Lía slips through the connecting door between our suites, blue eyes a little softer than usual. She leaves it propped open just a few inches—enough that I can see her lights dim as she moves around her space.
"Goodnight, Sol," she says quietly.
"Night, Lía."
Diana and Leo linger a second longer in my living room, exchanging a look that is ninety percent mischief, ten percent "we really should be responsible."
Then Diana grins, taps her comm.
"Blip."
She vanishes in a soft Veil flicker and reappears at the far end of
the loft.
Leo laughs, flicks his fingers.
"Shine."
A tiny burst of light arcs just in front of where she reappears, making her yelp and jump sideways right into her next teleport. They chase each other like that out the front door and down the hallway—blip, shine, blip, shine little flashes of light and shadow ping-ponging toward their own Houses.
"Walk, don't teleport-sprint in the tower!" Alice calls faintly from somewhere down below.
"Yes, Mom!" Diana's voice echoes.
"Define 'walk'!" Leo adds.
I giggle, hand over my mouth, listening until their antics fade into the general dorm noise.
The loft settles. Soft hum of the air filters. The low, steady buzz of my dampener. The open crack of the door to Lía's side, like a promise.
I flop back onto my couch for a second, staring at my comm band where it glows gently on my wrist.
Comms, my brain supplies. Not just for schedules and panic pings from Diana. Not just for Kaur's assignments and Luciana's terrifyingly calm check-ins.
My heart does a weird stutter.
"This thing has external," I whisper to nobody, sitting up. "Which means… oh my God."
For the first time all day, a different kind of electricity runs through me. Not the scary kind.
The hopeful kind.
I flick my comm awake, fingers suddenly clumsy.
MENU → CONTACTS → EXTERNAL.
There's a preloaded section labeled PRIMARY
GUARDIANS. Two entries sit there, waiting:
· VEGA,
MARÍA (MOM) – mobile
· VEGA,
JOSÉ (DAD) – mobile
Alice must have done this. Or Diana. Or Luciana. Someone.
My throat tightens.
I hover for one second, suddenly remembering every time I didn't get to do this—writing letters and waiting weeks, begging coordinators to let me use their office phones, saving coins for payphones that barely worked.
No petitions. No summer-only visits.
Just… call.
I hit CALL – VIDEO before I can overthink it.
The screen shifts, little connecting dots spinning. My reflection stares back at me—Forge tee, loose braid, dampener band, dark circles that somehow look lighter than they did in the hospital.
Then the dots vanish.
My mom's face fills the tiny screen. She's in the kitchen, hair up in a bun, flour on her cheek. I catch a blur of our crappy fridge in the background, covered in old magnets and my ancient honor roll certificates.
"¿Bueno?" she says, then squints. "¿Hola—? Oh! Oh my God, José,
ven. ¡Es Marisol!"
The camera shakes as she fumbles, trying to figure out if she's holding it the right way.
I laugh, a little choked, and switch to the back camera so she can see me more clearly.
"Hi, mamá," I say. "Surprise."
Her eyes go huge.
"Mija", respira. "Mírate. Ay, te ves cansada. Y tan bonita. ¿Por qué llamas? ¿Está todo bien? ¿Pasó algo?"
I wince.
"Everything's okay," I rush to say. "I promise. Es solo que… ayer me dieron mi comm. Y me di cuenta de que puedo llamarte. Cuando sea. Sin tener que suplicar por permisos de fin de semana o, como, sacrificar un chivo a los
dioses de los horarios."
She snorts in spite of herself.
"En esta casa no hay chivo," she says automatically, wiping at her cheek. "Wait, wait. Tu papá."
She yells off-screen, "¡José! Tu hija is on the… the thing! Cosa del League!"
My dad appears a moment later, slightly out of breath, still wearing his work shirt with the name patch crooked over his chest. He leans in, squinting, then his whole face softens.
"Hey, Sol," he says. "Look at you. "Gran escuela de héroes toda elegante y aun así llamas a tu papá, huh?"
"Always," I say, and suddenly I'm blinking fast because my eyes won't stop stinging. "Hi, papá."
They both drink me in for a minute—like they're recalibrating every mental picture they had of me.
"¿Ese es tu cuarto?" Mom asks, tilting her head. "¿Te dieron un escritorio? Y… ay, ¿ese es un segundo piso detrás de ti?"
I twist the comm so they can see the loft—the stairs, the bed tucked under the slanted ceiling, the desk with two monitors, the dark blues and gold accents.
"That's my loft," I say. "Downstairs is kitchen, couch, half bath. Upstairs is bedroom and full bath. They stocked the fridge. And there's this thing—"
I angle it toward the windows.
"The view is crazy. I can see like half the campus."
My mom lets out a soft, awed curse in Spanish she would absolutely yell at me for using.
"¿Hicieron todo esto por ti?" she whispers.
"Yeah," I say. "Scholarship covers everything. And there's, uh… additional support because my power is weird. And because of the twins' family." I chew my lip. "Luego te explico más. Pero estoy a salvo. Y hay muchísima comida. Y tengo mi propia shower. Con buena presión de agua."
My dad chuckles.
"My rich girl," he says, but there's no bitterness. Just tired pride. "Como te fue tu primer día?"
I hesitate, then edit ruthlessly in my head.
"Good," I say. "Long. A little scary. But I met my team. My House professor is awesome. I didn't blow anything up on purpose."
"On purpose," my mom repeats, narrowing her eyes.
I grimace.
"Tiny… accident," I admit. "Pero estoy bien. Tienen healers. Healers muy buenos.
