Chapter Text
It had been a slow day in a slow week in a very slow month. It was remarkable how rarely a world-ending event actually occurred. The news blew everything out of proportion—nobody was going to get a bigger scoop than half the population disappearing, but they sure were trying. Regardless, it had been so slow of a month that Valentina—unable to stand the fact that her ‘new Avengers’ were already running out of time in their fifteen minutes of fame—had sent them to become ‘more in touch with regular, everyday issues’- her words. So when they picked up on an armed robbery over police scanners, Yelena, taking her first steps into the shoes of team leader, had rounded them up and dragged them to the scene before the cops even had time to put their donuts down. John was always up for a classic mission like this—it was what he was best at, after all. Very military, very straight-forward, very familiar—John told himself that was a good thing, that it gave him valuable experience, reliving the past as often as he seemed to.
“Another point for me!” Yelena cheered, slamming a masked mass of muscle onto the ground in a headlock—he joined the other three. On the other side of the war-torn bank, Ava rolled her eyes, bashing another one on the head and sending him to the ground, too.
“And that’s four for me—oh, wait.” Without looking, Ava jabbed her elbow behind her, catching another in the gut, who doubled over. She delivered a firm kick to his gut again, stopping his writhing. “Five.”
Yelena rolled her eyes. “Yeah, y—”
A spray of bullets rang out, and they all ducked. That’s when John first noticed Yelena draw her gun—there was yet another new rule imposed by a group vote a few weeks before. Don’t go lethal unless they do first. Whoever ‘they’ were this week. As much as Walker and Ava had wanted to complain about how that would make everything take twice as long, they did understand Yelena’s point. They were the New Avengers and had the reputation of the real Avengers to uphold. Besides, they’d all done enough senseless killing for their lifetimes—of course they’d do more, but at least this way it was minimal.
Yelena dove behind one of the large bank desks, falling into place beside Bucky and John. Alexei was somewhere out there with Ava. Yelena grinned at John, nudging him in the side.
“What’re you at?” she asked. Their missions were good fun when it was simple like this—no world-ending threats, no Sentry… no mad titans searching for infinity stones—thank God they hadn't been on the scene when that happened. Besides, only a few civilians had been injured—as far as John could tell, there’d been no fatalities. Yet.
John peaked over the edge, then ducked again as another spray of bullets pelted holes into the wall behind them, sending down little sprays of paint and drywall.
“Uh, two?” He blinked a few times and tried to clear his head.
“Only?”
“There’s not exactly dozens of them,” John shot back. “Two’s good.”
Yelena glanced at Bucky. “How about you?”
Bucky sighed, rubbing his temple. “I’ve been busy putting cuffs on the guys you and Ava keep—”
“So zero.” Yelena frowned. “I expected more from you. And you—” she stared back at John, poking him in the shoulder, “—have a shield, dumbass. Why are you hiding down here with us?”
John rolled his eyes.
“We are Avengers, how are we taking this long to take down some guys with guns?” she continued. “Tackle him or something. You’re the one with the shield. Go on, it'll be your moment in the spotlight.”
“Why don’t you do some fancy spy shit and somersault up to—” Nobody flinched as more bullets punctured the wall. “—him or something. Considering you used to assassinate people, you must be used to facing down the barrel of a mad gunman.”
“Ah, right, and the soldier isn’t.” Yelena crossed her arms, staying put. “Luckily, I’m not going to let you end today with a measly three.”
John sighed, then peered over the top again. The gunman’s back was to them, bullets raining down on the other side of the bank, where the civilians were hiding behind more desks. Scared faces glanced from cracks in the cover. These people were terrified for their lives, and they were arguing about who would take down the bad guy? No wonder the press was calling them the B-vengers.
Yelena nudged him again.
“Now or never, Walker. You really gonna call it at two?”
John leapt over the desk and ran.
