Someone Good
👉🏽 MAIN MASTERLIST
C's Corner: I had to pause Fault Lines for a little bit to create this fic, which was a request from @j3susforlif3 and honestly, John Walker being loved loudly by someone who refuses to let the world keep kicking him? Yeah, that got me. 🥺
There’s something about writing him as this man who is so used to being hated that kindness completely knocks the wind out of him. Like, sir, please accept the affection. Stop trying to return it at the customer service desk.
I really hope you like this one, and thank you again for the request! And of course, thank you to everyone else who reads, comments, reblogs, or just quietly enjoys my little John Walker spiral. I appreciate you all so much. 🫶🏽✨
✍🏽 WC: 6.8K+
SUMMARY: The world still sees John Walker as a villain no matter how many times he tries to do the right thing. After he rescues you during a hostage mission, you see firsthand how much hate he quietly endures, and you decide you’ve had enough. What starts as you defending him from the cruelty of strangers slowly turns into something softer, closer, and impossible to ignore. John may not believe he’s someone worth loving, but you’re determined to show him that he already is someone good.
The first thing you notice about John Walker is that he doesn't hesitate.
Not when the ceiling above you cracks like thunder. Not when everyone around you screams. Not when the lights in the building flicker red and the smoke gets thick enough to turn breathing into a chore.
He moves through chaos like he has already accepted it as part of his body.
You're on the floor behind an overturned reception desk, one hand pressed over the shoulder of a teenage boy you don't know, trying to keep him from looking at the blood on his sleeve. There are at least twelve of you trapped in the lobby, maybe more. It's hard to count when your ears are ringing and every breath tastes like plaster dust and panic.
A woman is crying somewhere behind you. Someone keeps praying.
Then the wall explodes inward.
You flinch so hard your teeth click together.
A metal arm punches through smoke first then a man follows it.
Bucky Barnes looks exactly like the news makes him look, severe, focused, dangerous in a way that is almost quiet. He takes out the first armed man before you even fully process he's there.
A shadow slips in behind him, bending light around herself like the world is simply deciding not to notice her.
Ava Starr, Ghost.
She moves through gunfire as if she's made of static and vengeance, disarming two men in less time than it takes you to blink.
Then someone comes through the broken opening like a thrown shield made flesh.
John Walker.
He hits the ground hard, shield raised, shoulders broad enough to make the space behind him feel safer by sheer stubborn physics.
"Everybody down!" he barks.
You're already down, but you duck lower anyway.
Gunfire cracks through the lobby. John plants himself between the hostages and the attackers without a second thought. Bullets strike his shield, sharp metallic pops that make several people cry out. He doesm't move back, not an inch.
Bucky is a blur of black and vibranium.
Ava flickers in and out like a ghost story with fists.
John takes the center.
That's what you notice.
Bucky and Ava move around the room, precise and terrifying. John stays in front of you. In front of all of you.
He absorbs the danger like he believes there's no other reasonable place for it to go.
"Exit's clear!" Bucky calls.
John glances back, just once, eyes sweeping over the group.
His gaze catches on you.
You don't know what he sees. Dust on your face, blood on your sleeve that isn't yours, fear you are failing miserably to hide.
"You hurt?" he asks.
You shake your head. "Not mine."
His eyes dip to the boy beside you.
"Can he walk?"
"I can," the boy says, voice shaking.
John nods once. "Good. Stay behind me."
It's ridiculous, really, the way your body believes him.
The lobby is still burning in places. There's glass everywhere. The alarm is shrieking overhead. But John says it like an order to the universe itself, and some traitorous little part of you thinks, 'Okay. Behind him. That is where safe is.'
He gets you out. All of you.
One by one through the smoke, past rubble, over broken marble and twisted metal. He carries an older man when his legs give out. He shields a mother and her daughter when part of the ceiling caves. He snaps at a paramedic to check the boy's arm first, then acts annoyed when someone tries to look at the cut running down his own temple.
"I'm fine," John says, with the exhausted tone of someone who has said those two words so often they have become less of an answer and more of a locked door.
Bucky gives him a look.
Ava, standing nearby with arms crossed, says, "You are bleeding on your boot."
