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Bob Reynolds stood near the centre of the reinforced cell, his scrubs hanging off his frame, the drab olive green sucking whatever remaining light existed in the room. He looked like a sketch of a man drawn by someone whose hand was trembling. The power of a million exploding suns was locked inside a vessel that desperately, obsessively, wanted to break.
He was locked in a psychiatric ward, a reinforced asylum constructed specifically for superheroes whose sanity had finally buckled under the unbearable weight of their own miracles. It was designed to quarantine the gods who had fallen out of the sky and cracked their minds on the pavement.
An hour ago the attendants had to activate the kinetic suppression rigs on him, because Bob had been launching himself head-first into the vibranium bulkhead. He chased the finality of a shattered skull, begging for the sweet, anaesthetic blackness of a catastrophic haemorrhage. But his power was cruel, a golden spark in his blood that knit the bone and sealed the bruised tissue before his knees even hit the ground. He couldn't fucking die. He couldn't even properly hurt anymore! The scratches he clawed into his own arms healed into smooth perfection before the blood could even reach his elbows. He was an immortal trapped in a suicidal mind.
But if Bob was a dying star collapsing inward, John Walker was a landmine perpetually stuck mid-detonation.
They had put him in a thick restraint jacket, layered with shock-absorbent gel that pinned his arms securely to his torso, but the true testament to his fall from grace was a muzzle that was strapped across his face. It was a brutal cage of steel wire and leather straps that dug sharply into the back of his neck, a humiliating bridle for a warhorse that had tasted human flesh. The super-soldier serum hadn’t just thickened his muscles and fortified his bones; it had amplified the fraying edges of his sanity. It burnt away the patriot, the soldier, the hero, the human, and left behind nothing but a predator operating on pure threat response. His eyes were bloodshot and devoid of the man who had once saluted a flag.
They were a tragedy in two parts, locked together in the dark: the immovable object that wanted to shatter and the unstoppable force that wanted to bite through the bone.
***
The sterile acoustics of Ward 4 were not built to handle the violent frequencies of Bob’s favourite track. In fact, the cheap radio on his bedside table shouldn’t have been able to produce the decibels currently liquefying the air in the cell. Bob was taking the aggressive snare hits and the pulsing, distorted bassline, and magnifying the soundwaves with the leaking solar radiation of his own body.
So the music became a physical entity, rattling the bolts in the steel door. It was a space of deafening chaos, and Bob sat in the dead centre of it, his legs crossed on the cold floor, his eyes squeezed shut. He was letting it drown out the million screaming voices of the Void that constantly chewed through his skull.
Through the heavily fortified dividing wall, the noise bled into Cell 4B. For John Walker, the amplified track was an excruciating assault on his hyper-tuned, chemically enhanced nervous system. The super-soldier serum meant he heard the hum of the lights and the scuttling of insects in the pipes, so the distorted bass felt like someone was driving hot needles directly through his eardrums.
Unable to cover his ears because of the restraint jacket, Walker reacted the only way an animal driven by instinct would: he went FERAL. A horrific screech tore its way up his throat, like a trapped beast being burned alive. He threw his body to the side, driving his muscular shoulder violently into the grey concrete of the dividing wall.
THUD. He drew back and slammed himself into it again. THUD. The muffled screeches intertwined with the relentless beat of the track next door. He adjusted his stance, his feet firmly on the floor, and began driving himself into the wall with his full weight. He wanted the noise to STOP. He wanted to reach through the stone and tear the throat out of whatever was causing the agony.
In Cell 4A Bob opened his eyes. Through the music, he felt the rhythmic vibrations shuddering through the floor and the dull thumps against the plaster. He turned his head, his hollow eyes fixing on the dividing wall. He knew who was in there. He had seen them drag the muzzled, thrashing weapon of mass destruction down the corridor many times.
A slow, terribly lucid smile stretched across Bob’s pale face. If that wall came down, the dog would be let off its leash. If the wall came down, Walker would tear him apart. It was a beautiful, bloody epiphany… Bob didn't just want to die; he wanted to be TORN into so many pieces that not even the golden spark of the Sentry could figure out how to stitch him back together.
