#john walker mcu | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

imaginestuffs · 2 months ago

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Try Again- John Walker x FReader

Word count:7,995

Warnings: slight angst, fluff, possible OOC John.

(y/f/m)= your favorite movie

(y/f/d)= your favorite drink

Summary: Reader realizes she is in love with John after an almost kiss. But will John be able to accept the fact that he is in love with her too? Will she help him overcome his fear of starting over?

There was something strange going on between you and John. You couldn’t exactly pinpoint if it was good or bad, but it was something.

When you first met him, he was the bane of your existence. Now, whenever you saw him, your heart seemed to stutter. Your face got warm, and your stomach filled with butterflies.

It was 8:30 in the morning, and you had just shuffled into the kitchen to get yourself a much-needed cup of coffee. As soon as you rounded the corner, there he stood, ready for the day. His hair was still a bit damp and unruly, and you had the urge to reach up and run your hands through it. As you stared at him, you began to realize you wanted to do much more than run your hands through his hair. You wanted to wrap your arms around his waist and nuzzle your face against his chest. You wanted him to kiss your forehead and say good morning with that voice of his. That low voice that still held the thickness of sleep.

A small smile quirked at your lips at the thought. Coming out of your thoughts, you noticed him staring right back at you in confusion. A warmth spread across your face, and you quickly looked away from him.

“Are you ok (y/n)?” his voice held slight concern. He placed his coffee cup on the counter and fully turned towards you.

“Yeah, uh, I’m f-fine. Just a bit spacey today. Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.” You got your words out as fast as possible.

The look on his face told you he didn’t believe you. You could tell he wanted to push, but decided against it.

“Well, if you, uh, if you ever want to talk, I’m here.” It almost sounded like he was nervous about it.

You gave him a soft grin and nodded.

“Thanks, I’m here too. You always seem to know where to find me, so you know where I’ll be.” You teased him a bit, and he looked to the floor with a grin.

“I just know you better than you think. It’s easy to figure you out.” He remarked, and you chuckled.

“Oh really? Then tell me what’s on my mind.” Your brow raised challengingly.

He shook his head and smiled before looking at you. His eyes seemed to search you, and you felt your heart speed up at the thought of him looking at you the way he did. You did your best to keep your guard up and make your expression as normal as possible. And by normal you mean neutral, not cold, but not too cocky. You kept your small smile and open demeanor.

As John looked at you, his mind seemed to wander. Your sleepy eyes and wrinkled pajamas. The fuzzy socks on your feet are patterned with different dogs. The way your hands cradled the coffee cup in your hands. He couldn’t help but imagine your soft but greedy hands pulling him closer. Your cherry chapstick lingering on his lips for hours. Sweet sounds you'd make when he'd touch you.

John’s stomach flipped as he thought of all the things he unyieldingly longed to do.

Realizing how long he had been ‘reading’ you, he snapped out of it. You smirked as he shook his head.

“Figure me out yet?” Your voice carried a joking lilt.

He stood in front of you now with a glimmer of something in his eyes, something you couldn’t quite understand. You could feel his warmth, he was that close to you. Your smirk faltered slightly at his proximity. The tension between you was nothing you had ever experienced before. It was unexpectedly charged. His hand gripped the counter behind you, and he seemed to lean in close. So close that your noses could brush. Your breath was stolen by the way he looked at you.

He looked at you like he wanted you, like you were the only thing in this world he wanted to call his.

Your eyes softened as you looked into his. A few minutes ago, you never believed that you would be so close to him that you could see the color of his eyes change hues of blue in the light.

John’s eyes flickered from yours to your lips. The lips he thought of kissing only moments ago.

His nose now softly nudged yours, your (e/c) eyes fluttered shut, and you could feel his breath fan across your lips.

“John!” Ava called from around the corner. Your eyes flew open at her voice, he sighed as he stepped away from you.

“What?” he asked as the woman rounded the corner with an annoyed look on her face.

Before she could speak, she noticed the tension in the room and glanced between the two of you. She saw the flustered look you tried to mask, and the way John seemed to breathe a bit harder. The look on Ava’s face was one of suspicion. You gave her a pleading look as if asking her not to mention it. She could see the look of anxiety in your eyes, and kept her mouth shut on the subject.

Ava turned to face John, “We’re assigned to a mission in Lima, we leave in 2 hours. Get ready and I’ll meet you by the landing pad,” she informed him. He nodded his head and strode out of the room as fast as he could.

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Ava looked at you in concern.

“Is everything ok?” she asked, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. You flashed her a small smile and nodded. She looked at you with uncertainty. “You would tell me if something happened?” she asked.

“Of course, Ava, thanks for checking in, but I’m fine,” you told her with as much of a steady voice as you could muster.

“Good. We’ll be back soon. I’ll bring him back in one piece, alright,” she reassured you.

Your eyes widened; you should’ve realized that she could see right through you, she always could. Closing your eyes, you let out a sigh.

“Just be careful,” you said before pulling her into a hug. She hugged you back just as tightly.

As Ava left the kitchen, your head fell into your hands. You could barely comprehend what almost happened. Not letting yourself believe that what you felt from him could be true. Tricking yourself into thinking what you saw in his eyes wasn’t real.

Maybe half an hour had passed before you got ready for the day. Walking out of your room, you see John going down the hallway to meet Ava.

You decide to take a chance to talk to him before he leaves, even if it’s only to say goodbye and be careful.

“John,” you tried to get his attention as he was walking away. His footsteps stopped, and he let you catch up with him. He kept his eyes on the ground as you walked beside him.

“I um, I just wanted to say goodbye,” you said and glanced at him, seeing if he would spare a look. He didn’t look at you, so you tried one more time.

“John,” you said, trying to get his attention. But again, there was no answer.

You gently grabbed his arm, and he reluctantly looked at you. “What is it?” he sighed out.

“I just wanted to tell you to come back safe,” you said and smiled softly despite feeling a bit hurt.

“We will,” he told you and walked away.

Standing there in the hall, you could feel your heart constrict; it was as if he didn’t care. It was like what had happened wasn’t real. Confusion clouded your mind, you didn’t understand what you had done.

Bucky had found you sitting on the couch, doing your best to read the book you were trying to finish. Nothing was helping, and you were just rereading the same sentence over and over again.

The couch dipped as someone sat next to you. You didn’t have to see their face to know it was Bucky. Your shoulders slouched, and you let out a sigh, finally letting yourself relax. Feeling safe enough to show how tired you really were.

“You ok, kid?” his voice was a low, comforting rumble.

Chuckling, you looked over at him.

“That’s the third time someone has asked me that today. And I guess my answer is no,” The look in your eyes was one he’d never seen before. Uncertainty.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he raised his hand to run through your hair.

You could feel some stress leaving you. As you always did when he was around.

You screwed your eyes shut and tried to hold everything back. You didn’t understand why you wanted to cry. Nothing had really happened between you and John, but it felt like something was there. Something that you couldn’t shake, something that made your heart too full.

You could feel the tears begin to drip down your cheeks. Opening your eyes, Bucky's gaze was soft and understanding. The book fell from your hand as you let yourself lean into your friend.

He was more than a friend, he was family. Someone you trusted fully, and whom you could never seem to lie to.

“I’m so confused.” Your voice strained as tears of frustration continued to fall.

“What’s got you so confused, Sweetheart?” he let you curl into his side as he wrapped his arm around your shoulder.

“Walker,” your voice was muffled by his shirt. You buried your head further against his chest as your cheeks heated up.

Bucky leaned down and placed his head on yours.

“What was that?” he asked.

You shifted so you could look up at him. “John,” you sighed.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t think you’re the first to be confused by him,” he told you jokingly.

He got a small smile out of you, and you shook your head.

“I’m- I’m just so frustrated. I can’t tell how he feels about me. I thought I knew for a moment, and then he wouldn’t give me anything. He barely even looked at me after I said goodbye today.” You confessed to Bucky.

“You know I don’t like him, but I think it’s safe to say he’s not great at dealing with feelings like that.” He once again began to run his fingers through your hair.

He saw the look on your face, a look of fear that you’d done something wrong. “Did something happen today (y/n)?” Bucky asked carefully, not wanting to hit a nerve or make you uncomfortable.

Taking a deep breath, you looked at him, desperation shone in your eyes.

“He almost kissed me today. Only two hours before I told him goodbye, he leaned in to kiss me, and then he acted like he didn’t care. Like it never even happened. It was like I was a stranger.” Your voice was soft, unsure.

Bucky just listened as you spoke, doing his best to be a comfort. He looked at you with sympathy in his eyes. He hated seeing you like this; he hated knowing that you felt that way. That Walker made you feel that way.

Tears began to gloss over your eyes once more as you sighed. You didn’t know you felt so deeply for him. Never realized that he meant so much to you, but he did, and now you can’t stop caring.

A cool hand touched your cheek, leaning into it, you sighed.

“Sweetheart, I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong…” He paused, thinking of what to say next. “I think he’s scared after everything that happened with Olivia. I think he’s scared to start over.” He did his best to explain the possibility of why he suddenly acted so cold.

Your heart sank at the thought of him feeling that way. You never thought about it like that, you didn’t think of him. How scared he must be to open up again, to fully trust someone and have them trust him. How scared he must be to fall in love again.

Your shoulders dropped, a

nd you once again let yourself rest against Bucky’s chest. Bucky could tell what was going on in your mind. He let his head rest on yours and rubbed your arm.

“It’ll be ok. He’ll be ok,” Bucky kissed your head, and just let you hold him for as long as you needed to.

It had been four days since John and Ava had gone on their mission. Everyone noticed that you had become quiet. The only one who truly knew why was Bucky, and he wasn’t willing to share your reasoning with anyone.

In your mind, you had decided the best idea was to give him space, to let him come to you if and when he was ready. The only thing that hurt you was that you didn’t know if he wanted what you did. John may never be ready, and if that were the case, you’d just have to understand that.

Your heart didn’t want to let go, but if it came down to it, then you’d have to. It was a feeling you had never experienced. Something you didn’t know how to handle well. You weren’t good at letting go, it had always been an issue for you. When you were young, your family moved from Oregon to New York. Leaving the first home you’d ever known, leaving the very first friends you’d ever made, was like ripping a piece of your soul away.

When your childhood dog passed away, you kept their favorite toy, and you still have it now. The day your grandma passed away, your heart shattered. Refusing to believe she was gone, you still spoke to her years later. Even now, when you’re lost or alone, you’ll close your eyes and talk to her as if she’s right next to you.

After your worst heartbreak, you didn’t think you'd find love again. Until you met John.

Now you may have to let go before you get to hold him.

There you sat next to Bob by the window where he always sits while reading. He saw the look on your face and asked you to sit with him, and so you did. You let yourself settle next to your friend in a comfortable silence. The only thing that could be heard was the rain outside and him mumbling the words he was reading under his breath. It was comforting to just sit with someone, not having to speak to understand that each of you just wants company.

After a while, you felt someone shaking your shoulder. A sleepy groan escaped you as you rubbed your eyes. You hadn’t realized you had fallen asleep.

“(y/n),” your name was spoken so softly you almost didn’t hear it. Slowly, you opened your eyes, you were met with the sight of Bob smiling at you softly. “I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable, so I took you to your room. I hope you don’t mind.” His voice was so sweet, and you smiled back sleepily.

“Thanks, Bobby,” you mumbled and leaned up to kiss his cheek. His cheeks went pink as he nodded.

“Of course. I, um, I’ll leave so you can rest,” he spoke softly before squeezing your shoulder and making his exit.

What you didn’t realize was that Ava and John had returned as he was taking you to your room.

Bob passed by John as he carried you fast asleep in his arms.

Bob gave John a smile and a soft welcome back as he walked by him. John nodded back, but felt his heart pang at the sight.

Why was Bob holding you as you slept? Why was he taking you back to your room?

John was so confused. He could see how content you were; he saw the way your face was pressed against his chest as you slept.

It’s only been four days, and Bob has moved in on you. John thought Bob liked Yelena, not you. Did you like Bob?

John walked down the hall to his room. As he did, he passed by your room, and the door was open just enough to see you kiss Bob on the cheek. His heart seemed to stop for a second at the sight. He didn’t understand.

He swore that there was something he had with you. Something that he didn’t know how to describe. Maybe something he was too scared to accept.

He didn’t want to accept the fact that he may be in love with you.

But unbeknownst to him, you had accepted that same thing. You accepted the fact that you were in love with John.

Waking up the next morning, you made your way into the kitchen for a cup of coffee when you were greeted with the same sight as four days before. John stood with messy morning hair and a bruise on his cheek. Concern filled your eyes as you took a step closer to him.

“John,” your voice was soft as you got his attention.

He looked up from his coffee to glance at you. He hummed in acknowledgment and took another sip. Something in your heart tugged, and you swore you felt a twinge of pain in your chest. Again, he paid you no mind.

“Are you ok? I’m glad you’re home,” you said, and moved to the cupboard to grab a mug.

“If you’re asking about the bruise, it doesn’t hurt, just looks bad,” he said.

The way he spoke gave you the hint that he didn’t want to talk. So you left the conversation there. As you looked for your favorite mug, you noticed it was on the top shelf and sighed.

Reaching for it, you huffed in frustration, but before you were able to climb on the counter, someone reached from behind you to grab it for you.

You hoped with everything in you that when you turned around, it would be John, but when you did, John was still leaning on the island. A warm hand was placed on the small of your back, and you knew from how gentle the touch was that it could only be Bob.

Once again, your heart tugged, and your eyes flashed with disappointment. Bob placed the mug beside you, and you smiled at him as he reached for his own mug.

“Thanks, Bob,” you grinned softly at him.

“No problem. Just didn’t want you to get hurt.” his voice was sweet, genuine.

You squeeze his hand before pouring yourself a coffee.

“John! You’re finally back!” Alexei exclaimed as he made his usual boisterous entrance.

Everyone in the room winced at his volume.

“How was mission, huh?!” his voice somehow louder than before.

“Just like any other one,” John answered plainly, and rubbed a hand down his face. As you glanced at him again, your eyes still held concern. He was tired and closed off.

Alexei then turned his attention to you and smiled before pulling you into a big hug.

“Ah (Y/N), it is so good to see you!” he said and smacked a big kiss on your crown. He let you go, and you gave him an awkward smile.

John looked between you and Alexei with confusion. “What do you mean? You see her every day.” John questioned.

Immediately, your gaze dropped to your feet. “She has been hiding in her room for days. I rarely see her during the day, almost like a raccoon. She comes out at night to eat and then hides in the day, you know,” Alexei explained, and you shook your head.

“What the hell are you even talking about?” John asked with furrowed brows.

“She is not usual self. She’s depressed.” Alexei decides to announce to the whole room.

You placed your head in your hands and did your best to take a deep breath. The feeling of John’s stare was burning. Opening your eyes, you took one glance at him, and could see the confusion.

No one said a word; all you could feel was them staring at you, expecting you to say something or explain yourself.

