….
[Regal's Home]
The front door opened just after midnight.
Regal stepped inside, still riding the high of the wrap party, the crew cheering, RDJ making jokes about being the first actor to actually survive a Regal production without needing therapy, champagne everywhere, someone accidentally breaking a light fixture while dancing.
Rock followed behind, car keys jingling in his hand, making sure his boss got home safely after three glasses of wine.
The living room was softly lit.
Gwendolyn sat on the sofa with scattered papers - contracts for Everleaf Press, some licensing agreement that was giving her a headache. She looked up as they entered, and her tired expression softened into a smile.
"Hey. Welcome home." She said, noting the slight flush on Regal's cheeks. "How was the after party?"
It had been a week since the filming of [Iron Man] was completed.
Well, at least officially.
Yeah, after the announcement, Regal shot the so-called credit scene with as much secrecy as possible with minimal crew.
In fact, the number of crew on set reminded him of the days of [Following] making.
Anyway, with filming completed for real, today the team and production arranged an official warp party.
"Perfect. Everyone's either crying or drunk or both."
They both shared a small peck, while Rock lingered in the doorway.
"Rock, there is food in the kitchen if you want something." Gwendolyn informed. "I made extra pasta earlier. Container on the left side of the fridge."
"Thank you madam. I will grab something." Rock replied, giving them privacy with a respectful nod before disappearing.
Regal collapsed beside Gwendolyn on the sofa, pulling her close without asking. She leaned into him naturally, her head finding his shoulder like it had a thousand times before.
She could smell the expensive cologne he had worn to the party, mixed with smoke from the soundstage's celebration.
"So?" She finally asked. "Everything went okay?"
"Everything went exactly as planned. We finished on time, on budget." He tilted his chin down to look at her. "It's done."
"That's amazing." She squeezed his hand. "You must be exhausted."
"Absolutely demolished." he agreed. Then, after a pause, his entire body seemed to vibrate with residual energy. "And also completely, utterly wired."
He stood up suddenly and reached for the TV remote, his face brightening with an enthusiasm that made him look almost childlike. His thumb hovered over the power button.
The screen flickered to life.
Gwendolyn recognized that look immediately. She had seen it dozens of times before.
1:30 AM.
She settled back into the sofa, returning to her paperwork, already knowing exactly what was about to happen.
This was the pattern.
During shooting, he would manage maybe an hour of gaming before collapsing.
But now that production was wrapped?
She was a hundred percent certain he wasn't going to sleep tonight.
Behind them, Rock emerged from the kitchen with a plate of leftover pasta and took one look at Regal with the controller in hand, fully committed to gaming mode. He made an immediate, tactical retreat toward his room. He knew better than to get caught in this blast radius.
"Rock, wait - I need my gaming buddy!" Regal called out, not even looking away from the loading screen. "Come on, it's just one stage. Two, maximum. Keanu's usually better but he is probably sleeping—"
"Boss, it's past one in the morning," Rock escaped breaking stride. "I think my gaming days are retired for tonight."
"Coward." Regal muttered unaffectionately.
"Sleep-deprived coward." Rock corrected, closing his bedroom door firmly.
Regal actually considered calling Keanu anyway. His friend had nothing going on tomorrow, and lived five minutes away.
But then he thought about his sister and immediately decided against it. Late-night gaming sessions alone were sometimes better anyway.
He dove into the game instead.
An hour passed.
Gwendolyn glanced up occasionally from her work, watching him lose himself completely. His shoulders were tense, jaw working slightly, eyes locked on every frame.
His breathing would change with the intensity of the gameplay - faster during action sequences, deeper during puzzle moments.
He looked like a kid, really.
But she didn't comment on it, just smiled to herself and returned to her papers.
Then the frustration started.
As minutes passed.
Regal was still stuck on the Water Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, specifically, the room with the central tower and the locked door that required raising and lowering the water level three times to access different sections.
He had figured out the first two water levels, but the third one was giving him hell. He'd lowered the water all the way, found the Small Key in the lower chamber, but now he couldn't figure out how to get back up to access the passage that opened.
"The key's useless if I can't get to where I need to be." he muttered, watching Link stand in the drained chamber for the third time. "There has to be a block or a switch or - something."
He consulted his mental map of the room. Went back up, raised the water to mid-level, searched every inch of the chamber.
Nothing, lowered it again, and searched again.
Still nothing.
His complaints got quieter but somehow more intense.
Each dead end followed by barely audible curses and muttering about poor level design and invisible solutions.
"Come on, come on—" Regal muttered, restarting a sequence for the third time. "I had you, I had you—"
The stage still wouldn't clear.
.…
Twenty more minutes passed.
His complaints got quieter but somehow more intense.
After watching him struggle for another twenty minutes, Gwendolyn had enough.
Finally, she set down her pen, and headed toward the kitchen. "You want something? Coffee? Juice? Water? Actually, you should drink water. You had wine at the party."