John looks down.
There is, in fact, blood dripping onto his boot.
He grimaces. "Not a lot."
Bucky sighs like a man praying for patience.
You're sitting on the back of an ambulance with a thermal blanket around your shoulders when the crowd starts to gather.
At first, it's just phones.
People filming. People whispering.
The New Avengers are here. The Thunderbolts. Whatever the world has decided to call them this week.
You've seen this before on TV. The way people look at them like they are either saviors or weapons, and nothing in between.
John stands a few feet away, one hand on his hip, the other wiping blood from his eyebrow with a strip of gauze someone finally convinced him to hold. Bucky is talking to an officer. Ava is lingering near a pillar, pretending she is not watching everyone at once.
John looks tired.
Not physically, though he should. He looks tired in the soul. Worn down in places no bandage can reach.
Then a man steps out of the crowd. He is middle aged, expensive coat, expensive watch, holding his phone up like it gives him courage.
"Well, look at that," he says loudly. "They'll let anybody play hero now."
John goes still. It's fast, so fast you almost miss it. His shoulders tighten. His jaw shifts. His chin lifts half an inch. The posture of a man putting armor over a bruise.
The man grins, encouraged by the attention. "Tell me, Walker," he continues, "how many people have to die before they stop giving you a shield?"
The air changes.
Bucky turns his head.
Ava's eyes narrow.
John doesn't move.
He smiles, it's awful. Not cruel, not smug, just empty. A practiced, hollow thing dragged onto his face because the alternative would be letting everyone see it land.
"Sir, you need to step back," John says polite and controlled.
The man scoffs. "What, gonna bash my head in too?"
Something hot and furious opens in your chest.
You don't know John Walker. Not really.
You know what the news says. You know what people say. You know the headlines and the arguments and the endless footage clipped and replayed until every human being involved becomes a symbol for strangers to throw stones at.
But you also know what you just saw.
You saw him stand between bullets and terrified people. You saw him carry a stranger out of smoke. You saw his hand shake for half a second after he set that little girl down, then disappear into a fist before anyone else could notice.
You saw him save your life.
And this man, this smug, polished little mosquito in a wool coat, thinks he gets to turn that into entertainment.
Before you can talk yourself out of it, you slide off the ambulance. The thermal blanket falls from your shoulders.
"Hey," the paramedic says, startled. "You should sit down."
You don't.
John notices you moving and immediately looks over.
"Ma'am, stay back," he says.
Of course he calls you ma'am while bleeding and being verbally crucified in a parking lot.
You ignore him.
The man barely glances at you. "This doesn't concern you."
You step between him and John. "It does, actually."
John freezes behind you.
The man blinks like the concept of interruption has never personally happened to him before.
You point toward the smoking building. "I was in there."
His mouth opens.
You keep going.
"So were a dozen other people. Some of them were children. And while you were out here doing whatever this is," you flick a hand at his phone, "he was inside getting shot at so we could live long enough for you to perform your little sidewalk sermon."
The crowd goes quiet.
A phone lowers.
The man's face reddens. "You don't know what he's done."
"No," you say. "I don't know everything he's done."
John makes a soft sound behind you. Not quite a breath.
You glance back just enough to see him looking at you like you have sprouted wings, antlers, and possibly an axe.
Then you face the man again.
"But I know what he did today. Today, he saved people. Today, he saved me. And I am so tired of watching people act like a person's worst moment is the only thing they are ever allowed to be."
The words come out sharper than you expect.
You are not a loud person. You don't enjoy confrontation. You believe in kindness so stubbornly that friends have accused you of being built out of open windows and bad survival instincts.
But kindness is not the same as softness. Sometimes kindness has teeth.
The man's grip tightens around his phone. "He's dangerous."
"So are half the people you call heroes when it's convenient," you snap. "The difference is you've decided he deserves to keep bleeding for your comfort."
Bucky's eyebrows lift.
Ava looks, very briefly, delighted.
John says nothing.
You can feel him behind you, broad and silent, like he doesn't know what to do with the strange and fragile thing you have just placed in his hands.
Defense... from you. A stranger with dust in your hair and fury in your lungs.
