Walker stood in the doorway for a second, like he was still figuring out whether this counted as crossing a line, then decided he didn't care.

"How much space do you need, man?" His tone was exasperated, but it wasn't really a joke. If the last mission had gone sideways, no one had filled him in-- but Walker had picked up on the tension quick enough. "I haven't seen you in like, two days or whatever." (Three and a half days. Not that he kept track.)

A part of him didn't fully understand why people were still acting jumpy around the kid. John had shoved his time in the Void into a tidy box in his brain way too fast to be healthy, but that also meant he didn't flinch when Bob dared to get a little sharp with someone. Shit, people flinched around him all the time, but that made sense.

He leaned against the wall, deceptively relaxed. Didn't look at Bob directly --that was another thing he kinda liked, the way Bob never quite looked at him either-- just let his gaze skim the room, checking the exits out of habit.

Rain pattered on the roof of the RV, steady and dull as a leaky faucet. The mattress was uneven, air tinged with the smell of damp fabric, and her back ached. She pushed herself upright nevertheless. What else was there to do? Habit moved her through the motions-- boots on, jacket zipped, step outside into the moss and mud.

They walked the perimeter first, same as always. Round and round. The trees didn't change, they never did, but she traced the loop because it gave her a sense of control, however small. If something crossed their line, she'd know. (Or at least they'd tell themself they would.)

The pond came next. The water here was still, murky, until it shifted with a low ripple-- Todd lingered, hulking just beneath the surface. She crouched at the edge, talking low to him about her plans, her grievances, the names she hated today. He never answered, not anymore, but a single slow blink of his monstrous eye was enough to steady her. Enough to keep her from disappearing completely. See ya later, alligator.

John adjusted his earpiece like he might suddenly hear the order to call this whole thing off. No such luck.

"Stay close," the voice in the comms crackled. Mel again. Jesus. We're really short staffed if they're tagging in Val's yes-man. "You're just another happy couple on a date. Smile more."

Walker didn't smile.

"If you're lucky, they'll show early. If not, enjoy the paid vacation." A pause. Then, dryly-- "And be grateful the target has good taste. If Valentina didn't want you in the same hotel tonight, you'd be in a Motel 6 again. Believe me."

"Heard, chef," he muttered, glancing sidelong at Cherry (or maybe sidedown, considering she barely came up to his shoulder), bouncing on her feet like she belonged here, like this was an actual date. He cleared his throat.

"This is dumb," he muttered, tugging at the collar of his jacket against the chilly air. "No one's buying this."

And yet, people kept smiling at them as they passed. A couple in matching flannels. Vendors hawking vaguely pumpkin-scented funnel cakes. Kids with glowsticks in each sticky hand. The whole place smelled like cider and grease and asphalt. John's skin was already starting to crawl.

He could feel Cherry beside him, catching her reflection in the glass of an arcade booth as they passed. (Too close. Not close enough.)

He cleared his throat again, quieter this time. "Just-- walk casual. Hold my arm or something. I don't like not having both hands free."

The Ferris wheel turned lazily above the food stalls, lights casting brief red and blue flashes across the crowd. John barely looked at it.

» "you were never going to do anything i said."

❱ [ 'this is the last straw' prompts ] ❰

John stared out the jet's window, jaw clenched tight enough to make his head throb. The hum of the engines was steady, almost soothing, but nowhere near enough to ease the tension bleeding off his shoulders.

"I was listening," he said finally, voice low, not quite meeting her accusatory gaze. "I just didn't think every move needed a damn play-by-play."

It came out rougher than he meant. He ran a hand over his face with a wince, fingers dragging over the edge of a bruise he hadn't bothered to ice. This wasn't how he wanted their first duo mission to go. He trusted her more than anyone else on the roster, if he was being honest. But the way she'd rattled off instructions over the comms --clipped, surgical-- had gotten under his skin. Not because she was wrong (she never was) but because it felt like she didn't trust him to get it right.

(Still, he hadn't followed orders. And that wasn't like him, at least not with her. John decided he had too much on his plate to unpack that.)

