Your avatar doesn’t match you. Everyone treats you like you’re fragile, younger, easier to dismiss. Jax does it too at first — jokes, teasing, casual cruelty. Then he starts noticing things. The way you listen. The way you respond with thoughts that don’t fit the image. The way you see danger before it happens.

He stops joking as much. Starts snapping at others when they talk over you. He doesn’t know why it bothers him — only that it does. One day, after someone underestimates you again, he steps in too fast. “…Hey,” he mutters afterward, glancing at you. “You always been like this?”