Archive of Our Own

It’s a battlefield. A big, bad, serious battlefield, and not the kind that John Walker has been on before, though he’s been on what he’d previously considered hundreds of battlefields. But not like this. This was different. This was ash and destruction and blood and smoke. It was like a battlefield out of a movie, out of the past. Trenches and barbed wire. Except instead of trenches it’s gouges scraped into the earth by metal and laser, and instead of barbed wire it’s shrapnel and shattered space ships.

And it’s a battle. A horrible, hands on, tooth-and-claw battle to the death. Not a fight. Not a mission. A battle. A war.

It feels like he’s been fighting for a year, taking on robot after robot after godforsaken robot. By now, hours into it, it feels like the onslaught will never end. This is his life now. His brain is totally fried, his mouth is full of ash, his muscles are burning. All that’s left of John Walker is violence, the next robot coming after him, the single-minded focus required to not die. Because he can’t die yet. Not before all this is over and he’s sure he’s done his part.

He smashes his shield hard into the face of yet another robot, feeling it stick nastily in the mechanics. Wrenching it out viciously, Walker takes the thing's brain with him, ripping out the wiring, effectively killing it. Trying to clear his mouth, he spits a glob of wet filth onto what remains of the robot's head. Christ, he’s sick of these things. He hates them. They’re bigger than him, and their stupid capes make him want to scream. There’s a million of them, it seems like, with their ghoulish metal faces and crushing metal hands, and they just keep coming.

Walker stands with his chest heaving, trying to catch his breath in the moment before the next one comes. He wipes at his face, coming away with sweat and dirt and blood. One at a time. It’s how he’s been handling this whole thing. One murder robot at a time. One at a time, stay alive. That’s it. That’s his entire mindset, and that’s all it’s been for hours, and all it will be for his foreseeable future. One at a time, stay alive. Live and fight and fight and live.

Keep ‘em busy , Sam had said. Keep ‘em off us. So that’s what Walker is doing— him and the rest of the ground level losers. Holding the line against a never ending wave of metal monsters so the big boys can do the big fighting.

Ava was next to him for a while. When the fighting started, they were together— watching each other’s backs, fighting side by side. Now he doesn’t know where she is. He doesn’t know where anyone is. He wouldn’t have let anything happen to her, if he could only have kept track of her. He knows he’d die for her, for any of them. For anyone on this field who isn’t a fucking evil robot.

But he doesn’t want to. He wants to live. He plans to live. So he has to keep fighting.

The whir of machinery hits his ears like a scream, and he whips around, shield at the ready. Another robot is rushing at him, its hands raised and ready to crush him, to throttle him, to rip him apart.

He’s exhausted, drained, starting to drag. It sucks that he ran out of bullets hours ago.

The thing looms over him, too close, too big. They don’t get tired. They don’t get distracted. They just come and come and come. And this one feels like… the one that might get him.

If he lets it.

One at a time. Survive.

He grits his teeth and digs his feet into the dirt. “Come on, fucker,” he growls through a clenched jaw, bracing his bent and battered shield in front of him with both hands. “I’m not done yet.”

Then something hits him. Not physically, not really. More like wind. A wash of air and electric current and energy that sweeps past him, through him, sending a full body shiver crackling up from his toes to his fingertips and the crest of his skull. His skin erupts in goosebumps and every single hair stands on end. Even after the wind, or whatever, has passed, the shiver lingers on his scalp, tingling. The smell of ozone and rust rushes into his nostrils. It reminds him of blood. The sharp tang of it.

And the robot in front of him just… stops. Freezes up. Short circuits? Either way, it stops so abruptly that its forward momentum carries it careening into the dirt at John’s feet. He has to skitter two steps back to keep from getting tripped by the limp metal corpse. It’s very dead, he can tell, but for good measure, he smashes its head in anyway.

Turning around, he looks for the next one.

But there isn’t a next one. It doesn’t come. The field has gone quiet and all the robots have ground to a halt and collapsed.

It’s over.

It’s over?

Walker shakes his head, trying to clear the red from his vision, the smoke from his eyes. His hair is falling over his forehead, sticking to his skin, his beret lost long ago. It’s over, and somehow, against all odds, he’s still standing. Now there’s the question of what comes after. He needs to get his head out of fight-or-die mode and back into something closer to normalcy, something that can comprehend a future outside of the next two minutes, so he can figure out what to do next.

He has to find Ava. Has to find the others. Has to see who needs help and help them.

First, he takes a moment to check himself out— There’s a big rip in the side of his uniform and a smaller one at his bicep, each accompanied by smudges of drying blood. He doesn’t remember getting either of those, but he clearly caught a couple strays during all the fighting. Hard to believe this is it, really, he thinks as he pokes at his ribs. Those robots were fast and nasty; it’s lucky he isn’t sliced to ribbons. For now, he’s barely even feeling it. Adrenaline is still thrumming through him, and the goosebumps from whatever stopped the robots haven’t totally settled down yet either. His skin feels electrified more than anything. At most he’s a little sore, a little drained, but it feels more like the satisfying ache of a good workout than anything worse. For now. He’s okay.

The ground around him is silent and empty, scattered with dead robots and gray ash. There’s no sign of anyone living, or even flesh. Is that a good sign, because he can’t see his friends' dead bodies strewn around? Or bad, because he can’t see them at all?

“Ava?” He yells through a throat coated in sandpaper. She has to be here— someone has to be here, somewhere. He can’t possibly be alone. “Ava?”

“John!?” That crisp British accent has never sounded more beautiful. Ava appears out of the air like a miracle, running towards him at full speed. Her hair is a mess and there’s a big scratch on her forehead, but otherwise she looks unharmed.

“Thank god!” He runs to her and they collide into each other’s arms, painfully crashing together. Walker picks her up and spins her around, laughing, ecstatic. They lived. They came to a fight that was unbelievably above their pay grade as guys who only punch and shoot, and they made it out the other side. “Are you okay? Have you seen—”

“I’m fine,” she grins. “Yelena and Alexei are over there—” Turning in his arms, she points over a ridge behind her.

Hand in hand, they hurry over together, scrabbling over debris and shattered robot bodies until they crest the hill. Then, yes, there’s Yelena and Alexei, sitting down in the dirt at the base of a rise of earth. Exhausted. Dirty. Alexei with one arm held against his chest, maybe broken, or just bruised. Yelena is fussing with her gauntlets and a hole in her pants. They’re alive, and whole. At seeing John and Ava coming towards them, Yelena puts both her fists triumphantly into the air. Alexei lets out a massive howl.

“New Avengers!” He shouts. “That’s what’s good!”

Sliding down the loose dirt and trotting over to them, Walker finds himself patting both their arms, testing their solidity. He asks, “You guys are okay?”

“Mostly. Good enough.” Yelena smiles so wide it forms creases in the eyeliner that’s smeared down one side of her face. “You?”

He nods while Ava makes her way over to drop into the dirt at Yelena’s side. She bumps their shoulders together and Yelena bonks her head against Ava’s arm. Then, carefully, Ava asks, “Bucky…?”

“He’s with Wilson.” Yelena waves vaguely behind her. “I just saw him. He’s fine.”

It’s a relief. It’s a huge relief.

Though it still leaves one of them unaccounted for.

Embarrassingly, John’s voice cracks when he asks, “And Bob?”

Yelena’s grin falters. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

Not that he was exactly relaxed and easy before, but the tightness that abruptly grips John’s chest squeezes all the air out of him. He’s being silly, he reminds himself with force. If any of them would be fine, if there was anyone in their little group who he shouldn’t have to worry about… But this wasn’t like fights they’ve been in before, where Bob would be able to handle himself even without his god-like superpowers. This wasn’t street level crooks or even a couple overpowered goons with delusions. This was a genuine crisis, a real end-of-the-world situation. An army of evil robots and a guy in a mask to control them, a wizard who wanted to take their world and crush it.

Walker looks around at the dreadful scene surrounding them. There were so many of them at the start. Avengers and New Avengers and guys from space and people John not only hadn’t met before but hadn’t heard of. And Bob, looking sheepish in his Sentry suit, but brave. Determined.

Yelena and Walker had seen him off, Yelena with her arms crossed and John with his hands on his hips, telling Bob to be careful, that he didn’t have to do this, that if it was too much, or if he ever felt like he wasn’t in control, if anything felt wrong, or bad, he could back out. No one would blame him, or hold it against him. He did not have to do this. Bob had blushed and insisted he was fine, ready, confident even. He wanted to help.

And now he’s missing.

John’s stomach sinks to think they lost anyone at all. But he knows how wars go. It would be a miracle if everyone who showed up to fight made it home. It’s already a miracle that the four of them standing there are still alive. He’s not proud to admit it, but John had basically thought they were all goners the moment the dudes from space showed up. Pack it up, call it a day, that’s a wrap on the New Avengers. Space wizards were not what they are suited to fight. They would show up and do it, sure, and they had, but in the grand scheme of superhero-dom, they were embarrassingly underpowered. And therefore expendable. Not strong enough to really help, not superpowered enough to make a difference. They were bodies. They were cannon fodder. John Walker had accepted that— about himself, anyway. If Sam Wilson and Mr. Stretchy Space Guy needed him to lay down his life and buy time fighting killer robots while they stopped an evil metal man from ripping apart the fabric of time and space, well, okay, John could do that. He could throw himself on a grenade. No problem, he’d done it before. He could die for a cause. He’d been waiting to do it his whole life, basically.

So he’d been ready and willing to die, if he had to.

He didn’t like it, but he’d do it. And he’d accepted that some of his team might go out with him, sad to say. They were just people, after all. They weren’t gods.

Before they’d parted ways, Bob had smiled at him shyly, so sweetly, and assured him that he would be fine. That nothing could kill him, remember? He was a god. An immortal demi-god with limitless powers. He’d been so embarrassed to say it but they all knew it was true. It wasn't exactly as comforting as it should have been.

John had wanted to beg him to stay back, to stay with him. But he knew Bob was needed elsewhere because of Bob's wondrous ability to fly and take bullets without flinching and absorb explosions without batting an eye. So he had to go fight with the big guns, and John had to stay back and watch him go and do his part keeping a thousand fucking robots busy.

