mariwritesstuff @mariwritesstuff - Tumblr Blog

Maybe This Time

Summary : John Walker trying to manage his anger issues accidentally turns into a second chance at love.

Pairing : New Avengers! John Walker x reader (she/her)

Warnings/tags : Tower-ish fic? FLUFF!!! divorce, co-parenting, you are John's crisis de-escalation trainer, workplace romance, Olivia has a new boyfriend, you are mentioned to have a sister and a niece, shooter mention, dental anxiety, food. (Let me know if I miss anything!)

Word Count : 17.3k

Requested by : Anons! This is a combination these requests: X X

Notes : First time writing a full fic just for John! I swear I intended it to be 5k words but I am incapable of restraint when it comes to writing, apparently. Enjoy!

John didn’t want Olivia back.

He didn’t sit outside her place mourning the life they had lost. He didn’t picture himself walking back through the front door, walking back into her life like no time had passed, picking up where they had left off. There was nowhere to pick up from. There was no bookmark wedged between the pages of their nonexistent marriage, waiting for them to find it again.

There were too many dead versions of them scattered between the two teenagers they used to be and the two adults they had become. The high school sweethearts to military couple pipeline was simple enough. What came after, though? The serum and whatever he was now? No, they simply were two different people. They simply grew apart.

John had made peace with the fact that they were over. The problem was that Olivia had started dating again first. Which meant she was winning the divorce.

Which was insane.

He knew it was insane. He knew divorce wasn’t a sport. He knew healing didn’t come with a scoreboard, and there was no prize for being the first person to look normal again. But this was John Walker we’re talking about, and Olivia moving on like a functional adult meant that she was beating him at life. And John was nothing if not competitive. As far as he was concerned, Olivia had points on the board and he didn’t.

John had government-monitored rage incidents and a search history full of “how to not hate your ex-wife’s boyfriend.”

Every other weekend, John would pull up to pick up his son, prepared to be mature, steady, and reasonable. A father, a grown man, a person who had done therapy-adjacent breathing exercises with Bob and therefore considered himself emotionally evolved.

Then the front door would open, and Olivia’s new boyfriend would be there.

The guy wasn’t even easy to hate. If he had been smug, John could have worked with that. If he had been condescending, or handsy, or one of those guys who tried too hard to prove he was comfortable around another man’s kid, John could have filed him away as an asshole and let the anger fester without feeling guilty.

The boyfriend’s name was Nathan, and Nathan wore clean sneakers and quarter-zips and had the calm face of aman who had never once been dragged into an international incident. He had neat hair, good posture, and a normal job. John didn’t know what the job was, because asking would imply interest, and John refused to be interested in Nathan on principle.

Nathan opened the door with his son’s bag on his shoulder, “Hey, John,” like they were neighbors.

Nathan remembered the stuffed dinosaur. Nathan knew the diaper bag needed the blue cup, not the yellow one, because the yellow one leaked if it tipped sideways. Nathan crouched to zip up tiny sneakers with patient hands while Olivia gathered a jacket from the hallway closet. So every time Nathan handed over the bag, John felt the score shift. Bing bing bing! 2-0!

Olivia: one emotionally stable boyfriend who knew the snack schedule.

John: one tactical vest in the trunk.

Nathan smiled at him one Saturday morning with a mug in his hand in John’s old kitchen.

He had signed the papers. He knew the house was Olivia’s now in every way that mattered. But his body hadn't received the update. Some stupid, territorial part of him still recognized the front hall and the little hook where his keys used to go. And then there was Nathan standing barefoot on the tile with coffee like he had spawned there naturally.

“Morning,” Nathan said. “Good to see you, man.”

John almost laughed. “Yeah,” he said instead. “You too.”

It came out flat enough that Olivia looked at him tilting her head.

His son squealed from the living room, and John stepped around Nathan to get him.

The kid launched himself at John’s legs with complete, reckless trust, and for half a second the whole world rearranged itself around the feeling of small hands gripping his jeans, his son shouting, “Daddy!” like John had never been anything other than wanted.

He bent down and picked him up.

There. That helped. That always helped.

For three seconds, the scoreboard didn’t exist. Then Nathan came out with the diaper bag.

“Packed extra wipes,” Nathan said. “He had a thing with the applesauce earlier.”

When John took the bag, his hand closed around the strap too tightly. “Great,” he said.

Nathan smiled politely. If he had been insincere in any capacity, John couldn’t spot it. “No problem.”

John wanted to bite through concrete. He hated that Nathan had packed the wipes. He hated that Nathan had been there for the applesauce thing. He hated that he knew there had been an applesauce thing at all. He hated that Nathan’s mug said something stupidly wholesome on it, probably from a farmer’s market. He hated that nobody was doing anything wrong.

Still, he knew Olivia was allowed to date. Nathan was allowed to be nice. Their son was allowed to be comfortable in the house he lived in, and in fact, John was relieved that he was. But that must mean John was allowed to feel complicated about it, too, right?

He was not, however, allowed to turn the whole thing into a personal war.

When he buckled his son into the car seat and glanced back toward the porch, Olivia and Nathan were standing side by side in the doorway. Olivia lifted a hand in goodbye, and Nathan did too.

John lifted his hand back because he wasn’t a monster. Then he got into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and sat there for one second too long with both hands on the wheel.

Winning. She’s winning!!! The thought flashed hot and stupid behind his eyes.

His son babbled a Bluey song in the back seat.

John looked at him in the rearview mirror and forced his grip to loosen. “Yeah, buddy,” he said, calming down almost immediately. “We’re going.”

He drove away like a normal person.

He made it three blocks before he muttered, “Goddamn Nathan,” under his breath like it was a curse.

His son repeated, “I call him Nay-fin because he has pet fish!”

John winced. “Don’t do that.”

“Nay-fin!”

“Buddy, please.”

“Nay-fin, Nay-fin, Nay-fin.”

By the time John pulled into traffic, he was considering whether crashing the car very gently into their mailbox when he came back counted as a setback.

—

There had been incidents, but not capital-I Incidents. John would have made that distinction very clear if anyone had been brave enough to stand in front of him and call them that.

They were simply… small things. Stupid things. Yes, he might’ve put a dent in the elevator panel because the doors stalled. Yes, he might’ve cracked a mug in the kitchen because Ava had asked him if he was “coping”. Yes, he might’ve punched a training dummy hard enough to take out half a weapons rack, which, in his defense, was what training dummies were technically for.

If anyone saw them as individual, isolated incidents, none of it would be considered catastrophic. Nothing made the news, no one got hurt, no country issued a statement. No blurry civilian footage hit the internet with his name trending in all caps. But together, apparently, it made his teammates raise an eyebrow.

Bob noticed first, which made it worse. Bob didn’t make accusations or corner John and tell him to get his shit together. He just stood in the training room after the dummy incident, staring at the wreckage with those worried eyes like the dummy had a soul. Later, he told Yelena that he thought John was “having a hard time.” Yelena told Mel because of course she did. Mel told Valentina because she was contractually obligated to, and Valentina, naturally, couldn’t have cared less. John breaking things barely registered as a crisis to her. It was just another line item in the budget, somewhere below ammunition, blackmail, and whatever Alexei kept charging to the company card under “team morale.” Then Bucky overheard.

So Bucky Barnes, of all people, ended up standing in front of him with his arms crossed and that irritatingly calm look on his face, like he had become the emotional adult in the room through some administrative error. Bucky, who had once looked like therapy was a foreign intelligence operation. Bucky, who had trauma spanning two centuries and nine decades. Bucky, who now apparently had the nerve to look John in the eye and say, “You need help.”

John laughed because the only other option was putting his head through drywall. “You’re lecturing me about anger?” he asked, because there were very few moments in his life where the universe felt this committed to humiliation.

Bucky’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t take the bait. “Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

“That’s rich.”

“Maybe,” Bucky said. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

Bucky didn’t sound smug or superior. He sounded like someone who had already crawled through the same swamp and hated recognizing the mud on someone else’s boots. John hated being read like that. He hated that Bucky could stand there, calmer than him, more put together than him. His life had to be spectacularly fucked if the Winter Soldier was now the emotionally stable one.

“I’m fine,” John said.

“You punched an elevator,” Bucky replied.

“It got stuck.”

“For eighteen seconds.”

“It was still stuck.”

Bucky blinked at him in a way that made John want to throw something just to justify the conversation. “You hear yourself, right?”

Unfortunately, John did. He could hear exactly how insane he sounded. He could hear the pattern Bob had noticed. He could feel the way everyone had started looking at him, measuring the distance between him and the nearest breakable object in the room. It made his skin crawl.

Bucky sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Look, I don’t care if you’re pissed. Be pissed. But we can’t have another international incident involving you.” Bucky stepped closer, voice dropping, and John hated how serious he looked. “So you’re off missions unless you do a couple of crisis de-escalation training sessions.”

There it was, the leash. It didn’t belong to Val this time, who made him go on various suicidal black ops mission. It wasn't even the military’s. It was his own teammate’s.

“You can’t do that,” John said.

“I can.”

“Since when?”

“Since the team agreed.”

The team, huh? Is that what this has come to?

John’s nostrils flared. For one stupid second, he wanted to swing at him. Not really, and not all the way. It was just an old reflex, the urge to make the nearest solid thing pay for how cornered he felt.

Bucky saw it. “Don’t.”

John hated him for that, too. He hated everyone because they were right. John had been angry for weeks, if not months. He had been angry before, but this wasn't battlefield angry. Not useful angry. Not the kind of anger that pointed toward an objective and burned through it.

This was different. This was ugly, sour, domestic anger. Divorce anger. Nathan-knows-where-the-extra-wipes-are anger. It had nowhere honorable to go, so it kept finding walls.

“Who am I seeing?” John bit out.

“Someone I worked with during recovery,” Bucky said.

John scoffed. “Great. So you’re outsourcing me to your therapist?”

“She’s not a therapist,” Bucky shook his head, “she does oversight, that’s all.”

“Your anger babysitter, then.”

Bucky looked exhausted. “You’re really making my point for me.”

John stared at him. Bucky stared back. Neither of them moved, and then John snatched the file out of his hand because apparently that was what his life had become. Mandatory rage oversight, arranged by Bucky Barnes, because even a former Russian asset had managed to become more emotionally regulated than him. Fantastic. Wonderful. Humbling in a way that made him want to chew glass.

