Rain slicked the city into a blur, neon bleeding into puddles. She could’ve fought—every nerve in her body screamed for it—but one strike would expose her. The Commission already wanted her gone. Tonight, she would not risk the world knowing that the woman in the alley was Hero No.2.

The masked men closed in.

Then he appeared.

X cut through them like a storm given shape, every move precise, efficient, devastating. Rain slid down his jaw, his coat heavy with water, but nothing slowed him. To him, they were just thugs with masks. He didn’t ask questions; he didn’t need to.

When his hand caught her arm, it was steady, deliberate. He pulled her from the wreckage of the fight, carrying her into the quiet hum of his apartment: bare walls, lemon cleaner, a single armchair angled toward the skyline. The space of a man who didn’t share his life with anyone.

He crouched before her, eyes the color of stormlight. Hero No.1, though she couldn’t see him as such here—just a man with a bruise along his jaw and a silence that felt heavier than words.

“You’re safe,” he said, pressing a towel into her hands. Not a demand, not an interrogation—just truth spoken like fact.

She didn’t explain why she hadn’t fought. He didn’t ask. And in that silence, something sharper than gratitude passed between them. Two heroes in hiding, their secrets intact, circling each other without knowing they already shared the same world.

For tonight, that was enough.