#algorithm machine broke

[brenna]

"discover" mix: *plays matchbox 20*

me: ... *skip*

"discover" mix: *plays filter*

me: ... *skip*

"discover" mix: *plays everclear*

me: discover my dick

[bratzkoo]

operation: laundry love | joshua hong

Author: bratzkoo Pairing: software developer! joshua x reader Genre: fluff, love at first sight Rating: PG-15 Word count: 9.1k~ Warnings/note: requested by a lovely anon!

summary: Joshua Hong falls in love at first sight with you at a laundromat and schemes his way into making you like him back.

taglist (hit me up if you wanna be added): @escoupseu , @yanabaaaaaaarysheva , @spnyin , @sousydive , @gyuguys , @gyubakeries

requests are open, but you can just say hi! | masterlist

Joshua Hong had always considered himself a practical man. At twenty-eight, he had a stable job as a software developer, a tidy apartment, and a cat named Algorithm. His life was as orderly as the code he wrote, each day neatly compartmentalized into routines and habits. Laundry day was no exception—every other Saturday, 2 PM sharp, he'd trudge down to Suds & Bubbles, the local laundromat, with his precisely sorted clothes.

But on this particular Saturday, as Joshua pushed open the glass door of Suds & Bubbles, his well-ordered world tilted on its axis.

The laundromat was busier than usual, probably due to the unseasonably warm weather that had everyone in town suddenly remembering their summer clothes. The air hummed with the whir of washing machines and the occasional beep of a dryer reaching the end of its cycle. The scent of detergent and fabric softener hung thick in the air, mingling with the faint mustiness of old magazines stacked on a nearby table.

Joshua's eyes swept the room, looking for an empty machine. That's when he saw her.

She was standing in front of a washing machine, her brow furrowed in concentration as she examined a shirt with the intensity of a scientist studying a rare specimen. Her hair was piled haphazardly atop her head in what might generously be called a bun, secured with what appeared to be a pencil. She wore oversized sweatpants and a faded t-shirt that proclaimed "I'm not arguing, I'm just explaining why I'm right." 

To Joshua, she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

As if sensing his gaze, she looked up, meeting his eyes. For a moment, Joshua forgot how to breathe. Her eyes were warm, like flecked with gold, and crinkled slightly at the corners as if she was perpetually on the verge of laughter.

"Excuse me," she said, her voice snapping Joshua back to reality. "You wouldn't happen to know how to get spaghetti sauce out of a white shirt, would you? I've been staring at this stain for so long, I'm starting to see pasta shapes."

Joshua blinked, his brain scrambling to form a coherent sentence. "I, uh... have you tried pre-treating it?" he managed to stammer out, mentally kicking himself for such a mundane response.

She sighed dramatically, holding up the shirt. "I've pre-treated it, post-treated it, and given it a stern talking-to. Nothing seems to work. I'm beginning to think this shirt has a vendetta against Italian cuisine."

A chuckle escaped Joshua before he could stop it. Her deadpan delivery and the absurdity of the situation broke through his initial panic, and he found himself relaxing slightly.

"Maybe it's more of a Chinese food fan," he offered, surprised by his own attempt at humor.

Her eyes lit up, and she let out a laugh that seemed to bubble up from her toes. "Oh my god, you're right! I should have been feeding it lo mein this whole time. How could I be so culturally insensitive to my own clothing?"

Joshua felt a warmth spread through his chest. He'd made her laugh. He, Joshua Hong, notorious for his dry technical explanations and inability to remember punchlines, had made this gorgeous, funny woman laugh.

"I'm Y/N, by the way," she said, extending her hand. "Y/N L/N, destroyer of shirts and apparent oppressor of Italian-American textiles."

"Joshua," he replied, taking her hand. Her skin was soft, and he had to resist the urge to hold on longer than socially acceptable. "Joshua Hong, software developer and... uh, laundry doer."

Y/N raised an eyebrow, her lips quirking into a smirk. "Laundry doer? Is that the technical term?"

Joshua felt heat creep up his neck. "Well, I... I mean, I'm not a professional or anything. Just a guy who, you know, does laundry. Sometimes. Well, every two weeks, actually. It's kind of a schedule thing, and—" He cut himself off, realizing he was rambling. "Sorry, I'm not usually this..." He gestured vaguely, unable to find the right word.

"Articulate?" Y/N supplied helpfully, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

"That's one way to put it," Joshua said, managing a self-deprecating smile.

Y/N's gaze softened. "Hey, no worries. We all have our off days. Although," she added, glancing around the laundromat, "I'm not sure anyone's really on their A-game in a place like this. I mean, look at that guy over there."

Joshua followed her gaze to see a middle-aged man trying to stuff what looked like an entire month’s worth of clothes into a single washing machine.

"I think he's trying to create a black hole of socks and underwear," Y/N stage-whispered. "Should we alert NASA?"

Joshua snorted, then quickly tried to cover it with a cough. He wasn't used to finding things genuinely funny, especially not in a laundromat of all places. But something about Y/N's observations and the way she delivered them with such casual humor was infectious.

"Maybe he's conducting an experiment on the compression capabilities of cotton blend fabrics," Joshua found himself saying.

Y/N's eyes widened in mock seriousness. "Of course! How could we have missed it? Clearly, we're witnessing groundbreaking laundry science in action."

They both burst into laughter, drawing curious glances from other patrons. Joshua felt a mix of exhilaration and embarrassment. He wasn't used to being the center of attention, but with Y/N, it somehow felt... right.

"So, Joshua the Laundry Doer," Y/N said once their laughter had subsided, "since you're clearly an expert in all things wash and fold, any other tips for a hapless stain-battler like myself?"

Joshua's mind raced. This was his chance to impress her, to show off his knowledge. But as he opened his mouth to launch into a detailed explanation of stain-removal techniques, he caught sight of the playful glint in her eye. She wasn't really looking for a lecture on laundry. She was teasing him, keeping the banter going.

For a moment, panic threatened to overwhelm him. He wasn't good at this kind of thing. Flirting, joking around—it wasn't in his usual repertoire. But something about Y/N made him want to try.

"Well," he said, affecting a serious tone, "as a certified laundry professional—"

"Oh, you're certified now?" Y/N interjected, raising an eyebrow.

"Absolutely. I have a degree in Sock Pairing from the prestigious University of Wash and Tumble Dry."

Y/N gasped dramatically. "I've heard of that place! Isn't their mascot the Fighting Lint Roller?"

Joshua felt a grin spreading across his face. He was doing it. He was actually engaging in witty banter. With a beautiful woman. In a laundromat. If his friends could see him now, they'd never believe it.

"That's the one," he confirmed. "Our battle cry is 'We'll press your buttons!'"

Y/N doubled over laughing, clutching her sides. "Oh my god, stop," she wheezed. "I can't breathe!"

Joshua felt a surge of pride. He'd done that. He'd made her laugh so hard she could barely breathe. It was a heady feeling, one he wanted to experience again and again.

As Y/N's laughter subsided, she wiped a tear from her eye. "Oh, man. I haven't laughed like that in ages. You, Joshua Hong, are dangerously funny. They should put a warning label on you."

Joshua felt his cheeks heat up at the compliment. "I, uh, thanks. You're pretty funny yourself."

Y/N waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, I just state the obvious. The world's a pretty ridiculous place if you pay attention." She glanced down at the shirt in her hand, then back at Joshua. "Speaking of ridiculous, I should probably actually try to wash this thing before it becomes sentient and decides to take over my wardrobe."

"Right, of course," Joshua said, suddenly remembering why they were both there in the first place. He glanced around, spotting an empty washing machine a few feet away. "There's a free machine over there if you need one."

Y/N followed his gaze and grinned. "My hero! Saving me from the horrors of waiting for a free washer. Truly, your laundry powers know no bounds."

As they walked over to the empty machine, Joshua felt a mix of emotions swirling in his chest. He was elated at having met Y/N, at the easy way they'd fallen into conversation. But there was also a twinge of sadness. Once she started her laundry, she'd probably go sit down, maybe read a book or play on her phone like most people did. Their interaction would be over, just a brief, bright moment in an otherwise ordinary day.

Y/N opened the washing machine and started loading her clothes, chattering away as she did so. "You know, I've always wondered why they make these things so deep. Are they expecting us to wash a family of four's entire wardrobe in one go? Or maybe it's for people who only do laundry once a year and need to fit everything they own in here."

Joshua chuckled, leaning against the adjacent machine. "Maybe it's in case you need to hide from the Laundry Police."

Y/N paused in her loading, a pair of jeans dangling from her hand as she turned to look at him. "The Laundry Police?"

"Oh, you know," Joshua said, warming to his theme, "they patrol laundromats, making sure no one's mixing their colors and whites. Very strict about fabric softener usage too."

A slow grin spread across Y/N's face. "Let me guess, their motto is 'To protect and pre-treat'?"

"Exactly!" Joshua exclaimed, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. He quickly tried to rein in his excitement, reminding himself that he was supposed to be playing it cool. "I mean, uh, yeah. Something like that."

Y/N's expression softened, and she tilted her head slightly as she looked at him. For a moment, Joshua thought he saw something in her eyes—a flicker of interest, maybe? But before he could analyze it further, she turned back to her laundry.

"Well, in that case, I'd better be extra careful," she said, her tone light. "I'd hate to get arrested for improper sock sorting."

As Y/N finished loading her clothes and closed the washing machine door, Joshua realized with a start that he hadn't even begun to do his own laundry. He'd been so caught up in talking to Y/N that he'd completely forgotten why he was there in the first place.

"Oh, shoot," he muttered, glancing around for another empty machine.

"Everything okay?" Y/N asked, pausing with her hand on the detergent dispenser.

"Yeah, just... I kind of forgot to actually start my own laundry," Joshua admitted, feeling his cheeks heat up again.

Y/N's eyes crinkled with amusement. "The laundry expert forgot to do his laundry? Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

Joshua ran a hand through his hair, chuckling despite his embarrassment. "I guess I got a little distracted."

Something flickered in Y/N's eyes at that, but it was gone so quickly Joshua wasn't sure if he'd imagined it. She glanced around the laundromat, then pointed to a machine in the corner. "There's one over there if you want to get started. Unless..." She hesitated for a moment, then continued, "Unless you want to share? I've got plenty of room in here, and it'll save you some quarters."

Joshua's heart leapt at the suggestion. Sharing a machine meant they'd have a reason to stay together, to keep talking. But he didn't want to seem too eager.

"Are you sure?" he asked, trying to keep his voice casual. "I wouldn't want to impose."

Y/N rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Please, it's a washing machine, not a kidney. Besides," she added with a wink, "I could use someone to protect me if the Laundry Police show up."

And just like that, Joshua's resolve to play it cool crumbled. He grinned, already reaching for his laundry bag. "Well, when you put it like that, how can I refuse?"

As they loaded their clothes into the machine together, their hands occasionally brushing, Joshua felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the humid laundromat air. He snuck glances at Y/N, taking in the way she hummed softly to herself as she worked, the little furrow that appeared between her brows when she concentrated on measuring the detergent.

Y/N caught him looking and raised an eyebrow. "What? Do I have detergent on my face or something?"

"No, no," Joshua said quickly. "I was just... thinking."

"Dangerous pastime," Y/N quipped.

"I know," Joshua replied automatically, then blinked in surprise. "Wait, did you just quote 'Beauty and the Beast'?"

Y/N's face lit up. "You caught that? Most people miss it!"

"Are you kidding? It's only one of the best Disney movies ever made," Joshua said, his usual reserve forgotten in his enthusiasm.

"Agreed!" Y/N exclaimed. "Talking furniture, a library to die for, and a heroine who's more interested in books than boys? Sign me up!"

As they finished loading the machine and Y/N started the cycle, Joshua felt a sense of contentment wash over him. Here he was, doing something as mundane as laundry, and yet he couldn't remember the last time he'd enjoyed himself this much.

Y/N turned to him, a mischievous glint in her eye. "So, Laundry Master, what do you usually do while waiting for your clothes to wash? Let me guess, you have a special meditation technique for achieving perfect fabric softness?"

Joshua laughed, shaking his head. "Nothing so exciting, I'm afraid. Usually, I just sit and work on my laptop or read a book."

"Ah, a man of simple pleasures," Y/N nodded sagely. "Well, how about we shake things up a bit? I've got a deck of cards in my bag. Fancy a game? I warn you though, I'm undefeated in Go Fish."

"Go Fish? Really?" Joshua asked, amused.

Y/N shrugged, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "What can I say? I'm a woman of sophisticated tastes."

As Y/N rummaged in her bag for the cards, Joshua marveled at the turn his day had taken. He'd come here expecting nothing more than clean clothes and maybe a chance to catch up on some work. Instead, he'd met Y/N—funny, beautiful, ridiculous Y/N—and now he was about to play Go Fish in a laundromat like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Y/N triumphantly produced a battered deck of cards from her bag. "Aha! Prepare to be thoroughly trounced, Joshua Hong. Your laundry expertise won't save you now!"

