dreams for another day @qvicksilversass - Tumblr Blog

Jun 3

FAULT LINES

CHAPTER 23

📋 MASTERLIST

C's corner: Okay, so… sorry for lying straight to your faces. 🫣 I know I said we were done with the angst for a little bit, and then I immediately showed up with another emotional damage delivery. But I promise, soft romance is coming. Em and John are getting there, slowly, carefully, with all the emotional baggage rattling around behind them like tin cans tied to a getaway car.

Thank you so much for reading, commenting, reblogging, screaming with me, and being patient with this story. It genuinely means so much that you’re still here, letting these characters hurt, heal, spiral, and occasionally make terrible decisions in real time.

This is written in second POV, but reader will have a name, Mara Hart, it won't be used often, but will pop up every now and then, especially her nickname, Em, and from here on out Hart.

WARNINGS: grief and mourning, support group setting, emotional distress, trauma responses, guilt/self-blame, mentions of child loss, past pregnancy loss/miscarriage themes, blip-related loss, panic, overwhelm, brief smoking mention, and soft romantic tension/complicated feelings.

✍🏽 WC: 8.4K+

SUMMARY: A quiet morning of warmth and teasing gives way to a difficult support group session, leaving you shaken by grief you still struggle to name.

TAGS: @iwritefanfictionsnottragedies, @quantumlethe, @qvicksilversass, @daylightandthedreamer, @mencantaleer, @amnatreal, @sebastians-love, @spectralexiletrace (to be added to the tag list CLICK HERE)

You barely sleep, which is irritating, because your body is exhausted. Your bones are tired. Your eyes burn. Your heart feels like it spent the entire night running drills in your chest, boots on, no permission requested.

But your mind? Your mind is a traitor. It keeps replaying everything.

John's apartment. The rain against the windows. The half-washed dishes left in the sink. His arm around you on the couch. His voice, low and careful, calling you love like the word had slipped out of him before he could catch it.

You had frozen. He had apologized so fast but you had told him he could call you that.

"God." You mutter

You roll over in bed and press your face into your pillow. A sound leaves you, small and muffled and humiliating. Not a sob, worse. A giddy little noise. You go still. "Absolutely not, Mara. You are not doing this."

You're not a teenage girl kicking her feet over a man saying good night. You're a grown woman with weapons training, grief, emotional damage, and a very complicated relationship with the concept of being perceived.

And yet...

Your hand slides blindly across the mattress until it finds your phone.

You already know what the message says, you've read it too many times. Enough that if Natasha somehow found out, she would never let you live. Enough that if Lemar found out, you would have to move countries.

Still, you unlock the screen.

John's message is there, sitting quietly under the glow of your phone.

John: Made it back okay. Try to sleep. Good night, love.

That's it.

No poem. No dramatic confession. No grand declaration thrown across the digital void. Just nine words and one stupid, devastating nickname.

You stare at it until your face starts doing something you do not authorize.

A smile.

Not one of your sharp little smiles. Not one of the ones you use when you are being difficult on purpose. This one is soft, helpless, completely undignified.

You drop the phone onto your chest and cover your face with both hands. "Oh, this is bad," you whisper to the ceiling.

The ceiling, wisely, offers no opinion.

You should feel guilty, you do. It's somewhere there in the corner of your chest, quiet and watchful. Bucky's charm rests against your skin under your shirt, cool from the morning air. You touch it with two fingers, waiting for the familiar rush of shame to swallow everything warm.

It doesn't, not completely. The guilt is there, yes. But it's not roaring today, it's not clawing at you. It's sitting beside something else. Want and tenderness.

The memory of John stopping when he could have taken more. The way he had pressed his forehead to yours and told you he didn't want you to hate yourself tomorrow. The way he had called you love again after, softer, as if placing the word in your hands and trusting you not to break under it.

Your throat tightens. You touch the charm again.

"I'm still here," you whisper, though you don't know who you're telling.

Bucky or yourself.

Then your phone buzzes.

You jolt so hard the phone almost slides off your chest and takes your nose with it.

You grab it, heart stupidly hopeful before you even look.

Not John.

Lemar.

Of course.

Lemar: Good morning, emotionally unavailable disaster.

You stare at the screen.

Then another message arrives.

Lemar: Did you survive?

Another.

Lemar: Blink twice if John bored you to death with protein and unresolved trauma.

You sit up slowly.

"Oh, I'm going to kill him."

Your thumbs hover over the keyboard. Before you can answer, a new notification appears.

A group chat.

Not A Date Support Group

You stare. Then you blink. Then you stare harder.

Your phone buzzes again.

Lemar: Welcome, everyone. Attendance is mandatory.

You can practically hear his grin through the screen.

You: I am leaving this chat.

Lemar: You can't. This is a healing space.

You: This is harassment.

Lemar: Healing often feels like harassment in the beginning.

You're already smiling, which makes you angrier.

A little bubble appears beside John's name.

You freeze.

Ridiculous, again. Your whole body acting like a message from this man is an event requiring national coverage.

Then his text appears.

John: You're allowed to block Lemar.

You bite the inside of your cheek so you don't smile wider.

Lemar: 💔

That's all. Just a broken heart.

