jaymoriartys-thunderboltspage

[jaymoriartys-thunderboltspage]

The first chapter for my first Thunderbolts fic is up! Only registered Ao3 will be able to read it, only because of the risks of AI scraping.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/66891949

Fun little synopsis? Not a synopsis, but hook I guess?

Five students walk into a room, and one of them never walks out.

The victim? Antonia Dreykov.

The suspects?

Yelena Belova

Ava Starr

Bob Reynolds

John Walker

And all of them are lying.

[jaymoriartys-thunderboltspage]

Awww, yesssss. Trans Bob!!

voidwalker / sentryagent with trans!Bob Reynolds HC

i swear im going to finish my trans!Bob Reynolds headcannons but i just HAD to write this one headcanon a bit better.

so in this case bob and john are definitely mutually interested in one another. like they’re mutually pining and yearning but too afraid to actually do something about it besides make a lot of small contacts with one another, like having their knees touch when sitting down at meetings. or their whole sides pressed together as they squeeze onto the couch to make room for others. or how their shoulders touch when they stand next to each other, making their morning cups of coffee and tea.

until one day bob’s T medication is switched from injection to gel, which is awesome for him. it makes it a lot easier for him to self-administer his medication without feelings of ~bad~ coming back up. but it does mean he cannot make contact with others after applying his T gel on his shoulder until it fully dries to prevent giving the dosage to someone else.

which means no shoulders touching John’s in the morning during morning cup of coffee and tea.

and this just absolutely breaks John’s heart because he goes to bed thinking about how sleepy bob is in his own bed (even though john would love to have him in his bed). and he gets out of bed thinking about how sleepy bob will be leaning against his shoulder as they wait for the water to boil.

so when john walks into the kitchen, eyes bright and shoulder already tingling to feel bob’s body heat against it, john frowns noticing bob leaning against the corner of the kitchen counter instead of his usual spot standing in the middle of the counter waiting for john to take his spot next to him. bob looked extra tired this morning though as he looked like he was sleeping as he waited for the water.

the next morning john is happy to see bob standing in his usual spot. john grabs his mug and aims to brush his shoulder, but once bob heard the sound of his footsteps he steps away to give john more space, avoiding contact.

john starts to think bob is intentionally trying to avoid him now, so john starts panicking a bit in his brain.

he lasts about 4 days in this overthinking panic state of trying to fix what he thinks could be wrong before just straight up asking bob one morning “did i do something?”

bob looks at him confused, as if non-verbally communicating a bunch of question marks. “what do you mean?”

john sighs “i… i feel like you’re trying to stay away from me.”

bob looks at him confused and john frowns taking a step closer to him, his hand raised to grab bob’s shoulder and trail down his arm to his hand, but bob steps out the way before john can make contact and john’s heart breaks just a little bit

“see? it’s like you don’t want me to…. touch you… anymore.”

bob ignores the other thoughts of john touching him and focuses on his obvious face of hurt.

“oh… oh! oh god john no i don’t hate you i just- i switched medications. i’m on gel now… for my testosterone. i basically absorb the medicine in through my skin now instead of having to inject it, but others can absorb it too if they touch it when it’s still wet so i can’t touch anyone for like 30 minutes in the morning when i put it on. sometimes it takes longer though i don’t know, i’m still getting used to it.”

“oh…” john can feel his face heating up, now feeling embarrassed that he practically admitted to bob how he missed their little touches.

“wait… john did you switch seats with yelena because you thought i didn’t want to… touch you anymore?”

john’s face turns redder as he looks away to the water beginning to simmer in the electric kettle “well i just, no, i just thought you didn’t want to be near me… anymore.”

bob’s heart aches at john’s faltering voice. his hand reaches to john’s shoulder and gives him a little squeeze before rubbing it down his arm to his hand where their fingers touch but don’t interlace. “i don’t know if that’s possible for me john… i like… being next to you. a lot. you smell nice…” bob murmurs the last part as he stares down at their fidgeting fingers circling around each other to rest on top of the others.

john’s heart flutters as he takes a step forward to stand in front of bob “okay… i’ll ask yelena to switch with me again.”

bob nods his head as he looks up from their hands “and i can start applying it to my other shoulder… i could use my shoulder rest”

john gives a light scoff at that “don’t you mean head rest? you’re practically asleep in here every morning.”

bob smiles big as he lets their hands fall as he steps in to rest his chin in his shoulder before turning his chin down, placing a brief kiss on his shoulder before resting his forehead in john “hm. yeah, you’re a pretty good head rest.”

john tries to ignores the way his heart stopped and then restarted with hundreds of beats per minute when bob kissed his shoulder. though his shirt sleeve covered the sensation of his lips, he still felt the pressure and heard the noise of lips kissing that filled him with joy and excitement. john resists the urge he had to place a kiss on bob’s head and instead chooses to rest his head against bob’s curly hair.

‘okay… not as bad as i thought’ he thinks to himself as bob snakes an arm around his waist.

bonus: bob starts wearing sleeveless shirts in the morning so it’s easier to apply his T gel without worrying about sleeves sticking to it.

john REALLY likes this change in the morning. better morning view he thinks.

[jaymoriartys-thunderboltspage]

He just wanted to be friends :(

Sam was almost willing to give him a chance until he kept talking. Sam even tells him "its always that last line" after hearing John out.