He still wasn’t completely used to the new shield. He’d already asked Valentina multiple times to get it fixed—she certainly had the resources to—but she’d said it was too late. “Iconic” had been her words, really. Too ‘iconic’. But, as ‘iconic’ as it was, it also was not the weapon he’d been trained to fight with. He wasn’t used to the angle of the bend—so when the masked gunman suddenly spun around, eyes wide, raised his weapon and fired, John ducked behind his shield… and remembered too late that the shield wasn’t really a shield anymore.
The bullet ricocheted at a weird angle, and he felt a searing pain in his torso, spreading throughout his body like it was travelling through his blood. But he’d felt this before, when he’d seen action—just a clip, just a skim. It always felt worse than it looked, and he knew from experience. This would just need a band-aid, maybe a stitch. He only paused momentarily. But his breath hitched for a second as the bank around him flickered to a warzone—dust, sand, heat, bullets and gunfire and—then back to a bank, before he tackled the man and pinned him to the ground.
It was the bootleg supersoldier serum that kept him going through the pain—that and the reassurance that it felt worse than it really was, and the adrenaline and Ava’s distant, sarcastic clapping. And the spite. So he gritted his teeth, knocked the gun from the robber’s hands, and restrained his arms behind his back. Then he got up—or tried to, but another jolt of pain stole his breath, and he stayed kneeling, securing one hand over the growing warmth in his side. John swallowed, pressing his other hand against the cold quartz floor. A moment later, he tried to stand again—he managed it this time, albeit unsteadily. He looked up just as Alexei slammed his hands against either side of the final robber's head, who sank to the ground, unconscious. John looked around—all the guys with guns and masks had been restrained or rendered unconscious. Flickering blue and red lights reflected through the large glass windows at the front of the bank. Beyond the glass, John could make out rows of police cars, ambulances, and news vans.
So, they’d finally put down their donuts.
“Bravo.” Ava deadpanned, clapping slowly. With a smile she wasn’t quite able to hide, she added, “Not very elegant, but I suppose that’s not exactly your strong suit.”
Bucky and Yelena had risen to their feet, surveying the damage—a total of twelve tied-up and unconscious robbers. Bucky sighed, rolling his shoulder back a few times. “Valentina will be happy—no fatalities this time. Maybe we lucked out on casualties, too.”
“Robbing bank with group of so many seems stupid idea.” Alexei approached from wherever he’d been, wiping his hands on his thighs. “Are bad guys really this stupid now?”
Bucky pointed at the downed bodies, and John noticed that they were very obviously two different groups with different equipment, outfits, and weaponry—one group of about five people, the other with seven. “Looks like two different gangs decided to rob the same place at the same time. Bet the bank had a substantial enough security leak to tip both groups off.”
Ava shrugged. “Weirder things have happened.” Her eyes darted over each of them, her tone snide.
John kept his hand pressed tight against his side, watching distantly as police officers and stressed EMTs filed in, completely ignoring their presence and heading straight for the injured. There were more than he’d thought, but few enough for this to still be a success. Nobody was dead, at least. John glanced down, and an exhale escaped him. Blood—lots of blood, a dark stain spreading from his left side, just above his hip bone. Centimetres away from simply ‘clipping’ him. He looked away, pressing his hand firmer to try and contain the blood. Cameras flashed outside the bank’s glass wall—right. The press were here. They’d want photographs and maybe even interviews.
John took another deep breath before discreetly re-investigating his side. OK, so he’s been a little more than clipped. But one look around told him that it could wait—the last thing these people—scared, injured people—needed to see was one of their Avengers leaving a simple gun fight on a stretcher. Would this have taken out Tony Stark? Would Captain America let himself be shot? How could he expect to protect the world if he couldn’t even protect himself?
They weren’t even super soldiers.
He’d felt this way before. He didn’t like it then, and he didn't now.
