#time heist setup

You start taking birth control again without telling John. Not because you're trying to trap a future in your hands. Not because you have suddenly become brave enough to believe the world will let you keep anything.

You do it quietly, same time every day.

A pill at the sink with a glass of water. One tucked between brushing your teeth and stealing one of John's shirts from the clean laundry basket.

Before bed, when the apartment is dark and John's arm is heavy over your waist, his breath warm against the back of your neck, his body a solid, living thing behind yours.

You count the days.

You tell yourself it is practical. Sensible. Just another small thing you can control in a world that has never stopped putting its hands around your throat.

But that's not the whole truth. The whole truth is softer. More dangerous. The whole truth is that next time, you want to feel him.

All of him.

The thought terrifies you so badly that the first time it fully forms, you stand in John's bathroom with the little pack of pills in your hand and stare at your own reflection until you almost don't recognize the woman looking back.

You should feel guilty.

You do feel guilty.

Bucky's charm sits in John's bedroom, tucked away where you left it the night before. Not hidden, not abandoned, just not on your body.

That almost makes it worse.

Because there was a time when you would have sworn you could not breathe without the cold silver wolf pressed to your skin. There was a time when taking it off felt like treason, like grief had hands and you were prying its fingers loose one by one.

Now, sometimes, you forget it's not there until your fingers reach for your throat and find only warmth. Only skin, only you.

It makes your chest ache. It makes your stomach twist. It makes you take the pill anyway.

Because John is not a replacement. You know that now. He's not a bandage pressed over another man's wound. He's not a punishment. He's not proof that you loved Bucky less.

He's John.

Stubborn, infuriating, golden-headed, too careful with you sometimes and not careful enough with himself. John, who kisses your knuckles when he thinks you're asleep. John, who keeps tea in his cabinet even though he only drinks coffee because you once said the smell helps when your hands shake. John, who tells you he loves you like he's handing you something breakable and trusting you not to drop it.

John, who has never once asked you to remove Bucky from the room.

That's why you do it.

Because next time, you don't want grief between you.

You want his skin. His breath. His weight.

His name in your mouth without another ghost listening from the doorway.

You are in his kitchen a few weeks later, barefoot in one of his shirts, stirring something on the stove that barely deserves the dignity of being called dinner, when the front door opens.

John's keys hit the small bowl by the door.

You hear the tired drag of his boots first. Then the soft curse under his breath when one of them refuses to come off properly.

The sound pulls a smile out of you before you can stop it.

"War hero defeated by footwear," you call.

"Boot had it coming," John answers.

His voice is rough. Tired in the way base makes him tired lately, scraped thin around the edges. You turn the burner down and glance over your shoulder as he steps into the kitchen.

He stops when he sees you.

His eyes move from your bare legs to the hem of his shirt, then up to your face. Slowly. Like he's trying to be a better man than he is.

You lift your brows. "What?"

John's jaw works once. "Nothing."

"That was not a nothing look."

His mouth twitches. "You're wearing my shirt."

"I do that a lot."

"Yeah." He takes one step closer, then another. "Doesn't mean I've gotten used to it."

Heat crawls up your neck, sweet and traitorous.

You turn back to the stove because looking at him feels like standing too close to a fire with paper ribs. "Dinner is almost ready."

"Is it?"

"Mhm."

"What is it?"

You look down at the pan. "Uh... Food."

John laughs. It's tired, quiet, but it's real. It loosens something in your chest.

"Food," he repeats, coming up behind you. His hands find your hips.

You lean back into him.

That is all it takes.

His breath changes against your hair. Your own fingers tighten around the spoon.

For one second, neither of you moves.

Then John lowers his mouth to the side of your neck. It's not even a kiss at first. Just the brush of his lips, warm and almost absent. A small point of contact that lights through you anyway.

"Hi," he murmurs.

You close your eyes. "Hi."

His hands flex at your hips. "Missed you."

"You saw me this morning."

"Still missed you."

Your smile shakes a little.

You turn in his arms, abandoning whatever tragedy is happening in the pan. John looks down at you, and the kitchen light catches the tired shadows beneath his eyes, the faint tension in his mouth, the exhaustion he keeps trying to fold small enough to fit behind a smile.

You reach up and touch his cheek.

John's eyes soften immediately.

"Love," he says, low.

You kiss him before he can ask what's wrong.

He catches you on instinct, one hand sliding to your back, the other cupping the side of your face. The kiss starts soft, then you open for him, hungry, and the change goes through him like a live wire.

His hand drops from your face to your waist, then lower. Yours curl into the front of his shirt, dragging him closer until his body presses you back against the counter. The spoon clatters somewhere behind you.

John lifts his head just enough to breathe. "The stove."

"Off," you say, already reaching blindly to twist the knob. The flame dies with a soft click.

His control frays, but he doesn't let it snap. Instead he kisses you deeper, slower, like he's savoring every second. His hands slide under the hem of his shirt on you, warm palms mapping your thighs with quiet reverence. When his fingers brush higher and find you bare and already wet, he lets out a shaky breath against your mouth.

"Em..." The way he says your name makes your chest ache.

Without another word, John grips your waist and lifts you effortlessly onto the counter. The cool tile meets the backs of your thighs as he settles you on the edge, your legs parting naturally around him. He steps in close, still kissing you, soft, lingering kisses that trail down your jaw to the sensitive spot beneath your ear.

Then he pulls back just enough to look at you.

His hands slide slowly up your thighs, thumbs stroking gentle circles, until he gently pushes them wider. You watch his head dip as he lowers himself, sinking to his knees on the kitchen floor in front of you. The sight of him there, between your spread legs, eyes dark with quiet awe, makes your breath catch.

This is new. Intimate in a way that feels almost sacred.

Heat floods your face as you realize how exposed you are, sitting on his kitchen counter with nothing underneath his shirt, thighs spread wide for him. Your hands instinctively move to cover yourself.

John catches your wrists gently before you can.

"Hey," he murmurs, voice low and steady. "None of that."

You swallow, mortified heat creeping up your neck. "John... you don't have to... I mean... I'm..." Your words tangle.

His expression softens even more. He brings one of your hands to his mouth and kisses your knuckles, never breaking eye contact.

"Look at me, love."

You do, reluctantly.

"I want this," he says quietly, firmly. "I've wanted to taste you for a long time. You're beautiful. Every part of you. Especially like this, wet and trembling for me."

Your throat tightens. The sincerity in his voice melts something tight in your chest. You nod, small and shaky, and let your thighs relax open again.

