I Write Stuff!

May I also introduce you all to Lady Loki.

And ANGELA. I am actually so mad I’m bad at flying characters because she is so 🫦

Also??? The summer skins??? Especially Nat and Johnny’s!

And y’all need to see this Daredevil summer skin animation…

I do genuinely love that NetEase seems committed to giving the men and women in this game equally slutty skins! because it probably makes them money 😭😭😭

( Added note: Look, NetEase is a Chinese company, so obv they still have to comply with Chinese censorship, and China is tough on anti-LGBTQ+ censorship. But the fact that they still paid homage to Loki’s gender fluidity with the Lady Loki skin, and even gave Angela her comic-canon trans lesbian wife Sera as her accessory, genuinely gives me hope that at least ONE person on that dev team is in the trenches fighting for their life and giving us crumbs 🫠🫠🫠🫠 )

He would never admit it like that. Obviously. If you said, “Hey, do you enjoy when I get almost murdered because it gives you a chance to feel like a good person?” he would probably start chewing through drywall and die of asbestos poisoning before saying yes.

And of course he didn’t enjoy seeing you in danger. Dex would tear the city apart brick by brick if it meant keeping you safe. Dex even treated a paper cut on your finger like it was a personal failure to protect you. Dex once nearly lost his mind because you burned your tongue on soup.

But after he saved you? Oh, that man was glowing.

He was happy, but not happy in a normal way. He wasn’t exactly smiling and fist-bumping himself because he did a good deed. Dex wasn’t emotionally stable enough for such a mild reaction 

He would look destroyed, doing that heart-eyes thing he did. He got to be the man who came for you. He got to be the man who carried you home. He got to be the man who tucked you into bed and cuddled beside you until sunrise, checking your breathing like your lungs expanding were his responsibility.

So yeah. Dex’s enrichment activity was rescuing his girlfriend. And you, being a generous partner, provided enrichment frequently.

The roofie incident was probably your worst offence.

Not morally. Morally, there were a lot of contenders. But logistically, that one was insane even for you.

Dex had told you not to go to that bar alone.

Which, obviously, meant you went to that bar alone.

You wore something cute but not too cute. Something damsel-in-distress-coded. Something that said, oh no, I’m lost and pretty and perhaps too trusting for this cruel world.

Meanwhile your internal monologue was just: okay, where are the worst men in this room?

You found one in thirteen seconds. You sat next to him and he bought you a drink.

You knew he spiked the drink even before the glass even touched your hand. You saw the stupid man put a tablet in and the drink slightly changed colours. Amateur.

Still, you drank it enough to make it convincing.

You didn’t drink  the whole thing, obviously. You were insane, not auditioning for a true crime podcast episode.

Eventually the drug kicked in enough that the lights blurred, and your body got warm and floaty. When he put his hand on your back and murmured, “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you some air,” you could wobble like a tragic Victorian widow and let him guide you outside.

Dex found you in the alley.

One second the man’s hand was on your arm, trying to reach under your skirt, the next it was not, and there was the noise of a sack of meat being introduced to brick with enthusiasm.

Then Dex was in front of you, hands on your face, eyes wild.

“Baby. Hey. Look at me. Did you drink anything he gave you?”

You blinked up at him innocently. “I don’t know.”

It was a fucking lie.

Dex believed you immediately. His face just… fell.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he cooed.

Sweetheart. 

You almost laughed. You did not, because again, craft, and you gotta commit to the bit, you know?

Then you apparently passed out, which was not ideal, but when you woke up you were in Dex’s lap on the couch with three blankets over you.

So honestly, it was a net positive.

He had blood on his jaw. His knuckles were wrapped. His eyes were red like he had been awake for hours, so you could assume the guy was dead and he got rid of the body. The second you stirred, he looked down at you like you were a miracle.

“There you are,” he whispered.

Fuck. You loved him so much.

“Dex?”

His whole body dropped with relief. “Yeah. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

See, this was the problem.

How were you supposed to stop when he said things like that?

The gun incident was worse because you were fully conscious that time, trying to piss off dudes with guns.

Which, in your defense, Dex had been sad lately. This would give him something to smile about. 

So when some guy with a not-so-concealed-carry gun outside a corner store called you something gross, you smiled.

You turned around and said, “Is that supposed to scare me?”

After a bit more back-and-forth argument, his hand went under his jacket.

And then, very suddenly, there was a gun pressed to your head.

Oops.

Still, the man did not even get to finish his threat.

A knife lodged itself to his wrist, the gun dropped, and Dex sank another knife to his neck.

Then Dex was on you.

“Are you insane?” he snapped, hands grabbing your face, your shoulders, looking you over like he couldn’t decide whether to kiss you or bubble-wrap you.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded.

You blinked up at him. “He was rude.”

Dex’s eye twitched a little. Then, he pulled you into his chest and held you so tight you could barely breathe.

“My stupid girl,” he muttered into your hair, shaking. “My stupid, stupid girl.”

