John request? He kissed reader once on a mission to keep their cover and started developing feelings so he pulled away until he heard someone else flirting with her and realized how jealous he is
After a surprise kiss on an undercover mission, John spends three months thinking you regretted it. John's silent treatment leaves you convinced he isn't interested, but when your ex shows up to a New Avengers cocktail hour, John can't help but make his feelings clear.
A/N: I'm taking swings here with who Sam's Avengers will be, so just go with it. Also, I hope there are no hard feelings about the strays your ex catches in this. Sorry, bud!
Rating: 18+ MDNI
WC: 8k (complete)
CW: Porn with plot, reader is afab, reader swears, harsh language, adult themes, jealousy, pinv, unprotected sex, slow burn, romance, size differences, size kink, rough sex, dirty talk, moderate alcohol use but reader is not drunk, reader is a thunderbolt/new avenger, john is down bad, yelena's got jokes, john's domestic streak will kill me dead.
Sick af dividers by @lobster-graphics
Three Months Ago
Tokyo
John Walker was accustomed to entering rooms nobody wanted to see him in, so it was a rare feeling, a special feeling, to be someone else for a night. Or try to be, at least. John’s ill-fated brush with stardom had left him suspicious at best of anyone who chased wealth and fame. Now he was expected to look loose and natural in a room full of graspers.
“What’s my face doing?” he asked you the moment the elevator dumped the two of you onto the rooftop bar.
“Nothing good,” you said, turning to adjust his tie, a little gesture that put him more at ease. His fake wedding band felt too tight. It had a diamond in it that was more expensive than his last house. You, by contrast, didn’t seem nervous at all. “Deep breath in, deep breath out. Try to look bored. That’s better. Some of the people here haven’t had a genuine feeling since 2008. Pretend you’re at the DMV.”
You were Trip and Margaret Bay, indolent billionaires who had made a fortune in silica mines. The backstory had seemed needlessly complex to John, with years of personal details, anniversaries, and preferences crammed into a dossier that you had given to him weeks earlier. You didn’t come from money like this, but previous to your life as a New Avenger, you had moved in circles he hadn’t even heard of let alone brushed up against. This was weird money. Eyes Wide Shut money. You took it in stride; John decided that would be his lifeline, his passport to this strange new world, but the itch under his skin never went away, not even after hours of playing the disaffected rich man.
It was almost midnight; everyone at the showcase was a few cocktails deep except for you. John was permitted to indulge to fit in and avoid suspicion; it would look odd if both of you turned down renowned cocktails devised by Andrea Minarelli exclusively for The Bvlgari Bar. You led him to the warmly lit bar, the shelves lined up neatly in front of a sprawling mosaic of peacocks hiding among vines.
John’s eyes had watered when you subtly directed him to order the Yamazaki 12 Rob Roy off the bespoke menu. You had noticed his pained expression, the way his eyes widened in alarm.
“Close your mouth. It’s yen not dollars,” you whispered, smiling through it.
“I know that.”
It was still almost fifty American dollars for a fucking drink. You urged him down to your level with a flirty tug on his tie, then murmured into his ear how to order it in perfect Japanese. John’s panic over the price evaporated. Nobody had ever grabbed him by the tie like that. You were so confident. Cool. And shit, it was unbearably hot, competency on a level that made his stomach flip like he was sixteen again. He repeated the words to the bartender, and he must not have botched it, because the whisky drink was dramatically and flamboyantly prepared while you watched, side by side.
“How do you know all this shit?” he asked, taking the drink and offering his arm. You looped around it like holding onto him was an old habit, like you had done it a thousand times. Maybe it was just acting, maybe he hadn’t earned it, but it felt nice to be touched in a familiar way.
“We all have our strengths,” you had said, shrugging, surreptitiously feeling his bicep through his suit to underscore your point. “That’s what makes us a good team.”
“Really? Because that bartender looked at you like you had married a dancing pig.”
You considered that with your fingertip dancing back and forth along your lower lip, a tick of yours he was beginning to dread. Stop making me look. “Because he speaks English, too, Trip, I was just showing off.”
He frowned, sipped the drink, and was too bowled over by the quality to complain about the process. Still grimacing, he fluffed his hair. “Do I look like a Trip?”
You patted his forearm. “I’m not answering that.”
And the evening had gone like that, you gently guiding him through the flaming hoops of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous while John swallowed his pride and let you take the reins. Not a thing he was good at. Not a thing he looked forward to. Somehow, you didn’t make him feel small about it. And so far, he was adequately performing his primary function, which was to stand very tall when anyone looked at you too long or got too close, and play a doting labrador of a husband.
You were there for more than just ludicrously overpriced cocktails. Cosmo Bonifacio and his controversially younger wife, Alessia, had rented out the rooftop bar at the Bvlgari Hotel to show their latest jewelry collection to only the most serious buyers. Plinths draped in black velvet had been marched in and arranged around the bar, and each came to hold a dazzling piece of one-of-a-kind ornamentation. It was all a big show in the literal and the figurative; Bonifacio was transferring a particular gem, one that had been pried out of a comet, one that had significance far beyond its shimmer and glow, to a target that could not be allowed to have it.