Swallowing the horrible feeling that that was the last time they’d ever see each other (because John was going to his death, surely, obviously), he’d punched Bob in the arm and grunted out, “Good luck out there, Bobby. Be careful.”

And Bob had smiled in that fragile, twitchy way of his, and gone off to save the world.

He hadn’t even considered that Bob might die, not really. Not kind, sweet, powerful, invulnerable, invincible, nuclear-powered Bob. His greatest worry had been that Bob wouldn’t have the support he needed in the aftermath. That he wouldn’t be able to handle that his fragile human friends had died, and no one would be able to help him through it. It would be pretty bad to save the world only to have it get voided out.

But John didn't have to worry about that now, because he'd made it. They’d all made it. And they were all together.

Except Bob.

But Bob couldn’t… he couldn’t be—

He couldn’t. He couldn’t possibly. Not if there was any justice in the world at all. No fair universe would ever, ever, allow Bob to die while John Walker survived.

Yelena shakes him out of it— “Walker?”

She’s looking at him like she did in the vault all that time ago. Like he’s about to jump off a cliff.

Panic is rising in his throat, which he forcibly shoves down under the auspice of doing something. Forceful, like he’s giving orders, he barks, “He’s gotta be here. He’s somewhere. He must be. So we gotta find him.” With a sharp jerk of a nod, he charges away, leaving Yelena, Ava, and Alexei behind with their jaws hanging down. Clambering up the other side of the hill, he comes out of a valley of dirt and into a landscape of pure wreckage and destruction that takes his breath away. It's horrible. It's total desolation, the ground razed to nothingness. It hardly looks like Earth.

Stumbling down towards the worst of it, he spots Bucky and Sam, both bloodied but on their feet. Sam’s flying sidekick is there. The big rock guy. The kid who lights on fire (Johnny something, which Walker only remembers because whenever the rock guy called for him, John would turn around only to be rebuffed). They’re all okay. All bruised and battered, but alive and well.

And none of them are Bob.

“Bob?” he asks, panting as he runs towards them, as if someone will point him out, like John just hasn’t looked in the right place yet. Like Bob is standing right behind him, and won’t he feel silly when he finally turns around and sees him. Please, for the love of god—

The fire kid blinks at him, confused. He points to his own chest and slowly intones, “Johnny. I’m Johnny, remember? Are you okay, pal?”

Like he’s talking to someone with fucking brain damage.

“No,” John snarls. Johnny flinches. “Christ. Have you seen Bob? Sentry? Come on, the golden god? He’s—” He gestures broadly, trying to think of a good way to describe Bob. All that comes to his mind are Bob’s big deep blue eyes and his nervous little smiles and the way he snorts when he laughs too hard. Lamely, he tries, “He’s tall? He’s got a, a cape?”

He feels stupid and impotent, and on edge like if he doesn’t get some information about Bob right this fucking second, he’s absolutely going to lose it. Somebody here must’ve seen him. Sam was in charge of this whole fucking thing, wasn’t he? Shouldn’t he have known where Bob was? What happened to him?

“Hello? Anybody?”

Bucky sighs, looking at him with pity. The rock guy puts his hand on John’s shoulder. “Hey, bud, it’s okay—”

John rips his arm away, barking, “I’m not your fucking bud, dude.” That’s it, it’s happening. He’s losing it. He cannot be pitied right now. His nerves are too shredded to handle this with grace. He’s crashing out and stressed and scared to fucking death , so, of course, he’s angry and so of course he’s lashing out. That’s how he is, that’s how things go for him. At least he knows it. Bucky grimaces at his outburst and the rock guy’s face makes a grinding sound as it readjusts into a deep frown. John hisses a breath in, trying to calm down. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, his voice trembling. “I’m just, I’m looking for— Look, he’s important—” He almost says to me, but the words catch in his throat. That’s too much. Bob’s important no matter what he means to John. He’s important all on his own. “I, I have to find him. I— Please.”

Bucky steps forward. “Walker, breathe, okay? Listen…”

“If something happened to him—” he gasps, barely able to keep his voice even approaching steady, looking desperately at Bucky. If there was ever anyone who would tell him the truth, who wouldn’t lie to him, it’s got to be Bucky. “Look, just tell me. You were with him, weren’t you? Bucky, please. I need to know.”

A giant rock hand lands gently, but heavily, against his back. He hadn’t been paying attention and it makes him jump, surprised, then holds him down to earth. The weight is comforting, grounding, and the hand is warm, really warm, heat emanating off him like a summer sidewalk. John shudders, reminded of how hot Bob runs. Horribly, his knees wobble. He manages to stay upright, but it’s a near thing; he feels like glass, ready to shatter.

Then, a voice: “There you guys are. Hey, everybody.”

John’s heart stops. The rocky hand on his back has to turn him around to see the source of that voice.

“That him?”

Like an angel coming down out of the clouds, Bob flies down from above. His hair is lighter than it was when they parted ways, more blond, and shining as it lifts off his face. His cape flutters in the breeze. He’s alive. Hardly even dirty. And smiling.

John’s jaw drops. Bob is holding a decapitated robot head in one hand and in the other, propped against his hip, is a fucking bouncing blond toddler.

Johnny the human matchstick exclaims, “Frankie!”

At the same moment, John Walker the mostly plain-old human gasps with overwhelming relief, “Bobby?”

Bob’s smile widens. His boots touch the ground as he carelessly drops the robot head with a thump. The kid in his arms hoots, unhappy, and Bob curls in around him, tickling the kid’s chin and taking a moment to coo and comfort him.

Shit, John gulps. Look at him. His vision wobbles and wavers, going briefly dark around the edges. Relief, definitely. And something else, probably.

The baby reaches for the rock guy, but it’s the fire kid who steps forward gladly to take him off Bob’s hands.

“Bye, buddy,” Bob whispers, waving with the tips of his fingers.

The toddler whispers back, “Bye, Bobby,” as he goes happily into the matchstick’s arms. Bob keeps his eyes firmly on the kid until he’s nestled against chest, his little arms around the cozy knit of the uniform at Johnny’s neck.

Finally, Bob turns towards Walker and John gets a look at Bob’s big, beautiful, blue eyes. His heart, which had stopped for a minute there, starts pounding against his ribs like it wants to get out. Like it wants to get to Bob, and fast. He sympathizes.

Softly, Bob says, “Hey Walker.”

And John, instead of saying any of the thousand sappy, wild, important things that are whirling around in his head, blurts out, “Whose baby is that? Who brought a baby to this?”

Surprised, Bob blinks, then laughs. It starts as a hiccup burbling out of him and ends as a snort. “He’s Reed and Sue’s.” Like it’s obvious and like that explains everything.

“Who?”

The laugh turns warm and rich, and the rock guy and the human torch laugh too. Like this has anything to do with them. Like John has any interest in hearing their laughter mingle with Bob’s perfect low rumble of a voice.

“You’re so bad with names…” Bob chuckles, his face going soft, very soft. He takes a few stiff steps forward and reaches out for John with one trembling hand. His fingertips brush against John’s face. His eyes shine as he murmurs, “You’re okay… I was so worried. I was so scared something would happen, and…”

“Yeah,” John chokes. “Me too.”

“John…”

A heartbeat passes, or maybe a lifetime, before Bob zooms to him faster than John’s eyes can follow and is on top of him, wrapped around him, his arms around John’s shoulders, his face pressed into John’s throat, squeezing him tightly. It knocks John’s bent shield out of his hand and he barely even notices.

He’s too busy clinging to Bob’s waist, his back, his hands clenching against Bob’s suit, under the cape, feeling the ridge of the zipper against his fingers. He holds on tight, like at any moment someone is going to drag Bob away from him, which he wouldn’t, couldn’t, allow.

“Bob… Thank god, Bob…”

“I’m here,” Bob whispers against his skin.

That does it. John breaks. He shatters.

He starts to cry. Really cry. He goes from zero to sobbing into Bob’s hair, wet, wrenching sobs that wrack his body so badly that Bob has to hold him up. And he can’t stop. He doesn’t totally know what’s happening to him, an adrenaline crash probably, but he can’t reel it in no matter how hard he blinks and sniffles and tries to tamp it down. This isn’t like him, he’s not emotional like this. He’s really not. It’s embarrassing that it’s happening, and that Bucky and Sam Wilson and the fucking rock guy are certainly all staring at him as he weeps against Bob’s soft, beautiful, unhurt cheek.

He shouldn't care because it doesn’t matter, really, does it? Because Bob is safe and here with him and everyone’s safe and it’s over, it’s all going to be okay—

Isn’t he allowed a little breakdown? Isn’t he due one?

Bob’s hands shift to run through his hair. He pulls away only enough to press forward again, putting their foreheads together, his hands holding the sides of John’s face.

“You’re okay?” He asks gently. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

John nods. Uncontrollable sobbing aside, he’s fine. A little scratched up, very tired, aching in his muscles and bones, sure. He’s covered in dirt and robot blood, but he’s fine. Whatever little things might be wrong with him don’t matter because Bob’s here. He doesn’t care about his own little hurts because all that matters in his entire life is that he’s alive and Bob is alive, and their friends are alive, the world is saved, and they’re together. So he’s not just okay, he’s fantastic.

Bob’s hands run over his cheeks, wiping away smears of dirt, blood, tears. All of it. Who knows. John sniffles. There are still tears pouring down his face, cutting tracks through the grime. Bob’s attempts to mop him up are to no avail; he can feel wetness dripping off his jaw.

“Bobby, I…”

Then more hands are on him— he can barely see but he recognizes the hard metal press of Bucky’s arm, Yelena’s little hand slipping around his waist, Ava’s rough glove against the back of his neck, Alexei’s forceful grip squeezing them all together.

Still sobbing, John dissolves into wild, hiccuping laughter. Relief. Wonder. He hadn’t even noticed Yelena, Ava, and Alexei coming to join them. But here they all are. And Bob. All of them holding each other and laughing in delight, and not some disbelief, at being alive and together. Their stupid little family all made it.

