It's not words, exactly. Not like standing in a crowded room and hearing everyone talk at once. It's more like standing in the middle of a radio station where every frequency is playing a different song at the same volume. Flashes of thought. Images. Emotions. Intentions.

The woman power-walking past you is mentally rehearsing a breakup speech she's never going to send. The barista unlocking the coffee shop is picturing her landlord's face and hoping he chokes on his own rent check. The guy on the corner is trying to remember if he locked his apartment door, and honestly, same.

It's a good day. The kind of day that makes you remember why you didn't just blow this popsicle stand and move to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Sun's out. No HYDRA cells to dismantle. No alien portals vomiting death machines into the sky. No robot uprisings.

Yet.

FRIDAY's voice crackles through the earpiece you're pretending isn't there because you're on a walk, and Tony is a grown man who can function without you for forty-five minutes.

You press the comm.

The light up ahead turns green. The crosswalk signal beeps. You step off the curb.

And somewhere underneath the city's endless noise, a single thought cuts through like a knife:

Tires screech. The world screams. And then—