A small crowd had stayed around the gem for hours, admiring, discussing. Until that group thinned, you were both forced to engage in conversation with the worst people on the planet. He had done an admiral job, in his estimation, of regurgitating the backstory you had prepped. Maybe he had overachieved, because at one point in the evening, Cosmo and Alessia had cornered him alone, dying to hear all about how the two of you met, what the courtship was like, the engagement, and so on. Alessia was a real romantic. She peppered John with questions and sighs until his eye twitched; he got the sense she was maybe a bit jealous of what you two had.
What you pretend had.
And now at night’s end it was just the four of you—Cosmo, Alessia, John and yourself—planted around the pillar with the ominously shiny ring. The lab had fabricated a knock off to your specifications, a process that had taken months and a small fortune. You two were never going to get more alone with the thing than you were now, and it was up to John to keep all eyes on him. He watched you palm the fake ring, slipping it out of your clutch, silky smooth, perceptible only because he was looking for it.
“You have been so kind to entertain us all evening, Mr. Bay,” Alessia was saying, quite drunk, waving her glass around so much it was practically empty. Her high heels were splattered with gin. She pried herself away from her wrinkled windbag of a husband to drape herself across John. “The stories you tell! We really must have you to the house in Forte dei Marmi.”
He stood stock still while Alessia felt up his arm, then his chest, his eyes dragging to you just briefly, monitoring your progress with the ring. Nobody was the wiser. You pretended to bump the plinth with your hip, steadying it in a feigned panic, the black fabric of your shawl hiding the swap as you seamlessly dropped the fake into place.
You were just retracting your arm, transferring the real deal into your purse, when Alessia spun around, bounding back over to you with a giggle. John had noticed at one point that she and her husband weirdly looked like they could be related in a father/daughter kind of way, an observation he had shared with you in a private booth. You had snorted down into your club soda.
“Behave,” you had warned him, in a voice that instead made him want to act up, make you laugh for him like that again.
Annoyance flitted across your face as Alessia flounced up to you. Years of military experience sent alarm bells up in John’s head. He dropped his mostly empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter and shifted toward you, preparing for…what, he couldn’t say. Just preparing.
“Your husband was telling me all about your beautiful engagement. Cosmo took me to Paris, but everyone goes to Paris,” she said, rolling her eyes. Her husband, little more than a bump on a log at this point, grumbled something under his breath in Italian. “Nothing like—ah, mi dispiace—” She scrunched up her face, snapping her fingers, trying to recall what John had told her. Those alarm bells got louder and louder as she poked you in the chest, asking, “Where was it again?”
It wouldn’t have been a problem if he had just remembered the convoluted backstories, but his mind had blanked, and in a moment of panic, John had riffed. You hadn’t been present for that part of their charming conversation. And John knew it would look unbelievably suspicious if you—the person who had allegedly been proposed to—gave her the wrong location. He acted on instinct, taking one step toward you, melding himself against your left side, his hand scooping down to cup your face as he turned it slightly. John leaned down, brushing his lips against your ear, whispering, “say Central Park,” then completed the turn of your head to cover the whisper and planted a kiss directly on your mouth.
You kissed him right back, eagerly, deeply. Fuck. It made his pulse double. The faint, powdery taste of your lipstick gave way to the taste of just you. Your tongue grazed his, but he couldn’t say whether he had initiated that or you had. He just knew it felt natural, like his hands belonged in your hair, your lips sealed to his. Your hands slid up his chest, nails scratching through his shirt, and it was so intimate, so fucking sexy, it blotted out the rest of the roof, the rest of Tokyo, for a brief and beautiful instant.
When you pulled away, your eyes were drowsy, your lips swollen from the pressure of his lips.
“Sorry,” John said, chuckling and settling his arm around your shoulders, sliding it down to your waist. “When I think about that day, I just get…”
“Overwhelmed,” you finished for him, breathless, playing nervously with the strands of your necklace. “Central Park,” you said, directing the answer to Alessia. “It was perfect.”
“Ma dai, I just want to wrap you in a little box and take you home,” she sighed, reaching up to pinch your cheek and John’s at the same time. “Don’t you just love them, tesoro?” she asked, letting go and returning to her husband. John was pretty sure the guy had fallen asleep standing up.
The rest of the night was a blur until you were out of the hotel and in the car that would deliver you to the airport. John loosened his tie, knees spread in the tiny fucking car, feeling like a man sardine as he tried to get comfortable. He rolled down the window, letting the night air hit his flushed skin. The post-mission jitters were still zipping through him like shocks of lightning, heat and sweat venting through his palms.
You called in the mission status, then tucked your phone into your bag.
