You grab your keys from the hook by the door. A dark jacket shrugs over your shoulders, familiar weight settling against your frame. The apartment behind you is bare—no photos on the walls, no clutter on the counters. Everything you own fits in a single duffel bag tucked under the bed.

Just in case.

The night air hits you as you step outside. Cool. Clean. Almost peaceful. The kind of night that makes you forget, for a second, that you're running from ghosts with guns and grudges.

The cinema is a few blocks away. Neon signs buzz softly overhead, bleeding pink and blue onto the wet asphalt. A few stragglers drift past—a couple arguing near a shuttered bodega, a kid on a skateboard cutting through the empty street. Nobody looks twice at you.

That's the point.

The glass door swings open with a soft sigh. Inside, the lobby is almost empty. A tired-looking cashier stares blankly at a glowing phone screen, thumb scrolling without interest. A popcorn boy halfway across the room pushes a broom lazily, sweeping stray kernels into a metal dustpan with mechanical precision.

Something feels off.

The air is too thin. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that prickles at the back of your neck, that makes your fingers itch for a weapon you didn't bring. You shake your head at your own paranoia. Midnight movie. Empty theater. That's all this is.

Theater Four is completely empty.

Rows of worn velvet seats stretch into the dark, the screen a blank gray rectangle waiting for life. You choose a seat midway up, dead center. Classic tactical choice. Good view of the exit, clear sightlines. You settle in, let the quiet wrap around you like a second skin.

Then you catch movement.

One row down. Right in front of you.

A bulky, oversized dark hoodie swallowing the person inside. The hood pulled low, hiding a jawline you spent a few crazy summer nights tracing under the flickering neon of Hell's Kitchen.

Your stomach tightens.

You look away. Focus hard on the blank screen. Count the seconds until the lights dim.

They do.

The theater goes pitch black. The previews roll—a loud, explosion-heavy trailer you don't register. Your pulse hammers in your ears.

Then the air shifts.

Someone slips into the seat directly beside you.

No rustle of fabric. No scrape of chair legs against concrete. Just a sudden, warm presence occupying the empty space you intentionally left open as a buffer.

Your muscles lock. Every Red Room reflex screams to strike, to pivot, to throw a punch.

You turn your head.

Soft glow from the screen catches a sharp, familiar profile. Your ex. From the Avengers.

They look at you with those infuriatingly steady eyes. The kind of person who wrestles aliens on weekends and still thinks you are the most dangerous thing in the room.

A low, gravel-lined voice rises from the row directly below you.

The figure in the oversized hoodie shifts. Pulls the hood back just an inch. Turns their head to look right past your shoulder, locking eyes with your ex with a quiet, lethal glare.