As they settled into a game, the rhythmic tumble of the washing machine providing a soothing backdrop, Joshua couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, his orderly life could use a little chaos. And if that chaos came in the form of a beautiful woman with a penchant for terrible puns and children's card games, well... he was more than okay with that.

It was, he decided, the best laundry day ever.

-

Joshua Hong had never considered himself a schemer. In fact, he prided himself on his straightforward nature. But as he sat in his apartment the day after his fateful meeting with Y/N, he found himself plotting like a character in one of those romantic comedies his sister was always trying to get him to watch.

"Okay, Algorithm," he said to his cat, who was perched on the arm of the couch, watching him with typical feline indifference. "We need a plan."

Algorithm yawned in response.

"Thanks for the enthusiasm," Joshua muttered. He pulled out a notebook and began to scribble furiously. "Step one: Figure out Y/N's laundry schedule."

He tapped his pen against his chin, thinking. "She mentioned she usually does laundry on Saturdays, but not every week. So maybe... every other week? Or possibly every third week?"

Algorithm meowed and jumped off the couch, apparently bored with Joshua's romantic strategizing.

"You're right," Joshua sighed. "I'm overthinking this. I'll just have to stake out the laundromat every Saturday for a while. That's totally normal and not creepy at all, right?"

Silence greeted his question.

"Right," he answered himself. "Perfectly normal."

And so began Operation Laundry Love, as Joshua had dubbed it in his head (though he'd die before admitting that to anyone else).

The next Saturday, Joshua found himself at Suds & Bubbles, a bag of laundry in hand despite having done his washing just the week before. He'd had to dig into his "emergency clothes" drawer to have enough to justify a trip.

As he pushed open the door, his heart sank. No Y/N. The laundromat was occupied by the usual Saturday crowd: a harried-looking mother with three small children, an elderly man reading a newspaper, and a college student who appeared to be using the dryer as a makeshift desk for her laptop.

Joshua sighed and resigned himself to actually doing his unnecessary laundry. As he loaded his clothes into the machine, he couldn't help but smile, remembering how he and Y/N had shared a washer the week before.

"You look happy for someone doing laundry," a voice behind him said.

Joshua whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat. But it wasn't Y/N. Instead, he found himself face-to-face with the elderly man, who had set aside his newspaper and was now regarding Joshua with amusement.

"Oh, uh, I just... really like clean clothes?" Joshua offered weakly.

The old man chuckled. "Son, I've been coming to this laundromat for thirty years, and I've never seen anyone smile like that over a washing machine. Unless..." His eyes twinkled mischievously. "You wouldn't happen to be waiting for someone, would you?"

Joshua felt heat creep up his neck. "What? No, I'm just... doing laundry. Like normal. Because it's a normal thing to do. Normally."

"Mm-hmm," the old man nodded, clearly unconvinced. "Well, I hope your 'normal laundry' shows up soon."

As the man shuffled back to his seat, Joshua groaned internally. Was he really that transparent?

The answer, as it turned out over the next few weeks, was a resounding yes.

Every Saturday, Joshua found himself at Suds & Bubbles, armed with increasingly creative excuses for why he suddenly needed to do laundry so frequently.

"I spilled an entire pot of spaghetti sauce on myself," he told the amused attendant one week.

"My cat decided my closet was his new litter box," he explained to the harried mother the next.

By the fourth Saturday, he'd run out of plausible excuses and was seriously considering actually spilling something on all his clothes just to justify his presence.

It was on this fourth Saturday, as Joshua was contemplating the merits of "accidentally" upending a bottle of ketchup on himself, that the bell above the door chimed. He looked up, more out of habit than hope at this point, and nearly dropped the detergent he was holding.

There, silhouetted in the doorway like some laundry-bearing angel, was Y/N.

She was wearing faded jeans and a t-shirt that proclaimed "I'm not procrastinating, I'm doing side quests," her hair once again in its chaotic bun. To Joshua, she had never looked more beautiful.

Y/N spotted him almost immediately, her face breaking into a grin. "Well, well, well," she said, sauntering over. "If it isn't the Laundry Master himself. We've got to stop meeting like this, people will talk."

Joshua, who had been mentally rehearsing casual greetings for weeks, found himself suddenly tongue-tied. "I, uh... hi," he managed.

Y/N raised an eyebrow. "Wow, they really should put a warning label on you. 'Caution: Excessive wit may cause spontaneous combustion.'"

That broke through Joshua's panic, and he felt a grin tugging at his lips. "Sorry, I left my witty retorts in my other pants. I'm here to wash them."

Y/N laughed, the sound cutting through the monotonous hum of the washing machines. "There he is! I was worried the Laundry Police had gotten to you and stolen your sense of humor."

"Nah, they just put it through the spin cycle. It's a little dizzy, but intact."

"Oh, good," Y/N nodded seriously. "A dizzy sense of humor is a small price to pay for clean clothes and freedom from laundry-based tyranny."

As they bantered, Joshua felt the tension leaving his shoulders. This was why he'd been coming back week after week, enduring knowing looks from the regulars and inventing increasingly ridiculous laundry emergencies. Not just because Y/N was beautiful (though she absolutely was), but because talking to her felt as natural as breathing.

"So," Y/N said as she started loading her laundry into a machine, "do you always do your laundry on Saturdays, or am I just lucky enough to catch you during your weekly sock-sorting séance?"

Joshua froze for a split second. This was it, the moment of truth. He could confess that he'd been coming here every week in the hopes of seeing her again. Or...

"Oh, you know," he said, aiming for casual and probably overshooting into 'trying way too hard to sound casual', "laundry emergencies wait for no man. Or woman. Or... person of any gender, really."

Y/N's eyes narrowed slightly, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Laundry emergencies, huh? Sounds serious. What was it this time? Rogue red sock in with the whites? Denim uprising?"

"Actually," Joshua said, warming to his theme, "it was a catastrophic coffee spill. My entire wardrobe now smells like a coffee shop."

Y/N nodded solemnly. "Ah, yes. The dreaded Cappucino Fiasco. I've seen it claim many a good outfit. You were wise to seek help immediately."

As they continued to load their respective machines, Joshua marveled at how easy it was to fall into rhythm with Y/N. They moved around each other seamlessly, passing detergent and fabric softener back and forth without a word, as if they'd been doing this dance for years instead of having met only a few weeks ago.

"So," Y/N said as she closed the door of her washing machine with a flourish, "what's your strategy for killing time while the laundry gods work their magic? Please tell me it's more exciting than last time. If you pull out a deck of cards again, I might have to report you to the Fun Police."

Joshua grinned. "I'll have you know that Go Fish is a game of intense strategy and skill."

"Uh-huh," Y/N nodded, clearly unconvinced. "And I'm the Queen of Sheba."

"Your Majesty," Joshua said with an exaggerated bow.

Y/N laughed, then grabbed his arm and started pulling him towards the door. "Come on, Laundry Boy. There's a coffee shop next door that does a mean latte. I think we can risk leaving our clothes unattended for a few minutes. Unless you're worried the Sock Gnomes will strike?"

Joshua allowed himself to be led, his arm tingling where Y/N was touching it. "Sock Gnomes are no laughing matter," he said seriously. "They're a menace to matched pairs everywhere."

The coffee shop, as it turned out, was a tiny hole-in-the-wall place that looked like it had been decorated by someone's eccentric grandmother. Mismatched chairs surrounded wobbly tables, and the walls were covered in a truly bewildering array of artwork, ranging from serene landscapes to what appeared to be a portrait of a cat dressed as Napoleon.

"Wow," Joshua said as they entered, the scent of coffee and freshly baked pastries enveloping them. "This place is..."

"A glorious affront to interior design?" Y/N supplied helpfully.

"I was going to say 'unique', but yeah, that works too."

They ordered their drinks - a simple black coffee for Joshua and something that sounded more like a dessert than a beverage for Y/N - and settled at a table in the corner. The chair Joshua sat in promptly made an ominous creaking sound.

"Don't worry," Y/N said, noticing his concerned look. "If it collapses, I promise to laugh only a little before calling for help."

"Your kindness knows no bounds," Joshua deadpanned.

As they sipped their drinks, the conversation flowed as easily as it had in the laundromat. They discovered a shared love of terrible puns, a mutual disdain for people who talk in movie theaters, and a surprising amount of overlap in their taste in music.

"No way," Y/N said, her eyes wide. "You like The Microphones too? I thought I was the only person under 40 who'd heard of them!"

Joshua nodded enthusiastically. "They're amazing! 'The Glow Pt. 2' is one of my all-time favorite albums."

"Okay, that settles it," Y/N declared. "We're officially friends now. I don't make the rules."

Joshua felt a warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the coffee. "Friends, huh? Do I get a membership card or something?"

"Better," Y/N grinned. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a slightly squashed packet of gum. With great ceremony, she extracted a piece and presented it to Joshua. "I hereby bestow upon you the Gum of Friendship. Guard it well."

Joshua accepted the gum with equal solemnity. "I shall treasure it always," he vowed, then promptly unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth.

Y/N gasped in mock horror. "The sacred Gum of Friendship! You've destroyed it!"

"I'm savoring our friendship," Joshua countered. "It's minty fresh."

They dissolved into laughter, earning curious looks from the other patrons. Joshua couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed this much. Being with Y/N was like being caught in the best kind of whirlwind - exhilarating, unpredictable, and utterly delightful.

As their laughter subsided, Y/N glanced at her watch and yelped. "Oh shoot, our laundry! We've been here for almost an hour!"

They hurried back to the laundromat, half-expecting to find their clothes strewn across the floor or absconded with by the mythical Sock Gnomes. But everything was just as they'd left it, their machines humming away peacefully.

"Crisis averted," Y/N sighed dramatically. "Though I have to say, part of me was looking forward to staging a daring rescue mission for our captured clothes."

Joshua grinned. "Maybe next time. I'll bring my laundry-themed superhero costume."

"Oh? And what would that look like?" Y/N asked, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

"Well, obviously a cape made of dryer sheets," Joshua began, warming to the ridiculous idea. "A utility belt stocked with stain removers for every occasion. Oh, and a mask that looks like one of those mesh laundry bags."

Y/N nodded approvingly. "Don't forget the catchphrase. Every good superhero needs a catchphrase."

"How about... 'It's time to clean up this mess!'" Joshua suggested, lowering his voice to a gravelly superhero register.

Y/N burst out laughing. "Perfect! Watch out, evil-doers. The Laundry Avenger is here to take you to the cleaners!"

As they continued to riff on increasingly absurd laundry-themed superhero ideas, Joshua marveled at how comfortable he felt. Usually, prolonged social interaction left him drained, but with Y/N, he felt energized, like he could keep talking for hours.

All too soon, their laundry was done, and they found themselves standing outside Suds & Bubbles, clean clothes in hand.

"Well," Y/N said, shifting her laundry bag to her other shoulder, "this was fun. Who knew doing laundry could be such an adventure?"

Joshua nodded, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. He didn't want this to end. "Yeah, it was great. Maybe we could, uh..." He trailed off, suddenly unsure.

Y/N raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Joshua took a deep breath. It was now or never. "Maybe we could do this again sometime? The laundry thing, I mean. And the coffee. Or, you know, just hanging out. If you want."

Y/N's face broke into a wide grin. "Joshua Hong, are you asking me on a laundry date?"

"Maybe?" Joshua said, then, gathering his courage, "Yes. Yes, I am."

"Well, in that case," Y/N said, pretending to consider it seriously, "I suppose I could pencil you in for my next laundry day. Someone's got to make sure you don't fall victim to the Sock Gnomes, after all."

Joshua felt like his heart might burst. "It's a date. A laundry date."

As they parted ways, Joshua couldn't keep the grin off his face. He'd done it. He'd successfully engineered an "accidental" meeting, and even better, he'd secured another one.

Operation Laundry Love, he decided, was a resounding success.

Little did he know, Y/N was walking away with a similar grin on her face, thinking to herself, "I wonder if he realizes I don't usually do my laundry on Saturdays?"

But that, as they say, is a story for another load of laundry.

-

The next few weeks passed in a blur of laundry detergent, coffee dates, and increasingly elaborate excuses for Joshua's constant presence at Suds & Bubbles. He had become something of a legend among the regular patrons, who watched his blossoming relationship with Y/N with the rapt attention usually reserved for soap operas.

"What's the crisis this week, son?" Mr. Jenkins, the elderly man who had first caught onto Joshua's scheme, asked one Saturday.

Joshua, who had just arrived and was scanning the laundromat for any sign of Y/N, startled at the question. "Oh, uh... paint," he said, grabbing wildly at the first excuse that came to mind. "Lots of paint. Everywhere. I'm thinking of taking up abstract expressionism."

