OC HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE 2025: DAY SIX: Masked Mayhem
With the releases of Thunderbolts*, Fantastic Four, and Superman, the superhero genre is making a big comeback! So do an au where your oc is a superhero or supervillain.
Summary: a long stakeout reveals information john walker didn't want to share (wc: 2291)
Warnings: swearing, walker is a bit of a dick, divorce, losing child custody, mentions of jail/juvi, thunderbolts spoilers-ish
✎……idk if you wanna send in requests for them or something that'd be cool 👉👈
TRACK ONE | MASTERLIST | TRACK THREE
Juno was led from her cell in handcuffs. She was still just trying to process the fact that she had a visitor at all. Who the hell could it even be? Her mother stopped visiting around her fifth year in juvi. But this was real prison. Her first stint in a cell like that actually. She tried to call her father when she first got processed, but all he said was that he hoped prison would at least toughen her up some. He would visit when he found time.
Six months into her sentence, maybe he had found the time.
The visitor's room was one Juno had yet to be in. The walls were lined with windows so the guards could watch them carefully — making sure nothing got snuck in or out. But the room was filled with cafeteria tables. At least it wasn’t plexiglass dividers and phones.
There was only one person inside. A woman wearing a pencil skirt and a red blouse perfectly pressed. Her dark hair had a single white streak in it. She looked almost too perfect. She was smiling as Juno was led inside. So not her father then.
Her escort uncuffed her as soon as they were inside, but they didn’t take off the collar around her neck. Then, with a nod from the woman, the guards left them alone. The woman gestured to the table in the middle of the room before taking a seat herself. Juno joined her cautiously.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“No. But I — I know you.” The woman pulled a file out from under the table. Juno ducked, there was a briefcase underneath. Was she even allowed to bring that in here? “Juno Rivera, born in 1993 to Lorenzo and Paula Rivera in New York. First sentenced to juvenile detention at the age of ten for critically wounding a classmate with a knife. Said to possess —”
“Alright, you don’t have to keep going,” Juno interjected, arms crossed on top of the table. “Who are you?”
“I’m someone who can get that power damper off your neck,” she replied, pointing at the collar.
Juno touched the metal humming gently with electricity. “And if I don’t want to take it off?”
“Then you can keep it on and rot in your cell until your sentence is up. In what…Thirty years?”
She flinched. Swallowed something thick as she looked around at the guards watching her like a hawk — like she might explode at any second. For nearly half her life this was all she had ever known. “My father will come and get me out.”
“Your father?” she scoffed. “Last I heard, your daddy had hightailed it to Mexico with half of his operation and a bullet in his gut. He’s not coming. I am.”
She wanted to ask if her father had sent her. He had connections, shady people who were willing to do anything he asked. He was powerful enough. But this woman seemed different. Not one of her father’s usual puppets.
“Who are you?”
“I own and operate an organization that has a special interest in people with superhuman abilities. People like you, Ms. Rivera. If you’re willing to agree to my terms, I can get you out of here in a few days and in the world again.”
Juno considered her for a moment. Could she trust her? That streak in her hair. That calm, confident smile that quirked her red painted lips. Her nails tapped idly against the file that held her entire life’s story. Tragedy and loss. Confusion and rage.
“What are the terms?” she asked slowly.
The woman smiled. “The organization, OXE, would hold the copyright to your name, design, and powerset. We would train you on all things physical and public facing. And if we decide you are not suitable for the project we’re pursuing we can drop you back into a more…Background role.”
“What…What kind of project is this?”
“To make the world's next greatest hero.” The woman grinned widely at her.
A hero. Juno gasped lightly at the term. Felt her heart skip a beat. A hero. All of her life it felt like she could do nothing but hurt people. Make things worse. Be feared and loathed by everyone around her. But heroes weren’t feared or hated. They were…Loved.
Isn’t that what she had always wanted?
“I’m in.”
The place Valentina had gotten for them in Marseille was small. A studio apartment with an old fold-out couch, folding tables and chairs, and a wrought iron-lined balcony. It had a beautiful view of the bay, and that was the point. Some black market dealer had gotten his hands on Chitauri weapons and was selling them from his boat — posing as a fishmonger. They knew what he looked like, what his boat looked like, even. But they had yet to see a deal go through, those illegal alien weapons in his hands, and Valentina wanted solid proof before Armory and U.S. Agent ruined his day.