He’s so happy— happy in a way he didn’t think was possible. Bursting with it, feeling like he might float away or explode into confetti. They’re alive, all of them alive, and Bob is grinning at him not even an inch away. A real, big grin too. Easy and free and toothy, without any of the tightness that often colors Bob’s smiles. His hands are still pawing over John’s wet face and against John’s hair. It’s the most wonderful feeling, the most wonderful moment of his entire life, he thinks. He’s never felt this good. Not at his wedding, not when they told him he was going to be Captain America, not when he took the serum, not when his kid was born. Nothing has ever been like this. His whole brain is glittering rapturously, crackling and sparkling like a firecracker. Not a single coherent, conscious thought passes through his head when he leans forward and kisses Bob firmly, decisively, exuberantly, on the mouth. It just feels right, so he does it.

Bob gasps against him, then quickly kisses back, his hands in John’s hair tightening.

The world melts away to just Bob— Bob in his arms, Bob’s lips against his lips, and then, impossibly, wonderfully, Bob’s tongue sweeping against his teeth, then against his own tongue, finding an easy push and drag that’s heavenly.

They’ve been dancing towards this for months, John realizes like a light bulb snapping on in his mind. They’ve been spiraling inch by inch towards each other for as long as they’ve known each other, drawn together almost in spite of themselves. What has the last fourteen months been like, after all? Mornings when John cooked for them, made Bob’s favorite foods without having to be asked. Long, simple days side by side, taking excursions out of the tower to buy books or snacks or simply explore a city neither of them had lived in before. Nights where Bob had fallen asleep with his head against John’s knee as they watched a movie, or some old TV show, or nothing at all. They’d been friends quickly, almost effortlessly, bantering and joking, pushing each other's buttons and laughing it off.

Friendship had turned into an amorphous more-than-friends long ago, even if John hadn’t exactly noticed the shift. He knows this man, knows him so well, so intimately already.

John knows him and John loves him. The light bulb of his brain gets impossibly brighter, then explodes. John loves him. Of course he does. What else had he been doing for the past fourteen months other than falling in love? Staring at Bob's profile and listening to his laugh and admiring his arms. It’s obvious. Duh. How had he been so dumb that he hadn't realized it before?

He recognizes Bob’s sly sense of humor in the way his tongue traces the corner of his mouth, recognizes his artful, elegant hands in the way he tugs at his hair. He loves him.

This is what his whole life has been leading to, John thinks vaguely. Bob.

A year of vague and strange flirting, five years of grief before that, all of it layered over a lifetime of mild discomfiture, like he didn’t fit quite right anywhere— not at home, not with Olivia, not in the military, not as a superhero— and that had been fine, just fine, sometimes good, but… now he knows it wasn’t. Not when life can feel like this. Not when he can feel warmth from Bob’s lips and taste sunshine on Bob’s tongue.

It's pretty stupid that it took a world-ending crisis to finally get here.

Bob eventually, slowly, peels their mouths apart, humming happily.

The world starts to come back into shape. It starts with the crushing pressure of four bodies around them, which is an added wonder of warmth and care. Then comes the sickly smell of oil and ash and ozone, which is not so nice. Then the thunderclap of someone applauding them. The fucking rock guy.

Fuck.

Walker’s gears are beginning to grind back to life, his brain is starting to boot back up, and he isn’t exactly thrilled with what it’s starting to tell him.

First: He’s been kissing Bob in the middle of a crowd, in plain view of everyone. Not just kissing him either, but as good as mauling him. Maybe Alexei, Ava, Yelena, and Bucky, still holding the two of them, had shielded some of it from sight, and the larger crowd hadn’t seen the sloppy way Bob’s tongue had run across John’s upper lip... But that fucking space dude made of rocks is clapping for them. So probably they’d all seen it.

Second: He’s still crying. Messy tears are still streaming down his face. His skin feels hot and slick and uncomfortable, and he’s sure he’s blotchy.

“Are you okay?” Bob whispers to him sweetly, just between the two of them. “You’re really red.”

He nods weakly, not trusting himself to speak. It’s embarrassing, and frustrating, because he knows it shouldn’t be. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, except for the eyes of a bunch of semi-strangers on him, who all saw him kissing Bob, which he loved and isn’t ashamed of, but he doesn’t exactly want to have a press conference about it either.

To his left, Bucky is giving him a warm, almost proud, definitely knowing, obnoxious smile. His metal hand holds John’s shoulder and rings him like a bell.

Five years ago, Bucky would’ve been more likely to hurl him off a cliff than hug him. Now look at them. John may have been falling in love with Bob over fourteen months, but he’d been making friends with Bucky too. And Yelena, and Ava, and Alexei.

A rush of feeling rises in him, so John follows an absolutely completely brainless instinct in the footsteps of a totally desperate but true emotional outburst: he turns to Bucky and kisses him too. And then Ava, and then Yelena, who are both too surprised to act disgusted as he plants big, silly, smackeroos of kisses onto their laughing mouths. Alexei, seeing what’s going on, beats him to it, wrapping his big, strong hand around the back of John’s neck and pulling him into a whopper of a kiss. Bob watches with surprise and elation, giggling.

Then Alexei kisses Yelena on the top of her head, then Ava on her cheek. Bucky tries to wriggle away but Alexei catches him and lays a big one on him. Bucky groans and Alexei laughs, big and booming. Delighted, Yelena barks a laugh too, and turns her head to kiss Ava—

It goes on like that, the six of them kissing each other through giddy laughter, being silly, trading kisses easily and happily, like this is something they’ve always done. Like it isn’t totally brand new, and like it wasn’t caused by John experiencing a rush of more joy than his rational mind could handle.

It’s good, and nice, and feels like… like home, and family, and unconditional love.

Having delivered his last peck of a kiss to Yelena’s widely grinning mouth, Bob turns back to John. Bob’s glowing, looking at him with a beautiful twinkle in his eye. Amused and happy, and like he totally gets it. That the first kiss, their kiss, was something special. Something just for them. The rest of the kisses were earnestly felt, but different. Friendly kisses. Nice kisses. Loving kisses. But not loving in the way John thinks he can never do without again.

Bob leans in and presses a final, lingering kiss onto John’s lips. He’s blushing, back to smiling in his cramped, shy way, showing just a hint of his nice white teeth. Then he turns his head away, looking out at the assembled crowd of heroes watching them, and at their dearly loved friends tucked in tightly around them.

At which point the big rock guy lumbers over and gets his arms around all six of them. He crushes them in a big hug, lifting them off the ground like a gaggle of children.

“This is what I love to see!” He exclaims in his gravely voice. His New York-y accent sounds impossible to John, like an accent out of an old timey movie. Not real. But nothing about the rock guy and his clear blue eyes seems possible, or real. Yet bizarrely real he is. Was he always rocks? Did something happen that made him rocks? The whole world is a whirlwind right now and it’s too much to try and unpack. Too many people, too many weird impossibilities. Well, what’re you gonna do about it? Rock guy shakes them, all friendliness. “Really beautiful. Come on, Walker, you got a kiss for me?”

Blushing furiously, John ducks his head away. “I don’t know you, man.”

“Sure you do.” The rock guy grins and claps a big hand against his boulder of a chest. “I’m your buddy, Ben. Lay one on me.”

Which is how John Walker gets lassoed into depositing kisses on a dozen people he barely knows. At first it seems like they’re teasing him, giving him a ribbing for his outlandish show of affection for Bob and his team. But in the end, it’s… nice. Rock guy, Ben, is like kissing a brick wall but he wraps John in his giant warm arms and squeezes him hard enough to crack a joint in his back and make him feel like a kid again. Johnny the annoying human torch declares that John really isn’t his type seconds before laughingly trying to get his tongue down John’s throat. Sam Wilson sidles up like he’s been waiting in a line for an hour, and taps his lips while batting his eyelashes. John rolls his eyes and delivers the kiss. Sam’s sidekick, Joaquin (Bob remembers his name before John does, but the important thing is that one of them remembered it) tries to wave off receiving a kiss, but gets warmly bullied (mostly by Sam) into accepting a peck on the cheek. It’s stupid. It’s embarrassing. It’s silly. But eventually John stops crying, at least.

As the rest of their group of heroes start to congregate after having been scattered across the field and kicked and dragged all over, Ben the rock guy cheerily insists John kiss all of them too. Starting with the stretchy guy and the beautiful lady who can make force fields. She giggles when he politely, respectfully, kisses her cheek, and then holds the sides of his face to kindly kiss him back. He feels like a kid kissing his aunt goodbye after a family reunion, even though she’s probably his age. The stretchy guy, her husband, thankfully isn’t bothered by any of it. In fact, he stretches his cheek to be a bigger target when it’s his turn to be kissed.

All through it, the rest of his team stands on the sidelines, watching and grinning, all warmth, all pride. Bob holds the edge of his cape in his hands and whispers to Yelena, the pair of them giggling together like gossipy schoolgirls. When John finds himself holding the magic toddler and pressing a kiss into his soft blond hair, he looks up to catch Bob staring at him, smiling softly. He’s glowing, and not metaphorically this time— his skin is giving off a genuine hum of light and warmth. It’s so beautiful, John can’t look away. Their eyes stay locked together, and John feels a few pathetic tears slip down his cheeks. Jesus, he just cannot keep it together today, can he? It’s just that seeing Bob, seeing all of them, makes him so…

Bob seems to realize something of what his own face is doing and his expression tightens up. The glow fades. Bob gives him a cheery, absurd, thumbs up and a wink, then turns his focus firmly back to Yelena. John makes a face— then the baby is being taken out of his hands by the stretchy guy, and John’s being pulled away to another group of people he’s barely met, who he’s now expected to kiss.

Including— and this the most ridiculous one of all— the fucking Hulk.

It’s a weird day.

Then, just like that, people start to wander away. It’s over. A few groups continue to linger here and there, standing around and talking, not quite ready to go back to wherever home— and normal life— might be for them. Bob gets pulled away by the toddler’s parents, Reed and Sue (as John has now been aggressively reminded), and stands talking with them, awkwardly toying with the gauntlets of his suit when he isn’t holding the baby’s hands and making faces.

John, caught standing with Sam and Bucky, can’t stop looking over at Bob and the baby. Sue kisses Bob’s cheeks and holds his hands as she speaks to him. It’s obvious she’s thanking him for saving their kid. The kid in question pulls at Bob’s hair, and Bob laughs and lets him. He’s so easy with the little guy. They’re so cute together. It’s distracting.