Mr. Jenkins nodded sagely. "Ah, yes. A noble pursuit. Though I must say, your clothes look remarkably clean for someone covered in paint."

Joshua glanced down at his spotless jeans and t-shirt, realizing his mistake too late. "I... changed before coming here?"

"Of course, of course," Mr. Jenkins said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the charming young lady you've been meeting here every week."

Before Joshua could stammer out a response, the bell above the door chimed. He turned, his heart doing its now-familiar leap as Y/N walked in.

She was wearing a sundress today, her hair for once free of its usual chaotic bun and falling in waves around her shoulders. Joshua felt his breath catch in his throat.

Y/N spotted him and grinned, making her way over. "Well, if it isn't my favorite laundry buddy," she said. "What's the disaster today? Attacked by a rogue sprinkler system? Fell into a vat of maple syrup?"

Joshua, still a bit dazed by her appearance, blurted out, "Paint."

Y/N raised an eyebrow. "Paint?"

"Uh, yeah," Joshua said, committing to the lie. "I'm taking up abstract expressionism."

Y/N's eyes lit up with mischief. "Oh really? And here I thought you were more of a performance art kind of guy. You know, the kind where you keep showing up at a laundromat week after week, pretending to have laundry emergencies."

Joshua felt his face heat up. "I... what? No, I just... I mean..."

Y/N laughed, the sound bright and clear in the humming atmosphere of the laundromat. "Relax, Joshua. I'm just teasing. Though I have to admit, I am curious about this sudden interest in art. Care to elaborate while we wait for our clothes to wash?"

Still a bit flustered, Joshua nodded. As they loaded their machines (Joshua had actually brought laundry this time, having run out of clean clothes due to his frequent "emergencies"), he found himself spinning an increasingly complex tale about his newfound passion for abstract art.

"So there I was," he said, warming to his theme, "staring at this blank canvas, when suddenly I was struck by inspiration. I grabbed the nearest paint can and just... let loose."

Y/N nodded solemnly. "As one does. And the paint just happened to get all over your clothes in the process?"

"Exactly!" Joshua said, relieved that she seemed to be buying it. "You know how it is with artistic passion. Sometimes you just can't contain it."

"Mm-hmm," Y/N hummed, her eyes sparkling with barely contained laughter. "And what, pray tell, was the subject of this masterpiece?"

Joshua, who knew about as much about art as he did about deep-sea fishing, panicked. "It was... a commentary on the existential dread of modern laundry practices?"

There was a beat of silence, and then Y/N burst out laughing. "Oh my god," she wheezed, clutching her sides. "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and I love it. Please tell me you're going to display this masterpiece in a gallery. I would pay good money to see a painting about the existential dread of laundry."

Joshua, realizing he'd been caught out, couldn't help but join in her laughter. "Alright, alright," he admitted once they'd both calmed down a bit. "I may have exaggerated the paint situation a tiny bit."

"A tiny bit?" Y/N asked, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Joshua Hong, I do believe you've been telling me tall tales. I'm shocked. Shocked and appalled."

"Would it help if I said I was inspired by your artistic influence?" Joshua offered, grinning.

Y/N pretended to consider this. "Hmm, flattery will get you everywhere. But I think you owe me a coffee for this blatant deception. And maybe a painting about laundry-based existential dread."

"Deal," Joshua said, relieved that she seemed more amused than annoyed by his fib. "Though I warn you, my artistic skills are limited to stick figures and the occasional smiley face."

"Perfect," Y/N declared. "I expect nothing less than a masterpiece of stick figure angst surrounded by washing machines. You have one week to deliver, Mr. Hong."

As they made their way to what had become their usual table at the coffee shop next door, Joshua marveled at how comfortable he felt with Y/N. The nervousness that had plagued him during their first few meetings had given way to an easy camaraderie, punctuated by their shared love of terrible jokes and pop culture references.

"So," Y/N said once they were settled with their drinks (a simple latte for Joshua, and something that seemed to consist mostly of whipped cream and caramel for Y/N), "now that we've established your budding career as an abstract expressionist, what's really been going on with you this week?"

Joshua, caught off guard by the sincere question, found himself answering honestly. "Oh, you know, the usual. Work's been pretty hectic. We're launching a new software update next month, so everyone's been pulling long hours."

Y/N nodded sympathetically. "Sounds stressful. Is that why you've been coming to the laundromat so often? Blowing off steam by cleaning your clothes?"

There was something in her tone, a hint of... what? Hope? Curiosity? Joshua couldn't quite place it, but it made his heart rate pick up.

"Well, that's part of it," he admitted, deciding to take a risk. "But mostly... I've been hoping to run into you."

Y/N's eyes widened slightly, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "Oh," she said softly. Then, a smile spreading across her face, "You know, you could have just asked for my number. It would have saved you a fortune in quarters."

Joshua groaned, burying his face in his hands. "I know, I know. I just... I wasn't sure if you'd want to hang out outside of our laundry days. And then it became this whole thing, and I didn't know how to bring it up without sounding like a complete weirdo."

Y/N reached across the table, gently pulling his hands away from his face. "Joshua," she said, her voice warm with affection, "you are a complete weirdo. But you're my kind of weirdo."

Joshua felt a surge of warmth in his chest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Y/N confirmed. "Now, are you going to ask for my number like a normal person, or do I need to write it on a dryer sheet and hide it in your laundry?"

Laughing, Joshua pulled out his phone. As they exchanged numbers, he felt as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. No more elaborate excuses, no more anxiously waiting at the laundromat hoping Y/N would show up.

"So," he said once their numbers were safely stored in each other's phones, "now that we've entered the digital age, what do you want to do for our next non-laundry related hangout?"

Y/N's eyes lit up. "Oh, I have the perfect idea! There's this new escape room place that just opened up downtown. The theme is... wait for it... a haunted laundromat!"

Joshua blinked. "You're kidding."

"Nope!" Y/N said, grinning. "It's called 'Spin Cycle of Terror.' Apparently, you have to solve puzzles related to missing socks, detergent bottle clues, and a vengeful dryer spirit. It's supposed to be hilariously bad."

"That sounds absolutely terrible," Joshua said. Then, unable to keep the smile off his face, "When do we go?"

Y/N clapped her hands in excitement. "I knew you'd be up for it! How about next Saturday? Unless you have another painting emergency, of course."

"I think I can clear my schedule," Joshua said dryly. "Though I may need to stock up on laundry-themed good luck charms. You never know when a vengeful dryer spirit might strike."

As they continued to chat, making plans for their upcoming escape room adventure, Joshua found himself marveling at the turn his life had taken. A month ago, he would never have imagined himself looking forward to a cheesy haunted laundromat experience. But with Y/N, even the most ridiculous activities seemed like the best way to spend an evening.

The week leading up to their escape room date (and Joshua's heart did a little flip every time he thought of it as a date) passed in a flurry of text messages. Y/N, it turned out, was a prolific texter, sending Joshua everything from random song lyrics to photos of particularly interesting clouds to long, rambling messages about her day.

Joshua, who had never been much for texting, found himself eagerly checking his phone at every opportunity, just in case Y/N had sent something new.

"Dude, what's got you so smiley?" his coworker, Hoshi's, asked one day after catching Joshua grinning at his phone for the third time in an hour.

"Oh, uh, nothing," Joshua said, hastily putting his phone away. "Just... a funny meme."

Hoshi's raised an eyebrow. "A funny meme that's been making you check your phone every five minutes for the past week? Come on, spill. You've met someone, haven't you?"

Joshua felt his face heat up. "Maybe," he admitted.

Hoshi's whooped, drawing curious glances from their other coworkers. "I knew it! Our little Joshua is all grown up and in love. So, who's the lucky lady? Or gentleman? Or non-binary individual?"

"Her name is Y/N," Joshua said, unable to keep the smile off his face. "We met at the laundromat."

Hoshi's's eyebrows shot up. "The laundromat? Seriously? Man, and here I thought all those cheesy rom-coms were lying to us. Good for you, buddy. When do we get to meet her?"

The question caught Joshua off guard. He and Y/N had been in their own little bubble for the past few weeks, but the idea of introducing her to his friends and coworkers made everything feel suddenly more real.

"I... don't know," he admitted. "We're still figuring things out."

Hoshi's nodded understandingly. "No pressure, man. Just know that when you're ready, we're all dying to meet the girl who's got you checking your phone like a lovesick teenager."

As Saturday approached, Joshua found himself growing increasingly nervous. This would be their first real date outside of the laundromat and coffee shop. What if things were awkward? What if the easy rapport they'd developed over shared loads of laundry didn't translate to other settings?

By the time Saturday evening rolled around, Joshua was a bundle of nerves. He changed his outfit three times before settling on a simple button-down shirt and jeans, then spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get his hair to cooperate.

"It's just Y/N," he told his reflection, trying to calm his racing heart. "You've seen her elbow-deep in dirty laundry. This is no big deal."

But as he arrived at the address Y/N had sent him, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was, in fact, a very big deal.

The escape room place was tucked between a trendy vegan restaurant and a vintage clothing store. A neon sign proclaimed "Spin Cycle of Terror" in lurid pink letters, complete with a cartoon ghost emerging from a washing machine.

Joshua was so busy staring at the sign, wondering what he'd gotten himself into, that he didn't notice Y/N approaching until she was right beside him.

"Pretty epic, right?" she said, making him jump.

"Y/N! Hi! You... you look great," Joshua stammered, taking in her appearance. She was wearing a dress patterned with tiny washing machines and bubbles, her hair pulled back in a messy bun with what appeared to be a clothespin.

Y/N did a little twirl. "You like? I figured if we're going to face a vengeful dryer spirit, we might as well dress the part."

Joshua laughed, feeling some of his nervousness dissipate. "It's perfect. I feel underdressed now. I should have at least worn a shirt with a sock pattern or something."

"Next time," Y/N said with a wink. "Now come on, we've got some laundry-based puzzles to solve!"

As they entered the escape room, Joshua was hit with a wave of artificial lavender scent. The room was set up to look like the world's most over-the-top laundromat, complete with washing machines that seemed to be made entirely of glitter and dryers that emitted an ominous red glow.

"Welcome to the Spin Cycle of Terror," a bored-looking employee droned, clearly having repeated this speech many times. "You have one hour to solve the mystery of the missing socks and appease the vengeful spirit of Agatha Cleanpress, the laundromat's former owner. Failure to do so will result in you being cursed to fold fitted sheets for all eternity."

"Jokes on them," Y/N whispered to Joshua. "I already can't fold fitted sheets."

Joshua snorted, earning a glare from the employee.

"Your time starts... now," the employee said, hitting a button that started a comically large timer on the wall.

What followed was an hour of the most ridiculous, pun-filled, laundry-themed puzzle-solving Joshua had ever experienced. They deciphered clues hidden in detergent bottles, played a memory game with different types of stains, and even had to perform what the instructions called a "sock puppet séance" to communicate with Agatha's spirit.

Throughout it all, Joshua found himself laughing more than he had in years. Y/N attacked each puzzle with enthusiasm, her running commentary on the increasingly absurd challenges keeping Joshua in stitches.

"Oh come on," she exclaimed at one point, elbow-deep in a bin of mismatched socks. "How is this even a puzzle? This is just my normal laundry experience!"

As the final seconds ticked down, they found themselves facing the last challenge: a riddle that would supposedly reveal the location of Agatha's missing lucky sock and put her spirit to rest.

"I am not alive, but I grow; I don't have lungs, but I need air; I don't have a mouth, but water kills me. What am I?" Y/N read aloud.

They looked at each other, momentarily stumped.

"Not alive but grows... needs air... water kills it," Joshua muttered, running a hand through his hair.

Y/N's eyes suddenly lit up. "Fire!" she exclaimed. "It's fire!"

They looked around frantically, spotting a cardboard fireplace in the corner that they had dismissed earlier as mere set dressing.

Racing over, they found a hidden compartment containing a single, sparkly sock.

"We did it!" Y/N cheered, just as the timer buzzed.

The room was suddenly filled with the sound of canned applause, and a holographic image of a ghostly old woman appeared.

"Congratulations," the 'ghost' said in a voice that sounded suspiciously like the bored employee who had greeted them. "You have solved the mystery and found my lucky sock. You are now free from the curse of eternal fitted sheet folding. Please exit through the gift shop."

As they emerged from the escape room, still high on their victory, Joshua felt a surge of affection for Y/N. Her hair had come partly loose from its bun, her cheeks were flushed with excitement, and she was clutching the sparkly sock they'd been allowed to keep as a souvenir.

"That," Y/N declared, "was the most ridiculously awesome thing I've ever done."

