The day after the drone, the city pretended nothing had happened. It wore its usual mask.
Aria texted before sunset:
Off at 9. Walk me?
Always, he sent before moving forward with new normal routine.
He killed time with a delivery and a sandwich that was 40% bread and 60% lie. At nine, he was outside the clinic's doors, hands in pockets, cap low. Aria came out with a yawn she tried to hide and a smile she didn't.
"You look less like a mannequin tonight," she said.
"I've embraced slouching as a lifestyle."
"Good. Come on. If we cut left we dodge the bar crowd and the guy who plays the same harmonica loop forever."
They cut left. Streetlights turned their shadows into long arguments. Jiss let the city fill his ears:bus brakes, a couple negotiating loudly over something stupid, the hum that had not been a drone. He didn't look up.
Half a block from Aria's building, the sidewalk narrowed. A shuttered storefront pushed foot traffic to the curb; scaffolding made a tunnel of the rest. Two shapes peeled off the corner: one tall, one compact, both hoodie silhouettes prerecorded by the block for years.
"Hey," Tall said, the word shaped like a door closing. "Got a minute?"
Aria's hand twitched toward her bag, then stilled. "We don't," she said calmly.
Compact smiled and made a small display of a knife. It was ugly and real and bored. "You do for this."
Threat, Toxin purred, delighted. We bite now?
Wait, Jiss told it.
He angled his body slightly in front of Aria without being obvious, all loose shoulders and empty hands. "Let's not do the part where I point out the camera and you point out you don't care."
Compact flicked eyes up at a bubble cam. "It's broken."
"Of course it is," Jiss said. "Budget cuts."
"Wallet," Tall said. "Phone. Bag."
Aria's voice stayed level. "There are cameras two blocks up, and my cousin's a cop."
"Everyone's cousin's a cop," Compact said, stepping in.
Break his wrist, Toxin suggested, bright.
Hold first, Jiss answered.
Compact's knife hand moved quick, mediocre. Jiss's right arm moved faster, nothing dramatic, just that sticky timing his body had learned. A tendril slid under his sleeve in a thin band; his fingers found the mugger's wrist in a grip that felt like a clamp and looked like a hand.
"Don't," Jiss said. The word came out lower than he meant, a shade of doubled.
Compact felt the not-quite pain of the hold and blinked. The knife hung there, puzzled. Tall shifted, scooping a bottle from a crate like he'd practiced this choreography in alley mirrors.
Bottle left, Toxin warned, already reaching.
Jiss didn't have time to think about "subtle." He let a second tendril, the smallest suggestion unspool under his jacket hem along the ground like a dark shoelace and twitch at Tall's ankle.
Tall's foot hooked nothing and found nothing anyway. Gravity voted. He stumbled, bottle clacked against concrete instead of skull, and he windmilled to keep his dignity from suing.
"Walk away," Jiss said—voice normal, eyes steady. "Take the L. Clean exit."
Compact tried to twist out. The clamp-that-wasn't tightened a hair. Jiss felt the knife want to continue the motion and refused it. He pictured a dial. He turned it down.
"Seriously," Aria added, not unkind. "It's a bad night for being brave and wrong."
Tall recovered with a flush of angry pride. He reached for the knife with his other hand.
—and bounced off Jiss's left forearm. Only Jiss knew why it didn't hurt; the symbiote made a palm-sized plate just under his sleeve, a quiet half-Maw that ate the shove and gave back nothing.
To Aria, it looked like Jiss had a freakish tolerance for impact. To Tall, it felt like hitting a wall.
"Okay," Tall said, and the bravado leaked. "Okay, man."
Jiss loosened the clamp and let Compact feel the choice again. He took it. Both stepped back. Pride demanded a parting snarl; survival paid in cash.
Compact pointed the knife like a wan threat. "You got lucky."
"I'm a big fan of luck," Jiss said mildly. "You should try it in the other direction."
They retreated, muttering, the way men do when they want to convince the night they could have won. Jiss let his breath out slow, unfurled the tendrils back into skin, and pretended.
Aria turned to him, eyes searching, sharp. "That was… fast," she said.
"I'm highly motivated by not being stabbed."
"I saw your hand." She mimed the grip, frowning. " You… moved his wrist like you'd practiced."