He pushed himself up from the floor in excitement and walked over to the wall, standing parallel to where the furious thuds were originating. Then he drew his head back and drove his forehead into the reinforced plaster with all the enhanced might he could muster.
CRACK. The sound was different from the dull thuds of the super-soldier. The skin on Bob’s forehead split a bit and he pulled back and slammed his head into the wall again, synchronising his strikes with Walker’s. THUD-CRACK. THUD-CRACK. Over and over, the sounds mixing with each other.
The psychiatric ward was a fortress, built by the finest architects S.H.I.E.L.D. and the government had to offer. The walls were lined with kinetic-absorption gel and a mesh of Wakandan vibranium designed to disperse blunt-force trauma. If an entity like Hulk punched the wall, the kinetic energy would ripple outwards, absorbed by the dampeners.
But the architects had engineered the cells to withstand singular, isolated outbreaks. They hadn’t accounted for a parasitic resonance loop.
Walker threw his shoulders against the wall from the left and Bob slammed his rapidly-healing skull from the right. The structural integrity of the wall began to scream, dust slowly beginning to pour from the ceiling like hourglass sand. Walker’s screeches grew more volatile and Bob laughed in a wet, hysterical sound, his blood smearing the cracking plaster as he repeatedly headbutted the wall.
The kinetic gel inside the wall ruptured, oozing out through the cracks like black blood. The vibranium mesh became brittle under the simultaneous strikes, losing its elasticity, until a fissure opened up vertically down the centre of the wall.
With one final, synchronised, earth-shattering blow from both men, the physics of the room gave up and the centre of the dividing wall imploded. A groan of tearing metal and crumbling concrete drowned out the music for a split second before a massive chunk of the wall blew outwards in a chaotic shower. A thick, suffocating cloud of dust flooded into both rooms, swirling in the half-dark where the fluorescent light gave out too. The bass of the song stopped, the radio crushed beneath the rubble.
Kneeling on the uneven debris bridging the two rooms was John Walker, his restraint jacket caked in white dust. His breathing dragged through the steel of his muzzle. His head was lowered, his animalistic eyes staring through the settling haze.
Standing amidst the rubble on the other side, swaying slightly, was Bob. His hospital scrubs were ruined. He looked at the heavily breathing predator staring back up at him and spread his arms to offer himself to the dark.
The wet sound of Walker’s forehead caving into Bob’s face echoed through the ruined cell. Bob’s head snapped back, a brilliant splash of blood erupting from his nose and lips. Walker reared back again, a vibrating snarl ripping through the steel mesh of his muzzle. He hit Bob squarely in the chest, the sheer power lifting Bob off his feet. They crashed onto the floor, rolling through the shattered plaster.
Bob offered absolutely zero defence. He became a willing altar for the slaughter. Walker pinned him down, straddling his hips and since he couldn’t use his hands, he weaponised the rest of his anatomy. He drew his head back and brought his forehead down in a savage Glasgow kiss. The impact sounded like a dropped bowling ball. Bob’s nose shattered instantly, a geyser of thick blood erupting across Walker’s muzzle and forehead.
Bob laughed in a slick, ruined gargle that only fuelled the rabid dog above him. He arched his back, lifting his chest into the strike, a breathless sound of sheer ecstasy bubbling in his throat.
Walker drove his knees down, crushing into Bob’s ribcage. He thrashed wildly, using his shoulders to bludgeon Bob’s collarbones, twisting his body to drive his feet into Bob’s calves and shins. He was a machine trying to grind the immortal man into a bloody paste.
Bob lay there and for the first time he had won a small victory against his own immortality. The sheer blunt-force trauma combined with the pressure of his psychological rejection of life, had forced his healing factor into a stuttering, confused crawl. Instead of knitting the tissue together in seconds, it had slowed. And it hurt. It finally, truly hurt.
But as Walker reared his head back for another strike, a hand reached up through the red mist. Bob’s fingers, trembling and slick with his own blood, brushed against the cold steel of Walker’s muzzle. The touch was so utterly devoid of malice and so tender amidst the butchery, that Walker froze. Bob’s fingers ghosted over the steel wire of the muzzle and found the heavy leather straps biting into Walker’s jawline.
