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Chapter Text

It had been three and a half months since The Incident . 

Three and a half months since the so-called New Avengers were stitched together, part PR stunt, part desperation. All thanks to Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

They weren’t quite a team. Not like the old guard. They were a collection of damaged weapons, rebranded and repackaged, with just enough shine to pass for something heroic.

They worked together. They saved lives. But what held them together wasn’t camaraderie—it was surveillance, trauma, and a mutual understanding that none of them had anywhere else to go. They were something of a family now, even if broken.

But John Walker had never quite fit in. 

He lingered at the edges—close enough to be counted, never close enough to belong. After a while, he stopped trying. There was a quiet rhythm to the exclusion. He convinced himself he preferred it that way. 

Sometimes he wondered if the discomfort others felt around him had less to do with what he had done—and more to do with the fact that he never quite acted right. Too angry. Too stiff.

Sometimes, when the others shared private jokes in the elevator, or when Yelena leaned her head against Ava’s shoulder during movie night—it hit him like shrapnel to the chest.

Olivia would’ve told him to just say something.

“You’re not charming enough to coast on silence,” she’d said once, amused, cupping his face like he wasn’t a man unraveling.

He’d told her he didn’t care what people thought. She’d laughed at that.

He went on the missions. Followed orders. Kept his mouth shut, mostly. Valentina’s team had even managed to drag his approval ratings out of red—briefly. It felt like progress. Like maybe, maybe the public was beginning to forget.

Then the video came back.

It started with a whisper. A shift in the way people looked at him. Strangers who had once asked for selfies now crossed the street. Parents pulled their kids behind them. A waitress handed him his coffee with a flinch she clearly hadn’t meant to show.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

He’d been trained not to care what people thought. That hadn’t changed.

But it still got under his skin. Especially when the headlines came crawling out of the grave: 

“U.S. Agent or U.S. Threat?”

“Execution or Assassination?”

“Does This Look Like a Hero to You?”

The footage played on loop. Over and over. The blood. The shield. The way John had stood, chest heaving, red dripping from white and blue like a wound across a flag.

Murderer.

Disgrace.

Monster.

He’d tried to bury that man. Had clawed himself into something new, something better. He’d paid for it—his title, his family, his peace. But none of that mattered now. Not to the public. Not to the cameras. Not to the goddamn algorithms.

And maybe, some part of him whispered, not even to himself.

So he watched, witnessed his second public downfall for the same goddamn reason as before. He scrolled mindlessly through lists and lists of articles he’d already read. Wondered mildly how deep into the red his approval rating was now.

And then he saw something.

“Is Bob Reynolds Hiding Something?"

And, oh. That caught his attention. John knew where he stood on the team, knew his place. Knew he was disliked, not really trusted. Knew his reputation stood on thin ice. But Bob? 

Everyone loved Bob. He was impossibly kind. Considerate of others. Checked in on people. Noticed when something was off. And he meant it. All of it. Something about that pissed John off.

Valentina had covered his tracks, erased any connection he should have had to The Void, the whole Incident. The team had ensured there weren’t any more incidents, had done everything to keep him outside of public scrutiny. Everything to protect him, even if John couldn’t fully grasp why they were so fiercely protective.

So how had this connection been drawn? Why now?

John didn’t let himself care enough to consider that question too much.

The article was anonymous. Not just opinion, not just hearsay. It cited classified reports that should have been scrubbed. Incident logs. Witness statements. There were redacted names that John still recognized. The headline was clickbait, but the content wasn’t.

The Void never left. It was just sleeping.

The view counter was rising exponentially, comments on the article increasing steadily. People were scared. Not of Bob Reynolds—the man who apologized when he sneezed too loud. No, they were scared of what was inside him. Of what he might become again. And fear was louder than facts. Louder than anything.

John knew that.

He knew what fear could do. How fast it could twist the truth into something unrecognizable.

And now it was circling Bob. Like vultures.

He closed the tab. Leaned back against his headboard.

The room was too quiet.

Somewhere deep inside the base, the ventilation system hummed. Faint footsteps echoed through the corridors nearby. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been sitting there, locked into the glow of the screen. Hours, maybe.

He stood slowly. His legs were stiff.

Across the room, the window threw light onto the floor in long stripes. The sky outside had already begun to pale, the city smeared in shades of grey and orange.

He pulled himself into his clothes, dragged himself to the door.

The hallway was colder than he remembered. Quieter too.

Usually someone was sparring or stress-baking or watching something too loud in the team common area. But now, nothing. Just muted shoes and locked doors and that humming that only came from something bad.

When he reached the common area, he didn’t bother turning on the lights. He shut the door behind him, locked it, and leaned against the cool wood for a moment like it might hold him upright.

He ran a hand over his face, walked over to the kitchen. Poured himself a cup of leftover coffee from yesterday. He realized he wasn’t alone. Bucky stood by the dining room table, looking solemn.

“Meeting room. Now.”

John followed without a word.

Ava, Yelena, Alexei, and Bob were seated around the briefing table, arms crossed or clasped or just dead silent. Yelena rapped her fingers. Bob looked like he was trying to vanish into the wall.

John’s gut tensed.

“What is this?”

After a beat, Valentina strolled in from the hallway as though she was late for brunch, Mel in tow. She smiled like a dagger, hair perfect, tablet in hand.

“Congratulations, boys,” she said, all sugar and arsenic. “You’re married.”

John blinked.

The room stilled.

He looked around the room, half-expecting a laugh, a punchline. None came. Bob’s knuckles were white around a printed copy of something, his eyes locked to the table. Yelena stopped tapping. Bucky sighed.

“I’m sorry,” John said flatly. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Valentina tapped a few times and turned the tablet to face him.

It was already up. Everywhere. News banners, Tweets. Carefully filtered photos. A press release from the company. A quote from Bob about “starting a new chapter.”

It was all fake, of course. But it was already true.

“There was no wedding,” John growled.

“There didn’t need to be,” Valentina said, ripping the tablet from his sight. “You were legally joined this morning at 8:34 a.m. Your signatures were retroactively authorized. It’s airtight.”

Bob made a small sound. Not a word. Just a breath that caught in his throat.

John turned to him.

“You knew about this?”

Bob didn’t answer.

“No,” Yelena said instead. “He didn’t.”

John’s jaw flexed.

Valentina kept talking like this was a weather report. “The optics are ideal. The public loves a redemption arc. And now they’ve got two—an emotionally reformed ex-soldier and a formerly unstable god demonstrating mutual trust, vulnerability, and growth. The narrative practically writes itself.”

“This is fucking insane,” John said. “You can’t just—”

“We can,” she said, “and we did.”

Alexei muttered something in Russian that sounded like a curse. Ava didn’t speak at all, but the glare she gave Valentina could’ve seared metal.

John looked at Bob. He looked small, folded into himself. Not from fear—at least not just that. Shame. Embarrassment. The kind of humiliation that couldn’t be laughed off or forgotten.

Mel spoke up. “There will be press conferences. Interviews. Public sightings. All of you will have to play along.”

And John felt it hit him. Not all at once, more like he was watching the rage rise in slow motion. Not at the headlines. Not even at Valentina or Mel.

At himself. For thinking it would ever be different.

They’d made him a weapon again. Just like before. Just like always.

And now, apparently, he was married.

Chapter Text

The rest of that morning was a blur. John retreated to his room shortly after, didn’t even stop in the communal area to grab breakfast—or lunch—whatever.

Someone knocked at his door. He ignored it. A memo was shoved under it.

New housing arrangement effective immediately.

Shared quarters: Walker, Reynolds.

He stared at the paper for a long second before crumpling it in one fist.

They were moved in that evening. No fanfare, no chance to object. Two bags outside the door of a corner dorm, repurposed for their “domestic integration.”

It was similar to the room John had previously lived in: barely decorated, industrial lighting, a dresser. A singular queen bed. Neatly made. Throw pillows and everything. There was even a candle on the bedside table.

He blinked at it like it might explode.

“Is this a joke?”

Bob didn’t answer. He’d gone very, very still.

He stood by the edge of the bed, his posture drawn tight like someone expecting to be hit. He hadn’t touched his bag. His hands were jammed into the pockets of his hoodie, shoulders curled inward. He didn’t look up.

John sighed and dropped his own bag with a dull thud. Rolled his shoulders, ripped the decorative pillows off the bed like they had personally offended him. “You gonna say something?”

Silence.

John rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, turning away. He paced to the window, stared out at nothing. “You didn’t know. I get it. Doesn’t make this any less of a circus.”

Bob spoke, finally. “I’m sorry.”

That made John turn. “For what? You didn’t forge our fucking signatures.”

“I didn’t stop it either.”

John snorted. “Yeah? What were you gonna do, punch Valentina in the face? Hack the legal system? Kill the Void?”

Bob flinched at that, and John cursed inwardly. “Shit. I didn’t mean—” He cut himself off. “Whatever.”

They stood in silence again. The kind that settled between people who didn’t know how to fix anything. The kind that hummed with words unsaid.

John took an extra blanket from the closet and laid it down lengthwise along the middle of the mattress like a line in the sand. Not that he thought anything would happen—Christ, the idea made his skin crawl. Not because of Bob. Just… the optics. What it might say.

“There. Border control.” He glanced at Bob. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to try anything.”

Bob didn’t even blink. “You’d break your own jaw before letting that happen.”

John didn’t deny it. He just grunted and turned away, muttering something about brushing his teeth.

When he returned from the bathroom, Bob was gone. His bag had been unpacked. Everything in its place. Neat. Deliberate.

John stared at the shared room, at the useless line of a blanket down the bed.

He started unpacking. Mechanical. Like if he followed orders quietly enough, the whole thing might undo itself. 

His fingers paused at the bottom of his duffel.

There, tucked between his old boots and battered sweatshirt, was a photo. Bent at the corners. A candid—he and Olivia sitting on a fire escape, legs dangling. She was laughing, holding their son. He wasn’t looking at the camera. He was looking at her.

He stuffed it in a drawer without thinking.

Out of sight.

He eyed the floor. Briefly entertained the idea of dragging his blanket down and claiming a corner like a pissed-off dog. But Bob—sweet, golden Bob—would probably just offer to take the floor instead. And John couldn’t stomach that.

So he didn’t do anything. Just kept unpacking. Kept breathing.

John sat on the edge of the bed, frustration tight in his chest, thumb hovering over her old contact in his phone. He didn’t message her. Of course he didn’t. 

Instead, he put the phone face-down and looked at the candle for a long time. It smelled like vanilla.

He grunted. “Figures.”

He didn’t see Bob until later that night. Not that he wanted to. John stayed in the room, had already gotten ready for bed. Already laid down on top of the covers. Let the weight of this whole nightmare settle into him. He didn't say anything. Just watched Bob close the bathroom door shut behind him.

When Bob finally emerged from the bathroom, neither spoke. John stared at the ceiling.

She would have laughed at this, he thought bitterly. He huffed out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh.

The first few nights were a masterclass in avoidance.

They laid on opposite edges of the bed. The candle flickered. Neither one moved. Bob barely slept—John could feel it. He pretended not to notice, but he did—every time his breath hitched in the dark, every time the light from the bathroom leaked out of the cracked door. Sometimes, Bob would get up and sit by the window, staring out at the city like he might will himself out of it.

John didn’t ask. Wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

He avoided eye contact in the mornings. Bob didn’t seem to mind.

They kept to themselves. Awkward side steps around the bathroom. Passive-aggressive teeth-brushing, pointedly not sharing toothpaste. No talking unless absolutely necessary.

What struck John more than anything was the way others had started to tiptoe around Bob more. They had always been mindful, but this felt… different. More gentle than before. Like he was porcelain that could crack if someone breathed too hard. Ava didn’t sass him like she used to. Alexei kept his jokes to himself. Bucky looked at him like he was balancing a grenade. Even Yelena spoke to him in a voice like she was afraid he might flinch.

John didn’t.

He barked at Bob when he left the fridge open. Snapped when his toothpaste tube went missing. Grumbled when Bob left his books on the couch. Rolled his eyes when Bob forgot to turn off the coffee pot. Didn’t coddle. Didn’t flinch.

And part of him—some ugly, clenched part—felt stupidly proud of that. Like refusing to play along with everyone else’s cautious reverence somehow made him more honest. More immune.

Maybe that was part of it, too. The quiet voice in his head that asked if people would still be so forgiving if it were him. If he’d lost control again.

He didn’t like the answer. Didn’t like how fast his brain flashed to Olivia, to the look she gave him when she left. Like she didn’t know who he was anymore.

He’d tried calling again. She still wasn’t picking up.

“Hey assholes,” John said a few days further into the arrangement. Bob was still in their shared quarters, carefully balanced on the edge of his side of the bed. The rest of the team sat around the dining room table, talking and laughing quietly with each other. Yelena raised a brow.

“In case you decided not to notice, this whole fucking marriage is fake.” 

Ava took a sip of her tea.

“Stop treating Bob like he’s fragile. I’m not going to break him.”

Silence fell like a dropped plate. Sharp. Sudden. Echoed in all the wrong ways.

John stood in the threshold of the kitchen like a damn stormcloud. Arms crossed. Jaw clenched. Everyone looked up.

Alexei, for once, didn’t joke. Just tilted his head slightly, like he was studying John through a microscope.

Bucky huffed.

Ava blinked slowly, leaned forward, and said, “Okay.”

Just that. Nothing more. No sarcasm, no sass. Like she was letting him say his piece.

Yelena smiled. Not kindly. But that was the end of it.

Chapter Text

Their first public appearance came less than three weeks after the announcement hit the Internet.

John hadn’t even figured out how to walk around the shared room without brushing against Bob, let alone how to perform a marriage in front of cameras. But Valentina didn’t care about logistics. She cared about optics.

It was a charity gala. Of course it was. Something photogenic, expensive, and painfully choreographed—with just enough philanthropic veneer to distract from the fact that neither of them wanted to be there.

John nearly chewed through the briefing room table when he found out.

“You want me to what ?” he barked. “Smile and play domestic husband while people take pictures of us like it’s a fucking romcom?”

Mel blinked. “Yes.”

Bob was quiet through it all. Agreed too easily. Like he didn’t have the strength to fight it.

Evening came, and John adjusted his collar for the hundredth time. He hated the suit. Too tight in the shoulders. Probably intentional. Bob looked like a statue beside him in deep navy, posture locked somewhere between flight and freeze.

John muttered, “Fix your tie. You look like you got dressed in a hurry.”

Bob adjusted it with shaky fingers. “I did.”

The car pulled up to the venue. Flashbulbs popped before the door even opened.

The event was some dumb press benefit. Overlit red carpet, reporters with badges and plastic smiles. John felt like he was being skinned alive, and he hadn’t even stepped out of the limousine.

“Smile,” Valentina hissed from her seat. “Or at least look less like you’re about to be executed.”

John gritted his teeth. Bob nodded, small and obedient. John almost laughed. Almost.

The second they stepped out, the press exploded, cameras clicking like a pack of wolves. A wall of sound rose around them—reporters shouting questions, fans screaming, phones filming every angle.

John! Bob! Look this way!

What’s it like being married?

Is this your first event as a couple?

John’s jaw tightened. He gave a polite nod. Cold and distant. Didn’t smile. Didn’t wave. 

Bob hovered by his side, deer-in-headlights expression painted across his face. His fingers twitched, uncertain, like he didn’t know what to do with them.

And then—before he could think better of it, before he could even name the impulse—John reached out and took Bob’s hand.

Bob flinched.

So did John.

But neither of them let go.

Not even when the flashes doubled. Not even when someone yelled, “Aw, look at them!”

They stood there, hand-in-hand, for the world to see. A perfect picture of everything they weren’t.

He knew what this looked like. What people were going to think. What they were already thinking. And God, wasn’t that just the cherry on top—years of training, violence, blood on his hands—and this was the thing they forgave him for?

If John’s grip was a little too tight, and Bob’s fingers a little too cold, no one looking through a lens could tell the difference.

They were already trending before they reached the stairs. Paparazzi zoomed in on the clasped hands. Fans cried in the crowd. Someone yelled, “You’re my OTP!”

John had no idea what that meant, but it sounded terminal.

His grip loosened only after they were inside. He let go of Bob’s hand, not abruptly, but with the tension of something forcibly unclenched.

Bob’s hands trembled.

“Breathe,” John muttered through clenched teeth. “Pretend you’re not terrified.”

“I’m not pretending,” Bob whispered back, eyes on the floor. “I’m fine.”

John didn’t believe him.

The ballroom was all polished marble and glittering chandeliers, echoing with the hum of money and conversation. The kind of place where everyone’s smile was sharpened to a point and the champagne cost more than John made in a month before all this.

They were escorted around like show ponies—flanked by handlers, ushered past cameras, parked near a branded photo wall where some influencer was already posing like her life depended on it.

Bob didn’t speak the entire time. Just smiled faintly, eyes glazed like someone walking a tightrope over a minefield. John stood beside him like a bodyguard with a badge and leash.

Valentina swept past them, already greeting donors with the practiced warmth of someone who didn’t need to believe anything she said. A waitress with a tray offered them champagne. John took a glass. Bob didn’t.

“Drink,” John said quietly. “You’ll look more comfortable.”

Bob shook his head. “I’ll spill it.”

John downed his own drink and scanned the room.

People were watching. Of course they were. A few discreet glances. A few less discreet. Phones held low, recording. One woman angled her body just enough to get them in her selfie’s background.

John moved closer, shoulder to shoulder with Bob. Not out of affection—out of instinct. He could feel how stiff he was, how much he wanted to shrink, and some part of John wouldn’t allow it.

A donor approached. Something in deep burgundy and fake tan. “You two are just the cutest thing. I told my husband we need to get married again just so we can look half as good on a red carpet!”

Bob blinked, unsure how to respond. John smiled tightly. “We clean up okay.”

The woman laughed like it was the cleverest thing she’d ever heard and drifted away.

“Kill me,” John muttered.

“Not tonight,” Bob murmured back. “Too many witnesses.”

John almost choked on a laugh. It startled him—how quick it came, how real it felt.

A photographer called their names, and they posed again, side by side, practiced and still.

The lights flashed.

And somehow, it was easier with Bob’s shoulder brushing his.

Still fake. Still uncomfortable. But less alone.

At some point in the evening, Mel brushed past them. “You’re doing great,” she said. “Keep going.”

John wanted to strangle her.

Bob grabbed his arm. Squeezed gently. Just enough. “Breathe.”

Bob’s expression had locked into something close to pleasant, but not quite. John grimaced.

He had never taken Olivia to anything like this. Never wanted to. She hated crowds, hated artifice, hated smiling for people she didn’t like. He used to love that about her. That sharpness. That fire.

You couldn’t pay me to stand on a red carpet, she’d said once, bare feet on the coffee table, wine in one hand and the other wrapped around his wrist like she’d never let go.

And then she left.

Now here he was, in a suit she would’ve hated, holding hands with his fake-husband for cameras he didn’t want to smile for.

The irony made his chest hurt.

This wasn’t the same. Bob wasn’t Olivia. This wasn’t even real .

But the air still felt too thin. The lights too hot. His tie too tight.

Somewhere across the room, laughter rose—a sharp, familiar note that sounded almost like hers. John’s stomach flipped before he could stop it.

He pulled out his phone when no one was watching. Opened Olivia’s messages. Still unread.

He downed his second glass of champagne.

Beside him, Bob hadn’t moved. Still frozen under the weight of attention. Still quiet, still trying.

John almost felt sorry for him.

Someone nearby said, “Look at each other like you’re in love!”

Bob turned toward him, startled. John hesitated, then leaned in slightly, hand settling lightly on Bob’s back. A camera clicked.

“Want to get out of here?”

Bob blinked. “We’re not supposed to leave yet.”

John’s jaw clenched. “Bathroom, then.”

Bob nodded, grateful for the out, and they slipped down a corridor lined with oil paintings and donors’ names etched into marble.

Out of sight, Bob let out his breath like he’d been holding it since they stepped onto the carpet. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

John stayed standing.

He thought of Olivia again. She’d told him once that he was too good at compartmentalizing. Said he could make himself anything if it served the moment. Said it scared her.

Maybe she was right.

John shifted his weight. He didn’t miss her—not exactly. But something about the lights, the fake pleasantries, the way Bob stood beside him in a life he didn’t choose—it scraped something.

Bob flinched at everything. Cameras. Eye contact. Touch. But still, he was trying.

He didn’t know if Olivia would have tried. He never gave her the chance.

John swallowed hard. “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” Bob said. “Are you?”

John didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to.

Chapter Text

By morning, they weren’t just trending. They were viral.

Not just the gala— them . Their names. Together. In bold. In hashtags. John hadn’t known there were that many fonts on the Internet or that video editing was apparently a common skill.

He saw it first when he opened his phone out of habit and was immediately met with a looping video of him touching Bob’s back, slowed down and set to Lana Del Ray.

He closed the app. Opened another. Made it worse.

It felt invasive. Like watching someone else try to rewrite him into something soft. Something he never asked to be. Something he wasn’t supposed to be. There was something about it—the hands, the gaze, the way people seemed to love it—that made his skin crawl.

There were fan edits. Slow-motion gifs of John stepping closer, overlaid with sad music. Screencaps of Bob’s expression, labeled with captions like “he looks at him like he’s the sun.”

He saw one labeled “slow-burn mutual pining.” That made him snort so hard it hurt. Mutual. As if. Like he even knew how to want that—whatever that was. He’d barely known how to want Olivia without feeling like a traitor to himself.

Someone posted a side-by-side of John holding the bloody shield and of John holding Bob’s hand on the red carpet. It was captioned: “Healing.”

“Jesus Christ,” John muttered, scrolling through another app. “These people are unwell.”

There was fanart. There was fanfiction.

There were threads analyzing the way Bob smiled—how “tender” he looked beside John, how “soft” he was making him. People were unironically referring to them as “the blueprint for functional masculinity.” Someone used the word “emotional topography.” John didn’t even know what that meant.

There was something smug in the way they said it. Like they’d “fixed” him without asking. This performative tenderness, this marriage he hadn’t asked for—was supposed to be proof of his humanity. As if men holding hands was some magic moral cleanser.

John wanted to scream.

He didn’t. Instead, he stalked into the kitchen like a soldier returning to a battlefield.

The team was already gathered there. Of course they were.

Yelena had her feet kicked up on the coffee table, reading off headlines with unrestrained glee.

“Bob Reynolds and the U.S. Agent John Walker Show That Love Is The Strongest Superpower.’ That one’s from The Daily Globe ,” she chirped. “Honestly, pretty tame compared to the one where they called you ‘human golden retriever adopted by war criminal.’”

John glared at her. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Oh my god, you have no idea,” she said. “They’re doing fan castings. For a movie. About your marriage. Someone suggested Tom Holland as you, Bob.”

Ava groaned into her mug. “I hate this timeline.”

Alexei laughed so hard he choked on his cereal.

Bob, seated stiffly on the edge of a dining room chair, gave a weak smile. His hands were folded tightly in his lap. “That’s… flattering?”

John looked away. The laughter felt too loud, too close. He could feel that heat crawl up his neck. Not embarrassment—something older, uglier.

“I think it is cute, yes!” Alexei said between laughs.

John shot him a look.

“What? It is! You are not murderer in this one. That is character growth.”

Yelena snorted. “Says the man who once tore off a man’s ear with his teeth.”

“That was strategy,” Alexei said, offended. “And he deserved it.”

Bucky was the one who broke the mood. Low voice, calm, steady, but gruff and sharp. “It’s not funny.”

The room stilled.

Yelena’s grin faded. “No,” she said too softly. “I suppose it isn’t.”

“It’s not a joke,” Bucky continued, looking at no one and everyone. “People saw something they wanted to see and projected all their feelings onto it. Now it’s a spectacle.”

The air shifted. Colder. Heavier. Like something stiff and unspoken had landed in the room and refused to leave.

John felt it land somewhere behind his ribs. A weight. Dense. Familiar.

Bob hadn’t moved.

Bucky leaned back in his chair, voice still low. “You two pulled off a damn good performance. Now there are expectations.”

John clicked his jaw.

“People think they’re rooting for you,” Bucky continued. “But what they’re really rooting for is their version of you. And the second you stop performing—”

“They turn,” Ava said flatly.

John scowled. “You think we don’t know that?”

“I know you do,” Bucky said. “But does he?”

Everyone turned.

Bob didn’t look up. His jaw was tight, shoulders square. His back was a little too straight, hands clasped too tightly in his lap. Still wearing the expression of someone politely waiting for a fire alarm to stop ringing.

The silence settled around him like static.

He said, softly, “I’m fine.”

No one believed him.

John stood a little straighter behind Bob’s chair. Not looming. Not quite. But present. Guarded. He didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t trust himself to say it.

Yelena looked at him, her mouth pressed into a line. “Bucky’s right. People don’t just lose interest. They get mean . They feel betrayed.”

John folded his arms, eyes fixed on a patch of wall above the TV. “We didn’t ask for this.”

“No one did,” Bucky said. “But you’re in it now. Don’t fuck it up.”

John wanted to say that this wasn’t who he was. That he’d never been… like that. But the words felt pathetic even before they reached his tongue.

So he stayed silent.

There was a pause, a still silence—long enough to feel like the end of something. No one spoke. No one looked directly at Bob.

“This kind of attention doesn’t just go away. It builds.” Bucky said. “And then it implodes. Usually on the person least equipped to handle it.”

John’s mouth tightened. “I can handle it.”

Bucky’s stare didn’t flinch. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

John looked back to Bob.

No one said anything after that. Not for a while. The kitchen seemed smaller than it had moments ago.

The team scattered slowly, tension dissolving not with resolution, but with retreat.

Alexei cleared his throat and muttered something about cereal. Ava left to make tea that no one would drink. Even Yelena, who usually had a quip locked and loaded, stood for a beat too long before finally walking out—shaking her head like the sound of silence was too loud to bear.

Bob didn’t move. Just sat there. Waiting for the next thing.

John hesitated. Wanted to say something. Didn’t. Couldn’t. He wasn’t good at comfort—only control.

So he left, one hand dragging across the edge of Bob’s chair as if it could say something his mouth couldn’t.

The hallway was cooler. Dimmer. Quieter in a way that wasn’t restful.

He didn’t make it far before Yelena stepped into view like she’d been waiting for him to leave the others behind.

She didn’t bother with a smile this time. Just looked at him like she was appraising a weapon she didn’t trust. That sharp, assessing look.

“Hurt him,” she said quietly, “and I will end you.”

John rolled his eyes. “I’m not trying to hurt him.”

“You don’t have to try.”

He flinched.

Something sharp twisted in his gut. He didn’t know if it was guilt or disgust, and he hated that he wasn’t sure which. It had always been easier to punch than to feel.

“I mean it,” she said. “Bob’s not built for this kind of pressure. You are. That makes you dangerous.”

John opened his mouth. Closed it again. The words sat on his tongue like rusted metal.

Yelena stepped closer, lowering her voice. “You don’t get to screw this up and then say it wasn’t your fault. Not with him. You don’t get to disappear behind that silent-soldier routine and pretend you didn’t see it coming. Not when the fallout lands on him.”

Her tone didn’t rise. It didn’t have to.

She held his gaze for a beat longer, then turned and walked away.

John didn’t follow.

He stood there in the hallway, alone in the silence she left behind, trying to remember how much of this he’d actually agreed to—and how much had already been taken from them both.

Because what were they, really? A headline. A stunt. And every part of him—the man, the uniform, the father who hadn’t seen his son in so long —had been packaged for redemption.

John pulled out his phone again. No new messages. Olivia hadn’t even opened the last one. He’d asked for a picture. Just one. Anything to prove his kid still had ten fingers and two eyes and knew his name.

Nothing.

He shoved his phone back in his pocket and turned from Yelena without a word.

He didn’t need her warnings. He already hated himself enough for both of them.

His phone buzzed. A notification. Surely another echo of them—looping, trending, relentless.

John didn’t check it.

Chapter Text

Later, John found Bob in the gym.

Not training. Just sitting on one of the benches, shoulders hunched, staring at his hands like they weren’t his. The lights above buzzed faintly, harsh and sterile against the late hour. There was no music. No movement. Just the sound of John’s shoes echoing across the floor as he stepped inside.

Bob didn’t look up. Didn’t need to.

“They’re not wrong,” he said quietly.

John slowed. “About what?”

“All of it.”

That made John pause. He crossed his arms, uneasy. “You’re not actually buying into that shit online, are you?”

Bob gave a soft, humorless breath of a laugh. “No. But they’re not wrong about me not being built for this.”

“Bullshit.”

“I flinched when the cameras flashed,” Bob said. “I could barely breathe during the gala. And you—you were calm. Collected. Charming, even.”

John exhaled, moved to sit on the bench next to him. Elbows on knees. “I’ve had practice.”

Bob finally looked up at him. “That’s what scares me.”

The words hit harder than they should have. John didn’t move.

Bob’s voice stayed soft. “You can disappear into a role. Smile on cue. Hold a hand like it means something. You know how to make it all look effortless.”

“It’s not.”

“I know,” Bob replied. “But it looks like it is.”

He hesitated.

“And that means they’ll never stop asking you to do it.”

John stared at the floor. His jaw was tight. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

“But it did.”

“Yeah,” he said after a beat. “Yeah, it did.”

The silence stretched, full of things they weren’t saying. The room felt heavier than before, the walls too close. Like the pressure of other people’s hope had soaked into the room, into their bodies. Into the distance between their knees.

John thought of Olivia. She wouldn’t have been able to watch any of this unfold—not the press, not the hand-holding, not the headlines that called him “softened” or “charming.” And he wouldn’t have wanted her to. Because some terrible part of him still cared what she thought.

He still checked his messages. Still saw the ones he sent. Unread. Unanswered.

Then Bob said, “Do you think it would be easier if we just kissed?”

John blinked. “What?”

“People already believe it,” Bob said, a bitter edge in his voice. “Might as well give them the spectacle.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not.”

John’s throat went dry. “We don’t owe anyone that.”

“No,” Bob agreed. “We don’t.”

Bob stood, slowly. Pressed a hand gently to John’s shoulder for a moment.

Something in John recoiled. Not because of Bob—because of the way it made something tight in his chest twist, sharp and ashamed.

There were rules he’d buried too deep to name. Expectations he’d inherited like scars. Men didn’t talk like this. Didn’t say things like that out loud. 

Even now, even with everything else stripped away—John felt the sting of it. Not from Bob. From himself.

He said nothing.

Bob turned to go. “Goodnight, John.”

And just like that, he was gone.

John sat there a while longer, staring at the empty bench.

He remembered Olivia’s voice. Her laugh. The way she used to look at him like she still believed in the man underneath the uniform. He wondered what she’d think now—if she’d even recognize him. He wondered if she’d bought into the lie. If she’d believe him when he told her it was fake.

He tried to imagine what it would feel like if Bob ever looked at him the way she had looked at him. And hated himself for wondering.

He didn’t move for a long time.

By the time he made it back to their quarters, the room was dark. Quiet. The candle on the nightstand had burned to a stub. Bob was already in bed, curled away from the blanket barrier. His breathing was slow. Steady.

John lingered in the doorway longer than he should have. 

He didn’t know what he expected—that Bob would sit up? Say something? That there’d be some sort of aftermath? But there wasn’t. Just the sound of the fan and the distant hum of the building settling.

John crossed the room quietly and sat on the edge of the bed like it might bite him. He didn’t lay down right away. Just stared at the floor, elbows on his knees, the weight of the day—the lie—still heavy across his shoulders.

Bob didn’t stir. He looked peaceful.

John didn’t feel peaceful.

Eventually, he laid back. Stiff. On top of the covers, arms folded behind his head like he was back on a stiff cot. 

He kept his eyes open in the dark.

It was easier than facing the shape of Bob beside him.

His thoughts circled like vultures. The gala. The confrontation with Yelena. The bench in the gym.

His gaze wandered to the ceiling. Then to the bedside table. His phone. He reached for it before he could stop himself.

No new messages.

Of course not.

He tapped Olivia’s thread anyways. Scrolled through the unread messages he’d sent. They stared back at him like open wounds. The last was short. Too short. “Just tell me if you’ve seen any of it.”

He didn’t know if she had. But how couldn’t she have?

He stared at the screen until the text blurred. Then, almost without thinking, he tapped out a new message.

“It's not real. The marriage thing. It’s all fake. PR. You know how they are.”

His finger hovered over send. He could almost hear her voice, a scoff, a bitter laugh. Maybe even relief. He didn’t know. That was what hollowed him out the most—not knowing.

Once, she’d known every inch of him. His rhythms. His patterns. The things he couldn’t say out loud.

And now he couldn’t picture her voice. Not clearly.

She’d told him once, after everything fell apart, “You don’t know how to want something without trying to fix it first.”

Maybe that was true. Maybe that was why he always tried so hard to “fix” himself. The uniform. The medals. The marriage. Even now.

Especially now.

The message went through.

He stared at it. Waited.

Nothing.

His finger hovered.

“I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it. Please, Liv, I just want to see him.”

He stared at the words. Hesitated. Hit send.

He exhaled like he’d been punched.

He set the phone on the nightstand facedown. It felt radioactive.

From across the bed, Bob shifted under the blankets. A soft sigh into the pillow. John flinched at the sound.

He rolled to face the wall, jaw locked.

This wasn’t who he was supposed to be. Not a PR puppet. Not a man in bed with another man. Not a villain. Not a hashtag. Not a headline.

But Olivia wouldn’t answer. Wouldn’t call. Wouldn’t even look at him.

And he couldn’t blame her.

She had every right to be done with him. Every right to keep their son far from whatever he had turned into.

Still, he kept trying. Sending messages into the void like they might build a bridge out of silence. Like one of them might land in the right moment, crack something open.

He didn’t even want forgiveness anymore.

He just wanted to see his son.

Just wanted to know the boy didn’t flinch when people said his father’s name.

John swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Clenched his fists.

He didn’t sleep. Just laid there in bed, rigid and wired, pretending the sheets weren’t warm from someone else’s presence. Pretending he hadn’t just told the mother of his child that his fake marriage wasn’t real. Pretending that it didn’t sit like a weight on his chest.

He kept his eyes shut until dawn.

And when the room finally began to glow with pale light, he was still awake. Still waiting.