“Fine,” John said.

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Fine?”

“I’ll go to the stupid sessions.”

John looked down at the file. Your name was printed neatly across the top, along with your credentials. He hated the font. He hated the folder. He hated the idea of sitting in a room while some calm, professional woman asked him where he felt his anger in his body. He felt it in his fist, obviously. He tucked the file under his arm and turned to leave.

Behind him, Bucky said, “For what it’s worth, she helped.”

John swallowed. That was it: proof standing right behind him that a man could crawl out of worse things and still become steady enough to lecture somebody else.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Well. Good for you.”

Then he walked away, already certain you were going to be the worst person he had ever met.

—

Two days later, John attended his first mandatory rage counselling session in an empty conference room on the thirty-second floor of the tower.

He had spent the entire morning in a foul mood about it. He had woken up angry, showered angry, gotten dressed angry, drank coffee angry, and glared at the file Bucky had given him angry.

The conference room was empty when he got there, because of course he was early. Not because he cared. Not because he was nervous. John didn’t get nervous about talking to some government-approved feelings babysitter in a glass-walled room with a bad view and a table long enough to host a hostage negotiation.

He was early because being late would have given Bucky something to say.That was all.

He stood near the window with his arms crossed, watching the city move beneath him like he had somewhere better to be. Which he did. Literally anywhere. A mission, a sparring mat, a shooting range, his truck. Nathan’s front porch, even. Jesus, that was how bad this was. He would rather stand in Olivia’s doorway and watch her boyfriend hand him the diaper bag than sit in a room and answer questions about his anger.

The door opened behind him.

John did not turn right away. It was petty, but he had already committed to being difficult, and there was no reason to abandon the theme this early.

“John Walker?” Your voice was not what he expected.

It was steady, but not cold. Professional, but warm. He turned, already prepared to be unimpressed, already prepared to hate the woman who thought she was brave because she could sit across from an angry man and ask him to breathe.

Then he saw you. And his first thought was: She’s cute.

John actually felt his brain snag on it.

You stood in the doorway with a bag on one shoulder and a folder tucked under your arm, dressed like someone who did home visits all the time. In this case, Tower visits. You looked composed without looking stiff, kind without looking naive.

John blinked. Then, he forced himself to snap out of it.

No. Fuck no.

That meant nothing.

He was just touch-starved, that was all. Recently divorced and hadn’t gone on a date in a while. A pretty woman walked into a room and his brain did the humiliating male thing it had been biologically programmed to do. That didn’t mean anything, right? That wasn’t a crush. That wasn’t even a thought worth dignifying.

He was just being a guy. A tired, divorced guy with bad impulse control and a mandated appointment.

You gave him a small smile, “Thanks for meeting me here.”

John looked around the empty conference room. “Didn’t really have a choice.”

“No,” you said, setting your bag down near one of the chairs. “You didn’t.”

Huh. He had expected you to soften the blow, to say something like, I know this isn’t ideal, or I understand this must be frustrating, or some other fluffed little statement designed to make the whole thing feel less like punishment.

John narrowed his eyes slightly. “That’s it?”

You glanced up from your folder. “Were you expecting me to pretend this was voluntary?”

“No.”

“Good. Then we’re already starting from a place of honesty.”

He hated that he almost smiled.

You pulled out a chair, but you didn’t sit at the head of the table. You sat along the side instead, leaving the chair across from you open. Not a power move, as John had learned to read. For a second, John had to remind himself that you had no reason to take an interrogation setup. John stayed standing.

“I understand Mr. Barnes spoke with you,” you said.

John scoffed. “That what we’re calling it?”

“What would you call it?”

“A threat.”

“Was it?”

“Yes.”

“Was it effective?”

John stared at you. You looked back, patient but not passive, pen resting lightly between your fingers.

He hated that question, but the answer was yes. Bucky threatening to bench him had been effective. Bucky telling him he was becoming a liability had worked because John could argue with feelings all day, but he couldn’t argue with being taken out of the field.

He pulled out the chair and sat down. “I’m here,” he said. “That’s what matters, right?”

“It’s a start.”

He leaned back, folding his arms. “And what, you’re gonna fix me?”

You didn’t flinch. You didn’t look wounded or challenged or impressed.

You just looked at him for a second, thoughtful in a way that made him feel more seen than he wanted to be, and said, “No.”

John blinked.

You opened your folder. “I’m going to help make sure you stop throwing government property through walls.”

For one full second, John could not decide whether to be offended or laugh. Offended won, but only barely. “It was one wall.”

You looked down at the page. “According to the report, it was two walls, one elevator panel, one training dummy, a mug, three chairs, and a decorative glass installation.”

“The glass was ugly.”

“I’ll add that to the mitigating factors.”

He did smile then, and you saw it. Even more unfortunately, you were kind enough not to look victorious about it.

Instead, you made a small note. “I want to be clear about something before we start.”

John’s shoulders tensed. “Here we go.”

“This isn’t therapy,” you said. “If you want a shrink, get a shrink. I have a recommendation list the size of a novella, but I am not that.”

His eyes narrowed. “I know.”

“Good. Then you understand I’m not here to hold your hand through a breakthrough.”

John stared at you.

You continued, voice even. “I’m not here to humiliate you. I’m not here to decide if you’re a good man or a bad man. I’m not here because the director of the CIA cares about your emotional well-being.”

John let out a humorless breath. “At least you know that.”

“Oh, I know that very well.” You clicked your pen once. “I work risk management and crisis de-escalation. I used to work in personal coaching, but now I work for corporate. I am not new to enhanced individuals. I’ve worked with soldiers, fighters, mercenaries, people who can turn a bad mood into a property damage claim. My job is to make sure you don’t cause another PR incident.”

“So I’m a liability.”

“You’re behaving like one.” you said. “Unlike therapy, I’m allowed to be harsh. I’m allowed to be direct. I’m allowed to be mean if mean keeps you from putting your fist through another wall. Got it?”

John leaned back, arms crossed. He still looked pissed off, obviously. That seemed to be his default setting. But now he looked interested too, against his will.

“So what?” he said. “You train me like a dog?”

You looked him dead in the eye. “If that worked, Mr. Walker, Mr. Barnes would've brought treats.”

For one second, he only stared. Then he laughed. You made a note.

His eyes dropped to your pen. “What are you writing?”

“That you’re trainable.”

—

By the second meeting, John had convinced himself the first one had been a fluke.

It was a weird day. He was in a bad mood and drank too much coffee. Of course John had noticed you were pretty. Anyone with a heartbeat and a preference for women would have noticed. That wasn’t a character flaw, nor was it a problem. That was certainly not the beginning of a little crush on the woman assigned to make sure he stopped damaging government property like an overgrown toddler with security clearance.

Except then you walked into the conference room again, two days later, with your bag on your shoulder and your folder under your arm, and John’s first thought was, oh, good.

Not, oh, fuckin’ great, therapy. Not, look, the feelings police have arrived.

You smiled at him. “You’re early again.”

John looked down at his watch like this was news to him. “Traffic was light.”

“You live in the building.”

“Elevators were fast.”

“You took the stairs,” you said, “I ran into Mr. Reynolds in the lobby. He mentions something about you always taking the stairs after the… elevator incident.”

His eyes ticked a bit.

You sat down across from him like you hadn’t just dragged him by the collar into the truth with one hand. “So. We can start with why you feel the need to lie about it. Panels in this building cost taxpayer money, and frankly, John, you are not interesting enough to justify a renovation budget.”

John leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed. “Are you always this charming?”

“Not always,” you said. “Sometimes I’m much worse, but I try to save that for people with better excuses.”

He hated that you were funny. He hated that your voice stayed even when he pushed. You let his attitude lay itself on a silver platter, looked at it, and then kept going like it was mildly inconvenient rather than intimidating.

John hated that you were basically a leash on him. He hated the way you could walk into a room, say his name once, and suddenly everyone expected him to behave like a domesticated pet with paperwork. He hated that you were basically a corporate muzzle with a company badge. Most of all, he hated that it worked. He hated that you were good at crisis de-escalation, that when you told him to sit down, he sat.

That session was worse than the first because he talked more. Not willingly or gracefully. John didn’t spill his guts; he leaked under pressure and acted indifferent when anyone noticed the puddle. But you were good.

You didn’t say, “Tell me about your feelings” like a shrink would. You asked practical things. What happened before the elevator stalled? What did he think before making the decision to do it?

He told you the elevator made a noise. He told you the noise reminded him of a transport door jamming during a mission that went badly.

You nodded.

John hadn’t realised until now, just how much that helped.

By the end of the session, he had only snapped at you twice, which apparently counted as improvement.

“That was progress,” you said, clicking your pen closed.

John scoffed. “Barely.”

He stood too quickly, because staying seated under your steady almost-smile felt too intimate. He picked up his jacket, glanced at you, then glanced away.

“Same time next week?” you asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and then, because his mouth had apparently decided to ruin his life, he added, “Works for me.”

Works for me. Like he was looking forward to it. Like this was a coffee date. Like he was not going to spend the next ten minutes in his room mentally punching himself in the face.

That night, he dreamed about you.

The first dream was almost merciful because it was vague. Your voice, mostly. The conference room, dimmer than it should have been, the blinds drawn over the glass walls. Dream-you said his name in his ears, and it sounded sensual.

John woke up annoyed at himself.

Fine. Whatever. People had weird dreams. That meant nothing.

Then it happened again. And again.

By the fourth dream, his subconscious had apparently lost all interest in being PG-13.

In the dream, you were still in the conference room, but you weren’t sitting across from him anymore. You were on the edge of the table, folder abandoned somewhere behind you, your knees bracketing his hips as he stood between them. His hands were on your thighs, warm through the fabric of your skirt, and he knew even then that he should not be touching you. He knew there were rules.

But dream-you did not care.Dream-you looked at him with your head tilted, eyes steady in that same infuriating way you looked at him in real life, except there was nothing professional in it now.

“You’re very good at pretending you don’t want me,” dream-you said.

John’s hand tightened on your thigh.“I’m not pretending,” he lied.

Dream-you smiled, and hooked one finger beneath the collar of his shirt and pulled him in like he weighed nothing at all.

