The First Real Fans

If the first four chapters were just heat, Chapter 5 was when Aiden Carter finally got an audience. That night, Ironwire Podcast cut the bridge rescue into a two-minute full version. Marcus did not add flashy filters or melodramatic music. He left in the wind noise, Vera’s commentary, the crowd’s mocking shouts, and the long silence right before Aiden knelt and touched the ground. The title was simple: ["He Wasn’t Performing. He Was Reading the Scene."] The video hit number seven on the national short-form chart at two in the morning. By three, it was number two. By four, the comments section had already started building a public timeline of Aiden’s rescues, analyzing even the first scene where he had caught the falling wall panel in