Somehow, it is worse than words.

You lean back against your pillows, phone in hand, and laugh. Actually laugh. It spills out of you unexpectedly, soft at first, then a little breathless. You press your palm over your mouth like you can shove it back in before anyone hears.

But no one is there. Just you in your room. Morning light on the floor. And your own laugh, strange and rusty from disuse.

The phone buzzes again.

John: He made the chat while I was driving.

Lemar: Lies. I made it with intention.

You: Your intention was annoying me.

Lemar: And look at us succeeding.

John: He does have a gift.

Lemar: Thank you, brother.

John: Not a compliment.

Lemar: I reject your reality.

You snort then immediately look toward the door like someone might have sensed joy radiating from your room and come to investigate. No one bursts in.

Still, you get out of bed because staying under the covers with your phone feels too much like surrendering to whatever this fluttery little creature in your chest is doing. It's wearing a bow and has no survival instincts. You don't trust it.

So you keep busy.

You shower. You brush your teeth. You make your bed with too much force. You organize your dresser. Then reorganize it because apparently socks need emotional structure now.

You pick up yesterday's clothes from the chair. Then you wipe down the top of the small desk in your room. Then you decide the mirror looks dirty and clean that too.

Anything to avoid sitting still with the fact that John Walker called you love and your body has been glowing like a faulty lamp ever since.

Your phone buzzes again on the bed. You try not to grab it too fast, you of course, fail.

Lemar: So, Em. How was dinner?

You narrow your eyes.

You: Edible.

A pause.

Then John.

John: Edible?

The single word is dangerous.

You grin despite yourself.

You: Don't get greedy.

Lemar: Wait. He cooked?

Lemar: JOHN cooked?

Lemar: For YOU?

Lemar: Oh this is worse than I thought.

John: Don't you have a job?

Lemar: Today my job is community observation.

You: Your job is being blocked.

Lemar: 💔💔

John: He's going to keep adding hearts until someone feels guilty.

You: I don't feel guilt. I outsource it.

Lemar: To who?

You: Natasha.

There is a pause, then:

Lemar: Fair.

You laugh again. This time it's quieter, a little warmer. You sit on the edge of your bed, phone in both hands, staring at the group chat like it is something impossible.

Three names: yours, John's, and Lemar's.

A stupid chat name, stupid messages, stupid jokes. A tiny, ridiculous corner of normal life tucked between grief and war and all the things none of you can say out loud without bleeding.

You shouldn't want it this much. You do anyway.

Another message appears from John.

John: Did you sleep?

Your smile softens before you can stop it. Your thumbs hover. You could lie, you almost do. Then you remember his kitchen. His eyes when you told him not to call it fine. His voice when he admitted he didn't know how to be seen.

So you answer honestly.

You: Not much.

A moment passes.

John: Me neither.

Your chest pulls tight.

Before you can think too hard about that, another message pops up.

Lemar: Because both of you are allergic to peace.

You: Why are you here?

Lemar: Because I care.

You: Gross.

Lemar: Say thank you.

You: No.

John: She said no.

Lemar: You're supposed to be on my side.

John: I was never told sides were being assigned.

Lemar: Betrayal. In my own support group.

You stare at John's message.

She said no.

Not dramatic, not intimate. Not enough to do anything to your pulse. Except apparently your pulse is a fool with a marching band.

You put the phone facedown on the bed. Then immediately turn it back over.

No new messages. Good. Terrible.

You groan and stand again. "Get a grip," you mutter to yourself.

You don't. Instead, you spend the rest of the morning orbiting your own good mood like it is suspicious evidence. You sharpen one of your knives, then decide that is too dramatic and put it away. You fold laundry that is already mostly folded.

At some point, Natasha appears in your doorway.

You have one of your drawers open and are pretending the arrangement of shirts requires your full tactical attention.

She leans against the frame and looks at you.

You don't look up. "What?"

"I didn't say anything."

"You're doing it with your face."

"I have a face."

"It's judgmental."

"It's observant."

You close the drawer with your hip. "I'm busy."

Natasha's eyes flick around your room. "Clearly. The socks look terrified."

You glare at her.

Her mouth twitches.

There it is, that little look. The one that says she already knows. Maybe not the details, but enough. Natasha could find emotional evidence in a locked room with no windows and come out holding your dignity in a plastic bag.

"You're in a good mood," she says.

"I'm not."

"Okay."

"I'm normal."

"Sure."

"I hate when you do that."

"Agree with you?"

"Like that."

She steps inside, arms crossed, eyes softer than her voice. "How did it go?"

The question lands gently.

Your chest tightens around too many answers. He cooked for you. He froze in his kitchen. You brought him back. He called you love. You told him he could. He kissed you like he was afraid and starving.

He stopped, you stayed.

You glance down at your phone on the bed, still quiet.

"It was..." You swallow. "A lot."

Natasha's expression changes. The teasing drains away, leaving only that careful attention. "But good?"

You wrap your arms around yourself. The answer should be simple, it isn't. "It scared me," you admit. "But not in the way I thought."

Natasha nods once, like she understands more than you said. She probably does. "Did he hurt you?"