He glanced at her across the cabin, where she sat poised with the same steady stillness she always had after a mission-- unreadable, but quieter than usual. With them both seated, he didn't have to crane his neck down to see her face. It twisted something low in his chest.

» "35. Sparring ends with someone flat on the ground, laughing instead of angry."

❱ [ 'sparring sessions with a dash of tension' ] ❰

John hit the floor face-first with a jarring thud, the breath knocked out of his lungs in a startled yelp. Before he could regroup, she was already on him-- knee jammed into his back, one hand wrenching his bad arm behind him like she meant to rip it from the socket.

For a second, everything froze. His pulse hammered rabbit-quick in his ears.

Then a laugh bubbled up low in his chest-- boyish, breathless. Not mocking, not even embarrassed. The startled bark of someone delighted to be pinned. He let his head thunk sideways against the mat, cheek pressed to the floor.

"You-- holy shit," he wheezed, mouth splitting into a crooked grin. (There was blood in his mouth, he wasn't sure whose, but none of it mattered.) "That was fast."

For once, he wasn't angry. Not even close. Instead it hit like a rush, delight curling sharp and hot under his ribs, the kind of feverish thrill he hadn't felt in ages. Like watching someone else finally break his high score.

(Getting pinned by a normal person --well, a Widow-- should have bruised his pride. Instead, it made something in the back of his mind settle. A small, solid reassurance: if it ever got bad, if the leash finally snapped, maybe she'd be the one to put him down.)

John didn't look up when she stepped into the kitchen, just kept stirring the pot like it had personally offended him. The smell rising from it wasn't bad, exactly, but it wasn't what he'd been aiming for either.

"Alexei said this shit was supposed to be easy," he called over his shoulder. A crumpled recipe printout sat nearby, already annotated with his uneven scrawl. "So either he lied, or I'm worse at this than I thought."

Which was bullshit, obviously. If there's one thing he could do it was follow instructions, but John knew they both needed plausible deniability if she was gonna take the bait and stay.

Maybe it was weird, keeping tabs on his teammates like they were targets --carefully filing away their innocuous habits, patterns, routines-- but it was hard to switch his focus off once it stuck. (Not that he'd ever admit he'd noticed the hurried single servings she'd been sneaking to her room lately, instead of joining their weird little bonding dinners.)

» "when was the last time you slept?"

❱ [ send "when was the last time you slept?" for my muse's reaction ] ❰

John didn't answer right away, just kept swinging at the punching bag: fists flying too fast, sweat dripping down his temple despite the chill of the Watchtower gym at night. The thing was already leaking sand, worn thin from the hours-long marathon he'd been putting it through. (Hadn't Stark designed these for super soldiers? Whatever.)

"Dunno," he panted, breath sharp and uneven. "Yesterday? Maybe the day before." He shook out his bruised hands in a distracted motion, ignoring the trembling.

His eyes met Bucky's directly --rare in and of itself-- pupils blown so wide his eyes were scarcely blue. "You ever get like this?" he asked too casually. "Back when the serum was still kicking in. Feels like if I stop moving I'm gonna-- I don't know, split apart."

He scoffed and swung again, missing entirely and nearly stumbling into the bag. "Probably not, right? You got the real stuff." The words came out sharp. He was clearly bitter, but not at Bucky.

John didn't answer right away.

His silhouette stayed unsettlingly still at the edge of her bed, faintly outlined by the hallway glow, and his fingers twitched between her shoulderblades like he couldn't decide whether to freeze or bolt. John didn't have the vocabulary to explain it-- that he'd woken up in a cold sweat again, same dream he always had after missions went sideways, and prowling like he was the team's watchdog was the only thing that stopped the uncertainly crawling under his skin.

"…Yeah," he said eventually, voice rough on the edges. Real eloquent, dumbass.

He started to pull his hand away but hesitated, eyes flicking over her uneasily like he regretted every part of this-- he felt embarrassed, without really knowing why.

"Look, I know it's weird, alright? I just had to check-- make sure, whatever. That everyone was--" he clicked his tongue, gesturing vaguely at the room. "Y'know. Still here."

There was a pause. Then, unsteady but edging back toward familiar sarcasm: "Not like any of us are winning medals for most well-adjusted behavior. You especially."