A/N: This week (October 26 to November 1) is Asexual Awareness Week, so I thought I'd do a story about asexuality featuring a character who is asexual in my headcanon, Jack Rollins.
In this fic, Rollins is somewhat indifferent to the asexual community—he identifies as ace (slang for asexual) but he doesn't feel the need to become involved in the asexual community. I, on the other hand, am very involved in the asexual community, so if you would like more information on asexuality, I recommend you check out the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network website. For now, if you're completely unfamiliar with the term, an asexual is someone who does not experience sexual attraction. This is separate from celibacy as celibacy is a choice, whereas asexuality is an intrinsic part of a person. There is a growing asexuality visibility movement which exists to spread information about asexuality so that people will recognize it as a valid orientation, and more asexuals will know there are others like them and will not feel isolated or broken.
This fic is set in the same continuity as my story Blankets, but it is not necessary to have read that to read this, and vice versa.
Objectively, Jack knows that the former leader of STRIKE and a professional ghost will be safe on their own for a couple of days.
It's hard to be objective when Romanoff dumped all their faces and crimes onto the Internet. And it's downright impossible when Brock Rumlow and a deprogramming Winter Soldier are involved. So after Jack goes to scout out yet another HYDRA base and finds it abandoned, like all the others, he doesn't seek out a hotel like he'd promised Brock. He just drives all night; he has the stamina and anyway, their funds are limited.
Which makes it all the more surprising when Jack comes through the front door of their safe house to find Winter creeping through the back, shopping bags in hand.
Winter's in charge of the shopping—shoplifting, half of the time—because he's the stealthiest of the three and also the least recognizable: the man showed up on their doorstep with a full beard he's never bothered to shave, if he even knows how. The technicians always handled Winter's hygiene.
Jack makes a note to introduce grooming lessons into their schedule, but that can wait. "What's that you got?" he asks. Winter tends to make supply runs at night, when there are less people around to set him off, not in the mid-morning. And he already retrieved the weekly groceries before Jack left.
"Classified," Winter mumbles, staring down at his boots.
"What?" There is no classified information among the three of them now, no ranks. Either Winter's lying or he's trying to fulfill some half-remembered previous mission, and neither bodes well.
Winter's eyes dart around the floor as if it holds an answer. "This is…for the commander," he says slowly, tone indicating this response was coached. Which raises the question of why he didn't lead with that, but Winter's memory has always been shoddy. "For…personal use. Private use. That we aren't meant to discuss. Or…look at."
Granted, Brock would be enough of an idiot to send the Winter Soldier out for lube and porn, but there's clearly a box of cake mix in one of those shopping bags. And nobody fucks a cake. "Did Brock tell you to say that?"
A nod.
"Okay." Jack steps back to give him space. "You're being good, you've done just what you were supposed to. Did Brock also tell you what he really wanted it fo—"
"Winter, did you get the—" That's as far as Brock gets before he pauses in the kitchen doorway, gaze flickering between the pair of them. "Hey. Hey Jack, you're home early. You, uh, you didn't drive all night, right? You're not supposed to do that, we talked about that. Driver fatigue, that's—that's about twenty percent of all crashes, you know."
Jack crosses his arms. "What's going on?"
"I could ask you the same question," Brock says. "We talked about driving on no sleep." His voice is calm, casual, but he's shooting looks at Winter and pulling some ridiculously contorted expressions as if to mime out What have you told him?
Winter just blinks, casting a glance toward Jack, probably hoping for a dumbass-to-English translation.
"What's going on?" Jack repeats.
He watches the emotions play on Brock's face, from deliberately glib to pig-headedly stubborn to resignation. "Happy Ace Week!" he says finally, brightly. "We were gonna have cake waiting for you, but we don't. Because you're a dick."
"The hell's Ace Week?" And what does that have to do with cake? "Are you inventing holidays again?" Brock's probably high on painkillers. Jack's going to have to talk to Winter about verifying the commander's orders before he carries them out. That, or have their soldier steal less potent narcotics from the local pharmacy next time.
"Asexual Awareness Week," Brock says. "And no, it's real. It has a website and everything. Okay, so it started on Sunday and I just found last night, but we're on the run from the law and I'm dealing with chronic pain, so some leeway would be—"
"Why," Jack asks, pulling a chair from the table, "are we celebrating Asexual Awareness Week?" He sinks down, motioning for Winter to do the same. The shopping bags are deposited on the table; the one that isn't full of cake supplies seems to have yarn in it.
It was Brock who taught him the word asexual, ages ago back in basic training. It was Brock who hadn't pulled away when Jack had confessed "I just…I don't like sex all that much," Brock who had moved closer, quiet, before asking, "Like an ace?"
And it had been great to hear that word, to finally have a name for that feeling inside him, to realize he wasn't as isolated as he'd thought. But it's not like he's part of a movement. It's a nice label to make discussions of boundaries easier, to know he's not alone, but it's as much a part of him as his hair or eye color and he's never felt the urge to go proclaiming in the streets about either of those. Especially not as a fugitive from the law. It's either a waste of their already scarce resources or a needless risk, sending Winter out like that. Jack sighs.
"For you." There's a flash of hurt in Brock's eyes, and not the kind that precedes a dose of oxycodone. "Because you're ace."
That's all he gives by way of explanation, though Jack can hear the words unspoken hanging in the air. Brock doesn't say, Because you broke me out of the hospital. He doesn't say, Because for a month I thought you'd died in the Triskelion. He doesn't say, Because we're stuck in this shithole and I'm crippled and Winter's likely to kill us in our sleep, so let me have this. He doesn't have to.