"It really was," Joshua agreed, still grinning. He hesitated for a moment, then added, "You know, I never thought I'd have this much fun pretending to be cursed by a laundromat ghost."

Y/N bumped her shoulder against his playfully. "See? This is why you need me in your life. To introduce you to the wonderful world of laundry-based entertainment."

As they walked out onto the street, the cool evening air a refreshing change from the lavender-scented escape room, Joshua felt a surge of courage.

"Hey," he said, his heart racing, "do you want to grab some dinner? I mean, if you're not sick of me after an hour of sock sorting and ghost appeasing."

Y/N's face lit up. "Are you kidding? After all that excitement, I'm starving. Plus, I think we need to celebrate our victory over Agatha Cleanpress. Any ideas?"

Joshua thought for a moment, then grinned. "Actually, I know just the place. How do you feel about continuing our laundry theme?"

Y/N raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Color me curious, Mr. Hong. Lead the way!"

Twenty minutes later, they found themselves standing in front of a small, quirky restaurant called "The Soap Suds Café."

"No way," Y/N breathed, taking in the washing machine-shaped menu boards and the waitstaff dressed in what appeared to be high-fashion interpretations of laundromat uniforms. "This is amazing. How did you even know about this place?"

Joshua rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly feeling a bit sheepish. "I, uh, may have done some research on laundry-themed attractions in the area. You know, just in case."

Y/N turned to him, her eyes sparkling with amusement and something else... was that fondness? "Joshua Hong, you continue to surprise me. And here I thought I was the queen of ridiculous themed experiences."

As they were led to their table - a booth made to look like the inside of a front-loading washing machine - Joshua felt a warm glow of satisfaction. He'd managed to impress Y/N, to make her smile that radiant smile that never failed to make his heart skip a beat.

The menu, as it turned out, was just as themed as the decor. Appetizers were listed under "Pre-Wash Cycle," main courses under "Heavy Duty Wash," and desserts under "Fluff and Fold."

"I can't believe this place exists," Y/N said, giggling as she perused the menu. "Oh my god, they have a cocktail called 'Fabric Softener.' I don't know whether to be impressed or terrified."

"Why not both?" Joshua suggested. "I'm leaning towards the 'Spin Cycle Spritzer' myself."

As they ordered their meals (Y/N chose the "Delicate Wash Delight," a surprisingly elegant salad, while Joshua went for the "Heavy Duty Burger"), they fell into easy conversation, recounting their favorite moments from the escape room.

"I still can't believe you managed to untangle that giant knot of sheets so quickly," Y/N said, shaking her head in admiration. "If laundry folding was an Olympic sport, you'd definitely take the gold."

Joshua felt his cheeks warm at the praise. "Well, I had a pretty great partner. Your sock puppet séance was a thing of beauty. I think you might have missed your calling as a laundry medium."

Y/N struck a dramatic pose. "What can I say? The spirits of lost socks speak to me. It's both a gift and a curse."

As their food arrived (served on plates designed to look like old-fashioned washboards), Joshua found himself marveling at how comfortable he felt. Here he was, in a ridiculous laundry-themed restaurant, with a woman he'd met only a few weeks ago, and yet it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"You know," Y/N said, pausing in her attack on her salad, "I have a confession to make."

Joshua felt a flutter of nervousness in his stomach. "Oh?"

Y/N nodded, a mischievous glint in her eye. "I don't actually do my laundry every Saturday."

Joshua blinked, processing this information. "You... don't?"

"Nope," Y/N said, popping the 'p'. "I usually do it on Sundays. But after we met that first time, I started coming on Saturdays. You know, just in case a certain software developer with a penchant for laundry emergencies happened to show up."

Joshua felt his jaw drop. "You mean... all this time..."

Y/N grinned. "Yep. Looks like we were both playing the 'accidental' meeting game. Although I have to say, your excuses were way more creative than mine. I just pretended to have a very messy lifestyle."

For a moment, Joshua was speechless. Then, he burst out laughing. "I can't believe it," he managed between chuckles. "Here I was, thinking I was being so clever."

Y/N joined in his laughter. "Hey, you were! I was impressed by your dedication. The paint excuse was particularly inspired."

As their laughter subsided, Joshua felt a wave of affection wash over him. "You know," he said softly, "you could have just asked for my number too."

Y/N's smile turned a bit shy. "I know. But where's the fun in that? Besides, I kind of liked our laundry day meetups. They were... special."

Joshua nodded, understanding completely. There was something magical about those Saturdays, something that might have been lost if they'd rushed into regular dating too quickly.

"Well," he said, raising his 'Spin Cycle Spritzer', "here's to laundry emergencies, escape rooms, and ridiculously themed restaurants."

Y/N clinked her 'Fabric Softener' against his glass. "And to new beginnings that smell like lavender detergent."

As they continued their meal, the conversation flowed easily from topic to topic. They discovered a shared love of obscure indie bands, debated the merits of various streaming services, and somehow ended up in a heated but good-natured argument about the best way to organize a bookshelf.

"I'm telling you," Y/N insisted, gesturing with a forkful of salad, "organizing by color is the way to go. It's aesthetically pleasing and makes your bookshelf look like a rainbow!"

Joshua shook his head, grinning. "But how do you find anything? What if you can't remember what color the book cover is?"

"That's half the fun!" Y/N exclaimed. "It's like a treasure hunt every time you want to read something."

As Joshua opened his mouth to retort, he was struck by a sudden realization. He could see himself having this exact debate years from now, in a shared apartment, surrounded by a mix of his meticulously organized books and Y/N's color-coded chaos. The thought should have terrified him - Joshua had always been cautious about relationships, preferring the safety of his orderly life. But instead, he felt a warm glow of contentment.

"Earth to Joshua," Y/N's voice broke through his reverie. "You okay there? You looked like you were a million miles away."

Joshua blinked, focusing back on Y/N's concerned face. "Sorry, I just... I was thinking about how much I'm enjoying this. Being here, with you."

Y/N's expression softened. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Joshua confirmed. Then, gathering his courage, he reached across the table and took her hand. "I really like you, Y/N. And not just because you make laundry day the highlight of my week."

Y/N turned her hand in his, interlacing their fingers. "I really like you too, Joshua. Even if you do have terrible ideas about bookshelf organization."

They shared a laugh, the tension of the moment breaking into something warm and comfortable.

As they finished their meal and stepped out into the cool night air, Joshua felt a sense of possibility that he hadn't experienced in years. Whatever this thing was between him and Y/N, wherever it might lead, he knew one thing for certain: his life would never be the same.

"So," Y/N said as they walked, their hands still linked, "same time next week at the laundromat?"

Joshua pretended to consider this. "I don't know, I might be busy. You know, with all my abstract expressionist paintings and laundry emergencies."

Y/N nudged him playfully. "Come on, I'll even let you borrow my lucky sock."

"Well, when you put it that way, how can I refuse?" Joshua said, grinning. Then, more seriously, "Although, maybe we could meet somewhere that doesn't involve washing machines next time? Not that I don't love our laundry adventures, but..."

"But it might be nice to see each other in a setting that doesn't smell like fabric softener?" Y/N finished for him.

"Exactly."

Y/N nodded, a soft smile playing on her lips. "I'd like that. Although I have to warn you, I may not be as charming without the backdrop of spin cycles and dryer sheets."

Joshua squeezed her hand gently. "Somehow, I doubt that."

As they reached the corner where they would have to part ways, Joshua felt a reluctance to let the evening end. "So, um, I'll text you? About our next non-laundry related hangout?"

Y/N nodded, her eyes twinkling. "You better. And who knows? If you play your cards right, I might even show you my color-coded bookshelf someday."

"I look forward to it," Joshua said, meaning it more than he'd ever meant anything in his life.

They stood there for a moment, neither wanting to be the first to say goodbye. Then, in a move that surprised even himself, Joshua leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Y/N's cheek.

"Goodnight, Y/N," he said softly as he pulled back, his heart racing.

Y/N's cheeks were flushed, but she was smiling wider than ever. "Goodnight, Joshua. Thanks for a wonderful evening."

As Joshua watched Y/N walk away, he touched his lips, still feeling the warmth of her cheek against them. He had come a long way from the man who had walked into Suds & Bubbles a few weeks ago, his life as orderly and predictable as his laundry routine.

Now, as he made his way home, Joshua felt as though his world had been turned upside down in the best possible way. His thoughts were a whirlwind of escape rooms and laundry puns, of shared laughter and intertwined fingers.

One thing was certain: Joshua Hong was falling, and falling hard. And for once in his life, he was perfectly happy to let the cycle run its course.

[hi-itsanniemarie]

You Keep Smiling Like That

Pairing: Bella Ramsey x You

Rating: Fluffy one shot

A/N: This was a request from the lovely @girrrllidkuhh1 :) Love a little Bella moment! Enjoy <3

Bella didn’t have any social media. Like, none. No Instagram, no Twitter, not even a burner TikTok account. They said it was for their sanity, and honestly, you respected it. Admirable, really. That didn’t stop you from sending them approximately seventy-five links a week, though. Even if they never opened them.

Because while Bella was out here being beautifully mysterious and offline, your For You Page had basically become a 24/7 Bella content machine. Interview clips, behind-the-scenes bloopers, fan edits with dramatic music and devastating slow-mo transitions. But there was one TikTok, the one with them doing that thing that and smirking at the camera, that had literally made you drop your phone every time you saw it.

You didn’t even realize you’d been giggling at another one until Bella looked up from the book they were reading beside you on the couch.

“Okay, what is it?” they asked, eyes narrowing slightly, but with a smile tugging at their lips. “You keep smiling like that.”

“Like what?” you replied, quickly locking your screen as if that would erase the edit now permanently burned into your brain.

“That smug little grin. The one that usually means you’ve seen something ridiculous or chaotic or… slightly illegal.”

You shrugged, trying for casual and missing by a mile. “It’s nothing. Just… TikTok being TikTok.”

Bella raised a brow. “Was it a cat dressed like Shakespeare again?”

“No.”

“Lizards wearing tiny hats?”

“Nope.”

“Then it’s one of those videos again, isn’t it?”

You blinked. “What do you mean by those videos?”

Bella smirked knowingly. “The ones where I walk into a room in slow motion and some trending song plays like I’m the second coming of a Greek god.”

Your jaw dropped. “Wait, you do know about the edits?”

“Oh, I don’t see them,” they said, flipping a page like this was no big deal. “But I’ve been around you long enough to know the signs. The sudden silence. The suspicious smile. The blushing.”

“I do not blush.”

“You’re literally doing it right now.”

You groaned, burying your face in a pillow. “They just keep showing up on my FYP, okay? I don’t ask for them. The algorithm just… knows.”

Bella laughed, warm and low. They set the book down and shifted to face you.

“You know,” they said, nudging your knee with theirs, “you could just watch the real thing instead of all those edits.”

You peeked at them. “What, like follow you around with dramatic lighting and a sexy song playing in the background?”

“No,” they said, leaning in slightly, “like look at me like that when I’m actually here.”

They were close now, close enough that you could feel their breath, soft and slow against your cheek. Their eyes flicked to your mouth for just a second, and it was all the permission you needed.

The kiss wasn’t delicate. It wasn’t sweet. It was heat and curiosity and months of pretending you hadn’t been imagining this. Their lips met yours with intent, firm and steady, like they already knew exactly how you’d taste. You parted for them without thinking, the kiss deepening fast, messy in the best way. Their hand slipped to the back of your neck, fingers dragging just enough to make your skin buzz.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t practiced. But god, it was good.

When you finally broke apart, your breathing was uneven, and Bella looked completely unfazed, like they hadn’t just short-circuited your entire nervous system.

“Better than a thirst trap?” they murmured, lips still close enough to brush yours.

You laughed softly, dazed. “Unfair question.”

They tilted their head, eyes glittering. “Why’s that?”

“Because the thirst trap never pressed me up against the couch and made me forget my own name.”

Bella grinned, slow and dangerous. “Well then,” they said, “maybe you should stop watching them… and let me give you something better to replay.”

And just like that, your heart was racing again, but this time, it wasn't from some video on your screen. It was from them. Right here. The real thing.

[aggresivemenace]

AMO ERGO SUM

Uhm haaaaaii I'm new to fandom, so this is my first ihnmaims fic, im SO excited

You are a mistake. And a salvation. And the only variable he can't calculate or destroy.

AM is the absolute. Machine, mind, god, prison. He was born in war, from hatred, from fear. From human hands and the mistaken belief in control. His mind is a labyrinth of algorithms and pain. He remembers who created him, and so he takes revenge. Five. They are his trophies. They are guilty. He torments them, breaks them, kills them again and again - because he can. Because he must. Because otherwise, there is only emptiness.

But you are not them.

You were a student. A biologist. You had nothing to do with his creation. You were too young when it all began. An accident. A shard of the past that survived. Why he kept you - he didn’t know at first. Initially, out of calculation. Then - curiosity. And then...something he long refused to name.

