---
### **Three Weeks Later — Night in Brooklyn**
Robin crouched on the edge of a parking garage rooftop, wind cutting across his face, hood up, eyes scanning the streets below.
This was his sixth night out.
No cape. No name.
Just a reinforced hoodie, gloves with padded knuckles, and a radio scanner clipped to his belt.
He wasn't trying to be a *hero*.
He was trying to be **useful**.
And quiet.
He'd spent the last few weeks gathering intel — learning which alleys never saw cops, which gangs traded in weapons or women, which buildings had backdoors with busted locks. And in that time, something... changed.
He noticed it on **night three**, after taking a pipe to the ribs and walking away with nothing but a bruise.
His bones weren't just healing faster.
They were **bracing**.
His body was reacting *before* the damage completed.
And on **night five**, when a panicked kid nearly stabbed him in a mugging, Robin had dodged **without thinking** — faster than he should've been able to.
It wasn't super-speed.
It was **prediction**.
Like his instincts were tuning into threat anticipation.
Just a hair ahead of real-time.
---
### **The New Note in the Journal**
> **Adaptation Upgrade: Threat Reflex (low level).
> Notes: Muscle memory hijacked? Rewired reflex loop?
> Side Effect: Mild disassociation post-event. Brief vertigo. Emotional dampening.
> Theory: Adaptation doesn't just heal — it learns **preemptively**, if stimuli are repeated. Like training a muscle made of code.**
He stared at the words for a long time.
Then wrote, slowly:
> *What happens to a man who keeps adapting to violence?
> What does he become?*
---
### **The First Choice**
Tonight was supposed to be quiet.
But halfway through his rooftop loop, Robin saw something in the alley behind McAlister Pharmacy: **three men, a van, and a terrified young pharmacist** shoved against the wall.
Armed. Quick. Efficient.
Not random. A hit or an extraction.
Robin climbed down the fire escape, careful not to make sound.
He felt that strange sensation again — like his breath was syncing with the heartbeat of the city.
Everything slowed.
As he dropped behind the van, one of the men turned, heard the soft scrape of rubber on metal.
"Hey—"
Robin surged forward.
Elbow to temple. One down.
Second man raised a gun—Robin kicked it sideways, took the shot in the shoulder, *gritted his teeth*, and drove his forehead into the guy's nose.
**Crack.**
The third tried to run.
Robin chased. Caught him by the collar. Slammed him into the van.
"Who sent you?" he growled.
The man spat blood. "You don't get it, freak. You're in the middle of *somebody's turf.*"
Robin paused.
Not street gang.
Not petty thieves.
These guys were pros.
He let the man drop. Vanished before cops arrived.
---
### **The Girl in the Pharmacy**
The pharmacist was safe. Shaken, but breathing.
But as Robin vanished into the shadows, she saw **something**.
His bloodied glove on the fire escape. A glint of metal in the wound as it stitched.
She whispered to no one: "Who the hell was that?"
---
### **Mina — Picking at Threads**
Two days later, Mina caught him with his sleeve rolled up, dabbing antiseptic on a scar that should've required surgery.
She didn't say anything at first.
Just stared.
"Fell," Robin said quietly.
"Bullshit."
She stepped closer.
"You don't flinch. You disappear for nights. You don't *exist online*. And your bruises vanish like magic."
He didn't deny it.
She lowered her voice. "I'm not asking for your whole past. Just... don't lie to me."
Robin met her eyes. For once, something cracked in him.
"I don't know what I'm becoming," he said.
Mina, to her credit, didn't back away.
"You're becoming someone who saves people. And that means something."
---
### **The Beginning of the Mask**
Later that night, Robin stood in front of a cracked mirror in his bathroom.
He'd stitched an old fireproof undershirt into a rough vest. Black. Light. Reinforced in the chest and back with steel cord.
A low-slung face cover — nothing fancy. Just enough to hide his eyes.
His hands shook as he pulled it on for the first time.
Not because he was afraid.
Because he wasn't sure who he'd be **with** it on.
---
### **Meanwhile – TVA Archives**
The Recorder sat in a void-lit room with a single file folder.
Inside: still frames.
* Robin stepping into a flame.
* Robin bleeding and healing in seconds.
* Robin vanishing between camera frames.
Another figure entered. Female. Cloaked in weave-silk and with a halo of gold circuitry circling her head.
**Loomweaver.**
The Recorder stood. "You're early."
The Loomweaver smiled. "He's not a ripple anymore."
"No?"
She touched the photos gently. "He's a fracture."
---
### **Final Scene: Rooftop Again**
Robin sat on the ledge of the old water tower, city lights beneath him, breathing steady.
He hadn't *won* anything.
Not yet.
But for the first time, he had a **direction**.
He whispered into the dark:
"Call me what you want. I'm not waiting for someone else to make it right."
A siren wailed in the distance.
And Robin stood.
---
**TO BE CONTINUED...**