The kiss was filthy. It was hungry and open-mouthed, your fingers in his hair, his body crowding yours back over the table until the folder slid off the edge and papers scattered across the floor. He could feel your legs tighten around him. He could feel your breath break against his mouth when he dragged one hand under your shirt and you said his name like you were giving in.

John woke up hard, furious, and staring at the ceiling like God owed him an explanation.

“Nope,” he muttered to the dark.

Fuck!

He spent the morning in the gym punishing a punching bag for crimes it did not commit, then took a cold shower and told himself, very firmly, that this was normal. He had been through a lot. You were pretty, direct, and unfortunately the person his idiot brain would latch onto after being emotionally starved for a year.

That didn’t mean anything.

It especially didn’t mean anything when he got dressed for the next session and changed shirts twice.

The fifth meeting was where you noticed.

Not the dreams, obviously. Christ. He would have walked into the Hudson before admitting those. But you noticed something.

“You seem tired,” you said.

John’s hand tightened around his coffee cup. “I’m fine.”

“You have shadows under your eyes.”

“I have a face.”

You paused, then you smiled down at your notes, and it was so small he almost missed it.

“Okay,” you said. “You have a face. Gotta do better than that if you want to be on the full mission roster again, John. I might have to tell Barnes you should work strictly recon only.”

He hated you.

Liar, liar, liar.

Still, he was starting to like the rhythm of the session. You didn’t chase him when he dodged, but you also didn’t let him disappear completely. You remembered details from the last session without having to flip at your notes. You asked about his son without making it feel like a test. You said Olivia’s name carefully, like you understood there was history there but didn’t assume the whole story.

You asked about Nathan once, asking how much of a liability he made him. John groaned so hard you actually laughed.

“I’m sorry,” you said, still smiling. “I shouldn’t laugh.”

“No, go ahead. My pain is hilarious.”

“It is a little pathetic that you hate him mostly because he packs a good diaper bag.”

“I don’t hate him.”

You looked at him and lifted an eyebrow.

John sighed. “Fine. I hate him a little.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s there.”

You didn’t write that down right away. You let it sit.

See, you never rushed to dissect the truth. You didn’t pounce like you had caught him revealing evidence. You just let the truth breathe for a second. Then you said, “Because he’s where you used to be?”

John stared at the window. His reflection looked back at him, eyebrows furrowed, shoulders too tight. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Maybe.”

It was the first time he had admitted it without turning it into a joke.

You didn’t say that was progress immediately, which was good, because he might have thrown himself through the window. Instead, you said, “That makes sense.”

John looked at you. His muscles loosened so suddenly it almost pissed him off. That was all he wanted, apparently. Not permission. Just someone saying the feeling itself was not insane.

Then, after the talking part of the session, came the training part of it. That’s the whole point of these meetings, right?

You weren’t gentle with him. You didn't treat his temper like a tragic creature that needed to be understood by candlelight. You treated it like a workplace hazard. Like bad wiring. Like a loaded weapon left too close to civilians.

“Again,” you said, tapping your pen against your clipboard. “You’re in a hallway. Civilian contractor panics. He raises his voice and gets too close. You do what?”

“Tell him to back the hell up.”

You sighed. “Try again.”

He looked at the ceiling like he was praying for patience, which was funny because you had been fairly sure God had blocked his number.

“I create distance,” John said tightly. “I keep my hands visible and lower my voice.”

“Beautiful,” you look pleased. “Look at that. A whole adult sentence.”

“Do you have to say it like that?”

“Yes,” you said, sipping your cold brew. “It’s how I stay awake.”

You circled him once, unimpressed, watching the set of his shoulders, the way his hands curled when he got annoyed, the way he always shifted his weight forward like every conversation was one rude comment away from becoming a contact sport. “There,” you said.

“What?”

“That.” You pointed your pen at his right hand. “You made a fist.”

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie to me when I’m literally looking at the problem. That’s embarrassing for both of us.”

John looked down. His hand was, in fact, half-curled. He didn’t even realise. He flexed his fingers open, irritated.

“That,” you said, “is the part we fix. Not your childhood. Not your marriage. Not whatever patriotic hellscape lives in your frontal lobe. That. The two seconds between insult and impact. That is my jurisdiction.”

You stepped closer, lowering your voice just enough. “When someone escalates, you do not match them, do you understand? You don’t get to make it a dominance contest because your ego gets lonely. You create space, you name the behavior, and you give one clear instruction.”

He looked unconvinced.

You sighed. “For example: ‘Step back. Lower your voice. We can talk when you’re calm.’ See? Simple.”

“I know how to talk to people.”

“You know how to issue commands,” you corrected. “That’s not the same thing. Golden retrievers know how to bark. We don’t make them hostage negotiators.”

His mouth twitched up into a smile before he could stop it.

You caught it instantly. “Oh, good,” you said. “There’s a sense of humor under all that rage.”

“Are we done?”

“No.”

You made him run the scenario again. And again. And again.

You played the panicked contractor. Then an angry civilian. Then a reporter shoving a phone in his face. Then a teammate ignoring his order. Every time he got too mad, you stopped him. Every time his posture turned threatening, you pointed it out. Every time his voice dropped into that dangerous register, you made him start over.

“Less divorced drill sergeant.”

He tried again.

“Better. Still terrifying, but now in a way HR can plausibly defend.”

John looked like he wanted to throw your clipboard through a wall. But he didn’t.

By the end of the session, he had forgotten to be hostile for nearly ten whole minutes.

—

Unfortunately, everyone else noticed him being weird about these sessions before he did.

It happened after the eleventh meeting.

He had put on some fancy cologne. Maybe he had sprayed once more than usual. Maybe twice. Maybe he had stood in front of the mirror afterward, frowned, and changed his shirt because the first one looked too tactical and the second one looked like he was trying too hard, which meant he had landed on the third shirt, which looked like he was trying exactly the right amount.

Whatever.It wasn’t a thing.

He walked into the common area afterward feeling, unfortunately, good. The session had gone well. You had smiled at him twice, called him out on his bullshit once, and told him he handled a frustrating call from Olivia better than he would have a month ago. He had pretended that meant nothing when it meant everything.

He was still thinking about it when Yelena looked up from the couch and sniffed the air.

John stopped walking. Ava, sitting beside her with a bowl of cereal, paused mid-bite.

Yelena sniffed again. “Oh,” she said. “Interesting.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

Ava looked him up and down. “That’s a lot of… smell.”

“It’s cologne,” John said flatly. “I wear cologne.”

Yelena leaned back against the couch, pleased. “People wear cologne. You are marinating in it.”

Ava looked him over, not unkindly. “The training went well?”

John pointed at her. “Don’t.”

Yelena’s grin sharpened. “Oh, it went very well.”

“I’m leaving.”

“You wore the good shirt,” Ava pointed out.

“Oh!” Yelena made a delighted little sound. “He knows it is the good shirt.”

John felt heat crawl up his neck. “I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about.”

“You have many shirts,” Yelena said. “Most of them say divorced military action figure. This one says”—she waved a hand vaguely—“please think I am emotionally available.”

Ava snorted into her cereal, which by the way, she was eating at four in the afternoon.

John stared at them both, wishing briefly and sincerely for a mission, an explosion, a portal to hell, anything. “I don’t have to stand here and take this.”

John left before he could prove exactly why Bucky had sent him to counseling. But he did not slam the door.

—

John had a dentist appointment that day, and he only found out his regular dentist was on leave while he was already in the chair.

Great.

He already hated the dentist on a good day, but most people did, though. Nobody liked being tilted back beneath a blinding light while someone told them to relax with cold metal in their mouth. Nobody enjoyed lying flat and useless with their mouths forced open, unable to swallow properly, unable to answer questions, unable to do anything except stare at the ceiling tiles while the scrape of instruments were shoved in there. It was an inherently vulnerable place to be.

The angle of the chair was bad enough. The bib against his chest, the plastic suction tube pulling at the corner of his mouth, the hygienist’s polite voice telling him to open wider, the scrape-scrape-scrape of metal against enamel was worse.

He had one hand curled around the armrest and kept telling himself he was being ridiculous.People did this every day. Accountants did this. Schoolteachers did this.

John was already in a bad mood when the hygienist leaned back, pulled off her gloves, and said, “Dr. Hayes will be in to do the final check.”

John went still. Hayes?

It was a common last name. That was what he told himself first. It could be anyone. New York was full of Hayeses. Thousands of them. Maybe millions.

Then the door opened.

The dentist stepped in wearing scrubs, gloves, a mask, and magnifying loupes pushed up over his forehead. For one glorious, stupid second, John didn’t recognize him. The mask hid enough. The entire situation was absurd enough that his brain tried to protect him by refusing to connect the dots.

Then the dentist looked at the chart and said, “Hey, John.”

John’s soul left his body.

Nathan.

Nathan Hayes, D.D.S., apparently.

John knew he should’ve listened to what he did for work.

Of course Nathan was a dentist. Of course Olivia’s boyfriend had a respectable job where he helped people and owned tiny mirrors and probably lectured about gum health with sincerity. Of course John had somehow ended up flat on his back, jaw aching, beneath the one man in the city he least wanted to see, while said man held a small, gleaming instrument between gloved fingers. There were levels of hell, apparently. This was a new one.

Nathan’s eyes crinkled above the mask in what John assumed was a smile. A normal smile. A professional smile.

“Dr. Miller’s on leave this week,” Nathan said. “I know this is a little weird. I can keep it quick.”

A little weird. Ha!

John stared up at him, pinned by the chair, pinned by the light, pinned by his own body’s immediate reaction to being trapped.

The overhead lamp hummed. The air smelled like mint paste, latex, antiseptic, and the sterile bite of metal, though it just smelled like a fresh magazine of bullets. The tray sat beside Nathan’s elbow, lined with instruments John’s brain catalogued before he could stop it: Probe. Mirror. Scaler. Suction tube. Polisher. Little hooked things. Silver points. Thin handles. Glass jar on the counter. Cabinet door half-open. Exit to the left. Nathan on the right.

John’s fingers tightened around the chair until the vinyl creaked.

He wanted to break something, but he didn’t, not even in a million years, want to accidentally hurt Nathan.

He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He just wanted out. Out of the chair, out of the room, out of his own head, out of being compared and found lacking by a scoreboard nobody else knew existed.

Nathan just adjusted the light and asked, “You okay?”

