The recovery room hummed with the quiet, sterile music of medical monitors. Avenger sat on the examination table, legs swinging slightly, still buzzing from the fight. Isaac stood by the window, arms crossed, his back a wall of contained disapproval.
The silence stretched.
"You were too confident in there, kiddo."
Isaac's voice was quiet, but it landed like a medicine ball to the chest. He didn't turn around.
"I know how good you are at calculations. I know how smart you are." Now he turned, and his eyes held the weight of decades. "That doesn't give you the right to be so relaxed in a fight. One mistake. One heartbeat of carelessness that's all it takes to flip the flow of battle. You know this."
Avenger's legs stopped swinging. The post-fight glow dimmed a fraction.
"Come on, Coach." He spread his hands, defensive but not disrespectful. "Did you see him? His cyberware was less suited for combat than the medical augments they issue at District Hospital. Medical augments, Isaac. Designed for recovery, not fighting. He was barely a threat."
Isaac's jaw tightened, but Avenger pressed on, his analyst brain already running the tape.
"And the way he moved? He definitely downloaded those skills straight into a neural chip. No muscle memory. No lived experience. Just data. He had the theory of a spinning back fist, but not the body for it. No flow. No rhythm. It's like..." He searched for the words. "It's like he read the sheet music but never touched an instrument. You could see the lag between his brain saying 'punch' and his body actually doing it. The chip did all the work, and he just... went along for the ride."
Isaac studied him for a long moment. The anger in his posture softened, but didn't vanish. "And that made him predictable."
"Completely."
"Which you calculated."
"Obviously."
"And then you relaxed."
Avenger opened his mouth, then closed it.
Under his breath you could hear him swearing The rhythm of the argument had shifted under his feet.
Isaac stepped closer, voice dropping. "I'm not saying you were wrong about him. I'm saying the universe doesn't care about your calculations. Luck doesn't care. A bad step on a wet spot doesn't care. You can be right about every variable and still lose because something you couldn't see didn't bother to look for was waiting. That's not paranoia. That's experience talking."
Avenger looked down at his hands. The hands that had broken Marcus Webb with surgical precision. "I had it under control."
"I know you believe that." Isaac sighed, running a hand over his close cropped hair. "And that's what scares me."
Before Avenger could respond, both men felt it simultaneously a vibration not in the air, but in something deeper. Their Ancestral Crests pulsed against their souls, a silent frequency that carried recognition. Another Crest-bearer. Close.
The door hissed open.
Doctor Karabo entered with the easy stride of a man who'd spent decades moving between operating tables and battlefields. He was tall, lean where Isaac was solid, with graying temples and eyes that had the calm, assessing quality of someone who'd learned to read people's bodies before they could speak.
He and Isaac locked eyes.
For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then Karabo's face split into a grin.
"My brother."
They crossed the room in two strides and wrapped each other in an embrace that spoke of shared foxholes and narrow escapes. Isaac's laugh when it came was from somewhere deep a sound Avenger rarely heard.
"It's been too long," Isaac said, pulling back to look at his old friend. "How's life treating you these days?"
Karabo shrugged, the gesture carrying continents of meaning. "Better than we deserve, probably. The work keeps me busy. Keeps me... focused." He studied Isaac with the same assessing gaze. "And you? Last I heard, you'd vanished into the lower sectors."
Isaac's laugh this time was warmer, quieter. "Better. It's been better." He glanced at Avenger, and something in his expression shifted pride, worry, love, all tangled together. "Being an instructor helped. More than I expected. My family..." He trailed off, then found his footing. "My family would be happy, seeing me like this. At peace."
Karabo's hand tightened on Isaac's shoulder. No words needed.
Avenger watched this exchange with the focused attention he usually reserved for fight footage. He'd made himself comfortable on the examination table hands folded, one leg crossed over the other observing the two old soldiers with open, amused interest.
Definitely served together, he concluded. Probably during the early Mars evacuation. The way they stand, the way they checked the room before embracing military habits don't fade. And Isaac mentioned his family... past tense. Lost them during the evacuation, maybe. That would explain why he never talks about it.
The analyst part of his brain filed the data away. The rest of him just enjoyed watching his coach usually so controlled, so guarded open up like this.
Eventually, the weight of a gaze becomes impossible to ignore. Both men turned.
The examination table was empty.
Isaac blinked. "What..."
"THE GREAT SPIRIT OF DOOOOOM HAS COME FOR AVENGER!"
