The song ended.
It didn't really end so much as evaporated. The last chorus trailed off like smoke through a crack in the wall. No final bang. No resolve. Just... gone.
And with it, the pressure in Darren's skull loosened.
Not gone gone, it was still there, buzzing quietly like a fridge you couldn't unplug — but quieter. Fainter. Like the storm had moved offshore.
He let out a shaky breath.
His hands were still twitchy. His spine still felt like it had been vibrating. But he wasn't on the edge of exploding anymore. Now he was just… frayed.
He wasn't ready to uncurl yet.
So he stayed in his hunch — elbows on knees, face buried in his sleeves. Hoodie like armor. Headphones like a wall.
Eventually, his stomach did what brains couldn't: demanded attention.
He rummaged through his bag until his fingers found The Emergency Granola Bar™ — the one that had probably been in there since last semester.
It tasted like dust, depression, and possibly regret. There was definitely a raisin in there, but it crunched like betrayal.
His brain helpfully chimed in:This expired, yeah? Pretty sure. You gonna die? Eh. Might not be the worst outcome. Wait, what even IS granola? Is granola even real food? Why is it always stuck together like birdseed and wood glue? I should Google that later. I should—
"Stop." he muttered aloud, cheeks full of sadness-crunch.
He forced another bite. Focused on texture. Crunch. Chew. Weird chewy bit. ]
Then he counted tile cracks across the stall wall like it was a sacred ritual.
One. Two. Three. Three again. Wait, is that a crack or just dirt?Four. Four-ish.
The lights overhead buzzed like they were judging him.
Loud. Sharp. Familiar. Kinda comforting in a terrible, fluorescent migraine way.
He sighed. Sat up straighter. Pulled his hood down.
Body: aching. Legs: pins-and-needles. Brain: less blender, more fizzing soda can someone forgot to open. Still fizzing. Still shaking. But manageable.
He stood slowly. Everything cracked like bubble wrap.
Stumbled to the sink, turned the tap, splashed his face.
Cold. Sharp. Immediate.
Like someone slapped his brain across the face and screamed "Reboot, ya gobshite!"
The world snapped back into ultra-HD for a second — too sharp, too cold, too loud — then dimmed into something tolerable.
He looked up. Stared at himself in the mirror.
His hair was a disaster. Eyes bloodshot. Hoodie wrinkled. His hand had a bite mark on it.
"Okay," he muttered. "Okay. You're not dying. You just feel like it."
Hands still under the cold water, he watched the stream swirl over his knuckles like it might wash the noise away. Bubbles gathered in the webbing between his fingers. He fixated on that. Tiny, dumb, real.
It felt like something he could control. Something that didn't shout or judge or repost him to Reddit.
He dried his hands. Adjusted his hoodie.
He dried off, adjusted his hoodie — ritual complete — and pulled the mask back on.
Fake smirk. Easy swagger. Shoulders up. Posture chill. Pretend your brain wasn't exploding a couple minutes ago
Smile. Just a flicker. Just enough.
He stepped out of the bathroom like nothing had happened.
Like he hadn't just had a full-on I'm-going-to-scream-until-my-lungs-explode moment ten minutes ago.
"Alright lads," he muttered under his breath, mimicking a cocky swagger as he passed a few students by the vending machines. "What's the craic?"
None of them looked up.
Good.
But the second he was alone in the corridor, the exhaustion hit like a bus.
Every fluorescent light felt like a migraine. Every shoe squeak made him flinch. Every conversation was a dull knife at the edge of his hearing, trying to carve its way back in.
He wasn't fixed. He was just functioning.
And even that felt like a bloody miracle.
Outside, near the bike racks, Liam was halfway through a Lucozade and looking like he'd just come from a minor scuffle with a Philosophy lecture.
He spotted Darren and grinned. "Yo."
"Yo," Darren rasped, trying to match the grin and missing by a margin of 'I haven't slept in six years.'
"Define sleeping," Darren said, rubbing one eye with the heel of his palm. "Because if you mean lying in bed reading One Piece till 4AM while slowly becoming part of the mattress, then yeah. Absolutely thriving."