The man looks around, maybe searching for someone to agree with him.
No one speaks.
You step closer, lowering your voice.
"You want accountability? Fine. You want consequences? Fine. But if a man can put his body between hostages and bullets and still not earn one decent breath before you start throwing stones, then this stopped being justice a long time ago."
His face twists. "You're naïve."
You smile then, small and humorless. "Maybe. But at least I'm not cruel and calling it wisdom."
Ava makes a quiet sound that might be a laugh. Bucky coughs into his fist.
The man's mouth shuts. For one deeply satisfying second, he has nothing.
Then a police officer gently but firmly guides him back, muttering something about clearing the area.
The crowd begins to loosen. People look away. Phones drop. The spell breaks.
You exhale. Your hands are shaking, you hate that. You turn around, and John Walker is staring at you.
Not casually, not politely. Staring.
His eyes are blue, startlingly so through the grime and blood on his face. There is disbelief there. Suspicion too, maybe. A man waiting for the punchline because life has taught him every kindness comes with a hook buried in it somewhere.
"You didn't have to do that," he says. His voice is lower now, rougher.
You shrug, suddenly aware that you're standing barefoot on gravel because somewhere between the building and the ambulance you lost one shoe.
"Yes, I did."
John looks down at your feet.
His brow furrows. "Where's your shoe?"
You blink. "That's what you're focusing on?"
"You're standing on glass."
"I just publicly yelled at a man for you."
"I noticed."
"And your response is foot safety?"
His mouth twitches, it's barely there. Almost nothing.
But it is the first real expression you have seen on him that doesn't look assembled out of discipline and old bruises.
"Seems important," he says.
You glance down.
There is, indeed, broken glass near your foot.
"Oh."
John steps forward, then stops himself, like he is not sure he is allowed to come closer.
That does something strange to your chest. He just walked into gunfire without hesitation, but he hesitates over offering you a hand.
So you make the choice for him. You hold out your hand.
John looks at it then at you.
Behind him, Bucky suddenly becomes very interested in the sky. Ava turns away with the faintest smirk pulling at her mouth.
John takes your hand carefully.
His palm is warm, calloused, larger than yours by enough to make your brain briefly forget its normal duties.
He guides you away from the glass and back toward the ambulance.
"You should sit down," he says.
"You should let someone look at your head."
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding on your boot."
His eyes narrow slightly. "Ava told you that?"
"She announced it to the general public."
Ava calls from several feet away, "And I was correct."
Bucky adds, "Usually is."
John sighs through his nose, but this time the sound is almost human, almost amused.
You sit back on the ambulance, and the paramedic immediately returns with a look that says she is deciding whether you are brave or deeply inconvenient.
John lets go of your hand slowly. Like he forgets for half a second that he's supposed to.
Then he clears his throat and steps back. "Thank you," he says.
You look up at him, at the blood drying near his temple, at the armor, at the shield, at the man underneath all of it who seems genuinely baffled that anyone would stand between him and a blow.
"You're welcome, John."
His name changes something. You see it happen.
His face goes very still again, but not like before. Not armor this time. Something softer. Caught off guard.
"You know my name," he says.
You raise an eyebrow. "You're on the news a lot."
The hollow smile threatens to come back.
You stop it before it can.
"But that's not why," you add.
He waits.
You tilt your head toward the building. "Bucky yelled it when the ceiling started coming down."
John blinks.
Then, to your surprise, he laughs. It's short, quiet. Rusty at the edges.
A laugh unused to daylight.
"Right," he says. "Yeah. That tracks."
The paramedic starts checking your pulse. You let her.
John lingers.
Not close enough to crowd you, but close enough that the space beside the ambulance feels different. Safer... warmer. As though some part of him has been assigned there and refuses to clock out.
Bucky walks past behind him and murmurs, "You're welcome, by the way."
John doesn't look away from you. "For what?"
"For not recording that."
Ava appears on his other side. "I considered it."
John's ears go faintly pink.
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling too much.
His teammates like him.
That's obvious now.
In the way Bucky needles without malice. In the way Ava watches the crowd like she's ready to haunt anyone who tries something. In the way John rolls his eyes but doesn't tell them to leave.