There he is!!! Cuddly, wrecked, I-almost-lost-you Dex.

You tucked your face into his shirt and smiled.

Worth it.

Then there were the kidnappings.

The first kidnapping was very cinematic. You were in a van, cuffed in zip ties. Because you told Task force agents you knew where Bullseye was and then proceeded to start ragebaiting them.

It was so clichè.

The agent kept saying things like, “You’re leverage.”

You know better.  You were bait.

Dex caught up before they even got out of the block. You heard the crash first, then shouting, then the van doors being sliced open like Dex was a horror movie monster specifically for guys who underestimated you.

Afterward, he cut the ties off your wrists with such care you nearly felt guilty.

“You’re okay,” he kept saying. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

You leaned into his chest and sniffled a little.

The second kidnapping was when he started keeping supplies in the car. A little my-girlfriend-is-in-trouble supply.

The box consisted of: Water, your favourite pack of sweets, blanket, hoodies, specific scissors for zip ties, and a first aid kit.

You opened the trunk of the car and saw them arranged neatly and genuinely had to stare for a second because that was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done.

He made you a kidnapping kit.

You, his disaster magnet. His girlfriend who kept getting abducted because apparently New York had a quota and you were employee of the month.

Dex caught you looking and said, almost shy, “I can get you a spare change of clothes, too.”

You wanted to bite him. You wanted to marry him. You wanted to get kidnapped again immediately just to honour his preparation.

And Dex never suspected.

He never once looked at you and thought, hey, maybe my girlfriend has weaponised her own helplessness because she likes seeing me feel redeemable.

No, he just kissed your forehead, pulled you closer, and whispered, “You have to be more careful.”

And you, professional liar, would nod solemnly. “I know.”

“You can’t trust everyone.”

“I know.”

“You can’t keep ending up in places like that.”

“I know.”

In reality, you knew the opposite. You knew exactly which places to end up in.

Because honestly, Dex needed this.

Dex needed someone to save. Dex needed to feel good about himself. 

And you needed Dex to be happy; that was your higher purpose.

Was it healthy?

No.

Was it romantic?

A little.

Was it good for Dex?

…probably not?

But did he look adorable afterward, curled around you in bed, nose pressed into your hair, whispering, “I’ll always find you,” like he had just earned another little gold star on his soul?

Yes.

So really, who was the villain here?

Not you. For all you were concerned, you were just a girl providing enrichment for her boyfriend 

A girl who had been roofied, picked a fight with a man with a gun, gotten kidnapped twice, and still had Dex looking at her like, my poor baby, the world keeps happening to you.

So tomorrow, you were probably going to take a shortcut through the dodgiest alley in New York. For the sake of love, obviously. 

So, two days later, he was on your bed wearing it, and thank fuck the fabric had stretch because it was fighting for its life over his broad shoulders. The sleeves were biting into his arms. The hem had ridden up very high on his stomach, exposing more hard strips of muscle every time he moved. The letters were warped across his chest, obscene and ridiculous and so fucking perfect on him that you nearly lost your mind before you even touched him.

“Look at you,” you breathed.

Dex’s face was flushed, eyes dark and glassy, mouth already parted like he’d been waiting all day for you to ruin him. “You like it?”

You grabbed his hips and pulled him back onto your strap-on until he gasped. “I fucking love it.”

He shook under your hands.

He could kill a man with a paperclip, could make a room go dead just by stepping into it, could kill twenty people in under a minute without blinking.

But like this? With your hands on him? With you behind him, strap slick and buried inside him inch by inch while he clutched the sheets and tried not to sound desperate?

He fell apart so beautifully it made you want to be just a little mean to him.

“You wanted this, didn’t you?” you said, dragging your hand up the scar of his spine, under the stretched crop top, feeling his muscles jump beneath your palm. 

Dex made a broken sound. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I wanted it.”

You pushed in deeper, slow enough to make him feel every bit of it, and his elbows almost gave out.

“Fuck,” he choked. “Fuck, sweetheart—”

“No, baby.” You leaned over him, pressing your chest to his back, your mouth near his ear. “You don’t get to act surprised. You wanted to wear the shirt.”

He laughed once, breathless and ruined, and then the laugh snapped into a moan when you rolled your hips.

The shirt rode up again, abs clenching.

You looked down at him and nearly saw stars.

“You look so good taking it,” you whispered. “Big scary Bullseye, wearing my slutty little crop top, getting fucked like he was made for it.”

Dex groaned into the mattress.

You gripped his hip harder, setting a rhythm that made his whole body rock forward. It was slow at first, deep and grinding, just to hear the way his breathing changed. Then harder, because his hands were fisting in the sheets and his thighs were spreading wider and he kept pushing back like he couldn’t help himself.

“That’s it,” you said. “Take it. Good boy.”

His whole body shuddered.

“Oh, you like that?” You smiled, cruel and warm at the same time. 

Dex nodded fast, forehead pressed to the bed, voice wrecked. “Yeah. Yes. Please. D-don’t stop.”