And a dampener band." I show them the cuff. "Ayuda a que mis powers se quede callado."
My mom presses her lips together.
"Vimos algo en las noticias," she says slowly. "No tu nombre. Solo 'incidente en el
campus'. Recé para que no fueras tú."
Guilt pricks.
"Sorry," I say. "Debería haber llamado antes. Apenas me dieron el visto bueno. Y luego la gente no dejó de… estar aquí."
I wave a hand vaguely at where the family just was.
"Ha sido… mucho."
"Estás ahí," my dad says. "Estás viva. Eso es suficiente por esta noche."
We talk for a while after that. Little things, safe things. I tell them about House Forge ("como los nerds pero cool"), about my professors ("de verdad les importa que no nos muramos"), about Leo and Lía and Diana ("mis compañeros de equipo-slash-primos del caos"), carefully skirting around Rafe and Kenzie and electric hallways.
They tell me about Mrs. Vargas downstairs getting a new puppy, about the leak in the bathroom finally getting fixed, about my mom's new cleaning route and my dad's boss being "un poco menos idiota esta semana, gracias a Dios."
At one point, my mom leans in close to the camera.
"¿Ya comiste?" she demands. "Comida de verdad, no solo papitas."
"Sí, mamá," I say. "Había arroz y frijoles y… salteado. Y—" I think of the In-N-Out
bag "—una hamburguesa. No me estoy muriendo de hambre."
"Ahora tiene a dos mamás encima de ella," my dad says dryly. "No la van a dejar
morirse de hambre."
I flinch a little, glancing instinctively at the connecting door.
"La verdad… un poco sí," I admit. "Son buenas. Dan miedo, pero son buenas. Y su
asistente es mi asistente. Así que, si se me olvida comer, probablemente solo
me teletransporte a la cafetería."
My mom's mouth softens.
"Me alegra que tengas gente ahí," she says. "Pero, mija…" Her eyes sharpen. "Si
alguien te hace sentir pequeña, o tonta, o como si no pertenecieras, nos lo
dices. ¿Me oyes? No me importa si son héroes o presidentes. Yo misma voy a
volar hasta allá y—"
"Está bien, está bien," I say, laughing. "Lo prometo. Ahorita todo el mundo está
siendo… muy de 'tú perteneces aquí'. Es abrumador, pero… bueno."
We're quiet for a moment, all three of us just… looking.
"Mañana es el entrenamiento de equipo," I say finally. "Las primeras cosas de campo de verdad. Estoy nerviosa."
My dad nods slowly.
"¿Te acuerdas de lo que te dijimos cuando entraste a la prepa antes de tiempo?" he
says. "No tienes que ser la mejor. Solo tienes que estar ahí. Haz el trabajo.
Vuelve a casa."
"Excepto que ahora la casa es—" I gesture around "—esto."
"La casa también está aquí," my mom says firmly. "Las dos. No tienes que escoger."
My throat closes.
"Los extraño," I say, voice small.
"Te extrañamos más," she says instantly.
"Impossible," I argue, and my dad laughs.
We talk a little longer, until my comm gently pings a low-battery nudge and a
curfew alert hovers at the edge of my vision.
"Debería dormir," I say reluctantly. "Mañana es un día grande. Aparentemente estoy en un
equipo de alta prioridad y todo el mundo va a estar mirando."
My mom crosses herself.
"Que Dios te cuide," she says. "Y a todos tus… amigos tan llamativos."
My dad smiles.
"Estamos orgullosos de ti, Sol," he says. "No por la escuela. Porque llamaste."
Tears finally slip, hot and stupid.
"Voy a llamar otra vez," I promise. "Pronto. Mucho. Get ready to be annoyed."
"Bien," my mom says. "Me gusta que me fastidies tú. Es mejor que esperar cartas."
We say goodnight—buenas noches, te quiero, descansa—and I end the call before I can drag it out forever.
The room feels different when the screen goes dark. Not emptier. Just… bigger. Like the line between here and back home is shorter now. Less "light-years away," more "one comm ping."
I wipe my face with the heel of my hand, sniffling, and look around my loft—dark blue walls, gold accents, the bed I don't think I'd ever get used to.
"Okay," I tell the room. "You count as home now. But you're sharing the title."
My dampener hums, steady and low. Through the cracked door, I see Lía's light shift as she passes by on her side, moving through her own bedtime rituals.
One home behind a screen. One home in glass and steel.
Tomorrow, Team Forge-01.
Tonight, my comm band, my Echo Journal, my bed, and the knowledge that I can reach my parents with a tap instead of a prayer.
For the first time since I got here, I slide under the covers and my brain doesn't immediately start compiling worst-case scenarios. Instead, it
replays my mom's face, my dad's laugh, and three different voices at dinner telling me, in their own ways: You belong here.
I fall asleep before I can argue with any of them.
⸻
I don't stay asleep for long.
When I surface, it's with that horrible falling feeling—heart in my throat, fingers digging into the sheets like I'm bracing for impact. The loft
is dark and big, shadows stretching all the way up to the ceiling.
Too much space. Too much quiet.
Back home, even at night, there's always something: the fridge humming, the neighbor's TV, my parents breathing in the next room. Hospital rooms are tiny, full of beeps and footsteps in the hall.
Here… it's just me and the AC.
My chest tightens.
Automatically, I grope for my raggedy polar bear pillow pet—Dr Pepsi—and drag her under my chin. With my other hand I find Coca Cola, the
smaller, equally worn polar bear with the light-blue scarf. I hug them both so hard their stuffing complains.