John's eyes darken with quiet hunger and something deeper. He presses a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your thigh first, then another higher up, like he's giving you time to feel every second of it. When his mouth finally reaches your center, it's gentle. He kisses you there too, slow, tender presses of his lips against your slick folds before his tongue traces a warm, careful line up through your wetness.

You gasp, fingers threading gently into his hair.

He hums softly, the vibration sweet against you, and takes his time exploring. His tongue moves in slow, deliberate strokes, lapping at your entrance, circling your clit with patient reverence, learning exactly what makes your breath hitch and your thighs tremble around his shoulders. One of his hands stays on your hip, thumb stroking soothing circles over your skin, while the other gently parts you so he can taste deeper.

It feels like worship.

"John," you whisper, voice breaking on his name. The tenderness of it undoes you more than urgency ever could.

He pulls back just enough to speak, lips brushing against you. "That's it, love. Let me hear you. You taste so fucking good."

The words send a fresh wave of heat through you, part embarrassment, part overwhelming want. Your hips twitch involuntarily.

He smiles against you, then seals his mouth over your clit and sucks softly, tongue flicking in slow, deliberate circles. When he slides one thick finger inside you, curling it lovingly against that perfect spot while his mouth works you, you come with a shuddering cry, slow and deep and overwhelming. He stays with you through every pulse, licking you softly, tenderly, until the last tremors fade and you're boneless against the counter.

Only then does he rise, lips glistening, eyes dark with awe and hunger. He kisses you deeply so you can taste yourself on his tongue, and you melt into it, arms wrapping around his neck.

He lifts you off the counter like you weigh nothing. Your legs wrap around his waist as he carries you down the hall, mouth still moving against yours with quiet intensity. The bedroom door bounces lightly when he shoulders it open

He lowers you onto the bed with care, but the hunger that was held back in the kitchen is still there, simmering beneath the surface. Clothes come off in a heated but unhurried tangle.

John braces over you, breathing hard, eyes locked on yours with raw need and something softer. He reaches toward the nightstand for the familiar foil packet.

You catch his wrist.

John freezes.

You swallow. "You don't have to."

His eyes snap to yours.

The room goes very quiet.

For a second, the only sound is both of you breathing.

John's throat works. "Mara."

"I started taking it again."

He does not move. Does not blink.

"When?"

"A while ago." Your thumb brushes over the inside of his wrist because you need something to do with your hands. "I waited. I counted. I'm not being reckless."

His face changes slowly. Want, yes. But beneath it, fear. Concern. Something almost wounded.

"You didn't tell me."

"I know."

His expression softens in a way that hurts.

"Why?"

You look away. The room blurs at the edges. Not with tears. Not yet. Just with the weight of too much truth pressing down at once.

"Because I wanted it to be my choice first," you say quietly. "Before it was ours."

John's fingers curl around yours.

You force yourself to look at him again.

"I wanted to be sure I wasn't doing it because I was scared," you continue. "Or because I was trying to prove something. Or because I wanted to erase anything."

His eyes flicker, and you know he understands what you are not saying.

Bucky, Wakanda, the charm, the baby-shaped grief you never got to hold.

John lowers himself back over you, but there is no rush now. No impatience. He touches your cheek with the back of his fingers.

"And are you sure?" he asks, voice low. "About this. About me. Like this."

Your chest aches. "Yes."

His jaw tightens. "You don't have to do this for me."

"I'm not."

"Love."

"I want you," you whisper. "I want this with you. All of you. No barriers. No ghosts."

John closes his eyes.

The words land somewhere deep in him. You see it, the way his body trembles once, the way his breath comes out uneven, the way he looks almost afraid of how badly he wants to believe you.

When he opens his eyes again, they are bright.

"If anything feels wrong," he says, voice rough, "you tell me. Even halfway through. Even at the last second. I need you here with me."

You nod. "I will."

He searches your face one more second, then kisses you slow, deep, and devastating.

His hand slides down between your bodies.

You are still wet, slick and aching for him. His fingers stroke through the heat of you, gathering it, circling your clit until your hips jerk and a soft, broken moan slips from your throat into his mouth. He swallows the sound like it belongs to him.

Then he notches the thick, bare head of his cock against your entrance.

The first touch of skin on skin makes you both shudder.

John's breath punches out of him. "Jesus, Em..."

You wrap your legs higher around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back, and pull.

He pushes forward.

The stretch is slow, deliberate, and overwhelming in a way it has never been before. You feel every inch of him, hotter, thicker, smoother without anything between you. Your body opens around him inch by inch, fluttering and clenching as he sinks deeper.

The sensation of bare skin sliding against bare skin is devastatingly intimate; you can feel the subtle ridge of the head, the thick vein along the underside, the way he pulses and twitches as your walls grip him. A low, throaty moan escapes you, your fingers tightening hard in his hair. The fullness is almost too much and not enough at the same time.

John groans, deep and guttural, forehead dropping to yours as he buries himself to the hilt. "Christ... you feel unreal. So warm. So tight around me." His voice cracks on the last word. "I can feel everything. Every flutter, every pulse... fuck, love, you're so wet for me."

He stills there, buried deep, throbbing inside you with nothing between you. Both of you shaking. You can feel every tiny shift of his hips, every beat of his heart through the connection. The intimacy of it is terrifying and perfect.

A tear slips down your temple.

John lifts his head instantly, eyes sharp with concern.

You shake your head before he can speak and pull him down into a kiss, messy, desperate, full of everything you cannot say. "Don't stop," you whisper against his lips. "Please. I need this. I need you."

Something in him breaks.

He begins to move.

Slow, deep thrusts at first, each one dragging a soft, helpless sound from your throat. The wet, intimate slide of him inside you fills the room. Skin on skin, the slick sound of your bodies meeting, his low grunts every time he sinks back in. You meet him, rolling your hips up, taking him deeper, and he hisses your name like it hurts.

"John..." Your voice breaks on a moan as he angles his hips and hits that spot inside you that makes your vision spark. Your nails rake down his back. "Oh God... right there..."

He groans, low and wrecked, and does it again. Harder, but still measured, still tender. The pace builds, steady and relentless, his head bowed over you, sweat beading on his skin. Every thrust pushes a breathy whimper or moan from your lips. You cannot stop making sounds, soft, needy, broken things that only seem to make him move deeper, more deliberately.

His hand finds yours above your head, fingers lacing tight. The other grips your hip, holding you exactly where he wants you as he fucks into you with more urgency now, but never losing that careful attentiveness. The headboard taps the wall in time with his thrusts. Your moans grow louder, less controlled, your body tightening around him in helpless pulses.