John felt the breath catch in his chest. “Fine.” It came out too flat.

Nathan paused, just barely. The hygienist glanced between them. He didn’t push, though. He nodded, lowered the loupes over his eyes, and said, “All right. Open for me.”

John almost laughed because there was no way this was his life.

No way Nathan’s gloved hand was braced near John’s chin, steady and gentle, while John’s whole body buzzed with the urge to move, to sit up, to take control of the room by force simply because lying still felt unbearable.

Still, opened his mouth.

The first touch of the dental mirror against his teeth made his spine twitch.

Nathan told the hygienist something about the back molars. He heard the scrape of the instrument traveled through his jaw in a way that felt too invasive and too loud. John stared at the ceiling and tried to breathe through his nose, but even that felt wrong, like he was barely holding the lid down on a volcano.

Then, Nathan’s phone rang.

He said something about being done anyway, and told the hygienist to take over as he went outside to take the emergency call.

Then he heard Olivia outside the room.

He caught it by accident. The door wasn’t shut all the way, dammit. It’s not like he was actively trying to eavesdrop.

“Hey, Liv. Everything okay?”

Nathan’s voice was quieter now, but John could still hear it, because the serum made sure there was no privacy from the things that would ruin him.

“Yeah. No, I can help. Give me twenty minutes. Is he still fussy?”

John’s vision narrowed around the ceiling light. His son.

Olivia had called Nathan because she needed help with his son, and Nathan had answered like that was normal. Like he was allowed to be the easy call. Like John was not sitting there twenty feet away with mint on his tongue and a paper bib on his chest.

The hygienist said something about rinsing. John did it automatically.

He wanted to break something. A tray. A light. The plastic cup. His own knuckles if that was what it took to keep the feeling from becoming bigger than the room.

Then your voice came back to him. You weren't there, but he remembered your advice: Name the feeling before it names you.

John squeezed his eyes shut for half a second.

Fear. Loss. Control. No. Lack of it.

That’s it. He felt out of control. His normal dentist already made him feel out of control, and Nathan holding metal near his mouth while Olivia trusted him with John’s son made him feel like control was a house fire and he was standing there with a cup of water.

His hands shook once against the chair.

He breathed in. Four counts. Held. Out for six.

He had mocked the breathing exercises when you taught them to him. He had called them tactical breathing with better marketing. You had looked at him and said, “Mock it while you do it correctly, then. You think you’re helping the team with that mouth?” He had almost smiled. He had done it badly on purpose. You had noticed.

Now he did it the way you had taught him. Again. Again.

By the time Nathan came back in, John hadn't broken anything.

By the time Nathan finished the appointment, John hadn’t said anything cruel.

By the time he got to his car, John could finally breathe normally again

He sat behind the wheel with both hands gripping it, staring through the windshield at nothing. His mouth tasted like fluoride. His teeth ached. His heartbeat was still too fast. He hadn’t shoved the tray over. He hadn’t crushed the armrest. He had recognized that he was standing on the edge and backed away from it.

So why did he feel like he was breaking apart?

—

He did not remember deciding to drive to your place.

Your address was in the file, because you, for some reason, hosted emergency sessions for selected individuals. Because you were a professional and John had no business using that information because he felt like he was coming apart.

But the thought of going back to the tower made his skin crawl, and you were the only person he could think of.

When he reached your building, there were two cop cars outside.

John stopped on the sidewalk, every nerve going cold.

Then the door opened, and two uniformed officers came out, speaking quietly into radios. Behind them, you stood in the entryway with one hand on the doorframe, your hair a little loose, your shoulders set. You looked… tired.

You looked up and saw him. “John?”

It was not your session voice. It was just your voice, surprised and worried all the same.

His throat tightened so suddenly he almost looked away. “I need to talk about something,” he said.

Your eyes moved over his face, quick and careful. He watched you read him the way you always did. “John, this isn’t—”

“I know,” he said quickly. “I know I shouldn’t be here. I know it’s not appropriate. I just—” His voice cracked, and he hated that it did. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

And because you were kind, you sighed and stepped aside. “Come in.”

The second your apartment door shut behind him, the effort of holding himself together finally gave in. He did not explode. Instead, he just stood there in your entryway, too broad for the narrow space, breathing too hard through his nose, eyes burning.

You turned toward him.

He reached for you before he could stop himself.

It was not a romantic gesture, at least not yet. Not like this. But it was too desperate to be anything casual. His arms came around you, and for one terrible second he held on like you were the only real thing left in the world.

You went still.

He felt the professional calculation, the boundary, the line drawn and redrawn in the beat between one breath and the next. Then your hand settled between his shoulder blades.

You hugged him back just enough to keep him from falling apart.

He closed his eyes. His face turned slightly toward your shoulder, not buried, but close enough that some aching part of him wanted to stay there. He wanted to press closer. He wanted to let the day end inside the mercy of your hand on his back.

He pulled away first because he had to. Because if he didn’t, he might forget himself.

Your eyes searched his face. “Sit down,” you said gently.

He did.

You brought him water.

He sat on your couch like a man trying not to collapse through it, staring at the glass in his hands while you took the chair across from him.

“What happened?” you asked.

He laughed once. “My dentist was out on leave.”

You blinked.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, then dropped it. “Nathan was covering.”

Your face changed. “The Nathan?”

“Yeah,” John said. “The Nathan.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” He let out a breath that almost shook. “Oh.”

Then it came out of him in pieces: The chair. The light. The tools. The fact that everyone felt a little powerless at the dentist, but for him it had been worse, because he could hear too much and see too much courtesy of the serum and his body kept cataloguing exits and weapons like everything was a threat courtesy of the military training. He talked about Nathan holding tools in his mouth. Olivia’s voice outside. Nathan saying he could help with John’s son.

He stopped there.

For a second, all he could do was stare at the water glass.

“I wanted to break something,” he said, voice low. “There were so many things in that room. And I knew where all of them were, and I hated that I knew. I hated that my head went there.”

You were very still.

“But I didn't want to accidentally hurt him,” John said, and that broke slightly on the way out. “I didn’t. I don’t. He’s not doing anything wrong. He’s good to Olivia. He’s good with my son. He’s just—” He swallowed hard. “He’s there. And I hate him for being there, and then I hate myself because he’s just being a good boyfriend and a good dentist and I’m sitting there thinking about breaking the tray.”

He dragged a hand over his face. “I felt like I was losing control.”

You didn’t rush him. You didn't jump in to make him feel better. You didn't perform comfort.

Then you said, “But you didn’t.”

John shook his head. “It felt like I did.”

“John.”

He looked at you.

Your voice was gentler now, but no less firm. “You were in a setting that already makes people feel vulnerable. You had someone in your personal space holding metal instruments, and then the person holding those instruments was someone tied directly to a major emotional trigger. You recognized that. You recognized that you didn’t want to hurt him, or yourself. You used the breathing exercises. You left without escalating the situation.”

He looked down.

“You came here,” you added, trying to hide the painfully obvious amusement and failed. You chuckled a little, “And we do need to talk about that boundary. But the dentist’s office was not a setback.”

He stared at you.

“It wasn’t even an incident,” you said, almost proud. “Because you handled it.”

Oh. Right. This was the point.

Still, tears came before he could stop them. Not many, but a few hot and furious tears that blurred his vision before he wiped them away with the heel of his hand. “Fuck,” he muttered.

You tilted your head and gave him a box of tissues, and that somehow made him want to cry harder.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For crying?”

“For showing up here.”

“I’m glad you looked for someone,” you said, a faint smile along your lips, and it was the most beautiful thing John had ever seen.

John looked at you. Someone, you had said, someone?

That was a polite way of saying it. It was professional, safe enough to sit between you without making him admit what was probably painfully obvious on his face.

That someone had been you.

He could’ve driven around the city until the anger burned through the soles of his shoes. He could’ve wandered Manhattan like a lost man, fighting the urge to snap a street sign in half or put his fist through the nearest lamp post. But he had not done that. He had come to you.

You.

And there was a hint of something in your face when you said it that he couldn’t quite read. Professional concern, sure. But beneath it, he could’ve sworn he caught something warmer. Something that had no place in reports or progress notes or mandated training in empty conference rooms.

Fondness, maybe. Affection?

No.

No, he couldn’t do that to himself. He couldn’t convince himself of that. That was just heartbreak in a bottle, because there’s no way you feel the same about him, right?

Right?

—

After a while, when his breathing stopped sounding like it was trying to crawl out of his chest, John started noticing your apartment.

He didn’t even mean to. He just needed somewhere to put his eyes that weren't you.

The place was warmer than he expected. You didn’t seem like the sort of person who arranged throw pillows for emotional fulfillment, but there was a lived-in clutter that was almost charming. Books were stacked near the couch, a mug was abandoned by the sink. A cardigan was draped over the back of a chair, one sleeve turned inside out. Shoes had been kicked off by the door like you’d come home in a hurry and forgotten.

It was endearing, how human it all made you.

Of course you were human. You had a kettle. You had overdue-looking mail on the counter. You had a slightly crooked lamp and a blanket folded badly over one end of the couch. You probably had preferences about laundry detergent and favorite takeout and stupid little routines you did when no one was looking.

Then he saw the photos on the wall.

Sam Wilson, smiling beside you with VA badges around both your necks. You with Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, caught mid-laugh. You with Natasha Romanoff in a theme park somewhere. And beside them a photo of you standing next to the late King T’Challa of Wakanda, doing a peace sign together.

Huh.

Apparently every person designed to make John feel like an underqualified replacement came with a personal connection to the old guard.

“You know them too?” he asked.

You followed his eyes and nodded. You looked almost embarrassed for a second. You, who had no problem calling him a patriotic parking violation to his face, suddenly shy because he had noticed your wall of impressive friends.

“Oh,” you said. “Yeah.”

He turned back to you, eyebrows raised. “You said that like it’s normal.”

That you knew two of the other Captain Americas, and yet you didn’t tell me.

For once, he wasn’t really angry about it. For lack of a better word, he felt blank. Like great, nothing I ever do will impress her.

You looked down at the mug between your palms, thumb brushing the handle in a small, unconscious circle.

“I used to work for Homeland as a hostage negotiator,” you said, as if it was nothing. “Then I worked with Sam at the VA for a while. Y’know, reintegration and risk assessment.” You glanced toward the photo of Sam again. “Sam was better with people than I was.”

