CHAPTER TWO: KANSAS

"I won't talk without a lawyer." Brooke spoke calmly as Agent Cleary slowly made his way around the table. Brooke was handcuffed to the table, and she felt that this was completely unnecessary.

"That's too bad," Agent Cleary finally took a seat across from the blonde. "The quicker you tell me what you know, the quicker this is all over."

"What I know?" Brooke held back a scoff. "I don't know anything! I wasn't in London when Beck died."

"Are you saying that you don't know the details surrounding his death?"

"I know that Peter did not kill him," Brooke held her ground. She would die on this hill. "He is a hero."

"Oh no, we know that Peter did not kill him," Agent Cleary waved his hand in the air as if he were dismissing her comment. "You did."

Brooke felt her eyes bulge out of her head. She gulped and waited a few seconds to see if Cleary would say, "Just kidding!"

"I'm sorry, what?" Brooke asked after the agent said nothing.

"Well, he had help," Cleary said as he grabbed two rolled-up blueprints from a security guard. He unrolled one to reveal the blueprints to Stark Industries' drone. The same one Beck used in his attack.

Agent Cleary circled a small component on the circuit board of the drone.

"You see this?" Brooke peered at what he circled and dread filled her stomach. "This is the same mechanism used to power AI but smaller and it is easily programmed."

Cleary reached for the second blueprint of the mechanism in more detail and spread the paper out for Brooke to see. He circled a name in the bottom right-hand corner.

"Created and signed by a Brooke Tompkins, March 2016."

Brooke swallowed a large lump in her throat.

"Sound familiar?" Cleary taunted her. Brooke looked at the agent with a glare.

"I want my lawyer."

-

"Do not worry, Brooke," Pepper consoled her niece over teleconference. Brooke looked at the screen of a laptop in disdain. "Mr. Murdock is the best lawyer I know."

Mr. Murdock stood behind the laptop and Brooke glanced at him, wondering why he wouldn't look at her.

"It's my fault this all happened," Brooke sunk further into her seat.

"You are going to make my job a lot harder if you keep saying that," Mr. Murdock finally turned his head towards the blonde and gave her a sly smile.

The corner of Brooke's mouth twitched up at his joke. Pepper just sighed at her comment.

"Don't say that," Pepper pleaded. "It's all going to be okay. I've had Happy hire Mr. Murdock for you and all of your friends. This includes May as well. You are all in good hands, I assure you."

After a moment of silence, Brooke responded with a, "Thank you, Auntie."

"Of course," Pepper smiled. "Now, the Department of Damage Control agreed to let you go on a technicality."

"Technicality?" Brooke sat up straighter at the mention of being let go.

"When you signed the plans on the AI tech, you were underage and under the supervision of Tony Stark meaning that the responsibility of the manufacturing of the tech falls on him." Mr. Murdock explained to her.

"But they can't arrest him because he's not around," Brooke reasoned. "So who...?"

The realization dawned on the blonde and she turned to look at her Aunt.

"Aunt Pepper..." Brooke sighed. "What's going to happen to you?"

"Don't worry about me, honey. I've got it under control." Pepper winked at her niece and Brooke gave her a small smile.

"Thank you," Brooke gushed. "For everything."

"Hey, what's family for?" Brooke chuckled at her Aunt's comment. "I'll see you soon."

"Bye Auntie."

Mr. Murdock closed the laptop and that cut off Brooke's communication with her aunt.

"So when can I get out of these cuffs?"

"Should be any second now," Mr. Murdock said. While the two waited, an awkward silence fell over them.

"How long have you been a lawyer?" Brooke asked him.

"Six years," he answered. A security guard entered at that moment with keys to Brooke's handcuffs.

"I'll see you soon, Ms. Tompkins," Mr. Murdock bid her farewell. As he left, Brooke noticed his probing cane and immediately felt like an idiot for not noticing.

"Sounds like you got off on a technicality?" The guard asked Brooke. The handcuffs fell off her wrists as soon as he turned the key in the lock.

"Yeah," Brooke nodded. She stood up from the metal chair she sat in for the past eighteen hours.

"Could've been a lot worse," the guard commented. All Brooke could do was nod. The past day and a half have been a huge blur and she still couldn't believe what happened.

As Brooke walked out of the interrogation room and down the hallways of the precinct, she could feel the eyes of Agent Cleary on her. When she stepped out of the building, she felt as if she could finally breathe.

Her phone established a connection outside the government facility and it immediately was overloaded with notifications. Most from people she knew asking if she was okay. But, there was an email from NYU that stood out.

Brooke opened the email app as she stood outside of the precinct and read the contents of the email:

To Ms. Brooke Tompkins,
We regret to inform you that we are terminating your enrollment from our computer engineering program effective immediately. In light of recent accusations and affiliations, we can no longer associate our image with criminally active persons. We hope you understand.

Sincerely,
NYU Admissions

Brooke couldn't help but break down on the sidewalk. Everything she worked for, everything she dreamed of was gone. In just a few hours, her life went up in smoke.

Brooke deleted the email and stuffed her phone into her pocket as she hailed a taxi home.

THREE MONTHS LATER

The past few months were stressful for our failed engineer. Most of it was filled with conferences and meeting with lawyers and people she didn't know. It was for damage control to save face of Stark Industries and Brooke was happy to do it; it was all her fault anyways.

