#soft but devastating

You step out, coat buttoned, bag secure against your side.

Lucius Fox’s assistant greets you with a knowing smile.

“Conference B,” she says. “Mr. Drake will meet you there. Mr. Fox is finishing a call.”

Of course he is.

Conference B is all glass and restraint. A long table. Minimal decor. Gotham stretched beyond the windows, steel and shadow and money layered on top of itself. You set your bag down and pull out your tablet, skimming the briefing again even though you’ve already internalized it.

Wayne Foundation — Annual External Ethics & Governance Review.

High-visibility. Board-facing. Donor-adjacent.

The kind of review that doesn’t happen unless someone wants a second set of eyes—or a firewall.

Lucius’s message still sits at the top of your inbox:

I need someone who understands the politics as well as the paperwork.

That’s why you’re here.

The door opens behind you.

You turn as footsteps pause just inside the room.

“Ms. —”

Tim Drake stops himself, eyes flicking briefly to your tablet, then back to your face. He studies you for a moment longer than strictly polite—not in appraisal, but in recognition trying to find a place to land.

He repeats your last name slowly, like he’s testing the sound of it.

Then he snaps his fingers, soft and sudden.

“Wait,” he says. “I recognize you. Your family runs in the same circles as mine.”

You don’t correct him. You don’t confirm it either.

“You haven’t been at the events in a while,” he adds, more observation than question.

“That’s intentional,” you reply.

Something shifts in his expression—not judgment. Understanding.

“I’m Tim,” he says, offering his hand. “Thank you for coming in.”

You shake it. His grip is steady, warm. Grounded.

“You asked nicely,” you say. “That still works on me.”

The corner of his mouth twitches.

They sit across from each other, the city watching silently through glass.

“I want to be clear about why we brought you in,” Tim says as he opens the folder in front of him. “This isn’t a reaction. It’s preventative.”

You nod. “Annual reviews are when small issues get loud if you ignore them.”

His gaze sharpens. “Exactly.”

You scroll through the materials. “You have a handful of major donors who sit on overlapping nonprofit boards. Nothing illegal. But the optics could become… complicated. Especially this close to the holidays.”

Tim leans back, exhaling through his nose. “And narratives don’t wait for facts.”

“No,” you agree. “They just need a foothold.”

That earns you his full attention.

For the next hour, the room narrows to charts and quiet strategy. You flag pressure points. He counters with operational realities. You adjust without ego. He listens without defensiveness.

At some point, you realize you’ve stopped translating your thoughts into executive-friendly language.

You’re just speaking.

And Tim Drake is just listening.

Not multitasking. Not asserting control. Fully present in a way that feels rare at this altitude.

You tap your tablet closed.

“This holds,” you say. “If you’re willing to be uncomfortable in the short term.”

“I am,” he replies without hesitation.

You study him for half a second longer than necessary.

Lucius enters then, smile easy, eyes sharp.

“I see I didn’t need to sit in,” he says. “You’ve already found your rhythm.”

“She’s thorough,” Tim says.

Lucius hums. “That’s one word for it.”

When Lucius leaves you to wrap up, the room settles into something quieter.

“Can I ask you something?” Tim says. “Off the record.”

You tilt your head. “Careful.”

“Why step away from all that?” he asks—not unkindly. “Your family. The circuit. The comfort.”

You glance out at Gotham. The city looks like it always does—brilliant and bruised.

“Because I didn’t want my life to be a series of rooms I was allowed into but never heard in,” you say. “This work lets me matter without being ornamental.”

Tim’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“And Wayne Enterprises?”

You smile faintly. “Is complicated.”

That gets a quiet laugh from him—soft, genuine.

“I’ll expect your report by morning,” he says.

“You’ll have it.”

He says your first name when he thanks you.

Not formally.

Like it steadies him.

A small smile tugs at your mouth.

“Enjoy the holiday weekend, Mr. Drake”. The professional address sets a work boundary that for some reason leaves the room charged.

The elevator doors close behind you, and the shift settles in—not dramatic, not romantic. Just the awareness of two people who understand pressure in the same way.

Thanksgiving is days away.

The holidays are coming.

And Gotham has a habit of turning proximity into necessity.

Neither of you knows that yet.

But Lucius Fox already does.

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A week later, John Walker is still under your skin, it's infuriating.

You sit on the edge of your bed in the dim hush of your room, elbows on your knees, staring at nothing and everything all at once while the compound breathes around you. Somewhere down the hall, a door shuts. Pipes knock softly in the walls.

But here, inside your room, it is all too still. Still enough to think, still enough to replay.

You should have hated it. That's the part that keeps circling back, sharp as a hooked blade.

You should have hated that he touched you. Hated that he stepped close and saw too much and did not look away. Hated that of all people, of all impossible, aggravating, arrogant men in the entire ruined world, it had been John Walker standing there on the church alley with his arms around you while your grief slipped its leash.

You should have shoved him off. Should have snapped something mean enough to scorch the moment clean out of existence. You should have remembered who he is to you, what he is. A soldier in your way, a problem with a jaw you have wanted to bruise since the third time he let you disappear into the dark.

And yet, you didn't push him away. That truth sits ugly in your chest. Because for one terrible, honest second, your body had betrayed you with its relief.

Like it had been too long. Too many years of carrying grief alone. Too many nights with no one to hold the pieces when they started to split. Too long since comfort had felt like anything but memory.

The worst part is that he had not even done anything extraordinary. He had just held you, steady and quiet. Without trying to pry your ribs open and look inside. Like he knew some wounds do not survive being named out loud.

You scrub a hand over your face, exhausted by the shape of your own thoughts. "This is ridiculous."

Lemar had noticed too.

The second you and John walked back into the church basement that day, Lemar's eyes had flicked between the two of you and sharpened with that infuriating, knowing warmth he seems to carry like a spare knife. He had not said anything, not then, not later, but you had seen it in the way his grin threatened at the corners, in the way he looked at John once and then deliberately minded his own business.

As if he had stumbled onto a secret and was graciously choosing not to make your life worse with it.

You exhale slowly and let your head drop for a moment, staring at the floorboards between your boots.

Why can't you hate John Walker properly?

The question is stupid.

You do hate him. You hate the way he gets close. The way he talks like he sees too much. The way he keeps appearing at the precise moment your life is already one bad decision away from detonation.

