Welcome To My Corner

You wake to John breathing against your hair.

For one second, that's all there is.

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

Just John.

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

You don't remember falling asleep.

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

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

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

Alive.

The word comes without permission.

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

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

John asleep is something else.

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

You look at the freckle on his left earlobe.

Your throat tightens.

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

A freckle.

Small and ordinary.

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

Your vision blurs.

'Shit..'

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

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

You weren't able to do this with Bucky.

The thought opens beneath you like a trapdoor.

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

You had thought you had time.

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

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

You didn't know.

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

His breathing changes.

You freeze.

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

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

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

You squeeze your eyes shut. "Sorry."

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

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

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

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

"Hart."

Your eyes open.

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

That makes the next tear fall.

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

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

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

You stare at the hollow of his throat.

He waits.

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

"I was trying to remember you."

His thumb stills.

The room goes very quiet.

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

John does not ask who, he knows.

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

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

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

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

His eyes soften in a way that almost breaks you.

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

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

"You don't know that."

"I know you."

Your breath catches.

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

That lands too deep.

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

"I'm right here," he says.

"For now."

The words leave you before you can soften them.

John's jaw tightens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You stare at him. "What?"

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

"John."

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

You know his silences now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His expression goes completely still.

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

"You have a piece of me, John."

"Em..."

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

He closes his mouth.

You swallow around the pressure in your throat.

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

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

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

John's brow pulls together.

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

His breath leaves him slowly.

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

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

John's eyes close for half a second.

"But loving him doesn't erase you."

His eyes open again.

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

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

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

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

"What if it does?" he asks quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John's breathing stops.

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

His thumb brushes beneath your eye.

"Because you're you."

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

"Mara."

Your name comes out rough. You feel it everywhere.

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

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

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

You hold him just as hard.

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

The words shake.

You close your eyes.

"I love you too."

His breath catches.

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

For one suspended moment, the future stays outside.

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

You both go still.

It buzzes a second time.

John's eyes flick toward the hallway.

Your stomach drops.

The world, unfortunately, still has your number.

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

"I'll get it," he says.

You catch his wrist. "No."

He looks back at you.

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

John nods once, though his mouth tightens.

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

You're always almost falling lately.

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

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

"Nat?"

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

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

Natasha exhales. "Tony said no."

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

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

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

Tony said no.

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

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

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

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

You close your eyes.

A daughter, of course.

The relief curdles instantly into shame.

"Good," you whisper.

Nat goes quiet.

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

Maybe all of them.

John's hand presses more firmly against your back.

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

You can hear everything she's not saying.

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

You swallow hard. "Steve?"

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

"So badly and quietly?"

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

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

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

"What now?" you ask.

Natasha is quiet for half a second too long.

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

Your breath catches.

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

"Bruce?" you repeat.

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

You stare at nothing.

Of course they aren't giving up.

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

You breathe out, shaky and thin.

You hate it.

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

You hate that you love it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I don't know," Nat says.

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

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

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

The metal is cold against your fingers.

"Okay," you say, though nothing is.

Natasha's voice softens. "Em."

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

"Keep me posted," you whisper.

"I will."

You nod, even though she cannot see you.

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

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

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

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

"Okay."

The call ends.

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

John waits.

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

"Tony said no," you tell him.

He nods once.

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

John's face softens. "I know."

Your stomach twists. "You should be horrified."

"I'm not."

"You should judge me."

"I don't."

"John."

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

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

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

"I hate this," you whisper.

"I know."

"I hate that I want him back."

John's arms tighten.

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

His chin settles against your hair.

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

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

You still against him.

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

Your laugh breaks wetly against his skin.

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

Your eyes close.

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

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

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

You lift your head.

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

"I'll stay," you say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing has changed.

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

The knock comes again. Firm and familiar.

John looks toward the door. You do too.

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

John closes his eyes. "God."

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

"He's yours too."

"Unfortunately."

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

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

"That's practically affection from you."

"I meant it."

"I know."

John opens the door.

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

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

"You told her," he says.

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

His gaze flicks to you. "Noted."

John steps aside.

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

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

You stare at him.

He stares back.

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

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

"You knew it was outside my skill set."

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

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

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

"You measure emergencies in dumplings?"

"I measure everything in dumplings."

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

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

"That's not how vegetables work."

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

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

Both men turn toward you.

Lemar points immediately. "There she is."

Your mouth closes. "Do not start."

"Trouble, starting is my best skill."

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

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

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

You look at John.

John looks at you.

Then you tell him.

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

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

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

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

When you finish, the apartment feels smaller.

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

You nod.

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

John's jaw tightens. "Lemar."

"What?"

"It's not helping."

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

Silence settles between them.

You glance from one to the other.

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

Lemar looks at you again. "You okay?"

You almost laugh.

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

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

Lemar nods once.

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

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

Your throat tightens.

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

"I have been remarkably patient."

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

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

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

John groans. "We are not doing this."

You turn toward him. "Months?"

"I was tracking you."

"He was obsessed," Lemar says.

"I was conducting an investigation."

"You called her your ghost."

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

"Your ghost," Lemar corrects.

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

"My instructions were not to let you disappear."

Lemar leans back. "Which I accomplished."

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

"You were armed."

"You were smug."

"I was effective."

"You lost the target."

John snorts into his drink.

You point at him. "Do not laugh."

"I'm not."

"You're laughing internally."

"Can't prove that."

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

"I meant it."

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

"We are not friends."

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

"You appointed yourself my best friend."

"You called me your annoying big brother."