Still hoping for something that wasn’t coming.

Chapter Text

Morning came too early.

John hadn’t slept. Just laid there, stiff on top of the covers, still in yesterday’s clothes. He listened to Bob’s breathing and tried to forget the night before. He’d sent Olivia that message. He’d meant every word. But the silence afterward had bloomed like rot in his chest.

No reply.

He got dressed in the dark. Mechanical. Efficient. He didn’t need a mirror to know he looked like shit.

He ran a hand over his face, groaned.

He could hear the rustle of fabric. Bob was across the room, still in the bed. Curled on his side, just past the makeshift “border” John had reset earlier that week. Not touching it, not even close, but there. Breathing slow and even, mouth parted slightly in his sleep.

For a second, John didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Something about the image sat heavy in his throat. A man in his bed. Not a threat. Not a conquest. Just a presence.

It shouldn’t have felt so foreign.

He looked away. Sighed.

Bob stirred, brow twitching faintly before his eyes blinked open, hazy with sleep.

“Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Bob blinked, voice hoarse. “You didn’t.”

It was probably a lie. John chose not to respond.

Bob stayed still. Neat. Like he didn’t want to take up more space than necessary. Like he knew he was temporary.

John’s fingers clenched the cotton of his shirt.

“We have that engagement thing today,” he said finally, breaking the silence.

Bob sat up slowly, rubbing at his face. “Right. Photos?”

“So I’m told.”

“Do we have to hold hands again?”

John glanced at him. “Probably.”

Bob sighed, already dragging himself toward the edge of the bed. “I’m taking a shower.”

John watched him disappear into the bathroom. Leaned his head against the wall. He shut his eyes. Breathed in the faint smell of that stupid vanilla candle.

He checked his phone. No message from Olivia.

The ones he’d sent last night still sat at the bottom of their thread, unread.

“It's not real. The marriage thing. It’s all fake. PR. You know how they are.”

“I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it. Please, Liv, I just want to see him.”

Still nothing.

John swore under his breath. Locked the screen and shoved it in his pocket.

He didn’t check again.

He made his way to the kitchen, made himself a cup of coffee. The team was already halfway through breakfast. Alexei had cooked eggs. John took a plate with nothing more than a nod. Ava glanced at him.

Yelena was barefoot and merciless, reading out a new article headline with a smirk. “‘America’s Softest Power Couple—Why Bob and John Are Exactly What The Country Needs Right Now.’”

John groaned. “I hate it here.”

Bob walked in a few minutes later. “Morning,” he said. Polite. Careful.

Ava passed Bob a cup of coffee like she was administering medication.

“Sure,” John muttered. He didn’t bother pouring milk in his own cup. The silence between them wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t comfortable, either.

Valentina arrived shortly after like she hadn’t slept either, clipboard in hand, smile tight. “Big day,” she said, chipper and heartless. “Shoot at nine. Interview with DB, then some lifestyle shots for the press kit. Be ready in thirty.”

Bob blinked. “Lifestyle shots?”

“Couple-y. Domestic. Cozy.” She looked at them, eyes too sharp. “You live together now. It’s time we show the public how in love you are.”

John swore under his breath.

Valentina didn’t flinch. “You’ll have scripts. Follow them.”

After Valentina left, John muttered, mostly to himself, “When will she leave us alone?”

“Never,” Yelena said, smile not quite reaching her eyes. “Welcome to your new life.”

John ran a hand over his face. Could already feel the fake smile forming behind his teeth. It made him feel sick.

After breakfast, he returned to his room. There was a suit waiting for him in the closet. It hadn’t been there before.

Someone knocked on his door. “Makeup,” they said. He almost shut the door in their face. Almost.

The morning blurred. Wardrobe. Touch-ups. Posing. Camera shutters like machine guns. John and Bob were ushered into a series of overlit rooms, posed for the cameras.

The photographer used the word “cuddly,” more than once. Bob leaned in. John clenched his jaw so hard it clicked.

By ten, they were being ushered into a conference room transformed into a makeshift press staging area. Lights. Mics. A backdrop with logos John didn’t recognize but instinctively disliked.

Valentina and Mel were already there. Valentina’s hair was perfect. Smile weaponized. “You’re up, boys. Remember the script. Don’t deviate.”

“Define ‘deviate,’” John said dryly.

“Anything that involves honesty,” Mel said.

The lights were too bright.

John blinked against the glare, adjusted the collar of his shirt. Bob sat beside him, posture open, polite. Clean shave. Perfect skin. The picture of composed intimacy. Like he belonged there.

John felt like a mannequin someone had forgotten to pose.

Bob adjusted his mic. His hands were steady, but his eyes weren’t. They darted from the camera to the interviewer to the lights, then landed, briefly, on John.

John didn’t return the glance.

“Alright,” said the woman from DB. Her voice was warm, sugary, practiced. She had the kind of smile that had probably won awards. “Let’s dive right in. America’s favorite couple—” she laughed. “—how’s married life treating you?”

John offered a rehearsed smile. “Busy. A little overwhelming. But… good.”

“Better with him in it,” Bob added. His voice was soft, like he meant it. He didn’t look at John, not quite. Just enough that the camera would catch it.

The interviewer gave an indulgent smile, like she was watching puppies fall in love. “Aw, that’s sweet. And unexpected! This was a surprise to all of us—when did sparks start flying? I mean, you two weren’t even on anyone’s radar.”

John’s throat clicked as he swallowed. “It’s… not something we talked about publicly,” he said. A dodge. “We wanted something for ourselves.”

A pause. The interviewer tilted her head. “Of course. And now you’re sharing that love with the world. And how has that been?”

Bob offered a soft, camera-friendly smile. “It’s been a bit overwhelming—the support… But good.”

John nodded like that was a real answer. “A lot to adjust to.”

“But you’re adjusting together,” the interviewer said, her eyes bright with manufactured warmth. “That’s so inspiring. You’ve become a symbol—hope, unity, the idea that even in complicated times, love finds a way.”

John forced out a breath that could pass for a laugh. “That’s a lot to live up to.”

“Well,” the interviewer said, leaning in slightly. “Let's go a little deeper. John—this has been a huge transition for you. You’ve always been private. Reserved. How has it been, adjusting to life in the spotlight with someone new?”

John felt Bob shift beside him. Just barely. Like he was bracing for something.

“Hard,” John said, before he could filter it. “Harder than I thought.”

The interviewer raised her eyebrow. “But worth it?”

John hesitated.

Bob said quickly, “Yes, it’s been worth it.”

John didn’t nod. Just let the moment hang.

She looked between them. Her smile twitched, but didn’t fall. “And what do you love most about each other? Let’s get sappy.”

Bob answered first. “John’s…” He paused, almost hesitating. “He’s got this strange gravity. You don’t always know where he’s pulling you, but you end up there anyway.”

It sounded good. Almost too good. Like something someone wrote.

John was supposed to say something equally nice.

He didn’t.

Instead, he looked past the camera crew. Past Valentina’s tight smile in the wings. Past the lights, the script, the whole plastic set they were trapped in.

And he said, “Bob’s the only person who doesn’t flinch when I walk into a room.”

The silence was immediate.

No laughter. No cooing. Just a kind of held breath.

The interviewer blinked, smile dimming just slightly at the edges. “That’s… a unique way to put it.”

“I didn’t mean—” John started. Then shook his head. “I just mean… he doesn’t brace. Doesn’t perform around me. Everyone else—” he exhaled hard. “I’m always either a PR risk or a charity case. Bob—Bob’s neither. He’s… steady. Thoughtful.”

Bob was watching him now. Really watching.

Valentina’s clipboard shifted. Someone off-camera coughed.

The interviewer quickly regrouped. “Well, that’s clearly a strong foundation—trust, authenticity, all the things we hope for in a real partnership.” She glanced down at her notes. “Let’s pivot—any plans for the honeymoon? Or are you two too busy saving the world?”

Bob answered, smooth and polished. “Just staying present right now. Taking things as they come.”

John didn’t speak again for the rest of the segment.

Chapter Text

“Last question,” the interviewer said, all charm and veneers. “What’s next for the two of you?”

John opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

A pause hung, just long enough to be noticeable.

Bob smiled faintly. “Whatever they tell us, I guess.”

Polite laughter bubbled around the room. The interviewer chuckled, pleased. “Well, we’ll be watching.”

The crew moved in. Someone called, “Cut.”

Lights dimmed. The set shifted. The crew started moving, wires unhooked, chairs scraping back. The artificial warmth evaporated in seconds.

John sat there too long.

Then he ripped off his mic like it burned.

Bob stood slowly. Careful again. “You okay?”

John didn’t answer. Didn’t look at him.

Valentina swooped in, smile all teeth and tempo. Clipboard already open, like the next thing was more important than whatever moment had just happened.

“Great job, you two,” she said brightly. “That was perfect. Keep that tone in the next segment.”

She flipped her clipboard to a new page. Didn’t look up. “Lifestyle shots are next. Casual domesticity. Try not to look like you want to die.”

John didn’t respond.

“Also,” she added, sharper now. “Maybe don’t go off-script next time?”

That made him pause.

Valentina’s smile didn’t falter. But her voice cooled. “The line was ‘Bob is kind. Has a quiet kind of loyalty.’ Not whatever that little pause was.”

Bob frowned. “It wasn’t a bad line.”

“It wasn’t our line,” Valentina said, turning a page on her clipboard. “We don’t need a tragic loner narrative in this arc. Save that for later.”

John clicked his jaw.

“Oh, and Bob? The ‘whatever they tell us’ line was cute. But next time, let’s just say what we told you to say.”

Bob shifted his weight, just slightly.

Valentina glanced between them. “We’re crafting a narrative. And it only works if everyone stays in character.”

John stared at her like he might say something. Then didn’t.

He turned and walked out.

Bob followed without a word.

Later, they were directed down the hall to a new room—set up for the “lifestyle shots.” Not a living space, exactly. Something more abstract. A sunlit, glass-walled studio filled with carefully placed props: an open piano, a stack of vintage books, a record player, fake plants, a couch against the window with sheer curtains fluttering. Designer-staged. Aspirational. Intimate without being too specific.

A stylist handed John a blue sweater. Bob got yellow. No one spoke.

John stood off to the side, letting someone fix his collar for the third time. He wanted to tell them to fuck off. He didn’t.

A producer smiled too wide and said, “This’ll be easy! Just some couple shots. Nothing personal. Just warm and soft energy.”

He wanted to groan. Suppressed it.

“Let’s start by the window,” the photographer said. “Maybe you’re sitting close, listening to music. One of you is leaning on the other. Something cozy, familiar. Keep it natural.”

John sat back first, back straight, eyes unfocused.

Bob sat beside him. Not touching, but close enough to suggest they might.

“Closer,” someone murmured behind the lens. “Like you’re actually comfortable with each other.”

John shifted. His shoulder bumped Bob’s.

Bob didn’t flinch.

The camera clicked.

John didn’t move.

“Great,” the photographer called. “Let’s try something a little more relaxed—Bob, maybe lean your head on John’s shoulder?”

He could feel the heat rise up his neck before Bob even moved.

Bob hesitated just long enough to ask without asking. John didn’t say yes. But he didn’t pull away, either.

So Bob leaned in, just enough to rest his temple against the seam of John’s sweater. John felt the warmth of him. His body, close but not pressing, settled like he’d done this before. It made his skin crawl in a way he didn’t understand.

He stayed still.

He kept thinking about that moment in the interview. How quiet the room had gone.

No laughter. No recovery. Just stillness. Like he’d cracked a rotten egg and everyone was too polite to acknowledge the smell.

The camera clicked again. A crisp shutter echoed. Like proof.

“You can smile,” someone prompted from behind the light, too cheerfully.

Bob gave a small one. Soft. Not forced.

John didn’t. Didn’t think he could. His jaw stayed locked.

They shifted setups. New angles. More poses. Different lighting. Same lie.

On the third setup—John’s hand resting beside Bob’s, fingers not quite touching—he said, too quietly to carry, “You didn’t react.”

Bob glanced over. “To what?”

“In the interview.”

Bob hesitated, unsure. “What would you want me to say?”

John shook his head. “Nothing. Just—” He swallowed the rest. He didn’t know what he was trying to get at. That he hadn’t looked away? That he hadn’t been embarrassed?

That he hadn’t treated the line like something shameful?

“It’s true,” John said, barely audible.

Bob’s face didn’t change. But his hand, resting near John’s, twitched—like maybe he wanted to reach for something and didn’t.

He wondered idly when the interview would go live, wondered what Olivia would say. Wondered if she’d watch him say something soft about someone else and would know he wasn’t talking about her. 

Would she see it as betrayal? As proof?

Would it be worse if it was?

“Okay, let’s reset for the final shot!” the photographer called. “You’re on the piano bench. Bob, pretend you’re teaching him a song—John, maybe lean in like you’re listening. Something sweet.”

Sweet.

The word lodged in his throat.

They sat. Bob at the keys, hands hovering over notes he didn’t play. John beside him, posture stiff. He leaned in, barely. Enough to fake closeness. Enough to feel wrong.

His mother had used that word when he was a kid. Sweet, when his voice got too soft. Sweet, when he hugged another boy too long. It never sounded like a compliment.

Now it echoed in his head like rot.

The camera clicked.

And again.

And again.

Behind the lens, someone sighed. “God, they look so in love.”

John didn’t flinch.

But his stomach turned.

Take a breath, John thought, bitter. 

Their fingers brushed.

He felt it again—that tight, low panic in his ribs. Not because everyone was watching, but because he was. Watching himself.

He didn’t know what it made him, to hate it and not at the same time. To feel safer near Bob than most people, and still wish someone else had answered his texts.

The camera clicked.

“They look perfect,” someone whispered.

John looked straight ahead, eyes blank.

And Bob, beside him, didn’t flinch.

Chapter Text

They didn’t talk much the next day. Or the one after that.

The interview went live. The photos trended. Headlines followed. Clips circulated—edited, softened, subtitled in cursive fonts.

The line John hadn’t meant to say had made it in.

“Bob’s the only person who doesn’t flinch when I walk into a room.”

No one laughed online either. But they liked it. Called it vulnerable. Authentic. “Real love in real time,” one caption read.

A new set of promo shots started shooting. Briefings, training, practice. Through it all, Bob was steady. John pretended to be.

At night, they shared the same bed and not much else.

Until tonight.

Sometimes, John couldn't sleep. He’d stare at the ceiling, listening to Bob breathe, steady and soft. Wondered what it meant that this had started to become normal. Wondered when that had started to feel like danger.

He didn’t check his texts anymore.

Olivia hadn’t responded.

That stung in ways he didn’t want to name. He kept telling himself that it didn’t mean anything. That none of it did. That he could turn it off, just like the lights, just like the cameras.

That was a lie.

The compound had gone quiet. It was one of those hours that felt suspended—past tired, before sleep. 

John found himself in the kitchen, barefoot, hoodie thrown over his shoulders, hair uncombed. Alone except for the hum of the fridge and the sharp smell of cold air from the cracked window. He poured a glass of water mostly to hear something that wasn’t the inside of his own head.

His hands trembled.

Bob appeared behind him, quieter than usual.

They looked at each other. Not surprised. Just paused.

John hovered by the sink. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Bob shook his head. “You?”

“Same.”

The silence was different this time. Not heavy. Not polite. Just… room.

John leaned back against the counter, holding the glass between both hands like it might anchor him.

“You, uh—” he started, then stopped. He didn’t know what he was asking.

Bob waited.

John looked away. “You didn’t have to play along, you know. In the interview.”

Bob blinked. “I didn’t think I was.”

John let out a small breath. Bitter. “Right.”

He didn’t mean for it to come out sharp. But everything did, these days.

Bob pulled bread from the cabinet, sat at the table. Spread some peanut butter on the slice.

“I know it’s all bullshit,” Bob said softly. “But… you were honest. Just for a second.”

John laughed—bitter, dry.

“Honest? You think anyone cares about that?”

Bob shrugged, careful not to touch him.

“I do.”

John’s throat tightened. He looked over. Bob’s expression hadn’t changed. Still calm. Still even.

Olivia won’t, he thought. She never will.

Bob waited.

John handed him a jar of jelly. “It wasn’t part of the script,” he added, quieter now. “They didn’t want… that kind of moment.”

“I know,” Bob said. “But it was the only real part of the whole thing.”

That caught John off guard.

Bob spread the jelly on another slice of bread like his words didn’t hold weight.

That’s what scared him, maybe—that none of this seemed to scare Bob. That Bob could hear something like that and not pull away, not joke, not change the subject.

“I keep wondering if she saw it,” John muttered. “If she saw the way I looked at you.”

Bob said nothing.

“Would it be worse if she didn’t?”

Bob hesitated. “Would it matter?”

John hated how badly he didn’t know.

He looked at Bob then. Really looked.

“Why don’t you flinch?” he asked.

Bob met his eyes. “Should I?”

John felt it like a crack down the middle. He didn’t know how to answer that either.

Eventually, Bob rose from his seat. Washed the knife. Put the bread away. Moved through the quiet like he belonged to it.

He didn’t say anything else. Just poured a glass of water for himself, took a sip, and leaned against the opposite counter. Took a bite of his sandwich. He didn’t stare at John, didn’t try to soothe or explain. He just stayed there. Present.

It was worse, somehow. Easier to be angry when someone was pushing him. When they weren’t—when they were just there—he had to look at himself.

John rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. His shirt itched.

Eventually, Bob asked, “Do you want me to go?” No judgement in it. Just a simple offer.

John didn’t answer.

Eventually, they both drifted back to their room—separately, but not far apart. John peeled off his shirt and tossed it somewhere toward the hamper. It didn’t make it. He didn’t care. He changed into a different shirt, then sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at his hands like they might tell him something useful.

The room still smelled faintly of that vanilla candle Bob had lit several weeks ago.

It was still.

The scent had sunk into the fabric of the room. Familiar now, in a way John refused to acknowledge.

He laid down on top of the covers, same as the night before. Didn’t even bother turning off the lamp.

Minutes passed. Maybe longer.

He heard the bathroom door creak. Bare feet on the hardwood.

Bob stood in the doorway for a moment, like he was waiting for a cue.

John didn’t give him one.

But he didn’t send him away either.

Bob climbed into bed carefully, staying to his side of the line. The stupid blanket one John had made that first night. As if it could keep anything out.

They laid there in silence. John heard the shuffle of blankets being pulled up.

The lamp buzzed faintly.

Outside, the city moved on.

John turned his head. Bob was already facing him.

Not smiling.

Not expectant.

Just… watching. Calm.

John swallowed. His throat was dry. “Why don’t you?”

Bob blinked. “What?”

“Flinch.”

A beat.

Bob’s voice came quiet, like he’d been carrying the answer around for a while. “Because you don’t scare me.”

John looked away.

He wanted to say you should.

He wanted to say I don’t even know what I’m doing.

He wanted to say this isn’t supposed to happen. I’m supposed to want her. Olivia. That life. That certainty.

He wanted to say a thousand things.

Instead, he said none of them.

Bob shifted, not to close the distance, but to settle more comfortably. Like he belonged there.

John closed his eyes.

The lamp stayed on.

The room stayed warm.

And still, sleep didn’t come.

Somewhere down the hall, someone laughed too loudly. A door slammed. John felt Bob flinch on the bed beside him.

“You scared?”

Bob hesitated. “Not of you.”

That wasn’t what he meant. But he didn’t correct him.

Instead, John asked, “Of it coming back?”

Bob didn’t respond. Not at first. Then, in a voice so quiet it barely counted, “I don’t know if it ever left.”

John didn’t know what to do with that. So he just nodded.

After a long pause, Bob asked, “Are you?”

John looked at him. At the way he hadn’t quite met his eyes, like he didn’t think he deserved to. At the line of tension in his jaw, like he was preparing for rejection or worse.

For a brief moment, before his mind could shut it down, he considered grabbing Bob’s jaw. Didn’t.

“Of you?” John said. “No.”

Bob finally looked at him. Something unreadable flickered in his expression.

“I’m pissed. At them. At this whole damn situation. But you?” John shrugged. “You’re not the problem.”

Bob swallowed. His voice cracked. “Thanks.”

John didn’t know what else to say. So he switched off the lamp. They laid in silence for a while.

Bob shifted his weight. “You okay?”

John snorted. “No.”

He closed his eyes again. Tried to will his thoughts away.

Tried not to picture Olivia’s face, or the interview, or what the next morning’s headlines might be.

Tried not to think about what he was becoming.

His breath caught. Shallow.

“Stay,” he said suddenly.

He didn’t open his eyes.

But Bob reached out—just a hand resting lightly on his forearm.

Not a fix. Not a promise. Just contact.

“I’m here,” Bob said.

Chapter Text

They didn’t talk about it the next morning. Didn’t talk about it in the following days, either.

But they didn’t avoid each other as much.

Something shifted after that night in the dark, after the questions neither of them answered. After the silence neither of them broke. It didn’t make anything easier, but it made silence less sharp. Less weaponized.

They moved around each other differently now. Not softer, but… practiced. Like two people settling into choreography they hadn't realized they’d been learning.

They started brushing their teeth at the same time. Not planned—it just happened. One of them would grab their toothbrush, and the other would follow without a word. They stood side by side at the sink, not speaking, not looking, foam in their mouths. It became a rhythm. An unspoken call-and-response.

John would reach for the coffee pot without asking. Bob would leave two mugs out without comment.

Once, John made breakfast—burnt eggs, too much pepper. Bob ate them anyway without complaint.

Another time, Bob folded John’s laundry without asking. John refolded two shirts but didn’t say a word.

It was all awkward, accidental. Quiet cooperation.

Like they’d started playing house by accident.

John didn’t know how to feel about that.

The coffee moment happened on a Monday just over a month in. John had gotten back late from a debrief and was already bristling from something Yelena had said in passing—something about how he needed to stop scowling during photo ops or the press would think he hated his husband. 

He stomped into the kitchen with too much noise and too little sleep, flipped the switch on the machine, and reached for the first clean mug without thinking. He poured two cups.

Handed one off.

Bob looked down at it, then up at John. His eyes softened. “You remembered.”

John blinked. “What?”

Bob took a sip. “You got mine right.”

Black. No sugar, no milk. Just sharp and bitter and hot enough to hurt a little.

John looked at his own cup—lighter, sweeter. The contrast was there. He hadn’t meant to get it right.

But he had.

“Oh,” John muttered, suddenly weirdly warm under the collar. “Yeah. Whatever.”

He turned away before he had to see Bob’s reaction.

The rest of the day passed in a kind of half-fog—headlines, briefings, camera flashes. It all blurred together. But that moment stuck.

That night, John woke to the sound of something—not loud, but sharp enough to snap him out of sleep.

A breath caught too fast. The rustle of sheets.

He sat up without thinking. “Bob?”

Bob curled tight, back to him. Breathing too fast.

“Hey.” John reached over, touched his shoulder. “You good?”

Bob flinched. Not startled. Flinched.

John’s hand froze. “Shit. Sorry.”

But Bob exhaled, slow and shaky, then shook his head. “It’s fine. Just a—just a dream.”

He didn’t elaborate.

John didn't ask.

He let his hand linger a second longer than he meant to. Then pulled it back.

Bob uncurled slightly. Not all the way. But enough.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmured.

John leaned back on his elbows. “You didn’t.”

Silence again.

Not empty.

Not filled, either. It just… existed.

“Thanks,” Bob said finally. Quiet. Honest.

John just nodded into the dark. “Yeah.”

Neither of them moved. For a long time.

Eventually, Bob’s breathing evened out again. John stayed awake a while longer, eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening.

Not watching.

Just… there.

Present.

Like he didn’t want to leave the space between them unattended.

The next morning, John wandered into the kitchen wearing one of Bob’s shirts.

He didn’t notice it at first—just pulled something clean from the top of the folded stack. He didn’t realize his mistake until he caught Ava glancing up from her tablet with an eyebrow raised.

He looked down at himself. The fit was a little off—softer, looser around the arms. It smelled faintly like Bob’s cologne.

Shit.

He poured himself a cup of coffee like nothing happened. Poured one for Bob too.

Ava didn’t say anything right away. Just sipped her tea, slowly, like she was savoring the moment. Winding up for something.

Then, after a beat, “Laundry mix-up?”

John didn’t look at her. “What?”

“That’s Bob’s shirt,” she said. “Unless you’ve suddenly developed a fondness for oversized heather grey.”

John took a sip of his coffee. “It was on my bed.”

Ava hummed. “Was he also on your bed?”

He glared at her over the rim of his mug.

Bob walked in a second later, hair still damp from the shower, yawning into his sleeve.

He stopped when he saw John.

Looked at the shirt. Then blinked. “Oh.”

Ava grinned. “Morning, lovebirds.”

“We’re not—” John started.

Bob just sat down at the table and grabbed his mug like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Ava gave him a pointed look. “You gonna let him keep it?”

Bob shrugged. “He already wrinkled it.”

Yelena strolled in like she’d been summoned by chaos. “Who wrinkled what?”

“Apparently John’s wearing Bob’s clothes now,” Ava said.

Yelena didn’t even flinch. “Oh, we’re doing that already?”

John sighed and rubbed his face. “It’s just a shirt.”

“Sure it is,” Yelena said. She opened the fridge. “You make pancakes yet or do I have to cook again?”

John stood up. “I'll make them.”

“Look at that,” Ava whispered dramatically. “Domestic.”

He shot her a look. She just winked.

The teasing didn’t last, but the attention didn’t fully fade either. It just became quieter. Less jokes, more side-eyes. More loaded silences.

Bucky started watching them during briefings with a kind of vague curiosity. Mel asked if they wanted their quarters reconfigured for “privacy” and then laughed it off like it was a joke. Someone from PR requested “more of that natural chemistry” in the next video campaign.

John tried to ignore it.

But it was getting harder to pretend it was still just a job.

Especially when Bob started keeping their toothbrushes together on the counter—one blue, one black. When he started using John’s toothpaste without asking. No conversation about it. No questions.

Especially when John noticed he no longer minded.

He started learning Bob’s routine better than his own—what music he put on when he couldn’t sleep, the way he hovered by the kettle when he was anxious, the snacks he reached for after long meetings, how he pressed his tongue to his bottom lip when trying not to smile.

He noticed especially when Bob didn’t flinch. 

Even when he did.

When he found himself watching Bob like a nervous animal might watch a familiar hand—skeptical, uncertain, but no longer afraid.

It was just routines, he told himself.

Just a pattern.

It didn’t have to mean anything.

But deep down, in the parts he still refused to name, he knew it already did.

Chapter Text

John checked his phone out of habit.

Wake up. Brush teeth. Check for a message that still wouldn’t be there.

Except today, it was.

“I saw it”

No punctuation. No emoji. No follow-up.

He stared at the screen long enough for the notification to fade. Long enough to realize his hands were shaking.

Bob was still in the bathroom, humming something tuneless like he did when he thought no one was listening.

His thumb hovered over it. Then locked the phone instead.

John didn’t open the message.

He didn’t delete it either.

He got dressed in silence, pulled on a dark button-down that smelled faintly like detergent, and walked into the kitchen like nothing had happened.

Poured coffee for himself and Bob.

Bob came out shortly after. John sat across from him in the kitchen like nothing was wrong. Bob passed the sugar, like he always did. John didn’t take any. Not today.

Later that morning, Valentina found them in the briefing room flipping through notes. She entered like she always did—mid-sentence, heels loud enough to serve as a warning.

“Good, you’re both here,” she said briskly. “Big night.”

John didn’t look up. “What kind of big?”

“Gala. High-profile. Full press. You’ll need to be dressed and photographed by six.”

“No,” he said.

Valentina didn’t pause. “Absolutely yes.”

Bob didn’t look up either. “What’s the story this time?”

“Unity,” she said. “Stability. You’re a married couple. It’s time to look like one.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out two small velvet boxes.

Set them on the table between them like a dare.

Inside: two matching rings. Minimalist platinum. Slightly matte. Clean lines.

“Wear these tonight.”

John stared at them. “Seriously?”

“It’s a detail,” Valentina said. “But the details matter. You hold hands. You wear rings. You stand close. Act sweet . No one’s asking you to kiss on camera—yet.”

Bob closed the folder in front of him. “When were you going to tell us?”

“I just did.”

John picked up one of the rings. It was cool to the touch. Lighter than he expected. Meaningless, but designed to look the opposite.

“You said this wasn’t real,” he muttered.

“It’s real enough to trend,” she said, already moving. “Matching suits are hanging in your closet. Tailor will be here at four.”

Then she was gone.

Neither of them moved for a long time.

Bob finally reached out and took his ring from the box. Slipped it on, quietly. Didn’t make a show of it.

John watched him.

Then put his own back in the box and shut it.

He didn’t say why.

And Bob didn’t ask.

He carried it, though. Slipped it into the small interior pocket of his jacket like it might burn a hole if he left it behind.

Bob didn’t comment. Just glanced at his own hand once or twice, thumb brushing over the smooth edge of his band like he wasn’t used to it yet.

That afternoon, they dressed in silence. The suits were nearly identical—navy for John, charcoal for Bob, tailored down to the line of the shoulder. John hated how well it fit. Hated how easily he could pass for someone who belonged in it.

In the mirror, they looked… expensive. Like the kind of couple you’d see on a donation banner: polished, stable, inspiring.

John adjusted his collar. He couldn’t breathe right.

Bob stepped behind him and reached over his shoulder without asking—fixed the slight twist in his tie, then smoothed it flat with two fingers.

John went still.

“You were gonna let it sit crooked,” Bob said, voice quiet.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Bob didn’t move his hand.

“It will. In the photos.”

John exhaled. “I hate this.”

“I know.”

Bob stepped back again, giving him space like it cost something.

John turned away from the mirror and grabbed his jacket. Shrugged it on like armor. 

They made it to the elevator before John spoke again. His voice was low. Not sharp, not soft.

“She messaged me.”

Bob didn’t have to ask who.

John kept his eyes on the elevator doors. “Just three words.”

“What did she say?”

“‘I saw it.’”

Bob didn’t answer.

“She didn’t ask how I was. Didn’t say she missed me. Just that.” John clenched his jaw. “I don’t know what she meant.”

“You do.”

John nodded. Bitter. “Yeah. I do.”

The elevator doors slid open. Cool air rushed in from the front door of the compound. The driver was already waiting outside, holding the door.

John stepped in first.

They didn’t speak on the ride.

Outside the venue, the cameras were already flashing, even through the tinted glass.

Bob shifted beside him. Not nervous. Just settling into place.

John watched him out of the corner of his eye. The way his fingers tapped the inside seam of his jacket. The way he adjusted his posture—not to be taller, but to look more open. More approachable. Trained.

“I don’t know how you do that,” John muttered.

“Do what?”

“Turn it on.”

Bob looked at him.

“Because I have to,” he said.

John looked down at his hands. They felt too clean. Too visible.

“I keep thinking if I do it wrong,” he said quietly, “someone’s gonna figure it out.”

Bob tilted his head. “Figure out what?”

“That I’m faking it.”

Bob didn’t smile. “Everyone’s faking it.”

“Not like this.”

Bob hesitated. “You mean the marriage?”

John shook his head. “No. Me.”

He didn’t say the word. Couldn’t. He could still hear his mother’s voice, years ago, using it like a slur wrapped in concern. Sweet, she’d said, and it hadn’t sounded like love.

Bob didn’t press.

Instead, he reached over, slow and visible, and tugged on the cuff of John’s sleeve. Straightened the edge.

“You’re not faking it,” he said.

John didn’t know what to do with that.

Outside, someone knocked on the window. Time to move.

The door opened.

Noise rushed in like floodwater. Voices, flashes, people calling their names like they meant something.

Bob stepped out first.

John followed.

They stood shoulder to shoulder at the base of the carpet. John reached over and took Bob’s hand. Not tight. Not loose. Not real.

But it didn’t feel fake, either.

And when the cameras clicked, John kept his eyes on Bob, just long enough to remember how it felt to be seen without flinching.

He could still feel the ring in his pocket. Heavy. Unworn. 

Inside, the air was too cold and smelled faintly of wine, perfume, and money.

They were ushered through the entrance by handlers with polite smiles and laminated badges. Everything gleamed—gold accents, glass chandeliers, too much polished marble. The kind of place built to be looked at, not lived in.

John hated it instantly.

Bob walked beside him, shoulders brushing his, hand loosely in his, until they were out of the press line. Neither of them pulled away.

A champagne flute was pushed into John’s hand before he could protest. Another was handed to Bob. They clinked together because someone nearby was watching. Bob smiled for the camera. John didn’t.

He could still feel the ring in his pocket. It was light, but it dragged at him.

People filtered in around them. Staff. Donors. Ambassadors. Strangers with opinions and microphones. Some made polite comments about “what a great couple” they were. One woman leaned in and whispered, “you two give me hope.”

John didn’t know what that meant.

Bob did most of the talking. He was good at it—measured, warm without oversharing. He didn’t touch John again until someone from the press team asked for a few candid shots, and Bob’s hand slid naturally to the small of his back.

John didn’t flinch. But he didn’t lean in either. The warmth of that palm against his spine stayed with him.

Chapter Text

They stayed in the reception area longer than John wanted to.

Long enough for two full drinks, three photo ops, and a fourth round of compliments from strangers.

He smiled when he had to. Bob’s hand stayed low at his back—steady, almost protective. The pressure never shifted. It didn’t ask for anything from him. It just… stayed.

John hated how much he noticed when it left.

Dinner was plated before they sat—filet, risotto, some kind of overly delicate microgreen perched like a crown. John’ wasn’t hungry. Bob handed him the butter knife without a word.

They ate in silence. Politely. In rhythm.

At one point, Bob’s knee bumped his. He didn’t pull away.

Someone on stage started speaking. Something about love, resilience, the power of visibility.

John could feel the words crawling across his skin. Too big. Too sincere.

He shifted in his seat, reached blindly for the champagne. Bob’s hand found his thigh under the table—light, just above the knee. A touch no one else could see.

It wasn’t meant to be seen.

John went still.

He didn’t move Bob’s hand.

Didn’t lean into it either.

But when Bob gave a small squeeze—barely pressure at all—John didn’t stop him.

He sat through the rest of the speech that way. Every nerve in his body on edge. Hyperaware. Not of the stage. Not of the cameras.