You could feel tears well up in your eyes and placed your cup down before walking away.

Yelena passed you by, before she could ask anything, you were already halfway down the hallway.

Yelena sighed and rolled her eyes. “Alexei! What did you do?” She marched into the kitchen.

He held up his hands in defense. “I did nothing. All I say was (Y/N) has been depressed and hiding like raccoon,” he explained himself. Yelena pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

“Did something happen while we were gone?” John asked.

“I’m not sure, I did see her talking with Bucky after you left. She seemed really upset.” Bob informed them all.

John’s shoulders sagged, and he let his head fall back. He groaned in frustration, at what, or who? He wasn’t sure.

Before anyone could say anything else, he walked out of the room. He had an idea in his head of what made you so upset. But he refused to believe it.

It couldn’t be him, it just couldn’t be.

He didn’t know where he was going until he reached the balcony of the penthouse. He wasn’t sure why he was there, but he was finally able to take a deep breath.

“What is going on?” he mumbled to himself.

Had he hurt you the day he left? What had he done?

Was it the almost kiss? Had he been too cold? He didn’t mean to be that way. All he wanted was to protect himself and you. Did his fear hurt you?

John stood there watching the chaos of the city moving beneath him, it almost felt like the city’s restlessness was in his head.

He couldn’t figure you out.

You knew exactly where you were going as your feet took you right where you needed to be.

Standing outside his room, you raised your fist to knock. After the first rap, you heard the lock click open. You shuffled your feet as he opened the door. Immediately, he looked at you, and your arms wrapped around him.

“Hey, hey, Sweetheart, what’s going on?” Bucky asked and placed his hand on the back of your head to keep you close.

The door closed behind you as he held you. You didn’t even know what to tell him. You didn’t know if you were sad or mad, or just embarrassed.

He felt tears soak through his shirt and pulled you closer. He scooped you up and sat on the bed with you.

He just let you get your tears out before he spoke again. “Did John say something to you?” He asked and brushed a strand of hair out of your eyes.

The shake of your head told him otherwise, so he waited for you to speak, not wanting to overwhelm you with questions.

“I’m just embarrassed.” You admitted to him.

His brows furrowed. “Why would you be embarrassed?” Bucky asked.

“I was in the kitchen with John and Bob this morning when Alexei walked in,” you paused, and Bucky sighed. He knew this couldn’t be good.

“He told John that I had been hiding in my room, being depressed,” you told him.

The look on Bucky’s face was one of pure annoyance.

“Of course, he’d do something like that. What else did the idiot say?” He asked.

“He also compared me to a raccoon; it was embarrassing. God, you should’ve seen the look on John’s face.” You went on. “It was terrible, I just had to get out of there. I know it’s stupid to cry, but I don’t handle these feelings well,” you told him.

“It’s ok Sweetheart, Alexei is an asshole and we all know it. He just can’t keep his mouth shut about anything. I think it’s kind of like a sickness.” Bucky joked.

You let out a chuckle and rested your head on his shoulder.

A comfortable silence lay over the room like a blanket. Almost scared you spoke up again, “I don’t want John to think it’s his fault,” you revealed.

Bucky kissed your head. “Sometimes things happen for a reason. I know that everyone says it, but it’s the truth. So don’t give up on him yet. It’ll work out some way, and if it doesn’t, I’ll be right here.” His words were comfort enough for you.

“I love you, Bucky,” you said and closed your eyes.

“Love you, too, Sweetheart.”

The morning steeped into the evening like an old cup of tea. You sat in your room by the window, as you looked out at the skyline, you wondered how it was that you got here.

That thought came up in your mind more than you’d like to admit. Everyone asks themselves that, but for you, it felt different. The question was more of a ‘why me? ’.

At points in your life, you'd done some extraordinary things, you’d saved people's lives. You’d stood against this country and your friends to come to the defense of someone you believed in.

You mourned for people who should never have been lost. You mourned for who you used to be.

You had gone through more than anyone your age should have to in a lifetime, and you believed that was one of the reasons you belonged with the team.

Your past had brought you to this moment in your life, and for that, you were grateful. You were grateful for the family you’ve found along the way, and you were grateful for him.

John Walker was a man whom you never would have thought you’d fall in love with. He was sarcastic, cocky, and rude. Yet somehow he made your heart pound, your cheeks burn, and your smile stick to your lips for hours.

Now, sitting on the floor just thinking about him made your head spin. After your talk with Bucky today, you have been trying to figure out a way to fix everything.

All you wanted was for John to be happy, and if that took you out of the picture, then so be it. If John decided he didn’t want you, you would just have to find a way to cope.

Movie night was tonight, and after avoiding everyone for days, you decided not to give up. Just like Bucky told you. You were not going to give up on John.

The hallways were dark as you made your way to the main room. You could hear the popcorn being made, and everyone chatting. Before setting foot in the room, you took a deep breath and did your best to calm yourself.

You moved to enter the room when someone scooped you up from behind. You let out a shriek and grabbed the person’s shoulder. Everyone’s attention turned to you.

“Well, here she is!” you heard Bucky’s voice next to your ear. You looked at him with wide eyes, and he chuckled.

“(Y/N), we were looking for you!” Yelena said excitedly. Bucky placed you on your feet once more, and you shook your head with a laugh.

“You know I wouldn’t miss movie night!” you exclaimed. You did your best to look unfazed by John ignoring you.

Alexei almost opened his mouth, but closed it due to the looks he was being given by almost everyone in the room.

“It is nice night for movie!” he decided to say instead.

Letting out a soft laugh, you nodded. “I’m glad we’re all back together again.”

You glanced at John and were surprised to see him looking right back at you. A genuine smile stretched across your lips as he gave a small smile back.

John had been worrying all day about this moment. He didn’t know if you were gonna buddy up with someone else after everything that had happened. Because usually on Movie nights, you always chose the seat next to his. If he were on the floor, you were right there next to him, despite how uncomfortable it would be. If he was on the couch, then so were you with a blanket and two beers in your hand. He knew you didn’t like beer very much. The only reason you got the other one ‘for yourself’ was because he always wanted another one.

You would have a few sips of it, but he knew the (y/f/d) next to the beer was yours.

John was prepared for you to cuddle up with Bob or maybe even Bucky. So he tried not to care when Bucky carried you into the room.

He could feel your words were slightly aimed at him as you said you were glad everyone was together again. You were more so saying that you were glad he was home. John couldn’t help but look at you, and couldn’t seem to look away when you held his gaze.

The smile on your face was one he had missed so much, he had missed everything about you. The way your eyes brightened when you looked at him, or the way your nose slightly crinkled when you laughed.

He could see in you the moment he looked at you that you weren’t giving up. On what? He wasn’t quite sure, but it made something stir inside him. Just the small interaction you had in 15 seconds was easing his seemingly ceaseless doubts.

Something changed in John as you looked at him. He seemed at ease, it was almost as if from one glance he really saw you. You felt as if he saw the determination that had laced tightly around your heart. The determination to love him. It was almost as if you had come to an agreement. An understanding to put aside the past few days and try again.

“Whose turn to choose the movie?” You question and look around.

“I. I will choose perfect movie!” Alexei volunteers himself, and everyone lets out a collective groan of protest.

“Absolutely not.” Yelena pointed harshly at him.

“What? Why not? I choose a good movie each time,” he pouted.

“I think it’s your turn (Y/N),” John said. The whole team looked at him. Ava nodded her head.

“Yeah. It is your turn! Go ahead and choose a movie.” Ava pushed the remote into your hand, and your brows furrowed.

“Are you sure? It doesn’t feel like it is?” Your voice was uncertain.

Bucky placed a hand on your back and nudged you toward the couch. “Choose, Sweetheart. It’s your turn.” He assured you.

You smiled, nodding your head, and you plopped down on the couch. It wasn’t even a choice in your mind, it would always be (y/f/m).

A smile crept its way onto your lips as you pulled up the movie. John immediately knew your pick from the second he said it was your turn to choose the movie.

“I forgot my blanket!” you exclaimed, and were about to get up until it landed in your lap. You looked up and saw Bucky standing behind the couch with a smile.

“Did you want anything to drink?” John spoke up from beside you.

“I can get drinks for us. Did you want a beer?” You asked and again went to stand up, but he stopped you.

“I’ll get them,” he said and smiled.

He could tell you were nervous about him getting the drinks because you always got another drink for yourself. It was cute that you thought he didn’t notice.

“Oh, I um… ok, thanks.” Your voice was nervous, and you cursed yourself for it.

John walked into the kitchen, and Bucky stood there as if waiting for him.

“She’s a great girl, John,” Bucky spoke up just enough so John could hear him.

He looked over at Bucky, trying to hide the s

urprise in his eyes. He knew he was talking about you, and didn’t know what to say.

“She deserves to be happy. And as much as I hate to say it, so do you. So don’t mess this up.” Bucky’s voice was softer than he’d heard it. Yet John could still hear the edge of a threat in his tone.

Before John could say a word, the older man exited the kitchen and went back to sit by you.

John’s heart pounded. He could barely comprehend what Bucky had said.

“John! Come on, we want to start the movie!” he was pulled from his stupor as he grabbed two beers and (y/f/d). He strode back into the room and took his spot.

He placed your drink on the table in front of you, right next to the beer. And placed his beer in front of him.

You looked at your drink, and your heart stopped. Your eyes peered up at the man sitting next to you. You could feel heat rushing to your cheeks as he sent you a knowing grin.

The movie began to play, and as it kept rolling, you got closer to John. The space between you had become smaller and smaller. John looked over at you and couldn’t help but want to pull you closer. The way the screen light reflected in your eyes and the smile you had when watching your favorite scene.

He felt you move closer to him as the movie played. Your hands fidgeting with the hem of your blanket, dying to reach out for him. To reach out and hold him closer than you ever have.

You were practically right next to him now, and he decided to end both of your sufferings. He wrapped his arm around your shoulder and tugged you into his side. Your eyes widened as you looked up at him. He didn’t look at you as if it was something so casual to do.

You could see the smile on his face, though. He could feel your stare, but didn’t chance a look.

Seeing this as an opportunity to toss your blanket over him as well and tuck yourself against his chest, you did just that. That’s where you stayed for the rest of the movie.

The credits rolled over the screen, but you didn’t want to move. You didn’t want to leave his side, you felt safe and warm. He could feel your reluctance and looked down at you.

His eyes were warm, and his voice was thick from not using it for a while.

“You ok?” he asked and ran a hand over your hair.

You nodded. “Yeah, I’m just sleepy, that’s all.” It sounded like you were uncertain about what you were saying.

“Let’s get you to bed,” John whispered as he looked at almost everyone around you who had fallen asleep.

“Okay,” the disappointment in your voice hit him hard.

He knew there was more that you wanted to say, and there was more that he wanted to say as well.

He took your hand in his as he helped you up and off the couch.

Quietly, you stepped around Alexei, who was somehow passed out on the floor by the TV.

Before you exited the room, you placed your blanket across Bucky’s lap and placed a kiss on his head.

The whole tower was dark, and the moonlight was sheathed by clouds as you walked through the halls. John’s hand was firm in yours as he guided you towards your room. Now that you were alone with him, the energy shifted again.

It wasn’t anything bad or uncomfortable. It almost felt like the space between you was full.

Full of so many words that were begging to be said and heard.

John came to a stop outside your door and sighed.

He turned to look at you with an expression almost unreadable.

“I guess this is goodnight then,” he spoke softly as if your team was in the same room as you still, all fast asleep.

“I guess so,” your tone was disappointed, no matter how hard you tried to mask it. He could tell, and his heart ached.

You stepped into your room and were about to shut the door when John placed a hand on it.

“(Y/N), can we talk?” John’s words were shaky as he kept his gaze on his feet.

Your heart skipped a beat as you looked at him.

“Yeah, of course we can,” your voice was laced with nerves.

Your hands began to shake as he stepped into your room and shut the door. What was going to happen? Was this it? Or was this the end before it even had the chance to begin?

You both stood in silence for a few more seconds than was comfortable. Not knowing how to begin.

“Did I do something wrong?” John’s voice was one of confusion.

You sighed. You knew this would be a question.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you told him.

He shook his head and dragged a palm down his face.

“Then tell me why you’ve been acting so strange for four days.” his tone was gruff as he looked at you with questioning eyes.

“It’s not your fault if that’s what you’re thinking.” You did your best to remain calm. John noticed the way your hands wrung together as you answered him.

Now, in his mind, that meant he was the exact reason you cut yourself off from everyone.

“I know I was cold before I left, okay? I’m sorry.” You could see he was getting frustrated. But he didn’t seem angry, he didn’t sound like he was gonna yell. He just looked tired.

“You don’t have to be sorry. We all have bad times, not everyone gets to be happy and teeming with life all of the time.” You tried to give some kind of reassurance.

“I was an asshole for just leaving like that.” he admited. Your stomach dropped, and your eyes narrowed.

You couldn’t stand the fact that he was so harsh on himself. Sure, it wasn’t the nicest way to leave things after what had happened that morning. But not everyone deals with fear the same way. He tends to turn his head away and pretend it doesn’t exist. To be honest, he doesn’t do a great job at pretending, but he tries.

“I understand, John.” The softness of your voice made him wince. You reached forward and gently, almost hesitantly, took his hand in yours.

The feeling of your palm against his and the cool silver of your rings between his fingers caused a shiver to run through him. He didn’t want to look at you in fear he’d break, and so he kept his gaze focused on the floor. All he could see were your socked feet right in front of his, a reminder of how soft you were compared to him. He could easily lift you into his arms and never put you down.

“What do you understand?” John’s shoulders relaxed as your thumb gently pressed circles over his pulse point.

“That you’re scared,” you dared say it as his eyes finally came up to meet yours. He could see the nerves on your face. You didn’t want to upset him or make him feel less than because you could tell he was afraid to try again.

The look in his eyes was something you had never seen. It wasn’t hurt or anger. It wasn’t confusion or frustration. It was almost as if he were completely bare. His eyes held a vulnerability you had never seen. His hand tightened in yours. You encouraged him to sit with you on your bed.

The bed sank beneath his weight, and it almost felt like that weight was more than just muscle and bone. It was his fear, his struggle, his doubt. It was as if everything that he kept locked away to haunt him on a sunny day came out to play. You could see the way he seemed to bend to its will and weight.

It broke your heart. You slid from the bed and onto your knees in front of him. He looked up at the sensation of someone’s hand on his knee. John’s eyes were weary as he looked at you.

“John, it’s ok to be afraid. I think we all are on some level, and no one deserves to carry that weight alone.” Upon hearing your words, his heart sighed.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” his voice came out as a whisper.

Your gaze softened, if possible, as you placed your palms on his face.

“We can figure it out together if that’s what you want.” The suggestion caused his breath to hitch.

The man leaned into your touch, his stubble softly scratched at your palms, and you smiled.

“Okay,” his confirmation was firm but quiet. It was as if he was saying, ‘I trust you’.

