A Troubling of Goldfish Death Dancing

You wake to John breathing against your hair.

For one second, that's all there is.

No compound. No quantum realm. No ghosts pressing their cold hands to the glass. No base orders waiting somewhere with your name scratched in the margins even if nobody has bothered to say it out loud yet.

Just John.

His chest is warm beneath your cheek, rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm that shouldn't feel like a miracle. His arm is heavy over your waist, holding you close even in sleep, as if some part of him decided hours ago that letting go was no longer an option worth considering. One of his legs is tangled with yours beneath the blanket. His hand rests against your back, broad and still, fingers curled loosely into the fabric of your shirt.

You don't remember falling asleep.

You remember crying until your throat hurt. You remember John lowering you both to the floor like he could keep the whole world from hitting you if he got there first. You remember his uniform scratching your cheek. You remember telling him Bucky might come back.

You remember the way his face changed. You remember hating yourself for noticing.

Now the room is dim and gray with early morning light. The blinds cut pale stripes across the wall. Somewhere outside, a car passes on the street, tires hissing against damp pavement. The apartment smells like coffee that has not been made yet, clean laundry, and John's skin.

Alive.

The word comes without permission.

Your hand moves before your thoughts can catch it, sliding carefully from where it's trapped between your bodies. You touch him lightly, almost afraid to disturb the proof of him. Your fingertips skim the center of his chest, the soft rise of breath beneath skin and muscle. You follow the line of his collarbone. The curve of his shoulder. The faint scar near his ribs you only learned about a week ago, one he rolled his eyes at when you asked and blamed on training like training was a feral animal that attacked people in alleys.

His face is turned slightly toward you, softened by sleep in a way that feels unfair to witness. John Walker awake is all edges under control, blue eyes and squared shoulders and a jaw that looks like it has personally fought the concept of surrender.

John asleep is something else.

You study the crease between his brows, still faintly there even now. The sweep of his lashes against his cheek. The pale stubble shadowing his jaw. The mouth that told you he loved you like it cost him something and gave him something back at the same time.

You look at the freckle on his left earlobe.

Your throat tightens.

It's stupid, that this is the thing that does it. Not the strength of his arm around you. Not the warmth of his body. Not the terrible, fragile intimacy of waking up inside someone else's life.

A freckle.

Small and ordinary.

You stare at it like it's a star you're trying to memorize before someone turns the sky off.

Your vision blurs.

'Shit..'

You inhale slowly through your nose, but the breath shudders on the way in.

Your hand presses to his chest a little harder, not enough to wake him, just enough to feel his heartbeat under your palm. Steady. Real. A soft, stubborn knock inside the cage of his ribs.

You weren't able to do this with Bucky.

The thought opens beneath you like a trapdoor.

You weren't able to memorize him, not really.

You had thought you had time.

You had thought Wakanda would hold. You had thought morning would come, and then another, and then another after that. You had thought the world would let you keep one good thing after taking so much. You hadn't known you were supposed to store every detail like evidence.

The way Bucky's hair looked in the sunlight. The exact shape of his smile when he said your name. The weight of him beside you before the world turned to ash.

You didn't know.

A tear slips down your cheek and falls onto John's chest.

His breathing changes.

You freeze.

For half a second, you almost pretend. You almost close your eyes and tuck yourself back into him like grief can be folded under a blanket if you're fast enough.

John's hand flexes against your back. "Love?"

His voice is rough with sleep, low and cracked around the edges. It scrapes across your skin and ruins you further.

You squeeze your eyes shut. "Sorry."

He shifts immediately. Not fast enough to startle you, but with purpose, his arm tightening around your waist as he angles his head to look down at you. His eyes are still heavy, hair messy against the pillow, but the concern is awake before the rest of him.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

His mouth flattens. Even half-asleep, John Walker doesn't believe bad lies.

You wipe at your face quickly, angry with your own body for betraying you. "It's nothing."

"Hart."

Your eyes open.

There it is. That name in his mouth. Once, it had been clipped and low in an alley, a challenge with teeth. Now it lands softer, worn in at the edges. A place to come back to.

That makes the next tear fall.

John's expression shifts. He pushes himself up onto one elbow, the blanket sliding lower on his chest. "Hey."

You shake your head before he can say anything else. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"I'm not worried about being awake." His hand comes up and brushes the wetness from your cheek with his thumb. "Talk to me."

You stare at the hollow of his throat.

He waits.

That might be the cruelest part about him. John doesn't always know what to do with his own feelings, but he has learned how to sit with yours until they stop biting long enough to be named.

"I was trying to remember you."

His thumb stills.

The room goes very quiet.

You swallow, but it hurts. "I didn't get to do that with him."

John does not ask who, he knows.

You hate that he knows. You hate that he has learned the shape of Bucky's absence so well that he can recognize it without you handing him the name.

"I didn't know I had to," you whisper. "With Bucky. I thought I had more time. I thought there would be another morning, another fight, another chance to look at him and notice stupid things."

John's face changes at stupid things, just barely.

You reach up before you can stop yourself and touch his ear. Your fingertip brushes over the tiny freckle there. A soft, involuntary sound slips out of him, low and startled, almost a breath caught halfway between a sigh and something warmer.

His eyes soften in a way that almost breaks you.

"I'm scared I'll forget something," you admit.

John catches your hand gently and presses your fingers against his jaw. "You won't."

"You don't know that."

"I know you."

Your breath catches.

His voice is quiet, but it doesn't shake. "You keep everything, love. Even the things that hurt you. Especially those."

That lands too deep.

You look away, but John's hand follows, cupping your cheek, bringing you back without forcing you.

"I'm right here," he says.

"For now."

The words leave you before you can soften them.

John's jaw tightens.

There. The order between you. The base. The vague timeline. The special training. The maybe assignment after that. The universe finding one more loose piece of your life and tugging.

"For now," he agrees, and the honesty hurts more than reassurance would have.

You let out something that might have been a laugh if it hadn't been dragged through broken glass first. "That's terrible comfort."

"I'm not good at lying before coffee."

That pulls the smallest sound out of you. Not a laugh, not quite, but close enough that John's mouth twitches.

