#Biometric Finger Print

[svsembedded]

Bluetooth Based Wireless Biometric Finger Print Electronic Voting System using Arduinohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqZJl489rrU

[mrsjjongstby]

P: Vampire!Sunghoon x Time-travel Scientist!Reader

Warnings: Mentions on biting, blood, feeding scenes, mentions of death, dissapearance, time travelling, yearning, kissing, physical touch, possesiveness, soft angst, happy ending!

Synopsis: In 2090, you're sent back in time to study a village that vanished without explanation. There, you met him. You weren't supposed to fall in love with him. But you did, with a vampire. And when time ran out, you left — believing that story had ended. Until one night, back in the future, he finds you. He hasn’t aged. And he never stopped waiting.

Wordcount: 11.8k

June 22, 2090. 

The hum of the machines never stopped in sector 7. 

Even at 3:27 in the evening, the corridors filled with guards, the bright white light pulsing against the huge glass doors. Surveillance cameras present every nook and crook of the room with security drones flying silently overhead, scanning every face, every badge, every retinal print.  

There were no windows in this part of the KRONEX institute- no clocks, no noise from the outside world. Time, here, was studied, twisted, and sometimes... broken. 

You adjusted the collar of your lab coat, feeling the slight static charge settling against your skin. Another night. Another sequence calibration.  

You were the lead scientist for KRONEX's Temporal Division, and one of only five globally certified operators with direct clearance to manipulate raw time.  

Not because you are lucky- but because you are good- really good at what you do.  

"You are early." Said a familiar voice.  

You turned around to see Taehyun, hands in his lab coat pockets, glasses slightly askew. He always arrived fashionably five minutes late, so this was new.  

"So are you," you say smirking.  

"Someone write it in the history."  

He chuckled, stepping beside you as the biometric scanner opened the reinforced glass doors to Lab room Delta- 12. 

Inside, your team was already gathered,  

Mira, the chronophysics analyst, stood at her console with her usual lip balm which she applies ever minute, tapping at the interface like it owned her something.  

Yuvi, head of atmospheric translation, stayed near the back, mumbling data projections to herself. 

Jungwon, the youngest, but sharp as hell, greeted you with the usual, two fingered salute from behind the drone mapping panel.  

"Took you long enough." Mira muttered without looking up. 

"You're welcome for the coffee I brought you last time." You say as you head to the central table.  

Everyone quickly followed you, sitting around the table. 

You five are the specialized high qualification scientists who got chosen to be the people handling lab delta- 12. Coming from different backgrounds, having same interests and working in cases together for years made your guys' bond unbreakable.  

You five are highly qualified specialists chosen to operate Lab Delta-12. Coming from different backgrounds but sharing the same passion, you've worked on countless cases together over the years — and that’s made your bond unbreakable. 

The door opened, interrupting your casual talks.  

In walked, Dr. Han Myung-sik— head of KRONAX, the man who'd once published a paper predicting time dilation six years before it was observed in real data. His face, though aged, was unreadable— eyes sharp beneath the thick silver eyebrows.  

No one spoke. You all stood up immediately.  

"Sit," he said. "This will be quick."  

The doors sealed shut behind him. A cold hum flickered through the room as he turned on the internal projector.  

Five floating files appeared above the surface. Each labeled, RED CASE.  

"Your group— delta 12 is chosen for this matter." Dr.Han said quietly.  

You could feel the weight of his words which he's about to say.

"We've uncovered five unresolved incidents. Each linked to potentially an unnatural shift in recorded time."  

"These aren't ripples," he continued.  

"These are fractures. Events that don't line up with any known temporal logic. People disappeared, memories vanished, objects never aged and yet—"  

He tapped the interface. The room dimmed, and each of your profiles synced to a case file. 

"You are the only ones qualified to investigate." 

He started pacing slowly.  

"Yuvi. You're being sent to March 2311, Seoul; right before the blackout that erased six months of global data records. You'll observe the internal tech culture and corporate rivalry."  

Yuvi blinked, nodding quietly, already calculating her cover identity.  

"Mira."  

He turned to her.  

"Your case is year 1652, Gyeongju province. A palace scribble who reportedly recorded a 'sky-born woman of light' before his records were seized. The ink used in his account was... not of this earth.” 

Mira grinned. "Finally, something fun."  

"Jungwon. Taehyun. You'll split into Northern territories. Parallel years, overlapping reports. Two villages with identical names, but only one should exist."  

Jungwon raised an eyebrow, "Are we crossing time lines? "  

"Just brushing," Dr.Han replied. "Do not stay longer than you have to."

Then, he turned to you.  

"And you."  

The room stilled.  

"Your case is the most weird one."  

A red dot expanded above the table. 

Satellite data. Korean countryside. Grainy and quiet. 

"A village in 2019 – known to exist, documented, populated and functioning." "Then, it disappeared. Not physically or violently. Just... gone. All the databases rewrote themselves. The people who lived there vanished as if they were never even existed— never even born." "Your job is to go there, undercover. Blend in. Find the root event. Identify the root autonomy and leave before it happens."  

Your fingers clenched lightly under the table. You stared at the red dot on the map.  

2019.  

A quiet time. A dangerous one — because it was still close enough to modern history to be familiar. Easy to slip up. Easy to stay too long.  

"Do we suspect temporal interference?"  

You asked as you shifted your gaze from the red dot to his eyes. Dr.Han meets your eyes. "We suspect something far worse. Something that doesn't belong in any time."  

The files flickered red again. "You'll begin calibration tonight. You jump within 750 hours. That is one month. Use your time wisely."  

As he turned to leave, he paused just once— right by the door.  

"And one more thing," he said without looking back.  "Don't fall in love with the timeline. It doesn't love you back."  

With that, he was gone. The table darkens. The lights return. Yuvi exhales. Mira cracks her knuckles and Jungwon leans forward.  

"2019 huh?" Taehyun mutters beside you. "Better pack your sarcasm and Emo clothes."  

You don't respond. You just stare at the red dot again. 

The village. Gone from memory. Gone from maps. But waiting for you all the same.  

One month. 

And only one day to finish prepping, calibrating your minds, bodies, and identities before entering a timeline that wouldn’t even recognize your names. You sat in the Sim Room, surrounded by floating holoscreens of early-2010s Korea. Architecture. Clothing. Language slang. Historical emotional markers. It was all too recent. Too real. 

Mira was curled on a bench nearby, watching 1600s scrollwork with a look that said I’d rather wing it. Taehyun was arguing with an AI over inconsistency in his destination’s documentation. Again. Jungwon? Already finished his prep module and was now trying to teach Mira how to drink from a metal bottle while upside down. 

“You’re going to the past, not space,” she said, annoyed but smiling.  “Still useful if I end up in a well,” Jungwon shrugged. You blinked away the holograms and stood, stretching out your arms. 

“This doesn’t feel like prep,” Yuvi murmured, joining you. “It feels like goodbye.” 

You didn’t answer.  

She studied you, thoughtful. “You okay with your timeline?”  “2019 is barely the past,” you said. “Feels like I could bump into my parents if I’m not careful.”  “Yeah, but yours is the haunted village,” Mira called. “Mine is just a floating woman in the sky.” 

“You’re the floating woman,” Jungwon muttered under his breath. She chucked a protein chip at him while he hid behind you, holding your shoulders as if his body isn't larger than yours.  

“Alright,” Taehyun said, glancing around. “Final dinner tonight in the Commons? Before the serious lockdown begins?”  “Only if you don’t bring another slide presentation to the table,” Mira groaned. 

“I make no promises.”  You smiled — small, but genuine 

And as the others drifted out of the room, chattering, playfully teasing, you lingered a moment longer — looking up at the blinking red timestamp over the Sim Door. 

30:00:00:00  DAYS : HOURS : MINUTES: SECONDS  JUMP 

You were the first one in the bay. The air smelled sterile, like metal and ionized mist. The chamber was massive — white, cold, humming. Five jump pods lined the back wall, each glowing faint blue with individual temporal calibration. 

The boots of your suit clicked softly as you walked, every step echoing louder than your breath. The fabric hugged your body like skin, the material pressure-sealed and embedded with auto-adaptive climate tech. Your mind was a storm beneath the still surface — years of training colliding with something much quieter. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” came Taehyun’s voice from behind. You turned. He looked exhausted, but composed — the kind of man who smiled with his mouth but not his eyes. “Didn’t try,” you replied simply. 

He nodded, stepping beside you, with his arm around your shoulder. You both looked at the pods in silence. 

One for each of you. One jump. One direction.  No promises of coming back the same. 

Soon after, Yuvi arrived — hair tied, suit zipped, clutching a small, folded piece of paper in her hand. A name, probably. A reminder of something real. Mira strolled in with a grin too bright to be sincere. “Guess it’s finally happening,” she said, snapping her gum, though her hands trembled slightly as she adjusted her suit cuffs. 

Jungwon came last, walking like he was on his way to a vacation. Humming. But you saw the tension in his knuckles as he flexed them once, twice. Dr. Han entered from the upper level, flanked by three silent technicians and a console assistant holding the jump sequence tablet. 

“Final clearances have been locked in,” he announced, voice loud across the bay. “You have fifteen minutes.” 

One by one, your mission drives were inserted into the small ports at your pod stations. The information would sync once you landed in your time period — personalized cover stories, forged credentials, emergency kill phrases. 

“I’ll see you all again,” Jungwon said, softer now, eyes scanning the rest of you. “In whatever version of time we land in. 

“Bring back something cool,” Mira added. “Like a comet or an alien.”  “Or your soul intact,” Yuvi muttered, mostly to herself. You looked around. 

These people — their lives had been laced into yours for years. Work. Sleep. Discover. Repeat. The way your names felt normal together. The easy sarcasm. The shared silence in moments like this. You didn’t know what it would be like without them.  Maybe you weren’t meant to know. Your pod blinked green. Final sequence activated. 

You stood in front of it, heart slamming once, sharply, against your ribs. 

“You’ll be inserted at 03:12 AM, August 9th, 2019,” Dr. Han said beside you. “Just outside the village’s boundary. Our records end there. No satellite returns after that date. No digital trails. Just fog.” 

You nodded. 

“And remember,” he added, “observe, record, don’t interfere.” He paused. “And don’t stay longer than you have to.” You stepped into the pod. The door hissed closed behind you. Inside: darkness. Soft blue lights blinked around your headrest. A countdown began in the corner. 

00:00:10  00:00:09  00:00:08...  Your breathing slowed. Fingers tight on the seat grips.  00:00:03  00:00:02...  You thought of nothing.  00:00:01  ENGAGING TEMPORAL LAUNCH. 

Everything went white. 

You woke up choking on fog. 

Your knees hit grass first, body staggering out of the collapsed time pod buried beneath undergrowth. The pod disintegrated on schedule — technology melted into mist the second your boots touched this era. You stood slowly, the chill biting through your fabricated 2010s-era jacket. A navy hoodie. Worn boots. Phone model synced to local time tech. Fake ID in your pocket. History-approved.  And ahead of you — trees. Low mist curling over quiet fields. One winding road in the dark. 

“03:14,” you whispered, checking the time. You started walking. It didn’t take long to reach the village. Just a few winding turns along cracked pavement and flickering streetlamps — too dim for a place this small. It looked normal at first glance. Houses with tiled roofs. Wind chimes. A distant dog barking. But the silence? Too heavy. Too complete. Not a single radio. Not one human voice. 

You followed the map projection in your eye lens. Your identity here: transfer student, staying with a distant relative for the summer before university. Your cover was clean. “Blend in. Observe. Don’t interfere.” Dr. Han’s words echoed. 

You reached the village center. A bakery. A post office. A small clinic. It was beautiful — in a nostalgic, sleepy sort of way. You spotted an inn. Two stories. Wooden steps. A soft yellow porch light still glowing. You knocked once. A moment later, an older woman opened the door, eyes squinting at your unfamiliar face. 

“Ah… you must be the niece, right? From Seoul?” You smiled, polite. "Yes, ma’am.”  “Room’s upstairs. Already made it up for you.”  With that, you leave to your room. 

August 10, 2019.

The village was quieter in the morning. Not dead. Just... slow. 

You walked past the corner bakery — the one that smelled like burnt sugar and citrus. Past a row of mailboxes that hadn’t been touched in a week. You weren’t sure if people here hated bills or just trusted too easily. Notebook in your jacket. Identity chip syncing your steps to the research log in your neural band. 

Day 2.  Civilian behavior: consistent.  Average activity start time: 6:53 AM  No sign of temporal noise. No anomalies. 

You smiled and bowed slightly to an old man sweeping the steps outside a shop. He gave you a nod in return. Eyes kind, but faintly puzzled — like he couldn’t remember when you arrived, but accepted you anyway. That was the first pattern you noticed. People here forgot details fast. But nothing big enough to ring alarms. Just enough to feel like déjà vu. 

You took a seat on the raised edge of a well in the town center, glancing down at the still water.  Your eye-lens scanned your surroundings. Kids biking. A woman hanging sheets in perfect rows. Market stalls setting up. 

Everything looked normal. Back at the inn, the old woman handed you a basket. 

“Bread for the east field home. The family that lives up near the woods. They get their supplies late.” 

“East field?” you asked, trying to remember the map. 

“Take the long path. The house is old, but someone’s always there.” 

“Someone?” 

She nodded. “A quiet boy. Rarely speaks. Keeps to himself. Been around longer than most here.” 

You didn’t ask more. Just took the basket and walked. And as you stepped onto the eastern trail, into the trees and shifting light… You didn’t know yet that you were walking toward the beginning. Of the end. 

The path to the east house was longer than expected. 

Thick trees bent overhead like old, quiet watchers. The air here was different — cooler, touched with something metallic. You adjusted the basket in your hands. You finally reached the gate — rusted iron, half open. A path lined with overgrown grass stretched up to a traditional hanok-style house. Wooden. Quiet. Heavy with stillness. 

You stepped through, gently. No animals. No birds. Just that strange silence again. You knocked once. Then twice. No answer. You were about to leave when the door creaked open. And there he was. 

He looked like he didn’t belong in 2019. Or any year. 

Dressed simply — white cotton shirt, black slacks, sleeves slightly rolled up. But there was something... too elegant about the way he held the door. Something slow and precise. Still. His eyes — dark, unfathomable — landed on yours. 

For a full second, he didn’t say a word.��Neither did you. “Delivery,” you said softly, lifting the basket. 

��Right,” he replied after a pause, voice smooth, almost melodic. “They said you’d be coming.” 

You held the basket out, but he didn’t take it immediately. Instead, he studied you. Not rudely. Not even intently. Just... curiously. Like a puzzle he couldn’t quite read. Or a scent he wasn’t supposed to follow. The moment you stepped through the trees, he felt it. The beat beneath your skin. The warmth. Your blood had a scent — not strong, not desperate like others. 

Sweet. Calming. Clean. He hadn’t fed in days. But you made the ache stir. “You live here alone?” you asked. 

He nodded. “For a while now.” 

“It’s beautiful.” 

He didn’t smile. But he didn’t look away. 

“Most people say it’s empty.” 

You tilted your head. “Are you?” 

That made something shift in his gaze — not amusement exactly, but the ghost of something near it. “Not today,” he said finally. 

He took the basket, fingers brushing yours for just half a second. His skin was cool. Not cold. But noticeably not warm. “Thank you,” he said, stepping back. “Be careful going back. The light fades fast out here.” 

You turned to leave, but your instincts tugged once. “What’s your name?” you asked over your shoulder. 

A pause. 

“Sunghoon,” he said quietly. 

You nodded once. “I’m Y/N.” Another pause. “I know,” he said. 

And then the door closed. As you walked back down the path, heart steady but hands tingling from where his touched yours, you couldn’t shake one thing: There had been no heartbeat behind that door. Just silence. You don’t notice someone- Sunghoon, watching you from his window as you walk back. 

And that, that night few people go missing because Sunghoon, couldn’t handle his hunger for blood. Not when he was reminded of how desperate he was to taste something sweet- something pure like your blood- like you. He can’t bite you, not yet. So, he resorted to his usual way, biting the villagers. One by one.  

It was quiete big village when Sunghoon first step foot in there. 2010. The year Sunghoon decided to enter into the huge village, leaving behind memories of his previous life- the one where everyone treated him like the monster he was. He didn’t like it one bit. So? He ended it. Bit and killed everyone who called him a monster.  

Leaving behind memories and people wasn’t new to him. He’s been like that since he was turned- since 527 years. It's what he’s best at other than sucking peoples’ blood. Having spent many years on this planet made him discard unwanted memories for good.  

And maybe that’s why he never truly loved anyone. It’s not because he isn’t capable of it. It's because he knows that they won't stick around. Not when they find out what he is, not when they leave this world entirely. Also, because, he never truly found someone who made him feel things. Feel things which are foreign to him- Desire.  

Desire for blood? Thats more like filling his hunger. Desire is what he felt when he saw you. If you ever told Sunghoon that he’d yearn for a girl he met once, he’d scoff, shaking his head. That can never happen, not when he's been on this earth for more than 500 years. He knows how to control his feelings- it was easy for him because he didn't have any feelings in the first place.  

But why is that the moment he saw you, heard you- your hearbeat, your blood pulsing in your throat, smelled the scent of you, he wanted to make you his?  

Its funny, really. This whatever weird feeling he has in his stomach is new to him. Perhaps he’s hungry for your blood? No. He’s hungry for you.  

You are here to find out how the village disappeared. Maybe you do find out that he’s the reason for the mass disappearance. But will your heart obey to leave behind everything that you've uncovered here? Leave behind someone, who is the sole reason why the disappearance happened in the first place? 

Only the future holds the answer. Maybe the present? You truly don't know, not when the time’s twisted and you are spiralling in it. 

August 14, 2019. 

You weren’t planning to run into him again. You were just taking the trail by the lake. Collecting audio samples. Watching people prep for the lantern festival — all smiles and paper crafts, sunlight catching on water like glass. But then there he was. Standing near the edge of the hill that overlooked the lake. Not moving. Just… watching it. Like the water itself had said something only he could hear. 

You almost didn’t say anything. But he turned to you first. 

“You walk this path often?” 

His voice was still soft. Still slow. Like everything he said had already passed through a hundred filters before reaching you. 

“Not really,” you said, stepping closer. “But it’s quiet. Good for thinking.” 

“Thinking,” he echoed, like it was a foreign word. “You do that a lot?” 

You smiled. “Occupational hazard.” 

“Ah,” he said. “Let me guess. You’re a writer.” 

“Wrong.” 

“A scientist?” 

You blinked. A beat too long. 

“Why that guess?” 

“Your eyes,” he said. 

“What about them?” 

“They look like they’re always dissecting things. Even me.” 

He turned back to the lake after that, leaving your thoughts spiraling slightly behind him. The sun was dipping lower, casting light through the trees. A warm breeze stirred the ends of your hair, and for once, you didn’t feel like recording anything. Just being here. 

“Why do you live so far from the village?” you asked. 

“They forget me better this way.” 

You frowned. “That’s sad.” 

“Not really.” 

“When people forget you… you stop needing to prove you exist.” 

You turned to him then — not just listening but really seeing him. The distance in his eyes. The calm sadness he wore like second skin. 

“You don’t want to be remembered?” 

“I didn’t say that,” he replied. “I just don’t mind being forgotten.” 

A few kids laughed somewhere nearby, running with paper lanterns. You looked down at your shoes. “You’re hard to forget, you know.” It slipped out before you could stop it. He didn’t respond for a moment. Then, so quietly: “So are you.” 

Neither of you moved. The wind stilled. The air felt... charged. Like time paused. Just for this. 

Then— “You should go,” he said gently.

“It gets colder here after sunset.” He wasn’t pushing you away. But he was. And that strange ache bloomed behind your ribs without warning. You turned to go, steps slow. And as you walked, you felt his eyes on your back the entire time. 

August 18, 2019. 

It was supposed to be a short walk. You’d been gathering weather data, checking tree patterns near the edge of the forest. The innkeeper said the rain wouldn’t come until morning. But the sky didn’t listen. It started with a single drop. Then another. 

Within seconds, it was falling fast — fat, cold drops smacking against your shoulders, soaking through your hoodie in a matter of moments. You pulled the fabric up over your head and turned to head back — but the path was already slick, the trees pressing in closer, and fog began to roll over the field like a breath held too long. 

“Seriously?” you muttered, shivering. That’s when you saw him. Standing just under the crooked edge of an old pavilion by the hill — motionless, dry, and completely unbothered by the storm.  Sunghoon. 

You blinked, surprised. "You're always just… appearing out of nowhere.” 

“You're always walking into places you shouldn't be alone,” he replied calmly, eyes tracking the water running down your cheek. 

You hesitated. Then stepped under the structure, chest heaving slightly from the sudden cold. Your shoulders were soaked. Hair clinging to your face. Hands trembling. He watched you quietly. “You're freezing.” 

You gave a weak smile. “That tends to happen when it rains on humans.” 

He didn’t return it. Instead, he removed his outer jacket and handed it over without a word. You stared at it. “I’m already wet. You don’t have to—” 

“I want to.” 

You took it slowly. It was still warm. 

You slipped it on. It smelled like night air and something faintly old — like worn books and clean linen. Not the scent of someone who lived alone in a dusty house. 

The silence stretched. 

Raindrops tapping the roof like a ticking clock. 

Your breath fogged the air. 

His didn’t. 

“Why were you even out here?” you asked. 

He didn’t answer immediately. 

Then: 

“I thought you’d come this way.” 

You turned your head sharply. “You were… waiting for me?” 

He didn’t flinch. 

“Something about the sky felt wrong. I knew you’d ignore it.” 

“You don’t even know me.” 

“I know your pattern.” 

That shut you up for a moment. 

And somehow... warmed you. 

More than the jacket did. 

Your teeth chattered softly. You turned away, embarrassed. 

Suddenly, you felt something. 

His fingers — gently, lightly — tucking a strand of wet hair behind your ear. 

You froze. 

“You should be more careful,” he murmured, voice barely audible over the rain. “This place doesn’t forgive softness.” 

You looked up at him then. 

And he was already too close. 

Not touching. 

Not reaching. 

Just there. 

And for a second, you wondered what it would be like if he leaned in just a little more. 

“Do you always talk like that?” you whispered, lips parted. “Like you’re centuries old?” 

He gave the faintest smile like he knows something you don’t. 

The rain kept falling. The sky stayed grey. 

And your heartbeat too loudly in your ears. 

You didn’t ask him why his hands were cold even though he felt warm. 

You didn’t ask why he never blinked when he looked at you. 

The rain kept falling. 

And he stood there, completely still, listening to the rhythm of her blood, her breath, her heart... 

And all he could think was: 

Don’t touch her again.  Don’t want her.  Don’t let her see the monster inside you. 

But it was already too late. 

Because for the first time in years, he wanted something enough to lose control. 

And it was you. 

The rain had stopped, but the night still smelled like it. 

You walked slowly. 

Beside him. 

His jacket still hung over your shoulders, and you hadn’t given it back. He hadn’t asked. 

“You didn’t have to walk me home,” you said softly, watching your boots splash through a shallow puddle. 

“I know.” 

He wasn’t smiling, but his tone was warm. Like he wanted to say, I just wanted more time with you, but didn’t know how. 

The village lights shimmered faint in the distance — soft and yellow, like floating lanterns. 

It felt like you were the only two people in the world. 

“Do you always spend your nights out there?” you asked. 

“Sometimes. I like the quiet.” 

“Most people don’t,” you said. “Silence makes them uncomfortable.” 

He glanced at you. 

“What about you?” 

You thought about it. 

“I think silence is the only time people stop pretending.” 

He actually smiled at that. Just a little. The kind that tugged one corner of his mouth — barely visible, but real. 

“What do you do all day?” you asked, curious now. “No job? No classes?” 

“I read,” he said. “Walk. Watch.” 

“That sounds like what I do, too.” 

“You watch more than most people,” he replied, side-eying you. “Always observing. Analyzing.” 

You raised a brow. “Are you calling me creepy?” 

“No,” he said. “Just... different.” 

You looked away to hide your smile. 

“Is that your way of saying I’m weird?” 

“No,” he repeated, slower this time. “It’s my way of saying I see you.” 

“Okay, your turn,” you said quickly, trying to recover. “What did you want to be when you were little?” 

He didn’t answer right away. 

“I don’t remember,” he said finally. “It’s been a long time since I was little.” 

You turned to him, blinking. “How old are you, Sunghoon?” 

He looked at you. Really looked. 

Then smiled like he knew he shouldn’t say the next thing — but said it anyway. 

“Older than I look.” 

You rolled your eyes. “That’s not an answer.” 

“It’s the only one I’ve got.” 

You reached the inn gate. 

The lantern outside flickered faintly in the breeze.  Neither of you moved. 

The air was warmer now. The clouds had parted just enough for moonlight to wash over the steps. 

You stood there — his jacket still on your shoulders, the scent of rain still on your skin, and his eyes fixed gently on you. 

“Good night, Sunghoon,” you said finally, stepping up to the door. 

“Good night, Y/N.” 

You turned the handle. 

Just before stepping inside, you hesitated. 

“You never told me what you like,” you said over your shoulder. 

He tilted his head slightly. “Like?” 

“Hobbies. Music. Favorite food. Normal things.” 

Another pause. 

Then: 

“The sound of rain,” he said. “Books with no endings. And people who don’t run away.” 

You met his eyes. 

And something about the way he said it made your heart ache. 

You didn’t know why. 

But you didn’t look away. 

Not for a long moment. 

Then finally, you stepped inside. 

And closed the door. 

August 20, 2019.

You told yourself it wasn’t a big deal. 

Just returning a jacket. 

Just a polite gesture. 

Just good manners. 

So why did your pulse stutter when the house came into view? 

The same tall trees. The same crooked path. The same quiet. 