John shut his eyes. His wound kept burning, blood warm between his gloved fingers. At least it felt worse than it looked—that much was true. A hand came down hard on his shoulder. For a minute, John thought they’d screwed up and forgotten to take down all the robbers.
Bucky’s voice eased his fear, only a little bit—the sudden increase of his heart rate stayed.
“Come on,” Bucky paused, then took half a step closer. John didn’t want to imagine how bad he looked—pale, weak... “You okay?”
The shock must be that obvious.
“I’m fine.” John did his best to smile. “Totally fine.”
“Okay, well…” Bucky gave John’s shoulder a firm pat, but his face betrayed his distrust—Bucky still thought John was lying. He was, but it still put a sour taste in John’s mouth to know Bucky suspected it. “Let’s get out of here before—” Bucky caught himself, and some urgency left his face. It had taken all of them some time to get used to not being criminals. Or, at least, used to the idea that this was well within their legal right to do—as Avengers and all that. Their shooting and punching and swearing was all encouraged by Valentina. Well, maybe not the swearing.
“Or,” Bucky said with playful eyes, “We could put on a show for the cameras.”
Typically, John would be all for parading a few real criminals out the doors in handcuffs. Displays like that had started as advice from Val to ‘cultivate their image’, then spiralled into a joke amongst them: who could look like the biggest—as Ava had put it—prick? Val hadn’t caught on yet, and something told John she wouldn’t for a while.
But considering the whole bullet thing… John just clenched his jaw and rolled his shoulders back, brushing off Bukcy’s hand.
“Let’s just go, man.” John heard himself say, despite the knot in his throat and the tremble in his voice. Thoughts were suddenly very difficult, like they were big, distant clouds he was grasping yet kept slipping through his fingers. Yep. The shock was definitely setting in. It was like the war all over again. Wars.
Bucky looked like he was going to continue to pry, but that was when the applause began. The situation was no longer dire, the bad guys were being led out the front doors by the cops. But the press outside—the civilians still in the bank being checked out by the EMTs—and even some of the officers… they weren’t clapping for the cops, but the 'real' heroes. John plastered on his toothiest smile—Yelena and Ava joined him and Bucky, with Alexei on their tail. They wore similarly unconvincing smiles. Standing beside him, staring out at the barrage of flashes from the sea of cameras outside, Yelena leaned in.
Through grit teeth, she said, “I can practically hear Valentina yelling at us to smile like we mean it.” Her grin dropped, despite the cameras, and her eyes fell to John’s side, where his hand was still clasped tightly. “Oh my God—” she reached out, and John shuffled back.
“It’s not mine,” He referred to the blood, straightening up and ignoring the sharp stab as he did so. “I’m fine,” he added instinctively, smiling a touch. It brought him back to when they first met—the vault, the elevator shaft, and Bob’s fucky shame room before he knew what the hell a shame room was. Only this time, he was telling the truth—he really was fine. He'd just been clipped. And Yelena gave him the same look she gave him before—furrowed eyebrows, a small cock of the head, a distrusting gaze calling out his bullshit.
He’d give it to her—His legs felt a little more like jello than they had before. Probably the shock. Shock, oftentimes, was worse than the actual injury itself. She probably saw it—saw the paleness, the shakiness. Maybe he was swaying a little. But it was nothing that a strong drink and a stitch or two couldn’t fix. He just needed to sit down, he thought, scrunching his eyes shut. He could feel the warmth only grow. The pain was still all he could focus on, but it had dulled. Maybe it was thanks to the fog in his head. He glanced down again—that area of his suit was a bit darker, but the blood itself wasn’t all that visible—nor was the entry wound, hidden somewhere in the black, red, and white. The way his arm was positioned looked like he was just posing, lucky for the cameras. Lucky for him, Yelena’s disbelief was interrupted by a cry from the crowd.
“Murderers!”