He felt your eyes on him in the dark car.
“Should we talk about it?” you asked softly.
“I shouldn’t have deviated,” John blurted out. He didn’t know where that came from. Hell, probably. “The story, I mean. I shouldn’t have improvised.”
It sounded wrong. Too mean. Too clipped. Defensive, like he wanted to talk about anything but that kiss. By the time he swiveled to apologize for his dogshit stupid mouth, you were staring out the window, cold. “We got through it,” you said, and he could hear the wall slamming down, the curtain closing, on your side and on his. “Nothing exploded. Nobody died. But yes, next time it would be better if you came prepared.”
You couldn’t pinpoint when John Walker decided he hated you or what you had done to deserve it, but confusion didn’t mitigate harm. It hurt, the way your growing camaraderie was killed, abruptly, by a cold snap. All things considered, you thought that you had responded appropriately to being manhandled into a tongue kiss on a rooftop bar, all because John F. Walker couldn’t memorize a few paragraphs of backstory. You wondered what the F stood for, but in your less charitable moments, you decided it stood for Fucking Forgetful.
Which was wild, you thought, considering the guy was so strong, fast, and smart that the government had studied him way before a drop of serum ever hit his bloodstream. Maybe he had panicked, he certainly hadn’t been in his natural environment, but still, it wasn’t your fault he had almost blown your cover.
Three months of being iced out. Three months of a gigantic man trying to make himself as tiny as possible whenever you were in the room. Three months of Yelena and Ava poking at you to find out what went wrong, what happened in Tokyo, because John was acting like you had spontaneously developed leprosy. Each time, your answer was the same—the mission went well, you made a great team, the two of you smoothed out the single hiccup that could’ve made everything go tits up.
You left out the itsy-bitsy, totally not important detail of The Kiss.
The Kiss that felt like it had been simmering between you all night. The Kiss that was hotter than anything you’d experienced with an actual partner. The Kiss that made you want to curl up in his arms and just stay. The Kiss that burned his cherry whisky flavor onto your tongue for good. The Kiss that you tried like hell to scrape from your memories but never could. You tasted him and felt his hard chest pressing against you in dreams. You woke up with the scratch of his fingernails still stinging against your scalp.
“I think you should wear the blue one,” Yelena said, pointing to a slinky slip dress in your closet; it was sandwiched between the other options, a more sedate black jumpsuit and a red dress you actually kind of hated and needed to donate. “I want to see Walker’s head pop like a grape. It will be funny.”
“No explosions tonight, Lena. He’s not interested.” Still, you agreed that the blue dress was the right choice. It was actually pewter, a distinction you despised yourself for knowing. Such was the lifestyle you had partially lived and further studied to become an espionage expert. Souped-up cat burglar was how a layman might describe you; admittedly, you had never met a state secret you didn’t want to heist. “He’s made that painfully clear.”
“Pft. No. I don’t buy it. He’s obsessed with you,” she countered, sliding past you to take the dress out herself and shove it into your arms. Her hair was combed back and pinned, heavy black makeup rimming her eyes, her own killer physique jammed into a sheer top and high-waisted leather pants. It was an important night; everyone wanted to look cool and interesting and extremely secure in themselves and their positions. Bucky had finally convinced Sam to let some of the other Avengers come by for a mingling event, casual party stuff, a social olive branch. You had kept more than just The Kiss from Yelena; she didn’t know, none of your teammates did, that there was a solid chance your ex would show up.
Deep breath in, deep breath out.
There was no modesty left between you. You shucked your robe and pulled the dress on, deciding it didn’t even really require a bra, the built-in boning would be plenty. And if it wasn’t? Some lucky gentleman would get a show. Maybe your ex, although he really didn’t deserve it.
“I’m not going over this with you again,” you said, marching to your vanity to plonk down and sift through your makeup. The lipsticks clacked as you riffled through a plastic bin and Yelena glowered at you in the mirror, her hands on her hips. “He’s said maybe two words to me this entire month. He looks at me like there’s a dildo hanging out of my nose.”
“That would be impressive,” she said, smirking. “This is just how all the very depressed American men are. He’s afraid his dick will fall off if he admits how much he wants to worship at your feet. It’s a whole thing. There are podcasts about it.”
“Pass,” you muttered.
“And I agree that he doesn’t deserve you, but he did, I think, before this weird phase of his started.” Yelena sighed, beginning to pace, talking with her hands as she always did. “He is being a truly divorced dad right now, but I swear, he used to googoo gaga at the back of your head, like, all the time. All the time during briefings, team building exercises, training...”
“Well. That’s over.” Womp, womp. You shrugged, pretending it didn’t cut you to the bone. “Something changed.”
She finally let it drop, peering over your shoulder as you sorted tubes. “Hang on, Sticky Fingers, this is mine.” Yelena snatched a lipstick that you had borrowed and forgotten to give back. She shoved it in her pocket, then said: “That one” and pointed.
