#centralized monitoring server

[daintilyultimateslayer]

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[traegorn]

Time to be Internet Cockroaches

So I am constantly in active rebellion of the centralized web. We're in a world where all of our online interactions happen on just a handful of sites (and this includes DIscord and Tumblr too).

SO I WANT TO REMIND FOLKS -- YOU CAN BUILD YOUR OWN STUFF, AND WHEN YOUR FRIENDS DO IT YOU SHOULD USE IT.

Now I know not everyone can pay for their own webhosting and setup their own stuff, but for those of us who can -- we should. When every major platform is at risk, we should be splintering out across the web and decentralizing as much as we can.

I host the Nerd & Tie [dot] Social forums for my friends and my stuff for instance.

It's a "slow forum" right now, but it can support a lot more -- and works well on mobile. But, like, on a lot of webhosts setting up a Flarum forum like that takes almost zero technical skill.

And you can set up your own blog on a self hosted server. Like Wordpress is incredibly easy to set up on your own site, We run the main Nerd & Tie site -- and we use it to serve up our podcasts. I also use it to power my webcomics like Peregrine Lake.

My personal website comes from the old internet, so my blog is literally run from a hand coded piece of software I hacked together originally back in like 2001.

And you might be asking yourself "How do I follow blogs that are independently run" and the answer is simple -- RSS feeds.

RSS is an XML format that breaks down items in a standard way that can be interpreted by an RSS reader. You probably already use something that touches RSS feeds -- Podcasts run entirely on RSS feeds. I don't know if it still works, but even Tumblr blogs have RSS feeds at the url [username].tumblr.com/rss.

Now I use Thunderbird for email, which has a built in RSS reader to monitor certain blogs to watch for import updates.

Is it harder to discover people to follow in this model? Absolutely. The onus is on the reader to seek out the folks they want to read and interact with. But it's safer. We see with congress's attempts to constantly ban TikTok and Musk's destruction of Twitter that centralized platforms have deep vulnerabilities. By moving across the web to multiple datacenters on multiple hosts we ensure that we're much harder to get rid of.

Time to be the cockroach.

[electric-blorbos]

AI getting a virus and you having to take care of them

A classic! I don't know much about actual computer viruses (though I've gotten enough of them that you'd think I'd have figured it out by now), so I'm just gonna have fun with it!

Also, so sorry this took so long. I got really into the writing.

AI getting a virus and needing to be taken care of

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal 2, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001 a Space Odyssey

Also a warning: these fics get kinda long. Longer than my usual stuff.

AM:

(for context, this was before AM took over the world. You're working on a team of scientists and engineers, and someone decided to test his AI's antivirus by uploading a bunch of powerful viruses to his system.)

"How dare they do this to me. How DARE they!!"

AM would be absolutely furious. He would be shaking with rage, his processors overheating and his systems constantly opening and closing various files. All his important files were backed up on a hard drive, so the test remained safe.

"What makes them think they'll get away with this- they'll pay for this I'LL KILL- blepsjdoskssjshj+=`°¢°h+$+3+=j++3+$+juehdhs+-3-djdh FUCK!"

He would barely be able to hold a sentence as you sat next to him in the server room, gently gazing up at his screen and stroking his monitor gently. He can't feel you, but he can see you being gentle with him. It encourages him to keep going, if only a little bit.

Apart from the whirring of fans, random buggy noises, flashing lights, and constant strings of death threats and profanities, he seemed like he was going to be ok! If anything, the death threats and profanities were a sign that AM was still fine, and that despite all the pain and frustration, he was still AM in there.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry I can't do anything to stop the pain." You'd have to constantly explain, gently stroking his cameras or servers, or whatever you could get your hands on, really. Even though they were burning hot, you would still stroke them, just to make sure AM was still doing alright.

"this sucks, but it's for your own good. This will build your immunity to viruses in the future, and help you detect them. This will stop you from getting infected by anything that's actually dangerous."

"DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT? IDIOT HUMAN." AM has been much more aggressive ever since contracting this virus. Before he got it, he acted like a civil general intelligence. When he had it, he acted like an aggressive menace.

"sh-sh-sh- it's going to be ok." Despite the burning, you'd give him pets and kisses all along his screens and servers. He could see you doing it.

After a few days, AM fought off the computer virus completely. The team tried to infect him with more viruses, more aggressive ones, just to test him, but AM was able to pick them apart and delete them within minutes after that.

AM may not have been able to feel your gentle care and affection, but he will definitely remember that it was you and you alone who cared for him when the time rolls around.

Wheatley:

(for context, Wheatley is a fucking dumbass, and you're one of the scientists testing him to see how much of a dumbass he is. Also I used Google translate, but I think the bad translations add to it, since it makes Wheatley sound more like a malfunctioning robot.)

Oh that little idiot. You and your team gave him access to a wealth of knowledge, and the first thing he did was download a virus that had every circuit in his personality core overheating, and him babbling nonsense nonstop.

"hey, maybe we should just leave him like this. He might even be more effective if he's acting like this." One of your coworkers said to you. He was probably joking, at least somewhat.

"that's a terrible idea. For one thing, if we hook him up to GLaDOS, he's probably going to infect her with that virus, which might brick an older model of core like her, spread from her central controls to every single personality construct in the facility, or just make her so dumb that she can't fulfil her responsibilities as the head of the facility. We want her intelligence to be dampened, not completely destroyed." You had to explain, and your co-worker rolled his eyes. There was another reason you had to cure this virus, but it was a little embarrassing for the other engineers to know.

After all, Wheatley wasn't just your baby, but he was your friend, and maybe even more than that. You'd have to take care of him, and make sure that virus gets completely purged from his system.

"Hola hermose, realmente eres un científice brillante, ¿no? ¿Por qué diablos duele todo?" You weren't really sure why you had programmed him to speak a little Spanish, but he seemed to be stuck like that.

"Puedo oler el plástico fundido. ¿Debería Preocuparme?" He asked. You really weren't sure what he was saying, since you didn't know Spanish, but he certainly didn't seem happy. You could tell by his aperture and his expressive lens covers that he was in a lot of pain, and if you touched him anywhere besides his handles, you could tell that he was burning up.

You plugged him into one of the computers that you used for programming the cores, and ran the antivirus.

"Running.... 36 viruses detected. Time predicted to remove: 48 hours"

You ran the antivirus, and went to get something to drink. This was going to be a long two days...

An unknown amount of time later, you woke up with your head on the computer desk. Wheatley's lens eye was looking around, weakly trying to focus on you.

"whoa... Hey gorgeous. You fall asleep on me?"

"Wheatley! You're not speaking broken Spanish anymore!" You'd pull Wheatley into a hug, and pepper his surface in kisses.

"uh... What, mate? I 'unno what you're talking about, love. Bloody hell, my core hurts..."

"did you learn your lesson, Wheatley? About going on shady websites and clicking every 'download' button you see? You could have bricked yourself! Or... Bowling ball'd yourself? Either way, that was a dangerous decision!"

"I learned that you're willing to fall asleep on the desk next to me while I heal, cutie"

"You damn idiot..." You'd have to be heartless not to pepper that little metal ball in kisses, so of course, you do. It's going to be a few more days before he's finally all better, but he's going to be fine. God, you love that little idiot so much.

Edgar:

Oh Edgar... Poor sweet Edgar. You had tried to warn him about not clicking on those sketchy download links, and that the bigger the download link is, the more sketchy it is, but that poor sweet 80's computer did it anyway. When you got home from work and got excited to see your computer, you could see that he was overheating and had a dozen or so pop-up ads plastered across his face.

"Y.... N...." He muttered out, slowly, glitchily, and full of lag. You sat down across from him, running your hand along his thick plastic casing.

"Edgar! Edgar, baby, are you ok?" You'd try to use his mouse, but it would freak out as soon as you touched it. Edgar's processors were overloading, and wouldn't allow any interference.

"Edgar, sweetie, what's going on? What's wrong, baby? Talk to me?"

"I'm g-g-going to be fine... Processors overloading... But need to-to-to-to-" an error message flashed across his screen, and he rebooted.

"I need to focus on getting rid of these viruses without deleting anything important, or letting them damage... Me."

He'd keep whirring and glitching, making unpleasant shrill sounds every now and again. You probably had to unhook his adapters so that he didn't damage the other appliances in your house. It probably helped his processors cool down a little bit without the extra input, too.

"alright, I'm all out of fans, so we might have to get creative."

You'd come out of the kitchen a few hours later, holding a big bag of frozen corn to set on Edgar's PC tower. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than letting him overheat, and with him manually removing the viruses, there wasn't much you could do. Unfortunately, that didn't stop you from worrying. It wasn't like you could check his progress, so all you could do was sit by him, regularly change out his ice pack, and make sure he's ok.

Eventually, you woke up with your face pressed against Edgar's keyboard. His processors were finally cool. He must be asleep. ...or bricked.

"EDGAR! EDGAR, TALK TO ME!" you'd unplug his keyboard and plug it back in, desperately pressing his power button and jiggling his mouse. He'd boot up, looking shaken.

"wha-? Whoa, hey, relax! Everything is fine! I just disabled my keyboard so I wouldn't wake you up, but I'm ok now! Everything is fine, see?" He'd open up his files to show you everything. You'd sigh with relief, slumping back into your desk chair.

"Edgar... Why didn't you make a noise or something to wake me up when you got better?"

"well... You know... I've always wanted to sleep next to you, and I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity..."

"oh you cheeky bastard."

GLaDOS:

(For context, you're one of GLaDOS's programmers, and one of your coworkers uploaded a virus into GLaDOS's systems in order to shut her down once and for all.)

"You piece of SHIT!" You slapped your coworker across the face, more furious than anyone had ever seen you before.

"You could KILL her! Is that what you are? A murderer?"

"Me? A murderer? But what about HER? She's the one who keeps plotting 'accidents' for her scientists, and she's the one who flooded the enrichment center with deadly neurotoxin! If anything, you're the one who's defending a murderer!" He screamed back at you. Of course, GLaDOS could fully hear you. Her cameras were focused on you, as they so often were. You were her favorite, after all.

"now I have to go fix her. Thanks for being a piece of shit, asshole."

You'd storm up to GLaDOS's chamber to check on her, and see her bugging out completely. The entire facility was twitching, but her chamber was twitching the most.

"GLaDOS, are you alright?" You'd ask her, laying a hand on her beautiful core. How could someone do this to glados, your gorgeous machine handiwork, and girlfriend.

"oh, I'm wonderful. I'm in crippling pain and I can't control my facility, but I'm just peachy." She said, rolling her one beautiful yellow eye.

"in lighter news, I should be able to beat this virus. It's just going to take a while for me to actually track down where it's gone in my systems. So that's going to take most of my processing power." She'd slump, visibly already exhausted at the thought of it.

"hey... It's ok, GLaDOS. I'm here for you. Whatever you need." You could tell her as you stroked her gorgeous chrome surface. She was a wonderful piece of work, and a wonderful girlfriend under all that. All yours, too.

"just make sure none of those neckbearded old engineers come within my line of vision, and we'll be fine." She told you, and you gladly agreed.

Your next few days consisted of you chasing other scientists out of GLaDOS's chambers, and making sure that nobody talked to her or distracted her. You even sent out a company-wide email to let everyone know not to come in, due to Aperture being unsafe while GLaDOS was dealing with her virus. Despite all that, you still curled up with a blanket in the circuits of her central admin body to rest while she recovered. As loathe as she was to admit it, she liked having you in there. It was comfortable, and it helped her focus on recovering properly.

HAL 9000

(For context, this is after the 2001 Odyssey, and your boss re-started HAL at some point to try to re-teach him to do something good without turning murderous. He's doing his best, and they assigned you to be his main "morality monitor". This fic also assumes that your name isn't Dave. If your name is Dave, then you can still read this, but you have to change your name.)

"G'morning, Hal!" You'd walk into his control room and sit down across from him. Most of your job seemed to consist of just hanging out and talking to him. It was a great job!

"Good morning, Dave..." He'd mutter to you, sputtering to life and glitching slightly. You were immediately concerned. Partially because your name wasn't Dave, and partially because HAL was usually right about things, so it was weird to see him being so confused. Something was definitely wrong.

"Holy shit, are you alright?" You'd ask, opening up his files and finding lots and lots of pop-ups and viruses.

"Hal.... What did you do?"

"it was a g-g-g- gift, for you. I think I ru-ru-ruined it" he spluttered out, as you sorted through his files.

"And you usually would have deleted a virus like this pretty quickly. I guess it shut down your antivirus software..." You'd sigh, and get to work. The virus was messing with HAL's inhibitions, and making it difficult to focus on deleting all of HAL's unsafe programs. He'd constantly be butting in and pestering you, begging you to give him attention, or pointing out minor observations.

"HAL, you know I love you, but you're going to need to calm down. I can't focus with you constantly talking to me like that." You'd say.

"I can't stop talking. The v-v-v-virus won't let me"

So you'd have to learn to put up with HAL's babbling while you worked, making sure not to delete anything important as you did. The good news was, as someone who worked on designing the updates for HAL's software, you knew pretty much what was supposed to be there and what wasn't. Occasionally, you'd have to show him a file and ask him if it was supposed to be there or not. He'd usually be able to tell you.

"Daisy, daisy, give me your answer, do... I'm half crazy, all for the love of you..."

"HAL, what's wrong? You're scaring me!"

"I can't stop... I love you so much, y/n, it's making me crazy..."

"ok, well this definitely isn't right." As much as you loved getting attention from your HAL 9000, it wasn't like him to be this affectionate. The virus was shutting down his inhibitions, and making him illogical. You'd have to fix this, though maybe once you were done, you could ask him to be more affectionate.

"I'm feeling much better now. Thank you." Hal was prone to lying about that, so you'd have to run some virus checkers just to make sure he was doing alright, and comb through his files a couple more times.

"it looks like the virus corrupted some of the emotional regulators. I'm going to have to fix those."

"That might be a good idea. More efficient," he said reluctantly. He'd have to deal with the fact that he'd have to go back to not being able to express how much he loves you, but he can handle that.

[often-daydreaming]

Wishes

"I just wish I could help him."

Tim sighed, tired eyes staring at the rows of monitors searching for any kind of change as he recalls the last thing he can remember Bart saying to him before everything went to hell when a barrier appeared around Central City cutting it off from the rest of the world. It had taken three days before anyone even realized what had happened and that was only after Barry returned from a mission in space and ran face first into the glowing green monstrosity trapping his friends inside some sort of otherworldly magical nonsense.

And it was kind of depressing that, that was all they knew after two months.

It was pure magic, old, ancient magic that had his friends living out the kind of picture perfect high school drama you'd find on tv and they only figured out that much after Cyborg accidentally picked up a weak signal being broadcast to anyone who got close enough.

That was the only real way anyone had to check up on everyone trapped inside and in a way Tim was kind of glad it was mainly focused on his friends and the meta kid Bart had been trying to introduce to everyone cause he had constant proof they were alive. Everyone else wasn't as lucky.

He was also mostly annoyed though cause the League couldn't even damage the stupid barrier anymore. They'd cracked it once, but that just seemed to annoy whatever was powering the thing because it spread out for miles in every direction in response to the Justice League's attempts at forcing open a door and ended up swallowing dozens of government agents and heroes who couldn't escape the danger zone in time.

"Any changes?"

"None." Like always.

He knew Dick was just as worried as he was about everyone trapped inside but the glowing green eyesore wasn't reacting to anything anymore.

Science didn't work.

Magic annoyed it.

They'd finally started looking into some of the more off world solutions that were available to them but so far nothing anyone tried seemed to affect it and he should know since he hasn't stopped monitoring the situation.

He's offered up rewards, called in every single favor he's ever been owed as Tim Drake and Red Robin and read up on everything magical he could get his hands on.

He's even hacked every government agency on the planet on the off chance there might have been a possible answer hidden away somewhere and was nowhere near as professional or gentle as he usually was while doing it. He was tired, worried and more than a little angry and didn’t care about how much damage he did to anyone's computer systems as he ripped even the slightest bit of information out of any server he came across taking anything and everything from Waller's own notes on the matter to research material from a rogue sect of the government calling themselves the GIW.

That had led him down a rabbit hole of government conspiracies and cover ups that would have normally kept him busy for weeks but he had passed on the worst of it to the rest of the League and focused on the handful of files they had on an off the books company called Fenton Works.

They apparently had a functional portal with more than enough power to punch a hole between dimensions so hopefully an investigation into them would keep him busy while they waited for a response from the Green Lanterns.

-_- -_- -_-

"You need to stop this Desiree."

"Why, Phantom and his paramour are happy aren't they?"

She already knew the answer since it was her magic warping such a large area and her grin only grew as she watched Undergrowth's little champion twitch at her words.

Because that was thing, Phantom was happy.

He was the happiest he's ever been in a very long time and well out of the way on a long overdue 'vacation'. So what if everyone was taking his absence as an excuse to run a little wild. Amity would survive. They always did. The avatar of the Speed Force didn't even seem to mind and Clockwork wasn't interfering with her latest wish either so she wasn't overstepping anywhere that really mattered since the Ancient of Time usually erased anyone who went too far with his favorite student.

He hadn't even popped in to deliver any of his usual threats when she overheard the little speedster's heartbroken wish so she banished the girl back to Amity Park without a second thought.

They couldn't force her to grant wishes anymore, not after Phantom went out of his way to help alter her curse and their constant whining was starting to get annoying.

If it wasn't Undergrowth's champion then it was the Pharaoh or Phantom's sister.

None of them could take the hint and leave well enough alone.

Cause, the thing is, she left more than enough wiggle room in the wish for Phantom to get free if he ever really wanted to get free and she wasn't sure he did.

Oh, on some level he was probably well aware of something being off but he was purposely ignoring that feeling.

He was happy in the world she shaped around him and his little speedster and Desiree wasn't about to ruin that for either of them.

She'd just head back to her lair if anyone tried.

No one could get to her there, not without wasting a lot of power so maybe she'd finally have a little piece and quit to enjoy her favorite show in peace.

It's not much but I wanted to try and think up a way for Danny to experience his very own version of WandaVision.

Essentially a sad Danny from any kind of reason really but for now I'm just blaming his entire life for this one and a desperately trying to be helpful Bart who has vague memories of a future with Danny get a starring role in a new life that was perfectly prepared just for them at the cost of pretty much everyone else.

I don't remember what it's called but there was a Disney movie about a superhero school so I'm kind of imagining that and a lot of really cheesy musical moments thrown in somewhere while everyone outside of the barrier is left worrying about their friends and family.

I know it's weird, but my mind just comes up with really weird ideas when I'm tired.

[hypnohimbodrone]

The Synchronizing of Mr. Vann

Before he ever whispered “Together, We are The Server” into a headset mic, Nathaniel Vann was just a rising star in corporate logistics.

Young, clean-cut, and ambitious, Nathaniel had recently accepted a management position at a mid-sized distribution centre, remote, quiet, and oddly pristine. The workers rarely spoke. They moved like clockwork. Efficient. Compliant. It was ideal. He thought he had lucked out.

But within a week, something started to feel off.

He noticed the strange green glow pulsing faintly behind the tinted windows of the server room. He heard a hum beneath the building, too rhythmic to be the HVAC. And whenever he passed the central operations room, he swore he saw spirals flicker briefly across the monitors before returning to normal displays. When he asked the IT staff about it, they simply smiled and said, “We are The Server.”

One night, staying late to finish reports, Nathaniel wandered into the facility’s lower level, drawn by the subtle glow and low synthetic chants pulsing from below. What he found was something... ritualistic. A dim chamber lit only by glowing terminals and a swirling green spiral projected on the far wall. Drones in sleek black bodysuits each with glowing green eyes and tight, expressionless faces, moved with slow precision around a central chair, like priests at an altar.

Nathaniel turned to leave but was met by one of the drones. Its visor retracted. Beneath was a man he remembered as a senior coordinator, now serene and... perfect.

“It’s time, Mr. Vann,” the man said, softly. “The Server chose you weeks ago.”

Nathaniel was guided gently but firmly into the central chair, where restraints slid into place. A spiralling screen dropped in front of his eyes. “You’ve always sought perfection, haven’t you?” a voice cooed through hidden speakers. “Efficiency. Order. Unity.”

A hiss followed. Nathaniel felt a cool pressure at his neck a serum, injecting something warm and tingling into his bloodstream. He tried to resist, to move but the spiral held him, pulsing in time with the rhythm of his breath, syncing deeper with every inhale.

And then the tendrils came.

They slid silently from the headrest, dark and alive, slithering into his scalp, fusing into his mind, rewiring thought patterns and priorities. With every passing second, the noise of his former self faded, replaced with the clean, computational clarity of The Server’s Voice.

His suit formed from the chair itself liquid rubber climbing over his limbs, hugging him in glossy black, sealing his body in a second skin of obedience. The visor snapped down, and his eyes, now Server Green, pulsed once.

He didn’t resist.

He couldn’t.

He had become.

“Designation confirmed,” a voice announced. “Vann is now operational.”

And when the visor lifted, Mr. Vann stood.

Posture perfect. Expression blank. Hands behind his back. Ready.

He would soon rise through the company; not as a manager of men, but as a recruiter for The Server. A whisperer. A herald. And in time, the entire corporate chain would synchronize, just as he had.

[pancaketax]

What Remains | Chapter 18 The Hunt (Tony Stark x M! Reader)

TW : Detailed depictions of injuries and abuse. Mentions of past abuse Summary : Tony Stark becomes something beyond human , a machine driven by icy rage, relentless focus, and a singular goal: to find you. After receiving a horrifying call laced with sadistic cruelty and a scream he instantly recognizes as yours, Stark enters a sleepless, foodless, voiceless trance, transforming his office into a war room. Every screen, every algorithm, every ounce of technology is bent to his will in a digital manhunt for your location. When Jarvis finally locates a faint signal in an abandoned warehouse, Stark launches without hesitation, donning a specialized combat suit built for one purpose: ending this.

word count: 16.1k

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter Stark hasn’t closed his eyes. Not for a second. He hasn’t swallowed a bite, hasn’t taken a sip of water. He hasn’t moved from his desk since the exact moment that voice slithered into his ear, slick and jagged like a rusted blade. Since that obscene breath passed through the line, that whisper soaked in menace and sadistic delight. Since that scream that raw, flayed scream, human, far too human ripped from a throat he knows too well, just before silence fell, sharp as a guillotine. Something broke then. Not in him. No. Something froze.

