The lights in his apartment flickered and died. In the darkness, the only thing visible was the glow of the monitor, where the subtitle file now contained only one word, repeated thousands of times: PLAY.

452 00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,000 HE IS IN THE ROOM WITH YOU, ELIAS.

454 00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,000 I JUST WANTED TO WATCH THE ENDING.

But as he scrolled down to the 45-minute mark—the airport battle—the dialogue changed. It wasn't Steve Rogers or Tony Stark speaking anymore.

His breath hitched. He wasn't even playing the movie; he was just looking at the raw .srt in Notepad. He tried to delete the file, but his mouse cursor drifted toward the corner of the screen, moving against his will.