Apparently, a costume change and rebrand couldn’t completely sway public opinion. It was still early days, after all. Ava scowled, putting a hand on Alexei’s arm when he began to yell something back. She murmured something that John didn’t quite catch, but he did pick up on the word ‘ungrateful’.
Another sudden jolt of pain—he couldn’t quite hide it.
You’re fine, he told himself, forcing deep, painful breaths. Just a skim. You’re fine. You’re fine.
John had been shot before—when you’d seen as many combat scenarios as he had, you were bound to catch a stray bullet at least once. But the more he glanced down, trying to stay together in front of all these eyes, the more he realized he hadn’t just been clipped. No, he’d be lucky if this missed something vital.
He needed to get back to the Tower. He could deal with it there—and nobody would have to know he’d been brought down by one bullet.
“Come on,” Yelena was saying when he shook himself from the thoughts, turning her back on the crowd that had now devolved into an internal war between cheering and jeering at them. She cracked her knuckles. “Let’s get out of here already. Show’s over.”
* * *
It was the serum that kept him going—that or the adrenaline. Or the paracetamol he’d swallowed as soon as he got back to the tower. John had immediately locked himself in the washroom just outside his room, too tired and foggy to register his team’s curious looks.
He felt weird. Less here.
Locking the door behind him, he finally got a good look at himself and understood why their gazes had lingered, then met one another, exchanging silent questions. A thin sheen of sweat made his pasty skin glow, and the rise and fall of his chest looked shallower than it felt. With trembling hands, John gripped the edge of the counter, eyes dropping to the dark stain on his side. It had grown during the drive back—he was surprised he was still conscious. It was all he could do not to collapse.
Gently, as every movement made him wince, he began the tedious process of taking off the top of his suit. Finally, after what felt like more of a struggle than usual, John pulled it over his head and felt his heart drop.
Shit.
Some dark and angry force had ripped a hole into his side. Deep red blood, no longer under pressure from the suit, freely ran down his leg. He’d lost too much blood already—he didn’t need to be a doctor to know that much. John swallowed the quiet air, his strained inhales the only sound in the black quartz room.
“Okay,” his voice trembled as he kept staring at his side. He scrunched his eyes shut, bracing himself against the counter again and clenching his jaw.
It hurt so bad. If he were any weaker a man, he’d’ve passed out already.
But John just grit his teeth, took a deep breath, and got to work. They had well-stocked first aid kits in practically every room of the tower to try to combat their line of work’s unnaturally high death rate. He pulled one from beneath the sink and rifled through the contents, clumsy hands fumbling to find… There it was. He reached for the suture needle, only to drop it into the sink. Leaving a trail of blood (his hands were coated in the sticky substance, and so was the needle now—it was everywhere), it rolled down the side and almost went down the drain. He fished for the needle, leaving smeared fingerprints along the basin. Finally getting a hold of it, he returned to the first aid kit and found the rest of what he needed.
Then he stared into the mirror. The wound looked angrier and angrier the more his gaze lingered. He’d done this before, to others, during some of his deployments in the Middle East when there were no available medics. Sewed them up, that is. But he’s shot more people than he could count. Maybe this was—
John let his eyes fall shut, took a breath, and opened them. Sewing a wound couldn’t be that much harder on himself, right?
John willed his hands to stillness. It worked well enough for him to thread the string through the medical-grade needle. Then he stared back down and realized all he saw was blood. Idiot.
“You need to clean it first.” John shut his eyes and rested his forehead against the mirror. His body was so heavy—even thinking was an effort. He needed a doct— “No.” He choked on the word. You’re Captain America. Captain America wouldn’t be brought down by one… “No.” he pressed his forehead harder. “You’re not him.”
Ok, but where he might not be Captain America, he was an Avenger—his point still stood. He opened his eyes, reaching for the kit. He needed to clean the wound. Ok. He could do that. He looked back at the wound and the world spun—he regained shaky balance before he could fall, but with it came a sharp stab of pain behind his eyes, cutting through the fog.