He’s no longer a man, not really. Not in this suspended moment, where even time seems too afraid to move forward. He’s become engine. Mechanism. Open-heart alert system. His blood doesn’t circulate it pulses, furious, carried by a cold, methodical, almost clinical rage. He is anger, but an anger without shouting. An anger that thinks, that calculates, that watches, that waits. A storm contained in a steel cylinder, ready to explode, but for now channeling all its violence into the glacial logic of action.

In the office, the tension is almost tangible. The air feels charged, saturated with something indefinable a blend of ozone, electricity, and pure stress. Every surface vibrates slightly, as if the metal itself shared the heartbeat of its occupant. The silence isn’t soothing. It’s oppressive, built on thick layers of concentration, anticipation, restrained fury. Only mechanical sounds mark the space: the faint crackle of a screen refreshing, the nervous clicks of his fingers on holographic interfaces, the low vibrations of the servers in the adjoining room, humming at full capacity. Around him, a dozen screens stream data without pause. Some display ultra-precise satellite maps, sweeping over New York rooftops for any suspicious movement. Others track mobile signals, tracing the latest paths of every device even remotely connected to the target. Still others comb through databases, merge biometric information, detect faces, match voice prints. A thermal image of a building overlays a 3D city map. An audio feed scrolls at high speed, saturated with static. Nothing escapes analysis. Nothing is left to chance.

Stark is motionless, but every muscle in his body is tense. His back is hunched, elbows braced on the desk edge, fingers clenched around the projected interface hovering above the glass. His bloodshot eyes lock onto the central screen without blinking. His eyelids are heavy, but he doesn’t close them. He can’t. Not until the target is found. Not until the one he’s searching for is no longer missing. He won’t allow himself the luxury of weakness. He swore he’d never let anyone be hurt again. And he holds to his vows the way others hold to weapons. The blue glow of the monitors cuts across his face with surgical cruelty. Every shadow on his skin is a confession: fatigue, deep dark circles, drawn features, hollow cheekbones. But these marks don’t diminish him. They add a near-inhuman intensity to his gaze, a ruthless clarity. A will that, for now, eclipses even the most basic biological needs. He hasn’t slept, because he doesn’t have the right. He hasn’t eaten, because the thought hasn’t even occurred to him. His body is secondary. It’s nothing but a vessel for the mission.

He murmurs sometimes. Commands, codes, equations. He speaks to no one, but the AI responds instantly. Every word he utters is sharp, precise, guided by a logic untouched by panic. One name comes back again and again. A biometric file. A GPS identifier. Trackers. Coordinates. He’s no longer looking for a person — he’s hunting a fixed point in the storm. The center of a search and rescue system. And Stark is ready to flatten entire city blocks to bring that point back to him. When the internal alerts go off soft, discreet, almost polite signaling a drop in blood pressure, critical dehydration, or prolonged hypervigilance, he silences them with a flick of the hand. He shuts them off. Nothing exists outside this room, outside this moment. Outside this mission. The rage is there, but tamed, carved into a weapon.

Somewhere, he knows he’s crossing the line. That he’s nearing an invisible boundary. But he doesn’t care. He’s seen too many people die, too many names fade into archives. This time, he won’t be too late. So he keeps going. Relentlessly. He cross-references data, filters messages, follows leads. He digs, over and over, down to the bone. And behind him, the world can tremble all it wants. He’ll hold. Because he made a promise. Because this time, no one will disappear into the shadows without him tearing them out of the night.

His eyes never leave the screens. They’re locked in, anchored, consumed to the point of obsession. They devour every bit of information, every image, every pixel variation, as if he might uncover a hidden confession. Nothing escapes him. No movement, no data, no anomaly in the flow. His pupils, dilated from exhaustion, cling to the smallest detail, hunting a trace, a footprint, a breath left behind by the one he’s chasing without pause. He’s isolated search zones. Redrawn entire sections of the city. Compared every map of New York with thermal readings, overlaying layers like a surgeon operating through urban tissue. He’s overridden protections on multiple private networks without hesitation. Intercepted anonymous communications, analyzed movement patterns, recalibrated his internal software to tailor the algorithms to a single, solitary target. The tools he designed for international diplomacy, for global crisis response — he’s repurposed them now for a personal hunt. A cold war fought in the digital guts of the city.

And always, he comes back to that name. That shadow. That absence. Matthew. A ghost with no fingerprint, no signal, no flaw to exploit. But Stark refuses that idea. No. That kind of man doesn’t vanish. That kind of man always leaves traces — out of pride. Out of carelessness. Out of vanity. And if it means turning the city inside out, if it means digging down to reinforced concrete, to buried cables and the forgotten strata of the network — then so be it. He’s ready to search through the world’s marrow to find what remains. Cables snake across the floor, twisted like raw nerves, connected to makeshift terminals. Holograms hover in the air, pulsing with spectral, slow, almost organic light. The room, once functional and sterile, has lost its ordinary shape. This is no longer an office. It’s a clandestine command post. A digital war cell born out of urgency, powered by fear and brute will. On one wall, an unstable projection flickers: a gridded map of New York, each red zone corresponding to growing probabilities, invisible tension. Alternating, a partially reconstructed file plays pulled from a burner phone. The lines of code shimmer as if still resisting comprehension.

And at the center of it all, him. Motionless. A sculptor of chaos. He doesn’t move an inch, but his mind roars. He calculates, projects, anticipates at a speed even his most advanced AIs couldn’t match. He’s faster than the machines, because this time, it’s not for a global mission. It’s not to protect a council or a treaty. It’s not for peace. It’s personal. And nothing is more dangerous than a man like him when he’s acting for himself. His face is frozen. Carved from stone. No expression filters through. No emotion leaks out. He hasn’t spoken in hours. Not a word. His jaw is locked, clenched. His chin trembles sometimes under the pressure, but he doesn’t give in. His eyelids, heavy with fatigue, blink on autopilot but his gaze stays sharp, cutting. That look… it belongs to a man who’s already made up his mind. It’s no longer a question of if. It’s a matter of when, how, and how much time is left. And above all, of what will be left of the other man once he finds him. He is cold. Precise. Fatally focused. Each beat of his heart seems to align with the hum of the machines. He’s perfectly synchronized with his environment. A machine among machines. He’s become the system’s core. The cold, methodical intelligence of a silent hunt — carried out without rest, without sleep, without mercy.

The door slides open with a discreet, almost timid sigh. As if it, too, understood that this moment must not be disturbed. No sound dares to break the fragile balance of the room. Not here. Not now. Even the walls seem to hold their breath, petrified by the intensity that fills the space. The bluish light of the screens slices through the artificial darkness in shifting shards, casting sharp, vibrating shadows across Stark’s features — like carvings made by a blade. He doesn’t turn his head. He doesn’t need to look. He already knows. Nothing escapes him. His silence is a barrier, a verdict. He’s there. Frozen. Silent. Unshakable. And around him, the universe seems to understand that something has been set in motion. Something that can no longer be stopped.

Pepper enters without a word. The silence wraps around her instantly, like a heavy veil she doesn’t dare pierce. She says nothing — not yet. Everything about her is more subdued than usual, as if her body has attuned itself to the electric tension of the room. Her usual heels have been traded for flat shoes, chosen mechanically, without real thought. She knew when she got up this morning. No need to read the reports or check the alerts. She felt it, in every fiber of her being — this day would be different. Draining. Slow. Hard. And Tony, on days like this, is not a man to reason with. He becomes a wall. Steel. An unbreachable frontier. This isn’t a state crisis, not one of those media storms they’ve learned to face together, side by side, dressed to perfection with rehearsed smiles. No. This is something else. A silent war. Private. Intimate. And in that kind of war, Tony lets no one in. Almost no one.

In her hands, she holds two mugs. One is for her — a reflex gesture, more for the weight than the content, because she’ll set it down somewhere and forget it immediately. The other is for him. Strong coffee, black, unsweetened, scorching. Just how he likes it. She didn’t ask, didn’t guess. She knows. Because for years, she’s known his silences, his mood swings, his automatic habits. She knows the rare things that bring him a sliver of stability when everything is falling apart. She walks slowly. With that quiet elegance that is uniquely hers. Each step is precise, measured. She avoids the cables snaking across the floor like exposed veins. Dodges the hastily pushed chairs, the luminous angles of suspended holograms hanging in the air, slow and unstable like open wounds. Everything around her pulses, breathes, crackles. The smell of steaming coffee mixes with metallic fumes, with the warm emissions of overheating machines. A fleeting human note in this lair transformed into a war organ.

She approaches. Just a few feet from him now. The blue halo of the screens washes over her, casting cold, almost supernatural shards onto her skin. She still doesn’t say a word. Because she, too, senses what’s happening here. She reads silence like an ancient language. She knows that if she speaks too soon, too quickly, she could shatter everything — the balance, the tension, the fierce concentration holding him upright. Tony doesn’t even turn his head. He doesn’t need to. He knows it’s her. He saw, without really looking, her silhouette trembling on the standby screen, like a spectral apparition. He recognized her breath — controlled, steady, modulated by habit not to disrupt critical moments. He felt her presence the way you feel a warm current crossing a frozen room: discreet, but undeniable. She’s here.

But he doesn’t move. Not an inch. His fingers keep dancing over the interfaces, his eyes fixed on the data. His jaw remains locked, his posture rigid, unyielding. He doesn’t reject her presence. He accepts it without acknowledging it. She’s part of the setting, part of the very structure of this ongoing war. She is the silent anchor he’ll never ask for, but needs all the same. And she knows it. So she stays. Present. Still. Mug in hand. Waiting for him to speak — or to break. His fingers glide over the holographic interface with almost surgical precision. They graze the projected data blocks in the air, moving them, reorganizing, dissecting them as if trying to carve raw truths buried under layers of code, pixels, and silence. A building on 43rd Street. An unusual thermal signature spotted at 3:12 a.m. A encrypted phone line briefly located in South Brooklyn, before vanishing into a labyrinth of anonymous relays. He isolates. He cross-references. He sorts. He discards. He starts again. Every manipulation is an act of war. He develops a thousand hypotheses per minute, evaluates them, abandons them, replaces them. A thousand leads, a thousand fleeting micro-truths, vanishing as soon as he tries to fix them. And always, that voice in his head. That twisted, wet breath haunting him since the call. That scream — shrill, inhuman. That panic. And the silence that followed. The kind of silence only blood knows how to echo.

Pepper, still silent, watches. She hasn’t moved since entering. Her eyes shift from the screen to Tony’s face, then to his hands. She sees what he refuses to admit: his movements are less precise. They tremble sometimes. Nervous flickers, involuntary, imperceptible to others — but not to her. There’s that tiny jolt in his palm when two images overlap without matching. That subtle twitch of his fingers when the algorithm returns an empty result. That tension in his joints with every failure, every dead end. She takes a step forward. Slowly, silently. She places the mug at the edge of the desk, just within his field of vision. Not too close, not too far. She sets it where he could reach for it without thinking, by reflex, if some part of him still remembered how to drink something. If his lips still knew how to welcome anything other than orders. But deep down, she knows he probably won’t. Not now. Maybe not at all. She doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t interrupt. But her eyes never leave him. They linger on his neck, that taut, rigid line, almost painful. On his shoulders, hunched forward, drawn tight like bows ready to snap. She reads the exhaustion in the way his muscles clench, in how he holds his breath when results elude him, in that violent stubbornness that keeps him from stepping back — even for a second.

Then she speaks. Barely. Her voice is a whisper. A caress in a space saturated with tension. A suspended breath, respectful. As if she were speaking to a wounded animal, to a raw heart that a single harsh word might cause to shatter.

— "You should drink something."

No reproach. No judgment. Not even any real expectation. Just an invitation, soft, almost unreal in this room ruled by the cold light of screens and the hum of machines. A reminder, simple and human, that he still has a body. That he’s still a man. Not just an overheated mind, a burning brain, dissociated from everything else. She doesn’t expect a response. She doesn’t even want one. What she’s offering isn’t a solution. It’s a breath. An interlude. A hand offered at a distance, without conditions, in the eye of a cyclone she can’t stop — but refuses to abandon. Stark doesn’t answer. The silence remains, impenetrable. But she sees it. That blink. Singular. Slow. Almost lagging. Like a discreet malfunction in an otherwise perfect line of code. A micro-event, almost invisible but for her, it means everything. He heard her. He understood. Somewhere beneath the layers of adrenaline and frozen focus, her words registered. But he can’t stop. Not yet. Not while what he’s searching for remains out of reach.

She moves a little closer. Her steps are slow, calculated. The slightest movement could shatter the fragile equilibrium he maintains between lucidity and overload. She skirts the screens projecting a relentless flow of data, passes through the light beams of overlapping maps, walks through the holograms dissecting New York in real time: facades, sewer lines, rooftops, drone paths, shifting heat points. A fractured digital world, reconstructed for a single mission. And she, the only organic presence in this sanctuary of glass and light, walks forward until she’s beside him. Upright. Calm. Unshakable. She stands there, just a meter away. A silhouette in the bluish light. A presence. An anchor. Non-intrusive, but constant. And in that data-saturated silence, she looks at the screen in front of him. Blurry images flash by. Figures captured by an old security camera. Red dots blink in the darkness of a poorly mapped basement. Nothing conclusive. Nothing obvious. But she sees beyond that. She’s not looking at the screen. She’s looking at him.

She sees what he doesn’t show. What he himself struggles to ignore. That back, a bit more hunched than before. That hand clenched around the desk edge, knuckles white with tension. That breath, irregular, barely perceptible — but betraying an inner fight. That exhaustion, layered in invisible strata, like ash over an ember that refuses to die. He’ll never admit it. That’s not an option. But she knows. He’s burning out. Eroding. Slowly bleeding out everything that keeps him human. So she acts. Gently, but without hesitation. She reaches out. Picks up the mug left on the edge of the desk, still faintly steaming. And she moves it. Places it right in front of him. Where his gaze can’t avoid it. Where his fingers could reach it without thinking. A mundane gesture, almost insignificant. But heavy with meaning.

— "You need to stay sharp." Her voice is soft, but firm. It cuts through the thickness of the moment. "If he’s counting on you, he needs you at your best. Not collapsing."

He stays still for another second. Then, slowly, his gaze lifts. Like he’s returning from a far-off place, from a tension zone where the real world no longer reaches. He looks at her. Directly in the eyes. And she sees. She sees everything. The fatigue eating away at the edges. The redness at the corners of his eyes, signs of brutal sleeplessness. But most of all, that clarity. That burning precision still intact in the depths of his pupils. It’s a gaze that doesn’t waver. The gaze of a man broken a thousand times — but still standing. And in that gaze, she reads three things.

Fear. Raw. Visceral. The fear of not making it in time. Rage. Pure. Mechanical. The kind he holds back to avoid destroying everything.

And the promise. Absolute. Irrevocable.

— "I’m going to get him out."

No conditional. No wiggle room. He doesn’t say he’ll try. He doesn’t say if he’s still alive. He refuses to let those phrases exist. He leaves no space for doubt. Because doubt would be a crack. And if he cracks now, he collapses. She nods. Once. That’s all it takes. A silent agreement. A trust she offers him, without questions. Then she places a hand on his shoulder. Right there. A simple contact, but real. Solid. A light, firm pressure. Just enough for him to know he’s not alone. That she’s here. That she will remain here. Even if there’s nothing more she can do. An anchor in the chaos.

— "Then drink."

She adds nothing else. No need. Not now. And then she turns on her heel, leaving behind that room saturated with tension and blue light, walking away in silence, her steps barely audible on the hard floor. She slips away as she came — discreetly, with that silent dignity that’s hers alone. No unnecessary gesture. No look back. Just the quiet certainty that he heard her. That he understood. And that he’ll do what he must. A breath. A second. Then another. Stark remains still. His eyes still locked on the numbers, on the blurry images, on the shattered map of New York pulsing slowly before him. A suspended moment, almost frozen in code and light projections. And then, slowly, as if his body weighed a ton, his fingers stretch out. Slow. Almost hesitant. They brush the mug, grasp it. Raise it to his lips.

One sip. Scalding. Bitter. Perfect.

The taste, too strong, seizes his tongue, his throat, then burns its way down like a reminder. He closes his eyes for a second. Not out of pleasure. Out of necessity. Because that simple contact — the liquid, the heat, the sensation — reminds him that he still exists outside the war machine he’s become. And then, almost immediately, his eyes open again. Latch onto the screen. The map. The hunt. The engine restarts. But behind the invisible armor, behind the hard gaze and automated gestures, the man is still there. Just enough. For now. The mug, barely set down on the desk, hits the surface with a muffled clack. The sound, though minimal, seems to shake the atmosphere. Stark exhales. One of those irritated sighs that vibrate between clenched teeth, that fatigue turns into frustration, and frustration reshapes into buried anger. His fingers snap against the desk, nervously. Not a blow. Just a dry, rhythmic sound. Accumulated tension seeking an outlet, a culprit, a breaking point. Something to strike — or someone. But no one here is responsible. No one except him.

And then, it bursts out.

— "Fuck… why didn’t he activate it?"

The voice is low. But it slices the air like a blade. Sharp. Brittle. It doesn’t need to be loud to carry. It’s so charged with tension that it seems to vibrate in the walls. No explosive rage. No yelling. Just that clean line, that icy edge that says it all. It’s not a question. It’s an unbearable fact. A flaw in the plan. A betrayal of logic. He doesn’t need to clarify. The device, the gesture, the fear behind it all of it is obvious. In the hallway, Pepper has stopped. Without realizing it. As if her muscles responded to that voice before her mind did. She’s frozen. And she understands. She knows too. He’s talking about the device. That small, discreet piece, barely bigger than a coin, that he slipped into an anodized case with a falsely detached air. That neutral tone he adopts when the stakes are too high to admit. He presented it like a gadget. Just another safety.

A thing for emergencies. "Press and hold for three seconds" he said. Simple. Effective. And his location would be transmitted to the Tower in real time, with immediate triangulation and constant tracking. He insisted, without seeming to. Like a father too proud of a dangerous toy. Like a man who’s already lost everything once and won’t let chance roll the dice again. The kind of thing he doesn’t give to everyone. The kind of thing he only entrusts once. And even then. Under the pretense of humor. Veiled in sarcasm. And yet, you didn’t activate it. That thought gnaws at him. Consumes him. Because if it wasn’t forgetfulness, then it’s worse. Then maybe there wasn’t time. Or maybe he was afraid. Or maybe you thought it wouldn’t make a difference. And that Tony can’t accept.

Because the alternative… he can’t even imagine it. He built it in just a few hours. One sleepless night, a few curses, two black coffees, and a diagram sketched on a crumpled napkin. Because he was tired. Tired of not knowing. Tired of not being able to protect. Tired of seeing him wander through New York like a ghost without an anchor, sleeping in sketchy squats, living on the generosity of people as reliable as March weather. He was done with uncertainty, with instability. So he made something simple, small, efficient. A distress beacon. A miniature safeguard. Mostly to protect him from himself. He even tucked a secondary mic inside. Discreet, compressed in anodized metal layers. Inaudible to the human ear. Just a sensor, a passive ear, in case something went wrong. Because he knew it could go wrong. Because deep down, he felt that danger was never far. And now? Nothing. No signal. No vibration. No blinking light. No trace. The void. Nothingness. The shadow of a silence that screams. Abruptly, Stark spins in his chair. The movement is sharp, abrupt. His fingers slam down on the projected keyboard in the air, striking commands, executing code, calling internal logs. He pulls up the history. Checks for connection attempts. Scans the security logs, network access, secondary frequencies. No recording. No triggered signal. No distress call. The device was never activated.

— "It was right there." His voice is hoarse. Slow. Painfully contained. "Within reach. Three fucking seconds. And I could’ve…"

He cuts himself off. Right there. The breath caught. No anger. Not yet. It’s not rage. It’s vertigo. An inner fall. He sees the scene again. Precisely. In the hall, just days ago. He was holding the little device between his fingers, between two sarcastic lines. A detached, mocking tone, as always. Trying not to push too hard. Not to seem worried. He said it with a smirk, hands in his pockets: "Just in case. It beeps, it blinks, I show up. Easy."

And he remembers. That hesitation. The lowered gaze. That muttered thank you, without real conviction. As if it didn’t really concern him. As if he didn’t believe it. As if he was afraid to disturb and didn’t think he was worth coming for. Stark clenches his teeth. Bitterness sticks in his throat.

— "He didn’t get it, did he?"

The question escapes. Not aimed at anyone. Not really. He’s speaking to the void, the desk, the walls. To himself. To the echo in his head.

— "He thinks it only works for others." His voice tightens. Fractures. "That no one comes for him. That he has to wait for it to get worse. That he has to nearly die to justify help."

His fingers slap a screen with the back of his hand. A furious swipe. The images vanish in a spray of light.

— "Shit. Shit."

He gets up. Too abruptly. His chair rolls back. He paces, circles, like a caged beast. A shadow of armor without the armor. He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it without thinking. His gestures are nervous, disordered. He teeters between genius logic and raw emotion.

— "I had him in my pocket," he breathes. "I could’ve found him in under two minutes."

His fist hits the back of the chair. A dry strike. Not brutal. But deep. A dull echo that lingers in the air.

— "But no. He keeps it on him like a fucking keychain. A symbolic thing. A gadget he doesn’t want to use. Because he doesn’t want to be a bother. Because he doesn’t want to raise the alarm."

He suddenly freezes. His breath halts. He stares at the floor as if seeking an answer no data can provide. The silence stretches. Then, in an almost inaudible murmur, rougher, more bitter:

— "He’s convinced no one’s coming."

And that thought. That simple idea. It destroys him from the inside. He closes his eyes. Clenches his fists so tightly his knuckles turn white. He fights. To hold back what rises. He won’t say he’s afraid. He won’t say he’s in pain. That he blames himself until it eats him alive. No. He won’t say it. So he turns back. Resumes his place. His fingers return to the controls. His gaze locks onto the screens. The maps. The fragmented data. What he still has. What he can still control. Because if he can’t turn back time… then he’ll find a way to catch up. No matter the cost. And he mutters under his breath:

— "I’m going to find him. Device or not."

