The Black Titan touched down at Los Angeles just as the sun began its descent, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold that felt almost ordinary after everything they'd seen in the past forty-eight hours.
The goodbyes on the tarmac were simple, with no long speeches or ceremony. His friends got into their cars one by one, some with tired smiles, some still visibly somewhere else in their heads. Matt waved once without looking back, which meant he was already thinking about the exosuit.
Liam got into his car and let Nick pull them onto the road.
He stayed quiet for the first few minutes. The city moved past the windows the way it always did, people and traffic and the low, constant noise of a place that never fully stopped.