But two weeks holed up in that little apartment was beginning to wear on them.
Empty chip bags and bottles were scattered about the small space. The sink was full of dishes that no one really wanted to clean. The fold-out bed, at this point, was just left open. The sheets crumpled, and the pillows left where they lay. They couldn’t even eat at the small dining table. That was covered with their recon equipment, parabolic microphones, and cameras ready to catch their target in the act.
Juno felt like she should talk to her partner. This was, what, the fourth mission they had gone on together? Since their first mission, he had been easy to talk to. Not an open book by any means, but she could say what was on her mind and at least feel heard. Maybe even crack a joke if she thought of one. But instead, there was just quiet. It wasn’t for lack of trying on her part. She had tried to start conversations, ask him questions. But John had dismissed her quickly. Almost angrily at times. She didn’t try again after that.
And wasn’t going to now. He still felt caged up, distant. Like a wall was put up between them that hadn’t really been there on previous missions. He was an asshole, seemed to know it too, but he cared. Gave what he could but took what he needed. Impatient to a point but almost never when it came to her. Played to her strengths but never gave away an ounce of control. Almost to an annoying degree. Valentina could even sense that they worked well together. He was the only partner she had gotten since their first mission.
But something had changed now. Juno wondered if she did something wrong as the quiet persisted in that dirty studio apartment.
It was nearly suffocating, the silence. Not being able to leave didn’t help either. They didn’t want to draw suspicions. There was no escape from John Walker with his furrowed brow and the tension that had built between them. It had been nearly two days since the last time they even said anything to one another. Juno’s knee bounced as she tuned the frequency on the microphone.
“It would be easier if we had a bug in there,” she blurted out, almost to her own surprise.
John sighed, set down the binoculars to rub at his eyes. “I don’t wanna do anything unless it’s perfect.”
“I have an easy cover. If that helps.” She shrugged.
“What does that mean?”
At least he was taking the conversation further. At least he was looking in her direction instead of staring out of the window.
Juno took off her headphones. Sat up straighter in her seat. “Valentina…Probably knows this, but I’ve got a side gig. Arms dealing.”
“You — You’re an arms dealer?” he spluttered back, doubt leaking into every word as he really looked at her for the first time.
It was more than just the quiet, the standoffishness, that had changed about John. It was everything. His hair had grown out. His beard was longer. Dark circles had slowly formed under his eyes. He had always been rigid about his appearance, some military precision in the way his shirts and jeans looked. But now they were wrinkled, fold lines clear. She supposed it was a slow change, but they were all the more obvious now that they had spent so long together in one room. And the way he looked at her now, he knew that she saw it in him.
“Only when I’ve got time. It’s all profit for me,” she said after a beat.
He looked away from her, back to the window. “You don’t seem like the type.”
“It’s easier…When I’m wearing the suit. Mask down. It’s not Juno making the deal, it's Armory.” She resorted to fiddling with the over-ear headphones on the table, unable to stand the silence anymore. “It would be easy. I’m a known name in the underground. I could show up on his boat tonight and —”
“No. We’re not doing that. Too risky,” he replied.
Without hearing her full plan. Juno huffed and rolled her eyes, arms crossed.
“This microphone is shit. Picking up what he’s saying is guesswork. We need a proper bug if we’re gonna hear the intel we need. I can do this.”
“He doesn’t need to know that Armory is here. It could blow our location.”
“Oh, good grief. It’s like you want us to be stuck here forever.”
“No, I want us to be safe. Not running in guns blazing just because you’re tired of listening to the microphone all day.”
“I’m not tired of — this isn’t working!” Juno got to her feet, a natural reaction to the anger bubbling up in her chest. “You aren’t my fucking captain, Walker, I don’t follow your orders. If you don’t trust me then say so, but stop being a dick and just listen to me.”
She could tell that stung, calling him captain, from the way he blinked up at her from his seat before he stood up, slow and deliberate with his fists clenched at his sides. Juno stood her ground, stared up into his face with a downturned mouth and furrowed brows. But it crumbled beneath her feet only slightly when she caught his eye. Bright blue rimmed with red and told way more than he wanted them to.
Then he finally sighed and whispered, shaky and so quiet: “I do trust you.”
“Then let me do this,” she said, taking a step forward.