He sees it and, impossibly, lets out a soft laugh of his own. It's small, barely there. The kind of laugh grief makes when it has nowhere else to go.

You stare at him. "What?"

He shakes his head, but the faint curve of his mouth disappears almost as quickly as it came. "Nothing."

"John."

His gaze drops from yours. Only for a second, but you catch it.

You know his silences now.

You know the difference between the ones filled with anger and the ones built from exhaustion. You know when he's trying to find the right thing to say and when he has already decided there's nothing he can say without making himself bleed.

This silence is fear. It's the quiet certainty that everything between you has an expiration date neither of you can see.

The base is waiting for him. Bucky might be waiting for you. The universe is rearranging itself beyond the walls of this apartment, putting people back where it thinks they belong without asking what happened to the ones left behind.

Your fingers curl against his chest. "Look at me."

John's jaw tightens, but his eyes lift to yours. There's something guarded in them now, something braced.

You hate that he thinks he has to prepare himself for you to disappear while you're still lying in his arms.

"You have a piece of my heart," you say.

His expression goes completely still.

The words frighten you once they are outside of you, but you don't take them back. You press your palm more firmly against his chest, directly over the steady beat beneath it.

"You have a piece of me, John."

"Em..."

"No." Your voice trembles, but it holds. "I need you to hear me."

He closes his mouth.

You swallow around the pressure in your throat.

"I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know where they're sending you or when you'll come back. I don't know whether this works. I don't know what happens if Nat and Steve actually manage to bring everyone home."

His eyes flicker at that, pain moving through them so quickly he probably thinks you missed it.

"But none of that changes what you are to me."

John's brow pulls together.

"You aren't something I borrowed because I was lonely," you continue. "You aren't a place I hid until the rest of my life came back. You're not temporary just because everything around us is."

His breath leaves him slowly.

You reach up, tracing the hard line of his jaw with your fingertips.

"I love Bucky," you whisper. "I think some part of me always will."

John's eyes close for half a second.

"But loving him doesn't erase you."

His eyes open again.

"It doesn't take away what we've done. It doesn't change every night you stayed when I gave you every reason to leave. It doesn't change the way you held me while I fell apart on your couch or the way you listened when I finally told you about her." Your voice cracks on the last word.

John's hand tightens at the back of your neck.

"It doesn't change this," you say. "It doesn't change how I feel about you."

He looks at you as though he doesn't know what to do with something so fragile being placed in his hands.

"What if it does?" he asks quietly.

The question is nearly soundless. It hurts more because you know how much it cost him to ask.

"What if he comes back and you look at me differently?"

You slide your hand from his jaw to the back of his neck, holding him there. "Then we figure out what differently means."

His mouth twists. "That's not exactly reassuring."

"I'm not going to lie to you just because the truth is ugly."

A humorless breath escapes him. "Yeah. I noticed."

"But I know this." You move closer until your forehead rests against his. "No matter what happens after today, no matter who comes back or where they send you, you will always have a piece of my heart."

John's breathing stops.

"Not because you replaced him," you whisper. "You didn't."

His thumb brushes beneath your eye.

"Because you're you."

Something in his face breaks. Not violently, not all at once. It's quieter than that. The careful collapse of a wall he had been holding upright with both hands.

"Mara."

Your name comes out rough. You feel it everywhere.

"I don't know whether that's enough," you admit. "But it's yours. Nobody gets to take it back. Not Bucky. Not the Army. Not even me."

John stares at you for a long moment. Then he pulls you into him.

His arm locks around your waist, his other hand cradling the back of your head as he presses his face into your hair. He holds you too tightly, but you don't ask him to loosen his grip.

You hold him just as hard.

"I love you," he says against your temple.

The words shake.

You close your eyes.

"I love you too."

His breath catches.

You feel the shape of his relief against your skin, brief and painful and unbearably human.

For one suspended moment, the future stays outside.

Then your phone buzzes somewhere beyond the bedroom. The sound cuts through the apartment with the subtlety of a chair thrown through a window.

You both go still.

It buzzes a second time.

John's eyes flick toward the hallway.

Your stomach drops.

The world, unfortunately, still has your number.

You start to move, but John's arm tightens around your waist for one selfish second before he lets go. You feel the choice in it. The wanting. The release.

"I'll get it," he says.

You catch his wrist. "No."

He looks back at you.

You force yourself to sit up. The room tilts. Your head feels stuffed with cotton and old tears. "I asked Nat to keep me updated."

John nods once, though his mouth tightens.

You swing your legs over the side of the bed. John is up before you fully stand, steadying you with one hand at your elbow even though you're not falling.

You're always almost falling lately.

Your phone is on the living room floor where it must have slipped from your hand sometime last night. John spots it first, but he lets you pick it up.

Natasha's name glows on the screen. You answer before you can think better of it.

"Nat?"

There is half a second of silence on the other end, too much silence.

Your fingers curl around the phone. John's hand settles lightly at the small of your back.

Natasha exhales. "Tony said no."

The words should not hit like that. No is a wall, no is final, no should be devastating.

Instead, relief moves through you so fast it leaves you dizzy.

It floods your limbs, weak and terrible, loosening something that had been wound too tightly around your ribs since Scott Lang stood at the compound gate and turned five years into five hours.

Tony said no.

Maybe it stops here. Maybe hope dies before it grows bones. Maybe Bucky stays gone. Maybe John stays yours for whatever time you have left before base takes him.

The thought is so ugly your stomach turns. You press your free hand over your mouth.

John notices. His expression shifts, but he says nothing.

On the phone, Natasha is still talking. "Steve tried. I tried. He has a life now, Em. A family. Pepper. A daughter. I don't think..." Her voice thins, but she steadies it. "I don't think he wants to risk that."

You close your eyes.

A daughter, of course.

The relief curdles instantly into shame.

"Good," you whisper.

Nat goes quiet.

You don't know what part of you says it. The part that understands Tony. The part that loves the idea of anyone getting to keep a child. The part that wants this whole impossible plan buried before it digs up your life with both hands.

Maybe all of them.

John's hand presses more firmly against your back.

Natasha's voice is soft when she answers. "Yeah."