He leaned forward and placed his forehead against yours. “Together,” you promised, nose nudging his softly.

You weren’t sure how long you stayed there until his hand, calloused but gentle, gripped your chin. Your breath got caught in your throat as you felt him tip your head back.

Looking up at him, your eyes sparkled. He looked at you again, as if you were the only thing in this world he wanted to call his. As if you were the only thing he has and ever will need.

His thumb smoothed over your bottom lip, you could hear your heart beat against your ribs. You were so close to him, you were scared he might be able to hear it. The look in his eyes showed something so soft, his gaze wasn’t looking through you; he was looking at you.

Really looking, it was as though he wanted to memorize you.

John’s hand was steady as he cradled your jaw. Instinctively, you leaned into his touch, and little did you know how that made him feel.

There was a feeling he got in his chest, a warmth bloomed within him that felt just like you.

He could finally breathe; there was no need to hide. Something in the way you so easily melted into his touch showed just how much you trusted him.

With your eyes closed, you could feel the way he looked at you. You felt him shift, and soon enough, you were off the floor and in his arms. The shock was easily noticed in the small yelp you let out and how you instantly held onto him. The feeling of you clinging to him made his heart race, and his head swim.

With your legs on either side of him and that look in your eyes, he swore time stopped for a moment. It was easy to see what you wanted, and John still couldn’t believe that it was him.

From his position, he gazed slightly upward at you. The smile on your face was all it took to confirm just how in love with you he was. And no matter how much that still scared him, it’s all he’s wanted since the day he met you. You couldn’t stand him then, and here you are looking at him like he was your world, like he was so much more than a broken man.

The grip on your hips suddenly tightened as he tugged you closer. He felt your hand creep its way into his hair, gently tugging the strands. He saw the way your gaze flickered to his lips when his hand traced its way up your body to grip your neck, continuing to urge you closer.

The way you completely melted into him felt like the first ray of sun after the longest winter of his life. But what he didn’t expect was the way your lips would feel against his.

The kiss wasn’t desperate or messy. It was everything that it needed to be, gentle, slow, a complete culmination of months and months of pining.

You pulled away, both of you in awe of the moment you shared.

John’s eyes searched your expression, to see nothing but wonderment. A certain charged anticipation rolling off of you in waves. He didn’t know what to say, so he let himself fall into everything that you were to him.

Strength, peace, and absolute divinity.

You sighed against his lips and ran your hands over his broad shoulders. The feeling of the man in front of you letting himself get lost in you was all that you had wanted. There in that moment, you got to experience what it felt like to be consumed by devotion, every sound, every sigh, every breath was captured by his lips. His large hand moved to cradle your jaw, tilting your head in a way that he could deepen the kiss.

His teeth grazed your bottom lip, and you moaned softly into his mouth. A kiss was placed on your open mouth as his hand slid down to place a gentle grip on your throat. Not too harshly but with enough pressure to know you’ll feel his hold for days. Enough to make you greedy for his grip. Your head fell back as he left open-mouthed kisses across your warm skin.

Your fingers tangled in his hair, doing your best to keep him close. The feeling of his stubble scratching along your sensitive skin made you shudder.

He placed a hand on the back of your head so he could bring his lips to yours one more time.

John opened his eyes just to see you with yours still closed, your lips were kiss swollen. You looked like the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“You look so pretty like this,” his voice was raspy, and you could feel the words vibrate in his chest.

Opening your eyes, you found he was already looking at you. You felt heat rush to your face at his words, and you turned your head away to avoid his gaze. Your nose nuzzled against his wrist, and you placed a tender kiss on his skin.

You heard him hum lowly at the feeling, and felt as he turned you back to face him.

“Please don’t hide from me, sweet girl, not now.” his words made your heart skip a beat.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m all yours if you want me,” you told him, and he grinned.

“I’ve never wanted anyone more.” John pressed his forehead to yours.

----

The next day came, and as you were once again getting coffee. You were just hoping you might be able to finish and enjoy your coffee this time.

Alexei and Bucky were the only ones in the kitchen when you entered, and you smiled sleepily at them both. They could tell that something had happened. You were different, they could see the love written all over your face.

Bucky’s heart swelled as he took in how radiant you were, how happy you were.

“Good night (y/n)?” Bucky asked with a small smirk.

You looked at him and rolled your eyes playfully. You could tell he was teasing you.

“Perfect, actually. Thanks for asking,” you retorted, and he chuckled.

“Perfect. Wow, that’s big change. You look like you slept well for the first time in days!” Alexei cheered as boisterously as ever.

“Well, thanks, I guess being a raccoon just wasn’t for me.” You said and shrugged.

Before anyone could say anything, John walked in, immediately kissing your head.

“I like you exactly the way you are,” he whispered as his arms wrapped your waist.

“What if I were actually a raccoon? Would you still love me?” you questioned him.

“Yeah, of course,” he huffed out a laugh.

“What about me?!” Alexei interjected.

“Yes,”

“No”

You and John answered at the same time. He looked at you like you were crazy.

“Everyone deserves to be loved, even raccoons,” you shrugged.

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multikara24 · 2 months ago

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Don't Think Twice

a/n: This is my first time writing for John Walker.. I remember back when TFATWS came out I hated this man and after seeing Tunderbolts* twice and reading some amazing work by others on here, I am writing him myself. I don't know how accurate my writing will be to his character but please enjoy.

Warnings: 18+, Slight Spoilers to Thunderbolts*, Established Relationship, Slight Domestic John, Slight Mention of Alexi and The Team, Alcohol Mentions and Consumption, Talk And Descriptions Of Creepy Male Friend, Nonconsensual Ass Touching, Sprinkled in John Hate, Mentions of John's Past, Avoided Argument, Angst If You Squint, PLOT, Smut, Unprotected, Oral (F and M Receiving), Blowjob, Cunnilingus, Slight Fingering, Slight Handjob, John Walker's (canonical) Praise Kink, Smut with Feelings, Implied PiV, I PROBABLY MISSED SOME..

Pairing: John Walker (US Agent) x F!Reader

Word Count: 3.3K

“You know, he’s only inviting you because he doesn’t know you’re inviting me.” John had always been weary of this friend of yours, you simply thought the US Agent was jealous. You knew he was a ticking time bomb half the time especially since joining the Thunderbolts which came before you figured out he was the man you wanted. When the realization dawned on you it was incredibly stupid. John was spouting off about his weapons and military service while Ghost and Yelena nodded and pretended to listen. Out of the blue you called the man a fucking idiot. “You’re a fucking idiot, John.” It was also the first time you used his first name in any context. He had to process the fact you called him an idiot over something he knew like the back of his hand and then immediately after the fact you used his name. He could tell that there was a tinge of something in your voice that made the comment less of a crude comment than he originally thought.

“You are paranoid.” You spoke softly and chuckled as you looked over at John who was lacing up his shoes. The outing was a simple bar night with your friends and Eli. It wasn’t something that went over your head when Eli’s gaze lingered a bit too long, or when he stood closer to you for a split second longer than he should have. The thought sent an uneasy shiver down your spine, nonetheless he was a nice friend and scared shitless of John. Partly due to John’s reputation but most people other than Alexi and soon the team were unaware of the relationship you held with the Dime Store Captain America. How Alexi found out you and John would rather forget then remember. A brief summary was an unlocked door, compromising positions, and Alexi misunderstanding boundaries for a moment.

“Alright.” John simply shrugged off your comment about him being paranoid. He didn’t want to be seen as overly protective even though that was exactly what he was. He didn’t even try to hide it sometimes but he still tried to deny the claims. His pride and ego would not let him say a single word on the topic. However, it was not just you who noticed Eli’s closeness. The man you told multiple times that the two of you were just friends and Eli just “accepted it”. John ticked his head to the side, a mannerism he picked up as a way to keep his anger at bay. Due to his time in the trenches this mannerism also quickly meant John was getting ready for a fight. John quickly stood as soon as his shoes were tied. Luckily, he was out of his typical attire: the spandex, armour, and tactical pants. The team practically lived in their uniforms and John took a bit more pride in his, even though he felt unworthy which he had opened up to you about after a long time of arguing.

“What does it take to get a super soldier drunk?” You ask as you notice the 6 '1 super soldier approach you from behind. Your eyes keep trained to the mirror as you're still picking out what shirt to wear. The difference between a shortsleeve with a V neck or a shortsleeve that almost looked like one of John’s that accidently shrunk in the wash. One was black and the other was a dark grey both nondescript due to the controversies behind being a superhuman, a hero, which still did not sit right in your brain.

“I can’t.” John spoke quietly as he stole a glance over your bare back before looking back in the mirror and over your shoulder. He mumbled his preference into your ear and you had to lightly shove him off you. You knew that rumbling voice of his would get you both into trouble again. John took the hint and stepped back with a shy smile that barely creased his lips. You knew he was dreading this meet up with other people, especially with how most people still looked at him. Much less your friends, much less Eli. John audibly rolled his eyes at the memory of having somewhere to be just as you finished pulling your shirt over your head.

“You’re sure we can’t just stay here?”

“And wait for Bucky to assign us another mission? I would rather go to the club and drink.” John looked at your eyes through the mirror and understood that there was no room for compromise, after all he did invite himself to this outing. John let out an audible groan which gained a glare from you and he immediately shut up.

——————————————————————————————————

When the two of you arrived at the bar you were immediately greeted by your group of friends. Eli was one of them and John tried to keep close to you despite seeing the questionable glances. He couldn’t blame your friends for being weary. You were quickly situated with John at the counter and even quicker you were turning your attention to your friends. He knew he invited himself along but the ignorance stung a bit.

John kept his eyes on you from across the bar, he was sipping on your drink that you gave to him because you “didn’t want to get too drunk” and John would have appreciated the sentiment more had Eli not been as close as he was to you. John was like a militant ready to shoot if anything went wrong. His mind was more occupied with Eli and you than it was with the fact he was currently sitting alone, he wasn’t sociable enough for your friends, or rather they still saw him as a killer. The only reason he had heard from you, that your friends even liked the Thunderbolts was because you were in the group.

John was about to take another sip of the smooth drink, still impressed that you knew how to keep your liquor, before he reacted. It was three strides and he stuffed himself in the middle of you and your friend Eli. He must have seen something before you did but the feeling wasn’t too far from as soon as John spoke. Eli’s hand had gone to your ass for some reason and immediately you jolted away as if you had been stung by a lit cigarette.

“She’s spoken for.” Was the brutally cold knife that cut through the silent air.

“By you, The Drug Store Captain America?” The tone of voice that left Eli’s mouth was more than accusatory. It was disbelief and pity, god John hated pity. John’s head ticked to the side once again before he had to remind himself not to cause a scene here. The anger bubbling under his skin was making his reminder a difficult thing to follow. He wasn’t going to lose you too.

“Yes and I suggest you don’t fucking touch her.” John was now in the man’s face. The anger he felt thinly veiled under his skin. John’s words came out more as a promised threat than a warning as he had intended. Though Eli’s drunken next words were what broke the camel's back for John.

“Or what? You’ll kill me? I don’t think she would like that very much.” You quickly reached for John’s chest both knowing that the comment was underserved and that he would be ready to fight. You simply tried to keep the super soldier away from Eli and John let you. He could have used his strength to walk into your hand and move you with him but he let you ground him. The reaction he was about to make was quickly silenced by your next words.

“John? Drop it. Enough damage has been done.” You looked up at him and noticed the look in his eyes. Your wording could have been better but you were also still in shock that Eli would try something like that. As soon as you realized John was distracted for a moment you took his hand and led him out of the bar. When the two of you were outside he went cold and took his hand back. Enough damage has been done, yeah..

——————————————————————————————————

“Enough damage?” John’s voice sounds of disbelief when the two of you entered the tower alone or at least from what the two of you gathered. That’s why he had been so cold when you tried to apologize on the way back for not heeding his earlier warning about Eli for telling him enough damage though you were quick to correct yourself. You blanked on how John would have reacted when all he was doing was trying to protect you. He wasn't a good guy but he was trying.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” You quickly interjected. You looked around the living space of the tower before looking back at John with a genuine look on your face which John noticed but he was already in his head.

“No? Then how did you mean it?” John steps up to her as if he was only half man and the other side was pure testosterone and super soldier serum. With a man like Steve Rogers the serum was accentuated with the personality traits of what made him Captain America and with a man like Walker his anger tended to be accentuated as well as his ability to be his own critic. There was never going to be another Captain America and the Government should have waited for Sam to take the shield because each time you argued with Walker he was a volcano festering yet ready to explode.

“I meant him. He ruined our friendship, John. That was the last straw.” You tried to remain civil and not raise your voice knowing an argument would fester. Now, John felt like a fool. He let his anger get a hold of him and snapped at the one person who he could trust. His ego wounded and his pride in the gutter. He was starting something out of nothing and he quickly took a step back, silently apologising. John nodded gently and looked over at you. He went from a steaming bull to a puppy who had just been scolded. You rolled your eyes teasingly and softly smiled over at him. Your smile was always contagious but it had not worked this time. John caught himself up in self-sabotaging and the desire to be more than he was.

“You did good.” You spoke gently before stepping forward to John. You noticed him puffing his chest out slightly as if he was preening at the compliment. He did pretty well.You chuckled before leaning over and whispering in his ear;

The only person allowed to touch me like that is you and a soft noise became trapped in John’s throat partly due to surprise at the comment you made.

“Damn right, I am.” The husk John’s tone took on was a welcome sound. Part of him wanted to remind you who exactly you belonged to while the other part was still fuming at the encounter at the bar. He had tried to warn you but he also did not want to come off as controlling. You pressed your lips against his Adam's Apple and another sound found itself lost within his throat. Neither of you were entirely sure how the progression happened but the both of you were standing in the kitchen John’s lips were on yours kissing like a man starved. He only pulled back to pull your shirt over your head and help you with his shirt. His hand quickly found your exposed thigh as he pressed you further against the hanging cabinet. He slotted himself between your legs yet he didn’t fully press against you. He looked up from where the skin of his hand was against yours and the space between the both of you.

“It’s okay.” You said as soon as you saw the look in his eyes. The haste need was momentarily tossed aside by reverence and the question of consent before he even opened his mouth. When he heard your words he removed the hand on your thigh and dropped to his knees. You were expecting him to tease you, to be needy and take, instead he threw you a curveball. Warforged fingers quickly slide down your panties, his eyes remaining on yours. His blue irises softened as he worked your panties off your ankles. His touch was possessive, enticing a fire to your skin. He took one last glance between the both of you and your face. The needy and anticipating look on your face forced a reaction from the hardness tenting in his jeans.

“Good boy.” Another small noise became trapped in his throat when you murmured the two words and scooted closer to the edge of the counter. Both of his hands went to the curves of your waist keeping you trapped against him with his inhuman strength, without another word he began. One of his hands kept your skirt hiked up as he licked a stripe against your cunt. When you moaned his name he let his tongue have a mind of its own. Within a matter of moments your hand was in his blonde hair and your legs tense over his shoulders. He was eating you out like a man starved, as if one moment all of this could go away and he would wake up alone. The need to please was higher than the twitch of his tented cock he groaned into your cunt. The taste, the sounds you made, the way his body reacted to how he was making you feel, the praise falling from your lips.