Walker’s brain stuttered, short-circuiting. Prey was supposed to fight. Prey was supposed to thrash and bleed and die. It wasn’t supposed to caress the teeth of the trap.
"Shhh," Bob hushed, coughing up a mouthful of copper that spattered against the front of Walker's restraint jacket. His eyes dilated with a twisted, masochistic high, locked onto Walker’s wild pupils.
With agonising slowness, Bob slid his fingers to the back of Walker’s neck. He dug his nails into the leather, finding the heavy brass buckle. The proximity was suffocating. Bob could feel the frantic thud of Walker’s pulse against his wrists and Walker could smell the sickly-sweet haemoglobin radiating from the immortal man’s open wounds.
Bob wrenched the buckle free, the straps snapping loose with a soft click. The steel cage clattered onto the concrete floor. Walker gasped, his jaw unhinging as he sucked in a massive, ragged lungful of air. Without the metal cage digging into his cheeks, his face looked startlingly bare, smeared with sweat, plaster dust, and Bob’s blood. He leant down, his face inches from Bob’s, panting heavily.
"Good," Bob whispered, his voice a frail, ruined rasp. "Good boy."
Walker’s murderous gaze fractured at the soft sound of the praise. The instinct to tear into the exposed throat in front of him hesitated, overtaken by a wave of bewilderment and confusion. Seizing the hesitation, Bob’s hands were already moving lower. He dragged his bloody palms down the restraint jacket, his fingers catching on the heavy straps. He found the central release pin and gripped the thick lapels and tore them apart, shedding the jacket from Walker’s massive shoulders like a husk.
Walker’s arms were free, the heavy muscles in his biceps and forearms twitching with adrenaline. He planted his large hands on either side of Bob’s head and lowered his head, his nose brushing the pulse point at the side of Bob’s neck. He inhaled sharply, breathing in the scent of the man beneath him. Bob tilted his head back, fully exposing the column of his throat. He moved his hips upwards, grinding his ribs against the weight of Walker straddling him.
"Do it," he fevered, his hands moving up to grip Walker’s thick forearms. "Tear it out. Use your hands. Rip the light out of me. Please."
The total submission was intoxicating. Walker’s eyes darkened, the pupils blowing out until they were almost black. He dragged his teeth lightly, warningly, against the skin of Bob's jaw, feeling him shudder beneath in response. The urge to crush was suddenly warring with a strange, dark fascination. He could feel the heat of Bob's blood soaking through the thin fabric of their scrubs, fusing them together in the rubble.
Bob’s airway spasmed, trapping a throttled noise behind his clenched teeth. He had braced for the shattering crunch, anticipating the obliterating force of Walker's knuckles to cave his skull in. He hadn't braced for this. His heart, which only moments ago had been dreadfully trying to stop beating, abruptly kicked against his ribs. He was a martyr begging for the guillotine, only to find the executioner captivated by the pulse in his throat.
Walker’s broad hands moved. Unsure what to do with the sudden cessation of violence, the super-soldier’s palms slid slowly from the sides of Bob’s head. He dragged his thumbs over Bob’s shoulders, pressing into the hollows of his collarbones, then leant back a fraction, a confused beast inspecting a bizarre, immortal anomaly that was healing right in front of him.
"Look at you," Bob choked out, his voice tight but remarkably steady. He held Walker's furious gaze. "You're holding it back."
Something in Walker’s expression malfunctioned.
"You're choosing not to do it," Bob whispered, testing the waters, feeling the violent tremble in Walker's coiled arms. "You're so strong."
The serum demanded a threat to eliminate, but the man beneath him was offering sweet validation, making Walker’s breath catch. The tension in his hands bled away, his gaze tracking the gentle fingers brushing over his wrists.
Seeing the soldier pause, a rush of adrenaline hit Bob that had nothing to do with dying.
