."
Behind them, a second signal pinged.
Unstable. Cold. Familiar.
"Wait," Leary muttered. "What the hell is that—"
The tablet exploded in her hands.
And from the shadows of the tunnel, someone laughed.