“Christ..” He took a moment to breathe. The breath of his words hot against your center before he continued. He got off on the cry of his name on your lips, he chuckled gently at just how sweet the sound was. The muscles in his shoulders taut as he tries to keep you from writhing too much. The both of you had to admit this was hot, even the cocksure part of John was incredibly proud to be on his knees.

“J-John!!” He simply hummed into your cunt as he knew what you were trying to express. You were close and he could tell as his teeth gently grazed over your clit. He brought his fingers into play as his tongue focused on your clit. Pumping his middle finger in and out, curling to meet your g-spot, a second finger irresistibly found your center and as soon as he felt you cumming on his fingers he pulled them away and lapped up what he could. He rode you through your orgasm before feeling you pull back on his hair.

“Can’t help it, you taste amazing.” He spoke with a cocky yet affectionate smirk. He pulled back and slowly got to his feet trying to look for your shirts in hopes that the rest of the team wouldn’t find them before you two did. Although, when you slid off the counter and went to your knees John’s search was quickly forgotten.

“It looks painful.” That was a sight.. You on your knees for him, thighs still clenched together. His mind buffered for a moment. Sure, there were times you had him finish in your mouth but the sight. Who in their right mind would refuse you. In a way he couldn’t blame Eli for wanting a shot with you but John was over the moon that at the end of the you choose him. It spoke more than the praise you gave him sometimes. He shook his head in hopes to find a response other than gripping the counter. If he pulled the counter would come loose with ease. Painful was an underestimate.

“He’s always like this when it comes to you.” John’s ability to protest the move to the bedroom or out of the openness of the kitchen was quickly thrown out of the window as soon as your hands worked to free him from his confines. He simply watched as you took care of him, his hips jolting forward at the soft and simple jerk. You knew his ticking points and just how long until you could leave him a goddamn mess. He wasn’t often an advocate for oral from you since he thought he was unworthy but the way you had your thumb brushing over his tip smearing his precum. His bicep flexed as he white-knuckled the counter. He tried to let you take your time, tease him, but his restraint was a ticking time bomb that sped up with every furthering touch.

“You’re so handsome, John.” He had half a mind to grab your jaw and open it, tell you to open wide and take him already. He was playing the fools game and treating you despite what he wanted. When you licked his tip slowly and teasing all that left his mouth was a guttural groan. His mouth remained open and his eyes screwed shut as short, quick bursts of air left his lungs. That egged you on just enough. Your first attempt to take him all the way down was met with a gag and an immediate deep groan from John. When coming up bob your head to set a rhythm before going again and again until you finally take him deep enough. When you do manage to take all of him his hand is immediately in your hair.

“Stop teasing.” You bobbed your way up his length and took his words as a challenge.

“Or what?” Your voice was already taking on a hoarse tone. John took on the challenge and chuckled looking down at you with lust blown and darkened irises. “I won’t be able to play Mr. Nice Guy much longer.” You couldn’t help but roll your eyes amusedly. You knew he was lost to lust but his words were somewhat funny yet you also knew better than to get him to that point or his super soldier stamina would be the reason you saw stars until the early morning. You finally gave in and worked him with your mouth. What you didn’t fit was worked in your hand.

It only took a matter of seconds before John’s hand was in your hair again but this time he was guiding you and his hips were moving in tandem. This was what you wanted, him taking matters into his own hands while using your mouth. Not just had you said that when you pulled back again your actions more than proved it. He was not going to say no but God was his guilt going to eat him alive. When he pulled back again you praised him knowing the falsities behind his cocky attitude. You could hear it in each praise he tried to give you. His voice was filled with groans and swears, stumbles of breath and the occasional reminder that this is what you wanted.

“FUCK!” Was groaned loudly alongside your name with one final push deep into your throat as he came undone. He rode himself through his orgasm and as soon as he pulled back he took a moment to come down and help you up. The kiss, initiated by you, was what sealed the fate of tonight. You pulled back first but Walker’s hands were on your waist.

“We should clean up..” Both of you could be saved the embarrassment of being asked about the cleanness of the counter. Walker made a mental note to take care of the messes as he was finished with you. He had you walking backwards with his lips on yours, the counter on which he had you finish and wiping off the floor if needed was lost to his mind.

Fucking Super Soldiers..

#x reader #fanfic #marvel #john walker fanfic #john walker marvel #john walker #john walker x reader #john walker mcu #us agent #new avengers #john walker smut #thunderbolts #thunderbolts x reader #john walker x you #smut #John walker's praise kink #I don't know what else to tag #x female reader #john walker x fem!reader

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thunderboltssasterisk · 1 month ago

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Thermodynamic Equilibrium - I

Title: Thermodynamic Equilibrium

Pairing: U.S. Agent! John Walker x Extremis! Reader

Rating: Explicit - 18+

Word Count: 15.3k+

Warnings: smut, talks of medical abuse and human experimentation, discussion of ethical concerns regarding working for government agencies no matter how legit they seem, violence, violence against animals, animal death/murder (it’s a snake), suicidal ideation, survivor's guilt, discussion of child abuse, insecurities, and addiction, not-quite infidelity but John hasn’t signed the papers yet (out of pride) so it would be legally complicated for sure

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Smut Prep: (not a hugely obvious dynamic in this part but overall) sub! John Walker/domme! Reader, AFAB reader (no Y/N), first time/getting together, praise kink, handjob, fingering, p-in-v penetration, mention/discussion of pegging

Important Note: this fic will NOT contain any Olivia bashing. That woman made the best, most logical choice for the wellbeing of her home and her son. I’ve seen a lotta John fics demonize her and that’s actually crazy to me fr like they’re divorcing anyway???? I like her idk sue me

Ao3 Link: here

Summary: set between TFATWS and Thunderbolts* this will be part 1 of a John Walker/Reader series where you are a survivor of the Extremis Project (from IM3) who worked for Tony and now, post-blip, for Val. The next few parts will be set during Thunderbolts* and then continue into the 14 months between Thunderbolts* and the Fantastic 4 arrival.

The tunnels were poorly ventilated. You had, for the most part, stopped being surprised by things like that, but occasionally the poor conditions of the places you raided on Valentina’s behalf left even you appalled. It was a classified underground facility in Nevada this time - though not Area 51, much to your chagrin - located several hundred miles West into the Mojave desert. It was a facility that OXE had taken a special interest in, after a particularly nasty spat between Val and her recently-unskrulled ex-husband, and it was your job to infiltrate the vault-like fortress in the pursuit of information it may have housed on “any potential future-threats.”

Basically, you were there to spite the CIA.

The thought made you itchy, irritation prickling your forever-feverish skin as you pondered just how little your actual life meant to Valentina. This whole mission was pointless, anyway, in your not-so-humble opinion. Valentina was already director of the CIA, the problem was that her ex-husband wouldn’t allow her access to any of the medical trial results without proper logging. Valentina couldn’t stand it. If you were being honest, you didn’t blame Agent Ross for being such a stickler - last time the government had been allowed to run around unchecked, they had been infiltrated by Nazis. But Valentina needed to prove a point, so she was sending you off to die. So long as you died in a way that left the older woman able to collect your body, you doubted she would even notice you were gone. You tried - and failed - not to let that bother you. Tony Stark hadn’t been the most openly-jovial employer the world had ever known, sure, but the missions you had been tasked with running for Iron Man had, at least, made sense. They had been helpful. Good. You had been doing good under Iron Man, but you doubted more and more every mission whether or not you were doing good under the Contessa de Fontaine.

You missed Tony.

Well, maybe you didn’t miss Tony, nor even really the Iron Man, but you missed the freedom you’d had working for him. The remorse he felt every time he’d seen you had driven his generosity, you knew, but you hadn’t been about to protest a competitive salary and fully-funded living accommodations. All you’d had to do was work for him. Keep the Extremis serum active inside of you for a few more years to help Tony clean up the last of his loose ends, and he would keep you well-compensated and, when the time came, he would help reverse the effects of AIM’s experiments on you, like he’d done for Pepper Potts. At the time, it had seemed like an exceptional deal. You should have realized it was too good to be true.

Tony Stark, as it turned out, had had a lifetime’s worth of loose ends for you to tie up. Enemies with enemies with enemies, all of them somehow smarter and more harrowing than the last, and all of them with some sort of vendetta against Tony and fetish for human experimentation. You’d freed so many lab rats. People like you, who had gone, struggling, around the world looking for cures to their ailments, or for something to ease their pain. So many labs, so many warehouses. So many bodies. You had done a great deal of particularly heinous things in your pursuit to destroy the people like AIM and Aldrich Killian. Things you regretted, at times, when thoughts of your past plagued you unrelentingly. But they had been for a greater good, done in an attempt to earn back your own freedom.

Then Tony had gone and died.

Surely there had been more to it than that, but it’s not like anybody had bothered to sit you down and tell you anything about your employer’s demise. He’d died a hero, everyone knew, saving half the universe from the tyrant of tyrants. Nobody save for the former Avengers actually knew what the fuck that meant, though. It infuriated you, at times, the secrecy that now seemed into every crevice of your life.

You had no time to dwell on that in Nevada.

The facility, though poorly ventilated, was well-lit despite being so many miles underground, and you found yourself struggling more than usual to stay hidden in the too-wide halls. You had never been outstanding at stealth missions, you could admit. You were too anxious for them, far preferring a traditional smash-and-grab to the asinine recon plan Valentina had armed you with. But, Valentina now paid your bills, and if she was paying, she was saying.

The plan, though terrible, was simple enough. You had already completed the first phase of it, making your way down into the facility alongside supply crates in the back of an armoured truck. You’d managed to hide amongst the crates until someone had come in to unload, where you’d knocked them unconscious and taken their uniform and ID badge. Sneaking around the place had gone smoothly thus far, but the constant nerves were beginning to get to you as you crept around looking for the R&D level, your internal temperature beginning to rise even further at the stress. That had always been a problem. Well, not always, but since being subjected to the Extremis Project, your internal temperature had run rampant, a spectrum running from ‘a touch too hot’ to ‘too hot to touch’, depending on what was going on. You were lucky, though. Tony had managed to stabilize the Extremis formula - eradicated it entirely in Pepper, even - so there was very little risk of you turning into an accidental I.E.D. anymore.

You tried taking comfort in this as you finally managed to locate level 7, the basement of the underground building and the research-and-development floor for the base. This had been your target. Valentina had assured you that the floor was cleared out for the next two hours - something about a maintenance issue taking out the cameras on the floor and the higher-ups not wanting to risk giving opportunity to any whistle-blowers - so it caught you entirely off guard when you slipped into the room to find someone waiting there for you.

John Walker.

Irritation spiked your temperature again, an orange haze certainly visible glowing beneath your cheekbones as you stared on in annoyance. Typical. It was so fucking typical of Valentina to double up her odds without informing her gambling tokens, sending them out blindly and damn-near directionless in order to see who came back successful every time. So far, it had always been you, but, it seemed, it had also been Walker.

“What are you doing here?” the former Captain America sneered when he saw you, annoyance plain on his face. You scoffed.

“I’m at work, dumbass,” you spat back at him. You had been paired up blindly a time or two before, and worked in a group of three with him exactly once in the past. You hadn’t particularly enjoyed any of those ops. You doubted John had either.

John rolled his eyes at your petty response, filling in the gaps for himself when you didn’t bother to elaborate further. He wasn’t a dumbass. Despite what you had called him, you knew he wasn’t actually a dumbass. He was actually quite smart, or, at the very least, insanely strategically-minded. An exceptional soldier. A piss-poor spy.

“How the hell did you even get in here?” you demanded, and it was John’s turn to scoff and withhold a proper answer. Instead, he just turned his back back to you, attention returning to the stainless steel tables covered in equipment.

It was a large room the two of you occupied, with rows of experimental setups lining the place and a great deal of troubling-looking beakers and vials filling the shelves. It made you uneasy. This room reminded you too much of the labs AIM had housed you in, once upon a time. An impending sense of doom began to creep up on you, your anxiety spiking as the room began to feel smaller, as though it were shrinking around you. You knew it wasn’t. It was all in your head, but it was distracting you nonetheless. Making you sloppy.

“Why are you just standing there?” John’s annoyed voice cut through your panic, though you rolled your eyes at him rather than acknowledge the unintended aid.

“I’m locking in,” you mumbled the lie as you shook your head. Focusing back on the task at hand, you started scanning the room for a computer set up. You located one at the back of the room and b-lined for it as Walker started pulling out physical files from the cabinets and drawers.

Walker, at least, had the courtesy to ignore you. He looked exhausted. He had bags under his eyes, deep and purple like a bruise, and his posture, while technically perfect, held less tension than the last time you’d seen him. Like he was deflating. Too tired for your nonsense. There was less fire behind his eyes now. It worried you, in that vague sort of way it would worry you to see anybody falling apart at half speed. You went back to ignoring him in order to focus on the computer.

Before AIM and Extremis, you’d been a hacker. Not a label you loved, granted, but certainly one that applied. You’d always been skilled with systems and code, always had a knack for finding back doors and shortcuts where you weren’t supposed to. Your mission training - your combat training - had come later, after the serum took. After your spine healed. Valentina had made a point of using you for both skillsets, much to your chagrin, but you supposed you couldn’t blame her.

Stupid to only use half an asset.

The CIA’s systems were almost concerningly easy to get into, but you weren’t about to complain. You made swift progress, downloading files onto a usb drive within minutes as Walker continued to root around the room for manila file folders and loose paperwork, both of you determined to collect more information than the other in a silent standoff.

God you wanted to win.

Despite your dislike of the woman, you wanted to be the one to return to Valentina with the better haul. Be the better agent. Walker was undeniably the perfect soldier, but you were by far the better spy. You wanted to prove it. Your hatred of stealth missions aside, you, at least, hadn’t worn literal Stars and Stripes to invade an American base, and you were certain you could download more than he could carry.

You’re not sure what triggered the alarm.

It could have been you. Certainly, it could have been you, though you found it unlikely. A loud, piercing siren had started blaring over unseen speakers, the lights in the room flashing a deep red in warning. You didn’t know why. You were a lot of things, but sloppy in a system wasn’t one of them. John hadn’t been doing much that could have alerted anybody to your presence, though, or so you’d thought. Turning around to face the former Captain America, your blood ran cold when you saw him holding the door of a now-open safe. It could have been either of you, in the end, but you didn’t have time to analyze.

Realistically, if you were captured, you probably wouldn’t be killed on sight. No - if the CIA got you alive, they would keep you alive as a bargaining chip against Val. While it was unlikely that she would negotiate for either you or Walker alone, the pair of you together would undoubtedly increase your odds of being rescued. Your odds of getting out unscathed, however, were exceptionally grim.

