You’d always figured the Watchtower would feel sterile. Cold floors, colder faces. The kind of place where the coffee machine only works when someone kicks it and nobody makes eye contact in the elevator. But then again, you'd never planned on staying long enough to know what “home” even felt like. (©TRS0625CAI)

Turns out, it’s not the building that makes it feel like home. It’s the rhythm. The soft shuffle of boots in the hallway at 2 a.m. The creak of a familiar chair in the common room. A cup of decent-enough coffee handed to you without asking how you take it. The people. Even the infuriating ones.

Especially the infuriating ones.

John is… an acquired taste. Most of the team would rather lick the floor of a New Jersey dive bar than admit they’ve acquired it. Sarcastic, smug, stomps around like a frat bro with a shield. But for some reason—some utterly baffling, universe-glitching reason—he's never aimed any of that at you.

Not once.

It’s weird. It’s new. And it’s starting to settle into something that you really don’t want to name.

You lean against the kitchen counter, late-night snack in hand, and watch him toss a protein bar wrapper into the trash from across the room. He sinks the shot, of course. Then he looks over at you with that usual glint in his eye—sharp, cocky—but it softens when your eyes meet.

“Thought you were asleep,” he says, voice lower than usual. Almost… warm.

“I was. Then I woke up with a craving for salt and sarcasm.”

He smirks. “Well, you found both.”

He walks past you to grab a glass from the cabinet. His shoulder brushes yours—not on accident—and you feel it like a jolt of static. He doesn’t apologize. You don’t pull away.

You clear your throat, because the silence between you suddenly feels too loaded. “Everyone gives you crap, you know.”

“Yeah. I noticed.” He snorts, pouring water like he hasn’t a care in the world. “Doesn’t bother me.”

“It would bother me.”

“It did. At first.” He sets the glass down and finally turns to face you. “But you didn’t.”

“What?”

“You didn’t give me crap. Not once.”

You look at him. Really look. He’s not posturing, not sneering. There’s no bite in his tone, just an earnestness that makes your heart stutter slightly.

“You were different,” he says, shrugging like he didn’t just punch you in the chest with that softness. “Didn’t treat me like I was some failed science project.”

You want to laugh. You want to throw a snarky comment back. You want to rewind and un-feel the way those words land in your gut like a promise.

Instead, you say quietly, “You were never an ass to me.”

He nods. “Yeah. You noticed that too, huh?”

You sip your water to buy time. To unblur the sudden sharpness of your feelings.

He steps closer. You don’t move.

“Get some sleep,” he says, voice so low it barely crosses the space between you.

You watch him walk out. No swagger this time. Just a man who didn’t expect softness and isn’t sure what to do with it now that he’s found it.

Neither are you.

But damn… it’s nice.