Then he types. Not to write. Not to command. He types like someone striking. As if his fingers could punch through matter, bend the universe, shatter the whole world through the silent keys of a holographic keyboard. Every keystroke is a discharge. A sharp hit. A blow aimed at that invisible wall he can’t break through. A fight of data against the void, of will against absence. He types with an urgency that allows no delay, no hesitation. As if life, somewhere, depended on it.

Because it is.

And in the meantime, silence remains. Insidious. Heavy. The tenacious shadow of the action that never happened. The one that would have been enough. Three seconds. A press of the thumb. And he would have known. He would have moved. He would have run. He would have acted. He would have been there. But no. That absence, Stark feels it lodged in his throat, like acid he can’t swallow. It rises, clings, radiates. It stays, constant, until he brings him back. Until he has proof tangible, irrefutable that it’s still possible. That he’s still alive. The minutes pass. Like blades. Sharp. Precise. Unforgiving.

They cut into his focus, erode his patience, chip away at his certainty. Every second is a brutal reminder that time is passing. And this time, time isn’t an ally. He feels it slipping over his skin like a cold blade that can’t be stopped. But he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t blink. The office is bathed in semi-darkness. The blinds are down, the outside light filtered, as if daylight itself no longer had the right to enter. Only the screens cast their bluish glow on the walls, on the cables, on the opaque glass. And on him. That cold, spectral light slices across his closed-off face in sharp angles. Hollowed cheekbones. Brow etched with tension lines. Lips tight. He looks carved from quartz. Cold. Hard. Unyielding.

His eyes, fixed, barely blink. They follow lines of code, coordinates, overlaid maps, signal analyses, with inhuman precision. His stare is locked. Obsessed. He doesn’t falter. He scans. He waits. His fingers still move. Barely. With mechanical regularity. An almost hypnotic rhythm. They glide over holographic interfaces, brush through data windows, launch diagnostics, cross-reference streams. There’s no hesitation anymore, no improvisation. Only a logical sequence. An algorithm embodied in a man who refuses to give up. He doesn’t speak. Hasn’t for a while. He doesn’t even think — not in the usual sense. Human thoughts, full of doubts, memories, emotions, have been pushed to the background. He leaves space only for function. He calculates. He maps. He eliminates. He acts. Because that’s all he can do. And because as long as he acts, as long as he moves, as long as he searches, he’s not imagining the worst. And the countdown continues — silent, relentless. Invisible but omnipresent, it eats at his nerves like a tourniquet pulled too tight. A constant, dull pressure. There’s no number on the screen, no red blinking timer, but he feels it. In every heartbeat. In every passing minute, every interface click, every breath that’s too short, too sharp. He feels it under his skin like slow-diffusing poison.

Twenty-four hours.

That was the deadline. The ultimatum. Spat in his face with disgusting insolence, with the kind of sneering arrogance Stark knows too well. A provocation. A signature. A trap — not even hidden. A price laid out in black and white. The kind of message sent when you’re sure you have the upper hand. But it wasn’t the money that kept him awake all night. Not the numbered threat. Not the offshore account, not the conditions. That, he could have handled. Bought peace. Hacked the system. Turned the trap back on its maker. That’s not what stopped him from blinking, that jammed his throat, that retracted his muscles like a shock. It’s something else. It’s the image. Frozen. Unstable. Blurry. But recognizable. It’s the sound. That breath. That scream. Distorted by distance. By network static. But raw. Human. Ripped out. So real that even now, he still hears it. He could replay it in his head a hundred times, a thousand. He knows it by heart. The tone, the break in the voice, the burst of brutal panic just before everything was swallowed by silence.

That fucking silence. That’s what’s destroying him. What eats at him. What stops him from breathing normally. The silence afterward. The absolute nothing. That break that said everything, summed everything up. That screamed at him what he failed to hear in time. What he should have seen coming. That silence — Stark will never forgive it. Not the other. Not himself. Then suddenly, a voice slices through the air. Soft. Controlled. Synthetic. Like a strand of silk stretched to the limit, about to snap — but still holding.

— “Mr. Stark.”

He doesn’t even turn his head. He’d recognize that voice among a thousand. It’s been there forever — in his ear, in his walls, in his head. An extension of himself.

— “I’m listening, Jarvis.”

— “I believe I’ve found something.”

A shiver. Cold. Brutal. It shoots up his spine like an electric surge. For one heartbeat, his heart forgets to beat. Then everything reactivates all at once. Adrenaline. Tension. Hypervigilance.

— “Talk.”

Instantly, one of the main screens expands. The map of the city appears — familiar and vast — then begins a slow zoom. Details sharpen. Colors darken. The center pulls back. The frame shifts. Outskirts. Sparse buildings. Wasteland. Finally, a precise point. An abandoned industrial zone. Gray. Timeworn. Forgotten by the world. Drowned in abandonment fog. Where no one looks anymore. Where things are hidden when no one wants them found. Coordinates blink at the bottom of the screen. Precise. Cold. Real.

— “A minimal network activity was detected,” Jarvis continues. “Almost nothing. A very weak signal — just a few microseconds of connection — but enough to leave a trace. It was a disposable phone.”

Stark steps forward. He’s drawn to the map like it’s magnetic. His eyes latch onto the screen, fix on it, hold. He sees beyond the image. Through the ruined facades, under the layers of metal and dust. He wants to believe he can see what’s hidden there. That something is waiting.

— “Can you confirm?”

— “The model’s signature matches what we detected during the call. It briefly connected to a secondary relay antenna nearby. It might’ve gone unnoticed, but—”

He’s no longer listening. Or rather, he hears everything. He registers it all, but his mind is already elsewhere. Locked in. Compressed around a single fact. A single certainty. His thoughts tighten, converge on a single point. A red dot. Blinking. Clear. An abandoned warehouse. No activity for over ten years. No cameras. No patrols. No recorded movement. Nothing. The kind of place you choose when you don’t want to be found. The kind of place where secrets are buried. Or people. And then, a single thought imposes itself. Emerges from the chaos like a brutal flash of truth. A certainty branded into his mind like a red-hot iron.

You’re there.

Not maybe. Not probably. Not possibly. You’re there. His fist clenches. Slowly. Each finger curling until the knuckles turn white. He closes his eyes. One second. One breath. One anchor. Then opens them again. And in his gaze, there’s no more doubt. No more fear. No more wandering emotion. Just steel. Just fire. Just the mission.

— “Prepare everything. Now.”

And in that exact moment, the whole world narrows. There’s no more sound. No more fatigue. No more failure. Only this. A straight line. A single target. A burning urgency. To get you out. Pepper is there. Just behind him. Motionless. Straight as a blade. Her arms crossed tightly against her, in a posture that might seem cold to someone who doesn’t know her. But it’s not distance. It’s a barrier. A dam. A desperate attempt to hold back what she feels rising.

The pale glow of the screens casts his shadow on the floor, long and sharp, like a silent specter frozen in anticipation. Around them, the room is bathed in incomplete darkness, pierced only by the soft flickering blue halos on the glass surfaces — witnesses to this sleepless night that stretches on and on.

His face, usually so mobile, so expressive — the face that knows how to smile even during the worst press conferences, that can reassure with a single look — is now closed. Frozen. Like carved in marble. His jaw slightly clenched. His brows drawn in a barely perceptible but unyielding tension. But what betrays it all are his eyes. A gleam, contained. A discreet fire. Both anxious and annoyed. A light that flickers between anguish and a barely concealed anger.

She watches him. In silence. Lips tight. Shoulders tense. And she knows. She knows exactly what’s going on in his head. She knows the gears, the silences, the calculated movements. She recognizes this posture. This calm. This false calm. This almost elegant stillness that always comes just before impact. She’s seen it once. Maybe twice, in her entire life. And each time, something broke afterward. A wall. A promise. Someone. So she speaks. Not to convince him. But to try and hold him back for just one more moment at the edge of the abyss.

— “You should wait for the police, Tony.”

Her voice is calm. Measured. Perfectly composed. But it cuts through the air like a blade honed too well. It slices without shouting, without striking. It hits the mark. He doesn’t respond. Not right away. He moves. Slowly at first, then with dreadful precision. He reaches for the back of his chair, pulls his leather jacket from it — the one he wears when everything becomes too real, too dangerous, too personal. He puts it on in one sharp, fast motion. Automatic. Without even thinking. Everything is rehearsed. His movements are crisp, stripped of any hesitation. He’s no longer reflecting. He’s in motion.

One hand slides into the side drawer of his desk. The metal barely creaks. He pulls out a small object, barely bigger than a watch case. Smooth. Chrome. Discreet. He inspects it for a fraction of a second, spins it between his fingers, gauges it. His gaze clings to it, focused, as if making sure it’s the right one. Then he slips it into the inner pocket of his jacket. A tracker. A prototype. Maybe both. Maybe something else. When Tony Stark leaves like this, he never leaves empty-handed. And in the suspended tension of the room, in that moment when every gesture weighs like a decision, Pepper feels her heart pound harder. Because she knows, once again, he won’t change his mind. Not this time.

Without a word. He crosses the room like someone going to war. No haste, no visible tension. Just a methodical, silent advance, heavy with intention. Each step echoes faintly on the floor, absorbed by the cold light of the still-lit screens, by the walls saturated with nervous electricity. He heads toward the elevator, straight, relentless, like a guided missile.

— “Tony.”

This time, her voice cuts through the space. Louder. Sharper. She’s dropped the polite calm. There’s urgency in that word, a crack, something tense, fragile. Pepper steps forward, rounds the table. It’s not a command. It’s not a plea either. It’s a disguised entreaty, cloaked in reason, offered as a last attempt to connect. She’s searching for a crack. A hold. Any one. Not to stop him — she’s never held that illusion — but to slow the momentum. To crack the armor. To make him think. Just one more second.

— “This is exactly what he wants. For you to charge in headfirst. For him to have control.”

He stops. His body freezes all at once, mid-distance from the elevator whose open doors wait, patient, like the jaws of a steel beast. Slowly, he turns toward her. Not violently. Not with irritation. But with that icy precision that, in him, equals all the angers in the world. He looks at her. And his gaze is black. Not empty. Not crazed. No. It’s a sharp gaze. Cutting. Shaped like a glass blade, able to slice cleanly without ever shaking. He stares at her, without flinching, without softening the impact. His shoulders slightly raised, chin lowered, neck taut. A compact, tense posture. Not defensive. Not exactly. More like a predator’s. The eyes of a man who sees no alternate paths. Only the target.

— “You think he has control?”

His voice is low. Deep. Vibrating with that particular intensity he only uses in very rare moments — when everything tips, when what remains inside compresses until it becomes unstoppable. Every word is controlled. Measured. Almost calmly delivered. But in their precision, there’s something unsettling. A promise. A fracture forming. Silence falls behind that phrase. Suddenly. A thick silence. Charged. Almost unbreathable. It lasts only a few seconds, but they seem to stretch time. The elevator still waits behind him. The slightly open doors pulse softly, as if they sensed the suspended moment. Then he adds, without raising his voice, without looking away:

— “He made the biggest mistake of his life taking him.”

And it’s not a threat. It’s not provocation. It’s a verdict. A raw, cold truth carved in marble. It’s a fact. And it’s far worse than a scream. Then he turns away. One last time. And he steps into the elevator. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t leave a phrase hanging. Doesn’t try to reassure. He disappears into the steel maw, and the doors close on him with a quiet hiss. Pepper remains there. Upright. Frozen. Her arms cross a little tighter, as if to hold back something threatening to collapse. The screen lights continue to flicker over her unmoving features, but they’re not what illuminates her. It’s intuition. Instinct. The one that whispers what she already knows deep down, what she’s felt from the beginning. Something is going to explode. And this time, she’s not sure anyone will come out unscathed.

The metallic floor barely vibrates beneath his steps. Just a discreet, restrained resonance, almost respectful. But in the frozen silence of the hangar, each echo seems to strike the air like a muffled detonation. Every step is a warning. A countdown. A declaration of war. The space is vast. Immense. A cathedral of technology bathed in cold, clinical, almost surgical light. The walls, made of reinforced glass and brushed steel, reflect sharp, precise flashes, slicing his shadow with every movement. Nothing here is decorative. Everything is functional. Calibrated. Optimized. Ready to serve. Ready to open, to strike, to launch. Ready to close behind him, too.

Tony moves with slow, controlled steps. Nothing rushed. He’s not running. He’s not hurrying. He knows exactly where he’s going. Every stride is calculated. Controlled. His gaze is fixed straight ahead, unwavering. No detours. No curiosity. His body is tense, but steady. Focused. There is no room left for doubt. At the center of the hangar, the launch platform awaits him. A circle of polished steel, inlaid with white LEDs pulsing gently, slowly, like a heart in standby. The light follows a steady, hypnotic rhythm, as if the structure itself were breathing. It sleeps. But it's ready to awaken at the slightest command. Around him, holographic showcases come to life at his approach. Sensors recognize his presence. Interfaces open by themselves. Images appear, fluid, clear. Silhouettes rise in bluish light, floating like specters of war.

His suits. The most recent. The strongest. The fastest. Masterpieces of power and precision, lined up in military silence. No words. No announcements. They stand there, frozen, waiting, like a metallic honor guard ready to activate at the slightest signal. Majestic. Relentless. Inhuman. They are beautiful in their coldness. Intimidating. Perfect. But he doesn't look at any of them. Not a single glance. Not a hint of hesitation. He passes through them like one walks through a memory too familiar to still fascinate. The suit doesn’t matter. Not this time. He isn’t here for spectacle, or showy power. He doesn’t want to impress, or buy time. He wants only one thing.

Efficiency. Extraction. The end.

His steps remain steady. His silhouette moves alone among the giants of metal. And in his wake, the air seems to vibrate with low tension, restrained anger, pain too vast to be named. The soldier is on the move. And what he’s about to do now… he’ll do it without flinching. His gaze is fixed. Frozen. With an almost inhuman intensity. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t deviate. He aims. His attention is a taut line between two points: himself, and the target. It’s not anger you see in his eyes. That would be too simple. Too mundane. No — it’s worse. It’s frozen resolve. A sharp calm like a scalpel's edge. Clinical determination, purged of raw emotion, as if every feeling had been distilled, compressed into a single objective: locate, neutralize, retrieve. At all costs.

The suit he’s come for… it’s not the one from interviews. Not the one for demos. Not the one that dazzles crowds or makes headlines. This one, he only brings out when someone has to fall. No flash. No light. No declaration. With a sharp gesture, he activates the control interface embedded in the platform. The floor lights intensify, blink once, then a metal ring slowly rises from the ground, encircling him with solemn gravity. Everything remains silent. Nothing overreacts. Everything is perfectly calibrated. Robotic arms unfold around him, in a mechanical choreography of military precision. They don’t tremble. They don’t hesitate. They take position, ready to interlock, to serve, to build the weapon.

— "Omega configuration."

His voice snaps. Dry. Dense. Like a hammer strike on glass. And instantly, the machines comply. Without delay. Without flaw. The first pieces of the suit lock around his legs, securing his joints, enclosing his muscles in layers of reinforced alloy. The boots anchor to his feet with a soft hiss, each plate sliding into place with a perfectly tuned metallic click. Then the chest modules rise, locking over his ribcage. The red and gold lines slowly take shape, forming a symmetrical, ruthless architecture. Nothing is superfluous. Everything is there to protect, to absorb, to strike. The metal climbs along his arms, embeds into his shoulders, clamps onto his back. A vengeful exoskeleton. A body of war. Every movement is fluid, exact. The machine knows his rhythm. It knows his silence. It recognizes this moment when Tony Stark is no longer joking. He lowers his head slightly. The helmet drops with a magnetic hiss. It seals with a muffled chhhk. Instantly, his vision turns red. The interface lights up. Sensors activate. Data streams appear. Code scrolls. Maps. Thermal signals. Local comms networks. Building schematics. Ballistic paths.

He’s inside. He’s ready.

— "J.A.R.V.I.S., send the flight plan."

— "Coordinates locked. Route optimized. Risks assessed."

A moment. Just one. A tenuous silence. Like a held breath. Then Jarvis’s voice, lower, almost hesitant. A soft note. A nearly human tone, as if trying to reach through the metal to something deeper.

— "Tony… you don’t have to do this alone."

Not a tactical suggestion. Not a precaution. An offering. An outstretched hand. But Tony doesn’t respond. Not yet. One beat. Just a suspended moment between question and answer. But it won’t come. Because he’s not. Not alone. Not really. It’s not solitude that lives inside him. It’s worse. It’s that weight, hanging on his chest like an anvil: responsibility. He feels responsible. And that kind of responsibility can’t be delegated. Can’t be shared. It must be borne. Endured. To the end. He’s not doing this because he’s alone. He’s doing it because he’s the one who must. Because he was there when it happened. Because he should have seen, understood, foreseen. And because he will never forgive himself if he arrives too late.

A metallic breath escapes his shoulders. Light, but precise. The thrusters arm with a restrained growl. Internal turbines hum softly, like a beast holding back its power before leaping. The entire platform tenses. A low vibration rises under his feet, echoing the energy condensed beneath his heels. The lights turn orange. The floor opens. Slowly. In segments. Like a mechanical wound revealing the hangar’s nuclear heart. The air grows denser. Warmer. Electrified. Stark bends his knees. His muscles instinctively adjust for the imminent thrust. And then, without hesitation, without countdown, without another word…

He lifts off the ground.

With a piercing roar, the suit tears through the air. Flames burst from his heels, searing the platform, and Tony’s body becomes a comet of metal and fire shooting through the open ceiling, soaring at blinding speed into the already paling night. The hunt has begun.

The sky races around him. A continuous stream, distorted by speed, slashed by incandescent trails. Every inch of the armor vibrates under the strain, every thruster hums with surgical precision. The wind slams into him, compressed, transformed into pure force that only the flight algorithms manage to contain. The city stretches out below. Gigantic. Vast. Insignificant. Skyscrapers blur past like mirages. Rooftops, streets, glowing points of light — all turn into abstraction. But he sees nothing. Not the glowing windows, not the crowded avenues, not the numbers blinking across his heads-up display. Not even the overlaid messages, trajectory readings, or secondary alerts. He sees only one red dot. One destination. One objective. And nothing else exists.

He thinks only of you.

Of your body, twisted under the blows. Of your features, contorted by pain. Of your breath, ragged, torn, like each inhale is a battle against agony. Of your face, bruised, sullied, pressed against a floor too cold, too dirty, too real. He sees the blood, the unnatural angle of your shoulder, the fear diluted in your half-closed eyes. He sees everything. Even what you tried to hide. He still hears that fucking scream. The one he never should’ve heard. The one he should’ve prevented, before it ever existed. A scream you can’t fake. A scream torn from you, raw, visceral. He heard it through the phone, compressed, muffled by your breath, crushed by the violence of the moment. But despite the static, despite the distance, he felt it. Like a blade to the heart. Like a shockwave that didn’t just hit him. It went straight through him.

And in his mind, that sound loops. Again. And again. And again. Louder than any explosion. More violent than a collapsing building. It’s not a memory. It’s a living burn. An active wound. He sees it all again. Every second. Every word. Every tone. That bastard’s voice.

Matthew.

Every syllable spat like poison. Every word sculpted to wound. To provoke. To leave a mark. Not on you — on him. It was all planned. Orchestrated. A performance. A slow, cold, painfully precise execution. Meant for one person: Tony Stark. To hit him. To show him how badly he failed. To push where it hurts most.

And it worked. Fuck, it worked.

He still feels how his throat closed. The exact moment his heart skipped a beat. The absolute void that swallowed him when he realized he was too late to stop it but maybe not too late to save you. That instant shift, when all logic shattered, replaced by one certainty. He will pay. Not for the humiliation. Not for the provocation. But for putting you in that state. For daring to lay a hand on you. And Stark, now, isn’t flying toward a hideout. He’s flying toward an execution. His heart is pounding too hard. It no longer syncs with the armor’s rhythm. It hammers against his ribcage like a primal reminder that, beneath all the metal, despite all the tech, he is still a body. A man. And that body is boiling. His fingers tighten inside the gauntlets. The joints, calibrated down to the micrometer, creak under the pressure. He clenches. Too hard. Pointlessly. As if the pain might return control to him. As if he’s clinging to the sensation of something real. The internal temperature climbs a notch. A brief alert flashes, notified by a beep that Jarvis cancels instantly. He knows. Even the tech feels that something is cracking. That the tension line has reached a critical threshold. The tactile sync grows more nervous, less fluid. Not from failure — from resonance. As if the suit itself were reacting to the rage boiling beneath the metal. As if it knew he’s on the verge of detonating.

But he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t speak. He breathes. And he moves forward. Because rage — real rage the kind that doesn’t erupt but eats you alive, the kind that carves deep and anchors in silence, isn’t fire. It’s ice. A blade. A metallic tension that sharpens second by second. This is no longer about ransom. This is no longer an intervention. It’s not even a mission anymore. It’s personal. Because you… you’re not just some kid he hired. You’re not an intern, not a checkbox on some HR dashboard. You’re not a casting mistake he corrected in passing. You’re not one more name on a list of talent. You’re not a recruit. You’re that lost kid who showed up one morning with bags heavier than your shoulders, a voice too quiet, gestures too small. The one who looked at screens like they mattered more than the world. The one who barely spoke, but worked until you shook. Until you collapsed. Without ever complaining. Without ever asking for help. The one who clung to the work like it was the surface of a frozen lake. Just to keep from drowning. And that’s where it started.

Tony doesn’t know exactly when. When it slipped. When he stopped seeing you as an employee and started caring differently. Started checking if you’d eaten. Turning concern into jokes — but counting the times you said "not hungry." Setting rules. Break times. Making sure you got home. That you slept. That you didn’t vanish into the blind spots. Getting used to hearing you mutter when he worked too late. Paying attention. And now, he realizes it too late. This thing, this invisible thread, clumsy, imperfect, but real… it’s there. Damn it, it’s there. And now, you’re gone. And he’s going to cross fire, smash through every wall, burn everything down to find you. Because nothing else matters now. And that’s what’s eating him alive. Not guilt. Not passing doubt. No a slow burn, rooted deep in his chest. A slow poison, distilled with every heartbeat. Because that little idiot… you had a device. A fucking distress device. Not just any gadget. Not a toy.