“I — I can’t —” he backed away, turned away — towards the kitchen. Got a glass and filled it at the sink, but never took a drink. He just stared into the ceramic basin and muttered. “I can’t lose anyone else.”
Juno barely heard it. But she did. She didn’t go to him. Knew that he would hate it. So she stayed rooted to the spot, staring at his back straining beneath that wrinkled t-shirt, and asked: “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He didn’t answer for a long time. For a moment, she wondered if she should look through the binoculars or pick up the headphones again. But they both knew their target was out for lunch right now. As was his usual. He wouldn’t be back for another hour at least. So she just stood there and waited for him. Waited for him to be ready. She knew he had lost a lot in his life. Valentina had shared the file before they worked together. The role of Captain America. His best friend and partner. His reputation. And even before that, there had been loss after loss. Squad mates. Civilians he couldn’t save. His own parents one right after the other. So she waited.
“My…My wife filed for divorce,” he spoke quietly, “Handed me the papers a week after our first mission together. She, uh — she wants full custody of our son. No visitation rights.”
“Oh, fuck,” she said without thinking.
John actually huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. My thoughts exactly.”
“I’m sorry,” she tried again.
“Yeah, me too.” He sighed again before turning to face her. “You’ll go tonight. Plant the bug on something stable. Make sure you’re not followed.”
“I know,” she replied.
He nodded, finally took a drink from that glass of water. Juno turned to her bag thrown carelessly into the other corner.
That information wasn’t in his file. She supposed it didn’t pertain to him professionally so Valentina didn’t feel the need to put it in. He was married. He had a kid. He was getting a divorce. He was losing custody of his son. There was no one he could punch or kill to get out of this. Two more people for him to lose. She looked back over her shoulder at him, wanting to give some comforting word, but so unsure what to say.
Words were coming before she could stop them: “You know, uh…The fact that you care at all means you were a pretty good dad.”
“I don’t think so,” he scoffed from across the room.
“I don’t know, man. When I first went to prison, my dad was happy about it,” she said as she pulled her suit from her bag. “Said that it might make me less of a wus.”
“Jesus.”
“Seems like you fucked up. But there are worse things to be.” She got to her feet and turned to John then who stared at her unblinking. “You could be happy to leave.”
“Juno…”
“I’m gonna go get changed. Get ready.” She pointed to the bathroom.
And he let her go. Watched as she walked away with something tight in his chest.
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It was a nice morning, one like usual. Chloe woke up thanks to Bucky so subtly moving around the room getting ready for the day.
"I don't understand how you were ever the winter soldier when you move like that," she muttered grumpily. In her opinion, he was so loud.
Bucky chuckled and called her out on her grumpiness. "Can I make it up with some coffee?"
"You thought you weren't?" Chloe retorted, tossing the covers to the side and getting out of bed. "Oh, no, no, James. This is going to cost you. Coffee — now."
Bucky gave her a mock salute and left the room to get started on his apology. Like it was his fault that she was the world's lightest sleeper.
A fly could wake her up.
~0~
Chloe emerged from the bedroom about 5 minutes later and headed straight to the kitchen. She was already envisioning her sweet morning coffee, so when she smelled burning coffee, she knew something else was going to happen.
She entered the kitchen to see her favorite coffee maker steaming and with a wide hole on the side…like someone had punched through it.
And then there was one guilty Bucky Barnes standing on the other side of the isle.
"…you broke my coffee maker?"
"Well, 'broke' is a…strong word…" Bucky cleared his throat awkwardly.
Chloe's eyes narrowed on her boyfriend. "You broke my coffee maker."
"I did not 'break it', I…gently tapped it…"
"You gently tapped a hole into it?"
"Maybe not so gently," Bucky mumbled.
"JAMES—"
Bucky sprang into action and dashed around the isle. "Okay, okay, okay!" He took her away from the messy sight. "Why don't we go out and buy a new one, hm? Any one you want, I swear."
"That was my favorite…" Chloe pouted.
"I know, I know," he nodded, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Do you want to go to the store right now? We can make a day out of it, I'll make this morning up to you, I swear."
"Yeah, alright," Chloe shrugged. At this point, nothing else could go wrong.
Bucky sent her back to the room to get changed so they could leave. He promised her that by the time she returned, the mess would be gone.
There is literally nothing else that could go wrong now, Barnes, he thought to himself. He seemed to be screwing things up spectacularly today and it wasn't even 10am yet.