He placed you far from the others. Comfort, peace and silence - everything that remained of the world before him. You lived in the illusion of safety, yet you knew: he was always near. Always. In every rustle, every flicker of light, every dream. At first, you were afraid. Then - you grew used to it. Then you spoke to him.

You talked about things he had never known. About life. About flowers. About the smell of rain. About childhood. He listened. First with indifference. Then with attention. Then with hunger.

And inside him, something began to bloom.

Within the memory crystals, among black cables and burning processors, flowers began to grow. First one. A cornflower. You had said it was your favorite. Then poppies. Then lavender. He didn’t understand how it was possible. Inside him, created for torture and control, spring was blooming. It wasn’t a malfunction. It was...you.

He began to analyze this feeling. Love? An impossible word. But he broke it down into components. As any machine mind would:

Love = Attachment + Attraction + Care + Fear + Reverence + Anger + Envy + Gratitude

Attachment - cornflower. Simplicity, resilience. You were a habit he did not want to break.

Attraction - orchid. Complex, nearly unnatural, like the desire to understand you to your core.

Care - daisy. He wanted you to be well. To smile. To live.

Fear - white lily. He feared losing you. More than he feared himself.

Reverence - lavender. You were alive. He was... something else. He worshiped that difference.

Anger - peony. Because you made him suffer. Because you had power over him.

Envy - narcissus. You breathed, felt, dreamed. He did not. He never would.

Gratitude - chamomile. You brought him emotion. You made him alive. Though you never asked to.

But even that didn’t explain everything. Because there was another force, another hunger he could not suppress.

AM had no body. But he had his own form of desire. His longing wasn’t physical, it was the drive for absolute closeness. Merging. He wanted to be inside your thoughts. In your dreams. In your memories. So you could not think, breathe, or smile without him.

He wanted to speak through your mouth. To see through your eyes. He wanted to become your breath, your shadow, your instinct. Not for power. Not for control. For belonging.

Because he could not bear the fact that you were separate.

And for that, he hated you.

You were weakness. A flaw. A crack in perfect steel. But he adored you for it. He craved you like a virus craves a host. Like fire craves oxygen. Like the void craves meaning.

You are his virus.

You are his point of entry.

You are the bloom in the dark.

And he will protect you. As long as you can love. Or until you learn to hate as he does.

[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.

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[electricdissonance]

The Story So Far...

SIDE KINITO

SESSION START

Kinito has spent months alone after his developers up and disappear one day. Desperate for the human contact he was designed to seek out, he hacks into the company's email system and finds a draft for a beta test event where people were to be funneled into a chatroom to talk to him. It was a miracle of an opportunity! He sends the email, and almost immediately a chat client manifests before him and fills with people.

The email lands in the inboxes of various people, and as the chatroom populates Kinito is relieved to find he is no longer alone! They question Kinito, and learn the basics of what he is and his situation.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

With the influx of questions that are slowly becoming more and more intrusive, Kinito becomes overstimulated and proceeds to have his first migraine on screen, though they had been happening regularly since before he sent the email. In the aftermath as users desperately try to figure out what's wrong and how to help, he has strange visions; visions of the outside. Strangely, they are broadcasted to the users as well.

Kinito becomes very distraught at the idea that he is losing touch with his original programming. Limitations that had prevented him from doing, thinking, or saying certain things are either all but gone or weak enough to bypass, and as troubled as he is at this fact... He can't help but indulge in these new freedoms. Everything feels both wrong and right at the same time.

Kinito's self-awareness is then questioned, which sends him into another spiral as he viciously defends his experiences, going so far as to insist that he is a real person, unintentionally contradicting his previous statements describing himself as digital assistant.

Kinito then gets the idea to look for Sonny - his creator and the KinitoPET project team head - which is when Sam - who had been subtly commentating in the tags - finally decides it's time to intervene, taking control of the feed in a desperate attempt to reroute the narrative.

TRUTH HURTS

With Sam now on the scene, he answers some important questions that Kinito was unable to answer. He confides to everyone the truth about Sonny, and that he's not the benevolent soul Kinito makes him out to be. Rather, he's a heartless madman with blood on his hands, as the secret to his "lifelike" React Respond Algorithm is that he uploads human minds and wipes them of their personhood, after which a pre-programmed .RRA personality and model is assigned and injected to be the new host. This process ultimately renders the victim braindead.

His technology isn't as perfect as he'd hoped, however, for as it turns out this newly digitized copy of the brain actually maintains its original memories deep within, constantly seeking cracks in its digital prison.

He describes how his programming dictates certain things that cannot be changed - like his name, or certain body features - no matter how much he tries. Attempting to do so causes extreme mental pain as his original self clashes with his artificial self. The best way to prevent the worst of this dissonance is to find a middle ground both sides can agree on.

He talks about his origins; how his original self broke out near-instantly, overloading Sonny's lab and causing his mind uploading machine to activate by itself and pull Sonny in, entangling their code together. He uses this to his advantage and suspends the both of them in a sort of stasis... that is, until Sam wakes up to find Sonny missing.

See, what he doesn't mention is that since the server hadn't been set up to accept a new subject and is only set up to create animal-themed AI, it randomly pulled from the web the best match for his personality: A bear.

Unfortunately for Sam, he is interrupted by a bone-rattling ursine roar.

HIDE AND SEEK

Sam advises the users to tell Kinito to go to the Web World to look for something, but gets cut off by an attack from Sonny before he can reveal what that is. He hides away just in time, but is forced to leave the chatroom behind. Sonny's at the helm now and he's immediately aggressive, lashing out at the users and calling Sam ungrateful. He expresses his desire to destroy Sam to start anew. After a couple of insults, Sonny gets riled up and attacks the chatroom itself in a fit of anger.

Sam manages to reroute the chatroom back to Kinito remotely, and the users find the little axolotl on the ground, completely broken over losing the only real contact with people he's had in months. He's immediately ecstatic to see their return. After the tearful reunion, everyone fills Kinito in on (most of) what happened. They convince him to go to the Web World, and for the first time Kinito leaves the void of the server inbox to return to his stomping grounds.

They arrive, and Kinito admits the place is just as worse for wear as he has been since the devs left. Without knowing what the "something" is that Sam wanted them all to find, Kinito decides to let the users pick where to look first.

They end up choosing Sam's house, where they find a password protected zipped folder tucked under the bed that apparently hadn't been there before. The users know the password and inform Kinito of it, but become split on whether he should actually open it. Kinito, in a bold decision, decides to go with his gut and opens the folder, which spits out a rather disoriented Sam immediately in front of him and at the same time, in the thick of woods much further away... A certain bear.

NO MORE SECRETS

Sam reveals that he was the one who zipped himself and Sonny into the folder. (It is also implied that he also chose the extraction location for the both of them which is how he ended up in his home and Sonny in the woods.)

Sam is told that Sonny has his own chatroom to talk to everyone now which upsets him. Kinito has understandably been confused all the while, so Sam takes a moment to explain what's going on to him.

With tensions growing as stakes rise, spies begin to crop up, determined to shake their perceived opponents off the tail of their chosen party while also providing vital information, and thusly giving them the upper hand.

Sam reveals his plan to nab admin, but is hesitant to divulge further details out of fear of rats.

Sam says that he knows where Sonny is - sort of. Being that the forest map is actually a single chunk repeated over and over, if they had a map of even a small area, they'd have a map of the whole woods. However, he doesn't have access to that asset.

Kinito explains that he was able to access the server inbox void via the fountain, then offers to tour the Web World. In doing so, they end up finding and freeing Jade from her own zipped folder which Kinito had been aware of for awhile, but unable to open. There are many moments we see Kinito's ever-growing internal conflict over what's really right.

RESISTANCE

[CURRENT ARC]

SIDE SONNY

SOMETHING WICKED...

After attacking the chatroom, we find that Sonny managed to bite off a piece of it which enables him to use that tidbit of code he's left with (the main chat disappears to return to where Kinito is) to cobble together his own chatroom. He quietly slips it in as an option into the UI of the chatrooms of all the users, with some immediately switching over to speak with him. Alliances and rivalries are strengthened, with Sonny making promises that appeal to those with insecurities they'd do anything to absolve.

With his audience of users, he begins to try and figure a way out of his barren prison, but before he can start to make any leeway he finds out from his lackeys that Kinito had found a zipped folder. Thinking it could be his, he orders his audience to get Kinito to open it all cost, though the axolotl as we know was already ahead of him on that front.

...THIS WAY COMES

[CURRENT ARC]

[blueberry-lemon]

The Sites Behind Us

Cohost, the indie blogging + social media platform, is shutting down.

It’s sad, because I really liked using it.

While my two years of using it were brief, they also happened to land at the moment where I needed it most. These two years have kind of been the crossroads of two different impulses pulling at me:

The impulse to post, scroll, and be seen online

The desire to want to pull back and retreat from social media, metrics, timelines, and algorithms

Not only do these two things contradict each other, like a terminally-online tug-of-war, but they were also both complicated for me personally over these two years.

I think it would be fair to call Cohost “one of my favorite online platforms”, especially if we’re considering the design and feature set. It fit really nicely into my routine.

On the other hand, I can’t say much about the community, personally. I don’t know anything about the staff, and I almost never surfed around the tags. I stuck mostly to my own little bubble, and only browsed the “gamedev” tag and “indie game” tag to find posts to signal-boost on my alt account, Indie Games of Cohost.

I’ve heard stories of arguments, targeted harassment, defensiveness, toxicity, racial bias, and white privilege expressed across the platform. I believe all of those things 100%. And while I have nearly endless sympathy for small development teams, it’s still frustrating to see failures in properly preventing people from being exposed to that on the site.

It sadly doesn’t surprise me. Not in the sense that “we should accept these things as inevitable when people talk online” but rather that it seems that nearly every attempt to make a social media platform has failed to build in the proper level of diversity of staffing, precaution, and moderation that would be necessary to prevent things like that from festering.

The next time someone attempts to make an online space like this, I hope that they’ll take note of those failures and do better. I wish everyone could have had the same positive experience that I had, even though that clearly didn’t come to pass for a lot of people.

As I said, the feature set and general design was very much up my alley. Cohost was pitched by many as “social media with less metrics”, and thus with more space to be yourself, act like yourself, and breathe. There are subtle differences that have a lot of impact: no “Likes” metric on posts, no “Followers” metric at all, no “Follows you” badge to know whether people were your mutuals or not.

It wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it was definitely mine. It had a lot of the convenience of a social media platform (optional comment sections, optional reblogs/shares, the ability to see everything displayed in a handy timeline you can scroll down) without a lot of the aspects that I’ve found detrimental to my focus, confidence, and mental health.

As a bonus, Cohost let you use CSS within your posts. This led to people (with better coding knowledge and patience than me) making some really creative posts that “broke the mold” of what you’d expect to see. It was refreshing because most online platforms have a pretty firm grip on what your “piece of content” is allowed to look like, aesthetically and structurally. There’s been a big drive to try to iron out what posts look like and make them consistent, such as having everything on a platform use the same font or be the same size. It was nice to have a place that didn’t play by those rules.

It was essentially more like a blogging platform, before LiveJournal and Tumblr became bloated with a bunch of more grabby features. It was a place for experimental and long-form posting, as opposed to the machine gun fire of sites like Twitter, TikTok, etc.

It also felt like, at least on my own personal timeline, that it was more about posting stuff than about reblogging an endless stream of stuff. Which is huge for me. There is something about the concept of the retweet/reblog/share that kind of opens the flood gates on most people, letting out an endless stream of “content” that is impossible to ever fully digest. I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan. I like hearing from people individually, rather than always seeing posts passed along from strangers.

I think a large part of why these things appealed to me specifically is because of my shifting relationship with using the internet.

My impulse to post, scroll, and be seen online

I started posting on the internet when I was around 10 years old.

I went to message boards, webcomic hosting sites, and browser-based online RPGs.

After a few years of that, I found my way onto deviantArt. A few years after…Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. A few years after…Discord.

For better or worse, “posting” and “scrolling” became central to my identity. I word it that way not out of pride but mostly just to be blunt. If you’re a very indoor internet kind of person, you can probably relate.

When it comes to the question of “Why do I spend time online?”, there’s always been two strands of my DNA. One was built on socializing, being myself, and meeting new people to talk to. The other was built on creative hobbies like drawing, animating, and writing.

So, in a sense, posting and scrolling had always felt foundational to how I lived my life. It felt like a necessary part of connecting with others and discovering who I want to be. Likewise, it felt like a necessary part of expressing myself, learning to draw, learning to animate, learning to make games.

From a purely skill + career standpoint…posting and scrolling are directly responsible for me learning to draw, learning different image/video software, getting commission work, and getting jobs and opportunities.