Just of where Bob was touching him.

And where he wasn’t.

After dessert, the lights dimmed further. A band started playing in the next room. Not loud. Elegant, careful jazz. The kind a person could waltz to if they knew how.

A PR assistant leaned in behind them and murmured, “They’ll want you on the floor.”

He nearly said no. But Bob was already rising from his chair.

He held out his hand.

John hesitated.

Then he took it.

The dance floor wasn’t crowded. Just donors and staff and other couples posing for slow photos. Bob stepped in close. One hand resting at John’s hip. The other held his.

John could feel the heat of him, even through three layers of fabric and all the years of distance he’d tried to build between himself and anything resembling this.

They swayed. Slow. No real steps. Just movement.

Bob’s hand moved slightly, thumb brushing along the side of John’s thumb. It wasn’t nervous.

It wasn’t quite performative, either.

John’s jaw locked. His chest felt too tight.

He glanced around them, eyes skimming faces, lenses, lights.

“They’re watching,” he muttered.

“I know,” Bob said.

John’s voice dropped. “You keep touching me like this and they’re gonna think—”

“I know.”

Bob didn’t let go.

John’s mouth opened. Closed.

He thought of Olivia again. That message. That one line.

“I saw it.”

He thought of what she must have seen. This. Bob’s hands. His own silence. The shape of something taking root in the space between them.

He thought of what his mother would say, if she could see this now. Sweet, she would’ve called him. She always said it like a flaw.

He hated that he wanted to stay where he was.

“You’re good at this,” John said, voice low.

Bob smiled faintly. “You’ve said that before.”

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

“You never do.”

John’s heart thudded. “You keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Acting like it’s not fake.”

Bob looked at him. Really looked. 

His hand slid slightly higher at John’s hip. Just enough to press. Not enough to claim.

His eyes were strikingly dark blue.

“It doesn’t feel fake,” he said.

John couldn’t breathe.

The music changed. A softer song. Slower.

Bob didn’t step away.

Neither did John.

Eventually, someone from PR approached. “That was great,” they said, smiling. “We got everything we need. You’re free to relax.”

Bob gave a polite nod. John gave nothing at all.

After a few minutes, Bob leaned in, lips brushing close to John’s ear. “We can disappear for a bit if you want.”

John nodded.

They slipped off the floor together. Found a quiet lounge tucked behind the coatroom. Dim, velvet furniture. No mirrors. No cameras.

Bob sat first, exhaling hard like the air in his lungs had been borrowed.

John stayed standing. Hovered near the door. Unbuttoned his jacket with jerky fingers.

“You okay?” Bob asked, looking up at him.

“No.”

Bob didn’t try to fix it.

“You’re doing that jaw thing again.”

John sighed. After a pause, Bob reached out. Not rushed. Not dramatic. Just opened a hand.

John stared at it.

Then he sat.

Their knees touched.

He leaned forward, elbows on thighs, face in his hands. Bob stayed close. His hand found John’s back, warm through the suit jacket, then slid up to rest between his shoulder blades.

It wasn’t tentative.

It wasn’t fake.

He could still feel Olivia’s message like a bruise. He didn’t know what she meant. He did.

“I feel like a fraud,” John said, muffled.

“You’re not.”

“I’m not this.”

Bob didn't respond right away. Then, “You don’t have to be anything.”

John looked at him, eyes red but dry. “Then what the fuck are we doing?”

Bob leaned in. Pressed his forehead to John’s temple. Not a kiss. Just contact. His hand was still on John’s back.

“Trying,” he said.

John closed his eyes.

His hand found Bob’s knee. Stayed there. 

They didn’t move.

He opened his eyes and looked over. Bob was watching him. Quiet. Careful. Like he didn’t want to scare him.

John reached into his jacket pocket. Pulled out the ring.

Held it in his palm for a moment, then looked at Bob again.

“I didn’t forget it.”

“I know.”

“I just didn’t wear it.”

“I know,” Bob said again. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I think she thinks it's real,” John said after a long time, voice low. “The marriage. Us.”

Bob’s fingers still grazed his back. They didn’t move.

He didn’t say anything.

John held out the box.

Bob’s brow furrowed slightly. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” John said. “Just… here. Hold onto it. Or something.”

Bob didn’t question him.

He took it.

Closed his fingers around it like it meant something.

After a moment, he shifted closer.

Their thighs touched. John’s hand moved up Bob’s leg. Just slightly.

“You okay?” Bob asked.

John shook his head.

But he didn’t move away.

Bob’s shoulder brushed his.

John let his head fall to the side—just enough to rest against it.

He didn’t mean to.

But he didn’t take it back.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Neither of them said a word.

And when someone from the PR team finally came looking for them, Bob stood up first and offered his hand again, quiet and steady.

John took it.

Chapter Text

The car ride back was quiet.

Not tense. Not cold. Just… quiet.

Bob sat beside him, tie undone, one sleeve rolled haphazardly up his forearm. His hair was a little messy from the wind. He didn’t bother fixing it. The ring box still sat in his pocket, unopened.

John stared out the window. Watched the street lights flicker across the glass. Let his fingers rest on his thigh, just beside the place where Bob’s hand had been earlier. He didn’t say a word. Neither did Bob.

The silence between them wasn’t the same as it used to be. It wasn’t the kind that came from not knowing what to say. It was the kind that came from knowing exactly what not to.

Their shoulders touched when the car turned a little too fast. Neither of them adjusted.

By the time they stepped back into the compound, most of the common room lights were off. Yelena was half-asleep on the couch with a throw blanket pulled up to her chin, a movie paused on the screen. Ava was sitting cross-legged on the floor, scrolling through something on her phone. Alexei was washing dishes one-handed, earbuds in.

No one said anything.

But they all looked.

Just once. Just long enough to make John feel it in the back of his neck.

Bob didn’t flinch. Just nodded to Ava, who nodded back like this was any other night.

There was a plate of leftovers on the counter—covered in foil, labeled in someone’s sharp handwriting. Probably Yelena’s.

Neither of them touched it.

Bob kicked off his shoes by the door. John didn’t.

They moved around each other in the kitchen without speaking. Bob filled two glasses of water. John stood there, hands in his pockets, until Bob offered one to him without looking. He took it.

Somewhere down the hall, a door closed. Ava laughed at something—quietly, like she was trying not to disturb the floor.

They brushed their teeth side by side, same as always. Foam in their mouths. Shoulders nearly brushing. The light above the mirror buzzed faintly.

Bob’s hand grazed his as he reached for the glass on the sink.

John didn’t pull away. But he didn’t meet his eyes either.

Back in the bedroom, the quiet lingered.

Bob sat on the edge of the bed first. Tugged at his cuff. Loosened the second button. Didn’t speak.

John stood by the bathroom door longer than necessary.

Then crossed the room.

He changed in silence, tugged on an old t-shirt. His hands were shaking a little when he peeled off the suit jacket. Maybe from the cold. Maybe not.

He didn’t look at Bob until he turned off the main lights.

“You okay?” Bob asked, not for the first time.

John didn’t answer. Not really.

He just nodded once. Barely.

They slid into bed at the same time. 

John pulled the covers over him for the first time since this whole thing started. 

Bob turned the lamp off.

The dark felt different than usual. Heavier. Warmer. Not heavy like dread—like weight. Like gravity.

They didn’t speak.

Bob’s breathing was steady beside him. Close.

John turned onto his side.

Bob was already facing him.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t move.

John’s fingers shifted beneath the blanket. They found Bob’s hand. Brushed it.

Bob didn’t pull away. His fingers curled, careful, and laced with John’s.

It was quiet outside the door. Just the distant hum of the fridge, the occasional click of Yelena’s laughter, footsteps somewhere in the compound.

But in here, the quiet was a different thing. Not loneliness. Not silence.

Just… presence.

John’s throat was tight.

He didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t want to name it. Every word felt too loaded. Too soft.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t pull away.

He just held on.

And Bob let him.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep like that.

He remembered laying there—still, eyes open, hand tangled with Bob’s under the blankets—and thinking he’d never be able to. Not like this. Not so close. Not with his chest tight and Olivia’s name still echoing like static in the back of his head.

But the quiet had been steady. Bob’s breathing had been soft. And somewhere between pretending it was fine and actually starting to believe it might be, sleep crept in.

He woke to sunlight edging past the curtains.

The room smelled faintly like Bob’s shampoo. Like detergent. Like warmth.

It took him a full minute to realize where his hand was.

Still tucked between Bob’s.

Still holding on.

The blankets had shifted in the night. Their legs were touching. John’s knee was hooked just slightly over Bob’s calf. Not enough to register unless you were looking. Unless you were feeling.

And Bob was still asleep.

Soft breaths. Head tilted toward John like it had been all night. Like that’s just where he landed.

John didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe, for a second.

The line wasn’t there.

Not the physical one constructed between the pillows that first night. Not the imagined one that had kept them apart even when they weren’t.

It was just… gone.

His first instinct was to pull back.

To put the space back where it belonged. Fix the shape of things. Reinstate the rules.

But he didn’t.

He stared at the ceiling instead, heart stuttering in his chest, trying to pretend this didn’t mean anything.

That it didn’t feel like crossing something he’d never named.

Down the hall, someone dropped a pan. Muffled cursing—probably Alexei. A chair scraped across tile.

The team was up.

John didn’t move.

Bob stirred a few minutes later. Blinked awake, slow. His gaze landed on John, still close. Still watching him.

They didn’t speak.

Not right away.

Then Bob’s eyes drifted down—saw their hands still joined between them.

He didn’t pull away.

Neither did John.

Just one quiet breath between them.

“We overslept,” Bob said, voice rough from sleep.

John nodded. But still didn’t let go.

A knock at the door broke it—two quick raps.

“Briefing in twenty,” Ava’s voice called through. “Yelena says if you’re late again, she’s picking your outfits for the next event.”

Bob groaned into the pillow. “God help us all.”

John finally sat up, slowly untangling himself. Their hands separated like it was nothing. Like it hadn’t meant anything at all.

But his fingers still tingled.

Bob stretched and flopped onto his back dramatically. “You think she’ll actually do it?”

“Yelena?” John said, rubbing his face. “Definitely.”

He stood. The air felt cooler away from the bed.

Bob was watching him again. Quiet. Calm. But this time, not unreadable.

John didn’t say anything.

Didn’t know how to.

He grabbed the nearest shirt—his own, this time—and tugged it over his head.

The coffee was already brewing in the kitchen when they walked in.

Yelena raised an eyebrow. “Look who decided to finally rejoin the living.”

Alexei passed John a mug without a comment.

Ava glanced at them over the rim of her tea. Not smiling. Not teasing.

Just looking.

John didn’t meet her eyes.

Bob poured his own coffee. Took a long sip.

No one mentioned the missing line.

No one needed to.

Chapter Text

It had been a few weeks since the gala.

Weeks since the bed-line disappeared and no one said a word.

They hadn’t talked about it. Not once. But Bob hadn’t remade the line. John hadn’t asked him to. Some mornings they woke up tangled, other mornings they barely touched. It didn’t seem to matter either way. Or maybe it mattered too much.

The team never brought it up.

Not even when they both walked into the kitchen one morning with the same pillow crease across their cheeks. Not even when John handed Bob his coffee without being asked—just how he liked it.

Alexei had raised an eyebrow, a smirk on his face like he was about to crack a joke. Ava kicked him under the table before he had a chance to speak.

Bob just said, “thanks,” and John nodded like it was nothing.

The next press shoot was scheduled for a Thursday.

Casual. Intimate. “Morning routines” was the theme, but it didn’t mean anything. Nothing they did was real—not once the lights were on and someone was adjusting the collar of John’s shirt for the umpteenth time.

The set was fake domesticity: pale sunlight, a spotless kitchen counter that looked like no one had ever used it. Bob wore blue. John wore white. Someone on the styling team called it “gentle contrast.”

They posed at the sink. At the breakfast table. On the couch.

They were asked to do something they actually did that morning—brushing teeth side-by-side. Making breakfast. It didn’t feel cute. It felt like someone had been watching.

It made John feel nauseous.

Bob knew how to smile just enough for the camera to catch it. John knew how to keep his jaw from locking on film. It was a kind of choreography by now—eye contact, shoulder touches, hands not quite held. All of it looked good from the outside.

Too good.

The photographer clapped once. “One more setup.”

John glanced at the clipboard. “That wasn’t the last one?”

“We just want something a little sweeter. A little closer,” someone said. “Soft light, a kiss, nothing too dramatic.”

John froze.

It wasn’t visible, not at first. His shoulders didn’t shift. His expression didn’t crack.

But Bob noticed.

He turned his head slightly. “You okay?”

John’s jaw locked. “They didn’t say anything about that.”

“They did,” Valentina said, stepping in from the side. “It was in the script.”

“No,” he said.

“No?” Valentina repeated, eyebrow raised. “It’s a peck, John. A press kiss. Not a wedding.”

“No,” John said again. Louder this time. Sharper. The kind of sharp that cut through rooms.

Someone coughed behind the lights. A few assistants looked up. An intern dropped a pen. Silence hit fast and flat.

“John,” she said, all tight control. “It’s one photo.”

“It’s not,” he snapped.

“It’s not a marriage license,” she said, voice still calm but with razor underneath. John glared at her. It was. “It’s a press shot. Soft lighting. Coordinated outfits. You kiss him like you mean it and then we all move on.”

John’s hands were balled in fists at his sides. He hadn’t realized.

Valentina took a breath. “We’ve let you improvise before. We’ve given you space. But this? This is basic buy-in. You’re a part of a story, John. And right now, you’re the only one refusing to play your part.”

John looked at Bob—just a glance—and regretted it immediately.

Bob was still watching him. Quiet. Still. No expression on his face, not exactly. But something in his eyes.

Something that said I’m not going to ask if it’s about me.

That made it worse. John’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Twice. 

He knew that buzz.

He didn’t check it, but he didn’t need to.

Olivia had messaged earlier that morning. Just one line. “Did you mean it?”

That was all.

Not what are you doing, not how are you , not your son misses you.

Just that. And John had stared at it for a full minute before putting the phone face down on the counter like it might burn him if he held it too long.

Now it buzzed again.

Probably her.

Probably another line he didn’t know how to answer.

Valentina stepped closer. Her voice dropped. “You want to be angry? Be angry at PR. At me. At the stage lights. But don’t stand here and act like affection is the worst lie you’ve ever told.”

John’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.

His chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with the shoot. Nothing to do with Bob. Nothing to do with the lights or the cameras.

It was everything.

His mother’s voice echoing in the back of his skull— boys like you grow out of it if you’re careful. The way Olivia used to look at him when he turned too fast from her kiss. The weight of a ring that still didn’t feel like his.

He could feel the heat rising in his throat. He didn’t want it. He swallowed it down.

“I need air,” he muttered.

“No,” Valentina said firmly.

That stopped him.

“No?” he repeated.

“You don’t get a minute. We’re already behind. The photographer is on a deadline, and I’m not rescheduling just because you got in your own head.”

His fists clenched at his sides. His phone buzzed again in his pocket. Olivia. He knew it. Didn’t have to check.

“Do you love him?”

He didn’t know how she always knew the right questions to ask.

Or the wrong ones.

Valentina stepped closer. “This isn’t about her,” she said quietly, an edge to her voice. “This is about right now. The cameras. The people paying attention. You want to blow up your life on your own time? Fine. But not on mine.”

John looked past her. At Bob.

Still. Quiet. Waiting. Not expectant. Not reaching.

“You’d be nothing without me.” She snapped her fingers, voice ice cold. Face close. “I made you.”

He glared at her. “I’m not doing this for them,” he said, low. “Not anymore.”

Valentina didn’t blink. “Then do it for him.”

That stung. More than it should have.

He took a breath that didn’t reach his lungs. Turned toward Bob. His voice was flat. “Let’s get it over with.”

Bob moved, slow. No hesitation, but no joy, either. His hand hovered near John’s jaw—not touching yet. Waiting for something that wasn’t going to come.

“You sure?” he asked, voice quiet.

“No,” John said. “Do it anyway.”

Bob’s thumb brushed the edge of his cheekbone. Gentle. Too gentle.

Their faces were too close. John could feel breath before he felt skin. He could hear the shutter clicks before anything even happened.

And then Bob kissed him.

Just once. Light. Center of the mouth. Soft like it meant something.

John didn’t kiss back.

But he didn’t flinch.

The camera clicked again. And again. And again.

It only lasted a second.

When Bob pulled back, he didn’t look smug. Didn’t smile. His hand dropped slowly from John’s face like he’d just let go of something heavy.

Valentina’s voice, tight and bright, rang in his ears. “Perfect. That’s a wrap.”

John stepped back before the lights could finish dimming. He turned without a word and left the set.

He didn’t check his phone until he was in the hallway.

“I saw it again. You looked like you meant it that time.”

He stared at the screen.

And locked it without replying.

Chapter Text

John didn’t go to the kitchen the next morning.

Didn’t pour two cups of coffee.

Didn’t wait for Bob by the bathroom door or brush his teeth beside him in silence.

He sat in the gym alone instead. Half-laced sneakers, earbuds with no music playing, eyes fixed on the wall like it had answers.

His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

The message was still on his phone.

“You looked like you meant it that time.”

Olivia hadn’t messaged again. Hadn’t needed to.

He’d tried to write something back. A dozen drafts. None of them sent.

“It’s not what it looked like.”

“It’s fake.”

“It didn’t mean anything.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

None of them felt right.

Instead, he stared at the blinking cursor for almost an hour. 

Then typed one thing. “Can we talk?”

He hit send before he could stop himself. And immediately regretted it.

No response. Not yet.

The door creaked open behind him. He didn’t turn. Just stared harder at the blank wall.

Footsteps padded in—soft, deliberate.

“Morning,” Bob said, voice light. Careful.

John didn’t respond.

Bob stopped a few feet away. “You weren’t at breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Bob hesitated. “I saved you something. Thought you’d want—”

“Don’t.”

Bob fell quiet.

John stood abruptly. The bench clanged against the floor as he moved. “I’m not in the mood for check-ins, alright?”

Bob didn’t move. “Okay.”

John turned to face him. “You think I wanted that kiss?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Bob’s gaze was unreadable. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“But you did it.”

“I thought you wanted me to.”

“Well, I didn’t.” His voice cracked. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.”

A beat passed. Bob looked down at his hands. “I know.”

That made it worse. The calm in his voice. The way he never fought back.

“You don’t get to be the reasonable one all the time,” John said bitterly. “You don’t get to just sit there and act like everything’s fine.”

“I don’t think it’s fine,” Bob said quietly.

“Then say something.” John’s voice echoed off the walls, louder than he meant it to be. More desperate than he meant it to be. 

Down the hallway, a door opened. Yelena’s voice drifted faintly. Ava said something, muffled.

He dragged a hand over his face. “Shit.”

Bob still hadn’t moved. Still just… there.

John turned away.

He opened his phone again. Still nothing from Olivia.

He tossed it onto the floor beside the bench like it had betrayed him. The screen cracked.

His breathing was ragged. Not panicked. Just off.

He didn't hear Bob move, but suddenly he was closer. Sitting on the edge of the bench next to him.

Not touching. Just present.

John didn’t look at him. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“No.”

Silence stretched.

John stared at the far wall. “I keep trying to fix it. With her. With everything. But it’s like… every time I say the truth it makes it worse.”

“You didn’t say anything,” Bob said quietly. “That was the problem.”

John swallowed.

“I didn’t want her to see it. I didn’t want anyone to.”

“What?”

“That I—” he stopped.

He couldn’t say it.

Bob didn’t push.

After a long pause, John muttered, “I’m not this kind of person. I don’t talk about things.”

“I know.”

John’s voice came thin. “And I’m not good at… letting people in.”

“I know,” Bob said again. Gently.

He glanced sideways. “Why are you still here?”

Bob finally looked at him. Met his eyes. “Because you’re falling apart.”

John huffed a bitter laugh. “So you thought you’d supervise?”

“No,” Bob said. “I thought I’d help.”

He reached out—slow, visible—and rested a hand on John’s arm.

Not grabbing. Just there.

John didn’t move away.

They sat in silence for a long time. Bob handed him a granola bar at some point. It stayed in his hand, half-crushed in his grip.

He didn’t eat. Didn’t move much.

Bob didn’t rush him.

Eventually, John spoke.

“I used to take him to the park.”

Bob didn’t look at him. Didn’t push. Just waited.

“My son. Liam.” The name came out dry, like it had dust on it. “There was this place a few blocks from our place. Swings, a little slide. He used to call it his ‘castle’ even though it wasn’t.”

Bob listened.

“Every Saturday morning,” John continued. “Didn’t matter what was going on. I’d take him. Even when I was tired. Even when Liv was mad at me. I’d carry him there on my shoulders. He’d laugh the whole way.”

He rubbed a hand on his face.

“I missed one week. Just one. Something stupid came up—some minor op I got pulled into. I thought, what’s the harm, right? One Saturday. He’s one, he won’t remember.”

John’s voice dipped lower.

“But he did.”

He swallowed.

“The next weekend, I went to pick him up and he wouldn’t look at me. Hid behind Liv’s leg like I was a stranger.”

Bob was quiet.

“He got over it eventually. Kids do. But I didn’t.”

John’s throat was tight now. His jaw locked to keep the rest of it in.

“I started missing more weekends after that. The job got worse. Things with Liv got worse. Then… Lemar was killed. I got angry. And I just kept telling myself I’d fix it. I’d get through the rough patch. I’d make it right later.”

Bob didn’t say anything.

Because there was nothing to say.

John’s voice cracked. His hand curled into a fist around the granola bar. Crushed it.

“I was supposed to be his safe place. And now he’s scared of me. I’m a fucking stranger again.”

Bob’s hand came to rest gently on John’s back. Warm. Steady.

“You’re not a stranger,” he said softly.

“I’m not his father, either. Not really.”

“You are,” Bob said.

“You didn’t see the way he looked at me. Last time I saw him. Like he was waiting for me to ruin things again.”

“You didn’t ruin things.”

“I did,” John snapped. “That’s the problem. I ruined it, and now I’m pretending like this—” he gestured around vaguely “—like this mess we’re in is any better.”

Bob let the silence settle. Then, quietly, he said, “You’re trying. That counts.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“It does to me.”

John looked over.

Bob met his eyes.

Not pity. Not forgiveness.

Just presence.

A way of saying I’m not leaving.

John’s voice dropped. “I don’t know how to be this person.”

“You don’t need to be perfect,” Bob said. “Just… be here. With the team.” With me.

John let out a shaky breath. Closed his eyes.

Bob didn’t move his hand.

He didn’t offer any answers. Just stayed right there, his fingers resting steady between John’s shoulder blades. A quiet, human anchor.

John didn’t cry.

But he came close.

And when he finally let his weight tip slightly toward Bob—shoulder to shoulder—Bob didn’t shift away.

They stayed there, long past the point of needing to say anything.

Chapter Text

The shift was subtle, but the team noticed.

Yelena stopped glaring at John across the room. Ava passed him the bread basket without rolling her eyes. Even Alexei—shameless, nosy as hell—toned it down to smirks and side-eyes instead of full-blown commentary.

Bob and John were still quiet around each other. Still careful. But not careful in the same way.

They moved like people who shared something now.

The mornings had started to sync up again. Teeth brushed at the same time. Coffee made in pairs. Dishes passed between them without speaking.

John didn’t say much, but his eyes tracked Bob’s movements now like habit.

Bob didn’t reach out, but when John reached first—just a nudge of the shoulder, or a hand resting on the counter near his—he didn’t pull away.

It was working… Quietly.

Until it wasn’t.

It was a Wednesday. Rainy. Borning. They were sitting around the dining room table in the common area after a dull debrief. Someone had made soup. Bob was drawing in his sketchbook. John was scrolling through his phone under the table like no one would notice.

A message lit the screen.

“So is it real or not?”

Olivia.

Another buzz.

“Because if it is, you need to explain it to Liam.”

He stopped breathing. The name alone was a blade.

Bob glanced over, almost casually, but something in his eyes sharpened when he saw John’s expression.

John didn’t move.

Didn’t reply.

The phone buzzed again.

“He asked about you this morning. I didn’t know what to say.”

It wasn’t cruel. Not exactly. But it didn’t have to be.

John’s spoon hit the table harder than it should have. He pushed his bowl away, untouched.

That was when Alexei, god bless his timing, decided to speak.

“Hey, lovebirds,” he said with a grin. “You two fuck yet or is it still cuddles and foreplay?”

Some of the team chuckled. Bob blinked. Yelena groaned. Ava didn’t even look up.

But John stood.

Walked around the table.

And shoved Alexei so hard his chair screeched.

“What?” Alexei barked, catching himself. “You are married. Internet wants romance. I just ask if you have consumed fanfiction.”

“Say that again,” John snapped.

Alexei blinked. “It was just joke.”

“Say it again.”

Bob stood slowly, but didn’t step in.

Yelena moved like lightning—grabbing John’s arm, dragging him back with force that meant it. She looked like she wanted to slap him.

“Enough,” she said through her teeth.

Bucky followed with quiet precision, standing between them. His voice was calm, low. “Walk it off, soldier.”

“You don’t get to make jokes about this,” John growled. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Alexei held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa—I did not mean anything. Just a joke.”

John’s fists were still clenched, chest heaving. “You don’t get to joke about this,” he snarled.

“He is right there,” Alexei said, nodding to Bob. “He is not glass. He can handle—”

John pulled free. And slapped Alexei across the face. 

Everyone stood, suddenly.

“This isn’t about him.” John’s voice cracked. “It’s about me . About what I lost.”

That shut the room up.

Bucky exhaled. “John.”

Yelena pulled John away from Alexei. “Get out. Now.”

He didn’t resist this time. But he didn’t look at anyone. Just tore his arm from her grip and stormed out, the hallway swallowing the echo of his boots. He didn’t know where he was going. Just away. Far enough that he couldn’t see their faces. Far enough that he wouldn’t have to see the disappointment in Bob’s eyes.

He didn’t hear what happened next. Didn’t have to.

He could picture it.

The silence clamping down around the table. Yelena sitting back like a thunderstorm settling. Alexei probably blinking in confusion, rubbing his face where John had hit.

He could almost hear it.

Bob saying it flatly. He heard from Olivia. About his son.

Alexei’s breath catching. A low ah, shit.

Yelena’s voice, colder than anything PR could fake. Idiot.

Alexei raising his hands like he always did when he knew he’d gone too far. I did not know.

Ava’s voice, sharp. You never know.

John didn’t need to be in the room. He’d lived it enough times to know how it would unfold. What they’d say. What Bob wouldn’t.

And somewhere in the silence that followed, Bob would stand.

Not fast. Not dramatic.

He’d just leave.

He always did.

He always found John anyway.

John didn’t stop walking. Moved. Fast. Didn’t care where he ended up. Anywhere that wasn’t here.

He ended up in the locker room.

Dim lighting. Cold floors. Quiet except for the low buzz of the vents.

His fists still ached. He didn’t sit down. Just braced his hands against the edge of the sink and stared at himself in the mirror. Pale. Tight jaw. Eyes like something was rotting underneath.

He looked like his father.

The thought made him shudder.

He twisted on the faucet, splashed cold water on his face. It didn’t help.

His phone buzzed again in his pocket.

He didn’t check it. He already knew what it said.

Olivia. Again.

“I told him you were busy.” 

“I didn’t know what else to say.”  

And she didn’t mean it cruelly. That was the worst part.

She wasn’t punishing him. She wasn’t even trying to hurt him.

She just didn’t trust him anymore.

Didn’t believe he could be something their son deserved.

And she wasn’t wrong.

He braced himself against the sink again, chest heaving like he’d run a mile. The mirror wouldn’t stop showing him things he didn’t want to see.

His phone buzzed again.

He didn’t move. Just stared.

He’s scared of me now, John thought. I know it. I know it in my bones.

A sound behind him—deliberate footsteps. Boots. Not rushed. Not cautious.

Yelena.

Of course.

She didn’t knock. Didn’t clear her throat. Just walked in and leaned against the locker behind him, arms crossed.

“I should punch you for that,” she said.

He didn’t look at her. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

“No. But I’d do it better.”

Silence.

The faucet kept running.

John turned it off with one shaky hand.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t care,” she cut in. “It wasn’t about what you meant. It was about what you did.”

He exhaled.

“You can be pissed at PR,” she continued, voice quiet but sharp. “You can hate Val. You can hate the cameras and the fake rings and the lies.”

She stepped closer.

“But don’t take it out on us just because you hate yourself.”

That hit harder than anything anyone else could’ve said.

John clenched his jaw, eyes still locked on the mirror.

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do.”

She was next to him now, her reflection beside his. “You hate that people saw it. You hate that Bob saw it. That he stayed. That it felt good.”

His shoulders tightened.

“You think you’re bad at this because you feel something. But what scares you isn’t that it’s fake.” She paused. “It’s that it isn’t.”

He looked away.

Yelena’s voice softened. Just slightly. “You’re not the only one who’s learned to self-destruct slowly. But I’m not gonna let you drag him down with you because you’re too scared to sit with what it means.”

John stayed silent.

She stared at him another beat, then backed off. “Fix it.”

He didn’t turn around.

Didn’t say goodbye.

She left the way she came—quiet, clean, decisive.

And for the first time since the slap, John let himself sink down onto the bench.

Head in his hands. Heart in his throat.

Chapter Text

He stayed there on the bench. Still. Elbows on his knees. Hands over his face. Trying to remember how to breathe without feeling like he was breaking.

Because that’s what it felt like.

Not grief. Not guilt.

Breaking.

And he could hear it—in his father’s voice, his old commanding officer’s voice, Olivia’s voice on bad days—Get up. Walk it off. Be a man.

It was the silence that did it, maybe.

Not the words.

Not the fight.

Not Olivia’s messages or the way Bob hadn’t said a thing.

It was this.

This room. This bench. This version of him that no one else could see.

And the fact that no one came.

He didn’t want them to. He told himself that.

Didn’t want Bob to find him. Didn’t want Yelena to stay. Didn’t want Olivia to call. Didn’t want anyone to ask if he was okay.

Because he wasn’t.

Because he didn’t know how to be.

The tears came then.

Hot. Silent. Humiliating.

He dug his palms into his eyes like he could force them back in. Like leaking in private was still some kind of crime.

He thought of Liam’s arms around his neck. The feel of his son’s cheek against his collarbone. He hadn’t held him in so long.

He hadn’t heard him call him Daddy in even longer.

A sound broke out of him—quiet and cracked and almost nothing, but it scared him.

He pressed his back against the locker and sat like that, spine hard against cold metal, knees drawn up like a shield. Like some boy hiding in the school hallway, trying not to be seen.

He thought of Bob.

The way he touched his arm. His back. His waist. Soft. Easy. Not afraid.

John had never been taught how to accept that.

Touch had always been force. Tension. Sex or survival. Never comfort. Never just… being held.

Especially not by another man.

Especially not without expectation.

He could still feel the way Bob looked at him during the dance—open, steady kind. He hated how much he hadn’t hated it.

Hated how badly he wanted someone to come in here and say it’s okay to feel like this.

He wiped at his eyes roughly with the sleeve of his hoodie—Bob’s hoodie, of course. The one he’d borrowed weeks ago and never returned. The one that still smelled faintly like vanilla and something John couldn’t name.

“Fucking pathetic,” he muttered under his breath.

It wasn’t even the tears.

It was that he wanted to be touched again.

It was that he wanted to be seen.

It was that Bob hadn’t flinched.

And somewhere, deep in a place he didn’t let himself look too long, he wanted that to mean something.

His voice was hoarse when he said it, alone in the locker room.

“You’re a fucking mess.”

There was no answer.

Just the drip of the slow faucet. The hum of the vents. The quiet ache in his chest.

He didn’t get up.

He didn’t fix his face.

He just sat there—exposed and exhausted, finally alone enough to admit what he’d never dared say out loud.

He didn’t know what scared him more—that he was faking it. Or that he wasn’t.

The tears eventually slowed, but they didn’t bring relief.

Just the dull ache of shame spreading under his ribs.

He hated himself for crying.

Hated that it hadn’t been loud or explosive or masculine in the way pain was supposed to be. It had been quiet. Helpless.

Weak.

His father’s voice echoed in his head, low and cold. You better toughen up, boy. World doesn’t care if your feelings get hurt.

And then Olivia’s, tight with exhaustion. I can’t trust you with him when you’re like this.

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars started to bloom behind his lids.

“Fucking pull it together,” he muttered, voice hoarse and shaking.

He felt like he was trying to tape himself back together with air.

He tried standing. His legs didn’t want to cooperate at first. He stumbled forward and caught himself on the edge of the sink again.

He looked up.

The mirror hadn’t changed.

Still that same face. Still those same eyes.

Red. Puffy. Ridiculous.

He looked like a man who needed something, and he hated that most of all.

Needing. That was a word that always stuck in his throat. He didn’t get to need things. Not after what he’d lost. Not after what he’d done.

His hands shook as he turned the water back on. Splashed his face again. Rubbed hard like he could erase the evidence.

It didn’t work.

He stared down at the sink. Water pooled around the drain. His reflection bent and wavered in the curve of the metal basin. Blurred and distorted and easier to look at.

Bob’s voice flickered through his head. Just one line. Quiet. Gentle.

It doesn’t feel fake.

John clenched his jaw.

His chest ached. Not from panic, not from shame, but from the hollow place that used to be full of certainty. About who he was. What he wanted. What he wasn’t.

He wasn’t supposed to feel anything like this.

He wasn’t supposed to let another man’s hands feel like home.

He wasn’t supposed to miss Bob when he wasn’t touching him.

He slammed the faucet off.

The metal rang under his hand.

He stood there for a long time, water dripping from his chin, breathing hard through his nose.

In the silence, the shame grew roots.

It wasn’t just about the kiss. Or the message. Or the slap.

It was everything.

The marriage.

The masks.

The way he reached for Bob in the kitchen without thinking now. The way he’d started to leave room in his drawer. The way Bob’s toothbrush was closer to his than Olivia’s had ever been.

He wasn’t falling for him.

He wasn’t.

He couldn’t afford to.

Because that would mean that everything was real. And if it was real, it meant he’d already lost control.

