The jumpers came in a wave—arms and legs flailing, voices ragged, a dozen different cries colliding in the air.
Maya already knew she couldn't repeat the slow-catch method she'd used on the first few. Too many people, too little time. She swept her perception outward in a wide arc, running calculations furiously in the back of her mind, and the Maneuver Gear at her hips erupted—a burst of steel darts shooting outward in every direction, tracing elegant arcs through the night sky to intercept each falling figure.
The threads caught them. Then, ignoring the screaming, she swung each person through a precise quarter-circle—converting their vertical momentum sideways, bleeding off speed—and released them on a trajectory aimed at the inflatable rescue mats laid out by the firefighters below.
To the crowd on the street, it looked like a miracle: the figure in the air unleashed a fan of webs in every direction simultaneously, snagging the falling bodies one by one. No straight drops. No slow-motion descents. Each person carved a wide, graceful arc through the sky and landed on a cushion.
Mountain had bitten down and gone for it.
He hadn't fully believed Captain Hicks. Jumping was just the least terrible of bad options. He'd braced himself—and then, two seconds into the fall, something black wrapped around his calf. The world spun. He went flying in a direction that made no physical sense, tumbling through the air like a passenger on the world's worst carnival ride—and landed on the mat.
Before he could open his mouth to celebrate being alive, something massive dropped directly on top of him.
Mountain was out cold.
In the Stark Mansion, Tony Stark stood in front of the television with a drink in his hand, watching the whole sequence with an expression of complete seriousness.
"Holy—" He set the glass down. "That guy is absolutely insane. A genius, but insane. The crowd has no idea what they just saw. The people he caught don't know how close they came to dying."
"You were pretty quick to dismiss him earlier," Howard said, amused, from the couch. "Something about 'no scientific merit in the launch equipment' — and that you could build a better one."
Tony didn't answer. He sat down and stared at the floor, turning it over in his head.
He was different from the gawking crowd outside. He could see what was actually happening: every rescued person's motion path had been pre-calculated from the moment they left the roof. When the figure had first revealed itself, Tony hadn't even blinked—given enough time, he was confident he could build something similar. What stopped him cold was the black box's launch lines, moving in ways that flatly violated the laws of physics. And then, watching the actual rescue method unfold—that understated precision, that elegance hiding in plain sight—Tony Stark felt genuinely shaken.
"No. Still not possible. From first catch to last landing—under fifteen seconds. Forty-seven people. That's less than a third of a second per person. In that third of a second, you have to locate the target, calculate at minimum two simultaneous equations for their trajectory, then factor in wind resistance and the irregular drag coefficient of a human body in freefall." He paused. "I ran it mentally. My brain starts losing precision around the thirtieth person. By that point the margin of error becomes life-threatening."
Even Tony Stark felt a little discouraged saying it. He pressed on.
"What I'm saying is: he pre-calculated every single arc before he fired the first thread. Every trajectory was solved in advance. That is not reaction speed—that is something no human brain should be able to do."
"Tony." Howard's voice was quieter than usual. "Did it occur to you that those calculations weren't done by a human brain at all?"
"What, some kind of mutant with a computation ability? Sure, that's—"
"I said super-intelligence."
Tony blinked. Then he laughed—genuinely, sharply. "Old man, you need to take your medication. Stark Industries is the most advanced computing technology on the planet. A micro-scale AI capable of that kind of real-time modeling? We haven't built it. Nobody's even gotten close. The concept phase alone—"
Howard had gone quiet. The amusement had drained out of his face, replaced by something older and more tired.
"Two years ago," he said softly, "I thought exactly what you're thinking right now." His eyes had drifted somewhere past the television. "And then I learned what it cost me to be wrong."
Tony's laughter stopped. "Dad. Two years ago—you've never told me. What happened to Mom? What really—"
Howard raised a hand and cut him off. "Tony. Everything I've done, I did for you. The reason I never explained the details is that the matter involves classified SHIELD intelligence at the highest level—and as a founding member, I'm bound not to disclose it. That's the official answer." A short, humorless exhale. "And that's also complete garbage."
He almost smiled. "The real answer is: it involves old friends and old enemies—mine and your mother's—and I intend to handle it personally. You don't need to get involved." A beat. "You don't have the standing to get involved yet."
Tony wanted to push back. But something in his father's eyes—steady, ancient, decided—told him this was a man who had already made his peace with whatever this was. A promise. The kind a husband makes when words run out—and a father makes to his son.
He let it go.
President Maya, for her part, had no idea that a quiet scene between father and son was playing out across the city. Right now she wanted to shoot out a Shadow Touch, hang Captain Hicks in the air, and thrash him senseless.
Fifteen seconds. That's what rescuing forty-seven people in freefall had felt like from the inside. Fifteen seconds that stretched into a year. Her mental energy was well past the red line.
When the last person hit the mat, she retracted one thread and swung herself to the roof of the adjacent building, landing in a crouch. She put her hands on her knees and breathed.
Two seconds of rest.
Then a single word drifted up from below: "HELP—"
She closed her eyes. You couldn't jump with everyone else. I was already about to leave—show up now and I'll just let you fall to your death.
She was already moving before she finished the thought, a thread shooting from the box at her hip.
Amanda felt that Captain Hicks had completely betrayed her trust.
She'd finally worked up the courage. She'd walked to the edge. She'd stepped off.
And now, as she plummeted, she looked down and saw—nothing. No net. No mat. No rescue device. The pavement was simply getting closer.
"HICKS—I have your badge number! When I get to heaven I am filing a complaint about you, you big liar!"