Work Text:
They fuck after midnight when there’s little else to do.
Contrary to the news, cycling endlessly, there is not always a villain to be subdued. Avenger-level threats are so sparse, their lives often feel like a vacation—days upon days where their schedules stretch into the horizon, slipping into luminous nothingness.
There are odd jobs, like last week’s rescue of a senator’s daughter. And there are appearances that soften their edges to the public, like smiling for strategically placed cameras at a retirement center in Queens.
But mostly there is Bob’s back against a flattened surface as Walker buries his cock so deep within him, he feels the pressure stacking against his ribcage. An erotic Jenga tower built from the carpet up, block by wooden block.
||
It takes Yelena six weeks to notice that Bob’s lazy, fucked-out grin is in fact because John Walker is fucking him.
They are in Central Park, eating ketchup-covered hot dogs on a bench where Bob once slept, when her perceptive gaze locks on him like a shotgun.
“I thought you hated Walker.”
He understands, of course, what she really means. In the months they’ve known each other, he’s unspooled the fabric of his Frankenstein existence and let her poke at all his rot. In return, she opened her library of corpses, each bound in her regret. Knowing the worst parts of each other has gifted them a connection that feels more like telepathy. Yelena still wanders the world with a closed expression, but to Bob her face opens like a window in a firefight.
“No.” He licks ketchup from his thumb. “I don’t—I don't hate anybody.”
Yelena snorts. “That is not true. You just told me you hate that guy with the mustache.” She curls her fingers to mimic handlebars. “Who works at that library for kids.”
“That’s different. He used to overcharge for stepped on pills.”
“Now he does story hour for toddlers. America really is the land of second chances.”
Yelena speaks between bites; her mouth stuffed with food. An errant thought pops to mind—his mother would hate her. She would carry her loathing for Yelena with the same fervor that Bob loves the bits of bread on Yelena’s chin, the ketchup smeared on her cheek.
“So many second chances,” Yelena says. “Especially for men like Walker.”
Bob reads the translation along the flat line of her mouth. “He’s apologized. For everything.”
Yelena raises an eyebrow. “With or without you between his legs?”
His own laughter continues to shock him. Since he fell into The New Avengers’, light bursts so easily in his throat.
From the corner of his eye, he catches Yelena’s satisfied smile before her lips melt into a thoughtful pout. “If you don’t hate him. Do you...?”
Instantly, Bob says, “No.” He doesn’t have the patience required to fall in love with Walker. “But I like the way he makes me feel. When we’re, like, alone, you know?”
Yelena hums as she balls the foil from her hot dog, launching it toward the nearest trash can. It sinks perfectly, and a group of passing runners applaud. They don’t recognize Bob or Yelena, but their casual acknowledgment is what Bob loves the most about New York. In this city, anyone, from the grandest personality to the smallest pebble of a human being, can find a spotlight.
Yelena bathes in their praise, leaning back against the bench with her arms spread wide.
She taps his shoulder. “Describe this feeling to me, Bob. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
||
Walker doesn’t make him feel like a character in one of Alexei’s beloved romance novels. Bob does not swoon in his presence or tremble at the whisper of his name. Since moving into the Watchtower, he has seen so many shirtless men that Walker’s hardened physique warrants a passing acknowledgement at best.
It’s Walker’s undivided attention that makes him feel molten. Under him, around him, Bob is a volcanic eruption in the Arctic, a prodigious wonder bursting in Walker’s pale blue vision.
He lies on his back or drops to his knees, and Walker cannot tear his attention away. Not even as the alert system clangs through the tower, an emergency pinged on the Avengers’ digital map.
Under the tower’s pulsating strobe lights—a whirlwind of blood red and American flag blue—Walker presses his sweat-slick forehead against Bob’s, breath hot against his lips as Walker pants, “You’re with me. You’re not going anywhere until I’m done with you.”
When Bob protests, Walker folds their bodies until their limbs form concentric circles, and all Bob can see, smell, hear, and taste is the fluidity of Walker’s thrusts.
“Say you’re with me, Bobby.”
Walker paints his fingerprints along the outer edge of Bob’s thighs, his grip taut and possessive.
With his knees hooked over Walker’s shoulders, Bob throws his head back as he cries out, “Always, fuck. Yeah. Okay.”
||
More simply, Walker makes him feel like the center of all universes; the flesh and bone thread hitching space and time together.