All he can think about is how much he adores that man, and frankly, about Bob’s mouth against his, how right and good it had felt. How… obvious it had been. He should’ve been kissing Bob for thirteen months. He should’ve kissed him the moment Bob remembered the events of the Void and had come to linger in his bedroom doorway and thank him specially for knocking out his dad, for pulling him back from the edge. That (and the few hours afterwards where they perched on the edge of John’s bed and talked awkwardly about childhood horrors) had been the start of the more that had developed between them. John just hadn’t known it for a long time.

He’s not going to waste any more time, he thinks. Not ever again.

“Hey, Walker,” Sam snaps his fingers in front of John’s eyes, and John flinches, finding himself back in a conversation he’d totally lost track of. “You with us?”

“Huh?”

“Stop mooning and pay attention, man.”

Bucky slings his arm around John’s shoulder and gives him a friendly, firm shake. “Cut him some slack, Sam. He just got more action than he’s had in five years.”

“Very funny, Barnes.” He rolls his eyes, grumbling. “Says the hundred year old virgin.”

“You know that’s not true.”

Sam steps in. “All I’m asking is if Walker has any ideas on clean up.”

“Clean up?” He glances around. They’re in the middle of nowhere and everything is smashed to pieces. What could they possibly have to clean up? “No.”

“Aren’t you the New Avengers? You gotta be responsible for some of the work.”

“Aren’t you the old Avengers?” John sneers back at him. “Isn’t this what you sued us over?”

“I didn’t sue you—”

“Okay, okay, this is a team effort, guys,” Bucky puts a hand on both their arms to keep them apart. Walker huffs, putting his hands on his hips. He’s not really trying to start a fight, and he’s too tired to carry through on one, but he’s raw and agitated and getting a little bitchy. Bucky can tell, obviously. “We’ll figure it out together.”

“Then you figure it out,” John snaps, turning to dismissively grunt to Sam, “He’s the leader, not me.”

With that, he excuses himself while Bucky starts to explain that he’s co-leader, at best, Yelena’s really the leader, he just supports her—

Good luck with that.

John cuts over to join Bob where he’s still with two of the fantastical space people. Bob senses him coming and turns to greet him with a big smile. It eases some of the tension in John’s shoulders, just seeing that.

“Hey.” He hooks an arm around John’s elbow and pulls him close. Reed and Sue smile at him, at them. “They’re gonna stay with us, uhm, until they can go home. That’s okay, right?”

“What? Yeah, of course.” John snorts, shrugs. “Our place is like, enormous.”

Twenty minutes later, Bob has his arm loosely propped on John’s shoulder as he waves the Fantastic Four off towards their glitzy, sleek spaceship. A plan has been made to meet back in New York.

“Is that their name? Fantastic?” John asks out the side of his mouth, genuinely curious. He met a lot of people in a very short time frame today. And then they all split up and fought for their lives. He can’t remember everything he was told. The Fantastic Four, as a name, he has in his head. Reed and Sue and Ben and Johnny. Okay. Their last names he didn’t catch, if they were ever told to him. “Reed and Sue Fantastic?”

Bob’s head tilts as he thinks about it. “Uhm. I don’t think so.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah, but they’re from like… another dimension or something. So.” Seeing them safely in their spaceship, which really puts their repurposed jet to shame, all things considered, Bob turns his attention to John, putting on a bright smile that scrunches his nose. “Hey, you know, you were really good today. By the way.”

John’s chin tucks back. What would Bob know about it? He did so well that his bent shield has a big chunk out of the rim, and he plays with it as he answers. “Me? Because I didn’t die? You’re the one who saved the world.”

Bob dips his head, shy and bashful. “Come on, no. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, I helped.” When he glances back up, his eyes are glittering and a little manic. He blinks a few times, fast. “I was pretty great, actually. You should’ve seen me.”

John has no doubt that he was great. But he doesn’t love this weird energy all of the sudden.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Huh? What do you mean? I’m, I’m—” Bob gestures up and down his totally unscuffed suit. A twitchy smile flickers across his features— “I’m invincible, remember?”

“Yeah, I know…” That’s part of the problem, John thinks. That feeling of invincibility… and maybe Bob is invincible, but it’s still not a very healthy mindset. “It’s just, before all this, you seemed pretty sure that you couldn’t be the Sentry without the Void.”

“Oh.” His shoulders twitch and he effortlessly whips up the edge of his cape only to start twisting at it with nervous fingers. “Yeah. Well. A baby was in danger… The world was in danger. I couldn’t just stay home and let you guys risk your lives and not— not do anything. Not when I could help. I had to try.”

John catches his hand before he can tear his cape to shreds. “Okay. And the Void?”

“Well... It was worth the risk. For me. I mean, I wanted to help. I had to help. This was my chance to, to be useful. To prove myself. To be…” He shrugs, more bashful than unsure. John knows what he means. His chance to be someone important, to do something meaningful, to be super. To be a hero. “And I did it. Everyone needed me, and I did it.” His eyes gleam, sparking gold. John frowns, and Bob sees. With a trembling shiver of his face, he forces the gold back down. He laughs nervously and brushes it away. “It was fine. I handled it. And… you’re fine. So, I’m fine.”

John isn’t sure if that’s a plural You, meaning all of them, or not. More, he doesn’t know if Bob really is fine. He seems different, a little off. A little manic and twitchy, a little tense, but also confident and grounded and powerful and sure of himself. All at once. It's weird, maybe not bad, but strange and unfamiliar. Well, maybe John shouldn’t push him about it. At least not now, not after the day they’ve had. He's just riding a high. They had a big win today. Let him have it, John thinks. Don't poke the bear too hard.

Letting it go, John says, “Well, you did really great. You were great.”

Bob looks at him with his twitchy smile. The wild gleam in his eye is still there, laying in wait under his tense nerves and crackling confidence. “Yeah, I really was. John, I was amazing. ”

John's frown deepens. So Bob didn't Void out. It's not too late for the Sentry to decide that while saving the world was good, world domination might be better. 

“Bob! Walker!” Yelena shouts from behind them, interrupting a moment that was about to tip into something dangerously heavier. Thank god for her impeccable timing. She comes running up to them, limping a little; whatever tore her pants during the fight hurt her leg, and it’s clearly starting to bother her. But she’s grinning as she waves them over her way with a big swing of her arm. “Come on, lovebirds, let’s go home. The jet is waiting.”

"Lovebirds?"

Bob lights up. “The jet made it?”

The jet did make it— they’re lucky it was parked so far away and therefore was outside the range of interest for hundreds of super destructive robots. That distance doesn't feel so lucky now that they have to trek back across it. It’s a longer walk than John remembered, or maybe he’s just starting to really crash from the adrenaline of the day and his body is starting to protest.

Yelena and Bucky lead the way, with Ava half a step behind them. Bob keeps stride with John a couple yards behind. He trots across the uneven ground easily, his hands clasped behind his back, while John stumbles along, really starting to feel every bruise and scrape and cut on his body. Whatever happened that ripped his uniform at the ribs stings badly and each step causes a throb of pain. It’s slowing him down and he’s falling behind. The two yards between himself and Yelena grows to three, then four. Bob doesn’t say anything about it, just slows his own stride and throws a few worried glances towards John’s torso. The dark fabric hides most of the sticky dried blood, and the good news is that he isn’t actively bleeding anymore. He’ll be okay. He’s just dragging a little. No big deal.

Alexei lingers back with them. “You could fly us, Bob,” he says, clearly attempting a conspiratorial whisper but absolutely not succeeding. Yelena whips her head around to glare at him when he says it.

John, feeling he really has to put his foot down, bites, “Alexei, no one is riding Bob, let it go, Jesus Christ—”

“Just saying! Would be quicker.” Alexei throws his hands up in defeat and stomps forward to join the rest of their group.

Bob laughs it off and keeps walking. Then, when Alexei’s back is firmly turned, he loops an arm around John’s waist, lifts him four inches off the ground, and floats them a few feet forward. The momentary weightless skip makes John’s heart leap into his throat. As Bob places them back on the ground, he glances at John with a playful glitter in his eyes and— good fucking god— winks at him. His hand drags slowly across John’s spine as he lets him go and goes back to walking like he’d never stopped.

Smiling, he leans close and says, “You know, kissing everybody was really funny.”

“Yeah,” John grunts, crushing down the flutter in his heart from being briefly flown, and the continuing embarrassment at having been harangued into playing kissing booth. He wishes nobody would ever mention it again, really, though he knows his luck won’t stretch that far. “So funny.”

Bob ignores his sour tone. “It was really nice. Kind. We needed it. It was so tense for a while there.”

They haven’t exactly had a chance to debrief. John has no idea how it went for Bob, what he went through. How tense it may have been for him. Only that he handled it. 

“Glad I could help by making a fool of myself.”

“You didn’t,” Bob insists, low and firm. Like he really means it. “You were great. Everyone liked you.” John scoffs. As if. “Sue said she thought you were really cute. That uh…” He pauses, looking down at his boots. “That I had myself a really good boyfriend there.”

The scoff turns into a cough. “Boyfriend?”

“Uhm, the word she used was ‘beau’ actually. But yeah. A really good beau.” Bob goes pink at the tips of his ears. John feels his own ears flush to match.

“Well, she doesn’t know me,” he grumbles.

“Well , I know you,” Bob teases, “and I think you’re a really good beau.” He says the word like a joke, light and playful, and bumps their shoulders together before leaning in to press a kiss to John’s cheek.

“Jesus…”

“Sorry, was that not okay?”

John turns to him incredulously. In what world would it not be okay? In what world would he not want to be kissed like that? Gently, sweetly, lightly, like it was nothing, like it was easy and normal and like Bob was so happy to do it?

Before he can find the words to answer, Bob carefully explains, “It’s just, you’re blushing so hard.”

Which certainly doesn’t help him blush less. “No, shit, sorry. Sorry.” He pauses, and they walk a little more together in silence. The rest of the team is getting further and further ahead of them. “I guess kissing the whole fucking planet didn’t fool anybody.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Just that it’s apparently really obvious that— that I—” he stutters to a halt, still frustratingly unsure how to express it. That Bob isn’t just any guy to him. That he’s special. Unique. That John is sickeningly, surely, head over heels in love with him. He searches for the right words, the right miracle of phrasing, and lands very pathetically on, “that… You know.” He huffs, annoyed at himself for being a dumb fuck who can't just say what he feels in a normal way, and tries to cover it by being annoyed at something else. “Beau , that’s ridiculous.”

