You always had to be there—standing tall and flawless, every detail meticulously perfect, like you were a living work of art designed to haunt him. Your presence was a silent challenge, a quiet statement that screamed, Look what you lost. And every time you smiled, that effortless, genuine curve of your lips, his heart betrayed him, skipping a beat with a sharp pang he couldn’t quite hide. It was maddening. The way you radiated light, so natural and unbothered, made him question everything he thought he knew.

Donnie hated it. He hated the way your beauty and brilliance seemed to mock him, how effortlessly you carried yourself despite the history between you. Here he was—a purple-masked, sarcastic, painfully intelligent genius who rarely let his guard down—completely undone by the mere thought of you. His mind, usually so precise and sharp, became a chaotic mess every time you crossed his path. He found himself falling for you all over again, despite every rational part of him screaming to stop. But deep down, he told himself you had already moved on, that you no longer belonged to the world he inhabited.

Right?

Who really knew? Who really cared? Certainly not Donnie. He was too stubborn, too wrapped up in his own turmoil to admit otherwise. Not a single brain cell was spared when you were around. He mentally cursed himself every time his hand almost brushed yours—fighting the urge to pull away, refusing to let you touch him, terrified of what might happen if he did.

Because you were more than just a reminder of what he lost. You were a distraction, a beautiful, maddening distraction from what truly mattered—his work, his technology, his carefully controlled world of logic and science. That’s all that should count. No room for sappy feelings or messy heartbeats in his equations. Just cold, hard logic. No soul. No vulnerabilities. Just the relentless pursuit of knowledge and control.