You didn’t.

You fucked him harder, hips snapping forward, one hand locked on his waist, the other sliding around his front. The second your fingers wrapped around him, Dex made this awful, pretty sound like he’d been punched in the chest.

“There he is,” you murmured. “There’s my pretty boy.”

You reached around his torso to find him leaking over your hand, hot and helpless, twitching every time you drove into him. You stroked him in time with your thrusts, slow at first, then tighter when he started shaking too hard to hold himself up.

“I can’t,” he gasped.

“Yes, you can.”

“I’m gonna—”

“I know.” You kissed the scar on his back, right where the crop top had slipped off just enough to bare skin. “I know, baby. I can feel you getting close.”

Dex’s mouth opened, but nothing came out except a strangled moan.

You kept talking, because that was what destroyed him. Not just the fucking, and not just the pressure or the rhythm or your hand dragging him right to the edge. It was your voice in his ear, too, talking him through exactly what he was to you.

“You’re doing so well. Taking me so deep. Letting me use you like this. Wearing that stupid little shirt like you knew exactly what would happen.”

He sobbed your name.

Your grip tightened. “Come on, baby. You got this.”

Dex broke.

His whole body locked up beneath you, back arching, thighs shaking violently as he came hard into your hand. It punched the air out of him. He jerked through it, helpless, overstimulated sounds spilling out of his mouth while you kept your hips moving, slower now but still dragging it out.

“That’s it,” you whispered. “Mm, let me hear you.”

He did.

He couldn’t stop. Every little stroke made him twitch. Every shallow thrust made his breath hitch. He was still emptying himself when you leaned over him again and pressed your mouth to his temple.

“Look at you,” you said softly. “All fucked out in your little shirt.”

Dex made a weak, embarrassed noise and buried his face harder into the sheets.

You laughed, kissing his shoulder. “No, don’t hide from me. You practically begged me for this.”

He turned his head just enough for you to see his face, flushed and beautiful.

“I did,” he whispered.

You smoothed your sticky hand over his stomach, under the stretched-out hem of the crop top, feeling the aftershocks ripple through him.

“Good,” you said, the silicone strap still buried inside him. “Because I’m not done with you yet.”

Dex’s eyes fluttered.

And the shirt, stretched obscenely across his chest, still said it all.

His ears had gone pink. “Oh.”

Still, he was curious enough to try, and trusted you to be the one to do it to him. 

That was how he ended up like this, shaking under you, breath punching out of his chest every time your hips met his. It was too much and not enough at once. Too intimate, too filthy, too vulnerable. It was a new kind of pleasure for him; a new sensation he couldn’t grit his teeth through.

Fuck, it made him melt.

You leaned over him, one hand braced beside his head, the other sliding up his chest to feel the frantic beat of his heart.

“Still with me?” you whispered.

Bucky nodded, frantic and wrecked.

His voice barely worked. “Yeah.”

You kissed his jawline  and moved again, slow and deep, watching his mouth fall open to give way to a silent gasp.

“There,” you murmured. “That’s it. Taking it so well, baby.”

His eyes squeezed shut.

“Nuh-uh,” You kissed the corner of his mouth. “Don’t hide from me now.”

He opened them again, glassy now, and the sight went down to your core. Big, dangerous Bucky Barnes, the former Winter Soldier, your overprotective stubborn boyfriend, laid out beneath you and trembling because you had a strap-on in him and he liked it.

He liked it so much it almost startled him.

You could see it in the way his brow pinched, in the way his throat worked around words he couldn’t get out. His hips kept lifting to meet you even when his face burned with embarrassment.

“You’re so pretty like this,” you breathed.

He made a broken gasp and turned his face into your palm when you cupped his cheek.

“Don’t,” he rasped.

“Don’t what?”

His lashes fluttered. “Say stuff like that.”

You smiled and rolled your hips harder.

Bucky choked.

“Why?” you whispered. “Because it makes you needier?”

His metal hand twisted in the sheet until the fabric tore.

You kissed him before he could be embarrassed by it.

It was messy and filthy, his mouth open under yours, breath shaky against your tongue. You kept the rhythm steady while you kissed him, fucking him slow enough that he had to feel every slick drag, every deep grind. 

Then your hand slid down between you and wrapped around him.

“Oh—fuck.”

There he was. A real word at last, torn out of him like a confession.

You hummed against his mouth, stroking him in time with your hips.

His head tipped back into the pillow.

“Too much?” you asked softly.

He shook his head immediately, almost panicked.

“No. No, don’t—” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. “Don’t stop.”

You kissed his throat. And you weren’t planning on stopping till you finished the job.

You kept him pinned under your weight, kept the strap buried deep while your hand worked him, dragging every last bit of pride out of him. Bucky stopped trying to be quiet as pretty sounds started slipping out of him anyway: rough gasps, breathless little groans, your name broken into a million pieces.