"That's it, love," he rasps against your ear, voice rough and shaking. "Let me hear you. Let me feel you come on me."

The words shove you over the edge.

Your climax crashes through you hard, your body clenching rhythmically around him, pulsing, drawing him deeper as a cry tears from your throat, high and broken. Your legs shake around his waist. Your nails dig into his shoulders. Pleasure whites out everything else. You can feel every throb of him inside you as your walls squeeze him, the wet heat of your release coating him.

John curses, low and vicious, his rhythm faltering as your walls milk him. "Mara... fuck... fuck..."

He buries his face in your neck and thrusts once, twice more before he stills deep, hips jerking as he spills inside you in hot, thick pulses. You feel every spurt of it, the warmth flooding you, marking you, the intimacy of it almost too much. He groans your name like it is being ripped out of him, body trembling hard against yours, breath ragged against your skin.

For long moments, neither of you moves.

Just the sound of both of you breathing like you have run miles. His heart hammering against yours. The slow, sticky warmth between your thighs where he's still buried inside you.

John lifts his head slowly. His eyes are glassy, wrecked, soft in a way that makes your chest ache. He brushes damp hair from your face with shaking fingers and kisses you, slow, reverent, like you are something holy.

"You okay?" he murmurs, voice hoarse.

You nod, pulling him closer so he stays right where he is a little longer. "More than okay."

He smiles against your skin, small and real and a little dazed, and settles his weight carefully over you, not crushing, just grounding. The connection lingers, warm and intimate and perfect.

Something in your chest settles.

No ghost. No barrier. Just this.

Just him.

He doesn't pull out right away. Neither of you wants him to. John shifts only enough to roll onto his side, taking you with him so you stay tucked against his chest, one of your legs hooked over his hip. The movement makes him slip a little deeper for a second, and you both exhale at the same time, soft, shared sounds in the quiet room. He keeps one arm banded around your back, the other hand stroking slow lines up and down your spine.

You stay like that until the trembling eases, until the sweat cools on your skin, until the only thing left is the steady thump of his heartbeat under your ear and the faint, intimate ache between your legs.

Eventually his breathing evens out. Your own eyelids grow heavy. You don't remember falling asleep, only the feeling of his fingers still moving lazily along your spine and the low murmur of his voice saying something soft you don't quite catch.

When you wake, the bedroom is dim. The sheets are tangled around your legs. John's heartbeat moves beneath your ear, steady and stubborn, knocking against your skull like proof.

You should get up. You should shower. You should check your phone.

Instead, you let yourself stay.

John's fingers move lazily along your spine.

"You okay?" he murmurs.

His voice is rough with sleep.

You turn your face into his chest. "Yes."

"You sure?"

You smile faintly. "You ask that a lot."

"Going to keep asking."

"I know."

His hand pauses. "Do you hate it?"

You lift your head enough to look at him.

His hair is a mess. There is a crease from the pillow on one side of his face. The tiny freckle on his left earlobe is visible in the low light, and something inside you clenches with impossible tenderness.

"No," you say. "I don't hate it."

His mouth curves, small and sleepy. "Good."

You touch the freckle with the tip of your finger.

His eyes close on a quiet exhale.

"Mine," you whisper.

He opens one eye. "You're possessive after sex."

Your face heats instantly.

John smiles wider. "Interesting development."

"Shut up."

"Never."

You pinch his side.

He catches your hand, laughing softly, and kisses your knuckles.

The sound of his laugh in the dark almost makes you believe you can keep this.

Almost.

The next day, support group ends early because the woman who usually brings coffee starts crying before Steve even finishes asking how everyone is doing.

No one blames her.

There are days like that. Days when grief walks in before anyone else and takes every chair in the room.

Steve handles it gently. He stands in front of the half-circle of folding chairs with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets and that careful, steady expression he wears when the whole room wants to come apart.

He doesn't force anyone to talk. He doesn't make it noble. He just lets everyone leave with whatever pieces they managed to carry in.

You help stack the chairs afterward.

Steve folds the last chair and slides it against the wall.

"You heading back to the compound?" he asks.

You glance at your phone. No messages from John.

He's probably still at base. He had kissed you goodbye that morning with his uniform half-buttoned, his hair damp from the shower, his mouth lingering at your temple like he hated leaving.

You had watched him go with the bedsheet wrapped around you and an ache in your body that had made your face burn every time you moved.

"I think so," you say. "John's probably tied up for a while. I wanted to see Nat anyway."

Steve nods. "I can drive you."

You hesitate for half a second, then nod. "Thanks."

Outside, the air is bright and cold enough to sting your cheeks. Steve's car is parked near the curb. He opens the passenger door without making a thing of it, and you roll your eyes before climbing in.

"Careful," you say. "Someone might mistake you for polite."

Steve gives you a tired little smile. "Can't have that."

As he pulls away from the building, you take out your phone. You stare at John's name for a moment.

Then you type.

You: Heading to the compound for a while. Support group ended early. I'll come over later.

You pause. Your thumb hovers. Then, before you can overthink it into dust, you add:

You: I love you.

You send it quickly and shove the phone into your lap like it might bite you.

Steve doesn't comment. You're grateful for that.

The drive is quiet at first. Not uncomfortable. Steve has a way of making silence feel like something with walls and windows, not a locked box. You watch the city pass by in muted pieces. Half-empty streets. Buildings with too many dark windows. A traffic light changing for cars that aren't there.

The world is quieter now. It has been for years. You should be used to it.

When the car starts over the Hudson, you turn your head toward the water, more out of habit than interest. Then you see them.

At first, you think they are shadows. Long, dark shapes moving beneath the surface.

You sit forward. "Steve."

He glances over. "What?"

"There."

He follows your gaze.

The water breaks.

A whale rises slow and enormous, its back gleaming gray beneath the pale light. Then another. And another farther out, moving through the river like the world has forgotten humans ever told it where it was allowed to breathe.

Your mouth parts.

For a moment, you are not in Steve's car. You are not on your way to the compound. You are not a woman with blood on her hands and two men carved into her heart.

You are just someone watching whales move through the Hudson.

"They're beautiful," you whisper.

Steve slows a little, just enough that the car behind him honks weakly and then gives up.

"Nat said there were reports," he says. "More marine life moving back in. Less traffic. Less noise."

"Less people," you say.

Steve doesn't answer right away.

The whale slips beneath the water again. The river closes over it like nothing happened.

Your chest tightens.