Your heart bunched into your throat. It was the exact shade you had worn the night of The Kiss. Fuck it, you thought, if it didn’t mean anything then it didn’t mean anything, and John wouldn’t care one way or the other what you wore. He probably wouldn’t even make the connection; he probably wouldn’t care to look.
The first thing John noticed was the lipstick.
It hit like a guided missile. Ever since you and Yelena had joined the party, it was all he could see. And maybe that was a good thing, because if he stopped looking at your lips, he’d have to take in the rest of you, and he was really trying to be less of a masochist.
Not that he was having much success.
The penthouse was filling up. Bucky had hired an honest to God party planner to make sure everything went off without a hitch. His nervous energy was putting John on edge; he was acting like a bridezilla on her wedding day, asking the caterers too many questions, hovering, fussing, nitpicking details that only he cared about. John finally cornered him by the bar top, where an elaborate sushi display was set up around smooth green lumps of wasabi shaped like koi fish.
“You’re making everyone crazy, man,” John told him. It was not the sort of thing he would risk saying a few months ago. He wouldn’t call the New Avengers a family, necessarily, but he had spent enough time with Barnes in the field to bury the old hatchets. “It’s nice in here. You did a good job. Let everyone relax.”
Bucky pursed his lips, staring at the wasabi. But with each of John’s simple, clear commands, his shoulders lowered a fraction. “It’s just an awkward situation,” he said. His eyes flicked from the sushi to John’s face, lingering, squinting. “And it would look better if we were all getting along.”
“Here we go.” John needed to hold something, or he was going to embarrass himself with his fists. He dodged to the refrigerator and yanked out a beer, opening it onehanded before circling back to Bucky. “I don’t know what you want, Barnes. I’m being civil.”
The other man considered that for such a long time John tracked back over his own words to make sure he hadn’t said something insane.
“What happened in Tokyo?” Bucky asked.
John’s stomach clenched; from across the room, you laughed at something Ava was saying. Fuck, your laugh. The night was just starting, and he already wanted to Irish goodbye. “We did our jobs, that’s what happened.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been weird with her ever since you got back.” Bucky crossed his arms, the lights over the bar glinting across his vibranium arm. “Listen, we have counselors for this stuff. Maybe you two need to, I don’t know, sit down, have this handled with a professional. If she did something, if you did something--”
“Nobody did anything,” John told him, both definitive and defensive, draining the beer and crushing it in his fist. Nobody did anything, that’s the problem. I stuck my fucking foot in my mouth and watched the light leave her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll play nice, I won’t ruin your big night.”
“Walker—”
John left Bucky by the sculpted wasabi, grabbing another beer before joining Bob by the doors to the observation deck. Lately, Bob had more good days than not, but this was going to be a minefield for someone with his anxieties. John could already see the deer in headlights look, the crumpling posture, the fidgeting.
“Hey bud.” John sighed, leaning against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “You hanging in there?”
“Do you know these people? Like not from the news, do you know know them?” Bob asked. Down by his waist, he pointed subtly to the superheroes emerging from the elevator bay. Falcon, Iron Heart, Ms. Marvel…John knew some of them, though most of them were too high profile and important to give him the time of day.
“Some of them,” John said. “Don’t let them intimidate you. You’re more powerful than most of them, right? I don’t see Thor, and that guy over there is just mostly a bird.”
“I guess. Yeah.” Bob nodded, standing a little straighter. “Thanks, Walker.”
“No problem, Bobby.” John clapped his friend on the shoulder, slapping it twice. He started to lean away from the window, find another corner to haunt, but Bob’s soft gasp of wonder stopped him.
“Whoa, holy shit, that’s the wizard guy, right? Dr. Strange.”
It was, indeed, Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, who was nursing a club soda near the duo of leather sofas across the penthouse, easing in between you and Ava to wheedle his way into the conversation. He was dressed in a suit, no tie, which seemed a bit much for the occasion, but maybe surgeons were just like that. A cold, gross feeling spread across John’s stomach as he watched Stephen place himself just a hair too close to you. Familiar. Flirty. Then, he leaned down and gave you a one-armed hug, an embrace that went on way, way too long.
Immediately, John zeroed in on his creepy little beard, his pointy brows, the eyebrows of a pervert.
“Must be weird,” Bob said, shudder-laughing. “Running into your ex at something like this. Small world, maybe. Still. Ugh.”
“What?” The word tore out of John like extruded shrapnel. Her what.
Bob blinked across at him, expression a mask of innocence. “Oh. Did she not…Oh. Right. You two aren’t really…heard her mention something when he showed up. They went out. Used to go out.”
It was none of John’s business. Especially not after months of giving you the silent treatment. But when Stephen’s hand brushed your hip like that it started to feel a lot like John’s business. The way your ex looked at you made his blood whistle through his ears. You had the strained smile of someone who was just trying to be polite, not make a scene, but Stephen’s cocky grin was instantly recognizable to John--it was the smile of a man determined to plant a flag, make a statement.