Leave. Get a doctor. No, no—they’d blow this all out of proportion. They’d—the world deserved more than an Avenger brought down by one single—
John shook his head, dispelling the thought.
“Focus,” he murmured, groping the counter till he found the needle again. He held it up, watching the warm light glint off the thin metal point. Was he supposed to clean it first? Sew himself up? How could he clean it if it just kept bleeding—if he couldn’t clean it, how could he stop bleeding?
Maybe if the world was clearer, he might be able to remember what he’d been taught in the army. John shook his head again but darkness kept creeping into the corners of his vision. Everything kept getting further and further away, as if it…
There was a far away sound that got his attention. Then it came again, louder as he tried to focus on it. Knocking! There was a voice, too, or at least the rumbles of one. Neither sound seemed new. How long had…
“John, are you sure you’re okay?” Yelena asked, continuing to knock on the door—to John, it sounded like banging. He opened his mouth but found no words came. So he swallowed, throat dry, and returned to the needle.
Close it. Clean it. Go back to work. Close it. Clean it. Simple.
John nearly dropped the needle again—his hands had started to tingle. The room, too, had started rotating ever so slightly. Gripping his wrist tightly, he guided his own clumsy hand towards the wound. He had to guess where to position the needle, since…
“John?” Her voice was more frantic. He should respond.
“Yeah, don’t worry, Yelena,” he tried to say, and did a half-decent job. “Just one… I just need a minute…”
Close. Clean. Nobody needs to know. Close. Clean. Close—
He sank the needle into his raw flesh and couldn’t help a strained gasp from escaping as a burst of fire shot through his body. He would have dropped the needle if it weren’t already firmly lodged— wait a second. It took John more time than was normal to lift his hand and feel around his back—no exit wound. The bullet was still…
“John?” Pause. More banging. “You don’t sound fine. Open the door right now or—”
John caught himself against the wall—though he stopped his legs from giving out, he couldn’t help it when his eyes fell shut and his head lulled against the wall. Stay up. He tried to push away from the wall, but couldn’t. Stay awake. Fix yourself. If he wasn’t already dead then it was unlikely the bullet itself would cause more damage inside him. He could leave it and… They deserve more. Be what they deserve. You need to stay—
“I’m getting Bucky, you… you insensitive…” he could hear her struggle to figure out what to say. In the end, she must have just left. Or maybe the thumping in his head had drowned her out again. That’s all he heard—the rush of blood, thumping of his heartbeat…
John tried to call out, to tell her to wait just one more minute—that he’d be OK in just one more minute… so he could clean it and close it and… and the blood loss got to him first.
* * *
War sucks.
His mouth is dry, the only taste being dust and dirt and the familiar coppery taste of blood. Tactical gear weighs him down—at least the shade from the not-completely caved in roof offers some solace from the hot desert son. Not to mention the endless barrage of noise, almost more painful than the exhaustion and dehydration. Guns are most of what he hears. And some yelling—lots of yelling, actually, far away. General chaos. Maybe a few explosion-like rumbles someplace far away. Screaming. Crying, maybe, or maybe that’s just some kind of truck engine or weapon.
So yeah, war sucks, everyone knows that. But this situation is a really special, unique sort of sucky. Walker pauses, disappearing into his mind just long enough to correct himself—it isn’t, actually, special or unique at all. This is every day.
They’re pinned down in some village that looks like all the other shitty places they’ve been since getting here. But hey, at least they’re doing some good. The house they’re in has no back exit—not if you don’t include the half-collapsed wall to their right that opens into one large open dirt road that screams ‘death sentence’. The front of the house is being pelted by bullets. Well, it was . The gunfire has stopped for the time being. Now it’s a waiting game which he, Lemar, and the other two soldiers have no way of winning. He glances over at his friend, who’s listening intently as the small radio on his lapel crackles in the silence. Walkers broke earlier that morning when someone went at him with a knife. He waits till Lemar looks up at him from behind his sand-stained visor.