It's fine, I tell myself. You're safe. You're at, like,
the safest hero school on the continent. There are security fields and S-class moms and—
The quiet presses in.
I twist. Turn. Flip the pillow. Try the breathing exercises they gave me. In for four, hold for two, out for six.
My brain laughs in anxious.
After what feels like an hour but is probably ten minutes, I give up. I roll out of bed, still in my soft Forge sleep shirt and shorts, polar bear under each arm like emergency flotation devices. The floor is cool under my bare feet as I pad to the second connecting door of my loft.
The door to Lía's suite is also propped open a few inches, just like she left the downstairs connecting door earlier. A thin strip of blue-tinged light spills into my darker space.
I hover there for a second, stomach flipping.
Don't be needy, don't be weird, she needs sleep, you're fine, you can just—
My hand lifts and knocks anyway.
There's a soft rustle, then light footsteps. The door slides open a hand's width, brightening the hallway between our suites.
Lía appears, framed in the doorway. She's in an oversized soft gray sleep shirt and dark shorts, hair loose around her shoulders instead of pinned up, blue eyes a little unfocused with sleep and screen glow. She looks… softer,
somehow. Less "top student" and more "girl who also got emotionally wrecked today."
"Sol?" she murmurs. "Is something wrong—"
She stops when she really sees me: bare feet, messy braid, one ragged polar bear pillow pet crushed under my chin and a smaller polar bear
clutched under my arm like a security clearance.
Her whole face changes. The sharp focus eases; the edges of her mouth soften.
"Oh," she says quietly. "Data point acquired."
My ears burn.
"Sorry," I blurt. "I just—I'm not really used to sleeping in such a big place by myself. At home the apartment is tiny and my parents are right
there and then hospital rooms are tiny too and it's fine, I'm fine, I just thought maybe—"
The words trip all over themselves. I stare very intently at Dr Pepsi's scratched plastic eyes.
"—I was wondering if maybe I could, um, sleep here? Just for tonight. I can take the couch. Or the floor. Or if that makes you uncomfortable
then I totally get it and I'll go back, it was a dumb idea, I just—"
"Sol."
Just my name, soft but precise, like she's putting a period at the end of the panic sentence.
I stop talking.
"You are not dumb," she says. "You are anxious. Those are different variables."
My eyes sting. I hug the polar bears tighter.
She opens the door the rest of the way and steps back, giving me space to decide.
"Input received," she continues, very Lía about it. "Desired outcome: reduced fear, increased rest, no violation of boundaries. Solution:
you will not be sleeping on the floor."
"I can take the couch," I protest weakly. "Really. I don't want to—"
"The couch is inferior," she says, like that settles it. "Suboptimal spinal support. You will wake with pain, become irritable, and your performance at team training will degrade. That is unacceptable."
Then, gentler:
"My bed is large enough for both of us. We can establish a boundary line. No unexpected contact. Pressure only if requested."
My brain absolutely blue-screens for a second.
"You're… okay with that?" I manage. "I thought you don't like people touching you."
"I do not like most people touching me," she corrects. "You are not 'most people.' Also, we have prior data suggesting that controlled
pressure contact is mutually beneficial for us." A tiny quirk at the corner of her mouth. "And I am wearing appropriate sleep clothing."
Somehow that combination of clinical and caring makes my chest go weird and fizzy.
"Okay," I whisper. "If you're sure."
"I am sure," she says simply. "Come in."
Her suite is very her: neat, ordered, calm. Soft, indirect lighting instead of the harsh overheads. Shelves of books and hard-light models, a desk
with perfectly aligned stacks of notes, everything color-coded within an inch of its life. The bed is tucked under a wide window currently dimmed to show only the faintest outline of the city beyond. The duvet is navy; the pillows are an army. A neatly folded weighted blanket lies at the foot like a sleeping
dragon.
Lía moves around with efficient, quiet motions. She grabs one extra long pillow and lays it horizontally down the middle of the bed.
"Physical delimiter," she explains. "You sleep on that side. I sleep on this side. If you need pressure contact, you may ask. I will extend a
hand across the barrier. No surprise incursions."
"That's… very specific," I say.
"Specificity reduces ambiguity," she replies. "Ambiguity is distressing."
God, relatable.
I crawl onto the offered side, suddenly hyper-aware of where my knees go, whether my socks are clean enough, whether my stuffed animals are too childish for a fancy hero school bed.
Lía watches me arrange myself without a single judgmental twitch. I end up on my side, Dr Pepsi under my cheek, Coca Cola tucked under my arm like a tiny, threadbare bodyguard.
She reaches over and taps a little star-shaped lamp on her nightstand. It glows warm and soft—bright enough to push the shadows back, dim
enough that my eyes don't scream.
"Light level?" she asks. "Too bright?"
"No," I say. "It's perfect."
She circles to her side, slides under the covers, and then, with a practiced flip, pulls the weighted blanket up over both of us. It settles
across my torso with a firm, even pressure that makes my whole nervous system sigh.
"Oh," I breathe. "Wow. That's… nice."
"Weighted blankets are extremely efficient," she says. "Better than sedatives for certain profiles. Fewer side effects."
I stifle a yawn. It still escapes halfway, traitor that it is.
"Sleep pressure rising," she observes.
"Rude," I mumble into Dr Pepsi.
A quiet settles over us. Not the big, echo-y quiet of my loft. A smaller, more contained quiet. Every so often, I hear the tiny rustle of fabric
as she shifts, the soft hum of the tower systems, the muted pulse of city noise far below.