“Walker,” you called out worriedly, “Walker, man, we gotta go!”

John was two steps ahead of you, halfway marched across the room by the time you’d finished speaking. He dragged one of the lab tables over in front of the door, barricading it temporarily as you scanned for another way out. You had to think fast. You knew that you’d only have minutes, if that, before the CIA managed to break through that door and take you both hostage. The walls were solid stone, same with the floor, but there was a huge ventilation shaft coming down from the ceiling. You bolted towards it.

“What are you doing?!” John demanded frantically, voice full of an uncharacteristic panic.

“I’m getting us out of here! Come here and give me a boost,” you explained over the noise, and John, reluctantly, rushed to join you. “I’ll pull you up after.”

“Will you actually?” John asked incredulously. “Or are you gonna bail on me like a coward? You don’t even have anything to open it with!”

“Oh my god, dude, I don’t have time to explain it! You’re just gonna have to trust me, holy fuck,” you spat, “now give me a boost so we don’t fucking die, Walker!”

John hesitated for half a second before complying, kneeling down and presenting his shield for you to step on. He lunged upwards when you did, sending you careening towards the vent. You dug your fingers into the steel, heat like molten fire pouring out in concentrated waves. In seconds, your fingers had sunk through the metal, allowing you to grip and pull and send the offending vent flying. The alarm was still screaming at you and Walker, footsteps audible as they approached from the left hallway. Moving quickly, you willed the heat in your hands to dissipate as you hoisted yourself up into the vent, grateful that they were big enough to hide a person.

“That bitch!” you heard John yell as you disappeared into the metal hideaway, and your stomach churned at the way he sounded. Scared. Angry, too, for sure, but mostly John Walker sounded scared as he raged a floor below you.

It only took you half a second longer to turn around and lower the upper half of your body back out the opening, but that was long enough for John to have backed up to take a running start at it. Without thinking, you held your arms out wide, catching the super soldier with a yelp, your feet digging desperately into metal to keep you from falling back out onto the floor below. Your feet began to heat, the bottoms of your shoes melting slightly to help stick to the steel, but you had him.

You had him.

He seemed just as shocked to be caught as you had been to catch him, if the look on John’s face was anything to go by. You didn’t have time to explain yourself, instead grunting with exertion as you hoisted yourself and Walker back up into the vents. You had to get moving.

“Come on,” you urged and started forward without a backwards glance. The alarms sounded louder in there, somehow, and the sound was getting to you more and more each passing second. It was jarring. You’d always hated loud noises.

The vents were only wide enough for one, forcing you and John to move single-file down the metal shafts. You had a vague idea where you were going, but something told you that phrasing it like that to John may actually make the man’s head explode. You could have laughed at the irony. The two of you moved silently for several minutes, both of you doing your best to ignore the blaring alarm and claustrophobic tightness of your current setting.

You both froze when you heard footsteps beneath you. At least a dozen men passed below, judging by the sound, moving quickly and only slightly out of sync with one another in their urgency to find their target. To find you. Terror gripped your heart, panic seizing your bones as you did your best to will the heat away. You were failing. A faint glow began to emit not from the grid places in the vent below, but from you. Orange in colour instead of the harsh red, the Extremis serum was betraying your anxiety as openly as a tattoo on your forehead reading COWARD.

John’s fingers curled around your ankle.

A harsh gasp ripped its way out of your throat at your surprise, the instinct to kick John in the face a hard one to overcome. The glow grew then, heat radiating off of you as you did your best to prepare for whatever it is the super soldier was about to do to you. Something to increase his own odds of survival, you were sure.

“Relax,” John’s voice was as quiet as it could be, but firm. An order. “Come on, Lava Lamp, you gotta take a breath.”

You tried not to feel annoyed at the nickname or the commands as surprise added to the suspense rattling around inside your bones. Instead, you focused on John’s words themselves. Relax. Take a breath. You could do that. You could do both of those things. Squeezing your eyes shut, you did your best to ignore the chaos around you, focusing instead on the feeling of John’s hand against your skin.

You were surprised it had remained there. You weren’t stupid, nor were you in any way blissfully unaware of how unpleasant you were to touch, even through John’s gloves. Your skin burned more often than not, uncomfortable at least and lethal at worst for those around you. It had been so, so long since you’d felt anybody’s hand but your own.

When you opened your eyes, the glow had faded, your natural skin colour returning in the low visibility. You still felt warm - burning where John touched you - but John didn’t flinch. You glanced back at him, croaking out a weak; “don’t call me Lava Lamp.”

You knew immediately that the nickname would stick. John’s face had split into a Cheshire Cat-like grin at your words, causing you to roll your eyes. You wanted to keep moving but selfishly - humiliatingly - you didn’t want to move away from the hand on your ankle just yet. It was nice. Nicer than most things you’d endured since Killian found you. There was still a mission, though, so you shook yourself of the foolishness and kept moving.

Eventually, you and John came to a point in the ductwork that veered upwards as it connected to the floor above. Level 6. Turning your head to face John, you relayed your plan as effectively as you could with the sirens blaring still.

“This vent has to lead outside,” you explained, “eventually, at least, but I have to go first. I’ll melt hand and foot holes as I go. Wait a few minutes, then follow me up. It’ll be like the world’s worst rock climbing.”

If John was amused by your attempt to lighten the mood, he didn’t show it. Instead, the blond man nodded once sharply and watched, silent, as you began your ascent. It hurt. Using the Extremis serum always hurt, and the overstimulation was making everything worse. But, you, slowly but surely, managed to drag yourself up the vent shaft, leaving behind adequate hand-holds for John to use after. It took you several minutes to climb all the way to the next horizontal section of ducts, but you were grateful for the reprieve. You only had to wait another 5 minutes or so for your unwilling companion to join you.

“You didn’t leave?”

You tried not to feel offended at the accusation behind his words, but it was likely written on your face, with the way John shot you an unimpressed look. Of course he would have expected you to bail. People didn’t work for Valentina if they had a reliable team to work with instead.

“Come on, Walker.” you replied instead, and you and John continued silently through the vents for the next hour. You repeated your solo ascents up the vents when needed, five more times before coming to the final vertical shaft.

There was sand everywhere. It was seeping into places you hadn’t imagined possible, pervading so many feet down the metal hall that it seemed to be a fantasy at the end of the tunnel rather than your final escape to freedom. The sand had piled in an incline, making it an awkward crouch as you attempted to get into position.

“Can you give me a boost again?” you asked, and John huffed. The alarm was still going, the screaming of the sirens fainter now but still suffocating in their relentless shrieks. You were getting tired of practically having to shout above them.

“Can’t you just do your little trick again?” he shot back. Irritation was plain on his face, but nevertheless, John was maneuvering the shield back off his back and shimmying it forward as he spoke. Taking his advice, though, you hoisted yourself up a foot, arms shaking with exertion until John slipped the shield under you.

John launched you upwards again like he had in the lab, on his knees in the loose sand this time as he did. You were more stable, this time, able to lean against the vent walls as you gripped your escape hatch, where you again pushed your hyper-heated hands through the metal until the grid face gave way and fell to the ground. There was a three foot drop to the ground below, and it was one you happily did in exchange for finally being free of the blaring of the alarms.

Relief coursed through you as you pulled yourself up out of the sand. You were free. You were quick to stick half your body back inside after scanning the area, and you saw John looking up at you with an unreadable expression when you did. It was somewhere between awestruck and full of loathing, and it made your heart drop into your stomach at the sight. “Come on!” you called down instead of acknowledging the look.

The man below you struggled momentarily to strap his shield back onto himself before stretching up to reach your outstretched hand. You struggled a tad to hoist the super soldier out of the vent, but you managed it with a grunt. You backed up as you pulled, leaving room for John to fall into the sand the same way you had. He did. It wasn’t until he refused to stand back up that you realized something truly was wrong. John was curled up on the ground, head between his knees as his hands pressed against his ears.

His ears.

Understanding slammed into you, guilt and pity swelling in your chest as you remembered reading about the enhancements Walker’d gotten from his bootleg serum, enhanced senses being among them. Enhanced hearing. However bad the alarms and lights had been for you, they’d undeniably been worse for John.

“Come on, Walker,” you urged gently, empathy bleeding into your voice in spite of yourself. “I know it sucks but we gotta go.”

For half a second, John looked like he wanted to protest, but instead he picked himself up from the sand and nodded towards what, to you, seemed to be a random direction. “That way,” he muttered, and you followed easily enough. Now was hardly the time to argue.

You found yourself quietly grateful for John’s presence as you wandered the desert together, the sun setting rapidly and falling behind the mountainous skyline in the hours you’d spent walking. You were good, sure, and hard to kill, but you weren’t a survivalist. You weren’t prepared for anything other than an immediate extraction, but that wasn’t something you could risk with the base on such high alert. Instead, you and Walker were forced to keep moving, to put as much distance between you and the facility as you possibly could before radioing Val for pickup. You didn’t know how long that would take.

You two had stopped only once since escaping the base. John had crouched down unexpectedly to cut some sort of overly-textured fruit off of a pretty desert plant. More than you would have known to do. Next to you, John seemed even less thrilled about your circumstances than you were, if the look on his face was anything to go by. His eyebrows were knit together in an aggravated sort of concentration, nose red and lips pursed into a tight line. With his arms wrapped around himself the way they were, John Walker looked thoroughly discontent.

He looked cold.

That was something you didn’t really get to feel anymore. Cold. It was a foreign concept by that point, the Extremis Project having eradicated your ability to fall below a certain internal body temperature, even if you’d tried. But the serum John had gotten clearly hadn’t done the same to him, and while in any other circumstances you’d’ve been likely to call him a lucky bastard for it, you couldn’t help but feel bad then.

He looked cold.

You had only worked with John properly a handful of times, but you already knew that if you brought it up to him without a solution, he would get snippy and close off. John Walker was a planner, one that was easily frustrated by a statement of the obvious when it wasn’t immediately followed by a pitch on how to correct it. It made sense, you supposed, given his extensive military training, but it didn’t make him easy to talk to.

In the end, it wasn’t you that broached the subject. It was John, his teeth gritted in an attempt not to chatter as he spoke; “we have to find somewhere to hunker down.”

You knew he was right. The desert during the day was scorching, the kind of heat that even you noticed when exposed to it for too long. The light and warmth both faded fast here, though, the quickly-cooling sand doing nothing to hold its heat as the sun fell below the mountains. Dry and unyielding, the sun had been blistering; the moon, however, seemed to radiate nothing but cold as it rose to take its place.

You scanned the world around you, eyes peeled for any sort of opening in the rocks you two were now surrounded by. It was dark but you were able to make out the opening soon enough, your eyes drawn to a particularly dark shadow along the stone. A cave. The Mojave desert was full of cave systems and you were beyond grateful for the sight of one then.

“Come on, Walker,” you said, grabbing a hold of his elbow. It was unnecessary, you knew, but Walker didn’t comment on it as you tugged him towards the cave you found. The wind in the Mojave was biting and you needed desperately to get the super soldier out of it.

Walker followed you wordlessly, feet damn near silent as you moved together in the sand. You two had worked together well thus far, something that surprised you greatly. You weren’t exactly the team-up-type and you figured Walker wasn’t either, after Germany. Maybe he had been at one point - surely he had been, as a captain for the United States - but not anymore. It hadn’t been the worst mission in history, though, so you had to count the wins where you could get them.

The entrance to the cave was slightly smaller than you had anticipated at first glance, but you were hardly complaining. The cavern in the rock was spacious, as far as wounds in rock face could be concerned. It was big enough to cocoon you and Walker semi-comfortably, about 9 feet tall and 12 feet deep into the stone, but the problem became evident at the width. It was tight, barely wide enough for you and Walker to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, but the relief from the wind was instantaneous for him.

“Brace yourself,” John muttered shakily, “close your eyes.”

Your eyes slammed shut instantly, but the sudden light that flooded the dark space you shared burned despite your lowered lids. You shaded your eyes with your hand as you opened them, squinting against the harsh white that illuminated the small space.

That’s when you heard it.

The rattle of a rattlesnake was a nigh unmistakable sound, one you hadn’t heard in years - one that filled the cave you and Walker were hiding in. Your eyes shot down immediately where, coiled angrily around the tactical light Walker had thrown on the ground, you saw a Mojave Rattler. It was a beautiful snake, in any other circumstance, but its tail rattled violently, a clear warning of its intent.

“Don’t move,” you hissed at Walker and the man beside you froze.

You braced yourself for the snake to lunge, and you met it when it did. Your hand burned where you grabbed the creature, its scales scalding beneath your skin immediately, but you didn’t dwell on the feeling as you hurled it out of the cave. You felt terrible as you watched the snake fly for as far as you could in the darkness, but you knew it didn’t really matter where it landed, anyway. It was dead either way.

Guilt churned in your stomach painfully, nausea overwhelming you once the adrenaline had passed. You almost didn’t notice Walker reach out for you, but you’d clocked it in time to not be visibly startled when his hand landed on your arm.

“You good?” John asked, his voice taking on an uncharacteristically soft edge as his thumb began to rub your upper arm. You doubted he’d even realized he was doing it.

“Yeah,” you lied, “I’m fine. Good call with the light.”

You glanced around the small cave in the light provided, scanning for any more creatures or critters you may have to handle before you settled in for the night. There wasn’t any. Relief coursed through you properly for the first time all day, the cave acting as a temporary sanctuary for the pair of you in the aftermath of a - frankly - terrible mission.

With nothing left to do, you slowly sank to the floor of the cave, your body sinking slightly into the sand covering the stone beneath you. You were so fucking tired. Using your abilities was something you’d gotten better at over the years, sure, but that didn’t exactly make them easy for you to use. They were exhausting. Draining. Energy siphoning in a way that made you feel hollow in the aftermath, no matter how many years it’d been.

John hesitated only a moment before joining you on the ground as best he could. He reached between you to turn the light off then, flooding the crevice with shadows and darkness as he adjusted his limbs so they could slot between yours in the sand. Arguably, you didn’t have to sit so close together, but with your legs touching his the way they suddenly were, you could feel that he’d started shaking. He was so fucking cold. You sighed heavily, chest tightening when John flinched at the sound.

“We’ll radio out to Valentina tomorrow,” John said before you had a chance to comment, “put a couple hundred clicks between us and the base before we do.”

You nodded, though you doubted John could see you anymore. Although maybe he could, with his freaky enhanced super senses. You weren’t sure. Regardless, you didn’t much feel like talking anymore, instead dwelling on the mess of a mission you’d just survived, no small amount of guilt weighing down your heart over the fate of the cave snake. You weren’t even really sure why it was bothering you so much, but it was.