Just like how Jack never has to say, Thank you for staying with me, thank you for not dumping my ass for someone who'd put out. Brock's never expected it, even before that night in the barracks. Never made Jack feel guilty or broken or lesser.
So sure, they can have Asexual Awareness Week. Hell, they deserve a week off. Or, well, four days now. "Fine," he says. Jack doesn't have to look up to feel Brock's grin.
"What's asexual?" Winter asks. He rarely makes eye contact, and right now he's staring down at the shopping bags as if they hold the answer.
"It's complicated," Jack says, not because it is but because he has no idea how much Winter understands about human sexuality. After a lifetime of memory wipes and tortures, their soldier generally seems to have the same grasp on the world as a small child, outside of the bloodshed and stealth HYDRA let him keep.
"It's a person who doesn't feel sexual attraction," Brock says at the same time, a much more eloquent explanation than the one he gave years ago. It strikes Jack that maybe Brock's been researching asexuality this whole time and he fights the urge to stand up and hug the man. It would irritate the skin grafts.
There's no comprehension in Winter's face, so Brock adds, "There are websites. I'll show you later."
Jack stretches back in the chair, fighting a yawn. He was fine when he was on the road and fine when he was standing up. Not so much now. "All right, how do we celebrate Ace Week?"
"You," Brock says, pointing, "get some sleep. At least six hours. When you get up, we're having movies and Better than Sex cake."
That wakes Jack up. "That's not a thing."
"For an asexual, you don't know much about the culture of your people." Brock's unloading the bags. Just a few weeks ago, he'd have been unable to do that without assistance. He's regaining mobility in his fingers even with the scar tissue. Good.
"For an asexual, all cake is better than sex, you idiot."
"It's a thing," Brock says. "It's devil's food, whipped cream, condensed milk, and—"
"Heath bars?" Jack asks. Recognition sparks in his mind and he sits up a little straighter.
"Yeah." Brock takes them out of the bag as he says it. "So you have had it?"
"I had an aunt who brought it to potlucks." He remembers pans of the stuff, sandwiched between plates of cookies and brownies. She tended to make two for each gathering because it went so fast. "But that's not Better than Sex, it's called Better than Robert Redford."
"Nothing," says Brock, who is a connoisseur of shitty Captain America biopics, and whose favorite is the movie starring Redford and Faye Dunaway, "is better than Robert Redford."
"So I'm going to eat cake while you watch Robert Redford and I watch you fuck the mattress? I can hardly wait."
"We're watching The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Your holiday, your favorite movie." Brock speaks as if he isn't just as enamored with young Clint Eastwood, and Jack smirks.
"So I'm going to eat cake while you watch Blondie and I watch you fuck the mattress? Sounds great. What's Winter doing?"
"Making a hat," Winter says, taking a purple skein of yarn from the second shopping bag. "For you."
There are a million questions running through Jack's head at that, like what do hats have to do with asexuality and why purple and what did the little old lady cashiers at the craft store make of the bearded, silent man stalking through the yarn aisles? He settles on "What?" which covers everything, really.
"In the colors of the asexuality flag," Brock explains as Winter pulls out other colors: gray and white and black. "It's getting cold out, we could use hats."
"There's a flag?"
"You're hopeless," Brock says. "If it weren't for me you'd know nothing about anything. And you'd be dead. Five times over at least. Get some sleep." He nudges Jack's shoulder and Jack allows himself to be hauled up.
"Did you teach him how to knit?" Jack asks, glancing at Winter. The soldier already has a set of double pointed needles out, and he's casting the yarn onto them.
"No, the Internet did. Now get to bed before you collapse on the floor. I'm not hauling your ass."
"Love you too," Jack says and before he heads to the bedroom, his lips graze Brock's face.
When Jack awakes, the sun's setting outside. The house smells of chocolate and caramel and there's a striped hat resting on the pillow. Jack's pretty sure, given Winter's usual speed at completing assigned tasks, that he'll find both Brock and their soldier in hats as well, once he heads back into the kitchen. Grinning, he slips the hat on and gets out of bed to greet his boys.
A/N: The mentions of Rumlow and Rollins being in basic training together are a reference to the fic I've found the velvet sun that shines on me and you. by bofurrific on the website Archive of Our Own. The fic was written for me and she gave me the asexual Rollins headcanon to begin with, so I highly recommend it.
Better than Sex (or Better than Robert Redford) cake is a real cake compromised of devil's food topped with sweetened condensed milk, caramel sauce, whipped cream, and chopped up Heath bars. Weirdly enough, there are actually two desserts called Better than Robert Redford, but the second isn't a cake. It's a combination of nuts, puddings and whipped cream. Cake is an unofficial symbol for the asexual community, often accompanied by the saying "Cake is better than sex."
Blondie is the name of Clint Eastwood's character in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
The asexual flag consists of four equal, horizontal stripes. They are, from top to bottom: black, gray, white, and purple. The black stripe symbolizes asexuality, while the gray stripe represents demisexuals (those who do not experience sexual attraction prior to an emotional bond) and gray asexuals (those who fall somewhere between asexuality and sexuality). The white stripe represents sexuality, and the purple symbolizes community.
A note about the relationship between Rumlow and Rollins: I don't mean to imply that all relationships featuring an asexual partner are sexless. Some asexuals don't mind having sex for their partner's sake or enjoy the sensation of sex without experiencing the attraction. However, I decided to write this relationship as sexless because I've found an expectation of sorts in fiction and real life wherein the asexual is obligated to put out for their partner, and that makes me uncomfortable. The 2011 Asexual Awareness Week Survey found that fifty-five percent of the asexual community polled identify as sex-averse or sex-repulsed, so I wanted to display a relationship where sex was not the expectation. Personally, I don't think that sex should be automatically expected in a relationship, asexual partner or not.