You climbed the short stone steps and raised your hand to knock — but before you could, the door opened. 

He was already there. 

Like he’d been waiting. 

Or like he’d heard you coming long before you got close. 

“You came back,” he said, voice low, like sunlight through fog. 

“Just to return this,” you said quickly, lifting the folded jacket. 

“Of course.” 

But he didn’t take it. 

Instead, he stepped aside. 

“Do you want to come in?” 

You blinked. 

“Is that okay?” 

“If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have asked.” 

You stepped inside. 

The air was cool, but not cold. The interior still had that strange untouched feeling — like a photo frozen in time. Wood floors. A low bookshelf. A kettle on the counter, untouched. 

You walked slowly, setting the jacket on the nearest chair. 

“You live like a ghost,” you said softly. 

He raised a brow. “I’m neat.” 

“You’re ancient,” you teased. 

He smirked faintly. “So you’ve said.” 

You turned toward the bookshelf — rows of old spines and journals, some in languages you didn’t recognize. One looked handwritten. Another... burned around the edges. 

“These don’t look like they’re from a village library.” 

“They’re not.” 

“So what are they?” 

“Pieces of me,” he said. 

You paused, looking back. 

His expression didn’t change, but there was something fragile in his stillness. 

You let the question go. 

“Tea?” he asked suddenly, already reaching for the kettle. 

“You drink tea?” 

“No. But you do.” 

He made it quietly. Smooth movements. No wasted motion. 

He handed you the mug and sat across from you, careful, like he was making sure there was enough distance. 

“Do people visit you often?” you asked, wrapping your hands around the cup. 

“No.” 

“Why?” 

“Because they forget me,” he said. “Or… I let them.” 

“But you didn’t want me to forget you?” you asked quietly. 

His eyes met yours. 

Dark. Unreadable. 

“I didn’t plan on you remembering at all.” 

You blinked. “What changed?” 

He stared at the steam curling between you. 

Then said, without blinking: 

“You smiled at me.” 

The silence stretched. 

The weight of it made your chest feel tight. 

Your fingers tightened around the mug. 

“Why do you always say things like that?” you whispered. 

“Like what?” 

“Like it means something. And then you never explain.” 

He stood up then, slowly — walking toward the window, looking out at the trees. 

“Because I’ve learned that explaining doesn’t stop people from leaving.” 

“So you just... stay mysterious?” 

“No,” he said, without turning around. “I stay safe.” 

You stood too. Quiet steps. 

He didn’t move as you stopped beside him, just far enough for the space between your hands to hum. 

“What are you so afraid of, Sunghoon?” you asked, not accusing — just soft. 

A pause. 

Then finally: 

“That if you knew the truth about me… you'd stop smiling at all.” 

“What are you saying?” 

“Nothing. Don’t think too much.” He says. 

You didn’t leave. 

You just stood beside him. 

And for a moment, the silence between you wasn’t heavy. 

It was tender. 

“You okay?” you asked. 

He didn’t answer. 

Didn’t trust himself to speak. 

Because right now, he could feel it rising — that burn behind his eyes, the pressure in his jaw, the ancient ache in his throat. 

The want. 

Not just to feed. 

To claim. 

“I think you should go,” he said, voice tight. 

“Did I say something wrong?” 

“No.” 

“Then—” 

“Please.” 

His back was turned now.  He couldn’t let her see his face.  Not when his eyes were beginning to glow. Not when his fangs had started to edge down. 

He bit the inside of his cheek — hard enough to draw blood. Let the pain steady him. Anchor him. 

“Sunghoon? Is something wrong? You can trust me- I trust you.”  

But all he said was: 

“I don’t trust myself.” 

You stared at his back for a long moment. 

Then quietly… you left. 

The door shut behind you with a soft click. 

And he stood there in the quiet, eyes still burning, heart raging inside a chest that shouldn’t have had one anymore. 

August 21, 2019. 

You went to the library to check the village’s records.  

To look for any book, any magazine, any piece of information that would help you get a better insight about the village’s roots.  

You found a series of census logs tucked into a low cabinet—records of the village’s population numbers and names dating back to the 1900s. Faded, but surprisingly intact. 

And that’s when you saw it. 

A pattern. 

In 2010, the population was 528.  In 2012, it dropped to 413.  By 2015: 290.  2017: 178. 

No official records of why.  No mass migration.  No natural disaster.  No illness outbreak. 

Just... names disappearing. 

Not all at once.  Not dramatically. 

But slowly.  Like something was taking them. One by one. 

You scanned the reports harder now. 

Looking for causes. Deaths. Relocations. 

But most names just had one word stamped across the last column: 

“Unrecorded.” 

You slammed the binder shut and sat back. 

Your chest felt tight. 

You looked around the library. The light felt colder. The silence heavier. 

This is getting nowhere. Rather than the doubts clearing, more questions are surfacing. Too many questions. Too less information. You doubt you are even eligible to solve this mystery. Maybe Dr.Han realizes he made a mistake choosing you once you return. You wonder how the others are doing. Are they going through the same difficulties?  

You shake your head as if it shakes away the insecure thoughts creeping up. You need to focus. On this village. The people. Everyone here seems normal except... Sunghoon. 

He always seemed to appear when no one else was around. 

Your fingers curled against the cover of the book. 

No. Don’t jump to conclusions. That doesn’t mean anything. 

And yet… 

Something in your gut whispered otherwise. 

Still, when the sun began to set— 

You found yourself walking toward the hill. 

Toward him. 

Carrying questions you couldn’t ask yet. 

And a heart that didn’t want answers- the real ones.  

The sky was painted in soft blue fading to lavender.  The last light of the sun had just dipped behind the mountains, leaving a glow that shimmered across the tall grass. 

You stood at the top of the hill, overlooking the village lights far below.  Everything was quiet. 

Except your thoughts. 

Except him. 

Sunghoon stood beside you — close, not quite touching. Hands in his pockets. Eyes on the horizon. 

“You always find the quietest places,” you said softly. 

“I think they find me.” 

You turned to him, trying to read that impossible expression on his face. 

“You always talk like that. Like there’s a whole world in your head and you’re just… giving me scraps.” 

“I don’t mean to,” he said. “I just forget how to be anything else.” 

You took a breath. 

“Then remind yourself. Just for tonight. Just for me.” 

He looked at you then. 

Really looked. 

And for the first time, he didn’t look away. 

“You scare me,” he said quietly. 

That made your chest tighten. 

“Why?” 

“Because you make me want to stay.” 

The wind brushed through the grass. 

Your heart was too loud. Your breath too soft. 

He stepped closer. 

His hand, trembling just slightly, reached up and cupped your cheek — gentle, reverent, like he was afraid you’d vanish if he touched too hard. 

His thumb brushed under your eye, then trailed down to your jaw. 

“Say something,” he whispered. 

You didn’t. 

You leaned in instead. 

And he met you there. 

The kiss was nothing like you imagined. 

It wasn’t rushed.  It wasn’t wild. 

It was slow. 

Like two people learning what it meant to feel alive again. 

His lips were cool at first — like the wind before rain — but they softened against yours. Moved with aching care. Like he was memorizing the shape of your mouth and trying not to fall apart doing it. 

You felt his breath catch. 

Felt his hand slide into your hair. 

Felt your knees go weak when he deepened the kiss — still gentle, still hesitant, but full of something you didn’t have a name for. 

And then— 

He pulled away. 

Fast. 

Like he’d caught fire. 

His eyes were wide.  Not with lust. Not even guilt. 

With fear. 

“I shouldn’t have—” 

“Sunghoon,” you whispered, reaching for him. 

He stepped back. 

“No. This was a mistake.” 

“Why are you doing this again?”  “Every time I get close, you push me away. Why?” 

He didn’t answer. 

Not with words. 

But his face… 

That expression? 

It looked like someone who just tasted something too good.  Something too human.  Something that made him forget what he was. 

“Because I can’t be the reason you get hurt,” he finally said. 

And then he turned away. 

Leaving you alone with a kiss that still burned on your lips, and a silence that felt heavier than ever. 

August 26, 2019. 

You ignored him after that. Turned your head away whenever he got into. Looked away first when you both made eye contact. Avoided him when he came to apologize the very next day of your kiss.  

Not cause you hate him. You wish you did but no. You remember what Dr.Han said, “Observe. Record. don’t interfere.” You can't risk everything just cause of some stupid, weird feelings that you have. No. You can’t let your emotions get in the way of your case. This isn't right.  

Youre altering time, you should do it wisely, not recklessly.  

And so, you did what you thought was best. Ignore. Distance. Observe. 

Or so, you thought.  

You weren’t expecting to run into him. 

But of course you did. 

He was leaning against the side wall of the bakery, half-hidden in the shade, like always. Silent. Watching. 

He didn’t call out. 

Didn’t wave. 

But you felt it — the shift in air when his gaze hit you. That quiet weight of his presence. 

You almost kept walking. 

Almost. 

But then— 

“Y/N.” 

His voice was low. Not cold. Just… tired. 

You turned after a moment of hesitation. 

Met his eyes. 

“Are you avoiding me?” he asked. 

Simple question. 

But it landed sharp. 

You didn’t answer right away. 

“I’ve just been… busy.” 

“You’ve seen me.” 

“I didn’t think you wanted to talk.” 

“Don’t do that,” he said, stepping forward. “Don’t turn it around like it’s me.” 

You blinked. “I’m not—” 

“You haven’t looked at me in five days.” 

His tone wasn’t angry.  It was quiet. Steady. Too steady. 

“You smiled at me one night,” he said, “and then the next morning, it’s like I didn’t exist.” 

“Sunghoon—” 

“And I thought—”  He paused. Ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.  “I thought maybe you needed space. But then I saw you with that guy. That tall one from the orchard. And you were laughing. Just… laughing. Like everything’s normal.” 

You looked away. 

He let the silence settle. 

Then finally: 

“It hurt.” 

That was it. Just that. 

Not possessive. Not demanding. Just real. 

You didn’t know what to say. So, you said the only truth you had: 

“I’m scared, Sunghoon.” 

He looked at you for a long time. 

“Of me?” 

“Of not knowing what’s happening. Of what this village is hiding. Of what you’re hiding.” 

You stepped back slightly, instinctively. Not far. 

But enough. 

His eyes dropped to the space between you.  Then back up. 

“Do you think I’d ever hurt you?” 

You hesitated. 

Then, quietly: 

“I don’t know.” 

That broke something in him. 

You saw it. In his eyes. 

Not rage. 

Just sadness. 

“I wouldn’t,” he said softly. “Not even if I wanted to.” 

You turned back and left without replying, unable to look into his face or even talk to him. 

September 5, 2019. 

You shouldn’t have gone looking. 

You told yourself you weren’t.  That you just needed air.  That the trail by the forest was peaceful this time of day. 

But really? You missed him. 

And you couldn’t stop thinking about what he said. 

“I wouldn’t hurt you. Not even if I wanted to.” 

It looped in your mind for days. Through sleep. Through silence. Through guilt. 

You didn’t give him an answer. So, you were going to. 

You were going to find him and say you’re not sure what this is, but you’re willing to try. That you believe he’s good. That you want to believe it, even if you’re scared. 

But then— 

You saw it. 

You heard something first. 

A low sound. Guttural. Like a growl tucked beneath a breath. 

And then a figure stumbling — just ahead. At the edge of the trees. A man. Drunk? Hurt? 

And beside him—  Holding him up— 

Was Sunghoon. 

Or… something that used to be him 

His head was tilted.  His lips pressed just beneath the man’s jaw.  His hands clutched the man’s shoulders too tightly.  And his eyes— 

They glowed. 

Not fully.  Just enough for the shadows to catch it. 

Red. Dim. Inhuman. 

You saw his mouth open.  Saw the flash of fang. 

And then— 

The man sagged. 

Like air had left him. 

You froze. 

Your heart punched against your ribs. 

He stared.  Still half-shadowed.  Blood on his mouth. 

He stepped forward. 

“Y/N.” 

You backed up. 

Didn’t speak. 

Didn’t breathe. 

Your eyes wide. Your expression already saying everything your voice couldn’t. 

Fear. 

The kind that wasn’t subtle. 

The kind you couldn’t take back. 

“No,” he said quietly. “No, don’t—please don’t look at me like that.” 

He wiped at his mouth. Quickly. Clumsily. 

“I can explain. It’s not—” 

You flinched when he stepped closer. 

That did it. 

He stopped. 

His hands dropped to his sides. 

And something in him… wilted. 

“So, this is it?” he whispered. 

His voice wasn’t cold.  Wasn’t sharp.  It was just… empty. 

You didn’t say anything. 

Couldn’t. 

You turned. 

And ran. 

And behind you, the last thing you heard was him whispering into the night: 

“I didn’t want you to find out like this.” 

You rushed back home and stumbled in. 

You quickly went to your bedroom, opening the drawers and pulled out your logbook. 

You sat on the floor beside your bed after grabbing a marker.  

The pages were filled with sketches. Maps. Observations.  And now? 

Scribbled question marks. Shaky handwriting. A timeline you couldn’t look at anymore. 

2010 — population: 528  2012 — 413  2015 — 290  2017 — 178  2019 — barely 60 left. 

No disease.  No evacuation orders.  No record of where they went. 

But you knew now. 

You saw it. 

His eyes. His fangs.  The man in the forest, half-drained and limp in his arms. 

You knew. 

And the truth clawed at your throat like it didn’t want to be swallowed. 

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he had said. 

You remembered his voice.  Too quiet.  Too pained to be fake. 

But it didn’t matter now, did it? 

Because while he was giving you flowers and walking you home… 

He was feeding on the people who welcomed you with tea and stories. 

You closed your eyes. 

Your hands were trembling. 

You remembered the first time you saw him. 

How unreal he looked in the moonlight.  How safe you felt beside him. 

How stupid that was now. 

Was any of it real? 

The kiss. The laughter. The jacket he left folded on your bed. 

Or were you just the next name on his list? 

The next girl to get too close? 

Were you just another pawn in his game?  

Whatever it was, you shouldn't have gotten close with him. Shouldn't have tried to interfere. You shouldn't have done it and God, you regret it.  

And for the first time in years…  You cried. 

Not from fear.  But from heartbreak. 

If only you backed down that day on the hill. If only you shouldn't have let him close to you. If only... 

September 7, 2019. 

After that day, you didn't leave your room. 

You didn't go out, the fear of him catching you always haunting your mind whenever you reach for the door handle. 

And weirdly enough, you should feel better, you really should but why did you feel... empty?  

He’s a monster! He kills innocent people, hes a vampire. But why didn't the fact alone scare you? Why were you craving for his presence? Why were you thinking about the moments you've spent together? This isn't even real. Its past, you weren't even born at this time period. You shouldn't be feeling things you aren't supposed to. 

But you can't deny the fact that your heart aches for his presence- for him.  

But you don't have time for this. Not when you have two days on your watch. Two days before everything goes back to normal, hopefully. And so, you push aside your feelings saying the time is playing tricks on you and start writing the report.  

All of your log entries, now are typed and kept in digital doc by you. You enter the log entries, from day one to the day you discovered the root cause of all of this- the dissapearance. You procrastinated too much while typing them in, thinking about all the wonderful days you’ve spent with locals- with him. 

But all of this isn't real, at the end of the day. You don't belong here- you shouldn't. This isn't your timeline. This is not your story. This isn't the reality you are supposed to live in and experience. This is just a case that you've got assigned to. It's your duty. And you fulfilled it by finding out the reason. And this is where you shall end it. End of this chapter, end of this case and end of him.  

September 9, 2019.  

Today is the day. 

You pack your bag, filling it with the things you bought and the things you are taking back to your timeline. The memories, the events and the adventures.  

There wasn't a single second you haven't thought about him. But this is it. You have to say your goodbyes.  

You can't warn the others, who haven't yet got bitten by Sunghoon. Because as dr.Han said, “Don't interfere.”  

Youve already made the mistake of not listening to him and crossed the boundary and faced the consequences. You aren't going to do it again. Because at the end of the day, its fate. It already happened. You can't change it, not even when you go back in time. Because what's written, is written. If changed, you are bound to face the consequences.  

History can't be re-written.  

And so, with that, you leave.  

You stood by the terminal light beam.  

Delta 12’s jump pulse flickering through the mist. 

Your bag beside you. Your heart heavy with no one in the future world- the real world would understand or know of.  

You turned back one last time towards the village. 

Thanking it for everything it gave you- thanking it for giving Sunghoon. 

Who'll be remembered as the passing wind and the falling of leaves by you.  

And when you jumped- 

The light swallowed you whole. 

And in the same breath,  

You were gone.  

July 22, 2090. 

You opened your eyes. 

The jump light was fading.  The room around you was cold. White. Familiar in a way that made your chest ache. 

You were home. 

But it didn’t feel like it. 

Not yet. 

Your bag was still at your side. Your fingers still trembling. Your body still in two places — the sterile floors of the lab… and the moss-soft grass beneath his feet. 

You didn’t even notice the door sliding open until you heard the softest gasp. 

“Y/N?” 

You turned. 

And there she was. 

Mira.  Her braid was undone, her coat slung over one arm, her eyes red — like she’d either just woken up… or hadn’t slept since the moment she jumped back. 

She stared at you. 

Then smiled. Weakly. 

“God, it’s you.” 

You couldn’t speak. 

You didn’t have to. 

She crossed the space between you in three quick steps and pulled you into the kind of hug you didn’t realize you needed until her arms wrapped around you. 

You felt her chest shudder. 

You were crying too. 

Soon, the others trickled in. 

Taehyun — still composed, but his eyes softer than usual.  Yuvi — who dropped her bag the second she saw you, crashing into the hug with a half-laugh, half-sob. Jungwon — who just stood by the door for a long time, taking all of you in like he didn’t believe you were real until that moment. 

No one said much at first. 

They just… stood there. 

Five people who had faced time itself. 

And came back with hearts a little heavier. 

Eyes a little older. 

It felt nice. Seeing everyone’s familiar faces after being drowned in unfamiliar faces who don't even exist in reality.  

Finally, Mira sniffed and said, voice shaking: 

“I missed you guys.” 

Yuvi let out a teary laugh. 

“I didn’t realize how much till now.” 

Jungwon gave a small nod, blinking fast. 

Taehyun just whispered: 

“You’re all here.” 

You wiped your face and smiled. 

Soft. Quiet. Real. 

“Yeah.” 

“We’re here.” 

You all look at each other. A moment of silence. As if you guys are finally taking in and registering everyone’s presence. And then, you all hugged. A big group hug filled with emotions which arent said loud but felt. And finally, you felt like you are back home.  

September 11, 2019.  

The room smelled of old circuits and sterile air.  The walls glowed faint blue, humming with quiet energy. 

You sat where you always had —  Same table.  Same lights.  Same white jackets. 

But nothing was the same anymore. 

Not the silence.  Not the weight in everyone’s eyes. 

Not the version of you that existed before. 

The door slid open. 

Dr. Han stepped in, shoulders straighter than usual, expression unreadable. 

“Good morning.” 

He stood at the edge of the circular table, clipboard in hand, eyes scanning each of you. 

“You’ve all returned safely,” he said. “On record, your missions were successful. But the records don’t matter if we don’t understand why.” 

He took a breath. 

“So, let’s talk about what really happened.” 

Dr. Han looked at Yuvi first.  

“Yuvi. March 2311. Seoul. What caused the blackout?” 

Yuvi didn’t hesitate.  But her voice was softer than usual. 

“It wasn’t just data loss,” she said. “It was deliberate. The two largest tech giants—SolarCore and NeuraStream—were engaged in a silent war for memory control. They each tried to overwrite the other’s data… and in doing so, they wiped everyone’s.” 

A pause. 

“The blackout wasn’t a glitch. It was a battle. One that made the world forget six months — and made the companies forget what humanity was.” 

Dr. Han only nodded. 

“Mira. 1652. The scribe’s ink.” 

Mira folded her hands. 

“The man wasn’t mad. The ‘sky-born woman of light’ — she was a time displacer like us. From the future. Possibly one of the early, undocumented tests.” 

She met Dr. Han’s eyes. 

“The ink? It was our ink. Synthetic. Used in lab reports.” 

Silence fell. 

Dr. Han blinked slowly. “You’re saying the anomaly… was ours.” 

“Yes,” Mira whispered. “We caused the myth.” 

“You two. Northern Territories. Duplicated villages.” 

Taehyun glanced at Jungwon. Jungwon gave a tiny nod. 

“There were two villages,” Jungwon said. “Identical. Same people. Same dogs. Same newspapers.” 

“Except,” Taehyun added, “They existed in overlapping timelines. One was five minutes behind the other. A permanent sync lag caused by a failed early prototype of time field testing.” 

Jungwon finished it quietly. 

“It was human error. A time scar. We tried to erase one. But they both kept living… until one finally collapsed.” 

“Y/N,” Dr. Han said, turning to you. “The village of Myeon-ri. The one that vanished without cause.” 

Your fingers curled slightly on the edge of the table. 

You could still feel the wind there. Still hear his voice. 

You slid the chip forward. 

“There was no disease. No mass migration. No disaster. It was slow. Intentional.” 

You looked up. 

“A predator lived there. Not wild. Human-shaped. Possibly centuries old. A vampire, by older terms. He fed carefully, spaced apart. But eventually, the numbers dropped too far.” 

The others stared. 

You didn’t flinch. 

“He didn’t want the village gone. But he couldn’t stop. And no one remembered the ones who vanished. They were erased — from memory, from databases. Like they never existed.” 

“Vampire?” Dr.Han questioned. 

“Vampire.” You confirmed.  

Dr. Han asked, quietly: 

“Did he know who you were?” 

A pause. 

You met his gaze. 

“No.” 

A beat. 

“But I think I knew who he used to be.” 

You lied. Of course he knows you. He knows the woman he fell for the first time. He knows the woman who was his first ever kiss. 

You didn't tell them. You didn't to protect him and in a way, protect yourself too. 

Dr. Han stepped back. He looked at each of you — not as scientists, but as people who had seen too much. 

“You all did what centuries of historians couldn’t. You brought back truth.” 

He turned toward the exit, then paused. 

“Take the week off. Rest. File clean versions by the end of the month. We’ll… figure out what to do with the rest.” 

The door hissed closed behind him. 

And you all sat in silence.  Hearts still somewhere in another time. 

The streets are quiet at 2 a.m. 

Neon signs buzz in blues and pinks.  Artificial rain shimmers above, falling against projection domes that keep your coat dry. 

You pass a street musician playing a slow guitar. 

The song is unfamiliar.  But it feels like him. 

Like a song you might’ve danced to on his porch.  Or hummed under your breath while he walked you home. 

Your throat tightens. 

You sit on a bench, ignoring your holopad as it pings with follow-up requests from Dr. Han. 

You can’t open the file.  You can’t even look at his name on the case label. 

Your hand slowly reaches into your coat pocket. 

The jacket he gave you is long gone. 

But you still have one thing. 

A pressed leaf. 

Red. From that tree near the hill.  Where he waited for you every evening.  Where he said nothing — just smiled — like you were his favorite moment of the day. 

You hold the leaf to your chest. 

And for a second…  you close your eyes. 

And pretend he’s sitting beside you. 

Back in the lab, the report still sits unsaved.  You’d written everything except the truth. 

“He didn’t follow me back.” 

But your chest burns with what you didn’t say. 

I think he wanted to.  I think I wanted him to.  And I think I left the part of me that believed in forever… in his hands. 

You missed him. You looked for him in everything. The wind, the leaves, the clouds, the time, everything. And somewhere back in 2019, sunghoon feels the weight of your absence.  

Sunghoon didn't really think it'd affect him that much, but it did. He was helpless when he didn't find you. Asked everyone, searched everywhere but there wasn't a trace of you, there wasn't a thing left behind you. And God, did he miss you.  

The silence after you was worse than the centuries before you. 

You were only here a month —  But the air still tasted like you.  The breeze still moved like the hem of your coat. 

He stood by the river. 

The same one you almost slipped near.  The one where he caught your hand. 

You used to laugh here. 

Now it was empty. 

And so was he. 

His throat burned.  The ache that had quieted in your presence — like your scent tamed the storm in his blood — now returned with wildfire in his veins. 

He hadn’t fed in days.  He didn’t want anyone else. 

He wanted you. 

"Y/N..." he whispered, though the name felt like poison now. 

He tried to hold back.  He really, truly did. 

But you were gone. 

And he had nothing left to prove he was still human. 

The next night, they found the baker's house empty.  Then the woman who sold herbs.  Then the elder by the hill. 

No one saw what took them. 

And Sunghoon? 

He stood in the village center, blood drying at the corner of his mouth, eyes still locked on the road you used to walk down every dusk. 

His hands shook. 

His mouth trembled. 

"You were supposed to stay..."  "You promised me forever in your eyes." 

But you didn’t answer. 

Because you were gone. 

And so were the people in the village.  

The village lingered with only with him feeding off of everyone and your presence.  

Time moved on. 

The village eventually collapsed.  Records rewritten.  Footprints washed away. 

But he didn’t vanish. 

He moved.  Fed.  Lingered in shadows. 

Years passed.  Decades blurred. 

He watched the world crawl toward neon skies and cities that blinked like stars. 

You were long gone.  But he never stopped believing in the possibility that time — the very thing that tore you from him — might one day return you. 

“Okay but hear me out,” Taehyun says, typing aggressively while Mira tries to slap his hand off the panel. “If I didn’t reroute the carbon filters that night, we’d all be bald. Fact.” 

“Fact?” Mira scoffs. “Fact is you nearly made the algae tank sentient. That thing winked at me.” 

“I still miss it,” Jungwon adds quietly, head down in his own files, a faint smile playing at his lips. 

Yuvi kicks her chair back dramatically, groaning. “My simulation’s stuck again. If I see one more ‘Data Error: Please Restart,’ I swear I’ll throw myself into the code.” 