He looked ruined and flushed and sweaty and shaking, mouth wet from your kisses, hair stuck to his forehead, body helplessly chasing both your hips and your hand. He held onto your waist like he needed you more than oxygen, 

“You’re okay,” you whispered. “I’ve got you.”

His eyes found yours.

“Feels…” He stopped, teeth chattering.

“I know.”

He shook his head, desperate now, trying again. “Feels so—”

You pushed in deep, and the rest of the sentence disappeared.

His body bowed under you, thighs tightening hard around your hips. You kissed him through it, swallowed the helpless noise that left him, kept moving until he shattered completely beneath you.

Bucky came apart with your name in his mouth and his hands locked on you, shaking so hard the bed creaked under both of you. You slowed your hips but didn’t pull away, working him through it until he was trembling too much to take anymore, streaks of white painting his stomach and yours. 

Only then did you stop.

You kissed his cheek, his nose, then the corner of his mouth.

“There you go,” you whispered. “I’ve got you.”

For a long moment, he couldn’t answer.

He just dragged you down against him, arms wrapping around you, face buried against your neck. His body was hot and wrecked and utterly surrendered beneath you.

You stroked his hair away from his damp forehead.

“You okay?”

Bucky nodded against your shoulder.

Then, barely audible, ruined beyond repair, Bucky whispered, “Wanna do that again.”

The rest of it mostly consisted of John standing too close to you when he corrected your stance at the range, then acting offended when you asked if he needed a minute because you clearly felt something there. Then, you’d steal the last protein bar from his gym bag because he had written his name on it like a man declaring land ownership in the eighteenth century, but you really needed a snack. Worse, he’d let you get away with it. He’d call you reckless after every mission, yet he was still the first person to check your injuries. It was you calling him dramatic, stubborn, overbuilt, emotionally laminated, and unfortunately useful, sometimes all in the same conversation.

It wasn’t long before you realised that your relationship with John was constant competition.

You beat his sprint time by two seconds, and John spent the rest of the day claiming the sensors were misaligned. He beat your shooting score by one point, and you told him congratulations on finally finding something emotionally fulfilling. You got him on his back during sparring once, knee braced near his hip with your forearm across his chest, and for one long second John Fucking Walker looked up at you with no comeback at all.

Then he said, “You cheated.”

You smiled, “Did I?”

After that, things got worse. Or better. Depending on who you asked.

The thing about John was that he had spent his whole life being measured by strength. Strength was proof of his usefulness and masculinity. Strength as the thing that made him respectable. He had been a soldier, a captain, a symbol, a weapon, a failure, and a replacement all at once. His body had been praised, tested, enhanced, and expected to hold through the toughest of pressures.

So of course, even with the girl he claimed to be the closest thing he had to a favourite mission partner, he made everything a contest.

And John Walker hated information that complicated his self-image.

Because you were strong, too.

Not cute strong. You were super-soldier strong. Like half the team, you had one version or another of the serum in your blood, and still you trained like strength was not something given to you once in a lab but something you chose every day after.

You didn’t shrink near him. You didn’t soften your stance so he could take up more room. You didn’t let him win arguments just because he was louder. You didn’t treat his masculinity like a fragile antique you had to tiptoe around.

If John wanted to be the strongest person in the room, he would have to earn it.

And if he did not earn it, you would smile sweetly and write your name above his on the whiteboard.

The New Avengers noticed the pattern almost immediately.

Bucky noticed because he had the exhausted patience of a man who had seen too many emotionally constipated super-soldiers pretend rivalry was not foreplay. Alexei noticed because he thought every argument was either combat or romance, and in your case, he wasn’t  completely wrong. Yelena noticed because John once watched you do squats in the gym and forgot what he was saying halfway through a sentence.

John denied this. 

You let him. It was funnier that way.

Because the truth was, John liked being challenged by you, he just… had no idea what to do with that.

He knew how to handle enemies. He knew how to handle orders. He knew how to handle another person insulting and underestimating him. But you were different. You challenged him and trusted him. You beat him and expected him to get back up better.

And John, who had built half his personality out of being the most trained, most capable person in the room, had absolutely no defence against it.

So he did what John Walker did best.

John kept telling himself he wanted to be better than you at everything you both do.

Only be better than you.

Nothing else, right?

Nothing that explained why his eyes found you first in every room, or why your laugh warmed his chest, or why the sight of you lifting a heavy table for game night made his whole carefully constructed idea of masculinity stumble, catch itself, and then immediately ask for a rematch.

—

Bob, Ava, and Yelena had gone out to a karaoke bar for the night, which meant the tower briefly belonged to the super soldiers.

This sounded good until you remembered the four remaining super soldiers were you, John Walker, Bucky Barnes, and Alexei Shostakov, and therefore the night’s great masculine summit began with Alexei declaring that dinner was “too stationary” and dragging everyone into the rec room for pool.