He slammed his fist against the locker. Left a dent.

The sound echoed.

Sharp. Solid.

He didn’t care if someone heard.

He didn’t care if his knuckles bled.

He wanted it to hurt.

Because then maybe it would drown out everything else.

He stood there for another minute, chest heaving, one hand throbbing from the hit against the locker door. He didn’t look at it. Didn’t care.

The cold was creeping in now.

The adrenaline was gone.

And beneath all the heat and rage and shame was just… nothing. A blank space where energy used to be.

His body ached—not from the fight, but from holding it all in.

He turned around and let himself slide down the wall. Slow. Mechanical. 

The floor was cold. His back hit the tile and stayed there.

No dramatics.

No grand gesture.

Just stillness.

He tilted his head back against the metal and stared up at the ceiling.

There were dots in his vision. The kind that came after too much crying, too much tension, too little sleep.

He thought of Liam again. His small hands, his morning voice, the way he used to tangle in John’s shirts like a baby bird.

He’d never forgive himself for missing it. For missing him.

For letting Olivia be right.

His eyes burned again, but the tears didn’t come. He was wrung dry.

He curled in on himself slowly. One knee up, arms loose around his shins. Like instinct. Like his body remembered how to hide.

The hoodie was too warm, too soft, too familiar. He hated that it smelled like safety. Like something he didn’t think he deserved.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the empty room.

He didn’t know who he meant.

Maybe Liam.

Maybe Olivia.

Maybe Bob.

Maybe himself.

The lights hummed overhead. The cold of the tile seeped into his spine.

And finally, finally, he closed his eyes.

Not because he was calm.

Not because he was okay.

But because he was done.

Chapter Text

The fallout wasn’t loud. It didn’t have to be. No one mentioned the slap. Or the fight. Or the way John hadn’t shown up for dinner the night after.

But something shifted. Subtle. Weighty.

Alexei didn’t make another joke. Not even a tame one. He barely looked at John, and when he did, it was with quiet guilt and too many unspoken apologies behind his smirk.

Yelena didn’t scowl. Didn’t corner him again. Just watched. Sharp. Calculating. Like she was waiting for him to slip again.

Ava offered him the coffee pot that morning without eye contact. She didn’t say anything when he poured for Bob too.

Even Bucky seemed more present. Not hovering. Just… watchful.

Bob didn’t say much. He wasn’t cold. Wasn’t avoiding him. Just quiet. Gentle with the space between them.

When he handed John the sugar packet at breakfast, their fingers brushed. He didn’t pull away.

He didn’t smile, either.

The silence wasn’t sharp anymore. But it was still there. Muted. Dense. Like fog that hadn’t burned off.

By evening, the tension had frayed at John’s nerves enough that he retreated early. Told himself he was tired. Told the others he had a headache. It wasn’t a lie, exactly.

He made it back to their quarters alone. The lights were dim. Their shared laundry still unfolded. A half-eaten protein bar on Bob’s nightstand. One blanket was thrown messily across the foot of the bed.

He sat down on his side. Leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

The quiet pressed in.

He rubbed his face with both hands. Breathed deep.

He was going to lie down. That was the plan. Maybe shower first. Maybe just collapse.

Then, his gaze drifted to the dresser. Something half-tucked underneath a folded hoodie.

A sketchbook. Bob’s sketchbook.

John stared at it for a moment.

He didn’t mean to touch it.

But he did.

Pulled it free. Flipped it open with the careful guilt of someone handling someone else’s diary.

The first pages were expected. Technical drawings. Light studies. Hands. Anatomy. A profile sketch of Ava—lips pursed, lost in thought. One of Yelena sharpening a knife, hair tied back. Bucky asleep on the couch, book fallen across his chest. Alexei laughing at something just out of frame.

John felt like an intruder.

He turned another page. And another.

And saw himself.

Not posed. Not heroic.

Just there.

John tying his boots. John pouring coffee. John with his back turned, shoulders hunched over a file. John leaning against a doorframe, one hand in his pocket, face unreadable.

Dozens of them.

Not all complete. Some just rough lines and shading. Others so detailed they made his chest ache.

He sat down on the edge of the bed.

Stared.

He didn’t know how long he was like that before the door opened behind him.

Bob.

He froze in the doorway. His eyes landed on the sketchbook, on the pages, on John’s hands touching them.

Then he moved.

Fast.

Ripped the page from the middle of the book—one of the more recent ones. John in profile. Barefoot in the kitchen. Head bowed. Mismatched socks.

He took it out and closed the book in one motion. Didn’t meet John’s eyes.

“Don’t—” he started. Then stopped. Swallowed.

He set the sketchbook aside.

John didn’t say anything.

Didn’t apologize.

Didn’t explain.

The silence wasn’t cruel. Just real.

Bob rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

John shook his head once. “Don’t be.”

Another beat passed.

“I wasn’t snooping,” John added, eventually.

“I know,” Bob said.

His voice was smaller.

John looked down at the page that had been torn out. Bob had crushed it in his hand, but hadn’t destroyed it. The image still showed through.

He didn’t know why it mattered so much.

But it did.

Bob sat on the other side of the bed. Far. Careful.

John watched him for a moment.

Then, quietly, “Do you draw all of us?” He already knew the answer. Had seen it.

Bob shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Why me so much?”

Bob didn’t answer right away. Then, without looking up, said, “You’re hard to read. Drawing you helps.”

That landed heavy.

John looked at him.

Bob didn’t look back. He stared down at his hands like they were evidence.

Something between them ached. Not broken. But strained.

John didn’t know what to say to it.

So he didn’t say anything. He just shifted closer. Enough that their knees touched.

Bob still didn’t look at him.

But he didn’t move away, either.

They sat like that for a long time. Neither said anything.

The room was dim, and the sketchbook felt heavier now that it was closed—like it was holding back something neither of them knew how to release. John kept his hands folded in his lap, fingers twitching with a dozen things he could say and more that he couldn’t.

Eventually, Bob let out a quiet breath.

“I thought you’d be mad,” he murmured.

John frowned. “Why?”

A small shrug. “It’s… personal. I didn’t ask if I could.”

John thought about the sketches again. Not posed. Not planned. Just… seen. All the quiet, in-between versions of himself. The ones no one ever looked at too long. Not even himself.

“I think,” he said slowly, “I’m more surprised you noticed that much.”

Bob let out a breath that was almost a laugh, except it didn’t quite make it there. “You’re not exactly easy to miss.”

That pulled something unfamiliar out of John. Not quite warmth. But something close.

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs again. Closer to Bob now. “You always draw me when I’m not looking,” he said, glancing sideways. “You afraid I’ll mess it up if I know?”

Bob didn’t answer at first. 

“Maybe. You look different when no one’s watching.”

John let that sit. He wasn’t sure what to do with it. It felt honest. Too honest.

He turned back toward Bob. Really looked at him this time. “And when I am looking?”

Bob finally looked up. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes held something steady and bright under all the hesitation.

“I don’t know yet,” he said.

Something in John’s chest stuttered.

He could say something sharp. Something to deflect. Joke. Shrug it off. That used to be the easiest way out.

But he found that he didn’t want out.

Instead, he reached over. Slowly. Gently. Took the crushed drawing from Bob’s hand. Smoothed it on his knee.

“You can keep it,” Bob said, voice barely audible. Hoarse.

John didn’t look away from the paper. “Even if it’s unfinished?”

Bob’s voice was steadier now. “Especially if it is.”

That was it. That was a moment.

Not big. Not loud. But something real. Something new.

John folded the page carefully. Slipped it into his nightstand drawer like it belonged there. Like it meant something.

Then he sat back. And this time, when their shoulders brushed, neither of them moved.

Outside, the compound was still. The kind that only came after a storm had passed. The kind that made room for what came next.

John closed his eyes for a second. Breathed in slow.

He didn’t know where things were going. Not yet. But for the first time in a while, he didn’t feel like running from it.

Bob shifted beside him. Said nothing.

But when John opened his eyes again, he found Bob watching him. Quiet. Steady. Curious.

There was no smile.

But there didn’t need to be.

Chapter Text

It started with a tremor.

Small. Barely there.

Not loud. Not jarring. Just enough to pull John from sleep—something shifting, scraping. A breath held too long. 

The kind of movement that might’ve been a shift in a dream. A shiver. Nothing unusual.

Except it didn’t stop. The rhythm of the room was wrong.

He blinked at the ceiling, pulse already climbing. The air felt heavy. The quiet pressed into his ribs.

Then came the whisper.

Not a voice, not exactly. Just a sound beneath a sound. Thin. Tearing. Like something pressing too hard against a wall that wasn’t built to hold it.

John blinked at the ceiling for a moment, gathering his bearings.

Then he heard it again. A whisper. Harsh. Choked.

“No. No. No—”

John sat up.

Bob was upright in bed, back rigid, hands fisted in the sheets. His breathing was fast and sharp—but it wasn’t the panic that caught John’s attention.

It was the air around him. The way it bent.

Darkness clung to his outline—not shadow, but something heavier. Thicker. Like smoke caught in water. Flickering. Pulsing.

Like pressure. Like the room was a jar just barely holding back what wanted to spill.

“Bob.”

No answer. His eyes were open, but unfocused—glistening with too much white. His jaw trembled. His lips moved, whispering something over and over.

The edges of the darkness began to fray. Trails of it slipped toward the floor, curling like tendrils under the bed.

John shifted slightly, leaning up on one elbow. The sheet between them was damp with sweat.

“Bob,” He tried again, firmer. His voice stayed quiet. “Look at me.”

Still nothing.

The shadows twitched.

“Bob.”

Bob flinched. Just barely. The air thickened.

And then John saw it.

Just past Bob’s shoulder, leaking like ink through a cracked dam—darkness. Not shadow. Something heavier. Wrong. Like space was warping inward.

The Void.

Not fully out. Not fully awake. But reaching.

He sat up, heart knocking hard in his chest. He reached out—slow, careful—and placed a hand on Bob’s upper arm.

It was like touching a live wire.

Bob flinched violently. Breath stuttering. Hands grabbing at the pillow like it was the only thing anchoring him. He was still whispering something under his breath. Rapid. Broken.

John tightened his grip. “Bob.”

A tremble ran through Bob’s entire body.

“Breathe,” he said, louder now. “You’re here. You’re safe. Come back.”

No reaction—but the shadows twitched.

He slid closer. His chest rested against Bob’s back. One arm around his middle, the other bracing near his head.

“You’re not him,” he said into Bob’s shoulder. “You’re not him. You’re not whatever he made you.”

Bob let out a cracked sound. Not quite a sob. Not quite a scream. His fists clutched at the edge of the mattress like he was falling off.

“It’s in me,” he choked. “I can’t stop it—I feel it—I can’t—”

“You can,” John snapped. “It doesn’t own you. He doesn’t own you.”

The dark behind Bob pulsed—just once. A ripple in the air. Like something testing its limits.

John pressed his forehead to the back of Bob’s neck. Grounded both hands around his wrists, breath steady even though his own heart was slamming. 

The tremor in Bob’s shoulders turned into a shudder. His fists opened. His arms moved before he knew what they were doing—and suddenly he was gripping John’s shirt like a lifeline, forehead pressed to his chest, breath hiccuping out in panicked bursts.

John didn’t hesitate.

He wrapped his arms around him. Anchored him. Placed one hand on the back of his neck. The other pressed to his spine.

It wasn’t gentle.

It was steady. Unmovable.

“You’re okay,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

It took minutes for Bob’s breathing to slow.

For the shaking to ease.

For the whispers to stop.

For The Void to retreat.

But they did.

Eventually, Bob pulled back. Just enough to look at John’s face. His eyes were rimmed red. His mouth trembled, like he was trying to speak and failing at every start.

“I’m sorry,” he managed.

John shook his head. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t want you to see that.”

“Too late.”

Bob huffed a shaky breath. Half a laugh, half a sob.

John didn’t let go.

They stayed like that, on the bed in their shared room. Not enough air in the space between them. Bob’s hands gripping John, or maybe John’s gripping Bob.

“I don’t—” Bob started. Then faltered.

John rubbed a hand over Bob’s spine. Briefly. Barely.

“You are not him,” he said. “You are not his. And you don’t belong to whatever’s inside you.”

Bob let out a broken sound. His shoulders trembled. The last bit of shadow pulled inward—retreated back into his skin like breath pulled through a wound.

But the pressure in the room didn’t lift all at once.

It clung, thick and cloying, like fog that refused to burn off. Like the air itself was watching.

John exhaled, slow and even. Still holding him. Still present.

Bob’s breath hitched once more. His voice cracked open again.

“Sometimes I think it wants me to break.”

John didn’t respond at first. He just watched the back of Bob’s head, the place where his hair stuck damp to his neck, the way his hands trembled against John’s ribs.

“It doesn’t want anything,” John said at last. Quiet. Steadier than he felt. “It doesn’t get you.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can hold it.”

“You don’t have to hold it alone.”

That made Bob go still again. Bone-deep still. Like he didn’t know what to do with that kind of answer.

He pulled back just enough to see John’s face. His own expression was wrecked. Not from the Void. From the shame of surviving it.

“You keep saying that I’m not him.” Bob’s voice was hoarse. “What if I already am?”

“You’re not.”

“You don’t know that.”

John stared at him. His hands tightened around Bob.

“I’ve seen men like your father,” he said. “They enjoy the fear. The control. The break.”

His voice dropped—low, serious, undeniable. “You fight it. Every second. You’re terrified of what it could make you. That alone makes you nothing like him.”

Bob swallowed hard. Looked down.

“And the Void?”

John lifted one hand, touched just under Bob’s jaw—lightly. Guided him back to eye contact. It was too tender. He didn’t care.

“You’re stronger than it,” he said.

“You don’t know that either.”

“I know you.”

The air finally began to settle. Not all at once. But enough.

The hum of the Void faded into a faint pulse—still there, tucked somewhere behind Bob’s ribs, but quiet for now. Tired. Contained.

Bob leaned into him again. Not out of fear this time. Just gravity.

They sat like that for a long time.

Breathing. Listening to the clock on the wall. To the compound’s quiet. To the nothingness that, finally, didn’t seem so sharp.

John didn’t sleep.

Even when Bob’s breathing evened out again. Even when the tension bled from his shoulders and sleep dragged him down.

He stayed.

At some point, when he was sure Bob wouldn’t stir, he reached across him and pulled his sketchbook from the nightstand.

He flipped to the back. Found a blank page.

He didn’t draw the Void. Didn’t draw the fear or the shadows or the way it had nearly won.

He drew Bob, curled inward. Breathing. Arms tucked against his chest. Real.

Unfinished.

But still here.

Chapter Text

The morning after came heavy and hushed. No one mentioned the night before.

Bob was quiet, but not unusually so. Focused. Controlled. As if he could will the edges of himself into something solid again.

John didn’t push.

But he watched.

And he noticed—the way Bob flinched when a shadow shifted just a little too sharply in the hallway. The way he kept one hand loosely balled at his side, like he was holding something in.

He hadn’t slept again after the episode. John could tell. The circles under his eyes were sharper. His jaw too tight. His presence too still.

They went through the motions, but it all felt suspended, like the world was holding its breath.

John wasn’t the only one who watched. Ava’s eyes lingered too long. Bucky stayed closer than usual. Yelena, sharp and unbothered, kept glancing toward him when she thought no one was looking. Bob, to his credit, looked calm. Controlled. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought he was fine.

But John had seen what “fine” looked like on him. It wasn’t this. Not the clenched jaw. Not the way his shoulders held tension like coiled wire. Not the way he flinched at the sound of the overhead lights flickering when the power surged.

Still, he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure what he’d say that wouldn’t splinter whatever ground they’d built last night. So he let the quiet sit between them. Let Bob pretend he was steady. Let himself pretend he didn’t still feel the ghost of trembling hands on his shirt.

Then the mission came.

Valentina’s voice crackled over the intercom—sharp, all business. “We’ve got a live op. Extraction team’s pinned. Reinforcements are three hours out. We’re closer.”

John was already moving. “What are we walking into?”

“Two agents trapped. Facility’s unstable. Unknown hostiles. No Sentry deployment.”

He didn’t have to look at Bob to feel the shift beside him.

The words hung heavy in the air. Bob didn’t speak. Didn’t argue. Just inhaled once, shallow, and stepped back like someone already bracing for distance.

Valentina’s voice continued, cool and clipped. “Yelena, Bucky, Ava, John—you’re on primary. Alexei, you fly. Wheels up in seven.”

That was it.

Bucky gave a silent nod. Yelena confirmed the plan, efficient. Contain and extract.

Bob didn’t ask to come. He just stood there in the corridor, one hand pressed flat to the wall beside him.

The Void wasn’t loud. But it was there. Breathing just under the surface.

John hesitated. “You’ll stay on comms?”

Bob nodded once, eyes unreadable. “Got it.”

They left without another word.

The wind outside the transport was sharp. Cold in a way that got into the bones. John liked it. It kept him focused. Gave him something to hold onto. 

The plan was straightforward: locate the trapped agents, secure the perimeter, and pull out.

Ava was quiet beside him, checking her gear. Bucky sat across from them, arms crossed, face grim.

They all felt it. This was going to go sideways.

The facility looked worse than the report. A hollowed-out concrete carcass on the edge of a dying tree line. Twisted metal where doors should have been. The air buzzed with static and something sour.

They moved fast. Hallways were slick with debris, systems dead or looping on emergency power. No signs of the pinned agents yet. No signs of who—or what—was closing in.

John took point, scanning every corner. Yelena was close, weapon ready. Ava moved like a shadow behind them. Bucky covered their flank.

The first signs of trouble came with a low rumble—the building groaned, metal twisted, concrete cracked. 

John barely had time to react. An explosion tore through the stairwell ahead, sending shards of concrete and steel hurtling through the air. 

He felt the impact before he hit the floor—a crushing weight against his ribs. His breath caught, sharp and hot. 

Super soldier or not, this was serious.

He rolled, pressing a hand to his side. The burn was immediate. Pain flared where it rarely did. He tasted blood, copper strong and real.

He struggled to stand. His vision blurred, but he forced his eyes open just in time to catch Yelena’s sharp command.

“John!” Yelena’s shout was a harsh stab. “Fall back!”

He forced a nod. Gritted his teeth and pushed upward, every breath jagged.

His body betrayed him in a way it hadn’t in years.

Still, the mission wasn’t over. The pinned agents were out there. He signaled the team to regroup, trying to keep the pain hidden. But it was there, a tremor beneath his skin that tightened with each heartbeat.

Gunfire echoed through the broken corridors. Shouted orders bounced off cracked walls. Yelena covered their flank without hesitation. Ava moved like a shadow, and Bucky stood ready to fight. But John’s strength was fading fast.

He slumped against a wall, breath ragged, blood dark and sticky against his uniform. Pain lanced through his side, white-hot. He forced himself to stand. Pulled the shield from his back.

“John—” Bucky’s voice was sharp over the comm. “Fall back. You’re bleeding.”

“Keep moving,” John gritted. “Find the agents.”

The others went ahead. He paused, briefly, then started to move forward. A hand strapped across his chest. Held him back.

“John.”

He froze under Bob’s grip, the weight of the moment crashing over him. The pain in his ribs flared—sharp and relentless—but it was the look in his eyes that stopped him. Not panic. Not fear. Something deeper. Resolve.

“You’re hurt,” Bob said quietly, voice steady but firm. “This isn’t your fight right now.”

John swallowed. The metallic taste of blood was heavy on his tongue. He narrowed his eyes. 

“How—why are you here?” he asked, voice low but edged with something sharp. “You’re not supposed to be on this mission.”

Bob didn’t look back. “I’m not staying at the compound while you get hurt out here.”

John’s jaw clenched. “This isn't your fight either.”

Bob’s gaze snapped to him, intense and unyielding. “Maybe not. But if you’re broken out there, who’s going to bring you back?”

The Void had been restless under his skin since last night, and John knew letting it loose now would be a disaster.

Bob’s hand didn’t loosen. “I’m going in.”

The words landed like a grenade. John blinked, disbelief flashing through the haze of pain. “No. You stay. This is—”

“It’s me,” Bob interrupted. “You’re not going to keep doing this alone.”

John’s chest tightened. The unspoken weight of the promise settled between them. The team depended on Bob to hold the line here. To hold himself together.

His eyes flickered with shadow, the Void pushing at the edges of control. But beneath it was something else—a fierce determination John hadn’t seen before.

“Alright,” John said finally, voice rough. “But stay on comms. I’ll be watching.”

Bob nodded. “I won’t let it take me.”

John let him go, barely noticing the ache in his side that made every movement a battle. The mission pressed on, but the shift was clear. This wasn’t just another extraction anymore. It was a test—for all of them.

Chapter Text

John watched Bob move toward the transport with a steady, purposeful gait, the kind that said he’d made his decision and wasn’t turning back. The cold air bit at his face, but he barely felt it—his attention was locked on the weight in his ribs, the dull ache growing sharper with every breath. He adjusted the strap of his shield and forced himself to keep his pace steady, not letting the pain betray him.

Inside the transport, Yelena gave a curt nod as Bob climbed in beside them. Didn’t protest—probably wanted to. The hum of the engine filled the tense silence. Ava checked her rifles once more. Bucky sat with his jaw tight, eyes scanning the dim interior. No one said anything. Words felt dangerous here.

John’s comm cracked, Valentina’s voice crisp and business-like. “Approaching target zone. Get ready.”

As they disembarked, the weight of the mission settled over John like a shroud. Every step was measured, every sound amplified against the eerie stillness. They moved in formation, weapons raised, senses sharp.

A burst of gunfire echoed from deeper inside. John’s heart slammed—his body screamed to respond, but the injury held him back, a silent reminder that even he wasn’t invincible.

“John!” Yelena’s voice cut through the chaos. “Hold position. We need cover.”

The firefight was sudden and brutal, forcing the team to take cover behind shattered walls and fallen beams. John pressed his side, the pain flaring like wildfire. He gritted his teeth and scanned for their trapped agents.

Then the comm buzzed again—Bob’s voice, steady but strained. “I’m moving in. Watch my six.”

Moments later, Bob appeared at the edge of their position, golden costume glimmering against the dust, eyes sharp but shadows flickering beneath the surface of his gaze. John felt the familiar pull—the Void clawing at the edges of Bob’s control.

The enemy pushed harder, desperation bleeding into their tactics. Bob’s hands trembled, slightly. Dark energy swirling like smoke caught in a storm. The air bent around him, warping.

“Bob,” John hissed, stepping forward despite the pain. “You’re burning through the line.”

Bob’s voice cracked. “I’m holding it. I just need—”

The Void erupted, swallowing everything in its path.

“Shit! Fall back!” John heard distantly. He wasn’t sure who had said it.

He fought to stay present, voice ragged but firm. “Bob, pull it back.”

But Bob was lost, swallowed by the shadows. John pushed harder. Gritted his teeth through the white-hot pain lacing his side, boots slipping on the fractured concrete as the pressure in the air grew unbearable.

The sound around him fractured—gunfire warped, shouts muffled, the world like cotton stuffed in his ears. All he could hear clearly was the low, guttural hum of the Void pouring out of Bob like a wound ripped open.

The darkness didn’t just fill the space—it devoured it. The hallway warped inward. Light bent at unnatural angles. The ground cracked under the weight of nothing. Bob stood in the center of it, barely a silhouette now, mouth slack, hands lifted—fingers curled like claws as if he could hold the breaking world in place.

But he couldn’t. His control was slipping fast.

John forced himself closer. The temperature dropped. His breath came out in white clouds that vanished too quickly. His vision tunneled. And still, he moved. Step by brutal step.

“Bob!” he shouted, voice barely piercing the vacuum of noise, of pressure, of unraveling.

No response. Bob didn’t blink. His eyes were wide, unfocused—white pinpricks in the black, like ink bleeding through paper. His body shook with effort, jaw clenched hard enough John thought it might crack. The Void screamed around him. Reached for the walls. For the ceiling. For the team.

John’s shield clattered to the floor behind him.

“You want to destroy everything?” he barked, stepping directly into the storm. “Start with me.”

That got a reaction.

Bob’s head snapped toward him. Not fully present, not fully gone—somewhere in between, caught in the middle of the Void and himself. His hands twitched. The shadows around him hesitated, pulsing with indecision.

John kept going. “Do it,” he said, voice low now, eyes locked on Bob’s. “Rip me apart. Crush me. If that’s what you want, stop dragging it out.”

The Void surged, walls groaning under invisible weight. Behind him, John could hear Yelena and Bucky shouting something, but it didn’t matter. This wasn’t their fight anymore.

“John—” Bob’s voice was hoarse, broken, barely a whisper.

“Do it!” John shouted. “Or fight it. But don’t stand there and pretend you don’t feel it trying to win.”

Bob’s hands shook violently. One foot shifted back, like he was teetering on the ledge. Shadows curled around his ankles like chains.

“I can’t—I can’t stop it—”

“Yes, you can,” John growled, pushing forward until their chests nearly touched. “I’ve seen you. You held it back last night. You held it back for me.”

Bob’s eyes finally focused. He was trembling head to toe.

“I’m not strong enough.”

“You are,” John said, and then reached out and grabbed Bob’s wrist. It burned to the touch, like static crawling under his skin, but John didn’t let go. “You’re stronger than it. You’re stronger than what he made you.”

Bob gasped, a noise like a sob ripped in half. The Void buckled—hard. The whole hallway shook with the force of it. The shadows lashed out once, wild and desperate, then snapped inward like a breath sucked through clenched teeth.

And then Bob grabbed at him.

Hands clutched at John’s uniform, knuckles white. Bob buried his face in his chest, gasping for air like he’d been drowning and just now surfaced.

John held tight. Didn’t let go.

“I just need—” Bob choked. “I just need something real.”

“You’ve got it,” John breathed. His arms locked around him, holding fast. “You’ve got me.”

The pressure dropped all at once. The sound of the world came rushing back in. Gunfire. Shouts. The creak of the ceiling giving in somewhere behind them.

The Void pulled back, dragging its teeth across the edges of reality as it vanished into Bob’s skin, leaving behind only the smell of scorched stone.

John didn’t move. He could feel the deep warmth of blood soaking through his uniform, but he didn’t care. Bob was shaking in his arms, but he was present. He was there.

The comm crackled. “What the hell was that?” Ava’s voice, breathless, sharp.

“John?” Bucky this time. “Are you two alive?”

John didn’t look up. He pressed a hand to the back of Bob’s neck, grounding them both. “We’re here.”

There was a pause.

“Copy that,” Yelena muttered. “Agents secured. Meet us outside.”

John nodded. Slowly, he pulled back enough to meet Bob’s eyes. They were bloodshot, rimmed with tears he hadn’t noticed falling.

“I didn’t mean—” Bob started.

John shook his head. “I know.”

“I didn't want to lose it.”

“You didn’t.”

Bob’s mouth trembled. “But I could have. I almost did.”

John gave half a smile, grim and exhausted. “But you didn’t.”

Chapter Text

They moved through the crumbling halls in silence.

Bob stayed close now—too close, like if he drifted even a step too far, he might slip again. John didn’t push him away. His side was burning a knot of torn muscle and wet heat, every breath a punishment, but he kept his posture steady. He had to. Not just for Bob—for the team. For himself.

The mission wasn’t over.

Yelena was the first to spot them emerging through the last corridor. She gave a quick once-over, eyes landing on the smoldering marks in the concrete and the too-wide space between Bob’s shoulders. Her gaze slid to John’s side, to the blood soaking through the fabric, and something in her jaw twitched.

“You alive?” She asked dryly.

“Mostly,” he answered.

Bucky moved in without a word, positioning himself at John’s other side. Not to coddle—he’d never do that—but to steady. To share the weight.

Ava appeared next, her voice low over comms. “Zone clear. We’ve got the agents. Alexei’s waiting.”

John nodded once. Bob still hadn’t spoken. Yelena gave him a long look but didn’t poke the wound.

Outside, the air hit like a slap—sharp and sobering. The trees around the facility shivered in the wind. The ground was uneven, littered with debris and frost-slick stone. John’s foot caught on a root, and before he could stumble, Bucky grabbed his arm.

“Easy,” he muttered.

“I’m fine,” John replied, but even he didn’t sound convinced.

Bob moved closer again, silent, a shadow half a step behind. His hands had stopped shaking, but his eyes were still storm-wrecked.

Alexei stood near the transport, leaning against the hull with his arms crossed. The engines whirred in idle, blades spinning lazily in the cold. He didn’t say anything at first—just raised a brow when he saw the state of them.

“You all good?” He asked the group eventually, but his eyes were mostly on John.

“No one’s dead,” Yelena said.

“Yet,” Ava added.

Bob climbed in first. Yelena and Ava followed, flanking the wounded agents. Bucky waited until John pulled himself in—slow, gritted teeth, blood soaking deeper with every shift—then took the seat across from him like a sentinel.

The silence inside was weighty. Bob sat beside John but didn’t speak. Ava reloaded her weapon out of habit, the click of the cartridge the only sound. Yelena leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, watching Bob. Watching John. Her gaze flicked between them, but she didn’t speak.

Bucky finally broke it. “You look like shit.”

John gave him a withering glance.

“Want me to say you look great?” Bucky added. “Because you don’t.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

The comm cracked. Valentina’s voice again. “Mission’s clear. Stand by for debrief once you land.”

Alexei’s voice followed, a rare note of concern in his usual tone. “Walker. Do you want med team waiting?”

“No,” he said immediately. Then, softer, “just keep it quiet.”

“Copy that,” Alexei replied.

“I’ll be fine in a few days.”

The flight home blurred—John kept his jaw tight and his breathing even, despite the hot throb under his ribs. Bucky didn’t press, but his eyes didn’t leave John’s face for the whole ride. Yelena and Ava exchanged a look now and then. Quiet, but not uncaring.

When the transport finally touched down, he stood slowly. The medics were already waiting.

“I said no—”

“You’re leaking on the floor,” Yelena said.

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“You’re lucky I don’t drag you there myself,” she muttered, brushing past him. “Come on.”

Bob followed silently, hands jammed in the pockets of a jacket he’d shrugged on at some point, as if holding something in. He didn’t speak until they were halfway down the hall, the others walking ahead.

“You shouldn’t have stepped into it,” Bob said quietly. “Back there.”

“And you shouldn’t have been there,” John snapped, then his voice softened. “I wasn’t going to let you go under.”

Bob looked sheepish. “I almost took you with me.”

John looked over. “But you didn’t.”

The hallway lights buzzed faintly overhead. Bob looked down at his hands.

“I lost control.”

“Then you pulled it back,” John said. “With the team right there. You didn’t fall. Not all the way.”

Bob gave a hollow laugh. “You think they’ll trust me after that?”

John didn’t answer.

Yelena stopped at the end of the corridor, blocking the door to the med bay with her arms crossed. “If you’re not walking in, I’ll carry you.”

John blinked. “You’re like four feet tall.”

“I’m five foot four. And spite adds mass. Ask Ava.”

“She’s right,” Ava said mildly. “You’ll lose.”

“I’m walking,” he muttered.

Bob stood awkwardly by the wall as John let the med team take over. Bucky lingered near the door. Ava stood beside Bob without a word, arms folded.

“You didn’t lose yourself,” she said eventually. “That matters.”

Bob looked up, startled.

“You think we haven’t all slipped?” she continued. “We’ve all got our ghosts.”

Bob’s voice was rough. “Mine almost pulled the roof down.”

Ava shrugged. “Still standing.”

Yelena smirked over her shoulder. “For now.”

John, flat on the table with a gauze pressed to his ribs, groaned. “Can you take this bonding session elsewhere?”

“No,” Bucky said.

“This is character development,” Yelena added, and shut the door behind her with a snap. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks,” John said flatly. Yelena grinned.

Bob looked at John—bloodied, tired, but somehow still steady—and for the first time since the mission, his posture relaxed just a little. Not fully. But softened.

The weight wasn’t gone. But it was shared now.

And that made it lighter.

“Hey, Bob,” Yelena said, not unkindly, eyes on him. “You still breathing?”

He nodded once, hesitant.

“Good. Don’t make us do another one of those.”

Bob blinked. “Another what?”

“That thing you did. The Void meltdown,” she said with a vague hand gesture. “It was impressive, but let’s not.”

Ava looked over. “I don’t know. It was kind of cool.”

Bucky let out a huff. “Terrifying and cool.”

Yelena smirked. “Fine. Terrifying, cool, and exhausting.”

Bob tried to smile. It didn’t fully land, but it was something.

Then Alexei’s voice bustled in, and John wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed his presence before. “You want my opinion?”

They all blinked.

“You are not as scary as you think you are,” he said. “You, Bob. You are still one of us. And we do not leave our own behind. You are family.”

Yelena raised an eyebrow. “That was sweet.”

“I am leaving,” Alexei said, but he didn’t move to the door.

There was a beat of silence.

Bob scrubbed a hand over his face. “You should all be more worried. I almost lost it. Again. I could’ve—”

“You didn’t,” Ava cut in. “And you won’t. Not alone, anyway.”

Bob swallowed. “But what if—”

“We catch you,” Bucky said simply. “That’s the deal.”

Bob looked down at the floor. “You’re serious.”

Yelena rolled her eyes. “We’re a bunch of broken toys. You fit right in. Always have, Bob.”

John groaned again from the table. “Can someone else be emotionally vulnerable for a while?”

“Patch him faster,” Yelena told the med tech.

“I’m trying,” they muttered.

Ava nudged Bob’s arm. “You don’t have to say anything. Just… let us help. Let yourself be helped.”

Bob didn’t answer, but he didn’t pull away either.

 John watched from the table—tired, bleeding, annoyed, relieved. Something in Bob’s shoulders had loosened. Just a little. Like maybe, for once, he believed he didn’t have to carry the whole damn storm alone.

John should’ve felt better.

But something twisted low in his gut. Not sharp. Like pressure built under the skin. Like hunger dressed up as guilt.

He watched Bob nod at something Ava said. Watched the way his fingers flexed like he wasn’t sure what to do with gentleness. Watched the soft curve of his mouth when he smiled.

The twist went deeper.

It made his ribs ache in a different way. Not from the wound, but from whatever it was inside him that still flinched at the truth. The part that still thought desire made him dangerous. That closeness was a threat.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s what scared him most.