The world may hate him but they don't, and for some reason, that matters to you.
Maybe because you know what it is to be misunderstood in smaller, quieter ways. Maybe because you have always hated watching a mob mistake cruelty for righteousness. Maybe because he looked so alone for one split second before he remembered how to pretend he was not.
John shifts his weight. "You really okay?" he asks.
There is no performance in it now. No Captain voice, no soldier edge. Just concern.
You nod. "I think so."
"Good."
A beat passes.
Then you say, "Are you?"
His expression closes by instinct. "I'm fine."
You give him a look.
He gives you one back.
It's absurd, the two of you sitting there in the middle of smoke and sirens, having a silent argument with your eyebrows.
Finally, you say, "That answer needs better writers."
Bucky snorts.
Ava fully smiles.
John looks betrayed by both of them.
Then he looks back at you, and something in his face gives. "I will be," he says.
It's not the truth, not completely. But it's not a lie either.
So you accept it for now.
The first time you met John Walker, he looked at you like kindness was a trap.
You remember that now, almost a year later, standing in the quiet of your apartment while he looks at you with that same stunned, careful expression.
Like you are something precious. Like you are something impossible. Like any second now, the world will laugh and tell him he misunderstood.
It's funny, in a strange, aching way, how clearly you remember that night. The smoke, the sirens, the blood on his boot. His hand in yours as he helped you away from the broken glass, hesitant despite the fact that he had thrown himself through gunfire without blinking.
"You didn't have to do that," he had told you then.
And you had told him, "Yes, I did."
You hadn't known it at the time, but that had been the beginning.
Not the dramatic kind, no music swelling, no lightning striking the pavement. No universe tilting on its axis with enough theatrical flair for Yelena to make fun of later.
It had simply been John Walker staring at you as if you had defended him in a language he didn't speak.
And maybe, somewhere deep in your chest, something had answered.
I can learn.
After that, you started seeing the team more often.
At first, it was accidental. That was what you told yourself, anyway.
You ran into Bucky at a coffee shop near the Avengers Tower, and he invited you to stop by because apparently "the others have been asking about the woman who yelled at a civilian with the energy of a tiny angry courthouse."
You had stared at him.
Bucky had sipped his coffee. "That was Ava's description," he added.
Ava denied it when you brought it up, but not convincingly.
Then one visit became two. Then two became you showing up with pastries and coffee because Alexei once said the compound coffee tasted like "sad water from government shoe."
Then you somehow became part of the rhythm of them.
You learned that Bob liked quiet corners and old cartoons.
You learned that Ava pretended not to care about dessert, then always took the last piece of whatever you brought.
You learned that Bucky had the emotional range of a locked drawer until someone trusted him enough to sit beside him in silence.
You learned that Yelena was, in fact, the human equivalent of a knife wearing lip gloss and a suspiciously soft heart under too many layers of sarcasm.
You learned that Alexei had no indoor voice, no conversational brakes, and once referred to you as "the civilian mascot of our morally complicated circus."
And John.
John became your favorite accident.
He was the one who waited by the elevator when you were leaving late. The one who remembered how you took your coffee after you mentioned it once. The one who stood closer to street side traffic when walking beside you, pretending it was just the natural direction his body had chosen.
The one who texted you after missions with the most painfully neutral messages imaginable.
Made it back.
Don't worry.
Team's fine.
And once, after three hours of radio silence that had made your stomach twist itself into a sailor's knot:
I am also fine. Since you asked Ava. And Bucky. And Bob.
You had typed back:
Maybe answer your phone next time, Walker.
He had replied:
Yes ma'am.
You had stared at those two words far too long.
Everyone noticed, of course they noticed.
You weren't subtle. You tried to be, but whatever dignity you possessed apparently packed a suitcase and fled the country whenever John walked into a room.
You smiled too quickly when he showed up. You watched him too closely when he thought no one was looking. You laughed at his terrible, dry jokes, even the ones that deserved no mercy.
Once, during dinner at the compound, John reached across the table to take the pepper shaker, and your entire brain went briefly silent when his sleeve pulled tight around his forearm.