“It was a Mojave Rattlesnake,” John said suddenly, his voice quiet but still startling in the too-small space. “Venomous as hell. I don’t really know why they’re called that, though. They’re found all over southwestern America, and even down into Mexico. They’re, like, barely Mojave. This part of the desert only makes up, like, 12 or 20 perc-”

John had cut himself off. You did your best to ignore the tremor running through his body as confusion overcame you. Why had he shut up? You glanced around again for a threat, your eyes darting to the mouth of your little hideaway, but there was nothing there. Nobody. You debated asking John what was wrong before deciding against it, instead closing your eyes as you attempted to will yourself into some form of sleep. Then, another rattle-like sound filled the cave.

John’s teeth were chattering.

The revelation sent an unpleasant feeling dripping down your spine, like molten pity or white-hot shame. You knew John wouldn’t want to talk about it - wouldn’t want you to actually acknowledge what was going on - so you didn’t. Instead, you closed your eyes and began to focus, all of your remaining energy put into your efforts to raise your own temperature on purpose. You didn’t have to open your eyes to know you had begun to glow faintly again, an orange hue filling the space in the rock between you and Walker. You heard him gasp.

“You’ll warm up soon,” you assured him. You were grateful when he didn’t comment on the strain in your voice.

You stayed like that for several silent minutes, sweat dripping down your temples at your effort to project heat without malice. Heat with the intent to kill had always been simpler. There was less precision required when it didn’t matter the collateral - less consequences to live with after you were dead. This, though? This was to help. To keep someone else alive. Heat with the purpose to sustain was almost foreign to you, and you were clearly out of practice.

“How do you do that?”

The question caught you off guard, the faint light and excess heat receding back into you at John’s inquisitive tone. With a bitter laugh, you choked out the explanation of; “barely.”

It was grim, but it was true. Judging by his silence, John knew it too. He was still cold. Your heat trick had helped, had stopped the chattering of the super soldier’s jaw, but it wasn’t enough to ward off the late Nevada night. While you remained relatively unaffected by the cold, John hadn’t prepared for it. Not enough. Not the way the Extremis Project had forced you to, years prior. He was still in his typical U.S. Agent get-up - a black-and-red inversion of the red-white-and-blue thing Captain America had going on - which you now knew to be uninsulated. You doubted his helmet provided any sort of warmth either, save for possibly around his eyebrows and cheekbones. His gloves and boots were tactile, not cold guards, and his shield was a concave sheet of freezing metal,

God, you hoped he didn’t freeze to death.

The thought, while morbid, was entirely possible if the temperature kept dropping. The elements could kill just as harshly as any man-made weapon ever could, and in some cases, it was worse. You didn’t want that for John - nor for yourself, as unlikely as that scenario may have been - so you sat quietly while you wracked your brain for a solution. Only one seemed obvious.

“Come on,” you said. You were getting sick of saying it. “I know it’s fucking weird, but we gotta get you warm, so-”

“Why?”

The question caught you off guard. The word - a single syllable - felt like a gunshot in the way it ricocheted around your head, its path of carnage immeasurable in the half seconds it took you to react. His voice had been so… resigned. Tired. He’d been asking simply to hear your answer.

“What the hell do you mean ‘why?’” you spat harshly, and in the darkness you could faintly make out the way John flinched at your tone. “I’m not gonna let you fucking freeze to death, Walker. You’re my teammate for tonight.”

You debated saying more - debated telling him that you wanted to keep him alive because, despite your discontent at your situation, you didn’t think he was the worst man alive. You didn’t think he was the monster of monsters that a lot of news outlets had painted him out to be, nor did you think you could find it in you to blame him for the way he’d snapped that day overseas. You thought about telling him about how kindly he had treated you in comparison to so many others, even in spite of his harsh tones and coarse exterior. But you didn’t. Shame and unwanted memories bubbled to the surface as you wracked your brain for more to say that, somehow, wouldn’t betray how rapidly you’d grown attached to the broken man before you.

“I didn’t even get the files.”

The admission was soft. Quiet. Almost inaudible with the wind rushing past the cave entrance, but you’d heard it nonetheless. Your eyes finally seemed to be adjusting to the overwhelming darkness surrounding you both, leaving some of John’s features visible despite the lack of light. There was a frown on his face, his eyebrows furrowed, and you could see his arms wrapped around himself in an attempt to ward off the cold.

“I got the usb,” you assured quickly, but John’s loud scoff was followed quickly by him slamming his helmeted-head back against the stone wall of the cave he leaned against.

“But I didn't get the files!” his voice was strained and angry. Fear had begun to creep back up on you; a more immediate kind of terror compared to the bone-deep existential dread you had been navigating since the mission’d started. You didn’t like it when Walker got angry. “I didn’t get the files, I didn’t complete my mission. I let Valentina down and I’m the one that’s going to have to pay for it! Me! So I don’t really give a fuck if you got your part of the job, okay? I still fucking failed at mine.”

You weren’t entirely sure where the emotional outburst was coming from. Or, you were, he had just explained it - profanity laced as the explanation may have been - but you weren’t sure why this had been the breaking point. Surely the military legend was trained to hold on just a little while longer, no? AIM had trained you to withstand genuine torture tactics their enemies may have thrown at you, surely America had done the same for him.

“I wasn’t bragging,” you said quietly, “I wouldn't have made it out of the room without you, you wouldn’t have made it out of the vents without me. We’re even, here, Walker. We got whatever they had.”

The words tasted bitter in your mouth, even as you spoke them freely. Sharing credit had never been your strong suit, much preferring to shoulder your breaks and burdens solo, or choke down any unforeseen consequences the same way. Leaving John alone in this didn’t seem to be an option, then. You could tell that whatever part of this had broken something in John that night, it had shattered it in a way that wasn’t fixable by awkwardly-offered compromise alone.

Then his teeth started chattering again.

You couldn’t keep the annoyance out of your heavy sigh if you had tried, prompting an equally-irritated sound from John in response. This was ridiculous. You hadn’t been about to extend an olive branch to an icicle, no matter how agitated you felt in the cramped cave. Moving suddenly, you pulled your base uniform overcoat off to expose the standard issue white tank top underneath, the black sports bra you wore under that standing out as a shadow beneath the top. You pulled yourself away from John then and shifted yourself around until your back was against the sloping back of the cave, head pillowed only by your pulled-back hair.

“Come here,” you said to him, “you’re gonna freeze to death if you don’t.”

Still, John hesitated. In the faint light provided by the mood and your body’s natural acclimatization to the dark, you could see a look of deep concern on his face as he stared at your outstretched arms. You couldn’t say you blamed him for his reluctance, but you couldn’t help the repeated heavy sigh nonetheless.

“John,” you said softly, ignoring the way the blond man’s breathing hitched at the sound of his first name, “I don’t want you to die. I can control it better when I don’t have to project it. Come here.”

The last part was said less like an offer and more like a demand, but it seemed to be what the super soldier needed. John moved stiffly in the cramped space, sliding his helmet off his head and setting it to the side before turning back to face you. Your nerves, begrudgingly, had started to get the better of you again, and a faint orange glow had begun to light up your skin. This, at least, would begin a more natural temperature spike for you.

“Are you sure…?”

John’s hesitation was, in a way, sweet. Boyish. The man before you was radiating nerves in a way he never had around you before, not even the times the two of you had come under fire. He was skittish in the faint light of you, his eyes darting across the nebulaic patterns that swirled beneath your skin instead of meeting your gaze. You adjusted your legs and beckoned him forward.

“I’m sure, John. Come lay with me.”

That, at last, seemed to finally shatter his resolve. John crawled to you slowly, as if approaching a caged animal, and he was practically a statue as he laid against you. His head came to rest against your shoulder, his cheek pressed to your collar bone and the rest of him pressed against the rest of you wherever it could. You ignored the way this made the glow brighter. Once he’d settled, you threw your base coat over top of the both of you like a makeshift blanket. It was far too small for John, but it was more than he’d had before.

John seemed to sag against you after a few minutes. He felt deflated. As if any warmth or will to live had long-since seeped out of him. Idly, you brought your arms down to circle his waist, began to rub what you’d hoped were soothing circles across his back at the same time. John’s nose was cold where it pressed against your skin, but that wasn’t what caught your attention.

He was crying.

It took you a few more minutes of stillness to be sure, but the feeling of tears sliding against your neck was undeniable. They were hot, and wet, and beginning to roll down your chest as they kept up their unrelenting flow from John’s eyes. You didn’t dare comment. What would you even say?

The last time you had tried to comfort someone, you’d been a labrat for AIM. You had been one of the phase two testers - the stage after the death-bed dealers and before the retired combat veterans - and you’d been laying in a cot across from a woman whose name you never got to learn. You were both being housed in a medical warehouse outside of Boston at the time, both semi-recovering addicts looking for something to distract yourself from the withdrawal symptoms. While you would later learn that your testing group had been the one used to engineer the addictive properties of the serum’s next phase, all those years ago you had simply been concerned with staying alive and helping your friend.

“Do you think it’s gonna hurt?” she had asked, red hair fanning out behind her on the uncomfortable bed. She had looked so young. She had barely been 21, a pretty ginger girl with bright blue eyes and hyper-pigmented freckles smattered across her face. You’d smiled at her before you lied.

“No,” you’d told her happily, “but I’m going first. I’ll warn you if it does.”

You never did get the chance to tell her. Not about the unbearable heat, or the agony of listening to your own spine fuse itself back together. The cause of all those pain pills and drug runs, knitted back together in an instant, and all it’d cost you was your soul. The other girl had burned the same as you, and all it’d cost her was her life.

Shoving the horrible memories of your friend out of your head, you did your best to focus back in on the task at hand. Walker was crying. He hadn’t said anything yet, and the tension slowly returning to his body let you know that he had no intentions of letting you hear him sob, either. You could feel it, though. You wonder how long it’d been since Walker’d been held, for him to forget that.

You willed your body warmer, the glow in the cave brightening and your grip on the man in your arms tightening. His shaking hard returned, though you doubted it was from the cold anymore. This was sadness. This was grief. This was the trembling form of a man on the very brink of implosion, self-collapse imminent in spite of his attempts to hold himself together.

Your heart broke for him.

A foolish reaction, you figured, but one you couldn’t help. John Walker, for all his flaws, had been one of the highlights in your field ops, especially since Tony passed. You didn’t like the knowledge that he was miserable. You didn’t like it at all.

“I’m sorry!” John suddenly gasped, practically choking himself on the words in his effort to get them out. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”

“Shhhhh,” you soothed awkwardly, doing your best not to come across as angry or upset. “I’ve got you, John. It’s okay. Don’t apologize.”

You didn’t know what else to say. Was there anything else to say? You didn’t even know why he was crying, just that the sight and sound of it was chipping away at something inside you steadily. The feel of it. Cradling a collapsing star in your hands, you felt like Atlas, doing his best to hold up the sky without letting out a scream.

John had started sobbing in earnest then, forcing his face deeper into your neck in an attempt to muffle the sounds. It didn’t matter. You felt the way he shook against you, like a war-torn frame heaving against the weight of his own sadness. There was a storm inside of John Walker, and it seemed like tonight was the night it would finally spill out of him. You kept rubbing his back and shoulders, moving one of your hands up to run your fingers through his hair.

The sound he made, you knew, was practically a wail, but you also knew that John would rather die than admit it.

“I’ve got you,” you murmured again, “I’ve got you, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re not a failure, Walker; you saved my ass a few times tonight. It’s okay.”

You didn’t know if it was actually helping, or if the excitement of the day was finally catching up to John, but you knew that his sobs had started to quiet at your words. They weren’t gone, granted, but they were subsiding. Waning. The sound still tugged at something inside of you, but the relief you were beginning to feel was palpable. You stayed like that with him for awhile, pity and exhaustion at war in your bones about it, but you were hardly about to tell him to ‘suck it up.’

John Walker needed you.

It was a foreign feeling by then, being needed. Unusual. You couldn’t remember the last time someone needed you. Her, you thought, she needed you. You’d failed her, but maybe you didn’t have to fail him. Maybe you could actually help John.

“You’re safe,” you whispered, “we’re safe, because of you. You got us through the desert, man. You’re good.”

“But I’m not!” John’s outburst startled you. He pushed himself up, wet eyes boring into yours with a ferocity you hadn’t been prepared for. “I’m not good. I wreck everything I touch!”

Your breathing hitched. His face was barely inches from yours, his chest heaving with the force of his sobs. Tears were still streaming down his cheeks, but you didn’t dare comment on that.

“You didn’t wreck me.”

Everything froze. Blood rushed to your ears, your heart pounding out of your chest as you stared up at the former Captain America. John didn’t react to your words at first, just watched the way your skin lit up with your nerves. Frustrated and feeling bold, you repeated yourself.

“You didn’t wreck me,” your voice was firmer this time, “you didn’t wreck me, John. You’re touching me right now, and I’m okay. I’ve been not okay on a lot of missions, I’m okay on this one now. I’m okay here with you.”

You were rambling. John hadn’t blinked the whole time you were speaking, leaving you unnerved and glowing brighter. It made you talk more than you normally would, made you anxious in a way you’d hadn’t been in years. You felt yourself heat up at the thought. At least John’s warm, you mused, and your lips quirked up into a small smile.

John’s mouth was on you in an instant.

You didn’t even have time to gasp when the kiss landed, John had closed the gap so fast that you almost hadn’t realized it was coming. You kissed back, though. The moment you got your bearings about you, you kissed John back fiercely, bringing your hand up to cup his face.

He tore away from you with a gasp.

“I’m sorry!” he choked out, “I’m sorry fucking sorry, holy shit, I-”

“Okay-” you cut him off, “well, that’s, like, discouraging as fuck to hear, but. Okay. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

John rolled his eyes. “You keep saying that!”

“I keep meaning it, too!” you snapped back. John was back to staring down at you then, and you found yourself quickly getting tired of the feeling of looking up. “It’s fine, Walker. I’m not mad. I, uh… I’m not mad.”

You’d lost your bravado half way through speaking, your voice trailing off awkwardly. John’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, frustration twisting the rest of his features unpleasantly.

“What were you gonna say?” John demanded and you would have screamed a thousand screams if it hadn’t been such a risk. You swore your face was going to explode - and that was only half a joke.

“Oh my god!” you got out, voice clipped and eyes finally moving away from John’s to the cave ceiling. “I kissed you back! Okay? It’s fine! You surprised me, sure, but I wasn’t, like, fighting you off by any means. I kissed you back.”

You wished closing your eyes would be enough to drown out the light you were throwing as you sat in your own anxiety. This was stupid. You were both being so fucking stupid, really, acting like a kiss in a cave was the end of the world. Like it was something worth discussing. It was the action of lips on lips, a mouth moving against another mouth. There was nothing special, or world-changing, or life-altering, or-

John kissed you again.

You kissed back instantly this time. You were out of practice but you tried not to let that get to you, instead focusing on the way John’s lips moved against your own. He was a good kisser. As far as you could tell, at least, John was a good kisser; he was steady, the pressure perfect without being forceful, and he hadn’t rushed in with tongue the way your last boyfriend did. Granted, that had been in university, but that was your only point of reference anymore.