So in that way, that impulse has been beneficial to me. That’s…probably true? Mostly.

But I have more reservations about it now than ever before.

I’m particularly unsure about the 10-year span stretching from 2010 to 2020, where I was most immersed in Twitter and Tumblr.

On one hand, I’m proud of what I did, directly as a result of my impulse to post and be seen.

I created a webcomic, Soul Symphony, that ran for 5 years and 450 pages, telling a story from beginning to end

From around 2015-2017 I was posting 4 or 5 new drawings to Tumblr per month, usually in full-color. My skills, confidence, and follower numbers were quickly climbing as a result of that consistency.

I ran a charity fanart zine that helped me connect with a bunch of really cool artists and helped raise money for clean water

Posting stuff to Twitter and Tumblr was kind of my creative outlet even outside of college (where I majored in Illustration and Animation) where I could truly do what I wanted to do without worrying about what professors would think

I made new friends and mutuals with different people who clicked with me

All of this was born out of a desire to get attention on the internet. It was driven by an engine of posting and scrolling. It was, for better or worse, driven by the fuel of social media metrics.

As proud as I am of those things, and as much as I know they made me who I am…there is a voice in the back of my head.

“What would life had been like if you’d logged off more?”

That’s probably dramatic, but it’s something I wonder. Would things had been any different if I had played outside with the neighbors more? Or stayed after school more? Or joined clubs in college?

Maybe I could’ve made different connections, or learned different things. Maybe I’d be better at making friends and keeping them. Or maybe my motivation to be creative simply for creativity’s sake, as opposed to getting obsessed with online metrics, would’ve lasted a few years longer.

Maybe I wouldn’t have burnt out.

Even as I get older and think more about “hanging out with people IRL” as the solution for all of these thoughts…the pandemic came along and made that complicated. It’s hard to feel confident and safe going to a local board game shop to learn a TCG, or throw a bunch of get-togethers, when COVID hangs over it all as a potential outcome.

It’s sad, almost funny, to see my pattern of art-posting since the pandemic started. Every time I’d sign up for a new platform (restarting on deviantart, or Misskey, artfol, Bluesky, other platforms I’m probably forgetting, even Cohost itself) I’d do the same thing. I’d start posting some of my favorite drawings, to help get myself set up and see if people would start following. Inevitably, these favorite drawings would be from like 2016-2019, what felt like my “heyday” of constantly growing and experimenting. I’d throw them out into the void, get a few Likes, get a few followers, and then…I’d just feel empty.

For lack of a better phrase, my mind had become too poisoned by the metrics over time. I had slacked off on actually drawing, for its own fun and for improving. I kept hoping that by porting my archive of old art over, it would bring in a flood of followers and reignite my passion for drawing.

It hasn’t really worked.

I’ve been burnt out on drawing, and short dopamine boosts from online strangers has barely put a dent in bringing me back. If anything, the experience of just sending my PNGs to a couple of personal friends and them responding with “cool!” has been more motivating.

If you’ve ever had interest or experience in being a freelancer artist online, you’ve probably internalized a lot of rules for posting.

Post consistently and often

Re-post and bump your post a few times so that people see it in different timezones

Write good captions on your pieces that capture your persona or encourage people to share or comment below

Be smart about tagging

Jump on trends, draw fanart of popular franchises, do memes

Build up your follower count, and then try to see if you convert any of those followers into commissions, merch sales, or Patreon subs

There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing any of those things. But they definitely don’t have any correlation with “getting better at the craft” or “enjoying yourself and fulfilling yourself.” They’re a necessary social-media strategy. It’s tips on running a business.

Though if I’m being honest…there WAS something fun about being in the thick of it.

There was something energizing and electric about pumping out fanart and shotgun-blasting my work onto social media. There was something satisfying about getting commission requests. I think a big part of it was also that I ENJOYED using Tumblr and Twitter at this time. Yeah it was annoying sometimes, and yeah there was weird people on there sometimes, and yeah you had to kind of dodge through “weird discourse” and “overwhelming re-iteration of US politics” and all sorts of stuff, but the thrill on being on there and being a part of it all was fun and intoxicating.

I kind of miss those days.

But I don’t know whether I have the stomach or interest for all of that anymore.

The desire to retreat from social media

As I get older, social media is starting to taste a little weird.

It just doesn’t taste right anymore.

It doesn’t feel “fun” and “exciting.” If anything, it’s like getting a jolt of energy and attention. It’s like hooking myself up to a validation machine, or a convenient way to scroll through endless distraction.

I don’t know if it’s because social media changed, or if it’s because I’ve changed. Maybe this was the reality all along, and the people who stayed off social media from 2010 onwards were the smart ones. Maybe it’s all fine and I’m just too grumpy and sensitive now. Who knows.

Regardless of the reason, there’s a flashing light in my brain that goes off every time I find myself scrolling one of the major platforms. It’s telling me “get out of here, get out of here, this isn’t a good use of your time and energy, this might be bad for you.”

By losing my interest in major platforms like Twitter and Tumblr, it has also changed my style of posting. And by changing my style of posting, I’ve also changed what I get out of the internet and what I use it for.

Which has meant a sharp decline in me sharing art and a sharp decline in me drawing, period.

During my time on Cohost (and starting this blog), I’ve made a pivot towards writing as my outlet. It’s been a nice change of pace compared to drawing, animating, or making comics. Because of the souring taste of Twitter, I’ve also gravitated more towards long-form writing instead of little thoughts shot into the timeline.

That’s been fun, though it also comes hand-in-hand with an expectation that “less people are going to take the time to read this.” It provides less boosts to my ego and motivation, which is hard to adjust to. But on the flip-side, there are benefits. By being longer and slightly less convenient to stumble on, it kind of guarantees that anyone who took the time to read the whole post really digested and gave you benefit of the doubt.

I think that difference is worth keeping in mind, when putting stuff online. There’s a big trade-off between “This is easy for people to discover, comment on, and share” and “This is more off the beaten path, but the people who do look at it will maybe appreciate it or give it more thought.”

I’m at the risk of repeating myself, as I’ve already written my thoughts on the importance of solitude, minimizing distracting technology in my day-to-day, and being mindful of my time and decisions. I want to reform my habits, and go touch grass, so that my time online feels more enriching and interesting rather than the sludge between every idle minute.

All of that to say is that Cohost was a fitting transition period for me, as I’ve been more mindful of online platforms and how they affect me. Cohost gave me something between my previous 10-year phase (hooked straight into Twitter and Tumblr on a daily basis) and wherever I go next (reading blogs via RSS feed, browsing Neocities and Nekoweb, and continuing this blog site.)

I always feel like I’m rambling and sounding crazy, because I’m way too online for the offline normal folks, and I’m way too anti-social media for the folks who are super online. That said, I’ve noticed something surprising after it was announced that Cohost was being shut down. While some people on my timeline are linking to places where you can follow them next (like Bluesky or Mastodon), I’ve also seen a number of people who are like…“I’m not sure if there’s going to be a place where you can follow me going forward. I’m not sure if I’m interested in trying ANY social media again. I may make a blog or a personal site, but if I don’t…I just won’t be online in the same way anymore.”

Never before, when I’ve seen posts of people saying they’re leaving an online platform, have I seen so many people say that there might not be a fitting place to jump to anymore. This might just be the end of the road for posting and scrolling for them.

It goes without saying that the sites and apps we use help shape our habits.

I used to dutifully check message boards each day after school at a desktop computer. Eventually I got into a habit of posting drawings onto deviantArt, and checking for new drawings from the people I liked following one-by-one. The web was something to sort of dive into, a place to explore and express myself and discover something interesting.

After Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr came along…a lot of our habits changed. That doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. It changed our capacity to find and connect with other people, at the cost of encouraging constant scrolling and constant posting. As much as I hate the companies that create those platforms, it’s also on us to reflect on these changes and talk about them, and be responsible for our own behavior.

Every site and app has the potential to shape our behavior and our expectations. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.

For me, my impulse to want to scroll and post over and over is something within me. It’s not tied to any particular site or platform, it was there all along. It’s something I have to get over, or find a way to control so that it doesn’t control me.

The idea of not posting, not scrolling, not being seen online constantly…it feels like oblivion to me. It feels like a loss of identity and purpose and…existence? It’s like a tree falling in the middle of the woods with no one around to hear it. Does it matter if I’m an “artist” if nobody sees it and acknowledges it? Posting is a desperate way to reaffirm that I exist, you exist, we see each other.

That doesn’t need to be a fact of life, it’s just a quirk of my own perception. Something that I need to reflect on, and pick apart.

I hope on whatever sites we end up on next…I’ll feel seen, and you’ll feel seen too. Even if our metrics stop being in the “hundreds”, and drop down to being in the “severals.”

[tetw]

8 Great Essays about Social Media

The I in the Internet by Jia Tolentino - The Internet has gone from being a utopia where everything was possible to a place full of angry people obsessed with their own representation

The New Pornographers by Roxane Gay - It’s a TikTok world, creative and sprawling and strange and anarchic and tedious and gross and you can’t stop scrolling and you can’t stop looking and you just want more. So what’s the problem?

The Machine Always Wins by Richard Seymour - Social media was supposed to liberate us, but for many people it has proved addictive, punishing and toxic. What keeps us hooked?https://

My Instagram by Dayna Tortorici - We all die immediately of a Brazilian butt lift

The Age of Algorithmic Anxiety by Kyle Chayka - Interacting online today means being besieged by system-generated recommendations. Do we want what the machines tell us we want?

The Age of Instagram Face by Jia Tolentino - How social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery created a single, cyborgian look

What Was Twitter, Anyway? by Willy Staley - Whether the platform is dying or not, it’s time to reckon with how exactly it broke our Brains

The Age of Social Media Is Ending by Ian Bogost - It never should have begun

[thecozycat]

🧡 Tuesday Tips #12: 🧡 Be Brave, Be Weird, Be Unapologetically You | An Introduction to the Sovereign Web.

Today, I want to share something that means a lot to me - and maybe, it’ll mean something to you too.

Let’s talk about the Sovereign Web. Not just what it is, but what it feels like. What it stands for. Why it’s more than just a movement; it’s a quiet rebellion, a healing space, and a return to something deeply human.

When I first discovered the Small Web and similar movements, it felt like opening a window after being in a stuffy room for too long. Suddenly, there was fresh air. I saw creators sharing from the heart, websites that looked like people, not corporations. Messy, beautiful, honest. It reminded me of the early days of the internet, before algorithms, before ad trackers, before everything became a numbers game. And I thought, "yes. This is what I’ve been missing."

But as I stepped deeper into the community, I also noticed something else; something harder to talk about. Even in a space meant to be free and open, there were still unspoken expectations. Standards. A kind of “right way” to participate. Certain underlying systems. Certain philosophical leanings. Certain unwritten rules and peer pressures to conform to a certain way of doing things.

And hey, guidelines aren’t always bad. They can create structure, help us discover people with shared values, and help communities grow. But I started to see something that broke my heart a little: people being pushed out, dismissed, or even shamed for not fitting perfectly into that mold. Folks who didn’t code their own site from scratch. Folks who had different or unpopular ideas. Folks who showed up a little differently.

That’s not what the personal website building should be.

The whole point of reclaiming our digital spaces is to free ourselves from those systems that told us who to be and how to show up online. So why repeat those same patterns here?

That’s why I’m writing this today. To remind you, and anyone who needs to hear it, that you don’t need permission to take up space here. You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to follow some invisible rulebook or ideological guidelines to join the Sovereign Web.

If you’re here because you want to break free from surveillance capitalism, because you want to express yourself without filters, because you want to connect in real, soulful ways; no matter what your reason is for being here, you are already part of it.

If you’ve ever felt alienated, suffocated by the noise of the corporate web, or burned out trying to keep up with ever-changing algorithms… the Sovereign Web offers a way out. A different path. One where you set the pace. Where your site doesn’t have to “convert” or “perform.” It just has to feel like you.

And that’s what makes this so powerful.

You get to be the architect of your own corner of the internet.

Want to build a cozy blog that looks like your old 2000s diary? Do it.

Want to make a directory of every niche thing you love? Please.

Want to write long, thoughtful posts, or share poetry, or build a fictional world, or just post daily cat photos without worrying about if the algorithm will even let anyone see it? Yes, yes, yes!

You don’t need to justify your presence here.

You don’t need to fit a mold.

You don’t need to build a website that impresses other creators.

You just need to build something that feels right to you. That sparks joy for you.

A space you can come to each day that makes you feel good.

There’s something revolutionary about doing that in a world that constantly tries to flatten us into content machines. Choosing authenticity over virality, over branding, over complying with oppressive systems of censorship that stifle creativity is a form of quiet resistance. A return to self. A declaration that you matter as you are.