Your eyes snap to hers.

"No."

The answer is immediate. Fierce.

Natasha hears that too. Her gaze softens by half a degree. "Good."

You look away, throat tight. "He was careful," you say quietly.

The words feel too naked.

Natasha doesn't smile. She doesn't make it into something cute. She just lets the truth sit there with its trembling little hands.

"Good," she says again.

Your phone buzzes.

You look before you can stop yourself.

Natasha sees, of course she does. Her eyebrow rises.

You snatch the phone up.

Lemar: Reminder that this chat has rules.

Lemar: Rule one: no brooding without notifying the group.

John: I did not agree to rules.

Lemar: Rule two: John is not allowed to cook for Em unless I get leftovers.

John: There are no leftovers.

Lemar: I'm calling the police.

You smile, you don't mean to. It happens anyway, soft and immediate and all over your face. When you look up, Natasha is watching you.

You freeze.

Her expression is unreadable for exactly three seconds.

Then one corner of her mouth lifts.

Your face heats. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You're worse than Lemar."

"Impossible."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

You shove the phone into your pocket like that somehow hides the evidence. "I have support group."

"I know."

"I should go."

"You should."

Neither of you moves.

Then Natasha says, softer, "Don't punish yourself for smiling."

Your throat closes. You hate how well she aims. You look down, fingers curling around the edge of your sleeve. "I feel stupid."

"Because you smiled?"

"Because I liked it." Your voice drops. "Because he texted me good night and called me love and now I'm walking around like some idiot who forgot what grief is supposed to feel like."

Natasha is quiet for a moment. When she speaks, her voice is gentler than you expect.

"Grief isn't supposed to feel like one thing forever."

Your eyes sting. You laugh once, brittle. "You sound like Steve's support group pamphlet."

"Probably stole it from one."

That gets a tiny smile out of you, though it shakes at the edges.

Natasha steps closer. "You're allowed to have a good morning."

The words hit harder than they should.

You swallow. "Just one?"

"For now."

You nod slowly.

One good morning. That sounds manageable. Small enough not to betray anyone, large enough to breathe inside.

Your phone buzzes again.

You hesitate.

Natasha rolls her eyes. "Answer him before you vibrate out of your skin."

"It could be Lemar."

"Then insult him. It's clearly part of your wellness routine."

You pull the phone out.

It's John. A private message this time.

John: Ignore Lemar. He's been like this since 0600.

Then another message.

John: Also, good morning, love.

Everything in you goes soft and bright and terrified. You stare at the words. Your heart gives one stupid, earnest kick against your ribs.

Natasha is still there.

You lock the screen too fast.

She sees enough. Her smile is small, almost hidden.

"Shut up."

"I said nothing."

"You breathed judgmentally."

"I'll work on that."

You point toward the hallway. "I'm leaving."

"Support group," she says.

"Yes."

"Where people talk about feelings."

You narrow your eyes. "I can still turn around."

"You won't."

Annoying.

Accurate.

You grab your jacket from the back of the chair and pull it on. Your hand slips into the pocket, brushing against your cigarettes. For once, the urge is not sharp. It's there, familiar and waiting, but muted under something warmer.

You pick up your bag.

Your phone buzzes again.

Group chat.

Lemar: Did she block me?

John: No.

Lemar: How do you know?

John: Because she'd tell you first.

You: I would make an announcement.

Lemar: See? That's friendship.

You: That's a warning shot.

Lemar: Still counts.

You're smiling again. You don't realize how wide until you catch your reflection in the mirror by the door.

You stop.

For a moment, you just stare.

You look tired. Eyes a little shadowed. Hair not doing anything particularly heroic. Jacket half-zipped. The same face you have been carrying through years of loss and anger and survival.

But there is something else there too. Something light and fragile. A small, impossible thing peeking through the wreckage. Your smile fades slightly, not because you want it gone, but because seeing it startles you.

Bucky's charm rests beneath your shirt. You touch it once. The guilt stirs but so does the warmth. You breathe through both.

You head down the hall, phone still in your hand, and try to tuck your smile away before someone else sees it.

You fail.

By the time you reach the stairs, it is still there. Soft, stubborn and yours.

You glance at your phone one more time. John's message sits at the top of your notifications.

Good morning, love.

You shake your head, embarrassed by yourself, by the way those three words have turned your chest into a lit match. Then you start down the stairs, ready to head to support group.

Still smiling.

And for once, you let yourself.

By the time you reach the support group, the smile is gone.

Not completely, because apparently your face has decided betrayal is a lifestyle now, but enough that you can walk into the room without looking like you have just been handed a bouquet by a man who knows how to cook and call you love in the same dangerous breath.

The room smells the way it always does. Old coffee, dust, floor cleaner, and that faint trace of damp wood that clings to the walls.

The chairs are already arranged in a loose circle.

Steve is near the front, talking quietly with an older woman in a burgundy cardigan. He looks up when you step inside. His eyes find you immediately. Steve Rogers has always had the deeply irritating ability to look at a person and make them feel like their ribs are glass.

You give him a small nod.

He returns it, gentle.

You take your usual seat near the edge, close enough to count as participating, far enough to leave if your body decides breathing is optional.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket.