Yeah, tell me about it, John wanted to say, but kept his big mouth shut for once and listened.

“He still is,” you said. “He could sit down beside someone and make them feel like they had room to breathe. I was more…”

“Mean?” John offered.

You looked at him with half a scowl. “Practical,” you corrected. “After that, he asked if I could consult with Steve and Nat on a few things.”

You shrugged, like any of that was casual.

His eyes flicked back to the photo of Bucky and Steve. “So that’s how this became your… niche?”

You huffed a small laugh. “Enhanced individuals with authority issues? Yeah, it pays very well.”

“Oh,” John said. It was a stupid answer, but the only one he had.

You looked down again, and he could have sworn you were hiding the beginning of a smile, and not even a professional one. Not the weaponized one you used when you were about to call him a liability in three syllables or less. This one was private. As if you were amused by him and trying to be decent about it.

He looked toward the door, partly because he needed to put his eyes somewhere else, and partly because the police cars outside had finally pushed their way back into his mind. The flashing lights had been turning the street blue and red for long enough that he had almost forgotten to ask the obvious question. “What were the cops about anyway?”

You sighed and looked down. You were anxious, and that set off the slightest alarm in his head. “You’ll probably see it on the news.”

John straightened. “What happened?”

You were quiet for half a second too long. Then you said, “I was on the subway earlier.”

John waited.

“There was a shooter in my train car,” you said. “I had to talk him down.”

Shit.

For a second, John couldn’t speak. His mind gave him the picture before he could stop it: Crowded bodies pressed too close together, nowhere to go, doors shut, the violent metallic shriek of the tracks. He saw a gun in someone’s hand pointed to you, standing there with nothing but your voice and the infuriating calm you used on guys like him when they were too angry to know they were scared.

Anger rose in him so fast it scared him. Not at you, but at the world. At the train. At the man with the gun. At the fact that you had been there, trapped underground, while he had been sitting in a car losing his mind over a dentist appointment like an idiot. At the fact that someone he…

Someone whose apartment he had come to, had been in danger. You had been in danger, and he hadn’t known. He hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been able to do a single thing with the useless, violent instinct that roared awake inside him now.

His eyes moved over you before he could stop himself: Your face, arms, torso. He was searching for blood. Bruises. A limp. Anything that signalled that you were anything but okay. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, John.” His name sounded different when you said it like that. You weren’t irritated. You were trying to reassure him.

It made the anger worse for a second because he had nowhere to put it. He couldn’t hit the past. Couldn’t storm onto a train that had already stopped. Couldn’t grab time by the throat and drag it backward until he was there between you and the danger.

He could only sit on your couch with his hands curled uselessly around his knees. And he could tell you knew what was happening, too. But you weren’t in a great state of mind right now, so maybe you couldn’t waste your energy to tell him to come down.

So he did a new-ish coping mechanism. He cracked a joke. “Kids these days, huh?”

He hated that that was what he said. He hated it even more when shook your head.

“No,” you said quietly. “He was a vet. Vietnam, I think.”

John’s attempt at humor died immediately. “Oh,” he said.

For a while, the room was silent.

The anger didn’t leave him. It lost the directionless edge and became… more familiar.

He looked at you again, at the fatigue under your eyes, the tension still sitting in your shoulders. He wondered how long you had been holding yourself still while he ranted about his stupid Nathan.

You had let him into your apartment while your own hands were still shaking.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

You gave a small laugh, but it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You’re not my shrink, John.”

“You’re not mine either,” he said. “And yet.”

That got him half a smile.

You leaned back slightly in your chair, studying him with that careful, cutting attention he had learned to dread. “Why do you wanna know?”

John swallowed.

Because you were in a train with a gunman. Because I care. Because the thought of you being scared makes me want to tear the world apart, and that is exactly the kind of thing you keep trying to train out of me.

He said none of that. He wasn’t brave enough. Not yet. “I’m asking as a friend,” he said instead.

Friend. The word felt small the second it left his mouth. But it was the only one he was allowed to use. Even that felt like reaching across a line.

You looked at him. Then your eyes dropped briefly to his hands. When you looked back up, your eyes had changed a little.

“Yeah,” you said finally. “Yeah, I am.”

John nodded once. He didn’t believe you completely. You seemed to know that, because your mouth curved faintly.

“Mostly.”

It was not what John wanted.

He wanted to do something. To fix something. To stand in front of something. To put his body between you and every terrible thing that had already happened, which was useless and stupid and exactly the kind of impulse you would probably write down in your notes with a little disappointed frown. So he just sat there, close enough to notice the tremor had started to fade from your hands.

And because you also used humor as a distraction, you gave him a sad smile. “The gunman has nothing on me, John,” you said, “I’m actually good at my job.”

John chuckled.

That, you were.

—

The next meeting was supposed to be easy. You had prepared a mandatory mission readiness evaluation for John. It would maybe take forty-five minutes, and be made up of observation notes, updated risk profile, and recommendation to Barnes by end of day. You had printed the forms. You had set up the conference room. You had brought three different colored pens because, apparently, somewhere between Homeland, the VA, and corporate risk management, color-coding had become very important.

Then your sister called. Which was how you ended up standing in the middle of a government training room with a clipboard in one hand, a half-eaten protein bar in your mouth, and your four-year-old niece sitting cross-legged on the floor beneath the evaluation table, coloring a dinosaur pink.

Her parents were both paramedics. This meant their lives existed in a state of organized chaos: Shifts changed and childcare fell through, so you had babysat her before. Sometimes, someone got stuck transporting a patient across town. Someone else got called in because two ambulances were down and the city, apparently, was held together by caffeine, duct tape, and exhausted women with emergency medical certifications.

Your niece’s name was Mina. She was four and a half and you loved with all of your heart.

You really did, but not in the way people were when they wanted credit for liking children. You didn’t coo or perform sweetness. You didn’t become a different person around Mina.

You were still you, efficient and as practical as a legal memo. But your hand automatically moved the juice box farther from the forms before Mina could knock it over. You noticed when she chewed on the end of the crayon and swapped it out without hesitation. You opened her apple slices one-handed. You brushed purple crayon dust off her cheek with your thumb, and Mina leaned into it without even looking up, like that touch was ordinary.

“Yes, I can take her for an hour,” you had said to your sister on the phone. “No, I cannot take her for six. I have work. Actual work with unstable adults.”

Your sister had said something frantic.

“Fine,” You had sighed. “And no, that was not a dig at your child. Mina is emotionally more regulated than half my roster.”

And now here you were. Mina was under the table, humming to herself as she gave a stegosaurus what appeared to be purple lipstick. Her plushie sat beside your shoe, slumped with the weary dignity of a stuffed rabbit who had survived a lot of childcare emergencies.

“You can use blue,” Mina said, holding a crayon up toward you without looking away from her dinosaur.

“I’m working.”

“You can work in blue.”

“I can’t evaluate a federal asset in crayon.”

Mina looked up at you, deeply unimpressed. “Why not?”

Hm. That was a good question.

“Because,” you said finally, “corporate is joyless.”

Mina nodded like this made perfect sense (it didn’t) and went back to coloring.

That was when John appeared in the doorway. He stopped dead when you looked up.

He looked at you. Then at Mina. Then at the juice box on the table. Then at the open packet of baby wipes beside your neatly stacked mission readiness assessment forms.

For several seconds, nobody said anything.

Mina looked him up and down with the suspicion of a tiny secret agent. John looked like he had walked into the wrong room.

You took the protein bar out of your mouth and said, “Before you speak, choose your words with the same caution you should be bringing to crisis de-escalation.”

His eyes came back to yours. “She yours?”

“Do I look like I have time to produce children?”

His mouth twitched.

You pointed your pen at him. “No.”

Mina crawled out from under the table just enough to examine him properly. She had your sister’s eyes, which meant she could look judgmental without trying. It was honestly impressive and slightly unsettling.

John noticed her staring and immediately adjusted. He shifted his weight back and lowered himself just a little, enough to seem less like an unwelcome wall.

“Hey, buddy,” he said. His voice was gentler than you expected.

Mina narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”

“John.”

She looked at you. “Is he in trouble?”

John’s eyebrows rose.

You took a slow sip of coffee. “Constantly.”

Mina nodded with grave understanding, like she too had dealt with federal compliance issues. Then she held up her stuffed rabbit. “Auntie works with people in trouble.”

John’s gaze flicked up to yours. “I’m not in trouble,” John told Mina.

Mina considered this, then looked at you for confirmation. You tilted your hand. “He’s in evaluation.”

“What’s eval-vul-wation?”

“It means we check whether someone can behave in public.”

Mina looked back at John. John looked at you like he was trying very hard not to smile.

Mina held up her stuffed rabbit. “This is Mr. Bun. He has anxiety.”

John’s attention shifted immediately to the rabbit, not fake attention and patronizing adult attention. He gave her real attention, serious enough that Mina seemed to approve of it.

“Mr. Bun,” he said solemnly. “Good name.”

“He gets scared when people yell.”

John’s eyes flickered to you, and you just smiled brightly. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t train the rabbit.”

He didn’t quite laugh, but some of the tension left his mouth. His shoulders settled by a fraction. He looked down at Mina’s coloring page and, without thinking about it too much, picked up a green crayon she had abandoned near his boot.

“What’s the dinosaur’s name?” he asked.

Mina looked pleased, because this was apparently the correct question. “Princess Stomp.”

“Strong name.”

“She bites bad guys.”

“Useful skill.”

“John,” you said.

He looked up, innocent in a way that did not suit him at all. You went back to your clipboard immediately.

“Mission readiness evaluation,” you said. “Slightly modified.”

“Modified how?”

“My niece is present, so we will do our written evaluation first and the practical one next week. It means no shouting, no tactical demonstrations involving doors, no threats, no furniture damage, and no saying anything that will get repeated to my sister in law while she’s holding trauma shears.”

John looked at Mina, and she smiled back at him with a colourful crayon mark smeared on her cheek.

John looked back at you. “Trauma shears?”

“Both my sister and her wife are paramedics,” you said. “Which means Mina can identify a tourniquet, tell you why you don’t move someone with a suspected spinal injury, and constantly asks grown adults why they look tired.”

Mina, without looking up, confirmed, “He does look tired.”