This time when you broke apart, it was for air, and John didn’t seem ready to back out as he panted above you. Without thinking, you pressed a kiss to John’s cheek, an impulsive move that had the super soldier’s face heating up beneath your lips. Pulling away gently, John buried his face in your neck, and you smiled. Content with what you’d already gotten, you’d been unprepared for the way John’s mouth had found your throat.

“Oh!” you’d gasped, face and chest heating up in shock. You felt John tense, but he relaxed once your hand shot up to his hair, your grip on his hip tightening with the other. You liked that. You liked this. All of it. John kept up his path across your throat, dipping down slightly to press a row of kisses across your collarbone. Without overthinking it, you raised the leg of yours that was between John’s, your thigh pressing into the core of him firmly.

He was hard.

A sick, addicting kind of heat swelled inside you at the revelation and you both froze. You tried to focus on your erratic heartbeat, but molten want kept you pressed where you were despite the danger. You knew this was a fool’s risk - that your heart rate spiking too radically could result in you going off like a bomb. Tony had assured you, years ago, that that wasn’t likely to happen anymore, but the fear had been plaguing you for almost a decade.

Then John whimpered.

It was a small sound. High pitched and needy, he did it again when he shifted against you, his hips grinding down minutely into the cushion of your thigh. You inhaled sharply through your nose and inched your leg up more, tensing to give him something firmer to grind down against. You wanted to hear it again. You wanted to hear him again.

John didn’t give you the satisfaction right away. Instead, the blond busied his mouth on the other side of your neck, exploring the next expanse of skin like the trained tracker he was. It felt good, laying under the former captain, letting him kiss you however he wanted. You assumed he was enjoying it, too, based on the way he kept trying to get closer to you still. His tears hadn’t stopped entirely, but they were slower now. Calmer. They wet your neck more than anything else John was doing.

You shifted the hand that was on his hip, running it up his side to cup his ribs. John shivered. You’d never really considered what John would be like in bed - in cave - but if you had, you still wouldn’t have anticipated how reactive he was. It was adorable. It was addicting. You liked how well he responded to you, pushing into your hands wherever they laid across his body, his hips grinding down against you in a steady rhythm. It made you feel powerful. You were drawing these sorts of sounds and shivers out of a super soldier - he was becoming putty in your hands.

“This still okay?” John’s voice broke the monologue in your head, his words quick but clear. They made you smile. Briefly, you debated teasing him about the question, but you knew that you were dancing across thin ice. One wrong move, and Walker would send you plunging into the cold.

“Still okay,” you confirmed, “now come kiss me again.”

John complied easily. That's another thing you would have never thought to anticipate; how non-domineering John seemed to be when he felt good. It was cute. Sweet. It made your heart beat almost dangerously fast, the light in the cave growing brighter as you continued to make out. The hand on your hip shifted then, John shifted his weight to rest mostly on his other arm, his left hand moving to slip under your shirt.

Your stomach clenched at the feel of his bare hand on your bare skin. Feeling bold, you swiped your tongue against John’s bottom lip and had to bite back a smile at how easily he opened up for you. At your enthusiasm, John grew bolder too, his thigh pressing against your core firmly, the hand on your stomach sliding up to your chest. You couldn’t help the small noise that left you, a content little hum at the feeling of the super soldier cupping you through your bra. John inhaled sharply at it, and he nipped at your bottom lip before pulling away.

“I wanna touch you,” you said before he had a chance to talk, and John’s pupils blew wide at your words as he stared down at you. He nodded silently, pink tongue dragging across his bottom lip as he gave you his consent.

You slid the hand on his ribs down to the front of his suit, and you hoped he was also ignoring the way your hands shook and skin lit up. You were so nervous, even as you felt the evidence of how much John liked this pressing against you. You kissed him again to distract yourself from it and worked your hand between you, finally wrapping your too-warm fingers around the bulge in John’s uniform,

“Fuck,” he groaned out, mouth hanging open for a second at the relief of finally getting proper pressure where he needed it most. “Fuck, pretty girl, keep going.”

The words sparked something inside of you, sent a wave of desire crashing through your body like a tsunami of want. John’s voice was even deeper than it had been all day, something thick and primal working its way into his tone as he pushed himself against your hand. Idly, you wondered what he was thinking about, but the feeling of John’s hand sliding down to the waistband of your pants distracted you. You didn’t bother waiting for him to ask, you just nodded enthusiastically, pressing your lips against John’s yet again.

You really liked kissing John.

You liked even more the way his hand felt as it slipped into your pants, warm and calloused and strong. Your skin was glowing fiercely, your body running hot as you struggled to contain just how excited you were. You were wet, you could feel how slick you had gotten just from making out and you hoped Walker wouldn’t comment on it. You felt him smirk against your neck and, before he could shatter that hope, you squeezed gently around the bulge in your hand again. John moaned. You began to rub him in earnest then, thrilled when he started to grind against your hand while making quiet, content sounds in your ear.

“Fuck you sound good,” you mumbled mindlessly. John whimpered. The words had slipped out entirely without your permission as you’d gotten lost in the feeling of John surrounding you, something you’d expected him to hate. Clearly, he didn’t. You kept talking.

“You look good too, you know?” you’d been asking rhetorically, but John nodded like he was afraid to disagree. “You’re so hot. So pretty.”

John whimpered again. You thought your heart was going to explode in your chest as you fumbled with John’s belt, doing your best to yank it open blind. “I wanna get my hands on you for real.”

You said it half to turn him on more and half as a warning, giving him ample opportunity to stop you, if he’d wanted to. He didn’t, if the way he bucked his hips into yours was anything to go by. It was awkward in the cramped space, and your back hurt from the rock. You were glowing, and sweating, and shimmieing around in a sandy cave to give a handjob to a super soldier, but you were excited. You wanted this. You were having more fun on the floor of that cave with John than you’d had in years by yourself in a soft bed.

You didn’t get a good look at John’s cock despite the light you were emitting, the angle of it all making it damn near impossible to see anything other than blue eyes and soft hair. But you could feel it. Hot and heavy in your hands, John was big. Long, and thick, and you could feel the hair at the base of it when you slid your hand down. John’s breathing hitched.

“Come on,” he urged softly, hips jutting up into your hand. “Come on, Lava Lamp, I need this.”

You finally did laugh then, a silly, obnoxious giggle pouring out of you as you wrapped your fingers around John properly, stroking as best you could despite your giggling frame. “Don’t fucking call me that,” you said without any fire, “or I’ll rip your dick off.”

It was John’s turn to laugh then, an easy sound that made you instantly want to hear more. Between your bodies, your forearms were pressed together awkwardly as you rubbed at each other at, possibly, the world’s worst angle. You couldn’t bring yourself to be bothered by it. “I don’t think you mean that,” John teased back. “I think you like it.”

He emphasized his point by slipping his finger between your folds, the slow drag of it up your center pulling a ragged gasp out of you. He wasn’t wrong. That was kind of the worst part of all of this, in a way. John really was making you feel good, and you had a sinking feeling in your gut like you may never live it down. You clenched around nothing at the thought.

“I think,” you flicked your thumb across the tip of John’s cock as you spoke, “that you should be a good boy and fuck me.”

You wondered for half a second if you’d gone too far, or if you’d jumped the shark in regards to being sexy, but the way John shuddered assuaged any worry you felt in an instant. He moaned as he buried his face back in your neck and nodded, his middle finger working its way back between your folds. You held your breath. It had been so long since you’d done anything with anybody, you found yourself craving something more.

“Come on,” you choked out, “open me up.”

John obeyed at once, his finger sliding inside you fully now, right up to the third knuckle. It was just one, but the sudden pressure made you hiss between your teeth. “Sorry,” John mumbled softly, and his thumb came up to press circles against your clit. You couldn’t help the moan you let out, loud and obnoxious. It fueled John on, urging him to continue toying with you in the hopes of hearing more. You kissed him again instead.

Kissing John with his fingers in you was a different kind of intensity, something far more intimate than just lips-on-lips had been. It had been so fucking long since the last time you’d had this. Since you’d had someone. You knew that whatever was happening between you and John was an impulsive, spontaneous thing. It wouldn’t matter when the sun rose, but it mattered to you tonight.

That was the thought that urged you forward, bringing one of your legs up to hook around his hip as you did your best to relax. After another minute or two, you nodded at John to add another finger, which he did easily. You were so wet. You couldn’t really remember the last time you had been this turned on, the last time you were so desperate to have something fill you. It was a fun, albeit vulnerable, feeling, one you’d hoped John was drowning in himself.

“Another,” you said breathlessly, hand sliding against John’s cock in an easy glide. You had meant to be nicer about it, but John’s cock twitched in your hand at the command still audible in your voice despite the pleasure.

John obeyed.

You loved the feeling of him listening to you. It was an easy sort of control, one that felt earned instead of fought for, and it wrapped around you like a cloud of smoke. Permeating, something that hung heavy in the air and clung to your lungs as you gasped in mouthfuls of John.

It was obvious before too long that you were both ready. Your pussy was dripping, an audible squelching sound making your face burn as John continued to finger fuck you on the floor of a cave. It was so vulgar. So dirty. But it felt good, and weirdly intimate, less like a hookup and more like a beginning.

You shook yourself.

That was dangerous thinking, the kind of sap that got you stuck on the tree of life, forever unable to keep climbing towards the top. You had no place for it in your life. It was a waste. A hindrance. A burden you were simply unwilling to bear.

“Please let me fuck you,” John’s voice was getting higher in pitch. “Please, fuck, gotta feel you.”

And, really, hadn’t you always been built a bit different? Hadn’t you been designed to bear more than most? The thoughts felt dangerously close to self harm as you allowed them to dance behind your eyes.

“Fuck me, John. Come on.”

Walker was quick to lift himself off of you then, something that had almost startled a protest out of you before his hands flew to the button on your pants. He fumbled momentarily before he got himself together, lowering your pants until you could get one leg out entirely, allowing for easy maneuvering. Anticipation swirled in your gut.

John looked at you for assurance one last time. You nodded your head, bringing your hands up to cup his face. “Come on, John.”

The tip of John’s cock was red and leaking, his cock throbbing visibly where it bobbed between his legs. He lined himself up, giving you one last peck on the mouth before he pushed in slowly. You held your breath, the glow in the cave almost blinding for a moment as John’s pelvis hit yours.

You needed this.

You needed this so bad that you didn’t even care about the stream of content sounds pouring out of your mouth, nor the mindless babbling that followed. “So good,” you panted, “oh my god, John, you’re so good. Feels so good. Fuck!”

Above you, John did his best to suppress a whine. His whole body shuddered at your words, his hips starting their slow grind against yours. His head pressed against your forehead as his eyes closed and you clenched around him, walls squeezing around his cock as his hips began to drive into yours in earnest. Still, he tried not to let you hear the sound trapped in his chest.

“Say it again,” John begged, “please, Lava Lamp, I gotta hear it.”

You couldn’t have helped the smile that spread across your face if you’d tried. “Such a good boy,” you said as you grabbed a handful of his hair. “Making me feel so fucking good.”

And there it was, that pretty little whine he had tried so hard to hide before. John leaned his head back into your hand, letting you pull the fistful of blond hair with just enough force to drag a moan out of the man. John’s own hands found your hips, gripping them with an almost-bruising force to maintain leverage in the cramped space. You didn’t mind. John shifted slightly then, the angle only minutely changed but groundbreaking nonetheless.

“Oh!” you gasped, “Oh! There! Fuck!”

You began to press your hips back as best you could, meeting John thrust-for-thrust as need carried you through on instinct. “There?” John asked, and you nodded dumbly.

“There, John, fuck. Such a good boy. You feel so good inside me.” you knew you were rambling, but you couldn’t stop running your mouth at the feeling, and you wanted to soak up each and every one of John’s reactions to your words.

He was so responsive. You hadn’t expected it, had instead been expecting some grand display of stoicism from your temporary teammate, even as the heavy petting had started. The tears from earlier seemed to be pooling at the corners of his eyes again, but you didn’t call it out. You just stared into the deep blue of John’s gaze for as long as you could hold it before the pleasure became too much, the inferno inside of you raging against your need from within.

“This good?” John panted, and your heart clenched at the desperate way he needed validation, even as you soaked his cock with how badly you wanted him.

“So fucking good,” you panted, “you’re so fucking good, pretty boy. Such a good boy for me.”

John’s hips stuttered at the petname, losing their rhythm as the words washed over him. Good. He was being good. John preened under your praise, his heartbeat erratic beneath your lips as you mouthed as his pulse point. He was so cute. You kept up with the praise, dropping a gentle “good boy” or “keep going, baby” whenever it felt right, and John kept fucking you like it’d been his mission from the start.

“Come on, baby,” you guided gently as his hips began to pause too long at your words, “fuck me like a good boy.”

The words activated him like a sleeper agent.

Walker fucked into you obediently, hips keeping a consistent, addicting pace with an almost militant efficiency. He was good at following orders. You really should have known that - should have realized that the man trained to take lead hadn’t simply gotten there by never being able to follow - but it was still a surprise each time he listened so easily. He was so compliant, allowing you to lead despite his place above you. Not for the first time that night, you wished fiercely that you were anywhere other than a desert cave.

The stone beneath your back made your whole body ache. Your spine felt warped under the weight of you both, the heat you were throwing was making everything feel sharper than it actually was. Harsher. The heat inside of you felt so good, though. It felt like the Extremis serum, but kinder. It felt like being wanted. It felt like a need so intense you could barely keep yourself from gasping with it as you rocked your body against John’s as best you could.

John couldn’t keep his hands still anymore. They explored you in earnest, callused fingertips dragging against your sensitive, glowing skin. He slid his hands up your sides, his palms flat and wide as they covered places on you leading up to your ribs. His hands on your tits made you moan despite yourself, pushing your chest up further into grip. Your nipples here hard against his palms, pebbled as if you were trapped in the cold, and practically begging John to do something with them.

You hadn’t expected his mouth.

Walker dipped down to get his mouth on your left nipple faster than you could react, an embarrassing whimper tearing its way out of your throat at the sensation. Wet heat encircled the sensitive bud, John’s lips capturing you with a gentle suck. His tongue flicked against the tip of it after a second, making you clench around him tighter.

“Oh my god,” you gasped out happily, “John, baby, fuck. Making me feel so fucking good.”

Your head was practically spinning with want as you tugged at John’s hair, your fingers curled into a loose fist that was tightening by the second. Walker took that as his cue to switch sides, but not before blowing cool air against the spit-slick skin of your left nipple, the feeling making you writhe against him. He sucked on your right tit with just as much enthusiasm, his hips fucking into you with enough force to shift your body against the stone beneath you.

God you hated the stone.

Idly, in the back of your mind, you wondered what it would be like to do this properly. Maybe in a motel somewhere while you laid low, isolated enough and with a big enough bed for you to spread the super soldier out and toy with him for real. You wanted to hear him whine some more, wanted to see just how far he was willing to go for praise. You wondered if he was into being made to wait, kept on the edge of orgasm for hours while being forced to beg, or maybe the opposite. Maybe the serum in his veins meant he didn’t have a refractory period anymore, and he would lay back all pretty while you spent a night making him cum until he cried - or ran out. Maybe there was nothing more to your encounter in the cave than a moment of weakness and some desperately needed comfort, but maybe there was also just more to John Walker than met the eye.