It's a strange kind of wonder, seeing the world heal around the wound that killed half of it. Like the planet is taking a breath while everyone left behind is still choking.

"I hate that it's beautiful," you say.

Steve's hands tighten on the wheel.

"Yeah," he says softly. "Me too."

By the time you reach the compound, your phone still has not buzzed.

You try not to look at it. You fail three times.

Steve parks, and the two of you head inside. The compound feels too large when it's quiet. It always has. Too much glass, too many corridors, too many empty rooms pretending they were designed that way.

You hear Natasha before you see her.

Not words at first. Just the low murmur of her voice coming from the main room, clipped and controlled in a way that tells you she's either managing an operation or trying very hard not to fall apart. Sometimes those are the same thing.

You follow Steve in.

Natasha is standing near the screens, one hand braced against the table. Her hair is pulled back, red fading into blonde at the ends, and her face has that pale, exhausted look she gets when she has been awake too long and feeling too much.

Several holographic feeds flicker above the table. Rhodey's image disappears just as you enter, leaving the room strangely empty.

Natasha doesn't turn right away.

Steve watches her.

You do too.

Her shoulders rise and fall once.

Then she says, without looking at either of you, "One of you better have brought dinner, because I'm about two minutes away from making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and threatening people with it."

Steve's mouth twitches.

You stare at her. "That is either the saddest threat I've ever heard or the most Natasha threat I've ever heard."

She finally looks over. Her eyes are wet. She hates that you notice.

So you pretend not to. "I can make it," you say.

Natasha points at you. "See? Useful."

Steve steps closer. "Nat."

"I'm fine."

"No one asked."

"That was your mistake."

He gives her a look. The kind only Steve Rogers can give, all quiet stubbornness and impossible patience.

Natasha looks away first.

You move toward the small kitchen area before either of them can turn grief into an argument. The bread is where it always is. Your hands move through the simple task, and for some reason, that's what nearly gets you.

Bread, peanut butter, jelly.

The absurd little survival of ordinary things.

Behind you, Steve and Natasha talk quietly. You catch pieces of it, enough to know they are circling the same wound they always circle.

Moving on. Not moving on. What they owe the dead. What they owe the living.

You press the sandwich together harder than necessary.

Natasha appears beside you, silent as smoke.

"You okay?" she asks.

You give her a look. "You're asking me that?"

"Deflection. Cute."

"Learned from you."

Her mouth softens.

She reaches for the plate, but you hold it out of reach.

"No. Sit."

Her brows lift. "Are you ordering me around in my own compound?"

"Yes."

Steve, from across the room, says, "I support this."

Natasha points toward him without turning. "Traitor."

You shove the plate into her hands. "Eat."

For a second, she looks like she might argue. Then her face shifts. Not much. Just enough.

She takes the sandwich. "Fine," she mutters. "But only because I respect your tyranny." She takes a bite and chews like it personally offended her.

You lean against the counter, arms crossed, watching her.

A screen projects in front of Nat, she simply swipes it away.

Steve glances toward one of the monitors.

Then he stills.

You frown.

"Who is that?"

On the security feed, a man stands outside the front gate.

He is disheveled. Wild-eyed. Thin in a way that makes his clothes hang wrong. "Oh... hi... hi... is anyone home? This is Scott Lang..." He waves both arms at the camera like he is trying to convince the entire building not to blink him out of existence. "...we met a few years ago, at the airport in Germany..."

Steve steps closer to the screen.

The man leans toward the camera, talking fast. You can barely understand what he's saying, but you can see the panic in his face.

Natasha's sandwich lowers slowly.

Steve says, "Is this an old message?"

Natasha reaches for the controls.

The timestamp flickers.

Her face drains of color. "No," she says. "It's the front gate."

For one suspended second, none of you move.

Then you are already running.

You do not remember deciding to.

Your body moves before your thoughts catch up, feet pounding through the corridor, past glass walls and empty rooms and polished floors that throw your reflection back at you in fractured pieces.

Behind you, Steve calls your name.

You keep going.

The front gate camera buzzes when you hit the access panel. Your fingers are clumsy on the controls.

Outside, the man looks up as the gate begins to open.

He stumbles forward almost before there is enough room.

You catch him by instinct.

One hand hooks into the front of his jacket, the other braces against his shoulder before he can fold straight onto the pavement. He makes a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, eyes blown wide, face pale beneath the grime and confusion clinging to him.

For half a second, he looks at you like he expected a ghost and got a knife instead.

"Hi," he wheezes.

You stare at him.

He stares back.

Then his mouth twitches with a nervous, terrified kind of recognition. "You were there too, right? Germany? Airport? There was a lot going on. Big guy. Spider kid. Giant me. Very weird day."

Your grip tightens before you can stop it. "Scott Lang?"

Relief flashes across his face so fast it almost breaks him. "Yes. Yes, that's me. Scott Lang. Ant-Man. Formerly missing, apparently, which is news to me and not the fun kind."

His breathing hitches. His eyes flick past you, toward the compound, searching the empty grounds like they might explain themselves if he looks hard enough.

"Is this still the Avengers compound?"

You release his jacket slowly, but you keep one hand near his arm when he sways.

"Yes."

His knees almost give out at the answer. "Okay," he whispers. "Good. That's good."

It doesn't sound good. It sounds like the only piece of the world that has stayed where he left it.

You glance back toward the security camera, knowing Nat and Steve are probably already moving.

Then you look at Scott again. At the hollow look in his face. At the way he keeps blinking too fast, like the sky is brighter than he remembers.

"What happened to you?"

Scott lets out one thin, broken laugh.

"I was really hoping someone here could tell me what happened to everyone else first."

The words settle cold in your stomach. You step aside, giving him room to pass through the gate.

"Come inside."

"Thank you," he says, and the gratitude in it is so raw that you have to look away.

He takes one step, then another, but his balance is wrong. He catches himself too late.

You move without thinking, sliding beneath his arm before he can hit the ground.

"I'm fine," he says quickly.

"You're shaking."

"Yeah, well, emotionally, spiritually, probably medically."

You adjust his arm around your shoulders and start walking him toward the compound.

Scott does not fight you after that.

The doors slide open before you reach them.

Steve is there.

Natasha stands beside him, her face already losing color.

Scott falters against you.

For one suspended second, nobody speaks.

Then Steve says his name like he is afraid the wrong tone might scare him back out of existence.

"Scott?"

Scott lets out a shaky breath.

"Captain America."

It's not reverent. It's desperate.

Steve moves forward immediately, but you do not let Scott go until Steve's hand settles against his shoulder, steady and careful.