You know you should ignore it.

You don't.

You glance down.

Lemar: Good luck in Feelings Circle.

You bite the inside of your cheek.

Another message pops up.

John: He means support group.

Lemar: I said what I said.

A stupid warmth spreads through your chest.

You type quickly.

You: I'm blocking both of you.

Lemar: Impossible. We are essential to your healing.

John: I support your right to block him.

Lemar: 💔💔💔

You snort under your breath, too loud.

A woman across the circle looks over.

You shove the phone into your pocket and stare at the floor like it personally made the sound.

Steve's mouth twitches from across the room.

Great. Wonderful. You're being perceived.

The meeting starts slowly, with Steve's calm voice filling the room.

He doesn't make it pretty. That's what you appreciate about him. He doesn't stand there and dress grief up in patriotic language. He doesn't tell people healing is linear or that the world needs them strong. He just sits in the circle like everyone else, hands folded, shoulders heavy with his own losses, and gives people permission to speak without having to survive their own words gracefully.

At first, you listen. That's what you do best here. Listening lets you stay hidden.

A man named Arthur talks about sorting through his wife's clothes again. Not getting rid of them. Just touching them, folding them, putting them back. He laughs once, soft and broken, and says he still apologizes when he accidentally moves her sweater from the chair because it feels like disturbing her.

You stare down at your hands. You understand that too well.

Another woman talks about cooking for one and still making enough for two because her hands haven't learned the new math of an empty table. Someone else says they still avoid the grocery aisle with the cereal their son liked.

The room holds all of it quietly.

No one rushes in to patch the holes. No one says at least. No one says time heals. No one offers those useless little sentences people throw at grief because silence makes them itch.

You breathe. In... out. Your thumb finds Bucky's charm beneath your shirt.

For a while, you're okay.

Then Steve looks around the circle and asks, "Does anyone who hasn't spoken yet want to share today?"

Your stomach tightens.

Usually, this is where you vanish into the upholstery. You look down, you pretend your shoelaces have become fascinating. You become very invested in the architectural crimes of basement ceiling tiles.

But today, your chest feels different. Still bruised, still crowded. But lighter in places.

Maybe because John called you love and didn't make it a cage. Maybe because Lemar made a group chat so stupid it almost felt normal. Maybe because last night, you sat on a couch with a man who saw you shaking and did not demand you become easy to hold.

Your hand lifts before you fully approve the decision.

Not high, barely enough, but Steve sees it. His expression softens.

You immediately regret everything.

The room turns toward you.

Fantastic.

You clear your throat. "I, uh..." Your voice comes out rough. Unused. "I don't really know what I'm supposed to say."

Steve's voice is gentle. "Whatever you want."

You almost laugh.

That's the problem, isn't it?

Want has been causing a lot of structural damage lately.

You look down at your hands. "I used to think if I stopped hurting for even a second, it meant I was forgetting him."

The room goes still. Not tense, just listening.

Your pulse pounds in your ears.

"I thought grief was proof." Your fingers twist together in your lap. "Like if I carried it badly enough, if I let it ruin enough of me, then it meant what I lost mattered."

Your throat tightens.

Steve doesn't move.

You keep your eyes down.

"But I'm starting to think maybe that's not..." You swallow hard. "Maybe that's not love. Maybe that's just punishment." The words leave you and sit there in the middle of the circle, ugly and trembling. Your chest caves around them.

For a second, you want to take them back.

Then Arthur nods once from across the circle. The woman in the burgundy cardigan wipes under one eye. No one looks disgusted. No one looks like you have said something unforgivable.

Steve's gaze stays on you, steady and aching.

You force yourself to breathe. "That's all," you whisper.

Steve nods. "Thank you."

Two words. Soft and simple. They almost break you anyway.

The group moves on.

You sit back, heart hammering, feeling like you have peeled off a layer of skin and placed it in the center of the room for everyone to examine. But no one pokes at it, no one asks for more than you gave.

For the first time, participating doesn't feel like bleeding out. It feels like opening a small window.

Then a woman you have only seen once before speaks.

She's young. Younger than you expected to find here. Her hair is pulled into a loose braid, and both her hands are wrapped around a paper cup of coffee she hasn't touched.

"My daughter was three," she says.

The room changes. You feel it before you understand why.

Your spine stiffens.

The woman stares at the cup in her hands. "She was three when she blipped."

The word hits like a dropped blade.

Blipped. Such a small, stupid word. A little sound for an impossible violence.

Your thumb presses harder against the charm beneath your shirt.

The woman keeps talking. "She was in the living room. We were watching cartoons. She had this purple blanket with stars on it she dragged everywhere." Her voice wobbles. "I went to the kitchen for juice. I was gone maybe twenty seconds."

Your breath stops. You know where this is going, everyone knows.

The woman's eyes fill, but she doesn't cry yet. Maybe because she has cried so much her body is making her wait in line. "When I came back, the blanket was on the floor." Her mouth trembles. "Just the blanket. And some dust on the couch."

The room tilts. Not visibly but inside you.

The floor stays where it is, so do the chairs, the coffee, Steve sitting across the circle with his hands folded. Everyone breathing, alive enough to hurt.

