Midtown High buzzed with the same stale routine—slamming lockers, echoing sneakers, laughter sharpened into cruel edges—but for Raj, everything felt just a little… off.
He blinked.
And saw straight through his locker.
A split-second X-ray burst, sharp and startling, flashed the pipework behind the walls, the skeleton of the building, even the frayed wiring that sparked like nerves behind steel. He jerked his head back. No one noticed.
Or so he thought.
Raj leaned against the lockers, pressing a hand to his temple. His powers were mutating again—faster than expected, deeper than he was ready for. The X-ray vision had started with blurry shapes. Now? It kicked in between blinks. Unwanted. Uncontrolled.
"Breathe," he muttered. "You're not a machine. You're still… you."
He hadn't even made it to homeroom, and already he felt raw—like skin stretched too tight over burning light.
As he walked toward his first class, his eyes flicked toward the new kid again.
Adrian.
The guy sat two rows away in math but always seemed too aware. Too still. Today, Adrian wore a faded blue hoodie, but Raj had already seen what lay underneath: a tiny metal chip clipped to his belt. Not a phone. Not a gadget. It pulsed faintly—once—when Raj's X-ray flared.
Adrian caught him staring and grinned.
Not a friendly grin. One of those "I know something you don't" grins. The kind of smile spiders probably wore in their tiny dreams.
Raj turned away sharply.
Peter met him at his locker between periods. "Okay, tell me you didn't just glare holes through that dude's skull again."
"I didn't glare holes."
"You could have," Peter said, a half-smile twitching at his mouth. "Did he do something?"
"I don't know yet." Raj kept his voice low. "But something's off. He's either the world's creepiest extrovert or he's clocking me like a surveillance drone."
"Or," Peter said, tapping his notebook against Raj's shoulder, "you're just a guy with X-ray vision and a lot of paranoia."
Raj chuckled, but it was hollow. "I'm telling you, Pete. He has tech. Something hidden."
Peter's expression shifted. The easy grin faded. "You sure?"
"Positive."
Between second and third period, Raj decided to test something.
He passed Adrian in the hallway and let his vision flicker—just once.
He saw it.
A thin silver loop around Adrian's wrist, etched with strange, recursive symbols. Not Wakandan tech. Not Stark. Something older. Cruder. Experimental.
His stomach twisted.
Adrian looked directly at him.
And said, calm as rain, "Nice jacket, Raj."
Raj froze. "Thanks… I guess."
Adrian walked on like nothing was weird.
Peter caught up to him near the science lab. "Okay, that was definitely a move."
"I think he knows I'm enhanced."
"Then we have a problem."
No, Raj thought. We've had one. It's just no longer pretending to be friendly.
At lunch, Raj barely touched his food. His vision glitched once, showing the entire cafeteria in bone and wire outlines. A sharp pain lanced behind his eyes.
Across the room, Adrian casually placed his tray down… and dropped something.
A folded piece of paper.
Raj waited. Watched. Adrian stood, tossed his trash, and left—too quickly.
Raj approached the tray and swiped the paper before anyone else noticed.
Peter read over his shoulder, whispering, "What's it say?"
The handwriting was sharp. Precise.
You glow between blinks.
Tell Peter he's being watched too.
You are R-9.
Raj swallowed.
The cafeteria suddenly felt too loud. Too many people. Too many cameras. His skin itched.
"What the hell does that mean?" Peter asked.
"It means we're already exposed."
Raj stuffed the note into his bag, trying not to shake. His mind raced: R-9. The same codename on the flash drive Monica gave them. They'd barely scratched the surface of what "R-9" entailed, but clearly, someone else had access to the same intel.
And they were here. In school.
Adrian wasn't just suspicious anymore.
He was Hydra.
[Location Unknown]
The surveillance room was silent except for the soft hum of machines. Dozens of screens flickered: infrared scans, school camera feeds, thermal sensors locked on one specific student.
Raj.
An agent, face obscured by shadow, leaned forward. "His reactions are accelerating. The suit amplifies regulation, but the body is still adapting. X-ray burst frequency is increasing."
A second figure, standing beside a glowing terminal, tapped the file marked PROJECT R-9.
"Subject is volatile," the voice said. "Emotionally tethered to Parker. If Parker is compromised—Subject destabilizes."
A third agent entered, slipping a black folder onto the table.
"Adrian has made contact."
The first shadow nodded slowly. "Good. Let them believe it's a game of discovery. Once the hammer is retrieved, initiate extraction."
"The hammer?" the second asked.
The screen switched to New Mexico.
Mjolnir. Still unmoved. Still guarded.
The voice answered coldly, "The weapon of a god is only useful if no god can wield it."
Back on screen, Raj turned, his eyes glowing for half a blink before dimming again.
"And we already have our sun."
Back at Midtown
Raj and Peter left the cafeteria early, making an excuse to use the science lab. They sat huddled between microscopes and half-scorched glass tubing.
Raj laid the note on the table. "He knows everything. And he's not scared of being caught."
Peter frowned. "So what now?"
"We flip it," Raj said. "He's watching us? Then let's give him a show."
"You're talking bait?"
"I'm talking distraction. If they're watching us for patterns, then we give them chaos."
Peter tilted his head. "That's… actually kind of smart. You feeling okay?"
"No," Raj said. "But smart's all we've got."
Later that Day
Adrian didn't speak again.
But as Raj passed him near the gym hallway, he felt it—a buzz, like static through the soles of his feet.
And just for a moment, Adrian's eyes flashed red.
Not glowing.
Scanning.
Hydra tech, Raj thought. Disguised in a high school hoodie. What even is my life?
Between blinks, the world was splitting open.
And Raj was starting to see it all.