Your lips curve as you watch them — the way the five of you fit into this space like puzzle pieces.  The room hums with soft tech glows and distant rain tapping the glass walls. 

It's late.  But none of you seem in a hurry to leave. 

Mira throws an energy bar at Taehyun. He catches it one-handed, smug.  Jungwon’s quietly stealing Yuvi’s half-charged mug again.  You just watch — feeling both part of it and… a little removed. 

Because they didn’t live what you lived.  Not the way you did. 

Not with him. 

Not with Sunghoon. 

“You good?” Yuvi asks you suddenly, turning in her chair. 

You blink. “Yeah. Just… tired.” 

“Duh,” she says, nudging your arm. “We’re all tired. End of world stuff every Tuesday.” 

You laugh. The others join in.  And just for a second, it feels normal. 

Like the past didn't follow you here.  Like he never reached across time. 

But the quiet ache in your chest says otherwise. 

Later, when the lab empties out one by one — when Yuvi yawns and Mira packs up her files —  you linger behind. 

Taehyun walks past you, ruffling your hair gently like he always does. Jungwon side hugs you as he exits. And Mira and Yuvi give you a hug before logging off.  

Then the lights dim.  The labs settle.  And you finally move. 

It was almost midnight. 

Your body was running on caffeine, adrenaline, and a half-shattered mind.  The labs were quiet. The halls were colder. Your coat clung to your shoulders, and all you wanted was silence. 

You stepped into the elevator. 

It was empty. Or—  so you thought. 

You didn’t even notice him at first. 

Not until the doors closed.  Not until the world narrowed into this steel box.  And not until a voice — low, aching, quiet — cut through the air like a thread snapping in your chest. 

“You didn’t even say goodbye.” 

You froze. 

Slowly, your eyes turned toward the figure standing in the far corner. 

And there he was. 

Sunghoon. 

Pressed against the wall of the elevator, the overhead light casting a cold glow across his skin.  His white dress shirt clung perfectly across his chest — sleeves rolled just below his elbows, forearms tense. His black tie was loose, like he’d worn it all day just to see you like this. 

His head was tilted slightly down, shadows covering half of his face — but even in the dimness, you saw it. 

The red.  Faint. Glowing. Watching. 

His jaw clenched. His lashes heavy against his cheek. His entire body still, like he was trying not to shake. 

Like just standing here, in front of you, took everything he had left. 

Your mouth opened. Nothing came out. 

He finally looked up.  Right at you. 

“You disappeared,” he said softly.  A step closer. 

“But I didn’t.” 

Another step. 

“I stayed. I searched.” 

His voice trembles. 

“And I waited.” 

He stops inches away from you. Close enough for you to see that his hands are shaking.  That his smile is breaking.  That the pain he’s carried all these years hasn’t dulled — only buried deeper. 

Your lips part, but no words come. 

Because what do you say to a man who waited seventy-one years for a goodbye? 

Your body doesn’t move. But he does. 

He steps forward — slowly — like if he moves too fast, you’ll vanish all over again. 

Then his hand lifts. And he touches you. 

Not roughly. Not hungrily. 

Just one cold, steady hand cupping your cheek — reverent. Careful.  The way he always touched you. Like you were something sacred. 

His other hand rests at your waist, pulling you gently toward him. 

Your breath hitches. 

His eyes flicker down to your lips, then back to your eyes. 

“I missed you,” he whispers. 

His thumb brushes your skin — and only then, do you exhale. 

But your voice barely comes out. 

“How… how did you get in here?” 

His smile twitches — half amused, half ruined. 

“You’re not the only one who learns things in seventy years.” 

You stare at him. 

“You broke into the lab?” 

“No,” he murmurs. “I learned how to become a ghost in systems like these. Took years. But I found my way into every firewall with your name on it. Every door you walked through.” 

He leans in just slightly — not threatening. Not desperate. 

Just there. Real. Close. 

“I wasn’t going to leave without seeing you again.” 

No matter how many years it’s been —  no matter how far you ran into the future — 

he still found you. 

He holds you like a memory he never let go of.  Like a secret he kept alive for decades. 

And when he finally speaks —  his voice cracks. 

“Tell me you didn’t forget me.” 

You blink.  Your lips part, but no sound comes out. 

Because how do you explain the sleepless nights?  The dreams where he touched your hand again?  The jacket you almost replicated just to feel close? 

He waits. 

And when you don��t answer — when silence sits between you like a second goodbye — you hear it again: 

“Y/N…”  “Tell me you didn’t forget me.” 

You look up at him then. 

And the glow in his eyes — the faint red warmth — flickers. 

Flickers like it’ll die if you lie. 

Your throat is tight. 

“How did you even find me?” you whisper. 

He smiles — not the charming one.  The broken one. 

“I never stopped looking.” 

A beat. 

“The village disappeared, but I didn’t. I moved. I adapted. I learned your world. I followed every digital trail you left behind. I memorized your voice. I traced you through five corporate systems and twenty years of noise.” 

His forehead leans into yours, almost touching. 

“You left without saying goodbye.”  “I needed to know… if it meant as much to you as it did to me.” 

You’re not breathing. 

Because in his voice — beneath the stillness, the eternal youth —  is pain. 

Not monstrous. Not violent. 

Just human. And heartbreakingly yours. 

Your hands move without thinking.  One rises to his chest — over where his heart used to beat. 

It’s quiet now.  But yours is loud enough for both of you. 

He’s still waiting. 

Eyes glowing.  Breath held. 

“Tell me,” He whispers again. “Tell me you didn’t forget me.” 

You swallow. 

Tears sting the edges of your eyes — the kind you refused to cry back then. The kind you buried inside lab reports and daily logs. 

And finally, your voice breaks. 

“I didn’t forget.” 

He closes his eyes, just for a second. Like the words hurt. Like they heal. 

“I just…” you breathe, “I just didn’t know how to come back.” 

There it is. 

The truth. 

The full, naked truth sitting between you —  soft and devastating. 

“I didn’t know if I could. If I should. If you were even—” 

He kisses you. 

Not rushed.  Not hungry. 

Just… quiet. Desperate. Familiar. 

The kind of kiss that says thank you for surviving. 

The kind that says don’t leave again. 

it feels like time folds in on itself. 

Like the wind from the village,  the rain on your skin,  the jacket on your shoulders,  the words you never said —  they all return in that one breath. 

And this time,  you kiss him back. 

Hands gripping the front of his coat, your breath catching —  like your body finally remembered what safety tasted like. 

He pulls you in closer, desperate,  like he still doesn’t believe you’re real.  Like you’ll vanish again if he lets go. 

When your lips part, and you both breathe — barely —  your forehead leans into his. 

The glow in his eyes softens. 

And then— 

“You…” your voice cracks, soft and shaking.  “You waited? For me?” 

His eyes close slowly. 

Not like he’s in pain —  but like your question alone undid him. 

“Of course I did,” he whispers.  “How could I not?” 

You inhale sharply,  because no one’s ever said it like that. 

Not with that kind of certainty.  Like your existence was never forgettable —  just… unforgettable. 

“You… waited? For me?” 

His eyes flutter shut — like your voice, your doubt, undoes something deep in him. 

“Of course I did,” he murmurs, forehead still resting against yours.  “How could I not?” 

That’s when the tears come. 

You didn’t mean to.  You weren’t even sure they were still inside you. 

But suddenly, your eyes burn. 

And your voice falls out in pieces. 

“I thought…” your lips tremble.  “I thought you moved on.”  “Thought you’d forget me.” 

His arms tighten around you instantly — like he can feel you breaking and is ready to hold every shattered piece. 

“I couldn’t,” he says.  “I wouldn’t.” 

Your eyes meet again, and he says it like a vow: 

“I loved you in 2019. I loved you in every year after.  Even the ones where you weren’t there.” 

“You… waited? For me?” 

His eyes flutter shut — like your voice, your doubt, undoes something deep in him. 

“Of course I did,” he murmurs, forehead still resting against yours.  “How could I not?” 

That’s when the tears come. 

You didn’t mean to.  You weren’t even sure they were still inside you. 

But suddenly, your eyes burn. 

And your voice falls out in pieces. 

“I thought…” your lips tremble.  “I thought you moved on.”  “Thought you’d forget me.” 

His arms tighten around you instantly — like he can feel you breaking and is ready to hold every shattered piece. 

“I couldn’t,” he says.  “I wouldn’t.” 

Your eyes meet again, and he says it like a vow: 

“I loved you in 2019. I loved you in every year after.  Even the ones where you weren’t there.” 

And just like that—  you stepped into him. 

Your arms wrapped around his torso tight, face burying into his chest, body trembling from everything you’d held back for too long. 

And he— 

He didn’t hesitate. 

He wrapped his arms around you so firmly, so protectively, it almost hurt.  Like if the world tried to take you again, it would have to tear through him first. 

One arm locked around your waist.  The other curled high around your back, hand cradling the base of your neck — fingers gently gripping, anchoring you like he was afraid you’d disappear again. 

“You’re here,” he breathed.  “You’re really here.” 

He didn’t just hold you. 

He claimed you — not with force, but with everything he never got to say. 

This wasn’t a soft embrace. 

This was the way you hold something sacred.  The way you cling to a miracle. 

And for the first time after he met in seventy years,  he didn’t feel cold anymore. 

He held you like you were his whole world —  like everything he endured, every year he starved, every time he nearly gave up…  was worth it just to feel you in his arms again. 

And for a long, still moment —  you didn’t speak. 

You just breathed.  Chest rising against his.  The faint, unfamiliar sound of his heartbeat echoing somewhere far beneath. 

Then, into the quiet, barely louder than a breath— 

“I missed this,” you whispered, cheek pressed against his chest.  “I missed you.” 

His hand gripped you tighter, almost instinctively.  Like your words shattered something inside him he didn’t even know was still breakable. 

He didn’t say anything at first. 

But you felt it —  in the way his thumb moved slowly against your back,  in the way his body trembled just slightly against yours. 

“Say it again,” he murmured. 

You tilted your head just slightly, looked up into those red-flecked eyes that had waited decades for this. 

And this time, you didn’t whisper. 

“I missed you, Sunghoon.” 

He looked at you, cupped your face with both of his hands with so much of care as if you were porcelain and would break if you added any more force.  

He kissed your forehead like it was the only language he had left. 

Slow.  Tender.  Devastating. 

Your eyes fluttered shut — his lips lingering just a heartbeat longer, like he couldn’t quite let go. 

And when he finally pulled back, just far enough to look at you again —  his voice cracked through the silence. 

“Don’t leave me this time…”  A pause. A breath.  “Angel.” 

The name hit you harder than the kiss. 

Because that’s what he used to call you.  Back in the village.  When your hands were cold from the rain, and he’d wrap his jacket around you like you were something worth saving. 

You blinked back the sting in your eyes.  But he saw it.  Of course he did.  His thumb brushed just beneath your eye. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” he murmured.  “Just… stay.” 

©mrsjjongstby all writing belong to me. do not copy, modify or repost my works.

taglist: @gnarlyhoons @stormlit-pages @himynameisraelynn @see-c @shra-vasti @heesbbygurl @elikajinnie @jwyoceans @jaylaxies (lmk if u wanna be added!)

A/N: im backkkkkkkkkk y'allllllllllllll !!!!!!!!! also this thing has been keeping me from watching the outside mv so imma watch it now! ALSO WROTE THIS THING IN 2 DAYS LIKE WTH i cant believe i did tht. anyways enjoy and stay hydrated!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[natalievoncatte]

The palm-print panel was cool under Lena’s touch. She pressed her hand to the rectangular plate next to her front door and waited for the brief moment it needed to scan her skin. The door unlocked with a meaty thump and she pushed it open with her other hand, absently checking her phone as she stepped inside. As the system scanned her biometrics, it detected stress and dimmed the lights, automatically turned on the television to an abstract screen saver with cool tones, and began to play an arrangement for a violins to soothe her nerves.

She kicked off her heels and walked barefoot into the kitchen, where she skipped the countertop wine cellar and pulled out the half-empty box of Trader Joe’s vintage that she’d taken a liking to thanks to Kara. She pours herself half a tumbler full as a silent fuck you to her mother and took a swig, then walked out into her living room to sit down in the gloom for a few minutes and think.

Supergirl was sitting on her couch, head flopped back over the back so that her hair fanned out across the white leather. She sat splayed with her knees apart and legs out, arms resting on her thighs. Lena wasn’t sure if she was awake.

As she drew closer, she caught a small gasp. Supergirl had a black eye, and there were scrapes on her cheeks and the backs of her hands, the blood barely crusted. Both her hands and her face were bruised and she had a tiny split in her lip.

Lena placed the wine on the table, nerves jangling when the bottom rattled against the pale marble from the shaking of her hand. Her heart raced as she drew closer. Supergirl had taken off her cape and draped it over the couch. It was none the worse for wear but was covered in scorch marks.

Suoergirl’s broad chest heaved once and she let out a long, pained sigh.

“Hi.”

“Hello, Supergirl.”

She let out a little laugh, wincing. “Do we need be so formal?”

“I don’t have anything else to call you,” Lena said, coolly. “Mind if I ask why you’re in my apartment?”

“You don’t lock the balcony doors. You should.”

Lena sighed and folded her arms. “I said why, not how.”

Supergirl didn’t look at her.

“I just got the snot beaten out of me. Everything hurts.”

“I didn’t think that was possible.”

How was it possible? Curiosity tugged at her, but concern shot through it, making her fidget with her hands. Lena hated fidgeting. It made her look weak, and she could still remember the pain when Lillian cracked the ruler across her knuckles to break the habit.

“Can I have some wine?”

Lena swallowed hard.

“Sure,” she said.

She went to the kitchen and poured. When she returned to the living room, Supergirl was sitting up, hunched forward and leaning on he knees. Lena started a little at the sight. Sitting that way displayed the wide, muscular set of her shoulders and arms, especially her meaty biceps. Her back was a rare sight -she wore a cape, after all- and just as exquisitely muscled.

She was looking at her hands, at the damage to her muscles. Lena offered the glass and she took it. Her fingers were warm when they brushed against Lena’s, strangely soft.

Supergirl took a long pull of wine and smacked her lips, then winced.

“It’s times like this I wish I could get drunk.”

“You can’t?”

“Not on wine and not for very long.”

“Interesting.”

“So I have a problem,” Supergirl said. She was still looking at her hands.

“And that is?”

“I have to call off work tomorrow. These will heal, and I’ll look exactly the same. I don’t get scars anymore. But they’ll be visible for a day or so.”

“I see.”

“But I have to get brunch with someone, and they’ll be able to tell. Concealer won’t do much for this.” She touched her eye, wincing.

“Wait here,” said Lena.

She came back a moment later with some wash clothes soaked in cold water on a tray. Hands still shaking a little as she placed it on the table. Tenderly, she took one of the washcloths and dabbed the back of Supergirl’s hands, cleaning away the grime and dried blood from the abrasions.

Supergirl sighed. “That feels good. Thank you.”

“May I?” said Lena.

Supergirl hesitated, doubt flashing deep within the endless depths of her blue eyes, but she turned to Lena and tilted up her chin. With shaking fingers, Lena cupped Supergirl’s face gently and used a fresh cloth to clean and cool the cut on her lip. Supergirl closed her eyes and sighed.

Lena’s eyes wandered up, to the small mark above her eye.

“You don’t scar. Did you get that on Krypton?”

“Yes. I slipped and fell when I was a little girl. You should have seen me. I bled all over.”

“Must be nice, not getting hurt anymore. Not feeling pain.”

“I still feel it.”

Lena paused.

“I feel every bullet and blow and bomb blast just like anyone would,” said Supergirl. Just because it doesn’t harm me doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt me.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s okay,” said Supergirl.

She opened her eyes -eye- and looked at Lena reverently, one pretty blue eye glittering while the other remained bruised shut. She smiled a lopsided, honest smile, looked at Lena in a dreamy, almost adoring way that-

Wait.

“Oh my God,” Lena breathed.

“Hi,” said Kara.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Lena whispered. “Oh my God, what happened, how did this happen to you? You’re hurt!”

“I had a tough time with a very determined alien and had to worry about civilians,” said Kara. “It happens.”

Lena’s pulse raced and her breath quickened. Her gaze darted, searching and noticing every detail. She was so beautiful, and she was so Kara.

“Why now?” said Lena. “Why this time?”

“I don’t know.”

Lena bit her lip, and the tiny gesture had a noticeable impact on Kara. Her eyes widened and her gaze fell to Lena’s bottom lip, then flicked back up.

“So your brunch,” said Lena. “That was with me.”

“Yeah. I thought about cancelling but I can’t. I needed to see you now.”

Lena shifted closer on the couch, until they were hip to hip.

“Why?”

“Because I just got punched in the head by an alien with big stupid bone spurs coming out of his fist and I need to see you. I won, by the way. It was really cool. I ripped a fire hydrant out of the ground and hit him with it.”

Lena looked her up and down. Her jaw began to quiver.

“Oh God. Is it worse than it looks? Are you hurt worse than you look, Kara? Are you…”

Kara shook her head, then winced. “No. Not that bad, promise. I just…” she sighed. “I’m tired of going to lay on a sunbed and going back to my empty apartment and spend a sick day napping on the couch.”

Lena let out a slow breath. “So you came to see me.”

“Yuuup,” Kara said, slowly.

Lena shifted awkwardly in her seat. Kara slowly reached over with her now clean hand and curled her fingers around Lena’s chin.

“Lena?” she whispered. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

Kara turned and leaned into her, pressing the slightest, lightest kiss to Lena’s lips, not a quick peck but something slow and soft, warm and inviting.

“Ow,” Kara muttered.

“Kara,” Lena whispered.

“I have any idea. Since I can’t make brunch… how about breakfast?”

Lena leaned against her, gently draping her arms around her as they fell back into the soft cushions together.

“Okay.”

[aspen78]

Chapter 6: How it all Byrnes

<<prev chp>>

--

Government buildings rarely whispered, but this one? The Pentagon? This floor of the Pentagon? 

It stopped whispering long ago. It held its breath.

Sound didn’t just fade here--it was put on mute.  

This was the kind of silence you didn’t break with a cough. The kind you didn’t fill with footsteps unless you knew where you were going. 

Everything was all steel walls and buried secrets. No windows. No clocks. Time moved differently here--like it could be redacted just like anything else.

Air down here buzzed with something more than fluorescent lighting--something buried beneath miles of earth and silence. Most people didn’t know this wing existed. Most who did pretended it didn’t.

And, for what goes on down here. It was probably for the best.

(Y/n)--Vireo, whatever you want to call her, all of her--had a bad habit of showing up in these sort of places. Places she technically wasn't cleared for.

Another set of mechanized doors swished open for the girl as she dropped the “borrowed” key card and the silicone swatch of an authorized fingerprint back into the pocket of her blazer. Even through leathered loafers, her steps plodded through the maze of halls inaudibly.

She moved through the system like a courier. Quick. Unimportant. Boring. Belonging.

Security cameras tracked her, but what were they going to do with footage of a person who so very much looked like another agent? 

Black blazer? Check.

Pressed button up? You know it.

Glasses? Exactly the kind you’d never notice.

Badge? Got it… stolen, but still got it.

Finger ready to be scanned? The wonders of 3D printing are truly amazing.

People didn’t question confidence in this place. They questioned mistakes. Glitches. Broken lines of protocol. They looked for the hacker in the hoodie, the grunt with the sweaty hands. No one looked twice at an unmemorable face.

(Y/n) passed another checkpoint like it was just a suggestion. She didn’t smirk. But she wanted to.

Cecil was going to be pissed.

But she was already pissed.

Her taking their defense system for a joyride was the start of making things even. 

A few turns later, and she was standing in front of a vault-grade door marked with no nameplate.

It slid open before she could even attempt to rewire it.

“Come in, Byrnes.”

She sighed. “You’re no fun anymore.”

Cecil’s office was less of a room and more of a cold war command center dressed like a broom closet. Low lights. One-way mirrors. A single screen flickering static-blue across his desk. And the man himself, standing behind it like he hadn’t moved in hours.

(Y/n) stepped in, slow, deliberate. She didn’t take off the glasses. Didn’t drop the mask--not the real one. 

He gestured to the chair across from him. “Have a seat.”

She remained standing.

Cecil didn’t push it. He didn’t need to. 

“You’re not subtle,” he said, adjusting a file on his desk that wasn’t really a file. Just a thin stack of hollow pages, light-reactive and probably encrypted six different ways.

“I was,” she said flatly. “You’re just not normal.”

“You broke in through seven layers of biometric security and knocked one of my guys out.”

(Y/n) folded her arms. “You say that like it’s impressive.”

“It is,” Cecil admitted. “Still doesn’t mean I like it.”

She shrugged before reaching into her pocket. “You’re still alive after your late-night talk.”

Her eyes narrowed to hone in on the faint bruising around his neck. “I take it that it went well.”

He just rubbed his jaw with a sigh like he hadn’t slept. “Define well.”

“You’re breathing.”

“Barely.” He glanced up from the terminal embedded in his desk. “Nolan doesn’t like being questioned. And he's on edge right now.”

Her fingers grazed a small flash drive, letting her thumb run across the smooth surface of it. Thinking. Debating.

To her credit, this was quite a decision to make. It was essentially synonymous to hovering over the button that would nuke the world.

She rolled the flash drive between her fingers once, then twice more, like it might decide for her.

Then she set it down on the edge of his desk. Soft. Final.

It made no sound. But the weight was there.

He looked at it, eyes glaring. He didn’t reach for it yet.

“And what’s on this that I haven’t already seen?”

“Proof,” she murmured, cautious of how loud she spoke this into existence.

Cecil slowly picked up the drive, turning it between his fingers. “Of what?”

(Y/n) met his gaze, somewhat amused, but mostly annoyed. “How long are we going to play 20 questions, Stedman?”

Cecil didn’t answer right away.

He stared at her, like he was searching for the catch hidden in the words she hadn’t said yet. Then he looked at the drive again, almost like it might burn a hole through his hand.

Finally, he sighed and slotted it into the reader embedded in his desk.

The lights dimmed slightly as the screen lit up--not a clean data stream, but a patchwork of spliced footage, metadata, satellite timestamps, and audio pulled from black box files that were never supposed to exist.

And there he was.

Nolan Grayson. Omni-Man.

Not just standing. Not just moving.

Killing.

The Guardians.

No interference. No defense. No unknown third party.

There was only him. And them. And red.

The footage wasn’t long. It didn’t need to be. You didn’t need ten minutes of betrayal to know it happened. You only needed one frame.

As the room came back to a still quiet, both of them sighed.

“Why bring it to me now?”

She shrugged, but it wasn’t casual. “Because I’ve been called a lot of things, but not suicidal.”

Cecil allowed himself a bitter smirk. “Yet you broke into my base to hand me the trigger we’d have to use on the most powerful man on Earth.”

His eyes lingered on the screen for a long time, even after it darkened again. His fingertips tapped the desk--once, twice--then went still.

“I already had Darkblood sniffing around,” he said after a long beat. “He’s been circling the edges of this. Hasn’t found this yet, though. But he’s still… pushing too close.”

(Y/n) watched his face scrunch up in annoyed frustration. “You don’t like him?”

“I don’t trust him,” Cecil corrected. “But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

“He isn’t,” she confirmed, her eyebrow raised. “It’s plugged into your computer now. It’s not a theory anymore, Stedman. It’s not ‘he’s off.’ It’s not ‘he’s hiding something.’ It’s him. In that room. I can ID the timestamp, the body language. I watched him crack Red Rush’s skull on repeat just to be sure I wasn’t projecting.”

It was a long second of just eye contact. Scrutinizing. Uncomfortable. Eye contact.

“You realize what happens if we move too soon, right? No backup plan. No replacement. No safety net. If we spook him-”

“We all die.” She said it like she was stating a grocery item. “I know.”

“And if we wait too long-”

“We still all die.”

Cecil nodded grimly. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“I don’t think glad is the right word,” (Y/n) scoffed at that. “And I didn’t bring this to you for you to give me orders on what to do and what not to do.” 

“What are you doing in preparation for this.”

Her mouth pressed thin when he didn’t have a response. “You’re waiting for the perfect checkmate while Omni-Man is already moving pawns,” she said, voice dropping lower. “You think he’ll slip. That you’ll come up with a plan so airtight, you can tip the king with a smile on your face.”

“In an ideal world, that would be the plan. But I think we both know ideal is so far from reality now.” She leaned closer across the desk--not threatening, but unwavering. “Stop waiting for ideal. Or you’re gonna be the director who let the world burn while he waited for it.”

“I know,” he finally said, quiet. Not reluctant. Just weighed. “I know.”

He sat back in his chair like it aged him. The static-blue monitor dimmed. The flash drive still blinked at the base of the desk like a tiny red eye.

She could see it behind his tired eyes. The rotations of a dozen emergency scenarios. The unspoken calculations about damage, fallout, and what--if anything--could stop Omni-Man.

(Y/n) watched him. Not like an ally. Not like an enemy. Like someone who refused to be either.

“Whatever you’re thinking? It won’t be enough,” she sighed. Deeply. “There isn’t going to be one perfect play. We’re going to need play after play. Hit after hit.”

“We can’t be stupid enough to delusionize a win. We’re here to buy time.” Running a tense hand through her hair, she tugged on the very ends of it like they could anchor her, stressed. Distraught. Scared. “For him.”

Cecil watched her for a moment, then looked past her. Maybe at the wall. Maybe through it. Then, he closed his eyes. “You saw the file.”

“I saw the file.”

He tried justifying himself, “Mark is the only one who stands a chance-” 

“I know, Stedman,” (y/n) cut in.

Her voice didn’t spike. It dropped. Soft. Dangerous. Like she was tired of repeating herself but still doing it anyway--because no one else would.

