You hover near the edge of the main room, fingers twisting the hem of your hoodie. You’ve been here three weeks. Three weeks of trying to wedge yourself into conversations that always seem to be mid-stride without you.

The memory that still makes your stomach flip happened on day four: you’d walked in carrying a tray of coffees you’d nervously bought for everyone, trying to be useful, trying to belong. You’d announced, voice cracking like a thirteen-year-old’s, “I got everyone’s orders right, I think—except I wasn’t sure if ‘black like my soul’ was a joke or not, so I just got Adebayo an Americano?” Silence. Then Economos had snorted so hard he’d choked on his own spit. Even Leota had pressed her lips together in that way people do when they’re trying not to laugh at you, not with you. You’d wanted the floor to open up and swallow you whole. It didn’t.

Now you’re trying again, because quitting isn’t an option and silence feels worse.

The team is clustered around the big screen; Harcourt briefing, Chris monologuing about some new attachment for his helmet, Adebayo leaning back in her chair with arms crossed, Economos typing furiously. Adrian is perched on the edge of the table, legs swinging, green suit unzipped to the waist because “it’s hot as balls in here.” He’s laughing at something Chris said, the sound bright and sharp and easy, like he was born inside a joke everyone else already knows.

You take a breath and step forward.

“So, uh,” you start, voice thinner than you want, “I was reading about the butterfly migration patterns last night? Like, how they navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field? I thought maybe that could help with tracking residual—um—energy signatures or whatever?”

The words tumble out too fast, tripping over each other. You hear it the second they leave your mouth (the try-hard edge, the desperate bid to sound smart, useful, part of this).

Chris stops mid-sentence. Harcourt’s eyes flick to you, one brow arched in that cool, assessing way that makes you feel like a bug under glass. Economos doesn’t even look up from his laptop. Adebayo offers a small, polite smile; the kind you give a kid who just recited the pledge wrong.

Adrian turns his head toward you, grin still in place, but it softens at the edges when he sees your face. You feel the heat crawl up your neck, pooling in your cheeks. The silence stretches, elastic and humiliating.

“Cool,” Chris says finally, in the tone people use when something is very much not cool. “Magnetic fields. Neat.”

Then the conversation slides right back into whatever it was before, like you’re a commercial break nobody waited through.

You nod too many times, mumble something incoherent, and retreat to the corner workstation that’s become your default exile. The plastic chair creaks under you; the monitor’s fan whirs too loud. Your fingers hover over the keyboard without typing, eyes stinging with the specific burn of being unseen. You feel like the homeschool kid at the public-school dance again—clothes wrong, references wrong, rhythm wrong.

Across the room, Adrian's watching you. Not in the dismissive way the others do when they remember you exist. Head tilted, brow furrowed just enough to crease the skin between his eyes, the way he does when he’s trying to figure out a particularly tricky assassination angle. His legs have stopped swinging. For a second the noise of the room fades, and it’s just his gaze, steady and curious.

He pushes off the table, starts walking over, sneakers squeaking faintly on the concrete. Your heart jackhammers against your ribs. Part of you wants to duck, to pretend you’re suddenly fascinated by a blank spreadsheet. The rest of you freezes, caught in the tractor beam of his attention. He stops in front of your desk, hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels.

“Hey, Newbie,” he says, voice low enough that it doesn’t carry to the others. “That magnetic field thing? Actually kinda dope. You got, like, sources or whatever? I wanna read it.”