If Walker looks away, if he doesn’t entertain Bob’s manic rambling, his suffocating silence, his begging for Walker’s touch, then their very atoms—the ones that compile their sacks of connective tissue and the foundation of the Earth itself—will disintegrate into nothingness.
||
One night, with Walker’s salt and sweat on his tongue, Bob whispers, “Are we…Are we still doing this because you’re afraid that if you stop, I’ll bring back the Void?”
With his cheek on Walker’s bare chest, Bob catches the stutter of his heart, the way Walker’s fingers pause, combing through his hair.
Bob keeps his head down. He does not love Walker but fears that whatever he sees on Walker’s face could tear him apart like a primordial black hole.
Silence stretches across Bob’s bedroom, reaching toward the ceiling and its expansive, curved windows. Manhattan glitters beyond them, alight with a restless energy that pricks at Bob’s fingertips—nervousness, shame, regret.
Bob starts, “I shouldn’t’ve—” at the exact moment Walker says, “You think I wanna stop?”
He can hear the frown in Walker’s voice. When Bob lifts his head, daring to look up, it’s there on Walker’s shockingly delicate mouth, matching his furrowed brows. Walker’s expression is incredulous, as if it never crossed his mind that this thing between them—fucking and fucking and more fucking—could end. As if everything with Bob does not arrive with a doomsday clock, ticking ominously in the back of their skulls.
“We can stop,” Bob clarifies. “I won’t—I won’t hurt anyone if you want to end it.”
Lying in Bob’s bed, Walker is bathed in moonlight, his scars and unflinching gaze illuminated in pale silver. When Walker looks at him, the familiar heat of his pointed attention is scalding.
“Where the hell is this coming from?” Walker asks, frustration bleeding through like the redness along his neck. “Is that what you want?”
The ease of their evening splinters. In the farthest corner of Bob’s mind, a caliginous tendril slips through the locked gate of his subconscious.
Distantly, the Void hisses: Atta boy, Robert, do what you do best. Fuck everything up.
Bob blinks it away. “No, I don’t—I mean, I know why I want to keep doing it—”
“Because it’s not terrible sex, Bob.” Walker scoffs. “Jesus, this isn’t quantum physics.”
His mouth dries out. Walker isn’t incorrect; what they have is blessedly uncomplicated, but his dismissiveness has all the power of a pistol whip to the face.
Bob’s jaw tightens as the Void’s gate cracks open enough for its mocking laughter to escape.
You thought you were more than a few mediocre holes. You fucking idiot.
Bob was right not to look at him. He cannot bear Walker’s indifferent shrug or the roll of his eyes. He swallows the poison coating the inside of his lungs, the Void leaking gaseous threats. Bob can control the Void; his team of generously compensated psychiatrists has ensured as much. But he cannot control how his face crumbles like a fault line.
He peels himself from Walker’s side, their flesh sticking together in the afterglow. He endures the extraction, millimeter by millimeter.
There are an abundance of moments where he feels absolutely everything. It is, he imagines, the opposite for Walker, who flushes his emotions like a hangover shit in a high-flow toilet.
“Wow.” Bob’s tone is flat as he maneuvers to the edge of the bed. “Not terrible, huh? You’re amazing with words, Walker. A total asshole of a wordsmith.”
He can no longer see him, but he knows Walker’s frown deepens. “What? Where are you—Bobby, hey, c’mere.”
Walker reaches for him, hand curled around his arm, but Bob is in no mood to be manhandled into submission. Walker has taught him how to modulate his newfound strength. He effortlessly tears away from his grip before storming across the room.
Bob has the best room in the tower, a corner suite on the top floor where the windows run from the floor to along the ceiling.
After the media caught wind that the Avengers Tower was back online, Valentina had an external layer of one-way glass installed. From the outside, the city only sees a reflection of itself. Hundreds of windows lit up like fireflies, a thousand emotions racing like his heart.
No one can see Bob, stripped naked and lording over New York’s towering buildings. No one but Walker.
Bob is no longer subconscious about his body. All of him has been chemically altered to perfection. He likes what he sees, no matter how unearned, and he knows Walker likes it too.
On particularly maudlin nights, the Void reminds him that Walker doesn’t like Bob for who he is without the alterations; the aimless, short-sighted, useless gutter of a junkie he was born to be. Walker likes the faultless shell for the Sentry. The body he can spread and bend, watching Bob’s face and his own cock disappearing inside of him all at once.