You can hear everything she's not saying.

Good that he has a family. Good that he said no. Terrible that he said no. Terrible that anyone had to ask.

You swallow hard. "Steve?"

"He's taking it about how you'd expect."

"So badly and quietly?"

A faint breath moves through the line. Almost a laugh. "Pretty much."

You open your eyes. John is watching you, face drawn and careful.

You hate that he's here for this but you need him here for this.

"What now?" you ask.

Natasha is quiet for half a second too long.

Then she says, "We're going to find Bruce."

Your breath catches.

The words don't sound like hope yet. They sound like a match being struck in a room full of gas.

"Bruce?" you repeat.

"Banner," Nat says, like you don't already know, like giving him a last name might make this less impossible. "We're going to talk to him. See if he's willing to help. See if he can even make sense of what Scott brought us."

You stare at nothing.

Of course they aren't giving up.

Of course Steve isn't sitting with Tony's no like it's the end of the road. Of course Natasha isn't folding her hands and calling it fate. Of course one locked door only means they are already looking for the next window, the next roof, the next crack in the impossible big enough to bleed through.

You breathe out, shaky and thin.

You hate it.

You hate that they are still reaching. You hate that part of you wants to slap the hope out of their hands before it can become something sharp enough to cut you open.

You hate that you love it.

Because this is who they are. This is who they have always been.

They don't know how to leave the dead buried if there is even a breath of a chance that buried is not the same thing as gone.

John's palm moves once over your spine. Not quite a rub. Not quite comfort. Just a reminder.

He's here. He's warm. He's leaving.

And somewhere out there, Steve and Natasha are still trying to claw a miracle out of the universe with their bare hands.

"Is Bruce going to say yes?" you ask.

"I don't know," Nat says.

You almost laugh. It comes out broken instead. "You don't know."

"No," she says. "I don't."

You press your hand against the wolf charm beneath your shirt.

The metal is cold against your fingers.

"Okay," you say, though nothing is.

Natasha's voice softens. "Em."

You close your eyes again. You don't want her softness. You cannot afford it.

"Keep me posted," you whisper.

"I will."

You nod, even though she cannot see you.

The line stays open for another second. Neither of you says goodbye right away.

Maybe because goodbye has started to feel too much like tempting the universe.

Maybe because both of you know that whatever comes next, no one gets to walk through it clean.

Finally, Nat says, "I'll call when we know more."

"Okay."

The call ends.

You keep the phone pressed to your ear long after the line goes silent.

John waits.

He doesn't ask right away, and that almost makes it worse. He just stands there in the morning light, bare-chested and sleep-warm, hair still mussed, face too awake now, eyes fixed on you like he's bracing for impact and willing to be hit if that is what you need.

"Tony said no," you tell him.

He nods once.

You laugh, but there is no humor in it. "I felt relieved."

John's face softens. "I know."

Your stomach twists. "You should be horrified."

"I'm not."

"You should judge me."

"I don't."

"John."

He steps closer. "Love, I'm leaving and a dead man might come back with half the universe. I don't think either one of us gets to pretend our first thoughts are pretty."

That breaks something in you so gently you almost don't notice until you're already crying.

John reaches for you. His arms close around you, and you fold into him with your face pressed against his chest, the phone still clutched uselessly in one hand. He smells like sleep and skin and the last safe place you know how to name.

"I hate this," you whisper.

"I know."

"I hate that I want him back."

John's arms tighten.

You pull in a jagged breath. "I hate that I'm scared he will come back."

His chin settles against your hair.

The silence that follows is not empty. It's full of everything he could say and chooses not to.

Finally, he murmurs, "I've got the next few days off."

You still against him.

His voice is careful, but there's no hiding the hope in it. "Unless base decides to invent a new way to ruin my life."

Your laugh breaks wetly against his skin.

John's hand moves slowly over your back. "Stay with me."

Your eyes close.

"For the next few days," he says. "Please."

Please, the word slips under your ribs and curls there.

John Walker, who can turn command into a language, asks like he already knows the answer might hurt.

You lift your head.

His eyes are too blue this close. Tired. Afraid. Honest in ways you're not used to surviving.

"I'll stay," you say.

His expression almost breaks. He leans down and kisses your forehead instead. His lips linger there, warm and trembling just enough that you feel it.

You pretend not to because sometimes love is letting someone keep one piece of dignity cupped in their hands.

The knock comes at four thirty-seven in the afternoon.

You know because you have spent most of the day watching the clock advance in small, meaningless increments.

The apartment has gradually filled with the bruised gold of late sunlight, but neither you nor John has bothered turning on a lamp. You're curled into the corner of the couch wearing his shirt and your own sleep pants, your knees drawn against your chest. John has moved between the kitchen and the living room so many times that you have stopped pretending he has a destination.

He washed the same coffee mug twice. Opened the refrigerator three times. Checked his phone enough that you finally threatened to throw it out the window.

Nothing has changed.

The entire universe is balanced on a collection of maybes, and the two of you have spent the day trying not to breathe hard enough to knock any of them over.

The knock comes again. Firm and familiar.

John looks toward the door. You do too.

Then Lemar's voice carries through the wood. "If you're both alive, somebody better answer before I start making assumptions."

John closes his eyes. "God."

You unfold yourself from the couch. "Your emotional support problem is here."

"He's yours too."

"Unfortunately."

John points at you as he heads for the door. "You liked him first."

"I threatened to dislocate his shoulder the first day we met."

"That's practically affection from you."

"I meant it."

"I know."

John opens the door.

Lemar stands on the other side with two plastic takeout bags looped around one wrist and a cardboard drink tray balanced in his other hand. The smell of fried rice, garlic, and something sweet and spicy slips into the apartment before he does.

He takes one look at John's face. Then he looks past him at you. The humor in his expression dims just enough to show the worry underneath.

"You told her," he says.

You cross your arms. "I'm right here."

His gaze flicks to you. "Noted."

John steps aside.

Lemar enters slowly, studying the room with the sharp assessment he never quite turns off. He clocks the closed curtains, the abandoned coffee, your swollen eyes, John's rumpled hair. The way one of your hands has curled around the wolf charm beneath your shirt.