My brain, of course, is still trying to spin.
"Sorry I woke you up," I say eventually. "I know tomorrow's a lot and I just barged in here with my emotional support polar bears—"
"Sol," she cuts in gently. "If I did not want you here, I would have said so. Clearly."
I huff a sleepy laugh.
"Yeah. You would."
There's a little pause. Then, in that tone she uses when she's labeling a new file, she says, "For data symmetry, I will share something."
I turn my head on the pillow to look at her profile in the star-light.
"Okay."
"When we first moved into the Director's tower," she says, staring at the ceiling, "I could not sleep alone either. The rooms were… too big. Too quiet. Objectively safe. Subjectively, my system disagreed."
A breath.
"The first night I stayed in my own room, I ended up in the hallway, sitting by the door, because I could not… make myself close it."
My chest does a slow, painful squeeze.
"What did you do?" I ask.
"I slept on the floor of Diana's room," she says simply. "For three months. Sometimes Leo's. Mother bought several different white-noise generators before she realized the problem was not sound level but proximity." Another tiny pause. "Once identified, she put a mattress on the floor. It helped."
I picture younger Lía curled up on a mattress next to Diana's bed, blue eyes peeking out at the door, and my throat goes tight.
"So me showing up at your door like this…" I start.
"Is familiar," she says. "And acceptable. And statistically likely, given your history and the size of this suite."
That last bit makes me snort, which helps deflate the tear balloon behind my eyes.
"Okay," I say again, softer. "Thank you. For letting me be… another data point."
She doesn't answer right away. Then there's a rustle of fabric and the weighted blanket shifts slightly. A second later, her hand appears on top
of the pillow-barrier between us, palm up, resting halfway.
"Offer," she says quietly. "Pressure contact. Optional."
My heart does the weird flutter thing again.
My own hand sneaks out from under the blanket slowly, like a shy crab exiting its shell. I lay my fingers over hers, barely touching at first.
Warm. Steady.
No crackle of panic, no Echo flare, just the simple, human weight of someone else choosing to be here.
She curls her fingers around mine, gentle but firm—anchoring, not trapping. The weighted blanket plus hand-hold combo hits my nervous system like a sedative in the best way. The buzz in my brain finally drops from "radio static" to "quiet mall at closing."
"Goodnight, Sol," she murmurs, eyes closing.
"Night, Lía," I whisper back.
I think, briefly, of my parents in their tiny apartment, probably asleep by now. Of the dog-shaped absence at the foot of my old bed. Of the tower, the team, the terrifying schedule that starts in the morning.
Then my attention shrinks down to this: star-light glow, shared blanket, fingers wrapped in someone else's, the soft creak of her mattress when she breathes.
My Echo stays quiet. My dampener hums in its low, steady way.
For the first time in this big, echoing tower, the dark doesn't feel like it's swallowing me.
It feels like a blanket.
I'm asleep before my brain can come up with a single worst-case scenario.
⸻
I come back online slowly, like someone's turned the dimmer up on reality instead of just flipping the switch.
First sense: warm. Not blanket-warm. Not "tower climate control forgot itself" warm.
Held-warm.
My face is smooshed into soft cotton and shampoo that isn't mine. One of my legs is tangled with someone else's. There's a solid arm around my waist and a palm spread over my ribs, moving up and down with each slow breath.
My brain tenses on reflex—too close, too much, move—and then… doesn't.
The panic spike never comes.
Huh.
I crack an eye open.
Sometime in the night, the pillow barrier surrendered. I'm turned toward Lía now, half on my side, half draped over her like a starfish. Dr Pepsi is wedged between our chests like a peace offering; Coca Cola is mashed under
her chin.
Her nose is about two inches from mine, blue eyes just blinking open.
We freeze, perfectly mirrored, taking each other in.
Her gaze flicks down to where our hands are—my fingers fisted in her sleep shirt, her arm wrapped tight around my waist like she's anchoring me to the bed.
She blinks once, slowly.
"Interesting," she says, voice rough with sleep. "The barrier failed."
I huff a tiny laugh.
"Catastrophic pillow collapse," I agree.
We don't move apart though. We just… notice.
I scan myself the way Kaur keeps telling us to: shoulders loose, jaw unclenched, heartbeat steady. My Echo is quiet, no gold at the edge of my vision. The usual morning dread isn't chewing on my ribs.
"Huh," I say softly. "Data point: I'm… calm."
Her brows twitch, the smallest flicker of surprise.
"Same," she admits. "Baseline anxiety reduced. No urge to flee. No sensory overload."
We stare at each other for another beat, the star-shaped lamp still dim on the dresser, weighted blanket pinning us in place.
"Conclusion?" I offer.
"Preliminary," she warns automatically.
"Obviously," I say.
She takes a slow breath, thumb absently tracing a tiny circle against my back that she probably doesn't realize she's doing.
"This contact," she says, "appears… optimal."
Something in my chest goes very, very soft.
"Yeah," I murmur. "For once."
Her mouth curves—just a little, but it's real.
"We should replicate the conditions," she adds. "Multiple nights. To confirm."
"For science," I say solemnly.
"For science," she echoes.
We should untangle. We know we should; there's team training and showers and schedules and a whole tower waiting. But for a few more breaths, we just stay exactly where we are—two over-clocked brains, quiet for once, tucked around each other like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Optimal contact. Calm.
For once.
⸻
Eventually, the practical part of my brain raises its hand.