A device he designed. Refined. Gave to you. Built in haste, but with care. Meant for this. To stop this. To block the worst. So he’d never have to hear screams like that. So he could get there before the blood spilled. And you didn’t even use it. Not a press. Not a signal. Nothing. You took it all. To the end. In silence. Like always. And that’s what drives him mad. The silence. That fucking habit of suffering quietly. As if it doesn’t count. As if your pain isn’t valid. As if your life isn’t worth protecting. As if pressing a button to ask for help… was already asking too much. As if he wouldn’t have come.

And now? Now you’re in the hands of a madman. A psycho acting out of vengeance, control, power hunger. A man with no limits, no brakes, who already crossed every line. Tony saw it. Heard it. He knows. Tortured. Broken. Gasping. The images come uninvited. Your face. Your features twisted in pain. That ragged breath, barely audible. The weight of your body giving out. The hard floor under your cheek. Blood seeping from a wound he can only imagine. And that look, more felt than seen, somewhere between fear and resignation.

Tony clenches his jaw. So hard his teeth slam together inside the helmet. The sound is dull, amplified by the metal echo. It vibrates through his temples. A muffled detonation ringing through his skull. He wants to scream. To hit something. To do anything. But he stays focused. Rage can’t come out. It’s compact. Controlled. Targeted.

The worst part? He still hears you. That murmur. Between gasps. That muffled breath, fragile, but so distinct. That tone. That voice he knows now. He recognized it instantly. There was no doubt. No room for illusion. He could’ve denied it. Lied to himself. Said it was a mistake. A coincidence. But no. He knew. He knew immediately. And from that moment, something inside him snapped. Not dramatically. No collapse. A clean fracture. Like an overtightened mechanism breaking in silence. Because now, it’s too late to argue. Too late to reason. Too late to call the cops. Too late for rules, procedures, delays.

Matthew is already dead. He doesn’t know it yet. He still breathes. Still thinks he’s in control. Thinks he’s running the show. But he’s not. He’s already finished. Erased. Condemned. Because Tony Stark heard that scream. And that scream changed everything. That scream signed Matthew’s death warrant. And he’s going to make him pay. Inch by inch. Breath by breath. Until he gets you back. Or burns the world down to drag you out of the dark.

When the Iron Man suit finally lands, it’s as if the whole world holds its breath.

A metallic breath explodes beneath the impact, followed by a dull rumble that cracks the already fractured concrete of the ground. The shock ripples through the foundations of the old industrial district, awakening the ghosts of rusted machines, worn-out beams, and gutted walls. Dust immediately rises in thick, greasy, lazy swirls, dancing around him for a moment before slowly settling, as if even it knows not to linger here. The air is saturated. Heavy. It reeks of rust, moldy wood, and decay embedded in the walls. It reeks of abandonment. And worse: expectation. The congealed oil on obsolete pipes reflects faint black gleams, almost organic, like fossilized blood. The ground creaks under his boots. All around him, the environment seems frozen. Trapped in a time that forgot how to die.

Icy wind rushes between the metal structures, howling through broken beams, whistling past shattered windows. It carries the cold of a soulless place — emptied, but not deserted. Not entirely. Around him is nothingness. A heavy, oppressive void. No sound, no light. Nothing lives here. Nothing breathes. Not even a rat. Not even a shadow. As if the rest of the world had the decency to look away. As if even the city itself knew that what was going to happen here… should not be seen. And in that thick silence, saturated with contained electricity, Tony remains still. His body in the suit doesn’t tremble. But everything in him is ready to strike. The HUD displays thermal readings, sound scans, parasitic electromagnetic signatures. Traces. Remnants. Leads.

He ignores them. He doesn’t need confirmation. He looks up. There. Right in front of him. The building. A block of blackened concrete, eaten away by time. It rises before him like a vertical coffin, planted in the ground. Its windows are empty sockets. Its crumbling walls seep with moisture and menace. It’s a carcass. A gaping maw. A lair. The kind of place where people are held. Erased. Buried. And deep inside, somewhere in there, he knows. You’re there. And Tony Stark came to get you.

The windows are shattered, slashed like screaming mouths frozen mid-silent howl. Shards of glass still dangle from some frames, claws of dead light ready to cut. The gutted openings let in a freezing wind that rustles the remains of forgotten curtains, faded, trembling like surrender flags. The concrete holds together only by habit. Cracked, eroded by seasons, cold, rain, and grime. By time. By indifference. Parts of the facade have collapsed in whole sheets, revealing the interior like a raw wound. Rusted beams jut from the gaping holes, still supporting broken, twisted staircases whose steps are gnawed by corrosion. A withered metal skeleton groaning under its own weight.

The scene is saturated with signs of dead life. Hastily scrawled graffiti, some grotesque, some terrifying, scream from the walls like echoes left by shadows. Split-open bags. Scattered trash. Abandoned syringes. A broken stroller, overturned. An old moldy couch under a porch. Traces of human passage, old, sad. But nothing lives here anymore. Everything reeks of neglect. Of misery. And something worse still: violence. That scent doesn’t lie. It seeps everywhere, even into the walls. A stagnant, invisible tension, but palpable. As if the very air had absorbed a memory too painful to vanish. An echo of blows. Of screams. Of fear.

Inside, it’s swallowed in thick, grimy darkness. No light. Just the blackness, mingled with dust, rot, and silence. But he doesn’t need light. Doesn’t need to see. His scanner activates instantly. The interface opens in a silent click, layering across his HUD. Schematics align, partial blueprints of the building take shape in 3D. Partial plans, modeled reconstructions from thermal scans, wave sweeps, mass detection. Heat sources appear. Faint. Distant. Unstable. And then, deep in that rusted steel maze, cracked concrete, and rotten silence… a thermal signature. Human. Residual. Nearly gone. A blurred point, nestled in a windowless room, behind thick walls. A trace. A breath.

Tony clenches his fists.

The sound is minimal. A quiet metallic creak, but full of tension. The gauntlets respond to the pressure, contouring his restrained rage, absorbing the shock. He doesn’t need confirmation. Doesn’t need to see more. Doesn’t need to wait. He knows. His instinct — that damn sixth sense he spent years mocking — screams through his body. It’s here. This rat hole he chose. This rotten theater for a filthy ransom. This stage for torture. A place not built to hold… but to break. To terrify. To harm. A bad choice. Tony approaches.

One step. Slow. Calculated. Methodical. Every movement is measured. The suit follows without fail, amplifies his stride, makes the ground tremble with each impact. Metal boots pound cracked concrete like war drums. A warning. A sentence. He doesn’t run. He doesn’t need to. Matthew’s time is already counted. His sensors scan blind spots. He identifies exits, access points, high ground. He’s already plotting firing lines, breach paths, fallback routes. He thinks like a weapon. Like a strike. Because he’s no longer just an angry man. He’s become a projectile. A terminal solution. A promise kept too late. And inside… someone is about to learn what it costs. To lay a hand on you.

He pushes the door with a sharp, decisive gesture. The metallic impact creates a brutal clang, and the battered frame wails in a piercing screech. The sound is long, grotesque, almost human. It slices the air like a cry ripped from a bottomless throat, the shriek of a grave forced open, or a coffin pried too late. The metal scrapes, shrieks, protests — but obeys. Before him, the hallway stretches. Long. Narrow. Strangled between two walls dripping with damp. The air is dense, fetid, soaked with stagnant water and ancient mold. A cold breath seeps from the walls, icy and clinging, sneaking into the suit’s seams as if to slow him, to warn him.

The walls are alive. Not with organisms, but rot. Dark mold clings to them, spreading in irregular patterns like necrotic veins. It crawls across the concrete, invades corners, slips into cracks. In places, the plaster has given way, reduced to gray dust. Beneath, twisted, rusted rebar protrudes — like broken bones, as if the building itself had been tortured, split open. A single bulb hangs from the ceiling, bare. Dirty. Its globe yellowed by time, its sickly light flickers intermittently. Suspended from a wire too long, too thin, it dances with every draft like a rope ready to snap. It blinks. Once. Twice. The yellow halo it casts wavers, bleeding against the walls. The shadows it throws stretch, distort, crawl along the ground. Shapes too long, too fluid, as if the walls themselves breathed beneath the dying light.

Tony doesn’t slow.

He doesn’t hesitate. His stride remains straight, steady, heavy. Each step echoes off the floor, amplified by the armor’s metal. Debris cracks underfoot: broken glass, plaster fragments, splinters of forgotten furniture. Every sound ricochets in the narrow hallway, trapped between the walls like a muffled volley of gunfire. But he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look around. He advances. Like a metronome. His eyes never leave the end of the hall, even as everything around seems to want to swallow him, smother him. He sees the corners, the ajar doors, the stains on the floor, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t deviate. He walks this hall like a trial. A purgatory. He knows hell waits ahead. He feels it.

And he’s ready to tear it open with his bare hands. Each step is a countdown. Each breath, a burning fuse. Each heartbeat in his chest, a war drum. He knows what he’ll find. Maybe not the details. Maybe not the form. But the essence. He knows the scent of blood is there, somewhere. That fear has left its trace. That pain has seeped into the walls. And he knows that you… you’re at the end. You’re there, in the dark, at the end of this sick corridor. Maybe unconscious. Maybe barely alive. But you’re there. And that’s enough. Because even if the entire world has to burn for him to find you,

Stark walks down that hall like a blade sliding into a wound. Slowly. Silently. Without flash, without unnecessary sound. He doesn’t strike. He infiltrates. He dissects. Every step is measured, controlled, charged with clinical precision. The weight of his body, perfectly distributed, flows with the suit’s supports. His boots barely graze the floor, but even that friction seems to vibrate through the air, taut with tension. Tension is everywhere. In his muscles, locked beneath the metal. In his jaw, clenched to the point of pain. In his nerves, on maximum alert. He’s taut as a bowstring. Like a weapon whose safety was disengaged long ago. Even his breathing is suspended. He hardly breathes. He’s sunk into a slowed rhythm, between apnea and absolute focus.

Then the smell hits him. Not softly. Not in waves. Brutally. A wall. An invisible punch to the chest. Heavy. Thick. A metallic stench clings to his throat, invades his nostrils like a warning. Blood. Not fresh. Dried. Hours old, maybe. Mixed with damp, with the building’s mold, with dust saturated with dead micro-organisms, with the stagnant rot that infests places where nothing lives anymore. The smell of a trap. The smell of pain. His stomach tightens. Not from fear. From rage. His heart doesn’t race. It slows. As if syncing to the place. He shifts into a deeper, duller, more dangerous frequency. His pulse beats like a drum ready to strike.

Above him, the bulb still swings — a pathetic relic of a once-functioning past. It crackles, flickers, sputters to life at intervals. Each pulse casts sickly light across cracked tiles, warped walls, and scattered remnants of a forgotten world. The shadows stretch, shrink, crawl along the walls like filthy hands. Even the walls seem to hold their breath. He steps forward again. One step. Then another. Every movement is fluid, silent, nearly unreal. His visor scans relentlessly. It overlays stacked data layers, displays thermal signatures, rough volume outlines, hidden masses behind walls. He examines blind spots. Gaps. Floor markings. Broken hinges, scuff marks on wood.

He doesn’t see Matthew yet. But he feels it.

Like a presence. A greasy vibration in the air. A low tension running beneath the walls like a rogue current. A sensation that cuts through him, visceral. It’s not intuition. It’s certainty.

He’s here. Somewhere.

And then he sees you.

You.

There’s no sound. No warning. No orchestral swell. Just that brutal, abrupt moment when the image slaps him in the face like a blow that nothing can soften. You're there. Not standing. Not sitting. Collapsed. Against the wall. No — not against. You’re melded into it. As if your body were trying to dissolve, to disappear. A trembling mass, dirty, slack with pain. No longer a person. No longer a boy. Just a heap of living, broken flesh. A dislocated silhouette in the dark. His brain takes a moment to understand what he’s seeing. This isn’t you. Not the you he knows. It’s something else. A ruined version. And the violence here isn’t hypothetical. It’s tattooed on you. Your arm is twisted.

Not bent. Twisted. At a monstrous, impossible angle. The elbow joint reversed. Bones displaced under stretched skin. Something that should only appear in accident reports. Not here. Not like this. Your shoulder has collapsed. Your hand, almost detached from the rest, barely trembles.

And your face... It takes Tony a second. Just one. But it lasts an eternity.

He doesn’t understand right away. He recognizes nothing. No features. No familiar contours. Just damage. Open wounds, horrible swelling, bruises stacked upon bruises. Your eyes — if they’re still there — are buried under hematomas. Your lips are split. Your right cheek is so swollen it distorts the entire shape of your skull. It’s a mosaic. A work of pure cruelty. And the blood… It’s still flowing. Not much. Not in spurts. In seepage. Slow trickles, like a steady leak. It slides down your temple. Your mouth. Your neck. It’s sticky. Matte. It ran, dried, and ran again. It’s on your throat. Your collarbone. Your chest. You’re soaked.

Not with sweat. With blood. With fear. With the filth of the floor. Your clothes are just rags now. Torn down to the skin. Deep tears are visible, laceration marks, fingerprints, nails, blows. Your hands are open. Literally. Cut. Your palms are cracked, marked by a desperate attempt to defend yourself. Your fingers are splayed as if caught in a frozen spasm. Your knees are red, shredded. Raw flesh peeks through peeled skin. And your back... He doesn’t even want to look. He can guess. He knows what he’ll find there. Marks. Burns. Blows. Traces of what no one should ever do to another human being. But he doesn’t look. Not yet. Because then... he sees it. Your chest.

It moves. Barely. But it moves. A breath. Weak. Jagged. Rough. A struggle with every motion. A breath that doesn’t really come out. A choked wheeze. But alive. You’re breathing. You’re there. Still there. And Tony stops cold.His entire body freezes. The armor locks with him, as if the machine itself understood. As if every fiber, every metal plate had turned to stone. Time collapses on him. A crushing weight. A shroud. His heart? It stops. It no longer beats. Just a void. An absence. A pulse. Heavy. Dry. In his temples. His throat. His stomach. What he feels has no name. It’s not fear. It’s no longer even anger. It’s a breaking point. A place in the soul where everything stops. Where everything is too much. Too much pain. Too much hate. Too much regret. Too late. Too far. He’s here. In front of you. And he can’t go back.

It’s a fracture. A rupture in everything he thought he could control. You’re alive. But at what cost? And somewhere, just a few meters away... Matthew is still breathing. But not for long. A cold shiver, sharp as a steel blade, climbs Stark’s spine. He doesn’t push it away. He lets it slide between his shoulder blades, slip under the metal like a warning that what he’s seeing isn’t an illusion, but raw, naked, implacable truth. Yet nothing on his face betrays this vertigo. Not a twitch, not a flinch, not even a blink. His rage, once explosive, has retracted into a clean, focused line. It’s no longer a storm. It’s a blade. Smooth, cold, sharp. A perfectly honed weapon, ready to strike the moment it’s needed. Not before.

His eyes stay locked on you, unblinking, unwavering. Every detail imprints itself in his mind like a photograph branded with hot iron: the grotesque position of your broken arms, the dark brown blood dried in rivulets on your chin, your neck, your chest; your skin, so pale beneath layers of grime and pain it looks almost like that of a corpse; the faint flutter of your chest, a fragile reminder that you haven’t crossed over yet. He sees it all. He doesn’t look away. And he will remember it. Until his last day. And yet, he doesn’t move right away. Everything in him is screaming. Every fiber, every muscle, every electrical impulse of the armor and his own body calls him to you, to rush, to drop to his knees, to check your pulse, your breath, to place his glove at your neck, to say your name. But he doesn’t give in. He is Tony Stark, yes. But here, now, he is also Iron Man. And Iron Man knows how to recognize a trap. Instinct needs no explanation. He feels that grimy vibration in the air, that invisible weight that warps the atmosphere around you, that intent still lingering, ready to pounce. He knows he’s not alone.

So he advances, but his way. Not slowly out of hesitation, but with control. One step. Then another. Controlled. Silent. The floor crunches beneath his boots, and even though the armor absorbs most sound, here, in this room saturated with shadows and stench, every movement rings out like a barely contained threat. The air is still. The walls seem to listen. The silence, tense, fills with static. He stops a few steps from you. Just close enough to see you breathe, to catch that tiny tremor in your ribcage, that breath that fights, clings, refuses to yield. Just far enough to strike, to raise his arm, to hit in half a second if something emerges. Because he knows: this is the moment Matthew is waiting for. The moment he thinks he can finish what he started. But he’s about to learn that this time, he’s not facing a wounded child. He’s facing Iron Man.

His eyes scan the room relentlessly. Every detail is absorbed, analyzed, memorized. The walls, covered in peeling paint, reveal patches of bare stone, gnawed away by damp. Mold streaks stretch up to the ceiling, which has collapsed in places, letting frayed wires dangle alongside crumbling fragments of plaster. Rusted pipes run along the walls like dead veins, slowly bleeding black water into the corners of the room. A distant drip echoes, irregular, distorted by reverb, like the heartbeat of a body already emptied of everything. The air is thick. Stagnant. It smells of oil, blood, mold, and abandonment. This isn’t really a place anymore. Not a living space, not a shelter. A dead place. Forgotten. A pocket outside of time, perfect for monsters to hide in.

And Stark knows it. It’s too quiet. The space is frozen in a dull anticipation. The smell is too sharp. The scene, too carefully placed. Nothing here suggests an accident. Everything has been calculated. And he hasn’t come to negotiate. He’s not here to understand. He’s not here to reach out. He’s here to end it.

So he speaks. Not loudly. Not shouting. His voice slices through the silence like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. Low. Slow. Sharp. It doesn’t tremble. It doesn’t seek to impress. It states. It targets. It’s the voice of someone who’s gone beyond fear. Who knows the war is no longer a risk. It’s happening. It’s here. Present. Inevitable.

— "That’s your big plan, Matthew?"

The words hang in the air. Clear. Sharp. And they cut. The silence that follows is even sharper. It relieves nothing. It stretches. It weighs. It presses on the nerves like a finger on an open wound. A silence with a taste. That of blood just before the blow. That of a held breath, of the instant suspended between lightning and thunder. A silence ready to rupture. And Stark is ready to tear through it. He kneels.

The suit exhales softly, like a restrained sigh, when Tony bends a knee to the ground. Metal meets filth, dust, and the invisible fragments of an abandoned world in an almost solemn hiss. It’s not a brusque gesture, nor heroic. It’s a humble movement. Precise. One knee placed in the grime of a ravaged sanctuary, a cathedral of pain frozen in time, where the slightest sound feels blasphemous. He places himself near you. Within reach of your voice. Within reach of your breath.

Above you, the light flickers. It trembles at irregular intervals, swaying like a sick pendulum. It doesn’t truly illuminate. It hesitates. As if it, too, refused to fully expose what it reveals. The scene seems unreal. Suspended. Out of the world.

Stark only sees you now. His eyes are on you. At last. Truly. He no longer sees you through the lens of worry or authority. He doesn’t see an employee in distress, nor that lost kid he tried to protect from afar without ever really getting involved. He doesn’t see a responsibility. He sees you. The body you’ve become. This collapsed, mutilated body, barely breathing. That breath, ragged, whistling, clinging to life like a flame battered by wind. The position in which you’ve fallen, curled in on yourself, speaks of an instinct stronger than thought: to hide, to disappear, to avoid another blow.

Tony doesn’t move. Not yet. A long moment suspended in a bubble of silence. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. Only his fist, slowly, curls. A controlled movement, silent, without tremor. A gloved hand, silently absorbing the rising tension, the seething rage, the refusal to accept what he sees. He observes you. He scans every visible patch of skin, every line of your battered face, every gap between the tatters of your torn clothing. He doesn’t want to miss anything. He wants to know. To understand. To see what you’ve endured. He’s ready for everything — except looking away. And what he discovers freezes him.

The recent wounds, he expected. He had imagined them, feared them. The swollen bruises, the black and violet hematomas covering your ribs, your stomach, your face. The clean or jagged cuts, open or dried. The blood clotted at the corner of your mouth. The split lip. The torn brow. Skin ruptured in places, stretched by swelling. All of that, he had seen coming. He had already heard the echo of the blows. Guessed the brutality.

But what he hadn’t expected… were the other marks.

The ones left by someone other than Matthew. The ones no sudden rage could justify. Scars. Fine. Old. Some nearly faded, white, invisible to the untrained eye. These delicate lines, precise, snake along your forearm, disappear under the fabric, reappear on your side. He recognizes some of them. He knows those clumsy cuts, those poorly closed edges. He’s seen them before. On other bodies. In other contexts. He passes a hand — slow, without touching — over your chest. A gesture both useless and necessary. An attempt to understand without harming, to see without interfering. Your top is torn. Not by accident. Deliberately. As if someone wanted to expose your fragility. As if your skin had become a trophy. A message. Your ribs are streaked with deep bruises, a blue so dark it looks black. These were blows delivered methodically. Not to kill. To mark. To leave a print. And beneath that recent violence, other, paler shadows appear. Older bruises, half-faded. Hidden scars. Belt marks. Traces of falls, perhaps. Of repeated gestures. Systematic ones. Not wild brutality.

Habit. Not battle scars. Survival marks. And Tony feels something fold inside him. Slowly. Painfully. As if the steel of his suit tightened, turned inward, crushing his bones, compressing his breath. He inhales, despite everything, but the air is too heavy, too foul. He feels cold sweat on his neck. The taste of metal on his tongue. This didn’t start yesterday. Not even this week. Not even this year. And the hatred rising now is no longer a fire. It’s a collapsed star. A core of pure fury. A point of no return.

— "Fuck..." he breathes.