You hate that he says Hart like it means something.

You hate that part of you listened when he told you this suits you better, that you still have heart.

Your gaze lifts before you realize it is moving, it lands on the closet and something inside you goes very still.

You know exactly what waits in there, tucked so far back it has become less an object and more a grave. You haven't touched it in years. Because some things, once opened, do not stay in the box you put them in. They spill, they spread, they fill the room until there is nothing left but ache.

Your feet move anyway before your mind catches up, before the better part of you can protest.

You cross the room slowly, as though approaching something half wild, half sacred, and kneel in front of the closet. Your fingers push past shoes, an old duffel, a folded blanket you forgot you still had. Far in the back, half hidden beneath things you do not use anymore, your hand finds the little cardboard box. Too small to hold this much ruin.

Your throat tightens as you pull it out and set it in your lap. For a second, you just stare at it.

Then you lift the lid.

The little wolf charm is exactly where you left it. Small and silver, worn soft by time and touch, its edges dulled by years of hiding. Beside it lies the pregnancy test, just as plain and merciless as the day you tucked it away. White plastic, fragile and ordinary and heavy enough to crush your lungs.

The breath leaves you in a slow, unsteady pull.

You reach for the charm first. Your fingers shake when they close around it, and the second the metal touches your skin it's like something breaks open under your ribs.

Bucky.

You squeeze your eyes shut but the memories flood anyway.

Wakanda at dusk, the golden light catching on vibranium as he pulled you close. His metal fingers tracing lazy circles along your spine, cool at first, then warming to your body heat. The way he'd kiss the corner of your mouth, slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the universe now that the fighting was over. How he'd whisper your name like it was something sacred, his breath warm against your ear while his flesh hand slid under your shirt, palm broad and callused, pressing you closer until there was no space left for doubt.

You remember the weight of him above you, careful even when desire made his voice rough. The way he'd map every inch of you with mouth and hands, like he was memorizing territory he never wanted to lose. The quiet laugh when you'd shiver under his touch, the soft "I've got you" murmured into your hair afterward as you lay tangled together, hearts slowing in sync.

Your throat closes.

That touch is gone.

Your eyes burn instantly.

You press your lips together hard, trying to hold the tears back, but grief does not care about dignity. It rises hot and sudden anyway, blurring the room until the little silver wolf gleams through water.

You think of his hand folding yours around it. You think of dreams soaked in golden Wakandan light. A little girl laughing. A life that never got the chance to become anything more than longing and absence and one white plastic test sitting in a cardboard tomb.

A shaky breath escapes you. You swipe at your eyes angrily, like you can bully sorrow back into its corner if you just move fast enough.

It doesn't work.

You stand, charm clenched tight in one fist, the box left open on the floor behind you like a wound you have no intention of stitching shut tonight.

You cross to the dresser and pull open the jewelry box with hands that still have not steadied. Most of what is inside is forgotten. A pair of earrings Nat once said looked too nice for your mood. A bracelet from a life that feels like it belonged to someone else.

At the bottom lies a silver chain. You pick it up carefully, thread the little wolf charm through it, and watch the pendant settle there like it has been waiting all this time for you to decide what to do with it.

Then, before you can think too hard and stop yourself, you clasp it around your neck. The metal is cool against your skin. The charm drops into place and comes to rest just above your sternum, close to your heart.

The irony of that almost makes you laugh.

Instead, your hand rises instinctively, fingertips pressing over the pendant through your shirt. The tiny shape is there, solid and familiar and devastating.

For a moment, you just stand in the center of your room with tears still clinging to your lashes and Bucky's memory moving through you like old music, soft and brutal all at once.

It hurts. God, it hurts. But beneath the pain, there is something else too.

Not healing or peace, just closeness. Like you have finally let one piece of him come back to where it belonged and maybe that is why the thought arrives then, quiet and terrible.

Maybe the reason you cannot hate John Walker properly is because he reached into the part of you where all this is buried and did not flinch when he found it.

You close your eyes, your fingers tighten around the charm and in the silence of your room, with the little wolf resting over your heart at last, you let yourself miss Bucky Barnes in full for the first time in years.

For a while, sleep hovers just out of reach.

You drift in that half place where memory and thought melt together, where Bucky's hands blur with the feel of cool metal against your sternum, where John's low voice on the church steps tangles with laughter from Wakanda that never existed outside your own treacherous mind.

You should fight it.

You should sit back up, put the box away, strip the necklace off before it brands too much grief too close to your heart. Instead, your fingers curl around the charm through your shirt, and somewhere in the dark between one breath and the next, you slip under.

The first thing you feel is warmth. Golden and soft and alive on your skin, soaking into you so gently it feels like being forgiven.

Then comes the breeze.

It moves through tall grass with a hush like a secret being kept well, carrying the smell of earth and flowers and something sweet from a market stall not far away. Voices drift on the air, laughter, the distant clatter of life being lived.

Wakanda.

Your eyes open slowly, and there it is, bright and impossibly whole.

Green rolling into gold. Blue sky, endless above you. The huts in the distance, smoke curling lazily upward. The mountains standing watch like they always did. Everything touched with that strange, holy kind of peace your dreams keep stealing for you just long enough to make waking feel like punishment.

You are sitting beneath a tree this time, its shade dappling your lap in shifting pieces of light. There is a weight against your side, warm and familiar and devastating.

Bucky.

His shoulder presses against yours, his arm slung behind you in the grass as though the space between your bodies has never existed, as though there was never a world in which he was not meant to be here.

He is barefoot, hair brushing the nape of his neck, sunlight catching in the softer strands of it. He looks rested, peaceful. Beautiful in that way that hurts more than it should because it is the version of him life kept trying to deny.

Your breath catches.

He turns his head at the sound and smiles at you. "There you are," he says.

The words strike somewhere deep.

You laugh a little, though it trembles on the way out. "I'm right here."

"Mm." His eyes move over your face slowly, like he is confirming that for himself. "Still good to hear your voice."

You want to say something clever. Something light enough not to shatter the dream.

Instead, what comes out is, "I missed you."

The honesty of it opens you clean.

Bucky's expression softens instantly, that quiet tenderness of his wrapping around the words before they can break apart in the air. His flesh hand lifts, knuckles grazing your cheek in a touch so gentle it nearly undoes you.