"Okay," I sigh. "If we don't get up now I will fall back asleep, and then Diana will kick in the door and yell about punctuality."
"Mm. Valid concern," Lía agrees.
Reluctantly, we do the careful untangle: extracting my leg from between hers, peeling fingers apart, reclaiming polar bears from the
no-man's-land between us. No one yelps, no one flails; it's all quiet, drowsy cooperation.
I sit on the edge of her bed for a second, feet on the cool floor, Dr Pepsi and Coca Cola in my lap.
"How's your anxiety graph looking?" I ask, trying for light.
She stretches—long, controlled, cat-like—and then sits up too, hair mussed in a way I privately categorize as unfairly cute.
"Surprisingly low," she admits, glancing at her comm band. "Subjectively: zero point seven. Objectively: stable. Neural activity suggests
optimal restorative sleep. Minimal REM disruptions. Conclusion: highly effective sleep architecture."
I grin.
"You're a weirdo," I tell her.
She looks at me, blue eyes clear, a tiny smile playing at her lips.
"Data supports that conclusion," she says. "But it is a functional weirdness. Like yours."
She pushes back the weighted blanket, stands, and pads to the bathroom. The door closes softly behind her. The star-lamp dims even further, signaling the day is about to begin.
I sit there for a minute longer, the scent of her shampoo lingering, the impression of her arm still warm against my ribs. Dr Pepsi's ear is bent. Coca Cola's scarf is a bit askew.
My anxiety graph. Zero point seven. It's higher than zero. It's still there. But it's not the raging wildfire it's been for… my entire life. It's a tiny ember, easily contained.
Optimal restorative sleep. Highly effective sleep architecture.
Yeah. I could get used to that.
I gently set my polar bears on her bed, next to the crumpled pillow barrier. I'll grab them later. Right now, I need to go get ready for team training.
Today, I don't need to be afraid of the quiet. Or the big rooms. Or the echoing spaces.
Today, I've got a new piece of data: proximity to Lía Aranda reduces Sol Vega's baseline anxiety.
Highly effective. Optimal.
I walk back into my own suite, the connecting door still propped open. The thought of team training still makes my stomach do a nervous flip, but it's not the whole story anymore. Just one more variable in a very interesting equation.
⸻
By the time I finish my shower and wrangle myself into training gear—dark blue compression leggings, Forge tee, light jacket—my hair is doing its usual post-wash chaos. I make a half-hearted attempt at a braid and give up halfway.
There's a faint sound from the connecting doo —two knuckles, not quite a knock.
"Come in," I call.
The door slides a few inches. Lía peeks around it, already in her own training clothes: navy track pants, House jacket zipped halfway, hair still down around her shoulders.
"I have acquired tea," she announces. "And toast."
She steps in with a tray balanced expertly on one hand—two mugs, steam curling, and a plate of toast cut neatly into halves. There's also a
little dish of jam and another of butter, because of course there is.
My heart does the stupid soft thing again.
"You made breakfast?" I ask.
"Toast is not 'making breakfast,'" she says. "Toast is assembling molecules. But yes." A tiny beat. "I thought… it might be harder to eat once
adrenaline spikes."
I hadn't even thought that far ahead. Of course she had.
We sit at my kitchen island, comm bands resting on the counter. The tea is chamomile with a hint of something floral; the toast is perfectly golden.
"You remembered the no-honey thing," I realize, clocking the jam flavors.
"I logged it," she says, as if that explains everything. "Anaphylaxis is inefficient."
I snort and take a bite. The toast is simple and perfect and tastes, weirdly, like being taken care of.
No one rushes. There's no "we're going to be late, hurry up," just the quiet sound of knives against toast, mugs being set down, the occasional soft ping of a notification we both ignore for now.
"This will be… your first field class," she says after a while, wrapping her hands around her mug. "How are you feeling?"
I actually pause to check instead of defaulting to fine.
"Nervous," I admit. "But… not the usual 'my organs are made of bees' level. More like… regular first-day jitters."
She nods.
"Good. Our goal is to keep you below 'organ bees' and above 'reckless Radiant.'"
"Harsh but fair."
We finish eating. She rinses the dishes without being asked, moving through my kitchen like it's half hers already. I dry, because it feels right to be doing a chore with someone instead of in a little anxious bubble.
After, she leans against the counter, eyes tracking my hair with unusual intensity.
"What?" I ask, self-conscious. "Is there, like, conditioner foam or—"
"May I braid it?" she asks, cutting in.
I blink.
"Um. Yeah. Yes. Please. It's hard to do the bottom part myself."
"Turn around," she says.
We relocate to the couch. I sit on the floor in front of her, cross-legged, and she perches on the edge of the cushions. Her knees bracket my
shoulders, warm through the fabric of my shirt. Her fingers slide gently into my hair, sectioning with efficient care. She starts high, near the crown, French-braiding down in a firm, even pattern that somehow feels like the hair version of the weighted blanket.
I relax almost immediately. It's… intimate, but not in a way that makes me want to crawl out of my skin. Just quiet, steady contact. The sound of her breathing. The soft snick of the band when she ties off the end.
"There," she says eventually. "Secure."
I reach back and feel the braid—tight, clean, not a single lump.
"Wow," I say. "You're good at this."
"Diana taught me," she says. "It was a sensory exercise. Fine motor control." A tiny pause. "It is easier with your hair than Leo's."
I laugh.
"Pigtails, right?"
"Sometimes," she says. "When he is sad."
The idea of Leo sulking while Lía braids his hair is so cute my heart actually hurts.