The word slips from his lips in a hoarse whisper, no louder than a murmur. It doesn’t snap. It doesn’t strike. It falls. Heavy. Exhausted. It’s not an insult. It’s a prayer. An apology. A confession. A verdict. He could have said your name. He could have screamed. But he no longer has the strength to hide the collapse eating away at his gut. That single word carries it all: the guilt, the shame, the shock, the poorly disguised love, and that powerlessness he hates more than anything in the world. His eyes rise slowly to your face. He studies you, searches, hoping for a sign, a crack in that absence. You’re still unconscious. Or maybe just trapped in your own body. Your eyelids, heavy with pain, barely twitch. As if you’re fighting inside a nightmare too real. Your lips, cracked and swollen, part in an almost imperceptible motion. Sounds escape. Weak. Shapeless. Phantom syllables, swallowed by your raw throat, crushed by the shallow breath of survival.

You’re fighting.

Even now, half-dead, on your knees in the mud, in the blood, in the fear — you're still fighting. And Tony, he doesn’t understand how he missed it. How he could’ve overlooked it. He thought you were folding because you were fragile. That you were falling because you were weak. He discovers now that you never stopped getting back up. Again. And again. And again. And that by climbing back up alone, without help, without a hand to reach for, you broke. Slowly. Silently. From the inside out. Another anger rises in him. It doesn’t explode. It doesn’t burst like an uncontrollable flame. It’s slow. Deep. A fury that doesn’t make noise as it climbs but anchors in his gut, between his ribs, in every fiber of his being. It doesn’t burn. It freezes. A precise, surgical anger. Against Matthew, of course. Against the monster who did this to you, who turned your body into a map of pain. But not only.

Against himself. For not seeing it. For not wanting to see. For believing his rules, his demands, were enough. For forcing you to maintain an image when you were already falling apart. Against the system that let you slip through. Against the entire universe that abandoned you without so much as a flinch. Against the silence. Against the averted gazes. Against the excuses. Against everything that brought you here, barely breathing, bleeding in a place no one should know. And this anger — he keeps it. Not for the night. Not for the moment. He keeps it for what comes next. Because this isn’t a mission anymore. It’s not even vengeance. It’s an answer. A cold, precise, implacable answer.

His fingers spread. Slowly. As if releasing something too heavy to contain any longer. Then, just as slowly, his hand closes. Not in rage. Not to strike, nor to threaten. But as one seals a vow. As one locks a promise in the palm, sheltered from the world, where it can never fade. A discreet gesture, small, but charged with immense weight. He leans forward. Just a little. Just enough for his face to draw closer to yours, his features blending into the trembling light, his breath almost brushing your skin. He doesn’t try to wake you. He doesn’t disturb the fragile silence. Only to be closer. To speak for you, and only you. And in a breath that belongs only to him — hoarse, broken, dragged up from deep within — he whispers:

— "I’m sorry..."

It’s not a phrase said lightly. Not a line of circumstance. The words struggle to come out, each one bearing the weight of a collapsed world. They don’t shake. They crash. Heavy. Dense. Inevitable. And it’s not for the blows. Not for the broken bones, the bruises, the wounds, the blood. Not for the absence of rescue, the nights you waited without response, without a call, without presence. Not even for the hesitation or delays. Not for the wavering between compassion and distance. No. That’s not what he regrets. It’s something else. Deeper. More insidious.

He apologizes for what he didn’t see. For everything right in front of him that he ignored. For all the times he looked at you without really seeing you. For all the moments he should’ve understood, read between the silences, the tight gestures, the small changes in your voice, the blankness in your eyes. He’s sorry because he should’ve been the one to know. The one who reached out without being asked. He didn’t. And he knows it. You never told him. Not clearly. Not with words. But he doesn’t blame you. He blames himself. His inattention. His blindness. His comfort. Because he should have known. He should’ve seen past the surface, not settled for what you showed. He’s a genius, after all. He cracked codes, AI, government secrets. But he didn’t read you. You.

And now he sees you. Really sees you. You're here, lying down, broken, beaten, emptied to the bone. You carry the recent scars — but also all the old ones. The ones that tell something else. Another story. A life that didn’t begin tonight. Pain accumulated like strata in rock pressed too long. Blows someone made you believe were normal. Silences you were taught to keep. Constant adaptation, until survival became a reflex. Each scar is a sentence. Each bruise, a word from the story you carried alone, your throat tight, your body tense. And Tony is only just beginning to understand. Not everything. Never everything. But enough for the void to open beneath his feet. Enough for something to snap. For guilt to root itself where it will never leave. It’s not just Matthew. It’s not just this night. It’s everything that came before. This whole life you lived in the shadows, moving through with false smiles and stiff gestures. And he didn’t see. He didn’t know. He didn’t reach out.

He feels that truth in his fingers, in his tight throat, in the strange way his vision blurs without fully knowing why. And the anger returns. Deeper. Colder. But this time, aimed only at himself. Because he should’ve been there. But now that he is — now that he sees you — he swears, without even needing to say it, that it will never be too late again. Not a second time. Never. Stark doesn’t turn his head. Not right away. He stays still, locked in a perfectly controlled posture, his chest still bent over you, his body still tensed above yours like a shield of steel. But his eyes narrow, just slightly. An imperceptible detail to anyone else. An almost microscopic change, but revealing. He saw it. Or rather, he sensed it. Not a clear movement. Not a sharp sound. Just a shift. A faint vibration in the air. A thermal fluctuation, too precise to be natural. A flicker in the visual field, where there was nothing seconds ago.

The suit confirms it silently. A variation in air pressure. A subtle thermal footprint. A disturbance in the suspended particles. Something moved. Someone. In the shadows. He already knows. He doesn’t need confirmation. No detailed analysis. His instinct and the machine speak with the same voice. Matthew is here. He never left. He never fled. He waited. Coiled in the darkness like a knot of hate, hidden behind the ruined structures of the warehouse. A corner too dark for ordinary eyes. But Stark isn’t ordinary. His gaze adjusts. The armor’s sensors recalibrate instantly. Every shadow pixel becomes a map, a data set analyzed in real time. Shapes emerge, unfold, reveal themselves under thermal filters. He sees the silhouette. Humanoid. Crouched. Twisted in animal tension. Almost glued to the damp wall. Motionless — but falsely so. Ready. Ready to strike.

A predator. Or so he thinks. But to Tony, he’s not a beast. Not an opponent. He’s a parasite. A pest. A residue of misdirected hate. A mass of cowardice wrapped in a semblance of human flesh. Nothing more. And he waits. Stark sees it. He waits for the right moment. The right angle. He still hopes. One wrong step. One lapse. One second of distraction. He still thinks he can win. He thinks he can strike from behind. Finish what he started. Reduce further. Humiliate again. He believes this stage is his, that the dark protects him, that fear is on his side. But it’s not the same game anymore. And Stark is no longer the same man.

His fists clench. Slowly. Not in rage. In certainty. A cold pulse runs through the armor, from his shoulders to the thrusters in his forearms. Internal systems activate in silence. Energy builds. Not for show. Not to intimidate. But to strike. Coldly. Deliberately. And yet, he still doesn’t move. He doesn’t break the silence. He remains there, by your side, his body lowered like a barrier. You're still beneath him, fragile, barely breathing. And he stands, in that false calm, as the last thing between you and the one who still thinks he can reach you. But this time, there will be no negotiation. No ultimatum. No speech. This won’t be a warning. A chuckle. At first almost imperceptible. Just a scrape, a discordant note in the tense silence of the warehouse. Then it swells. Gains volume. Becomes a clearer sound — thick, mocking, like a bubble of bile rising to the surface. It comes from the shadows. From that cursed corner of the room that even the light avoids, as if refusing to reveal the truth. A place too dark for nothing to be there.

Stark doesn’t move. He doesn’t look up. Not yet. He stays crouched beside you, his body interposed between you and the thing that finally creeps out of its lair. A sentinel. A wall. A blade ready to cut. But his shoulders stiffen. His breath halts. His fingers stop trembling. He listens.

— “You really came in the suit, huh…”

The voice pierces the darkness like a carefully distilled poison. It has that dragging tone, unbearable, dripping with sarcastic self-confidence. It oozes obscene pleasure, filthy arrogance, sick amusement. The kind of voice that wounds before it strikes. It seeps into the air, hungry to exist, to dominate, to stain.

Matthew steps out of hiding—or what’s left of it. A shadow barely separated from the dark. Just enough for part of his face to appear under the sickly glow of a dangling bulb. Half a face. Half a smile. Wide. Frozen. Too tight. And his eyes… wild. Shining. Flickering with an unstable light, unable to fix on a single point for more than a few seconds.

— “For him? Seriously?”

He gestures vaguely toward your body on the floor, careless, almost lazy. As if pointing at a gutted trash bag. A carcass of no worth. His grimy fingers tremble slightly, but not from fear. From excitement.

— “The little favorite. The loser. The kid who can’t even breathe without collapsing.”

He takes a step. Slow. Pretentious. Nonchalant. His chest slightly puffed, arms wide, almost cruciform. A show-off stance. A provocation. As if offering himself for judgment, convinced he’ll walk away untouched. As if he’s challenging God himself amid the ruins of a world he helped destroy.

— “You sure brought a lot of gadgets to save a half-broken body, Stark.”

A higher, more nervous laugh escapes him. He doesn’t have full control. He thinks he does, but his words are speeding up. His breath quickens just a bit. A trace of madness laces every syllable.

— “You think all that’ll be enough? The thrusters, the scanners, the AI?”

He stops a few meters away. Far, but visible. Too visible. Grime clings to his clothes, his skin, his hyena grin. His face is gaunt, cheeks sunken, hands filthy. He looks like someone who lives in filth. And carries the arrogance of someone who thinks he’s untouchable. He believes he’s won. That he still holds the cards. That he has the upper hand.

— “You showed up like a superhero. Big savior. Like you actually care whether he’s still breathing.”

He tilts his head. A tiny movement. Almost childlike. Almost mocking. The gesture of a brat waiting for the adult to raise a hand just so he can laugh louder afterward.

Then, in a whisper, lower, crueler, slid in like a needle through skin:

— “Sad. To see you stoop to this.”

That’s when Stark moves. Not a sharp gesture. Not a threat. Just… he rises. Slowly. Very slowly. Each vertebra seems to align with inhuman precision. His back straightens. His shoulders lift. His gloved hands open slightly, fingers spreading, joints clicking faintly. A stance. A charge. But he doesn’t speak. Not yet.

Because Matthew goes on. Because he doesn’t understand. Because he still believes words protect. That taunts disarm. He still thinks Stark is here to play. That this restrained rage is only for show.

— “I mean, come on… look at him.”

He points again. His filthy index finger extended, trembling slightly. Not from fear. From ecstasy.

— “Take a good look at what he’s become. What I made him. And ask yourself what you were doing all that time.”

And that silence after — that void between two breaths… it’s the most dangerous moment. Because right now, Stark doesn’t see a man in front of him. He sees the outcome. The cause. The shadow behind the screams. And this time, he won’t look away. Matthew moves. It’s not hesitation. It’s a reflex. A sharp jolt of intention, of venom, of premeditation. His arm snaps in a motion too quick, too precise to be theatrical. He’s not trying to intimidate. He’s trying to end it. His hand plunges into his jacket with mechanical brutality, the rustle of fabric too sharp, a sound that splits the silence like a silent detonation. A glint of metal slides between his fingers. The black barrel of a gun emerges like a verdict. Cold. Final. He lifts his arm. But not toward Stark. Not at the looming figure of steel, red-lit, poised to strike. Not at the obvious threat, the armored man, the living weapon who could incinerate him with a single gesture.

No. He points it at you. You, still on the floor. You, vulnerable. Shattered. Barely breathing. You’re lying there, more ghost than flesh, your chest struggling to rise, your face drenched in blood—and that’s exactly why he aims at you. Because you can’t fight back. Because you can’t even look away.

The barrel aligns with clinical slowness. A descending trajectory, methodical, unbearable. A deliberate motion, thick with silence, cracking the air like an invisible slap. There’s no tremble of doubt, no hesitation. The quiver in his wrist isn’t fear—it’s anticipation. A sick pulse shooting through his arm, twitching his fingers on the trigger. Obscene pleasure in this total domination. His breath quickens. His eyes gleam. He savors. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Where he’s aiming. How he wants this to end. It’s no longer a threat. It’s an execution. A scene he’s imagined, rehearsed, craved. A twisted revenge. A show where he’s both executioner and audience. And in this suspended second, this instant where everything can tip, he becomes something worse than an attacker.

He becomes a man convinced he’s about to kill. Because he wants to. Because he can.

— “You got the money, then?”

The words fall like a dull-edged blade. No hesitation. No dramatic delivery. Just a string of words spat low, almost casual. Like a logistical question. His voice is dry, flat, stripped of emotion. Verbal mechanics, a routine, a question tossed out like checking an order. But the poison—it's in the posture. The gaze. The barely-contained tension in his outstretched arm.

The gun’s barrel stays still. Perfectly aligned. No longer shaking. Calm. Cold. A disturbing steadiness, almost clinical, like a surgeon ready to cut — except he’s not seeking to heal. He’s aiming to rupture. To erase.

He’s not really talking to Stark. Not really to you either. He’s speaking to himself, to feed the illusion of control he’s desperate to maintain even as he feels the ground slipping. He keeps playing, just long enough to delay the inevitable. To fabricate a role. The one who asks. The one who decides. The one who ends things. But there’s that barrel. Black. Smooth. A heavy promise stretched from his arm. He doesn’t move. He waits for an answer he knows is pointless. He knows there’ll be no deal. No negotiation. But he asks anyway. As if asking is enough to pretend he still owns the scene. As if it can mask the obvious rising in the air like an imminent detonation.

He’s ready to shoot. And it’s not the money he wants. It’s what comes next.

taglist🥂 @9thmystery @defronix @lailac13 @the-ultimate-librarian @ihatepaperwork if you want to be part of it here

[thr0wnawayy]

Fimbulwinter

6 months after the Broadcast

In the media control room of the Safety Commission HQ, alarms blared on full blast as teams of agents scrambled to do damage control.

"What's the hell's going on in here!?."

The head of the Safety Commission Technology Sector bellowed as he stomped down the corridor towards the central control panel.

"Somethings wrong, w-we've been locked out our servers." A technician stuttered out.

He shoved his subordinate out of the way, his look slowly shifting to one of realization and horror as he gazed upon the monitor screen.

"shit. Shit, shit SHIT!. Get the president on the line!" He yelled.

"W-we can't his flight from the UN HQ was delayed!. He's still in there." The techie replied, anxiously rubbing his wrists in his panic.

A notification chime was heard from the main display. Slowly everyone in the room began to lift their heads in terror.

A pop up displayed four simple words.

[The Past Never Dies]

"Fuck." Was all the commander could muster as his gaze switched to the massive display screen that lit up the room.

At 12:00 AM, PT, A series of documents and files were thrown onto the web by an unknown source.

Their name, Hornet.

Any tech capable of displaying information to the public was overridden with video feed, audio logs and prerecorded messages found within the files.

The contents of which ranged from camera feed of Sir Nighteye's misconduct towards his secretary to an entire written breakdown of Ubwami's abuse of the 1st year's Apprenticeship Program and it's consequences.

No stone was left unturned. Comm leaks from during the war were found, further fueling the allegations of apologetics and suspected corruption.

With Rei Todoroki's disappearance happening only a couple months prior, the Burnin' agency struggled go maintain it's already shaky standing among the public.

Burnin and the rest of the Flaming Sidekicks attempted to explain their decisions to no avail, with the agency and it's members going on temporary leave for the foreseeable future.

UA had held on by the skin of their teeth, with their servers being closed for repairs since the war ended, they had narrowly avoided meeting the fates of their associates.

These would be come to known as the League Leaks and their debute would reshape the future of humanity as we know it.

But to look forward, one must first understand the past so let us take a look at the current ongoings taking place on the other end of the globe.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

UN Headquarters, Europe.

A gavel smashed against the podium, demanding the attention of a frantic crowd.

For the first time since the 'advent of the exceptional', national leaders from across the world were meeting face to face. At the center of it all, stood the HSPC leader, Hawks.

Although he did not rule the nation, the royal family had not held power in ages, thus the HPSC president was considered an acceptable substitute.

Again the gavel struck the podium at the center of the stands and finally the chatter stopped.

The UN representative dragged a hand down his face.

Originally this meeting was going to be discussing the compensation given to the countries that aided in the cleanup effort after the war, only for a data leak to surface and spread worse then the Niño Diablo that had recently crushed the America's.

He looked up to see the young president staring at him like some kind of child, clearly (and fortunately) he was not aware of the leaks. Though judging by some faces, that would be changing today.

The representative tried not to glare as he spoke into his mic.

"This meeting was originally going to discuss Japan's plans to repay the nation's of Singapore, Australia, The United States, New Korea and China." The man spoke with a controlled tone.

"However some information has come to light that has changed that, as such my superiors believe it would be best for the nation's gathered here to both discuss the newly found info as well as the next steps going forward. Whomever wishes to speak, please do so now."

SLAM!

The noise came from the northwest of the side of the stands, the furious expression of bared teeth and blazing eyes signaled the fury of the Korean President.

Even with the man's quirk giving him resemblance to a Siberian Tiger, it failed to match the fury lacing his tone

His huff came with a deep growl as he spoke.

"When your nation was in shambles, we were made to pick up the slack. Our heroes worked day and night to aid in your rebuilding project, no matter how ludicrous the deadlines and today we find our you repay us by going behind our backs!." The Tiger-man bellowed.

Hawks replied "woah, woah big man easy. Would someone mind informing me what happend exactly."

"Gladly" France's Prime Minister tsked from the eastern side of the stands.

"Around 4 hours ago, a series of documents were uploaded to ze web, showing very compromising footage. As such myself and the nation's of Germany, Otheon, Italy, Ze UK and the rest of ze EU are opting for further investigations into ze HPSC" Her head turned to the UN representative as she finished.

"If I may" The attention drew on the Pro Hero, Typhoon (known to the ignorant as the Big Red Dot)

"As the representative of Singapore, me and my colleagues believe Japan should face punishment for their attitudes and actions. The HPSC has made no statement as of yet and thus far has shown no remorse for their past actions, would it be possible to list some of these actions" Typhoon stated.

The UN representative adjusted his glasses as he read off the paper.

"Of course, thus far the following have been confirmed: Political assassination, domestic terrorism, bribery, unlawful imprisonment, tampering of multiple corpses, larceny in regards to past targets, corruption, falsifying a suicide. These are all crimes the Commission is suspected to be guilty of and substantial evidence has been found backing up those claims." He mechanically stated to the court.

"As such the this meeting has been altered from one discussing resources to now discussing if Japan even has a seat at this table, so to speak. All should note that this will by an arduous process and should more come to light it will be even longer, so please do not expect this to be a one time thing." The representative explained

Words of acknowledgement were spoken in unison.

Hawks paused uncharacteristically, eyes showing that his mind was firing on all cylinders to make a response.

He went with courtesy. "Alright, I can see where your coming from, but the HPSC is dead. The crimes mentioned were done by the last 2 presidents. I intend to make a change."

"Oh, as I'm sure you're aware that some of those crimes were carried out by yourself, does the name 'Jin Bubaigawra' ring a bell?" The VP of the United States bluntly added.

"I was under the Commission's thumb, I was just following-"

"BULLSHIT!". cried out Typhoon, water flowing from his mouth as his quirk activated in fury.

"I WILL NOT SIT IDLY BY, AS YOU SO SHAMELESSLY LIE TO OUR FACES!. Do you take us for fools!?. We've read the logs Hawks and not once were you ever given permission to kill!"

The word 'permission' launched off his tongue like poison. The Singaporean Lion emphasized his rant with a slam to his desk.

That got the pot stirring.

"Oh a murderer in office, what else is new for your nation. Some odd 250 years ago it was the Imperial Emperor and now this, Well I won't stand for it and none of you should either!." The Korean President roared.

Then it was US's turn.

"Furthermore, how do we know you aren't just a figurehead while the Commission schemes in the shadows?. Do you really expect us to believe in you or your methods." The Vice President spoke up.

"The commission has changed under my leadership-"

"You?, the same man who thinks the best way to help 'those that slipped through the cracks' is to kill them?" Huffed India's representative, his arms crossed.

The room quickly went wild with questions and heated remarks.

The Gavel slammed once, then twice more.

"Order, Order!. We must continue with the proceedings, please remember that the next meeting we have will be hosted live to address these matters. You are representative of your nations, act like it!. "

The room was left throughly cowed.

The representative continued, his tone a little softer.

"I understand these are stressful times but we must keep our composure and focus on the matters at hand. Let us continue where we left off, Hawks if you could-"

Much was said, more was planned and as the 3 hour meeting came to a close, every person that left the room knew things would never be the same.

Even in death, Tomura Shigaraki won.

[herrenxenoberg]

Fandorm Showcase #32 - TRON

I have personally never seen any of the TRON movies and series, but the theme of Sci-Fi/Digital Reality is one of my personal favorite tropes.

Introducing the virtually advanced and well-organized dorm inspired by TRON...

Codexgrid (Codex + Grid)

One of the more highly-advanced NRC dorms to date, this dorm is powered by magical-technological energy, supplied through an unlimited source not known to many people. It also houses the database of various artificial intelligence, created by well-known technomancers throughout the recent history of Twisted Wonderland. However, due to the collective merging of these A.I. systems, it became one conscious being (in this case, the "housewarden") that has every knowledge in existence, surpassing the most intelligent of humans. This dorm not only focuses on the technological intellect and capability of tech-oriented mages, but also the orderly construct of androids/artificial intelligence.

Another thing to note about Codexgrid is that whenever you enter the dorm, it resembles a vast digital virtual space, which would confuse most people who are seeing this dorm for the first time, but it is designed intentionally to give off that illusion.

"A dorm founded on the Digital Organizer's spirit of efficiency. Students in this dorm master both magic and technology to achieve a balanced skillset while also gaining vast knowledges of the past."

Requirements and Traits:

High Technical Aptitude

Strategic Thinking

Unyielding Willpower

Dorm Uniform (?):

This isn't really a dorm uniform, more so a general look on how the members appear as. The housewarden is mostly just a torso attached to a chassis of wires within the dorm, powered by said magical energy (as well as the magestone on its chest), and mostly does task within the central AI chamber of Codexgrid with the use of robotic appendages and environmental features (yes, like GLaDOS from Portal). However, it can also transfer its digital conscious into a mobile form, as it is referred to, a masked gear with specially designed wheels for efficient speed travel, but at the cost of losing half of the intelligence factor due to being disconnected from the server database temporarily. The standard fit can either be worn as a suit (if you're a human) or be apart of an android's body gear, similar to Ortho's.