“I know what he is. I know what he could become. I know what he might have to become.” 

For the first time since she stepped down here, she let go of her facade. 

The edge in her voice dulled, not from weakness but from wear. The glint in her eyes faded, no longer pretending she was only a third party. The rigidity of her posture loosened under the weight of sentiment. A quiet kind of resignation.

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

The moment didn’t last. It never did.

(Y/n) ran a hand down her face, reeling in whatever was left unsaid, before her spine reset into something colder--straighter. She gave one last glance to the blinking drive.

“You’re the director,” she muttered, already prepping to leave. “Direct.”

His mouth twitched, barely. An unrestrained movement breaking through. “Watch it.”

Her brow arched, just slightly. “Or what? You’ll assign me more teenagers to babysit?”

Cecil gave her a dry, unenthused look. “You’re exhausting.”

“So are you. What’s new?” She rolled her eyes with a small smirk. 

She finally took a step back, her stance loosening by degrees. “I’m thinking with you. But y’know, you get paid for this.”

His eyes bored into her, and he deadpanned--yet again, “Exhausting.”

Her smirk grew enough. And, the door behind her hissed open again for her to turn to leave.

“But Byrnes?” his voice hooked in the air, catching her right before she stepped out of the frame.

She paused. 

“If something happens to you before we act--”

“Don’t pretend you’ll avenge me,” she cut in, calm but cold. “You’re not that sentimental.”

Cecil didn’t deny it. Just tapped the desk once more. “Fine. Then try not to die. I’m short on people who actually get it.”

(Y/n) gave no reply. Only a faint lilt of a chuckle as she disappeared into the corridor.

Still the same steel-and-silence tomb they’d always been, but she now felt heavier walking through them this time. Like the walls had swallowed her voice whole. Like the decision she’d just made had soaked into the soles of her shoes.

She passed another security junction, nodded at a guard who didn’t look twice, and slipped into a nondescript elevator bound for the upper floors.

She adjusted the blazer again. Straightened her cuffs. She didn’t need to, but it helped. Rituals did. Something to focus on besides the knowledge she’d just handed the end of the world to a man with a scar and a death wish. 

The Pentagon aboveground was louder--barely--but even this high up, the silence dragged behind her like a shadow.

The elevator doors dinged open.

She stepped out into a sterile hallway--bright, bland, somewhere between reception and regulation. Not her style. Too clean. Too conscious of itself.

And then she turned a corner--and collided with someone.

Hard enough that the wind almost knocked out of her. Not from the impact. From the recognition.

“Whoa--sorry, I didn’t see-” A voice halted mid-apology.

His hands had automatically caught her shoulders. Gentle. Familiar.

His fingers froze.

Her eyes snapped up. Met his.

Brown. Wide. Familiar.

Mark Grayson.

Oh, great. 

Impeccable timing as always. Just what she needed after pawning off a flash drive labeled "End of World, Probably."

She didn’t say anything. Neither did he.

Not at first.

Because she knew he was already squinting.

And not in the normal awkward-teenage-boy way. The I-know-you’ve-kicked-someone’s-ass-in-front-of-me-before kind of squint.

The blazer. The glasses. The hair. She still looked like someone he should walk past in a hallway. But her eyes?

He’d seen them behind a visor. Under smoke. Just before the sword moved. 

And he watched them move over him. The way she looked at him made him nervous, self-conscious even. Made him automatically look down at his suit for any oddly placed tears. Made him fix his windassaulted hair. Made him grip his mask even tighter. Made him sweat.

He may not be squinting in the normal awkward-teenage-boy way, but he sure was fidgeting in the normal awkward-teenage-boy way. 

Meanwhile, she was facing the quiet internal siren in her head screaming at her to switch from contain nuclear secrets mode to oh no, social interaction mode.

“Uh…” Mark blinked. “Hi?”

(Y/n) adjusted her glasses--not because they’d slipped, but because she needed a second. Maybe two. Maybe a decade.

“…Hello,” she said, cool and even. Polite. The way school acquaintances say it when you spot them in public.

He squinted again.“Wait a second...”

“Nope,” she said immediately, backing out of his hold. “Wrong person. Very flattering though.”

He frowned. “I didn’t say anything yet.”

“You were about to.”

“Was I?”

“You always are.”

 “Okay, that sounds like something someone who knows me would say,” he spluttered with a half-hazardly thrown finger gun, confident he was fully caught up with the scene now. 

(Y/n) groaned under her breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. And her stomach did a slow, sarcastic spin. Of course. Of course.

This was not on the agenda. Not after footage. Not after war prep. Not after giving Cecil the flash drive of doom and telling him to think faster.

And now she was arguing with a half-sweaty teenage hero in the middle of a hallway that probably had thirty surveillance cameras.

Whiplash.

Absolute whiplash.

“Your eyes give you away,” Mark said, like that settled it. And settled himself against the wall, arms crossed and teeth smiling.

“That’s creepy,” she deadpanned, her face pinched to show her distaste--amused distaste, but still distaste. 

“Is it?” he asked, smile widening like he thought he was winning something. “Because I think it’s poetic. Like--Shakespeare-level poetic. Or at least early Poe.”

She let a long sigh through her nose. “Grayson.”

He grinned. “Wow, last name. I must really be getting to you.”

(Y/n) scrunched those eyes he was so very familiar with, apparently.

“C’mon,” he said, taking a small step closer, tilting his head like he was trying to line up her current form with the battle-ready image in his memory. “You think a pair of glasses and a blazer are gonna throw me off?”

“They usually do,” she muttered. “That’s half the point.”

“Well, they don’t. I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re saying it like you’re in a cheesy romcom.”

He chuckled. Real. Stupid. Warm. His smile was crooked now. Warm. And it hit her in a way it absolutely shouldn’t have. Not right now. Not when she still felt the blood pumping cold from her last conversation.

(Y/n) stood there a beat longer than she meant to. Her shoulders were still squared like they hadn’t realized the war room was gone. Her mind was still back on the screen. The footage. The future.

But Mark? Mark was just there. Waiting. No knives. No suspicion. Just the same awkward warmth that had somehow become familiar.

She opened her mouth. The beginnings of a sentence tried to leave her, but then stopped. It swerved into a breath, and she pressed her lips together. Then, she tried again. 

“I’m going now.”

She took a step back. He took one forward.

(Y/n) narrowed her eyes. 

He saw it, because of course he did. 

“I’m not- I’m not following you,” Mark spluttered, unconvincingly, still with a smile. “I’m just… walking the same direction at the same time. Like a coincidence. Or fate.”

She quickened her pace slightly, but he matched her again, too persistent for someone who was just “walking the same government hallway.”

(Y/n) huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face as her shoes mutely hit the sterile tile. “You’re unbearable.”

Mark didn’t miss a beat. “You say that like it’s a new development.”

“It’s not.”

“Well, then, at least I’m consistent.” He grinned at her like that was a badge of honor.

She finally cracked--air that almost became a laugh escaped her nose. And she hated how easy it was. How damn fast he melted the steel she hadn’t even unclenched since the sublevels. The shift in her tone, her spine, her pulse--it was too fast. Too much. Whiplash.

She immediately covered it with a cough. And, Mark pretended not to notice, but his teeth shone even brighter than the white lights.

“You are the only person who talks to me like this,” she tried to scoff.

Mark grinned like that was the entire point.

“Yeah, well--maybe I’m just the only one who knows how,” he said, easy, shrugging one shoulder.

(Y/n) rolled her eyes so hard it was practically audible, but she didn’t stop walking. Didn't tell him to leave. Didn't tell him not to follow, either.

They walked in silence for a few steps. Or rather, they moved in parallel--(Y/n) all control and solitary, Mark more of a friendly orbit, like a moon too interested in a planet that very clearly did not want to be the center of anything right now.

It should’ve been irritating.

It was irritating.

But it also wasn’t.

Because he wasn’t asking. He wasn’t pressing. He wasn’t even demanding she confirm who she was, despite the fact he clearly knew. He just walked with her, making the atmosphere lighter whether she wanted it or not.

…She hated him a little for that.

Not real hate. Not the kind that sticks. The kind that flares when someone makes it too easy to breathe after you’ve nearly drowned.

“Do you always do this?” she asked after a moment, gaze forward, voice low.

He tilted his head. “Do what?”

“This,” she motioned vaguely with a hand. “Miraculously time it so you catch me at my worst moments and use that to try to be my friend.”

Mark smiled. Not like before. Just simple. Like the kind of smile you pull on when you don’t know how to respond. 

“...Aren’t we friends?”

She stopped walking.

Not with some dramatic skid or gasp or swing of the arms--but like a machine whose program had hit a wall. Like the word itself broke a cog inside her head. Friends.

Her jaw didn’t drop. Her breath didn’t catch.

She just paused.

Long enough that Mark realized he’d said something heavier than it sounded.

He blinked. “I mean--I thought we were. Or at least heading that way? I mean, I hoped-” He was doing that thing again. Rambling. Filling the air. Hands trying to catch his own words as they tripped over each other. “It’s not like I have a quota or anything, I just--well, you’re you, and I like being around-”

“Mark.”

She said it like a pressure valve.

He shut up.

The hallway, the lights, the sterile silence--all of it blurred for a second.

She wasn’t looking at him.

Her posture was still straight, still calculated. But something in her face--something in the space just beneath the skin--looked tired.

Not from walking. Not from running.

From carrying.

“…Aren’t we friends?” he asked again, a little more carefully this time. A little less certain.

(Y/n) didn’t answer right away.

She stared down the hallway instead. Like she might find the right words hidden between fluorescent hums and security cameras.

Then she said, “You don’t know me.”

“I’m trying to,” he said, quiet.

That got a glimpse of something behind her eyes. Not warmth. Not cold. Something unfinished.

She looked at him fully now, and it hit harder than it should have--how much was behind that expression. Grief. Steel. Hesitation. All fighting for the same square inch of space.

“You’re not supposed to,” she said.

He tilted his head. “Why not?”

She gave a breath of something like a laugh, but it didn’t reach very far. “Because if you do, it gets harder.”

“For who?”

“For me.”

That landed with more weight than either of them expected.

Mark’s mouth opened--some clumsy kindness ready to leap out--but her look stopped it before it formed.

She stepped back once. Not far. Just enough to reset the space between them.

“You’re… good,” she said. Like it hurt to admit. “And I’m trying to keep you that way.”

Mark swallowed. “…You don’t have to protect me.”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “I do.”

She didn’t say it like a martyr.

She didn’t say it like someone brave.

She said it like it cost her something.

It hung there.

Simple. Unadorned. Heavy in a way that made the silence around it feel thinner, stretched like glass.

Maybe it was in the way she avoided looking at him. Or maybe it was in the way bits of guilt and sadness peeked out.

But he understood something now--something he hadn’t put words to until this second.

She wasn’t pushing him away because she didn’t care.

She was doing it because she did.

He shifted his weight, eyes flicking to her hands, her shoulders, her jaw--every part of her holding still like movement would make everything spill out.

“You always do that,” he sighed, shaking his head the way you do in every frustrating argument. 

It took a beat of hesitation for (Y/n) meet his prying stare. “Do what?”

“That thing where you decide everything for everyone. Like if you hold the weight long enough, the rest of us get to keep pretending this is… normal.”

She flinched. Barely, but enough. 

He saw it.

And, she had to look away for her next words. 

“Well, that's sort of the point.”

Mark’s brow creased. 

“If I hold it,” she mumbled, steadily. Almost eerily so. With that hollow undertone of someone reciting something implanted deep within them. “Then maybe you don’t have to. Maybe you still get make your stupid jokes. Still worry about that test you forgot about. Still flail at every attempt to impress the girl. Still wake up and want something.”

He couldn’t respond to that. Not right away.

Not because he didn’t have something to say--god, he had too much to say. Too many arguments, too many reasons she was wrong, or brave, or unfair to herself. 

But none of it would’ve mattered. None of it would’ve reached her the way he wanted it to.

Because she wasn’t asking for comfort.

She was explaining her logic.

And that’s what bothered him the most.

“…You think that’s what I want?” he asked finally, his voice lower now. “To be protected from the world like I’m still some kid who doesn’t get what’s coming?”

“No,” she stated, softly. “I think it’s what you deserve.”

That undid something in him.

Because there it was. Not pity. Not distance. Just… belief. In him, more than she let herself believe in anything else.

He stepped forward--not to grab her, not to reach, but to narrow the space again. Make it real.

“I don’t want to deserve normal if it means you don’t get to have it too,” he said.

Her voice came out barely above a whisper now, but it was still the loudest thing to him. “That’s not how this works.”

She looked at him then, and it almost ruined him.

Because it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t armored.

It was sad.

Not the kind of sadness that breaks down crying--but the kind that’s lived in someone’s bones so long, it’s just part of how they move now.

“You think I don’t want it?” she asked, a wry smile tugging at her mouth. “You think I don’t lie awake wishing for something as simple as a bad grade or an awkward party or a real conversation that doesn’t come with collateral damage?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer. He didn’t try to.

“I want normal more than anything,” she said, voice flat--not because she didn’t feel it, but because she felt it too much. “I don’t even get to pretend to have it as ‘me.’ I don’t go to school anymore. I head a company. I argue with men twice my age. I date to keep the tabloids distracted. I flirt when I’m supposed to, smile when it’ll make a better headline, and leave before anyone can ask a real question.” 

Finally, (y/n) met his eyes. Tired meeting pity. 

“And everyone keeps telling me I’m impressive. That I’m composed. That I’m handling it.” She paused, her jaw clenching. 

“I’m already fighting to keep two lives.” She looked away again. “I can’t handle adding a normal one.”

Mark didn’t back off. No, he stepped closer. Grazed his hand on her shoulder enough to get her attention again.

“Maybe…” he started, not sure and full of uncertainty, but earnest. “Maybe you don’t need another life.”

She didn’t move, but something in her eyes flickered. Caution. Skepticism. Bracing for some hollow reassurance.

“You can take--you’re allowed to take a moment for you. Just five minutes? Where none of that matters. Not the headlines, missions, or- or anything,” he smiled, asking for any form of consideration. “The world won’t fall apart that quickly, right?”

She stared at him like he’d just spoken in a language she hadn’t heard in years.

Five minutes?

Her throat tightened around the idea. Not because it was absurd.

But because it was dangerous.

Because it sounded a little too much like hope.

(Y/n) didn’t answer right away. Her eyes dropped--not out of guilt, not even hesitation, but calculation. Like she was weighing the cost of softness in a life that had no room for it.

He wasn’t asking for forever. Wasn’t asking her to tear down everything she'd built just to let him in.

He was asking for five minutes.

And she didn’t know how to say yes to something so simple.

Because if she said yes now, what would happen the next time someone needed her?

What if five minutes turned into ten? Turned into a habit?

Turned into her wanting more?

And want was dangerous.

Want was weakness.

Want was how people got kill-

Shit. How did it get this bad? 

Even when someone is asking for five minutes where you don’t spiral into your responsibilities, you still were.

(Y/n) shut her eyes, letting a new breath cycle through her lungs. She let herself breathe. Just once. Fully. 

Then it came out as a curt huff. Just like the ones when you can’t believe how stupid you were.

Her (e/c) met his patient brown ones and a small, pressed smile was willed into existence. Not a smartass smirk. Or that photo perfect grin. 

Just her smile.

“...Well,” she said, her tone somewhat neutral. “You got time for a coffee? Or should we keep standing here making eye contact until one of us combusts?” 

Mark’s grin was immediate. Stupid. Earnest. Real. 

Very Mark.

(Y/n)’s was tentative. Uncertain. But cracked open enough to be real.

Possibly (Y/n).

--

*bonus scene (b/c i felt like writing it but the chapter officially ended above :] )

The overhead lights in the break room buzzed with the faint flicker of neglect. One of them stuttered every now and then like it was trying to start a conversation. But it doesn’t. Because even the lights know better.  

Everything was beige or gray. Tables were bolted down. Chairs were stackable. Coffee machines looked like they have been through war.

Still, there was something oddly comforting about it. 

Maybe it was because no one spared the brightly colored hero or the ‘intern’ a second glance. In the eyes of everyone else, they simply just got another two bodies in the bureaucratic purgatory. 

The pair stood at the far end of the self-serve station. Mark stared at the array of options like it was a minefield. (Y/n) watched him with a vague sense of amusement, still trying to unclench the knot between her shoulder blades.

“So…,” he gestured with both hands, eyes squinting at the row of burnt carafes. “Do I risk the ‘hazelnut’ or the mystery third pot?”

She picked up a paper cup and lightly snorted, “I think you’ll regret either.”

He nodded solemnly, watching as she picked up the safe pot in the middle. “Cool, cool. Regret it is.”

Grasping the third pot, Mark watched the dark liquid slosh around the glass and swallowed. He filled the cup halfway and immediately winced at the scent that hit him. 

“Holy shit,” he groaned, shoving the cup away from his face. “That smells like battery acid and depression.”

(Y/n) hid a shit-eating grin behind her own cup, sipping at the bland, watered-down black coffee to cover a laugh. “That’s actually the Pentagon house blend.” 

He gave her a sidelong look, lips quirking. “I forgot you could joke.”

She gave him a look over the rim of her cup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m hilarious.”

Mark let out a soft snort.

“You’re just never in the crowd,” she finished, deadpan.

He chuckled as they walked their drinks over to a corner table tucked between a vending machine and a bulletin board littered with outdated training memos.

(Y/n) sat with her back to the corner. Old habit. Strategic. Eyes facing the room. One foot hooked around the leg of her chair like muscle memory never quite let her go.

Across from her, Mark plopped down ever so gracefully, staring at his cup like the coffee might melt through.

Still, he, of course, sipped it. Grimaced at it. And, immediately regretted it.

“I’m ninety percent sure this is paint thinner,” he muttered.

She finally let the smile fully break through. Not wide. Just... unguarded. “You’re the idiot who picked the mystery pot.”

He leaned on one elbow and pointed at her, mock-offended. “Excuse you, I was misled. You told me I’d regret both. That made this sound like a fun gamble.”

(Y/n) arched a disapproving brow at him, but the tilt of her lips gave her away. “So it’s my fault you chose to melt your tastebuds.”

Mark threw both hands up, still grinning. “Hey, I take responsibility for most of my terrible decisions. This one’s only, like… seventy percent mine.”

“Generous.”

“You’re welcome.”

She shook her head at his attempts of getting her to laugh, but she didn’t cover the tiny grin on her face.

Mark set the cursed cup down like it might explode if provoked further. He leaned back in the chair and glanced at her again, letting the grin settle into something softer. 

Seeing her in this light felt illegal for him. Not that she wasn’t allowed to be normal… adjacent. But with how she usually moved through the world, this felt new. And rare. And kind of good in its own weird, quiet way. 

She wasn’t armored up. Not fully. Not right now. No bird-mask. No shield. No mission reports or tactical evasions. Just her. Shoulders still a little tense. Foot still wrapped around the chair leg like she was expecting a breach. But her mouth? Still tilted in something that looked dangerously close to relaxed.

Mark tried not to stare. He did a bad job.

“So…” he started again, grasping at straws for a normalish topic. “No school?”

(Y/n) squinted at him as if asking “really,” but answered with a shrug anyway. “Not anymore.”

His eyes bore into her when she didn’t explain further, almost daring to pour his coffee in her watery one.

Snatching her cup from him, she gave a light glare. “I-um I graduated already.”

Mark blinked. “Wait. Really?”

(Y/n) took a swig from his coffee cup purely out of spite, grimaced, and set it back down like it personally offended her.

“Yeah,” she confirmed, voice recovering around the aftertaste. “Graduated.”

“High school?”

A quiet sip of bland chaser filled the air for a drawn out second. She gazed into the murky brown like it might offer a better way to say what came next. Because how do you admit to this without sounding pretentious? Or… like a government science experiment with a student ID.

“Um. Yeah, high school…” she started carefully. “And, uh. College.”

She could feel him trying to pry more out of her, but she didn’t look at him. Just sipped again.

“Wait.” Mark blinked like his brain was buffering. “College college?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re joking.”

She shook her head, the tiniest twitch of her mouth made a smirk. “I really wish I was.”

His mouth opened. Closed. Then opened again--this time with something that sounded like a confused half-laugh, like he wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or concerned.

“Hold on,” he said, holding out a hand like he could physically stop the revelation from snowballing. “You’re how old again?”

She leaned back slowly in her chair, arms crossing loosely, smirk already spreading. 

“Older than you,” she said, annoyingly smug.

He squinted harder at her. 

And, as if it actually managed to pull a real answer from her, she gave in. “...by a few months.”

“You’ve got that much mysterious aura and you’re barely older than me?”

“Some of us peak early,” (y/n) shrugged, smug still intact. “Besides, it’s not hard when you don’t sleep and already know half the curriculum because you’ve been hacking into government databases since middle school.”

Mark blinked again. “...What.”

She handed his cup back with a faint, innocent shrug. “What?” 

He waited for her to crack and admit it was all a bit. She didn’t. 

She smiled. “Is this really what you want to spend five minutes of normal wrapping your head around?”

He made a face. “Okay, fine, but if this is you being normal, I want a refund.”

Clicking her tongue, she put her cup down and corrected him like she was reading the fine print of a contract, “Five minutes of normal. Not five minutes of ordinary.”

"Right, my bad," He huffed a laugh, sinking into his chair like the weight of the day finally remembered it existed. His hand toyed with the edge of the coffee cup, rotating it slowly. “Y’know, for what it’s worth… I don’t think normal’s all that great.”

(Y/n) tilted her head--subtle, questioning.

“I mean, sure, it’s nice,” Mark continued, eyes still on the cup. “Simple. Safe. But--I don’t know. It’s hard to pretend I still fit into that.”

He glanced at her again, searching. Not pushing--just looking. Like he wasn’t sure if what he’d said made him sound ungrateful or just honest.

She didn’t give him an immediate answer. But she didn’t look away, either.

So he took that as permission to keep going.

Mark cleared his throat, “I keep trying to pretend I still care about pop quizzes and gross cafeteria food. But then there’s this whole other life I’m living that I’m not supposed to tell anyone about.”

He paused, swirling the coffee again like it might say something back this time.

“And, then I finally asked out this girl I like,” he said, almost as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or wince. “You saw how that went.”

The girl across from him just sat with him. Listening without interruption. Letting him have the air, because he needed it too.

“It was great for the most part. She was great. But I kept having to lie to her, or just leave stuff out,” he admitted, words slowing like they were dragging more weight than expected. “I mean, it was the first date… it’s the first try at getting to know someone you like, and I was already leaving out half my life.”  

He rubbed the back of his neck, fingers tangling slightly in his hair. “I want to be normal for her. I really do. But trying to just made me understand what you meant at the bench.”

(Y/n)’s gaze didn’t waver. If anything, it softened--but not in a way most people would notice. Just enough for someone who knew how hard she worked to keep things out of reach.

“You said it,” he added, voice a notch softer. “That’s not how this works when your life becomes fragments.”

She looked down at her hands. One still circled the rim of her cup like it was muscle memory. The other flexed slightly, resting against the edge of the table, fingers twitching like they were fighting the urge to hold something real.

“…Yeah,” she said after a long moment and then she let go of an admission. “I tried to give you a little buffer from that realization.”

His eyes flicked up only to see she wasn’t meeting his but her cup’s.

“Stedman said you were taking a night off so I picked up the alert for you,” she half shrugged as if it was nothing. “I didn’t think you should have to get electrocuted and broken up with in the same hour.” 

Mark let out a quiet breath, somewhere between gratitude and humor. “I was wondering how you showed up that fast. Don’t you live in New Jersey or something?”

“Stedman kidnapped me, so I was in the area,” she muttered with a grudge.   

He raised both eyebrows. “Like… literally kidnapped?”

She sipped her coffee again like it was a legally binding NDA. “The man has a teleporter at his disposal.”

“So… yeah. Literal kidnapping.”

“Technically, he asked first. I just didn’t realize ‘for what?’ was legally binding.”

He chuckled, a small, disbelieved one. 

“But, thanks…” he said quietly. “For taking the alert.”

(Y/n)’s eyes snapped to him for a half-second before she brushed the thanks off with a wave of her hand. “It wasn’t charity. You were busy. I wasn’t.”

“That’s the same tone Cecil uses when he wants me to think he’s not being nice.”

She scoffed, “Well, you both complain the same amount, so.”

“Still,” he said after a beat. “It helped.”

“Sure,” she offered an ounce of acknowledgement through a quirk of the lip. 

For a moment, neither of them said anything. Just let the scent of the--pathetic excuse for--coffee fill the air between them. No one else was in the room but them now. Two teens who didn’t feel like teens. Sitting across from each other--not like it was normal, but like normal didn’t matter. 

(Y/n) tapped her finger lightly against the rim of the cup again. A rhythm, faint and even. Mark watched the motion--not because it was loud, but because it was grounding. The kind of thing people did when they were still working out if they were allowed to be at peace.

“You think there’s anyone out there who doesn’t care about the ‘normal’ part?” he asked, faintly, almost like he didn’t want her to hear it.

A pause. Measured. Careful.

“Someone who gets it.”

That landed between them like a quiet echo. Not loud enough to demand anything--but not soft enough to ignore, either.

(Y/n) looked at him fully now, the weight of that last line filtering through her in real time. Something passed behind her eyes--quick, quiet, not quite visible. But it was there.

A flicker of recognition.

Of warning.

Of want.

She swallowed once. Then shifted an inch apart from him, gaze narrowing just slightly--not cold, but sharp. Assessing.

“Someone who gets it,” she echoed, carefully.

Not mocking. Not dismissive. Just… weighing it. Like she was trying to decide whether he even knew what he was asking.

Mark didn’t flinch under the scrutiny. He didn’t double down either. He just held the question where it was. In the air. Waiting.