Yelena, sitting across from you, had slowly lowered her fork.
"You are looking very respectfully," she said.
You choked on your water.
John blinked. "What?"
"Nothing," you said too quickly.
Yelena smiled with every tooth. "Yes. Nothing. The air is full of nothing. So much nothing staring at your arms."
Bucky coughed into his napkin.
Ava looked at the ceiling like she was begging it for strength.
John, somehow, looked down at his own arm in genuine confusion. "What's wrong with my arm?"
Yelena stared at him, then at you, then back at him. "My God," she said softly. "He is not pretending."
You kicked her under the table.
She kicked you back harder.
John only frowned. "Who?"
"No one," you said.
Yelena leaned toward him. "You are very brave in combat and very stupid in romance."
John's face went blank.
You nearly died on the spot.
"What romance?" he asked.
Yelena sat back, delighted and horrified. "This is going to be terrible. I love it."
And still, he didn't see it.
That was the part that hurt the most.
Not because John was careless. He wasn't. He noticed everything about you. If you were tired, he knew. If you were upset, he found a reason to linger. If you were quiet, he sat with you until quiet stopped feeling lonely.
But the idea that you could want him? That you could look at him and not see a warning sign?
That seemed to exist outside the borders of what John Walker allowed himself to imagine.
So you told yourself friendship was enough. You told yourself it was better that way. You told yourself you could survive being close to him without wanting to touch the soft, guarded place beneath all that armor.
It worked... mostly.
Until tonight.
Tonight, you had stayed late at the compound after what was supposed to be a quick visit. Yelena had dragged you into helping her taste test three different brands of frozen pierogi because she claimed "national security depends on knowing which one is least depressing."
Bob had fallen asleep on the couch halfway through a movie. Alexei had started telling a story about fighting a bear that changed details every seven minutes. Ava had vanished and reappeared twice, each time stealing more snacks.
John had sat beside you the whole night.
Not too close, never too close. But close enough that your knees brushed once, and he apologized like he had accidentally set fire to your coat.
By the time you finally stood to leave, the windows had gone black with late night rain.
"I'll walk you home," John said immediately.
You gave him a look. "John."
He was already reaching for his jacket. "It's late."
"I live three blocks away."
"Then it'll be a short walk."
"I have pepper spray."
"I've been pepper sprayed before."
"Why does that not surprise me?"
"It was training."
"Again. Not surprised."
His mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed serious.
So you let him, you always let him.
The city was slick and shining under the streetlights, rain turning the pavement into black glass. John walked beside you with his hands in his jacket pockets, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. He looked almost normal like this. No helmet, no shield. Just a man in a dark jacket walking you home because he worried.
For a few minutes, everything was peaceful.
Then a voice cut through the rain.
"Hey."
You felt John stiffen before you even looked.
A man stood near the entrance to your building, smoking beneath the awning. You recognized him vaguely. He lived somewhere on the second floor and had once complained to the super because someone's delivery boxes were "ruining the aesthetic of the lobby."
His eyes moved from you to John, then narrowed. "You okay?" he asked you.
The question itself might have been fine, the tone was not.
John's posture changed instantly. His shoulders squared. His expression flattened. His chin lifted in that awful, familiar way. The armor came back on.
"I'm fine," you said.
The man did not move. "You sure? You know who that is, right?"
John's jaw tightened.
You felt your temper rise. "He's my friend."
The man scoffed, eyes still fixed on John. "That's one word for it."
John's voice was measured when he spoke. "We're just heading inside."
"Oh, I bet you are."
Your stomach turned.
John took half a step back.
That hurt more than the man's words.
That tiny retreat. That silent decision that he would rather make himself smaller than give anyone another reason to hate him.
"Don't," you said.
John glanced at you. "It's fine."
It was always fine. He was always fine. Bleeding on his boot. Bruised under his ribs. Smiling like the knife did not go in.
Fine, fine, fine.
You were sick of that word.
The man snorted. "People like him don't change. You should be careful."
Something in you snapped clean in two.
"No," you said.
Both men looked at you.
You stepped closer to your neighbor, rain dripping down your hair, anger hot enough to burn through the chill.