John looks between you. "You did?"

"It was a moment of weakness."

"Legally binding," Lemar says.

You narrow your eyes. "Whatever Sergeant Sunshine."

John pauses. "Sergeant Sunshine?"

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

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

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

John gives him a flat look. "Touching."

Your smile comes easier this time.

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

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

You swallow.

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

Your fingers find the wolf charm beneath your shirt.

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

The room goes very still.

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

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

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

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

"Disgusting."

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

John's ankle tightens around yours.

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

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

"Bruce agreed to help," she says.

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

You grip the edge of the table.

John's hand lands on your knee beneath it.

Lemar straightens.

"What does that mean?" you ask.

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

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

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

Your gaze drops to the table.

"Is he sure?"

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

Of course he is.

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

On the other end, Nat goes quiet.

John's fingers tighten once against your knee.

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

You open your eyes.

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

"Nat."

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

The line clicks dead.

You lower the phone.

Nobody speaks.

Then Lemar says, very quietly, "Well."

You look at him.

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

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

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

You laugh anyway.

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

The laughter fades slowly.

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

Bruce agreed. Scott volunteered.

The words settle into the apartment and refuse to leave.

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

They collect in corners.

In half-empty mugs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You shake your head.

"What happened?"

"Time travel probably takes time," you say.

John stares at you.

You stare back.

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

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

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

"You're welcome."

"That was terrible."

"It was thematically appropriate."

"It was a crime."

"Call the Avengers."

He looks at you.

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

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

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

"I forgot."

"No, you didn't."

His arms tighten.

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

John exhales through his nose. "Is it?"

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

After that, the hours start blurring.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You wake him twice.

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

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

His eyes search yours without seeing you.

"John, you're here."

His chest rises hard beneath your palms.

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

His breathing stutters.

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

His fingers close around your wrist.

"You can feel my hands."

His eyes focus. "You," he whispers.

"Me."

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

The second time, he wakes before you touch him.

"I'm okay," he says immediately.

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

"I'm fine."

"That was worse."

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

You don't ask what this is.

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

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

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

On the fourth day, you start smoking again.

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

Three cigarettes left. A small, stupid apocalypse.

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

John finds you there. He stops in the doorway.

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

He says nothing.

"It's bad for me."

Still nothing.

"I quit."

Nothing.

"It smells."

Nothing.

You glance over your shoulder.

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

"What?" you ask.

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

"You hiding it from me?"

The question is calm. That makes it worse.

You look back out the window. "No."

"Were you going to?"

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

John walks into the kitchen.

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

You blink. "What?"

"Give me one."

You stare at him. "Absolutely not."

His brows lift. "Absolutely?"

"You don't smoke."

"No."

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

"Because you're not doing it alone."

Your throat tightens in a way that annoys you.

"John."

"Mara."

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

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

"That's not better."

"It's more honest."

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

John's mouth twitches. "Probably."

You take out a cigarette and hand it to him.

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

"What?" he asks.

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

"I've been trained to assess threats."

"It's a cigarette."

"It's winning."

You light it for him.

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

You snatch the cigarette back. "Idiot."

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

"You asked for it."

"People do this recreationally?"

"You joined me."

"I made a tactical error."

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

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

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

You look away first.

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

You swallow.

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

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

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

"I know."

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

"You've been busy."

You laugh once, wet and unwilling.

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

Outside the cracked window, the city keeps moving.

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

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

Lemar comes by the next afternoon.

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

John looks up from the couch.

You call, "We're alive."

"Convincing but I require visual confirmation."

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

"He was never good."

John opens the door.

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

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

"I'm serious."

"You always are until you open your mouth."

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

You sit up straighter. "Don't."

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

"You?"

John's jaw shifts. "Barely."

Lemar's eyes widen. "Walker."

"It was one drag."

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

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

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

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

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

"It's Brooklyn," John says.

"That makes it worse."

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

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

John frowns. "The lime is fine."

"The lime has a past."

You smile before you can stop yourself.

Lemar notices. He always does.

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

"No call?" he asks.

The smile fades.

John sits beside you. "Nothing."

Lemar nods once, jaw tightening.

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

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

Four minutes.

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

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

John has pretended not to notice.

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

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

You shrug.

"That's not an answer."

"It is if you lower your standards."

John sighs. "She slept three hours."

"You slept four," you snap.

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

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

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

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

"Not yet," you say.

"Good. I hate redecorating."

He stays for an hour.

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

It's a kind of mercy.

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

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

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

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

"What would you call it?"

"Mutual containment."

John nods. "That's accurate."

You glare at both of them.

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

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

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

Lemar opens the door and stops.

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

For a second, nobody moves.

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

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

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

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

Lemar looks back at you, then at John.

John is already standing.

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

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

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

Lemar looks between you.

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

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

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

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

"Hoskins."

"Try not to break them more."

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

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

You nod.

"Don't make me guess."

"I won't."

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

John gives one short nod.

Lemar leaves.

The hallway feels too quiet after him.

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

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

Nat in John's apartment.

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

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

Her gaze pauses on the ashtray.

You cross your arms. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You did with your face."

Nat looks at John.

John lifts both hands. "I coughed once."

Her eyebrows rise.

You mutter, "Violently."

Nat's mouth twitches.

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

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

You look at him.

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

I'll give you a second.

I'll stay close.

I'm here.

You nod.

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

Your throat tightens. "Yeah."

"Good."

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

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

Today, she does.

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

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

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

Your fingers go cold.

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

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

Nat notices that too.

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

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

Your eyes close.

