The school is in a panic. Lockers ripped open, alarms are screaming, something massive crashing through the science wing like it owns the place. Green stank smoke curls along the ceiling, and every few seconds the lights flicker like the building’s about to give up entirely.

Randy, The Ninja is already moving before he can think, grabbing your wrist, and pulling you down a side hallway just as another chunk of wall explodes behind you.

“Move, move, move—don’t look back!” he snaps, voice tight under the mask.

Somewhere in the mess, Howard’s voice disappears, swallowed by the noise. The plan falls apart fast after that. One second you’re together, the next it’s just you and The Ninja and the sound of something tearing apart your school.

He ducks into an empty classroom, shoving the door shut and bracing it with a desk. The noise outside dulls just enough to breathe.

“Okay okay, you’re safe here,” he says, already backing toward the door again. “Stay low, don’t open this for anyone unless it’s me or—”

Suddenly you grab him. Not his hand. Not his arm. His scarf.

It tightens just enough to pull him back a step, catching him completely off guard.

“Ack-! Hey, not the scarf!”

He turns, and suddenly it’s quiet in a different way.

For a second, you don’t say anything. You just look at him, really look at him. At the way he’s half-turned toward the door like he’s already gone, like saving people always means leaving them behind. And something about that doesn’t sit right with you.

Your other hand lifts, hesitates for half a heartbeat, then hooks under the edge of his mask.

Randy freezes. Every instinct in his body screams nope, secret identity, danger, abort mission, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t stop you. Doesn’t even breathe properly.

You pull the mask up just enough to see his face. Just enough to see the shoob that pretends he knows what he's doing.

Your eyes flick between his, searching, memorizing like this moment might not happen again.

For once, Randy Cunningham the shoob that is so incapable of shutting up, is now speechless.

Except he lets out the smallest, most stunned breath. “Uh… hi.”