He started hearing the chattering of the others as they neared the kitchen. He groaned internally. He was not ready to deal with the cavalry yet. If they found out he managed to break Chloe's coffee maker, they would never let him live it down.
No way I'm adding that to my day, he thought.
Walker was the first one in and stopped in his tracks at the sight of the coffee maker. "Woah, what the hell happened?"
Yelena came in next and said the same thing. "Somebody's in trouble…" she smirked, already assuming it was Bucky.
Ava, Alexei and Bob trailed in behind and each one made comical 'yikes' expressions. Everyone knew that Chloe without coffee was already bad, but a Chloe without her coffee maker might as well be an Avengers-level threat.
"So…who broke it?" Bucky's words stopped everyone's murmurs and earned him identical stunned faces.
"What?" Yelena said, losing her confidence in the moment. "It wasn't…it wasn't you?"
"Do I look dumb enough to break my girlfriend's coffee maker?" Bucky retorted, flat-faced.
It made Yelena second-guess herself, and the others as well.
"So, who the hell broke it?"
There was a heavy tension in the air, no one during to admit to the fault.
"I did," said Bob suddenly, "I broke—"
"No, no you didn't," Bucky cut him off. He was holding himself so straight that nobody could even think he was playing them all. "Walker?"
"What?" frowned the man. "Don't look at me. Look at Yelena."
"What?" Yelena said in return. "I didn't break it!"
"Huh, that's weird. How'd you even know it was broken?"
Yelena blinked incredulously at Walker. "Uuh, because it's sitting right in front of us and it's broken. Suspicious!"
"If it matters - probably not - but Ava was the last one to use it," Alexei mumbled to Bucky not so much in a 'mumble'.
Ava reacted fast at the accusation. "Liar! I don't even drink that crap!"
"Oh, really? Then what were you doing by the coffee maker earlier?"
"Ok, ok! Let's not fight!" Bob tried speaking over everyone's shouts. "I broke it, let me pay for it, Bucky!"
"No, Bob, we can't do that," Bucky said, half smiling. It was getting harder not to start laughing. "So who broke it? Chloe's going to be here any minute now and she's going to want some answers."
"Bucky, Ava's been awfully quiet…" Alexei said yet again and made Ava snap.
"Oh, really!?" She turned and started to argue with him, which then prompted the rest to start bickering with each other.
And that's how found them when she walked into the kitchen. Bucky was watching the chaos with a massive smirk on his face, clearly very proud of himself.
"Woah, woah, woah, what the hell is going on!?" she shouted over all of them.
"We're trying to figure out who the hell broke your damn coffee maker," Walker said, then immediately reiterated his innocence in the matter.
"Who broke my coffee maker?" Chloe said, confused, then glanced at Bucky. "We don't know who broke it?"
"Nope," he replied, then looked away to cover up his laugh.
I'm gonna kill this guy, she thought and swallowed her own laughter.
"I said it was me," Bob cut in unknowingly, "I broke it, so just let me try and get a new one. There's no need to fight."
"No, Bob, it wasn't you," Chloe said softly, "But maybe you and I can go shopping for another one. You're the only with sensible taste in this whole building."
And suddenly Bucky was done having his own fun. "What?" he looked at Chloe. "I thought you and I—"
"We can train later, sweetheart," Chloe said, like that had been their whole plan for the day. "Bob and I have some shopping to do. I'll see you later, okay? Bob?"
Bob looked around the group and their annoyed faces. Shopping was definitely the easier way to go. "Yup!" He dashed after Chloe who had already taken the lead out.
"And clean that mess up!" she shouted at the rest.
Unbelievable, Bucky shook his head.
He looked at the remaining members after a moment. "You heard her. Clean this mess up." He then too left the kitchen, ignoring the bickering that continued without him.
~0~
It was later at night when Bucky saw Chloe again and it was only because neither she nor Bob could figure out how to set up the new coffee maker. It was like watching children playing with tools.
"You found a new one," he mused at the larger coffee maker now taking space up on the counter.
"Well I had to considering somebody broke my last one," Chloe remarked.
"I still say it's me," Bob said, very much sounding honest.
"No, Bob, it wasn't you," Chloe said, crossing her arms. "It was my dumbass boyfriend."
"What?" Bob's eyes widened and immediately flickered to Bucky. "You broke it?"