"If you ever want," I say before I can overthink it, "I can… return the favor? Your hair, I mean. I'm not as good, but I can follow instructions."
Her hand rests briefly, lightly, on the top of my head.
"I would like that," she says. "Later. When we are not about to engage in strenuous activity."
"Fair."
We both stand, almost in sync, and drift back toward the kitchen island to grab our comm bands. Our motions have started to sync up in little ways—she reaches for her jacket at the same time I adjust mine, we both check our bands in the same beat.
"Checklist," she says. "Dampener?"
I tap it.
"On."
"Hydration?"
I wave my water bottle.
"Snacks for post-training hypoglycemia?"
I lift the granola bar Diana shoved at me yesterday from where it now lives permanently in my jacket pocket.
"Always."
Her mouth tips up at the corner.
"Team awareness?" she adds, more serious now. "You remember your role?"
"Info, comms, staying at 'one' unless told otherwise," I recite. "No dramatic Echo grabs. No hallways."
"Correct." Her gaze softens. "And if you feel overwhelmed, you will say so."
"I will try," I say. "If I forget, you have permission to ask."
"Always," she says.
It doesn't feel like orders. It feels like… a promise.
We move toward the door together, side by side. I reach for the panel, then stop and look up at her.
"Pressure contact?" I ask quietly. "Pre-combat ritual?"
Her eyes flick down to my hand, then back up to my face.
"Approved," she says.
I hold out my hand. She takes it, fingers curling around mine, warm and sure. No flinch, no hesitation, just… like we've done this a hundred times.
We step out into the hallway that way, hands linked, two House Forge jackets heading toward Training Arena 3.
No rush. No apologies.
Just a slow morning in the tower, tea and toast and braids and checklists, and a love that's quietly wiring itself into our routines under the
label of optimal conditions.
Neither of us calls it that yet.
But our bodies already know.
⸻
As we step out of the Forge hallway—still hand-in-hand, comm bands pinging gentle "good morning, victim" alerts—we almost collide with a small, chaotic two-person weather system.
Diana, hair in slightly lopsided space buns, is hustling up the corridor with a tablet under one arm, jacket half-zipped, shoelace untied. Leo
slouches along beside her, Radiant jacket thrown on over a wrinkled tee, eyes at half-mast, hair damp like he barely made it through a shower.
"Sorry we're late! We were—" Diana starts.
"Helping Mother," Leo says at the exact same time that Diana says, "Running laps."
Then, because the universe has a sense of humor, they both try to correct.
"Running laps," Leo says.
"Helping Mother," Diana says.
They stop, realize they've just flipped, and groan in sync.
Lía and I glance at each other over our joined hands. There's a shared, silent really? between us.
She turns back to them, blue eyes cool and sharp in the hallway light.
"Preliminary data," she says, "indicates you were once again up late playing video games online."
Diana's mouth opens. Closes. She taps her temple.
"Objection," she says weakly. "Speculation."
"Mother logged your game audio spike at 02:13," Lía replies, completely unmoved. "Then pinged you both for 'urgent assistance' at 05:40 as a 'natural consequence.' The assistant group chat has receipts."
Leo winces.
"You weren't supposed to see that."
"You added me to the chat," she reminds him. "To 'monitor your hydration.'"
Diana groans into her tablet.
"Betrayed by my own paperwork."
I squeeze Lía's hand once in solidarity.
"So it was both," I summarize. "Helping Mother and running laps."
"Helping Mother run laps," Leo says darkly. "She made us do route checks on every evac path in the south tower while she took calls. I have seen more stairwells than any mortal should."
"Natural consequence," Lía repeats, completely unsympathetic. "You were told to log off by midnight."
Diana points at us, grasping for the moral high ground.
"Okay, but you two look suspiciously well-rested," she says.
Her gaze drops briefly to our linked hands, brows lifting just enough that I can tell she spotted it.
"What, did you invent some new anxiety hack while we were dying on the cardio altar?"
"Yes," Lía says, as if it's the simplest thing in the world. "We slept."
"Together," I add, because my honesty filter has clearly not booted yet.
Leo blinks, properly taking us in now—both in training gear, my hair neatly braided, hands laced like it's the most natural thing in the world.
There's a flicker of something in his green eyes—surprise, then relief more than anything.
"How was it?" he asks, like we're talking about a new study technique.
"Optimal," Lía says.
"Calm," I say at the same time.
We look at each other, then back at them.
"Interesting data," we say in unison.
Diana puts a hand to her heart.
"Oh, I love this for you," she says, but for once there's no teasing edge—just genuine delight. "Snuggle protocol successful. Assistant approves. I'm updating the 'Sol coping strategies' doc."
Leo yawns so wide his jaw pops.
"Jealous," he mutters. "I had Mother's 'you think this is tired, I fought a kaiju on six minutes of sleep' speech."
"Several times," Lía notes.
"Anyway," Diana says, shaking herself, "domestic report later, stairs now. Team training waits for no one, especially not the Director's children and their emotionally complicated Echo."
She falls into step on my other side, Leo drifting to Lía's far side. Without really talking about it, we slide into a formation: me and Lía in the middle, Diana and Leo framing us like we're already on the field.
The tower hums awake around us—other students pouring out of their House corridors in flashes of Radiant red, Veil black, Hearth green, Forge navy. Someone calls a greeting; Leo lifts a hand lazily in response without breaking the little orbit we've formed.
"So," Diana says as we approach the main lift, glancing sideways at our joined hands. "Any adverse effects from the new protocol? Nightmares? Sparks? Limbs falling asleep?"