Bob blinks, surprised. “I guess. But it’s not so bad, either, is it?”

“Huh?”

Bob’s not really looking at him now. He’s tense and looking everywhere else— ahead at the uneven ground and the rest of their team in the distance, at the sky and his boots and some invisible thing over his shoulder. His fingers twist together. It’s funny to see him like this, nervous and anxious but wearing his Sentry suit. The contradiction of it. It’s cute. He’s worked up about all this and trying to find the right way forward. Just like John is. With a forced lightness, like it doesn’t matter too much to him either way, Bob asks, “I mean, is that… something you’d want? Like, you… you really like me. Don’t you?”

John looks at him— at his big blue eyes and the earnest question in them.

This is the moment to commit. Bob’s asking him to, and he wants to. He takes in Bob’s open face and his wavy, ruffled hair. The slightly pink hue that’s crept from his ears to the crest of his cheekbones. They’re walking closely enough that John can feel the heat that radiates off him. Their biceps keep brushing. 

Of course he likes him. Obviously. 

Bob’s face trembles, like he’s trying to hide some feeling. John senses that his personal embarrassment, his internalized distaste for being perceived, is rubbing off on Bob and making him doubt himself and their miraculous kiss earlier, and all the still unspoken things that exist between them. So John has to force himself to be above all that. He has to get over it, and right now.

He has to say it. Bob needs to hear it.

But he wants to say it right. He wants to say the right fucking thing, instead of the wrong thing like usual. He doesn’t want to fuck this up by downplaying it, or scare Bob off by going too big. The things that are swirling around in his thoughts seem crazy, absolutely crazy, and it’s too soon to say those things, isn’t it? Although, a funny little voice in the back of his head whispers, why bother waiting? They easily could have both died today, and never been able to say anything to each other. He tries to stomp down the horrible thought that if he fucks this up like he’s fucked up so much else in his life, it would be better to be dead.

Right thing or not, he says it the best he can. Gritting his teeth, he seriously offers, “Bobby… I never french kissed anyone that I wasn’t in love with.”

Which is true. It’s a confession in a couple ways: first, that John is in love with him. Second, that he’s a little inexperienced when it comes to making out after averting doomsday. He may have planted lips on a dozen people today, but he only really kissed one person who mattered. Maybe he’s never kissed anyone who mattered more than this impossible weirdo who saved the world. Who John is in love with. Deeply, desperately, disgustingly in love with. As it turns out.

Bob blinks at him, his eyes going wide, then ducks his head, laughing with warm relief. “French kissed, god, you’re so lame.”

“Come on, man,” John grumbles. He just laid his heart out on the ground, and Bob is making fun of him. Great. Just great.

“Sorry, yeah. No. Thank you.” Bob’s fingertip brushes against the side of John’s hand, then traces the line of John’s index finger, running down to press fingerprint to fingerprint. Then his hand slips fully into John’s, finding its place easily and comfortably. Like it was made to fit there. A shiver runs down John’s spine, an egg cracked over the top of his scalp that seeps down to his tailbone. Bob's low rumble of a voice cuts directly into John’s heart— “I love you too, you dork.”

John can’t remember the last time someone said they loved him. To say it’s nice to hear would be the understatement of the century. It’s more like being placed on a bearskin rug in front of a roaring fire after being lost in a snowstorm for two days. And it’s embarrassing. Hating how hot his face feels and knowing how red he is, John grumbles, “You’re a dork. Christ, how did she even…?”

Bob interrupts— “Who?”

“Sue. Susan. The space lady. How’d she know that—?” He gestures vaguely between them. Thankfully Bob gets it.

“Yeah, hm, I wonder. Maybe she got the idea when I put my tongue in your mouth.”

Cute. Real cute.

“I guess that might’ve done it.” John mumbles. “So everybody saw that? And all the—” he gestures around his face, which still feels a little swollen. His blubbering.

“Yeah, dude, I think so. God forbid.” Bob’s laughing now, grinning at him like he’s so silly, like his pride is so silly. He sweeps in to plant another peck onto John’s cheek, which makes him flinch and flush. “Are you always gonna be like this? All grumpy?”

“No. I don’t know.” He’s annoyed at himself more than anything. This is, unfortunately, how he is. He used to be shy about PDA with Olivia too, way back when. It took a long time for him to loosen up. And he’s calcified a lot since then. He’s been through a lot and it’s made him hard and defensive. Taking a slow breath through his teeth, John tries to be less… grumpy. “Look, Bobby, I don’t care what anyone thinks, okay? I’m sorry I’m a little… annoyed that a bunch of strangers were there for what should’ve been just between us. But it’s not that I don’t want to kiss you, and, and, whatever. I really… I do love you. I do. I’m in, okay? After all this—” he waves a hand at the dead battlefield they’re hiking across. “I’m all in. I’ll be your… stupid beau. If you feel the same.”

Bob lights up slowly, happiness blooming across his face like the sun coming up in the morning. His hair glints. Still blond. Like using his powers and the delight coursing through him has lightened his hair. Maybe it has. Add it to the list of the Sentry’s confusing powers. “Definitely. Definitely I do.” He tucks his arm around John’s elbow and leans his head against John’s shoulder. John forces his body to remain relaxed. This is nice, after all. “My beau. I like it. ”

What a dork.

Thoroughly ready to change the subject, John blows a piece of Bob’s hair away from his face and tosses at him, “What about the hair?”

“What?”

“You do know that you’re blond, right? That being Sentry made you blond?”

Bob laughs, big, throwing his head back. The hand not holding John’s runs through his shiny, golden hair. “Yeah, I uh, noticed that happened. Pretty cool, huh?”

“You like it? The blond?”

“Uhm…” His smile flutters, but doesn’t crack. “Yeah, actually, I think so.”

The blond is fine, John thinks. It suits him fine, looks good, especially all loose and wavy like this. But it also sends a slightly nasty spark of remembrance through John’s guts— of being choked and tossed around and beaten. But if Bob likes it, and is confident with it, John’s not going to say anything.

He says, drier than he means to, “Great. Then that’s great. That’s what matters.”

“Why? Don’t you like it?”

John shrugs. “If you like it, I like it. But I like your normal hair fine too.”

Bob nods, thinking about it. “It could be kinda like a secret identity. Mild mannered brown haired Bob and the invincible blond Sentry.”

John glances over at the excited glitter in Bob’s eyes. It’s not quite a golden glow, but he can tell he might have to keep an eye on it. Being the Sentry worked out this time, but there’s still danger creeping around the edges of all that power. Just because he saved the world and didn’t explode doesn’t mean Bob’s cured and he’ll be able to be the Sentry without any problems in the future. He’ll never be cured. He’s Bob. Funny, weird, less-than-well Bob who can get caught up in powertrips and delusions of grandeur. It’s clear Bob liked being a hero today, and likes the idea of being the invincible blond Sentry moving forward. As long as he doesn’t lose sight of mild mannered Bob, that might even be okay. It’s something to keep an eye on, that’s all. Luckily, John isn’t opposed to keeping an eye on Bob at all.

The jet is a shining wonder when they finally make it. The ramp comes down and five tired, beaten up bodies (and one chipper golden god) make their way inside.

John makes a beeline to the medical kit, scrounges out some gauze and jams a wad of it into the hole in the side of his uniform, avoiding looking at what’s going on in there. He’s sure whatever wound is there is caked with dirt, but he’s not about to strip down and wash it out right here in the jet. So this will do for now. He’s pretty sure he won’t get gangrene in the couple hours it takes to get home, anyway.

“You okay there?” Bucky asks as he passes towards the cockpit. John grunts an affirmative and Bucky leaves him to it.

Then, Alexei claps him on the shoulder on his way past and asks, “Okay, Captain?” John growls at him in answer. Alexei has the decency not to laugh. “Okay, okay, is just you look like shit.”

“I’m tired,” John sneers, though it comes out sounding more like a pathetic whine.

Thankfully Bob’s hand slides in against his waist, and Bob’s presence guides him to sit down on a bench against the cabin wall. Being off his feet for the first time in hours that have felt like days, John’s exhaustion falls over him like a weighted blanket. Good luck ever getting him up again. He presses a hand over his ribs, applying pressure too late to his throbbing, wounded side. It helps to ease the ache a little, and generally feel like his guts aren’t going to squish out of his body.

Gently, Bob sits next to him, puts his arm around his shoulder, puts his hand against John’s skull, and guides John’s head against his shoulder to rest. He goes easily, letting his entire weight fall against Bob’s side. God, he’s so warm.

Pretty soon, the jet takes off and they’re all on their way home. The low hum and rumble of the jet is soothing, peaceful. Bob plays with John’s hair and the combination of that and the airplane white noise and Bob’s heartbeat in his ears starts to lull John into a drowsy, comfortable place.

During the flight, Bob gingerly explains what he was up to while they were all on the ground fighting for their lives against robots. It sounds pretty fucking awful, like a dark fairy tale. A magic kidnapped baby, a wizard in a mask who wanted to steal his power. And, Bob shyly reports, an appearance of the Void.

“Bob,” Yelena tsks unhappily. John shifts too, ready to make his worry known— Bob had said he was fine, and John had assumed that mean there was no Void. Which was flat out wrong, apparently. Bob tightens his hand against John’s head to hold him close, and keep him from making a fuss. 

“No, listen...” He shakes his head, dismissing both John and Yelena’s concern. “It was— He tried to use it against me, tried to use it to trick me, but it can’t…couldn’t hurt me like it used to.”

It’s been fourteen months since the last big bad Void incident, and this is big news. For fourteen months, Bob has made it clear that the Void is a permanent fixture, that he deals with it every day, that it’s never going to leave him. Even when he’s at his best and it recedes, there’s always been the clear feeling that it was just waiting. That it would be back. And that this was scary to him, and worrisome. To learn now that Bob has come to some kind of peace with the darkness that lives in his heart and mind, that it can’t hurt him anymore, as he says… well, that’s big. That’s news.

