Ryuuto moved faster than Susan could react. One moment she was talking, the next his mouth was over hers—soft, insistent, like a gust of wind after a drought. He kept it brief, playful, intimate. By the time he let her breathe, she was blushing so hard she looked ready to combust.
Ten minutes later there was a tentative knock on the bedroom door. Katie Dee barged straight through like a curious kid—only to freeze. There were clothes on the floor. An abandoned bra. A rumpled bed that gave away the rest of the story in one hit. Katie turned flaming red, stammered apologies, and bolted out so hard she forgot to phase her body and smashed face-first into the jamb.
It was the most humiliating kind of entrance. Susan, still caught in the afterglow and half invisible at times from trying to hold her field, tried not to laugh. Ryuuto grinned at the chaos they'd made and then, when Katie finally phased through properly, the three of them dissolved into teasing and scoldings.
Half an hour later the siege of giggles, whispers and flustered confessions finally wound down. Susan tucked her hair behind an ear and clung to Ryuuto like a kid who'd just been given permission to keep a secret. He teased her about nicknames until she picked something unbearably cute—"Jiang-Jiang" (he accepted anything because, welcome to his life: she existed in it now). Then he kissed her forehead and left her sleeping like a warm, contented sun.
A red rose lay on the sheet. Ryuuto traced its petals and felt the little, fierce oath inside him: if she'd given him firsts, then he would give her everything he could. He left quietly to join Tony and Banner for planning.
Banner's phone buzzed. The projection lit the center of the living room — Ant-Man, tiny and jittery, flashing live from the carrier.
"Sorry," Ant-Man blurted when Ryuuto's face came up. "I—I stole the scepter."
"You work for Abomination," Ryuuto said flat.
"No! No, no, no—listen. I was manipulated, trapped in a bottle. I got the scepter because—because I thought I could hide it, keep it safe. But Abomination and Fury…they've got plans. The Tesseract is going to open a portal at midnight, and they'll send high-heat missiles through. They intend to detonate them on your side. Your school won't survive."
Ryuuto's stomach dipped like stepping off a cliff. Tesseract. Portal. High-heat missiles. The combo alone was a nightmare.
"Midnight?" Ryuuto asked.
"Yep. So you either evacuate—" Ant-Man's voice cracked—"or we stop the missiles. I can't stop them by myself."
Tony didn't waste breath. "Ant-Man can't neutralize the missile hardware from the carrier. But he can get us the missile codes. Give me the codes and I'll upload a failsafe freeze. If every high-heat missile refuses to detonate, they become a dud." Tony's voice was equal parts fury and engineering glee. "Ant-Man—get every code you can. We'll brute force them offline."
"Roger that," Ant-Man said, urgency pumping through him. "Also—who on the carrier is already puppeted by Abomination?"
"Captain America and Falcon," Ant-Man said. "Hawkeye's missing. Fury's out of reach. Thor's who-knows-where."
Ryuuto's mind scrambled through scenarios like a machine trying different keys. If Abomination controlled the carrier and could use Tesseract to portal missiles directly into the school, there wasn't time for a frontal assault. They needed misdirection, speed, and Tony's miracle-level hacking.
He locked eyes with Banner and Tony. "Ant-Man, get every code you can. Tony, get a failsafe ready. Banner, ready a distraction—something big to pull Abomination's attention off the carrier long enough for us to strike or for Tony to neutralize the missiles. Arlo, prep the ship. Katie and Susan, you're on stealth insertion. We move tonight."
Susan's tired face hardened with that quiet, terrible resolve only soldiers carry. Katie's jaw clenched. Even the Hulk—resting, fragile in human form—had that same look: the calm before he becomes a force of nature.
Ant-Man nodded, almost reverent. "I'll do it. I'll get you everything. I owe you one anyway."
Ryuuto's head hummed with plans and contingencies. Midnight was closer than it sounded. The Tesseract made this whole thing a war of teleportation; every second they delayed was another chance for missiles to become reality.
He felt Shion's tiny, digital ping in the corner of his awareness like someone clearing their throat—irreverent, smug, impatient. No message yet, but the system's upgrades were still humming under the surface, waiting.
Ryuuto looked at his team: sleep-deprived, bruised, but alive. The stupid underdog grin resurfaced. "Good," he said. "Then let's not waste the rest of the day looking heroic. We make tonight mean something."
Outside, the sky was bruising toward dusk. Somewhere on an aircraft carrier, a portal would open. Somewhere, Abomination and Fury were making choices that would cost lives.
Ryuuto tightened his jaw and let the thrill of being wildly underprepared settle in. Perfect.