Captain America shook my hand like I was somebody worth shaking hands with, and two days later I'm still turning that over more than I probably should. Coulson called it routine. Nothing about meeting a living legend feels routine to me, but I've had worse days pretending things are normal, so I let it sit and focus on tonight instead.
Gwen's already got the door open before I knock.
"You're early." She steps back to let me in, arms crossed like she's not sure whether to be impressed or suspicious. "That's new."
I check an invisible watch on my wrist. "I'm fashionably early. It's a whole thing people do."
"That's true for people who aren't you, maybe."
The apartment smells like something her dad probably made and left in the fridge with a note telling her to actually eat it. We end up on the couch with no particular plan, just talking about nothing that matters. We talk about a show she's three episodes behind on and a group project Peter's been dragging his feet on. It's the kind of conversation that doesn't need a Digivice buzzing in the background, and I let myself have all of it without checking the Digivice once.
Gwen brings her knees up, chin resting on them. "My dad wants to have you over for dinner. Officially, this time. Not the accidental kind where you just show up."
"Officially sounds terrifying."
"He likes you, in his own way." She says it like a warning and a compliment at once. "Don't ruin it by being weird."
"I'm never weird."
She gives me a look that says otherwise, and I let that one go uncontested, because she's not wrong.
By the time I head home, the sun's dropping low enough to turn the block gold, and for once nothing about the walk feels like it's leading anywhere except my own front door.
I hear the argument before I even get my key in the lock.
Gatomon's tail flicks with the kind of offense only she can manufacture over losing a video game the second I step inside. "That was clearly cheating."
BlackGatomon doesn't even look up from the couch. "You lost fair and square. Learn to live with disappointment."
"You knocked the controller out of my paws."
"I redirected it. There's a difference."
I drop my bag by the door and let the two of them keep going, because honestly, this is the funniest scene I've caught all week, and I'm not about to interrupt free content.
Gatomon points an accusing paw at her sister. "Ethan, back me up. Tell her that's not how the game works."
"I have zero interest in getting in the middle of this."
"Coward." BlackGatomon's tone carries no heat, same as always.
That's when Impmon's voice cuts in from somewhere near the kitchen, gleeful in a way that means trouble. "Oh, this is way better than I thought it'd be."
Jessica trails in after him, hands stuffed in her jacket pockets, looking like she's debating whether she's actually staying or just passing through. "He insisted, and I quote, that there's unfinished business with the fluffy ones."
Gatomon huffs. "I have no unfinished business."
Impmon hops up onto the arm of the couch like he owns the place. "She started it. I'm just here to make sure justice gets served."
BlackGatomon's ears flatten. "You weren't even here for the actual game."
"It doesn't matter. I've got opinions."
I drop onto the other end of the couch, mostly because standing near this feels like a liability. "You know you invited chaos into my living room."
Jessica shrugs, though there's a small smile underneath it, the kind she doesn't let show as often as she used to. "He follows me everywhere. Consider it a package deal."
"Lucky me."
Instead of the couch, she sits on the floor, back against the cushions, close enough to the argument to watch it but far enough to stay out of the blast radius. She looks easy in someone else's living room now, like it's just another Tuesday. A year ago she'd have found an excuse to leave five minutes in.
I catch her eye when the noise dips for a second. "You doing okay?"
The question catches her off guard, landing without a joke wrapped around it. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
"There's no reason. I'm asking."
"You're doing the big brother thing again."
"I don't have a big brother thing."
She pulls her knees up, mirroring Gwen's posture from earlier without knowing it. "You have a big brother thing. It's fine. I'm okay, and I'm doing better than I was."
"That's not really an answer."
"It's the answer you're getting tonight." Her shoulders stay loose, not tight, and there's a beat where neither of us pushes it further, the silence between us doing more than another question would.
Then Cutemon wanders in from wherever Cutemon's been hiding and climbs directly into the middle of the argument between Gatomon and BlackGatomon, like it's just another napping spot as good as any other. It falls asleep there within about ten seconds flat, unbothered by the volume around it.
The room goes quiet in a different way after that. Gatomon stops mid-sentence to look down at the small sleeping form now wedged against her side. BlackGatomon's ears do something suspiciously soft. Impmon leans over to poke at Cutemon's tail. His hand gets batted away in its sleep, and he looks more delighted than annoyed about it.
Nobody says anything for a second. Nobody has to.
Jessica ends up sharing the couch cushion with me by the time the noise settles into something more like background music, Impmon draped across the armrest, Gatomon and BlackGatomon still bickering at half volume out of pure habit rather than actual conflict. It's a lot of bodies for one small room, and somehow none of it feels crowded.
I check in with Peter the next afternoon, mostly because he texts me first with three exclamation points and no context, which usually means either disaster or something he's actually proud of.
Turns out it's the second one. Tony let him run point on a small diagnostics fix that apparently nobody else caught, and Peter recounts the whole story like he's narrating a highlight reel, complete with sound effects.
Peter still double-checks his own words after he says them, like he's waiting for the correction that never comes. "He didn't even correct anything. He just said good work and walked off."
"That's basically a parade, coming from Stark."
"I know, right?"
I let him have the moment without cutting it short, because he's earned this one, and it's good to hear him sound like this instead of the version of him that's always waiting to be told he got something wrong.
That night I lie in bed longer than I need to before actually falling asleep, running through the last few days without any real urgency behind it: Gwen, Peter's internship, Jessica finding it easier to sit still in a room full of noise, even Cap's handshake, which still feels like it belongs to somebody else's life.
None of it asks anything of me right now. It's there, steady, mine.
I don't know yet how much that's worth until it's not guaranteed anymore. For tonight, I don't have to.
***
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