Black Widow

Small Steps

Jade's POV

Hospitals were too white. Too quiet for the kind of chaos we'd just crawled out of.

Everything smelled like bleach and sleep deprivation, like something trying too hard to erase blood.

Liz was sitting beside me at first, her leg bouncing restlessly. She tried talking — about anything that wasn't this — until her words started dissolving into sighs. When she mumbled something about getting coffee, I didn't stop her. We both needed something to do with our hands.

Jesse's mom had been pacing for hours, every sound in the hallway making her flinch. When I told her I'd stay the night, she just nodded, eyes glassy and tired. Eventually she drifted off in the waiting room, and it was just me — and him.

He looked wrong under hospital light.

Too pale. Too still.

Like the life had been replaced with something sterile and borrowed.

Machines hummed in the background, steady and mechanical — a rhythm that felt unfairly calm. My heartbeat didn't know how to match it.

I sank into the chair, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around myself. The kind of posture that screamed I'm fine but meant the exact opposite. I tried not to think about the blood. The sound of him falling. The way his hand had gone cold too fast. It played anyway.

On loop.

Somewhere between the clicks of the clock and the drag of the air vents, my mind wandered. To my dad. To all the times I told myself I didn't need anyone because needing people meant giving them power to leave.

But Jesse — he didn't let it consume him. He didn't let the bad parts make him mean.

And maybe that's what scared me most.

I leaned back, staring at the ceiling. My eyes burned from staying open too long. The sterile light above me buzzed, flickering like it couldn't decide if it wanted to keep shining. I knew the feeling. The room blurred at the edges. I let it.

Then my voice came out small, barely there. "I sometimes forget there are decent people in this world," I whispered, eyes on the unmoving figure in the bed. "Thank you for being one of them, Jessica."

Nothing.

Just the steady beep.

I closed my eyes, my throat tightening.

"You're drooling on my bed, y'know."

My eyes snapped open so fast it hurt.

For a moment I thought I imagined it — a ghost, my brain's last-ditch coping mechanism. But then he did it again. The faintest twitch of a grin.

Relief hit like a punch to the ribs. "You almost died and that's the first thing you say?"

"Well," his voice was hoarse, cracked around the edges, "I like to make an entrance."

I huffed out a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "You're impossible."

He gave a weak smirk. "And yet here I am. Miracles happen."

"Barely."

I stared at him, the corner of my mouth twitching. His eyes softened just slightly, like the world had slowed down to catch its breath. For one suspended second, neither of us spoke.

Then, predictably—

"Also, seriously, Jade?" he rasped, managing to sound offended even half-dead. "I almost die and you still keep calling me Jessica?"

I blinked. "You almost die and that's what you're hung up on?"

"Name trauma's a thing," he muttered. "Look it up."

A shaky laugh broke through me before I could stop it. "Well, maybe next time you'll think twice before bleeding all over my character development."

He gave me a look that was equal parts pain and exasperation. "You're unbelievable."

"Persistent," I corrected.

"You're annoying."

"You're alive."

He went quiet, that smirk softening into something smaller, something real. "Guess we both got what we wanted then."

I wasn't sure how much of that I deserved. But right now I could care less. All I could think about was keeping him here — annoying me for as long as I could hold it.

"You know, Jade," he said with the corner of his mouth still tugging upward, "I'm starting to think we're bad at learning lessons."

"You don't say."

For a moment, neither of us spoke again. The silence between us wasn't awkward anymore. It was fragile — careful — like we were both afraid to breathe too loud in case the moment shattered.

"You should know by now," I murmured, "that I don't really do the touchy-feely thing."

He closed his eyes, smiling faintly. "Could've fooled me."

I almost laughed. Almost.

The steady rhythm of the monitors filled the gaps between us. I watched the green line jump, watched it remind me that he was still here — that I hadn't lost him.

Not this time.

And that's when it hit me — the truth I'd been skirting around since the night we met.

He wasn't mine to keep, but he was something I'd broken once without meaning to. Something I'd somehow been given back. A glass relic — cracked, glued together, shining in all the wrong places. Something I wanted to hold again — carefully this time — even if my hands weren't steady enough.

I reached out, brushing a stray thread from his blanket, just to have something to do. "You scared the hell out of me, you know," I said quietly.

He opened one eye. "I managed to scare the Jade Cross? I'll mark the calendar."

"Shut up," I muttered, but it didn't have its usual bite.

He smiled — soft this time, not teasing. "Thanks for... staying."

"Yeah, well," I said, sinking back into the chair, "someone's gotta make sure you don't traumatize the nurses with your jokes."

He chuckled weakly. "You love me."

"Delusional and dramatic. Great combo." But my chest felt lighter. My heartbeat finally syncing with the machine beside him.

I stayed awake long after his eyes closed again. Watching the rise and fall of his chest, the green blip that meant still here. I didn't want to blink in case the world changed again while I wasn't looking. For the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like running.

Just holding on — to the broken, mended thing I didn't want to drop again.

***