"I know, doll."

You close your eyes and lean into it because in dreams you are brave enough to take what is offered.

From somewhere nearby comes the sound of delighted laughter.

You turn.

Your daughter is chasing butterflies through the grass, small legs pumping hard, braids bouncing with every step. She cannot catch a single one and seems to find this hilarious. Each miss only makes her laugh harder, bright and bubbling and perfect.

The sound of it floods your whole body.

She is wearing a little cream dress today, embroidered in gold at the hem. One of her sandals is half off her heel, and she does not care. Bucky watches her with the kind of helpless fondness that remakes his whole face.

"She's stubborn," he says.

You snort softly. "Wonder where she gets that."

He glances at you. "Could be either of us."

"Absolutely not. This is all you."

"Yeah?" He nudges your shoulder with his. "You gonna tell her that when she starts arguing with Shuri again?"

At the mention of Shuri, as if summoned, your daughter spins around from the field and shouts, "Auntie started it!"

You laugh before you can stop yourself.

From somewhere out of sight, Shuri's voice calls back, scandalized and amused all at once, "I most certainly did not!"

Your daughter cups both hands around her mouth. "Did too!"

Bucky's head drops, his laugh low and rich beside you.

It is too much.

Too warm, too full. Too much like the life you would have chosen if the universe had ever once asked for your opinion.

Your eyes burn.

Maybe Bucky feels the shift in you, because when you go too quiet he turns back, his hand finding yours in the grass. He threads his fingers through yours easily, like there was never a question about where they belong.

"What is it?"

You shake your head too fast. "Nothing."

He studies you. Even here, even in dreams, Bucky is never fooled by the things you say to protect yourself.

His thumb strokes once over your knuckles. "You always get this look when you're about to lie to me."

That almost makes you smile.

You look down at your joined hands, then at the little girl in the field, then back at him. "I just..." Your voice catches. "I don't want to wake up."

Bucky's face changes in that tiny, heartbreaking way it does when he wishes he could fix something and already knows he can't. He leans closer, pressing his forehead lightly to yours.

"Then don't think about waking up yet."

A tear slips free before you can stop it.

His hand comes up again, wiping it away with the pad of his thumb like it is the most ordinary thing in the world. Like tears were never something to be ashamed of between you.

You let out a shaky breath. "You make that sound easy."

"No," he says quietly. "I make it sound like right now you're here."

The words settle in you.

And maybe because this is a dream and dreams are merciful in ways life is not, you listen.

You let yourself stay.

Your daughter comes tearing back toward you then, abandoning butterflies in favor of her true purpose in life, which appears to be launching herself bodily at both of you. She collides with Bucky first, half climbing into his lap, then reaches one small hand for you with a grin so wide it could split the sky.

"Mama, come on."

You shift closer, wrapping an arm around her as Bucky tucks her between you, all three of you a crooked knot beneath the tree. She is warm and squirmy and alive with the kind of joy that has never learned to fear endings.

"Come on where?" you ask, kissing the top of her head.

"The market," she says, as if you are the unreasonable one. "Papa promised."

Bucky puts a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I always keep my promises."

She gasps dramatically. "No you don't."

"Wow."

You laugh, real and bright this time, and Bucky looks at you like that sound alone could keep him alive for another hundred years.

Your daughter twists in your arms to peer up at the necklace resting against your chest.

The wolf charm. It gleams silver in the sunlight.

Her tiny fingers reach for it at once. "Mine," she declares.

Bucky huffs a laugh. "No, little doll. That one's your mama's."

She pouts. "But it's a wolf."

"It is."

"And I'm a wolf."

"That is unfortunately true," you murmur, brushing your nose to hers.

She grins and presses both little hands over the charm where it rests above your heart. "Then I stay here too."

The world goes very still. Bucky looks at you. You look at him.

Your daughter, blissfully unaware of the wreckage she has just stepped into, smiles like she solved something important.

Your hand covers hers over the charm.

And for one suspended, impossible moment, you feel held from both sides. By what you lost. By what you loved. By what never got to live and yet somehow still exists here, in the cruel mercy of dreams.

Your chest aches so hard it is almost holy.

Bucky leans in and kisses your temple.

"We've got you," he murmurs.

The tears come easier now, but they do not feel violent this time. They just slip free, quiet as the breeze moving through the grass.

You nod once because speaking would break something.

Your daughter decides this is far too solemn and immediately squirms free, leaping to her feet with a shriek of triumph because somewhere in the distance Shuri has finally appeared and is holding out something wrapped in paper.

"Sweet!" she screams, and bolts.

Bucky watches her go, then looks back at you with the kind of smile that belongs to a man who has found peace at last.

"She gets that from you too," he says.

You laugh wetly and shake your head. "No chance."

"Mm." He brushes a thumb beneath your eye. "Stubborn. Softhearted. Acts mean when she's scared." He tilts his head. "Sounds familiar."

You roll your eyes because that is easier than crying again. "You're insufferable."

"Maybe."

Then his expression quiets.

His fingers find the charm at your throat, touching it gently where it rests against your skin. His eyes lift to yours.

"Keep it close," he says.

The words seem to echo farther than they should. As if they belong to more than the dream. As if they are trying to follow you out.

You cover his hand with yours. "I will."

And somewhere far away, beyond the gold and the grass and the life you were never allowed to keep, something begins to pull.

The light shifts, the breeze cools.

Bucky sees it before you do. His smile does not falter, but his eyes turn unbearably tender.

"No," you whisper.

He leans forward and kisses you. Slow and certain. The kind of kiss that says goodbye without ever using the word.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests against yours one last time.

"Wake up, doll."

Your heart breaks all over again.

Then the sunlight goes.

And the dream lets you fall.

For one disoriented second, you lie frozen, staring at the ceiling while your heart beats like it is trying to bruise its way out of your ribs. The dream clings to you in pieces too vivid to shake loose. Bucky's mouth on yours. Your daughter's little hands over the charm as she declared she would stay there too.

A sound leaves you before you can stop it, small and wrecked and humiliating in the silence of your room.

You turn onto your side fast, curling around the ache as if you can cage it back inside your body if you fold tightly enough. One hand stays locked over the pendant at your chest. The other fists in the blanket.

The tears come hot and immediate. There is no stopping them this time. It hits you all at once with the ugly force of something that has waited years for a crack in the wall.