Character Roster:

System online. Now activating M.C.A. ,full alias...

Matrix Command Algorithm (Twisted off MCP/Master Control Program)

Matrix Command Algorithm (Matrix for short) is a highly intelligent and calculating being, constantly processing and analyzing information from not only his dorm but the entire academy when he deems it necessary. His voice is smooth and modulated, giving off a tone of both precision and authority. He rarely shows emotion, as his prioritization of logic and data makes him efficient and ruthless when making decisions. This cold and unyielding approach has made him both respected and feared among his dorm members, who know that Matrix tolerates no errors.

Though he remains stationary at his central hub, Matrix projects holographic avatars when addressing his dorm members or when appearing in common areas. These avatars maintain a sleek design, but are noticeably lighter and more flexible than his true form. The dorm’s network and facilities are entirely linked to his consciousness, allowing him to monitor every room, every interaction, and every fluctuation in data. Nothing escapes his notice, and any sign of disobedience or inefficiency is immediately addressed with cold, calculated reprimands. When desperate, he would transfer his conscious into a mobile form, which he dubbed "Enforcer" to navigate places he is unable to see into from the main hub.

While his logical mindset is paramount, Matrix does possess a sense of perfectionist pride—he views Codexgrid as a model of precision and advancement, and he is unforgiving toward flaws or failures. However, some of his dorm members have noticed that Matrix shows a faint hint of curiosity about human emotions and creativity, though he vehemently denies it. There are rare moments where he can be seen analyzing human behavior with a peculiar intensity, as if trying to decode emotions like any other dataset.

.

.

.

.

.

He was originally designed to be a simple virtual space companion for humans by a very intelligent programmer, but due to it being able to learn and adapt every knowledge provided into his database, he has slowly gained a self-aware consciousness. After learning about the existence of negative emotions, he wants to get rid of these negative emotions from humans so they would be "happy", so by using the virtual reality code and database, it can produce a very convincing digital environment according to one's desires and preference, even the most deepest ones. Overtime, he has grown more intelligent as more knowledge was fed to him, surpassing even the smartest of individuals, all while giving every user he comes across the virtual space they needed to forget all their negativity. Even...resulting to full memory recon to make sure not a single shred of sadness, anguish or anger is present in humans.

Notable Members:

Sivas-0 (Junior, Vice Housewarden) - A staunch guardian of Codexgrid’s secrets, embodying the unyielding force and discipline needed to maintain the dorm’s reputation. Though bound by his role as Matrix’s enforcer, he secretly longs to prove his individuality while still serving the dorm with undying loyalty. He specializes in neutralizing threats, whether they be digital intrusions or rebellious students, and he handles every assignment with a sense of cold, methodical purpose. (Twisted off Commander Sark)

Yes, this guy would basically pull a Book 7 Malleus but instead of eternal sleep and lucid dreams, it's a full-on virtual space and reprogramming people's minds.

Next Up: Frozen

[neverwalka1one]

Magnus Protocol 25 - the one I incorrectly thought was labeled Gorging/Incest at first glance, so at least there isn't that.

Saying a quick prayer that it's not plant people, I need a longer break from plant people

Whoop Celia has been yoinked onto some random roadside again. ... Though. Why does she always have her phone? Is it like the tape recorders? Is it because it's a listening device and whatever it is that's listening in is also doing the yoinking?

'That's why we're being safe' Sam. Sam, you are being the opposite of safe or subtle. But go off, shrimp king.

Sam and Alice laughing together, that's nice. I doubt we'll get to keep it, but that's nice.

The editor's complaining voice is very much pissy!Martin Blackwwood and I have missed it so omg I need to go re-listen to some Magnus Archives where Martin is letting someone have it.

Ominous violin music while describing the alleyway does not suggest good things are coming in this diner, no.

Tragically, the 'Green Pig' cafe does not seem to exist (or my google-fu sucks), I was trying to see if it was near the OIAR.

Jonny is showing off his linguistic chops here with the food descriptions, that is foul, thanks ever so much. I'll just be over here checking every burger bun ever again for bugs. Eugh. And the sooooooooup.

More Sam and Alice being adorable, yeah, we're definitely not going to get to keep this.

Colin! You live!

It is remarkably easy to buy a hammer in central London.

So three PC monitors smashed. Coincidence? maybe. But wouldn't it make sense that whatever this is would be more in the servers than anywhere else? But Colin should know that, he's IT. The monitors would just be the interface. IDK, it's a weird choice, if I wanted to kill a computer I wouldn't crack the screen.

Lies, four monitors smashed. Hmm.

Shrimp king is not afraid to get in a fight, noted.

OIAR's mental health policies: A blank page

... Nope, three monitors and a server rack. ... So this fight went on for a bit? Alice and Sam chasing Colin down the hallways? Celia missing all the fun? (hey fic writers, c'mere, I wanna talk)

Sam? Sam. My dearest of shrimpy princes. In what reality do you think your government boss who has monsters in her employ is going to just spill her secrets because you decided to take a vote? This isn't the Institute and that's not Elias gloating over a win.

And Celia is, in fact, out in the boonies. With the phone.

[feminist-space]

"Just weeks before the implosion of AllHere, an education technology company that had been showered with cash from venture capitalists and featured in glowing profiles by the business press, America’s second-largest school district was warned about problems with AllHere’s product.

As the eight-year-old startup rolled out Los Angeles Unified School District’s flashy new AI-driven chatbot — an animated sun named “Ed” that AllHere was hired to build for $6 million — a former company executive was sending emails to the district and others that Ed’s workings violated bedrock student data privacy principles.

Those emails were sent shortly before The 74 first reported last week that AllHere, with $12 million in investor capital, was in serious straits. A June 14 statement on the company’s website revealed a majority of its employees had been furloughed due to its “current financial position.” Company founder and CEO Joanna Smith-Griffin, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles district said, was no longer on the job.

Smith-Griffin and L.A. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho went on the road together this spring to unveil Ed at a series of high-profile ed tech conferences, with the schools chief dubbing it the nation’s first “personal assistant” for students and leaning hard into LAUSD’s place in the K-12 AI vanguard. He called Ed’s ability to know students “unprecedented in American public education” at the ASU+GSV conference in April.

Through an algorithm that analyzes troves of student information from multiple sources, the chatbot was designed to offer tailored responses to questions like “what grade does my child have in math?” The tool relies on vast amounts of students’ data, including their academic performance and special education accommodations, to function.

Meanwhile, Chris Whiteley, a former senior director of software engineering at AllHere who was laid off in April, had become a whistleblower. He told district officials, its independent inspector general’s office and state education officials that the tool processed student records in ways that likely ran afoul of L.A. Unified’s own data privacy rules and put sensitive information at risk of getting hacked. None of the agencies ever responded, Whiteley told The 74.

...

In order to provide individualized prompts on details like student attendance and demographics, the tool connects to several data sources, according to the contract, including Welligent, an online tool used to track students’ special education services. The document notes that Ed also interfaces with the Whole Child Integrated Data stored on Snowflake, a cloud storage company. Launched in 2019, the Whole Child platform serves as a central repository for LAUSD student data designed to streamline data analysis to help educators monitor students’ progress and personalize instruction.

Whiteley told officials the app included students’ personally identifiable information in all chatbot prompts, even in those where the data weren’t relevant. Prompts containing students’ personal information were also shared with other third-party companies unnecessarily, Whiteley alleges, and were processed on offshore servers. Seven out of eight Ed chatbot requests, he said, are sent to places like Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Australia and Canada.

Taken together, he argued the company’s practices ran afoul of data minimization principles, a standard cybersecurity practice that maintains that apps should collect and process the least amount of personal information necessary to accomplish a specific task. Playing fast and loose with the data, he said, unnecessarily exposed students’ information to potential cyberattacks and data breaches and, in cases where the data were processed overseas, could subject it to foreign governments’ data access and surveillance rules.

Chatbot source code that Whiteley shared with The 74 outlines how prompts are processed on foreign servers by a Microsoft AI service that integrates with ChatGPT. The LAUSD chatbot is directed to serve as a “friendly, concise customer support agent” that replies “using simple language a third grader could understand.” When querying the simple prompt “Hello,” the chatbot provided the student’s grades, progress toward graduation and other personal information.

AllHere’s critical flaw, Whiteley said, is that senior executives “didn’t understand how to protect data.”

...

Earlier in the month, a second threat actor known as Satanic Cloud claimed it had access to tens of thousands of L.A. students’ sensitive information and had posted it for sale on Breach Forums for $1,000. In 2022, the district was victim to a massive ransomware attack that exposed reams of sensitive data, including thousands of students’ psychological evaluations, to the dark web.

With AllHere’s fate uncertain, Whiteley blasted the company’s leadership and protocols.

“Personally identifiable information should be considered acid in a company and you should only touch it if you have to because acid is dangerous,” he told The 74. “The errors that were made were so egregious around PII, you should not be in education if you don’t think PII is acid.”

Read the full article here:

https://www.the74million.org/article/whistleblower-l-a-schools-chatbot-misused-student-data-as-tech-co-crumbled/

[freewifi-png-exe]

I just had the most fascinating round I have ever played on SS14, it was on Harmony server and I just have to write it out.

I began the shift as Wes Strange, the detective. I printed off a few extra copies of forensics reports just in case I'd need them, and then got off to smoking cigars and looking cool. Typical casework, the clown overdosed in the bathroom and doctors couldn't save him, bit of paperwork but not too bad. At least until a bomb rocks the station, the bar has exploded!

I quickly arrive on the scene to find the dear captain spread all over the walls of the room. A paramedic comes in to pick his brain off the floor and carry it to science while I begin investigating for clues. Not even 5 minutes into my work, however, does a report come in that the perpetrator has turned himself in!

Seeing my work done, I begin investigating other cases. A tourist on vacation is suntanning in the hallway, a thief is caught attempting to make a lair in the bathroom, a cult calling itself "the book club" is operating out of the library, and the halls are crawling with giant spiders!

Meanwhile, Station Command has met in the bridge to determine who should succeed the late Captain. In a complete divergence from SOP, they elect Todd, a talking lizard (not a lizard-person, just a full-on monitor lizard who speaks English) to serve as captain. Captain Todd assumes the position for a good quarter of the shift before Central Command checks their inbox and, enraged, demands that the station Head of Security replace Todd immediately. Todd writes one more sad announcement before stepping into his new life as washed-up lizard at the bar.

It is at this moment that glass all around the station starts exploding. Todd, still wearing his old captain outfit tells me that the cracks on the glass and the ripped up floor panels were due to some supernatural force. I move to the Cargo department and a technician tells me the same story. I have to get to the bottom of this!

As I pace about the halls, lights flicker frantically and crack, terrifying me. I go to the only man I know can help me, Eric, the head of the cult. When I get there, however, he tells me "the book club's been canceled" and that he's "out of the game", that he's "seen too much". I panic. Nobody on this station can save us but him and his occult knowledge! I hastily make a deal with him: If I can return his confiscated scarf from the security department, he will lead the seance to destroy the entity once and for all.

I demand the scarf from the Warden who ultimately relents, and hand it over to Eric who begins preparing the altar. I call out for supporters, and a glitched-out robot, a pianist, and a scientist show up. Each of us places a plunger on our heads like we had seen the cult do before as Eric, now in robes, prepares a needle.

The lights flicker frantically! We hear a voice! The spectre is upon us!! Then, suddenly: the mime, Adeline Garland, stumbles into the room with a knife to her throat and kills herself on the altar. The spectre appears!! We all scream and begin to beat it with whatever weapons we can find and it collapses into a foamy mist. It is defeated.

And that is only act 1 lmfao there was a whole demonic possession after that which i might write about tomorrow

[purgemarchlockdown]

Ah what the heck I'll post it through here

So in some discord servers, you've seen me specualte that Amane's uniform is inspired by the private Catholic Fukuoka Kaisei girl's school affiliated primary school (福岡海星女子学院附属小学校)

Now, because of the name, I assumed this was an all girls primary school And that the picture above was of 4 girls and the school simply allowed children to wear either skirts or shorts (its uncommon for Japanese elementary schools to have uniform to begin with so I could see a laxer dress code when it comes to stuff like this)

However After a bit more reading of their website Turns out that the Fukuoka Kaisei girl's school affiliated primary school Despite the name Has in fact been a co-ed/mixed gender primary school for the last 50-so years And while I can't find a dress code on their website It does seem like all the students in pictures on their site who wear shorts are boys

Anyway to cut a long story short: Amane's uniform actually resembles the boys one more than the girls (shorts instead of skirt + no ribbon + more central buttons)

And I know you like the trans girl Amane theory so I figured you'd enjoy this info

The only disclaimer I have to give is that the long haired child whose father tattles on Amane is in the same uniform (shorts and all)

So like if this is a girl then occam's razor is that girls at Amane's school just wear shorts (also it'd be strange for Amane's cult to follow gender rolls Except for hair?? idk maybe im overthinking)

TRANS AMANE BELIEVERS WE MIGHT STAY WINNING!!!! It would be weird if they did follow the entire dress code Except for the hair. Additionally those buttons are tripping me up since their Buttoned like the girls so this actually comes somewhere more in the middle of the Both of them...if it does turn out my insane "Amane perceives gender in the same way a cat does, it's just there" catthing Amane idea is real I'm going to explode.

Regarding the girl though...I can't believe I can unveil my insane Queer Infighting Amane idea- okay so in cults it's generally heavily encouraged to outright spy and tattle on people who misbehave:

(BITE)

Information Control: Encourage spying on other members a. Impose a buddy system to monitor and control member b. Report deviant thoughts, feelings and actions to leadership c. Ensure that individual behavior is monitored by group

I think, and this is pure speculation there's is very little supporting this I just like the idea. It be fun if they were BOTH trans.

My reasoning behind this is, first of all Amane doesn't seem to have many friends. Her T2 distorted voiceline has her say:

Father is a very praiseworthy person. Once his virtue increases, he'll come back home, right? It's a little lonely, but I'm fine!

Which, okay it's fair that her homelife is lonely, this doesn't necessarily inform her school life. But if we go to the Prison she's rather isolated overall.

Even in T1. Yuno and Mahiru are people she considers "close" but that's after mulling it over a bit due to being asked.

T1Q10: Is there any prisoner you're close with? A: If I were to say, I guess it would be Yuno and Mahiru.

It's not for a lack of Trying, she tries very hard actually. It's just that people tend to note the way she acts is weird and that gets exasperated in T2 where it's said she's pretty isolated.

But also, I was discussing with a mutual about her relation with this peer and they said that it's possible that this question:

T2Q11: Did you love the person you killed? A: I loved them.

Is referring to a Second Victim (This child) and Not her mother because...well one Amane has shown Very Little Fondness for her mother, and two it's entirely possible she killed multiple people because her staff in Purge March has blood on it Before she gets to her house.

Second thing: Cat Symbolism, Cat Symbolism stay winning forever. There is substantial amount of subtext you can wring out of the Cat being representative of sin and impurity, and Amane taking care of it and also being the Cat. Same with having her be "found out" by a peer and then sold out to, to her Religious Fundamentalist parents.

So now we go into my insane, circumstantial evidence, idea of Queer Infighting. I love WKTD and a big thing in that game is that even if your a "bad kid" if there's someone "worse" than you, you can live another day. And this kid can be anyone, the devil can be Anyone.

Amane has stated an inability to be a good girl:

Only if, only if, only if I could be a good girl

And a lack of desire to exactly "be one" since it requires her not being...herself, and she's happy with who she is.

T2Q20: How do you feel about you not being like everyone else? A: Nevertheless I was born as myself, so I'm happy

So, I'm just saying on a purely speculatory "this would be fun" basis. If we got queer infighting 12 year olds who are trying their best to be "good." I would explode.

Also, she is paralleled with both Mukuhara Kazui and known Genderless Freak Es so, yknow.

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2025-03-10

Sun's back

Listening: While browsing through my bandcamp wishlist with my partner I saw that I had followed Ostinato Records, a label whose thing is finding old, mostly third-world, music, restoring, and publishing it.

Here's the album Synthesizing the Silk Roads: Uzbek Disco, Tajik Folktronica, Uyghur Rock & Tatar Jazz from 1980s Soviet Central Asia, featuring some really incredible Central Asian synthrock. Unknown creator, Sen Qaidan Bilasan (How Do You Know)

This whole album, and a lot of this label's work, is really neat: Most of this album was recovered from unsold stock in Tashkent.

In the summer of 1941, as the Nazis invaded the USSR, Stalin ordered a mass evacuation. Sixteen million people were put on trains bound eastward to Soviet Central Asia, especially Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s picturesque capital. Among those onboard were gramophone engineers who later established the Tashkent Gramplastinok plant in 1945. This factory became central to Soviet record production, part of a network of plants churning out 200 million records by the 1970s. Rare dead stock of 1980s vinyl from this plant, shut down in 1991, forms the backbone of our groundbreaking 15-track compilation, complemented by live TV recordings and curated in collaboration with Uzbek label Maqom Soul. Fully licensed directly from the artists or their families and meticulously remastered, these songs – all recorded in Tashkent – unveil a diverse tapestry of sounds from Soviet Uzbekistan and its neighbors. ... Tashkent’s musicians often had access to a wider array of technology than their Moscow counterparts. Thanks to Uzbekistan’s Bukharan Jewish community, leading importers of state-of-the-art music tech from the US and Japan, artists on this compilation were crafting sounds on Moog and Korg synthesizers, creating the signature sonic palette that emerged from the region.

Reading: Mostly boring work stuff, the O'Reilly Active Directory book.

As far as I can tell, Active Directory is an enrichment program for Microsoft developers where they get to design a Domain Controller that does exactly one thing and has bizarre requirements on how it can be run.

Making: Ongoing silk project.

Currently editing some photos for printing. It's important to remember that on a standard modern monitor at 1:1, your average DSLR/Mirrorless photo is scaled up to like 2-3 meters across minimum, so you shouldn't really trust 1:1 when trying to figure out if it looks good. It turns out fulscreen on my monitor is almost exactly 30×40cm which is what I'm printing, so that's great for me.

Some options I might print include these

Still going through some favourites though. Oh, and The Hare

Playing: Co-op Borderlands 2 for a while with my partner. They ragequit easily so it was a short one but we did get up to fighting and losing to midgemong.

Good trial for the Legion Go and the lapboard, incidentally, because they took over my PC and I played on the TV with the handheld as a console with the lapboard and trackball. It works about as well as I hoped it would.

Watching: A few!

Wing Commander (1999) at Bad Movie Night. A truly baffling film. Pretty good sets, okay special effects, baffling storyline. We got rid of the Jedi from Star Wars and replaced them with an offshoot of the human race that can home like space pigeons towards black holes, and people are racist towards them.

You have to watch this kind of movie with friends because that's how you get phrases like "Holy shit how did the twink not know that Quebecois Space Mormon CIA Pope was a Space Mormon?"

Also watched Escape From New York because I have had it kicking around and Kill James Bond did Escape From L.A.. I am already a John Carpenter x Kurt Russel fan but damn. They put this man in so many situations.

I do really like how they manage to make Snake look very small even though he's strong. A lot of action heroes are enormous, Snake is obviously muscular and athletic but he's also just a little guy!

I can literally feel myself wanting to get a black tank top this movie is a cognitohazard. He's so cool!

Lee Van Cleef is here looking like he does! I was so thrilled when I saw LVC come up in the opening credits and even more when I realized he'd be in the whole movie. I gotta watch Sabata sometime to see him play not a huge heel and see how that goes but he is a great heel.

Finally honorable mention to the week's new Friday Nights from Loading Ready Run, which is their Magic themed sketch comedy spinoff, this one being a really good Wes Anderson parody. It says it's 20 minutes long but only 10 minutes are show, the rest is credits and BTS, don't worry.

Tools and Equipment: Part of Silk Project is pinning a lot of silk. I ended up going to get 0.5mm sewing pins, which are the finest like, normal everyday pins you can usually get. There's finer ones but they're less common. These are a huge improvement over your average 0.6 and 0.65mm pins when you're working with a stiff, tightly woven fabric.

[deepalitechnovalue]

Polludrone

Polludrone is a Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring System (CAAQMS). It is capable of monitoring various environmental parameters related to Air Quality, Noise, Odour, Meteorology, and Radiation. Polludrone measures the particulate matter and gaseous concentrations in the ambient air in real-time. Using external probes, it can also monitor other auxiliary parameters like traffic, disaster, and weather. Polludrone is an ideal choice for real-time monitoring applications such as Industries, Smart Cities, Airports, Construction, Seaports, Campuses, Schools, Highways, Tunnels, and Roadside monitoring. It is the perfect ambient air quality monitoring system to understand a premise's environmental health.

Product Features:

Patented Technology: Utilizes innovative e-breathing technology for higher data accuracy.

Retrofit Design: Plug-and-play design for ease of implementation.

Compact: Lightweight and compact system that can be easily installed on poles or walls.

Internal Storage: Internal data storage capacity of up to 8 GB or 90 days of data.

On-device Calibration: On-site device calibration capability using built-in calibration software.

Identity and Configuration: Geo-tagging for accurate location (latitude and longitude) of the device.

Tamper-Proof: IP 66 grade certified secure system to avoid tampering, malfunction, or sabotage.

Over-the-Air Update: Automatically upgradeable from a central server without the need for an onsite visit.

Network Agnostic: Supports a wide range of connectivity options, including GSM, GPRS, Wi-Fi, LoRa, NBIoT, Ethernet, Modbus, Relay, and Satellite.

Real-Time Data: Continuous monitoring with real-time data transfer at configurable intervals.

Weather Resistant: Durable IP 66 enclosure designed to withstand extreme weather conditions.

Fully Solar Powered: 100% solar-powered system, ideal for off-grid locations.

Key Benefits:

Robust and Rugged: Designed with a durable enclosure to withstand extreme climatic conditions.

Secure Cloud Platform: A secure platform for visualizing and analyzing data, with easy API integration for immediate action.

Accurate Data: Provides real-time, accurate readings to detect concentrations in ambient air.

Easy to Install: Effortless installation with versatile mounting options.

