Morning came in, gray and cool. The room stayed the same: concrete walls, a single window facing a brick alley, and a fridge humming in a slow, steady rhythm.
He woke up on the couch, stiff but rested. The spiral notebook was still open on the table where he'd left it.
No speeches. No names. Help and go.
Don't point the heat at people.
He added a third line.
If watched, still choose.
He made eggs in a pan too thin for the burner and ate standing up, listening to the neighbours. Someone on the second floor practiced scales on a piano with two good fingers and eight stubborn ones. A kid downstairs dragged a laundry bag along the hall. Somewhere outside, a small electric buzz crept close, dipped, then steadied.
He set the fork down. The buzz wasn't a scooter. It was cleaner, thinner, like a mosquito.
He crossed to the window without getting too close. He didn't need to. He could hear air moving differently around a small body. He could feel the air bump the glass.
He cracked the window an inch. A thumb-sized drone hung in the alley, staring at the paint. It drifted a foot left, corrected, then rose until it could angle a lens toward the window gap.
He didn't move. He didn't wave. He didn't blast anything. He pulled the window shut with two fingers and let the latch fall. He backed up until the fridge hum was louder than his pulse.
The flip phone buzzed. If a bug hums outside your window, don't swat it, Nat texted. You'll only get two more. Then the ones with stingers. Eat breakfast. Roof in 30?
He looked at the note he'd written. He typed: Roof. He put on his hoodie and checked his hands like they were tools in a box he didn't trust. He left the room and locked the door careful, then checked it twice.
On the roof, the city buzzed quietly beneath a clear sky. Gravel crunched under his shoes. He stood by the edge and breathed to a steady rhythm in his head: one-two, one-two, that matched the hum of the fridge downstairs.
Nat climbed out of the hatch with a canvas messenger bag, wind pulling a strand of hair loose near her ear. She didn't wave the drone away. She ignored it. It drifted higher and then backed off like a dog that only understands fences.
"We're keeping today boring," she said. "You're going to hate it."
He didn't argue. Boring meant nothing broke.
She set a cheap bathroom scale on the gravel and then a paper grocery bag with three items: a can of soda, a wristwatch in a cardboard box, and a tennis ball.
He raised an eyebrow. "You bring a lab?"
"Worst lab in the world," she said. "But it works." She pointed at the scale. "Step on. Don't break it. Promise me."
He stepped onto the plastic square like it might be a kitten. The digital numbers blinked. They were higher than his last physical in his old world, but not by much.
"Baseline," she said. "Now—lift your heels a hair. Imagine the elevator." She tapped her finger in that small rhythm on the scale's frame. "Breathe with the count."
He let his weight blur downward a fraction. The numbers dipped by two pounds, then three. The scale beeped a complaint. He eased back to normal, then off.
"Good," she said. She handed him the wristwatch. Cheap round face, plastic band. "Put it on. You're going to forget you're wearing it. You're going to scratch your head or adjust your hood and snap. So we get ahead of it."
He slid it on. He bent the strap tongue into a hole without tearing it.
"Ten minutes," Nat said. "You keep it alive ten minutes and you get toast."
"That's a low bar," he said.
"Bars are supposed to be low at the start," she said. "High bars get you a concussion."
They worked in simple circles. He tossed the tennis ball up and caught it without crushing felt. He learned how to open his hand and let the ball fall through his fingers without squeezing. He turned the watch's bezel with a fingernail while watching the skyline so he wouldn't pull too hard. He felt the little cogs inside resist, then fold, then resist again.
A helicopter moved into hearing behind him, flying north to south. The sound of its engine hit something off in his body, just like the bus had the day before. Heat rose behind his eyes. He stared at the concrete ledge and counted. One. Two. The pressure built, then passed. The watch stayed on his wrist for another minute.
"You did that," Nat said soft. "Not your body. You."
He let out a breath and realized his mouth was dry. He took a sip from her thermos and almost smiled. "Toast?"
"Toast," she said, and tossed him a foil-wrapped triangle from the bag like it was a medal and not bread.
A shout floated up from a neighboring roof. "Mom! It fell!"
