The city hadn't fully calmed down since the incident.
Whispers danced through Midtown High like electricity running under old wires. Students leaned over lockers, passed notes in class, and sent each other screenshots of blurry footage from the viral video. The glowing figure was being called everything from "Sunstrike" to "Golden Ghost" to the less imaginative "Fire Guy."
Raj walked down the hall with his hood up—not because he wanted to look dramatic, but because this many eyes scanning for signs of supernatural weirdness made his skin crawl. Even with his head lowered, he could feel the curiosity humming in the air, sharp and probing.
"Dude looks like he bench-pressed a power plant," someone muttered behind him.
"Maybe he's an alien," another added.
Raj sighed under his breath and kept walking. His new suit—a golden body mesh with red stripes and an orange sun across the chest—was safely tucked away. He and Peter had tested it thoroughly over the weekend, and for once, he felt like the glowing inside him had a shell it could breathe through.
Not explode through.
He slid into homeroom just before the bell, slid next to Peter, and gave him a glance that said do not say a word. Peter returned it with an equally subtle nod. Their interactions had gotten good—sharp, silent, telepathic-level good. The kind of good that comes from keeping too many secrets too fast.
Peter tapped his pen against the desk and murmured, "They're watching."
Raj didn't need to ask who. He knew it. Could feel it.
The air felt… too clean. Too still. Like the silence in a room that's just been scrubbed after a crime scene.
"New cameras?" Raj whispered.
Peter gave a barely perceptible nod. "Two more in the west stairwell. Plus a new hallway sensor."
Raj shifted in his seat, not in fear—he was past fear—but because there was something crawling under his skin.
Then the door opened.
"Everyone, this is Adrian," their teacher said. "He's joining us from out of state."
Adrian stepped in with a calm, practiced smile. He had short blond hair, blue eyes, and a build that was just athletic enough to make the guys mildly competitive and the girls quietly alert. He gave a casual wave and took a seat two rows behind Raj.
Raj didn't need to use X-ray vision to know the guy was carrying something hidden under his jacket.
What he didn't expect… was the flicker.
His eyes burned. Vision split into layers he hadn't meant to activate. The school wall faded, and suddenly he saw something that wasn't supposed to be visible—a marking, deep under the skin on his own hand, glowing faintly.
R-9.
The same designation from the Project flash drive Monica had handed them.
His heart rate kicked up, but he breathed slowly, like Peter had taught him. Don't let the glow flare. Control it. Compress it.
Adrian's head tilted slightly, and his gaze passed over Raj without sticking. But something in the smirk that curved his lips afterward made Raj's stomach churn.
That guy was not just a student. And Raj wasn't just paranoid.
The bell rang.
Halfway through second period, the fire alarm went off.
Students leapt out of their chairs, excited at the chance for a "legit" break. Raj followed the crowd as they filed outside into the courtyard, the sun warm overhead.
Peter nudged him as they crossed the doors. "This isn't random."
"Of course it's not," Raj muttered. "You see anyone weird?"
"Yeah. Two rooftop shadows. East building."
Raj squinted. For a second, he saw nothing.
Then his vision layered again, unwillingly.
Two figures stood motionless, barely visible unless you were looking with heightened senses—cloaked in tech that was just barely not perfect.
Hydra tech?
The sun reflected faintly off something—a lens, maybe. A drone buzzed faintly before vanishing over the roofline.
Peter's jaw clenched. "We shouldn't stay out here."
Raj agreed. The last time he stood out in the open, he ended up in a viral video. And that was before his powers started mutating again.
Just as the teachers started herding students back inside, Raj glanced to the side.
Adrian stood against a pillar, arms folded, watching him—not with malice, but with the kind of curiosity Raj had come to associate with labs and syringes.
Then Adrian's phone buzzed.
He didn't check it immediately. Just looked at Raj one more time. Smiled faintly.
And turned away.
Raj's heart slowed. But that smile stayed etched in his memory like a brand.
Elsewhere…
In a sleek, black facility beneath a warehouse outside the city, several analysts in dark suits were reviewing footage.
"Replay that," one of them ordered.
On-screen, Raj stood in the sun outside Midtown, caught mid-breath as his eyes briefly glowed.
"Zoom in," came another voice—this one older, colder.
The zoom clarified just enough. The edge of his golden aura, the pulse beneath the surface. They still hadn't caught a full face ID, but they didn't need it.
They had his energy signature.
"Subject R-9 is adapting faster than expected," the analyst muttered. "He's integrating solar absorption into a stabilizing state. Spontaneous eruptions have decreased. He's… learning."
Another voice clicked in from a private audio channel. "And the suit?"
"Prototype active. Refractive layers present. Designed by hand. Possibly assisted by Parker."
A pause.
"Shift our focus to the hammer site."
The monitor flipped to aerial views of the New Mexico desert. Mjolnir sat embedded in the crater. Surveillance drones circled it at a respectful distance.
A man had already tried lifting it three times. Muscular. Blonde. Furious.
"That hammer movements match the Mythological Thor weapon pattern. "
"Which means," the older voice said slowly, "R-9 is no longer our only variable."
Back on the footage of Midtown, they froze a frame—Raj turning his head in profile, the glow beneath his skin tracing like fire along his collarbone.
"Keep the boy contained. But don't touch him."
"For now?"
"For now."
Back at Midtown High…
Raj sat through lunch pretending to eat a sandwich while staring into nothing. Peter watched him with careful eyes.
"You okay?"
"No," Raj said, "but I'm getting good at pretending I am."
"Anything new?"
Raj hesitated, then nodded. "When I activated my vision by accident... I saw something. In my hand."
Peter frowned. "What?"
Raj looked down at his fingers, flexed them. "A label. Like it was burned in under the skin. R-9."
Peter swore under his breath.
"Same as the file," Raj confirmed.
"Which means they didn't just identify you. They named you."
Raj leaned in, keeping his voice low. "It's not just surveillance. They're marking me like a… like a prototype. Like property."
Peter gritted his teeth. "That's not happening. We'll find a way to scrub it."
"Adrian saw me," Raj said. "I think he knows something."
"New kid?"
"New plant, maybe."
They both went quiet as the bell rang again. Students began filing out of the cafeteria.
Raj stood. "Let's keep our distance today. Just in case."
Peter nodded. "I'll handle east wing. You go west."
As Raj moved through the hallways, his head buzzed with questions. Why now? Why the sudden switch to shadows instead of direct confrontation? What was Adrian really doing here?
And most importantly…
Something was shifting. He could feel it.
And no matter what codename they branded on him, he was going to rewrite the meaning of R-9 himself—on his own terms.