Bucky.

Not just the man himself, though that would have been enough to ruin you all on its own. Bucky, with his careful hands and quiet mouth and the softness he gave you when no one else was looking. Bucky, who pressed a little wolf into your palm for luck. Bucky, who in another life might have kissed your temple in the morning and reached for your waist in the kitchen and laughed low when your daughter climbed both of you like a tree.

Your daughter.

The word does not even fit right in your head because she was never real enough to become anything but hope and then loss and then silence. But she was yours too, in that brief fragile way that matters even if the world never got to see her. A possibility. A heartbeat you barely had time to believe in before the universe tore through your life and left you holding nothing but aftermath.

And you never fully grieved them. That realization hits almost harder than the dream itself.

You mourned in fragments, in angry little pieces. In nightmares and sleepless nights and the cardboard box shoved to the back of the closet like hiding evidence from your own heart.

You let the pain turn feral instead of honest. Let it sharpen you into something useful, something violent, something too busy chasing monsters to sit still long enough and admit that you were mourning more than one life.

You filled the years with blood and movement and vengeance because stopping would have meant this. It would have meant waking up with your hand over a wolf charm and finally having to admit that you were not just avenging the dead.

You were avoiding them.

Avoiding him, avoiding her. Avoiding the shape of the life that should have been yours.

A sob breaks out of you so hard it leaves your throat aching.

You bury your face in the pillow, ashamed of the sound even though no one is here to hear it. Your shoulders shake. Your hand presses the charm harder into your chest until the metal edges bite faintly through the fabric.

And somehow, absurdly, impossibly, your mind still finds room for anger at him.

At John Walker.

You hate that he made this happen. Not on purpose, not knowingly, but he did.

He stepped into the careful ruin you had built for yourself and put his hands on the part of you that still hurt and would not let you pretend it was dead. He looked at you on those church steps and said you still had heart, and like an idiot, like a traitor to your own numbness, some hidden part of you believed him.

You hate that he held you. You hate more that it worked.

Because something in your body, starved for comfort and human warmth and being seen without being demanded from, cracked open in his arms. And now here you are, laid out in the wreckage of that opening, grieving like the years in between never happened.

"I hate you," you whisper into the pillow, though you are not even sure whether you mean John, yourself, or the whole cruel machinery of the universe.

You roll onto your back again because the pressure in your chest is too much, because breathing face down feels impossible, because there is no position that does not hurt and at least this one lets the tears slide freely into your hair instead of drowning you in the pillowcase.

Your room blurs in the pale morning light.

You think of every choice you made instead of grief.

Every night you tracked someone through dark streets rather than sit still with what was buried inside you. Every body you dropped because rage felt cleaner than sorrow.

Every time you told yourself you were doing it for justice when really, at least part of the time, you were doing it because grief unattended turns into hunger and blood is a brutal way to feed it.

Somewhere deep down, you always knew. But knowing is not the same as admitting and now admission has you by the throat.

The tears ease only after they have taken nearly everything with them. Not gone, just slowed. Reduced from a storm to the ugly aftershocks. You lie there breathing unevenly, eyes raw, fingers still curved around the pendant like it might anchor you if you hold it tightly enough.

In the thin quiet that follows, a terrible clarity settles over you.

This is what you had been running from.

Not Walker, not the military, not even being caught.

This... grieving them fully.

Grieving Bucky not just as the man you lost, but as the life you lost with him. The future, the tenderness, the child who never got to be born into anything but your longing.

You close your eyes and let the realization hurt.

There is no escape hatch this time. No righteous anger big enough to swallow it whole.

Only the simple, miserable fact that grief had been waiting for you with all the patience in the world, and John Walker, with his stupid steady hands and his infuriating way of seeing too much, had been the one to knock loose the stone keeping it sealed.

You hate that the first real comfort you let yourself take in years came from him. You hate that some damaged part of you is grateful anyway.

That might be the worst piece of all.

A fresh tear slips sideways into your hairline. You do not bother wiping it away.

Instead, you drag the charm free of your shirt and look at it in the dim morning light. The little wolf catches the dawn along one edge, silver glinting softly against your trembling fingers.

For luck.

A broken laugh escapes you. "Yeah," you whisper hoarsely. "Great job."

But your thumb keeps moving over it, gentle and repetitive, like touch itself is a prayer you do not know how to say anymore.

Eventually, after a long while, your breathing steadies enough to stop hurting.

The grief doesn't leave, it just settles differently.

Like it has stopped clawing to get in because now it is already here, laid across your chest beside the little silver wolf.

You press the charm back against your heart and stare at the ceiling until the light grows stronger.

And somewhere in the raw, emptied out place inside you, the truth sits quiet and unavoidable.

You never grieved them until now.

And God, you hate that John Walker was the one who made you.

You almost do not leave your room, but staying here would be worse.

Stillness has already taken enough out of you for one day.

So you wash your face in cold water until your skin goes numb, change into clean clothes, and force your legs to carry you out of the room before your thoughts can start circling again.

You keep your gaze down and your pace steady, one hand hooked around the strap of your bag, the other brushing unconsciously against the pendant beneath your shirt every few steps. It is a habit already

You are halfway to the door when Natasha steps out from the kitchen with a clipboard tucked under one arm and a set of keys in her hand. She stops when she sees you.

Her gaze moves over your face in one quick, quiet sweep that misses nothing. The lingering redness around your eyes. The slight puffiness you could not fully wash away. The brittle set of your mouth. Then, lower, the faint glint of silver at your throat where the wolf charm has slipped free from beneath your collar.

Her eyes catch on it for half a second, then lift back to your face.

She doesn't say a word about any of it. Nat has always known when silence is kinder than curiosity.

"You're heading out early," she says instead, voice even.

You tighten your grip on the strap. "I want to keep busy."

Something softens in her expression, understanding with its sharp edges filed down.

"Supply drop's on the west side today," she says. "Church parking lot off Hensley. They're expecting a decent turnout."

You nod once. "Good."

Nat studies you for another beat, like she is weighing whether to say more, whether today is a day for pushing or a day for simply letting you move.

She chooses mercy. "Alright," she says.

You reach for the door.

"Em."

You glance back.

Nat is still standing there, clipboard against her hip, face unreadable in that Romanoff way that only fools people who do not know her well.