Liam raised an eyebrow. "That's not sleep, that's a cry for help. And bro, why are you still reading One Piece? I've been telling you, Tower of God. Peak webtoon. Gas storyline. God-tier fights."
Darren groaned. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But the art, man. The early stuff looks like it was drawn with a calculator."
"Yeah well, so did One Piece back in the day. You powered through Alabasta. You can survive some dodgy linework."
"Still," Darren muttered, eyes narrowing. "That rabbit thing in the early chapters haunts me."
Liam snorted. "You haunt me."
They stood there for a bit, not saying anything. Just existing.
Liam gently kicked the stone wall with the toe of his shoe, the scrape echoing off the courtyard.
Darren spun his fidget ring absentmindedly, click, twist, reverse, repeat, eyes flicking across the grey sky, too tired to focus, too wired to relax.
And weirdly, that silence, that aimless, brain-empty, sky-watching silence, felt more like a lifeline than anything had all day.
Liam tossed him the last bit of his Lucozade.
Darren drank it. Didn't puke. Win.
His brain, for once, stayed quiet.
No pressure. No questions.
Just two dumbasses and a bottle of Lucozade.
[SHIELD BLACKSITE – BERLIN]
The lights above hummed low and cold — sterile, clinical — matching the tension thickening in the blacksite control room. Multiple monitors flickered with grainy, timestamped footage.
Maria Hill stood at the center, arms crossed, watching the main screen as various cctv footage and photos flickered on the screen
Hill turned toward Kwan. "That's six confirmed incidents in the last nine months alone."
Kwan nodded, tapping on a tablet. "We've gone further back. Found potential sightings as early as December 2011. Low-level thugs. No fatalities. Same body type. Same movement profile. He's been at this a while."
Hill's eyes narrowed. "Two years. Hiding. No name. No trace."
Kwan swiped to another set of clips. "Pattern recognition flags match across different boroughs. Southside. Temple Bar. Docklands. He moves fast. Always targets armed aggressors. Never civilians. Always leaves before the Gardaí arrive."
Hill folded her arms tighter. "He's studied the cameras. Knows blind spots. Angles. When to vanish. He's careful."
A beat.
"Send a team to Dublin. Quiet. Observation only."
Kwan raised a brow. "You think he's a threat?"
"I think he's an unknown in a city that doesn't handle unknowns well. I want him tracked. No contact. No pressure. Yet."
She tapped the monitor once, as if pointing directly at Darren's glinting silhouette.
"I want to know who he is before the world does."
[DUBLIN – NIGHTFALL]
The city pulsed under a low mist and a flicker of sodium streetlamps, the air heavy with rain that hadn't quite arrived yet.
Darren sat on the ledge, breath fogging in the cold.
Hoodie up, mask snug, fingers twitching on the ledge. Legs jittery and swinging as he sat on the ledge
Too quiet.
Too still.
His brain couldn't stay still anyway, it was running laps inside his skull.
I Shouldn't be out. I might be watched.
SHIELD's probably crawling up my digital arse right now.
Or they're in a van across the street eating crisps and laughing.
Do they eat crisps?
Focus. Focus. Patrol now, breakdown later.
Then, movement.
The Alleyway.
Two guys. One woman. Too close. Too loud.
One of them flashed a blade, and Darren's brain didn't even finish the thought before he was moving.
No hesitation. No plan.
Just: go.
Boots scraped metal. Gravity vanished. His body dropped like rain.
He landed in the alley with the silence of a falling ghost, knees bent, momentum absorbed. Hoodie up. Mask snug. Breath steady. Sort of.
"Oi."
That was all he said.
The first guy turned around just in time to eat a combo: jab, jab, cross, hook, teep—a front push kick right to the solar plexus.
Air left the man's lungs like a dying accordion. He folded with a wheeze, eyes wide.
Darren caught him before he hit the ground, grabbed his collar, redirected his weight. Elbow to the temple. Sweep behind the ankle. Down.