Natasha's eyes scan Scott from head to toe. The trembling hands. The sunken cheeks. The look of a man who has crawled out of somewhere the world does not have a name for.

"How did you get here?" she asks.

Scott's face twists.

"Have any of you ever studied quantum physics?"

He looks from you to Nat then Steve, then back toward the open hall behind.

"Five years ago... before Thanos," he says, voice cracking around the words. "I was in a place called the quantum realm."

The words mean nothing to you.

Not at first.

They land with no shape, no teeth, no gravity. Another piece of science sitting in the air between people who have survived too many gods, too many monsters, too many impossible things to laugh at it.

But Natasha stills.

Steve's grip on Scott's shoulder tightens slightly.

Scott sees it and starts talking faster.

"It's like its own microscopic universe, to get in there you have to be incredibly small. Hope she's my... she was my... she was supposed to pull me out, and then Thanos happened and I got stuck in there"

"I'm sorry, that must've been a very long five years" Nat says apologetically

"That's just it, it wasn't" Scott looks down at himself like he's still trying to prove he's real. "for me it was five hours"

Natasha looks at Steve.

Steve looks at Natasha.

You feel the air change.

Not hope this time.

Something worse.

Possibility.

Scott hands move as he talks, restless, nervous, trying to catch invisible pieces out of the air.

"So. The quantum realm. It doesn't work like regular space. Or regular time. It's not linear in there. At least, not the way it is out here. Time can stretch or shrink or fold in ways that make absolutely no sense."

Scott's gaze drifts to the table to the sandwich sitting there. He blinks at it like it might disappear.

"Is that anybody's sandwich?" he asks, already reaching for it.

No one answers.

He grabs it anyway. "Sorry, I'm starving" he mutters, taking a bite like he hasn't eaten in days.

Steve's voice is low. "Are you saying time travel?"

Scott hesitates. Then he gives a helpless little shrug.

"I'm saying I don't know. I'm saying maybe. I'm saying there has to be a way to use it. To navigate it. To go in at one point and come out at another."

Natasha's face drains of everything but focus.

That frightens you more than grief.

Grief makes her human.

Focus makes her Natasha Romanoff.

Steve leans back slowly.

Scott looks between them, almost pleading now. "Look, I know how it sounds. I do. But this is real. I was there. I came back."

The words move through you like a blade under skin.

I came back.

Not survived. Not endured. Not learned to live with the empty spaces.

Your hand rises before you can stop it, fingers closing around the wolf charm beneath your shirt.

The metal is warm from your skin.

For five years, it has been the closest thing you have to a grave marker. For five years, Bucky has been dust, memory, a hand reaching for you and vanishing before your fingers could close around his.

You hear his voice in your head. You feel Wakandan rain. You feel the negative test box. You feel the moment your body emptied itself of a future before you ever had time to name it.

Natasha sees your hand move. Her gaze catches on your chest, on the place where the charm hides. Something wounded passes across her face.

You drop your hand.

Too late.

Steve leans forward, elbows on the table, eyes fixed on Scott like the world has narrowed to a single point. "If this is possible..."

He doesn't finish, he doesn't have to.

Natasha does. "We could get them back."

The room tilts.

You hate her for saying it. You love her for saying it. You want to slap the words out of the air before they can grow teeth.

Scott's eyes fill.

"All of them?"

Natasha doesn't answer right away.

No one can.

Because all of them means too much.

All of them means names, faces, the dead turning back into people with voices and hands and demands and questions.

All of them means Bucky.

Your throat closes.

Steve turns toward you.

That is how you know your face has betrayed you.

"Mara."

You push off the wall. "No."

Natasha sits straighter. "Em."

"No." Your voice is calm in a way that makes Scott flinch. "You do not get to do that."

Steve stands slowly. "We don't know if we can."

"That's my point."

Natasha's expression tightens. "We have to try."

You laugh. It's ugly, small and empty. "You always say that right before someone gets buried."

Natasha rises from her chair.

Scott looks like he would very much like to become small again.

Steve says your name once more, softer this time.

That softness almost breaks you.

You look at him. "Do you know what happens if this doesn't work?" you ask. "Do you know what it does to people to lose them twice?"

Steve doesn't answer. He lost Bucky before you ever knew Bucky existed.

But that was the problem, wasn't it? Everyone in this room knew how to lose someone.

None of you knew how to survive almost getting them back.

Natasha steps closer, careful now. Not cautious like she is afraid of you. Careful like she loves you and knows exactly where the wounds are.

"Em, listen to me."

You shake your head.

"No, you listen." Your voice cracks on the edge of it, and you hate yourself for it. "For five years, I have learned how to live in a world where he is gone. Badly, maybe. Wrong, maybe. But I learned. I had to. You made me. Steve made me. The whole damn world made me."

Natasha's eyes shine.

You keep going because stopping would kill you.

"And now a man shows up at the gate talking about time folding itself into a miracle, and you want me to stand here and act like that doesn't rip me open?"

Scott whispers, "I'm sorry."

You look at him.

He shrinks back.

The anger drains out of you so fast it leaves you cold.

You're not angry at Scott Lang.

Scott Lang looks like a man who woke up inside the wrong century and found grief waiting with paperwork.

You close your eyes.

When you open them, Natasha is closer.

"Bucky," she says quietly.

The name hits the room like a body.

You turn away.

Too slow.

Natasha catches your wrist before you can leave. Not hard, just enough. "Don't run from this."

You look down at her hand. There are a thousand things you could say.

Don't touch me.

Don't say his name.

Don't make me want this.

Instead, you whisper, "What if it doesn't work?"

Natasha's face crumples for half a second before she builds it back into something steady.

"Then we survive that too."

The words should comfort you, they don't.

They land between you and Natasha like something too heavy for the floor to hold. Something cracked down the middle. Something still breathing.

You stare at her hand around your wrist.

She loosens her grip, but she does not let go completely.

That makes it worse somehow. The softness. The restraint. The fact that she's not trying to force you into hope. She knows better than anyone what hope can do when it grows teeth.

Your phone buzzes.

The sound slices clean through the room.

Everyone looks at you.

You almost don't want to check it. For one second, you imagine letting it sit there until the battery dies, until the world ends again, until every impossible thing outside your skin decides to stop asking you to feel it.

But your hand moves anyway.

John: Still at base. I'm sorry, love. Gonna be home late.

Your throat tightens.

A second message appears before you can even breathe.

John: I love you.

The room disappears. It shrinks down to those three words glowing in your palm.

John, warm and alive and still here.