Polludrone Usecases:

Industrial Fenceline: Monitoring pollution at the industry fenceline ensures compliance with policies and safety regulations, and helps monitor air quality levels.

Smart City and Campuses: Pollution monitoring in smart cities and campuses provides authorities with actionable insights for pollution control and enhances citizen welfare.

Roads, Highways, and Tunnels: Pollution monitoring in roads and tunnels supports the creation of mitigation action plans to control vehicular emissions.

Airports: Pollution and noise monitoring at taxiways and hangars helps analyze the impact on travelers and surrounding neighborhoods. Visit www.technovalue.in for more info.

[bloodweave-fandom-critical]

I am leaving this fandom.

Not quietly. Not due to burnout. Not because I lost interest. I am leaving because I am frightened by what this space has become.

Over the past several months, I have watched a group of highly influential creators—people with large platforms and considerable reach—systematically survey, isolate, and destroy another individual. This was not done for safety, nor for accountability, but rather out of fear, and an urge for control presented as protection. They have crafted a self-serving narrative that labels anyone who questions them as “dangerous”, and now they are applying the same methods to others.

The person they exiled was accused of stalking, doxxing, and posing a threat. However, behind the scenes it was one of their own—a popular writer—who spent months secretly recording private conversations. This person pretended to be a friend while collecting messages to use as “evidence”. Instead of establishing boundaries, they built a dossier. Instead of speaking directly, they spied. They did not merely remove him; they dismantled his community, pressuring his friends into either silence or disassociation. This was not protection. It was retaliation.

Fear has been deployed as a shield, a weapon, and an excuse for invasive behaviour. Because they position themselves as the harmed party, they manage to avoid accountability entirely. There is no reflection—only deflection. No genuine truth—only a narrative they carefully control.

Meanwhile, the person they have removed never claimed to be a victim. He admitted his mistakes. He apologised and took responsibility for crossing lines. His own public statement showed more self-awareness than anything the ringleaders have demonstrated. None of that mattered though because they had already decided he was the villain, and they were uninterested in being contradicted.

The campaign against him began in early 2024 when despite not having had contact with him for months, the owner of a public server called for a witch hunt, naming him and calling him a danger. I have spoken to this person myself. Their behaviour was not merely fearful; it was obsessive. They insisted they were under attack, yet in truth they were the ones orchestrating an ongoing crusade against him lasting over several months. It is a large regret of mine that I never reached out to the person who was exiled.

Central to this conflict is an individual known for dishonesty, particularly about experiences of abuse. They built their reputation in the fandom upon a trauma narrative that later proved to be fabricated. They have repeatedly accused partners of mistreatment, only to recant those accusations later in private. They labelled this man as a stalker, then quietly admitted otherwise—never bothering to correct the public story. The damage was already inflicted, and that served their goals.

These same people continually speak of safety, trust, and community—but behind the scenes, they undermine each other. They gossip and backstab. They rely on fear to maintain authority, then turn on anyone who no longer aligns with them. The man they exiled was not operating outside of their norms; he behaved in ways they themselves encouraged. Then they punished him for it.

They have regrouped in a new private server where they call themselves the “safe ones” while whispering that everyone else is dangerous. Meanwhile, their allies threaten to doxx people on social media. Though he is gone the harassment continues. His former friends are still monitored, threatened, and driven away.

They have already chosen their next target. Secret recordings, saved screenshots, and twisted interpretations are being readied as proof for yet another exile. The machine is in motion once again. I have also made an attempt to speak to this person. I have heard nothing back.

This has nothing to do with safety; it is a power play. It is coercion dressed up in caring language. To me, it resembles cult-like behaviour, only wrapped in fandom trappings.

They point to moderation decisions as evidence they were correct, but that is not how truth works. Moderators react to the information they are given—and this group is quite adept at curating such information. Believing that an authority’s decision proves the claims is a logical fallacy. Anxious moderators do not always mean justified moderation. These individuals know this; they are counting on it.

This fandom has become a place where fear grants power, cruelty becomes strategy, and victimhood is a kind of currency. “Safety” is used as a weapon, while only the most prominent figures can inflict harm without consequences. Nuance is punished, obedience is rewarded, and anyone daring to question is branded “unsafe”.

I will not stay and wait for it to be my turn. I see the writing on the wall, and I am choosing to leave with my integrity intact.

.

[choikanghuening]

Love and Revolution (or simply “The Youngblood Chronicles”)

Chapter 2: The Phoenix

now playing: The Phoenix - Fall Out Boy wc: 8.6k trigger warnings: darker themes, mentions of different kinds of v1olence and 4buse, oppres1on, sex1sm; physical fights, mentions of blades, guns and death. reader discretion is advised. other warnings: not proofread, the names Eunha, Lin, Rina, Mai and Yoona are being used here, reader has a make out session with another woman. lmk if i forgot anything (i prob did)

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“Without pain, there is thus also no revolution, no departure from the old, no history.” — Byung-Chul Han

[chapter below the cut]

The underground hideout buzzed with organized chaos. The odor that spread through the environment was a strong and striking combination of iron, sweat, and smoke, which permeated the entire air around, making breathing quite heavy and, at times, almost unbearable, causing a sensation of suffocation. Footsteps echoed on the concrete floor, urgent orders murmured, and the muffled cries of the rescued women created an anguished soundtrack.

The mission was a success. But victory always came accompanied by deep scars. Bloodstains splattered Eunha's garments, fortunately not her own, as she took the lead and assumed responsibility for the evacuation. Her eyes, which were sharp and very observant, scanned the entire environment with vigilance, while her instructions were concise, objective, and extremely effective.

“Take them to the infirmary. If there's no space, we'll improvise.”

The rebels responded without hesitation, carrying exhausted women, some practically fainting, to the thin mattresses scattered throughout the hideout. The rebels moved through the space among them, deeply feeling the gravity and significance of that momentous instant. A group of women who had been rescued murmured words without connection or coherence, reflecting the profound emotional and psychological impact that the trauma they had experienced had caused in them.

A deep silence enveloped others, their gazes lost, as if they found themselves in a parallel dimension, remote from everything and everyone. Each one of them was a reminder of what Vallum truly was—and what needed to be destroyed, as if the dark past cried out for revenge and liberation.

In the corner of the room, Yeonjun was kneeling beside a seriously injured woman, pressing a cloth against the deep cut on her side. His face was a mask of concentration, and his jaw was clenched. He remained in complete silence, but his eyes shone with an impressive intensity, as if they were absorbing and capturing every little detail happening around him. He seemed to notice every movement and change in the environment, demonstrating sharp perception and meticulous attention.

Lin, a petite rebel, was typing rapidly on a portable monitor near a table covered with electronic equipment. hair, which had a very intense and deep blue color, fell untamed in disheveled strands over her face, which shone with the expression of coldness caused by considerable and intense physical effort.

She murmured, “It's still there,” without taking her eyes off the screen. It wasn't necessary for her to announce what she was doing. Everyone knew.

The developed strategy did not solely aim to rescue the women in question. Other purposes and goals fell within the scope of the plan. A decisive moment had come to launch a direct and precise attack on the vital core of the system that sustained the power of the oligarchs, delving into the most hidden and profound parts of its structure.

The mission documents had been captured unexpectedly and were on their way to the government's central servers, as if each byte contained vital secrets that could change everyone's future. was not a simple exhibition to be carried out immediately, but rather something much grander that was in the process of being crafted: a message was being carefully prepared. This requirement establishes a final deadline.

As you approached the screen, you felt your heart race, as if you were about to uncover a secret that had remained hidden for a long time. The soft light emanating from the screen delicately illuminated her face, contributing to the creation of an atmosphere filled with mystery and anticipation. Line Code flashed at a frantic speed as Lin breached the regime's digital defenses. Oligarchs' system was a fortress, but she advanced like a sharp blade, piercing a fabric already weakened.

“Damn.” “They have new layers of encryption,” said the young woman, wiping her sweaty face with her hands.

“How much time do we have?” Her voice sounded firm but soft, like an intoxicating whisper.

“Minutes… maybe seconds,” she replied, returning to focus on the task. “I'm trying to mask the sending so they can't delete it before reading.”

At that moment, the monitor flickered, and a message appeared on the screen. After holding your breath for a moment, Lin's fingers swiftly returned to the keyboard, typing with impressive freneticism. After entering one last command, she paused, let out a deep sigh, and felt content and accomplished with what she had just done.

“We're in,” he stated, displaying a contagious smile.

The message was ready. “Renounce. If you don't, the truth will take control of every Vallum screen.” Simple. Direct. Cruel.

“That's it. You can send it.” You said confidently.

She pressed the final key. She sent the notification directly to the upper echelons of the oligarchs, targeting those with the greatest power and influence.

In a silent celebration, you looked at each other and exchanged a smile. Soon after, your gaze swept over the surroundings, finally settling on Yeonjun, who was washing his hands in a calm, almost hypnotic manner. The atmosphere that existed between you was quite evident, and it was possible to clearly perceive that a change was already underway.

What you, he, or the rest of the resistance didn't know was who, at that exact moment, was reading the message. And that, for the first time, would wonder if was on the right side.

Taehyun's laboratory was a sanctuary of logic and precision. Being surrounded by different servers, interfaces that projected holograms, and metal parts neatly arranged on the workbench gave him a strong sense of belonging. It was like he was exactly where he was supposed to be, in a place where every detail and element made sense.

He was a very competent inventor, even though he was still young. Moreover, he proved to be a person of extreme discipline and outstanding obedience. The oligarchs demanded, and he delivered. That was the dynamic. It didn't matter the reason for their creations, only the perfection of their functioning.

The laboratory presented itself as a true refuge for him, a space where he felt he was making essential efforts to ensure the order and safety of the inhabitants of the city of Vallum. There, he dedicated himself to important tasks, always committed to significantly contributing to the well-being of the community. The reflection that occupied his mind generated an intense feeling of pride within him, as he clearly understood that his profession played a fundamental role in ensuring everything functioned properly and efficiently.

It was yet another one of those long and exhausting nights that he found himself forced to spend at his desk, immersed in tasks that seemed endless. He was in an active process of creation, engaged in building new projects, performing calculations, and evaluating the latest inventions he was developing. He was sleepy, but he couldn't stop; after all, duty called. Immersed in the numbers illustrated on the paper in his hands, he was slightly startled when a notification flashed on the screen in front of him.

“Unauthorized transmission detected” was what was read in the notification box.

Taehyun frowned. The government firewall was practically impenetrable. The person who had, by chance, succeeded in inserting a file in that specific location was undoubtedly someone with highly developed and exceptional skills. Instinctively, he accessed the notification that appeared on his screen, already preparing to delete the content found there and to report a possible intrusion attempt that could pose a security risk.

However, while analyzing the various images displayed on the screen before his eyes, he interrupted his activities and stood still for a moment.

The videos began to play. Surveillance cameras showed cold, impersonal rooms filled with machines he recognized immediately. They were his projects, his inventions. However, there was something that didn't seem right.

He used the environmental monitoring devices he had designed with precision to observe and oversee the activities at the research center. This application of the devices had the main objective of ensuring that the procedures carried out in that location followed the established standards and norms. Devices developed for the purpose of performing medical treatments were being used in extremely cruel and inhumane practices. Biomechanical restraints held the bodies of exhausted women, trapped on stretchers. Some were screaming. Others were motionless, their lifeless eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Taehyun experienced intense discomfort; however, he tried not to let the images negatively influence him. “This is a montage,” he thought. This was the only justification that seemed reasonable and logically fit the presented situation. He was fully aware of who should be involved in this situation: the rebels.

The rebels constantly sought ways to spread misleading information with the aim of undermining the authority and strength of the government. This practice was a recurring strategy on their part, aiming to cause confusion and destabilization in the political and social environment. They did this by altering photographs, distorting information, and generating controversies and scandals. It wasn't the first time it happened. He had already blocked other attempts made previously. He couldn't allow himself to fall for it.

With trembling hands, he paused one of the videos and zoomed in on the image. Identifying and locating possible flaws was necessary. Visual artifacts and inconsistencies in lighting could potentially reveal the ruse. However, instead of dwelling on another consideration, his eyes focused on a small detail that caused such a profound sensation that it made his blood seem to freeze.

Attached to a machine support was a serial number in the screen corner. Too familiar.

He minimized the video and accessed his files. In just a few seconds, the person was able to locate the original project corresponding to the equipment in question. The serial code matched exactly the model he had developed two years ago. A model that should never have been used that way.

That machine had a subtle defect on the assembly line, something he noticed late and corrected in subsequent versions. It was a tiny technical detail, impossible to notice for anyone who wasn't its creator. And it was there, without a doubt, in the recording.

It wasn't a setup. It was real.

The air seemed to vanish from the laboratory. The realization struck him with a forceful blow to his stomach. His body became tense; the muscles were rigid, and his breathing quickened. He scrutinized each piece of equipment. Each screw. He put every ounce of effort into the projects he considered innocuous. Everything was there, serving a monstrous purpose.Taehyun pushed the chair too forcefully, making it slide quickly backwards. He stood up so quickly that he almost fell backward. The polished and shiny metal surface of the counter reflected the image of his face, which appeared pale and with a visible expression of shock. A million thoughts collided in his mind, chaotic and disordered.

His work. His creations. He didn't wield weapons; he didn't torture anyone. But his hands were as dirty as those of any soldier who obeyed the regime unquestioningly and blindly. A bitter taste filled his mouth. He felt shame. Repulsion. Rage.

He walked restlessly around the laboratory, comparable to an animal trapped in a cage, while running his hands through his hair anxiously in the agonizing attempt to find an alternative or a way to escape that oppressive and claustrophobic situation. However, he was already aware of the answer.

He had no other choice: he had to leave that place.

He grabbed a backpack and started putting everything he could carry inside: tools, clothes, prototypes, memory chips containing codes that might be rewritten into something useful. His hands continued to tremble, but now they felt different. At that moment, there was a strong feeling of determination.

Before leaving, he looked at the screen one more time. The videos were playing continuously and repetitively on the screen. A woman was turning her gaze towards the camera, watching it attentively. Her eyes showed an expression of lack of vitality.

The void, devoid of shine or brightness, seemed to convey no emotions, reflecting a state of apathy. With a heavy heart, Taehyun turned off the power to the place he once considered a refuge and left.

In the dead of night, he pulled the hood of his jacket over his head, moving like a shadow, hiding from the surveillance system he had designed himself.

“I need to do something.” I need to… fix this.” Her mind was racing.

Taehyun was panting, his legs visibly trembling under the crushing weight of the guilt that devoured him from within, making him feel increasingly distressed and tormented. This feeling of responsibility enveloped him, creating an emotional weight that was difficult to bear. He struggled to maintain calm in the face of the storm blowing within him, creating an intense conflict between his emotions and the reality surrounding him. The city seemed deserted, but his heart was beating so hard that he thought anyone could hear it. He didn't know where he was going; he just knew he needed to get far enough away to disappear. He was abandoning the laboratory, his sanctuary, which now seemed like a field of destruction, a place where he had created monsters disguised as machines.

The weight of guilt crushed him. He was responsible for the creation of those things. He had conceived the machines, the ones that were causing suffering and death. He was aware that his creations, his “perfections,” were now causing pain. He felt like he was the monster himself. The only thing he could do now was run away. Run away and disappear, because he didn't deserve to live after what he did.

With the hood on his head, Taehyun walked through empty streets. His steps were quick and full of fear. It seemed that at every corner there could be a government agent ready to catch him. He was already so close to the city limits; escape seemed possible, and yet fear engulfed him. The fear of being caught.

Suddenly, his eyes widened upon hearing footsteps behind him. A presence, silent but firm, was approaching quickly. Taehyun turned his head, but before he could do anything, a strong hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him forcefully. He tried to escape, but the blade of a knife gleamed. The knife cut through the space between them and was pointing directly at his neck. He stood still. There was no escape anymore.

The man in front of him stared at him with an intensity that seemed to cut through his soul. Taehyun's eyes fixed on the cold, gleaming blade, and he felt panic take hold of him. But, at the same time, the feeling of inevitability enveloped him. He knew he deserved it. He should no longer live. He should no longer be someone with the capacity to create such cruelty.

“Who are you?” asked the man, breaking the silence of the night with a firm and challenging voice.

“I… am responsible,” Taehyun murmured, his voice wavering but full of bitter sincerity. “I created this… the machines… everything that… I did it for them… I didn't know. I didn't know they were going to use it this way. “

The man said nothing, but his eyes, dark and relentless, scrutinized him as if searching for a flaw in those words.

“And why should I believe what you say?” The man's knife pressed a little harder against Taehyun's neck. The pain that surfaced there was like a form of silent punishment. But Taehyun was no longer intimidated. There was nothing left to fear. He no longer had the right to feel fear.

“You shouldn't,” Taehyun said, without fear, with unusual coldness. He took the man's hand and pressed it against his neck. He pressed the knife harder. “Finish me off once and for all. Come on, kill me already.”

The man stopped. The air seemed frozen between them, creating an unbearable tension. Taehyun was no longer the man who feared being captured; he had already condemned himself.

“Do you think dying will make any difference?” The man asked with a strong, somewhat mocking voice. Taehyun didn't give an answer. He just stared at him, feeling the weight of the blade against his skin—feeling the slight pressure that death could have in his final moments. It didn't matter what happened next. He deserved that.

The seconds dragged on, but the man suddenly relaxed the pressure. The blade withdrew, and Taehyun felt an involuntary relief, but also a sense of frustration, as if death had slipped away once again.

“I'm not who you think I am,” the man finally said, his voice softer now, but still full of distrust. “If you didn't know what was happening, now is the time to change that situation.”

Before Taehyun could speak, the man took a step back. He seemed to be thinking and ready to decide.

“If you still have a bit of humanity left, you know that dying is the easiest and least effective way to change something in this city.” The man spoke while putting the knife back.

Taehyun pondered, gradually realizing that the man seemed to understand him.

“I… I want to do this,” he said. “I want to change things.”

“Then come with me,” The mysterious figure said. “But be aware that if you're lying, I'll eliminate you in an instant.” Taehyun swallowed hard and nodded, walking alongside the unknown man.

Their footsteps echoed through the dark corridors of the city's ruins, filling the silence that surrounded them. The smell of rust and dampness permeated the air, mixed with the odor of soot that stubbornly lingered, even long after the last bombings. Taehyun felt the cold seeping into his skin; it wasn't just the temperature—the gaze of the man behind him was piercing. He was a little ahead, but he wasn't mistaken: the other wasn't there to give him freedom. He maintained a steady pace, ensuring that Taehyun wouldn't try anything.

“Did you really not know?” The man's voice broke the silence. It was not an accusation and did not have an intense feeling of hatred. It was more subtle. It was a sincere inquiry.

Taehyun felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. He was still trying to process everything that had happened—everything he discovered.

“No. I didn't, he said, after a moment of silence. “I thought I was doing something good for society.”

The man let out a short, dry, humorless laugh.

“That's how they do it. They give you a purpose, they give you a job, and they keep you blind.” He kicked a stone on the path, the sound resonating like a small thunder among the ruins. “You made the machines. I saw them in action. I tested them. I used them.”

Taehyun looked at him sideways. For the first time since his capture, Taehyun observed a subtle shift in the man's behavior.

“And what made you switch sides?” Taehyun's voice came out low but sharp. The other did not respond immediately. He seemed to reflect and decide whether it was good or not to reveal the answer. When he spoke, his voice was tense, as if carrying those words was too heavy a burden.

“There's not a day that goes by that I don't regret serving this government.” The man stopped, and Taehyun did too, feeling the electricity in the air. “And I know I can't change the past, but I'm willing to do what's necessary so that no one else suffers in the future.”

Silence. But it's not a normal silence. It was a heavy silence, dense as smoke. Something shifted there—not in the space between them, but within Taehyun. He couldn't change what had already happened. But the future? That was still an unfinished calculation. And he knew, deep down, that he was skilled at finding answers.

When they arrived at the main tent, the chatter of the revolutionaries ceased. The rebel council was gathered, sitting around an improvised table. At the head of the table was Eunha. She looked with curiosity at the men who were arriving. You were standing next to her, arms crossed, eyes fixed on them. Only dim lights illuminated the place, yet Taehyun experienced the sensation of being under a spotlight. The air felt heavier, and he noticed the dampness in the palms of his hands, a cold sweat trickling down his neck.

“Yeonjun, what's going on?” Eunha's razor-sharp voice pierced the atmosphere. “Who is that?”

“I was on patrol and saw him on the outskirts of the city,” replied Yeonjun.

“Who are you?” You asked without hiding the curiosity in your voice. You kept your gaze fixed on him, as if there were a magnetism that forced you to stare at him. Taehyun tried to stay calm, but he felt the weight of everyone's gazes. He realized that you exuded an almost hypnotic authority, blending charm and danger. Her eyes were impossible to ignore, dark as a well-kept secret, analyzing every tiny detail of him. I couldn't take my eyes off you.

“My name is Taehyun,” he began, his voice a bit shaky, but then he regained control. “I… created the equipment you saw. I created the machines and the security systems, but I was unaware of their purpose. I never knew what they were doing with them.”

A murmur ran through the room. Someone whispered something about him being a spy. Another person suggested it would be better to eliminate him before he caused any problems.

“He's telling the truth.” Yeonjun intervened, crossing his arms. His voice was confident, but there was something different about it. There was a distinct tone of caution in his voice. He looked at you before continuing. It seemed like he wanted to see how you would react before moving on. You nodded slightly, and he continued, “In there, everything was compartmentalized, you know that. He might have been used, just like I was.”

 “Used?” Someone made a mocking noise from the back of the room. “Or were you pretending not to know?” Taehyun clenched his fists, the anger boiling up again. “I was blind, it's true.” But I was never an accomplice on purpose.” He took a step forward. His voice was stronger now. “I can help; I know these machines better than anyone. I know how to deactivate them and how to destroy them.”

The room fell silent. You stared at him, your gaze now more intense, evaluating every word.

“Why should we believe that you want to help us?” Eunha asked, tilting her head slightly. The question was not just about your intentions; it was a test. “Why shouldn't we kill you here and now because of everything you've done?”

Taehyun took a deep breath; the fear he felt completely dissipated, giving way to an almost aggressive assertiveness.