The quiet realization that he wasn't outside the circle anymore.

He was part of it.

He’d been pulled into something without ceremony. Folded into a dynamic that didn’t ask for proof of worth, or penance, or perfection. They made space for him. Held space for him.

He hadn’t had that before.

And now he couldn’t stop wondering what it would cost to keep it.

He closed his eyes. Exhaled slow.

The team was laughing at something Alexei said. Bob was beside him, hands still, expression softening.

John didn’t say a word.

But he didn’t pull away either.

Chapter Text

The debrief had been brutal in its own way. Not the words—Valentina’s voice has been clinical, her questions sharp but predictable. It was everything underneath that stuck to John’s skin like soot.

“Unexpected Void surge.”

“Minimal collateral.”

“Mission success.”

“Containment—adequate.”

Bob had sat through it with his eyes low, his jaw tight, and his hands folded like a prayer he didn't believe in anymore. John had watched him like a man waiting for a verdict. Not from Valentina—from the room. From them.

And the verdict had come, in glances and silences and the way Ava sat beside Bob like nothing had changed. The way Bucky answered for both of them when Valentina asked about control.

The way Yelena, when asked for a damage report, had simply said, “Walls broke. We didn’t.”

It should’ve helped. It didn’t.

He’d felt it during the debrief—watching Bob’s knuckles go white on the edge of the table. Watching the team close ranks around him. Watching Bob look up once, toward him, and then look away.

It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.

John found himself sitting alone in the med bay long after the others had drifted away from the briefing room. The tech had patched him up, left him with water and warnings. He hadn’t moved since.

The base had quieted in the way only late night could manage—low lights, lower voices, the buzz of fluorescent fixtures dulled to a murmur.

His ribs throbbed in time with his heartbeat. The silence pressed harder than the gauze. That’s what had followed John into the med bay. Not the pain, not the fatigue thrumming in his bones—but that. That hollow want. That ache he couldn’t pin down without naming it.

That’s when the footsteps came. Soft ones.

He knew it was Bob before he even looked. There was something about the way he walked—measured, hesitant, like he thought maybe this time, maybe now, he’d be told to turn around.

John didn’t say anything. Just waited.

Bob leaned into the doorway a beat too long. Hesitated. Like maybe he’d leave again. Like maybe he should.

He didn’t.

“You okay?” Bob asked, voice quiet, like even the air didn’t want to break.

John shrugged, then winced. “Define ‘okay.’”

Bob smiled. Barely. “Alive?”

“Yeah.”

A silence stretched between them—thicker than it should have been.

“You?”

Bob gave a half shrug, then stepped fully inside. His hands were in the pockets of his hoodie. Not the same one he had been wearing earlier. His hair was still messy. His eyes tired.

But focused. On John.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Bob said. “Kept thinking.”

John didn’t ask what about.

Silence stretched.

Bob shifted closer. He was just standing now, by the edge of the cot, looking down like he was trying to find the right version of himself to be.

“I, uh…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “Wanted to say thanks. For earlier. You didn’t have to—step in like that.”

“You didn’t have to pull it back,” John said.

Bob blinked, then looked away. “Didn’t know if I could.”

“You did.”

“Yeah. Still…” He shrugged. “You didn’t have to make it you. That close.”

John shifted. The ache in his ribs flared, but it wasn’t the worst thing burning under his skin.

“I wasn’t going to let you drown alone,” he said. “No one should.”

Bob exhaled. The kind of breath people let out when they’ve been holding something in too long. His hands slid back into the pockets of his hoodie like they might ground him there. In this moment.

“I meant what I said, you know,” Bob said, quieter. “About needing something real.”

John looked at him. Really looked. The cut on his temple. The faint tremble in his jaw, even now. The exhaustion beneath his posture.

And beneath that—something unspoken, but unmistakable.

John’s chest tightened. Not just from the wound.

“Yeah,” he said. “I remember.”

Another pause. Heavy with static.

“I kept thinking,” Bob said, voice barely audible. “After the debrief. After the quiet came back. About how fast it could’ve gone to shit. How easy it would’ve been to lose it. To lose…”

John looked up. Met his eyes. Saw the panic there. Still living, still fresh. Not about the mission. Not about the Void. About him.

Something tightened behind his ribs. Not pain. Not fear. Just—real. Too real.

He stood slowly. His muscles protested. His side lit up. But he couldn’t sit there anymore, couldn’t pretend the distance was doing anything but hurting them both.

He stepped forward. Bob didn’t move.

“I kept thinking about the same thing,” he said. “About how easy it is. To lose control. To pretend we’re fine when we’re not.”

Bob looked up, lips parting like he might say something. But no words came.

John stopped just in front of him. Not touching. Not yet.

“I thought it was just guilt,” he admitted. “That twist in my gut. After what happened. But it wasn’t.”

Bob didn’t breathe. Or maybe John didn’t.

The air between them shifted. Dense. Electric.

“It’s wanting something I still think I shouldn’t.”

Bob looked at him like he wasn’t sure who’d move first. Like he didn’t trust himself not to.

His voice was barely above a whisper. “Me?”

John closed his eyes for half a second. Then opened them. “Yeah.”

Bob blinked. A flicker of shock, then something else. Something fragile and devastating. “I don’t know what this is,” he said. “Or what it means.”

“I don’t either.”

“But it doesn’t go away.”

“No,” John said. “It doesn’t.”

They stared at each other like the room might collapse around them again. Like the air might rip open with the weight of the unsaid.

John didn’t remember closing the gap. Didn’t remember reaching. Just the moment before it happened—his heart hammering, his breath caught, the twist in his gut tightening into something sharp and real. The way he hadn’t thought about anything except Bob. Not for a second.

And then they were kissing.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t practiced. It wasn’t anything like the first one—the one for the photoshoot. It was seated in the quiet, reluctant spaces between denial and want.

It was heat and friction and need.

It was desperate. Confusing. Real.

Their mouths crashed together, too fast, teeth knocking. John didn’t care. He couldn’t. He only felt the way Bob gripped the front of his medical gown like it was the only thing tethering him to the floor. Felt the way their bodies fit together—awkward, tense, right.

His hands found Bob’s jaw, thumb grazing the sharp edge of stubble, fingers splaying over the curve of his cheek like he was afraid Bob might vanish if he didn't hold on.

Bob made a noise then—not a word, not a moan, but something raw and startled in the back of his throat—and it undid something in John completely.

He deepened the kiss without thinking, breath stuttering as Bob leaned in harder, as if he wanted to climb inside his skin. There was nothing cautious in it, nothing careful. Just mouths parting, reconnecting, the taste of regret and adrenaline and salt.

John’s fingers curled at the base of Bob’s neck, pulling him closer like he wasn’t sure where the kiss ended and the need began. Bob stumbled forward with him, chest to chest now, their bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces carved by shared damage.

The next kiss was slower, but no less intense—deeper, drawn out, the kind that tasted like something unspoken being said for the first time.

He felt the thud of Bob’s heart through the fabric of his hoodie, outpacing his own. Felt the tremble in his hands, how they hovered and then gripped—his ribs, his sides, his hips—testing if he was allowed to touch this much.

His hands weren’t hesitant anymore. They slid around John’s back, palms flat, like he needed to memorize every angle, every scar tucked under his gown, every way this could still be real. His thumb brushed the edge of the gauze where John’s ribs were wrapped, and he hesitated, breath catching. Bob pushed his mouth harder. He groaned into it. Wondered if this was real.

It was.

Too much.

Not enough.

They broke, barely—just enough to breathe. Just enough for John to get a look at him, eyes glassy, lips red and parted.

“Fuck,” Bob whispered. “I didn’t mean—”

“You did,” John said. His voice was hoarse. “So did I.”

Bob let out a shaky breath. Their foreheads touched. He closed his eyes like it was too much to take in all at once.

“This is a bad idea,” Bob murmured.

“I know,” John breathed.

“We’re a mess.”

“Yeah.”

But neither of them moved.

Chapter Text

John woke up to the sound of his own breathing. Shallow. Measured. Controlled.

The cot beneath him creaked as he shifted, ribs flaring in complaint, but he didn’t wince. Not yet. Not when the real pain hadn’t caught up.

He didn’t know what time it was. The med bay lights had dimmed to night-cycle, that sterile twilight haze meant to simulate calm. His jaw was tight. He felt his stomach twist.

Bob was nowhere to be found.

He blinked hard. Once. Twice.

He hadn’t dreamt it. He couldn’t have. It was too vivid—the weight of Bob’s hands, the crackle of breath between kisses, the stunned silence after, their foreheads pressed together like they were holding each other up by will alone.

It happened.

But Bob was gone.

He stared at the ceiling. Tried to breathe like nothing was different.

But everything was.

The kiss hadn’t been gentle. It hadn’t been a quiet epiphany. It had been a crack, a rupture, a heat-soaked, breath-stalling mistake that didn’t feel like one in the moment.

But maybe it was.

Maybe Bob had already decided it was.

John sat up slowly, biting down the grunt of pain from his ribs. The silence in the med bay was absolute—too clean. Too bright. The room swayed a little. The cot creaked under his weight.

He braced his elbows on his knees and let his hands hang loose.

It shouldn’t have happened. He knew that. He knew that.

It wasn’t just about Bob—it was everything inside him that had led to it. The long-held shame. The fear. The years spent filing himself into shapes that would fit the expectations carved into him by the uniform, by the marriage, by the country, by his own goddamn hands.

He moved himself through the motions of the morning like he was underwater. Braced himself against the ache in his ribs. Didn't look in the mirror too long. Didn’t want to see what might be written on his face.

He thought of Olivia.

Of the way she’d looked at him, sometimes, like she knew something he didn't want to admit. Not then. Maybe not even now.

He thought of Liam.

What would he think, if he ever knew? If he ever understood that John had spent a lifetime cutting himself off from softness, from truth, because he’d been taught that wanting another man—not in theory, not abstractly, but specifically, deeply, desperately—was a threat to the person he was supposed to be?

It had been easier, back then, to be angry. Easier to be a weapon. Easier to be straight, or at least straight enough. Olivia had been safe. Beautiful. Strong. And she had loved him. He still believed that. He had loved her, too. But not like this. Not in the way he’d kissed Bob, like something in him might split open if he didn’t.

The wanting hadn’t gone away.

It had just gone quiet. Buried deep. Untouched.

Until now.

Until Bob.

He stood. Slowly. The base was quiet—early morning or late night, he wasn’t sure which. His phone was dead. He already knew he didn’t have any new messages. Not from Olivia. Not from Bob.

He wandered without a plan. Let his feet carry him past familiar corridors, hallways that felt too hollow. Everything had been too loud for so long—the missions, the injuries, the team, the grief—and now there was nothing but the quiet. The ringing of it.

He didn’t look for Bob at first. Not really.

He checked the gym. The kitchen. The rec room. Told himself it was just habit. Recovery restlessness. He wasn’t searching.

But then he passed by the bedroom. Stopped.

The door to their shared room was cracked open. He stared at it like it might unlock something. Truth. Closure. He didn’t know what.

He raised his hand. Almost knocked.

Didn’t.

Nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of knocking on his own door.

He told himself it was nothing. A kiss. Just a kiss.

But it wasn't. And he knew it.

It was the absence afterward. The silence. The unanswered question that throbbed louder than the bruises under his ribs.

Inside, the lights were off. Bob was asleep in their bed. He laid turned away from John’s side, still as a statue. Blanket pulled up over his shoulders like armor.

John didn't say anything.

Didn’t need to.

The silence was thick enough to smother.

He changed quietly. Every shift of fabric, every breath, every creak of the floorboard sounded too loud. He moved like an intruder in his own space.

Bob didn’t stir.

Didn’t acknowledge him.

And maybe that was worse than anything he could have said.

John’s hands shook as he peeled off his gown. His bruises had bloomed darker overnight—ugly, sprawling evidence of everything he couldn’t say. 

He slid into bed slowly, careful not to jostle the mattress.

Bob didn’t move.

Not even a flinch.

He was breathing steady, too steady, like a man feigning sleep. Like a man afraid of what might happen if he woke up.

John laid on his back, eyes open to the ceiling. He could feel the heat of Bob’s body beside him, inches away. Closer than anyone else had been in a long time.

And never farther.

He wanted to reach out. Say something. Anything. But the words got stuck somewhere behind his teeth. Because what was there to say?

I’m sorry I kissed you like it meant something?

I’m sorry it did?

He remembered the press of Bob’s mouth, frantic and real. Remembered the way Bob had held him like he wanted it just as bad. Like he needed it.

But then morning came. And he hadn’t stayed.

It was still dark outside. The kind of blue-black that made everything feel two seconds from disappearing. Light hadn’t yet crept in through the window.

John let himself feel tired. Not from the mission. Not from the injury. But from the years. From the pretending. From the want.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. Exhaled through his nose. Thought about how easy it was to lose track of who he was.

I had a wife. I had a kid.

The words echoed in his brain, but they weren’t loud. Just present, like background radiation. Like they’d been waiting to be spoken.

I don’t know what this is.

His voice caught in his own head. Not even aloud, and it still made his stomach twist.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

And suddenly, like breath against a mirror, Bob’s voice echoed back, unspoken but clear. I do. You’re just scared of him.

He closed his eyes. Let that sink in. Let it settle like a bruise.

Because maybe Bob was right.

Maybe he’d spent his whole life terrified of the version of himself that could hold softness and not lose strength. That could want and not be wrong for it.

But then why had Bob left?

That part hurt worse than the honesty.

He’d kissed Bob like he didn’t care who saw.

Bob left like he did.

And John didn’t know how to crawl out from under that.

Not yet.

Chapter Text

John’s phone buzzed once on the bedside table. Then again. 

He didn’t look. Didn’t want to. Not after the silence that had stretched between him and Bob for days. The cold distance that felt like a weight pressing down on his chest.

But the insistence of the screen lit up the room, cutting through the darkness. There was only one person it could be, and it wasn’t the one he wanted right now.

But it enveloped the room anyway. Olivia.

His throat tightened. His heart slammed against his ribs.

The messages were short.

“Liam misses you.”

“I’m ready to talk, if you are.”

His fingers hovered over the screen, trembling. Hope flickered—maybe a chance to hear his son’s voice, maybe a way back from the wreckage.

He typed, then deleted, then typed again. “Please. I need to hear him.”

Sent.

Minutes crawled by with no reply.

Then, a photo appeared—Liam’s face, smiling but distant, caught mid-laugh. Too perfect, too posed.

“You can’t see him right now.”

That was it. No more messages. No explanations. Just a cold wall closing in.

He dropped the phone face down. Like that could undo it. Like rejection could be muffled by cotton sheets and practiced detachment.

But the ache didn’t dull. It pressed deeper.

The room was too quiet. Too still. Full of everything Bob hadn’t said, full of the space Bob had left in the days since that kiss.

Bob wasn’t there—he hadn’t been when John woke up. Probably hadn’t come back at all. Or maybe he had, and John had just forgotten what silence was like when it was shared.

He sat at the edge of the bed for a long time. Fully dressed. Not moving. The photo burned behind his eyes like it had been seared there.

Eventually, the smell of burnt coffee dragged him down the hall. Someone had left the pot on again.

Yelena was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms folded. Ava sat at the table, eyes on her phone. Bucky sipped from a chipped mug without speaking. Alexei was doing a crossword puzzle upside down like it owed him money. Bob was nowhere to be seen.

No one looked up.

John poured two cups out of habit. Took a sip of his coffee and set it down. It tasted like it had been reheated three times.

“Where’s Bob?” Yelena asked, not looking up.

He didn’t answer right away. He took a slow sip, winced at the taste. “In our room, probably.”

“Probably,” she echoed.

“He hasn’t come out,” Ava said. It wasn’t a question.

“He’s not a prisoner,” John muttered.

Bucky sighed, low and thoughtful. “You say that like he’s not hiding.”

Yelena didn’t flinch. Set her fork down. “Did he come out yesterday?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know.

Alexei hummed. “Maybe he is practicing invisibility.”

“Maybe he’s avoiding the only person who knows why he’s like this,” Yelena said sharply.

Ava didn’t lift her head, but her thumb stilled on the screen. Bucky exhaled through his nose.

John stared at the coffee in front of him. “You think this is my fault.”

“I think you two aren’t okay,” Yelena said. “And you keep pretending like that’s not dangerous.”

“I’m not pretending.” His voice came out too flat. “I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

He looked down at his mug. His reflection was warped, thin and bent across the surface. “It’s complicated.”

“Fake marriages usually are.”

The words hit harder than they should have. John’s face didn’t change, but something in his grip tightened. Yelena stood slowly, walked around the island, stopped a few feet away. Not close enough to threaten. Just close enough to corner.

Alexei made a show of wincing. “This is not cozy breakfast conversation.”

Yelena didn't back off. “He’s unraveling, John. And you’re just… here. Doing the same soldier routine like nothing’s wrong.”

John didn’t have a response to that. She kept going.

“You’re not stupid, Walker. You know what people like us look like when we’re falling apart,” she said. “You’ve seen it in mirrors. He’s not eating. He’s not sleeping. He’s walking around like someone turned off the sound in his head.”

He didn't say anything.

Yelena stepped back. “You don’t have to tell us. But don’t lie. Something happened. Fix it before he breaks.”

He looked up then. Swallowed. Met her eyes.

“I don’t know how to fix it.”

The honesty caught her off guard. Not completely. But enough.

Bucky stood slowly. Rinsed his mug. He clapped a hang on John’s shoulder as he passed. Not warm. Not cold. Just… there.

Ava turned, put her phone down. “What changed?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do.”

He didn’t answer. Set his mug down.

The kitchen emptied in pieces. Ava was the last to go, brushing past without a word but with a look that lingered too long.

John stayed behind.

“I’ll be on the roof,” he said to no one.

The light through the kitchen window had shifted by the time he made it upstairs. The roof wasn’t locked. It never was. They were trusted here, for whatever that was worth.

He stepped into the open air and let the cold hit him full in the chest. It was thinner, quieter. Less performance. It helped. Not enough. But a little.

He leaned against the railing, elbows braced, watching everything and nothing.

Footsteps joined him after a while. He didn’t turn. It was Ava, again. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t press. Just leaned against the opposite side of the railing and let the silence stretch.

“He kissed me,” John said, eventually.

Ava didn’t move. Didn’t react. Just waited.

“I mean—” He shook his head. “No. I kissed him.”

His voice scraped raw.

“It wasn’t part of the script. It wasn’t for PR. I just… I thought maybe he wanted it.”

Ava’s hands tightened on the railing, but she didn’t speak.

“I think maybe I did.” He exhaled hard. “It wasn’t soft. It wasn't romantic. It was a mistake.”

“You sure?” she asked.

“No.”

He turned his face toward the wind. It felt like nothing. Not enough.

“He hasn’t looked at me since.”

“Did he pull away?”

“No,” he said quietly. “But he didn’t stay, either.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.”

He ran a hand over his jaw. The scrape of stubble was too loud in the quiet.

“I keep thinking… maybe it was better when he was pretending,” he muttered.

“Better for who?”

He didn’t answer.

Her voice softened. “He looks for you in the hallway.”

He blinked. Looked away. The city below was all static and light.

He didn’t know what he was doing anymore. Not with Bob. Not with himself. The marriage was fake. Everyone knew it. But the silence that had grown between them—that was real.

Eventually, Ava left. The door shut softly behind her.

John stayed until his thumbs went numb.

When he finally went back inside, the hallway lights felt too bright.

He passed by Bob’s old door without slowing down. The light was on underneath. A faint shadow moved once, then stilled.

He thought about knocking.

He didn’t.

The kitchen was empty again when he returned. The mug from this morning still sat on the table. Cold.

He grabbed his jacket from the hook, slipped it on.

No one stopped him.

He didn’t leave a note. Didn’t say where he was going. The others probably assumed he was heading to the gym, or the roof again.

He left the compound like a ghost walking out of his own body. One foot after the other. Down the street. Past the alleys. Past the corner diner that used to make good eggs. Didn’t stop.

He walked until the building stopped feeling like a cage.

The bar wasn’t far.

He didn’t plan to drink. Just to sit. Just to be somewhere no one expected anything of him. Just didn't want to go back to the compound.

When the door shut behind him, it sounded final. It felt like the whole world had stopped holding its breath.

And for the first time in months, John didn’t look back.

Chapter Text

The bed was still made when John returned from the bar. Bob hadn’t come back.

He sat on the edge of the mattress, elbows on his knees, staring at the unmoved pillow like it could explain something. The sheets were stiff with military corners. The lamp was off. The candle had long burned out. The air felt stale, heavy, and quiet in the way things get when grief settles too long in one place. The stillness in it made his skin crawl—like walking in a house that used to belong to someone else.

The silence wasn’t new. It was just louder now.

He looked for signs. A sweatshirt missing. Toothbrush dry. The sketchbook gone from the nightstand. He remembered Olivia packing her things, quiet and efficient, when she left for the last time. She hadn’t yelled. Hadn’t begged. She’d just looked at him like she didn't recognize who she’d married.

Now he couldn’t recognize himself either.

The bathroom door was open. Closet untouched. No discarded trail to follow. Just… gone.

He checked the hallway. Then the gym. Then the rooftop. No Bob.

And every time he didn’t find him, the panic curled tighter in his throat. He knew this shape of absence. The disappearing act. The long silence that came before the crash. He’d done it himself more times than he could count.

The last time he’d felt this was the morning he found out his dad had died—before the grief hit, before the phone call was even over. Just the sense of being hollowed out, scraped thin, weightless in the worst way.

By the time he got back to the shared room, he was sweating for no reason. His breath caught in his throat, just for a moment, sharp and sudden. He tried not to notice how his hands were shaking.

He remembered what it was like—disappearing. Vanishing in plain sight. The quiet that became armor. The ache that filled the silence. 

He tried not to remember how Olivia used to stare at his silence like it was a threat. “You never let me in,” she’d said once. “Not really. Not even when you say you do.”

He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t fix something Bob wouldn’t show him.

He sat on the bed. Opened his phone out of habit. No messages. Just alerts—press tags, mentions, clipped headlines. The usual trash.

Then he saw the video. 

At first, he didn’t understand what he was looking at. A cut of footage—grainy, low-light. It wasn’t a feed drop. It was a behind-the-scenes cut. Casual. Unstaged.

It started in the kitchen. Bob laughing. John handing him a mug. A joke exchanged. A glance held too long. A voice off-camera chuckling. “You guys always like this?” John brushing Bob’s hand. Bob not pulling away.

Another clip. The hallway. Bob leaning against the wall, eyes closed. John brushing past, gaze lingering a second too long. A moment that passed between them like static—charged and invisible.

Another. Bob talking to Ava. John, out of focus, watching from across the room. His gaze wasn’t performative. It was quiet. Private. Unguarded.

It looked like they were in love.

John froze. He hadn’t known anyone was filming.

He clicked through, heart hammering. More footage. Slow moments. Off-guard. A compilation, polished and trimmed and dressed up for public consumption. Designed to go viral.

“America’s husbands,” the caption read. “A love story written in glances.”

He felt sick.

Nearly threw his phone.

They were selling something he didn’t even understand. He hadn’t consented. He hadn’t known.

But the worst part—what made his heart stutter—was how it looked real. How, in some twisted, awful way, it was real.

He didn’t realize Bob was standing in the doorway until the light shifted.

He turned slowly. The expression on Bob’s face was unreadable. Blank, but not empty.

Bob stepped in, backlit by the hallway. The light caught on the edges of his face, his shoulders, the stunned stillness of someone halfway to gone.

“You see it?” John asked.

Bob nodded. Just once. Slow. “Yeah.”

John rose from the bed. “I didn’t know. I didn’t approve it.”

Bob crossed the room, but didn’t come close. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

Bob frowned. “No. It really doesn’t.”

There was a long beat of silence.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“No?” Bob took a step forward. “Then why did they have the footage? Why were they filming that day in the kitchen? The gym? The med bay? What were they even doing with those clips?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t tell them to use it.”

Bob’s face flickered. Something cracked there—quietly. He laughed once. It wasn’t bitter. It was worse. 

It was tired. 

“You let them turn us into a headline.”

“No one made you kiss me back.”

Bob went still.

The silence that followed was brutal.

John’s breath caught. “I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, you did,” Bob said.

His voice was quieter now. Wrecked. 

“So that’s what it was to you?” he asked. “A soundbite? A moment to go viral? A marketing stunt.”

His hands were clenched at his sides, trembling slightly. He didn’t look angry. He looked like he was about to collapse.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” Bob folded his arms like he was trying to hold himself in place.

“You kissed me, John. And I let it happen,” he said. “I let it happen because—for a second—I thought you meant it.”

John stared down at the phone again. The screen had gone dark.

“I did mean it,” he said.

Bob blinked. “Then why did you run?”

John shook his head. “I didn’t run.”

“Yes, you did,” Bob said. “You kissed me, and then you didn’t speak to me for days. And now they’ve got footage of us pretending to be something we aren’t, and suddenly it feels like they know more about us than we do.”

“They don’t.”

“Don’t they?” Bob’s voice rose, cracking. “Because you won’t even talk to me. Not really. You let them tell our story, and you won’t even tell me how you feel.”

John stood. Too fast.

“You kissed me like you were starving, and then you didn’t say anything for days. Like it didn’t happen.”

“I didn’t know what to say.”

Bob’s voice cracked. “Try anything.”

John stepped forward, but Bob backed away. “You think I don’t want to? You think this is easy for me?”

“I think you’re terrified,” Bob said. 

John barked a laugh. “Terrified of what?”

Bob stepped forward. “Of being seen. Of being soft. Of wanting something that doesn’t come with a gun or a flag or a purpose. Of wanting me.”

John didn’t speak for a moment. He turned away. The pressure in his chest was unbearable. “You don’t know what I fucking want.”

“No,” Bob said. “But I know what you won’t admit.”

John closed his eyes. “I was married.”

“To a woman who never got all of you,” Bob said, softer. There was no malice in it, but the words still stung. “Because you’ve never let anyone have it. You don’t even know how.”

John’s voice was quieter now. “She tried. Olivia… she saw something in me I couldn’t see. And when I finally saw it, it was too late. I hated myself too much to love her back. I kept telling myself I was doing the right thing. Being the right kind of man. I lied to both of us.”

Bob didn’t speak.

“I still don’t know if I can be anything else.”

Bob’s breath hitched. “You’re not broken,” he said.

John looked at him, and for a moment, the armor slipped. “Aren’t I?”

“No,” Bob said, hushed. “But you’re scared of softness. You treat it like it’s poison. You treat me like poison. I thought maybe… I mattered. But this? I feel like a ghost in my own skin.”

“That’s not true.” He reached for him then. “You do matter. You matter to me.”

Bob shook his head. “Not enough.”

The words landed hard, and John didn’t have anything to fight back with.

“I don’t want to be someone’s shame,” Bob said, barely above a whisper. “Not again. Not even yours.”

John didn’t move. The distance between them felt infinite.

He watched Bob leave, footsteps silent on the cold floor. The door clicked shut behind him. No final word.

Just silence.

He didn’t follow.

Just stood there alone, at the edge of the bed, face in his hands, and tried not to drown in the sound of his own heartbeat.

Chapter Text

John woke up to an empty room again. The light filtering through the curtains had shifted since yesterday, paler, colder, like the day itself wanted nothing to do with him. He laid still for a long time, too long. Staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the last thing Bob said to him. He couldn’t. Maybe because there hadn’t been anything. Just a look. A silence so sharp it left splinters.

He got up because staying there felt worse. The floor was cold under his feet. He didn’t bother with a shirt.

The compound felt different. Tense. Like everyone was holding their breath. The halls were too quiet. No clatter from the kitchen, no music from the gym, no sarcastic commentary drifting from Alexei’s room. Just stillness. And John knew the reason why.

Bob was gone. Not physically. Not entirely. But he was avoiding everyone, especially John. That absence moved like a shadow through the space. The team noticed. They didn’t say anything. But they noticed.

John tried to avoid them too, but he wasn’t as good at disappearing. Yelena would catch his eye when he passed the briefing room. Ava would look like she wanted to say something. Bucky would give him nothing but a look that felt like a weight pressed against his chest.

Later, he took to the gym, half-hearted reps with too-heavy weights, trying to punish himself into silence. His knuckles split open on the punching bag. He didn't stop. The pain was grounding.

His phone buzzed once. Olivia.

He stared at the screen for a long time before unlocking it. A message. Just a few lines.

“I saw the video. So did Liam. He asked if that was your new family.”

He didn’t breathe. Read it again. And again.

Then another message came through.

“I don’t know who you are anymore. But maybe you don’t either.”

He sat down heavily on the bench, phone still in his hand, blood on his knuckles, heart thudding like it was trying to punch its way out.

He watched the video. All of it.

Bob laughing. John looking at him like he had hung the sun in the sky. A thousand small moments caught on film, turned into proof of something John didn't know he’d been giving away. The public saw love. He saw a man he couldn’t reach anymore.

He watched the video until it looped. Then again. And again.

His throat felt tight. His vision swam. Not from pain. From pressure. From grief.

He went to the roof. The sky was flat and grey. Darkening. The wind didn’t help. He pressed his forehead to the railing, trying to breathe. Trying to remember who he was before all this.

A soldier. A husband. A liar.

He remembered what Olivia used to say when she was still soft with him. 

“You hide behind the work. You hide behind me. If I wasn’t here, would you even know how to exist?”

He hadn’t answered her then.

He didn’t have an answer now.

He thought about Bob—the way he looked right before he left. Not angry. Just disappointed. Hurt in a way that wasn’t loud.

He thought about Olivia. About the life they’d built like a fortress. Heterosexuality as a habit. Masculinity as camouflage. He’d loved her, but it had always been in the shape of duty. Safe. Straight-backed. Pathetic.

And now Liam was asking questions he didn't know how to answer.

He pulled out his phone again. Called before he could think better of it.

It rang three times.

Then, “...John?”

Her voice was quiet. Guarded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Hey.”

“It’s late.”

“I know.”

“Liam’s asleep.”

“I’m not calling about him.”

“Then why are you calling?”

He swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

He laughed. It sounded broken.

“I think I messed up,” he said.

“With Bob?”

He hesitated. Then nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see it. “Yeah.”

“You should’ve said something. A long time ago.”

“I didn’t know how.”

“You knew. You just didn’t want to know.”

His breath caught.

“I tried so hard to be what you needed,” he said.

“You tried to be what everyone needed. And you left nothing for yourself.”

“I thought it was enough.”

“It wasn’t. Not for you. Not for me.”

Silence passed between them.

“I’m scared, Liv.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know how to be… this.”

“Then stop trying to be anything. Just be honest. For once.”

He closed his eyes. “Even if it means losing him?”

“Especially if it means keeping him.”

His voice was barely audible. “He loves me. Doesn’t he?”

Olivia didn’t answer right away.

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

The call ended quietly. No goodbye. No promise of another one. Just the soft click of a line going still.

He stayed there with the phone pressed to his thigh, screen black, hand curled tight around it. The wind hissed through the rooftop fencing like it was whispering things he didn’t want to hear. Things like you already lost him.

He didn’t know how long he sat like that, just breathing and un-breathing, blinking too much against a sky that wasn’t even crying for him.

Somewhere below, a gate opened and closed. Footsteps moved across the foyer. Someone called Bob’s name—not loudly, not with any expectation. John didn’t move.

The rooftop door creaked once. He tensed. But no one came through. They just stood behind it. Waiting. Maybe listening. Maybe not.

Eventually, even that sound disappeared.

He wanted to go to Bob’s room—his old room, where Bob spent most of his time these days. To knock. To say something that could fix it. But he knew he wouldn’t open the door.

He wanted to scream. Break something. Tear down every photo, every article, every polished headline that had reduced what they had to something clean and pretty.

Instead, he sat. Back against the railing, cold breeze against his face. Hands open. Empty.

The sun sank without fanfare. No one came to find him.

He stood, slowly. Legs stiff. The sky had darkened fully now, buildings cut out in silhouettes. Lights on in the tower across the way, whole windows flowing with lives that weren’t his. Someone made dinner. Someone opened wine. Someone kissed someone they weren’t afraid to love.

He went back inside.

The hallway lights buzzed overhead. Too bright. Too even. Like nothing could be out of place here. Like grief should be kept tidy.

Downstairs, Ava was alone in the kitchen, microwaving something that didn't smell like food. She looked up, didn’t say anything. Just nodded once. The kind of nod that said, we’re not going to talk about this now.

Yelena sat at the end of the table, legs crossed, tapping something out on her phone. She glanced up. Her gaze pinned him in place for half a second. Then she looked back down.

Down the hall, Alexei’s door was shut. Bucky’s too.

He wasn’t invisible, just… untouchable. The kind of grief people learned not to look at too long, in case it stuck to them.

He poured a glass of water. Stared into it like it might hold some kind of truth. His hands were still scabbed. Split knuckles. He flexed his fingers and felt the sting. He welcomed it.

He stood in the kitchen too long. Ava left first. Yelena followed without a word.

He drank the water. Left the glass in the sink.

Back in his room, the cold came in through the windows. He didn’t close them.

He sat on the floor, back against the edge of the bed. Bob’s side. He could still smell him faintly in the sheets. Soap and skin and something that had once felt a little too much like home.

He remembered things. Too many. Bob laughing with a mouthful of toothpaste. Bob pulling off his boots and leaving them crooked. Bob sitting on the edge of the bed, sketching something John never got to see.

He remembered Bob’s hand on his jaw the night they’d kissed, fingers warm, thumb rough, not pushing, not pulling. Just… there.

He covered his face.

The ache felt like something being wrung out of him.

He didn’t cry. Not really. Just breathed hard for too long and let his spine curl into the floor like that might protect him from the truth.

He’d always thought of himself as strong. Olivia used to say that was the problem.

“Strength isn’t silence, John. It’s choosing to speak even when you’re scared to.”

He hadn’t understood it then. He still wasn’t sure he did.

Somewhere in the building, someone laughed. A short, distant sound. It wasn’t Bob.

He just sat there, waiting for a version of himself that could.