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

Your eyes open.

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

You breathe again.

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

You blink.

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

Nat looks at you.

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

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

The words settle.

A failed attempt.

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

Your fingers tighten around the mug.

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

Nat looks at him.

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

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

The apartment becomes very still.

Your pulse starts beating in your throat.

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

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

You stare at her.

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

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

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

"What?" you whisper.

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

Your breath leaves you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He came back?" you whisper.

She nods. "He came back."

You press a hand to your mouth.

John's palm slides up your back.

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

Your lungs stop again.

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

John goes rigid beside you.

You can't speak.

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

The apartment disappears.

Not physically.

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

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

A trapdoor. A grave. A gate.

It worked.

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

You try to breathe. Nothing happens.

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

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

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

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

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

A sound leaves you.

You don't know what it is.

John shifts closer. "Love."

You look at him.

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

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

Nat looks from you to him.

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

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

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

You stare at her.

"That sounds insane," John says.

"It is."

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

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

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

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

You turn to him.

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

He doesn't say if Barnes comes back.

He doesn't say if your whole life changes.

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

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

That hurts worst of all.

You shake your head.

John's expression tightens.

"I can't," you whisper.

"Em," Nat says softly.

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

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

The words leave the apartment hollow.

Nat's face breaks just a little.

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

"No," Nat says immediately.

"I should want to be there."

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

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

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

You look at her.

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

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

Your lips part.

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

Your chest caves around the words.

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

You cling to him.

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

Them.

Not him.

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

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

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

Your voice breaks. "It's happening."

Nat nods.

"It's not a what if anymore."

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

You cover your face with one hand.

The first sob gets out before you can stop it.

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

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

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

Nat holds you tighter. "For what?"

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

Nat's breath trembles against your hair.

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

Her hand cups the back of your head.

For a moment, she doesn't answer.

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

You shake your head against her shoulder.

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

Your fingers tighten in her jacket.

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

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

You do not say any of it.

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

"Stay by your phone," she says.

You nod.

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

You do not notice the wording.

John does.

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

Nat stands.

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

John rises beside you.

At the door, Nat turns back.

For a second, she just looks at you.

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

Like your friend.

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

The words hit so hard you almost stagger.

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

John's jaw tightens.

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

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

You nod because speaking feels impossible.

Then she looks at John.

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

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

"I will," he says.

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

Then she opens the door.

The hallway light spills in.

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

Instead, all you manage is, "Nat."

She turns.

Your voice breaks. "Come back."

Natasha Romanoff smiles at you.

Small.

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

"I'll try," she says.

Then she leaves.

The door closes and the apartment goes silent.

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

John steps behind you.

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

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

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

Outside, the city moves on.

Inside, the future sharpens its teeth.

You point at him.

He points back.

Your hands meet automatically, somewhere between habit and instinct.

Slap.

Backhand.

Fist bump.

Knuckles roll.

Two fingers hook briefly before you both snap your hands apart and point at the floor.

“Grounded,” you say.

John nods solemnly. “Severely.”

The entire exchange takes less than three seconds.

Ava, sitting at the kitchen island with a mug of tea, watches the two of you with narrowed eyes. "What was that?”

You grab another protein bar from the cabinet. “What was what?”

“That.”

John tears open the wrapper with his teeth. “Classified.”

“It looked stupid.”

“It’s not for you,” you tell her.

Ava stares at you. Then at John. Then back at you. "Good.”

She leaves the kitchen.

You wait until the door swings shut behind her.

“She wants one,” John says.

“Oh, desperately.”

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, it spreads.

By lunch, Yelena knows.

By dinner, Bob knows.

By the following morning, Alexei has somehow turned the existence of your handshake into a personal betrayal.

“You have secret gesture,” he announces, storming into the common room.

You lower your cereal spoon with the weary resignation of someone who already knows this conversation is going to be exhausting.

John, sitting beside you on the couch, doesn't look up from the mission report on his tablet. "It’s a handshake,” he says.

“A handshake is gesture.”

“Technically.”

“A secret gesture between teammates.”

You glance at John.

He glances at you.

Neither of you moves.

Alexei’s eyes widen. "You do it now.”

“No,” you say.

“You must.”

“It doesn’t work on command.”

“It is handshake. Of course it works on command.”

John finally looks up. “You can’t force chemistry, Alexei.”

Alexei puts one enormous hand against his chest. “Chemistry?”

You bite the inside of your cheek.

John’s mouth twitches.

Alexei looks between the two of you like he has uncovered an affair, a conspiracy, and tax fraud in the same thirty-second window.

“You have handshake chemistry?”

“Apparently,” you say.

“This is outrageous.”

From the armchair, Bucky turns a page of his book. “It’s a handshake.”

Alexei wheels around. “You are not bothered?”

“No.”

Yelena walks in carrying a bowl of grapes. “They have different endings.”

Bucky’s eyes lift from the page.

You stop chewing.

John freezes beside you.

Alexei whispers, “Different endings?”

Yelena pops a grape into her mouth. “I have been collecting data.”

“That’s not unsettling at all,” John mutters.

“The base sequence is slap, backhand, fist, little twisty thing.” She demonstrates badly with one hand. “But then it changes depending on mood.”

“It does not,” you say quickly.

Yelena looks at John.

John looks at you.

Neither of you dignifies that with an answer.

Ava appears in the doorway, tea in hand. “It absolutely does.”

“You said it looked stupid,” you remind her.

“It does. I can still recognize a pattern.”

Bob wanders in behind her. “There’s a pattern?”

