The night was cold enough to bite through armor and straight into bone.
Jack stood alone on the broken balcony of the old watchtower, coat flapping around his legs, staring at the silver wound in the sky. The God Realm's gate pulsed like a heart that refused to finish dying.
"I'm coming, Elisa," he said, voice barely louder than the wind. "I'm late, but I'm coming."
Frost crunched. Steve stepped up beside him, cloak white at the edges, the faint scar through his left eyebrow catching moonlight. He didn't speak right away. He just let the silence settle until it felt safe.
Jack's shoulders started shaking first, small, almost nothing. Then the rest of him followed. He turned and folded into Steve like a house of cards finally giving up. Steve caught him, arms locking tight around the kid who used to be unbreakable, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Jack's head the way you do when someone's too old to be held like this but too young to be this broken.
"I know," Steve said against messy black hair. "I know."
They stayed like that a long time. Long enough for the wind to stop mattering. Long enough for Jack to breathe once without sounding like it hurt.
When Jack finally pulled back, his eyes were dry but red-rimmed. Steve pretended not to notice and wiped his own face with the heel of his glove like the cold was the only thing to blame.
"Come on," he said, voice rough. "Let's go steal your girl back from heaven."
An hour later the iron door groaned open and the smell of oil, brimstone, and bad coffee rolled out.
Rennick looked up, scar twitching. "You look like death that lost a fight with hope."
Steve dropped the pouch. Coins rang like small, stubborn prayers. "Two tickets to the God Realm, round trip if the universe feels generous."
Rennick didn't joke this time. He just slid the matte-black rings across the counter, then the bombs, the pistol, the humming crystal dagger.
"This one's free," he muttered. "Come back breathing, Steve. Some debts don't die with you."
Steve's fingers closed around the dagger. "Add one more drink to the tab. For the kid who still thinks people come home."
Rennick's nod was almost too small to see.
Outside, Jack stood under a dying lantern, pendant glowing against his chest like a coal refusing to go cold.
Steve slipped the ring onto Jack's finger, slow, deliberate, like putting armor on someone who'd forgotten how to wear it.
Jack looked at the ring, then at Steve. "I'm scared," he admitted, voice cracking on the second word.
"Good," Steve said. "Means you still give a damn."
The pendant flared violet. The night tore open. They fell.
Warmth, jasmine, frying oil, lanterns rocking overhead. A guzheng played the lullaby Elisa used to hum when nightmares came for eight-year-olds.
Steve inhaled once, sharp, like the air itself hurt. "Smells like childhood," he muttered, and hated how much he meant it.
Jack was already moving, eyes too bright, fingers brushing the place on his collarbone where her crest should be.
Steve pressed the black crystal into his palm. "Go. I'll be where the trouble is. Always am."
Jack's hand closed around the crystal so hard his knuckles went white. He didn't say thank you; he just bumped his forehead once against Steve's shoulder, quick and fierce, then ran.
Steve watched until the crowd swallowed him.
"Come on, little star," he whispered to the warm dark. "He's waited long enough."
He bought grilled squid from a fox spirit who short-changed him on purpose, cursed her under his breath, and was still licking salt off his fingers when he turned into a narrow alley and heard the shout.
"Stop! General's daughter on the run!"
Five guards had her cornered. Fifteen. Silver hair tangled, star crest blazing on her collarbone like a scream made of light. Jack's star. Alive and furious and so, so scared.
Steve's heart did the thing it wasn't supposed to do anymore.
He let the squid stick fall.
The shadow-cloak opened like a sigh. He was gone.
Ten seconds later the alley was quiet except for the soft drip of blood on stone.
Steve stepped out of nothing, wiped the dagger on a crimson cloak, and crouched in front of her so they were eye-level.
"Hey," he said gently. "I'm Steve. I'm a friend of Jack's. You're safe now."
Aurora stared at him, chest heaving, knuckles white around nothing.
Steve took her trembling hand, pressed the warm crystal hilt into it, and closed her fingers one by one.
"That star on your skin? It's not a brand. It's a promise. And promises go both ways." He tapped the crest once, feather-light. "Let it move with you. Breathe with it. It's been waiting for you to stop being afraid of it."
Aurora's next breath shook, but it came.
The crest flared, steady, warm, hers, and the alley filled with quiet silver light that felt like sunrise inside someone's chest.
Steve stood up slowly, offered his other hand.
"Come on, kid. Someone's been looking for you his whole life."
She took it. Her fingers were ice-cold and shaking, but they fit perfectly in his.
Steve smiled, small and tired and real.
"Name's Steve," he said again, softer. "And I think we're both about to ruin Jack's whole night in the best possible way."
The light wrapped around them both, warm, human, and already deciding they were worth keeping.
The black crystal in Steve's pocket flared hot, then colder than ice. Jack's voice spilled out, shredded and wet, every word tasting of blood.
"Steve… palace gardens… they've got me pinned… hurts… please…"
The call cut dead.
Steve was already running. Aurora's smaller hand was still locked in his; he didn't let go. Lanterns blurred into streaks of gold and crimson, the smells of jasmine and grilled squid replaced by the iron reek of fear and gun-smoke. His boots pounded wet stone, heart hammering so hard the invisibility ring flickered on his finger.
They burst into the moonlit palace gardens: shattered topiary, broken statues, the copper-sweet stink of spilled divinity. Jack was on his knees in the center, one arm hanging wrong, blood shining black down his side. A tall man in imperial white-and-gold stood over him, plasma glaive humming, its tip kissing Jack's throat.
And behind the man, chained between two jade pillars with silver light eating into her wrists, stood Elisa. Older now, but unmistakable. Her eyes, those same storm-gray eyes Aurora had inherited, went wide with terror when she saw Jack bleeding.
The man raised the glaive higher.
Steve didn't think. He simply moved.
He shoved Aurora behind a cracked dragon statue, yanked the Silence pistol free, and stepped into the open.
"Elisa!" Steve called, voice raw, human, shaking with something older than anger. "That's your father's blade at his throat. Don't let him kill Jack. Please."
Elisa's chains rattled; tears cut clean tracks through the divine light couldn't burn away.
Steve leveled the plasma blaster he'd sworn he'd never use again. The muzzle trembled for half a heartbeat, then steadied.
"Let the kid go," he told the man in white-and-gold, soft, almost gentle. "Or I put you through that pillar and the next life with you."
The garden went perfectly still, jasmine petals drifting down like slow snow, every breath tasting of gunpowder and grief.