But you are suddenly somewhere else.

Wakanda.

A battlefield gone too quiet, Bucky turning to ash before you could understand that the world had opened its mouth and swallowed him.

Then Wanda's soft voice, broken...

You didn't know.

I'm sorry.

Your hand moves from the charm to your abdomen. Your palm presses there through your shirt, flat against the place where the void had opened in you before you even knew there had been anything to lose.

The woman's voice keeps going, but the words blur.

Your fingers curl into your sweater.

You had thought, in some secret, horrible chamber of yourself, that your loss was too strange to name. Too invisible to set down in a circle of folding chairs. Bucky, yes. People could understand Bucky. A man you loved, a man everyone knew had existed.

But the other loss? The one with no name.

No first cry, no tiny blanket, no shoes by the door.

No one had ever held that child. No one except your body, and even you hadn't known.

For years, that grief had been a locked room inside you, windowless and airless, full of shame you could not explain.

Now this woman is talking about a daughter who left behind a blanket, and all you can think is, I guess I'm not the only one. Not the only mother without a child.

The thought is so sharp it nearly folds you in half.

You don't deserve the word. You never let yourself have it.

Mother.

Your stomach twists, your lungs refuse to fill. You lower your hand quickly, but it is too late.

Steve has seen.

You stare at the floor, vision blurring.

The woman finishes speaking. People murmur soft thanks. Someone offers a tissue. Steve's voice comes in low and steady, guiding the room, honoring her daughter's name when she finally says it.

Mia. Three years old. Mia who loved purple blankets and bananas and putting stickers on places stickers did not belong.

The room lets Mia exist.

You sit there with your hands clenched in your lap, and it feels like a miracle and a cruelty all at once. You want to leave, every nerve in your body is screaming for the door.

But you don't move, you stay.

You sit through Arthur speaking again. Through the woman in the cardigan sharing a memory. Through Steve thanking everyone for trusting the room today.

Your body is barely there. Your mind keeps circling back.

Wanda's face. The ash. The void in your abdomen. The soft, impossible name you never got to choose.

By the time the meeting ends, people stand slowly, gathering coats and cups and fragments of themselves. Chairs scrape against the floor. Conversations begin in low murmurs around the room.

You remain seated. Your hands are still in your lap. You're afraid if you stand too quickly, something inside you will spill.

Steve approaches carefully. He doesn't sit beside you right away. He pauses near the chair next to yours, giving you the chance to refuse. When you say nothing, he lowers himself into it.

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

The room empties around you.

You stare at the circle of chairs, now crooked, abandoned, a little sad in the yellow room light.

Steve's voice is quiet when he finally says your name.

Your throat tightens. You hate that he knows. You hate that you're grateful.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

There it is, the question people ask because they need an answer small enough to carry.

Fine. Okay. I'm good. Don't worry.

You have said those things so many times they should be carved into your bones. Your mouth opens, the lie comes automatically. It rises up, ready and familiar like a well-trained dog.

I'm fine.

But then your phone buzzes in your pocket. You don't look, you don't need to.

Maybe it's Lemar with another obnoxious heart. Maybe it's John checking on you without trying to crowd you. Maybe it's nothing important at all.

But the sound reminds you of this morning. Of laughing into your empty room. Of Natasha telling you not to punish yourself for smiling. Of John's text glowing on your screen.

Good morning, love.

Of Lemar forcing his way into your life with jokes sharp enough to cut through the fog. Of John stopping on the couch, breathing hard, wanting you and choosing not to take.

Something in your chest loosens just enough.

Maybe you're tired, tired of lying. Maybe being seen last night has made hiding today feel unbearable.

Maybe John and Lemar, in their impossible, infuriating, completely different ways, have made you feel lighter, and now the old answers don't fit in your mouth the same way.

So when you speak, the truth comes out. "No."

Steve goes still.

You look down at your hands. Your voice shakes, but you don't take it back. "I'm not okay."

The room seems to hold its breath.

Steve says nothing, that helps.

You press your lips together, fighting the burn behind your eyes. "I wanted to say I was. I almost did."

"I know," he says softly.

A laugh leaves you, brittle and wet. "Of course you do."

His gaze drops briefly to your hands, then back to your face. He doesn't mention the way you touched your stomach. He doesn't mention Wakanda. He doesn't say Bucky's name or the truth he knows you have been carrying like a wound under your ribs.

He just sits there, present, beside you.

You wipe under your eye with the heel of your hand. "When she talked about her daughter..."

Your voice breaks.

Steve's face tightens with pain, but he stays quiet.

You try again.

"When she said she was three, I just..." You inhale shakily. "I thought I was the only one. Which is stupid. It's selfish. The whole world lost people. Everyone lost people."

"Pain isn't selfish," Steve says.

You shake your head. "Mine feels like it is."

His voice stays gentle. "Why?"

Your hand drifts toward your abdomen again before you stop it.

Steve sees.

This time, you let him.

Your throat closes around the words. "Because I didn't even know," you whisper.

Steve's eyes soften with something that looks almost like grief for you, for Bucky, for the life that had barely begun before the universe erased it.