Of course it had to be a fucking Steve.
“Coming into my house,” John heard himself mutter, mid-thought, the can in his grip creaking.
“You good?” Bob’s eyes darted. “Probably…probably shouldn’t have said anything, huh? My bad.”
The walls were closing in on him from all sides. Even the low mood lights felt like they were stabbing into his retinas. Anyone and everyone laughing in the penthouse were surely laughing at him, like they could see in his mind, see him unspooling months of hurt feelings, spinning that angst into a rope that tightened bit by bit around his throat.
John had told himself you regretted the kiss, and if you regretted it then he had to, too. Broaching the subject would just open himself up to more rejection, and he couldn’t handle that. You had gone after the one thing he was still reasonably confident in—his work ethic. Kissing you had left his heart wide open, and then you sat in that horrible tiny car and insulted his preparedness.
It didn’t matter that you were right, it mattered that you hadn’t somehow read his mind, soothed his ego, known he was sensitive about the mistake and even more sensitive about the cover up.
“Are you okay? You’re really red.”
John looked down at his feet until the room stopped collapsing and spinning. Deep breath in, deep breath out. “I’m fine,” he told Bob, giving a half-snarled smile. Then, under his breath: “Shit. I’m not fine.”
“He’s waving at you.”
John’s head snapped up. “What?”
“The wizard. He’s waving at you.”
And so he was. John went very still, a man hardening to stone as Bob grinned and waved back, almost in front of John’s face. He had to choose his next actions carefully. The serum was coursing through him like a fucking riptide. He could feel the jealousy, the anger, dragging him under as Stephen glanced at you, his eyes full of stars. Yeah, John thought, bitter. That’s how I look at her, too.
Or how he used to, when he allowed himself the pleasure.
“Fuck it.” He shoved the beer into Bob’s hands to get him to stop waving and left the windows behind to join your group by the couch. He didn’t know what he was going to do, only that he had to do something. He was tired of lying to himself; the kiss had mattered and he didn’t regret it.
John soothed himself with the fact that he towered over Strange. At least he had that going for him. Ava moved aside to let John into your tight conversation circle. And John, helpless to resist, looked you full in the face for the first time in months. He could actually feel his heart seizing in his chest. You were so god damned beautiful. The lipstick. That dress. He missed being your number one on missions. He missed everything. And he missed the way he felt around you, not necessarily in charge, but at ease knowing he had reliable backup. You made a good duo until he fucked it all up.
“John Walker, is it? A pleasure.” Strange extended his hand, smiling, though John didn’t miss the sneering superiority in his voice. When they shook hands, John used the bruising grip he reserved for the silliest jackoffs in his ranger unit, just to let Strange know he was wise to the power play.
“Stephen wanted to meet everyone on the team,” you added, trying to smooth over the introduction. For the first time since you joined up, you looked uneasy. Uncertain.
John rolled his shoulders back, flicking his head toward the windows. “Yeah? Then we should get Bob over here; he’s the real super hero.”
Strange burbled with laughter. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” You were about to say something, likely praising Bob, because you two were thick as thieves, always scurrying off to music festivals in the park or record shops, but Strange cut you off. John saw your jaw set a little firmer. “I’m sure you’re all assets in your own ways. Remind me, what is it you do again?”
John wished it surprised him, the pettiness; Strange was a genius, he could probably recall John’s RASP scores and blood type, which meant he also knew John had a temper. Ava touched his forearm, a warning that he didn’t need. He wasn’t going to get baited by a guy who had fumbled you, especially not one dressed like David Blaine’s understudy.
“Fists and guns,” John said flatly.
“He has a great shield.”
He thought he had armored up for the conversation, but then you had to go and say that. John’s hand opened and closed down by his thigh. Fuck. Don’t do that, don’t help me, I don’t deserve it. Strange must not have noticed the gently wistful tone you used, the sadness in your eyes as you glanced at anything but John’s face, but John did.
“Yeah,” he said. John cleared his throat. “Fists, guns, shield.”
“A shield?” Strange seemed like he was having fun. Good for him. He took a sip from his drink, looking around at each of you with a toothy smile. “Can I see it?”
John raised his eyebrows, then sucked his lower lip into his mouth, staring Stephen dead in the eyes. “Only if you ask real sweet.” You made a strangled noise into your glass, which was empty. John reached toward you. “What are you drinking?”
You handed him the glass with a trembling hand, telling him.
“Back in a flash,” he said, giving you a wink. At the bar, Yelena was waiting, prowling like a tiger by the punch bowl.
“How’s the dick swinging going?” she asked, smirking across his chest at you and Strange. “You should get yours out, I bet it’s way bigger.”
John chuckled down at the ground, waiting in the short line that had formed to get your drink filled for you. “No comment.”
“That’s classy of you, too classy. We could use some live entertainment. This is nice and everything but boring as shit.”
