Morning smells like coffee and second chances.
When I open my eyes, sunlight paints thin gold bars across the ceiling. The fan's hum has become familiar overnight, like an old tune rediscovered. For a moment I lie still, half-afraid that the ease in my lungs was a dream. But when I inhale, air fills me without effort. No rasp. No heaviness.
It's still real.
I sit up slowly. The sheets are cool and creased from a night of good sleep — something the old me hadn't known in years. The paperback that had kept the window open has fallen shut on the floor, its cover bent. I pick it up and glance at the title: A Wrinkle in Time. Somehow, that feels like a cosmic joke.
Down the hall, dishes clink and my mother's voice hums along with the radio. I dress quietly — jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt — and check the mirror. I look… alive. There's color in my face. The skin under my eyes isn't bruised with exhaustion. I almost don't recognize the boy staring back.
Breakfast is quieter today. The kind of quiet that means everyone's afraid to break it. Dad's at work, his lunchbox gone from the counter. Mom's hair is tied up in a messy bun; she's reading a patient chart at the table while sipping coffee that smells like burnt heaven.
"You feeling steady?" she asks without looking up.
"I think so," I say. "It's weird. I keep expecting to be tired, but I'm not."
"That's good. Weird we can live with." She folds the chart. "If you're up for it, we'll walk to the corner store in a bit. Doctor says sunlight and motion are your new vitamins."
I nod, pretending this isn't exactly what I wanted — an excuse to see the world that's supposed to be fiction.
⸻
The city greets us like an old neighbor: impatient, loud, full of stories it doesn't have time to tell.
The May air is warm but not heavy, and every color feels sharper. The sidewalks are cracked mosaics; the trees wear early green like jewelry. Somewhere, a street vendor is already shouting about hot dogs. The neighborhood is normal in a way that makes my skin prickle.
Normal is dangerous when you've read this script before.
Mom walks half a step ahead, her pace unconsciously protective. She points out little things — Mrs. Gomez's new rosebush, the apartment kid with a lemonade stand, the fact that the laundromat finally fixed its flickering sign.
I try to listen, but my mind keeps drifting to the background noise: a newspaper headline in the window of a bodega that mentions Stark Industries. A WHIH broadcast playing faintly on a shop TV, showing the logo I can't stop noticing. A name scrolls across the ticker — Dr. Erik Selvig, Culver University, commenting on energy research.
Every piece of evidence tightens the knot in my chest. It's not just a world that looks like Marvel's. It is.
We reach the corner store. Mom insists on buying milk and bread, though I suspect she just wants to see how far I can walk. My legs carry me fine. It feels good — too good. The cashier, an older man with smile lines carved deep, nods when he sees us.
"Morning, Angela. And look who's up and moving! Good to see you, kid."
I smile automatically. "Morning, Mr. Leary."
The familiarity in his tone tells me this body's life didn't start today. These people know Elias Ward — the sick boy who used to limp in for popsicles and disappear for months into hospital rooms.
I am wearing his skin and his memories are ghosts that haven't caught up.
On the walk back, my mom tells me about the school counselor asking when I'll return to classes. I give vague answers. My head is still somewhere else — in news headlines, in movie timelines, in a library card that hums faintly in my pocket like it's remembering something I don't.
When we reach home, she tells me to rest. I promise I will and head straight to the small computer desk instead.
⸻
The monitor blinks awake again with a sigh. I open Civics_Notes.doc and start typing.
Observation Log — Day 2
1. WHIH confirmed.
2. Stark Industries in every headline.
3. Selvig reference (Culver University).
4. Roxxon ad on radio.
5. No sign of SHIELD, but maybe that's the point.
Underneath, I write something else.
Theory:
If this is the MCU, it's before everything starts. Before Iron Man, before the Avengers. That gives me five years to learn, plan, and stay invisible.
And if the smell last night wasn't a dream—dust and ink and rain—then the books might be more than they look.
My hands hover over the keyboard. The logical part of me says it's just coincidence. But logic didn't bring me here.
I slide open the desk drawer. The library card is there, waiting. When I touch it, the same faint static hum brushes my fingertips — electric, but not painful.
"Not yet," I whisper.
But I can feel it. The pull. The same instinct that drives you to turn the next page even when you know the story will hurt.
A knock on the door makes me jump.
"Hey," Mom calls softly. "Benji's downstairs. Said he's got your math notes."
I exhale. "Coming!"
I slip the card back into the drawer and stand. For now, there's no magic, no revelations — just a boy getting his life back.
But in the quiet hum of the computer behind me, a sound flickers.
A single page turn that doesn't belong to any book in the room.