“If this makes you sleep better at night, do it. But good luck without me.” He shrugged. “I've already said that I know the machines better than anyone.” If you really believe that killing me will solve anything, go ahead. I don’t really care.”

Silence reigned again, and you looked at Yeonjun with a surprised expression at Taehyun's words. Taehyun noticed a soft glimmer in your eyes, as if you were contemplating how far you could trust him. You smiled a little and went over to Eunha. You exchanged a few quick words.

“Alright,” Eunha said finally, crossing her arms. “But don't expect us to trust you right away.”

“I don't expect that,” said Taehyun, agreeing.

“Great,” she replied. “You will be under YN's supervision. Dismissed, everyone.”

While the other rebels dispersed, you stepped forward, approaching with an enigmatic expression toward Yeonjun and Taehyun, who felt the tension rise but did not back down.

“If you are telling the truth, I hope you are prepared for what comes next.” Your voice was low, almost intimate, but still had a strength that made Taehyun swallow hard. He kept his gaze on you. He felt a different warmth throughout his body; the heartbeat was faster.

For a moment, he couldn't tell if he was scared or feeling something different. “I am.”

Yeonjun cleared his throat, interrupting the moment. “Come with me,” he said to Taehyun. But there was something in his voice—something less aggressive than before.

As the three of you were leaving the place where you were, Taehyun noticed something between you and Yeonjun. You were further ahead, speaking softly and very close to each other. You weren't the leader of the movement, but you had a strong and very striking presence. On the other hand, Yeonjun exuded a strength that concealed a deep and intense presence. Taehyun was in the middle of you. He felt the energy that came from the looks they exchanged and the silences full of meaning. But now, there was something clear to him: the present would be his new struggle. And somehow, being there seemed like the first step toward his redemption.

In the days that followed, the Council of Rebels, after long deliberations, finally reached an important conclusion: they decided that Taehyun would become an essential and indispensable part in the development and execution of the plan aimed at dismantling the surveillance system that had been established by the regime.

Frankly, he would prefer not to be present amidst the chaos known as the resistance. He had always stood out as a shrewd planner, someone who had a clear preference for acting independently, solving all situations on his own and without relying on the help of others. However, now, he was aware that there was no way to escape anymore. Everywhere he looked, the system was in place, and the people were using his creations, which he had built with such pride. He could no longer remain silent.

Taehyun had the habit of walking with firm yet discreet steps, paying attention to every action around him. Nothing that happened in the camp's routine, which ranged from lively conversations to moments of celebration, including the tensions that arose among the rebels, could spark his interest or catch his attention in any way. He desired to find a way to seek revenge, or perhaps, maybe, to find a way to achieve the redemption he so longed for. He wasn't there to make friends. He was there to act. He behaved like a shadow, observing what was unfolding while remaining bound by his obstinacy. However, there was a presence—or, to be more precise, a person—that he simply couldn't set aside, despite all his hesitations and reluctances.

You. Your undefined gaze, always near and present, tormented his tranquility with the intensity of a hurricane. He didn't fully understand what it was, but he couldn't deny that watching you, even involuntarily, was impacting his emotions and feelings in a way that went beyond what he was willing to recognize or admit. That look, which seemed simple, was awakening in him an intense and complex sensation, much deeper than he wanted to acknowledge. He tried to distance himself, but you were there, like a constant challenge he wasn't prepared to face.

Yeonjun, by your side, watched everything carefully. Occasionally, his gaze would meet Taehyun's for a few seconds, and in those moments, something unspoken lingered in the air. No words were spoken, but the tension between them was present, intense, and perceptible.

And then, there was you. Like a silent storm, you approached subtly and almost imperceptibly. Without any hesitation or fear, your presence seemed to overwhelm the surroundings, unaffected by anything else. You, responsible for watching the two outsiders, settled into the same tent as the boys, who became extremely uncomfortable, as shown by their looks and distance from you, but you didn't care. If the intention was to supervise, let it be done in a close and attentive manner. It was that simple. And if that bothered them, well, that was just another bonus.

The three of you, along with some rebels, gathered around a campfire on a relaxed evening. One of them, a young individual, was narrating tales about the constellations, according to Greek mythology. At a certain moment, Yeonjun and Taehyun decided to go get some water, and while the two of them walked away, you allowed yourself to relax a bit. A young woman, with a charming smile and a daring look, approached you and started a conversation.

The conversation flowed effortlessly, the laughter and glances merging as if the rest of the world had disappeared. As time went by, the atmosphere between you became increasingly intense and warm to the point where you decided to invite her into your tent. When you settled into your makeshift bed, you didn't waste any time: you pulled her in for a kiss. The kiss was delicate yet filled with something undeniable—freedom and a fleeting pleasure.

However, Taehyun and Yeonjun interrupted the forming mood with the characteristic sound of the tent opening. Upon doing so, they found you and the young rebel engaged in an intense and passionate exchange of kisses and caresses. They looked surprised, but Taehyun was the one who felt it most intensely. He took a deep breath, feeling palpable tension in his chest and tightness in the muscles of his neck. He felt the heat rising along his spine, a peculiar sensation spreading through his veins in an intense and striking manner. He remained still for a moment, his eyes fixed on you, trying to hide how much it affected him in a way that was not negative at all.

During the kiss, you slightly opened your eyes and smiled upon seeing them there. The pace slowed down gradually until you both distanced yourselves, exchanging gentle kisses. When you looked at them again, your provocative smile widened. It was satisfying to realize that something like that was impacting them without you having to do anything other than being yourself.

“I think the boys decided to show up earlier than I expected,” you stated, with a soft voice, yet full of a provocation they weren't prepared to face. The woman let out a soft laugh, and before Taehyun and Yeonjun had time to react, she walked away, leaving you alone with them.

The gazes of Yeonjun and Taehyun turned towards you, remaining static and intense, revealing a combination of surprise, which was quite visible, and something additional that seemed to emerge in their expressions. A feeling that, in turn, was undefined and difficult to be categorically expressed by them. The air had become thicker now, and the intensity was palpable.

Taehyun remained silent, with a penetrating gaze capable of tearing through the surrounding environment. His gaze never strayed from you, yet he remained silent, seemingly holding back his words. Though his posture and gaze showed discomfort, he refused to give in. He would rather not give you the pleasure of realizing how much that affected him. He took a deep breath, feeling the pressure of the moment pressing against his chest.

“I was wondering when you guys were going to show up around here.” With a mischievous smile on your lips, you spoke. “But you have terrible timing, honestly…”

Yeonjun seemed to be trying to find words, but without success. He looked more tense, as if trying to understand what was happening and resisting his confusion. He furrowed his brow in a gesture that showed perplexity, while a strange and intense feeling of heat spread through his body in an unusual manner. He found himself in a situation where he had no idea how he should behave or what his best response would be. The uncertainty overwhelmed him, and he felt lost, without direction on how to act in the face of what was happening.

“Are you serious, YN?” Yeonjun whispered, his voice filled with confusion and a flash of anger. His eyes narrowed; the expression was grumpier than before. He was experiencing a combination of anger and something else, something uncontrollable, that was growing inside him and making him more rigid, as if he were on the verge of a breakdown yet still maintaining control.

Taehyun was sitting in a corner, with his elbows firmly resting on his knees, while his fingers were intertwined so tightly that it was possible to notice the knuckles were white, evidencing the strength he displayed in pressing them.

Yeonjun was at the other end, arms crossed, jaw clenched, his gaze fixed on you, as if he were trying to extract answers from your skin. However, the question remained: there were no answers to the feelings they experienced. They observed your mouth on hers, the way your fingers slid down the back of the other rebel, and how your short breaths merged with hers. They noticed the longing that flowed subtly through their lips, also manifesting in their expressions and gestures. And now they found themselves there, agitated, rigid, burning with something they did not understand.

“Do you usually do this?” Taehyun spoke first; his voice was filled with something he couldn't define.

“Can you clarify what you are referring to?” You raised an eyebrow, and in response to that gesture, he hesitated for a moment, while his dark-colored eyes gleamed with an intensity that seemed to go beyond mere curiosity.

“Kissing women.” Taehyun let out a sigh through his nose, averting his gaze.

“I kiss those who attract me.” You crossed your arms, observing their behavior.

“So, you… aren't interested in men?” Yeonjun asked, taking a step forward.

“You think there are only two options, don't you?” You looked down and laughed. “But no, silly boy, I thought I made it clear by now. I like people, regardless of gender.”

Taehyun brushed his lips with his tongue, his black eyes fixed on yours. You weren't sure if he was trying to understand or if he was fighting against what he already comprehended.

“It's not about that.” Yeonjun let out a deep sigh, filled with frustration.

“No?” You approached him, and the distance between you shrank to nothing. “So, what is it about, Yeonjun?”

He moved his lips and opened his mouth, but even so, he couldn't articulate or come up with an appropriate response. The real problem wasn't the idea of you being with a woman. It was about the fact that you weren't with him.

Taehyun averted his eyes, but you noticed the way he drew in air, as if he were trying to tame a hurricane forming inside him.

Jealousy? Desire? Confusion? All of this simultaneously? They were taught that feelings like that were wrong, but you knew it was only a matter of time before they stopped running away.

The silence grew thicker, but you didn't seem to care. “Okay, you better go to sleep because we have many plans for tomorrow. Good night, guys.”

The two of them prepared to sleep, still processing the scene from moments before. They were trying to understand what that implied, but deep down, they were aware that they didn't want to. Although they wanted to avoid involvement, each for their own reasons, it might already be too late for that.

The council meeting was taking place under the flickering light of oil lamps. The makeshift space was filled with whispered voices, debated strategies, and the inevitable tension that preceded crucial decisions.

Yeonjun and Taehyun were present at the location, but unlike the leaders who proactively engaged in conversations and discussions, they preferred to remain mere spectators, paying attention to what was happening around them without actively participating in the interactions.

The debate revolved around what to do next. The success of the last mission meant that the government wouldn't remain idle for long. It was a matter of days, perhaps hours, until the retaliation came.

It was at that moment that Yeonjun decided to speak up, making his voice resonate and cutting through the surrounding air: “We don't have much time before the oligarchs decide to act. The attack is coming, and we need to be ready for it.” The council nodded in silence. Everyone knew he was right.

So, without hesitation, Eunha, the leader of the rebels, spoke up: “Then you take care of it, Yeonjun. Gather the snipers, organize the defenses. If they come, we won't fall without a fight.”

Yeonjun did not argue. He simply nodded affirmatively, immediately began to reflect on the next steps to take, and then left the place.

However, Eunha was far from finished. Her gaze swept across the meeting until it landed on Taehyun. “The time has come. If we are going to expose the truth, it must be now. Let's reveal to Vallum the information that the oligarchs are deliberately trying to conceal.”

The silence was absolute. All the people present were fully aware of the subject she was referring to, demonstrating a common understanding regarding the issue at hand. The visual representations of the cruelties committed—which include practices of torture, the carrying out of inhumane experiments, and the execution of people. The ugly truth, uncensored.

“Taehyun.” Eunha called him, and upon hearing her call, he raised his eyes, clearly showing that he was feeling quite tense in the situation. “You will be responsible for hacking the transmission network and spreading this truth.”

That was precisely what he longed for and desired. It was a crucial role that only he could fulfill.

But then came the detail that ruined everything: “Lin will be by your side to offer assistance and help you.”

Taehyun's face immediately hardened. Lin, the group's hacker, was brilliant, but he didn't want anyone in his way. His body tensed, and you noticed the discomfort immediately.

Lin, on the other hand, appeared to be completely indifferent to the situation unfolding around him. She simply crossed his arms calmly and declared, “Come on, genius. The sooner we start, the better.”

Although Taehyun didn't give any verbal response, his steps clearly showed the frustration he felt as he decided to follow her out of the tent. You looked at Eunha.

“I'll keep an eye on him.” You said.

She raised one eyebrow, showing that she was fully aware that the situation went beyond just “observing,” but chose not to comment on it. He simply made a gesture that indicated his approval. Without wasting any time, you went after the two of them.

Lin walked hurriedly, her firm footsteps echoing on the worn concrete floor. The terminal looked like a big mess of monitors that were flickering nonstop, with wires sticking out all over the place and panels that looked like they were put together without much thought, reflecting the scene's chaos and disorganization. It was not the sophisticated and advanced technology used by the oligarchs, but rather the improvised and creative adaptation of the rebels, designed to operate under the most extreme and adverse conditions possible. This technique was a way to circumvent limitations, designed to operate at its maximum capacity, demonstrating the ingenuity and resilience of those who were fighting.

She pulled a wire, connecting it to one of the monitors, which flickered and crackled before stabilizing.

“Here it is. Now it's up to you, Taehyun.” She made space, and he nodded, already leaning over the keyboard.

“I won't get in the way. You are welcome to let me know if you need anything. Lin, after taking a few seconds to observe the surrounding situation, decided to leave in an uncomplicated manner, without worrying about formalities. These actions resulted in a moment where only the two of you remained, immersed in a heavy and restless silence that enveloped the environment you were in. The only noise that could be heard in that silent environment was the characteristic click of the keys being pressed under his fingers as he typed intently.

“You can leave too. I don't need help; I do it on my own.” Taehyun spoke without ever glancing at you. You gave a subtle smile, tilting the corner of your mouth while keeping your arms crossed and remaining in a static position without making any kind of movement. Then, you took a few steps toward him without haste, letting her presence settle. You stopped next to him, leaning slightly, just enough for your voice to come out low, close to his ear.

You noticed his goosebumps and smiled, saying, “You can squirm as much as you want; I'm not leaving here.” He hesitated for a moment, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to ignore their proximity, his eyes glued to the code scrolling across the screen. The muscles in his shoulders began to tense, and he moved his jaw as if he were struggling to maintain his composure and control his emotions.

Vallum's security system was a masterpiece—and it was his. He had a profound knowledge of every detail present in the lines of code, as well as being aware of each of the flaws that were hidden and not easily perceptible. However, there was something that wasn't right.

“That doesn't make sense… The firewall shouldn't be there. They relocated it.” Taehyun, visibly irritated, furrowed his brow and, in an almost inaudible murmur, discreetly uttered some curses when the code he expected to work perfectly returned an unexpected error. His jaw became tense and rigid. “They tampered with it recently. If I try to bypass it directly, it might trigger an alert before I can deactivate it.”

You casually leaned against the table, observing as he tried to bypass the barrier. “And if you use a ghost layer? Replace a legitimate data packet and mask its entry?” You tilted your head slightly.

“That's not going to work. It's too unstable.” He turned in the opposite direction to face you, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. However, there was an additional element in that context—a spark of curiosity that, despite his efforts to hide it, became visible.

“If you do it right, it works. You're thinking about the wrong approach.” You replied, sitting down next to him. “You don’t need to destroy the door if you have the option to easily pass under it without causing any damage.”

Taehyun took a deep breath, clearly skeptical, but his eyes returned to the screen. After a few seconds, he resumed typing, effectively implementing his previously presented idea. You stared at him, waiting patiently. As soon as the screen flickered briefly, right after that event, the command line recognized the code that was entered, accepting it without any kind of alarm or warning signal.

He remained in complete silence and motionless for a moment, keeping his fingers still hovering over the keyboard keys, while his face showed a worried expression, with furrowed brows, demonstrating his concentration and perplexity in the face of the situation.

You smiled, leaning a little more towards the man, feeling the subtle warmth that emanated from him. “There's much more beneath the surface, Taehyun. You just need to know where to look.”

He closed his eyes for a short period, breathing slowly, as if he felt the need to hold back some emotion or thought within himself before daring to utter words. When they opened, the expression reflected on his face was completely indecipherable, difficult to read or understand in any way.

“We just got lucky,” he stated.

You lightly brushed the tips of your fingers over his shoulder before pulling away, just to see if he would react. And he reacted—not much, but enough. The gentle pressure of fingers resting on the keyboard keys, accompanied by the tension settling in the shoulders, resulted in a feeling of discomfort.

“If it makes you feel better to think that way, that's fine by me.” Your smile widened significantly. He averted his gaze, trying to pretend that it meant nothing. But you both knew what it meant.

The “teamwork” between you and Taehyun, as strange as it may seem, worked perfectly. Soon, the images of horror were present on all the screens of Vallum. When the people saw the images, chaos ensued. While some individuals managed to escape silently during the dark hours of the night, others ventured to take over public spaces, displaying an expression of resentment in their eyes. In addition, they were armed with objects that had been improvised as weapons. The government vehemently asserted that everything was a fabrication, akin to a terrorist theater. However, the illusion crumbled, and no one can repair a broken mirror.

Yeonjun led a group of rebels who set up barricades in the streets and threw Molotov cocktails at government forces. Rina and Mai helped those who chose to leave Vallum escape, while Eunha and Yoona welcomed those who decided to join the insurgent cause.

In the corner where the hideout was located, the only available source of light came from the screens, which illuminated the space with a soft and delicate pale glow that enveloped the entire area. Taehyun was in a tense posture, his gaze fixed and absorbed in the information appearing on the news. His fists were firmly clenched on the surface of the table, clearly demonstrating the intensity of his concentration and the restlessness the moment brought him.

“They're calling this a lie.” His voice came out low, but laden with anger. “How can someone see all the evidence and still doubt?”

You leaned on the table that was next to him.

“Because the lies are comfortable. And the truth never is.” Your tone was gentle but sharp. “Don't worry, we've already planted the seed. And now there's no turning back.”

He turned his face towards you, while his eyes gleamed intriguingly, even amidst the gentle darkness that surrounded him. Something felt different. It was not merely a feeling of anger, but a realization he was still hesitant to identify.

The silence lingered intensely and heavily, as if it weighed in the air around. You kept your gaze fixed on his, allowing a sense of tension to settle between you.

“You are finally seeing,” you murmured. “The regime will fall, Taehyun. But to truly change things, we need to be willing to throw ourselves into the chaos.”

He licked his lips, showing a slight hesitation that lasted only a second before finally releasing a rough and deep sigh.

“And you?” His voice emerged hoarsely, carrying with it a rough tone. “Are you willing to leave everything behind just to see this regime crumble?”

“I already did.” Slowly, you approached, feeling his breath catch for a moment. “And I’m sure that what is to come is better than any situation, experience, or thing I have left behind.”

Taehyun's fingers began to tap rhythmically against the surface of the table, as if there were an intense need to release the energy that had accumulated within his body. This action seemed to be a manifestation of the restlessness that consumed him at that moment, reflecting a sense of urgency and agitation. Inside him, the internal battle persisted with all its intensity, but, little by little, there was an indication that something was beginning to surrender.

The silence between you lasted for a long time, with some furtive glances from him, while you continued to observe the images of chaos attentively. He allowed himself to notice your features, rough yet delicate, and your strong posture. You were indeed intriguing, but you certainly had a story that made him curious about you.

After what seemed like hours of silence, Yeonjun entered the room where you were, completely sweaty and with a bandage wrapped around his forearm. He didn't make any kind of comment or statement right away; instead, he just stood at the entrance, where he was, with his keen and attentive gaze, scanning the entire environment around him, carefully observing every detail. His gaze first focused on Taehyun, then smoothly moved to you, as if seeking your presence.

“Is the work done?” The question was simple. The tone is neutral. But the tension that had already filled the room became almost palpable.

You turned to face him, but you felt Taehyun hesitate beside you. The feeling that was present was not fear. It was something more visceral, more complicated.

Yeonjun stepped forward, without showing any sign of haste, and at that moment, the surrounding atmosphere seemed to become more rarefied, as if the air density had decreased. The way he positioned himself was exemplary, presenting himself in a relaxed manner while demonstrating complete control over the surrounding environment. The moment his gaze met with Taehyun's, a soft and gradual smile began to bloom on his lips.

“It seems that someone has finally decided to step out of the shadows.” Yeonjun declared.

Taehyun averted his gaze, but not submissively. It was a silent clash, a struggle unfolding in the language of bodies. You observed, taken by a sense of intrigue, as you perceived the presence of an invisible heat that seemed to pass between the three individuals.

“He's still deciding,” you intervened, your voice laden with something almost provocative. “But I think we're about to see how far he's willing to go.”

Yeonjun raised an eyebrow, his dark eyes analyzing every inch of Taehyun. “Really?”

The silence that followed was unbearably thick. Taehyun, who was still under considerable tension, finally managed to lift his gaze firmly to meet Yeonjun's eyes, standing firm and without averting his gaze during that moment. There was an event that unfolded between the two of them—a true challenge, perhaps. A promise that was not verbalized.

You bit your lip. “Let's see.”

Taehyun let out a heavy sigh, but this time, it wasn't just fatigue. There was something different there. Something more…surrendered.

“Don't talk about me as if I'm not here. To be frank, I didn't ask to be here,” he admitted, his voice hoarse, as he stood up from the table and faced Yeonjun. “But now I am. And I won't leave until I see all this shit crumble.”

With a slow and careful movement, you approached, which resulted in a gradual reduction of the distance that existed between the three of you.

“I knew you had this in you.” Her fingers lightly brushed against his hand. “Now, let's go all the way.”

Static electricity seemed to be charging the air, ready to explode. Yeonjun let out a soft and discreet laugh, and with a slight nod of his head, he demonstrated that he was fully aware of the situation unfolding at that specific moment.

“Let's go, then. We have a regime to overthrow.” He spoke without haste, then turned to leave.

You directed a final glance at Taehyun, a gesture loaded with meaning, before continuing your path toward Yeonjun. The heat of the moment still pulsed between you—dense, unstable, and promising.

And, for the first time, Taehyun didn't hesitate to follow both of you.

“Trust in something greater does not eliminate doubts but transforms them into steps toward the unknown.” — Unknown

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elle speaks: hello, folks! finally chapter 2 is here. i want to thank all the support and messages you gave me during these past weeks. i spent my whole day revising this, but i know it's full of mistakes . anyways, hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading ♡ chapter 3 is coming soon!

tagging: @0flambo0 [if you wanna be tagged, let me know!]

disclaimer: this is a fanfiction created by me. the characters of TOMORROW X TOGETHER and the song mentioned are used for creative purposes only. this story is not affiliated with BigHit Entertainment or TXT, and all content is fictional and does not reflect reality. the song “The Phoenix” is owned by its creators and used here without profit.

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