Bob doesn’t mind, usually. Preferring this new, improved version of himself is something he and Walker have in common. But even his perfect body, engineered for mass desirability, cannot escape the disease of his innate mediocrity.
Back from the dead and still unremarkable, spits the Void. Pathetic.
Slowly, reality mixes with the Void’s taunts and presses down upon him. The walls and windows of his bedroom close in.
“You should go,” Bob says.
Later, he’ll text Walker a non-apology wrapped in an offer to get his head between Bob’s legs.
Before he can say as much, Walker surrounds him, arms around his waist, bare chest against his back. After everything, he still smells like the cologne gifted by a fashion designer in Georgia, with a taste for homegrown and blond. The bottle is the color of the ocean, and Walker smells like it too—all salt and seaweed and fresh summer air.
It’s complicated, how much lighter Bob feels, encompassed by the same man who so easily unscrews the bolts, shoddily keeping him together.
Half-heartedly, Bob tries to shrug him off, but Walker tightens his hold. He buries his face in Bob’s neck, beard scratching at the bite marks tattooed by his teeth. A slip of irritation shoots up Bob’s spine like an electric current. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but it’s enough to knock a pitiful gasp from Bob’s chest.
Walker’s grin spreads against his neck.
Bob grits out, “Asshole.” He tries, faintly, to lean away. “You need to leave.”
Walker kisses the curve of Bob’s ear. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
Unwittingly, Bob’s voice drops an octave. “I can make you,” he says with a flicker of the Sentry sitting low in his stomach.
“I know you can.” Walker says it like an offering. A slaughtered lamb for the god Bob proclaims the Sentry to be. “You can toss me out and break my spine, but can I tell you something first?”
He’s heard enough for one night. Walker’s dismissive scoff will loop through his mind for centuries. But he wants Walker to leave as much as he wants him to stay with his arms around him and his soft cock against his lower back.
Bob’s shrug is non-committal. Walker drinks it like an enthusiastic moan. He kisses his neck and shoulder, lightly rocks him left to right. Absent-mindedly, Bob wonders if this was how Walker made up with his ex-wife. Did she fold as easily as he does?
And he is folding. The effort to lasso his own strength is unnatural, exhausting. When he releases his mental ropes, Bob feels lighter than light. He’s an idea without mass, floating up toward the ceiling, and it’s Walker keeping him tethered to the ground.
Bob slumps back against him, and Walker takes all of his weight without shifting.
With his head resting on Walker’s shoulder, Bob traces his profile. His high forehead, his aquiline nose. Walker catches him staring and sheepishly grins.
“What? Do I have your cum on my face or something?”
Bob laughs. “Dude, you’re so gross.”
“Yeah, well, you begged me to do it. So what does that make you?”
Horny, possessed. The way he straddled Walker’s chest and fucked deep into his mouth, getting off on Walker’s throat tightening around him. Choking and gagging as he grabbed Bob’s hips to drag his cock farther and farther in.
With the Sentry burning a crater through Bob’s bloodstream, no drug can touch him. He could mainline enough heroin to fill a gas tanker, and he’d remain upright and lucid. But the tangle of wetness, constriction, heat, and All-American Johnny Walker—red in the face, staring up at him with glassy eyes, eager for more—was the perfect chemical compound to shoot Bob to that mythical place he hadn’t grazed for more than a calendar year.
Nirvana, possibly, where his brain disconnected from his mouth and every word was unvarnished desire. Including Bob’s desperate, “Let me—I need to— Fuck, can I—Can I come on your face? Please? Fuck, please ?”
Walker allowed him to grip his hair, hard enough for purple to bloom along his scalp. He let him crane his neck over the side of the mattress, as Bob milked his cock and Walker tongued at the tip. He let him paint his chin and the slope of his nose; off-white caked in the pale strands of his facial hair. He let him settle his weight on his stomach as Bob leaned down and licked him clean.
Their tongues caught in the middle, Walker lapping Bob’s taste from the inside of his own mouth.
Standing amongst the midnight glow of the city, Bob can still smell himself along the sharp edge of Walker’s jaw.
“Was that, like, too much?”
Walker’s mouth quirks as if the mere suggestion is senseless. “Nah. I’ll take whatever you want to give me.”
Two questions swim lazily in Bob’s mind: Will you let me fuck you? Will you let me blindfold you and tie your wrists up?
