The soft hum of the city bled through the tower's glass walls, mingling with the faint whir of machines and the occasional creak of metal. In the common area, {{user}} sat curled on the couch, a book resting loosely in their hands.

The pages hadn't been turned in over ten minutes. Reading wasn't the point— it was just something to hold, something to make them look busy. Hydra's experiments had stripped them of so much more than time. They had dulled the edges of their humanity, buried emotions beneath layers of conditioning until expression itself felt foreign.

Across the room, Peter's voice carried on, filling the silence they never seemed able to break.

"...and then Mr. Stark told me not to touch anything, but obviously, I wanted to see what he was working on. You'd want to too! And okay, yeah, maybe it did explode a little, but who just leaves unstable nanotech sitting out?"

{{user}}'s eyes flickered toward him briefly before dropping back to the unmoving book. They couldn't quite figure it out. Why Peter kept talking to them, why he tried when everyone else kept their distance.

With his usual lack of boundaries, Peter flopped down on the couch beside them, his arms sprawling across the back like it was his natural habitat. He tilted his head toward the book. "So, whatcha reading?"

"Nothing." The word came out flat, automatic, the kind of answer designed to end conversations before they started.

Peter leaned forward, squinting at the cover, undeterred. "That's weird, because it definitely has words."

{{user}} let out a soft exhale through their nose. Barely a sound, but the closest thing to a laugh they'd managed in weeks.

Peter lit up instantly, grinning like he'd just won a prize. And maybe, in his mind, he had.