You were desperately hoping for the latter.

You were approaching your high far faster than you wanted to. You wanted to savour this, to hold onto the feeling of John Walker compliant in your arms, but you knew it was a losing battle. You felt too good. Your skin was hot, your insides like fire, and you were glowing like nightlight. You were so bright. You didn’t feel like you were going to explode, though; the heat was a pleasant burn, not a charring scorch. Nothing hurt like this, nothing ached or strained or melted away inside of you. Nothing was wrong. For the first time in years, you could almost pretend that nothing was wrong.

“John,” you tried to warn him, your voice and cunt both tightening. You didn’t need to continue. John’s hips kept their pace, his hand returning to its place between your thighs without your direction. The feeling of his trembling fingers circling your clit made you gasp. Once.

Twice.

Three times and you were cumming around John’s cock. Hard. you were sure you would have shouted some sort of obscenity if not for John’s mouth on yours, kissing you like his life depended on it as you clenched around him tight. You felt incredible. Waves of liquid fire lapped at your spine, molten desire drowning you where you laid in the sand. Your limbs tensed, your arms crushing John against you as tight as you could without hurting him and your legs wrapped around his hips as they plowed into you in a way that left your body trembling in the aftershocks.

“I’m close,” John choked out, going to pull himself out of you. You didn’t want that. You wanted to feel John let go inside you, feel the way his body relaxed when he finally let go. Without thinking, you locked your ankles behind his back.

“Cum for me, pretty boy.”

John bit into your shoulder as he came, hard enough to break skin and draw blood. It made you whine in overstimulation, but it didn’t make you pull away. It was hot. Being marked. You knew it would heal as soon as John removed his teeth, the Extremis serum doing its best to repair you completely the moment you began to decline in any way. It almost drove you crazy, your inability to see any lasting effects of the battles you’d been through, but you were certainly grateful that you wouldn’t have any marks to hide from Valentina in the morning.

The feeling of John’s cum painting your walls was almost enough to send you over the edge again, the aftershocks of your last orgasm squeezing everything out of John as you clenched as tight as you could. You felt amazing. John shook against you, his body rigid before relaxing into a pile of flesh and nerves under your careful hands. You were rubbing his back and playing with his hair as you slid your legs down from his hips, your own stretched pelvis screaming at you for the shift. Your back thanked you, though, profusely as you finally eased the tension in the lower half of your body.

“You were so-”

“That was rea-”

You cut each other off in your attempts to provide awkward reassurance. With the desire cooling in your bodies alongside your blood, you couldn’t help the swell of nerves you felt in the aftermath. This had been such an insanely stupid idea. What were you thinking? You weren’t, clearly, and-

“You were perfect,” you said instead of voicing a single one of the concerns in your head. “That was really fun, Walker.”

You were sure you sounded weird. Like a failed telephone salesman or a nervous third grade teacher, but you couldn’t help it. You had successfully stolen from the CIA hours prior, and somehow this felt like the most dangerous thing you’d done all day.

“Yeah?” He asked rhetorically, not shifting his head from your shoulder as he maneuvered himself back into his uniform, “I, uh, I think next time, I should eat you out.”

A sudden wave of hunger threatened to overtake you, your pussy screaming at you to take him up on that right then, but the exhaustion radiating from your bones forced you to ignore it. You barely had it in you to pull your pants back on, and you spent that half minute worried that John wouldn’t return to you when you’d laid back down. He did. You pressed your grinning lips against his forehead.

“Bet,” you replied sleepily, “but only if I get to fuck you, next.”

The last of the water was gone by the time you’d reached a quarter-mile out from the pick-up spot John had set up with Valentina. You had shared it between you wordlessly, tiny sips passed back-and-forth in utter silence. Visibility, and heat, were both an elevating risk in the daytime.

You pretended that was the reason for the quiet.

John had been unable to meet your eyes since you’d woken up that morning. He’d moved away from you some time during your shift asleep, your body so exhausted that you hadn’t even stirred in the process. That wasn’t like you. Usually, you slept lightly, barely allowing your body to ever fall fully into REM sleep, lest something happen while you were unaware. There was also the nightmares. Those were undeniably a factor in your beyond-fucked sleep schedule, and you wondered if it had anything to do with you waking up alone that morning.

She had visited you, as she often did in your sleep. All fiery red hair and fierce eyes, flames licking across her skin as she screamed about it hurting. About you lying. About death. You hadn’t thought about her this much in years, the topic something you typically couldn’t bear to dwell on much, but she’d been inescapable since your moment of weakness with Walker. You wondered if you had spoken in your sleep. You debated asking John, but you doubted he would answer honestly. You tried not to let that bother you. You also tried not to let the short, clipped way John now spoke to you bother you.

You were failing at both.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” you threw out there at last. John froze momentarily in his spot beside you. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m sticky and there’s sand everywhere and it’s just, like, not the fucking vibe, okay? But Jesus, dude, say something.”

You felt like a fucking high schooler again. Like two 14 year olds refusing to act normal after their first ever game of ‘seven minutes in heaven.’ It was beneath you. Both of you. Ninth grade behaviour, right down to the way you still avoided his eyes while awaiting a response.

“Crotalus scutulatus,” he finally responded. You did turn to look at him fully, then, your own wide-eyes meeting his panicked blue ones. “It’s the name. Of the snake. From last night. It, uh, it shouldn’t even really be called the Mojave Rattlesnake? This part of the desert makes up, like, less than one-fifth of their habitable area, maybe even less than an eighth.”

It was the fact he’d tried telling you last night. You almost laughed. This was a field operative? You weren’t stupid, though, and you knew that laughing at John right then would have shattered the surprisingly blissful moment the two of you were sharing in the blistering hot sun.

“What would you call it, then?” you asked, and John launched into a 10 minute long rant about the classification of desert fauna in the southwestern United States. Again, you almost had to laugh.

John Walker was such a dork.

You hadn’t expected him to be such a dork, rambling on about species identification and the differences between a clade and a class. You pretended to be unfamiliar, mostly just enjoying that you had something to focus on that wasn’t the ever-present threat of being shot from afar. John wasn’t even a terrible teacher, really, though he was undoubtedly condescending at times. You were almost enjoying yourself, in spite of it all.

Almost.

The whir of Valentina’s jet engines were hardly the loudest in the world, but they were by no means the quietest, either. You just hoped you could get out of the Mojave before the CIA caught up to you, even as you boarded the grey metal flight trap. You’d never been overly fond of flying, but your anxiety on the matter had only skyrocketed in recent years. You were dreading this plane trip.

If John noticed your hesitation as you loaded in, he didn’t say anything about it. Then again, in all likelihood, he was too busy dealing with his own. Of the two of you, only one of you was returning to Valentina empty-handed, and you were grateful it wasn’t you. You had meant what you’d said the night before in the cave - about sharing credit - but even you knew it would be a flimsy excuse.

The Contessa de Fontaine was kind of a bitch.

The plane didn’t hesitate before taking off and your stomach dropped. You hated this. Even with Walker sitting next to you on the plane, you hated it. It reminded you too much of the mission you’d been on when the Blip happened. You hadn’t found out for some time that that’s what it was called, but that’s exactly what had happened to you almost 30 000 feet in the air.

You had been tasked with keeping tabs on an Italian Contessa, one Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, one of the founders of OXE group and, if the whispers were to be believed, the most recent name on a long list of mad men trying to recreate the super soldier serum responsible for Captain America. You had been getting really fucking tired of people trying to recreate that serum. But, Mr. Stark had promised that this would be your last job, if it could be. Take out OXE at the root, and you would get to live under the shade of a different tree at last. Then you had turned to ash in the second seat of a two-person plane, and had reformed 5 years later, free-falling from the sky.

It had all felt like an instant.

To you, it was sudden. It was jarring. It was worse than being lit on fire and more of a shock than being put out. Every sensation you had ever felt had coursed through you all at once as - to you - your plane and co-pilot vanished in a grey haze, leaving you plummeting to your death over top some fuck ass spot of nothing in the Utah desert.

To you, it was how you’d realized you could fly.

The panic had overcome you in an instant, a scream unable to even rip its way out of your throat as you fell from the sky. You had been so sure it was the end, your life one huge, meaningless joke, meant only to crumple lifeless in the sand at the end of your days. But heat had overcome you then, a fire unlike anything you’d ever felt before charring you down to your bones before it collapsed, the inferno rushing downwards, the momentum forcing you up. Up, up, up. Until you had far surpassed your original 30 000 feet, the air around you gone frigid despite the waves of fire lapping at your soles. You’d finally managed a scream then.

From so high above the ground, everything looked soft. Forgiving. If you squeezed your eyes shut, you could have almost convinced yourself that everything would end okay. The fire at your feet cooled, your descent began again, and you felt the air rush around you like an atmospheric tomb. The pressure was immense, the ground growing ever-closer, and you swore your heart was going to explode before either problem became an actual threat. Then your feet caught fire again, and up again you rose.

It was a cycle from hell, the worst 15 minutes of your entire life as you launched yourself across the elevation points, your body little more than a ragdoll being shaken by a dog-like wind. Each time you would rise a little lower, fall a little farther, and the ground would come a little closer into view. It felt like being choked, like being edged, like being toyed with. It was a hell unlike anything AIM could have put you through when they’d tried.

But you were flying.

Around the sixth or seventh time you caught fire, you could recognize your torment for the primitive form of flight it seemed to be. A culmination of heat and momentum, thermodynamics manifest as you hurled towards both sand and stars. It would have been the most exciting, most elating feeling in the entire world if not for the death you were so certain would follow. You were flying, sure, and it was a damn shame that that didn’t mean you’d realized how to land.

You’d crashed through the roof of a base you were certain hadn’t been there when you started the flight, thick concrete cushioning your fall as best it could as your flames failed you at last. There was too much pain for screaming then, the air forced out of your lungs as heat overcame you from within. Extremis. The serum was repairing your broken body as fast as it had fallen apart, the very fibre of your being stitching itself back together against the molten heat of rebirth. It was agony. It was bliss.

It was waking up some hours later, strapped to a hospital bed while your blood was being stolen by one Contessa de Fontaine.

You had been incensed. You had screamed yourself hoarse and raged for hours after that, body thrashing almost as violently as it had in the air. Valentina had had to sedate you, in the end, and twice more after that each time you’d woken up. Eventually, you had been tired enough to listen, and in the end it sealed your fate. Valentina couldn’t let you leave, not with the potential literally burning beneath your skin, so you had a choice; guinea pig or guard dog?

You’d chosen the leash over a cage.

You were so lost in your own thoughts that you barely noticed Walker shifting next to you in his seat. You didn’t care to turn and face him, not then at least. Not with thoughts of ash and arial maladies plaguing you. You didn’t want to have this discussion with him, didn’t want to talk about falling into Hell the way you had or your slow attempt to crawl your way out ever since. John didn’t seem at all deterred by your decision to ignore him, however, as the blond began to speak.

“It’s a Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey,” he said, informative and confusing at the same time, “I’ve ridden in a few before. Good craft. Some of Boeing’s better work, really.”

So he had clocked it, then.

A bitter sigh ripped its way out of you. “I don’t want to hear about the plane, Walker.”

You had tried to keep your voice even. Calm and collected as you addressed the Captain. You knew it hadn’t come out like that. It had come out strained and weak, breaking twice without your permission. You sounded like a little kid, but you had another 3 hours left by plane before you hit Langley and, worse, Valentina. You just didn’t feel like spending them learning about plane facts.

“What’s your problem with it, anyway?” the question was asked sincerely, but in a tone that made you want to punch Walker right in the head for asking. “It’s a solid plane.”

You laughed bitterly. “All planes are solid until they’re not,” you shot back haughtily, “all planes are solid until they fucking turn to ash.”

You didn’t elaborate, and John didn’t ask you to. Briefly, you wondered if he thought you were threatening him, implying you would take down the plane if he didn’t shut up. You couldn’t find it in you ro correct him. Not when it got him to move on from the topic of air travel, instead spending the rest of the flight leaned back and sleeping while you were still awake to watch.

You landed right at the OXE base about 3 hours later, legs stiff and aching as you were led inside by armed guards. The halls of Valentina’s floor of the building were wide like the Nevada-base’s had been. Hers were stark white linoleum where the base had been concrete, but that imposing effect remained the same. You felt unable to hide. You were overexposed walking into that office, even with Walker at your side.

“Sit.”

She hadn’t even bothered pretending with the pleasantries. Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine had never been a particularly kind or nurturing woman, but the way she’d been radiating cold and malice then had been unnerving. Suffocating. Valentina had the eyes of a brazen bull; hollow inside save for the screams of the dying working their way out of her mouth in the form of commands.

You and John both sat without question.

“Which one of you wants to tell me what the fuck happened out there?” Valentina demanded, and you swore your blood ran cold. Did she know? Did she mean the… whatever it had been last night? Or had she meant the base? The alarms and the escape through the vents? You didn’t know.

“I failed to get the files,” John said instantly, and your head whipped around to look at him, eyes wide. “I prioritized ensuring the safety of myself and my fellow field operative over retrieving them. No casualties in the base, though. No blood spilled.”

“N-No blood spilled?” Valentina asked rhetorically, a bitter laugh working its way out of her chest. “‘No blood spilled,’ he says, like that’s some sort of goddamn reassurance. You idiots!”

You and John both flinched at the outburst.

“Those alarms weren’t for you, stupid! I told you both the cameras and sensors were out on that floor, what the hell is the matter with you? The alarm was triggered by one of the squints on the human trials floor, not by whatever you two losers were doing in the basement.” Valentina was fuming. Steam practically poured out of the woman’s ears as she ranted for another 27 minutes, raving about following orders and not deviating from plans.

Several times, you’d been tempted to interrupt, but John’s hand on your knee the first time you went to kept you in your place. There was no point. Valentina had decided that you’d both failed, and arguing with her on the semantics of sending out multiple agents at once without informing each other was pointless. She wouldn’t listen anyway.

When she finally stopped, her chest heaving and her eyes ablaze, you stood up. Wordlessly, you fished the usb out of your pocket and dropped it on her desk. “What’s that?” she demanded.

“A usb stick full of files from the CIA,” you explained bluntly, your voice a deadpan mockery of itself as you spoke. “It’s here because of me, and I’m here because of him. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all you need to know. Are we dismissed now, Miss Contessa?”

You refused to flinch or even blink at the intense look Val leveled you with. Her eyes burned. All of you did as well. You knew it was stupid to bite at the hand that fed you, but God, what an exceptional final meal her fingers could make.

You wondered how this would be taken out on you next.

Tag List: @gonzo-induced-gender-crisis @ultraviolence969 @shartythefarty @local-limebug

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