Then he lifts the bags. "I brought food."

You stare at him.

He stares back.

"Walker sent me a message that said bring dinner and don't be weird," he explains. "One of those requests was reasonable."

John takes the drink tray from him. "I knew I shouldn't have added the second part."

"You knew it was outside my skill set."

Lemar carries the bags into the kitchen and starts unloading containers across the counter like he's provisioning a bunker.

"You bought enough for six people," you say.

"I didn't know the severity of the crisis."

"You measure emergencies in dumplings?"

"I measure everything in dumplings."

John peers into one of the bags. "Did you get anything that isn't fried?"

Lemar looks offended. "There are vegetables in the fried rice."

"That's not how vegetables work."

"They're green, Walker. Let them live."

The laugh escapes you before you can stop it. Small, frayed. Almost unfamiliar.

Both men turn toward you.

Lemar points immediately. "There she is."

Your mouth closes. "Do not start."

"Trouble, starting is my best skill."

John sets the drinks down, his mouth twitching despite the exhaustion carved into his face.

Lemar sees that too. His expression softens. "What happened?" he asks. No joke this time. No carefully placed nonsense to keep the truth from drawing blood.

Just Lemar Hoskins standing in John's kitchen with enough food to survive a minor siege, bracing himself for whatever part of the world broke while he was not here to help hold it together.

You look at John.

John looks at you.

Then you tell him.

Not all of it at first. Not the relief that flooded you when Tony refused. Not the shame that came crawling after it.

You tell him about Scott Lang appearing at the compound after five years trapped in a place that only felt like hours. About the quantum realm. About the possibility that time might not be the solid, immovable thing everyone thought it was.

You tell him Steve and Nat went to Tony. That Tony said no. That Bruce agreed to look at the science anyway. That Scott volunteered to be the one they tested it on.

Lemar listens without interrupting. That's how you know he's worried.

When you finish, the apartment feels smaller.

He leans back against the counter and exhales slowly. "So half the universe might come back."

You nod.

His gaze shifts to John. "And command picked now to start pulling your leash."

John's jaw tightens. "Lemar."

"What?"

"It's not helping."

"No," Lemar says, his voice sharpening for the first time. "But pretending it's cleaner than that doesn't help either."

Silence settles between them.

You glance from one to the other.

Something moves beneath John's face. Anger. Guilt. Helplessness. A man who has always known what to do with orders until those orders begin reaching through the door for the people inside his home.

Lemar looks at you again. "You okay?"

You almost laugh.

He lifts both brows. "Yeah, heard it. Stupid question. Still asking."

You stare at the containers spread across the counter. "No."

Lemar nods once.

No correction. No demand that you soften it for him.

"Okay," he says. "Then we start there."

Your throat tightens.

John looks away, pressing his thumb against his lower lip as he tries to get himself under control.

Lemar gives the silence almost an entire minute before deciding everyone has suffered enough emotional maturity from him. "Eat."

You narrow your eyes. "Are you ordering me around?"

"Yes."

"Bold choice from a man whose shoulder remains dislocatable."

Lemar points at you with a pair of chopsticks. "See, that right there is nostalgia."

John opens one of the containers. "She means it."

"I know she means it. She has meant it for almost a year."

"I have been remarkably patient."

For a few minutes, somehow, impossibly, the three of you eat.

Nothing becomes lighter. Nothing becomes fixed. But the sharpest edge of the afternoon dulls beneath hot food, cold drinks, and Lemar's determination to be annoying enough that fear has to wait its turn.

He points his chopsticks at you. "You know, Walker talked about you for months before I met you."

John groans. "We are not doing this."

You turn toward him. "Months?"

"I was tracking you."

"He was obsessed," Lemar says.

"I was conducting an investigation."

"You called her your ghost."

John's eyes close briefly. "I called her a ghost."

"Your ghost," Lemar corrects.

You glance at John. "And your solution was sending him after me?"

"My instructions were not to let you disappear."

Lemar leans back. "Which I accomplished."

"You handcuffed me and slammed me into a wall."

"You were armed."

"You were smug."

"I was effective."

"You lost the target."

John snorts into his drink.

You point at him. "Do not laugh."

"I'm not."

"You're laughing internally."

"Can't prove that."

Lemar grins. "You also threatened to dislocate my shoulder before you even knew my name."

"I meant it."

"I know. That was when I realized we were going to be friends."

"We are not friends."

Lemar places a hand over his chest. "After everything we've been through?"

"You appointed yourself my best friend."

"You called me your annoying big brother."

John looks between you. "You did?"

"It was a moment of weakness."

"Legally binding," Lemar says.

You narrow your eyes. "Whatever Sergeant Sunshine."

John pauses. "Sergeant Sunshine?"

Lemar points at you. "Do not explain that."

"He brought me coffee, gave me unsolicited emotional advice, and threatened to beat you up for hurting me."

"I didn't need an excuse for that last one."

John gives him a flat look. "Touching."

Your smile comes easier this time.

Lemar reaches over and nudges your container closer when he notices you have stopped eating. "You've got people now," he says.

The words are gentle, but they don't ask permission.

You swallow.

He continues, "That doesn't change because Walker might get pulled. It doesn't change because Bruce is doing science he probably shouldn't be doing. It doesn't change if this works."

Your fingers find the wolf charm beneath your shirt.

Lemar's eyes follow the movement. "It doesn't change if Barnes comes back," he says.

The room goes very still.

John's foot finds yours beneath the table. He hooks his ankle around yours, a small, silent tether.

Lemar holds your gaze from across the table. "You don't lose this family just because another part of yours comes home," he says. "That isn't how it works, little sister."

Your vision blurs. You blink hard and point at him. "You're being emotionally mature again."

His mouth curves. "Horrible, isn't it?"

"Disgusting."

"I'll try not to make a habit of it."

John's ankle tightens around yours.

The moment breaks when your phone buzzes. All three of you look at it.

Your stomach drops so fast you nearly miss the button when you answer. "Nat?"

"Bruce agreed to help," she says.

No greeting, no soft entry. Just the world cracking wider.