"None," Lía answers. "Muscle tension decreased. Restfulness increased. Sol reported reduced morning panic."
"And you?" Diana asks her. "Any sensory overload, shutdown, urge to yeet her off the bed?"
"Negative," Lía says. "I slept more deeply than baseline. It was… pleasant."
The word hangs there between us, soft and a little startling.
"Then it's going in the official recommendations," Diana says decisively. She taps her tablet. "Anxiety Management: Option —Shared Sleep Environment With Trusted Peer. Subnote: 'Must be very cute.'"
I make a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh.
"Please do not put 'cute' in my medical file."
"Relax, Archive, it's in the personal notes," she says. "Your official file gets boring words like 'co-regulation' and 'mutual grounding.'"
"That is accurate," Lía says.
Leo gives a mighty stretch, back cracking.
"All I'm hearing," he says, "is that if I want to not die in stair-lap purgatory I need to find my own anxiety buddy."
"You have three," I remind him. "You just stay up ignoring your bedtime reminders."
"Treason," he says. "You're supposed to be on my side."
"I am," I say. "That's why I'm telling you to sleep."
The lift doors open with a soft chime. We step in as a unit—House colors, tangled histories, overlapping roles—and the doors slide shut on the Forge hallway behind us.
No one comments on the fact that Lía doesn't let go of my hand the whole ride down. No one rushes us.
It's just… morning. Training day. Two cousin siblings regretting their life choices, one Echo with a surprisingly quiet brain, one strategist
who has decided, quietly and completely, that sharing her bed is now standard protocol.
Domestic, and something else. Something steady and warm and growing in the spaces between checklists and sarcasm.
Love, maybe.
But for now, we call it "optimal conditions" and let it carry us toward the arena.
⸻
The training complex feels bigger on the inside.
From the outside it's just another sleek Aeternum building, all glass and reinforced composite. Inside, the lobby opens up into high ceilings, holo-signs, and too many doors. Students flow in clusters toward different corridors, comm bands pulsing with location pings.
Overhead, the main display splits the crowds:
▶
FIRST-YEAR TRAINING – HALLS 1–4
▶
SECOND-YEAR TRAINING – HALLS 5–7
▶
THIRD-YEAR TEAM TRAINING – ARENA 3
▶
FOURTH-YEAR / BRACKET – ARENA 1
Most people my age peel off toward FIRST-YEAR TRAINING, buzzing with nervous energy. My feet almost follow on autopilot.
Instead, Lía's hand squeezes mine and nudges me toward the smaller arrow.
"Third-year is this way," she says calmly.
So I walk past the other first-years—with two third-years flanking me like it's the most normal thing in the world—and follow the ARENA 3 signs.
I notice it slowly at first, then all at once: there are fewer people on this side. The corridor to Arena 3 just… isn't as crowded.
"Did everyone sleep in?" I ask, trying to be jokey and not freaked out. "It's smaller," I add after a beat, more honest. "Than the first-year group."
"That is normal," Lía answers. "Some students transfer to different paths after first year—specialized programs, civilian tracks. Others choose different universities or internships."
"And some," Leo cuts in, rolling his shoulders, "drop out. Can't take the heat."
He says it casually, but it lands with a weight.
This corridor is the "we stayed" path.
The air changes as we get closer—cooler, sharper, carrying that faint scent of ozone and sweat that clings to places where people regularly do stupidly powerful things.
We pass through a set of heavy doors labeled ARENA 3 – TEAM TRAINING COHORT, and the space opens up.
The arena is huge, but it doesn't feel crowded. Maybe three—four?—dozen students total. They're not grouped by color; they're in distinct knots of mixed jackets clustered under floating team markers:
TEAM VANGUARD-02
VEIL-CLUSTER-01
TERMS & CONDITIONS (that one's
Radiant humor, probably)
and—
FORGE-01.
Our name hovers over a corner of the arena floor, near a bank of holo-projectors. Right now it's just an empty patch of grid.
Every team is a House mosaic: Radiant red sleeves next to Hearth green, a Veil black jacket shoulder-to-shoulder with Forge navy. It looks… right, seeing them that way. Like the posters.
A few heads turn as we walk in. Some of it is "oh, the twins are here," but I can feel the extra weight of eyes when they notice me: younger face, Forge crest, first-year training pants, walking hand-in-hand with Lía Aranda.
Whispers ripple, sharp and quick and then cut off like people remember their inside voices.
We're halfway to our empty FORGE-01 marker when a sharp whistle cuts through the space.
"Cohort, eyes front."
The voice belongs to a woman striding out onto the central platform like she owns the room. She's tall and broad-shouldered, late thirties maybe, with close-cropped hair and a neutral dark jacket that has old League insignia on the sleeves instead of House colors. There's a thin pale scar tracing the edge of her jaw, the kind that looks like it came with paperwork and three debriefings.
"Line up by teams," she calls. "Markers, please, not Houses. If you're not sure which disaster cluster you belong to, that is a problem we will
solve today."
Teams shuffle into tighter formations under their holo-labels. Our FORGE-01 marker flickers as we approach and expands into a soft-lit circle. We step into it together: Lía on my right, Leo on my left, the three of us forming a neat little triangle of navy-red-navy.
The instructor's gaze sweeps the arena, quick and sharp. When she hits our cluster, there's a flicker of recognition at the twins, then a pause on me.
"This must be Vega," she says, voice carrying easily.
My spine straightens like someone tugged a string.