"Don't overdo it."

The corner of your mouth twitches, humorless but real. "What does that even mean?"

"It means carrying boxes is allowed." Her gaze drops pointedly to your hands. "Starting fights with anyone who irritates you is not."

You roll your eyes. "I'll do my best."

Nat's mouth curves just slightly. "That's what worries me."

You shake your head and push the door open before she can say anything else.

"I mean it," you call over your shoulder.

"I know," she says.

Outside, the air is cooler than you expect, the afternoon overcast and heavy with the promise of rain. It feels good against your skin. Good to be moving. Good to have a destination that is not revenge, not surveillance, not some filthy alley with a gun in your hand and blood waiting at the end of it.

By the time you reach the church lot, the familiar rhythm starts settling in again.

A woman from the church waves you over immediately with a relieved smile and points you toward the canned goods. You get to work without speaking much.

The little wolf rests against your chest with every movement, a cool little reminder turned warm by your skin, and every so often when your thoughts begin to drift somewhere dangerous, your fingers brush it and bring you back.

You are relieved, fiercely and stupidly relieved, when half an hour passes and neither John nor Lemar appears.

For once, you get to breathe without half expecting one of them to materialize out of nowhere and start dismantling your peace with a look or a joke or that infuriating habit of saying your name like it means something.

The relief loosens something in you. Not all the way, just enough.

Then you hear the vehicles. Not the ordinary rumble of civilian cars pulling in for supplies.

Heavier, official.

You straighten from a box of canned beans and glance toward the edge of the lot just as two military trucks roll up beside the chain link fence bordering the church grounds.

A handful of uniformed personnel climb out, moving with purpose. Not casual, not volunteer help. Not the familiar setup of soldiers lending hands with boxes and traffic flow.

One of the church women notices too and mutters, "What now?"

You keep your face carefully blank as you watch them spread out near the sidewalk where a cluster of locals has already started to gather. An older man in a work jacket gestures emphatically toward one of the nearby streets. A woman with folded arms keeps shaking her head. One of the soldiers is taking notes.

Missing person.

You pick it up in pieces from passing voices, clipped and half heard.

Young woman from the neighborhood, last seen two nights ago.

Your jaw tightens.

Of course this is how the day bends. Not Walker, not Lemar.

Just the military anyway, crawling into the edges of your space with another reason, another case, another reminder that the city never stops bleeding long enough for you to catch your breath.

One of the volunteers beside you lets out a low sigh. "They said they might canvass this side of the block. Detective types were around earlier too."

You nod like that information means nothing.

Inside, every nerve sharpens.

Because missing girls are never just missing to you.

They are clocks, countdowns. They are the sick, familiar shape of a trail that only gets colder while people fill out forms and ask polite questions.

Your hands curl tighter around the box you are holding.

Busy, you told Nat.

Keep busy. Not hunt, not spiral.

Across the lot, one of the soldiers glances up from his notes toward the church tables, scanning the volunteers with the detached sweep of someone checking the environment rather than the people in it.

You turn away before the look can land too long. Your pulse kicks once, hard and ugly.

Not because you think it's John or Lemar.

Just the uniforms. Just the possibility. Just the old instinct waking up in your blood the second the word missing enters the air.

A church coordinator comes hurrying over with a strained smile and asks if you can start carrying filled bags to cars because they are short two volunteers near the front. You say yes immediately, grateful for something physical to do, something that forces movement instead of thought.

You haul the first load toward a waiting sedan, hand off the bags, come back for more. Work as penance, work as distraction, work as a dam against everything threatening to break loose.

But every time you cross the lot, your eyes flick toward the military presence at the edge of it. Every time, the knot in your stomach pulls tighter.

Because there is something about this that feels too familiar.

A girl gone from this area. An investigation moving too slowly already.

And you, standing in the middle of a church parking lot with a wolf at your throat and grief still fresh enough to bleed, trying very hard not to become the version of yourself that would slip away the second this shift ends and start asking the city questions it only answers in blood.

The worst part is how easy it would be, how natural.

How much your body already wants to turn toward the hunt.

You drop another bag into an open trunk and force your breathing steady.

'Not today.'

'Not like this.'

But the thought stays with you anyway, dark and watchful, as the military begins knocking on doors along the street beyond the church fence.

And somewhere deep under your ribs, beneath the little silver wolf resting close to your heart, instinct lifts its head and listens.

By the time the last family leaves, the church lot is mostly shadows and damp pavement.

The folding tables are half collapsed, cardboard broken down into sagging stacks, empty produce boxes shoved near the dumpster behind the fellowship hall. The string of volunteer chatter that had carried through the afternoon has thinned to tired goodbyes and the occasional scrape of metal legs folding shut.

Overhead, the sky has gone fully dark, low clouds swallowing the moon and leaving the parking lot washed in weak yellow light from the building and the streetlamps at the curb.

You stay.

There is always one more bag to haul, one more trash bin to drag around back, one more box to flatten, one more small detail to handle before you let yourself go home. Maybe it's habit, maybe penance. Maybe just a way to keep your hands busy long enough that the shape of the day does not catch up to you all at once.

The military is long gone by now. Their trucks disappeared hours ago after canvassing the block and talking to neighbors, leaving behind nothing but a bad taste and the lingering thrum of your own instincts.

Missing girl from the area. No sign yet, no answers. Just worried faces, uniforms, questions.

It has sat under your skin all afternoon. Even now, as you tie off another trash bag and sling it over your shoulder, your mind keeps circling it.

Two nights missing. Young woman, close to this neighborhood. Too many ways for that story to end badly.

You carry the bag around to the side of the church, boots crunching over loose gravel, and toss it into the dumpster harder than necessary. The clang echoes through the alley behind the building and dies fast.

You are one of the last left.

A church coordinator calls out a tired thank you from near the front doors, says they've got the rest, says you've done enough for one day.

You nod, wave once, and head toward the lot with your bag slung cross body and your thoughts somewhere uglier than your feet.

The little wolf rests warm against your chest. Your thumb brushes it through your shirt without thinking. A tell, a comfort, a bruise.

You are halfway to your car when something in the quiet shifts.

Not enough for most people to notice, but enough for you.

You start to turn. Too late.

An arm snakes around you from behind, clamping hard across your upper chest and yanking you backward so violently your heels skid on wet pavement. Another hand grabs for your mouth.