“You’re looking for the wrong person then,” she said, voice quieter now. Less clipped. Less armored.

Mark tilted his head. “Yeah?”

She looked down again, like the words had to be mined from somewhere deeper than she was used to digging. Her next sentence came out like a confession whispered into a storm drain.

“You don’t want someone who gets it,” she said, voice lower. “You think you do.  But it’s a different kind of weight when someone understands exactly how much you’re carrying.”

“They don’t say, ‘I’m sorry you’re going through this.’ They say, ‘Yeah. Me too.’ And that’s worse, ” (Y/n)’s voice softened, somewhere between apology and resignation. “Because it’s not just shared. It’s mirrored. And sometimes, you don’t want a mirror. You want a window. A door. Something that opens out instead of in.”

Her eyes flicked back to his then--cautious, a little raw, but direct.

“That’s what normal people give you. Even if it’s fake, even if it’s fleeting. The chance to look at the world like you’re not trapped in it.”

She didn’t say "someone like me can’t give you that."

She didn’t have to.

It was written in the space between her posture and the tired set of her shoulders.

“I think you should give an actual shot with her.”

He could’ve said okay. He could’ve said maybe. He could’ve said nothing at all.

Instead, he leaned forward just slightly, elbows on the table, and said:

“But she doesn’t know this part of me.”

“It didn’t feel real.” His fingers tapped against the side of the cup again, mirroring her rhythm without realizing it. 

(Y/n) noticed. She always noticed. And for a moment, she said nothing.

Then--softly, without lifting her gaze-- “Maybe that’s why you tried.”

Mark tilted his head. “Because it wasn’t real?”

“No,” she said. “Because it could be.”

There was a pause.

Just long enough for the weight of it to settle between them. Not heavy--just exact. Measured. Like the moment had stopped pretending it was just casual.

Then his voice cut back in, low but sure.

“You think this--” he gestured between them, between the silence and the rawness and the edge of a conversation that wasn’t supposed to happen, “--feels fake?”

His tone wasn’t biting. It wasn’t dramatic. It was… quietly daring. Like he was offering her a way to deny it—if she needed it. But hoping she wouldn’t.

“No.” (Y/n) gave the smallest laugh. The kind that had too much honesty in it to be sarcastic. “But it’s messy.”

“It always is,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it has to suck.”

“It kind of does, though,” she said. “If it didn’t suck, we wouldn’t be here drinking coffee that tastes like liquid regret pretending we’re allowed to have five minutes to feel human.”

She bit her lip, thinking. “Look, just try for the door before you’re stuck without an exit.”

Mark’s brow furrowed, lips pressing into something between a smile and a frown.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “But what if the door is locked?”

(Y/n)’s eyes flicked to him, guarded. “Then find another one.”

“And if I still end up circling back to the same room?”

“Then you’re not looking for an exit. You’re just stalling.”

His mouth quirked, more wry than amused. “Maybe. Or maybe…” he leaned in slightly, just enough to shift the air between them. “Maybe some rooms are worth getting stuck in.”

Exasperation filled her face. “Mark.”

She said his name like a warning. Like a sigh. Like a bruise she didn’t want him pressing on, even if part of her didn’t mind the weight.

“I don’t…” she hesitated. Then met his gaze--really met it, like she was pleading with him to let it pass through his thick skull. “I don’t want to be the reason you get stuck… Please, just try.”

“Okay,” he said again. Not flippant. Not blindly hopeful. Just steady. Like he understood what she meant, even if he didn’t agree with all of it. “I’ll try.”

(Y/n) exhaled. Not dramatically. Just enough to loosen the breath she’d been holding since the moment got too close.

A beat passed. They sat there, two weapons forged too early in the fire, trying not to need things they couldn’t name.

Then she glanced at the clock. Five minutes had long since passed.

And yet--

She didn’t move.

Didn’t push away.

Didn’t reset.

Instead, she nodded toward the cup he’d been rotating this whole time.

“Drink that again,” she said, deadpan. “Let’s make sure you suffer enough to remember me in a bad light.”

Mark laughed--actually laughed this time. Not the awkward, teen-fumbles kind. The real kind. Like something in his chest loosened.

And when he lifted the cup again in mock salute, (Y/n) laughed with him--moreso at his immediate gag. Letting another five minutes slip through her clock.

--

<<next chp>>

<3 -> @jiyeons-closet @heiankyonoeiyuukun

[pancaketax]

What Remains | Chapter 18 The Hunt (Tony Stark x M! Reader)

TW : Detailed depictions of injuries and abuse. Mentions of past abuse Summary : Tony Stark becomes something beyond human , a machine driven by icy rage, relentless focus, and a singular goal: to find you. After receiving a horrifying call laced with sadistic cruelty and a scream he instantly recognizes as yours, Stark enters a sleepless, foodless, voiceless trance, transforming his office into a war room. Every screen, every algorithm, every ounce of technology is bent to his will in a digital manhunt for your location. When Jarvis finally locates a faint signal in an abandoned warehouse, Stark launches without hesitation, donning a specialized combat suit built for one purpose: ending this.

word count: 16.1k

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter Stark hasn’t closed his eyes. Not for a second. He hasn’t swallowed a bite, hasn’t taken a sip of water. He hasn’t moved from his desk since the exact moment that voice slithered into his ear, slick and jagged like a rusted blade. Since that obscene breath passed through the line, that whisper soaked in menace and sadistic delight. Since that scream that raw, flayed scream, human, far too human ripped from a throat he knows too well, just before silence fell, sharp as a guillotine. Something broke then. Not in him. No. Something froze.

He’s no longer a man, not really. Not in this suspended moment, where even time seems too afraid to move forward. He’s become engine. Mechanism. Open-heart alert system. His blood doesn’t circulate it pulses, furious, carried by a cold, methodical, almost clinical rage. He is anger, but an anger without shouting. An anger that thinks, that calculates, that watches, that waits. A storm contained in a steel cylinder, ready to explode, but for now channeling all its violence into the glacial logic of action.

In the office, the tension is almost tangible. The air feels charged, saturated with something indefinable a blend of ozone, electricity, and pure stress. Every surface vibrates slightly, as if the metal itself shared the heartbeat of its occupant. The silence isn’t soothing. It’s oppressive, built on thick layers of concentration, anticipation, restrained fury. Only mechanical sounds mark the space: the faint crackle of a screen refreshing, the nervous clicks of his fingers on holographic interfaces, the low vibrations of the servers in the adjoining room, humming at full capacity. Around him, a dozen screens stream data without pause. Some display ultra-precise satellite maps, sweeping over New York rooftops for any suspicious movement. Others track mobile signals, tracing the latest paths of every device even remotely connected to the target. Still others comb through databases, merge biometric information, detect faces, match voice prints. A thermal image of a building overlays a 3D city map. An audio feed scrolls at high speed, saturated with static. Nothing escapes analysis. Nothing is left to chance.

Stark is motionless, but every muscle in his body is tense. His back is hunched, elbows braced on the desk edge, fingers clenched around the projected interface hovering above the glass. His bloodshot eyes lock onto the central screen without blinking. His eyelids are heavy, but he doesn’t close them. He can’t. Not until the target is found. Not until the one he’s searching for is no longer missing. He won’t allow himself the luxury of weakness. He swore he’d never let anyone be hurt again. And he holds to his vows the way others hold to weapons. The blue glow of the monitors cuts across his face with surgical cruelty. Every shadow on his skin is a confession: fatigue, deep dark circles, drawn features, hollow cheekbones. But these marks don’t diminish him. They add a near-inhuman intensity to his gaze, a ruthless clarity. A will that, for now, eclipses even the most basic biological needs. He hasn’t slept, because he doesn’t have the right. He hasn’t eaten, because the thought hasn’t even occurred to him. His body is secondary. It’s nothing but a vessel for the mission.

He murmurs sometimes. Commands, codes, equations. He speaks to no one, but the AI responds instantly. Every word he utters is sharp, precise, guided by a logic untouched by panic. One name comes back again and again. A biometric file. A GPS identifier. Trackers. Coordinates. He’s no longer looking for a person — he’s hunting a fixed point in the storm. The center of a search and rescue system. And Stark is ready to flatten entire city blocks to bring that point back to him. When the internal alerts go off soft, discreet, almost polite signaling a drop in blood pressure, critical dehydration, or prolonged hypervigilance, he silences them with a flick of the hand. He shuts them off. Nothing exists outside this room, outside this moment. Outside this mission. The rage is there, but tamed, carved into a weapon.

Somewhere, he knows he’s crossing the line. That he’s nearing an invisible boundary. But he doesn’t care. He’s seen too many people die, too many names fade into archives. This time, he won’t be too late. So he keeps going. Relentlessly. He cross-references data, filters messages, follows leads. He digs, over and over, down to the bone. And behind him, the world can tremble all it wants. He’ll hold. Because he made a promise. Because this time, no one will disappear into the shadows without him tearing them out of the night.

His eyes never leave the screens. They’re locked in, anchored, consumed to the point of obsession. They devour every bit of information, every image, every pixel variation, as if he might uncover a hidden confession. Nothing escapes him. No movement, no data, no anomaly in the flow. His pupils, dilated from exhaustion, cling to the smallest detail, hunting a trace, a footprint, a breath left behind by the one he’s chasing without pause. He’s isolated search zones. Redrawn entire sections of the city. Compared every map of New York with thermal readings, overlaying layers like a surgeon operating through urban tissue. He’s overridden protections on multiple private networks without hesitation. Intercepted anonymous communications, analyzed movement patterns, recalibrated his internal software to tailor the algorithms to a single, solitary target. The tools he designed for international diplomacy, for global crisis response — he’s repurposed them now for a personal hunt. A cold war fought in the digital guts of the city.

And always, he comes back to that name. That shadow. That absence. Matthew. A ghost with no fingerprint, no signal, no flaw to exploit. But Stark refuses that idea. No. That kind of man doesn’t vanish. That kind of man always leaves traces — out of pride. Out of carelessness. Out of vanity. And if it means turning the city inside out, if it means digging down to reinforced concrete, to buried cables and the forgotten strata of the network — then so be it. He’s ready to search through the world’s marrow to find what remains. Cables snake across the floor, twisted like raw nerves, connected to makeshift terminals. Holograms hover in the air, pulsing with spectral, slow, almost organic light. The room, once functional and sterile, has lost its ordinary shape. This is no longer an office. It’s a clandestine command post. A digital war cell born out of urgency, powered by fear and brute will. On one wall, an unstable projection flickers: a gridded map of New York, each red zone corresponding to growing probabilities, invisible tension. Alternating, a partially reconstructed file plays pulled from a burner phone. The lines of code shimmer as if still resisting comprehension.

And at the center of it all, him. Motionless. A sculptor of chaos. He doesn’t move an inch, but his mind roars. He calculates, projects, anticipates at a speed even his most advanced AIs couldn’t match. He’s faster than the machines, because this time, it’s not for a global mission. It’s not to protect a council or a treaty. It’s not for peace. It’s personal. And nothing is more dangerous than a man like him when he’s acting for himself. His face is frozen. Carved from stone. No expression filters through. No emotion leaks out. He hasn’t spoken in hours. Not a word. His jaw is locked, clenched. His chin trembles sometimes under the pressure, but he doesn’t give in. His eyelids, heavy with fatigue, blink on autopilot but his gaze stays sharp, cutting. That look… it belongs to a man who’s already made up his mind. It’s no longer a question of if. It’s a matter of when, how, and how much time is left. And above all, of what will be left of the other man once he finds him. He is cold. Precise. Fatally focused. Each beat of his heart seems to align with the hum of the machines. He’s perfectly synchronized with his environment. A machine among machines. He’s become the system’s core. The cold, methodical intelligence of a silent hunt — carried out without rest, without sleep, without mercy.

The door slides open with a discreet, almost timid sigh. As if it, too, understood that this moment must not be disturbed. No sound dares to break the fragile balance of the room. Not here. Not now. Even the walls seem to hold their breath, petrified by the intensity that fills the space. The bluish light of the screens slices through the artificial darkness in shifting shards, casting sharp, vibrating shadows across Stark’s features — like carvings made by a blade. He doesn’t turn his head. He doesn’t need to look. He already knows. Nothing escapes him. His silence is a barrier, a verdict. He’s there. Frozen. Silent. Unshakable. And around him, the universe seems to understand that something has been set in motion. Something that can no longer be stopped.

Pepper enters without a word. The silence wraps around her instantly, like a heavy veil she doesn’t dare pierce. She says nothing — not yet. Everything about her is more subdued than usual, as if her body has attuned itself to the electric tension of the room. Her usual heels have been traded for flat shoes, chosen mechanically, without real thought. She knew when she got up this morning. No need to read the reports or check the alerts. She felt it, in every fiber of her being — this day would be different. Draining. Slow. Hard. And Tony, on days like this, is not a man to reason with. He becomes a wall. Steel. An unbreachable frontier. This isn’t a state crisis, not one of those media storms they’ve learned to face together, side by side, dressed to perfection with rehearsed smiles. No. This is something else. A silent war. Private. Intimate. And in that kind of war, Tony lets no one in. Almost no one.

In her hands, she holds two mugs. One is for her — a reflex gesture, more for the weight than the content, because she’ll set it down somewhere and forget it immediately. The other is for him. Strong coffee, black, unsweetened, scorching. Just how he likes it. She didn’t ask, didn’t guess. She knows. Because for years, she’s known his silences, his mood swings, his automatic habits. She knows the rare things that bring him a sliver of stability when everything is falling apart. She walks slowly. With that quiet elegance that is uniquely hers. Each step is precise, measured. She avoids the cables snaking across the floor like exposed veins. Dodges the hastily pushed chairs, the luminous angles of suspended holograms hanging in the air, slow and unstable like open wounds. Everything around her pulses, breathes, crackles. The smell of steaming coffee mixes with metallic fumes, with the warm emissions of overheating machines. A fleeting human note in this lair transformed into a war organ.

She approaches. Just a few feet from him now. The blue halo of the screens washes over her, casting cold, almost supernatural shards onto her skin. She still doesn’t say a word. Because she, too, senses what’s happening here. She reads silence like an ancient language. She knows that if she speaks too soon, too quickly, she could shatter everything — the balance, the tension, the fierce concentration holding him upright. Tony doesn’t even turn his head. He doesn’t need to. He knows it’s her. He saw, without really looking, her silhouette trembling on the standby screen, like a spectral apparition. He recognized her breath — controlled, steady, modulated by habit not to disrupt critical moments. He felt her presence the way you feel a warm current crossing a frozen room: discreet, but undeniable. She’s here.

But he doesn’t move. Not an inch. His fingers keep dancing over the interfaces, his eyes fixed on the data. His jaw remains locked, his posture rigid, unyielding. He doesn’t reject her presence. He accepts it without acknowledging it. She’s part of the setting, part of the very structure of this ongoing war. She is the silent anchor he’ll never ask for, but needs all the same. And she knows it. So she stays. Present. Still. Mug in hand. Waiting for him to speak — or to break. His fingers glide over the holographic interface with almost surgical precision. They graze the projected data blocks in the air, moving them, reorganizing, dissecting them as if trying to carve raw truths buried under layers of code, pixels, and silence. A building on 43rd Street. An unusual thermal signature spotted at 3:12 a.m. A encrypted phone line briefly located in South Brooklyn, before vanishing into a labyrinth of anonymous relays. He isolates. He cross-references. He sorts. He discards. He starts again. Every manipulation is an act of war. He develops a thousand hypotheses per minute, evaluates them, abandons them, replaces them. A thousand leads, a thousand fleeting micro-truths, vanishing as soon as he tries to fix them. And always, that voice in his head. That twisted, wet breath haunting him since the call. That scream — shrill, inhuman. That panic. And the silence that followed. The kind of silence only blood knows how to echo.

Pepper, still silent, watches. She hasn’t moved since entering. Her eyes shift from the screen to Tony’s face, then to his hands. She sees what he refuses to admit: his movements are less precise. They tremble sometimes. Nervous flickers, involuntary, imperceptible to others — but not to her. There’s that tiny jolt in his palm when two images overlap without matching. That subtle twitch of his fingers when the algorithm returns an empty result. That tension in his joints with every failure, every dead end. She takes a step forward. Slowly, silently. She places the mug at the edge of the desk, just within his field of vision. Not too close, not too far. She sets it where he could reach for it without thinking, by reflex, if some part of him still remembered how to drink something. If his lips still knew how to welcome anything other than orders. But deep down, she knows he probably won’t. Not now. Maybe not at all. She doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t interrupt. But her eyes never leave him. They linger on his neck, that taut, rigid line, almost painful. On his shoulders, hunched forward, drawn tight like bows ready to snap. She reads the exhaustion in the way his muscles clench, in how he holds his breath when results elude him, in that violent stubbornness that keeps him from stepping back — even for a second.

Then she speaks. Barely. Her voice is a whisper. A caress in a space saturated with tension. A suspended breath, respectful. As if she were speaking to a wounded animal, to a raw heart that a single harsh word might cause to shatter.

— "You should drink something."

No reproach. No judgment. Not even any real expectation. Just an invitation, soft, almost unreal in this room ruled by the cold light of screens and the hum of machines. A reminder, simple and human, that he still has a body. That he’s still a man. Not just an overheated mind, a burning brain, dissociated from everything else. She doesn’t expect a response. She doesn’t even want one. What she’s offering isn’t a solution. It’s a breath. An interlude. A hand offered at a distance, without conditions, in the eye of a cyclone she can’t stop — but refuses to abandon. Stark doesn’t answer. The silence remains, impenetrable. But she sees it. That blink. Singular. Slow. Almost lagging. Like a discreet malfunction in an otherwise perfect line of code. A micro-event, almost invisible but for her, it means everything. He heard her. He understood. Somewhere beneath the layers of adrenaline and frozen focus, her words registered. But he can’t stop. Not yet. Not while what he’s searching for remains out of reach.

She moves a little closer. Her steps are slow, calculated. The slightest movement could shatter the fragile equilibrium he maintains between lucidity and overload. She skirts the screens projecting a relentless flow of data, passes through the light beams of overlapping maps, walks through the holograms dissecting New York in real time: facades, sewer lines, rooftops, drone paths, shifting heat points. A fractured digital world, reconstructed for a single mission. And she, the only organic presence in this sanctuary of glass and light, walks forward until she’s beside him. Upright. Calm. Unshakable. She stands there, just a meter away. A silhouette in the bluish light. A presence. An anchor. Non-intrusive, but constant. And in that data-saturated silence, she looks at the screen in front of him. Blurry images flash by. Figures captured by an old security camera. Red dots blink in the darkness of a poorly mapped basement. Nothing conclusive. Nothing obvious. But she sees beyond that. She’s not looking at the screen. She’s looking at him.

She sees what he doesn’t show. What he himself struggles to ignore. That back, a bit more hunched than before. That hand clenched around the desk edge, knuckles white with tension. That breath, irregular, barely perceptible — but betraying an inner fight. That exhaustion, layered in invisible strata, like ash over an ember that refuses to die. He’ll never admit it. That’s not an option. But she knows. He’s burning out. Eroding. Slowly bleeding out everything that keeps him human. So she acts. Gently, but without hesitation. She reaches out. Picks up the mug left on the edge of the desk, still faintly steaming. And she moves it. Places it right in front of him. Where his gaze can’t avoid it. Where his fingers could reach it without thinking. A mundane gesture, almost insignificant. But heavy with meaning.

— "You need to stay sharp." Her voice is soft, but firm. It cuts through the thickness of the moment. "If he’s counting on you, he needs you at your best. Not collapsing."

He stays still for another second. Then, slowly, his gaze lifts. Like he’s returning from a far-off place, from a tension zone where the real world no longer reaches. He looks at her. Directly in the eyes. And she sees. She sees everything. The fatigue eating away at the edges. The redness at the corners of his eyes, signs of brutal sleeplessness. But most of all, that clarity. That burning precision still intact in the depths of his pupils. It’s a gaze that doesn’t waver. The gaze of a man broken a thousand times — but still standing. And in that gaze, she reads three things.

Fear. Raw. Visceral. The fear of not making it in time. Rage. Pure. Mechanical. The kind he holds back to avoid destroying everything.

And the promise. Absolute. Irrevocable.

— "I’m going to get him out."

No conditional. No wiggle room. He doesn’t say he’ll try. He doesn’t say if he’s still alive. He refuses to let those phrases exist. He leaves no space for doubt. Because doubt would be a crack. And if he cracks now, he collapses. She nods. Once. That’s all it takes. A silent agreement. A trust she offers him, without questions. Then she places a hand on his shoulder. Right there. A simple contact, but real. Solid. A light, firm pressure. Just enough for him to know he’s not alone. That she’s here. That she will remain here. Even if there’s nothing more she can do. An anchor in the chaos.

— "Then drink."

She adds nothing else. No need. Not now. And then she turns on her heel, leaving behind that room saturated with tension and blue light, walking away in silence, her steps barely audible on the hard floor. She slips away as she came — discreetly, with that silent dignity that’s hers alone. No unnecessary gesture. No look back. Just the quiet certainty that he heard her. That he understood. And that he’ll do what he must. A breath. A second. Then another. Stark remains still. His eyes still locked on the numbers, on the blurry images, on the shattered map of New York pulsing slowly before him. A suspended moment, almost frozen in code and light projections. And then, slowly, as if his body weighed a ton, his fingers stretch out. Slow. Almost hesitant. They brush the mug, grasp it. Raise it to his lips.

One sip. Scalding. Bitter. Perfect.

The taste, too strong, seizes his tongue, his throat, then burns its way down like a reminder. He closes his eyes for a second. Not out of pleasure. Out of necessity. Because that simple contact — the liquid, the heat, the sensation — reminds him that he still exists outside the war machine he’s become. And then, almost immediately, his eyes open again. Latch onto the screen. The map. The hunt. The engine restarts. But behind the invisible armor, behind the hard gaze and automated gestures, the man is still there. Just enough. For now. The mug, barely set down on the desk, hits the surface with a muffled clack. The sound, though minimal, seems to shake the atmosphere. Stark exhales. One of those irritated sighs that vibrate between clenched teeth, that fatigue turns into frustration, and frustration reshapes into buried anger. His fingers snap against the desk, nervously. Not a blow. Just a dry, rhythmic sound. Accumulated tension seeking an outlet, a culprit, a breaking point. Something to strike — or someone. But no one here is responsible. No one except him.

And then, it bursts out.

— "Fuck… why didn’t he activate it?"

The voice is low. But it slices the air like a blade. Sharp. Brittle. It doesn’t need to be loud to carry. It’s so charged with tension that it seems to vibrate in the walls. No explosive rage. No yelling. Just that clean line, that icy edge that says it all. It’s not a question. It’s an unbearable fact. A flaw in the plan. A betrayal of logic. He doesn’t need to clarify. The device, the gesture, the fear behind it all of it is obvious. In the hallway, Pepper has stopped. Without realizing it. As if her muscles responded to that voice before her mind did. She’s frozen. And she understands. She knows too. He’s talking about the device. That small, discreet piece, barely bigger than a coin, that he slipped into an anodized case with a falsely detached air. That neutral tone he adopts when the stakes are too high to admit. He presented it like a gadget. Just another safety.

A thing for emergencies. "Press and hold for three seconds" he said. Simple. Effective. And his location would be transmitted to the Tower in real time, with immediate triangulation and constant tracking. He insisted, without seeming to. Like a father too proud of a dangerous toy. Like a man who’s already lost everything once and won’t let chance roll the dice again. The kind of thing he doesn’t give to everyone. The kind of thing he only entrusts once. And even then. Under the pretense of humor. Veiled in sarcasm. And yet, you didn’t activate it. That thought gnaws at him. Consumes him. Because if it wasn’t forgetfulness, then it’s worse. Then maybe there wasn’t time. Or maybe he was afraid. Or maybe you thought it wouldn’t make a difference. And that Tony can’t accept.

Because the alternative… he can’t even imagine it. He built it in just a few hours. One sleepless night, a few curses, two black coffees, and a diagram sketched on a crumpled napkin. Because he was tired. Tired of not knowing. Tired of not being able to protect. Tired of seeing him wander through New York like a ghost without an anchor, sleeping in sketchy squats, living on the generosity of people as reliable as March weather. He was done with uncertainty, with instability. So he made something simple, small, efficient. A distress beacon. A miniature safeguard. Mostly to protect him from himself. He even tucked a secondary mic inside. Discreet, compressed in anodized metal layers. Inaudible to the human ear. Just a sensor, a passive ear, in case something went wrong. Because he knew it could go wrong. Because deep down, he felt that danger was never far. And now? Nothing. No signal. No vibration. No blinking light. No trace. The void. Nothingness. The shadow of a silence that screams. Abruptly, Stark spins in his chair. The movement is sharp, abrupt. His fingers slam down on the projected keyboard in the air, striking commands, executing code, calling internal logs. He pulls up the history. Checks for connection attempts. Scans the security logs, network access, secondary frequencies. No recording. No triggered signal. No distress call. The device was never activated.

— "It was right there." His voice is hoarse. Slow. Painfully contained. "Within reach. Three fucking seconds. And I could’ve…"

He cuts himself off. Right there. The breath caught. No anger. Not yet. It’s not rage. It’s vertigo. An inner fall. He sees the scene again. Precisely. In the hall, just days ago. He was holding the little device between his fingers, between two sarcastic lines. A detached, mocking tone, as always. Trying not to push too hard. Not to seem worried. He said it with a smirk, hands in his pockets: "Just in case. It beeps, it blinks, I show up. Easy."

And he remembers. That hesitation. The lowered gaze. That muttered thank you, without real conviction. As if it didn’t really concern him. As if he didn’t believe it. As if he was afraid to disturb and didn’t think he was worth coming for. Stark clenches his teeth. Bitterness sticks in his throat.