And no, you didn’t masculinize yourself to stand in a room with them. You didn’t flatten your voice, roughen your edges, pretend you were just another brother-in-arms so they could digest you more easily. They knew you could bend over a pool table with glossy lips and pretty earrings and still have the serum humming under your skin. You could smile sweetly and break Bucky’s human wrist. You could smell like vanilla and lift Alexei out of his stool if you wanted to.

That night, Alexei insisted on playing pool doubles. You hadn’t agreed to be his partner so much as been claimed by him, one giant arm thrown around your shoulders while he announced that the two of you had “natural champion chemistry.” This was immediately undermined by the fact that he scratched on his first practice shot, blamed the cue, blamed capitalism, then blamed the lighting.

John, naturally, found this hilarious.

He was partnered with Bucky, which was unfair because Bucky was annoyingly competent at anything that involved aim and looking miserable in silence. John was good too, but in a very John way. He played pool like he was clearing a hostile building during a hostage rescue. 

You loved that about him. And still, you would rather have swallowed pool chalk than admit that.

The game started lightly enough. Alexei gave speeches. Bucky made dry comments. John pretended not to watch you bend over the table to line up shots, and you pretended not to notice him pretending. It was a delicate ecosystem. It was a truce held together by sarcasm and the fact that nobody else had the balls to make you and John look each other in the eye to address the obvious tension.

And then the serum conversation happened.

It started, really, when John took the shot too hard. One dropped, but the cue ball nearly followed. He straightened before anyone could comment, already preparing his defence.

You smiled down into your drink.

“Something funny?” He raised an eyebrow. 

“No.”

“Looked like something was funny.”

“You’re just very… intense.”

“It’s still a game.”

“It’s just  pool, John.”

“A game,” he repeated.

Bucky sighed, because he had known both of you for too long. Alexei bent over the table next, squinting down the cue as though he were calculating a missile trajectory. He missed the ball he meant to hit entirely. The cue ball drifted sadly across the felt and stopped nowhere useful for anyone involved.

He stared at it.

Bucky said, “…Strong choice.”

Alexei lifted his chin. “My serum was not designed for this.”

John’s attention shifted to the topic.

You knew he always changed a little whenever serum came up. He got… tenser. Like some part of him had been waiting for permission to turn casual conversation into a performance review of everyone’s bloodstream.

Alexei leaned heavily against his cue. “Mine was made for war. For winter and glory! Not for stupid tiny table sport.”

Which was a hot take, considering he was the one who insisted on playing the stupid tiny table sport. 

Bucky took his shot without looking impressed. “Mine was made by people I’d rather not compliment.”

The ball rolled clean into the corner pocket.

John watched it drop, then shrugged. “Still worked.”

Bucky looked at him.

John caught the look and adjusted. “You know what I mean.”

You rested your hip against the edge of the table and watched him walk straight into it.

John had opinions about the serum. John had opinions about everything that could be ranked, measured, tested, or turned into a number on a board. But the serum was a sore subject. The serum was not just science to him. It was an identity. It was the invisible line between the man he had been and the weapon he was.

“My version was a modern recreation,” he said, aiming for casualness and missing by a mile. Everyone knew of the Madripoor formula running in his veins, of course. “It's cleaner than the older programs.”

There it was.

Cleaner. Modern. Stable.

He said it like medals.

You looked at him over the table. He was not bragging, exactly. John was too disciplined, and too proud to think he was being obvious at all. But he liked the structure. Bucky had Hydra damage, Alexei had Soviet experimentation. John had refinement. John had the one that sounded cleanest in a file.

John had, in his own private ranking, placed himself at the top.

He looked good doing it, which was irritating.

You took your turn before answering him.

The stripe kissed the rail and sank. John’s eyes followed it, then flicked back to you.

You chalked your cue. “Cleaner doesn’t always mean better.”

His eyes narrowed. “No?”

“No.”

Alexei made an interested sound, like he had just smelled drama brewing.

Bucky muttered, “Don’t.”

Neither of you listened.

John stepped around the table, not enough to crowd you. “You have a better metric?”

“Better than you ranking trauma labs?”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“It is a little bit what you’re doing.”

“I’m talking about stability.”

“You’re talking about superiority.”

His mouth tightened, and you could tell it was a home run.

Good.

You liked challenging John because John didn’t take them patronizingly. He took challenges seriously. John got irritated because he respected the threat. He hated that you could beat him, but he never pretended you could not.

Underneath all that male ego and flagpole posture and unbearable need to prove himself, John actually saw you.

John’s eyes dipped, just once, to your arms where your sleeves had shifted up, then back to your face.

You smiled like you had not seen it. He looked annoyed that you were merciful.

“You haven’t even said what version you have,” he said. 

“No,” you said. “I haven’t.”

The room went silent again, differently this time.

Bucky paused near the side table. Alexei stopped fiddling with the chalk. John stayed across from you, but his attention locked in on you so completely it felt almost physical.

You leaned over the table for your next shot, with just enough time to let him watch you line it up. “My serum came from Erskine.”

The cue struck. The ball rolled. The stripe dropped clean into the corner.

Nobody spoke for a second. John did not even look at the pocket.