"Beginner's luck?" he offered.
Her eyebrow said really? without using English. "And the other guy tripped on an empty sidewalk."
"There was a… gum glob," Jiss said weakly.
Aria stared at the ground, then at his sleeve where the bottle had not left a bruise. She reached out and touched just below his elbow, gentle, clinical. "You okay?"
"Yeah." He swallowed. "You?"
She nodded, then fell silent in that particular way the city does when it chooses to hear only itself. They started walking again because stopping seemed like an invitation.
Half a block later, she said, "I'm not ungrateful. I'm very grateful. Also… that was weird."
"Weird good?"
"Weird weird," she said, but her tone was soft. "It felt like you knew where the knife would go. Like it was obvious to you."
Obvious, Toxin said, smug.
Hush, Jiss told it.
"I read a whole chapter today about reflex arcs," Aria continued, half to herself. "The body doesn't think, it does. Yours… did a lot."
"Adrenaline," Jiss said, the word dutiful. "Fear makes us interesting."
She glanced up, that quick nurse scan again pupils, breath, sweat. "Your hands aren't shaking."
"They will later," he said, which was true.
Aria looked at the retreating silhouettes of Tall and Compact, now just mistakes dissolving into crowd. "You didn't hurt them."
"I didn't have to."
"Thank you for that."
He kept silent over it. He wanted to not watch her mouth flatten like that again.
"Aria," he said, and the rest of the sentence rusted.
She saved him. "You don't have to explain," she said quietly. "You owe me nothing except… not lying so hard you fall over."
"I can avoid falling," he said.
"Please do." The ghost of a smile. "And if there's something I should know because it affects my safety? Tell me then."
He nodded. Relief and guilt shook hands in his chest and agreed to split the rent. "Deal."
They reached her building. The keypad stuck on the 3; she slapped it with a competence that suggested a long relationship. Inside, the hallway smelled like cumin again and wet umbrellas. At her door, she hesitated.
"You're staying, right?" she asked, casual. "Tonight."
"If the couch consents."
"It's flattered." She unlocked the door. "I'll make tea."
He flinched before the kettle whistled. She caught it. Of course she did. "I can… do it in the microwave," she said, like she hadn't just translated a reflex he didn't want to explain.
"Microwave and I are close," he said.
They made tea without the needle-whine. She handed him a mug with tiny lemons because whimsy actually was medicine. They sat on the couch .
Aria wrapped her hands around the mug, stared into steam, and said, "I know New York makes people weird. I can live with weird. I just....." She looked at him, eyes steady. "I don't like surprises."
"Me neither," he said. "I keep a list to fight them."
"Of course you do." A small, tired laugh. "Thank you for the not-getting-stabbed tour."
"Five stars. Would recommend."
"Let's not make it a series."
"Agreed."
She stood. "I'm showering and then pretending to sleep. If you get the shakes later, knock. Or just… be loud about cereal. I'll pretend I don't hear and then hear anyway."
"Copy that." He lifted the mug in a toast. "To boring."
"To boring."
Her door closed.
Jiss exhaled and let the building's quiet put hands on his shoulders. He flexed his right hand; the place the tendril had been felt like a memory of motion.
We should have bitten a little, Toxin said, sulky.
We didn't need to, Jiss answered. We did it our way.
Our way is crunchy feelings and no teeth.
Our way is Aria not seeing what she can't unsee.
A thoughtful ripple. Soft Human looked at you like… puzzle.
She's sharp. We have to be sharper.
We keep her safe, Toxin said, as if reminding him of a vow they'd already made. No killing near soft human.
Jiss snorted into his tea. "No killing near her," he echoed.
We will try, it said, and the tone was almost prim.
He stared at the door she'd gone through, at the map on the table, at his hands that shook now that they were allowed. He let them. He watched the tremor like weather: real, passing.
On the back of the map, under NO SHIELD, he added one more line with the cheap pen:
Keep Aria safe.
Outside, the city argued with itself in a thousand windows. Inside, a kettle did not whistle and a voice in his head purred like it had eaten enough, even if it hadn't.
He sipped tea, let his body learn the fight in the way that would let it end faster next time, and told himself a story about boring. He repeated it until sleep believed him.