John stared at her.

You pressed your lips together to hold back a smile. “See?” you said. “Gifted.”

John cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

Mina looked at you. “He’s lying.”

You sighed. “We’re working on that, honey.”

John gave you a look. You gave it right back.

This should have been irritating. One more stupid thing shoved into an already overpacked day. Instead, John stood there with his hands loose at his sides, and Mina pushed a spare coloring page toward him like she had decided he was permitted to exist.

“You can color if your work is boring,” she told him.

John looked at the coloring page. Then at you. He picked up the green crayon.

Oh?

“You do realize,” you said, “If you draw during a mission readiness evaluation, I will include it in the report.”

John looked down at the paper. “What if it’s good?”

“That’d be more concerning.”

Mina leaned over to inspect his work after approximately fifteen seconds of scribbling. “That’s not a dinosaur.”

“It’s a tank.”

You looked up from your clipboard. “John.”

“What?” he asked defensively. “It’s not armed.”

“It has a turret.”

“It’s decorative.”

Mina frowned. “Make it a turtle.”

John paused. Then, in grave resignation, he drew legs and a head on the tank. Mina nodded approvingly. “Better.”

You stared at him. John did not look at you, but the tips of his ears had gone slightly pink.

You wrote something down.

John tried to look annoyed, but he was terrible at it with a child in the room.

He was not awkward with Mina. He was good with her. He listened when she spoke, even when she was explaining that Mr. Bun couldn’t sit near the door because he hates doors. He didn't laugh at her or rush her. When she dropped a crayon, he bent and picked it up without comment, placing it back beside her little hand like it mattered.

John Walker, who could turn a hallway into a warzone, somehow knew not to make a four-year-old feel small.

You hated that your heart noticed before your brain could tell it to stop.

John seemed to notice things you did for her, too: The apple slices you had cut into careful half-moons because Mina liked them that way. The way you reached down without looking when she leaned against your calf, your hand landing briefly on the top of her head before returning to your clipboard. The way you were brisk with her but never careless. Practical, but never cold.

You told Mina not to wipe her hands on your trousers, then handed her a napkin before she had to ask. You fixed the little cardigan slipping off her shoulder with one hand while reading John’s file with the other. You were not nurturing in an obvious way. You were efficient love. Competent love.

The kind that remembered snack preferences, packed extra socks, and still said, “No, you cannot lick the marker, even if it smells like grapes, because capitalism is trying to kill you.”

John watched you do it and felt his brain go very still.

Oh shit.

His crush had been manageable when it was only about you being hot. It was easier when he only thought of sinful things when he looked at your mouth. But this was worse.

This was you with a child leaning against your leg. You with crayons and classified paperwork sharing a table. You telling Mina no with the same clean confidence you used to tell John to unclench his fists.

John’s mind, apparently determined to ruin his life, supplied an image of you in a kitchen, feet kicking over the edge of a counter as he cooked dinner.

Oh, no, he thought. No, no, no.

No, because now he was thinking about coming home to you, and not even in the fun, stupid, crush way. Not in the she’s pretty when she’s mean to me way. Worse. So much worse.

Desire was simple. Embarrassing and inconvenient, sure. But it was simple. This was not simple.

Now he was thinking about the sound of your keys in a lock. About your shoes kicked off by the door. About you by a dining table, practical and beautiful, telling him not to hover while you cut apple slices into moon shapes because a child liked them better that way.

Now he was thinking about your coffee going cold because you got distracted helping a child zip up her cardigan. About your hand landing automatically on a child’s head when she leaned into your leg.

And then his mind went somewhere sweeter. His son.

Oh, God.

John imagined bringing him around you. He imagines the way you would speak to him like he was a person, not a prop in John’s life, not a fragile little extension of his failures. You would be direct with him, gentle in that dry, practical way that made care feel less like pity and more like a crutch.

You would remember what he liked. You wouldn’t let John dote, like he always did . You would probably look at him over his son's head after you woke up in his bed and say, “Stop making that face, John. He’s eating cereal, not defusing a bomb.”

Oh, no. Because that was it, wasn’t it?

He didn't just want to sleep with you. He wanted to build a life with you.

He wanted mornings, errands, and arguments about nothing. He wanted your jacket over the back of a chair. He wanted a second chance at something he hadn’t even let himself admit he still wanted.

Family. Not the perfect kind. A patched-togethed, difficult one.

And that was when John realized, with a stomach-dropping horror, that this was not a crush.

It had probably stopped being one weeks ago. Maybe it stopped being one the second you let him sit on your couch after the subway and asked for nothing from him but the truth.

He wanted to be with you.

“John?”

He blinked hard.

You were watching him, clipboard lowered, a bit concerned because he usually didn’t space out this long. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said too quickly. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

You clearly didn’t believe him. Before you could say anything else, though, Mina tilted her head, looked from him to you, and said, “I think he likes you.”

John forgot how to breathe.

Mina hugged Mr. Bun to her chest. “Like likes you.”

John cleared his throat, desperate for a way out. “I don’t think she’s qualified to make that assessment.”

But you weren’t laughing. You just looked down at your clipboard, and there was… a flush on your cheeks.

For the first time since he had known you, you looked shy.

John’s heart did a stupid little flip.

Mina leaned against the table, peeking over it, pleased with herself.

You lifted the clipboard like it could still save you. “Back to the evaluation.”

John nodded once, and neither of you looked at each other for the next several seconds.

Mina sighed as if she was the only adult in the room.

—

By the time the written evaluation was done, the room had settled into a strange middle ground, where your printed leg forms sat beside Mina’s half-finished coloring page, and John sat still, trying not to look too pleased while you reviewed his final notes.

You read in silence for a moment, pen tucked between your fingers, your mouth composed in that way he had learned meant you were thinking rather than judging. Mina was near your chair, humming softly to herself while trying to fit Mr. Bun into your tote bag. She was failing, but Mina wasn’t one to give in easily.

John kept his eyes on the floor for as long as he could. It lasted maybe three seconds before he looked at you again.

You had that slight crease between your brows. The one that appeared when you were concentrating. Your jacket sleeve had ridden up your wrist, and there was a faint crayon mark on the side of your hand where Mina must have gotten you earlier. You hadn’t noticed. Or maybe you had and decided it wasn’t worth the battle.

Finally, you lowered the page.

Mina seemed to notice as she appeared beside your knee and leaned her whole weight into your leg. “Is John done?”

You set your pen down and rested a hand lightly on top of her head without looking. “He is.”

“Did he do good?”

John raised his eyebrows.

You looked at him for half a second, then down at Mina. “He did,” you said.

Oh.

Good. John let out a deep breath he didn’t even realise he was holding.

Mina nodded, satisfied, then looked up at him with a thumbs up. “Good job.”

He swallowed a smile. “Thanks, Mina.”

You seemed to notice his voice changed for her. It made you pause for just a breath while packing your clipboard into your bag.

John wanted to offer something. Anything. He wanted to stay in the orbit of this little half-chaotic scene for a few seconds longer, which was insane because he had spent most of the session being dismantled by a woman with a toddler snack container in her bag. “I can walk you to the elevator.”

You paused again, just enough for him to wonder if he had overstepped. You shifted your bag higher on your shoulder. “Sure.”

His heart made a hopeful jump.

Mina immediately lifted both arms toward him. “Uppies.”

John froze.

You looked down at her. “Mina.”

“My legs are tired.”

“You have been sitting on the floor for an hour.”

“They got tired from coloring.”

“That’s not how legs work.”

Mina only held her arms higher.

John’s gaze flicked to you, careful now. He was asking without asking.

Your eyes softened, assessing, like you were checking a bridge before letting a loved one cross it. Then you nodded. “My sister said any Avenger I trust is allowed to give Mina uppies.”

Any Avenger I trust.

You said it lightly, like it was just logistical. Like it didn't matter.

How well had he done on that assessment?

Because you’re not just tolerating him. You’re not just professionally managing him. You trusted him.

He must have looked as pathetic as he felt, because your smile softened by half an inch before you covered it with impatience.

“Well?” you said. “She’s not going to levitate.”

John crouched in front of Mina. “You sure?”

Mina nodded fiercely. “Uppies.”

So he picked her up carefully. Mina settled against him immediately, one arm looping around his neck, Mr. Bun squished between them. John adjusted his hold with the caution of a man who knew kids were not fragile exactly, but precious.

Your eyes glittered before you could stop it.

John saw it. He looked down at Mina quickly, like that might save him.

Mina rested her cheek against his shoulder and pointed toward the door. “Elevator.”

You cleared your throat and reached for your bag. “Bossy,” you murmured.

John looked at you over her head, a helpless sigh at his mouth. “She learns from her aunt.”

You shook your head and started walking out of the conference room.

And John followed you out with Mina in his arms, feeling trusted and doomed in equal measure.

—

That night, John Walker paced into the common room like a race car doing 200 laps in the Indy 500.

He wasn’t even sure when he had started. One minute he had been standing in his room, staring at his own reflection in the dark TV screen with his arms crossed, and the next he was out here, walking the same ugly little path around kitchen island like a man trying to wear a trench into corporate flooring.

Do not ask out your crisis de-escalation trainer. He turned at the window and came back. Do not ask out your team-mandated crisis de-escalation trainer.

He stopped, dragged both hands over his face, and made a noise between a groan and the beginning of a breakdown.

Because, sure. Fine. He could admit it now, in the privacy of his own head, where nobody could testify against him later.

He liked you.

No, actually, that was stupid. That was insulting. He didn’t just like you. Liking you would’ve been manageable. Liking you would’ve been noticing your mouth when you smiled, or standing a little straighter when you said his name, or feeling vaguely pathetic because you wrote a note down and he wanted it to be good.

This was worse. This was full-body, humiliating, high-school-level idiocy with the added horror of being a grown man with a divorce, a child, a government file, and a history of public property damage.

He liked you so much it made him feel unstable. He liked you so much that your approval pulled a physical reaction out of him. It got under his ribs. It made him want to show up on time and do the exercises properly. It made him want to be better in a way that had nothing to do with mission clearance and everything to do with the way you looked at him when he managed not to be the worst version of himself.

John resumed pacing.

And then there was the other problem. The worse problem. The problem so embarrassing he almost said it out loud just to hear how pathetic it sounded.

He hadn’t asked a woman out since high school.