They moved to the edge. Across a narrow gap, a ten-year-old boy stood at a parapet with his shoulders scrunched. A red rubber ball sat on a ledge one story below, a foot from the drop to an alley full of metal.
"Don't climb," a woman's voice called from below. She couldn't see him from the street. "I said don't climb!"
"I'm not!" the boy shouted back, which sounded like a lie to both of them.
Nat glanced at him. "Field trip," she said. "Remember: elevators. Inches."
He judged the gap. If he flew hard, it would be a second of air and done. If he flew wrong, the ball would jump and the kid would jump after it. He stepped onto the parapet, breathed, and let the elevator lift his center of gravity just enough to unweight the hop. It was like stepping off a curb and landing on another curb, not crossing a canyon. He put his palms on the opposite parapet and swung down onto the lower ledge.
"Hi," he said to the kid. "I've got it."
The boy blinked. "You're?"
"Nope," he said gently. "I'm just a guy grabbing your ball." He palmed it, careful not to deform it, and handed it up. "Next time, bring a broom."
The kid nodded, serious like all kids who have been told a truth they will forget tomorrow. "Thanks."
He jumped back the way he'd come, the lift in his legs quiet now, more a whisper than a shout. The woman below still muttered about broken necks to a person on the phone who wasn't listening. The kid peered over the wall after him, eyes wide. He put a finger to his lips. The kid smiled, zipped it, and disappeared.
Nat gave him a sideways look. "Nice," she said.
He rubbed the watch face with his thumb. Still intact.
The drone's faint whine returned. It hovered coyly, pretending not to look.
"Let it be," Nat said. "We're going to talk while we pretend we don't know it's there."
He took another sip of coffee and tried to look like a man having a normal rooftop chat.
"I filed a report," she said in her polite voice for microphones. "It says you like not being seen and your first move is always toward people, not spectacle. It says you get overwhelmed but you learn."
"And the part where I cut walls open with my eyes?"
"It says that too," she said. "It also says you didn't like it."
The wind tugged at her hair again. She didn't fix it. She kept her hands out where anyone with a lens could see she wasn't holding anything but a bag and a bad wristwatch exercise.
He watched the horizon. "How many vans are there?"
"Enough," she said. "Some look like plumbers."
"I saw."
"Some are ours. Some are theirs." She didn't look at him when she said theirs. "A few belong to people with blogs and too much time."
"And your boss?" he asked. "What does his report say?"
"You'll meet him when it makes sense," she said. "Today, it doesn't."
"Because I'll run."
"Because you'll be polite," she said. "And then you'll go home and shake for two hours and snap that wristwatch."
He looked at the watch. "You're not wrong."
"Put the soda can on the parapet," she said. "Make it roll to the left without your hands."
He frowned. "How?"
"Exhale before you move," she said. "Half-inch hover, then push air."
He didn't believe it would work. He tried anyway. He pictured lifting his palm and the can not being under it, then moving the space around the can like a bubble under a carpet. The can twitched, then rattled, then rolled three inches left and stopped.
He grinned before he could help it. "Okay. That was stupid."
"It was controlled," she said. "Stupid is cutting walls without looking."
He started to answer. A low double-honk carried up the alley from the street behind the building. Not traffic: a code. He saw the glint of a windshield. The plumbing van had moved.
"Time to go in," Nat said. "Working people live here. We don't make their roof a stage."
They took the hatch down. On the third-floor landing, a man in a work shirt with ROTO-PLUMB stitched over the breast pocket stood with a clipboard and no tool belt. Behind him, a second man leaned on the wall pretending to be bored. Both had the wrong shoes for plumbers.
"Excuse us," Nat said, neutral.
"Routine maintenance," Clipboard said. He smiled with too many teeth. "Saw you two on the roof. Nice view up there."
Nat's smile didn't reach anything but her mouth. "We like fresh air."
"You rent 3B?" he asked, eyes sliding past her toward the hall.
"Why?" she asked.
"Leak," he said, as if he'd just made it up and didn't care if anyone noticed. "Tenant called. We'll need access."
She scratched her wrist with her thumb and forefinger. The flip phone in his pocket buzzed once in the same rhythm. Don't open for them.
"I'm sure the super will call if you're needed," she said. "What's her name?"
Clipboard paused a hair too long. "Ma'am...."