John is just sublimely bad with social cues and bad at social interactions, in addition to having some anger issues.

looking back on tfatws post-thunderbolts is so funny, because like. despite being an absolute self-righteous asshole, before lemar's death, john walker was also always a bit of a dumb puppy. like when he was on that truck trying to convince sam and bucky to let him and lemar give them a ride. constantly like "hi :3 hi guys :3 im the new captain america :3 isnt that cool :3 do u think im cool" to the two marvel characters that have the absolute most baggage related to steve rogers. he wanted their approval sooo bad but alas....he forgot his situational awareness at home </3

[jaymoriartys-thunderboltspage]

@talia-alvarez suggested Antonia Dreykov be the victim, and I agree. She'll be the one to die. But also, she doesn't have a lot of personality in either of the movies she appears in, so I'll be making some things up in that regard. Be prepared for out of character things, possibly for all involved characters. I've never really written any of them before.

I am thinking of having Bob be gender fluid or at least exploring gender. Okay, I'm not thinking about it, I'm 100% doing it.

I think the fic will also be called All of Us are Lying, because it's very very heavily influenced and inspired by One of Us is Lying by Karen M McManus

A snippet of the fic :)

October 1st

Ava Starr;

My school attendance has been spotty for a long time. It's not my fault, and I don't deserve detention for it. But apparently if you miss Chemistry lab four times in a row, that means detention on a Wednesday afternoon. It's not like I have anything better to do. Mr. Jamison is an asshole, but you get what you deserve right? The bloody frustrating part is that this time it wasn’t my fault I was late. A couple of the guys from the football team had gotten into a fight in the hallway. I didn’t get involved, but it still made me late.

So at three oh five I made my way back to Jamison’s chem lab for detention. Two students were already sitting in the room; one I expected, and one I didn’t. John Walker, captain of the football team, had never had detention as far as I knew. Bob Reynolds spent more time here than at home as far as I could tell. Walker had the beginnings of a black eye and his shirt was speckled with blood. He must have been one of the boys caught in the fight earlier. Makes sense for an asshole like him.

Walker was sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, like he was too good to be here. He probably thought he was too good for detention. Or maybe he was missing football practice and that’s what was annoying him. Reynolds was doodling absently in a notebook. I sat on Reynolds’s other side, since I have no interest in interacting with Walker in any way. As I pulled out my English homework, two more students walked in. One of which I hated more than Walker. Antonia Dreykov. The school’s gossip mill. Only she uses gossip like a knife. Sharp and deadly. I’ve seen her ruin lives with a couple of lines of text posted to a website called School Happenings. I try to avoid the website in general, but word still gets around. Dreykov is vicious with what she writes. I’ve never been featured in one of her gossip articles but there’s plenty about me she could learn, which is why I avoid her as much as possible. I think the only student in the room that she’s written about is Reynolds. The post was really stupid. A whole page worth of dissecting Reynolds’s gender presentation. He wore a skirt once and she made a whole thing of it. Speculating about Reynolds’s gender and why he’d choose to wear a skirt, like it was this dirty lie she’d caught him in.

The other student, Yelena Belova, didn’t look pleased to be here either. Wonder what she would have done to get detention. Belova sat in front of me, while Dreykov sat in front of Reynolds. Reynolds looked almost terrified.

“Take out your homework. You’re here until four-thirty. Might as well make use of your time,” Jamison said, not looking up from his computer. I suppose he planned to ignore us for the next hour and a half.

I opened The Great Gatsby to read the chapter for tomorrow.

“Good to see you in pants again Bobby,” Dreykov murmured, loud enough that we could all hear it.

Reynolds flinched. “Can you just leave me alone?”

“What’s the matter Bobby, don’t want to feel pretty anymore?” Dreykov’s smile felt like trying to stare down a lion. Or more likely a snake.

“Would y’all fuck off about that? Who cares?” Walker snapped. I’m glad he stepped in because I wasn’t about to get in Dreykov’s way. But John Walker is Mr. Perfect, He Who Can Do No Wrong. There can’t be anything to dig up on him. But the rest of us? Well, there’s gotta be something worth Dreykov’s time.

“Tell me Johnny,” Dreykov smirked. “How was spring break?”

“Nobody calls me Johnny,” is Walker’s cold response. But I don’t miss how he flinches at the mention of spring break.

“Really?” Reynolds sounds surprised. Like he expected Walker to be called Johnny all the time. “Not even Olivia?”

Walker shook his head. “Olivia never called me anything but John.”

Called, past tense. Did they break up? I hate to admit it, but I don’t know the answer. Dreykov never published anything about a break up between John and Olivia. Unfortunately, she’s our most reliable source of information. If she didn’t write about it, it didn’t happen.

“Homework, you five,” Jamison cut in.

[jaymoriartys-thunderboltspage]

I quite enjoyed Thunderbolts* and I kinda wanna write a high school murder mystery AU with the Vault Four. Kind of in the styling of Karen M McManus, but definitely inspired by her writing.

I also just think it would be really funny to put all Four of them (Ava, Yelena, Bob, John) in high school and make them interact. I think it could be fun 🤷

Could potentially feature Alexei posing as Yelena's father, Bucky and Sam being adults and getting involved in the investigation