It was a quiet morning in the DeMarco estate.
Leonardo sat on the veranda, a cup of honeyed tea in his hand, watching a squirrel attempt parkour across the stone balustrade. He had spent most of the last week pretending he was just an ordinary man in a luxurious bubble of time, trying to relax—except ordinary men didn't have a hyper-genius rabbit-eared inventor flying through their rose garden on hover boots.
"Catch me if you can, Alfred!" Tabane shouted gleefully.
The butler, remarkably spry for his age, gave chase with a large butterfly net and a half-smile that betrayed both amusement and exhaustion.
"Miss Shinonono," Alfred called with practiced calm, "this is not a permitted flight zone."
"Then permit it!~" she sang back.
Leonardo sipped his tea.
Yes. Peace.
Tabane had settled in like a storm in a teacup—chaotic, noisy, impossible to ignore, and somehow exactly what the estate didn't know it needed.
She hadn't built any IS suits, of course. Leonardo had been crystal clear:
No world-breaking tech. No photon cannons. No infinite-energy reactors. Nothing that would make the timeline implode or attract attention from governments that liked to detain people in black sites.
But she did tinker. Oh, did she tinker.
In one week, she:
Reinforced the estate's water filtration system to double as an emergency fire suppression grid
Installed biometric locks that responded to emotional resonance ("It opens if you feel like you should be here," she said with a wink)
Upgraded Alfred's walking stick into a disguised EMP disruptor
Replaced all the estate's light bulbs with low-energy micro-LEDs that adjusted color based on mood
Leonardo called it "calculated chaos."
Tabane called it "fun."
It was during one of their walks through the vineyard that Leonardo asked the question that had been bothering him for days.
"You're not homesick?"
Tabane was upside down on a tree branch.
"Hmm?"
"Where you came from… You had a life. A world. People."
She swung down, landing gracefully.
"Sure, but I like this one. Way more grounded. Less explosions."
Leonardo raised an eyebrow. "Less explosions?"
She grinned. "So far."
He chuckled. "You surprise me."
"I am a surprise. Like a birthday cake with a bomb inside. But instead of shrapnel, it's glitter."
"Terrifying image."
"Right?" she said proudly.
Koko dropped by later that week.
She didn't come in a tank, which Leonardo took as a good sign. She arrived in a sleek silver coupe, sunglasses on, dressed like a model walking out of an arms deal instead of into one.
She hugged Leonardo. Gave Tabane a long look.
"Still alive?" she asked.
"Barely," Leonardo answered.
They walked through the garden while Alfred brought tea. Koko gave a full update:
The arms company was thriving Interpol was sniffing, but nothing concrete A black-market auction in Morocco had seen a bidding war over one of Leonardo's older prototypes
"I crushed the bidders," she said. "With a smile."
"Of course."
Tabane, eavesdropping from a tree, shouted, "Next time take me! I want to outbid a cartel boss with confetti!"
Koko gave her a sideways look. "Is she always like this?"
"Yes."
"Good. I like her."
Tabane winked. "Another fan!"
Leonardo spent the next day doing something he hadn't done in years:
Absolutely nothing.
He slept in. Ate breakfast at noon. Read a book with no footnotes or schematics. Let Alfred pick the wine for dinner.
It was the calm before the storm.
And he knew it.
The system had been quiet. Watching. Waiting.
Something was coming.
But until then, he had this.
That evening, Leonardo sat on the rooftop terrace, legs crossed beneath him, listening to the soft chirping of crickets.
Tabane appeared beside him, wearing a hoodie far too large for her and sipping a bubble tea she definitely hadn't bought legally.
"You thinking about the next move?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Scared?"
"Not exactly. More like… aware. The kind of quiet where you know something's waiting in the wings."
She nodded. "That kind of quiet usually breaks with explosions."
He smirked. "How comforting."
They sat in silence a while longer.
Then she leaned her head against his shoulder.
"When it does come," she said, "I'm already yours. With blueprints and bombs and bad jokes."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
Later that night, as he walked through the halls, Leonardo passed a mirror.
For a second, he stopped.
The man staring back was still him. Still Leonardo DeMarco.
But calmer. Stronger. Wiser.
And no longer alone.
He smiled.
Then moved forward.