You grip the edge of the table.

John's hand lands on your knee beneath it.

Lemar straightens.

"What does that mean?" you ask.

"It means he thinks Scott's theory is possible enough to test. Carefully," Nat adds quickly. "Controlled increments. We're not jumping into anything blind."

You let out a brittle sound. "That's new for this group."

Nat almost laughs. Then she says, "Scott volunteered."

Your gaze drops to the table.

"Is he sure?"

"He's terrified," Nat says. "And sure."

Of course he is.

You close your eyes. "What do you need from me?" you ask.

On the other end, Nat goes quiet.

John's fingers tighten once against your knee.

"I don't know yet," she says honestly. "Maybe nothing. Maybe just to stay near your phone."

You open your eyes.

"Bruce is setting it up now," Nat continues. "I'll let you know how it goes."

"Nat."

"I know," she says. "I won't leave you out."

The line clicks dead.

You lower the phone.

Nobody speaks.

Then Lemar says, very quietly, "Well."

You look at him.

He looks back with a helplessness that doesn't suit him.

"I'm out of dumplings," he says.

It shouldn't be funny, it's not.

You laugh anyway.

It comes out wrong, too sharp at first, then softer, almost horrified. John watches you like he's not sure whether to hold you or laugh with you. Lemar decides for all of you and smiles, but his eyes are worried.

The laughter fades slowly.

It leaves behind the three of you sitting around John's table, surrounded by half-empty containers and a hope none of you knows how to touch without getting burned.

Bruce agreed. Scott volunteered.

The words settle into the apartment and refuse to leave.

The next few days don't pass so much as gather.

They collect in corners.

In half-empty mugs.

In the blanket that stays on the couch because neither of you can be bothered to put it away when you keep ending up under it before midnight.

In the way his hand finds your back every time your phone lights up, even when it's just a weather alert.

Nat doesn't call. Not the next morning, nor the morning after that.

Bruce is testing, you tell yourself. Science takes time. Time travel probably takes more.

That thought makes you laugh so hard on the third day that John finds you standing in the kitchen with one hand over your mouth and the other gripping the counter.

"What?" he asks, alarm already sharpening him.

You shake your head.

"What happened?"

"Time travel probably takes time," you say.

John stares at you.

You stare back.

For one perfect second, both of you understand the sentence.

Then his face does something complicated. A twitch. A collapse. A surrender. He laughs. Not much. Not loud. But enough that it cracks open the apartment and lets air in.

You lean against the counter, laughing into your palm while he rubs a hand over his face and mutters, "God, I hate that that got me."

"You're welcome."

"That was terrible."

"It was thematically appropriate."

"It was a crime."

"Call the Avengers."

He looks at you.

The laughter dies at the same time. The silence comes back wearing different shoes.

He crosses the kitchen in two strides and pulls you against him. His mouth presses against your temple. "Sorry," he says.

You close your eyes. "Don't be."

"I forgot."

"No, you didn't."

His arms tighten.

"You just laughed," you whisper. "That's allowed."

John exhales through his nose. "Is it?"

You turn your face into his shirt. "I hope so."

After that, the hours start blurring.

John makes breakfast badly on purpose after you catch him burning toast again and accuse him of sabotaging bread for attention.

You wear his socks because the apartment is always colder than you expect, and he pretends not to notice.

He gets a call from base that makes his shoulders go rigid, but when he hangs up, all he says is, "Nothing new."

You know him well enough now to hear the lie. Nothing new means something is coming. Nothing new means the leash has been picked up, but no one has yanked.

You don't ask, he doesn't offer.

At night, he sleeps like a man waiting to be punished. One arm over your waist. One hand sometimes curled into the sheet. His jaw clenched even in dreams.

You wake him twice.

The first time, he comes back swinging from somewhere else, breath sharp, eyes wild, your name already breaking in his throat like he had been calling it somewhere you couldn't hear.

You catch his face between your hands. "John."

His eyes search yours without seeing you.

"John, you're here."

His chest rises hard beneath your palms.

"You're in your apartment," you say. "Brooklyn. Early morning. Terrible curtains."

His breathing stutters.

You press your forehead to his. "You can hear the radiator."

His fingers close around your wrist.

"You can feel my hands."

His eyes focus. "You," he whispers.

"Me."

He breaks after that, but quietly. Always quietly when it's bad. Like even pain has been trained not to raise its voice.

The second time, he wakes before you touch him.

"I'm okay," he says immediately.

You sit up beside him in the dark. "That was convincing."

"I'm fine."

"That was worse."

He turns his head and looks at you. The city light paints his face in pieces. Half shadow, half exhaustion. "I don't know how to do this," he admits.

You don't ask what this is.

Waiting. Leaving. Loving someone whose dead might come back. Being wanted by the Army and needed by you and haunted by himself, all in the same room.

You slip your hand into his. "Neither do I."

His thumb drags over your knuckles. "Good," he says, voice rough. "Hate being bad at things alone."

On the fourth day, you start smoking again.

You find the old pack at the bottom of your bag while looking for a hair tie and stare at it for a long moment.

Three cigarettes left. A small, stupid apocalypse.

You tell yourself you're only going to hold one. Then you're standing by the cracked kitchen window with the cigarette between your fingers and smoke curling past your face like a ghost that learned how to breathe wrong.

John finds you there. He stops in the doorway.

You don't turn around. "Before you say anything, I already know."

He says nothing.

"It's bad for me."

Still nothing.

"I quit."

Nothing.

"It smells."

Nothing.

You glance over your shoulder.

John is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

"What?" you ask.

His gaze drops to the cigarette, then lifts to your face.

"You hiding it from me?"

The question is calm. That makes it worse.

You look back out the window. "No."

"Were you going to?"

You take a drag and regret it almost immediately. Your lungs protest. Your eyes water. Your body, dramatic traitor that it is, remembers too quickly. "No," you say, smoke leaving with the word. "Maybe."

John walks into the kitchen.

You brace for the lecture. For the disappointed silence. For the careful, soldier-clean concern that will make you feel like a bad habit wearing a person's skin. Instead, he stops beside you and holds out his hand.

You blink. "What?"