“No,” you and John say together.

The room falls silent.

John slowly turns his head toward you.

You point at him.

He points back.

Slap.

Backhand.

Fist bump.

Knuckles roll.

You both tap two fingers against the side of your own necks before pointing at the others.

“Nosy,” you say.

“Extremely,” John agrees.

Yelena drops a grape.

Alexei looks devastated.

“You made one for us being nosy?”

“That one already existed,” John says.

“It did not already exist,” Ava says. “I saw you invent it.”

John shrugs. “It exists now.”

Bob takes a cautious step closer. “Can I have one?” He asks with such genuine hope that your resolve immediately begins to crumble.

John, however, is weak. “Sure,” he says.

You turn toward him. “John.”

“What?”

“There are standards.”

Bob’s face falls.

John points at you. “Look what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You crushed him.”

“I'm fine,” Bob says, visibly not fine.

You sigh and stand. “Okay. Fine. Bob gets one.”

Alexei shoots to his feet. “Then I also get one.”

“No.”

“Why does Bob get handshake?”

“Because he asked normally.”

“I ask normally now.” Alexei clears his throat and clasps his hands behind his back. “Hello. May I please have secret chemistry gesture?”

“No.”

“This is discrimination against Russians.”

Yelena raises a finger. “I am Russian and I support this decision.”

“You are terrible daughter.”

While they argue, you turn to Bob. “Okay. Keep it simple.”

Bob nods intently.

You slap palms.

He misses the backhand.

You try again.

Slap.

Backhand.

Bob completely misses it. He forgets the fist bump and grabs your wrist.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

John leans against the couch, arms folded. “You’ve got to stop thinking about it.”

Bob looks helplessly at him. “How?”

“You just do it.”

“That is terrible advice,” Bucky says.

“It worked for us.”

You glance at John again.

He taps his fist lightly against yours. It's not part of the handshake, not technically. You tap back anyway.

Ava notices. "What was that one?”

“Nothing,” you say.

“That was new.”

“It was not.”

“It was.”

Yelena points at your hands. “You are creating additional gestures in real time.”

“We’re not creating anything.”

John reaches past you for the remote at the exact moment you hold it out to him.

Neither of you thinks about it, your palms slide together.

Twist.

Pull.

Knuckles tap twice.

John takes the remote. You drop back onto the couch.

The room goes silent again.

You stare at the television. John stares at the television. Slowly, you both realize nobody else is talking.

“What?” John asks.

Ava looks furious. “That wasn’t the original handshake.”

You glance down at your hand. “What wasn’t?”

“The thing you just did.”

Yelena nods. “She is right. That was an entirely separate handshake.”

“It wasn’t a handshake,” John says.

“What was it?” Bucky asks.

“A transfer.”

“A transfer,” Ava repeats flatly.

“Of the remote.”

“With choreography?”

You lean back into the couch cushions. “You’re all making this weird.”

“We are making it weird?” Yelena asks. “You two have developed a silent hand language.”

Alexei crosses his arms. “I want hand language.”

“No,” everyone says.

That's when the problem truly begins.

Somewhere along the way, you and John have accidentally developed an entire disciplinary system.

If John steals food off your plate, the standard slap-backhand-fist ends with you pressing your thumb down over his knuckles.

“Probation,” you tell him.

He chews your fry. “Worth it.”

If you interrupt him during a briefing, he catches your hand, taps your wrist twice, and points toward the hall.

“Benched.”

“You don’t have that authority.”

“I do in the handshake.”

If either of you makes an especially terrible joke, the handshake ends with both thumbs pointing sharply downward.

“Sent to Sam’s Avengers squad,” you announce.

Sam is not present to defend himself.

That does absolutely nothing to stop the category from becoming alarmingly specific.

John leaves a wet towel on the bathroom floor.

“Sam’s squad.”

You use the last of his protein powder.

“Sam’s squad, auxiliary division.”

He finishes the coffee and doesn't start a new pot.

“Sam’s squad, unpaid internship.”

You hide his boots after he calls your playlist “aggressively adolescent.”

“Sam’s squad, mandatory team-building weekend.”

That one makes him look genuinely disturbed.

“You take that back.”

“Apologize to My Chemical Romance.”

“No.”

“Then enjoy your trust fall.”

The others are no longer merely jealous. They are invested.

Yelena starts keeping score on the whiteboard in the training room.

HANDSHAKE OFFENSES

John: 17

You: 14

Alexei: 63, despite not participating

Bucky: 2

Ava: 4

Bob: 0

“I have not committed sixty-three offenses,” Alexei protests.

Yelena uncaps the marker and adds another tally. "You are complaining about the board.”

“This is dictatorship.”

Another tally.

“This proves my point.”

Another tally.

By the end of the week, everyone has attempted to create their own handshake with you.

Bob’s is gentle and involves one fist bump and a tiny finger wave. You let him keep it.

Ava’s is brutally efficient. Palm, wrist, release. It looks less like a greeting and more like she is checking you for a pulse.

Yelena keeps changing hers on purpose so you can never learn it. When you mess up, she acts disappointed in you as a person.

Bucky refuses to admit he wants one. He simply starts holding his fist out whenever you enter a room.

At first, you bump it normally.

Then, one afternoon, he adds a second knuckle tap.

You add a third.

His eyes narrow.

The next time, he switches hands.

You follow.

Three days later, John catches the two of you silently escalating beside the weapons lockers.

“Seriously?”

Bucky drops his hand. “It’s not a handshake.”

“Right,” John says. “It’s a transfer.”