Down the bar, Bucky heard her, leaning out to warn her with just a narrowing of eyes.
“It’s nice to see you feeling yourself again,” Yelena added, helping herself to what he could only imagine was her sixth or so glass of punch. Her lips were stained with artificial red. “Weird that it’s happening the night her ex turns up. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”
“Did you know about this?” he asked.
“Nope. She never said anything. Bob told me just now.” Yelena sucked her teeth, squinting at Strange. “I don’t know. I don’t like it. This is our turf, you know? You can’t come in here and get handsy with my losers.” He wasn’t about to interrupt her when she was on a tear, one that he largely agreed with, although John probably would have chosen a different word besides losers, but... “I know I give you shit about the beret, but have you seen his kit? It’s like Count Dooku got dressed in the dark.”
John looked at her with new admiration, holding out his fist. Silently, she bumped it with her own. The bar freed up and he approached the rows of bottles. They had become progressively haphazard as the night went on. He mixed your drink, shoulders hunched as Yelena’s attention swiveled back to him. “John. What happened in Tokyo?”
Your glass was starting to freeze his palm. He mixed your drink as slowly as he could justify. Afterward, John set it down, marching up to Yelena, putting his back to the room, his knuckles pressed firmly against the marble counter. “I kissed her.”
Yelena touched his shoulder and it was almost kind. “Did it go bad?”
“No, it was perfect.”
She groaned. “Oh, shit. Okay, okay. Take her that drink before Zoltar over there tries to cop another feel.”
John picked up your glass, turning slowly, managing his anger one unbearable second at a time. “I told Bucky I wouldn’t ruin anything for him tonight.”
“So what? I lie to Bucky all the time.” She at least did Barnes the courtesy of lowering her voice this time. “Go on, Walker. Go and get your girl.”
Something was different about John when he returned with your drink. He was…calm. His eyes found you and didn’t budge, like he had locked on to a target, and nothing would make him deviate from his mission. Stephen was peppering Ava with questions about her suit, how it worked, what the sensation was like when she phased in and out. But you weren’t paying attention; you were watching John, and the full force of his attention made your skin ignite.
It was easy to forget how hard he had made it the last few months when being side by side with him was effortless.
He came up on your left side, handing you the drink, his head lowered and tipped toward you, just the way he had been when you were undercover together, when he was your husband and it felt good and powerful to be on his arm. His hand touched the near side of your hip, his eyes still locked on your face, but now in silent inquiry.
You moved toward him, just a little, entering his orbit, remembering the pull. Heat radiated through the thin material of his henley. The feeling of it against your side made you feel soft and sleepy. As if you were back on that rooftop bar, his hand kept moving, sliding across your lower back until it was snug on the other side, fitting into the shape of your waist.
“It’s no fifty-dollar Rob Roy,” he joked, bumping his leg against yours. “And we’re out of cherries.”
You took a sip, smiling as the fizz tickled your throat. “It’s the thought that counts.”
John breathed against your ear, craning down to reach it, his hand flexing on your waist. His size, the way he touched you, was intoxicating. “I find it’s the action.”
“Sorry, did I miss something? Are you two together?”
Stephen had interrupted Ava to ask you both, a skeptical tilt to his severe brow as he absorbed this new energy flying between you and John. The way he asked, disgusted, like you were canoodling with an overflowing trash can, snapped you out of the spell of John’s presence. Because even if Stephen was annoying, he had a point. You and John weren’t together and he had spent the last three months punishing you for a crime you were pretty sure belonged on his record.
Reality slammed home. You hugged the glass to your middle with both hands, then shook your head. “I, um, I need a minute.”
It wasn’t fair. It was an ambush, and John was acting like a spoiled brat. Another man that had once played with his toy was back and maybe wanted to play with it again, and that was what got John’s attention? Bullshit. You couldn’t hear what anyone said back to you, peeling away, hurrying through the guests and toward the stairs and the elevator. You were so lost in your own jumbled thoughts that you didn’t realize John had followed until you were enclosed in the elevator with him. Great.
“Don’t do this,” you said, showing him your back. “Don’t…none of it makes sense. Why now? Why tonight? Is it Stephen? It was like three dates, John, we didn’t even kiss.”
The elevator plunged you down several levels to the dormitories. You pushed past him, still determined to isolate yourself until you could form a single, clear thought. He followed, using the coarse, harried voice you remembered from the battlefield. “Yes. Yes and no. It’s about him and it’s about everything else. It’s about us.”
A pitiful, needy part of you slowed your feet, the part that was probably generating all of those maddening dreams. He caught you by the wrist, grip light enough to be slipped if that was what you wanted. But you felt flames lick across your skin from the point of contact, from the strength he wielded so casually against others but never with you. The hall was quiet, dark, abandoned while everyone partied upstairs. John held on, urging you against the nearest wall, plucking the glass out of your hand and putting it on the side table littered with Alexei’s unpaid parking tickets. His hands closed around your waist, chest pumping as he closed the distance between you.