"Give me one."

You stare at him. "Absolutely not."

His brows lift. "Absolutely?"

"You don't smoke."

"No."

"Then why the hell would I give you one?"

"Because you're not doing it alone."

Your throat tightens in a way that annoys you.

"John."

"Mara."

"You are not picking up smoking because I'm spiraling."

"I'm not picking up smoking." His hand stays out. "I'm standing beside you while you spiral."

"That's not better."

"It's more honest."

You look at him for a long moment, then down at the pack. "Lemar is going to kill both of us."

John's mouth twitches. "Probably."

You take out a cigarette and hand it to him.

He looks at it with such grim determination that you laugh.

"What?" he asks.

"You look like you're about to interrogate it."

"I've been trained to assess threats."

"It's a cigarette."

"It's winning."

You light it for him.

John inhales like a man who has decided pride is more important than survival and immediately coughs so hard he has to brace one hand against the counter.

You snatch the cigarette back. "Idiot."

He coughs again, eyes watering. "That is vile."

"You asked for it."

"People do this recreationally?"

"You joined me."

"I made a tactical error."

You stub his cigarette out in the ashtray you should have thrown away months ago. "You're terrible at being self-destructive."

John looks at you, still recovering, voice hoarse. "Good. One of us should be."

The joke lands wrong, or maybe it lands exactly right.

You look away first.

John steps closer, taking the cigarette from your hand before you can protest. He puts it out too. "Hey."

You swallow.

His hand finds the back of your neck. Warm. Certain. "You don't have to be clean to be loved," he says quietly.

The words go through you like a blade slid between ribs by someone who knows where all the soft parts are.

You close your eyes. "I hate that you say things like that."

"I know."

"I'm supposed to be the emotionally devastating one."

"You've been busy."

You laugh once, wet and unwilling.

He presses his mouth to your forehead, then rests his chin there.

Outside the cracked window, the city keeps moving.

Inside, the ashtray sits between you with two dead cigarettes in it, one barely smoked and one abandoned halfway through.

It feels like evidence. It feels like surrender. It feels, somehow, like being seen and not punished for it.

Lemar comes by the next afternoon.

He knocks once, then immediately says through the door, "Wellness check."

John looks up from the couch.

You call, "We're alive."

"Convincing but I require visual confirmation."

John gets up with a groan. "He's getting worse."

"He was never good."

John opens the door.

Lemar stands there with a bag of groceries in one hand and suspicion already on his face. "You both look terrible," he says.

John steps aside. "Nice to see you too."

"I'm serious."

"You always are until you open your mouth."

Lemar enters and immediately looks around the apartment like he expects to find a body tucked behind the couch. His gaze lands on the ashtray by the window. He stops.

You sit up straighter. "Don't."

Lemar looks at John. Then you. Then John again.

"You?"

John's jaw shifts. "Barely."

Lemar's eyes widen. "Walker."

"It was one drag."

"You coughed, didn't you?" Lemar turns to you.

You say, "Like he was dying of tuberculosis in a period drama."

John points at you. "I was showing solidarity."

"You looked like you were losing a duel to a chimney."

Lemar slowly sets the groceries on the counter. "I leave you two alone for a few days and suddenly this apartment is a sad French film."

"It's Brooklyn," John says.

"That makes it worse."

You pull the blanket around yourself. "Are those groceries or evidence?"

"Supplies," Lemar says. "Because the last time I checked your fridge, it was eggs, mustard, and one suspicious lime."

John frowns. "The lime is fine."

"The lime has a past."

You smile before you can stop yourself.

Lemar notices. He always does.

He softens, but only for a second, because emotional sincerity remains something he likes to sprinkle carefully before burying under practical nuisance.

"No call?" he asks.

The smile fades.

John sits beside you. "Nothing."

Lemar nods once, jaw tightening.

It has been almost a week since Nat told you Bruce agreed to help. Almost a week of silence. It has been driving you crazy in small, creative ways.

You rearranged John's already alphabetized spices by height just to see how long it would take him to notice.

Four minutes.

You cleaned the same counter until the skin around your knuckles cracked.

You've taken your phone into the bathroom. Into the kitchen. Once, embarrassingly, into the shower, tucked inside a towel on the sink because you were afraid Nat would call while shampoo was in your hair.

John has pretended not to notice.

Now your phone sits faceup on the coffee table like an altar.

Lemar looks at it. Then at you. "You sleep at all?"

You shrug.

"That's not an answer."

"It is if you lower your standards."

John sighs. "She slept three hours."

"You slept four," you snap.

"I didn't say I was doing better."

Lemar holds up one hand. "Beautiful. Cooperative suffering. Great teamwork."

John leans back against the couch. "Did you come over to insult us?"

"Yes," Lemar says. "And to check that neither of you has become wallpaper."

"Not yet," you say.

"Good. I hate redecorating."

He stays for an hour.

He puts groceries away incorrectly on purpose until John gets up and fixes them with the dead-eyed patience of a man being bullied in his own kitchen. He tells you about a corporal on base who tried to microwave tuna and nearly caused a diplomatic incident. He avoids saying anything too hopeful. He avoids saying anything too final.

It's a kind of mercy.

When he finally mvoes toward the door, your chest tightens without permission.

Lemar catches it. "I'll come by tomorrow," he says.

"You don't have to keep babysitting us."

He snorts. "Trouble, you think this is babysitting?"

"What would you call it?"

"Mutual containment."

John nods. "That's accurate."

You glare at both of them.

Lemar grins and reaches for the doorknob. "I'll bring something edible. Maybe vegetables, so Walker stops looking spiritually offended by my food choices."

"I don't look spiritually offended," John says.

"You looked at fried rice like it dodged the draft."

Lemar opens the door and stops.

Natasha Romanoff stands on the other side, one hand raised like she had been about to knock.

For a second, nobody moves.

The hallway light sits behind her, turning her red hair copper at the edges. She's dressed in black, because Natasha has never met a shadow she did not consider business casual. Her eyes flick from Lemar to John, then to you over Lemar's shoulder.

Something in her face makes the apartment go cold. Not fear or grief. Something heavier than both.