John, who kissed you that morning like leaving the apartment was an act of violence.

John, who didn't know that somewhere between support group and the compound, the universe had found a new way to put its hand around your throat.

Your fingers curl around the phone until the edges bite into your palm.

Natasha sees your face change. "Em."

You shake your head once.

No. Not here.

Not in this room with Scott Lang looking haunted and Steve looking like someone put a match in his chest and Natasha already building the shape of a plan behind her eyes.

You cannot stand here while hope starts gathering weapons. You cannot watch them reach for the dead with both hands. Because if they pull hard enough, if they bend time until it screams, if they bring everyone back...

Bucky comes back.

Bucky comes back and the whole world you have barely survived building collapses under your feet.

Bucky comes back and you are not the woman he left behind.

Bucky comes back and John is here.

John is here.

John loves you.

Your chest folds in on itself.

"I have to go."

Natasha takes one step toward you. "Em, wait."

"I can't be here."

Steve moves carefully, like you are something injured and sharp. "Mara, no one is asking you to decide anything right now."

You laugh, but it barely makes it past your teeth. "That's funny, Steve."

His face shifts.

You hate that. You hate that you can hurt him this easily and still want to do it again because everything inside you is screaming.

"You already decided," you say. "The second Scott walked in, you decided."

Scott looks down at the floor. A small, guilty sound leaves him. "I really didn't mean to ruin anyone's day."

You close your eyes.

God.

Poor man.

You open them again, softer this time, even though softness feels impossible. "You didn't."

He doesn't look convinced.

Natasha's voice drops. "Where are you going?"

You do not answer fast enough.

Her expression tightens with the kind of fear she knows how to hide from everyone except you. "Em."

"To John's."

The name changes the room.

Steve looks away first.

Natasha doesn't.

"Are you going to be safe?"

The question should insult you.

It doesn't.

You are too tired for insult. Too tired for pride. Too tired for the version of yourself that would bare her teeth and make sure nobody saw the blood.

You swallow hard. "I'll be at John's."

Natasha studies you for a long second.

You can see the war in her face. The operative. The friend. The woman who wants to keep you in her sight because too many people have vanished from rooms she thought were secure.

Finally, she nods. "Keep your phone on."

You look at the screen again. John's message is still there. Your thumb hovers over the keyboard. You don't answer him, not yet. If you do, you might start crying in front of everyone, and you have already lost too much ground today.

You tuck the phone against your chest.

Then, because you hate yourself a little and love Natasha more than is safe, you force the words out.

"Please keep me posted."

Natasha's face cracks. Not enough for anyone else to notice, maybe, but you notice.

She nods once. "I will."

Steve steps closer. "Do you want a ride?"

You shake your head. "I'll take a cab."

"Mara."

"I need air."

Steve's mouth closes.

He knows when to push. He knows when not to.

This time, he lets you go.

You barely make it out of the room before the first tear falls.

The compound corridors blur around you. Glass and steel and too much empty space. You walk fast, then faster, until your boots hit the outside path and cold air slams into your face.

It helps, not enough, but it helps.

You call a cab with fingers that don't feel like yours. The app confirms the ride. Eight minutes.

Eight minutes is enough time for Bucky to say your name in your memory.

Sweetheart.

You bend forward, hands braced on your knees, trying to breathe around the wound splitting open inside your ribs.

Bucky in Wakanda, smiling at you like sunrise had learned how to be shy. Bucky touching the wolf charm before he gave it to you.

For luck.

Bucky turning to dust with your scream stuck somewhere behind your teeth.

John in the kitchen, sleepy and barefoot, kissing your shoulder while coffee burned in the pot.

John calling you love like the word had not been made carefully enough for him.

John leaving in the morning.

John coming home late.

John still here.

The cab pulls up. You get inside before you can change your mind.

The driver says something polite. You do not remember what, you just stare out the window while the compound disappears behind you.

The city passes in broken pieces.

Every traffic light looks too bright. Every person on the sidewalk looks temporary.

You keep your phone in your lap. It buzzes once.

Natasha: We're talking through what Scott knows. Nothing is decided yet.

You almost laugh.

That was a lie kind people told when the decision had already begun walking.

You type back with shaking fingers.

You: Okay.

Then, after a second,

You: Tell me everything you can.

Natasha answers almost immediately.

Natasha: I promise.

That does it.

Not the quantum realm. Not Scott. Not Steve's face. Not the impossible, terrible word back.

That promise.

You turn your face toward the window and cry as silently as you can while New York moves around you like it has no idea the universe is sharpening another knife.

By the time you reach John's building, your face is dry.

Not because you are done crying.

Because your body has decided to conserve water for the next disaster.

You thank the driver. You climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator because standing still feels dangerous. The key John gave you sits heavy in your pocket.

You pause outside his door.

For one second, you think about leaving.

Not leaving him.

Just leaving the doorway. The apartment. The place where his life has started making room for yours in small, ordinary ways.

Your mug in the cabinet. Your hair tie on the bathroom counter. Your spare socks in the drawer he pretends he did not organize by color.

Your body remembers his bed before you even unlock the door.

Inside, the apartment is quiet.

Too quiet.

John's jacket is gone from the chair. His boots are not by the door. The air still smells faintly like him, soap and laundry detergent and the coffee he drinks too strong because he claims anything weaker is "a beverage with commitment issues."

You close the door behind you and lock it.

Then you stand there. The silence presses in.

You move because stopping is worse.

You shower because you need to step out of the skin you were wearing when Scott Lang came back from nowhere. You need hot water. You need steam. You need something loud enough to drown out the word Bucky in Natasha's voice.

You scrub until your skin turns pink.

Then you get out, dry off, and pull on your own pajamas from the drawer John cleared for you. Soft cotton. Worn thin at the collar. Yours.

Not one of his shirts tonight.

You cannot handle borrowed comfort right now. You need proof that you still belong to yourself.

The wolf charm catches your eye on the sink. You stare at it.

For a moment, you see your hand closing around it in Wakanda. Bucky's fingers brushing your palm. His smile, careful and sweet. That tiny little thing becoming sacred because he was gone and it had stayed.

You pick it up. The chain slips cold through your fingers. You fasten it around your neck. The wolf settles against your skin, right over your heart.

A grave marker.

A promise.

A wound.

You look at yourself in the mirror.

Your eyes are swollen. Your mouth is pressed into a line. You look like a woman standing in the doorway between two lives, knowing both of them will hurt.

Your phone buzzes again.

Natasha: We need Tony. I'll let you know the plan.