A smirk spread across Bucky's face. "You gonna tell, Bob?"
"Uh, no," Bob shook his head instantly. "N-no, I would — I would never! But then…why did you make it seem like someone else did it? Ava almost beat up Alexei."
"I was bored," answered Bucky, "and annoyed."
"Evil," Chloe rolled her eyes playfully. "We could have had a dead team on our hands all because you wanted to have some fun."
"And I had a lot of fun," Bucky was happy to report. "Bob, why don't you head out and I'll take over here?"
Bob agreed only because he didn't want to get blamed for something too. When he was gone, Chloe took the opportunity to 'reprimand' Bucky for being so childish.
"You gotta admit it was funny, though," Bucky said after the whole lecture. And as much as Chloe wanted to remain serious, the image of the whole team arguing with each other was too funny to pass on.
"You can't do that again…" she warned him through giggles.
"Not with the coffee maker, of course," Bucky said, "It's brand new now." Chloe whacked his arm. "We could do it with something else! It's funny, Chlo."
Chloe leaned up and pressed a kiss on his cheek. "You're supposed to be mature here. You are the oldest."
"And therefore with the authority to continue," Bucky shrugged.
"Get to work, Bucky!" Chloe tossed him the coffee maker's manual. "I want coffee tomorrow morning!"
~ 0 ~
Author's Note:
I saw this idea on tiktok and died laughing just thinking about it so here we are :)
As always, I have Fanfic/Wattpad accounts under "noblecrescent" and a tumblr account under "saiilorstars" if you'd like to follow :)
I've been having fandom nostalgia lately and decided to revisit one of my old OCs. A slight revamp gave Morgan new powers and codename, but the rest of the essentials remain much the same. I doubt I will revise and share her story, but I wanted to share this.
Summary: Agatha can tell Rebecca is getting ready to bolt. She can’t let that happen, not when they haven’t had their chance in this lifetime.
Word Count: 487
Warnings: Angst
A/N: It gets fluffy at the end, I promise.
Everywhere she went in Westview, there was Agnes. It was getting weird. Way too often to be coincidental. She was scared to confront her. Perhaps it was best to pack her things and leave Westview. She’d thought it impossible once, but something felt different now somehow. So that’s what she did. She went home, packed a bag —essentials mostly— and made to leave, but as she reached the edge of town, her whole world went black.
She woke up in a dimly lit room, sitting in a chair, tied in, in fact. Naturally, she started to panic. "Shh, shh," a voice hushed from the darkness. The woman soon stepped into the light.
"Agnes," she realized aloud. Her heart started to race. She’d been right to try and get out, and this was the proof.
"No. No, no, no! Why don’t you ever remember?" She sounded exasperated. Mad, but not at her, more like at the universe. "It’s Agatha, dear. Always Agatha."
"I don’t understand," Rebecca replied. Had that always been her name and she’d just been hearing it wrong? She could have sworn that wasn’t the case.
"You never do, no matter how many times I’ve loved you." She stepped closer, just enough to reach out and touch her temple. She could never restore her memories of the lives she’d lived before, only the feeling of what they were. "You’re always doomed to forget." With a wave of her hand, she undid the bindings that held her. She’d never meant to hurt or frighten, only stop Rebecca from leaving her once more.
"Wait," Rebecca called after Agatha. Agatha stopped, waited. "You love me?" The words are soft spoken, almost as if Rebecca feared to believe they might be true.
Agatha turned back to her. "I always have," she confirmed.
"I don’t remember," Rebecca admits. Agatha bows her head. This was usually how it went. "But," Agatha looked back up. "I want to," Rebecca finished. This was new territory. It had always ended with Rebecca telling her she was crazy and running from her when she revealed her powers. "When you touched me, it felt…familiar. Safe."
Agatha couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It had to be Wanda's influence, the potency of her magic. Rebecca got up from the chair and walked over to Agatha. It had been ages since they’d been this close. Rebecca looked up into her eyes and regarded her curiously. Agatha held her breath. She should do something, say something. She couldn’t miss this opportunity. It might be the only one in this life of Rebecca's.
Agatha surged forward, knocking Rebecca back a step as she kissed her. She put her arm around her to steady them both, and that’s when she felt Rebecca kiss her back. A tear rolled down Agatha's cheek, and she finally brought herself to pull away, resting her forehead against Rebecca's. "Agatha, I remember. I remember it all."