"I didn't know," you say again, and the words come out smaller. "How am I supposed to mourn something I didn't know I had?"

Steve's jaw tightens.

You stare at the floor, tears slipping down your face now.

"And if I do mourn it, what does that make me?" Your voice cracks. "A mother? I don't get to call myself that. I didn't even know. I didn't protect..."

"Stop."

The word is quiet. Not harsh but firm enough to cut through the spiral.

You look at him.

Steve's eyes are shining now. "You don't have to earn the right to grieve," he says.

Your face crumples before you can stop it. You turn away, pressing your hand over your mouth. A sound escapes anyway, broken and humiliating.

Steve doesn't touch you. You're grateful for that too. He just sits close enough that you don't feel alone in the wreckage.

For a long moment, you cry quietly into your own palm, shoulders trembling, trying to keep the grief small and failing.

The room is almost empty now. Good. Let it be empty, let the walls have it, let them hear what you have been swallowing for years.

Eventually, the sobs thin into shaky breaths. You wipe your face with both hands, furious and embarrassed and hollowed out.

"I hate this," you whisper.

"I know."

"I hate that I can be happy this morning and then feel like this hours later."

Steve looks at you with that sad, steady kindness that makes you want to punch a wall and hug him at the same time.

"That's grief," he says. "It doesn't ask permission."

You laugh weakly through your tears. "Rude of it."

The corner of his mouth lifts, faint and sorrowful. "Very."

You breathe in, then out.

Your phone buzzes again. This time, you pull it from your pocket with shaking hands.

There are two messages.

One from the group chat.

Lemar: Hydrate, heathen.

And one private message from John.

John: No pressure to answer. Just hope group is okay.

You stare at the screen until the letters blur.

Steve glances down, not reading, just noticing.

Your chest aches.

Group is okay, you are not. But maybe those are not opposites. Maybe a thing can hurt and still be helping.

You lock the screen and hold the phone in your lap.

"Last night," you say quietly, surprising yourself.

Steve waits.

"I saw John."

Steve's expression doesn't change much, but something in his eyes sharpens with understanding.

You huff a small, tearful laugh. "Lemar took me. Because apparently my life is now run by men with terrible boundaries and good intentions."

"That sounds like Lemar."

"It does."

Steve's mouth softens.

You look down at your phone. "John was..." Your voice catches, and you hate how much there is to say. "He was careful with me."

Steve nods slowly.

"And Lemar has been annoying me all morning." A tiny smile breaks through, wounded but real. "He made a group chat."

"A group chat?"

"It's called Not A Date Support Group."

Steve blinks. Then, to your shock, he laughs.

The sound loosens something in the room.

You laugh too, wiping at your face again. "Don't encourage him."

"I wouldn't dare."

"You absolutely would. Everyone enables him. That's why he's like this."

Steve's smile fades into something gentler. "They care about you."

You look down. "Yeah," you whisper.

"And that scares you."

You hate how easily he says it. You hate how true it is. "Yes."

Steve leans back slightly in his chair. "But it helped today."

You look at him.

The answer sits in your chest, tender and frightening.

"Yes," you say again. "I think it did."

The room feels quiet around you, not empty anymore.

You take one long breath and let it out slowly.

"I'm not fine," you say, because now that you have said it once, the truth feels less impossible. "I'm really not."

Steve's face softens.

You press your fingers around your phone, feeling the edges bite lightly into your palm.

"But..." Your voice trembles. "I think maybe I will be. Someday." The words terrify you the second they leave your mouth. They sound too much like hope. Hope is dangerous, hope is a match in a room full of gas.

But Steve looks at you like you have just done something brave, and for once, you are too tired to argue with him.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I think you will be too."

You nod, once. A small, broken movement. Then you look toward the empty circle of chairs.

For years, you thought healing meant leaving the dead behind. Today, sitting in a room with tear tracks cooling on your face and John's message waiting unanswered in your phone, you wonder if maybe healing is something else.

Maybe it's learning how to carry them without turning yourself into a grave. Maybe it's crying for what never got a name. Maybe it's laughing at Lemar's stupid texts ten minutes later. Maybe it's letting John call you love and not mistaking it for betrayal.

Steve says your name gently.

You look back at him.

"You heading back to the compound?" he asks.

You nod before you even really think about it, because that is the sensible answer. The expected one, the one that keeps everything neat.

"Yeah," you say, your voice still rough around the edges. "I'll see you back there."

Steve studies you for a second, not quite believing you, not quite calling you on it either. "Okay," he says softly. "Get there safe."

You give him something that almost resembles a smile.

Then you leave the support group with Steve's quiet voice still sitting somewhere behind your ribs, his words heavy and gentle in a way that makes you want to curl around them and shove them away at the same time.

You step outside.

The air is cold enough to sting, damp enough to cling. The sidewalk glistens from earlier rain, and the city carries on around you like nothing inside you has been split open and left raw under fluorescent church lights.

People pass with grocery bags, a cyclist curses at a cab. Somewhere down the street, a dog barks like it has very strong opinions about existence.

The world keeps moving. You hate it, you envy it.

Your phone is still in your hand.

John's message sits unanswered on the screen, waiting with unbearable patience.