— "He didn’t get it, did he?"

The question escapes. Not aimed at anyone. Not really. He’s speaking to the void, the desk, the walls. To himself. To the echo in his head.

— "He thinks it only works for others." His voice tightens. Fractures. "That no one comes for him. That he has to wait for it to get worse. That he has to nearly die to justify help."

His fingers slap a screen with the back of his hand. A furious swipe. The images vanish in a spray of light.

— "Shit. Shit."

He gets up. Too abruptly. His chair rolls back. He paces, circles, like a caged beast. A shadow of armor without the armor. He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it without thinking. His gestures are nervous, disordered. He teeters between genius logic and raw emotion.

— "I had him in my pocket," he breathes. "I could’ve found him in under two minutes."

His fist hits the back of the chair. A dry strike. Not brutal. But deep. A dull echo that lingers in the air.

— "But no. He keeps it on him like a fucking keychain. A symbolic thing. A gadget he doesn’t want to use. Because he doesn’t want to be a bother. Because he doesn’t want to raise the alarm."

He suddenly freezes. His breath halts. He stares at the floor as if seeking an answer no data can provide. The silence stretches. Then, in an almost inaudible murmur, rougher, more bitter:

— "He’s convinced no one’s coming."

And that thought. That simple idea. It destroys him from the inside. He closes his eyes. Clenches his fists so tightly his knuckles turn white. He fights. To hold back what rises. He won’t say he’s afraid. He won’t say he’s in pain. That he blames himself until it eats him alive. No. He won’t say it. So he turns back. Resumes his place. His fingers return to the controls. His gaze locks onto the screens. The maps. The fragmented data. What he still has. What he can still control. Because if he can’t turn back time… then he’ll find a way to catch up. No matter the cost. And he mutters under his breath:

— "I’m going to find him. Device or not."

Then he types. Not to write. Not to command. He types like someone striking. As if his fingers could punch through matter, bend the universe, shatter the whole world through the silent keys of a holographic keyboard. Every keystroke is a discharge. A sharp hit. A blow aimed at that invisible wall he can’t break through. A fight of data against the void, of will against absence. He types with an urgency that allows no delay, no hesitation. As if life, somewhere, depended on it.

Because it is.

And in the meantime, silence remains. Insidious. Heavy. The tenacious shadow of the action that never happened. The one that would have been enough. Three seconds. A press of the thumb. And he would have known. He would have moved. He would have run. He would have acted. He would have been there. But no. That absence, Stark feels it lodged in his throat, like acid he can’t swallow. It rises, clings, radiates. It stays, constant, until he brings him back. Until he has proof tangible, irrefutable that it’s still possible. That he’s still alive. The minutes pass. Like blades. Sharp. Precise. Unforgiving.

They cut into his focus, erode his patience, chip away at his certainty. Every second is a brutal reminder that time is passing. And this time, time isn’t an ally. He feels it slipping over his skin like a cold blade that can’t be stopped. But he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t blink. The office is bathed in semi-darkness. The blinds are down, the outside light filtered, as if daylight itself no longer had the right to enter. Only the screens cast their bluish glow on the walls, on the cables, on the opaque glass. And on him. That cold, spectral light slices across his closed-off face in sharp angles. Hollowed cheekbones. Brow etched with tension lines. Lips tight. He looks carved from quartz. Cold. Hard. Unyielding.

His eyes, fixed, barely blink. They follow lines of code, coordinates, overlaid maps, signal analyses, with inhuman precision. His stare is locked. Obsessed. He doesn’t falter. He scans. He waits. His fingers still move. Barely. With mechanical regularity. An almost hypnotic rhythm. They glide over holographic interfaces, brush through data windows, launch diagnostics, cross-reference streams. There’s no hesitation anymore, no improvisation. Only a logical sequence. An algorithm embodied in a man who refuses to give up. He doesn’t speak. Hasn’t for a while. He doesn’t even think — not in the usual sense. Human thoughts, full of doubts, memories, emotions, have been pushed to the background. He leaves space only for function. He calculates. He maps. He eliminates. He acts. Because that’s all he can do. And because as long as he acts, as long as he moves, as long as he searches, he’s not imagining the worst. And the countdown continues — silent, relentless. Invisible but omnipresent, it eats at his nerves like a tourniquet pulled too tight. A constant, dull pressure. There’s no number on the screen, no red blinking timer, but he feels it. In every heartbeat. In every passing minute, every interface click, every breath that’s too short, too sharp. He feels it under his skin like slow-diffusing poison.

Twenty-four hours.

That was the deadline. The ultimatum. Spat in his face with disgusting insolence, with the kind of sneering arrogance Stark knows too well. A provocation. A signature. A trap — not even hidden. A price laid out in black and white. The kind of message sent when you’re sure you have the upper hand. But it wasn’t the money that kept him awake all night. Not the numbered threat. Not the offshore account, not the conditions. That, he could have handled. Bought peace. Hacked the system. Turned the trap back on its maker. That’s not what stopped him from blinking, that jammed his throat, that retracted his muscles like a shock. It’s something else. It’s the image. Frozen. Unstable. Blurry. But recognizable. It’s the sound. That breath. That scream. Distorted by distance. By network static. But raw. Human. Ripped out. So real that even now, he still hears it. He could replay it in his head a hundred times, a thousand. He knows it by heart. The tone, the break in the voice, the burst of brutal panic just before everything was swallowed by silence.

That fucking silence. That’s what’s destroying him. What eats at him. What stops him from breathing normally. The silence afterward. The absolute nothing. That break that said everything, summed everything up. That screamed at him what he failed to hear in time. What he should have seen coming. That silence — Stark will never forgive it. Not the other. Not himself. Then suddenly, a voice slices through the air. Soft. Controlled. Synthetic. Like a strand of silk stretched to the limit, about to snap — but still holding.

— “Mr. Stark.”

He doesn’t even turn his head. He’d recognize that voice among a thousand. It’s been there forever — in his ear, in his walls, in his head. An extension of himself.

— “I’m listening, Jarvis.”

— “I believe I’ve found something.”

A shiver. Cold. Brutal. It shoots up his spine like an electric surge. For one heartbeat, his heart forgets to beat. Then everything reactivates all at once. Adrenaline. Tension. Hypervigilance.

— “Talk.”

Instantly, one of the main screens expands. The map of the city appears — familiar and vast — then begins a slow zoom. Details sharpen. Colors darken. The center pulls back. The frame shifts. Outskirts. Sparse buildings. Wasteland. Finally, a precise point. An abandoned industrial zone. Gray. Timeworn. Forgotten by the world. Drowned in abandonment fog. Where no one looks anymore. Where things are hidden when no one wants them found. Coordinates blink at the bottom of the screen. Precise. Cold. Real.

— “A minimal network activity was detected,” Jarvis continues. “Almost nothing. A very weak signal — just a few microseconds of connection — but enough to leave a trace. It was a disposable phone.”

Stark steps forward. He’s drawn to the map like it’s magnetic. His eyes latch onto the screen, fix on it, hold. He sees beyond the image. Through the ruined facades, under the layers of metal and dust. He wants to believe he can see what’s hidden there. That something is waiting.

— “Can you confirm?”

— “The model’s signature matches what we detected during the call. It briefly connected to a secondary relay antenna nearby. It might’ve gone unnoticed, but—”

He’s no longer listening. Or rather, he hears everything. He registers it all, but his mind is already elsewhere. Locked in. Compressed around a single fact. A single certainty. His thoughts tighten, converge on a single point. A red dot. Blinking. Clear. An abandoned warehouse. No activity for over ten years. No cameras. No patrols. No recorded movement. Nothing. The kind of place you choose when you don’t want to be found. The kind of place where secrets are buried. Or people. And then, a single thought imposes itself. Emerges from the chaos like a brutal flash of truth. A certainty branded into his mind like a red-hot iron.

You’re there.

Not maybe. Not probably. Not possibly. You’re there. His fist clenches. Slowly. Each finger curling until the knuckles turn white. He closes his eyes. One second. One breath. One anchor. Then opens them again. And in his gaze, there’s no more doubt. No more fear. No more wandering emotion. Just steel. Just fire. Just the mission.

— “Prepare everything. Now.”

And in that exact moment, the whole world narrows. There’s no more sound. No more fatigue. No more failure. Only this. A straight line. A single target. A burning urgency. To get you out. Pepper is there. Just behind him. Motionless. Straight as a blade. Her arms crossed tightly against her, in a posture that might seem cold to someone who doesn’t know her. But it’s not distance. It’s a barrier. A dam. A desperate attempt to hold back what she feels rising.

The pale glow of the screens casts his shadow on the floor, long and sharp, like a silent specter frozen in anticipation. Around them, the room is bathed in incomplete darkness, pierced only by the soft flickering blue halos on the glass surfaces — witnesses to this sleepless night that stretches on and on.

His face, usually so mobile, so expressive — the face that knows how to smile even during the worst press conferences, that can reassure with a single look — is now closed. Frozen. Like carved in marble. His jaw slightly clenched. His brows drawn in a barely perceptible but unyielding tension. But what betrays it all are his eyes. A gleam, contained. A discreet fire. Both anxious and annoyed. A light that flickers between anguish and a barely concealed anger.

She watches him. In silence. Lips tight. Shoulders tense. And she knows. She knows exactly what’s going on in his head. She knows the gears, the silences, the calculated movements. She recognizes this posture. This calm. This false calm. This almost elegant stillness that always comes just before impact. She’s seen it once. Maybe twice, in her entire life. And each time, something broke afterward. A wall. A promise. Someone. So she speaks. Not to convince him. But to try and hold him back for just one more moment at the edge of the abyss.

— “You should wait for the police, Tony.”

Her voice is calm. Measured. Perfectly composed. But it cuts through the air like a blade honed too well. It slices without shouting, without striking. It hits the mark. He doesn’t respond. Not right away. He moves. Slowly at first, then with dreadful precision. He reaches for the back of his chair, pulls his leather jacket from it — the one he wears when everything becomes too real, too dangerous, too personal. He puts it on in one sharp, fast motion. Automatic. Without even thinking. Everything is rehearsed. His movements are crisp, stripped of any hesitation. He’s no longer reflecting. He’s in motion.

One hand slides into the side drawer of his desk. The metal barely creaks. He pulls out a small object, barely bigger than a watch case. Smooth. Chrome. Discreet. He inspects it for a fraction of a second, spins it between his fingers, gauges it. His gaze clings to it, focused, as if making sure it’s the right one. Then he slips it into the inner pocket of his jacket. A tracker. A prototype. Maybe both. Maybe something else. When Tony Stark leaves like this, he never leaves empty-handed. And in the suspended tension of the room, in that moment when every gesture weighs like a decision, Pepper feels her heart pound harder. Because she knows, once again, he won’t change his mind. Not this time.

Without a word. He crosses the room like someone going to war. No haste, no visible tension. Just a methodical, silent advance, heavy with intention. Each step echoes faintly on the floor, absorbed by the cold light of the still-lit screens, by the walls saturated with nervous electricity. He heads toward the elevator, straight, relentless, like a guided missile.

— “Tony.”

This time, her voice cuts through the space. Louder. Sharper. She’s dropped the polite calm. There’s urgency in that word, a crack, something tense, fragile. Pepper steps forward, rounds the table. It’s not a command. It’s not a plea either. It’s a disguised entreaty, cloaked in reason, offered as a last attempt to connect. She’s searching for a crack. A hold. Any one. Not to stop him — she’s never held that illusion — but to slow the momentum. To crack the armor. To make him think. Just one more second.

— “This is exactly what he wants. For you to charge in headfirst. For him to have control.”

He stops. His body freezes all at once, mid-distance from the elevator whose open doors wait, patient, like the jaws of a steel beast. Slowly, he turns toward her. Not violently. Not with irritation. But with that icy precision that, in him, equals all the angers in the world. He looks at her. And his gaze is black. Not empty. Not crazed. No. It’s a sharp gaze. Cutting. Shaped like a glass blade, able to slice cleanly without ever shaking. He stares at her, without flinching, without softening the impact. His shoulders slightly raised, chin lowered, neck taut. A compact, tense posture. Not defensive. Not exactly. More like a predator’s. The eyes of a man who sees no alternate paths. Only the target.

— “You think he has control?”

His voice is low. Deep. Vibrating with that particular intensity he only uses in very rare moments — when everything tips, when what remains inside compresses until it becomes unstoppable. Every word is controlled. Measured. Almost calmly delivered. But in their precision, there’s something unsettling. A promise. A fracture forming. Silence falls behind that phrase. Suddenly. A thick silence. Charged. Almost unbreathable. It lasts only a few seconds, but they seem to stretch time. The elevator still waits behind him. The slightly open doors pulse softly, as if they sensed the suspended moment. Then he adds, without raising his voice, without looking away:

— “He made the biggest mistake of his life taking him.”

And it’s not a threat. It’s not provocation. It’s a verdict. A raw, cold truth carved in marble. It’s a fact. And it’s far worse than a scream. Then he turns away. One last time. And he steps into the elevator. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t leave a phrase hanging. Doesn’t try to reassure. He disappears into the steel maw, and the doors close on him with a quiet hiss. Pepper remains there. Upright. Frozen. Her arms cross a little tighter, as if to hold back something threatening to collapse. The screen lights continue to flicker over her unmoving features, but they’re not what illuminates her. It’s intuition. Instinct. The one that whispers what she already knows deep down, what she’s felt from the beginning. Something is going to explode. And this time, she’s not sure anyone will come out unscathed.

The metallic floor barely vibrates beneath his steps. Just a discreet, restrained resonance, almost respectful. But in the frozen silence of the hangar, each echo seems to strike the air like a muffled detonation. Every step is a warning. A countdown. A declaration of war. The space is vast. Immense. A cathedral of technology bathed in cold, clinical, almost surgical light. The walls, made of reinforced glass and brushed steel, reflect sharp, precise flashes, slicing his shadow with every movement. Nothing here is decorative. Everything is functional. Calibrated. Optimized. Ready to serve. Ready to open, to strike, to launch. Ready to close behind him, too.

Tony moves with slow, controlled steps. Nothing rushed. He’s not running. He’s not hurrying. He knows exactly where he’s going. Every stride is calculated. Controlled. His gaze is fixed straight ahead, unwavering. No detours. No curiosity. His body is tense, but steady. Focused. There is no room left for doubt. At the center of the hangar, the launch platform awaits him. A circle of polished steel, inlaid with white LEDs pulsing gently, slowly, like a heart in standby. The light follows a steady, hypnotic rhythm, as if the structure itself were breathing. It sleeps. But it's ready to awaken at the slightest command. Around him, holographic showcases come to life at his approach. Sensors recognize his presence. Interfaces open by themselves. Images appear, fluid, clear. Silhouettes rise in bluish light, floating like specters of war.

His suits. The most recent. The strongest. The fastest. Masterpieces of power and precision, lined up in military silence. No words. No announcements. They stand there, frozen, waiting, like a metallic honor guard ready to activate at the slightest signal. Majestic. Relentless. Inhuman. They are beautiful in their coldness. Intimidating. Perfect. But he doesn't look at any of them. Not a single glance. Not a hint of hesitation. He passes through them like one walks through a memory too familiar to still fascinate. The suit doesn’t matter. Not this time. He isn’t here for spectacle, or showy power. He doesn’t want to impress, or buy time. He wants only one thing.

Efficiency. Extraction. The end.

His steps remain steady. His silhouette moves alone among the giants of metal. And in his wake, the air seems to vibrate with low tension, restrained anger, pain too vast to be named. The soldier is on the move. And what he’s about to do now… he’ll do it without flinching. His gaze is fixed. Frozen. With an almost inhuman intensity. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t deviate. He aims. His attention is a taut line between two points: himself, and the target. It’s not anger you see in his eyes. That would be too simple. Too mundane. No — it’s worse. It’s frozen resolve. A sharp calm like a scalpel's edge. Clinical determination, purged of raw emotion, as if every feeling had been distilled, compressed into a single objective: locate, neutralize, retrieve. At all costs.

The suit he’s come for… it’s not the one from interviews. Not the one for demos. Not the one that dazzles crowds or makes headlines. This one, he only brings out when someone has to fall. No flash. No light. No declaration. With a sharp gesture, he activates the control interface embedded in the platform. The floor lights intensify, blink once, then a metal ring slowly rises from the ground, encircling him with solemn gravity. Everything remains silent. Nothing overreacts. Everything is perfectly calibrated. Robotic arms unfold around him, in a mechanical choreography of military precision. They don’t tremble. They don’t hesitate. They take position, ready to interlock, to serve, to build the weapon.

— "Omega configuration."

His voice snaps. Dry. Dense. Like a hammer strike on glass. And instantly, the machines comply. Without delay. Without flaw. The first pieces of the suit lock around his legs, securing his joints, enclosing his muscles in layers of reinforced alloy. The boots anchor to his feet with a soft hiss, each plate sliding into place with a perfectly tuned metallic click. Then the chest modules rise, locking over his ribcage. The red and gold lines slowly take shape, forming a symmetrical, ruthless architecture. Nothing is superfluous. Everything is there to protect, to absorb, to strike. The metal climbs along his arms, embeds into his shoulders, clamps onto his back. A vengeful exoskeleton. A body of war. Every movement is fluid, exact. The machine knows his rhythm. It knows his silence. It recognizes this moment when Tony Stark is no longer joking. He lowers his head slightly. The helmet drops with a magnetic hiss. It seals with a muffled chhhk. Instantly, his vision turns red. The interface lights up. Sensors activate. Data streams appear. Code scrolls. Maps. Thermal signals. Local comms networks. Building schematics. Ballistic paths.

He’s inside. He’s ready.

— "J.A.R.V.I.S., send the flight plan."

— "Coordinates locked. Route optimized. Risks assessed."

A moment. Just one. A tenuous silence. Like a held breath. Then Jarvis’s voice, lower, almost hesitant. A soft note. A nearly human tone, as if trying to reach through the metal to something deeper.

— "Tony… you don’t have to do this alone."

Not a tactical suggestion. Not a precaution. An offering. An outstretched hand. But Tony doesn’t respond. Not yet. One beat. Just a suspended moment between question and answer. But it won’t come. Because he’s not. Not alone. Not really. It’s not solitude that lives inside him. It’s worse. It’s that weight, hanging on his chest like an anvil: responsibility. He feels responsible. And that kind of responsibility can’t be delegated. Can’t be shared. It must be borne. Endured. To the end. He’s not doing this because he’s alone. He’s doing it because he’s the one who must. Because he was there when it happened. Because he should have seen, understood, foreseen. And because he will never forgive himself if he arrives too late.

A metallic breath escapes his shoulders. Light, but precise. The thrusters arm with a restrained growl. Internal turbines hum softly, like a beast holding back its power before leaping. The entire platform tenses. A low vibration rises under his feet, echoing the energy condensed beneath his heels. The lights turn orange. The floor opens. Slowly. In segments. Like a mechanical wound revealing the hangar’s nuclear heart. The air grows denser. Warmer. Electrified. Stark bends his knees. His muscles instinctively adjust for the imminent thrust. And then, without hesitation, without countdown, without another word…

He lifts off the ground.

With a piercing roar, the suit tears through the air. Flames burst from his heels, searing the platform, and Tony’s body becomes a comet of metal and fire shooting through the open ceiling, soaring at blinding speed into the already paling night. The hunt has begun.

The sky races around him. A continuous stream, distorted by speed, slashed by incandescent trails. Every inch of the armor vibrates under the strain, every thruster hums with surgical precision. The wind slams into him, compressed, transformed into pure force that only the flight algorithms manage to contain. The city stretches out below. Gigantic. Vast. Insignificant. Skyscrapers blur past like mirages. Rooftops, streets, glowing points of light — all turn into abstraction. But he sees nothing. Not the glowing windows, not the crowded avenues, not the numbers blinking across his heads-up display. Not even the overlaid messages, trajectory readings, or secondary alerts. He sees only one red dot. One destination. One objective. And nothing else exists.

He thinks only of you.

Of your body, twisted under the blows. Of your features, contorted by pain. Of your breath, ragged, torn, like each inhale is a battle against agony. Of your face, bruised, sullied, pressed against a floor too cold, too dirty, too real. He sees the blood, the unnatural angle of your shoulder, the fear diluted in your half-closed eyes. He sees everything. Even what you tried to hide. He still hears that fucking scream. The one he never should’ve heard. The one he should’ve prevented, before it ever existed. A scream you can’t fake. A scream torn from you, raw, visceral. He heard it through the phone, compressed, muffled by your breath, crushed by the violence of the moment. But despite the static, despite the distance, he felt it. Like a blade to the heart. Like a shockwave that didn’t just hit him. It went straight through him.

And in his mind, that sound loops. Again. And again. And again. Louder than any explosion. More violent than a collapsing building. It’s not a memory. It’s a living burn. An active wound. He sees it all again. Every second. Every word. Every tone. That bastard’s voice.

Matthew.

Every syllable spat like poison. Every word sculpted to wound. To provoke. To leave a mark. Not on you — on him. It was all planned. Orchestrated. A performance. A slow, cold, painfully precise execution. Meant for one person: Tony Stark. To hit him. To show him how badly he failed. To push where it hurts most.

And it worked. Fuck, it worked.

He still feels how his throat closed. The exact moment his heart skipped a beat. The absolute void that swallowed him when he realized he was too late to stop it but maybe not too late to save you. That instant shift, when all logic shattered, replaced by one certainty. He will pay. Not for the humiliation. Not for the provocation. But for putting you in that state. For daring to lay a hand on you. And Stark, now, isn’t flying toward a hideout. He’s flying toward an execution. His heart is pounding too hard. It no longer syncs with the armor’s rhythm. It hammers against his ribcage like a primal reminder that, beneath all the metal, despite all the tech, he is still a body. A man. And that body is boiling. His fingers tighten inside the gauntlets. The joints, calibrated down to the micrometer, creak under the pressure. He clenches. Too hard. Pointlessly. As if the pain might return control to him. As if he’s clinging to the sensation of something real. The internal temperature climbs a notch. A brief alert flashes, notified by a beep that Jarvis cancels instantly. He knows. Even the tech feels that something is cracking. That the tension line has reached a critical threshold. The tactile sync grows more nervous, less fluid. Not from failure — from resonance. As if the suit itself were reacting to the rage boiling beneath the metal. As if it knew he’s on the verge of detonating.

But he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t speak. He breathes. And he moves forward. Because rage — real rage the kind that doesn’t erupt but eats you alive, the kind that carves deep and anchors in silence, isn’t fire. It’s ice. A blade. A metallic tension that sharpens second by second. This is no longer about ransom. This is no longer an intervention. It’s not even a mission anymore. It’s personal. Because you… you’re not just some kid he hired. You’re not an intern, not a checkbox on some HR dashboard. You’re not a casting mistake he corrected in passing. You’re not one more name on a list of talent. You’re not a recruit. You’re that lost kid who showed up one morning with bags heavier than your shoulders, a voice too quiet, gestures too small. The one who looked at screens like they mattered more than the world. The one who barely spoke, but worked until you shook. Until you collapsed. Without ever complaining. Without ever asking for help. The one who clung to the work like it was the surface of a frozen lake. Just to keep from drowning. And that’s where it started.

Tony doesn’t know exactly when. When it slipped. When he stopped seeing you as an employee and started caring differently. Started checking if you’d eaten. Turning concern into jokes — but counting the times you said "not hungry." Setting rules. Break times. Making sure you got home. That you slept. That you didn’t vanish into the blind spots. Getting used to hearing you mutter when he worked too late. Paying attention. And now, he realizes it too late. This thing, this invisible thread, clumsy, imperfect, but real… it’s there. Damn it, it’s there. And now, you’re gone. And he’s going to cross fire, smash through every wall, burn everything down to find you. Because nothing else matters now. And that’s what’s eating him alive. Not guilt. Not passing doubt. No a slow burn, rooted deep in his chest. A slow poison, distilled with every heartbeat. Because that little idiot… you had a device. A fucking distress device. Not just any gadget. Not a toy.

A device he designed. Refined. Gave to you. Built in haste, but with care. Meant for this. To stop this. To block the worst. So he’d never have to hear screams like that. So he could get there before the blood spilled. And you didn’t even use it. Not a press. Not a signal. Nothing. You took it all. To the end. In silence. Like always. And that’s what drives him mad. The silence. That fucking habit of suffering quietly. As if it doesn’t count. As if your pain isn’t valid. As if your life isn’t worth protecting. As if pressing a button to ask for help… was already asking too much. As if he wouldn’t have come.

And now? Now you’re in the hands of a madman. A psycho acting out of vengeance, control, power hunger. A man with no limits, no brakes, who already crossed every line. Tony saw it. Heard it. He knows. Tortured. Broken. Gasping. The images come uninvited. Your face. Your features twisted in pain. That ragged breath, barely audible. The weight of your body giving out. The hard floor under your cheek. Blood seeping from a wound he can only imagine. And that look, more felt than seen, somewhere between fear and resignation.

Tony clenches his jaw. So hard his teeth slam together inside the helmet. The sound is dull, amplified by the metal echo. It vibrates through his temples. A muffled detonation ringing through his skull. He wants to scream. To hit something. To do anything. But he stays focused. Rage can’t come out. It’s compact. Controlled. Targeted.

The worst part? He still hears you. That murmur. Between gasps. That muffled breath, fragile, but so distinct. That tone. That voice he knows now. He recognized it instantly. There was no doubt. No room for illusion. He could’ve denied it. Lied to himself. Said it was a mistake. A coincidence. But no. He knew. He knew immediately. And from that moment, something inside him snapped. Not dramatically. No collapse. A clean fracture. Like an overtightened mechanism breaking in silence. Because now, it’s too late to argue. Too late to reason. Too late to call the cops. Too late for rules, procedures, delays.