“What do you mean?” Ava asks, leaning forward in her seat.

“Like, I know how it works. I know it, you know? It’s me.” He nods and his voice sounds bright, but a shiver ripples through his body. John feels the tremble where they’re touching and wonders if he’s the only one aware of it. “He didn’t understand that. That the Void is me. He thought he could… I don’t know, manipulate it. Use it to trap me. Trap the Sentry. But we’re the same, the Void and the Sentry and me— I mean, it’s all me. It’s me. So he couldn’t. It didn’t work. I saw through it. I could fight it.”

A silent beat passes as they all process this. Fourteen months ago whatever plan the evil wizard had might have worked. To trap Bob inside his own head and siphon his power through the void. Now, though he didn’t explain it perfectly clearly, the evil wizard couldn’t do that. Because Bob is at some kind of peace with himself that he wasn’t before. Something has changed.

“I wish we’d been there to help you,” Yelena sighs. John nods against Bob’s shoulder.

Bob’s arm around John’s shoulder tightens. He looks around to the rest of the group with shining eyes. “You were. That’s the thing, I mean, I’m not alone anymore. Ever. I know that. I know I always have you guys. I have you to fight for, and, and to come home to.” His cheek presses against John’s hair. “You love me, and I love all of you. And, and that makes me strong. Nobody can take that from me, or convince me it’s not real. Not even the Void.” His head tilts, and his voice goes with it. “And definitely not Doctor Doom.”

“Doctor Doom?” John groans. His eyes fall shut; he can’t be bothered to keep them open anymore. “That’s stupid. Doctor Doom and his Doombots. Dumb.”

Bob hums into his hair, “Take it up with him.”

“Yeah, I will.”

Bob just smiles. “The Void didn’t like him much either.” He lets that hang and doesn’t explain further. “Anyway, he’s gone now. It’s over.”

How exactly dumbass Doctor Doom was defeated John doesn’t hear. Unfortunately, he dozes off before they get to that part and manages to sleep entirely through it. Well, someone can tell him later.

Bob wakes him up as they arrive back at the Watchtower.

“Hey. We’re home,” he whispers against John’s scalp, and John comes out of his black sleep with a jerk and a gasp, his heart pounding too hard for no good reason. He feels bad, out of breath. His ribs hurt and his back aches from sleeping sitting up, but then he remembers that he’s alive and he feels the brush of Bob’s lips against his hair. And he’s okay. He sighs out a shaky breath.

The Fantastic Four are already waiting for them— their ship is parked in the middle of 40th street.

“This is a very nice building,” Reed says politely, as Bucky shows them inside. “We have our own building, of course, on our own Earth— I’m sure I could help you make improvements, if you needed. Or wanted— Not to assume any improvements are needed.”

Getting to the elevator is enough of a clusterfuck comedy of errors that when they finally reach the upper floors, John peels off. Let Bob and Yelena figure out where to put the Fantastic Four— what room they’re going to put Ben in is a big mystery. Is there even a bed that could support his weight in the whole building? John decides it’s really not his problem, waves see-you-later to them all, and stumbles off to his room. Bob watches him go with eyes eager to follow, but he lingers with his new friends. The toddler is clinging to his hand, after all.

Bob will find him, John thinks. He’s not worried. Bob knows where he lives.

It feels amazing to step into his room that, three hours ago, he’d been pretty sure he’d never see again. His clothes tossed over the back of a chair, his pictures on top of the dresser, his space, his room. His. Home. It’s good to be home.

He wants to collapse directly into bed, but after he catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror when he goes to take a piss, he knows he has to shower first. Alexei was right— he looks like shit. To start, he’s coated in robot blood. Oil. His skin is streaked with black smears of it and ashy drips coat his face, broken up only by the now smudged tracks of his earlier tears. And he’s got a big cut across his cheek that no one mentioned to him.

He’s a mess. If he got in bed like this, he’d ruin his sheets. So. He turns on the shower, cranking the dial all the way to hot.

Peeling off his uniform hurts more than he’d expected— turns out it’s glued itself to his body and getting it loose pulls at his skin and rips open clotted wounds. The one on his side is particularly nasty. When he gets off the gauze he’d shoved against it earlier, a pulse of red comes away with it. Fresh blood dripping down his ribs aside, the whole right side of his torso is painted with red and crusty brown; it extends down past the line of his pants. His face scrunches up at the sight of it; he must’ve been really bleeding for a long time. And it doesn’t get better: once he gets his pants off, the blood continues down his hip, his thigh, around the curve of his calf. There’s a drip of blood all the way at his ankle. His sock is half soaked.

Jesus Christ.

And now it’s bleeding again.

Digging out the hodge-podge first aid kit he keeps under the sink, he considers if he has the energy to stitch himself up. In the end, he glues the gash closed with shaking hands and applies more butterfly bandages than probably necessary. As he blows on the glue, willing it to dry faster, he thinks to himself that yes, it’s ugly and it’ll likely scar, but glue is good enough for now to keep the wound closed enough to heal. He doesn't need it to be pretty. He just needs it to stop the bleeding.

He showers. The water cascades over his face and down his body, washing away the grime and horrors of the too long day. His side and the scratches on his face sting. Every way he turns, the water rushes into some previously unknown cut that cries out in pain. Pushing through, he scrubs his hair three times, the rest of him four, scraping soap over every inch of himself. The soap doesn’t help things; his sensitive skin recoils at the sharp burn of it. Better clean than infected, he reminds himself through the myriad papercut nips of discomfort. The serum will heal him up in no time, as long as he doesn’t neglect the obvious stuff. He’ll be fine soon. Being clean will help. A little agony now for less suffering later.

He stays under the spray for a long time, just letting it pound against him. He’s waiting for his muscles to loosen, waiting to feel the relief of being safe and clean. It never comes. Exhaustion like he’s feeling now should leave him limp and heavy, but instead he’s still buzzing with weird energy under his physical drain. There’s a tightness in his chest that won’t clear out. He’s home, he’s safe. Why can’t he relax?

The hot water strips his skin, burning away the grime, yes, but then it keeps going, burning away more. He felt beat up before. Now he feels flayed and raw and paper thin.

The water streams through his hair as he drops his head to hang between his shoulders, and he tries to remember if he’s ever felt like this before. After he’d bloodily earned his first Medal of Honor, maybe? He can remember the red streaks that had spiraled down the drain between his feet back then. Or maybe after he’d proposed to Olivia the first time and she’d rejected him. Not now, she’d said, because he was about to ship out and she didn’t think he really meant it. She’d thought he’d just been scared. Not yet. When you get home. The unspoken If had lived angrily under his jaw for weeks. He hadn’t relaxed for a long time. But he hadn’t felt this weak and fragile back then.

If he’d felt like glass right after the battle, when he wasn’t sure what had happened to Bob, now he feels like thin ice carrying too much weight while a buzzing snowplow rattles the ground nearby.

It’s a disconcerting feeling. A weird one. He has too much energy and no energy at all, and the combination is like friction, like fusion. Like it could make him explode at any second.

He doesn’t like being on a precipice and knowing it. He’s already had a big embarrassing crash out today. He doesn’t want another one, and it makes him nervous to feel another one brewing at the edge of his consciousness, and to know that he doesn’t have the tools to avert it. He’s shivering under the hot water, shaking with nerves and exhaustion and a post-adrenaline drop off.

He gives it a long time, hoping it'll pass and he’ll settle down naturally. But eventually, still feeling unsettled and definitely not feeling well, it’s time to turn off the water and get out of the shower. He can’t hide in there forever, getting pruney.

Bob is waiting for him when he steps out of the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bed with Yelena’s guinea pig in his lap. His hair is— weirdly, miraculously— dark brown again.

He sees John and perks up at the mere sight of him.

A worry that John hadn’t realized he had in his chest loosens up and burns away like morning dew. The worry that maybe Bob only loved him and wanted him when he was in God Mode, when his ego and confidence were at their highest points, and in coming back down to earth Bob would realize that he didn’t like John that much after all, that it had been a heat-of-the-moment absurdity which he would now dismiss.

But Bob is here, waiting for him with a dopey, shy smile and affection seeping out from every pore on his body. It’s Bob, just like it was Bob on the jet next to him, playing with his hair. Just like it was Bob who kissed him so wonderfully on the battlefield.

It’s Bob, his Bob, that same old Bob he’s come to love over the span of a year, even if he didn’t know it until they were both in mortal danger and separated. The Sentry is put away, and Bob is here, smiling at him with that guileless sweetness that John likes so very much. He’s gorgeous. The sun is setting and the orange glow through the windows catches Bob’s hair, his eyelashes, cuts through his dark eyes and lights him up.

He’s out of his Sentry suit and in his normal clothes again— a worn-thin t-shirt and his indigo robe, the only quality piece of clothing he’s let any of them buy for him, long soft shorts and tall socks and his slide sandals dangling off his toes. John’s chest goes warm seeing those stupid sandals, for no good reason other than that they’re so Bob.

Seeing him doesn’t fix the weird tension in his chest and muscles, but it does twist the tension towards something good. Love swells in him, pressing hard against his ribcage.

“Hey.”

The corner of Bob’s mouth lifts into a crooked grin. “Hey.”

John tightens the towel around his waist and goes to the dresser to dig out a pair of boxers. A shudder jerks down his spine and he hopes Bob doesn’t see it. Casually as he can, he comments, “Your hair’s dark again.”

“Huh? Oh.” Bob blushes and shakes his head, tossing his definitely dark hair. The loose waves bounce into his eyes and he doesn’t bother to clear them. His gaze flickers between his own hair and John as he wriggles into his underwear. “Yeah. I dunno.”

“Looks good.”

“Thanks, Walker.” John turns to face him and Bob’s big dopey eyes glance down over John’s chest, definitely a little lustily— though seeing the bruised and barely clotted cut on his ribs cuts that off abruptly. Frowning, Bob says, “That’s a nasty— I mean, that looks pretty bad.” He points at the cut. The guinea pig squeaks in agreement.

“It’ll be okay. Just a scratch, really.” He waves a hand around the rest of him. “Like all of them.”

He turns away to dig out a t-shirt. As he puts it on, hiding the nasty cut from view, he thinks he should have put a big band-aid on it before coming out. Bob shouldn’t have to see it. But he didn’t know Bob would be here, so he hadn’t thought to do it.