“I already didn’t feel like myself that night, out of my depth, and I panicked. It was my fault that we almost got burned, and then I made everything worse in the car. I…” John closed his eyes, squeezing them tight. “I shut down. I punished myself by punishing you. There’s no excuse, I’m just sorry.”
Your hands landed on his chest, tenting there lightly. He looked like he was in pain, like he had taken a bullet three months ago and bled out ever since. “I thought you regretted it.”
“No. Shit. No.” His eyes flew open, bright baby blue even in the gloom. One hand rose to cup your face, his thumb stroking just under your lower lip. “I want to kiss you again. But me, John, not…not Trick—”
“Trip.” You laughed despite the tension, head falling forward until it grazed his chest.
“Right. Fuck. Trip.” He laughed too, hoarse and rattled. He lifted your head again to look at him, shoulders relaxing down somewhat as he gazed fondly into your eyes. “John Walker wants to kiss you. No cover. No mission. No mistakes. No regrets.”
As apologies from men went, you had heard worse. You let your head fall back against the wall, pulling him even closer by his shirt, wishing you could pull him through your skin, into your veins, into the place where your dreams of him burned like sinful eyes in the dark. He must have tracked the shift. His thumb ghosted across your lips.
“Need to taste this again,” he rasped, pressing his forehead to yours. His hand shook on your face like he was in withdrawal. “Say you wore it just for me. Just to make me crazy.”
You told him the truth. “I did it for you. To make you crazy.”
John sucked down a breath, steadying himself as he swayed against you. His other hand detached from your waist, both thumbs pressed to your face, running perpendicular to your lips. The blue in his eyes flamed higher, and then he devoured you. You had been kissed plenty of times, but this was sex with all your clothes on, his hunger, his desperation, filling you as palpably as his tongue. You couldn’t help but moan into him, and you were rewarded with the same sound from him, amplified, growled into your face like he was angry you had gotten to do it first. John Walker, so competitive and proud, so eager to prove what he could do and how well he could do it. And you weren’t going to argue or let him stop because it was too delicious to be pressed into the wall by his huge, hot body, the steel muscles in his back bulging against your hands as you cupped your palms over his shoulder blades.
He tugged you away from the wall, never breaking the kiss, urging your arms around his neck before lifting you into his arms, like you weighed nothing, like this was just a formality. You squeezed your thighs around his waist, ankles hooked over his ass, another moan escaping you as he kicked open his bedroom door, the bang like a gunshot, and carried you inside. Stephen would’ve thrown his back out trying this, you thought, smirking into John’s kiss, that train of thought abruptly swerving off the tracks as he tossed you onto his bed.
John was over you in a second, yanking off your shoes, pulling your legs apart to stand between them, stand over you, jaw clenched as he admired his catch, admired you, eyes raking up and down your body. His hands smoothed up your ankles to your knees to your thighs, catching the hem of your dress and pushing, revealing the rest of you as he tucked the fabric up to your waist.
“This fucking dress,” he whispered, shaking his head, sweat dripping off the ends of his hair. “That fucking lipstick.”
Leaning down, he swept the dress off of you, balled it up, tossed it somewhere on the floor. He ripped his own shirt off, every part of him rippling and huge in the single helpful slant of light spearing in through the blinds. It bisected him, leaving him half in shadow, but what you couldn’t see you could feel as he undid his belt and let his jeans hit the ground. The chest hair was a surprise, but maybe the serum enhanced everything. You saw the instant he realized you hadn’t been wearing a bra all night, his hand tightening around his own straining erection and squeezing. You could watch him do that all night, or at least until your lizard brain got the best of you and the begging started.
The bed rocked as he joined you, hooking one arm under your waist and dragging you up the mattress, giving himself more room to kneel between your legs. God, you wanted him. You pulled him down to you, nails drawing welts across the caps of his shoulders. Your lipstick was smeared across his chin, staining his beard. You wiped a little off with your thumb, but John batted your hand away, diving back down to bite and suck your lower lip until you whined and arched, rubbing against him shamelessly. It wasn’t want screaming through your bloodstream now but need, a need to be filled and fucked and marked inside and out.
“Kiss me,” you whispered, fisting your hands in his hair, dragging him where you wanted him, holding him, opening your mouth for him until he gave you what you wanted. His hand slid down your face to your shoulder, encompassing half of your ribcage as it passed lower, detouring briefly to palm your breast and knead it until your thighs shook and your nipple throbbed from his rough touch. Still kissing you, still rolling his tongue against yours and forcing your head back, he closed his fingers around your panties at the hip and gave one hard tug, ripping them off.
The sound startled you both. John drew back, panting, looking at your mouth and then your eyes, drinking you in.
“I should’ve done this months ago,” he murmured, lust and tenderness sanding his voice down to almost nothing. “I should’ve kissed you again in that car.”