You twist before it can land.

A curse hisses in your ear.

Instinct takes over. You slam the back of your head toward his face and catch bone with enough force to make him grunt. You throw your elbow hard into his ribs, stomp down on his foot, wrench your body sideways with every ounce of fury you have.

"Get off me!"

Another man comes in fast from your left.

That is when you understand. This is not a mugging, not random.

A grab.

Your hand flies for the knife at your thigh.

Fingers catch the hilt for half a second before somebody slams into your arm and the blade goes skidding across the asphalt into darkness.

You snarl and fight harder. You always fight harder.

A third figure appears at the edge of your vision, a van idling at the curb with its side door already open. The sight of it detonates something cold and ancient in your blood. You drive your shoulder back into the man holding you and nearly break free, but the second man grabs your wrists and twists, forcing a cry of pain through your teeth.

You kick, claw, bite when a hand gets too close.

One of them swears viciously. "Damn it, hold her!"

You are putting up one hell of a fight.

You know you are because they are breathing harder now, because the one behind you is losing patience, because the second guy has blood on his wrist where your nails found flesh. You get one hand free long enough to punch somebody square in the throat and nearly drop him.

For one glorious second, you think you might break loose.

Then something sharp bites into your side.

A crackle, white hot electricity tears through you. The world seizes. Every muscle locks at once, the scream barely makes it out.

Your knees buckle, body betraying you in one brutal instant as the taser drops you from fighter to dead weight. The pavement rushes sideways. Hands catch you before you hit fully, not to help, only to drag.

'No.'

'No, no, no.'

Your limbs refuse to answer right. Your head swims, sound distorts. The church lot smears into light and shadow and wet pavement as they haul you toward the van. You try to reach for anything, the ground, the door frame, a wrist to break, but your body feels split from itself.

The van door yawns open.

Panic hits hard enough to cut through the static.

You thrash again, weaker but furious, a sound ripping out of you that barely feels human.

Then suddenly the man dragging you is gone, not gone, hit.

A body barrels into him from the side with enough force to send both of them crashing to the pavement.

The grip on you breaks.

You slam awkwardly onto one knee, hands catching your weight just before your face hits the ground. The world lurches sick and sideways. Shouting explodes around you.

A fist connects with flesh, someone curses, another impact, boots pounding.

You blink hard, trying to clear your vision.

The man who had been dragging you is now flat on his back with someone on top of him, driving a vicious right hook into his jaw before hauling him up just enough to slam him back down.

Broad shoulders, military build.

A voice, rough with rage. "Touch her again and I'll kill you."

Your heart stutters.

Then he looks up just enough, breath tearing hard, and barks, "Mara!"

Only then do you know. Only then does the blur sharpen enough for your mind to land on him.

Walker.

Off to your right, more shouting. Another body hits the hood of the van with a metallic slam. Lemar's voice cuts through the chaos, loud and furious and unmistakable.

"Hands behind your back. Now."

One of the attackers is on his knees, groaning, while Lemar forces his arms back and cuffs him with practiced, brutal efficiency. Another guy shoves off the pavement and lunges for the van.

John twists to catch him, but the first man he tackled grabs at his legs just long enough to foul the move. It buys them seconds.

Too many. The side door slams, the driver guns it. The van lurches forward with two of them still inside, tires squealing on wet asphalt as it fishtails out of the lot and tears into the street.

"Damn it!" Lemar shouts.

John is already up, taking two useless strides after it before stopping himself because it is gone, because the angle is bad, because you are still half collapsed on the pavement and one attacker is only just now getting a knee planted on his neck by Hoskins.

The lot goes raggedly still. The church doors burst open somewhere behind you. Somebody inside is yelling to call 911. Somewhere farther off, a dog starts barking.

But right here, in the center of it, all you can hear is your own pulse and the rapid, uneven pull of your breathing.

John turns back to you fast. He crosses the distance in seconds, dropping into a crouch in front of you. "Hey. Hey, look at me."

You try. Your vision is still lagging a little, but his face comes into focus piece by piece. Hair a mess, jaw tight, knuckles bloodied. Eyes lit with something rawer than anger.

You have never seen him look like this.

His hands hover for half a second before settling carefully, one at your shoulder, one braced near your elbow. "You with me?"

You nod once, then instantly regret it because the motion makes the world tilt.

John swears under his breath. "They tased you."

You let out a breath that wants to be a laugh and fails. "Very observant."

Even now, even like this, something tense flickers at the corner of his mouth and dies just as quickly.

Behind him, Lemar is hauling the cuffed attacker upright while talking into a phone, clipped and sharp, calling in the plate he caught, direction of travel, number of suspects fleeing.

John's attention stays on you. "Can you stand?"

You do not know.

You fist the front of his shirt anyway, fingers curling tight into the fabric because the ground still feels uncertain and he is right there and solid and your body, traitor that it is, reaches for stability before pride can stop it.

His hand slides to the back of your shoulder, steadier now. "I got you," he says.

The words hit somewhere too deep.

Your other hand comes up instinctively, searching for the little wolf at your throat, needing the familiar shape of it, needing one thing tonight that stayed yours.

Your fingers meet bare skin.

Nothing.

You freeze.

'No.'

Your breath catches. Your hand searches again frantically, skimming your collarbone, the open neck of your shirt, the place where the chain should be.

Nothing, the charm is gone.

"No," you whisper.

John's face changes instantly. "What?"

Your grip tightens on his shirt until your knuckles ache. "My necklace."

He glances down automatically, then back at you. "What necklace?"

"The charm," you say, voice cracking now in a way that has nothing to do with the taser and everything to do with the sick rush opening under your ribs. "Silver chain. Wolf charm."

For one awful second, he just stares. Then he understands it matters. His eyes flick to the pavement around you, already scanning.

"Easy," he says, though his own voice has sharpened. "We'll find it."

You shake your head too fast. "No, no, it was right here, I had it, I..."

The panic is immediate and humiliating and absolute.

Not the kind you can reason with, not over that.

Not when you only just put it back where it belonged. Not when it had rested over your heart all day. Not when Bucky is still fresh and aching in you from dawn and grief and the dream and the realization that you had never truly let yourself mourn.

John's hand tightens slightly on your shoulder. "Mara."

You look at him.