“What?”

You straightened your posture, cue still in hand. “Last viable remnants of the original formula, used before the source degraded.”

Alexei’s eyes widened. “Original?”

“Remnants,” you pointed out.

Bucky tilted his head, but he didn’t look surprised. It was recognition, maybe. Like that detail rearranged a few things he had wondered about but never asked.

John was very still.

See, John had a hundred different versions of defensive. Loud defensive. Smiling defensive. Technical defensive. Patriotic defensive. This one was silent, which meant you had gone through the armour and hit a structural beam.

“The original Erskine formula,” he said.

You shrugged like it was no big deal. “As close as anyone got after Steve, apparently.”

“You never mentioned that.”

“You never asked.”

His jaw flexed, showing a tiny little fracture in the male ego. Still, John was too tough for humiliation, and you liked him too much to be cruel to poke. But challenge? Absolutely. You had just taken the one category where he thought he was winning and tilted the board.

He breathed out a short laugh.“So what, you think that makes yours better?”

You only shrugged like, maybe.

He stepped closer, cue in hand, eyes narrowed. “You don’t know you’re stronger than me.”

“No,” you said. “I don’t.”

That answer bothered him more than a simple yes would have.

John wanted certainty. He wanted you to brag so he could argue. He wanted you to claim the top spot so he could challenge it. 

You took another step around the table. “And neither do you.”

Bucky looked toward the ceiling like he wanted patience delivered from above.

Alexei whispered, “This is good game now.”

John ignored them both.

His attention stayed on your face, your mouth, the way your fingers rested around the cue. You saw the question there before he said anything;

Whether you could match him. Whether you could beat him. Whether he hated the idea or liked it too much.

You let the silence fester.

Then you turned back to the table, lined up the eight ball, and sank it.

Alexei erupted behind you, but the sound blurred. Bucky said something dry. Maybe about rules or about how both of you needed supervision. It didn’t matter.

John was still looking at you.

His team had lost. His invisible serum ranking had been ruined. His pride had taken a hit from a woman who smelled faintly sweet, looked entirely too pleased with herself, and had the original ghost of Erskine in her blood.

You walked around the table until you were close enough that he had to either move or hold his ground.

“You want to test it?”

John held his ground and didn’t fall for the bait. 

You tipped your head, smiling up at him. Unfortunately for him, you haven’t given up on fishing just yet. “How much do you bench?”

—

Of course the natural escalation was the gym.

There were normal people, probably, who could have a tense conversation over pool about super soldier serum and simply go to bed afterward. There were people who could hear the phrase “you don’t know I’m not stronger than you” and not take it as a personal summons from God.

You and John Walker were not those people.

Alexei had tried to follow at first, still riding the emotional high of winning pool despite contributing very little besides volume and moral support. He made it as far as the hallway before Bucky reminded him that he had an early press conference tomorrow. 

The Russian shuffled off toward his room in sweatpants and slippers, leaving you, John, and Bucky standing in the hallway.

Bucky looked at you.

Then at John.

Then down the hall toward the gym.

“No,” he said.

John frowned. “Nobody asked you anything.”

“You were going to ask me to supervise whatever this is so no one destroys equipment or each other.”

You smiled. “That sounds responsible.”

“Then ask someone responsible.”

“Bucky.”

“No.”

John’s jaw tightened. “It’s a bench press.”

“It is never just a bench press with you two.”

That was accurate, but rude.

Bucky walked backward toward the kitchen, already done with the evening. “If someone tears a tendon, don’t wake me up.”

Which left you and John alone in the hall.

The tower lights had dimmed for the night, leaving the glass walls dark, the city beyond them spread out in glittering spires. You could see both of your reflections faintly. John in a dark shirt and joggers. You beside him, still in the fitted top you had worn through dinner and pool, earrings catching the low hallway light.

You sighed and looked at him. “You coming?”

He gave you one of those flat, disbelieving looks. He looked…. interested despite himself.

“You’re really doing this.”

“You challenged me.”

He stared at you for a beat too long before turning down the hall. “Fine.”

The gym at midnight felt almost… sacred. It was empty, bright, and way too clean. There were rubber mats, steel racks, mirrored walls, the faint smell of chalk and disinfectant. The kind of room built entirely around effort and comparison: Numbers on plates, numbers on bars, numbers on boards. Everything was measurable, everything capable of becoming proof.

And John only ever wanted proof.

His name was already on the score board from earlier, and you saw it the second you walked in.

BENCH PRESS — WALKER

A new number sat beside it, written in black marker at the very top. Higher than the one you remembered from last week. Higher than the last team record Alexei famously set last week.

You stopped in front of the board and blinked. “You set a new record.”

His face stayed neutral, but his voice was smug. “Yeah.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“You didn’t mention that.”

“You didn’t ask.”

You turned your head toward him. He looked far too pleased with himself for a man trying to act above it all.

His mouth twitched.

There the truth was, he had seen you closing in. He had seen your numbers rise. You were going to overtake his second place spot, so he simply had to set a new one. 