“You get the Fantastics settled?”

Bob hums a vague affirmative. He looks him up and down, chewing on his bottom lip. It’s cute. He’s concerned. Then he seems to make up his mind. “Okay. Come here. Come lie down with me.”

He waves him over, and John goes to him without a fight, crawling onto the bed to collapse heavily face down into the pillows with a groan.

Outside his vision, Bob laughs. John feels him shifting around, hears the chittering accompaniment of the little pig. Bob kicks off his sandals and they clop clop as they hit the floor. Groaning a little as he tries to get comfortable, John wriggles around, trying to keep his weight off the worst of his hurts. He hopes none of them start bleeding again. He hates having bloodspots on his sheets. It depresses him.

“You poor thing…” Bob kisses the top of his head, then his ear, then his cheek, as he settles in to lay on his back against John’s side, close enough to share body heat.

“I’ve had worse,” John groans. “I was lucky.” Extricating his face from the pillows, he turns his head to look at Bob, laying next to him with the guinea pig cradled against the top of his chest.

He’s as good as got hearts in his eyes as he meets John’s gaze.

Bob lifts his chin, reaching vaguely. John puts together what he wants and heaves himself up to deliver a kiss lightly to Bob’s waiting mouth. It’s easy to do. It’s all so domestic, so easy. Bob is so pleasant and warm… he’s fallen so simply into this kind of intimacy. Coming to John’s bed, laying next to him while he rests after a painful day.

It’s wonderful. Yesterday it would have been impossible. All of this. The tension in John’s chest rears its head again and squeezes his lungs.

The guinea pig squeaks and Bob runs his finger along its little forehead, soothing it. Adorable. Kind.

“Do you like kids?” John asks abruptly, his mouth running ahead of his brain again.

Bob’s eyebrows go way up. “Huh?”

“You were so good with that kid earlier…” He doesn’t quite know how to explain that seeing Bob with the Fantastic kid had done something weird and crazy to his guts and heart. Like he wants, in an insane way that doesn’t feel normal at all, to have Bob’s fucking babies. Or something. Something impossible but fervent and desperate. It’s his raw nerves acting up, he thinks wildly. He’s losing his mind. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I like kids,” Bob says slowly, like maybe he can tell John is having a stroke. “Don’t you have a kid?”

Oh right. Not that John had forgotten about his actual flesh-and-blood child, but he also hasn’t seen his child in a long, long time. He’d been trying, weakly, to reconnect with Olivia over the past fourteen months, but it hadn’t been going particularly well.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I can meet him.”

It’s the kindest thing Bob could have said. John’s chest tightens painfully, then goes hot and syrupy. Tears sting at his eyes.

“Maybe you can.”

Bob’s face cracks into a smile that lights up the room and shoots through John’s heart. Carefully, he puts the guinea pig on the pillows above their heads and traces his fingers down over John’s hair, his eyebrows, his cheeks, his jawline. Sweet and tender and totally affectionate, he follows the trail of his fingers with his lips, delivering kisses that land like butterfly wings.

“I’d like that.” His fingers draw over John’s lips, and his own lips follow. The kiss is heavy and deep, all pressure and the heat that radiates from Bob’s deepest core. John puts his arms around Bob’s waist and pulls him close. Bob says, “I really would. I want—“ John slips his tongue between Bob’s teeth and gets a low moan for his trouble. “I want everything. With you. Is that crazy?”

John shakes his head, bumping their noses against each other. “No. I want that. I want that too.” He wants to be in bed with him, wants to touch him, and more, he wants Bob to meet his kid and wants to take walks with him and to move in together and fight about laundry and get married and have kids of their own and grow old. It’s sick. It's crazy. It makes his head spin. He catches Bob’s mouth again and Bob puts his hands on John’s shoulders, pushes him down into the mattress and slides a leg over John’s hips to straddle him. He looks like a god, hovering over him like this. Like the most beautiful, precious god John could ever imagine, let alone be lucky enough to meet, to kiss, to have. He runs his hands up Bob's thighs. “If anything had happened to you…”

“I know,” Bob says softly. “But it didn’t. We’re okay, right?”

Feeling tender, John nods. Bob’s lips lift into a quirk of a smirk.

“Isn’t it funny? How far away from this we were two days ago? You know, I’ve loved you for… forever. But all that time I was too scared to do anything.”

Forever? That can’t be right. Forever would mean from the vault. From John barking at him and shoving him and threatening to throw him back in the fire. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Bob couldn’t have loved him back then. A line appears between John’s eyebrows, and Bob leans down to kiss it away before returning to his perusal of John’s mouth.

Bob kisses him— and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him.

Bob loves him now.

His kisses feel like, taste like, the future. The unending possibility of them makes him weak— totally unmoored and totally shaken and totally overwhelmed. No one has ever made him feel this way, and they were so close to losing everything. To missing each other, like ships passing in the night. To never being here. To never…

And John didn’t know. For so long he didn’t know how he felt or what he was missing. He’d wasted so much time— So much time when they could have been together, kissing, holding each other like they are now. So much time to be happy—

“I’m sorry—” John gasps, feeling a sob catch under his jaw. He grabs at Bob’s arms, clinging to the solidity of him. Bob’s forehead tightens in concern. “I’m sorry it took so long. I wish— I should’ve— If… if it had been too late…”

“We’re here,” Bob insists gently, kissing him again. His lips are soft. His hands slide up John’s throat to hold the sides of his face. “John. Listen to me. It’s not too late. We’re here. I love you. We love each other. We have so much time and we’re going to be so happy.” He smiles, kisses him lightly, and runs his hands over his hair. He’s so soft, so understanding, so gentle—

The sobs crest and break loose and John crumbles apart. Tears fall, big heavy drops, and he can't stop them, just like before but worse. Quickly the sobbing turns more wrenching and horrible, streaming out of him like a broken faucet, and before he knows it his face is soaking wet. Bob makes a sad, sympathetic little sound.

“John…”

John pulls him close to kiss him, keep kissing him. He never wants to not be kissing him.

“I love you,” he cries into Bob’s mouth. His face is slick, slippery; he can taste the salt of his own tears off Bob’s lips. “I love you. I want to be happy with you. I do. I want—” The emotions overtake him and choke him, closing his throat. He curls up, pressing his forehead against Bob’s collarbone. His crying is squeezing his body into something small and hurting and ashamed.

Bob pets his hair, carding through damp locks as he carefully pulls his face up to look into his eyes. His expression is all concern, all tenderness. He wipes at John’s tears with his thumbs. “Hey, hey, what’s happening? Why are you crying?”

He’s overwhelmed, is why. He’s scared. He’s exhausted and raw and safe and cared for. He’s in love and it’s huge and he almost lost it before he ever had a chance to really have it. It’s just too much. He’s not handling it well.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps weakly. “‘m so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay, don’t be sorry.” Bob shushes him gently and shifts his body to lay down next to him, to hold him. Wrapping his arms around John’s shoulders, his hands cradling his skull, Bob guides his face carefully to rest against his throat. “What could you have to be sorry about?”

Miserably embarrassed, he whines, “I’m just so tired.”

“I know… I know.” He presses a kiss to John’s forehead. “John, we’re gonna be so happy. I promise.”

Still feeling tears leak down his face and onto Bob’s shirt, he hears himself mumble, “I don’t want to let you down. I don’t want to ruin everything.”

“Hey, you won’t. You couldn’t.”

“I don’t want to waste any more time.”

Bob licks the tears off his wet cheeks with a mischievous smirk. “Then let’s not waste any more time.”

Gingerly, allowing for John to resist at any moment, Bob pushes him flat and crawls over him again. His kisses wander from John’s cheeks to the corner of his mouth, then to his left ear.

“You have these adorable little moles,” Bob whispers, his breath brushing hot against John’s skin. “You know?” He kisses each of them, trailing down John’s neck with his tongue. With two fingers, he pulls down the collar of John’s shirt, stretching the fabric so he can lap at John’s collarbone.

John whimpers.

Clearly pleased, Bob gets his hands under John’s shirt and pushes it up into a bunch at his throat. The light pressure against his neck sends shivers down his spine. Bob presses his lips against John’s chest, over and over and over, dozens of kisses that vary from barely there brushes of lips through John’s chest hair to wet drags of tongue and teeth over his nipple. “You’re so… wow. I mean, oh my god.” He palms John’s pecs and John shudders. Tears drip off his cheeks and onto the pillow.

Hands tease down John’s body, fingertips lavishing care and affection with every touch. All John can do is lay there and tremble. It’s wonderful, and it’s setting his every nerve on fire.

The fucking guinea pig squeaks from above his head.

After putting his tongue directly into John’s belly button and getting a high pitched gasp for this trouble, Bob rests his chin against John’s stomach and looks up at him through drooping eyelashes. “You’re so beautiful,” he sighs. He presses his nose against John’s lower stomach and breathes him in. “You smell so good.”

“You’re weird.”

Bob chuckles, his breath brushing warmly over John’s abs, and the light smatter of hair there. “I want to, uhm…” He toys with the waistband of John’s boxers. “Is that okay?”

John takes a shaking breath. Is it okay? There isn’t a single thing Bob could ever do to him that wouldn’t be okay. Just because he’s crying his eyes out doesn’t mean he doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like Bob showering him with affection and desire like this. Doesn’t feel the thrill of unreal enticement at Bob’s words and the twinkle in his eyes. Because he does. Of course he does.

He thinks it might overwhelm him to the point of collapse, but he’s not interested in saying No. He couldn’t say No to Bob if his life depended on it. He wants to give Bob whatever he wants.

So, in answer, he pulls his shirt off and throws it away over the side of the bed.

With a growing grin, Bob whips off his robe and peels off his own shirt before going back to kissing the stomach before him, following the trail of hair as he carefully slides John’s underwear down his thighs.

The brush of air against his dick and the downy hair on his upper thighs sends goosebumps prickling down his legs. Bob kisses down his hip to his thigh; John’s dick twitches and he throws his hands over his face with a whining mewl. Nobody’s blown him in half a decade.