"We'll find it," he says again, firmer now, like a promise he has decided to make whether he has the right or not.

Behind him, Lemar catches the shape of your distress even while holding his prisoner. "What are we looking for?"

John answers without looking away from you. "Silver chain. Wolf charm."

Lemar nods once and immediately starts scanning the ground around the van's old position, boots scraping wet pavement, flashlight already out.

The church lot suddenly feels too big, too dark. Too full of places a tiny piece of silver could vanish forever.

Your fingers clutch harder at the front of John's shirt, wrinkling the fabric in your fist as your other hand keeps searching your collarbone like maybe the chain will magically reappear if you just check one more time.

"No," you whisper again, but this time it breaks on the way out.

John's face sharpens immediately. "Mara."

You shake your head, breathing too fast now. "I can't lose it."

"We're looking."

"I can't," you say again, louder, your voice cracking so badly it makes your own stomach turn. "I can't lose them again."

The words slip out before you can stop them. Too much, too honest. Too close to the wound you spent all morning tearing open in private.

John hears it but he does not ask. He doesn't look at you like you owe him an explanation just because your grief leaked through the cracks. He just shifts closer, one hand steady on your shoulder, the other braced near your arm like he is keeping the world from tipping fully sideways.

"Hey," he says, low and firm. "Look at me."

You try, but your vision is blurring again, tears rising hot and useless and impossible to stop now that the panic has found blood in the water. "I just got it back," you choke out. "I just... I can't lose them again."

And there it is, again.

Another thing you should have swallowed. Another piece of yourself dropped in front of John Walker under flickering church lot lights and the distant howl of sirens.

God, you hate this. You hate that it's him. You hate more that some part of you is relieved it is him.

John's grip tightens just enough to anchor, not enough to hurt. "You're not gonna lose it."

"You don't know that."

"We're gonna find it."

"How?" Your voice pitches high and raw. "It could be anywhere, it could've snapped, they could've taken it, it could've gone under the van, I can't..."

Your breathing breaks apart completely after that.

Tears spill over, hot and humiliating and unstoppable, and you turn your face away on instinct because crying once in front of John had already been bad enough. Twice feels like a personal failure.

John doesn't let you hide in it.

His fingers slide from your shoulder to the side of your neck for one brief second, checking, grounding, making sure you are still here and not disappearing into the panic. "Breathe," he says. "Come on. In."

You suck in a ragged breath because his voice gives you something to follow.

"Out."

It shudders out of you.

Again.

"In."

You do it.

"Out."

The ambulance pulls in then, red lights washing over the church lot in ugly pulses. Doors slam, boots hit pavement. Someone calls out for the taser victim and the detained suspect. Lemar's voice answers from somewhere behind you, brisk and controlled, but your whole world has narrowed to John's grip on your shoulder and the shape of his voice cutting through the static.

"They'll find it," he says, quieter now as the medics approach. "You hear me?"

Your lips tremble with the effort of holding yourself together. You nod once.

He looks unconvinced. "Say it."

You almost laugh at the sheer audacity of that, except the sound would come out wrecked. "They'll find it," you whisper.

"That's right."

One of the medics kneels beside you a second later, asking your name, whether you know where you are, whether you hit your head. John eases his hands off you then, but only because they need the room, and the loss of that steadiness feels immediate and annoying and impossible to admit.

You hate that too.

The medics get you into the ambulance with careful efficiency, sit you on the bench, ask questions in practiced voices. You answer most of them automatically, gaze still flicking once toward the church lot every few seconds like the necklace might somehow be visible through the ambulance doors if you just angle yourself right.

John stays nearby. Just at the open back doors, one hand on the frame, jaw tight, watching like he is trying not to make the space more crowded while also refusing to go far enough away that you cannot see him.

The medic asks where the taser probes hit.

You mutter something about your side.

"Mind if I take a look?"

You nod stiffly.

The medic lifts the hem of your shirt just enough to inspect the marks, cool gloved fingers pressing lightly at the skin there. The air against the newly exposed skin is cold enough to make you tense.

At the doors, John clears his throat so abruptly it is almost a choke.

You glance up despite yourself.

He has turned his head away so fast it would be funny in any other universe. Eyes fixed somewhere over the church roofline, ears going just a little red as he plants one hand more firmly on the doorframe like it is suddenly his greatest moral support.

The sheer awkwardness of it cuts through your panic for half a second.

The medic says something about minor burns, tenderness, muscle pain, nothing unexpected.

John, still not looking, says, "She okay?"

The medic gives him a look you cannot fully read and answers, "She's fine."

You would be offended by how quickly he responds, "Good," if the whole thing were not so absurdly, painfully human.

Then footsteps hit the pavement outside the ambulance. Lemar appears in the doorway a second later, a little out of breath, one hand lifted.

There, looped around his fingers, catching the ambulance light like something rescued from a grave, is the silver chain. The wolf charm dangles from it.

For a second, the whole world stops. Your breath catches so hard it hurts.

Lemar's expression shifts the second he sees your face, some joking remark clearly dying before it reaches his mouth. He lifts the necklace a little. "Found it near the curb," he says, softer now. "Chain's still good."

You do not even think.

You lunge forward and grab it from his hand with shaking fingers, clutching it so tightly the charm presses into your palm. Relief crashes through you so hard it almost buckles your spine.

Your eyes flood instantly.

"Thank you," you whisper, voice wrecked.

Then, because apparently tonight is determined to destroy every scrap of your dignity in front of both of them, you throw your arms around Lemar.

Just for a second. Still enough to stun the life out of everybody involved.

Including you.

Lemar freezes like someone unplugged him mid sentence.

John goes completely still at the ambulance doors, eyes widening just a fraction before his expression locks down into something so flat it is almost art.

You pull back just as quickly, wolf charm clutched against your chest, tears still wet on your face, breathing uneven. "I'm sorry," you say automatically, because now you have to. "I just... thank you."

Lemar blinks once, then twice. Then a grin starts threatening at the corner of his mouth because of course it does. Because apparently even profound emotional moments are not safe from Lemar Hoskins.

He looks over your shoulder toward John, still holding onto the ambulance door like he might rip it off by accident, and says, full of terrible delight, "See?"

John already knows exactly where this is going. "Don't."

Too late.

Lemar points lightly to himself. "She does like me better."