"Yes, ma'am," I answer before my brain can remember her actual title.
"Not 'ma'am,'" she corrects, but not unkindly. "Instructor Reyes. Or Reyes. I yell at all of you equally."
My comm pings: INSTR. M. REYES – TEAM TRAINING / ARENA 3.
She nods once, satisfied, then raises her voice for everyone.
"Cohort D," she says. "Welcome back. As you've probably noticed, there are fewer of you this year. That's also normal. Some of your classmates transferred to other programs. Some took civilian scholarships. Some joined other academies. Some discovered this isn't the life they want."
A beat.
"Some couldn't keep up."
The words fall heavy but not cruel; just… factual.
"You're still here," Reyes continues. "Which means someone thinks you might be worth the resources we're about to spend on you. My job is to figure out if they're right—and to make sure you don't die or become a PR disaster in the process."
A few strained laughs. Mostly real attention.
She clasps her hands behind her back.
"This is team training," she says. "We don't care how pretty you look solo; that's what your individual control classes are for. By third year,
your teams are effectively locked. No more rotating rosters, no more 'I don't vibe with my healer.' This is the unit you'll carry into inter-league brackets and maybe, if you're unlucky and excellent, into World League selection."
My comm buzzes when she says locked—a confirmation ping:
TEAM FORGE-01 – PRIMARY ROSTER CONFIRMED
Aranda-Navarro, Lía (Radiant/Forge – S)
Aranda-Navarro, Leonardo (Radiant – S)
Vega, Sol (Forge – Echo Archive)
Reyes glances straight at our little circle again, mouth quirking.
"And for the first time in two years," she adds, "I get to see the Aranda-Navarro twins with a full official team instead of a very impressive, very annoying two-person strike unit. Thank you for solving that problem for me, Vega."
There's a low ripple of amusement from the nearby teams.
My ears burn.
"Uh. You're welcome?" I manage.
Beside me, I feel Leo straighten, shoulders rolling like he's trying not to look pleased and failing. On my right, Lía's posture doesn't change, but I can feel the tiny shift in her grip around my fingers—like she's braced for impact and then realized it's… positive.
Reyes lets the chuckle settle, then her face goes serious again.
"For those of you who slept through the admin brief," she says, "quick recap. Teams are mixed-House by design. Roles matter more than crest
colors. You need someone who punches, someone who patches, someone who plans,
someone who cheats. That's the bare minimum."
She pauses just long enough for the words to sink in.
"Your letters—A-class, S-class, whatever—are one axis. Your Houses are another. I care about a third: how you function together when the floor drops out from under you."
She taps her comm; a holo-map of the arena flares above us—movable panels, obstacle modes, hazard zones.
"Today is simple," she says. "We're doing baseline movement and coordination. No elaborate simulations, no surprise kaiju. I want to see how you move as units, how you communicate, and how dumb you get when adrenaline hits."
She lifts a hand and points, and the holo labels around the arena shift to little zone markers.
"Warm-up: two circuits of the arena as teams," she says. "Not House sprints. Teams. Match your slowest member. If you're gasping by the second lap, congratulations, you just discovered a training need. Forge-01—" her gaze hooks us again, amused and intent "—with me on the far platform after laps. I want eyes on you first."
"Special attention," Leo mutters under his breath. "Our favorite."
"This is data collection," Lía corrects quietly. "Expected."
Reyes gives a short, sharp whistle.
"Clock starts now. Move."
There's a rush of motion as teams peel off into loose running formations, starting their laps around the perimeter. No one explodes into a
sprint; this isn't about flexing, it's about finding a shared pace.
I look down at our still-intertwined hands.
"Do we… run like this?" I ask.
"If we can," Lía says. "Information: your physiological response appears calmer with contact. Training should reflect reality."
"Translate," Leo says. "If hand-holding keeps you from going full organ-bees, we keep hand-holding."
I swallow, then nod.
"Okay."
We set off.
I brace for the usual: lungs burning by the first corner, that sharp little stitch under my ribs, the heavy drag in my legs that always shows up around minute three.
But it… doesn't hit.
My feet hit the arena floor in steady rhythm, breath pulling in and out of my chest like it actually knows what it's doing. My heart's beating faster, sure, but it's clean fast, not the panicky, ragged kind. My legs feel—light. Springy. Like my body finally got the patch notes it was missing.
I blink, genuinely thrown.
Did we… always feel like this?
Next to me, Lía tracks my posture the way she always does—subtle glance at my shoulders, my hands, the way my stride settles instead of stutters. Her brows lift the tiniest fraction.
On my left, Leo notices at almost the same time. His grin spreads slow and pleased.
"S-plus physique," he says over the thud of our steps, like he's telling me a secret. "Cool, right?"
I huff a laugh between breaths.
"I was… expecting bees in my lungs," I manage. "This is… not that."
"Your baseline got upgraded when your power fully came online," he says. "You'll still have off days, but your body likes this stuff more now. We'll dial it in."
We take the first corner. I'm ready for my knee to complain like it always does on tight turns.
It doesn't.
Everything just… flows.
"Okay," Leo adds, eyes flicking between me and the track ahead. "Wanna uptick the pace a little? Not idiot-sprint, just… what the three of us can actually do now."
My brain does its usual panic jump—don't slow them down, don't trip, don't be the weak link—but my body feels weirdly eager. Like there's
more in the tank.
I check in properly, like Kaur drilled into us.
Breath: steady. Legs: warm, not shaking. Echo: quiet, dampener humming.
"Yeah," I say, surprised at myself. "Let's try."