"That's it," he cooed, his voice dropping an octave. He slid his hands slowly up Walker's forearms, feeling the rigid tension in the muscle. "You stopped yourself. You're amazing."
Walker let out a low rumble that sounded less like a threat and more like a warning he didn't believe in himself. He lowered his head an inch closer, his blown-out pupils following the movement of Bob's mouth, captivated by the words.
"So perfect. You're entirely in charge."Bob murmured, a broken smile touching his lips. He stroked the inside of Walker's elbow.
A shudder racked Walker’s frame. He slumped forwards, his burning forehead pinning Bob’s shoulder into the debris. Bob lay perfectly still in the rubble, staring up at the ceiling through the dust. The revelation hit him then: the indestructible cage, the muzzles, the tranquillisers, were all useless tools. They had been trying to lock away a monster, failing to realise that the corrupted serum hadn't just made John Walker an animal. It had made him a hound stripped of its master.
Bob pressed his face into the crown of Walker's head, feeling the waves of heat radiating from the man sprawled over him. He hadn't found his executioner. He had found a leash that tethered him to the earth.
Then a scalding exhale washed over the unbroken skin of Bob’s jaw. Bob’s spine arched, his eyes sliding shut as a jolt of molten heat shot straight to his core. Walker was licking the blood directly from his face. It was a brutal, meticulous claiming, driven by a bizzare mix of feral instinct and starving obsession. The abrasive drag of the super-soldier's tongue, followed by the territorial graze of blunt teeth, made Bob’s breath hitch in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with fear.
"John - " he strained.
Walker froze instantly at the sound of his name, a low, warning growl vibrating deep in his chest. Bob moved his hand from Walker's arm, trailing his fingers up the corded muscles of the soldier's neck, before tentatively burying his fingers into Walker's coarse, damp hair.
"Hey, hey, shhh," Bob murmured, giving him a grounding, reassuring tug. "It's alright. You didn't hurt me. You're being so gentle. You're such a good boy, John. So good."
Walker let out a breath, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders once more as he leant into the touch. He pressed his face back into the hollow of Bob's throat, the thud of his heart slowly beginning to synchronise with Bob's own rapid pulse. Bob felt a dark, thrilling smile stretch across his face. The Void, the million screaming voices that constantly demanded his death, were drowned out by the heavy breathing of the man in his arms.
Then the ward woke up. It started as a blinding, strobing flash of crimson emergency lights cutting through the settling dust, followed by the mechanical hum of the alarms. A synthetic, female voice chimed over the intercom, entirely devoid of emotion:
“Warning. Catastrophic structural failure in Sector 4. Containment breach detected. Initiating response protocol.”
The sound of the alarms acted like a defibrillator on Walker’s suppressed nerves. The pliant weight against Bob’s chest vanished in a fraction of a second. Walker snapped upright, his spine stiff, his head whipping towards the reinforced steel door. The cloudy, confused look in his eyes was instantly replaced by the focus of a cornered predator.
Down the corridor, the thud of tactical boots echoed, accompanied by the sharp metallic clacking of assault rifles and electric batons. Walker planted his feet firmly on either side of Bob’s hips, effectively shielding the man beneath him. He rolled his broad shoulders, his hands curling into fists that cracked like the crunch of frozen ground. He looked down at Bob, the red emergency lights painting him in shadows and blood.
"Mine," he rumbled in a lethal, territorial declaration.
Bob looked up at the muscular silhouette standing over him, effectively guarding him from the incoming army. The sheer, possessive violence of it sent a dizzying rush of dopamine straight to Bob's head.
"They're going to try and put you back in the cage," he said, his voice laced with a dark, thrilling anticipation. "Show them what a good boy you are. Show them what happens when they touch what's yours."
Walker’s pupils blew wide, consuming the iris entirely. The praise, coupled with the explicit permission to unleash the violence boiling in his veins, was the final snapped cable. A low, serrated snarl vibrated in his chest as his entire frame locked into a rigid, predatory stasis, just as the heavy containment door to the cell block began to hiss open.