Your thumb brushes over the glass. You unlock it, hands shaking as you type.

You: Group was hard. I'm not really okay.

You stare at the message.

Then, before you can delete it, you send it to John.

Your heart pounds.

A few seconds pass.

His reply comes quickly.

John: Thank you for telling me.

Your throat tightens.

Another message appears.

John: I'm here, love.

You close your eyes.

The word hurts, the word helps. For once, you let it do both.

You should go back to the compound. You told Steve you would. Nat is probably there. The room is familiar. Safe, technically. Predictable in the way all lonely places become predictable after enough time.

But your feet don't turn in that direction.

At first, there is no destination. Just motion. One foot in front of the other because stopping feels dangerous. If you stop, you might think. If you think, you might remember the woman's voice when she said her daughter was three.

Mia. The room had let her name exist.

Your loss has never had that.

No name, no blanket, no favorite food, no tiny shoes by the door. No one saying, she loved stickers, she loved bananas, she laughed when the dog sneezed.

Nothing, only absence.

Only your body recognizing the loss before your mind could understand there had ever been something to lose.

You press one hand against your abdomen as you walk, hidden beneath the edge of your jacket. The gesture makes you feel foolish, it also makes you feel sick.

You drop your hand and keep walking.

A bus hisses to a stop at the curb. People step off, umbrellas tucked under arms, coffee cups in hand, cheeks flushed from the cold. You move around them like a ghost with better muscle memory.

You could call Natasha, you could go back to the compound and let her look at you with those sharp, soft eyes that always know where the wound is. You could let her sit with you. You could let Steve tell her, maybe not the details, but enough.

Your phone buzzes again.

You look down.

Lemar: Group over? You alive?

Your mouth trembles, but no smile comes.

A second message comes in.

Lemar: I'll accept "barely" as a valid answer.

Your thumb hovers but you type nothing. The screen dims.

You keep walking.

Blocks pass without your permission. Storefronts, a bakery with fogged windows, a man selling flowers under a plastic awning. The smell of coffee drifting from a corner shop, warm and bitter and almost cruel.

You don't know when the streets start to look familiar. You don't know when your body makes the decision before you do. You only realize where you are when you stop walking and lift your head.

John's building is in front of you.

For a long second, you just stare at it.

The lobby windows catch the gray afternoon light. Clean glass, quiet entrance. The kind of building that looks too composed to hold anything as messy as you.

You should leave. You should turn around before this becomes another thing you have to explain. Another weight you place in John's careful hands. He told you he was there. That didn't mean you were supposed to show up at his door like a storm with nowhere else to break.

Your phone is in your hand again before you can stop yourself. You open his message.

I'm here, love.

The words look different now. Less like a comfort, more like a door.

Your throat tightens. You type with shaking fingers.

You: I'm outside your building.

The response comes almost immediately.

John: Stay there. I'm coming down.

Your breath catches.

Not, why?

Not, what happened?

Not, are you okay?

Just stay there.

I'm coming.

You lower the phone and look at the building again. Less than a minute later, John appears through the glass doors.

He is not in uniform today, just a dark sweatshirt and jeans. Bare feet shoved into sneakers like he put them on too fast. His hair is still a little damp, messy probably from running his hand through it too many times.

His eyes find you immediately. Something in his face changes into concern, sharp and controlled. He comes toward you, slowing when he gets close like he remembers himself at the last second.

"Em."

Your name sounds different outside. Softer than the street, warmer than the air.

You try to speak but nothing comes out.

John looks at your face, then at your hands, then back up. His jaw tightens, but he doesn't ask the question you can't answer.

"You want to come up?"

You nod once.

The movement feels borrowed.

He steps aside, giving you space to move first.

You almost hate how much that steadiness unravels you.

The elevator ride is silent.

John stands beside you, close enough that you can feel his warmth, but not so close that he crowds you.

His hands stay at his sides. He doesn't touch you, though you can feel the effort it takes him not to.

You stare at the floor numbers.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Your heart beats too hard.

By the time the elevator doors open, you feel hollowed out.

John unlocks his apartment door and lets you in first.

The apartment smells faintly like tea already, maybe from earlier, maybe because your brain is inventing kindness before it arrives.

The dishes from last night are gone. The kitchen is clean again. The counters wiped. The towel folded. The display case still tucked behind the books on the shelf, half hidden, like even the polished pieces of John Walker know how to keep themselves out of sight.

Everything looks like it has been put back together.

You have not.

John doesn't tell you to sit. He doesn't fill the room with questions. He just watches you for a moment, careful in that way he gets when he knows something inside you is too close to cracking.

Then, quietly, he asks, "Tea?"

You blink at him. The word is small and ordinary, ridiculously gentle. Your throat works around nothing, you manage a nod.

John's eyes soften, but he doesn't make a thing of it. He just says, "Okay." Then he goes to the kitchen.

The kettle fills. The stove clicks. Water begins its quiet, building murmur.

You make it to the couch because standing suddenly feels impossible. You sit on the edge of it, shoulders curled inward, hands resting in your lap.

You stare at them, they don't look like yours.

Maybe that's dramatic but maybe you are allowed to be dramatic today.