“Whittaker says he can only bring the truck to the rendezvous point, but no closer.”
Walker groans, taking one hand off his gun to stab the air—Or, as he imagines it, Whittaker's stupid face. The other two soldiers—Kaminsky and Munro—groan. They, too, realize the stupidity in what Lemar had just told them. The ‘rendezvous point’ was behind the crumbled building on the other side of the open road to their right. “Does Whittaker understand that they are trying to flood us out that way? That they have lots of guns and other bullshit waiting for us to do exactly what he is telling us to!?”
Lemar shrugs, at a loss for words. “We’re dead if we stay. If we run, we might not be.”
“And what about them?” Walker gestures behind him, where the small family who didn’t run when they still had the chance cowers together against the far wall, speaking rapid Arabic to each other. Lemar just shrugs again, mouth open but saying nothing. “I’m not going to make these people risk their lives because Whittaker doesn’t want his truck to get a few new bullet holes.”
Lemar’s head cracked against the pillar, his body slumped to the ground. He didn’t move.
Lemar hushes his voice, “Why, because it might kill them? Every second they stay here, they’re taking that chance. You wanna know what they will do when we don’t come out, or when they don’t put bullets through our heads, Walker? They’ll throw a bomb. So do you really want to stay here and die just because it’s the same choice these people are making? Besides, you know just as well as I do that if that truck gets messed up, we’re all dead.”
Walker glances back at the huddle—four scared faces stare back.
“Okay,” he says, then looks back at Lemar, sweaty grip tightening around the hilt of his gun. He takes only a moment to decide, then jerks his head back at them. “We’ll run for it. Go on, Lemar. Ask if they’ll join us. Tell them we’ve got room in the truck, we can take them to a—”
Lemar turns, repeating Walker’s words in Arabic. A moment passes, a reply is given, and Lemar shakes his head at Walker.
“They’re staying.”
“Why?” Asks Kaminsky, her gaze following Walker’s as he looks back, confusion furrowing his brows.
Walker frowned. “Don’t they understand they’ll—”
“They said that this is their home,” Lemar answers. “I guess they don’t want to abandon it because a couple of intruders told them they should.”
Walker lingers, wanting to convince them to run. Their town was already destroyed. Their home. They’re malnourished, that much is obvious. This fight has been their entire lives—it’s only been years of his. And now it’ll take their lives, too? Walker opens his mouth to insist, but closes it. He doesn’t speak Arabic. And what could he say? He turns his back on them and nods at Lemar.
“Let’s go.”
“Lemar? Lemar, wake up. Lemar? Lemar!”
They deserve someone better.
The four Americans steel themselves, and with a final exchange of nods—and nothing more than a glance back at the family, who stare back at them, they count to three and run as Whittaker’s khaki-coloured military truck pulls in, covered by that crumbled house across the dusty ground.
They run.
The shower of bullets is immediate. Walker’s not any more religious than the average person, but at this moment, he thinks someone must be looking out for him. Kaminsky gets hit first, as soon as she leaves cover just a few steps in front of Walker, tumbling down in a cloud of dust. He jumps over her, averting his gaze. As he runs, he continues to tell himself to look back. To try to help her. She might not be dead. She might not—up in front, Munro gets hit, too, but he doesn’t fall. He stumbles forward, blood reddening his thigh, and clings onto Lemar, who helps him through the last stretch. They both dive for cover, immediately loading Munro—who’s clutching at his leg—into the back of the truck. Walker glances over his shoulder, even though he shouldn’t. But he’s been serving alongside Kaminsky ever since he got stationed here. If she was alive, he should go back and help—help her and the family. There must be some other way to…
Kaminsky is dead, that much is obvious. She lies in a pool of her own blood, a crumpled pile of military regalia.
Dead. Lemar is dead. And John had let it happen.