You close your eyes.

Tony, of course.

The impossible had a route now. A name, a next step, probability.

That's what frightens you most.

Not hope, probability.

Hope is cruel, but fragile. Hope can be dismissed if you are brutal enough with yourself.

Probability has math behind it. Momentum. Teeth. A skeleton it can grow around.

The chance of Bucky coming back is no longer a prayer whispered into a pillow.

It's becoming a plan.

Your hand closes around the charm.

You walk into the bedroom and sit on John's side of the bed without meaning to. His pillow still holds the faint shape of him. You pick it up and press it to your chest.

That's where John finds you.

The front door opens nearly an hour later.

You hear the key turn first. Then the soft thud of his boots just inside. The pause that follows is pure John.

He has noticed something.

The light in the hallway, maybe. Your shoes by the door. The fact that the apartment no longer feels empty.

"Love?"

His voice is careful.

You sit up, pillow still in your lap. "In here."

There is another pause, then his footsteps come down the hall.

John appears in the bedroom doorway, still in uniform. He looks broad and tired beneath the harsh overhead light, shoulders held too stiff, jaw shadowed, hair a little mussed like he has been running his hand through it all day.

He should look familiar, he does, but something is off.

Not obvious. Not to someone who does not know him, but you know him now.

You know the way he fills a room when he's trying to be fine. You know the difference between tired and quiet. You know the way his eyes find yours first, always, like checking that you are still there is a reflex he cannot train out of himself.

Tonight, his eyes find you and hold.

Then they drop.

Your pajamas, your bare feet tucked beneath you, the wolf charm at your throat.

Something flickers across his face. Softness first, then worry.

"You're in your own clothes," he says.

It's not an accusation. Somehow, that makes it worse.

You look down at yourself. "Yeah."

His gaze lifts back to your face.

He sees the swelling around your eyes.

You see the exhaustion in his.

Both of you speak at the same time.

"What's wrong?"

Silence follows.

For half a second, it almost feels funny.

On another night, you might have laughed. John might have smiled, rubbed a hand over his face, told you ladies first with that dry, soldier-boy charm that makes you want to kiss him and shove him in equal measure.

But neither of you smiles.

John steps into the room slowly.

You stand. The pillow falls back onto the bed.

"What happened?" you ask.

His mouth tightens.

That's when you know. Whatever it is, he came home carrying it for you.

"John."

He looks away.

Your stomach drops.

"No," you whisper, even though you don't know what you are refusing yet.

His eyes snap back to you.

"Hey." He crosses the room in two strides. "No, no. I'm okay. I'm here."

"Are you?" The words leave you before you can stop them.

John freezes.

A terrible silence opens between you.

Your pulse turns loud.

"John," you say again, smaller this time.

He exhales through his nose. His hands settle on his hips, then fall away, like he doesn't know what to do with them if he's not reaching for you. "There's no easy way to tell you this."

Your heart starts beating wrong. "Tell me what?"

His jaw works. For a moment, he looks angry, not at you. At the ceiling. At the floor. At the uniform still on his body. At every system that has ever put orders in his hands and expected him to call it honor.

"Base is pulling me."

The words don't make sense at first. They're too simple.

Pulling me, like a thread, like a tooth. Like the universe has found another loose piece of your life and decided to tug.

You stare at him. "What?"

John's voice is rougher when he repeats it. "They're pulling me out. Special training. Maybe an assignment after that, I don't know. They haven't given me the full details yet."

Your body goes cold. "When?"

His face shifts.

That tiny flicker is enough to hollow you out.

"John."

"I don't know."

The room stretches.

He drags a hand over his mouth, frustration cutting hard through his expression. "They're being vague as hell about it. No firm date. No clear timeline. Just enough to tell me I'm going, not enough to let me plan around it."

You blink at him.

The words stack themselves inside your ribs until there is no room left to breathe.

"It could be days," he says quietly. "It could be weeks. I pushed for more, but they're not giving me anything solid."

Your hands lift to your chest. The wolf charm is there. So is your heartbeat, frantic beneath the metal.

John notices.

His face changes. "Love?"

You break.

It's not graceful. It doesn't start with a single tear rolling down your cheek like grief has manners. It comes out of you broken and sharp, a sound you don't recognize until John is already reaching for you.

You fold before he gets there.

One second you are standing, the next your knees give, and John catches you with a curse under his breath.

"Hey, hey, I've got you." His arms close around you. "Mara, breathe. Look at me. Come on, love, look at me."

You can't. If you look at him, you will see that he's real. If you see that he's real, you will have to understand that he can be taken.

John lowers you both to the floor, one arm locked around your back, the other cradling the side of your head as you bury your face against his chest.

His uniform scratches your cheek.

You hate it.

You grab fistfuls of it anyway.

"No," you sob.

"I know." His voice cracks. "I know, I'm sorry."

"No, you don't know."

John goes still beneath you.

You shake your head against him, trembling so hard your teeth nearly knock together.

"You don't know. You don't know, John."

"Then tell me."

You try. God, you try.

But the words are too big. Too impossible. They crawl up your throat and choke you on the way out.

John rocks you once, barely, like his body has remembered comfort even though his mind is panicking.

"Baby, you're scaring me."

That makes you cry harder, because he sounds scared.

John Walker, who faces armed men like stubbornness is a combat style, sounds scared with you falling apart in his arms.

You pull back just enough to look at him.

His face blurs through your tears. His hands hover at your shoulders, your neck, your cheek, touching and not touching like he's afraid one wrong move will shatter you further.

"They might come back," you choke out.

John's brow furrows. "What?"

You drag air into your lungs, but it doesn't stay. "The people who disappeared. The ones Thanos took." Your voice breaks apart. "They might be able to bring them back."

John stares at you.

For one second, nothing moves.

Not his hands. Not his chest. Not the air between you.

"What?" he says again, but this time the word is nearly soundless.

You nod, frantic now, because if you stop, the truth will swallow you whole.

"Scott Lang showed up at the compound. He was gone, John. He was gone for five years, but for him it was only five hours. He was in the quantum realm, and now Steve and Nat think there might be a way to use it. A way to go back, or through, or whatever the hell the science means."

John's face drains slowly.

You see him understanding in pieces.

His eyes drop to the charm at your throat.

There it is, the moment the room remembers Bucky with you.

Your hand flies to the wolf before you can stop it.

John sees that too. He sees everything you wish he would miss.

"Bucky," he says.

You flinch like he touched a bruise.

John's throat works.

"They think they can bring him back." You sob once. "They think they can bring all of them back."