He moved the goalpost and called it training.

You looked back at the board, then at him.

“That’s petty.”

“That’s improvement.”

“That’s petty improvement.”

“It’s still improvement.”

You laughed under your breath, and the laugh did something to his eyes. Something small. John didn’t soften easily. But his rough edges shifted. The pride stayed, but underneath it was that warm current you had both spent months pretending was just competitiveness.

You walked to the bench.

John followed.

Neither of you said anything for a minute. You started loading the bar to his record weight– not any more, not any less —, and he stood close enough to watch but not close enough to interfere. 

One plate. Then another. You heard steel sliding against steel, the sound loud in the empty room. You felt him watching your hands, your arms, the way your shoulders moved when you bent to pick up the next plate.

He wasn’t subtle tonight.

Maybe he was tired.

Maybe you had pushed too far under his skin for him to keep pretending.

You added another plate.

John exhaled through his nose.

You glanced back. “Problem?”

“You’re jumping too fast.”

“I warmed up before pool.”

“That was hours ago.”

“An hour and a half.”

“You ate fries.”

“Fuel.”

“You argued for twenty minutes.”

“Pre-workout.”

That shut him up.

Only for a second, but enough.

You sat on the bench and rolled your shoulders back. The vinyl was cool beneath your palms. The mirrors caught the two of you in fragments: your legs braced on either side of the bench, John behind you, tall and watchful, his eyes both irritated and focused all at once.

John could be smug, defensive, and competitive to the point of comedy. He could turn a pool game into a debate into a midnight lift-off because his masculinity had the self-preservation instincts of a wounded bull.

But when he spotted you, he was reliable.

Always.

He moved behind the bench without being asked. His hands hovered near the bar as you lay back, close enough to catch, not close enough to insult you. He watched the placement of your feet, the arch of your back, your grip, your breathing.

“You’re too close,” you said, mostly because you needed to say something.

“I’m spotting.” His mouth twitched. “You want someone else?”

No. Of course not. 

You looked up at him from the bench. From this angle, he looked even bigger, framed by the lights overhead, blond hair slightly shadowed, arms ready. He was trying to hide behind competence again. Trying to make this about safety, form, and protocol.

You knew better.

“No,” you said. “I want you.”

His face changed.

John looked away first, adjusting his stance behind you as if that could cover the fact that one word had hit him harder than the entire serum conversation.

“Then listen to me,” he said.

“You love saying that.”

He leaned down slightly, hands near the bar. “Grip tighter.”

You did.

“Shoulders set.”

“They are.”

“Feet planted.”

“John.”

“You want to lift more than me, or not?”

You looked up at him, and the air changed again.

Huh. He was actively…. Helping?

His number was at the top of the board like a dare, like a wall, like a little fortress he had built and invited you to storm.

You wanted to beat it, yes.

But more than that, you wanted to make him watch you try.

You wrapped your fingers around the bar.  “Ready.”

John’s voice was lower now. “Ready.”

He helped you unrack it.

The weight settled into your hands. Even with all the serum, it felt heavy. Thank you Val, for these stupid super-weighted plates 

For a moment, the bar hovered above you, and the entire room seemed to tunnel to the tension in your arms and the way John was standing over you.

He let go.

You lowered it slowly.

It was controlled, careful, and not rushing at all. You put your mind into the descent, the steel coming down toward your chest while John’s hands moved with it, not touching, but close enough that you could feel him standing guard

He trusted you with the weight. The intimacy was that John, of all people, didn’t take the bar from you.

He let you fight it.

You pushed.

The bar moved, but not easily.

Your arms trembled almost immediately, the load biting hard through your shoulders and chest. Your breath locked and teeth clenched. The first few inches came slow, and stubborn.

John’s hands rose a fraction beneath the bar.

“Don’t,” you forced out.

He froze, before quietly saying, “I’m not.”

You pushed again.

The bar crept higher.

John’s voice dropped, not teasing now. He was giving you the one thing he never knew how to ask for himself. “Good. That’s good. Keep driving.”

A shiver went through you that had nothing to do with the lift.

You hated him a little for it. Or maybe you loved it. Not much of a difference, honestly.

The bar stalled halfway.

Your muscles shook and sweat gathered at your temple. For one awful second, the weight sat there like a bad omen.

John’s hands came closer, still not touching.

“Breathe,” he said.

You did.

“Again.”

You did.

“That’s it.”

His voice was right above you now, intimate in the empty room, threaded through the space between effort and surrender. “You’ve got it.”

John, whose ego had been scraped raw by the idea of you matching him, whose entire self-image had spent the last few hours being challenged by your strength, your serum, your refusal to shrink, still wanted you to get the lift.

You could hear it.

He wanted you to win, even against his competitive nature, maybe.

You pushed.

The bar rose another inch.

John made a low sound under his breath, almost involuntary. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t quit on me now.”

Your eyes flicked to his.