A moment later, he feels it, the searing fire spreading up his forearm. Walker turns his back on Kaminsky, whose blood continues to spread in the sand, and runs towards Lemar’s beckoning, outstretched hand. He doesn’t realize when he’s made cover, when the gunfire stops, when Lemar helps him into the back of the truck as Whittaker begins to speed away. His eyes are locked on the small town, at the enemy, at the failed mission that seems inconsequential now. At Kaminsky’s dead bo—
* * *
John gasped, the pain bright and sharp on his shoulder. He felt a small cry escape him before it eased up. The first thing he noticed was how the pain in his side was more bearable, that's what was foggy instead of his head—everything else was clear. Clear-ish. The world still felt like he was watching it from underwater, but it was better than nothing.
John was more than a little surprised to see a clean white ceiling instead of the make-shift infirmary in the American army’s base he’d been expecting. But of course it didn’t take long for him to remember that everything in Afghanistan had been years ago.
He was halfway through propping himself up on his elbows when the hand came to his shoulder, guiding him back down. It was then when he felt the first buddings of another headache.
“Thank God you’re alive. Now I don’t have to feel bad about all those times I bullied you,” came Ava’s typical snide tone, but the look in her eyes gave her relief away. Her hand on his shoulder felt light and far away, and the bed beneath him was like a cloud. Even the headache was kind of pleasant. Standing over him, the exhaustion in her face only seemed more pronounced. She rubbed her eyes, and there were deep bags beneath them.
John spoke, and it was about as difficult as he’d expected it to be—his body almost felt too light, too far away. “Is this a hospital?”
Doctors, ambulance drivers, other patients, press, surgeons… how many knew about—
“No,” said Ava, dropping into the seat beside his bed, where she’d presumably been sitting before he awoke. John turned his head, where he could just barely catch sight of a blanket in a pile by Ava’s feet, along with a small pillow on the ground on the other side of the chair. “When Stark first built this place, he had a whole floor devoted to labs. Once it became the Avengers’ base, they converted some of the rooms into an infirmary.”
“Oh,” John swallowed, his throat itchy. He looked back up at the ceiling. That was good. “Okay.”
He only remembered bits and pieces—everything up to the arrival back at the tower was relatively clear. Then things got a bit muddier, but he thought he got the gist of it. It took a lot of effort to move his hand to his side, where he felt the outline of a thick bandage beneath the thin white sheet. The pain was very, very faint now, instead replaced by a slightly uncomfortable warmth. Everything was warm, fuzzy, pleasantly floating… but not his limbs, his limbs were clumsy. He took a deep breath, and only felt a tinge of discomfort.
Lemar turns Walker’s head to face him, away from the town.
“You’re bleeding,” he says. Over his shoulder, Walker sees Munro, who’s holding a deep red cloth to his leg, gritting his teeth. They will be back at the base soon. Munro will be okay. He needs to be.
Walker looks at the pain in his left shoulder, then pulls at the ripped fabric—a gash of red along the side of his arm. But it’s nowhere deep enough to be worrying.
“How are you feeling?” Ava asked, still staring at him. He didn’t look away from the ceiling.
“Fine.” She was quiet. John sighed, met her eyes, and raised both his eyebrows. “Really. Whatever you gave me is working wonders. I feel fine.”
“Hm.” Ava glanced down at her phone. After a while—still not looking up—she said, “I’m letting the others know you’re not dead, by the way.”
“Oh, yeah.” John swallowed again. He needed water. “How long has it—”
“How long since they had to bust the door down and drag your basically dead body from the bathroom, or how long since the guy Valentina sent cut the bullet out of you?”
John blinked at her. She scowled back.
“Uh,” he started when he realized the question wasn’t rhetorical. “The first one.”
“Three and a half days,” Ava replied.
If John’d been drinking something, he would have spat it out. “Three—!”