Chapter Text

John didn’t know what day it was. The calendar had blurred into a string of rehearsed smiles and forced conversations. All he knew was that Valentina had summoned them to a sterile studio, that makeup had been involved, and that Bob hadn’t looked at him once since they arrived.

The set was airless. Bright. A cage masquerading as a sunny living room. The kind of sterile that was meant to look warm. Morning-show yellow walls hummed under harsh lights. Carefully placed houseplants sat half-dead in the corners, watered only enough to survive the filming. Coffee mugs were perched on side tables, not actually filled. 

There was an audience somewhere behind the cameras, half-awake and clapping with robotic politeness when the “On Air” sign lit up. He had sat through firefights that made more sense than this scripted farce.

Bob sat beside him on the soft grey couch, one cushion apart. His hands were clasped between his knees. His posture was too upright. Controlled. John matched it without thinking. Sitting as if ready to spring or shatter.

The host, bright and sharp, smiled like a predator sizing up her prey.

“Five months married!” she chirped, voice sugary. “America can’t get enough of you two. You’re the couple everyone’s rooting for.”

Bob smiled with his mouth, but his eyes stayed cold, distant. Like a shuttered window. John tried to meet the host’s gaze.

“Thanks for having us,” he said, swallowing the strange lump in his throat. The sound of his voice startled him. It sounded too smooth. Practiced. Like someone else entirely.

The host leaned forward conspiratorially. “Tell us the truth—who made the first move?”

The question hung between them, sharp and invasive. There was a beat of silence. Bob stared straight ahead, jaw tight. John did too.

“That’s classified,” he said finally.

Laughter. Applause. The host grinned. “Spoken like a true soldier!”

He thought he might pass out. His palms were sweating. He rubbed them along the thighs of his pressed trousers, hoping no one noticed.

The interview slid back into autopilot. Like a rehearsed rhythm. Questions about duty. About maintaining intimacy during fieldwork. About who cooks and who cleans. John said something about coffee. Bob said something about John burning eggs. The words sounded meaningless, like echoes in a vast, empty room. It was nothing. It was everything.

His mind kept drifting back to the space between them. One cushion. A chasm that no smile could bridge.

Then came the moment. Predictable. Performed. The host tilted her head, smile sharpening.

“You know what people love the most?” she said, voice dipping again. “When you two just… look at each other. There’s something real in it. That moment in your last video? Millions of views. You practically broke the Internet.”

He forced a smile. It felt brittle, cracking at the edges.

“So, what do you say?” The host’s tone dropped lower, thick with expectation. “One for the fans? Give him a kiss.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a sugar-coated command.

He felt Bob go still beside him. Not visibly. Just… still. Like someone hit pause. Like a held breath, a sudden silence in a storm. Like someone took the air out of the room.

He didn’t look at him. He couldn’t. Couldn’t face the weight of that quiet.

“Come on,” the host coaxed, voice smooth, seductive. “Don’t make me beg! You’re so good at this. You make it look easy.”

The silence stretched, unbearable. The audience shifted uncomfortably. The heat of the studio lights pressed against John’s skin like a physical weight.

Bob stood up.

It wasn’t abrupt. It wasn’t angry or explosive. It was precise, deliberate. Slow. Controlled. Like he was ejecting himself one muscle at a time.

“Excuse me,” he said softly, voice calm but cold, as he walked out.

The audience laughed, confused. The host chuckled nervously, trying to cover the moment slipping through her fingers.

“Just camera shy,” she said with a false smile.

Valentina was already at the edge of the set, behind the glass. Her expression was sharp like a blade ready to cut.

John sat there, staring at the floor. The couch was still warm where Bob had been moments before.

The cameras cut to commercial.

He didn’t move for a long moment.

Backstage, Valentina cornered him the instant he stepped off set. Her heel hit the floor like gunshots on the tile.

“What the hell was that?” she hissed, voice low but furious.

He didn’t answer. He was still holding the fake coffee mug. His knuckles were white. His breath was shallow.

She stepped in closer, invading his space. “You’re five months in. I can count your on-camera kisses on one hand. We don’t sell silence, John. We sell connection. We sell story.”

Her words struck him like a slap. His mouth tasted like metal.

“You want to keep your hero narrative?” she continued, voice dropping even lower. “Then sell the damn marriage.”

“Bob’s not a product,” John whispered, finally breaking his silence.

“Neither are you,” Valentina snapped. “But here we are.”

“What if I don’t want to do this anymore?” His voice cracked, desperate.

Valentina tilted her head. Eyes narrowed, mock sympathy crossing her face before hardening into steel. “Then maybe we talk about breach of contract. About reputation. About what happens when the golden boy shine wears off.”

She didn’t need to raise her voice to make the threat clear.

“Fix it,” she ordered. “Or I will.”

Later, he found Bob in the hallway outside the green room. He had his back to the wall. Hands in his pockets. His eyes were shut, but the tension radiated off him like heat.

“I didn’t know she’d ask that,” John said, voice trembling.

“Of course she would,” Bob replied without opening his eyes. “It’s always going to be like this.”

He swallowed, struggling for words. “I didn’t want to put you on the spot.”

Bob laughed softly. Bitter. “You didn’t say anything, John. You never say anything.”

John looked away. His stomach twisted.

The hallway went silent.

Bob didn’t speak for a long time. He didn’t leave, either. He just looked at John like he’d never seen him before.

“You think I wanted this attention?” he said finally, voice low, pained. “I’ve spent every day trying to breathe under it.”

John opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“I kissed you back then because I wanted to. Because it felt real. You’re the one who ran.”

John flinched, the memory like a raw wound reopening.

“I’ve been standing still,” Bob said. “You’re the one who disappeared.”

Then he turned and walked away, leaving John alone in the cold hallway.

He didn’t follow.

He just stood there, mic still attached, still wearing the makeup someone had brushed over his scars. His hands were shaking like he was holding onto a sinking ship.

The host called after them from across the set, light and mocking. “Maybe next time, boys!”

He knew there wouldn’t be a next time.

Not like this.

Not without breaking.

Chapter Text

John didn’t remember leaving the building.

One second, he was standing in the hallway with makeup still clinging to the old scar by his jaw and the echo of Bob’s voice cracking open his ribs. The next, he was walking. Then sitting. Then staring down at the rim of a glass in a bar that smelled like bleach and regret, halfway through a drink he hadn’t really ordered, hadn’t tasted, hadn’t refused.

It wasn’t even late. Just quiet. And cold in that way that slithered up his sleeves and settled in his bones.

The place was barely lit. Mostly empty. Half-dead. Just a couple of regulars in the back nursing whatever they could afford, a bartender with tired eyes and a face like he’d seen too many fights and not enough real peace. No bright lights. No staged houseplants or studio mugs filled with nothing. Just the clink of glass and a TV overhead playing a game with the volume low. Nobody was watching it. 

Nobody looked at him. Good. 

He didn’t want to be seen.

The first drink went down fast. He didn’t taste it. The second followed. Then another. And another.

He took another drink. It didn’t burn like it should have. He couldn’t remember how many this made. Three? Four? Ten? Didn’t matter. He couldn’t feel it. Not really. The glass in his hand sweated through the napkin underneath, and the condensation soaked his fingers until his hand went numb.

The next one was slower, not because it burned more, but because he needed to make it last. He wanted to feel it, and it was taking too long to get there. His fingers curled tighter around the glass with every sip.

He didn’t really like drinking. Never had. It always made him feel like he was playing chicken on the edge of something he couldn’t name.

But tonight wasn’t about like. Tonight was about stillness. It was about stopping the pain. About shutting off the reel playing behind his eyes—the hallway, the cushion between them, Bob’s voice like a blade.

He watched a line of vodka roll down the outside of the glass. It reminded him of the way blood sometimes crept down his wrists in those last seconds after a fight—quiet, almost elegant.

There was a plate of fries near his elbow. He didn’t remember ordering them.

The bartender had asked something earlier, something about food. John had nodded, mumbled something, maybe yes, maybe no. The fries were cold and limp now, untouched. He picked one up and stared at it like it had asked him a question. Then set it down.

A commercial rolled on the TV. Something for life insurance. A smiling couple. A kid. A golden retriever. Happy endings for a monthly fee. 

He stared at the screen like it was a punchline. His mouth tasted like metal.

He downed the glass and signaled again. 

The bartender hesitated for a second, then poured it anyway, a silent judgement hanging in the pause between them.

“You ever wake up and realize you’re playing somebody else’s part?” John asked when the drink was set down in front of him. His voice was raw, worn-out. “Like… someone cast you wrong. And you’re too tired to find your own damn script.”

The bartender didn’t answer. Just raised an eyebrow, then moved to wipe down the bar a little further down.

John laughed under his breath. Bitter. Small. Empty.

The next drink hit a little harder. Not enough to forget. Just enough to make the lines go fuzzy along the edges. Like the picture was losing resolution. He leaned forward on one elbow and stared at the glass like it might answer for him.

“I was supposed to be a father,” he said to no one. “I was supposed to be better.”

The glass didn’t respond.

Neither did the bartender.

His phone buzzed once in his pocket. Then again. He ignored it. He didn’t want pity. He didn’t want forgiveness.

He wanted to disappear and have someone else clean up the fallout.

The next drink sat untouched in front of him. He watched the light shift in it. Watched his reflection fracture in the glass. His fingers hovered over it but didn’t commit. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. His fingertips were damp. He wiped them on his thigh.

He was cold all over now. But not the kind of cold that sweaters or heaters fixed. The kind that started on the inside.

The bartender watched him. Not hostile. Just with that cautious tension people used when they weren’t sure if they were witnessing the start of a tragedy or the middle of one.

“That’s enough,” he said.

John didn’t answer. Just reached for the glass.

“You got someone I can call?”

He didn’t lift his head. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Someone’s probably worried.”

He let out a sound. It might have been a laugh. “Yeah. That's me. A national fucking treasure.”

He checked his phone with half a glance. Still nothing new. No miracle message. No apology. Put it back in his pocket. 

“You got someone?” The bartender asked again, quieter now.

John’s fingers curled tighter around the rim of the glass. His eyes stung. He didn't look up. “You’re assuming I’m the kind of guy people worry about.”

Another silence. A deeper one. Then the bartender stepped forward. Slow. Deliberate. Like he was approaching a wounded animal.

“I’m gonna look at your phone,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

John didn’t argue. Just dug into his pocket and held it out without meeting the bartender’s eyes. His hand was still shaking. The screen was still on. Olivia’s name was the last thing open, the last message unsent.

The bartender took it gently. Didn’t react to the message thread. Just swiped and scrolled through his contacts, then checked something on his own device behind the counter. Tapped a few things in.

“You’ve got an emergency contact listed,” he said after a moment. 

John let his head drop to the bar and shut his eyes. “Terrific.”

“Your husband.”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t blink.

The bartender glanced at him once, then tapped something out on the phone. He didn’t wait for permission. He just dialed.

He pressed the phone to his ear.

John heard it ring. Once. Twice.

Then: “Yeah,” the bartender said into the phone. “Sorry to call like this. I’ve got John here. Not doing great. Thought you’d want to know.”

There was a long pause. John could hear the faint murmur of a voice on the other end. Soft. Low. 

He didn’t need to hear the words. He already knew the shape of Bob’s silence.

“Yeah,” the bartender said again. “Yeah, alright. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

He ended the call and set the phone down on the bar next to John’s untouched drink.

“He’s coming.”

John didn’t lift his head. 

“Of course he is,” he whispered.

But there was no relief in it. No comfort.

Because that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Bob always came when John broke. Every time. Every collapse. Every failure. He always showed up with tired eyes and steady hands and a voice that smoothed the sharp edges.

And he kept letting him. Kept taking it. Kept breaking.

Because he didn’t know how to stop.

Because he didn’t know who he was if Bob stopped coming.

So he stayed slumped over the bar, listening to the game he couldn’t follow and the static hum of the dim lights and the high, slow sound of something breaking behind his ribs. Maybe something important.

He didn’t cry.

But he thought if he started, he wouldn’t stop.

So he just sat there. Waiting for Bob. Waiting for the fallout. Waiting for whatever came next.

And in the back of his mind, something small and awful whispered:

He’s only coming because someone made the call.

Chapter Text

John didn’t remember how long he’d been sitting there.

The lights in the bar had gotten harsher. That was new. Or maybe he was just losing his grip on the edges of things. The ice in his glass had melted to water. He hadn't touched it. His hand rested on the bar, damp with condensation, fingers slightly curled, like maybe if he let go of the glass he’d slip off the edge of the world.

The bar had emptied more than he realized. The regulars had faded into the edges. The game on the TV had ended. A new one had started. No one was watching that either. The smell of cheap alcohol and bleach had grown stronger—or maybe it was just sinking into his clothes now.

He didn’t remember how many drinks he’d had. Too many. Not enough. He wasn’t drunk. He was somewhere under it, too slow for reality and too sharp to rest. A dull blade pressed against everything that mattered.

The vodka didn’t burn. Nothing did.

He sat motionless, staring at the rim of the glass like it might explain something. Every time he blinked, he saw Olivia’s face. Not the real one—not the one from memory—just the one he kept rebuilding in dreams and nightmares. The one that wouldn’t answer his calls.

You’re the one who disappeared.

Bob’s voice had come back, again and again, like a gunshot echoing through a mountain pass.

And maybe it was true. Maybe he’d been disappearing for years, one piece at a time.

Footsteps. Not rushed. Not loud. Just steady. Like the sound of something inevitable.

The bartender looked up. “You the husband?”

John didn’t lift his head. But he heard the answer. Clear. Immediate.

“Yeah.”

Of course.

Of course it was him.

He knew that voice. Knew the exact timbre of it, the careful steadiness Bob used when he didn’t trust himself to feel anything else. It landed like a cold cloth to the face. Not soothing. Just sharp.

John didn’t look up.

Bob sat down next to him. Not too close. Not touching. But close enough that the air changed. Near enough that he could feel the gravity of him, the way Bob’s silence always took up space.

The same silence he’d been using to avoid John for weeks.

“You didn’t have to come,” John said quietly.

“I know.”

He blinked hard. His reflection in the bottom of the glass blurred. “You shouldn’t have,” he added.

Bob didn’t say anything.

John rubbed at his face, more ashamed than angry. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

Bob didn’t deny it.

John huffed. “You know what that does to a person?” His voice caught. “Watching someone back away one inch at a time like you’re contagious?”

Bob’s voice was calm. Too calm. “I wasn’t backing away.”

“You just weren’t showing up,” John muttered. “Got it.”

The bartender glanced at them, then disappeared down the other end of the bar. Gave them space. Or maybe gave them up.

John took a breath, but it stuck halfway. “What now? You gonna drag me home and scold me?”

“I’m not here to scold you.”

“Then why?” He finally turned his head, met Bob’s eyes. “You come to collect your broken project?”

Bob just looked at him.

John let out a low, bitter sound. “That’s what I am, right? A PR disaster. A fuck-up. A mess you got stuck with.”

“You’re drunk,” Bob said.

“No,” he said. “I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to be drunk. But it’s not working.”

Bob was quiet for a moment. Then, he said, “Let’s go.”

“I don’t want to go with you.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you here?” The words came out sharper than he meant. Desperate.

Bob didn’t blink. “Because you’re not.”

That took the air out of his lungs. 

He stood too fast and had to steady himself on the edge of the bar. Bob didn’t move to help. Just watched. Waiting to see if he could do it on his own.

He could. Just barely.

The floor felt wrong under his feet. Tilted. Like it was listing sideways. Or maybe that was just him. He didn’t know anymore. 

Bob didn’t speak. Didn’t reach for him. Just stood there, steady as ever, letting John choose the next move. It made him want to scream. Or laugh. Or break something. Something small. Something like his own reflection.

He turned toward the door, slowly. Not because he was ready to leave, but because staying felt like bleeding out. He walked like someone who’d been punched in the gut a few hours ago and was just now realizing he might not stand back up from it.

Outside, the night hit him like punishment. The air was sharp and unkind. Cold crept down his collar and slipped under his sleeves. The wind sliced through the thin fabric of his coat. It didn’t close properly. He’d forgotten.

He didn’t look at Bob. Didn’t ask where they were going. Just walked. One foot in front of the other. The sidewalk stretched out in a blur of smeared neon and distant traffic, the kind of quiet that only came when a city had finally exhausted itself.

“Stop hovering,” he muttered.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Silence. Then Bob’s voice, low. “I’m making sure you don’t fall.”

“I’m not your responsibility.”

“No,” Bob said. “You’re not.”

Then he added, quieter, “I came anyway.”

The words landed wrong. Or maybe too right. John didn’t know what to do with that. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

He didn’t remember walking through the door. Didn’t remember the elevator ride. By the time they reached their shared room, the stillness inside felt unbearable. He stood just inside the doorway and didn't move, like if he didn’t cross the threshold it wouldn’t count. Like maybe he could freeze time right there, between bad and worse.

Bob moved around him. Quiet. Efficient. He turned down the lights, took John’s jacket, and stood in front of him with the same impossible calm he always had when everything was falling apart. Waiting.

John leaned against the wall, arms crossed, staring at the floor.

“So this is it?” he asked. “You drag me back like a fucking stray and expect what, exactly?”

“I don’t expect anything.”

He let out a low, humorless laugh. “Bullshit.”

“I just didn’t want you alone in that bar.”

“Well, mission accomplished.”

Bob didn’t flinch.

John hated him for that, a little.

He pushed away from the wall, unsteady again, suddenly warm. Kicked his shoes off. Peeled off his shirt. Dropped it on the floor. It landed in a crumpled heap. He didn’t pick it up.

“You ever think maybe I don’t want to be saved?”

Bob’s voice was even. “All the time.”

“Then why—”

“Because I don’t think you’ve ever really been shown how.”

John stared at him. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I think sometimes… it’s hard for you to tell the difference. You mistake kindness for pity,” Bob said. “Help for judgment. Love for obligation.”

He flinched. “You don’t love me.”

“Don’t tell me what I feel.”

John shook his head, bitter. “You sure don’t act like it.”

That one landed hard. He saw it.

“You vanished that night,” he said, quiet now. “After the kiss. You stopped looking at me. Like it was some kind of accident you needed to erase.”

Bob’s face didn’t change. 

John laughed. “You think I ran? You disappeared.”

“That’s not true.”

“No?” his voice rose. “Then what the hell is this?”

Bob didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was quiet. Honest. “It’s me showing up.”

“You think I’m a liability.”

“Sometimes.”

“You’re scared of me.”

Bob hesitated. “I’m scared for you.”

John laughed, bitter. “That’s not a denial.”

Bob’s voice sharpened. “Do you want one?”

That landed harder than it should have.

He dropped onto the edge of the bed, the motion too fast, too heavy. He ran a hand over his face. “I was supposed to be better than this.”

“I know.”

“I was supposed to be a father. A husband. Not this… PR mannequin they cart out when they need to sell pain.”

“You’re still him,” Bob said.

“No,” he said. “I’m still here. That’s not the same thing.”

Silence stretched for a moment.

“I left,” Bob said finally, “because I didn’t know what it would mean if I stayed.”

John blinked.

“You kissed me,” Bob said. “And I felt something. And then I remembered all the reasons not to.”

John’s voice was sandpaper. “What reasons.”

Bob’s jaw tightened. “Where I grew up, you learn pretty fast how to make yourself small. Safe. Quiet. You don’t want the wrong things. You don’t show them.”

John swallowed hard. “Same.”

They stood there, breathing the same air like it was going to run out.

“I kissed you. And then I punished you for it,” he said.

Bob didn’t argue.

“I’ve spent my whole life trying to scrub this out of me,” John said. “Every thought. Every instinct. My dad used to say, ‘better a bullet than a son who shames you.’”

Bob looked down. His hands were folded tight in front of him.

“I tried to be good,” he continued. “A soldier. A husband. A father. I tried to do everything right. And now I’m someone’s brand strategy. A national fucking storyline. And I still can’t tell the difference between fake and real anymore.”

“You’re not a lie, John,” Bob said softly. “Even if the story is.”

His voice cracked. “But the kiss wasn’t.”

Bob nodded. “No. It wasn’t.”

John sat down like his knees gave out. “You think I’m weak.”

“I think you’re trying to survive something no one ever taught you how to live through.”

He looked down at his hands. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

Bob stepped back, just half a pace. Just enough to breathe.

He didn’t say anything. Just looked at John for a long moment—really looked—like he was trying to memorize the edges of something that kept blurring.

Then he moved, quiet and precise, like he didn’t want to disturb the air.

He opened the closet. Took a blanket from it. Spread it on the floor beside the bed.

He didn’t say anything.

He didn't ask.

He just laid down—quiet, folded in on himself, like he was trying to take up as little space as possible.

John watched him. Watched the way he curled in, careful. Like someone who’d learned long ago that needing something was dangerous.

Maybe they weren’t so different.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Bob didn’t answer.

But he didn’t leave.

And for now, that was enough.

Chapter Text

John woke up slowly.

He didn’t open his eyes at first. Just laid there in the quiet, blinking against the thick feeling in his head and the ache in his limbs, cataloguing the pain like it might tell him something useful. His mouth was dry. His throat scratched. The skin beneath his eyes felt tight, and his shoulder throbbed from the way he’d slept—curled up too tightly, too long.

The first thing he registered was the sound of breathing that wasn’t his. Shallow. Steady. A presence at the edge of the room.

Bob hadn’t left.

John stared at him, unmoving. Afraid that breathing too loudly might change the shape of the morning.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had stayed.

It didn’t make the pain go away. It didn’t fix the leak inside him. But it did something smaller. Something quieter.

Bob laid on his side, back to the bed, legs half-folded, blanket pulled over him. It didn’t quite reach his shoulders. His arms were folded beneath his chest like he was trying to take up as little space as possible. 

John didn’t speak. He watched the line of Bob’s shoulders rise and fall, slow and measured. He half-expected him to vanish the moment he looked away.

He didn’t.

John was still wearing his jeans. His belt cut into his hip. His shirt was gone. He remembered peeling it off. Letting it fall. Not caring.

The room was dim. Morning light tried to squeeze through the cracks in the curtains, but not very hard. It was early. Or late. Or nothing.

The silence wasn’t hostile. Just full. Dense enough to carry the weight of everything they hadn’t said.

For a second, he didn’t move.

Then, he shifted, and the blanket made a soft sound. Bob didn’t stir. Just breathed. Slow. Steady.

He sat up. Slowly. His body protested, but he ignored it. His head felt cracked open from the inside, like someone had poured static into the space between his eyes.

He rubbed a hand over his face. His mouth tasted like steel and regret. The shadows under his eyes were deep enough to echo.

He stood and moved through the quiet like it might break if he touched it too fast. In the bathroom, he ran cold water over his hands and stared at his reflection in the mirror. It didn't look like him. Or maybe it was the most honest version—the one with all the cracks showing.

He brushed his teeth. Pulled on a shirt. Tried not to think too loudly.

When he came back out, Bob hadn’t moved. He was still lying there like someone holding the line on something invisible.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Folded his hands. Stared at the curtain and the way the light made a narrow path across the carpet. The springs creaked softly.

Something inside him—something old and bitter and shaped like survival—told him not to trust this.

But he was too tired not to.

The knock on the door was gentle but firm. Three taps.

He tensed.

Bob didn’t move.

He crossed the room and opened it.

Yelena stood there with a plate in one hand and coffees in the other. Her mouth was pressed in a line. Her expression said she already knew everything.

“You alive?” she asked.

“Barely.”

“I brought breakfast.”

He stepped aside. She walked in like she owned the place, clocked Bob on the floor immediately.

She didn’t say anything about it. Just set the food on the dresser and handed John one of the coffees.

He took it without a word.

“Figured you wouldn’t think of eating,” she said.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Doesn’t matter. Eat anyway.”

She stood by the dresser, grabbed a sandwich from the plate, and took a bite like she hadn’t just stepped into a room where half the walls were still echoing from last night’s fight.

He sat back on the bed.

They ate in silence for a while. Or something like silence. The kind where nothing needs to be said but too much still lingers.

Bob stirred once, barely—a twitch of his fingers near the edge of the blanket, like something was shifting in his dream. But he didn’t wake.

Yelena noticed. She chewed slowly. Swallowed.

“He didn’t sleep at all last week,” she said. Her voice was soft. Blunt.

John blinked.

She didn’t look at him. Just stared past him at the drawn curtain like it might offer some kind of answer.

“Kept doing laps around the compound. Wouldn’t say anything.” She took another sip of coffee. “Refused to check in with med.”

He stared at the mug in his hand. It was warm against his palms. He hadn’t taken a single drink.

“He said it was nothing,” she continued. “Said he just wasn’t that tired. But I know what a ghost looks like when I see one.”

“I didn’t know,” he said. His voice cracked on the second word.

“No,” she agreed. “You didn’t.”

He pressed his lips together. The silence was different now—thinner. More fragile.

“I think,” Yelena said, voice careful, “he needed to believe you’d notice.”

That landed harder than it should have.

John’s breath caught. He stared down at the coffee. Finally took a sip. It burned. Good.

“I didn’t mean to—” he started, but stopped himself. What? Hurt him? Miss the signs? Make everything worse?

Yelena didn’t fill in the silence for him.

She walked to the closet, grabbed another blanket from the shelf, and draped it over Bob without ceremony. Like she’d done it a hundred times before.

He didn’t stir.

“I don’t care if you think you’re broken,” she said. “Or if you think he is. But if you’re going to break something together, you better start figuring out how to clean it up too.”

John swallowed. Nodded. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound like a lie.

Yelena looked at her watch, then reached into her coat pocket and handed him her phone.

“Read this.”

He took it. The screen was already open to a headline.

“LEAKED: Even Heroes Break—Intimate Bar Footage Shows Strain Beneath the Surface of America’s Sweethearts”

Not a scandal. Not an attack.

A narrative.

He scrolled.

There was grainy surveillance footage—him hunched over a glass, barely upright. A still of Bob at the doorway. Speculation. Carefully placed quotes. A caption that made his stomach turn.

“Are our favorite husbands falling apart off-camera?”

“Who—” he started.

“Val,” Yelena said. “Almost certainly.”

He felt the words flatten against his ribs. He blinked hard.

“She’s trying to own the narrative,” she added. “She wants it to look real.”

“Real,” John echoed bitterly.

He handed the phone back to her. Carefully. Like it might explode.

“She’s not trying to kill the story,” Yelena said. “She’s deepening it. Complicating it. Pain sells, Walker. Authenticity tests well. She’s not tearing you down—she’s making you tragic.”

The words sat wrong. They didn’t twist like a knife. They set in like rot—slow and sour and everywhere.

“Even heroes break,” he repeated. “That’s the angle now?”

“You’re not a scandal,” Yelena said. “You’re a slow-burn character arc.”

He laughed quietly, but there was no humor in it. “And Bob?”

“The long-suffering partner,” she said. “Soft. Tender. Hurt just enough to make him noble.”

John looked at him—still asleep, still curled toward the bed like someone bracing against the world.

“She’s using him.”

“She’s using both of you,” Yelena said. “The more complicated it looks, the more people lean in.”

His grip tightened around the mug.

“She’s not trying to fix the story,” he said. “She’s writing a better one.”

“No,” Yelena corrected. “She’s writing a safe one.”

He let out another bitter laugh. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“It means you’re not just a symbol,” she said. “You’re a person. And people get to decide when to stop pretending.”

John looked back down at Bob. Draped in two blankets. Face soft in sleep, brow still creased. Still here.

“Do you think he regrets it?” he asked, voice low.

“I think,” Yelena said, “that if he did, he wouldn’t be sleeping on your floor.”

She walked to the door. Paused with her hand on the handle.

“And for what it’s worth,” she added, “he didn’t come back last night for a PR story.”

She left without slamming the door.

John sat there, coffee cooling in his hands, the light on the carpet inching forward by the minute. Bob shifted slightly in his sleep, face turned further into the pillow on the floor, like even unconscious he was still carrying something.

And for a second, the PR storm didn’t matter.

There was still a choice to be made. Not about whether to perform. 

But whether to stop performing long enough to be something else entirely.

Maybe even real.

Chapter Text

Bob woke slowly.

John heard it first—the faint shuffle of fabric, the shift of breath. Not startled, not sudden. Just the kind of movement that came after long, uneasy sleep. He didn’t speak right away. John stayed still, listening, unsure if he should say something or just let the moment stay soft.

Bob’s eyes opened a moment later. He blinked up at the ceiling, brow faintly furrowed like he didn’t recognize it. His hair stuck out slightly on one side, sleep-flattened and uneven. 

“Is it morning?” Bob’s voice was rough, still thick with sleep, but something teasing flickered behind the words.

John smiled a little. “Barely.”

“Then why are you staring at me like that?”

He shrugged, feeling the weight in his chest lift just a bit. “Doesn’t feel like staring.”

Bob looked at him with half-lidded eyes. “Then what is it?”

“Watching. Figuring out if you're really here.”

Bob gave a slow nod, like that made sense. The moment was easier than he expected.

John stayed where he was, sitting on the edge of the bed with one hand wrapped around the now-cold cup of coffee. He didn’t know what to do with his face, so he didn’t do anything at all.

“I’m still here,” Bob said eventually. 

He nodded. “So am I.”

Bob closed his eyes for a second like he was calibrating, then let out a long breath and rolled onto his back. One arm slung across his stomach. The blanket Yelena had added had shifted—half of it was bunched around his waist, the other half trailing across the floor.

John didn’t look away. He didn’t think he could.

Bob moved again, slower this time, and pushed himself up with a wince. His movements were stiff, like the floor had punished him for staying. He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck.

“You always keep the room this cold?” he muttered, voice still rough with sleep.

“Didn’t notice,” he replied. After a beat, he added, “Sorry.”

Bob didn’t respond to that. Just braced one hand against the floor and reached for the coffee Yelena had left on the dresser. John passed it to him without thinking.

Bob took it, sniffed it like he already knew it would disappoint him, and took a sip anyway. He immediately stopped, brows pulling together, and stared down at the cup like it had betrayed him.

John watched him. Not because he expected anything. Just because he didn’t know what else to do with his eyes.

“She got it wrong,” Bob said, voice flat. Not annoyed—just… surprised.

He blinked. “What?”

“The coffee. She put sugar in it.” He took another cautious sip, confirmed it, then made a face. “It’s too sweet.”

“She probably thought—”

“I don’t take it like this.” His tone wasn’t accusing. Just flat. Factual. Like the day giving him one more thing he hadn’t asked for.

John looked at him. “You want mine?”

“No, it’s fine.” He didn’t put the cup down, but he didn’t drink again. Just sat there on the floor, holding it like it might explain something. “It’s just… weird.”

“Weird how?”

Bob stared at the cup a second longer. “You wouldn’t have gotten it wrong.”

The words landed with more weight than they should have. Not harsh. Just… honest. He felt them settle in his ribs and stay there. He didn’t reply. Didn’t know how to, really.

They moved around the room after that without much sound. Bob stretched again, pulled on a clean shirt, winced when he twisted his spine the wrong way. John found himself straightening things that didn’t need straightening—folding the extra blankets, lining up a pair of shoes that hadn’t moved. It gave his hands something to do. Something that felt like control. It helped him feel less like he might splinter again.

It felt like standing on a frozen lake, listening for cracks.

The silence between them wasn’t quite awkward, but it wasn’t easy either. It felt like standing in a hallway with too many closed doors.

Bob paused by the window, pulling the curtain aside just enough to let in a sliver of morning light. The city beyond was slow to wake, grey and still like they were the only ones alive. He didn’t say anything about it.

He let the curtain fall.

John didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until the fabric whispered shut again.

He watched his silhouette against the glass. The soft curve of his spine, the set of his shoulders, the quiet tension that still lived in his frame. There was something about the way Bob stood there—hands tucked into his sleeves, one foot slightly turned in—that made him look like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to stay.

John swallowed. The coffee in his cup had gone cold hours ago.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said quietly.

Bob didn’t turn around. “Which part?”

“Any of it.”

There was a long pause. “Yeah, same.”

John blinked.

“You don’t have to figure it out today,” Bob added, quieter now. “Just don’t lie to me about where you are.”

He exhaled through his nose. “You think I was lying?”

“I think you’re hurting,” he said, gently. “And I think you don’t trust me enough to say it out loud.”

That stung.

Not because it was cruel. Because it was true.

Bob stood there for a beat, then turned and leaned against the wall, arms folded loosely across his chest.

“I kissed you and then I ran,” he said.

Bob nodded. “Yeah.”

“And you left.”

“Yeah.”

They didn’t say sorry. Not yet. It didn’t feel like enough.

“I thought if I gave you space, I’d be doing the right thing,” Bob said. “And I guess I didn’t want to find out what it meant if I stayed.”

John stared at him. “I thought you didn’t want me.”

“That’s not true.”

“You didn’t act like it wasn’t.”

Bob’s eyes softened. “I didn’t know how.”

He let the words settle. They sat in his chest, heavy and slow.

“We both messed this up,” he said.

Bob nodded. “But we don’t have to keep doing that.”

A long silence.

Then, he said, “You’re not a lie. Even if the story is.”

John blinked hard. “I don’t know how to stop performing for them.”

“Then maybe just… don’t do it with me.”

Bob didn’t say anything after that. Just stood there, letting the quiet settle between them.

John glanced at his phone. It was still early. The kind of morning that didn’t feel earned. Like the world had come back too soon.

Bob rubbed a hand over his face. He looked older than he had the night before—worn around the edges, spine stiff from the floor and jaw tight with whatever he wasn’t saying. He walked over to the corner of the room and picked up the blanket John had folded twice.

He didn’t unfold it right away. Just held it.

“I can sleep on the floor again tonight, if you want me to,” Bob said.

He stared at him. “I don’t.”

Bob didn’t move.

John stood. Slowly.

“I don’t want you sleeping on the floor,” he said. He looked at Bob. Really looked.

“I’m not saying everything’s okay,” he continued. “We’re not. There’s still so much I don’t know how to say. So much I’m still angry about.”

Bob nodded, once. “I know.”

“But I don’t want to keep making you feel like you have to earn your place here.”

Bob’s expression didn’t change much. But something behind his eyes softened. His fingers loosened their grip on the blanket.

“I didn’t come back for the floor,” he said.

John took a step closer. “Good.”

They stood in the middle of the room like that for a beat. Just looking at each other.