"No, you don't get to do that."
His eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"
"You don't get to stand outside my apartment and talk about him like he's some stray weapon I brought home by mistake."
John said your name softly. A warning... a plea.
You ignored it.
"You don't know him."
"I know enough."
"No, you know headlines. You know clips. You know whatever version of him lets you feel morally superior while you smoke under an awning and harass people at midnight."
The man's face flushed. "I'm making sure you're safe."
"No, you're not," you snapped. "You're making sure he knows there's nowhere he can go without someone reminding him they hate him."
John's hand brushed your arm. "Hey. It's okay."
You turned on him, furious now because he meant it. He really meant it. He had swallowed so much cruelty that he thought choking was normal.
"It is not okay."
John went silent.
The man gave a humorless laugh. "You're defending him pretty hard."
"Yes," you said. "I am."
"Why?"
The answer rose so fast it almost escaped whole.
"Because I lo…"
You stopped.
John froze.
The rain seemed to pause with him.
Your heart slammed against your ribs. Because you had almost said it right there in the street. In front of a cruel man and wet concrete and John Walker's shattered disbelief.
Because I love him, you absolute idiot.
You swallowed hard.
"Because I care about him," you finished, voice shaking.
John stared at you.
The man looked between you both, suddenly less certain.
You stepped toward your building door and pulled out your keys with trembling hands.
"Move."
This time, he did.
John followed you inside without a word.
The lobby was too bright, too quiet. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead while rain tapped against the glass doors behind you.
You did not speak in the elevator. Neither did John.
But you could feel him beside you, tense and rattled, whatever careful distance he always kept between you both now charged with something dangerous and tender.
By the time you reached your apartment, your hands were shaking so badly you dropped your keys.
John bent down before you could, picked them up, and handed them back.
His fingers brushed yours.
You both stilled.
Then you unlocked the door and stepped inside.
John followed only as far as the entryway, of course he did.
Always careful. Always giving you room. Always standing at the edge like he had already decided he did not deserve a place inside.
You turned on a lamp, flooding the room in soft golden light. Your apartment looked painfully normal. A blanket half folded on the couch, a mug in the sink, a stack of books on the side table. The ordinary shape of your life, suddenly holding a confession by the throat.
John stood near the door, rain darkening his hair, his hands flexing once at his sides.
"You didn't have to do that," he said.
You almost laughed. It came out broken.
"There it is again."
His brow furrowed. "What?"
"The same thing you said the night we met."
His face shifted. He remembered, of course he remembered.
"You didn't," he said quietly.
You looked at him for a long moment.
At the exhaustion in his eyes. At the tension in his shoulders. At the man who could face down monsters, governments, gunfire, and gods, but could not survive being cared for without trying to apologize.
"I'm so tired of it," you whispered.
John's expression tightened. "Of what?"
"Everyone hating you."
His gaze dropped.
You stepped closer.
"And you letting them."
His eyes snapped back to yours. "I don't let them."
"Yes, you do."
His jaw worked. "You don't understand."
"I understand enough."
"No," he said, voice roughening. "You don't. You see what you want to see."
You stepped closer again.
"I see you."
He shook his head once, sharp and pained. "You see pieces."
"I see enough pieces to know they're not rot."
That made him go still.
His face went quiet in a way that made your chest ache. Then he laughed once, without humor. "You shouldn't say things like that."
"Why?"
"Because you're kind."
You blinked.
John looked away like the words cost him.
"You're kind," he repeated, quieter. "And you think that means there's something worth saving in everyone."
"There usually is."
"Not everyone."
"Yes, John. Everyone."
He swallowed hard, then looked at you with something raw in his eyes. "You don't know what it's like to be someone people are right to hate."
The room went silent.
Your anger softened. Softened into something fiercer.
You crossed the remaining space between you and grabbed both his hands.
John looked down, startled.
His hands were cold from the rain. Larger than yours. Rough with old calluses and fresh scrapes. You held them tightly before he could pull away.
"Look at me," you said.
He doesn't.
"John."
His eyes lifted.
There he was.
Not the soldier. Not the headline. Not the shield. Not the public wound everyone kept pressing their thumbs into.