He looks away only for a second.

But you feel it like a door opening over a cliff.

You grab his sleeve. "John."

His eyes return to yours immediately. "I'm here."

"But you're leaving."

His face twists. "I don't want to."

"But you are."

"I have orders coming."

The words snap something brittle inside you.

You shove at his chest, not hard enough to move him, just hard enough to give the pain somewhere to go. "Of course you do."

John takes it. He doesn't defend himself.

That makes you angrier, it makes you love him more.

"Of course," you say again, voice rising. "Because why wouldn't this happen now? Why wouldn't the dead start knocking the same night the military decides it gets to take you too?"

His eyes shine. "Mara."

"No." You push away from him and get to your feet, unsteady. "No, I can't. I can't do this. I can't stand there and watch Steve look hopeful. I can't watch Nat turn grief into a mission. I can't sit here and pretend the possibility of Bucky coming back doesn't rip every stitch out of me."

John rises slowly. He keeps his hands visible, open, patient.

That almost destroys you.

"And I can't lose you too," you whisper.

His face breaks.

You press a hand to your mouth, but the words keep coming. "I can't. I know that's selfish. I know it's ugly. I know he was gone first. I know I loved him first. I know what that charm means, John, I know what I buried with it. I know."

Your voice cracks so badly it hurts. "But you're here."

John's eyes close.

"You're here," you say again, crying now. "You're here and you love me and I love you and I don't know what that makes me if Bucky comes back."

He opens his eyes. There's pain there, jealousy too, maybe. Fear. But beneath all of it, there is John. Steady in the only way he knows how to be. Not gentle because it's easy. Gentle because he's choosing it with both hands around a wound.

"It makes you human," he says.

You shake your head. "No."

"Yes."

"No, it makes me awful."

"It makes you someone who survived."

You laugh through a sob. "Don't. Don't make it sound noble."

"I'm not." He steps closer. "I'm making it sound true."

Your lips tremble.

John reaches for you slowly, giving you every chance to refuse, you don't. His hands settle on your face.

They are warm, calloused... alive.

"You can love him," he says, and the words cost him. You hear the blood in them. "You can be scared he's coming back. You can be scared he won't. You can be scared of what that means for us. None of that makes you awful."

You squeeze your eyes shut. More tears slip free beneath his thumbs.

"And what about you?" you whisper. "Where does that leave you?"

John is quiet for too long.

When he answers, his voice is rough. "Right here."

You open your eyes.

He swallows hard. "For as long as I'm allowed to be."

The sound that leaves you is small and wounded.

John pulls you into him before you can fall apart alone.

You cling to him. You clutch at his uniform, at his shoulders, at the back of his neck, trying to anchor yourself to the only thing in the room that has not vanished yet.

His arms wrap around you so tightly you can barely breathe.

Good. You don't want space. Space is where things disappear.

"I don't want you to go," you sob into his chest.

"I know."

"I don't want them to bring him back and take you away."

John's breath stutters against your hair.

"I know."

"I don't want to choose."

His hold tightens.

You feel his lips press to the top of your head.

"Then don't tonight."

The simplicity of it cuts through you.

You pull back just enough to look up at him.

He brushes wet hair back from your cheek, even though it is already drying. Even though his hand is shaking.

"Tonight," he says, "you don't choose anything. You don't solve time travel. You don't grieve Bucky twice. You don't lose me before I'm gone." His thumb strokes beneath your eye. "Tonight, you breathe. That's it."

You search his face. "How can you say that?"

His mouth pulls into something that is almost a smile and nowhere near one. "Because one of us has to pretend to be sane."

A broken laugh escapes you.

John's face softens at the sound like you have handed him something precious and unstable.

"There she is," he whispers.

You shake your head, fresh tears spilling.

He kisses your forehead. The kiss lands above your brow, firm and reverent, like a promise he doesn't know how to keep but is making anyway.

"I'm scared," you admit.

John rests his forehead against yours.

"Me too."

That scares you more than anything else he has said.

John doesn't look away from it.

You breathe in.

Once.

Twice.

It catches the third time, but he breathes with you, slow and steady, until your lungs remember the shape.

His hands slide from your face to your shoulders, then down your arms.

"Did Natasha say anything else?"

You nod faintly. "They need Tony."

John's expression shifts. He knows enough to understand what that means.

The impossible has a doorstep now.

"And you asked her to keep you updated?"

Your lips part.

He reads the answer before you give it.

A small, pained pride flickers in his eyes. "Good."

You stare at him. "Good?"

"Yeah." His voice is quiet. "You came here because you needed to. But you didn't run all the way. You left a door open."

Your chin trembles. "I don't know if I want it open."

"I know."

Your phone buzzes from the bed, both of you look at it.

For a second, neither of you move.

Then John reaches over slowly and picks it up.

He doesn't look at the screen, he offers it to you face down.

Your hand shakes when you take it.

Natasha: Steve wants to go to Tony tomorrow. You don't have to come. I'll tell you everything.

You read the message twice.

Then a third time.

John watches you carefully.

You type back with one hand.

You: Okay.

Then, because tonight has already ripped you open and there is no dignity left to save,

You: Please don't leave me out of it.

The reply comes fast.

Natasha: Never.

You lower the phone.

John's eyes are on you.

You press the screen against your chest, right beside the wolf charm.

"I hate this," you whisper.

John pulls you close again. "I know."

"I hate that I want it."

His hand stills against your back.

The confession hangs between you.

There it is, the ugliest, truest thing.

You want Bucky back.

God help you, of course you do.

John exhales slowly, like he's letting a blade slide between his ribs and refusing to bleed where you can see.

"I know," he says again.

You pull back, frantic. "John."

"I'm not mad at you."

"You should be."

"Maybe later."

A startled laugh breaks through your tears.

His mouth twitches. "Tonight I'm busy."

"Doing what?"

"Holding you together."

You crumble all over again, but quieter this time.

John gathers you in.

The apartment settles around you, dim and warm and painfully ordinary. Somewhere outside, a siren wails and fades. Somewhere across the city, Steve and Natasha are probably planning how to knock on Tony Stark's door with the end of the world in their hands.

Here, John Walker stands in his bedroom with your tears soaking into his uniform, two weeks ticking above both of you like a clock with a loaded gun inside it.

The wolf charm rests between your bodies.

Bucky's ghost.

John's heartbeat.

Your hand closes over both.

For tonight, you do not choose, you let John hold you.

For tonight, the dead stay dead, the living stay warm, and the universe waits outside the door with all its impossible teeth.