The voice emerged from a white blanket crumpled on the floor. Specifically, from under the white blanket crumpled on the floor, which was now trembling with barely contained laughter.
"THE GREAT SPIRIT HAS EATEN AVENGER, WOOO," the blanket continued in a terrible mock-ghost voice. "IF YOU WANT TO SAVE HIM... WOOO... YOU MUST ANSWER MY RIDDLE..."
Isaac closed his eyes. Karabo's eyebrow climbed toward his hairline.
"Seriously?" Karabo muttered.
"He's sixteen," Isaac said, as if that explained everything. It mostly did.
The blanket quivered. "WOOO? HELLOOOO? GREAT SPIRIT WAITING, WOOO."
Isaac and Karabo exchanged a look the universal expression of adults who have decided to indulge a child's nonsense rather than fight it.
Isaac sighed. "Fine. What's your riddle, Great Spirit?"
The blanket puffed up with importance.
"WOOO, MY RIDDLE IS THIS: WHAT IS GREAT, BUT FLAWED? PERFECT, BUT CONTINUOUSLY DEVELOPING? HATED, BUT ENVIED? WOOO."
Karabo didn't hesitate. "Technology. Obviously." He looked at Isaac for confirmation. "It's clearly technology. Great but flawed, perfect but always advancing, hated by some but envied by most. Kid plays too many games."
The blanket went still. Then, with immense theatrical dignity: "WOOO... incorrect, WOOO."
Karabo's eyebrow, already high, attempted escape velocity. "What do you mean, incorrect? Isaac, back me up."
Isaac looked at the blanket. Looked at Karabo. A slow smile spread across his face.
"It's Avenger."
The blanket erupted. Avenger threw himself out from under it, arms spread wide, face split by a triumphant grin. "I'M FREE! THANK YOU, GREAT ISAAC, FOR SAVING ME FROM THE CLUTCHES OF ETERNAL BOREDOM!" He spun to face Karabo, still beaming. "Doctor, doctor, doctor. I'm disappointed. I really thought you'd be smarter. But don't worry not everyone can be perfect like me."
Karabo stared at him. Then at Isaac, who was now openly laughing. Then back at Avenger.
"That's... that's not even a riddle. That's just you."
"EXACTLY." Avenger struck a pose. "I am great but flawed. I am perfect but continuously developing. I am hated by my enemies and envied by all who witness my magnificence. The riddle was me. The answer was always me."
Karabo opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"He does this," Isaac offered, still chuckling. "You get used to it. Mostly."
"I do not do this," Avenger protested. "I am a paragon of maturity and restraint. Ask anyone. Ask Kofi. Ask the kids at the center. They'll tell you I'm very serious and dignified."
"The children are like six years old."
"And they're excellent judges of character."
Karabo rubbed his temples, but there was a reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. "You know what? Fine. Whatever. Can we please do your actual medical evaluation now?"
Avenger flopped back onto the examination table with the boneless grace of a cat. "If you insist. But only because I'm curious if my magnificence shows up on your scans."
"It doesn't."
"You don't know that. Science is always discovering new things."
Isaac leaned against the wall, still smiling, watching his boy because that's what Avenger was, in every way that mattered bounce back from violence into this, into joy, into the sheer ridiculous pleasure of being alive and annoying the people who loved him.
Karabo pulled up the scans, his expression shifting from exasperation to professional focus. The room's temperature dropped slightly as the data loaded.
"Your vitals are clean," he said. "Better than clean, actually. Your regeneration rates are... elevated. Significantly." He glanced at Isaac. "The Crest integration is proceeding faster than projected."
Avenger perked up. "So I am special?"
"You're a medical anomaly," Karabo said dryly. "Whether that's special or just concerning remains to be seen." He paused, scrolling through more data. His face tightened.
Isaac straightened. "What?"
Karabo didn't answer immediately. He was looking at a number. A number that shouldn't be possible.
905
Still there. Still waiting.
"Nothing," Karabo said finally, but his eyes said something else entirely. "We'll monitor it. For now rest. Hydrate. And try not to be too magnificent, whatever that means."
Avenger grinned, missing or choosing to miss the undercurrent. "No promises. Greatness can't be contained."
Isaac caught Karabo's glance. Understood it perfectly.
We need to talk. Later.
A nearly imperceptible nod.
As Avenger hopped off the table and stretched, already moving toward the door and the next thing, the next fight, the next moment of proving himself worthy of the Crest on his skin and the continent on his back, Isaac watched him go.
One mistake, he thought. One heartbeat of carelessness.
Please. Let it not be today.