You snort.

Bucky’s expression goes flat. “I hate both of you.”

John sticks out his hand.

Without looking, you complete the original handshake.

Slap.

Backhand.

Fist.

Roll.

Then both of you turn your thumbs downward.

“Sam’s squad,” you say together.

Bucky’s jaw tightens. “You know I’m friends with Sam.”

“Then you’ll settle in quickly,” John says.

Alexei is the final holdout. Not because he doesn't want a handshake. Because he wants the best handshake.

He spends days pitching ideas.

One involves elbow bumps. One involves saluting. One somehow includes a squat.

One requires you to lift him, which you refuse before he finishes explaining.

Finally, during a mission briefing, Valentina catches the team paying more attention to Yelena’s whiteboard tally than to the actual mission.

She stands at the head of the table.

Her gaze moves from Alexei, who is whispering suggested hand gestures to Bob, to Bucky, who is pretending not to practice his knuckle sequence against his thigh.

Then she looks at you.

Then John.

“What,” she asks slowly, “is happening?”

“Nothing,” you say.

“Team cohesion,” John says at the same time.

Valentina closes her eyes. “You two.”

You point at yourself. “Us?”

“Yes. Whatever this is, end it.”

John’s brow furrows. “End what?”

“The handshakes.”

The room revolts.

Bob gasps.

Yelena says, “Absolutely not.”

Ava sits forward. “You can’t ban them now.”

Bucky mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “This is bullshit.”

Alexei slams both palms on the table. “You see?” he cries. “Now outsider tries to destroy family tradition!”

Valentina stares at him. “This started six days ago.”

“Tradition must begin somewhere.”

You glance at John.

John glances at you.

His mouth twitches.

You know exactly what he's thinking because you're thinking it too.

Your hands meet under the table.

Slap, muffled against your knees.

Backhand.

Fist bump.

Roll.

Then a new ending, completely automatic.

Two fingers cross.

Palms turn outward.

Both thumbs point directly at Valentina.

“Grounded,” you whisper.

“Sam’s squad,” John adds.

Valentina’s eyes drop to your hands.

The room holds its breath.

She looks back up. “Did you just assign me to another superhero team?”

“No,” you say.

John nods. “Definitely.”

Valentina gathers her files with a sigh. “The mission is tomorrow at six.”

She walks to the door, pauses, and looks over her shoulder. “For the record, Wilson’s team has dental.”

Then she leaves.

There's a long silence.

Yelena slowly turns toward you. “That was devastating.”

John looks at his teeth in the reflection of his phone screen. "Do we have dental?”

“I don’t think we have payroll,” Ava says.

Alexei rises from his chair with the solemnity of a man accepting a great burden. "I have decided.”

Nobody asks.

He holds one hand out toward you. “My handshake will represent workers’ rights.”

You look at his hand.

Then at John.

John gives you a tiny shrug.

You take Alexei’s palm.

He immediately yanks you into a one-armed hug and lifts you off the ground.

“Alexei!”

“This is first step!”

“There will not be a second!”

Everyone starts shouting at once.

Bob tries to help lower you.

Yelena begins adding tallies to the board.

Ava threatens to phase through Alexei’s rib cage.

Bucky stands in the corner with his fist held out, waiting patiently for you to notice.

John watches the chaos for a moment.

Then he catches your eye over Alexei’s shoulder.

He points at you.

You point back.

Even while being carried across the briefing room by a delighted Russian super soldier, you manage the ending together.

Two thumbs down.

“Sam’s squad,” you and John say.

Alexei stops. His face falls. “This handshake is cruel.”

“It’s adaptable,” John corrects.

Somehow, that only convinces everyone they need their own.

Over the next month, the handshakes spread faster than any briefing ever had.

Bob practiced his every morning.

Alexei still insisted his workers’ rights handshake deserved reconsideration.

Yelena continued documenting new variations for “research.”

Bucky never admitted he had one. He simply kept holding out his fist whenever he saw you.

Somewhere along the way, the original handshake stopped belonging to just the two of you.

Maybe that was inevitable.

One quiet evening after another mission, the tower had finally settled into something resembling peace.

The silence that settled over the common room felt earned.

You stood at the kitchen sink, rinsing out two coffee mugs while the city glittered beyond the windows. Behind you, John leaned against the counter with his arms folded.

“You know…” he said.

“Hm?”

“I think we created a monster.”

You laughed softly. “We absolutely did.”

Comfortable silence settled between you. Months ago, it would have been awkward.

Back when every accidental brush of your hands lingered a second too long.

Back when every mission briefing ended with one of you finding an excuse to stand a little closer.

Back when everyone except the two of you seemed to realize you were hopelessly gone for each other.

Now he simply existed beside you.

Close enough for his shoulder to bump yours.

You bumped him back.

He smiled. “So.”

“So?”

“We have got handshakes for everyone.”

“We do.”

“But…” He scratches the back of his neck. “…we don’t really have one that’s ours anymore.”

You turn toward him. “What do you mean?”

“They belong to everybody now.”

You looked down at your hands.

He was right.

Somehow, without either of you noticing, the thing that had started as yours had become something the whole team shared.

Nobody had stolen it. You had simply shared it until it belonged to everyone.

John let out a quiet laugh. “I miss when it was just us.”

Your heart stumbled in the familiar way it always did whenever he said something unexpectedly honest.

“So…” You stepped closer. “We make a new one.”

His blue eyes brightened immediately. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He holds out his hand.

“No audience?”

“No audience.”

“No Alexei?”

