Work Text:
The anxious silence of the hospital was broken only by the occasional creak of doors somewhere down the corridor and the steady beeping of the monitor beside the bed. On it lay an unconscious Walker, covered with a thin sheet — his chest rose and fell beneath the fabric; hair, slightly greasy and heavy, clung in damp curls to his sweat-slicked forehead whenever his head sank into the useless shapeless pillow.
Each breath rattled out of his lungs rasping past broken ribs. He couldn’t see it, but he knew — the man’s torso was tightly wrapped in bandages, and once John came to he’d undoubtedly try to rip his way out of them. A goddamn mummy — now paler than chalk, and earlier well, he’d basically been on death’s doorstep.
Looking that small and fragile, Walker stirred nothing but gut-churning pity.
And maybe a sour kind of care, the kind that stabbed at your chest whenever his breathing hitched for just a moment too long.
The man in the chair beside the bed let out a heavy sigh, groaning as he shifted — his back sore from endless hours watching over the injured man. But he had no plans to change positions.
Leaving? Even less likely.
The chair gave a miserable creak under his weight in clear protest. Poindexter ignored it, giving his head a shake — eyes stayed locked on Walker’s chest, still watching for every breath.
His knuckles recently busted up rested on knees. Familiar gloves with target symbols lay discarded nearby. Unconsciously, Poindexter kept picking at the already raw skin on his knuckles with a nail until blood welled up, phantom-biting at his fingertips — only then would he stop. Hands would tremble slightly in those moments, not from nerves, but from bottled-up energy clawing for release.
He had a thousand ways to let it out.
None of them viable — not unless Walker was part of them. Or, alternatively, not part at all. Captain "Super-Morality-But-Not-Really" probably wouldn’t be too thrilled if Dex shared even a quarter of those ideas. Not that he didn’t suspect, but still…
Poindexter leaned back, exhaling — for the first time in the past twenty-four hours, his shoulders sagged, the tension letting go just slightly.
A few hours ago Walker had come out of surgery. An abdominal wound, and the ribs — which had nearly punctured his lungs — weren’t even the worst of it. His arm had been dislocated too, but thanks to some god-blessed super-soldier regeneration, that one would probably heal up fine. The torso, though, going to take time. Painful time. Basically, a vacation from hell — Dex would bet anything that a week of doing nothing would drive John mad enough to blow something up. And he would be there for it — no chance in hell Dex wouldn’t get dragged in.
That’s if — when, he corrected himself irritably, tapping the toe of his boot against the floor — Agent woke up.
For now all he could do was watch, analyze.
His leg tapped out an anxious, meaningless rhythm on the floor now, a pulse only he understood.
The room was unnervingly clean — aggressively sterile in a way that felt wrong. Not like his kind of order. It made him want to grimace.
The only thing breaking the perfection was the haphazard barricade at the door — some useless cabinet stacked with books now scattered on the floor, only serving as extra weight against the entrance. Next to it a second chair, just as frail and plastic, propped up the door handle like a lonely soldier. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure it would slow anyone down if a team of doctors decided to barge in. Also not sure it needed to be there at all.
He could only hope Walker didn’t suddenly decide to die right here — bleed out, drop from a heart attack, whatever.
Dex was a crap medic, admitted that openly and without shame.
So now, considering all these lovely details, a different question lingered. Why was he still here, why did even care?
Poindexter didn’t have an answer — only memory of that sharp, choking sensation in his chest. A fear he didn’t recognize at first. It stabbed at him the moment Walker didn’t respond over the comms.
Once — silence. A pause, waiting for at least a short “I’m here.” Twice — nothing.
Then the whole damn team was already running.
Whether they’d find him or not was never really a question, only a matter of time. A messy tuft of red hair stuck out from under the rubble of a nearby building.
No one had heard it collapse.
Walker probably hadn’t either — had he known, might’ve stayed the hell out. But then again, who knows with a guy carrying a bent goddamn shield?
Turned out, when a building falls on top of you, metal rods can pierce straight through. That’s exactly what happened.
Covered in soot, concrete dust and his own blood, riddled with through-and-through wounds he had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance.
What the hell Dex was still doing at his side.. Well, that was a whole other story, one even he wasn’t ready to admit out loud.
It was complicated. John was complicated. They were complicated as all hell — Dex couldn’t pin down what they were and neither of them ever tried to make sense of it.
One moment they were tangled in sheets, skin on skin, traces of the night’s pleasure fading across their bodies — a map of bruises, constellations of teeth and nails.
The next Walker had him slammed against a wall, hand pressed firm to his chest, sometimes his throat, while Dex bled from a split scalp and still grinned like a lunatic.
The cracked wall left a dent for days, no one explained anything when Barnes dragged them both off toward a collapsing section of the building.
And sometimes, so rarely that Dex kept mental notes of when it happened, something gentler slipped through.