“I want to try,” he said. The words came out unsteady. Not a vow. Just a start. “I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t even know what I want out of this, or out of us. But I want to figure it out.”

Bob nodded again. “Okay.”

He set the blanket down on the chair. Careful. Quiet. Then crossed the room, each step deliberate, like he didn’t want to push the moment too far. He sat on the bed, leaving space. Letting John decide the rest.

John sat too.

Not close enough to touch.

Close enough to mean it.

The room was still cold. The coffee was still bad. They were still broken, in ways neither of them could name.

But they were both there.

Still trying.

And for now, that had to be enough.

Chapter Text

They didn’t say much while they dressed. Just moved in and out of the bathroom, exchanged clothes from the shared drawer set like a quiet ritual neither fully acknowledged. Muttered quiet thanks or nothing at all. The air between them was thick with things left unsaid—questions John didn’t want to ask, answers he wasn’t ready to give.

When Bob handed him his jacket from the back of the chair, their fingers brushed. For a second, he froze, caught off guard by how much that small touch stirred something inside him—a jolt beneath his skin, a pulse of hope tangled with something darker.

Bob didn’t move away.

Neither did John.

In the common area, the team was already halfway through breakfast. The smell of bacon and coffee hovered in the air, warm but not quite comforting.

Bucky sat with one boot kicked up on the edge of his chair, fork moving with sharp precision as he picked apart what looked like leftover pancakes. Alexei was elbow-deep in bacon and clearly making a game of trying to out-eat himself. Ava was talking to no one in particular about someone she had met earlier that year. Yelena sat quietly, watching her second cup of coffee cool, fingers tightening around the mug as if she was holding onto something she wouldn’t say aloud.

When John and Bob stepped into the room, all four of them looked up. The weight of all the eyes on them felt like an unspoken challenge.

No one said anything for a second too long.

John felt his throat tighten, his stomach knot.

Then Alexei—merciful, unsubtle—broke the tension like it hadn’t existed.

“Finally,” he said brightly, chewing on a strip of bacon with exaggerated gusto.

John stared at him, unsure if he was annoyed or relieved.

“Glad that is over.”

“What is?” Bob asked, his voice steady but cautious.

“The quiet.” Alexei shrugged, his grin unapologetic.

Bob blinked. John gave the smallest shake of his head and grabbed an empty plate to hide the flush rising in his chest.

Yelena didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

They sat at the end of the table. Together, but not pressed together. Close enough that it felt intentional. Far enough that it could still be read as habit. A choice. Or maybe a test.

John’s fingers hovered over the edge of the table, unsure whether to reach out or retreat. The warmth of the food in front of him felt oddly disconnected from the chill that settled over his skin.

Ava picked up the conversation again, like she knew she was doing them a favor. “So anyway, this guy—and I swear to God, this man had no upper lip. None. It was just teeth and gums. He looked like a muppet who aged badly and inherited a trust fund.” She laughed, shaking her head.

He found himself laughing despite himself, the sound strange and a little hollow in his ears.

Bucky huffed, a slight smile breaking through his usual stoicism.

“He asked me if I wanted to see his investment portfolio before the dessert cart rolled out,” she continued, eyes gleaming with disbelief. “Like I was gonna swoon over municipal bonds.”

John was grateful for the distraction. He sipped his coffee, the bitter warmth grounding him. It didn’t taste like anything. Just temperature and habit, a steady rhythm in the quiet storm swirling inside him.

Bob pushed a piece of toast across his plate. John noticed how his jaw clenched, a subtle tension he hadn’t seen before.

Yelena was watching. She always was. Her gaze was steady, unwavering, like she could see past the surface and through the brittle layers they both hid behind.

Alexei snorted into his bacon, breaking the moment.

“Where was this?” Bucky asked, eyebrows raised, leaning forward like a curious predator.

“Charity gala a few weeks ago,” Ava said, turning towards John with a mischievous grin. “The one where John got cornered by that woman who tried to kiss his hand.”

Bob made a quiet sound, almost a laugh—soft and surprised, and John felt a flicker of warmth.

He shook his head. “She asked if she could take a picture of my ring. I wasn’t even wearing it.”

Ava grinned wider. “I told her his ring was haunted. She didn’t like that.”

The table laughed. Even Bob, soft and brief, caught in the ripple.

It wasn’t normal. But it was close to it.

Bucky glanced at them then—at both of them, not just John. His eyes searched theirs, steady and patient. “You good?”

It wasn’t accusing. Just careful.

He didn’t answer right away. His throat felt tight, words caught in a web of fear and hope and shame.

Then Bob said, “We’re figuring it out.”

He didn’t say it like a press line.

He said it like the truth.

Bucky nodded once. Didn’t push.

The clatter of forks and plates filled the quiet that followed, the ordinary sounds grounding them back in the room. Ava started another story. Something about a failed actor and an animal sanctuary. Alexei jumped in halfway through to contradict the facts, loud and wrong, drawing playful groans around the table.

Then Yelena spoke.

She didn’t look up from her coffee.

“You know you don’t have to earn your place at the table, right?”

Bob went still beside him, shoulders stiffening.

She raised her eyes slowly. First at Bob. Then at John.

“You’re already in,” she said. “Whatever the story is.”

She didn’t say it warmly. She didn’t have to. It wasn’t sympathy. It was an anchor.

John didn’t speak.

Bob nodded, just once.

They hadn’t fixed anything. Not yet.

But they didn’t sit on opposite ends of the room. They didn’t pretend.

They just… sat.

Together. 

The clink of silverware slowly returned, timid at first, then louder—less careful. The moment had passed, or at least had been shelved.

Alexei finished his plate with theatrical flair, licking his fingers and groaning. “I need more bacon. This is disaster.”

“You ate enough to kill a regular man,” Ava said, rising and scooping up her plate. “No one else is competing.”

Alexei pointed his fork at her. “Yet.”

“Speaking of disasters,” Ava went on, tilting her head at Bob. “Did you ever see that guy from the gala? The no-lip muppet? I swear he was following you around through the silent auction like a ghost.”

Bob smiled faintly. “I think I saw him arguing with the valet about crypto.”

Bucky snorted. “The real charity was keeping him off the news.”

John didn’t say anything. He watched Bob’s smile—small, real. It was like catching a glimpse of something rare in the wild and not daring to move.

His own chest ached with something he couldn’t name.

Yelena stood and rinsed her coffee cup in the sink. Her presence never really left, even when her back was turned. He watched her, wondering how she could always seem to know the exact weight of the room—when to speak, when to leave things hanging.

One by one, the others got up—Bucky with his ever-silent exit, Alexei humming as he cleared half the table, Ava wandering off mid-sentence as if chasing her next thought. Yelena disappeared without a word, but she glanced at them once before she went. John felt the weight of it even after she was gone.

Then it was quiet again. Just two coffee cups, two half-eaten breakfasts, and the low hum of the fridge.

He didn’t move.

Bob didn’t either.

They didn’t look at each other, but they didn’t need to.

He wasn’t sure who was waiting on who.

Finally, Bob spoke—just above a whisper. “Do you think she meant that?”

John looked over at him, startled by how small Bob sounded—like someone bracing for disbelief. “Yelena?”

Bob nodded.

John didn’t answer right away. He stared back down at his mostly empty mug.

“She doesn’t say anything she doesn’t mean,” he said. Then, softer, “Of course she did.”

Bob looked down, studying a crumb near his thumb.

John swallowed, heart climbing into his throat. “You’re… you. You belong here more than I do.”

Bob’s head snapped up. “That’s not—”

“It’s true.” He didn’t let him finish. He stared into his mug, at the coffee on the bottom. “You didn’t spend years hiding out and fucking up. I only got here because someone decided I was the next best thing.”

Bob was quiet for a long beat. 

“You think I haven’t spent years hiding?” he asked. “I just got better at smiling through it.”

John didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t know how to explain the difference between hiding in plain sight and hiding from himself.

He reached for his empty mug again. Bob did the same. Their hands knocked into each other—and in the silence, the cup slipped.

It tipped sideways, the last remnants of coffee spilling out and crawling across the table.

John flinched. “Shit.”

Bob stood quickly, grabbing a napkin. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not—” he stopped. Not about the coffee.

Bob patted it up with quick, methodical movements. Like a man who needed something to do with his hands. John watched the tension bleed back into his shoulders.

The moment passed. The mess was cleaned. But the air between them was no longer neutral.

Bob sat back down, slowly. His fingers curled around the napkin until it crumpled. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. He hated how raw his voice came out. “I shouldn’t’ve—”

“—You didn’t do anything.”

They sat in it. The quiet. The almosts.

He studied Bob’s face. The faint shadows under his eyes. The way he always looked like he was holding something back, even when he smiled.

“I meant what I said,” John added. “You belong here.”

Bob looked at him—really looked at him.

He held the stare this time. Didn’t drop it.

Then Bob exhaled, soft and low. “So do you.”

John didn’t know if he believed it. But he wanted to.

Chapter Text

The room smelled like bergamot and cedar.

Not vanilla.

Not that cloying, artificial nonsense that had burned when they’d first moved into the shared room together—when the lie was still fresh, still fragile. It had been part of the curated “domestic package,” as Valentina had called it. Like a pleasant scent could cover the tension, or the fact that they didn’t know how to share space, let alone sleep in the same one.

This one was different. 

He didn’t know where it came from. Bob hadn’t mentioned it, and he hadn’t asked. Just noticed that the air felt less sharp than usual. Less empty.

The scent didn’t try to settle over everything. It just hung there—warm, a little woodsy, grounding. Not for show. Not for photos. Just there.

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his boots, watching the light shift across the hardwood floor. The late-morning sun cut long stripes through the curtains, making everything look a little softer than it was.

Bob was crouched near the dresser, sorting a mixed pile of laundry that neither of them had touched in days. His hair stuck up in three directions. His socks didn’t match.

He held up a faded t-shirt, squinting like it might attack. “This yours or mine?”

John glanced up. “Looks like one of yours.”

Bob turned it around, read the front. 

John looked at it for a beat longer than necessary. “Unless I had a secret emo phase, that’s yours.”

Bob smiled. “Too angsty for you?”

John raised an eyebrow. “Too tragic.”

Bob rolled his eyes playfully. “Classic.”

He went back to folding—or at least trying. His version of folding mostly involved aggressive flattening and hoping for the best.

John didn’t say anything. Just sat there, lacing up his boots, watching the sunlight like it meant something.

Bob finished the haphazard stack and set it aside. Then, like he remembered something, he stood, grabbed something from the chair, and handed it to John.

“Mail came,” he said casually.

John blinked. “Didn’t think we still got actual mail.”

“It’s from Olivia.”

John froze.

Bob watched him with careful eyes. “I didn’t open it. Figured it was personal.”

He didn’t move right away. Just stared at it. Pale envelope. Familiar handwriting. The kind Olivia used to write when she was in a hurry—tight, upright, and still weirdly neat. Under her writing, in all caps and uneven crayon: “To Daddy.”

The weight of it wasn’t much. But it felt heavier than anything he’d held in weeks.

Bob gave him space, retreating back to the floor and picking up with laundry again—but quiet this time. No more comments.

John sat on the edge of the bed and opened the envelope like it might break. Inside, there was a single sheet of printer paper, torn slightly at the edge. 

The drawing was mostly bright scribbles—thick orange loops over purple zigzags. A sun in the corner with uneven rays. A green line along the bottom, presumably grass. And in the middle, three stick figures. One was a big circle with straight arms and uneven eyes. Blue and red. Probably meant to be him. Another had a blocky gold outline around the head and shoulders. The third had scribbles for arms, stripes of brown around the head, and big wobbly eyes.

A lopsided heart floated above them. Sloppily colored in.

He didn’t move.

On the bottom corner of the paper, in Olivia’s neat handwriting:

“Liam says this is you, me, and Bobba in the happy grass.”

He stared at the drawing for a long time.

Bob moved to the bed without a word. John didn’t have to look to know he was watching.

He swallowed hard.

He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until he let himself exhale, shaky and low.

Bob didn’t speak.

John traced the edges of the drawing with one thumb, careful not to smudge it.

“She didn’t have to send this.”

“No,” Bob said softly. “But she did.”

He nodded, slow. “Yeah.”

He folded the drawing back along the original line and slipped it into the envelope like it was something sacred. Set it gently on the nightstand, where the sun cut across the wood in gold lines.

He sat back, rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“She said not to screw this up.”

Bob didn’t ask what that meant.

Instead he said, “You won’t.”

John’s eyes stayed on the envelope even after he set it down, like the paper might vanish if he looked away.

“It’s stupid,” he muttered. “A drawing on printer paper. Shouldn’t hit this hard.”

“It’s not stupid,” Bob said. His voice was steady—almost clinical—but his hand hovered a little, like he wanted to touch John’s shoulder and wasn’t sure he had the right. “It isn’t the paper that’s hitting you.”

John rubbed a thumb along the seam of his boot. “I don’t know what to do with… good things. Never learned the choreography.”

“Maybe stop looking for steps and try standing still.”

The answer sounded too simple, so he tried to scoff. The sound came out thin.

“Standing still is how you get shot.”

“Different battlefield,” Bob said, steady. “Same rules don’t always apply.”

John tipped his head back, stared at the ceiling where the fan blades made slow shadows. “Alright. What does ‘standing still’ look like?”

Bob’s shoulders rose in a small shrug. “Talk to me. About anything. Doesn’t have to be tidy.”

He opened his mouth, but the words he’d been rehearsing in his head for weeks—sorry about the kiss, sorry about pulling away, I’m still messed up, I don’t know if wanting you makes me a stranger to myself—tangled into something sharp. He closed his mouth again.

Bob waited, gaze quiet, unpressing. “Pick one sentence that's true. Start there.”

John’s pulse knocked at the base of his throat. “One sentence.”

Bob nodded.

He swallowed. “I’m scared that if I like the way the room smells, it means more than it should.”

Bob’s expression softened, a crinkle at the corners of his eyes. “The room smells like this because I was sick of the fake stuff. That’s all it means right now.”

John inhaled, and for the first time noticed the scent curling warm in his chest instead of pricking at his nerves. “Okay. Your turn.”

“Alright.” Bob’s fingers tapped his knee once, twice. “I hated the silence after we kissed, but I didn’t know how to fix it without making it worse, so I just… stayed silent.”

Heat crawled up John’s neck, part embarrassment, part something else.

He let the air sit between them, heavy but not suffocating. “Another sentence?”

Bob tipped his head in invitation.

“I don’t know how to want… this—” he gestured clumsily at the space between them “—without feeling like I’m betraying everything I was supposed to be.”

Bob’s voice dipped lower. “One day you’ll see that wanting and betraying aren’t synonyms.”

John blinked hard. “That day isn’t today.”

“Then we keep talking until it is.”

A laugh jerked out of him, small and stunned. “You’re relentless.”

Bob mirrored the laugh, quieter. “That’s two of us.”

They kept trading sentences—halting, uneven, sometimes only fragments. The laundry pile became a forgotten coastline between crossed legs and tapping fingers. 

At some point, John asked, voice rough, “Why didn’t you flinch? Back then, in the closet.”

Bob considered. “Because it was you. And because it didn’t feel wrong.”

He let the honesty settle, startling but solid, like discovering a floor where he’d expected open air. “It didn’t feel wrong to me either. Just… bigger than I was ready for.”

“That’s allowed.”

He exhaled through his nose. “Feels like everything about me is on a timer. Like I have to figure it out before the world decides for me.”

Bob’s knee brushed his, the contact feather-light but grounding. “We can take the batteries out of the clock.”

John startled at the metaphor, then managed a real grin—wary, crooked, but present. “You’re weird, Bobby.”

“Occupational hazard.”

Silence stretched again, calm this time. 

John looked over at the envelope on the nightstand, the crayon heart peeking out where the flap didn’t quite meet.

He spoke without thinking. “I want Liam to know the real version of me, even if I haven’t met him yet.”

Bob nodded once, firm. “Then let’s introduce you. Step at a time.”

They rose together, joints cracking in chorus. Bob scooped the mangled t-shirt pile into a neater stack, and John set the envelope inside the top drawer where mission files used to live.

When they turned, they ended up shoulder to shoulder—close enough to feel each other’s breath but not quite touching.

John’s chest tightened with the urge to lean in, to press forehead to forehead, to let some wordless exchange finish the sentences he couldn’t. Instead he cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

Bob’s smile was small, real. “Anytime.”

Silence settled—warm, not weary. For the first time since the kiss, he didn’t brace for distance or disaster. He only listened to Bob’s breathing, counted the even rise and fall, and let himself believe there was a version of tomorrow where none of this—cedar air, intertwined routines, two voices learning to meet in the middle—was a lie.

Chapter Text

It had been nearly five weeks since the drawing arrived. Since the day John started trying to be someone else—someone real. Not just going through the motions or memorizing the script Valentina handed him, but really trying. To be still. To speak. To let things matter.

The room still smelled like cedar. The rhythms were steady. They brushed their teeth at the same time most nights. Drank coffee in silence most mornings. He always woke up first. Bob always made the bed after. They hadn’t talked about it. It had just become the shape of things.

John didn’t know what they were. But they were something. Enough that people noticed.

He was in the gym with Bucky and Yelena when it happened. Just stretching out, nothing heavy. Bob was nearby, running drills with Ava and Alexei. No one talked about the fact that they hadn’t sparred together since the kiss. No one had to.

Bucky glanced over from the weight rack and said, “You two back to finishing each other’s sentences again?”

John looked up. “What?”

“You and Bob,” Bucky said. “He handed you your towel before you even reached for it. You didn’t even look.”

“That’s called efficiency.”

Yelena snorted. “It’s called spooky married energy.”

He rolled his eyes, but his ears were warm.

“Careful,” Bucky said, tone half-joking. “PR’s gonna flip the story again if you keep looking like you actually like each other.”

Ava chimed in from the far end of the gym. “They’re more in sync now than they were during the actual honeymoon rollout. It’s unsettling.”

“They have entered telepathic stage,” Alexei said. “Soon they will be finishing each other’s training reps.”

John didn’t respond. But Bob caught his eye from across the gym, just for a second. It wasn’t teasing. It wasn’t even surprised. Just quiet. Like he’d heard every word and chose not to flinch.

That night, the team was restless. It started with Ava digging through a drawer and resurfacing with a battered board game box no one had touched in months. Within twenty minutes, they were all sprawled out around the common room coffee table: cards, tokens, and uneven teams. The rules didn’t make much sense and weren’t followed even when they did.

Bob and John weren’t partners, but they kept handing things to each other. Finished each other’s muttered complaints. Reached for the same card at the same time and didn’t pull away fast enough.

Yelena caught it, of course.

“They’re syncing,” she declared.

“Again,” Ava added.

“We were never unsynced,” Bob said.

John shot him a look that wasn’t quite annoyed. More like startled affection.

“Okay,” Alexei said, holding up both hands. “If you two start gazing, I am out.”

“We’re not gazing,” John bit.

“You literally just gazed,” Yelena said.

They kept playing, but the mood had shifted—not worse, not uncomfortable. Just aware. No one was mocking. No one pushed. But they all saw it. Whatever this was between John and Bob, it was no longer just part of the job. It was just there. Like the scent of cedar, lingering beneath everything else.

Valentina showed up near the end, as if summoned by the change in the air. She didn't say much. Handed off a file to Ava. Made a vague comment about optics. But her eyes lingered on John and Bob a fraction too long before she walked out.

“Anyone else feel that?” Bob asked once the door shut.

“She’s recalculating,” Ava muttered.

“She’s planning something,” Yelena said. “I can feel it.”

John didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. They were all right.

Later that night, the compound was mostly quiet. Someone had left the common room lights on low. A half-empty mug sat abandoned on the coffee table. The board game was still a chaotic sprawl of cards and mismatched pieces. It hadn’t been cleaned up. No one wanted to reset things yet.

He stood in the doorway, hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt, watching the empty room like it might rearrange itself if he waited long enough.

Behind him, soft footsteps. Bob.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Bob said gently.

John huffed a breath through his nose, not quite a laugh. “Just trying to remember if this ever felt easy.”

Bob stepped up beside him. “The pretending part?”

He shook his head. “The part before the pretending. That first week. When we still hated each other a little. When we didn’t know how to move in the same space.”

Bob didn’t answer right away. His shoulder brushed John’s. Intentional, maybe. Or maybe just inevitable.

John went on. “I used to lie here on the couch after lights-out. Couldn’t sleep next to you. Thought if I turned my back long enough, the whole thing would vanish. Like none of it would stick.”

Bob was quiet for a long moment. “I remember,” he said. “You’d fake snore sometimes. Just so I’d know you weren’t going to talk.”

That pulled a real sound from him—a tired, surprised laugh.

“I didn’t know what to say,” he admitted.

“You still don’t, sometimes.”

“Still trying,” he said.

They stood in silence. The low hum of the fridge down the hall, the creak of metal vents adjusting to the cold. Every sound felt magnified. Or maybe it was just that neither of them was filling the space anymore with defensiveness or distance.

Eventually, they sat on the edge of the couch. Not quite the same places they had during game night—not performance. Just… proximity.

Bob looked over. “You don’t have to get it right tonight.”

John let that sit. Let it really sink in.

A beat passed.

“She looked at us like we were doing something wrong.”

Bob didn’t ask who. “We weren’t.”

“I know,” he said. “But she’s going to spin it like we are. Isn’t she?”

“Probably.”

He looked down. “I’m not good at this.”

“I know,” Bob said, not unkindly.

“I want to be.”

Bob nodded once. “Then that’s enough, for now.”

“One sentence?”

Bob smiled quietly. “Okay.”

“I didn’t think I was allowed to get it wrong,” he said, softer than before. “I spent so long trying to be the right kind of man that I forgot how to just be… a person.”

Bob reached down, picked up one of the game tokens from the carpet and rolled it between his fingers.

“Maybe make a new kind of right,” he said. “Your kind. Not anyone else’s.”

John didn’t say anything. But his hand drifted to rest near Bob’s on the couch. Not touching. Just near. A deliberate kind of closeness.

He looked at the board game pieces scattered across the table. It reminded him—not of game night, but of the first stupid photos Valentina staged. The ones with the soft shirts and fake golden light. The two of them sitting on the rug with a record player between them, headphones shared, heads tilted together like they knew each other’s hearts.

He remembered how stiff his neck had been trying to lean in at the right angle. How fake the smiles felt. How wrong it had been to pretend ease when he didn’t even have a language for what he was pretending.

And now here they were, eight months later.

No photographer. No playlist. No script.

Just quiet breath and the warmth of two people who had every reason to walk away, and kept not doing it.

For the first time since the kiss—since the silence that followed—John didn’t feel like he had to apologize for wanting something real.

They sat that way for a while, neither one of them moving. Nothing dramatic. No kiss. No grand line. Just presence. Just breath.

Just two people trying.

Chapter Text

The morning light spilled through the compound’s large windows just as Valentina swept into the briefing room, her smile bright but calculated, like she’d practiced it a thousand times. She carried a mood-board labeled Heart & Home. 

The team gathered quickly—Bucky leaned against the doorframe with arms crossed, Yelena sat in a chair with an edge of danger to her, Alexei stretched his legs out against the edge of the table, and Ava fidgeted with a pen.

John could already feel his shoulders locking.

“A day in the life,” she said breezily. “Something warm. Something true to the brand. Shared kitchen moments. A walk in the gardens. A callback to that sweet little homey shoot. Nostalgic. Intimate. Honest.”

He didn’t glance at Bob, but he felt the stiffness ripple beside him.

Across the room, Bucky muttered, “Didn’t we retire the romance montage?”

Yelena grinned. “Sequel time.”

John’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, and Bob gave a slow nod, though his eyes were wary. No one said it aloud, but the unspoken tension hung between them. Even the silence felt scripted.

The shoot started just before lunch. The kitchen became a controlled chaos of cables, lights, and camera angles. Yelena, Ava, and Alexei stood near the counters, pretending to help while really just keeping watch over John and Bob. Bucky hovered somewhere in the distance.

Someone called “action,” and John picked up the knife like it owed him something. He focused on the vegetables in front of him and chopped—too fast, too much force, the knife striking the cutting board louder than necessary. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. He just needed something to do with his hands that wasn’t clenching them.

Bob moved closer, soft voice just above a whisper. “Try smaller cuts. It’ll feel smoother.”

He blinked down at the cutting board, adjusted. A beat passed. It looked better. 

They probably looked fine. Maybe even charming. Then a voice barked from the side of the room, “Smile bigger, boys!”

He clenched his jaw. The knife hit the wood harder.

He didn’t look up, but he felt the shift when Bucky cracked a quiet joke somewhere off-camera, drawing a laugh from someone in the crew. Alexei followed suit with something even louder, and then flour exploded into the air—Yelena, of course—hitting Alexei across the chest. Ava stepped right in front of one of the primary camera angles, knocking a lens slightly out of alignment as she “helped” rearrange the herbs. It was chaos. It was cover. It gave him a second to breathe.

John wiped his palms on a towel and didn’t thank anyone, but he knew they knew.

Later, the lights changed. Warm, curated golden glow. He knew that light. Knew it in his teeth.

A record player from an old shoot sat between them. A stack of prop vinyls—none of which they’d actually listened to—waited nearby. The director circled, giving notes like choreography. “Closer. Just a little closer. Foreheads almost touching.”

The headphones felt heavy around his neck. His chest tight. 

Everything felt wrong.

He could feel Bob’s breath, warm on the side of his cheek. One more inch and they’d be in frame just right. One more inch and it would look like they were in love.

John snapped. He ripped the headphones off, voice sharp. “I’m done faking this.” 

And he walked out.

The hallway outside was too bright, too narrow. He didn’t know where he was walking, just that he had to keep going. His hands were shaking. He jammed them into the pockets of his sweatshirt like that would stop it, like he could press the shaking back into his bones.

The overhead fluorescents buzzed. His feet felt too loud against the tile. The cedar smell was gone—replaced with powder and hairspray and artificial gold light that clung to the insides of his lungs.

He didn’t make it far—just to the first bend, past the film set—before his body caught up with his mind and stopped moving. His pulse hadn’t slowed yet. He was still too warm. Still too seen.

His chest felt too tight, like someone had cinched a strap around his ribs and kept pulling. He couldn’t breathe right. The air was there but it wouldn’t stay. His vision narrowed at the edges, not dark but small. Like he was shrinking inside himself.

He stopped. Pressed his palms flat to the wall. Lowered his forehead against the cool surface and closed his eyes. It was grounding in a way his breath wasn’t.

He could still hear the director’s voice echoing in his ears—closer, closer, foreheads touching—and suddenly he wasn’t just annoyed, he was unraveling. He gripped the edge of the wall like it could keep him upright. 

His hands were cold. His neck was damp. Something inside him buckled, sharp and hot and quiet.

Behind him, quiet footsteps. Not rushed. Not hesitant either. Just there.

Bob.

John didn’t move. Couldn’t. Just stayed pressed to the wall, trying not to fall out of his own skin. 

He felt the heat of him before he heard his voice.

“Hey,” Bob said gently.

He didn’t respond. His pulse thundered in his ears.

Another step. Not too close. Still giving him room.

“You okay?”

Two words. Simple. But they landed like a weight in the center of his chest.

He wanted to say yes. Or no. Or don’t ask me that right now. But the only thing that came out was air—sharp and shaky. So he shook his head once, barely more than a twitch.

Bob didn’t move. Didn’t prod. Just let the silence stretch long enough that it didn’t feel like pressure. Only patience.

“I can’t—” he tried, but the sentence collapsed before it found its shape.

“I know,” Bob said quietly.

Something in John cracked open. Just a little. Just enough.

He turned around, slow, like every part of him had to check if it was allowed. His back hit the wall and he leaned there, wrists pressed to his sides, breathing unevenly. Bob stood a few steps away, arms loose at his sides, gaze steady but not sharp. There was no judgment in it. No pity either. Just Bob. Still here.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted. His voice sounded smaller than he meant it to.

“You don’t have to,” Bob said.

John took a step forward. Then another.

And Bob opened his arms.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t framed for a camera. It was quiet and solid, the way Bob always was when it counted.

John stepped into the hug like he didn’t quite trust his own legs. He folded in slowly, fists bunching in the fabric of Bob’s shirt, breath shallow in his throat. Bob’s arms circled around him without question. Held him there. Not tight, but sure. 

He didn’t even realize how much he’d been shaking until Bob’s hand moved along his back—slow and steady—and he exhaled hard enough that it almost broke him.

He didn’t cry. But he wanted to.

Bob didn’t say anything else. Just let the hug happen, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“I’m trying,” he said finally, the words muffled against Bob’s shoulder.

“I know.”

“I just—I get so tired of pretending I’m fine.”

“I know,” Bob said again, softer. “You don’t have to do that with me.”

They stood like that for a while. Just them. No script. No crew. No false golden light. The hallway was cold, but John felt warm. Not safe, exactly, but steady.

Eventually he pulled back—not far, just enough to look at Bob. Their foreheads didn’t touch, but they were close.

“I can’t keep pretending,” he said.

Bob’s eyes didn’t flinch. “Then don’t.”

John shook his head. “We give them us?”

Bob’s answer was quiet, steady. “Us isn’t neat. But it’s real.”

A beat passed. Then John gave a single nod.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

The rooftop garden looked different through camera lenses. Trimmed hedges, curated flower beds, stone paths that never stayed uneven for more than a day. It was cleaner. Greener. Stripped of mess, dressed up for light and symmetry, like even the dirt had been asked to behave. 

But John noticed things the crew didn’t—where Bob’s boots had worn down a patch of grass by the bench, how the lavender hadn’t been trimmed yet, the just-slightly crooked stone in the path where someone always tripped. It smelled better out here under the lights. Not vanilla. Not cedar, not yet—but air. Sky. Space.

It was the highest point of the compound, but it never felt lofty. Not to John. There was something grounding about it. The way the plants refused to be neat for long. The way the wind didn’t ask for permission. The way the view of the city below reminded him how small this all really was.

They stood side by side as the crew reset. The record-player shoot was behind them now, but the quiet tension still hung in the atmosphere like smoke. No one had said anything about his walkout. No one had dared.

Valentina wasn’t there. Her absence rang louder than any of the director’s notes.

The crew moved quietly around them, but not stiffly. Adjusting cameras, checking mics, muttering about the angle of the sun. No one asked them to smile. Not yet. John was grateful for that.

He didn’t reach for Bob’s hand right away. He waited. Checked in with himself first. He could still feel where Bob had held him in the hallway—real arms, real breath. Not staged. Not directed.

He looked down. Bob’s fingers hovered near his. Not pushing. Just close enough that John could choose.

So he did.

He reached back. Interlaced.

No signal. No cue. Just yes.

His shoulders didn’t clench this time. His stomach didn’t twist. No breath got caught behind his ribs. It didn’t feel like performance. It felt like presence.

A voice called, “Rolling!”

They walked.

No choreography. No blocking. No music swelling underneath them to guide the moment. Just footsteps on stone. Just the quiet breeze tugging at Bob’s sleeve. Just John—still shaky, still raw—letting himself be seen exactly as he was.

He didn’t look at the camera. He didn’t think about how it might be cut together later. He thought about Bob’s hand, solid in his. He thought about how the air finally moved in his lungs again.

There were moments when he caught the crew watching them—really watching, not framing. Someone tilted a camera slightly, not for symmetry, but to give them more space. Someone else didn’t speak a direction that was clearly on the tip of their tongue. It wasn’t reverence, not exactly. But something close. Deference, maybe. Or recognition.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement on the balcony.

The others.

Ava leaned her arms across the railing, watching. Not with that usual grin, not sharp with teasing. Just… watching. Something gentle in her presence. Curious, maybe. Protective.

Alexei stood beside her, still holding the ridiculous prop ladle he’d “confiscated” from the kitchen set. He didn’t say anything. Just nodded, like he understood something now that he hadn’t before.

Yelena had her arms folded, eyes narrowed like she was doing math in her head. She saw everything. Always had. But this time she didn’t look like she was calculating strategy. She looked like she was cataloguing truth.

Next to her, Bucky stood with his arms crossed, expression unreadable. But his posture wasn’t defensive. It was still.

Then Yelena’s voice floated down, soft but distinct. “That’s not a PR stunt.”

John didn’t stop walking. He didn’t even glance up.

But he heard Bucky reply, “No, it’s not.”

And that was it.

No snark. No smirk. Just certainty.

The cameras caught all of it. Maybe not the words. But the walk. The hands. The ease.

Cut was called a few minutes later, and the energy had shifted.

No clapping. No notes. Just a slow, collective reset. A kind of breath. Like everyone knew better than to disturb what they’d just witnessed.

The crew moved quieter now. More careful. One of the camera operators—someone he hadn’t learned the name of—gave him a subtle nod as he passed, like he understood something he didn’t before. Someone handed Bob a water bottle without saying anything. Another adjusted a reflector off to the side, mumbling, “Let them breathe.”

No one told John to smile.

No one needed to.

Back in their room, the quiet came easy. The lights were low. The window was cracked open. The hum of the vents echoed faintly from above. The bedsheets were still messy from the morning. 

He kicked off his boots and let them fall where they landed. His body ached—not from movement, but from the effort of holding himself together all day.

He didn't go for the bed. 

He sat down on the floor beside it, back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. His shoulders slumped in the way they only ever did when no one was watching. His fingers tapped lightly against his knee—restless, but not frantic.

He wasn’t shaking. Not anymore. But his body still remembered how close he had been to losing it.

Bob didn’t say anything. Just moved through the space like he belonged there—like they did. He stepped out of his boots, shrugged off his jacket, and lowered himself onto the bed with a quiet sigh, landing in the middle, limbs loose and comfortable. Like he knew exactly how close to come without crowding.

He rested on his side, head propped on one hand, looking down at John with something between concern and calm.

“You still want to punch something?” he asked, voice soft.

John tilted his head toward him. “Yeah. But not you.”

That got a breath of a smile from Bob. Real, if a little tired.

Neither of them moved for a while. The silence didn’t ache the way it used to. It filled the room gently, like steam rising after the lid came off a pot.

Wind whispered through the windows. The floor beneath them hummed with low, mechanical life.

