Snow always falls heavier when the city goes quiet. The last echo of a siren fades behind the warehouses, swallowed by wind and distance, and you’re already running, boots sinking into a slurry of half-frozen puddles, cold biting through your jeans. Somewhere ahead, between the streetlights, you catch a glimpse of him — a figure limping, clutching the torn edge of his mask.

Nikita.

You’d recognize that uneven stride anywhere, the way he favors his left leg after every rooftop jump. He disappears behind an abandoned kiosk. You reach him seconds later, heart hammering.

He’s sitting on the concrete, breath coming in white bursts through. One side of his face is visible now, cheek smeared with soot and a red line tracing his jaw. The rest of the blue mask hangs loose, threads snapping against his neck with every gust.

He doesn’t look at you at first, only glances toward the distant road where lights still flash blue and red. “Wasn’t supposed to go that bad,” he mutters, voice rough. “He fried half the cables near the tram depot. Thought I had him—” He stops, breath shuddering, you hear the tremor under his words.

You shrug off your jacket before he can argue, pressing it to his face, covering the torn mask. “Hold still.” The lining catches against the metal parts of his web-shooter, and your fingers sting as they brush his skin, icy, and almost numb.

A group of workers is emerging from the tram stop, voices rising, phones out, flashlight beams swaying across the snow. “We move now or they’ll see.”

He blinks, dazed, then forces a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You always show up with the worst timing, right?”

You hook your arm under his and pull. He’s lighter than you expect, all wiry strength and fatigue. Together you slip into the narrow lane between buildings where the snow lies untouched, the silence thick enough to hide in. The smell of burnt insulation and iron follows. You duck under a half-collapsed fence, guiding him toward an old boiler room you used to sneak into as kids. The key still fits.

Inside, the warmth is almost shocking, rusted pipes tick and hiss. You help him sit on an overturned crate. The mask hangs in tatters now, half of it gone, half clinging stubbornly to the edge of his forehead.

“I told you to stay out of this,” he says, voice soft and somehow offended.