Your thumb brushes your abdomen without meaning to. The second you realize what you're doing, you pull your hand back sharply, fingers curling into your sleeve like you can hide the motion after it has already happened.

John doesn't say anything from the kitchen, but you know he saw. He always sees too much.

A few minutes later, he comes back with a mug, steam curls upward in delicate little ghosts. He holds it out to you with both hands, "Careful, it's hot."

You take it from him. Your fingers brush his, and the contact nearly makes you flinch. Not because you do not want it, because you do. Because your body is starving for comfort and terrified of what it means to accept it.

John sits down, not beside you exactly. Close, but angled toward you, leaving space like an offering.

"You don't have to tell me anything," he says.

Your throat closes.

His voice is low and gentle. "You can just sit here," he continues. "Drink your tea. Not talk at all. Whatever you need."

You stare at the tea, the surface trembles slightly.

Your hands are shaking.

John notices but he doesn't reach for you.

That's what breaks something.

Not the way he looks at you like he would hold every piece of you if you asked, but would rather bleed than take what you didn't offer.

It's the not pushing.

The room blurs.

You inhale sharply, trying to steady yourself, but it turns into something ragged.

"There was a woman at group today," you say, your voice sounds strange.

John goes still.

"She was new, I think. Or maybe I just never noticed her before." You stare into the tea like it might become a place to hide. "She talked about her daughter."

John says nothing.

You keep going because if you stop now, you will never start again.

"Her daughter blipped." The word scrapes out of you. Your fingers tighten around the mug.

"She was three." Your voice cracks. "She was three years old, and she was watching cartoons, and her mother went to get her juice, and when she came back, there was just a blanket on the floor."

John's face tightens, but he stays quiet.

"Purple blanket," you whisper. "With stars."

The image is too much.

A little girl small enough to drag a blanket behind her. Small enough to leave a shape in the world that a mother would keep reaching for even after there was only dust.

You swallow hard. "Her name was Mia."

John breathes in slowly.

The apartment feels too quiet.

Your eyes burn.

"She got to say her name," you say, and the jealousy in the words horrifies you the second you hear it. "God, that sounds awful."

John's voice is barely above a whisper. "It doesn't."

You shake your head, tears slipping down before you can stop them. "It does. It is. I heard a woman talk about losing her child and all I could think was..."

You choke on the words.

John leans forward slightly, but stops himself.

Your hands tremble harder around the mug. The tea wobbles dangerously close to the rim.

John's eyes drop to it. "Can I take that?"

You hesitate, then you hand it to him.

He sets it on the coffee table, careful and soundless.

Your hands are empty now, there is nowhere to hide them. You press them together in your lap.

"All I could think was," you whisper, "mine never even got that far."

For a second, John doesn't move, he doesn't breathe.

The words land between you, small and impossible, and you watch the meaning reach him slowly.

The second he understands, something in his face breaks so quietly it almost hurts worse than if he had made a sound.

His jaw tightens first, then his eyes.

The careful control he has been holding around himself shifts, cracks, reforms into something softer and more devastated. Like he's trying to keep his own reaction from becoming another thing you have to survive.

He looks at your hands pressed together in your lap.

Then at your face with the terrible, aching realization that there had been another loss inside the one you had already told him about. A hidden room in the wreckage. A name no one got to say. A life so small the world never even had the decency to notice when it was gone.

"Em," he says.

Just your name, nothing else. But it sounds like he is holding it with both hands.

Your mouth trembles.

John's hand lifts from his knee, then stops halfway between you.

That's what makes the tears fall harder.

You stare at his hand. Open and steady, asking without words. A sob catches in your throat before you can bury it. Then, slowly, you place your shaking fingers in his.

John closes his hand around yours like he's afraid of hurting you, like you are something bruised and sacred and still somehow breathing.

His thumb brushes once over your knuckles.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers.

The words are simple.

They shouldn't be enough, they aren't. Nothing could be. But they're warm, and they're real, and they don't ask you to explain the shape of the wound before they acknowledge that it exists.

You fold forward before you can stop yourself, the first broken sound tearing out of you.

John moves, he shifts closer and gathers you in only when you lean toward him, one arm coming around your shoulders, the other bracing gently at your back. He holds you like he has been trusted with something fragile and terrifying.

You press your face into his shirt. He smells like soap and tea and the cold air from outside.

His hand settles at the back of your head.

"I've got you," he murmurs, voice rough now. "I've got you."

You cry harder.

For Bucky.

For Mia and her purple blanket with stars.

For the child you never knew existed until the universe carved the truth into your body and left you alone with the emptiness.

John doesn't tell you it's okay. He doesn't tell you it will pass. He doesn't try to make your grief smaller so it can fit more comfortably in the room.

He just holds you while the kettle ticks softly in the kitchen, while the tea grows cold on the coffee table, while the city moves on outside the windows like the world has not stopped again.

But here, in the quiet of John Walker's too-clean apartment, something shifts.

Not healed or fixed.

Just held.

And for tonight, that's the closest thing to mercy you know how to accept.

👉🏽 CHAPTER 24

#fic rec #john walker #faves #wyatt russell characters

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