"We're close to your school," Natasha said over the line, irritation slipping through her calm. "But it's like it doesn't exist. We can't find it at all."
That explained the silence. Rowan had upgraded the academy's defenses earlier that morning. Nothing dramatic in his mind, just a tighter seal. To everyone else, apparently, the place had fallen off the map.
"Stay where you are," Rowan replied. "I'll come get you."
Moments later, he left the grounds and found them on a roadside not far away. The group was larger than he expected. Natasha Romanoff, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Maria Hill, Melinda May, and more than a dozen Iron Front agents he didn't recognize. Nearly all of them were injured. Some badly.
It wasn't surprising. They had gone up against dozens of enhanced soldiers, each one strong enough to overwhelm a normal strike team. The fact that any of these agents were still standing spoke to experience, not luck.
"This isn't something we can ignore," Natasha said once she saw him. Blood streaked her sleeve, but her voice was steady. "If Iron Front finishes what they started, the fallout won't stop at us."
She hesitated, then added, "When Iron Front is dealt with and the agency is rebuilt, you won't be left empty-handed."
Rowan nodded once. "We'll talk after you're treated."
He led them back toward the academy gates.
Rowan didn't particularly care about Iron Front's promises. They had nothing he truly wanted. He avoided most of the world's magic systems on purpose. Power always came with strings, and in this universe, those strings were usually attached to something ancient and hungry.
What did interest him, though, was knowledge that didn't demand obedience. And there was one object Iron Front had once obsessed over that still lingered in the back of his mind. Raw power, born at the beginning of everything. Studying it someday would be… enlightening.
But that was a thought for later.
"This is the academy," Rowan said calmly.
The words themselves were the key.
The air shifted. What had been an empty stretch of road suddenly held a sprawling complex of buildings, solid and unmistakably real. Several agents stopped in their tracks. One of them swore under his breath.
Coulson stared at the structure as if afraid it might vanish again. "That's… incredible."
He'd read the files. Heard Fury talk about the place in guarded tones. Seeing it appear out of nothing was something else entirely.
Rowan ushered them inside and into the main conference hall. He sent a brief message to the faculty, asking for classes to pause. Then he got to work.
He moved from agent to agent, restoring torn muscle, knitting bone, closing wounds that would have meant months of recovery in a hospital. Under his hands, injuries faded as if they had never happened.
Gasps echoed through the room. More than one agent stared at their own skin in disbelief.
"These wounds would've taken half a year," someone muttered.
"Please," Rowan said lightly. "You don't need to remove your clothes. It works through fabric."
A female agent froze mid-motion, flushed, then quickly dropped her shirt back into place.
By the time Rowan finished, the room felt lighter. The teachers arrived soon after, led by Professor Xavier, curiosity plain on their faces.
Rowan turned back to Natasha.
"All right," he said. "Now tell me what actually happened. Last I heard, you were holding your ground. How did it turn into this?"