Finally, the last meeting she would have for a while came to an end and it finally seemed like everything was going to be okay, so Brooke headed home on the train for a much needed break.

As soon as she got home, Brooke took a very long shower and took her time getting ready for the day. She didn't get out of her bathrobe until the very last second where she slipped on the clothes she laid out for herself.

As soon as she was decent, her phone started buzzing. Looking at the caller ID, Brooke answered right away.

"Hey Peter, everything okay?"

"Yeah— well, no, actually..." Peter sighed. "I didn't get into MIT. Neither did MJ or Ned. It's all my fault. Because they're involved with me."

Brooke couldn't respond without the feeling of crying coming over her. Seems like it's not just her future being ruined by the incident.

"Brooke?" Peter called for his 'big sis'.

"Sorry," Brooke sniffed. "That's terrible, Peter, I'm so sorry."

"I just wish... I wish that it could go back to the way it was, y'know? Back when the world didn't know."

"I know," Brooke nodded. "There's things I wish I could take back."

"What happened to you? Happy just told me you got arrested." Peter inquired. Brooke sighed at the mention of recent events.

"Yeah, when I was interning for Stark Industries I created an AI program that was used in Beck's drones. I got off on a technicality."

"Oh." Peter was unsure how to respond to what Brooke just told him. His old babysitter has never gotten into trouble, ever. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You already had a lot on your plate," Brooke explained. "But it's all going to be okay. I just got off the phone with Pepper and it's all sorted. And not just for me but for you and MJ and May and Ned."

"Remind me to send her a huge bouquet," Peter let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm sure she'll like that," Brooke smiled. "Hey, maybe send a bouquet to admissions at MIT."

That was meant to be a joke, a mistimed one maybe, but Brooke wasn't being serious. Peter fell quiet on the other end and the blonde thought that her joke wasn't well-received.

"I got an idea..." Peter mumbled. "I'll talk to you later."

"Wait, Peter, what are you—?" The line fell dead. By the time of Peter's voice, Brooke knew he was about to do something stupid. She tried to call him again but she was sent to voicemail.

Aggravated, Brooke jumped into babysitter mode and grabbed her coat while pocketing her wallet and keys. When she left her apartment, she checked Peter's location on her phone. She has had access to his location ever since he got his first phone.

The phone seemed to locate Peter in Greenwich Village so Brooke decided to walk the fifteen minutes to his location.

In fifteen minutes, Brooke found herself in front of an unfamiliar building. It looked a bit odd; there was a large circular window in the front with a unique design.

Brooke checked Peter's location one more time to confirm that he was right where she was. With Peter's safety in mind, the babysitter entered the building.

"Hello?" Brooke called out when she entered. When she walked through the threshold, she was greeted with... falling snow? The temperature dropped to freezing and the floor was covered in snow.

The foyer was massive. There was a grand staircase before her that looked magnificent below a large window.

A scraping sound came from Brooke's left and she turned to see two kids around Peter's age shoveling the snow on the floor.

The two kids looked up from their task to see who had intruded once more.

"Oh, hi," Brooke greeted them. When they didn't respond, she asked, "Have you guys seen a boy around your age come through? His name is Peter."

They kept quiet and Brooke just stood there, not knowing what was wrong with this place. She had a bad feeling about this whole situation. Why would Peter come here? Why were there kids here unable to speak? Why was there snow inside?

"Peter?" Brooke called out with a hint of panic in her voice. "Peter!"

Suddenly, the ground shook. If Peter were here, then he'd be in big trouble.

Debris started to rain from above and Brooke had no choice but to run towards the epicenter of the quake that seemed to originate from a floor below.

"Peter!" Brooke called out once more when she found stairs leading down to a basement. The building started to shake violently.

"Oh God, this is how I die," Brooke said to herself as she ran down the stairs. When she reached the landing, the floor started to crack beneath her. Looking ahead of her, Brooke's eyes landed on Peter standing in front of what looked like a wizard with ancient runes and spells circulating the pair.

The wizard seemed to barely hold it together as Peter kept rambling about nonsense.

"Peter!" Both Peter and the wizard turned to look at Brooke.

"Brooke?" Peter finally saw his old babysitter. But it was too late. The ground finally broke and bright purple light escaped and filled the underground basement.

The floor disappeared and Brooke found herself hovering above what used to be a floor. She let out a scream as the world around her fell away. Peter seemed to be unfazed as he asked the wizard before him to let Brooke know about his identity.

"Stop tampering with the spell!" The wizard yelled.

Out of nowhere, Brooke saw a mysterious white outline of a woman reach out towards her. Fear gripped her body as she tried to lean away from this unknown entity.

But she wasn't quick enough. Brooke felt the hands of the shadow push her further away from Peter and she fell into the purple void. Her screams faded away into nothingness as she was pulled from her world.

It was a quick, ten second trip from her world to the next but when she landed, she did not land gracefully. She landed on her stomach on hard, marble flooring.

The blonde groaned in pain and lifted herself off of the floor to see where she landed. She was surprised to see that she was right where she started. She stared at the large staircase before her in confusion.

It was the same building but there was no snow nor were there any kids. The foyer was decorated with classic art pieces and statues. A large chandelier made out of crystal hung above Brooke's head.

While taking her surroundings in, there was only one thought in Brooke's mind:

"I'm not in Kansas anymore."