Lemar slowly lowers his hand from the door. "Well," he says. "That's not terrifying at all."

Natasha arches a brow. "Hello to you too, Sergeant."

Lemar looks back at you, then at John.

John is already standing.

You're on your feet before you remember deciding to move. "Nat," you say.

Her gaze finds yours. Softer now. "Em."

You swallow. "How did you know where to find me?"

Lemar looks between you.

Nat's mouth barely curves. "I have ways."

"That," Lemar says, pointing at her gently, "is not less scary."

John moves closer to you but doesn't touch you yet. His hand hovers near your back, waiting.

Lemar steps into the hallway, then pauses beside Nat. He gives her a small salute, half sincere, half theatrical armor over worry. "Romanoff."

"Hoskins."

"Try not to break them more."

Nat's expression shifts just enough. "I'll do my best," she says.

Lemar nods. Then he looks at you. The humor leaves his face. "Call me," he says.

You nod.

"Don't make me guess."

"I won't."

He looks at John. "That goes for you too."

John gives one short nod.

Lemar leaves.

The hallway feels too quiet after him.

You motion for Natasha to come inside and shut the door behind her.

For a moment, the strangeness of it swallows everything else.

Nat in John's apartment.

Nat standing near the little entry table where John keeps his keys in a bowl. Nat's eyes moving over the couch blanket, the tea mugs, the ashtray by the cracked window, John's boots near the door, your folded jacket over the chair.

Pieces of your life she hasn't seen. Pieces of you that belong to a world she was not there to watch happen.

Her gaze pauses on the ashtray.

You cross your arms. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You did with your face."

Nat looks at John.

John lifts both hands. "I coughed once."

Her eyebrows rise.

You mutter, "Violently."

Nat's mouth twitches.

There it is, for half a second. Your friend. Your Nat. The woman who can find you anywhere, apparently, and still silently roast you in someone else's kitchen. Then it's gone.

John notices too. "I'll make tea," he says.

You look at him.

He looks back, and you know what he is really saying.

I'll give you a second.

I'll stay close.

I'm here.

You nod.

Nat watches him go into the kitchen. There's something assessing in her eyes, but not unkind. "He's good to you," she says quietly.

Your throat tightens. "Yeah."

"Good."

You hate how much that sounds like approval. You hate how much you needed it.

Nat sits on the couch only after you do, like she's waiting for permission to enter this piece of your life. That's unlike her too. Natasha Romanoff doesn't ask permission from rooms.

Today, she does.

You sit curled at one end of the couch, knees pulled up. She sits near the middle, close enough that you could touch her if you wanted.

John moves quietly in the kitchen. Kettle. Mugs. The soft clink of spoons. A domestic soundtrack playing under the end of the world.

Nat looks at you. "I didn't want to tell you this over the phone."

Your fingers go cold.

John comes back with two mugs of tea. He hands one to Nat first, then gives you yours. Your hands are shaking badly enough that he doesn't let go until your fingers settle around the warmth.

Then he sits beside you. Not too close, but close enough.

Nat notices that too.

You stare at the tea. "What happened?" you ask.

Nat takes a breath. "Bruce's first attempt failed."

Your eyes close.

John's hand moves to your thigh, anchoring you. "Scott?" he asks before you can.

Your eyes open.

Nat looks at him. Something like gratitude crosses her face. "He's okay."

You breathe again.

"It was messy," Nat says. "The calculations were off. Time moved through him instead of him moving through time."

You blink.

John's brows knit together. "What does that mean?"

Nat looks at you.

You shake your head quickly. "No. No, don't look at me like I understand science because I once stole equipment from a HYDRA storage site."

For one breath, Nat smiles. Then she says, "It means Bruce couldn't stabilize the route."

The words settle.

A failed attempt.

Hope stumbling face-first into the floor but still somehow breathing.

Your fingers tighten around the mug.

"But that's not why you're here," John says.

Nat looks at him.

He's watching her the way he watches doorways. Like he has already clocked the part everyone else missed.

"No," Nat says. "It's not."

The apartment becomes very still.

Your pulse starts beating in your throat.

Nat turns back to you. "Tony showed up."

The mug almost slips. John's hand closes over yours, steadying both you and the tea before either can fall.

You stare at her.

Nat's voice softens. "He figured it out."

For a second, the words don't make sense.

They enter your body wrong, like a foreign language your bones understand before your mind can translate it.

"What?" you whisper.

Nat nods once, eyes shining now in a way she's not trying hard enough to hide. "He came to the compound. He solved it, Em."

Your breath leaves you.

"He figured out how to navigate the quantum realm," she continues.

You shake your head once, not refusing, just unable to hold the size of it.

Nat leans forward. "We got the team back together."

The team, the word lands like a door opening somewhere far away.

"Clint?" you ask, because suddenly you remember her face. Her silence. Her grief. The name that has been living under her ribs for five years like a shard.

Nat's mouth trembles. Barely. Only because you know her. "We found him."

Your tears come then. They just spill over, hot and immediate, while Nat looks at you with the face of someone who has already cried somewhere private and decided to keep moving anyway.

"He came back?" you whisper.

She nods. "He came back."

You press a hand to your mouth.

John's palm slides up your back.

Nat wipes beneath one eye quickly, almost angrily. "We did a test run."

Your lungs stop again.

"With Clint," she says. "He went back. Into the past."

John goes rigid beside you.

You can't speak.

Nat's eyes hold yours. "It worked."

The apartment disappears.

Not physically.

The couch is still beneath you. John is still beside you. The tea is still too hot in your hands. The curtains are still half closed. The ashtray is still on the sill. The world remains offensively ordinary for a place where the impossible has just walked in and sat down.

But something inside you drops. No... opens.

A trapdoor. A grave. A gate.

It worked.

Time is not a wall. It's a wound and they have found a way to put their hands inside it.

You try to breathe. Nothing happens.

John takes the mug from you and sets it on the coffee table.

Nat says your name, but it reaches you from very far away.

It's happening. It's not a theory anymore.

Not a desperate man at a gate. Not Scott Lang shaking in the compound with five years missing from his face. Not Bruce guessing. Not Tony refusing. Not hope without bones.