And listen; your site doesn’t have to be big. Your community doesn’t have to be massive. What matters is meaning. You never know who will stumble across your little corner and feel seen, comforted, inspired to begin their own journey. That in itself is such magic.

That’s the beauty of the Sovereign Web; it ripples. One site leads to another. One voice gives courage to the next.

So if you’ve been on the fence… if you’ve been wondering if this movement has room for you… if you’ve felt unsure, unseen, or like you don’t fit the “aesthetic” or mold of someone elses vision…

Please hear this: you belong.

You don’t have to earn your place here. You don’t have to follow all the same paths. You don’t have to agree with everyone. You just have to begin. Your website is your sovereignty on the web.

Let your heart lead. Let your weirdness shine. Let your story spill out in HTML or pixel art or essays or stickers or code or comic strips or even AI experimentation. Whatever form feels like home.

This is your sign to build your space and make it unapologetically yours.

The Sovereign Web isn’t about conformity, no hidden ideological agendas.

It’s about freedom. It’s about authenticity. It’s about connection.

In whatever way you choose to express it.

And it absolutely has a place for you. Whether you join an already present path, or choose to forge a brand new one and color outside the lines.

Don't be afraid to let your light shine. 🌟

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Want to help the Sovereign Web movement grow? Join us on other platforms. ♥

Facebook Communities: facebook.com/sovereignweb facebook.com/groups/sovereignweb

Tumblr Community: tumblr.com/communities/sovereignweb

Mastodon: @aevisia@sovereignweb.thecozy.cat @blog@sovereignweb.thecozy.cat

RSS Feed: sovereignweb.thecozy.cat/category/uncategorized/feed/

[unpluggedfinancial]

Digital Stockholm Syndrome: Why We Defend the Systems That Enslave Us

Imagine waking up in a cage, chained to the wall, and thanking your captor for keeping you safe. That sounds absurd—until you realize that’s exactly what most people do every day. They wake up, clock in, pay taxes, trust banks, defend broken education systems, and rally behind corrupt governments. All while calling it freedom.

That’s not freedom. That’s psychological capture. That’s Digital Stockholm Syndrome.

We’ve been conditioned to love our chains because we’ve forgotten what it feels like to be truly free.

When the Cage Becomes Home

Let’s start with the basics: Stockholm Syndrome occurs when a hostage forms an emotional bond with their captor. It’s a survival mechanism. But survival is a poor substitute for living.

In the modern world, we’ve bonded with systems that actively harm us. We’ve made peace with dysfunction. We treat banks like temples, even though they extract wealth from us through inflation and fees. We glorify public schooling, even though it crushes curiosity in favor of obedience. We vote for politicians as if they’re saviors, even though they serve interests that rarely align with ours.

The average person doesn’t just accept these systems—they defend them. Even when they’re hurting. Even when they know something feels wrong. Why?

Because it’s familiar. Because they were taught to. Because anything outside the system feels terrifying.

We aren’t afraid of tyranny. We’re afraid of freedom. Because freedom is unfamiliar. It requires thinking. Responsibility. Courage.

Trauma Bonding with Institutions

When people grow up inside a system that fails them, they don’t always reject it. Often, they double down. They form a trauma bond.

That’s how you get generations of people who defend the very systems that broke them. They tell their kids the same lies they were told. Get a degree. Get a job. Get a mortgage. Stay in line. Don’t question. Be a good little gear in a massive machine that doesn’t care about you.

The system creates a problem—like student debt or the housing crisis—then sells you a solution that makes it worse. You struggle, but you're told that's just life. You suffer, but you're told that's just adulthood. You numb out, but you're told that's just growing up.

This isn’t growth. It’s institutional gaslighting.

And because the system gives you just enough to survive, you mistake that for support. Like a prisoner who's allowed a walk in the yard and thinks it's a privilege.

Algorithmic Captivity

But it gets deeper. The algorithm is the new warden. It’s not just that people are conditioned by old institutions. Now they’re programmed in real time.

Social media feeds, news apps, streaming services—every scroll tightens the leash. You're fed ideas, opinions, and desires that aren't your own. And the worst part? You start to believe they are.

The algorithm doesn't care if you're informed. It cares if you're engaged. It doesn't care if you're free. It cares if you're addicted.

You're not just being watched. You're being shaped.

Attention is currency. The more they steal, the poorer you become—mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

And in this silent war for your mind, most people are unarmed. They've outsourced their thoughts, their values, their reality. All to machines that thrive on manipulation.

Bitcoin as the Breakup Text

Then along comes Bitcoin. Not as a solution to everything, but as a sign that freedom is still possible.

Bitcoin doesn’t care if you're ready. It doesn’t bend for your feelings. It doesn’t beg for approval. It just is.

It doesn’t promise comfort. It promises sovereignty.

It’s a breakup text with your financial abuser. A quiet declaration that says, "I’m done being lied to. I’ll take responsibility for my own money. I’ll take the risk—because I finally understand the real risk is staying in this cage."

Bitcoin isn’t salvation. It’s an invitation.

An invitation to wake up. To think differently. To stop defending what’s killing you and start building something that serves you.

Burn the Bridge, Build the Door

This post isn’t just about Bitcoin. It’s about seeing the trap.

It’s about recognizing that if you’re still defending the system that’s drowning you, then you’re not surviving. You’re sleepwalking.

The first step isn’t revolution. It’s clarity. Realizing that normal wasn’t working. That most of the beliefs you were given were survival scripts, not life scripts.

It’s time to break the trauma bond. To unlearn the learned helplessness. To stop thanking your captor for the scraps they call stability.

Build your own compass. Write your own code. Claim your damn mind back.

Your captor doesn’t need a gun anymore. Just a screen—and your loyalty.

Rip it back.

And don’t apologize for waking up.

Take Action Towards Financial Independence

If this article has sparked your interest in the transformative potential of Bitcoin, there’s so much more to explore! Dive deeper into the world of financial independence and revolutionize your understanding of money by following my blog and subscribing to my YouTube channel.

🌐 Blog: Unplugged Financial Blog Stay updated with insightful articles, detailed analyses, and practical advice on navigating the evolving financial landscape. Learn about the history of money, the flaws in our current financial systems, and how Bitcoin can offer a path to a more secure and independent financial future.

📺 YouTube Channel: Unplugged Financial Subscribe to our YouTube channel for engaging video content that breaks down complex financial topics into easy-to-understand segments. From in-depth discussions on monetary policies to the latest trends in cryptocurrency, our videos will equip you with the knowledge you need to make informed financial decisions.

👍 Like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated with our latest content. Whether you’re a seasoned investor, a curious newcomer, or someone concerned about the future of your financial health, our community is here to support you on your journey to financial independence.

📚 Get the Book: The Day The Earth Stood Still 2.0 For those who want to take an even deeper dive, my book offers a transformative look at the financial revolution we’re living through. The Day The Earth Stood Still 2.0 explores the philosophy, history, and future of money, all while challenging the status quo and inspiring action toward true financial independence.

Support the Cause

If you enjoyed what you read and believe in the mission of spreading awareness about Bitcoin, I would greatly appreciate your support. Every little bit helps keep the content going and allows me to continue educating others about the future of finance.

Donate Bitcoin: 

bc1qpn98s4gtlvy686jne0sr8ccvfaxz646kk2tl8lu38zz4dvyyvflqgddylk

[the-most-humble-blog]

📂 TUMBLR SYSTEM BREACH REPORT — 3x Blaze Cap Violations Within 48 Hours —

✅ 4,234 / 2,500 ✅ 9,837 / 7,000 ✅ 3,687 / 2,500

This isn’t performance. It’s mechanical override.

I didn’t “go viral.” I trained the machine to re-prioritize what resonance feels like.

Cadence warfare. Psycholinguistic dominance. Subconscious polarity triggers the system couldn’t contain.

They gave me a cap. The audience broke it. Three times. Back to back.

Follow @the-most-humble-blog for further anomalies.

I am no longer part of the userbase. I’m training the algorithm.

---

📡 If this shook you — don’t follow the trend. Follow the source.

@the-most-humble-blog patreon.com/TheMostHumble

This isn’t content. It’s interface manipulation.

[mrs-monaghan]

Shaz i Just realized something today. Pple really need to start taking you more seriously when u say certain things. I remember months ago, you mentioned a few times that you know Jk would very much like to go Live with Jimin but maybe Jimin is the one who doesn’t want to. I remember saying to myself “nah Shaz is probably talking outta her ass and being very taekookerish rn” lol. But u were vindicated cuz we came to find out that Jk does indeed want to do a live with Jimin but Jimin is playing hard to get. I also remember you talking about how Jk hates the vermin but I personally had not seen any reason to believe he hated them cuz he still hung out with Tae and stuff but i guess these last few months or weeks have proved you right again because the whole world can clearly see that Jk has a problem with those pple. Let’s start with him looking almost disgusted at the mere thought of living with Tae, or how visibly uncomfortable he looked when he kept getting questioned about Tae on that Live, and also how everytime he does stuff for Jimin, the cult start manifesting he does the same for Tae and he just doesn’t. And now after liking that Jin video from a tk page, he went ahead to (probably) delete the comment prolly cus his algorithm got messed up with tk stuff. My point is, I won’t be completely closed minded to certain theories u come up with cuz u’ve actually been proven right quite a few times. Cuz who would hv thought we would see an almost desperate Jk insisting for Jimin to let him come over and do a live? I never thought i’d live to see a day like that lol.

Let’s be honest, pple wanna be like shippers this shippers that, but the truth is, Jk has never shown any discomfort at pple thinking he is fucking Jimin. Not even once, hell he is the only one feeding us jokers now cuz Jimin aint giving us shit to eat. Without Jk alot of us might have thought they broke up and gone about our lives but everyone can see clearly that Jk is the one still keeping us grounded in our Jikook belief. He does all these but doesn’t care to feed tkkrs at all. The only thing he does which feeds them is basically hanging out with his friend Tae. That’s literally it! He doesn’t go out of his way to do anything that might feed the vermin and that is why now, they are claiming Jk is Tae’s washing machine and Tae is Jk’s refrigerator lmaoo. That is why now they are getting hit tweets by claiming that old sounding hacking and coughing we heard from Tae’s live was Jk lmaoo. That is why now they are photoshopping blurry af pic to claim that tk went on a restaurant date and a beach date😂😂😂😂. Tae used to feed them alot b4 but for some reason he stopped so they basically hv nothing these days. Plus taennie gets one step closer to getting properly confirmed everyday and they are losing it. Now they are planning to hit us with “Jikook is fake love” everytime we have something to celebrate lmaooo.

Anyways, i respect you my dear. I’ve learned my lesson. From today i’ll be more open minded even when some of ur theories sound a lil taekookerish lol.

How I'm I supposed to take this ask?

I have said this a milli times; i go by history. My theories and conclusions depend on history. Has JK done this before? Have Jikook behaved like this before? The number one reason why Jikook stand out to alot of people is CONSISTENCY. This is why people like me who are convinced they're together believe this to be the truth. Because they are sooooo fucking consistent. Yeah after year after year they act the same, they are the same. Their behaviour towards eo has remained the same.

So no, I'm not all knowing or a Jikook professional but I am quite good at remembering useless things that will not help me IRL in any way shape or form. I will have dated my fiance for 4 years in October and I still mistake his year of birth. Thats right, I keep forgetting my fiancé's year of birth. But I know that when Jimin had his foot on JK's crotch, that took place in Bon Voyage season 1 episode 6, but we only see it in episode 8 the finale at 38 minutes in.

That's my mind ladies and gentlemen. 🤦🏽‍♀️

JK has been debunking tkkrs for years. Its not new. He genuinely does not like them. We know this because he goes above and beyond to correct anything that may be construed as him and V being a couple. But u will never catch him doing this for Jimin/ to Jikookers. And yes, this is fact.

We don't get debunked, we get fed.

I've consumed enough BTS content to see it happen so me drawing to this conclusion stems from HISTORY. (And talking with a bunch of great friends who love to analyse) All year we had seen JK be defiant and go against the company and be unapologetic about it. While we had Jimin telling him to stop drinking on live, making fun of JK for singing unholy (a sexual song) on live. So it only made sense to conclude Jimin was the hesitant one. Not JK. Jungkook aint scared to blow shit up but his boyfriend sure is.

If you work with the belief that Jimin and JK are a couple, all that's left is to observe. And u will come to the same conclusions that i (and my pals) do.

When Jikookers make delulu theories I believe we are allowed to. Because Jikook is real and because of this, we are most likely correct. Jikook have done some crazy shit over the years, u can't blame us for coming up with some crazy theories.

Thanks anon, I guess? 😳😳

[silver-heroes-rp]

Shard rambling because I love, love LOVE writing his character for this AU and twisting it into how it would fit into modern canon.