“Especially no Alexei.”

You place your palm against his.

“Okay,” you whisper.

“Okay.”

You start slowly.

Palm to palm.

Your fingers slide apart.

His hand catches yours again.

Your knuckles meet.

Tap.

Tap.

His thumb brushes lightly across your fingertips.

Not part of the plan.

You smile anyway. “Horrible form, Captain.”

“I improvise.”

“So do I.”

Your hands separate for only a moment before finding each other again.

Neither of you plans it. Neither of you thinks about it.

Your knuckles meet once more.

His thumb glides slowly across yours before settling gently over your knuckles, holding there for the briefest heartbeat.

John looks down at your joined hands. “I think…" He looks back at you. “…we are missing something.”

“Oh?”

He nods once. "Last step.”

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, he gently tugs you closer. Close enough that your joined hands rest between your chests.

“So this is classified?” you murmur.

“Highest clearance.”

“I do not know if I can be trusted.”

“I think you have done all right so far.”

You grin. “I did invent probation.”

“You absolutely abused probation.”

“And you deserved every single one.”

“I probably did.” His voice has gone quieter. Softer. The kind of quiet reserved only for you. His thumb strokes once across your knuckles. "You ready?”

“For the last step?”

He nods. “Any objections?”

“None.”

He smiles. “Good.”

Still holding your hand, he turns it slightly until his thumb settles comfortably over your knuckles once more.

Palm.

Knuckles.

Thumb.

Then, without another word, he leans down and presses a gentle kiss to your lips.

It's not hurried. It's not dramatic. It's warm, familiar.

The kind of kiss that feels less like a beginning and more like the inevitable last step in a sequence neither of you realized you had been building all along.

When he pulls back, your foreheads rest together.

“…I like that step,” you whisper.

“I was hoping you would.”

“So…” You squeeze his hand. "Is that officially part of the handshake now?”

John pretends to think about it. “I think it is mandatory.”

“Mandatory?”

“For me.”

You laugh, the sound quiet enough that it never leaves the room.

“I can live with that.”

He steals one more quick kiss. “Good.”

Then he holds his hand out again. “One more time.”

You roll your eyes with exaggerated affection. “You are such a dork.”

“I know.”

You slip your hand into his.

Palm.

Knuckles.

Thumb.

Kiss.

From somewhere down the hallway comes Alexei’s booming voice.

“I KNEW THERE WAS SECRET FINAL STEP!”

You and John freeze.

Silence.

Then John sighs toward the ceiling. “…Straight to Sam’s Avengers.”

You can’t stop laughing.

“Double probation?”

“Triple.”

He kisses you again anyway.

“I noticed.”

“I’m old.”

You blinked. Then laughed.

He looked personally offended. "I’m serious.”

“So am I.” You walked over, nudging one of his knees with yours. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m a forty year old man.”

“Correct.”

“You could be dating someone younger.”

“I could.”

He frowned deeper.

“But instead,” you continued, climbing onto the couch beside him, “I’m dating the world’s most decorated professional overthinker.”

His lips twitched despite himself. "It isn’t funny.”

“It kind of is.”

“I’m getting wrinkles.”

You leaned in dramatically, squinting at his face. "Hm.”

“What?”

“I think that’s called smiling.”

He huffed. "I’ve got gray hair.”

“I see two.”

“Two too many.”

You reached up, threading your fingers through the short blond strands at his temple.

“They look good.”

“They make me look old.”

“They make you look distinguished.”

“They make me look like somebody’s dad.”

You grinned. "I fail to see the problem.”

He groaned, dropping his head against the back of the couch. "You deserve somebody your age.”

“I have somebody my age.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Your voice softened. "So listen to me.”

He finally met your eyes.

“You aren’t getting older despite everything you’ve survived.”

You rested your forehead against his.

“You’re getting older because you survived.”

The joke left the room.

His shoulders loosened just enough.

“You’ve lived through things that would’ve broken most people.” You brushed your thumb across the faint line near his eyebrow. “These?”

You traced another near the corner of his eye. "They’re proof you laughed.”

Your fingers drifted over the scar along his jaw. "These are proof you kept going.”

He swallowed.

“I don’t look twenty five anymore.”

“Thank God.”

That earned a startled laugh.

“I don’t want twenty five.”

“No?”

“I want this.” You cupped his face with both hands. "I want the man who knows when I’m pretending I’m fine.”

A kiss landed on his forehead.

“The man who makes coffee every morning even though he always forgets how much sugar I like.”

Another kiss.

“The man who checks every door twice before bed.”

Another.

“The man who somehow keeps getting more handsome every year.”

His cheeks flushed. "You're so full of it.”

“I’m not.”

“You have terrible taste.”

“I have excellent taste.”

Your nose brushed his. "You’re like fine wine, John.”

He chuckled quietly. "I’ve never even liked wine.”

“Good.” You smiled. "More for me.”

He shook his head. "You really don’t think forty’s... too old?”

You stared at him like he’d asked if the sky was green. "I think forty looks unbelievably good on you.”

He searched your face for any hint you were teasing. He found none.

Instead, he found you smiling at him with the kind of certainty that made his chest ache.

“You really mean that.”

“I do.”

His hand slid around your waist. "You know..."

“What?”

“I was planning on continuing to mope.”

“Oh?”

“But then you started complimenting me.”

“I can stop.”

“You better not.”

He kissed you before you could reply. Slowly. Warmly. Like he was relearning something he’d almost forgotten.

You smiled into it. "So that’s your strategy?”

“What strategy?”