The first wave didn't stand a chance. They spilled through the breached door like dry tinder into a furnace, armed with suppression foam, taser-poles, and electrified riot shields. Walker met them not as a man, but as a natural disaster. Within forty seconds, the corridor was an electrified graveyard of shattered armour and broken limbs.
But as Walker stood amidst the carnage, his knuckles split and dripping with someone else's blood, a new, deeper siren began to wail and a heavy, rhythmic thudding vibrated through the cracked concrete, shaking the dust from the walls.
Walker looked down the corridor, the red strobe lights catching the rabid, helpless fury in his eyes. He knew what that sound meant. He couldn't fight an army of mechanised steel with his bare hands. They were going to put him back in the box. They were going to strap the steel cage over his face and take the sun away.
He spun around, stalking back through the rubble. He didn't offer Bob a hand to help him to his feet. He simply reached down, gripping Bob by the waist and hauled him off the floor. He crushed Bob against his broad, heaving chest, lifting him so high that Bob’s bare feet dangled inches above the concrete. It was a desperate, crushing embrace, the grip of a scavenger guarding the last scrap of warmth. He buried his face in the crook of Bob’s neck, his hot breaths ghosting over his skin.
Bob wrapped his legs instinctively around Walker’s thick thighs to steady himself, throwing his arms around the soldier's neck. He could feel the furious kick of Walker’s heart hammering against his own.
"Look at what you did," he whispered. His voice was a dark, soothing balm cutting straight through the alarms. He pressed his lips to the pulse point jumping wildly under Walker's ear. "You protected me. You tore them all apart. You're such a good puppy."
Walker let out a sound that thrummed through Bob’s ribs. His tectonic arms wrapped tighter, his thick fingers digging possessively into Bob’s back. He dragged his nose along Bob’s jawline, inhaling deeply, hungrily trying to memorise his intoxicating scent.
"They're coming," Walker rasped. His neck corded, his head snapping in a spasmodic toss. "Gonna cage me. And take you.”
The merciless stamp of combat boots marching down the corridor was a tide they couldn't hold back. It was an unspoken, suffocating truth hanging in the dust between them: this was the end of the line.
"Hush," Bob whispered, his voice incredibly soft. He tightened his legs around Walker’s thick waist. “You don't listen to the alarms. You just listen to me. Who's my good dog?"
Walker crushed Bob closer, his shivering muscles yielding entirely to the touch.
"I am," he croaked, the word tearing out of him like a bleeding confession.
"Listen to me," Bob murmured, threading his fingers deep into Walker's hair, raking his nails soothingly over the soldier's scalp. He needed to pour enough adoration into this broken vessel to last an eternity in solitary confinement. "They're going to lock you in the dark, but you won't be alone. You're going to take my voice with you. You're going to remember how incredible you are. How strong you are. You're the best boy in the world. And you belong to me now."
The potent, numbing hit of the praise short-circuited Walker’s nervous system. He was caught in the crossfire; trapped between the cold terror of the guards and the narcotic bliss of Bob's approval. A fractured groan broke against his teeth, his breathing falling into a hot, wet pant that shook his entire frame. Driven by a primal misfiring of his instincts and a starving need for more, his hips bucked in a sudden reach. Through the coarse fabric of their scrubs, Bob felt the unmistakable, throbbing density of Walker’s cock, thick and searing as it slammed into the soft meat of his inner thigh.
Bob’s breath caught in his throat, his eyes blowing wide in the crimson strobe lights. He stared at the side of Walker's face in stunned disbelief. He had known the soldier was broken, operating purely on base instinct, but then it clicked that the hound wasn't just emotionally starving for praise, it was literally getting him off.
A sick, dizzying thrill pooled vicious and hot in Bob’s stomach. The apathy that had defined his existence for years, completely shattered, replaced by an electric need. Oh, Bob didn't want to let him go. He’s only just found him. His heart seized with a tearing wrench at the thought of the heavy containment doors closing between them.
"Oh, John," he ached, a breathless sound slipping past his lips.
Guided by a raw, visceral magnetism, he shifted in the iron-tight hold. He canted his hips with a slow, devastating intent, tilting his pelvis to sluice the sensitive meat of his inner thigh against Walker’s twitching length. It was a torturous, liquid slide that served as the final,physical continuation of the praise.