Even through the wreckage of the last ten minutes, even with tears drying on your face and the wolf charm clenched so hard in your fist it hurts, something that is not quite a laugh scrapes loose in your throat.

John shuts his eyes for one long second and mutters, "Unbelievable."

Lemar's grin widens.

And for the first time all night, with the charm back in your hand and the pulse of panic finally loosening its grip around your lungs, the world feels a little less like it is ending.

Not safe, not fixed, but survivable.

For now.

John opens his eyes again and looks at you, checking the tears, the necklace, the way your breathing has started to settle. His voice, when it comes, is quieter than before. "You got it back, Hart."

You nod once, fingers closing around the little wolf and chain like you are sealing a promise with your own skin.

"Yeah," you whisper.

And this time, when the tears threaten again, they are not from losing.

They are from the impossible, aching relief of not having to.

The phrasing is immaculate.

No pressure.

No demand.

No suggestion that declining would be noted.

You know better.

By the time you reach Tim’s office, the decision has already begun forming — not because you want it to, but because this is how systems work. They don’t coerce. They invite.

He looks up when you enter, expression attentive, open.

“You got it,” he says.

It’s not a question.

You nod. “This morning.”

He gestures to the chair across from his desk. You sit. The space between you feels deliberate now, calibrated since New Year’s. Not distance. Control.

“They framed it as an ethics review,” you continue. “Transparency. Continuity.”

Tim exhales quietly through his nose. “Of course they did.”

“They’d like me there,” you add. “As… support.”

He stills.

“That’s new,” he says carefully.

“It’s not,” you reply. “It’s just the first time they’ve said it out loud.”

Silence stretches. Tim’s fingers lace together, then unlatch, then rest flat against the desk. You recognize the tell — calculation layered over concern.

“You’re not obligated,” he says. The words are precise. Ethical. Useless.

“I know.”

The thing neither of you says sits heavy between you: But if I don’t go, it will mean something.

“I can decline,” you offer, even as you hear the hollow note in your own voice.

Tim looks at you then — really looks — and something unguarded flickers there before he catches it.

“I don’t want this to cost you,” he says.

It lands harder than you expect.

“Too late,” you reply quietly. “They’ve already decided I belong in the room.”

Another pause.

This one feels different.

Dangerous.

“If I go,” you continue, measured, “it reinforces the narrative.”

“Yes.”

“And if I don’t,” you say, “it raises questions.”

“Yes.”

There it is. The trap laid bare.

Tim leans back slightly, eyes lifting to the window behind you like the city might offer an answer. When he speaks again, his voice is softer.

“This wasn’t supposed to extend to you like this.”

“No,” you agree. “It wasn’t.”

For a moment — just one — the professional cadence slips.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do this,” he says.

“I know,” you say.

The space between you tightens, not with proximity, but with everything unspoken pressing inward. The absurdity of it all — that this is where the line is being tested, not in passion or secrecy, but in a politely worded dinner invitation.

“You’d be very good at it,” Tim adds, before he can stop himself.

You smile faintly. “At being convincing?”

“At being indispensable,” he corrects.

The word hums between you.

Indispensable is dangerous. It’s permanence dressed up as usefulness.

You stand before the moment stretches too far.

“I’ll attend,” you say. “On one condition.”

Tim’s gaze sharpens. “Name it.”

“This doesn’t become expectation,” you say. “Not for the board. Not for your family. Not for you.”

He nods immediately. Too immediately.

“Agreed.”

You hesitate at the door, hand resting against the frame.

“Tim,” you say.

“Yes?”

You meet his eyes. For a second, the office feels very small.

“We’re still pretending this is temporary,” you say.

His answer comes after a beat too long.

“Yes.”

The word holds. Barely.

You leave before either of you can test it.

Behind you, Tim remains still, staring at the door long after it closes — aware now, with sharp clarity, that the things they can’t do are starting to feel more dangerous than the ones they already have.

And January fifteenth is no longer waiting politely.

It’s approaching.

⸻

The door clicks shut behind you.

Tim doesn’t move.

He stands there for a few seconds longer than necessary, staring at the place you were just standing like it might offer a different outcome if he waits long enough. It doesn’t.

Eventually, he turns back to his desk.

The screen is still on. Notes open. Tabs half-organized. The familiar comfort of structure waits for him, patient and unjudging. He sits, rolls his shoulders once, and exhales through his nose like he’s bracing for impact.

Okay.

He starts where he always does.

Variables.

Board perception: stabilizing.

Press narrative: favorable.

Governance risk: reduced.

Cost.

He pauses there, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Professional cost to you if this continues: escalating.

Professional cost to you if it ends abruptly: worse.

He swallows.

Personal cost is harder to quantify.

He’s done this exercise before — not with you, but with versions of himself the world prefers. Straight lines. Clean optics. A partner who fits easily into sentences like future leadership and continuity without footnotes.

The board doesn’t know he’s bi.

They don’t know how carefully he’s learned to compartmentalize that truth — how often attraction has been something he audits before he allows himself to feel it. They see a man in a relationship with a woman and call it settled. Call it safe.

They don’t ask if it’s true.

The problem is — this part is.

He presses his lips together, jaw tight.

He likes you. Not in a way that fits neatly into a column, not in a way he can dismiss as proximity or convenience anymore. He likes the way you see systems and refuse to pretend they’re neutral. He likes that you don’t need him to explain himself — that you clock the pressure before he names it.

That makes everything worse.

Because wanting you is one thing.

Being expected to want you — to perform that want as proof of stability — is something else entirely.

He rubs a hand over his face, then drops it to the desk, grounding himself in the cool surface.

Panic flickers at the edges. Not sharp. Controlled. The kind that comes from too many moving parts and not enough room to breathe. From knowing that every path forward costs someone something — and that lately, it isn’t him paying first.

He opens a new document.

Titles it: January — Contingencies.

He stares at the blinking cursor.

For the first time since this started, the spreadsheet doesn’t offer relief. It doesn’t simplify the problem. It just makes one thing painfully clear.

There is no version of this where he keeps everything intact.

And the fact that he cares which pieces break — that you are one of them — is the variable he can’t isolate.

He leans back in his chair, eyes closing briefly.

January fifteenth is approaching.

And for the first time, Tim Drake isn’t calculating how to end this cleanly.

He’s calculating how much it will hurt if he does.

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