This has bones now. This can stand. This can run. This can bring Bucky back.

A sound leaves you.

You don't know what it is.

John shifts closer. "Love."

You look at him.

His face is wrecked. Careful, but wrecked. He looks terrified for you. Terrified of you. Terrified of what this means and too good to make any of that the loudest thing in the room.

You can't speak so he does it for you. "What's the next step?" John asks.

Nat looks from you to him.

Her expression changes again. Softer. Sadder. "We get the stones," she says.

John's brow furrows. "The Infinity Stones?"

Nat nods. "From the past. Different teams. Different points in time. We bring them back here, use them to undo what Thanos did, then return them where they came from."

You stare at her.

"That sounds insane," John says.

"It is."

He lets out a humorless breath. "At least we're all on the same page."

Nat's mouth twitches. Then she looks back at you. "We're still working out where and when," she says. "New York. Asgard. Morag. Vormir. Places where we know the stones were before Thanos destroyed them."

The names blur. They sound unreal. Mythic. Dangerous. They sound like the kind of places people don't all come home from.

John hears it too. You feel his hand still against your back. "You should be there," he says quietly.

You turn to him.

His eyes are on you, not Nat. "You should be with them," he says. "At the compound. If this is happening..." He doesn't finish.

He doesn't say if Barnes comes back.

He doesn't say if your whole life changes.

He doesn't say if you need to be standing where hope lands.

Nat watches you carefully. There's hope in her face.

That hurts worst of all.

You shake your head.

John's expression tightens.

"I can't," you whisper.

"Em," Nat says softly.

You shake your head again, harder this time. Tears fall freely now, you don’t bother to wipe them away.

"I can't stand in a room full of hope."

The words leave the apartment hollow.

Nat's face breaks just a little.

You look down at your hands, empty now without the mug. "I know what that makes me sound like."

"No," Nat says immediately.

"I should want to be there."

"You don't have to should your way through this."

A laugh cracks out of you, ugly and wet. "That sounds like something Steve would say if he had a concussion."

"It's something I'm saying," Nat says.

You look at her.

Her eyes are shining again. She lets you see it this time.

"I have spent five years keeping people moving," she says. "Keeping lists. Keeping teams together that didn't want to be teams. Answering calls from people screaming into the dark because half the world vanished and the other half had to keep pretending breakfast mattered."

Your lips part.

Nat swallows. "I know what it costs to stand in a room full of hope when you're not sure you'll survive losing it again."

Your chest caves around the words.

John is silent beside you, but his hand slips into yours.

You cling to him.

Nat leans closer. "You don't have to come back to the compound to prove you want them home."

Them.

Not him.

Because it's not just Bucky, and she knows that.

It is Shuri. Wanda. T'Challa. Steve's friends. Children. Strangers. Half the universe. A daughter you never got to meet.

It's every name and no name. It's everyone.

Your voice breaks. "It's happening."

Nat nods.

"It's not a what if anymore."

"No," she says. "It's not."

You cover your face with one hand.

The first sob gets out before you can stop it.

John pulls you into him, but when you reach for Nat, she is already moving.

The couch shifts under her weight as she closes the distance. Her arms come around you from the other side, and suddenly you are folded between them both. John warm and steady at your back. Nat smaller than him, sharper, but just as solid in front of you.

You clutch at her jacket. "Thank you," you choke.

Nat holds you tighter. "For what?"

"For keeping it alive," you whisper. "When I didn't want you to. When I hated you for it. When I hated Steve. When I hated all of you for still trying."

Nat's breath trembles against your hair.

"Thank you for keeping the hope in me alive."

Her hand cups the back of your head.

For a moment, she doesn't answer.

When she does, her voice is so quiet you almost miss it. "You kept it alive too."

You shake your head against her shoulder.

"You did," Nat says. "Even when you didn't know what to do with it."

Your fingers tighten in her jacket.

You want to tell her you love her. You want to tell her she is family.

You want to tell her that if she doesn't come back from whatever this is, you will never forgive the universe.

You do not say any of it.

Eventually, Nat pulls back. She wipes your cheek with her thumb, brisk and tender in the same motion. Very Nat.

"Stay by your phone," she says.

You nod.

"I'll keep you updated as long as I can."

You do not notice the wording.

John does.

You feel it in the way his hand tightens once around yours.

Nat stands.

You stand too quickly, like letting her leave while you sit would be a kind of failure.

John rises beside you.

At the door, Nat turns back.

For a second, she just looks at you.

Not like an Avenger. Not like the woman who found your broken pieces and never asked whether they were too sharp to hold. Not like a spy. Not like a fighter.

Like your friend.

"You're allowed to be happy if this works," she says.

The words hit so hard you almost stagger.

Nat's gaze flicks to John. "And you're allowed to be scared of what happiness costs."

John's jaw tightens.

You realize, then, that she's talking to both of you.

Nat steps closer and touches your cheek once. "Take care of yourself, Em."

You nod because speaking feels impossible.

Then she looks at John.

Her face shifts into something quieter. Serious. A warning tucked inside trust. "Take care of her."

John straightens. Not like a soldier receiving an order. Like a man accepting something sacred.

"I will," he says.

Nat holds his gaze for another beat. Whatever she sees there must satisfy her, because she nods.

Then she opens the door.

The hallway light spills in.

You should hug her again. You should say something. You should tell her not to go alone into whatever place has already started calling her name.

Instead, all you manage is, "Nat."

She turns.

Your voice breaks. "Come back."

Natasha Romanoff smiles at you.

Small.

Full of so many things you will not understand until it is too late.

"I'll try," she says.

Then she leaves.

The door closes and the apartment goes silent.

You stand there staring at the place where she was, your hand still half raised, like some part of you tried to reach for her after she was already gone.

John steps behind you.

He doesn't speak. He just wraps his arms around you and pulls you back against his chest.

For once, you don't try to be stronger than the thing breaking you open. For once, you don't name the fear before it can hurt you.

You just stand in John Walker's apartment with tea cooling on the table, smoke stale near the window, hope alive and terrible in your chest.

Outside, the city moves on.

Inside, the future sharpens its teeth.