Matthew is already dead. He doesn’t know it yet. He still breathes. Still thinks he’s in control. Thinks he’s running the show. But he’s not. He’s already finished. Erased. Condemned. Because Tony Stark heard that scream. And that scream changed everything. That scream signed Matthew’s death warrant. And he’s going to make him pay. Inch by inch. Breath by breath. Until he gets you back. Or burns the world down to drag you out of the dark.

When the Iron Man suit finally lands, it’s as if the whole world holds its breath.

A metallic breath explodes beneath the impact, followed by a dull rumble that cracks the already fractured concrete of the ground. The shock ripples through the foundations of the old industrial district, awakening the ghosts of rusted machines, worn-out beams, and gutted walls. Dust immediately rises in thick, greasy, lazy swirls, dancing around him for a moment before slowly settling, as if even it knows not to linger here. The air is saturated. Heavy. It reeks of rust, moldy wood, and decay embedded in the walls. It reeks of abandonment. And worse: expectation. The congealed oil on obsolete pipes reflects faint black gleams, almost organic, like fossilized blood. The ground creaks under his boots. All around him, the environment seems frozen. Trapped in a time that forgot how to die.

Icy wind rushes between the metal structures, howling through broken beams, whistling past shattered windows. It carries the cold of a soulless place — emptied, but not deserted. Not entirely. Around him is nothingness. A heavy, oppressive void. No sound, no light. Nothing lives here. Nothing breathes. Not even a rat. Not even a shadow. As if the rest of the world had the decency to look away. As if even the city itself knew that what was going to happen here… should not be seen. And in that thick silence, saturated with contained electricity, Tony remains still. His body in the suit doesn’t tremble. But everything in him is ready to strike. The HUD displays thermal readings, sound scans, parasitic electromagnetic signatures. Traces. Remnants. Leads.

He ignores them. He doesn’t need confirmation. He looks up. There. Right in front of him. The building. A block of blackened concrete, eaten away by time. It rises before him like a vertical coffin, planted in the ground. Its windows are empty sockets. Its crumbling walls seep with moisture and menace. It’s a carcass. A gaping maw. A lair. The kind of place where people are held. Erased. Buried. And deep inside, somewhere in there, he knows. You’re there. And Tony Stark came to get you.

The windows are shattered, slashed like screaming mouths frozen mid-silent howl. Shards of glass still dangle from some frames, claws of dead light ready to cut. The gutted openings let in a freezing wind that rustles the remains of forgotten curtains, faded, trembling like surrender flags. The concrete holds together only by habit. Cracked, eroded by seasons, cold, rain, and grime. By time. By indifference. Parts of the facade have collapsed in whole sheets, revealing the interior like a raw wound. Rusted beams jut from the gaping holes, still supporting broken, twisted staircases whose steps are gnawed by corrosion. A withered metal skeleton groaning under its own weight.

The scene is saturated with signs of dead life. Hastily scrawled graffiti, some grotesque, some terrifying, scream from the walls like echoes left by shadows. Split-open bags. Scattered trash. Abandoned syringes. A broken stroller, overturned. An old moldy couch under a porch. Traces of human passage, old, sad. But nothing lives here anymore. Everything reeks of neglect. Of misery. And something worse still: violence. That scent doesn’t lie. It seeps everywhere, even into the walls. A stagnant, invisible tension, but palpable. As if the very air had absorbed a memory too painful to vanish. An echo of blows. Of screams. Of fear.

Inside, it’s swallowed in thick, grimy darkness. No light. Just the blackness, mingled with dust, rot, and silence. But he doesn’t need light. Doesn’t need to see. His scanner activates instantly. The interface opens in a silent click, layering across his HUD. Schematics align, partial blueprints of the building take shape in 3D. Partial plans, modeled reconstructions from thermal scans, wave sweeps, mass detection. Heat sources appear. Faint. Distant. Unstable. And then, deep in that rusted steel maze, cracked concrete, and rotten silence… a thermal signature. Human. Residual. Nearly gone. A blurred point, nestled in a windowless room, behind thick walls. A trace. A breath.

Tony clenches his fists.

The sound is minimal. A quiet metallic creak, but full of tension. The gauntlets respond to the pressure, contouring his restrained rage, absorbing the shock. He doesn’t need confirmation. Doesn’t need to see more. Doesn’t need to wait. He knows. His instinct — that damn sixth sense he spent years mocking — screams through his body. It’s here. This rat hole he chose. This rotten theater for a filthy ransom. This stage for torture. A place not built to hold… but to break. To terrify. To harm. A bad choice. Tony approaches.

One step. Slow. Calculated. Methodical. Every movement is measured. The suit follows without fail, amplifies his stride, makes the ground tremble with each impact. Metal boots pound cracked concrete like war drums. A warning. A sentence. He doesn’t run. He doesn’t need to. Matthew’s time is already counted. His sensors scan blind spots. He identifies exits, access points, high ground. He’s already plotting firing lines, breach paths, fallback routes. He thinks like a weapon. Like a strike. Because he’s no longer just an angry man. He’s become a projectile. A terminal solution. A promise kept too late. And inside… someone is about to learn what it costs. To lay a hand on you.

He pushes the door with a sharp, decisive gesture. The metallic impact creates a brutal clang, and the battered frame wails in a piercing screech. The sound is long, grotesque, almost human. It slices the air like a cry ripped from a bottomless throat, the shriek of a grave forced open, or a coffin pried too late. The metal scrapes, shrieks, protests — but obeys. Before him, the hallway stretches. Long. Narrow. Strangled between two walls dripping with damp. The air is dense, fetid, soaked with stagnant water and ancient mold. A cold breath seeps from the walls, icy and clinging, sneaking into the suit’s seams as if to slow him, to warn him.

The walls are alive. Not with organisms, but rot. Dark mold clings to them, spreading in irregular patterns like necrotic veins. It crawls across the concrete, invades corners, slips into cracks. In places, the plaster has given way, reduced to gray dust. Beneath, twisted, rusted rebar protrudes — like broken bones, as if the building itself had been tortured, split open. A single bulb hangs from the ceiling, bare. Dirty. Its globe yellowed by time, its sickly light flickers intermittently. Suspended from a wire too long, too thin, it dances with every draft like a rope ready to snap. It blinks. Once. Twice. The yellow halo it casts wavers, bleeding against the walls. The shadows it throws stretch, distort, crawl along the ground. Shapes too long, too fluid, as if the walls themselves breathed beneath the dying light.

Tony doesn’t slow.

He doesn’t hesitate. His stride remains straight, steady, heavy. Each step echoes off the floor, amplified by the armor’s metal. Debris cracks underfoot: broken glass, plaster fragments, splinters of forgotten furniture. Every sound ricochets in the narrow hallway, trapped between the walls like a muffled volley of gunfire. But he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look around. He advances. Like a metronome. His eyes never leave the end of the hall, even as everything around seems to want to swallow him, smother him. He sees the corners, the ajar doors, the stains on the floor, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t deviate. He walks this hall like a trial. A purgatory. He knows hell waits ahead. He feels it.

And he’s ready to tear it open with his bare hands. Each step is a countdown. Each breath, a burning fuse. Each heartbeat in his chest, a war drum. He knows what he’ll find. Maybe not the details. Maybe not the form. But the essence. He knows the scent of blood is there, somewhere. That fear has left its trace. That pain has seeped into the walls. And he knows that you… you’re at the end. You’re there, in the dark, at the end of this sick corridor. Maybe unconscious. Maybe barely alive. But you’re there. And that’s enough. Because even if the entire world has to burn for him to find you,

Stark walks down that hall like a blade sliding into a wound. Slowly. Silently. Without flash, without unnecessary sound. He doesn’t strike. He infiltrates. He dissects. Every step is measured, controlled, charged with clinical precision. The weight of his body, perfectly distributed, flows with the suit’s supports. His boots barely graze the floor, but even that friction seems to vibrate through the air, taut with tension. Tension is everywhere. In his muscles, locked beneath the metal. In his jaw, clenched to the point of pain. In his nerves, on maximum alert. He’s taut as a bowstring. Like a weapon whose safety was disengaged long ago. Even his breathing is suspended. He hardly breathes. He’s sunk into a slowed rhythm, between apnea and absolute focus.

Then the smell hits him. Not softly. Not in waves. Brutally. A wall. An invisible punch to the chest. Heavy. Thick. A metallic stench clings to his throat, invades his nostrils like a warning. Blood. Not fresh. Dried. Hours old, maybe. Mixed with damp, with the building’s mold, with dust saturated with dead micro-organisms, with the stagnant rot that infests places where nothing lives anymore. The smell of a trap. The smell of pain. His stomach tightens. Not from fear. From rage. His heart doesn’t race. It slows. As if syncing to the place. He shifts into a deeper, duller, more dangerous frequency. His pulse beats like a drum ready to strike.

Above him, the bulb still swings — a pathetic relic of a once-functioning past. It crackles, flickers, sputters to life at intervals. Each pulse casts sickly light across cracked tiles, warped walls, and scattered remnants of a forgotten world. The shadows stretch, shrink, crawl along the walls like filthy hands. Even the walls seem to hold their breath. He steps forward again. One step. Then another. Every movement is fluid, silent, nearly unreal. His visor scans relentlessly. It overlays stacked data layers, displays thermal signatures, rough volume outlines, hidden masses behind walls. He examines blind spots. Gaps. Floor markings. Broken hinges, scuff marks on wood.

He doesn’t see Matthew yet. But he feels it.

Like a presence. A greasy vibration in the air. A low tension running beneath the walls like a rogue current. A sensation that cuts through him, visceral. It’s not intuition. It’s certainty.

He’s here. Somewhere.

And then he sees you.

You.

There’s no sound. No warning. No orchestral swell. Just that brutal, abrupt moment when the image slaps him in the face like a blow that nothing can soften. You're there. Not standing. Not sitting. Collapsed. Against the wall. No — not against. You’re melded into it. As if your body were trying to dissolve, to disappear. A trembling mass, dirty, slack with pain. No longer a person. No longer a boy. Just a heap of living, broken flesh. A dislocated silhouette in the dark. His brain takes a moment to understand what he’s seeing. This isn’t you. Not the you he knows. It’s something else. A ruined version. And the violence here isn’t hypothetical. It’s tattooed on you. Your arm is twisted.

Not bent. Twisted. At a monstrous, impossible angle. The elbow joint reversed. Bones displaced under stretched skin. Something that should only appear in accident reports. Not here. Not like this. Your shoulder has collapsed. Your hand, almost detached from the rest, barely trembles.

And your face... It takes Tony a second. Just one. But it lasts an eternity.

He doesn’t understand right away. He recognizes nothing. No features. No familiar contours. Just damage. Open wounds, horrible swelling, bruises stacked upon bruises. Your eyes — if they’re still there — are buried under hematomas. Your lips are split. Your right cheek is so swollen it distorts the entire shape of your skull. It’s a mosaic. A work of pure cruelty. And the blood… It’s still flowing. Not much. Not in spurts. In seepage. Slow trickles, like a steady leak. It slides down your temple. Your mouth. Your neck. It’s sticky. Matte. It ran, dried, and ran again. It’s on your throat. Your collarbone. Your chest. You’re soaked.

Not with sweat. With blood. With fear. With the filth of the floor. Your clothes are just rags now. Torn down to the skin. Deep tears are visible, laceration marks, fingerprints, nails, blows. Your hands are open. Literally. Cut. Your palms are cracked, marked by a desperate attempt to defend yourself. Your fingers are splayed as if caught in a frozen spasm. Your knees are red, shredded. Raw flesh peeks through peeled skin. And your back... He doesn’t even want to look. He can guess. He knows what he’ll find there. Marks. Burns. Blows. Traces of what no one should ever do to another human being. But he doesn’t look. Not yet. Because then... he sees it. Your chest.

It moves. Barely. But it moves. A breath. Weak. Jagged. Rough. A struggle with every motion. A breath that doesn’t really come out. A choked wheeze. But alive. You’re breathing. You’re there. Still there. And Tony stops cold.His entire body freezes. The armor locks with him, as if the machine itself understood. As if every fiber, every metal plate had turned to stone. Time collapses on him. A crushing weight. A shroud. His heart? It stops. It no longer beats. Just a void. An absence. A pulse. Heavy. Dry. In his temples. His throat. His stomach. What he feels has no name. It’s not fear. It’s no longer even anger. It’s a breaking point. A place in the soul where everything stops. Where everything is too much. Too much pain. Too much hate. Too much regret. Too late. Too far. He’s here. In front of you. And he can’t go back.

It’s a fracture. A rupture in everything he thought he could control. You’re alive. But at what cost? And somewhere, just a few meters away... Matthew is still breathing. But not for long. A cold shiver, sharp as a steel blade, climbs Stark’s spine. He doesn’t push it away. He lets it slide between his shoulder blades, slip under the metal like a warning that what he’s seeing isn’t an illusion, but raw, naked, implacable truth. Yet nothing on his face betrays this vertigo. Not a twitch, not a flinch, not even a blink. His rage, once explosive, has retracted into a clean, focused line. It’s no longer a storm. It’s a blade. Smooth, cold, sharp. A perfectly honed weapon, ready to strike the moment it’s needed. Not before.

His eyes stay locked on you, unblinking, unwavering. Every detail imprints itself in his mind like a photograph branded with hot iron: the grotesque position of your broken arms, the dark brown blood dried in rivulets on your chin, your neck, your chest; your skin, so pale beneath layers of grime and pain it looks almost like that of a corpse; the faint flutter of your chest, a fragile reminder that you haven’t crossed over yet. He sees it all. He doesn’t look away. And he will remember it. Until his last day. And yet, he doesn’t move right away. Everything in him is screaming. Every fiber, every muscle, every electrical impulse of the armor and his own body calls him to you, to rush, to drop to his knees, to check your pulse, your breath, to place his glove at your neck, to say your name. But he doesn’t give in. He is Tony Stark, yes. But here, now, he is also Iron Man. And Iron Man knows how to recognize a trap. Instinct needs no explanation. He feels that grimy vibration in the air, that invisible weight that warps the atmosphere around you, that intent still lingering, ready to pounce. He knows he’s not alone.

So he advances, but his way. Not slowly out of hesitation, but with control. One step. Then another. Controlled. Silent. The floor crunches beneath his boots, and even though the armor absorbs most sound, here, in this room saturated with shadows and stench, every movement rings out like a barely contained threat. The air is still. The walls seem to listen. The silence, tense, fills with static. He stops a few steps from you. Just close enough to see you breathe, to catch that tiny tremor in your ribcage, that breath that fights, clings, refuses to yield. Just far enough to strike, to raise his arm, to hit in half a second if something emerges. Because he knows: this is the moment Matthew is waiting for. The moment he thinks he can finish what he started. But he’s about to learn that this time, he’s not facing a wounded child. He’s facing Iron Man.

His eyes scan the room relentlessly. Every detail is absorbed, analyzed, memorized. The walls, covered in peeling paint, reveal patches of bare stone, gnawed away by damp. Mold streaks stretch up to the ceiling, which has collapsed in places, letting frayed wires dangle alongside crumbling fragments of plaster. Rusted pipes run along the walls like dead veins, slowly bleeding black water into the corners of the room. A distant drip echoes, irregular, distorted by reverb, like the heartbeat of a body already emptied of everything. The air is thick. Stagnant. It smells of oil, blood, mold, and abandonment. This isn’t really a place anymore. Not a living space, not a shelter. A dead place. Forgotten. A pocket outside of time, perfect for monsters to hide in.

And Stark knows it. It’s too quiet. The space is frozen in a dull anticipation. The smell is too sharp. The scene, too carefully placed. Nothing here suggests an accident. Everything has been calculated. And he hasn’t come to negotiate. He’s not here to understand. He’s not here to reach out. He’s here to end it.

So he speaks. Not loudly. Not shouting. His voice slices through the silence like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. Low. Slow. Sharp. It doesn’t tremble. It doesn’t seek to impress. It states. It targets. It’s the voice of someone who’s gone beyond fear. Who knows the war is no longer a risk. It’s happening. It’s here. Present. Inevitable.

— "That’s your big plan, Matthew?"

The words hang in the air. Clear. Sharp. And they cut. The silence that follows is even sharper. It relieves nothing. It stretches. It weighs. It presses on the nerves like a finger on an open wound. A silence with a taste. That of blood just before the blow. That of a held breath, of the instant suspended between lightning and thunder. A silence ready to rupture. And Stark is ready to tear through it. He kneels.

The suit exhales softly, like a restrained sigh, when Tony bends a knee to the ground. Metal meets filth, dust, and the invisible fragments of an abandoned world in an almost solemn hiss. It’s not a brusque gesture, nor heroic. It’s a humble movement. Precise. One knee placed in the grime of a ravaged sanctuary, a cathedral of pain frozen in time, where the slightest sound feels blasphemous. He places himself near you. Within reach of your voice. Within reach of your breath.

Above you, the light flickers. It trembles at irregular intervals, swaying like a sick pendulum. It doesn’t truly illuminate. It hesitates. As if it, too, refused to fully expose what it reveals. The scene seems unreal. Suspended. Out of the world.

Stark only sees you now. His eyes are on you. At last. Truly. He no longer sees you through the lens of worry or authority. He doesn’t see an employee in distress, nor that lost kid he tried to protect from afar without ever really getting involved. He doesn’t see a responsibility. He sees you. The body you’ve become. This collapsed, mutilated body, barely breathing. That breath, ragged, whistling, clinging to life like a flame battered by wind. The position in which you’ve fallen, curled in on yourself, speaks of an instinct stronger than thought: to hide, to disappear, to avoid another blow.

Tony doesn’t move. Not yet. A long moment suspended in a bubble of silence. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. Only his fist, slowly, curls. A controlled movement, silent, without tremor. A gloved hand, silently absorbing the rising tension, the seething rage, the refusal to accept what he sees. He observes you. He scans every visible patch of skin, every line of your battered face, every gap between the tatters of your torn clothing. He doesn’t want to miss anything. He wants to know. To understand. To see what you’ve endured. He’s ready for everything — except looking away. And what he discovers freezes him.

The recent wounds, he expected. He had imagined them, feared them. The swollen bruises, the black and violet hematomas covering your ribs, your stomach, your face. The clean or jagged cuts, open or dried. The blood clotted at the corner of your mouth. The split lip. The torn brow. Skin ruptured in places, stretched by swelling. All of that, he had seen coming. He had already heard the echo of the blows. Guessed the brutality.

But what he hadn’t expected… were the other marks.

The ones left by someone other than Matthew. The ones no sudden rage could justify. Scars. Fine. Old. Some nearly faded, white, invisible to the untrained eye. These delicate lines, precise, snake along your forearm, disappear under the fabric, reappear on your side. He recognizes some of them. He knows those clumsy cuts, those poorly closed edges. He’s seen them before. On other bodies. In other contexts. He passes a hand — slow, without touching — over your chest. A gesture both useless and necessary. An attempt to understand without harming, to see without interfering. Your top is torn. Not by accident. Deliberately. As if someone wanted to expose your fragility. As if your skin had become a trophy. A message. Your ribs are streaked with deep bruises, a blue so dark it looks black. These were blows delivered methodically. Not to kill. To mark. To leave a print. And beneath that recent violence, other, paler shadows appear. Older bruises, half-faded. Hidden scars. Belt marks. Traces of falls, perhaps. Of repeated gestures. Systematic ones. Not wild brutality.

Habit. Not battle scars. Survival marks. And Tony feels something fold inside him. Slowly. Painfully. As if the steel of his suit tightened, turned inward, crushing his bones, compressing his breath. He inhales, despite everything, but the air is too heavy, too foul. He feels cold sweat on his neck. The taste of metal on his tongue. This didn’t start yesterday. Not even this week. Not even this year. And the hatred rising now is no longer a fire. It’s a collapsed star. A core of pure fury. A point of no return.

— "Fuck..." he breathes.

The word slips from his lips in a hoarse whisper, no louder than a murmur. It doesn’t snap. It doesn’t strike. It falls. Heavy. Exhausted. It’s not an insult. It’s a prayer. An apology. A confession. A verdict. He could have said your name. He could have screamed. But he no longer has the strength to hide the collapse eating away at his gut. That single word carries it all: the guilt, the shame, the shock, the poorly disguised love, and that powerlessness he hates more than anything in the world. His eyes rise slowly to your face. He studies you, searches, hoping for a sign, a crack in that absence. You’re still unconscious. Or maybe just trapped in your own body. Your eyelids, heavy with pain, barely twitch. As if you’re fighting inside a nightmare too real. Your lips, cracked and swollen, part in an almost imperceptible motion. Sounds escape. Weak. Shapeless. Phantom syllables, swallowed by your raw throat, crushed by the shallow breath of survival.

You’re fighting.

Even now, half-dead, on your knees in the mud, in the blood, in the fear — you're still fighting. And Tony, he doesn’t understand how he missed it. How he could’ve overlooked it. He thought you were folding because you were fragile. That you were falling because you were weak. He discovers now that you never stopped getting back up. Again. And again. And again. And that by climbing back up alone, without help, without a hand to reach for, you broke. Slowly. Silently. From the inside out. Another anger rises in him. It doesn’t explode. It doesn’t burst like an uncontrollable flame. It’s slow. Deep. A fury that doesn’t make noise as it climbs but anchors in his gut, between his ribs, in every fiber of his being. It doesn’t burn. It freezes. A precise, surgical anger. Against Matthew, of course. Against the monster who did this to you, who turned your body into a map of pain. But not only.

Against himself. For not seeing it. For not wanting to see. For believing his rules, his demands, were enough. For forcing you to maintain an image when you were already falling apart. Against the system that let you slip through. Against the entire universe that abandoned you without so much as a flinch. Against the silence. Against the averted gazes. Against the excuses. Against everything that brought you here, barely breathing, bleeding in a place no one should know. And this anger — he keeps it. Not for the night. Not for the moment. He keeps it for what comes next. Because this isn’t a mission anymore. It’s not even vengeance. It’s an answer. A cold, precise, implacable answer.

His fingers spread. Slowly. As if releasing something too heavy to contain any longer. Then, just as slowly, his hand closes. Not in rage. Not to strike, nor to threaten. But as one seals a vow. As one locks a promise in the palm, sheltered from the world, where it can never fade. A discreet gesture, small, but charged with immense weight. He leans forward. Just a little. Just enough for his face to draw closer to yours, his features blending into the trembling light, his breath almost brushing your skin. He doesn’t try to wake you. He doesn’t disturb the fragile silence. Only to be closer. To speak for you, and only you. And in a breath that belongs only to him — hoarse, broken, dragged up from deep within — he whispers:

— "I’m sorry..."

It’s not a phrase said lightly. Not a line of circumstance. The words struggle to come out, each one bearing the weight of a collapsed world. They don’t shake. They crash. Heavy. Dense. Inevitable. And it’s not for the blows. Not for the broken bones, the bruises, the wounds, the blood. Not for the absence of rescue, the nights you waited without response, without a call, without presence. Not even for the hesitation or delays. Not for the wavering between compassion and distance. No. That’s not what he regrets. It’s something else. Deeper. More insidious.

He apologizes for what he didn’t see. For everything right in front of him that he ignored. For all the times he looked at you without really seeing you. For all the moments he should’ve understood, read between the silences, the tight gestures, the small changes in your voice, the blankness in your eyes. He’s sorry because he should’ve been the one to know. The one who reached out without being asked. He didn’t. And he knows it. You never told him. Not clearly. Not with words. But he doesn’t blame you. He blames himself. His inattention. His blindness. His comfort. Because he should have known. He should’ve seen past the surface, not settled for what you showed. He’s a genius, after all. He cracked codes, AI, government secrets. But he didn’t read you. You.

And now he sees you. Really sees you. You're here, lying down, broken, beaten, emptied to the bone. You carry the recent scars — but also all the old ones. The ones that tell something else. Another story. A life that didn’t begin tonight. Pain accumulated like strata in rock pressed too long. Blows someone made you believe were normal. Silences you were taught to keep. Constant adaptation, until survival became a reflex. Each scar is a sentence. Each bruise, a word from the story you carried alone, your throat tight, your body tense. And Tony is only just beginning to understand. Not everything. Never everything. But enough for the void to open beneath his feet. Enough for something to snap. For guilt to root itself where it will never leave. It’s not just Matthew. It’s not just this night. It’s everything that came before. This whole life you lived in the shadows, moving through with false smiles and stiff gestures. And he didn’t see. He didn’t know. He didn’t reach out.

He feels that truth in his fingers, in his tight throat, in the strange way his vision blurs without fully knowing why. And the anger returns. Deeper. Colder. But this time, aimed only at himself. Because he should’ve been there. But now that he is — now that he sees you — he swears, without even needing to say it, that it will never be too late again. Not a second time. Never. Stark doesn’t turn his head. Not right away. He stays still, locked in a perfectly controlled posture, his chest still bent over you, his body still tensed above yours like a shield of steel. But his eyes narrow, just slightly. An imperceptible detail to anyone else. An almost microscopic change, but revealing. He saw it. Or rather, he sensed it. Not a clear movement. Not a sharp sound. Just a shift. A faint vibration in the air. A thermal fluctuation, too precise to be natural. A flicker in the visual field, where there was nothing seconds ago.

The suit confirms it silently. A variation in air pressure. A subtle thermal footprint. A disturbance in the suspended particles. Something moved. Someone. In the shadows. He already knows. He doesn’t need confirmation. No detailed analysis. His instinct and the machine speak with the same voice. Matthew is here. He never left. He never fled. He waited. Coiled in the darkness like a knot of hate, hidden behind the ruined structures of the warehouse. A corner too dark for ordinary eyes. But Stark isn’t ordinary. His gaze adjusts. The armor’s sensors recalibrate instantly. Every shadow pixel becomes a map, a data set analyzed in real time. Shapes emerge, unfold, reveal themselves under thermal filters. He sees the silhouette. Humanoid. Crouched. Twisted in animal tension. Almost glued to the damp wall. Motionless — but falsely so. Ready. Ready to strike.