And underneath it all, he could smell cedar again. Subtle. Familiar. Like a thread stitching him back to himself.

He tipped his head back, letting it rest against the wall. Let his gaze drift toward the window and the vague stretch of stars beyond.

He didn’t brace for whatever came next. Didn’t prepare for a line or a look or a shift. He wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. For once, it didn’t feel like one was hanging over his head.

He just sat there. Breathing.

He was still learning how to be a person.

But tonight, no one asked him to be anything else.

That counted.

That mattered.

Chapter Text

It had been a few days since the shoot on the roof—since the walk, the hand, the silence that didn’t need filling. Since the crew caught something true on camera.

No one had called it that. No one had said much at all.

Nothing official had been said since then. Valentina hadn’t mentioned the footage. No new directive. No edits passed around. Not a word.

But things had shifted anyway.

It didn’t happen all at once. Not in any obvious way. But the team had shifted—subtle, careful. Like they were giving John and Bob room to breathe. Room to stay real, if that was what they were choosing.

The cameras had stopped following them quite so closely. No one asked for retakes.

The quiet had settled into something else now—less about bracing, more about choosing. John had started to notice how his breath moved in his chest again. How his body didn’t frighten every time someone looked too closely. It wasn’t ease, not yet. But it was motion. It was trying.

The gym was half-lit and mostly quiet when he stepped inside. The kind of quiet that didn’t demand anything. Just allowed space. It was just the steady hum of fluorescent lights. Familiar sounds. Someone’s playlist trickled in from a corner speaker, low and beatless, more ambient than energizing. He let the door shut behind him and didn’t rush.

He had arrived late enough that the rest of the team was already scattered across the room in loose configurations. Ava hanging off a suspended resistance band like a spider. Alexei deadlifting something absurd. Bucky quietly fixing a misaligned bench by hand, because of course he was. Yelena on the edge of a mat, hair tied up, knees tucked, and a deck of cards fanned across her thigh.

And Bob—already in the corner by the heavy bag, wraps tight, rhythm even. Like always. The bag swung gently. His shoulders moved in that controlled way John had come to recognize—measured force, not for show. Focused.

He didn’t interrupt. Just grabbed a towel from the rack and wandered to the opposite wall, stretching his arms out, working tension from his back. No urgency. Just muscle memory and motion, trying to live in his body without fighting it.

He let himself settle in. Not to train hard—just to exist. Just to move. He found a rhythm on the mat. Let his pulse climb. Let sweat bead against the back of his neck. Somewhere in the middle of his third set, Bob walked over. He felt the change in air pressure, the warmth. A bottle of water was pressed into his palm.

Their fingers brushed.

Neither of them said a word.

John took it. Drank. Said nothing.

They moved through separate routines for a while. Bob shadowboxed near the mirrors. John took up his mat again and let his breath guide him through slow repetitions. Occasionally, one of them passed the other. No flinching. No weirdness. No spectacle. Just two people sharing space.

Eventually, they found themselves sitting on the edge of the same mat, shoulders almost touching, breathing even. 

John’s shirt clung to his back, soaked through. He let his arms rest on his knees. Let his body settle.

Across the gym, Ava said something to Alexei that made him cackle. Yelena smirked without looking up from her cards. 

Bob leaned back on his hands and sighed through his nose.

For a while, that was enough.

Then Bob said quietly, “You’ve been quiet.”

John didn’t look at him. “Been thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

That almost earned a smile.

A beat passed. Bob let it settle before prompting, “One sentence?”

John snorted, barely. “Subtle.”

“You want subtle, I can throw a towel at your face.”

He huffed a laugh and looked down at his hands. Paused.

Then, he said, “I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s real for me because it’s us, or just because no one’s told me to stop yet.”

Bob was quiet. Not heavy quiet. Not judging quiet. Just… listening.

“You think someone’s going to?” he asked.

John shook his head. “No. But that used to be the measure. If no one punished me, it meant I was doing the right thing. I don’t know how to tell what’s real without a consequence attached.”

Bob leaned forward, arms draped loosely over his knees. “So maybe it’s real because no one’s punishing you.”

John turned to look at him.

Bob offered, gently, “Maybe it’s real because you’re the one choosing it.”

John swallowed. Let his gaze drop to the floor.

He reached down, picked at a seam in the mat. “Your turn.”

Bob let out a slow breath. “I keep thinking about the day I moved my things into our shared space.”

John glanced sideways.

“I didn’t unpack everything,” he continued. “I kept a to-go bag under the bed. Just in case.”

“You still have it?”

Bob nodded. “But I moved it to the closet.”

Something in John’s chest twisted. Not painfully. But definitely.

He reached for another sentence. “I used to rehearse what I’d say to you if this ended.”

Bob turned to him, brows raised.

“Not dramatic stuff,” he clarified. “Just… exit lines. Things like ‘it was never real anyway’ or ‘you’ll be better off.’ Stuff that felt clean.”

“And?”

“I don’t want it to be clean,” he admitted. “Not if it means losing you.”

That landed hard in the silence.

Bob didn’t smile. Didn’t look away.

Then, he said, “That’s two sentences.”

“Take the compliment.”

Bob bumped their shoulders gently. John didn’t move away.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Another sentence?”

Bob gave a little nod.

“I didn’t expect the silence after the kiss to hurt. But it did.”

Bob’s breath caught, just a little. “Me neither.”

They didn’t fill the silence after that.

Not for a long while.

From across the gym, a phone buzzed loudly on the bench near the wall. Yelena picked it up, squinted at the screen, then tilted her head toward them.

“You’re trending again,” she said, like she was commenting on the weather.

Ava practically crowed. “Ooh, what did they do this time? Did they breathe in unison?”

“Just walked into a room at the same time,” Yelena replied. “Unforgivable.”

“Riveting,” Bucky muttered.

“Caption says ‘married behavior,’” Yelena deadpanned.

John didn’t check the post. He didn’t need to.

Instead, he checked his texts.

There it was.

Olivia.

He braced instinctively. Then opened it.

Just one line.

“Keep it clean for one month, and I’ll schedule a supervised visit.”

Below it, a photo.

Liam, in a crayon-streaked shirt, holding up a new drawing. Another three figures under a crooked sun. This time the tallest one had a gold scribble drawn across his chest. The smallest one had a heart drawn above his head.

John’s throat went dry.

He passed the phone to Bob.

He read it. Looked at the photo.

Then met John’s eyes.

“We can do a month.”

John blinked once. “You sure?”

Bob nodded. “We’re steadier than we used to be.”

“That’s a low bar.”

“But it’s ours.”

John huffed a laugh. A real one. Tired around the edges, but real. “One sentence?”

Bob didn’t hesitate. “I want to meet him.”

John stared at him.

“Not for you,” he said. “Not for optics. For me.”

It hit somewhere deep. Somewhere hollow and tender.

John nodded slowly. Let himself believe it. Even if only for now. “I want him to know me,” he said. “Not the version I rehearsed. The version I’m still learning to be.”

Bob’s answer was quiet. “Then we’ll show up like that.”

The gym buzzed around them. No one interrupted. But John could feel the weight of the team’s presence—not invasive, not suspicious. Just witnessing.

Yelena glanced over briefly. Then looked away.

No teasing. No commentary.

Just space.

And maybe that was the beginning of something else.

Chapter Text

The team briefing happened every Monday morning.

Not because it was the most efficient time. Just because Yelena said so, and no one argued with Yelena unless they wanted to lose. 

The meeting room was always too cold. The chairs too stiff. One corner of the TV screen flickered like it was blinking at them in code.

The table was cluttered with stray pens and half-filled mugs. Someone—probably Ava—had taped a crude drawing to the back of Yelena’s chair. No one mentioned it.

John sat third chair from the end, same seat as usual. Bob sat beside him, one boot bouncing against the chair leg like he was syncing with some rhythm John couldn’t hear. Every now and then, he tapped his pen against the table in a way that sounded deliberate but wasn’t.

Across the table, Ava curled around a cup of tea like it was life support. Alexei looked alert in that way that usually meant he hadn’t slept. Bucky leaned back against the far wall, arms crossed. Yelena sat at the head of the table, flipping through tabs on her tablet like it had personally wronged her.

The updates were standard. Patrol rotation. Supply delivery delays. Something about recalibrating a sensor rewire on the south roof after a minor feedback loop had fried one of the relays. Bob added a comment about equipment maintenance without looking up. John passed him a tablet without being asked. 

Their movement mirrored without meaning to.

It wasn’t intentional. Just familiar.

And that was the problem.

He felt it first before he noticed it. Not tension. Just attention. Eyes. A shift in the room’s temperature that wasn’t due to the thermostat. Like something had tilted slightly off-center.

Across the table, Ava narrowed her eyes. “You two are doing the thing again.”

Bob blinked. “The thing?”

“The sync-up. The breathing-in-tandem married-couple thing,” she said. “It’s creepy.”

“It’s functional,” John said, deadpan.

Alexei nodded solemnly. “Like military drones.”

Yelena didn’t look up. “Just don’t start finishing each other’s sentences in public. The last thing we need is fan edits getting more accurate.”

Bob smirked. John didn’t.

Didn’t roll his eyes. Just tried to keep his face neutral.

Not because it wasn’t funny. But because he felt it land too close to something he didn’t want to name yet.

He was still learning to want this out loud.

He knew the moment Valentina walked in.

She didn’t make a sound. She didn’t sit. She didn’t even glance directly at anyone. Just stood at the far edge of the room, arms folded, draped in black like a shadow pretending to be a person. Mel stood behind her, looking vaguely like she’d been dragged there mid-sentence and wasn’t sure if she was meant to breathe.

Valentina didn’t interrupt.

She didn’t need to.

Her presence was enough.

Yelena wrapped up the meeting quickly after that, with a few sharp nods and a warning about power fluctuations in the gym. The room began to disperse.

John stayed seated longer than usual, fingertips pressed into the edge of the table.

Valentina’s gaze never touched him directly. But he felt it, even when it didn’t land. She never said a word.

Eventually, even she left. Mel gave him a small, wide-eyed nod on her way out, like a hostage being escorted to safety.

Bob lingered. Of course he did.

They ended up near the wide window in the corridor just outside the briefing room. The city glinted in the distance, light haze softening its edges.

Bob leaned against the frame. John stood stiff beside him, arms crossed like armor.

“She saw it,” he said, voice low.

Bob didn’t ask who. He didn’t have to.

“She’s planning something,” John added. “I know it.”

“Let her.”

He looked at him. “You think she won’t act?”

“I think she already is,” Bob said. “She’s just watching to see what we do next.”

He exhaled, slow. “It’s like waiting for a pin to drop. Just one mistake, and she can claim we were off-mission.”

“She already knows it's real,” Bob said. “That’s the problem.”

John pressed a hand to the windowsill, grounding. “She doesn’t need proof to bury it. She just needs spin.”

“She can’t spin what she doesn’t get to control.”

He let that hang. Then, almost without thinking, said, “One sentence?”

Bob nodded. Always.

“I’m scared that if people see it—if she sees it—it stops being ours.”

Bob didn’t answer immediately. His voice was steady when it came. “Then let’s hold the part that’s ours like it matters more than the rest.”

John nodded slowly. He didn’t unclench. But something settled in his chest like a breath that didn’t hurt going in.

“I want it to stay steady,” he said.

Bob turned toward him slightly. “That’s the difference, you know. You used to just want it to stay safe.”

John blinked. Let that settle.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I did.”

They didn’t move until the hallway emptied, shoulder to shoulder, the glass warm from the sun. Even then, it wasn’t fast. Just slow steps away from the window, the kind that didn’t feel like retreat or strategy—just a walk for the sake of walking. No plan. No destination.

They passed the elevator. The lounge. Bob held the door open without asking when they cut through the hallway behind the mess. The hum of the ventilation system was louder back here—steady, white-noise calm.

John’s steps slowed near the smaller space. Dim lights. Mismatched cabinets that creaked when opened. It smelled faintly of dust. No one had been in this room in weeks, maybe months.

Bob followed him without a word.

There was a bench built into the wall—one of those useless architectural choices that served no purpose but looked like it was meant to. John sat down anyway. Let the silence pool around them. Let the weight settle where it wanted to.

Bob leaned against the doorframe, arms loose at his sides, like he wasn’t in a hurry. Like he wasn’t bracing for anything.

John stared at the floor.

“I don’t know what this room is for,” he said, after a long while.

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

The hum of the vents filled the silence. A light above them buzzed faintly, like it had half-forgotten how to work.

His voice was quieter when it came again. “I hate how much it matters now.”

Bob didn’t speak.

He continued. His voice was low. Tired around the edges. “The way people look at us. The way she looks.”

Bob looked at him. “You didn’t used to care.”

“I didn’t used to have something I didn’t want her to touch.”

That earned a pause. The air shifted slightly between them.

“You said once you didn’t know how to want this out loud,” Bob said.

John nodded.

“You still don’t?”

He let out a quiet breath. “I’m getting closer.”

He dragged his finger across the top of a cabinet, coating it with dust. Like he needed something to do with his hands in order to say what came next.

“I used to think…” He shook his head. Tried again. “I used to think maybe I just didn’t work like this. That there wasn’t a version of me that could do steady. Or real. Or…”

His mouth pressed flat for a second. “Or love.”

Bob didn’t move.

John didn’t look at him.

“I didn’t think I was built for it,” he went on. “Not the way people mean when they say it. Not with the staying and the softness and the small, good things. I thought I’d always just be performing it. Memorizing lines and hoping no one saw the seams.”

Bob’s voice was quiet. “And now?”

He swallowed hard. “Now I think maybe I was just waiting for the right script.”

He finally looked over.

Bob wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t startled. Just… there.

Solid. Present. Unmoving.

Like something John could choose.

“I want to want this out loud,” he said.

Bob’s gaze didn’t shift. “Then say it.”

“I want this,” John said, simple and clear. “You. This. Not the job. Not the role. You.”

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t clean. But it was his.

And Bob—Bob, who had waited through silence and shutdown and every version of John that had run from his own reflection—just nodded.

“I know,” he said. “I’ve known.”

And John let himself believe that.

They didn’t touch.

They didn’t need to.

They just stood there, looking at each other, something soft and unnamed curling into the space between them.

Trying.

John found himself smiling despite himself. Present. Real.

And then, Bob said, “That was a lot more than one sentence.”

Chapter Text

The briefing room felt different. Cold air pressed against John’s skin like an accusation. It felt tighter. Like it was sitting wrong in his lungs. Like the walls had leaned in, just slightly. Just enough for him to notice.

The team was gathered. Same room. Same chairs. Same flickering corner of the screen that blinked like it knew something they didn’t. But no one was relaxed. No one was casual.

Ava nursed her second mug of tea, even though it had long gone cold. Alexei leaned back with his arms crossed tight enough to crack something. Bob sat next to John, silent, unreadable.

They didn’t call it a briefing, but that’s what it was. 

No one was talking.

They were waiting.

The door opened like a threat.

Valentina stepped in first—black coat, black gloves, black expression. Mel followed close behind, looking like she wanted to sink into the floor.

No tablet. No preamble. Just a small drive in her hand, which she held up like an offering.

“Someone leaked it,” she said.

The words dropped like lead.

John blinked. “Leaked what.”

Her voice was calm. Controlled. “Surveillance footage. You and him.” She nodded, just slightly, toward Bob.

The table went still.

Ava’s mug hit the surface with a dull clunk.

Yelena sat forward. “You’re kidding.”

“I never do,” Valentina replied. She set the drive on the table like it was toxic.

Bob didn’t say anything.

John’s spine locked up. His jaw tightened.

“How much footage?” Bucky asked, tone cool.

Valentina looked his way, then back at the group. “Enough to confirm rumors. Enough to make it interesting. It’s already circulating in encrypted forums. Someone wanted it seen.”

“And you’re just now telling us?” John bit. His voice didn’t rise, but something inside him did. “You just found it?”

“I verified it,” she said. “Before bringing it to you. I don’t deal in hypotheticals.”

Ava was already moving—grabbing a tablet, sliding the drive in. Bob’s hand twitched.

John’s stomach dropped before he knew why.

It was footage from a shoot.

One of their shoots.

Except… not the parts that were ever meant to be seen.

Silent shots. Stiff movements. Two men not looking at each other when they thought no one was watching. A pause too long before a kiss that barely landed. Hands unclasping the moment backs turned.

And then the kicker: a behind-the-scenes clip—overhead angle, grainy audio—but just clear enough to catch Bob saying, “Let’s just get through it.”

And John, jaw clenched, replying, “Then we can go back to normal.”

Ava let out a slow breath through her nose. Alexei’s shoulders locked.

Mel winced.

Bob didn’t move.

Valentina’s voice was clean, controlled. “This started circulating yesterday. Edited down. Looping just the good parts.”

Good meant damning.

“Who leaked it?” Yelena asked.

Valentina tilted her head. “That’s unclear. But the intention is obvious.”

John stared at the screen. At his own face, cold and calculated, staring somewhere just over Bob’s shoulder.

“They think it was a political maneuver,” Valentina said. “A fake marriage for clearance, or optics. And now that it’s public, it’ll be spun like a failed covert op.”

“Because it was,” John said, voice dry.

Valentina looked at him, mildly amused. “I suppose congratulations are off the table, then.”

No one laughed.

Bob spoke, finally. “So we’re exposed.”

Valentina nodded. “You are.”

John sat back in his chair, spine like concrete. His hand was flat on the table, fingers curled just slightly, the way they always did when he was trying not to shake.

Valentina stood like a monolith. Mel hovered behind her, looking like she deeply regretted coming with her.

No one said anything at first. Not until John did. “Did you plan this leak?” His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t have to. The weight in it was enough to drag the attention of the room with it.

Valentina didn’t move. Didn’t tilt her head. Didn’t so much as blink. “No,” she said. Just that. No embellishment. No denial laced with outrage. Just flat, impossible certainty.

The silence that followed wasn’t disbelief—it was fury, restrained.

Ava scoffed, her chair scraping slightly as she shifted. “Bullshit. Everything blows up the second you walk in the door, and you’re saying you didn’t know?”

Alexei leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “You want us to believe this is just coincidence?”

Valentina’s mouth tugged at the corner. A shadow of amusement. “I don’t particularly care what you believe.”

Yelena was silent, her pen paused mid-hover over the table. Not looking at anyone. Not breaking posture. Just listening.

John’s jaw tightened.

Valentina stepped closer. “I didn’t leak it,” she said. “But someone did. And now we deal with it.”

John stood.

Too fast. Too stiff.

“You don’t get to walk in here and pretend like you’re just an observer,” he said, slow and flat. “You brought this heat. And now we’re supposed to sit here and believe you didn’t light the fuse?”

Valentina didn’t flinch. “I’m not the one setting fires. But I’ll gladly watch what burns.”

Mel stirred behind her, hands clenched like she didn’t know what to do with them. “It’s not just bad timing. Someone wanted this exposed. Someone made it loud.”

“And now we all get to bleed for it,” Yelena muttered, eyes flicking toward John and Bob.

That landed. Even without names. Even without context.

Bob didn’t respond. Just stared down at the table, unmoved. Unreadable.

And that silence—that silence right there—was what made John’s stomach twist.

It was the kind of silence that came before distance. Before someone stepped back and said it had been a mistake. Before someone tried to save face by retreating from something vulnerable to survive exposure.

He knew that silence. He’d worn it before.

He wouldn’t wear it again.

The room pressed in. Voices started again, low and clipped. Debate, blame, thinly veiled warnings. But none of it landed. Not really.

Not when Bob wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Valentina tilted her head. “This isn’t the end of the world.”

John looked her dead in the eye. “No. Just the part that belonged to us.”

He left the room before anyone else could weigh in. Before someone decided to make a joke. Before someone asked if it was true. 

Before Bob could say nothing again.

Chapter Text

It had been hours.

Not enough for the story to die. But plenty of time for it to catch fire.

The leak had gone public.

He didn’t know who posted it. Didn’t know what headlines had spun up in the meantime. But the moment he’d opened his phone and seen the timestamped pings—seven different outlets so far, twelve encrypted reposts, one half-assed reaction video already trending—he knew.

There was no reeling it back.

Everyone knew.

Not just the team. Not just Valentina’s back channels.

Everyone.

The footage had no context, no explanation, just angles and silence and lines said in exhaustion, not deception. But it didn’t matter. Context wasn’t currency anymore—perception was. And perception said it was fake.

That they were fake.

He closed the feed after that. Didn’t watch the commentary. Didn’t read the theories.

He already knew how they’d sound.

“So America’s golden boys faked a marriage for clearance?”

“Was it a long con? A private op? Who pulled the strings?”

“Did they even like each other?”

It didn’t matter what was true. Just what echoed loud enough.

He didn’t feel exposed. Not exactly.

He felt erased.

Like whatever they had—whatever almost counted—had been reduced to performance. Propaganda. Bad acting in worse lighting.

Like the truth had never been real at all.

And the worst part was: it hadn’t been. Not really.

Not where anyone could see it.

He’d kept it quiet. He’d kept it safe. He’d kept it small.

And now someone else had taken it and made it loud. Made it ugly. Made it unrecognizable.

And Bob—Bob hadn’t said anything.

That was what hurt the most.

That he just sat there, let the room breathe fire around them, and didn’t say a goddamn word.

John paced the corridor, then the bedroom, then the stairwell. His steps were quiet, measured, practiced. Like he was back on recon. Like he could just walk it off.

He couldn’t.

He checked the gym. The kitchen. The hallway near the old briefing room. Even the filing room down in sublevel one.

Empty.

He checked the roof access next. Still nothing.

It wasn’t anger anymore. Not exactly. Just something bitter lodged under his ribs. Something restless.

He leaned on the stairwell railing and rubbed a palm over his face.

He didn’t even know what he’d say when he found him. He just knew he had to.

The silence of the briefing room—Bob’s silence—had landed like a verdict.

And John wasn’t done fighting yet.

It was another half-hour before he found him.

Second sublevel. Half-lit hallway near the storage lockers. Bob sat on the floor, back against the wall, knees drawn slightly up. He rested his elbows on them. His head was tilted back, eyes closed.

Not asleep. Just… somewhere else.

John stood there for a beat. Just long enough to make it awkward.

Then Bob opened his eyes.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak. Just looked up like he’d known John would come. Or hoped.

John leaned against the wall across from him, arms crossed.

He didn’t speak either.

Not yet.

The quiet pressed in.

Finally, “You okay?” he asked.

Bob didn’t lie. “No.”

“I kept checking places,” he said. His voice felt thick in his throat, like it had something stuck in it that didn't belong to him. “Gym. Kitchen. Roof. You weren’t anywhere.”

Bob blinked. “Guess I didn’t want to be found.”

John nodded slowly. “Yeah. I figured.”

He shifted. Let the silence hover.

Then, “I don’t care that they know it was fake,” he said. “I care that the only real part got swallowed with it.”

Bob’s gaze didn’t move.

“I kept thinking about that footage,” he went on. “The way we moved. How easy it was to tell.”

“To tell that it wasn’t real,” Bob said quietly.

“No,” John replied. “To tell it meant something underneath.”

That finally pulled a reaction. Bob’s shoulders twitched, like he wasn’t sure whether to fold in or unfold.

John took a breath. Not steady. But deep.

“They think it was fake,” he said. “They think we never cared. That we faked the whole thing for clearance or optics or some play Valentina wanted.”

Bob’s voice was soft. “Didn’t we?”

“Yes,” John said. “But not all of it.”

He pushed off the wall. Crossed the hallway. Sat down next to Bob. Not touching. 

“I wanted to be better at this,” he said, voice low. “At saying the real part. At wanting the real part out loud.”

He let his head drop back against the wall. “I think I was scared that once the fake part fell away, there wouldn’t be anything left.”

Bob was silent. But he hadn’t moved.

John continued.

“I’ve said a lot of things in one sentence or not at all,” he said. “To you. Because it’s easier than saying the rest.”

Bob looked over now. Finally.

“I want to try saying the rest.”

He didn’t interrupt. He just watched.

“I wanted the cover. At first. I thought it made things easier.” His voice was steady, but his hands weren’t. He folded them into his lap. His heart was beating rapidly. “But then we kept going. And the parts I thought were pretend started meaning something. And I started being scared of saying that, because what if they didn’t mean anything to you?”

“They did,” Bob said without pause.

John blinked. Let it land.

“I know,” he said. “Now. But I didn’t then.”

He hesitated.

“I didn’t want to lose something I hadn’t had the guts to name yet.”

That cracked something. Just slightly.

Bob looked at him, full-on now. “You could’ve said it,” he said. Not accusing. Just honest.

John swallowed. “I know.”

A long pause.

“I’m saying it now.”

Bob didn’t blink.

“I want this,” John said. “Not the mission version. Not the easy-to-control story. Just this. You. Us.”

A beat.

“And I want to say it with my whole chest. Even now. Especially now. Because they already saw the lie. I’d rather give them the truth than let them think that was all we were.”

The silence that followed didn’t feel like dread anymore.

It felt like space.

Breathable.

Bob shifted his body so that he was fully facing him. His hand hovered for a moment, then settled over John’s.

“You still talk like everything’s a briefing,” he said, voice soft.

John almost laughed. “Yeah. I know.”

They sat there in the low light for a long minute.

Not speaking. Just breathing.

Bob’s hand still rested over his. His thumb moved once—absent, unconscious—but didn’t pull away.

John stared down at their joined hands.

Then up.

Then back again.

The air didn’t feel heavy anymore.

It just… was.

He could feel the moment building in his chest. Like something was lodged there, begging to be named.

He didn’t know how to make it pretty. Didn’t know how to dress it up. So he didn’t.

He turned toward Bob.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just gradually—like gravity pulled him sideways.

Their knees bumped, just slightly.

Bob looked up.

John held his gaze.

His voice, when it came, was quiet. Raw. “Can I kiss you?”

It didn’t sound like a line. It didn’t sound rehearsed.

It sounded like hope.

Bob didn’t make him wait. “Yeah,” he said. “You can.”

John leaned in.

He didn’t rush it. Didn’t make it sharp or fast or cinematic.

He just moved closer—tilting forward, like something in him had finally tipped—and pressed his mouth gently to Bob’s.

It wasn’t practiced.

It wasn’t perfect.

It was real.

Bob’s hand tightened slightly around his. The kiss deepened—not by pressure, but by presence. Like both of them were learning how not to flinch. How to stay.

When they pulled back, it was only by inches.

Their foreheads touched.

John’s breath caught somewhere between his ribs and the space between them. “This still feels terrifying,” he admitted.

Bob’s eyes softened. “That’s how you know it matters.”

John didn’t move away.

He let himself be here.

The world could be spinning out—stories and edits and headlines and noise—but for now, it couldn’t reach them.

Not in this hallway.

Not in this breath.

He let out a quiet exhale. One that didn’t feel like failure this time. One that felt like beginning.

And when Bob leaned into the space just a little more—close but unhurried—John stayed.

For the first time in a long time, he stayed.

Chapter Text

They didn’t speak much after the kiss.

They didn’t need to.

John didn’t remember the exact moment they left the hallway. Just that, eventually, he had looked at Bob—really looked—and asked, quietly, “Come back with me?”

And Bob had come. No hesitation. Like the answer had always been yes.

They left the hallway like it wasn’t burning behind them. Like there wasn’t a world waiting outside, teeth bared and bloodthirsty. The base felt too quiet, the kind of quiet that comes right before a detonation—not peace, just delay.

The walk back to their room felt longer than it was. Every door they passed felt like it might open on someone waiting with a question. A camera. A consequence. But none did.

Not yet.

John was waiting for the sting to hit him. The part where he’d remember how dangerous this was, how permanent it was going to be now that it wasn’t just between them anymore. But the sharpness didn’t come. Just this quiet weight in his chest. And the echo of Bob’s hand still curled in his.

Their room hadn’t changed, but it felt different. The lights were still dim. The air was still stale. The door clicked shut the same way it always did.

But it felt different.

Like the quiet wasn’t cold.

Like the room had shifted around them.

Like it saw them now.

Bob toed off his shoes without a word. Peeled off his sweatshirt and dropped it over the chair. Didn’t make a ceremony of it, just let his shoulders drop like something heavier than fabric had fallen too.

John lingered by the door for a moment, watching. Letting it all catch up. Then, he unlaced his boots. 

Neither of them said or did anything for a long while. There was nothing that needed to be explained.

They didn’t reach for anything complicated. Didn’t reach for explanation or comfort or each other. Just shed the parts of the day they could and got into bed like it was a shelter, not just a place to sleep.

They didn’t climb into bed like fugitives.

Didn’t crawl in like lovers either.

They just let themselves belong there.

John sat back against the headboard and let the weight settle across his shoulders. He watched Bob stretch out beside him, loose-limbed and silent. One arm under the pillow, the other hand finding John’s under the sheets, slow but certain, like it had every right to be there. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a reach. Just… placement.

He stared at the ceiling for a long time. His heart wouldn’t slow. His chest felt too full in the wrong way, like something was still waiting to land. The kiss still bloomed somewhere quietly behind his ribs, but it was tangled up now with the knowing.

That everyone else knew too.

That the thing they’d tried so hard to keep small had been dragged into the light and lit on fire.

That whatever fragile, strange, half-real thing they had had been reduced to a PR stunt.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand. 

Then again.

He didn’t move for it.

Bob’s thumb brushed his knuckle. Just once. Barely there. But grounding.

“You okay?” he asked, low.

John didn’t lie. “No.”

The quiet after that felt heavier, but not sharp. Not cutting. Just a shared weight that neither of them knew how to name yet. That made space without offering solutions.

“I’m scared,” he admitted, voice small, before he could walk himself back from it. “Not about what they’ll say. Just… that this is all we’ll be now. Headlines. A lie made louder than we ever got to be true.”

“You’re not a lie,” Bob said. Voice steady. Not soft. Certain.

John turned to look at him.

Neither of them smiled. But John felt something shift. Just slightly.

They just kept looking. Long enough for the quiet to loosen.

Eventually, he reached for his phone. Scrolled through the notifications. 

The leak had spun out already. Headlines. Clips. Edits. Commentary. Think pieces.

One article had called them “synthetic lovers,” whatever that meant. 

Someone had cut the leaked footage into an edit with a sad song and called it Love and Propaganda.

A trending thread had paired it with dramatic music and a caption that read: How to fake love in three acts.

He shut it off.

Bob watched him but didn’t ask.

He set the phone face-down on the nightstand.

“They’re eating it alive,” he said. “The story. The leak. Us.”

Bob didn’t react, not exactly. His fingers tightened just slightly where they curled against John’s hand under the sheets. Not enough to hurt. Just an anchor.

“They’ve already decided what we are,” he went on, voice low. “There’s no space for truth anymore.”

“You can’t stop people from choosing their version,” Bob said. “You can only decide what you want to give them next.”

He let that sit for a second.

It wasn’t hope. It wasn’t optimism. Not the bright, naive kind. Just clarity. Brutal and grounded.

“I don’t even know if we’ll get the chance.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “PR might throw us under the bus by morning. Valentina might just light the whole damn thing herself.”

Bob shifted closer. The sheets rustled. His knee bumped John’s. His voice stayed level.

“If we go down,” Bob said, “we go down together.”

John laughed—quiet, pained. “Not the best slogan.”

“Not the worst,” Bob replied. “And still true.”

John was quiet for a long time. He could feel Bob watching him. Not waiting—just being there.

Which somehow was worse. 

Somehow meant more.

“I keep thinking about how people are going to frame this,” John said finally. “That it was a play. A manipulation tactic. That none of it was real. And maybe they’re right. At first, it wasn’t.”

He turned his head. Met Bob’s eyes. “But they’ll never see what it turned into.”

Bob didn’t blink. “I don’t care if they do.”

John swallowed. “I do,” he said. Then softer, “But only because I hate that they think the real part was a lie.”

The room dimmed a little further as the hours edged towards night. But neither of them moved to turn on the light. The rest of the building was silent, but it wasn’t peace—it was pressure. A storm circling outside their door, waiting for its cue.

He watched the ceiling like it might collapse. He felt the weight of everything unsaid.

And still, Bob didn’t let go.

The silence in the room changed shape. The kind that got under John’s ribs. He was about to speak again—say something lighter, offer a way out—when he saw it.

A dark ripple at the edge of Bob’s outline. Not creeping. Not loud. Just present.

The Void.

Not in the room. Not in the bed. Just behind him. Hovering the way a bad memory does—like it doesn’t want to ruin things, just remind you that it could.

John didn’t name it.

He didn’t have to.

He moved his thumb over Bob’s hand. Slow. Intentional.

“You’re not going to ruin this,” he said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Bob didn’t answer. But his mouth pressed tight. His brow twitched. His hand didn’t move.

John kept going. “I don’t know how to do this,” he murmured. “I’ve run from everything that felt too real. But I’m not running from this. Not from you.”

Bob’s breath shook once. Barely audible. But it broke the stillness.

The dark flicker behind him faded, almost shy.

“Let this be new,” Bob said.

John turned his face again. Closer now. A breath. Maybe less.

“We don’t have to be what they think,” Bob said. “We don’t even have to be what they want. We just have to mean it.”

John nodded. “I do.”

“I know.”

They didn’t kiss again. Didn’t need to.

They just stayed like that. Fingers tangled under the sheets. Breathing in the same air. 

At some point, John’s phone buzzed again. 

Just once.

He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to let the noise back in. But he did.

One message. From Olivia.

I’m not watching the headlines. I’m watching you. Whatever this is, whatever it becomes, I’m proud of how you’re showing up in it.

John stared at it.

A slow exhale slipped out of him. Not relief. Not quite.

Just… something soft, folding loose inside his chest.

He read the message again. Then, he turned the screen so Bob could read it.

His brow furrowed slightly as he read. His mouth twitched, just a little. His hand didn’t quite leave John’s.

“She was always too good at that,” John said quietly.

“At what?”

“Knowing what to say when I don’t.”

Bob’s eyes softened. “She’s right.”

John shrugged. “Doesn’t feel like I’m showing up. Feels like I’m holding my breath.”

“Maybe that’s still something,” Bob said. “Even a breath is a choice.”

John looked at him.

And held on.

Outside, the storm circled louder. But for now, it couldn’t reach them here.

Not in this bed. Not in this breath.

Not yet.