Nat flashed something that wasn't a badge but was close enough to a kind of authority most people obeyed. "Street's that way," she said quietly. "You're blocking the stair."
Clipboard's smile thinned. He stepped aside a fraction, enough to prove he could, not enough to be polite.
She moved on like this was a boring chore she forgot to resent. He followed. He didn't meet the men's eyes. His shoulders itched with the urge to shove. He counted instead. One. Two. He felt the watchband against his skin and kept it a circle and not a snap.
Inside 3B, he closed the door and waited for the test. The knob rattled. Not hard. Checking courage. He put his hand on the lock and breathed. The rattle stopped.
"You're not under arrest," Nat said from the couch. She spoke like she'd practiced the sentence. "No labs. No cage. But we're not the only ones interested. You must not go with anyone who can't say my name right and knock the way I knock."
"And if they break the door?" he asked.
"Tell me before you break them," she said. "I'd like to keep your record boring."
He looked at the concrete wall. His skin prickled with a memory of red lines. "You're asking a lot."
"I know," she said. She watched his face for a beat. "You can leave New York. You can go upstate and fish and pretend it was a dream. But if you stay, this is what it is for a while. Eyes on you. Choices anyway."
He sat because standing made his legs remember they could leap. "How long is 'a while'?"
"Until they decide you're either dull or trustworthy," she said. "Dull is faster."
He snorted. "I can do dull."
"Prove it," she said. She flicked the notebook with a fingertip. "Write more rules."
He flipped a page. He wrote, Boring saves lives. It sounded stupid. It also sounded right.
Her phone buzzed. She read and didn't change expression. "I have to go argue with a man who thinks he runs the world because he owns the floor he's standing on." She stood. "Eat every three hours today. Practice the elevator twice, not twenty times. Do not try the heat. Not here."
He nodded. "Nat..."
"Yeah?"
"How many lenses are on me right now?"
She considered and didn't lie. "Three I know. Maybe five."
Panic started to rise, but he pushed it down with the simple facts of the room. Fridge. Table. Concrete walls. The watch still round on his wrist. Nat standing at the door: shoulders relaxed, weight forward, breathing steady.
"Okay," he said. "I'll be dull."
After she left, he did the dishes like a person who lived here. He took the trash out like he didn't have a drone in the alley. He nodded to the kid with the red ball as they crossed in front of the bakery at the same time. The kid pretended to tie his shoelace and whispered, "Thanks," to the sidewalk. He didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Across town, in a dim room filled with screens, a man with a kind face and a tie that didn't know how to wrinkle watched grainy footage. Coulson, he recognized the face from a movie, which was a stupid way to recognize a real person. Coulson rewound the scaffold clip and watched the moment the frame shifted and didn't kill anyone.
"Civilian-first bias," Coulson said to an agent with a headset. "Avoids applause. Doesn't like his own headlines."
A second screen showed the fire. Two thin lines cut a wall. Coulson's mouth tightened like he'd bit a seed. "Also that."
A speaker crackled. A voice with one eye's patience rolled out. "Your read?"
"Scared. Teachable. Stronger tomorrow than today," Coulson said. "Romanoff's the right handler."
The voice grunted. "Containment?"
"Observation," Coulson said. "If we push, he runs. If he runs, he's a story we chase instead of a person we talk to."
Silence for a beat. Then: "Let him be boring," the voice said. "For now."
Back in 3B, he set the scale by the window and stepped on because small wins counted. He watched the numbers dip two pounds, then steady. He took the watch off and set it down without visions of snapping it. He stared at the concrete until the urge to look for eyes faded.
The plumbing van left. A camera on a rooftop a block away stayed. He ate toast like it was a job. He didn't check the internet. He didn't fly. He wrote another line in the notebook.
If they watch, show them a person.
When dusk came, he stood at the window and let the neon from the bakery sign paint a little red square on the wall. It was just light. He breathed with the fridge. The drone didn't come back.
He lay on the couch with his hands flat and his shoes still on. He stared at the ceiling until the city's argument became a lullaby he didn't trust and slept anyway.
Outside, lenses blinked to standby. Inside, the watch ticked past midnight without breaking. That felt like control. It felt like something he could build on.