Just John.
Terrified of wanting. Terrified of being wanted back.
You took a shaky breath.
"I need you to listen to me."
His voice was barely there. "Okay."
"I didn't fall for an idea of you."
His fingers twitched in your hands.
You kept going before fear could eat the words.
"I didn't fall for the version of you people argue about online. I didn't fall for the shield or the uniform or whatever the world decided you were supposed to represent."
His breathing changed.
"I fell for the man who waits until I'm inside before he leaves. The man who remembers how I take my coffee. The man who lets Bob have the last pastry even though he thinks no one notices. The man who checks Ava's corners without making her feel watched. The man who argues with Bucky like it's breathing but still trusts him with his life. The man who acts annoyed when Yelena teases him, but always listens when she gets quiet."
John looked wrecked. Beautifully, terribly wrecked.
"And I fell for the man who saved me almost a year ago and then looked shocked when I said thank you."
Your throat tightened.
"Somewhere along the way, I fell for you."
He stared at you. Not breathing, not moving.
You wondered, wildly, if you had broken him.
Then he whispered, "No."
It hit like a slap.
But before you could pull back, his hands tightened around yours.
"No," he said again, and this time you heard it.
Not rejection... fear.
His eyes shone with it.
"No, you don't."
Your mouth parted.
John shook his head, almost frantic now. "You don't. You can't. Not you."
"John."
"You're good," he said, voice cracking at the edges. "You're good in a way I don't even know how to stand near half the time."
Your heart twisted.
He tried to pull his hands away, but you held on.
"You look at me like I'm..." He stopped, throat working. "Like I'm not what I am."
"And what are you?"
His expression hardened, but only because it was the last shield he had left.
"Rot."
The word dropped between you. Ugly and heavy.
Something he had carved into himself long before tonight.
You stared at him.
Then your grip tightened.
"Shut up."
John blinked.
You stepped closer, almost chest to chest now.
"I mean it. Shut up."
His eyes widened slightly.
You could feel his breath against your face.
"You don't get to talk about the man I love that way."
The words were out. This time, you didn't stop them.
John's entire face changed. A crack through stone. A door blown open. A man standing in the ruins of his own disbelief.
"The man you..." he breathed.
"Yes," you said, voice trembling but clear. "The man I love. And he is stubborn and infuriating and has the self preservation instincts of a brick thrown at a tank, but he is not rot."
John's hands turned under yours, slowly, until his fingers curled around yours properly.
Like he needed to hold onto something. Like he needed proof you were still there.
"You don't have to fix me," he whispered.
"I'm not trying to fix you."
"Then what are you doing?"
You looked at his mouth.
Then back to his eyes.
"I'm going to kiss you now."
John went perfectly still. The silence that followed was not empty. It was alive, a wire pulled tight between you.
His voice came out low and shaken. "You don't have to."
You nearly smiled. "There you go again."
His mouth parted, maybe to apologize, maybe to argue, maybe to give you one last exit he clearly did not want you to take.
You didn't let him. You rose onto your toes and kissed him.
For one impossible second, he didn't move.
His lips were warm and still under yours, his whole body held in that careful, aching restraint he used around anything he thought he could damage.
Then he made a sound. Small, broken, wondering. And kissed you back.
Not hard at first.
Tender.
So tender it nearly undid you.
His hands loosened from yours only so he could touch you with careful reverence, one palm finding your waist, the other hovering near your face before his knuckles brushed your cheek. Like he was asking permission with every breath. Like he was afraid the wrong move would wake him.
You answered by leaning into him.
That was all it took.
John's restraint fractured.
He stepped closer, backing you gently into the wall beside the entryway, one hand sliding to the side of your neck, thumb brushing the line of your jaw. The kiss deepened, slow and hungry and aching with everything neither of you had been brave enough to say.
Months of almosts bloomed at once.
Almost touching his hand during movies. Almost leaning into his shoulder during late-night rides. Almost telling him to stay when he walked you home. Almost saying I love you in the rain.
Now there was no almost.
There was John's mouth moving against yours like he had been starving quietly for so long he forgot hunger could end.
There was your hand fisting in the front of his jacket, pulling him closer because space suddenly felt insulting.