High school.

He had no idea how to do this now. What did people even say?

Hey, I know you were assigned to me because I’m a liability, but have you considered dinner?

No.

What if he was bad at it? What if he came on too strong? What if he didn’t come on strong enough? What if you gave him that calm face and told him this was inappropriate in the same voice you used when he had to restart a de-escalation scenario?

John stopped again and stared at the ceiling.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

“Jesus is not here.”

John turned.

Alexei stood in the doorway wearing a robe and sweatpants. He had a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other, like he had wandered in for a snack and discovered live entertainment.

John stared at him. “What are you doing?”

“Eating cereal.”

“At 9PM?”

Alexei looked down at the bowl as if this explained itself. “Yes.”

John exhaled through his nose and turned away. “Forget it.”

“No, no.” Alexei stepped farther into the room, eyes narrowing. “You are pacing.”

“I’m not doing this.”

“You are thinking about woman.”

John’s shoulders went rigid. How the fuck did he know?

Alexei gasped, delighted. “Ah! It is woman.”

“No.”

“It is the trainer woman.”

John closed his eyes. Great. So everyone knew before he did.

Alexei pointed his spoon at him. “Crisis lady.”

“Don’t call her that.”

“Oh-ho.” Alexei’s grin widened. “You defend title. Very serious.”

John turned back. “I said forget it.”

But Alexei had already moved to the kitchen island, and John was suddenly reminded that Alexei had never once taken a hint as anything but a challenge. “So ask her out.”

John stared at him like he had suggested setting himself on fire for morale. “I can’t just ask her out.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s my crisis de-escalation trainer.”

Alexei shrugged. “So be very calm when you ask.”

John blinked at Alexei, who looked pleased with himself.

“That’s not—” John stopped, dragged a hand over his mouth, and tried again. “There are rules.”

“Always there are rules.” Alexei waved his spoon. “Rules for missions. Rules for weapons. Rules for not microwaving fish in common kitchen. Rules can be respected. This does not mean you die alone.”

John hated that there was a point somewhere in there. Sure, you were his trainer, but you weren’t his counselor. You weren’t his therapist, or his doctor, or some sacred keeper of his deepest psychological wounds You were corporate. A well-paid professional brought in to stop enhanced idiots from turning emotional dysregulation into infrastructure damage. And honestly? People dated at work all the time, didn’t they? Accountants dated other accountants. Lawyers dated other lawyers. Half of corporate America was probably one badly timed office romance away from an HR seminar. So, yes, there were rules. But this wasn’t impossible. It wasn’t simple, but it wasn’t forbidden by the laws of God and man either.

“She’s assigned to me,” he said anyway. “It’s not like I can just show up and say—” He cut himself off.

Alexei leaned in. “Say what?”

“Nothing.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“You want practice?”

“I will walk into traffic before I say it to you.”

Alexei nodded sagely. “Bad opening line.”

John glared.

Alexei ignored him and set his bowl on the counter. “You go to her. You say, ‘Hello. I like you. I understand this is problem. Can this be problem later, when you are not making me less angry?’”

John stared at him for a long second. “That is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

Alexei shrugged, just a little. “You are allowed to want things, Walker.”

John’s throat tightened. For a second, the common room felt too quiet. The city glowed cold beyond the windows. John stood in the middle of the room, feeling too big for his own life and too old to be this scared of a woman saying no.

Alexei picked up his spoon again. “Worst case, she says no.”

John looked at him.

“If you do nothing,” Alexei said, pointing at the floor, “you keep moping. Then we all suffer. I am already suffering.”

John looked toward the hallway.

He thought of you in the conference room. He thought of Mina announcing his feelings to both of you like she had been appointed by the God of crayons. He thought of the flush on your cheeks.

Maybe he was being stupid. Maybe this was a terrible idea.

Maybe he was about to ruin the one thing in his life that had started making him feel like he could actually become something other than angry.

But then again, maybe he wasn’t.

John grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair.

Alexei’s eyebrows shot up. “You are going now?”

“Yes,” John was already heading for the door. “Before I change my mind.”

—

By the time John reached your building, the bravery had started to wear off. That was inconvenient, considering he had already parked.

He sat in his car with both hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield at your apartment building like it was an enemy compound.

He wasn’t going to lie, he considered leaving.

He should’ve gone home. He should’ve sent an email, which was what normal people with impulse control probably did when they developed feelings for the person assigned to help them stop behaving like an angry forklift with a gun license.

John let his head fall back against the seat and shut his eyes.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself. “You can still not do this.”

Then he pictured Alexei’s disappointed face if he came back.

Nope. Not coming back to that.

John got out of the car.

The air was cold enough to bite through his jacket, which helped a little. It gave him something else to focus on besides the fact that he was walking toward your front door. He had faced down armed men with steadier hands than this.

By the time he reached your door, he had rehearsed and discarded six different openings.

Hi.

Too casual.

Can we talk?

Too ominous.

I know this is inappropriate.

Great start, Walker. Lead with the lawsuit.

I have feelings for you.

Jesus Christ, no. Absolutely not. Was he twelve? Was he about to hand you a folded note in the homeroom?

He stood outside your door for three seconds too long, staring at the chilled paint on the frame. Then he raised his hand and rang the doorbell before he could lose his nerve.

The apartment stayed quiet.

For one second, relief flooded him. You weren’t home. Great. Perfect. Act of God. He could leave and pretend he had made an attempt.

Then the lock clicked.

John’s spine straightened.

The door opened just enough for you to look out, and he immediately forgot every reasonable thought he had ever had.

You were in home clothes. You were wearing a loose sweater, your hair gathered messily away from your face, one sleeve slipping down your wrist.

Your eyes widened slightly when you saw him. “John?”

“Can I ask you something?” he said abruptly

Your brow furrowed, and you glanced behind you into the apartment before looking back at him. The hallway light caught the side of your face, and John thought it was the most angelic sight he had ever seen. “Why are you here?”

John opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Amazing. Wonderful. He had made it all the way across the city and failed at the first hurdle.

Your eyes moved over his face, reading him. He watched concern take over. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “I’m not- uh— this isn’t a crisis.”

You sighed, relieved. “Okay.”

“It’s not that kind of thing.”

“John.”

He swallowed. You were already drawing the line. He could see it happening. The professional part of you stepping forward because that was the safe thing, the right thing, and he knew it. He respected it.

He hated it.

“I know,” he said. “I know this is probably crossing every line.”

Your face went still.

Behind you, he could see the dim gold light of a lamp. There was a small pair of tiny shoes near the wall outside your unit, Mina’s, probably, because her parents were still clocking in a late shift.

“Mina’s asleep,” you said quietly. “So if this is going to be loud—”

“No,” John said, too quickly again. He lowered his voice at once, almost wincing. “No. I’m not here to be loud.”

Your eyes flicked back to him, and your pupils in them softened. “This,” you said, still quiet. “Is usually not the beginning of a calm conversation.”

“I know.” He looked down. “I know. I’m sorry.”

And he meant it.

John took one step back, creating more space between you before you had to ask him to.

He couldn’t make this worse by standing too close to you in a hallway like a man who didn’t understand how doors and boundaries worked. “I can leave,” he said. “I should probably leave.”

You didn’t say yes, though. In fact, you looked like you wanted him here.

Huh.

You didn’t step back and close the door. You didn’t give him the clean professional dismissal he had probably deserved. “What do you need to ask me?” you asked.

John let out a short breath.

This was it, then. The line was right there. He could still back away from it. He could make something up. He could say this was about his next session, or his evaluation, or some bullshit about the remaining paperwork. He could spare both of you.

Instead, he looked at you and found he was tired of being brave in every direction except the one that mattered.

“Okay,” he said, more to himself than to you.

Your mouth twitched into a small smile. “That’s not a question.”

There was that dry little edge he was so fond of. Fuck, he was done for.

“No,” he said. “It’s me trying not to make an idiot of myself.”

“Is it working?”

“Not even a little.”

You chuckled, looking over your shoulder again, listening for Mina. Your unit remained quiet. When you looked back, your voice dropped even lower. “John, whatever this is, you need to say it carefully.”

Did… did you know?

“I know.” John gulped.

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” Your fingers tightened around the doorframe. “I am still assigned to you.”

He nodded once. “I know.”

Your eyes searched his face.

That was another thing you had taught him, even if you had never meant to. How not to crowd. How not to fill the room just because he was nervous. How not to make the size of his feelings everyone else’s emergency. So he stood there, hands visible, shoulders tense but back, voice low.

“I’m not asking to come in,” he said. “I’m not asking you to make this easier for me. I’m not asking you to pretend this is normal.”

You tilted your head in curiosity, and he took another breath.

“I just need to say it. And then you can tell me to shut up, and I will.”

For a second, you said nothing.

The silence was deafening. He could hear someone’s television through a wall somewhere down the hall. A car moved along the street outside.

John immediately lowered his voice even more.

“I like you,” he said finally.

The words came out rough.

“I like you,” he repeated, because apparently he needed to make sure he had really done it. “And I know this is inconvenient.”

You didn’t smile, but he could tell you felt something.

It was not nothing.

It was so clearly not nothing that John felt his chest loosen, just a fraction.

“I don’t like you because you’re nice or some shit,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “You’re actually pretty mean to me.”

You looked down, cheeks burning with a smile you couldn’t help anymore. He almost smiled back, but he was too terrified to let himself have that much.

“And not because you’re helping me,” he added. “Not only that. I mean, yeah, maybe that’s part of it. You got stuck with me at a bad time and somehow made me feel less like a walking lawsuit, so I’m sure there’s some stupidpsychology in there.”

Your eyes narrowed faintly. “That was self-aware.”

“Don’t start.”

“Sorry,” you whispered, not sounding sorry at all. “Continue.”

Fuck, you were awful. He still adored you, though.

John looked away for half a second, then back at you. “You don’t let me get away with anything,” he said. “And I know I need that. I know that’s the whole point of why Barnes brought you in. But it’s not just that. You don’t look at me like I’m already a lost cause.”

Your face grew very still again.

This time, he knew it was because he had gotten too close to something real.

“You see me,” he said, and the words were quieter than he meant them to be.

Your breath caught on something that almost became a laugh.