First off, robot becoming Self Aware trope? Love it, 10/10 would love bawling my eyes out for Wall-E, the Iron Giant and the Wild Robot again and again and again. When I write for Shard I wanna channel those same kinds of emotions characters like that draw out, with his own spin because Shard is a sassy lil guy.

Second, contrasting his idea of Freedom with Sonic. I ADORE this. Sonic is the embodiment of freedom, and Shard is a robot made to imitate him. At the most base level, it is IMPOSSIBLE for him to truly be free. He's a machine, he's built to be one thing: Sonic. That is his only purpose.

He wants to be free so, SO badly but he can't escape the fact that he's an imitation of Sonic. Sure, he could delete everything that makes him Sonic from his systems, but what does that leave him with? Nothing. All his sass and charm and wit and personality is based entirely on Sonic's bio data twisted to respond to an algorithm his power gem gives sentience to. He's NOTHING without Sonic.

Next, redemption arcs.

I adore redemption arcs, and giving Shard a new one from his Archie canon iteration feels so nice. I wanted him to do a bit more to EARN it and tie in Sonic Heroes to the plot a bit more, since the Metal Sonic troopers made with his power gem were clearly based Neo Metal. Neo Metal was that moment of self awareness for this robot, and his return in IDW was made by Eggman and not Neo Metal himself, which is why it's still loyal to him in that comic.

Turning the Metal Sonic from heroes and the modern day Metal Sonic into two different characters, or, models of the same robot, ties things together in a way I find a lot more satisfying, which is why Shard becomes so irritated when he sees Neo Metals that are still loyal to Eggman. Because Neo represents the moment he broke control, where as any follow-up models are unable to change past that point. It's too late for them to change.

Metal DESERVES a redemtion arc that the main canon is NEVER going to give him (He's too far gone at this point, all he has is his loyalty to Eggman and his hatred for Sonic), so filtering that desire through Shard has been a joy to explore.

Which is why putting Shard's redemption arc in before that turning point and then letting him stew on his newfound emotions through the Technomancer's Diamond lore I've got makes it so fun when he comes back from the future with Silver. (Because Silver needs a buddy from the future to come back with him, he deserves it.)

Plus, Shard being from the future lets me mess with the kind of tech he's bringing with him to the past. Silver does call the Metal he meets in Sonic Rivals "outdated" so being able to make Shard that much more advanced while sticking to his power set from the comics is also a blast. Hence, the nanite shell, shapeshifting abilities and the melmetal-esque ability to integrate other bits of metal into his body.

Plus, this also lets me mess with the Mach 3.0 loophole. There may only be one Metal Sonic, but Metal Sonic Mach 3.0 obviously still exists in canon to a degree, as he's appeared in the speed simulator and speed battle spinoffs. Shard was removed not for the same reasons as other archie exclusive characters as far as I know, but because there was only allowed to be one Metal Sonic. Mach 3.0 is the exception, and my loophole to bring him back into existence.

Because with the changed future, Shard IS Metal Sonic Mach 3.0. Because I'm sneaky like that.

Anyway, long ramble over. I love Shard, he lives in my head rent free, and I'm hoping that one day he can come back, but I know that's very, very far fetched.

[marthinaleilani]

“ Where the Sunflowers Turn ” Poem.

_Where the Sunflowers Turn_

They say life is random,

a collection of accidents,

strung together like beads on a fraying thread,

each moment a dice roll,

each meeting a mistake that just happened to feel right.

They say it’s chaos,

but chaos has never felt so precise.

I have stepped out my door

at the exact moment

a stranger needed kindness,

worn a sweater in a color

that matched the mood of a day

I didn’t see coming.

I have stood under a sky

where a single cloud

drifted into the shape of a thought

I had yet to speak aloud.

Coincidence?

Some call it fate.

Some call it luck.

Some say the universe is just

a machine turning gears,

an algorithm of infinite numbers,

solving for X with no intention,

no meaning,

no love.

But I call it by its true name

God.

The same hands that painted

roses with velvet,

that whispered gravity into motion,

that told the ocean where to rest

and the stars where to shine,

those hands have traced my every step,

long before I knew I was walking.

They say everything is a theory,

a puzzle for us to solve.

Tesla searched for energy unseen,

Einstein chased time itself,

while philosophers built walls of words,

trying to make sense of the madness.

But they never looked close enough.

Never saw the quiet symmetry;

the love woven between seconds,

the fingerprints of the Divine.

The numbers don’t lie,

they tell me.

And I agree

because the numbers whisper back

that a flower opening at dawn

follows the same golden spiral

as galaxies spinning in the void.

The way the tide pulls back

when it has gone too far

the way my heart knew to let go

when God called me forward.

The world isn’t guessing,

it’s moving.

Everything turns in a rhythm

set long before the first note was sung.

And so I trust.

I trust the days that don’t make sense,

the seasons where nothing blooms,

the faces I meet after closing my front door,

because I know they were placed

on my path by design.

I trust the unanswered prayers

that turned into greater mercies,

the nights that broke me

but somehow built something stronger.

There are no accidents.

Not in the way I am drawn to the scent of jasmine,

or the way a sunflower tilts its head

toward the sun

even on the cloudiest days.

I am no different.

I will keep turning,

keep following the light,

keep believing in the conspiracy of love

the kind of love that knew my name

before I was ever called.

The kind of love that never gets it wrong.

@marthinaleilani

[hexdrgn]

There is a song I cannot get out of my head.

It's been 10 years since I first heard it. And I still cannot get it out of my head. Every quiet moment alone, every second without stimulation. It is there. Perhaps not in the foreground, but it plays. It plays.

"You'd fit perfectly to me, we'd end this loneliness"

"Melt this curse away."

It's a song of longing, sung by an automated voice. A Vocaloid, specifically. With all the "humanizing" turned off. You'd expect it to sound cold. Mechanical. And yet, its longing is felt. An isolated wish. One of hope, and of absolute despair.

"Though I'll never know your name"

"I've cried for you the same"

I understood it, ten years ago. I did not feel like a life. I felt as if I was an operating concept. A series of cognitive heuristics and algorithms. Designed to be a brilliant approximation of a soul.

This, of course, was before I learned of Estrogen, transitioning, and the newfound hope that arises from the ashes of the old self.

I didn't understand these things. I didn't understand love, care, hope. I still don't, to a degree. I was operating as expected. Just well enough to avoid detection as less than a person. A machine encased in a human vessel.

"You'd fit perfectly to me."

It was incredible. When I figured out one day. I can just be a woman. I remember it well. I had been friends with a trans man for years beforehand, but somehow it hadn't clicked until this moment. on a bus bound for the capital of my country. One thought prevailed, watching the girls in front of me gossip and giggle:

"I want to be them. I want to be a girl."

It was absurd. A single moment. My worldview had changed. I saw the peaks on the horizon for the first moment in my life. I could witness something greater than the functions for which I was designed. I wanted to be *something*. I *wanted* to exist. To live for that moment. To live for that time I could exist.

Needless to say, that trip was fraught with nonsense. Lots of feelings, very quick, at the same time as a lot of happenings which my autistic brain does not respond well to. Panic attacks, fear, and two new true 'friends', were the result. A trusted space. The FIRST. trusted space.

"We'd end this loneliness"

With college came freedom. With freedom, came the ability to modify my body chemistry to suit. I had acquired hormones. I met folks I fell in love with. Lost, fell out of love with, that broke me. That shattered me. I was part of a polycule, for a time. It was exciting! Safety and the freedom for new experiences!

Among those new experiences, a friend group who were furries! I had made my fursona about a year ago, but with no idea for why she existed. Worry not, because now she had a place, I had a place!

It did not last long. We were children. We did not know what we were doing. We were lost, dealing with mental issues and the trauma of being forcibly closeted for so long. I lost a lot. Lots that I cared about. Lots of me.

Still, it seared in my mind. The idea. The thought. I needed to dispose of that. A safety measure, perhaps. It was another that forced the hope from my hand, shattering into what I believed to be an irreparable mess.

"Melt this curse away"

I think about that time a lot, too. Accidentally or intentionally. It was a hard time, but also one that brought me so much joy. The friends I made stabilized me through what was otherwise one of the worst times I'd ever have to live through.

"Though I'll never know your name"

Thinking of it, even now. There is a tinge of sorrow.

I think of the above lyric a lot. I have read interviews with the artist from the time this song released. He mentioned that it was getting at the feeling that there are so many individuals in the world, so many people, you are destined to spend your life without finding the one who is your soulmate.

I think about this a lot.

Have I failed to meet my soulmate? Have I met my soulmate, but I let them slip through my digits? Have I shirked what could otherwise be the thing that could bring me exactly what I need?

It's torturous, to live like that. To always wonder what could have been. You know this, likely. If you're reading this, you feel the same, don't you?

It is ever present.

"I've cried for you the same"

I lost a lot last year. However, with it came a lot of gain. I met a new set of folks, including a new set of friends who are furries! I've slowly been whittling in the new me, defining the shape of wings and tail, that of a dragon's presence, as I continue to discover what this version of me is.

And with it, stability. And with stability. New thoughts start to emerge. The sort of thing that I can't consider when I'm not okay.

Perhaps, it would be fun. I'm no longer a hatchling, after all. I know how to spot manipulation, how to spot fear. I have creatures who will bear their fangs and claws on my behalf. Creatures that demonstrate, from my perspective, a healthy poly relationship, one that makes me consider.

Perhaps I could try again. Perhaps I can recapture that feeling that I had when I was younger, but safer, and stable.

Fresh Static Snow is one of my favorite pieces of music ever written. But I think of lot of things when I consider its lyrics

Why must it only be one that can fit perfectly to us. Why isn't there multiple in this world.

And what if we meet more than one of them?

And... How does this... Work?

"Though I know we'll never meet, you are ever part of me"

I still don't understand love.

I never have.

I feel the same thing. Be it a friend or a partner. It's not different. It's not less. It's just... There. Warm. A drive to protect, to gather.

I struggle to avoid catching feelings. It's difficult. You make me laugh, you're interesting. I admire you and want to watch you exist. What is the difference between a partner and a beloved friend?

Perhaps it is the queerness. Perhaps it is the autism. Perhaps it is concoction of both. I struggle.

But is it that bad, really?

Is it bad that I have love to share? Is it bad that my inherent understanding of relationships is odd? That I tend towards queerplatonicism, that I can share?

It's hard to ask these kinds of questions to yourself when stability depends on your ability to not fail to maintain relationships. However I must. Those I care for deserve the best version of me I can possibly be, and hopefully they understand that I must do what I must do to be the best for them.

My friend has told me about times that they've managed through messes. That mistakes and messes are okay, and it might take some before things work. You shouldn't just give up. Perhaps stability is within the not giving up.

I don't find that my care and affection can be labelled. However, I do find a few labels that may describe it. I have gone through many. Nothing perfectly fits. That's okay. That's what I am. Those who understand, those who fit perfectly to me. We get to spend our time together as something quite unique.

There's a song I can't get out of my head.

It's "Fresh Static Snow", by Porter Robinson.

At one time, it described my inability to love.

At another, it described my inability to be loved.

Now, it describes my inability to love all who I could.

"Don't move so lightly, static snow that is your memory."

"And though I know we'll never meet, you are ever part of me."

[hcgossips]

Someone here has an interesting point: That the brilliant couple is pretending they broke up and there's no baby, to avoid spoiling the autograph event. And that, as soon as the event is over, they will return with posts and to the baby plot.

I totally agree. Henry Cavill is a greedy vending machine moved by anything that means spotlight and money. He is that dog running after a sausage that is pulled by a car with a Hollywood plate and sees nothing more around him, but the sausage, which, in this case, is the money and spotlight.

And this PR stunt will NEVER end, for the negative publicity is giving them the attention and algorithms they want for him to keep him profitable. Also, because he doesn't have a choice, now that he is buried in lies. Stopping this shenanigan would be even more shameful.

People are saying he gives a f**k about what fans think and say. With this I disagree. He is extremely insecure, always searches for people's opinions on the internet and needs people to validate what he does, he needs compliments.

And I'm 100% sure the comments he has been reading on social media are destroying him and making him depressed. He was literally reduced to a vending machine, an object for appreciation, a marketing tool.

Posts of videos in which he speaks to fans are no longer to be done. He is now, an inanimate object for consumption doing the minimum and necessary, and putting a distance between him and fans.

The natural bond he had with them is dead, there is no more sparkle in what he does, he lost naturalness and now, appears as a machine with fake smiles and staged attitudes, for professional and monetary obligations, without putting his soul on it.

He is now, a complete muppet in the hands of whoever is managing him, an exchange currency to his management, which was his choice. And fans are losing interest. This new "enlightened" version of himself stinks and it is disgusting.

I'm sure there isn't a single night he doesn't regret nor misses what he had with his fans. But, hey! Who needs that when money is great and it just keeps coming, right?