A cigarette split between them on a freezing night, warm brush of someone else's breath against his lip, lingering taste of whiskey, the kind Walker had reeked of more often lately and ember burning low.
Those moments were quiet. Unfamiliar.
They say opposites attract, but he wasn’t sure that applied here.
Mainly because he wasn’t sure they were opposites at all.
Walker was solid, dependable, annoyingly righteous to the point of jaw-clenching frustration — a captain who somehow felt responsible for the whole circus of freaks no one else took seriously. The kind of guy who’d push back just to win.
A powder keg with a sense of duty shoved under all that fury.
Dex, on the other hand, was quiet, observant. Tossing in sarcastic jabs when the moment called for it — elegant, fast, brutal and chaotic.
There was no reason to follow the rules anymore — the FBI had tossed him aside like a broken part, so why the hell should he keep any of their pieces alive inside himself? No reason.
They had taken different roads — only John had decided he could make up for it all. Dex didn’t see the point, didn’t want to.
When Valentina came for him, running from cops and from himself, it was obvious from the start: this wasn’t about redemption, but about reinvention.
They offered him a new identity. That was easier to swallow - he agreed.
That’s how he ended up in the reserve line of the New Avengers — the kind they don’t put on posters.
Back in the room, Walker stirred faintly on the bed, sinking deeper into the pillow. Dex’s eyes darted to him again, not looking away until the Captain stilled, exhaling with a soft, rasping breath.
Dex squinted, let the tension in his shoulders bleed out again.
He couldn’t remember the exact moment he started liking John. Or why.
Maybe it was the way Walker tried to ignore him, refusing to shove him away when Dex leaned in and rested his head on his shoulder, lazy and smug.
Maybe it was because John just wasn’t like the rest. He was on the team, sure — but never of it. A spare part, and he knew it.
Whatever the reason — the pull was real, and that was a problem.
Because, as anyone with half a brain knows, when one man’s soaked in blood and the other’s terrified of getting that deep again, well, nothing good comes out of that.
People glanced at them sometimes. Like they knew something — Walker didn’t notice, or maybe he just pretended not to.
And every damn time Bullseye wanted to scream: “You don’t get it — hell, even we don’t.”
Sometimes Ava’s little smirks made his skin crawl.
Because her look — that look — was dark, somehow both contemptuous and understanding, and it stirred something sharp inside him.
Rage? Respect? Yeah, hard to tell.
There was something almost perversely satisfying about this kind of connection.
Maybe the way Walker looked at him — with hatred, desire, a fucking kaleidoscope of raw emotion, and underneath it all, a dull ache that didn’t quite fade.
Like Dex meant something.
What was worse — for the first time in a long time he was ready to believe it.
That didn’t kill him. It was worse, it turned his whole goddamn world inside out.
He was drowning again, only this time someone was within reach. A lighthouse, a North star.
The real question was.. did he want that? Dex still doesn’t know the answer.
But right now sitting by someone else’s hospital bed, he thinks — maybe he’s already made his choice a long time ago. And that just makes everything harder.
Harder for John — actually tenfold — with a kid orbiting his life like a sidecar he didn’t ask for.
Dex smirks to himself, imagining Walker’s reaction when that subject finally comes up. If it comes up, he corrects himself — because hoping is stupid, but no one’s stopping him today.
Maybe someday, they’ll get a shot, become something more than a phase, a blurred-out chapter, a nothing that never got a name. Or maybe not.
He doesn’t know. Now, while Walker’s still breathing it doesn’t matter.
The anxiety will hit later, Dex knows.
It never really goes away, just hums at the back of his skull until it explodes in sirens. Right now it’s ringing like a fucking cathedral bell.
You’ve crossed a line. Walk away. He’s not worth it.
This time, he stays, just to see where the hell it goes.
Let thrill outweigh fear, let it drown out the vague guilt — for the past, for John? Screw it. So be it.
When he reaches out, his hand to Walker’s, weak but warm, and laces their fingers tight, something clicks.
For the first time in what feels like years, everything is exactly where it should be. Even if Walker’s a goddamn suicidal idiot throwing himself into places no one should ever go.
They’ll survive it. They’ll crawl through it — together, if they can.
Dex leans back in the chair, half-aware of muffled voices behind the door, eyes start to close. Soon, he’ll drift into a deep, dreamless sleep — even nightmares don’t come anymore. He’ll wake up exhausted, blinking like an owl, found and harassed by the New Avengers asking too many questions he won’t bother to answer.
But maybe in those early hours before dawn, when the room’s less suffocating and sunlight cuts through those dingy curtains, lighting up the dust in stale air
A hand — Walker’s hand — might squeeze his. Light, unintended, real. Instinctive.
And from John's chest, a low, sleep-heavy murmur might slip out, like he finally reached something he’d been crawling toward in the dark. Unconscious, warm and genuine.
If that happens — it’ll mean everything. Not a beginning, but a chance. And to hell with how small it is.