There was the soft scrape of his stubble against your skin, the warmth of him pressing you into the wall, the trembling inhale he took when your fingers slid into his damp hair.
He kissed you like he was trying to be careful. He kissed you like careful was losing.
Your other hand found his chest, right over the frantic beat of his heart.
John broke the kiss first, but barely.
His forehead rested against yours. His breathing was uneven. His hand still cradled your face as if he had forgotten how to let go.
"I'm scared," he admitted.
The honesty of it was almost more intimate than the kiss.
You opened your eyes.
"So am I."
His thumb moved once against your cheek.
"You shouldn't be with someone like me."
You kissed him again.
Shorter this time, but no less fierce.
When you pulled back, his eyes were closed.
"Stop deciding what I should want," you whispered.
His lashes lifted.
You held his gaze.
"I know who I love."
John looked at you for a long time.
Then something in him gave, not breaking, not collapsing, just surrendering the fight he had been losing anyway.
He leaned down and kissed you again.
This time, he didn't hesitate. This time, he let himself want.
And you felt it in the way his arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you close enough that your feet nearly left the floor. You felt it in the way he exhaled against your mouth, like your name was trapped somewhere inside his chest. You felt it in the way he kissed you with tenderness sharpened by need, with disbelief slowly melting into something warmer.
Something dangerous.
Something alive.
When you finally part, the rain is still tapping at the windows.
The city still hates him. The world still has its teeth out.
But John Walker stands in your apartment with his hands on your waist and wonder in his eyes, and for the first time since you have known him, he looks like he might actually believe he's allowed to keep something good.
You brush your thumb along his jaw.
"Hi," you whisper, because apparently your brain has abandoned you completely.
John lets out a quiet, breathless laugh.
"Hi."
Then his smile fades into something softer. Something almost too fragile to look at directly. His hand comes up slowly, knuckles grazing your cheek. He touches you like he is still checking that you are real.
"You really love me?" he asks.
Your chest aches.
You kiss the corner of his mouth.
"Yes."
His eyes close.
The word lands somewhere deep in him. You can see it in the way his throat works. The way his shoulders drop by the smallest fraction, like he has been carrying a weight so long he forgot what it felt like to loosen his grip.
Then he pulls you into his arms. Careful and shaking, holding you like he is afraid to believe too loudly.
You wrap your arms around him without hesitation, pressing your cheek against his chest. His heart is beating fast under your ear, wild and human and painfully alive.
For a long moment, neither of you speaks.
Then John lowers his face to your hair.
"I don't know how to do this," he admits, voice rough.
You close your eyes. "Do what?"
"This." His arms tighten around you. "Be loved by you."
Your breath catches.
John pulls back just enough to look at you, and there's no armor left in his face now. No practiced smile, no hollow bravado. Just him, raw and terrified and trying so hard not to run from the thing he wants most.
"But I'll try," he says. "Every day. I swear to God, I'll work every day to be the man you deserve."
Something inside you breaks open from the ache of him still thinking love is a finish line he has to bleed toward.
You lift both hands to his face, holding him there before he can look away.
"John."
His eyes search yours.
You shake your head, gentle but firm.
"You already are."
He goes still.
You feel the words reach him slowly, like sunlight finding a locked room.
His lips part, but nothing comes out.
So you say it again.
"You already are the man I deserve."
His face twists for half a second, overwhelmed by it, by you, by the impossible mercy of being chosen without having to beg the world for permission first.
Then he kisses you again. Tender and deep, full of the kind of want that has stopped apologizing for existing. His hands slide around your waist, pulling you closer, and you rise into him easily, fingers threading through the damp hair at the nape of his neck.
He kisses you like he is learning a new language.
Like your mouth is teaching him the word stay. Like maybe, just maybe, he can.
John holds you in the soft light of your apartment, breathing like someone who has finally reached shore.
And when he presses his forehead to yours, eyes closed, voice barely above a whisper, he says, "I don't deserve you."
You smile against his mouth.
"Yes, you do."
This time, he doesn't argue, he only pulls you closer. Like a promise. Like the first safe place he had not had to earn.