He looked at you then. Your hand was still on the door. Your thumb moved once against the painted wood, a nervous motion. Your hair had slipped loose near your temple. You looked like you were trying to keep every feeling behind your teeth, and for the first time since he had known you, it didn’t quite work.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” you said.

“I know.”

“You really shouldn’t have.”

“I know.”

“You’re making this difficult for me.”

His heart flipped. “Am I?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

The hallway seemed to shrink around the two of you.

Your voice, when you spoke again, was very quiet. “Yes.”

Oh.

John forgot how to breathe for half a second.

“You need to understand,” you said, “that me saying that doesn’t change the rules.”

“I know.”

“I can’t encourage this.”

“Of course.”

“I can’t say anything that blurs the line.”

“You’re not.”

You looked back at him then, and the look on your face nearly ruined him.

You were being so careful.

You were so obviously trying to do the right thing, but the right thing looked like it hurt a little.

“And I can’t invite you in,” you said.

He nodded. “I’m not asking.”

“But I also…” You stopped. You closed your eyes for one brief second, like you were annoyed with yourself. When you opened them again, your voice had become a teeny bit more professional. “I also don’t want you to think I’m… dismissing what you’re saying.”

John swallowed.

Again, not nothing.

“Okay,” he said, because his vocabulary had apparently been reduced to one-word responses.

Your mouth softened. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” He nodded once, then again. “I know there are rules. I’m not asking you to break them. I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want. But if there’s a way to transfer me to somebody else, or close this out, or whatever has to happen so this isn’t…” He grimaced, searching for the least terrible phrasing. “A whole ethical disaster.”

Your lips pressed together. He could tell you were fighting a laugh.

“A whole ethical disaster,” you repeated quietly.

“Is that not the technical term?”

“No,” you said. “But it’s vivid.”

“I’m trying to respect the seriousness of the situation.”

“You drove here at night to confess feelings to the woman.”

That time, you did laugh. Then your eyes widened slightly, and you glanced back into the apartment unit.

Both of you froze.

From somewhere inside came the faintest sleepy rustle, then silence again.

You turned back to him, relieved.

It was stupid, how much that he wanted you, even when you were just standing there in the doorway, trying not to smile because Mina was asleep, because rules existed, because the world was inconvenient.

John said the next part before could stop himself. “I’d like to take you out.”

This time, there was no joke to hide behind this time. No self-deprecation.

Your eyes changed again, and he saw the answer before you said anything.

And then your gaze dropped, just for a second, like you needed somewhere safer to look. When you looked back up, you had pulled yourself together.Mostly.

“John,” you said softly. “You can’t ask me out while I’m training you.”

“How many remaining?” He asked.

“Four.”

John stared at you. “Four,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

He looked briefly toward the ceiling like patience might be stored there. He thought the next session was the last, but apparently three more had been added for whatever fucking reason. He assumed Barnes had something to do with it (he was right).

You folded your arms loosely, still half-hidden behind the door, and there was something almost teasing in your eyes now. The kind that kept both of you on the correct side of the line while acknowledging that, unfortunately, the line was very much there and both of you could see it.

“You survived worse,” you said.

“People keep saying that to me.”

“Maybe you should start believing them.”

“I’d rather complain.”

“Ha.”

He looked at you again.

Your emotions were unguarded second, and he could see the things you weren’t saying. It wasn’t permission. It wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t you reaching across the line.

But it was interest.

John lowered his voice. “What happens after?”

You went quiet.

Inside, Mina slept on, blissfully unaware that the adults were being stupid in the hallway. Thank god.

You looked at him for a long second, and he watched the argument happen behind your eyes. He watched you measure ethics against honesty, professionalism against whatever had just happened between you. He watched you decide exactly how much you could give him without breaking the rules you clearly cared about.

Then, finally, you said, “After four sessions, you can ask again.”

John nodded like you had just handed him coordinates for rescue. “Yeah.” He breathed out. “I can do four sessions.”

Your smile broke through.

Suddenly, he felt the bright, aching, want-to-be-good-for-you feeling climbing up under his ribs and made a home in his heart. The same feeling that made four sessions feel less like a punishment and more like a mission he intended to pass with honors.

He stepped back, giving you the space again.

“I should go,” he said.

“You should.”

Neither of you moved.

Your fingers were still curled around the edge of the door. His hands were loose at his sides. The hallway light hummed above you. Somewhere inside your apartment, Mina made one tiny sleepy sound and then went quiet again.

You lowered your voice even more. “And John?”

“Yeah?”

“Call me first next time, like a normal person.”

“I can do that.”

You lifted an eyebrow.

“I can learn to do that,” he corrected.

You smiled again and he felt hopeful. “Goodnight, John.”

He swallowed. “Goodnight.”

Then, before either of you could make it worse, you stepped back and closed the door gently, careful not to wake Mina.

John stood in the hallway for one second after the lock clicked.

He didn’t move.

For once, it was not because he was frozen or furious or trying to wrestle his way out of his own head. He just stood there, staring at your closed door while his heart skipped several beats, in a good way.

He could do four sessions. He could wait. He could earn it.

He could do it right.

For you, he wanted to do it right.

John turned toward the stairs with the stupidest smile of his adult life pulling at his mouth.

And for the first time in a long time, John wanted to be patient.

He didn’t throw anything through a wall that week, or any of the weeks after.

He did, however, spend the next day thinking about you the entire drive to pick up his son.

And when Nathan helped carry the diaper bag out to the car, John managed to take it and say, “Thanks, man,” without sounding like he was chewing glass.

Olivia noticed.

She gave him a small, knowing look while he buckled his son into the car seat. “You seem better.”

John tightened the strap, smoothed a hand over his son’s little jacket, and tried not to smile too much.

“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

—

Eight months later…

John was standing in your kitchen wearing an apron Mina had picked for him.

It had tiny unicorns on it.

He had argued, briefly, that he was a tough superhero and he didn’t need to wear the unicorn apron. Mina had stared daggers at him, held it out, and said, “Chefs wear aprons.”

So now John was wearing the Unicorn apron.

And for the last six months, that was your life.

He had held up his end of the bargain: he asked you out after the sessions were complete, kissed you on the first date, and never looked back.

You stood beside him in your apartment now, trying not to laugh while he stirred soup on the stove. His son and Mina were in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the rug, making Mr. Bun and a toy dinosaur get married under a blanket fort. Mina had been another last-minute addition, because your sister and her wife had a last-minute shift. John had only looked at you and said, “Good. More taste-testers.”

You kissed him then and there.

Olivia and Nathan came over, too.

That should have been strange. Maybe it still was, in tiny little ways. But it was also sweet. Nathan brought dessert. Olivia brought wine.

Somehow, against all sense and probability, you and Olivia had become friends. And not even polite co-parenting-adjacent friends. Not awkward, mature, “we are all adults here” friends.

Actual friends.

It made no sense. You two were polar opposites.

Olivia was soft-spoken where you were snarky. Olivia asked gentle questions; you asked questions like you were trying to locate immediate weakness. And yet there you both were, basically best friends.

Olivia had started texting you pictures of terrible PTA emails. You had started sending her voice notes about work drama with all names redacted for legal reasons. The two of you had brunch without John once, which had made him pace the kitchen for twenty minutes until you came home and told him, very sweetly, that you weren’t going to break up with him because his ex-wife aired all his dirty laundry. Because “remember, there was nothing Olivia could say that wasn’t already in your file, honey.”

John made up for it by teaming up with your sister to make fun of your cute little snores. But anyway.

It was strange, but it had become one of the best things in his life, because his son had more people loving him in one room than John had ever known how to ask for.

“I can’t believe you finally learned how to make vegetables taste good,” Olivia said, poking at her plate.

John pointed his fork at her. “Don’t sound shocked.”

You leaned toward Olivia and said, “He needs praise or he gets difficult.”

Olivia nodded solemnly. “I remember.”

John looked between you both. “I hate this alliance.”

“No,” Nathan chuckled. “I don’t think you do.”

He was right. He loved it.

He loved watching you and Olivia lean over the table together, laughing quietly while Mina and his son bartered potato cuts like tiny criminals. He loved that Nathan could ask him about his dental health without making it a big emotional event.

And when John mentioned wanting to join a veterans support group, it felt… easy.

“After listening to your subway thing,” he said, glancing at you. “And everything else. I think it might help.”

Your hand found his under the table first.

Olivia smiled at him sincerely. “I think you’d be good there, John. And I think it’d be good for you.”

Nathan nodded. “Sometimes it helps to be around people who understand without needing the whole story.”

You just kissed him on the cheek. “M’ proud of you, sweetheart.”

John looked down, thumb brushing over your knuckles, clearly trying not to get emotional about everything.

Then his son looked up from his peas, very serious. “Do you get snacks at support group?”

John blinked. “Probably.”

His son nodded, satisfied. “Then you should go.”

Everyone laughed.

Later, in the kitchen, while the kids were distracted and Olivia was explaining something to Nathan, John caught you by the waist and pulled you gently toward him.

“Hi,” he murmured.

You smiled. “Hi.”

Then he kissed you.

It was supposed to be quick— it was most definitely not. Your hand curled into the front of his shirt, and John smiled against your mouth like he still couldn’t quite believe he got to have this. You, in his arms. Dinner in the next room. His son laughing. Olivia and Nathan not annoying him. Mina yelling something about Mr. Bun requiring surgery.

“John,” you whispered, laughing against his mouth. “Children.”

“They’re busy.”

You rolled your eyes, but kissed him once more before slipping out of his hands.

Near the end of the night, his son got sleepy and serious, leaning against John’s side while Mina sat on the floor beside him with Mr. Bun in her lap.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

He pointed between himself and Mina. “Are me and Mina cousins now?”

Oh.

John looked at you. You looked back, before glancing at Olivia. Olivia looked like she was trying not to cry, which immediately made Nathan look concerned, because Nathan was Nathan.

You smiled first, a wordless permission without making it a whole thing.

So John shrugged, easy as anything, and kissed the top of his son’s head. “Sure,” he said. “Think of it that way, kid.”

His son beamed.

Mina nodded once, very pleased. “Can I be the in-charge cousin?”

“No,” you and John said at the same time.

Olivia laughed. Nathan smiled. The kids immediately began negotiating cousin rules on the carpet.

For once, nothing in his life felt like a scoreboard. It didn’t even feel like a competition.

It just felt like family.

—end.

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