Out? Maybe.
Nah. He twitched. Still conscious.
Darren crouched, adjusted position, pressed a flat palm to the guy's chest to keep him down.
Then, gentle now, he tapped a palm strike to the jaw. Like flicking off a light.
The guy sagged.
"Sleepy time," Darren muttered, breath already catching up to him.
A sound, scrape, from behind.
Knife guy lunged. Bad move.
Darren twisted, knocked the blade aside with a practiced parry—not perfect, but practiced. Two years of training didn't mean flawless. Just faster reactions.
He caught the guy's sleeve and yanked him forward—hard, fast, Coach Kaine's voice in his head: Use their weight. Steal their balance.
The guy stumbled.
Darren stepped in. Tight clinch. Pop! A knee into the ribs, measured, held back.
Enough to drop him. Not enough to cave in a lung.
Didn't sound pretty, though. Crack-pop-snap.
"Shit," Darren muttered. "Sorry bout that mate that was mostly muscle memory."
He caught the guy before he hit the ground, flipped him into a judo-style pin. His palm pressed firm into the guy's sternum.
"Just stay down, yeah? We're not making this a whole thing."
The guy groaned, dazed. Tried to sit up.
Darren didn't let him.
"You're not the main character, mate."
The woman, she was younger than he expected, maybe early twenties, coat half-torn, backpack still hanging from one shoulder, stared at him like she didn't believe what she was seeing.
"You okay?" Darren asked, still crouched, still watching the last guy for movement.
She nodded fast. "Yeah, yeah, just, holy shit."
"Cool. Stay behind me in case his dumb arse tries again."
Darren slowly stood up.
He stretches a little. His shoulders and back crack a little as he stretches.
Every part of him buzzing now. Adrenaline like lightning in his blood. The alley spun slightly, too many fast movements, not enough breathing.
He shifted his stance just in time.
Knife Guy, apparently not a fan of staying down, scrambled up, fury twisting his face, and charged like a pissed-off rhino.
"Alright then," Darren muttered. "Round two."
He ducked low, feinted left. Slipped under a wild hook. Jab to the ribs. Another. Check the range. Still not going down.
Right.
Round kick to the thigh—crack. Muffled yelp.
Still up?
Fine. Roundhouse to the body.
THUD.
That one got a stagger. Darren followed up—left hook, tight form—and something in the guy's jaw shifted wrong.
Down he went.
This time, Darren didn't wait. He dropped to one knee, pressed two fingers to the guy's neck. Pulse? Strong. Good. Still breathing.
He adjusted the guy's head to make sure he wouldn't choke on his tongue.
"Still alive," Darren breathed. "Still snoring. That counts."
He sat back on his heels, chest rising and falling like he'd just run a marathon with bricks in his boots.
The woman still hadn't moved.
He turned toward her. "You're safe. You should go. Get inside or call someone."
The woman — early twenties red head, hoodie, shock on her face — blinked at him like he was a fever dream.
"Yeah," she said, shaky. "Yeah, okay. Thank you—do you… I mean…"
"You—are you—?"
She lifted her phone. A small tremor in her hands.
"Yeah." He waved a hand vaguely. "Sort of. Maybe. Let's not label it."
He turned to leave. Back to the shadows. Heart thudding like a drum solo on meth.
"Wait!"
She pulled out her phone. "Can I—just one photo? Please? Proof you're real?"
He didn't think about.
Mask was on. Hood was up. Shadows were deep.
And his adrenaline? Still spiking.
"Ah, feck it." He grabbed the phone pulled her into a sidehug and took a quick selfie.
CLICK.
The shutter snapped. The flash lit his eyes like twin stars in the dark.
Oh. Oh no. I'm a fucking dumbass
His Brain caught up with him. Stomach dropped. What the fuck did I just—
"I posed. Jesus Christ, I posed for a fucking photo."
Too late.
That photo was going to be everywhere.
That photo would hit Twitter in two hours.
Instagram in one.
Feck it. He thought. Worth it.