#johnolivia

All the kids in the seventh grade class quickly sat down and made silence when the teacher announced they would have one of those Captain America educacional vids. They were still too young to find those cringe.

Olivia pressed the button and Sam Wilson showed up on the television. Some kids clapped, other cheered. The teacher remained in silence. Having a black Capitain America wasn't even in her wildest dreams growing up. Yet there he was. And yet Olivia couldn't help but feel a little bittersweet taste in her tongue. She was happy for Sam of course. But, an that the children on the class wouldn't learn on tv, the history of the shield is not as bright and heroic as Sam makes it seem to be.

After all her classes, before Olivia could leave the staffroom one of her colleagues called her name.

"Maria. We're going to Joe's tonight just for a couple drinks. It's still four of course!" She laughed, "Wanna come?"

Maria. Yeah. That's the name she chose. The people of witness protection liked it and so did John - now Jack. They decided to rename themselves after their favorite drink so John chose Jack after Jack Daniels and Olivia chose Maria after Tia Maria.

"I would love to but I have the thing tonight. Remember?"

"Oh right! The thing!"

Olivia gave her colleague a bright smile before leaving the staffroom. She preferred to go home by bike but at that time of the year it was super cold at Springville so the car was her option of the day. It took her half an hour to get to her new home.

The suburban house was simple. It had no second floor and no fence on the front. The walls were painted a dark green like olive and the door was carved with flowers. Olivia parked the car and entered the front door quickly to avoid the cold. The lights were all off. Olivia screamed Jack's name (just in case) and received a response from the backyard.

"I'm right here!" John said loud enough for Olivia to hear.

Olivia took off her gloves but not the scarf. She put her keys on the wooden table by the door where a couple photographs were. Usually none of them would pay much attention to them but tonight Olivia took a few extra seconds to look at one particular photograph. Herself, along with John and Lemar in their 20's. They had just gotten back from Afghanistan and spent a whole weekend partying and drinking together. Including of course jack Daniels, Tia Maria and Smirnoff, Lemar's favorite. Olivia smiled sadly before putting the photo back.

She then preceded to cross the small house onto the backyard where John was sitting by the fire. Once he heard her steps, John looked back to face his wife. His blue eyes met her hazel eyes and both of them smiled with their whole body.

"You look amazing." He said.

"I'm literally wearing work clothes Jack."

"which only makes it more amazing. Besides," he looked around quickly "we are alone... Olivia"

Olivia smiled and sat by John's side

"Okay... John."

He kissed her cheek and his thick beard made her tickle all over. Since everyone knew John's face duo to his time as Captain America he needed to keep that beard. It was the first time John ever let his beard grow that much. He said it was unconformable, but Olivia liked it a lot. It made him look like a character from a tv show they've been watching.

They just sat by the fire for a while. It was still daytime but the sky was filled with dark clouds. Olivia was the one who broke the silence.

"Crazy few months, right?" She tried to smile.

"yeah.." john tilted his head swiftly. "From hero to zero."

"Don't say that. You did your best."

"Did I?" John took a big breath. The cold air didn't bother him much. He was still getting used to it though. "I was not the hero they wanted me to be."

They both stayed in silence a little more. It was just so complicated. Olivia loved John like she's never loved anyone. Still even her couldn't say he was a saint.

"Did you bought it?" She said after a while.

"Yeahs, of course."

John grabbed a bottle of Smirnoff from the cold wet grass. They both looked at it in silence. If they had guests John would pretend to struggle while opening the bottle. Instead he opened the bottle effortlessly.

"I'll go first. Because, you known.. I won't.."

"Yeah yeah. Go ahead."

John drank like it was fucking water. His throat felt the burn but his brain remained intact. He then passed the bottle to Olivia who took a smaller dose. It was enough to make her head spin though.

"He would've loved Springville." Olivia said coughing.

"He really would!" John laughed.

Olivia laughed as well. Suddenly they started laughing out loud. But not for much. Their laughter got poisoned by grief like it did many other times in the past months. John drank so more.

"I can't believe it's been a year already." Olivia sighted.

"To Lemar!" John said.

"To Lemar!" Olivia repeated.