"You're so eager for me," Bob whispered, his voice trembling with his own rising heat, grinding his thigh upwards again. “Such a precious, filthy boy..."
Walker’s eyes rolled back until only the whites showed and a gutted moan tore through his lungs, devoid of shame. His massive hands spasmed, gripping Bob’s lower back bruisingly tight as he instinctively chased the friction. He turned his head, his mouth falling open against Bob's neck. A hot, wet, predatory drag of his tongue swept over Bob's throat, surrendering to the sensation.
Bob’s own breath was coming in short, frantic gasps. The heavy friction, the unmade man in his arms, the intoxicating power of it all, was hurling Bob into a state of sheer, unadulterated arousal. He wanted to press his own aching, hardening heat flush against Walker's, to ride the violent, beautiful high until the world ended.
Walker’s grip suddenly seized. Driven by a blind, starving necessity, his hands slid from Bob’s back to grip his hips. With a convulsive lurch, Walker backed them up, slamming Bob's shoulders against the cold teeth of the unbroken wall.
The impact rattled Bob’s ribs and stole his breath, but it provided the brutal leverage Walker’s system was screaming for. Bob slid his legs down until they were bolted together against the stone. Through the thin fabric of the scrubs, the friction was blinding. There was no space left; their cocks were trapped together, grinding head-to-head with every spasmodic hitch of Walker's hips. A throttled sound broke in Walker’s throat, his hands white-knuckled on Bob’s hips as he began to drive into him.
"Yes—fuck," Bob choked out, an ecstatic laugh dying in his throat as his head hit the wall. He was vibrating with the same unhinged frequency as the soldier, his fingers digging into Walker's shoulders for purchase. "Take it, you greedy thing. Drain me dry."
Walker’s calloused fingertips gouged into the meat of Bob’s hips, anchoring himself with fanaticism that bordered on a crime. He was trying to leave deep, purple bruises that he wished the Sentry's golden blood wouldn't be able to heal fast enough. He hammered his rigid length against Bob’s, his breath a scald of animalistic hitches that smeared against Bob’s jaw with every thrust.
"Who owns you?" Bob breathed, his voice a dark, manic purr. He matched Walker's erratic thrusts with his own desperate, grinding pressure.
"You," Walker sobbed in a raw, broken sound, smothered against Bob’s jawline. He thrust harder, lost to the friction and the overwhelming, syrupy drug of Bob’s voice. “Mmn-ghh—You—”
"Such a sweet boy," Bob praised, turning his head to press an open-mouthed kiss to the spit-slicked corner of Walker's mouth.
His own climax was building, an agonising throb pooling in his groin that had nothing to do with destruction. The golden spark inside him was completely silent. For the first time in a decade, he didn't want to die. He just wanted to —
Just a minute more, Bob thought hectically, his hands gripping Walker's shoulders, his hips snapping forwards to meet another whimpering thrust from the super-soldier. Walker let out an utterly needy sound, his face chasing Bob’s mouth. It was a frenzied, starving chase, his lips nearly brushing Bob’s in a feverish tease, mere millimetres away from a messy, scalding slide of their tongues.
Just let me have this —
The heavy containment doors were blown entirely off their hinges in a deafening concussive blast of white light and smoke, reality crashing into the cell with the force of a shockwave.
"TARGET ACQUIRED! GO!"
Before Bob could even turn his head, before he could finish the thought or feel the press of Walker's hot tongue against his own, a thick cable of electrified suppression netting slammed into Walker's back. The super-soldier convulsed, a horrific, gargling shriek tearing from his throat as thousands of volts of electricity locked every muscle in his body. His grip on Bob failed instantly.
"NO!" Bob screamed.
Specialised containment units swarmed him and used gravity clamps just to drag him an inch. He fought like a sun trying to go supernova, to get back to the man they were stealing from him, until a pneumatic hiss sounded against the base of his skull. His eyes locked on Walker, who was writhing on the floor and foaming at the mouth, before his own consciousness was swallowed by the Void.