“Fish for compliments.”

“I wasn’t fishing.”

“No?”

“I was spiraling.”

You laughed against his mouth. "That’s somehow worse.”

“It worked though.”

“It absolutely did not.”

He kissed you again, longer this time.

His hands settled at your waist while yours found the back of his neck, fingers disappearing into the soft hair there.

When he finally pulled back, a little breathless, he rested his forehead against yours. "I still can’t believe you chose me.”

“I’ll keep choosing you.”

“Even when I’m fifty?”

“Especially when you’re fifty.”

“Sixty?”

“I’ll probably be causing trouble right beside you.”

His grin returned, full and bright this time.

“There he is,” you whispered.

“Who?”

“My handsome old man.”

He rolled his eyes so dramatically you thought they might disappear. "I knew it.”

“You walked into that one.”

He leaned in for another kiss, stealing it with a satisfied hum.

You smiled into it, your lips brushing the shell of his ear as you murmured just loudly enough for only him to hear.

“...You’re my DILF.”

John froze. “...what?”

You pulled back with the most innocent smile you could manage. "My DILF.”

His ears immediately turned pink. "You are never saying that again.”

“So... not your favorite nickname?”

He buried his face in your shoulder, laughing so hard the couch shook beneath both of you.

"You are the worst.”

“And yet..." You kissed his cheek. "...I’m your worst.”

He sighed, wrapped his arms around you a little tighter, and muttered into your hair with all the fond resignation in the world.

“Yeah. My favorite menace.”

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.

10/1: Marked (John Walker)

10/2:

10/3: Echo (John Walker)

10/4:

10/5:

10/6:

10/7:

10/8:

10/9:

10/10:

10/11:

10/12: Permission (Bucky Barnes/John Walker/F! Reader)

10/13:

10/14:

10/15:

10/16:

10/17: Serum (John Walker)

10/18:

10/19:

10/20:

10/21:

10/22: Relief (Bucky Barnes)

10/23:

10/24:

10/25: Tempered (Lewis Ford - Overlord)

10/26: Restrictions (True Brandywire - Broke)

10/27: Birthday (Bucky Barnes/John Walker/F!Reader)

10/28: Trick or Tame (John Walker)

10/29:

10/30:

It was becoming a problem.

He noticed the way you tied your hair up when the heat got unbearable, twisting it off your neck with one hand while holding your drink in the other. He noticed how you always hummed along to songs before you remembered the lyrics. He noticed that when you laughed too hard, you leaned forward like your joy was too big to keep upright.

Worst of all, he noticed that you looked for him.

In crowded rooms. Across Sam’s backyard. Through the steam rising off the grill and the buzz of cicadas in the trees. Your eyes would find his, quick and bright, then flick away like you had not meant to get caught.

But Bucky always caught it because he had been looking too.

Tonight was no different.

The summer air hung warm and honey-thick around Sam’s place, the kind of heat that made everyone lazy and loud. Someone had dragged a speaker out onto the porch. Music spilled into the yard, all electric longing and restless devotion, a song made for open windows and reckless hearts.

You were barefoot in the grass.

That was the first thing Bucky noticed.

Not the fireflies blinking near the fence. Not Sam arguing with Sarah over whether he had burned the burgers. Not Joaquin trying to balance three paper plates on one arm.

You.

Barefoot. Laughing. Holding a melting popsicle between your fingers, your lips stained cherry red.

Bucky forgot how to breathe for half a second. Which was stupid. He had seen worse things than a pretty mouth in July.

Still.

His brain went quiet in a way it rarely did, all the static softening into one clear thought.

There you are.

You looked up then, as if you had heard him.

Across the yard, your smile changed.

It was small at first. Just the corner of your mouth lifting. Then it grew warmer, private in a way that made Bucky’s chest feel too tight beneath his shirt.

He looked away.

Coward.

“Man,” Sam said beside him, flipping a spatula in his hand. “You are pathetic.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m standing here.”

“Exactly. Standing. Brooding. Making tragic little eyes across my yard.”

“I don’t make tragic little eyes.”

Sam snorted. “You make museum-quality tragic little eyes.”

Bucky took the beer from Sam’s hand and drank from it out of spite.

Sam didn’t even blink. “That was mine.”

“Was.”

Across the yard, you laughed at something Joaquin said, but your gaze slipped back to Bucky again. This time, you didn’t look away as quickly.

Neither did he.

The whole yard seemed to blur at the edges.

You lifted the popsicle in a tiny salute.

Bucky’s mouth twitched before he could stop it.

Sam groaned. “Go talk to her before the grass catches fire from all this unresolved tension.”

Bucky handed the beer back. “You always this dramatic?”

“Only when two emotionally constipated people are ruining my barbecue.”

Bucky ignored him or tried to. But his feet were already moving.

Each step across the yard felt ridiculous. He had crossed battlefields with steadier nerves. He had walked into gunfire. He had faced monsters and gods and men who thought themselves both.

And somehow, walking toward you with the sun setting behind your shoulders made his pulse kick like a drum.

You watched him come closer.

That was the thing that ruined him. You didn’t glance around. Didn’t pretend you hadn't been waiting. You just stood there in the grass, cherry red smile softening into something sweeter, something almost shy.

“Hi, Barnes,” you said.

“Hi.”

Terrible start.

One word. He had eighty years of languages, mission reports, coded phrases, and poetry somewhere in his head, and all he managed was hi.

Your smile widened like you knew exactly what he was thinking. “You having fun?”

He looked over his shoulder at Sam, who was very obviously watching while pretending to inspect burger buns.

