just a minute?

“Wow, I didn’t know you had a body under that suit.” John’s face was already healed–faded and gone. Didn’t even leave a visible scar. Bastard. “Haha, very funny,” Ava said, rolling her eyes at him where he leaned over the island, elbows grinding into the sharp edge of the countertop. “You know, for some reason I was thinking you could never take off the suit,” John said, eyeing her cozy sweats. Ava arched a sharp eyebrow. “You were thinking about me out of my suit?” John almost blushed. It was adorable. His ears turned red.

a beat, a beat, a beating heart

and bonus

Bucky: It's cold.

Walker: Nice cup of coffee.

Bucky: [drinks it] It's horrible!

Walker: Cup of coffee.

Bucky: I'm not even sure it is coffee.

Ava could sense [Bob's] unease and the shift in him like it was palpable. She didn’t like it. It felt like they were balancing on a knifepoint. John was a big fan of shoot-first-questions-later, and his hand was poised over his gun, ready for the first instance of possibility. Those two found themselves continuously drawn to each other. Like a magnetic pull between twin planets, Ava was always moving toward him, or him toward her, no matter where in the room they are, they always seem to find a way to be near. Ava tried not to think about it too much, how it happened subconsciously, but how she noticed. She noticed how he went from one side of the room all the way to the other, to stand next to her.  Maybe it was because John was a protector and it was the most strategic place, or maybe…maybe… She hid her hitched breath beneath her thick suit and let her confusion hide anything else. “Have you dyed your hair?” Ava asked.

a beat, a beat, a beating heart