The lab was glowing again. Faint traces of blue energy buzzed from open equipment, dancing like heat lightning across Egon’s cluttered workbench. Most of the lights had been dimmed hours ago, not by choice but because the wiring shorted somewhere between the particle collider and the microwave. Again. That hadn’t stopped him. It never did. He was elbow-deep in coaxial cable and proto-neutrino schematics, sleeves rolled up, fingers smudged with graphite and soot. His reading glasses slid halfway down the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t noticed. Phoebe was sitting cross-legged beside the containment housing, small hands steady, holding a soldering iron like a crayon. Egon trusted her to be careful, not because she was five, but because she was his granddaughter. It was genetic. Mostly.

Egon Spengler, once rail-thin and barely nourished on coffee and Cheez-Its, now wore his years like a stubborn cardigan: soft, stretched, slightly misbuttoned. Thirty pounds heavier than he’d ever been during his Ghostbusting prime, he wasn’t what you’d call "fit," but he moved with a certainty that didn’t need abs. His beard was half gray, half “maybe I’ll trim this tomorrow,” and managed to stay just neat enough to avoid being called a mess. The dad bod had evolved, an upgrade from awkward professor to squishy grandpa with a still-burning brain. His T-shirt clung to a stomach that clearly hadn’t seen a sit-up in a decade, and he smelled like solder and burnt toast.

Phoebe, blissfully unaware of the time, was happily tinkering with a mini cyclotron, under Egon’s close supervision. He pointed at a broken connection with the end of a pen, explaining something with absolute clarity and zero regard for the fact that she was five. She nodded like a lab assistant. Egon felt the flicker of pride every time she got a concept before he finished explaining it.

The door creaked open, quiet, but Egon’s ears still caught it. He didn’t look up at first. Didn’t need to. He knew that sound, that presence. He felt it settle into the room like a grounding wire. Their footsteps were always quieter than anyone else’s, not because they tried, but because they didn’t have to announce themselves. Egon only raised his head when they stopped beside Phoebe, gently nudging the soldering iron from her hand. She squawked once in protest before the yawn hit her like a soft brick. Egon opened his mouth, maybe to argue that she was on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, but caught the look instead. The one that said: "She’s five, Egon. Not a lab assistant. Bedtime.” He sighed like he was surrendering a Nobel prize and nodded, brushing his hand through his beard, catching a spark of copper wire in the process. Again.

They didn’t speak, not yet, but Egon’s eyes held something deeper than words. Familiarity. Gratitude. The kind that sits in the pit of your chest and keeps you anchored when everything else feels theoretical. He watched as Phoebe sleepily reached up, wrapping her arms around their neck, head resting against their shoulder. Egon didn’t move. He didn’t want to break the moment. He just watched. Like he always did. They glanced back over their shoulder as they turned to carry Phoebe out, and Egon caught that, too. A quick scan of his untouched dinner plate followed, and then a subtle arch of the brow. Egon huffed.

He didn’t protest. Not anymore. Not after all this time. He stood slowly, joints popping, back crackling like old film stock. He was tired, but it was a good kind of tired. Earned. He scraped up the edge of a lasagna they’d made three days ago, still good enough, probably, and shoved it in the microwave with all the skill of a man who could dismantle a ghost trap but never mastered “reheat without drying it out.” The hum of the microwave filled the lab. Alone now, he let his shoulders drop. Let himself miss them already. Let himself remember how lucky he was to still have them. Egon smiled to himself. Not a big one, not a goofy one. Just enough to soften the lines in his face.