A predator. Or so he thinks. But to Tony, he’s not a beast. Not an opponent. He’s a parasite. A pest. A residue of misdirected hate. A mass of cowardice wrapped in a semblance of human flesh. Nothing more. And he waits. Stark sees it. He waits for the right moment. The right angle. He still hopes. One wrong step. One lapse. One second of distraction. He still thinks he can win. He thinks he can strike from behind. Finish what he started. Reduce further. Humiliate again. He believes this stage is his, that the dark protects him, that fear is on his side. But it’s not the same game anymore. And Stark is no longer the same man.

His fists clench. Slowly. Not in rage. In certainty. A cold pulse runs through the armor, from his shoulders to the thrusters in his forearms. Internal systems activate in silence. Energy builds. Not for show. Not to intimidate. But to strike. Coldly. Deliberately. And yet, he still doesn’t move. He doesn’t break the silence. He remains there, by your side, his body lowered like a barrier. You're still beneath him, fragile, barely breathing. And he stands, in that false calm, as the last thing between you and the one who still thinks he can reach you. But this time, there will be no negotiation. No ultimatum. No speech. This won’t be a warning. A chuckle. At first almost imperceptible. Just a scrape, a discordant note in the tense silence of the warehouse. Then it swells. Gains volume. Becomes a clearer sound — thick, mocking, like a bubble of bile rising to the surface. It comes from the shadows. From that cursed corner of the room that even the light avoids, as if refusing to reveal the truth. A place too dark for nothing to be there.

Stark doesn’t move. He doesn’t look up. Not yet. He stays crouched beside you, his body interposed between you and the thing that finally creeps out of its lair. A sentinel. A wall. A blade ready to cut. But his shoulders stiffen. His breath halts. His fingers stop trembling. He listens.

— “You really came in the suit, huh…”

The voice pierces the darkness like a carefully distilled poison. It has that dragging tone, unbearable, dripping with sarcastic self-confidence. It oozes obscene pleasure, filthy arrogance, sick amusement. The kind of voice that wounds before it strikes. It seeps into the air, hungry to exist, to dominate, to stain.

Matthew steps out of hiding—or what’s left of it. A shadow barely separated from the dark. Just enough for part of his face to appear under the sickly glow of a dangling bulb. Half a face. Half a smile. Wide. Frozen. Too tight. And his eyes… wild. Shining. Flickering with an unstable light, unable to fix on a single point for more than a few seconds.

— “For him? Seriously?”

He gestures vaguely toward your body on the floor, careless, almost lazy. As if pointing at a gutted trash bag. A carcass of no worth. His grimy fingers tremble slightly, but not from fear. From excitement.

— “The little favorite. The loser. The kid who can’t even breathe without collapsing.”

He takes a step. Slow. Pretentious. Nonchalant. His chest slightly puffed, arms wide, almost cruciform. A show-off stance. A provocation. As if offering himself for judgment, convinced he’ll walk away untouched. As if he’s challenging God himself amid the ruins of a world he helped destroy.

— “You sure brought a lot of gadgets to save a half-broken body, Stark.”

A higher, more nervous laugh escapes him. He doesn’t have full control. He thinks he does, but his words are speeding up. His breath quickens just a bit. A trace of madness laces every syllable.

— “You think all that’ll be enough? The thrusters, the scanners, the AI?”

He stops a few meters away. Far, but visible. Too visible. Grime clings to his clothes, his skin, his hyena grin. His face is gaunt, cheeks sunken, hands filthy. He looks like someone who lives in filth. And carries the arrogance of someone who thinks he’s untouchable. He believes he’s won. That he still holds the cards. That he has the upper hand.

— “You showed up like a superhero. Big savior. Like you actually care whether he’s still breathing.”

He tilts his head. A tiny movement. Almost childlike. Almost mocking. The gesture of a brat waiting for the adult to raise a hand just so he can laugh louder afterward.

Then, in a whisper, lower, crueler, slid in like a needle through skin:

— “Sad. To see you stoop to this.”

That’s when Stark moves. Not a sharp gesture. Not a threat. Just… he rises. Slowly. Very slowly. Each vertebra seems to align with inhuman precision. His back straightens. His shoulders lift. His gloved hands open slightly, fingers spreading, joints clicking faintly. A stance. A charge. But he doesn’t speak. Not yet.

Because Matthew goes on. Because he doesn’t understand. Because he still believes words protect. That taunts disarm. He still thinks Stark is here to play. That this restrained rage is only for show.

— “I mean, come on… look at him.”

He points again. His filthy index finger extended, trembling slightly. Not from fear. From ecstasy.

— “Take a good look at what he’s become. What I made him. And ask yourself what you were doing all that time.”

And that silence after — that void between two breaths… it’s the most dangerous moment. Because right now, Stark doesn’t see a man in front of him. He sees the outcome. The cause. The shadow behind the screams. And this time, he won’t look away. Matthew moves. It’s not hesitation. It’s a reflex. A sharp jolt of intention, of venom, of premeditation. His arm snaps in a motion too quick, too precise to be theatrical. He’s not trying to intimidate. He’s trying to end it. His hand plunges into his jacket with mechanical brutality, the rustle of fabric too sharp, a sound that splits the silence like a silent detonation. A glint of metal slides between his fingers. The black barrel of a gun emerges like a verdict. Cold. Final. He lifts his arm. But not toward Stark. Not at the looming figure of steel, red-lit, poised to strike. Not at the obvious threat, the armored man, the living weapon who could incinerate him with a single gesture.

No. He points it at you. You, still on the floor. You, vulnerable. Shattered. Barely breathing. You’re lying there, more ghost than flesh, your chest struggling to rise, your face drenched in blood—and that’s exactly why he aims at you. Because you can’t fight back. Because you can’t even look away.

The barrel aligns with clinical slowness. A descending trajectory, methodical, unbearable. A deliberate motion, thick with silence, cracking the air like an invisible slap. There’s no tremble of doubt, no hesitation. The quiver in his wrist isn’t fear—it’s anticipation. A sick pulse shooting through his arm, twitching his fingers on the trigger. Obscene pleasure in this total domination. His breath quickens. His eyes gleam. He savors. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Where he’s aiming. How he wants this to end. It’s no longer a threat. It’s an execution. A scene he’s imagined, rehearsed, craved. A twisted revenge. A show where he’s both executioner and audience. And in this suspended second, this instant where everything can tip, he becomes something worse than an attacker.

He becomes a man convinced he’s about to kill. Because he wants to. Because he can.

— “You got the money, then?”

The words fall like a dull-edged blade. No hesitation. No dramatic delivery. Just a string of words spat low, almost casual. Like a logistical question. His voice is dry, flat, stripped of emotion. Verbal mechanics, a routine, a question tossed out like checking an order. But the poison—it's in the posture. The gaze. The barely-contained tension in his outstretched arm.

The gun’s barrel stays still. Perfectly aligned. No longer shaking. Calm. Cold. A disturbing steadiness, almost clinical, like a surgeon ready to cut — except he’s not seeking to heal. He’s aiming to rupture. To erase.

He’s not really talking to Stark. Not really to you either. He’s speaking to himself, to feed the illusion of control he’s desperate to maintain even as he feels the ground slipping. He keeps playing, just long enough to delay the inevitable. To fabricate a role. The one who asks. The one who decides. The one who ends things. But there’s that barrel. Black. Smooth. A heavy promise stretched from his arm. He doesn’t move. He waits for an answer he knows is pointless. He knows there’ll be no deal. No negotiation. But he asks anyway. As if asking is enough to pretend he still owns the scene. As if it can mask the obvious rising in the air like an imminent detonation.

He’s ready to shoot. And it’s not the money he wants. It’s what comes next.

taglist🥂 @9thmystery @defronix @lailac13 @the-ultimate-librarian @ihatepaperwork if you want to be part of it here

[stepswowdsen]

【KagePro】 Kuroha/Saeru Rambles + KuroEne AU Route Set-up (WIP)

Intro

WIP version post for now.

I think I have a post queued for later today or tomorrow 🤔

Depends on when I get it done, but I think it'll most likely be posted by tonight for me. I'll post the proper post whenever I get it done ^^

I think it'll be formatted like this.

Summary

Kuroha/Saeru's Pronouns (First-person and Second-person pronouns in Japanese)

Yakuwarigo (Role Language)

KuroEne AU: Route Set-up (Summary)

KuroEne AU: Saeru's pet name for Ene (HC)

Saeru's Knowledge (HC)

A being that exists as part of nature

Kuroha/Saeru's Pronouns

I wrote them down as a list in my Notion doc files, but I just want to confirm my list is correct, first.

I wanna rip the rest of the KagePro manga scans in JP, just so I can check over MR1 and MR2 and confirm his usage of pronouns first.

Yakuwarigo (Role Language)

Yakuwarigo (役割語, lit. “Role language”) refers to fictional characters' dialects.

I'll provide a quick overview and some context first ^^

KuroEne AU: Route Set-up (Summary)

I think I've rambled about it a lot before, but I wanted to make a post summarizing the set-up and context of my KuroEne AU, and note some common Route branches (depending on Saeru's actions)

In my KuroEne AU, Kuroha/Saeru meets Ene anywhere from 1 - 2 years prior to the start of KagePro canon.

Ene finds Shintaro 1 year prior to the start of KagePro canon.

I usually write settings where he meets Ene 2 years prior to the start of canon (soon after she lost her human body)

Since at that point, Ene hasn't found Shintaro yet, and would still be looking for a place to stay, so that's the perfect opportunity for Saeru to offer her a place to stay.

Saeru drops Kenjirou's body MUCH earlier in my KuroEne AU in order to meet Ene as Black Konoha.

Discarding Kenjirou at this point isn't an issue in the slightest for him.

He can just use Awakening Eyes as Black Konoha, to create as many fake identities as he wants.

So, he can still manipulate humans to get access to funding and resources by taking Kenjirou's appearance (and any other fake identities he decides to create)

His secret underground lab (that he got built via Kenjirou's connections) has improved security in my KuroEne AU (compared to MCA lmfao)

The underground/lower levels are only accessible to him with a biometric scanner, via his finger prints.

He takes the disguise of Kenjirou when communicating with the humans in his lab (ex. guards/security on the upper levels), and then turns back into Black Konoha when he's down in the lower levels.

I imagine that he does most of his research and keeps his notes/journals on the creation of Ene's android body (ex. blueprints, designs, sketches, notes, etc.) in the lowest levels of his lab, to ensure that no one but him can access it.

Saeru decides to arranges a meeting with Ene.

I imagine he manages to find/get her general location (which shouldn't be difficult, he probably has methods to tap someone's location)

Though Ene hasn't met Shintaro yet so she's moving from place to place in the cyber world.

He sends her an e-mail arranging for a meet-up.

I HC that he uses "xxx" as his initials ❌❌❌

Coincidentally, Azami's favourite initials in her diary were "xxx" so I imagine that's also one of the reasons why he has a tendency to use it.

Ene wonders about the e-mail she got from a mysterious sender.

On the day of their meet-up, I imagine that Ene is out in the city (in electronic devices, since Iirc she can connect as long as there's Wi-Fi), when he decides to appear in her general vicinity, prompting her to follow him.

Ene is surprised when she sees his figure in the distance. He looks just like Haruka/Konoha.

Saeru then heads to an isolated/secluded location (abandoned building), once he's confirmed that Ene is following him.

Ene jumps through electronic devices so that she can follow him.

She cannot afford to let the chance escape her, especially after seeing someone who has such an uncanny resemblance to Haruka/Konoha's appearance...

To make up for her regrets from last time, she doesn't want to let him out of her sight again.

Once he's confirmed that no one else is around, Kuroha/Saeru then makes himself known to her and introduces himself as "Black Konoha" or "Kuroha"

"Hello... I do believe this is the first time we've met?"

(This is the first time in this Route... but not the first time ever (considering all previous Routes))

In future Routes (all other Routes after the first KuroEne AU Route), he remembers and uses the nickname "Kuroha" that he remembers Ene using before, to shorten the name.

He asks her if she really is living in electronic devices, and Ene is suspicious, but confirms his statement. She is curious about him, though.

Ene is suspicious of this mysterious stranger offering to help her so suddenly, but is curious about him, since his appearance and voice resembles Haruka/Konoha's... She can't let the chance escape her!

He comments on her unusual predicament of being stuck inside the cyber world, and says that he can help her. He proposes to make an android body for her so that she can move around in the real world.

Ene is surprised, but wonders if he has any ulterior motives for offering to go out of this way for her, and asks if he's some kinda loan shark or a shady scientist who wants to experiment on her.

Saeru tells her that he's a brilliant scientist/engineer (LOL) who wants to tests the bounds of his knowledge. The truth is, he is interested in her.

He tells her he is nterested in learning more about her and her predicament.

He would also make reasonable enough claims to back up his offer and appease her worries. He says that he is entirely willing to prove it to her, to gain her trust.

He's not looking for money. He has enough of it, as is.

Ene decides to accept his offer, so Saeru has Ene transferred into his phone, and brings her to his home (one of Kenjirou's spare homes that he has access to) to stay.

Saeru works on the android body at his lab, and comes home to chat with Ene to get to know her and talk about his progress (while leaving some details out, ofc)

Once Saeru finishes making the body and finalizes his tests, he brings Ene to the lab via his phone and asks if she can transfer into it via the systems he built, wanting to confirm if it works.

Once it's ready, Ene is surprised how fast he got it done and asks if he's some kind of super genius or something. It's still shocking.

(With each new Route, I imagine he gets the android body built faster and better each time, since he remembers how to make it and makes upgrades based on his previous knowledge.)

(I will leave the details of whatever complicated systems Saeru built, to him... I know nothing about robotics)

I imagine that Ene transfers into the android body's motherboard (since it has a Wi-Fi connection), and can control the body's motor controls seamlessly, with whatever complicated systems/processes Saeru built

She's surprised when it feels just like her old human body.

Saeru is satisfied that his efforts and meticulous testing have paid off. It works, just as planned...

Ene is grateful for his efforts and expresses her appreciation to him for going all this way for her. She says she doesn't know how to repay him.

She then realizes that she doesn't really have a place to stay.

Saeru then calmly tells her that she can come live with him if she wants. He proposes to her to come live with him at one of his spare homes.

Ene says she wouldn't want to intrude on someone's private home, but he tells her that he doesn't mind.

Ene asks if there are spare rooms she can stay in, and he tells her that his home is spacious enough to have guest rooms, and Ene feels relieved.

Ene then decides to accept his offer, and tells him, "Please take good care of me."

Note: よろしくお願いします (Yoroshiku onegaishimasu, "Please treat me well/take care of me")

When Saeru shows her around his private home, Ene says she missed the feeling of being out in the real world, and is surprised how spacious his home is. He then tells her if he needs anything, then just ask.

Ene muses to herself that he is completely different from Haruka/Konoha, but that's fine, since she's changed since then, too.

I imagine Ene often takes the opportunity to go out on walks exploring the city on her own, and comes back to the house when she's done.

Saeru often goes out of the house on his own to work at the lab (and takes disguises as his fake identities to continue amassing money and resources to prepare for his August 15th plan)

He comes back to the house after "work" and chats with Ene about his progress (ex. Improving her android body), obviously keeping his real motives and secrets of his plans hidden.

KuroEne AU: Route Branches

I have a couple different Route branches depending on Saeru's actions.

The main ones are:

(Copy pasting this from previous rambles)

As long as it's in a Route where he doesn't meet the rest of the Mekakushi Dan until August 15th, Saeru can reveal his true name.

Once he gets closer with Ene, he can reveal the name Saeru ("Clearing") to her, and vaguely tell her about the Eye Abilities' origins (while keeping Azami's identity hidden)

He tells her that he has some origins with snakes, and is an Eye Ability user like her, that can transform his body at will (Awakening's power)

Ene is surprised but figures that it's not too out of the realm of possibility since she also has these "Red Eyes." She accepts his story and is impressed by his powers. She's delighted to find someone who is in the "same predicament as her."

KuroEne AU: Kuroha/Saeru's pet name for Ene 🐍🐇

I headcanoned what Kuroha/Saeru's pet name for Ene would be in my KuroEne AU

俺の親愛なるウサギちゃん (Ore no shin’ai naru Usagi-chan, “My dear/beloved [little] bunny/rabbit”)

Quoting from my Notion docs:

I chose "My dear little bunny/rabbit" or 俺の親愛なるウサギちゃん (Ore no shin'ai naru Usagi-chan; "[My] dear/beloved [little] bunny/rabbit") as Kuroha's nickname/pet name for Ene because her twintails look like bunny ears.

But his chosen nickname is definitely on purpose on his part, because bunnies are the prey of snakes, and he is the predator animal. So it still ends up playing up to his ego.

I really like that it ends up playing to the "Predator and Prey" and "Hunter and Hunted" theme-ing between Saeru and his S/O.

Iirc the usage of 親愛なる (Shin'ai naru) originated from the Meiji era so its origins are archaic, and is mainly used in letters and texts, and rarely in real conversation.

Though you'll see some animanga and game charas use it. I think it's perfect for Saeru considering his origins as an ancient being.

Saeru's Knowledge

Since Saeru is the embodiment of Azami's "knowledge/wisdom," and, according to the Novel Route, "knows everything from the start of civilization up to modern science"

That is insane to think about... That is an insane amount of knowledge.

I started wondering about how much that knowledge encompasses/entails, whether it includes things like languages.

Like he must be able to read and write in the ancient script that Azami wrote in in her journals

Iirc, in MR2, Ayaka was surprised that she was somehow able to read it when she went through Mary's belongings (which contained Azami's diary)

Does he only know things he’s seen and personally witnessed?

I have a personal HC that if he's seen it, then he knows it.

For example, Saeru possesses Kenjirou in most Routes, and must've seen him code before (ex. Kenjirou made HaruTaka's game for the school festival)

His accumulated knowledge and retention of previous Routes (timelines), is how he’s able to build Ene’s android body in my AU.

With that much knowledge at his disposal, his capabilities far surpass human technologies and limits.

I imagine that every time, he remembers the code since it's stored in his metaphorical knowledge bank

So he remembers how to code all the processes needed for Ene's body and enhances her body with upgrades/improvements and adds new features to it to suit his desires with every loop (ex. Battery improvements/upgrades so Ene can be out in the real world for longer without the body needing to charge as often)

In the context of this AU, Ene's body is his greatest creation.

So he must be able to do it too. With that much knowledge, picking up new skills must come naturally to him then.

In canon, we don't know how "clear" his retention of memories is, through Clearing Eyes.

I personally headcanoned that he keeps his memories and can remember specific encounters from previous Routes in detail.

Because to me, it just makes his interactions with Ene more interesting if he remembers their previous encounters and intimate moments together from previous Routes.

I'd imagine later on he'd just bring up those encounters just to tease her.

Being that exists as part of nature

In the KagePro manga, Kuroha looks over the city from a rooftop and comments on the “muddy dirt stained (polluted) sky” and “humans spreading their greed wherever they go.”

He asks Konoha if he agrees with him after taking over his body. Since they're both Eye Ability snakes born from Azami, he calls him 兄弟 (Kyoudai, "Brother; mate; friend"), seeing him as fellow brethren.

As someone who was there before the world was created, and observed the world from the very beginning and got to see it develop to the modern age, as a being who is close to Nature...

Of course canon-verse Kuroha/Saeru would feel that way about pollution, as an animal, a being who lived as apart of/alongside Nature, alongside Azami.

But he also loves humans and their foolishness. Humans are also beings/animals who exist as part of nature, too, after all.

[himahrs99]

Take your security to the next level with @hrsoftbd reliable biometric solutions

visit:

[lucysweatslove]

More life updates

My parents’ home location was downgraded from level 3 to level 2 apparently and now they get to go home! Yay!

Fire is still 0% contained apparently but it’s also not spreading too much (or hasn’t been) because they’ve gotten some rain

Very grateful everybody is safe.

My laptop decided to break today. I opened it up and the left hinge didn’t want to open while the right did and it broke part of the screen and now I can’t open/close it and the touch screen part doesn’t work. So it is no longer functional as a laptop.

This happened 10 min before I had to leave for class

Since we have exams on our laptops every Monday and I live in Nowhere, USA, I couldn’t order the same laptop to replace it since it wouldn’t get in on time.

I had to go into Costco and look at what was available there and essentially downgrade to a smaller laptop that I don’t like as much. There weren’t many options available that fit the requirements for school and I only like Lenovos and the finger print biometric thing was VERY important to me… technically I’m not sure if it’s okay because the processor isn’t on the “approved” list (Mac or Intel) but it’s not on the “unapproved” list (ARM). It’s AMD Ryzen. The exam software is what is picky and it installed okay, so I’m hopeful it’ll work on Monday.

I am trying to get used to the new laptop. I am very grateful that I have enough privilege that I can go to a store in person and find something that will likely meet my needs. I just… don’t like change and the size is a huge change.

Diplopia has been bad all day today. Which ofc we learned about diplopia in myasthenia gravis earlier so today I was reminded about how I get diplopia a lot and remember having it since I was a child, but the optometrist told me it was normal. So that also triggers me to remember how my head is always tilted a little to the right because it hurts to see when my head is straight… and long story short I’m now worried I have a fourth cranial nerve palsy.

[plum-petunia]

Also in general avoid biometric passwords at all costs. These are passwords tied specifically to YOU, like your face or finger print, but could even be something like DNA or something if that's where the tech goes. At first it seems really cool and secure! Because it's matched to you! But at the end of the day these companies now have data about you that cannot change without drastic measure. What if they sell your data to the government, especially a bad one? What if a bad government raids their data? Even more likely and beginly, what if a hacker gets the data? Are you going to get plastic surgery? Burn off your finger prints? No. These are passwords you cannot change in the event of a breach, which makes them extremely dangerous to use at all. So, don't.

I know millennials are getting the traditional generational luddite reputation at this point for sneering at smart devices and banging on about privacy and not needing all those fancy functions etc. but I am speaking to you right now as an experienced activist: you have to start seeing your smartphone as your big red glowing weak point. it is a repository of all the information someone could conceivably use to ruin your life, and you carry it around with you all day every day guarded by maybe a 6 digit PIN (or a photo of your face, seriously turn off face unlock right fucking now).

[svsembedded]

Bank Locker Security System Based on Biometric and GSM📱Using Raspberry Pi Picohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxG0P5d7MDo

[delightfulmiracledeer]

Finger print and face detection by @hrsoftbd

The system features an optical scanning feature, real-time attendance notifications, facial recognition, easy accessibility, fast results, automatic SMS alerts, user-friendly interface, fully automated systems, and biometric security.

[idlnmclean]

I think it should be illegal for web pages to require identifying information and particularly biometrics. For any private company or publicly traded corporation there is basically no legitimate reason to allow them to collect things like my facial features, my voice print, my finger prints, samples of my DNA, and so on. Even if the website deals in financial information and transactions, there's basically no reason to hand them all the things necessary to commit gross identify fraud for longer than I shall be alive.

The security theater which is actually panopticons and phrenological profiling is absurd and terrifying. These are not systems that I trust, and these are systems that fundamentally can not trust me.

Used to be that the very good banks and financial institutions took the privacy and security of their patrons very seriously.

I remember when people almost unanimously agreed that there was no reason that any random web agent should have access to your browsing history. The whole proliferation of adware and spyware not just across the Internet but into the very kernels of operating systems basically is a blanket permission for advertisers and payment processors and random ass companies just having near unmitigated access to people's browsing histories.

Billionaires though apparently still get to hide behind elaborate sock puppets.

I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

[sajidabee]

Finger print and face detection by @hrsoftbd

Automatic SMS alert to parents, User Friendly interface, Easy to use options, Fully automated systems and records, Biometric systems mean nothing to lose, Easy access and log-in, Unbreakable Safeguard, Convenient Usage.

[savvyhrms025]

Fingerprints Over Fake Punches: The Rise of Biometric Attendance Software

No longer can employees punch someone else’s card or write someone’s name in a book to be considered 'in attendance'. The workplace is now a fast-paced environment that values accuracy, accountability, and transparency. Biometric attendance software is revolutionizing the way organizations track time in the workplace and make it nearly impossible to falsify attendance.

What is Biometric Attendance Software? 

Biometric attendance software relies on unique physical traits (eg. fingerprints, face recognition, iris scan) as a method of confirming an employee's identity. Unlike traditional attendance systems, biometric attendance systems require that the actual person marks their presence which eliminates proxy attendance and time fraud.

Key Features of Biometric Attendance Software 

1.100% Accuracy:

Biometric attendance identification does not leave room for error and manipulation. Every punch is backed by a unique identity so attendance is never recorded incorrectly. 

2.No More Buddy Punching:

Employees no longer have to clock in for one another.Since there are no two alike finger prints or faces, only the actual person can record their time.

3.Quicker and More Efficient:

Touch or look, it's that simple with our Biometric device for marking attendance. This helps reduce long lines and makes check-in and check-out faster and easier.

4.Access to Real-Time Data:

If you’re a manager, you can see attendance data in real time! This allows you to monitor the presence of employees and spot any arriving late or leaving early (on one screen!).

5.Low-Maintenance, Highly Reliable:

Biometric devices are built to last. They are low-maintenance and can be used in all kinds of environments—from an office, to a factory or site!

Conclusion

Biometric attendance software is much more than just a technical advancement – it represents a step towards better discipline, fairness and efficiency. With technology that is tamper-proof and real-time monitoring, it represents a smarter, cleaner and more secure method of attendance management. If your organisation cares about accuracy and accountability, then biometric system is the way to go.