"Juice." Regal replied absently, still staring at the screen. "If there is any left, and maybe some of those chips from earlier?"
She went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of juice, grabbed the bag of chips, and set them on the coffee table within arm's reach.
But instead of sitting back down immediately, she hesitated.
Then she pulled out her phone.
Opened YouTube and searched for [Ocarina of Time Water Temple solution third water level].
She found a walkthrough video and clicked it.
A player methodically showed the solution, raise water to mid-level, go to the side chamber, use bombs on a cracked wall that most players completely missed because it looked like background decoration.
The cracked wall revealed a passage.
That passage led to a switch.
The switch raised a platform in the central chamber. From that platform, you could reach the door.
The video showed it twice to make sure the viewer understood.
The cracked wall was subtle, easy to miss if you weren't looking for destructible surfaces.
Most players walked past it three or four times before realizing it was actually interactive.
Gwen made a mental note - Cracked wall, bombs and side chamber.
She even rewound it twice to catch a detail she had missed the first time.
Then she walked back into the living room and handed him his juice as casually as if nothing had happened.
"Here."
Regal grabbed a handful of chips, crunched them, and took a sip of juice without looking away from the screen.
Gwendolyn returned to her spot, her work, her own world.
But a few minutes later, long enough that it wouldn't seem too obvious, she opened her mouth.
Gwen opened her mouth casually. "Those side passages, are all the walls actually solid?"
Half truth, half lie.
Just enough information to point without revealing.
This had become their routine.
Him stuck on something - frustrated.
Her sneaking away for a tutorial.
Then returning with carefully calibrated hints that never quite gave away the whole answer.
Regal glanced at her, suspicious. "Since when do you know anything about Zelda?"
"I don't. But you have been checking the same big room over and over. Maybe the solution is in a room you are not paying attention to." She returned to her papers, hiding a small smile. "Or don't. You are the one who is supposedly stuck on a Nintendo game from 1998."
He made a noncommittal grunt but on the next attempt, he actually paid attention to the side chambers.
Navigated Link into the smaller passage on the left.
Started checking the walls more carefully.
There it was - a cracked wall, subtle, easy to miss.
He equipped bombs.
The wall exploded.
A switch appeared, he activated it. In the central chamber, something shifted.
Back to the main room, a platform had risen directly to the locked door.
"Oh." he said quietly. "I walked past that wall four times."
He passed through.
The next chamber was a mini-boss room. Iron Knot.
He defeated the boss in his first attempt but barely, Link's health in the red.
The level completed, achievement unlocked.
Regal's entire body went still for a second. Then he practically launched off the sofa, yanking Gwen up and spinning her around in an impulsive hug that lifted her completely off the ground.
"We did it! We—"
"We?" Gwendolyn laughed, caught off guard by the sheer joy radiating off him. Her papers went flying.
"You!" he corrected, his happiness radiating outward like heat. "You are amazing!"
She looked up at him, this man who had just wrapped a hundred-million-dollar superhero film and was currently glowing with the kind of uncomplicated happiness that most people only felt as children.
His hair was slightly messed up. He still had a tiny smudge of eyeliner from the party's photobooth pictures.
"How did you know?"
"Lucky guess." she said softly.
He kissed her forehead, and it was tender and grateful in a way that had nothing to do with the game and everything to do with just... being understood. Being seen in a way that mattered.
For a moment, Gwendolyn wondered how someone could be this happy over a video game when he had just wrapped the most complex production she had ever heard of.
When he had spent three months managing thousands of crew members and handling a temperamental actor's comeback and orchestrating stunts that required military-level logistics.
When [Spider-Man: Web of Destiny] had crossed a billion dollars at the box office.
And somewhere in the back of her mind, a thought surfaced that always did in moments like this:
How can he be this happy over a video game when he breaks his own box office records every other release?
But then she realized - maybe that was exactly why.
Maybe this joy was pure because it wasn't tied to industry success or artistic validation or financial benchmarks.
It was just... a puzzle solved, a stage cleared, and a small victory earned.
Maybe that's what he needed after weeks of managing massive productions and managing thousands of moving pieces.
Maybe he needed this.
She also suspected, pretty much knew, actually, that he had figured out her MeTube routine long ago.
That he let her help him not because he needed the hints but because he needed the connection. The two of them, late at night, solving things together.
But it didn't matter if he knew.
This worked.
"You should sleep." she murmured against his shoulder.
"Absolutely not." he replied, already settling back onto the sofa, controller in hand. "Next stage."
She smiled, grabbed her paperwork, and settled beside him again.
Outside, the Los Angeles night stretched on endlessly.
Inside, a filmmaker and his girlfriend existed in their own small universe, one where box office numbers didn't matter and the only thing that counted was the next stage waiting to be conquered.
It was 2:45 AM.
They had hours yet.
And that was exactly how they both liked it.
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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