“We’re here now,” you reminded him, pushing the damp hair back from his forehead. “Don’t let me get away this time.”
John shook his head, eyes widening like you had leveled a real threat. He kissed you again, softer, slow, easing his weight down onto you until the mattress started to swallow you up.
“Is this thing reinforced?” you asked, laughing a little nervously as the spring screeched.
“It is.” You heard the smile in his voice as he rubbed his beard against your throat, kissing along your jaw and back to your mouth. “Have to get them custom made. It’s a pain.”
“But it…won’t break? Will it?”
John snorted. “Is that a challenge? Because it sounded like a challenge.”
It was a challenge.
You hooked your legs around him, easing him down even more, taking even more of his weight. Your eyes rolled back, air suddenly at a premium as his chest squished against yours. And his dick. Fuck. You scrabbled at his shoulders, whimpering into his cheek. It was all so real now. So close.
“You like that?” he asked, grinding his hips forward, letting you feel his pulsing length, slick with precum, teasing along your slit. “Like feeling all of me?”
There were worse ways to die, you thought, than being crushed by a few hundred pounds of muscle and grit. You nodded, gasping, chest tightening as his cock pried you open, as big and determined as the rest of him. There was nothing to compare it to, no one had filled you like that before on a slow, aching stroke, a stutter in his hips telling you it was hitting his senses just as hard.
“I want them to hear it upstairs,” he whispered, words faltering as he pressed home, testing your limits, redefining them. “Let them hear you, beautiful.”
Like being naked in a rainstorm, every thrust rolled through you like thunder. But it was controlled devastation. Even if it felt you were being flattened into a coin, John was dispersing his weight to his elbows, managing the load, and with your legs wrapped around him and your feet tight to his ass, you felt the flex of his glutes each time he pulled out and shoved back in, crown to root.
“Not going anywhere, are you? Not like this. Not when you’re mine like this.”
And on each thrust a more broken sound came out of you, months of hurt, months of wondering, months of want bursting out of you in louder cries. Maybe they really would hear you through all that concrete and steel, but you didn’t care, you clung on to him, knowing neither of you would last long after this much waiting. Powder exploded off the drywall as the bed shook under your combined weight and his effort.
John’s face pressed into yours on the left side, beard scratching your cheek raw as he grunted out every drive, carrying you both to the edge. “I knew you’d take me like this,” he whispered, a higher note of restraint cracking through his voice. “Knew you’d take me like you were born to do it. Fuck. Fuck. Tight. Perfect. Fuck.”
You heard a ka-crack as the bed frame started to give. It only spurred him on. Your toes curled against him, mouth open and eyes shut as he angled himself up on his final strokes, pummeling a spot you could feel in your throat. You lost track of what you were saying or how loud you were saying it, just holding on, just giving yourself over to the raw indecency of the slick, wet music your bodies made together.
And you felt it all crash down as the right post on the bed finally gave up, sagging inward with another crisp snap.
“Jesus,” John whispered, half-laughing, half-moaning, face still buried in you as he held himself deep. “I’m there, I’m right there…”
“Too much, too much,” but it wasn’t, and your desperate moaning proved it.
You squeezed around him, already coming undone, boneless and useless and fucked, arms loose as you let him snatch you around the waist and pound through his orgasm. You didn’t know what you were feeling, just that it was hot and expansive, and making you cum again. There was full and then there was full. Flooded, flooded with heat. Gasping, trying to catch your breath, John slumped against you, groaning as his spend leaked back out, dripping into places that made your breath catch from the sensation.
Moments later, you stood in his en suite trying to make yourself presentable, willing your body to hurry up and heal so the beard rash on your jaw and neck wouldn’t be so damn obvious. You had wadded up a piece of toilet paper and wedged it between your thighs, though it was already proving inadequate. Peering around the open bathroom door, you saw John sitting on his half-broken bed, chest still rising and falling swiftly from your activities, bare chested and broad, naked as the day he was born, a green, metal box open on the mattress next to him as he calmly sewed the strap on your panties back in place.
John sensed you watching, quicksilver blue eyes searing across the carpet to the bathroom tiles, up your legs, catching briefly on your cleavage before finishing the journey to your face. His crooked smile tugged at your heart. “Had to learn how to do this when I was a ranger.” He set down the needle and thread in the kit, then held up your panties with one pointer finger hooked around the thong. “Good as new.” He winked. “Maybe a little damp.”
also kudos to wyatt russells character in disclosure day (jackson? i think his name was jackson? i just kept calling him guitar boyfriend to my sister) for not being as much of an ass as i was worried he would turn out to be.
he went along with emily blunt for a good long while thinking she was having a medical emergency and trying to get her to see a doctor about it and he didnt sell her out to the government or anything.
he just seemed quite stressed and out of his league and then his girlfriend got a calling from god (aliens) and ditched him at a gas station and he was like ‘aw’.