Then Bob’s mouth is on his cock. He’s gentle and slow, savoring, suckling at him as he tries to coax him to hardness. John’s heart is thrumming away in his chest like a hummingbird’s, while every wet drag of Bob’s tongue sends jolts through his muscles and blood and squeezes tears out of his eyes.

“Bobby…” His voice sounds wrecked. Too tight and totally out of control at the same time.

“You’re so good,” Bob coos. “Come on, baby. Get hard for me. I want you. Come on, John. Is it good? Do you feel good?” He’s being so insanely gentle and patient and encouraging, even as his own hips are moving in mindless circles against the foot of the bed and his voice has taken on a hard, challenging edge. One of his hands reaches up to palm at the poorly bandaged wound on John’s ribs. The heat of his touch seeps into John’s body, oozing through his muscles and bones. He lowers his head again and hollows his cheeks.

It’s good, of course it is, it feels so good. Definitely. But no matter how good it feels, John isn’t getting hard at all, which makes him useless, pathetic. Worse. He can’t even get it up for this guy he loves, who he’s wildly attracted to, who wants his dick now. And John can’t even do this one thing—

With a frustrated huff, Bob takes his mouth off him and crawls up his body, pressing John’s dick between their stomachs with a grind of his hips. The press of Bob’s smooth skin against his sensitive, damp groin makes his hips jerk, his stomach flip. The hard line of Bob’s cock against the soft crook of his hip shoots a stabbing twist of discomfort and arousal through his guts. Bob is hard, Bob didn’t have any problems getting hard.

Frustrated, John lifts his hips, reaching to try and give more pressure, more friction. To do something for Bob.

Bob purrs, almost growls, and falls to kissing his mouth again, a little roughly now. His tongue traces the edges of John’s teeth and lips. He bites. John lays still, finding himself too wound up to move, too raw to do anything but let Bob kiss him hard and touch him and do whatever he wants with him.

John’s hands are still covering his eyes, the heels of his palms digging into his eye sockets, pressing hard. Why isn’t this working? He wants this, doesn’t he? So why isn’t his body doing what it’s supposed to? Why can’t he be fucking useful—

Bob must feel, or sense, his odd stiff stillness, his passive engagement, that his mind is drifting, because he slows their kissing before pulling their mouths apart with a wet gasp.

Bob takes hold of his wrists and pulls his hands away. There are more tears, and John’s sure his eyes are red. They feel scratchy and swollen. He hates it.

“Whoa, hey, you’re still crying,” Bob says, his own eyes big with wonder and concern. “John, what’s wrong? What can I do?”

“Whatever you want,” John chokes out. He squeezes his eyes firmly shut again; it’s bad enough to feel so pathetic and out of control, it’s worse to have to look into the face of Bob’s sweethearted pity. “I'm fine. You can do anything. Anything you want.”

Bob sighs and shifts off him, settling against his side with a leg still wrapped around John’s thigh. The velvet press of his cock pulses against John’s skin, and together they ignore it. He runs soft, slightly shaky fingertips across John’s cheek. “But what do you want?”

He doesn’t know. He wants Bob to go back to sucking his dick. He wants to sleep for a year. He wants Bob to fuck him. He wants to hold hands. He wants to fuck Bob. He wants to never be touched again. He wants to feel Bob’s come on his stomach. He wants Bob to feel good, and never regret that he loves him.

“I don’t know,” he croaks, overwhelmed by the possibilities and his own exhausted, over sensitive, useless body.

“I want you to feel good. What would feel good?”

“Bobby, I don’t know.”

“Okay.” He presses a kiss to John’s temple. “You’re tired. You need to sleep. It’s been a really long day, right? You’re—” his voice hitches— “you’re just really tired.”

John groans. He’s ruined it. Bob wanted to take their gooey declarations of love and turn it into steamy love making, and John’s stupid raw nerves couldn’t handle it. Like always, he’s fucking it up immediately. “I’m sorry, Bob. I want to, I just— We can— I can—“ He reaches for Bob’s hip, intending to at least jerk him off, to give him something. Anything to prove Bob hasn’t made a mistake.

Bob brushes his hand away, catches his fingers and holds them, shushes him. “No, it’s okay. Don’t be sorry. We don't have to. We have so much time, right? I’m sorry. I thought it might…distract you, help you relax. Be fun. But I was going too fast, I’m sorry.”

Very small, John mumbles, “Not too fast.”

“I just love you. You’re so hot, and, and, I want you so bad. I got excited.” Bob leans his head into the crook of John’s neck, his nose pressing against the line of John’s jugular. “But I can wait. I’ve waited a long time. I’m not in a hurry.” He lips press against John’s throat like a promise. “I have you. You’re not going anywhere. Neither am I. We have the rest of our lives, right?”

The rest of their lives. Which, if their luck holds— and if today was any indication, it will— will be a very long time.

All John can do is nod.

Bob carefully pulls John’s underwear back up over his hips for him, then wrangles his arms around John’s body to hold him. It’s such care, such consideration… After a minute, John’s stiff arms come up to wrap around Bob’s back, clinging to his warm, dewy skin.

“Hey, you wanna hear something funny?” When John doesn’t answer, he continues, talking into John’s collarbone, filling the silence so John can’t spiral too deep into his own head. “So like, I used to, uhm, check car door handles? Like, just walking by I’d give ‘em a pull. To see if they were unlocked, you know?”

John sniffs. “Why?”

“Because if they were unlocked I’d ransack them. I found shit in backseats you wouldn’t believe. And I pawned them. For money. For drugs. Mostly.”

John can't help it, he coughs out a laugh. “Jesus, Bobby.”

Going a little giddy, glad to have gotten a response, Bob lifts himself up onto an elbow. “And I still do it, is the worst part. I can’t help myself. It’s habit. I hardly notice I’m doing it. I mean, I don’t take anything anymore, obviously, but I still try doors.”

“Is that why you don’t leave the tower alone? Need someone to keep you in check?”

“Well, uhm, it’s funny you say that because like, last month I was out with Alexei, and not thinking, just doing it, trying the handles, you know? And I set off a car alarm.” He ducks his head briefly, pressing his forehead against the crest of John’s shoulder, and comes back up smiling tightly and blushing. “It was awful, it was so embarrassing. I was scared the cops were gonna come, and I totally froze up. Alexei had to pick me up and carry me away.”

“And that’s funny? You think that’s a funny story?”

“Yeah.” Bob blinks. His lips twitch into a smile. “Isn’t it?”

Bob’s not mad at him for not being able to get it up. Bob just wants him to be happy. It’s obvious from the look in his eyes, and the gentle way his hand is resting over John’s heart. The stupid story he’s just told to try and cheer John up.

Wetly, John laughs. “I guess. I guess it is.”

“Okay, well…” He racks his brain, running through a lifetime of miserable memories to find the funny ones. “Okay, try this one. So before I had these crazy abs, before the Sentry, I was like, thin— not like a skeleton at all, because I ate like, junk food. Like lots of junk food. Basically exclusively. So I had this little belly, you know—“

And he goes on like that, telling silly stories, finding the levity in getting lost in Thailand and hitchhiking across Alabama and being stranded in a truck stop for three days, until John is laughing, really laughing. His terrible stories have banished the tears, finally.

Bob catches his laughter in a giggling kiss. Sparks glitter through John’s skin, electricity skittering up into his scalp. He comes out of the kiss grinning.

“There you are,” Bob sighs, smiling. “Are you okay?”

Dodging, John says, “Your stories are so fucked up.”

“I’ve had a kinda fucked up life.” His smile twitches. John runs his hand down Bob’s arm to take hold of his hand. “But it’s better now.”

“Good.”

“You make it better.”

“Bob, you… You make life so…” Just say it, he thinks. “You make it worth living.”

It makes Bob glow. He’s so beautiful, John thinks. He’s so remarkable. Resilient. Brave. 

“You’re not gonna cry again, are you?”

“No, I think that’s done.” There’s no getting his pride back, but the crying is probably over. For now at least. Bob sweeps his fingers over John’s cheeks, wiping away the last remnants of wetness. “Sorry. I'm sorry about all this. I’m just, I’m…” He flounders.

Bob offers, “You’re tired.”

Yep. That's it exactly. “I’m tired.”

“Yeah.” Bob kisses him and hums, all happiness. “You should sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Twenty-four hours ago they were getting ready to go into battle and possibly die, and now they’re in bed together, both half naked and tangled in each other's arms. A day ago John Walker was sure he was saying goodbye to a friend who made his heart clench up, and now they’re laying lip to lip, giddily and securely in love.

It’s a dream. An impossible, perfect dream.

“And John?”

“Huh?”

All earnestness, all insistent truth, Bob looks him deep in the eyes. His beautiful low rumble of a voice intones, “We are going to have great sex. When you’re ready. When you’re rested and healed, I promise you—” his eyes sparkle, a glimmer of gold lighting up from the inside of him— “we are going to have so much great sex.”

It finally, finally, cracks the tight stress in John’s chest and makes him laugh, releasing all his worry and anxiety in one big rush. Thank god for Bob and his stupid, fucked up sense of humor.

“Jesus Christ.”

“I’m gonna eat you up,” Bob says with a teasing, playful grin. John loves that grin. “You’re gonna beg for it. I promise.”

“Oh, you promise, huh?”

“We have so much time,” Bob assures him, ignoring John’s slightly snide previous remark. He’s so confident, so sure. Like nothing in the world could come between them and the apparently fantastic sex they’re going to have once John’s body isn’t so ragged that it can’t even get turned on properly. “And we’re going to make the most of it. Forever.”

“Bobby…” Suddenly his body feels terribly heavy, every muscle taking on an extra ton of weight. His eyelids are no exception. His eyes start to droop, the exhaustion of the day coming to fill the place of the flushed out anxiety. He gropes half blindly for Bob’s hands, his ribs, anything to hold him.

Bob places himself firmly in John’s grasp and sweetly mumbles, “I love you. My beau.”

John manages a laugh. Sickeningly content, he lays in Bob's warm arms and then he's falling head over heels into the deepest sleep of his life.

He wakes up feeling much better, with Bob at his side and Yelena’s stupid guinea pig crawling all over both of them.

It’s a new day, a new dawn, a new life. The world is exactly the same and totally brand new. They’re in it. Together.

Bob is drooling on him and John couldn't be happier.