A third rushes against the current: What if I want you to take me to dinner at that restaurant you pretend not to like, with the bow-tied waitstaff, candlesticks on the tables, and menus without prices?
Bob pushes those aside in favor of turning in Walker’s arms. He ignores their cocks sliding together, the warmth of Walker’s hands settling low on his back.
“What do you want to tell me, John?”
Walker presses their foreheads together, and Bob’s vision blurs blue and gold. He hasn’t forgotten what Walker said, but from this distance, the sting feels more like an iced wound.
“I’m, uh, not great at talking about this shit. But…With this? You and me? I was thinking that it’s kind of like the first time they put me on a rescue mission.”
Bob tips his head in question.
Walker continues, “We were somewhere in Oregon, storming this compound. I thought I knew what to expect, but no one can train you for that kind of adrenaline rush. During the ride over, I was nervous as hell, but the second my boots were on the ground, it was like I was invincible. I knew exactly when to dodge, when to run, or shoot. There was no second-guessing. No noise in my head. Just…”
Bob drops his hands to Walker’s waist. “Clarity?”
Walker’s laughter, soft and airy, reverberates within the minuscule space between them.
“Yeah, exactly. It was like I could finally see the whole world, the start of it, and the end of it at the same time. I was on another level.”
When he shuts his eyes, Bob can almost see him. A too-young John Walker, clean-shaven and missing the weight of his future regret. Unprepared for the euphoria born from the slaughter of youthful ignorance to fill the cup of enlightenment.
“Don't you see,” says the glittering voice of that incomparable high, “this is who you could always be.”
Bob knows what Walker is describing like he knows the taste of battery acid slipping down his throat. “Sounds a lot like shooting up.”
Walker’s fingers curl under Bob’s chin. “Yeah?” He tips his head up a fraction, bringing their lips closer. “You never talk about it.”
He never talks about it with Walker. He’s had two booze-soaked conversations with Yelena where he cried on her shoulder as she distracted him with tales of her clumsiest hit jobs. Along with countless forced monologues to his psychiatric team that leave him pale and wrung out. It’s not a part of himself he cares to visit—and Walker has never asked—but according to his addiction counselor, it’s as integral to his existence as the oxygen pumping through his lungs.
Still, “There’s not much to say. It takes you to the moon and crashes you back on Earth. Then you spend your whole life trying to get back to outer space.”
“Steve Rogers went to space, apparently,” Walker says. “He told Bucky it wasn’t that different from being on Earth.”
“I doubt Steve Rogers has been to the type of space I’m talking about.”
Walker hums, and Bob feels it all around him. His forehead, his chest, the soles of his feet. It’s a minuscule but encompassing sensation, like Walker’s fingers threading through his hair. He massages the base of his scalp, using the pressure to coax Bob’s head back gently. With more of his neck exposed, Walker works along Bob’s jaw, the column of his throat.
Between worrying his Adam's apple with his teeth, Walker asks, “Have you ever felt that way again? Since you stopped using?”
Bob shivers, surrounded by Walker’s heat. He needs him to bite hard enough to leave a mark. It won’t last past sunrise, but he wants the first thing he sees in the mirror to be the imprint of Walker’s teeth.
He grabs Walker’s shoulders, speaking in their shared, silent language. His grip says, harder, and Walker complies, sinking into the delicate skin behind Bob’s right ear.
His mind swims, and his legs nearly give out. Walker is his anchor, and Bob grips him by the back of his hair.
Walker licks to soothe before clamping down again. Behind Bob’s eyelids, a universe of stars is born. Hydrogen and helium, a near-perfect marriage, like Bob’s rapidly hardening cock against Walker’s erection.
Walker’s hand falls to grip the curve of his ass, pressing Bob close enough to mix his slick with the tufts of hair tangled on Walker’s stomach.
Bob scratches down Walker’s spine, and his corresponding growl drags a moan from Bob’s stomach.
“You gonna answer me?” Walker asks, stubble chafing Bob’s neck.
Bob’s voice trembles. “Not—not in a long time. You?”
Walker pulls away, and Bob bites his tongue to keep from whimpering.
The look Walker gives him is a blend of amusement and suspicion. He doesn’t believe him, that much is clear, but Bob plays dumb.
“What?”
There is a long moment where Walker does nothing but keep his gaze pinned on Bob’s, openly searching for the thread of Bob’s lie to unravel. It should be unnerving, but when Bob’s breathing kicks up, it’s to the euphonic rhythm of desire and desperation.