“Fun might be generous.”

“You smiled at least twice.”

“Maybe it was heatstroke.”

You laughed, and there it was again. That feeling. A door opening somewhere in him that he had sworn was sealed shut.

You held out the popsicle. “Want some?”

Bucky stared at it, then at you.

Your fingers were sticky. The thing was melting down your wrist. A drop of red sugar slid toward your palm, and Bucky’s mind, traitorous and unhelpful, noticed the movement with far too much attention.

“No,” he said quickly.

Your eyebrows lifted. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Scared of germs, Sergeant?”

“Scared of you.”

That slipped out before he could stop it.

The air changed.

Your teasing expression softened, the laughter fading from your eyes but not the warmth. You lowered the popsicle, suddenly still.

Bucky wished he could take it back... no, he didn’t.

That was the problem. He didn’t want to take any of it back. Not the looking. Not the wanting. Not the quiet ache that had been building in him for weeks every time you said his name like it belonged in your mouth.

You glanced down, lashes hiding your eyes. “You shouldn’t be.”

Bucky’s voice came out low. “I know.”

“Do you?”

He swallowed.

The music shifted behind you, the song swelling into something bright and desperate. Summer folded itself around the two of you, warm wind moving through the trees, cicadas buzzing like tiny live wires, fireflies sparking gold in the grass.

Bucky stepped closer.

Not much. Just enough that he could smell sunscreen on your skin, sugar on your fingers, the faint clean scent of your shampoo underneath the smoke from the grill.

Your breath caught.

He noticed that too.

“Doll,” he said quietly.

Your eyes lifted to his.

The nickname landed differently this time. Not casual. Not easy. It hung between you, soft and trembling, waiting to see if either of you would be brave enough to touch it.

“Bucky,” you whispered.

His name in your voice nearly undid him.

He had heard his name shouted. Ordered. Begged. Cursed. He had heard it through radios and nightmares and hospital rooms. But this was different.

This was summer-warm. This was wanting. This was you.

Bucky’s hand flexed at his side. “Tell me to stop looking at you like that.”

You did not blink. “I don’t want you to stop.”

The words hit him clean through the ribs.

Behind him, someone laughed too loudly. A plate clattered. Sam yelled something about burger integrity. The world continued, careless and alive.

But Bucky could not hear much past the blood rushing in his ears.

“You sure?” he asked.

Your smile trembled at the edge, nervous and hopeful all at once. “I’ve been sure for a while.”

Bucky let out a breath that felt like it had been trapped in him for years.

He raised his hand slowly. You leaned into the space between you, your eyes fluttering when his knuckles brushed your cheek.

Soft.

You were so soft.

It terrified him. It made him want to be soft too.

His thumb swept lightly beneath your cheekbone. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

“You haven’t even kissed me yet.”

A helpless laugh escaped him, quiet and disbelieving.

Your smile turned radiant.

There, that was the moment.

Not the kiss. Not yet.

The moment before.

The breath before the match struck. Your face tipped up toward his. His hand at your cheek. The music spilling into the pink-orange dusk. The summer heat pressing close, turning the air molten.

Bucky leaned in slowly. So slowly he felt every inch of it.

Your eyes closed first.

That nearly killed him.

Then his mouth touched yours.

The kiss was gentle at first, almost a question. Your lips were warm, tasting faintly of cherry sugar, and Bucky felt the shock of it all the way down to his bones. Not sharp. Not violent. Just bright.

A sparkler in his chest.

Then you sighed against him. That tiny sound broke something loose.

Bucky stepped closer, his other hand finding your waist with careful reverence. You leaned into him, fingers curling in the front of his shirt, and the kiss deepened just enough to become an answer.

Yes.

Yes, this.

Yes, you.

The yard disappeared. The years disappeared. For one impossible second, there was no past waiting behind his eyes. No cold. No ghosts. No weight dragging at his name.

There was only your hand over his heart. Only the warm press of your mouth.

Only the dizzy, golden thought that maybe he had not been made solely to survive. Maybe he had been made for this too. For a summer evening. For a kiss that tasted like sugar and courage. For wanting someone and being wanted back without either of you having to run from it.

When you pulled away, it was barely far enough to breathe. Your forehead rested against his. Your fingers were still twisted in his shirt.

Bucky opened his eyes and found you already looking at him.

You looked stunned.

He probably did too.

“Hi,” you whispered again, breathless.

This time, Bucky smiled. A real one.

“Hi, doll.”

Your laugh came out soft and shaky, and Bucky wanted to kiss that too.

So he did.

Just once. Quick and sweet. Enough to make you smile against his mouth.

From across the yard, Sam shouted, “Finally!”

The entire barbecue erupted into noise.

You buried your face against Bucky’s chest with a groan. “I’m moving. I have to leave the country now.”

Bucky wrapped his arms around you, smiling into your hair. “I know a guy.”

You laughed, muffled against him. “You’re supposed to say no.”

“I’m considering my options.”

You tilted your head back, eyes bright with embarrassment and happiness and something so tender it made his throat ache. “Was that okay?”

Bucky stared at you.

The sun had nearly vanished, leaving gold caught in your lashes. The music was still playing. Sam was still yelling. The popsicle had melted completely, forgotten in the grass.

Bucky brushed his thumb over your cheek again.

“Best part of my summer,” he said.

Your smile went soft.

And Bucky Barnes, who had spent so much of his life bracing for winter, stood barefoot in the warm grass with you in his arms and let himself believe, just for tonight, that some things were allowed to last.