Chapter Text
Some wounds do not heal.
They migrate.
According to myth, the fall ends at impact.
According to the cards, it keeps going until someone else catches it.
Disaster remembered. The fall repeats,
but the ground never arrives.
Steve was already falling when he realized he was asleep.
There was no edge this time. No ledge, no railing, no moment where his foot slipped. He was just… in it.
Air rushed past, stomach hollowed out, the world tilted wrong in a way his body remembered too well.
The sky above him was wrong—too dark, streaked with red like something burned behind it. The ground below wasn't ground at all, just broken shapes rushing up to meet him.
He tried to twist. He always did. He tried to grab something that wasn't there.
Every time, he thought of Jonathan’s hands—locked around his wrist, bruising, unyielding.
The memory hit him harder than the fall itself. The last real impact he could remember.
Hold on. I’ve got you. Just hold on
Steve opened his mouth to say it back, but the wind stole the words.
He braced himself for impact. It never came.
His body jerked awake instead, muscles locked hard enough to hurt. Steve gasped, breath punched out of him like he had been hit, his heart slammed so violently it felt personal.
His hands came up instinctively, clutching at nothing.
The ceiling starred back.
For a long second, he just laid there, chest heaving, waiting for the pain that should have followed. The broken ribs, the burning wrists, the crack of something vital that gave way.
No pain.
That’s the part that always threw him off.
His body felt… fine. Shaken, sure. Sweat-soaked. But intact. Unmarked.
Steve swallowed, throat dry.
“Stupid,” he muttered to the dark, scrubbing a hand down his face. Another nightmare. The fall. An unfinished ending. Always only a nightmare, but it felt way too real to be only that.
Across town, Jonathan woke up with blood in his mouth. The pain registered before consciousness fully did—a sharp, blooming ache across his ribs, like he had hit something hard and didn’t stop in time. He groaned quietly and rolled onto his side, hand coming up automatically beneath his nose.
Wet. Warm. “Shit,” he breathed.
The bathroom light was too bright, too honest. Blood streaked his upper lip, his chin.
When he lifted his shirt, there was already a bruise darkening along his side, ugly and real and earned in a way that made no sense.
Jonathan pressed his palm against it, confused. He didn't remember falling. Didn't remember hitting anything. The last thing he remembered was going to bed—exhausted, bone-deep tired, but otherwise fine.
Now this. He bound his ribs with practiced care, like his body knew what to do even if his mind didn't.
He cleaned the sink. Wiped the evidence away. Left no trace behind.
Back in his room, he sat on the edge of the bed, breathing slow. Something was wrong.
He knew it in the same quiet, persistent way he knew when a photo will come out ruined before it finished developing. A pressure behind the eyes. A sense of misalignment. Like the world tilted and never quite righted itself.
Later that day, Steve will rub at his wrist like it ached for no reason. Jonathan will notice.
Jonathan will move carefully later, favoring his other side. Steve will notice.
Neither of them will say a word.