He doesn’t want Walker to stop looking at him. To stop trying to pull him apart. Walker’s eyes shift to the left, and Bob’s hands are on his face, redirecting him back.
Walker laughs, low and heavy. He slides their lips together, a ghost of a kiss.
“You’re so full of shit.”
Bob barely allows him to finish. He swallows Walker’s final consonant, guiding him into a fuller kiss.
He knows this is Walker’s favorite part—the slow, overlapping dance of their mouths with little promise beyond the tease of a tongue. Bob likes it too, the way Walker kisses like he’s mapping the shape of his lips and has forever to draw every curve and muscular divot. He likes that when Walker leans into him, his body starts and ends with their mouths. He likes that Walker lets him lead until Bob moves too fast and he takes over, dragging them back to that languid pace where his hand spreads across Bob’s neck and his calloused fingers cradle his jaw.
He feels out of body, hoisted into an ocean of balmy pleasure. Bob opens his mouth a fraction more, receiving the wet slip of Walker’s tongue, and prays to drown.
When Walker pulls away, Bob’s eyelids are lead-heavy. He cranes them open to Walker watching him with naked adoration.
A sticky sentiment tries to claw from his throat. Bob swallows it.
“You kind of kissed me to get out of answering.”
Walker’s laugh is full of air. “You already know the answer, Bobby. I’m getting pretty damn close.”
||
Within the hour, Walker is fucking him against his expansive bedroom window. He’s pinned to Bob’s back, and every roll of his hips shoves Bob’s cock against the glass.
Bob’s handprints are milky from sweat; his breath has vaporized into bursts of fog. He clenches around Walker’s cock simply because he can and gets a smack on the ass, forcing him to do it again.
He’s seconds from coming, has babbled as much, when Walker grunts into his ear. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not gonna stop fucking you.”
Bob throws his head back, his hair draping over Walker’s shoulder. He releases a breathy, “Fucking promise?” before coating the glass with his cum.
||
“Bob,” Yelena says, carefully. “Do you know what it is you’re doing?”
Her expression has softened like melted ice cream, and each feature is weighted with concern. It’s how she looks when she finds him wandering the tower in the middle of the night, empty-eyed and despondent.
It makes him acutely aware of the cracks still lingering in his exterior, of all the places where his rot bleeds through.
“I don’t–I don’t know what you mean.” He chuckles nervously. “We’re just…We’re just fucking around, Lena.”
“Does Walker know that?”
His heart rate kicks up. “I hope–Yeah, he–He has to. Right?”
Bob searches her face for reassurance and receives an avalanche of pity.
“I am not a fortune teller, Bob. Not like this woman who gave me cabbage when I was in Schkeuditz. She was very good at reading the future. Me? I think you and Walker will fuck each other up before you figure it out.”
Her warning is sincere, but Bob disagrees.
He and Walker have not labeled what they have, but their bodies speak the other’s language and exist harmoniously on the same doomed planet. He does not know how long this will last, but he knows they want each other, after midnight, in and out of bed. That is, frankly, enough for him.
Bob does not attempt to throw his hot dog wrapper like Yelena. His hand-eye coordination will never match hers. Instead, he stands and tips his foil into the trash can before stretching high enough for his t-shirt to expose his bare stomach.
“Careful,” Yelena says, when a pair of young women, lounging on a picnic blanket, loudly whistle. “Walker is definitely the type to get crazy jealous.”
A wave of heat rushes down his spine at the thought. “Jesus,” he says, laughing it off. “We’re not…It’s not like that.”
“Uh-huh. And cats do not like boxes where they can shit.”
They walk another fifteen minutes in the park, enjoying the mild summer weather. Yelena points out all the places where snipers can hide, and Bob mentions the best spots to sleep, with or without a tent.
They’re moving toward the tower when Bob says, “Before we head back, I need to stop and get a bottle of vodka.”
Yelena shakes her head. “You are not Alexei’s errand boy. If he wants to get drunk, he can buy it himself or get unbanned from Doordash.”
“It’s uh, actually for John.”
Yelena raises an eyebrow. “Sex and errands? Sounds a lot like you’re–”
“No, it doesn’t.” He says quickly. “He just…Owes me a shot for bringing up Steve Rogers. Maybe two shots for bringing him up during sex.”
They share a brief look, their silent language humming between them.
Then Yelena says, “You’re being so stupid about this.”
Bob shrugs. “I’ve done worse.”