From beneath the bar, with your arms shaking and his face upside down above you, John looked absolutely wrecked. His eyes had this helpless focus that made your stomach twist. He was watching you strain under his number, watching your strength meet his record head-on, and the conflict on his face was almost obscene: Pride, frustration, hunger, admiration, and the little panic of a man discovering that being challenged by you didn’t make him feel smaller.

It made him want you more.

The bar rose.

Slowly.

Slowly…

Then your elbows locked and you pushed it up to completion. 

For a second, neither of you moved.

Then John grabbed the bar and helped guide it back into the rack. Metal hit metal with a brutal clang that echoed through the empty room.

You lay there breathing hard, staring up at him.

John stood over you, hands still on the bar, chest rising and falling like he had done the rep himself.

You hadn’t beaten his new record, but you had matched it.

And judging by the look on his face, that might have been worse.

“You got the rep.”

You blinked up at him.

For all his defensiveness, John said it clearly. 

You got the rep.

The praise warmed you more than it should have.

You looked up at him through the sweat on your lashes. “I matched you.”

John just tilted his head, trying to hide the warmth in his ears

You sat up slowly, still catching your breath. John moved back half a step, but not far. He stayed close, one hand hovering like he wanted to steady you and was trying not to make that obvious.

You looked toward the board. His name was still at the top the number still beside it.

But now it didn’t feel like his alone.

John followed your gaze. You stood, brushing past him before he could decide whether he wanted to steady you or argue. Your body still buzzed with effort, blood hot, muscles loose and shaking in that delicious aftershock of almost failing and refusing to.

Across the gym, the whiteboard waited.

BENCH PRESS — WALKER

A little monument to himself.

You picked up the marker.

John followed immediately, close enough that you could feel him before he spoke. Then you wrote your name beside his.

BENCH PRESS — WALKER /…. Then you put your name next to his.

The marker squeaked in the silence.

You turned, and there was that proud wounded look, just enough to bleed into irritation, admiration, hunger, all tangled together until he didn’t know which one to reach for first.

You smiled as John stepped closer.

The gym was too bright, too empty, too humid after a fight neither of you had technically had. His eyes dragged from the board to you, then down your body like he was still watching the lift happen. Like he was replaying every inch of the bar rising under your hands.

“You think you belong next to my name?” he asked.

It was not really a question.

You leaned back against the board, marker still in your hand. “You gonna make me erase it?”

His nostrils flared from the challenge, the bait, because neither of you knew how to ask for anything softer without turning it into a fight first.

John reached for the marker. You pulled it out of reach, and his hand caught your wrist, careful enough not to hurt, but firm enough to remind you exactly who he was.

His eyes flicked to your mouth.

You smiled, sweeter this time.

“Mmm,” you murmured. “About time for you to shut up, Walker.”

All the restraint he had left disappeared into thin air. 

John kissed you like he was tired of losing arguments to his own mind.

Your back hit the whiteboard, the marker trapped somewhere between your fingers and his. His mouth was hot, demanding, almost angry with how long he had waited. You grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, refusing to let him have the upper hand even now.

He made a low sound against your mouth when you kissed him back harder.

Good.

Let him know. Let him feel exactly what matching him meant for you.

His hand slid to your waist, gripping tight enough to pull you off the board and into him. Your fingers pushed into his hair, and his whole body went tense for half a second, like even that was a challenge he hadn’t prepared for.

Then he kissed you deeper.

Still competitive, still stubborn, still John, but underneath it was something almost devastatingly careful. He didn’t crush you or take. He pressed you there like he wanted to prove a point and forgot the point the second your mouth opened under his.

The marker slipped from your hand, and it hit the floor with a hollow plastic clatter.

Neither of you looked down.

John pulled back only far enough to breathe, lips still brushing yours, eyes dark and fixed on your face like he was trying to memorise what winning and losing looked like when both felt the same.

You smiled against him.

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t,” he mumbled against your lips.

You dragged your thumb along his jaw, feeling the tension there, the heat under his skin, the barely leashed restraint. “You kissed me first.”

His mouth twitched, but his breathing was uneven.

“You provoked me.”

Mm, sure. 

His stare narrowed before he kissed you again, harder this time.

Enough to make you laugh breathlessly into his mouth, enough for him to growl like your happiness was a bar he had to raise, enough that when he finally pulled back, the whiteboard behind you was smudged at the edge of your name.

You glanced over your shoulder, your name and his a little blurred now, but still there, bleeding into each other.

You looked back at him, lips swollen from his kiss, body still humming from the lift and from him and from the satisfaction of watching John come undone without ever admitting he had lost.

“So,” you said, voice soft and smug. “Wanna improve on the record now?”

John looked at the board. Then at you.

To your surprise, he didn’t posture or argue.

His hand stayed at your waist, thumb pressing once like he was still grounding himself.

Then he leaned in, mouth brushing the corner of yours. “For once,” he said, rough and quiet, “I have nothing to prove.”

You barely had time to form a smile before he kissed it off your face.