- John was a fairly popular student and the captain of the football team, but he rarely went to parties and stuff like that, and in case he went he didn't really drink and left early. The other boys thought he was a bit of an arrogant snob, but truth is that John's primary interest was focusing on his studies. He needed good grades and all the possible extracurricular credits to be sure to being admitted to West Point, and he didn't want any distractions. Being a responsible, sensible and good kid since he was very young, John didn't came from an openly abusive family, but from one where there wasn't much love left, not for him at least. After the tragedy of losing their first son Michael (i am sorry but, for purely angst purposes Kate isn't included into this fake scenario of mine 😂), both his parents tried to cope in different ways: his father drowning himself into work, and his mother escaping into religion, leaving John alone to fend for himself. He really grew up thinking that being always good, extra good, at what he was doing was really the only way to get people to like him. He didn't love spending time at his home so he was always looking to keep himself busy: the footbal trainings after classes, several little jobs (dog sitting and mowing the lawn for the neighbours, taking shifts on festive days at the icecream shop...), helping with clubs at school. He spent a lot of time at the Hoskins, most of the nights sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor in Lemar's room. When he and Olivia started dating, John started spending a lot of time at her place too.

- Olivia had a little dog, a cocker spaniel named Molly. Molly was a really good girl, but she wasn't really great in dealing with strangers, especially with the strangers that tried to interact with Olivia. So it was a big surprise when Molly didn't try to bite John's ankles the first time he came to the house, but instead, immediately after sniffing him, she started wagging her tail and rolled at his feet, belly up, asking for cuddles. In case Olivia had any doubts left about this boy she was falling in love with, that cleared them all up.

-For their first date they went to the icecream shop, the same one where John sometimes worked on weekends. He walked her back home after, and they finally kissed. John was super shy and awkward about it, but in the end, putting aside the sweaty cold hands, the red face and the trembling knees, he thought it was a great first kiss.

- Olivia burned a playlist cd with some of her favourite songs for John. He listened to it each night before falling asleep.

- Olivia was always carrying around her polaroid camera, always taking pics of John alone, her and John together, John and Lemar. Almost 20 years after and she kept most of those photos. Sometimes she still takes a look at them from time to time, even if it makes her sad.

- John taught Olivia how to swim. They spent a lot of time at the lake during the summer, together with Lemar and few other friends.

- Olivia was asked to become a cheer-leader but she declined the offer. She really didn't like all the attentions.

- First time Olivia went to John's house she was quite surprised to see how much Captain America (and Bucky 🤭) stuff he had in his room: posters, comics, action figures! He was more than a little embarrassed, and Olivia teased him a little, but she knew John had inherited half of that stuff from his brother Mike, so it had a special meaning for him.

- Contrary to expectations, they were not elected as King and Queen at prom.

- Even if he looked happy and perfectly fine most of the times, Olivia understood really soon that John, just like herself, was quietly dealing with some heavy stuff, and that he was bottling up a lot of negative feelings, something that with the passing of time would have come biting back at him.

- They always had a really honest relationship from the start, they talked a lot about their families' situation, about the things that scared them, their plans for the future. When John progressively stopped opening up to her (something that was starting even before his turn as CapAmerica), Olivia knew that was the first sign he was struggling.

- After the graduation ceremony Olivia finally convinced John to a little celebration drinking, and he got immediately all tipsy and giggling. Lemar had to drive him home that night. Since then they have always joked about how Olivia has been such a bad influence on John (it was quite the opposite). John turned out to be pretty bad at handling alcohol, he didn't drink that often and when it happened he got drunk really easily, something he always found extremely embarrassing. But now that he is a supersoldier and he can't get drunk anymore he really misses the feeling, how light and careless it made him feel in spite of everything.

- John and Olivia always had the marriage as their ultimate plan, it was something they immediately agreed on when their relationship became a serious one. It was just a matter of finding the right moment, which wasn't as easy as they thought: first there were the college years, then Olivia finding a job and moving to another state for a bit, then John moved out of Georgia as well, with his army job, and they wanted to find an apartment together, even if he was travelling most of the times and was barely at home. The years just seemed to pass them by.

- In the end John asked her while he was in the hospital, back from a mission when he was badly injured. Not exactly how he had pictured the moment, but he felt like he couldn't wait anymore, he got seriously scared he was going to die without having the chance to ask Olivia to marry him.

- At the beginning Olivia though he was just high on painkillers and saying whatever, but when she understood he was being serious she said yes, of course!

- Lemar was entrusted with going to retrieve the ring. John had already bought it several months before, and kept it hidden in a super safe secret place (the back of the socks' drawer)

- They had to postpone the wedding and got merried at the beginning of the first year of the Blip