“Most of that was because of the drugs. You woke up a few times, but the doctor’s been keeping you sedated, so you weren’t very coherent.” Ava shrugged, kicking up her feet onto the edge of his bed and sitting back, still observing him quietly. Eventually, she opened her hands, as if inviting him to say something. Anything. “So, how’s it feel to be swiss cheese? You know. With the hole. Which, by the way, was pretty stupid for you to try and—”
“I’m fine,” Walker sighs, relief melting away the paralyzing fear, as he drags his fingers over the wound on his shoulder. The movement sends a shiver of pain through his body. “The bullet just clipped me.”
“The bullet just clipped me,” he said under his breath. Ava made a face.
“Uh, no, it didn’t,” she almost laughed. “It did a lot more than just—”
The door flew open.
“You complete, total asshole!” He couldn’t escape Yelena’s wrath forever.
John tried to sit up again, this time, nobody stopped him—in fact, Ava even helped prop him up, making sure he didn’t ruin his stitches in the process. Yelena raced up to the bed, with Bucky on her tail. John kept staring at the now-open doorway—there was a window staring back. A dark window with no light but whatever came from the city far below them.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” She scoffed, putting her hands on her hips and scowling down at him. The anger was a shitty disguise for what she really felt. “You almost died, you know—God, what were you even thinking!?”
John left his hand resting on his bandage, feeling the warm radiate into his hand. Bucky leaned against the far wall, hands in his pockets, face mellow. She looked exhausted, too, John noticed when he finally looked at Yelena. So did Bucky.
“What time is it?” he asked, once again aggravating the itch in his throat. At first, it seemed like Yelena was going to reply with anger, but after a brief look from Bucky, she sighed.
“Early. Late. Somewhere in between.” She rubbed her palm over her eyes, leaning against the bed. She crossed her arms, searching for what to say. A weight seemed to settle over the room. “Hope you enjoyed your sleep, because we’ve gotten none of it. What were you thinking?”
“I had it handled,” John said, disgusted as his own feebleness. Humiliated at the fact that he was still in this bed, and that they had to talk down to him.
“Oh, did you?” It was Ava’s turn to scoff. “Yeah, I can tell. Looks that way from here.”
“Thanks so much, Ava,” John spat, all that humiliation and embarrassment and frustration molding itself into something ugly. “But you’ve already completed your daily quota of pretending to care, so you can fuck off and—”
“Hey,” Bucky pushed away from the wall, holding up his hands. “Come on, John, don’t work yourself up.”
“And you’re not my handler, I don’t have one of those,” He snapped, words more than a little slurred. He was happy he was too messed up to notice the look on Bucky’s face—he’d regretted the words as soon as he said them. John turned away from Bucky, ignoring the flicker of pain—but not well enough to hide the way he curled into himself, pressing his hand firmer against his side. “I don’t need this, and I don’t need a doctor or a—” He closed his eyes as the headache came back. Drugs could only do so much, huh?
Someone put their hand on his shoulder. He shook them off, not bothering to open his eyes to check who it was.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Yelena’s voice came softly from his right. She must be sitting on the side of his bed now, because her voice was closer than it had been before.
And that’s when he hears it, the sudden explosion of bullets from the direction of the village they’d just left. The spray of bullets echoes for about five seconds before falling deathly silent. His hands shake as he pushes away from Lemar, staring out the back of the truck, trying not to fall out as the unstable ground tosses them around. He stares into the silence. The sun is blinding.
“They won’t be okay,” Walker turns to Lemar. “Will they?”
“Will they what?” Yelena asked. John opened his eyes, fingers returning to the old scar on his shoulder. He stared at Yelena, her face blurry, eyes intrigued. He stared back, equally as confused.
“What?” he just stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
His head hurt again, and he rubbed his palm down his face. Exhaustion had washed over him like a tsunami—sudden, enveloping him. Then his stomach flipped, and his body acted without input from his mind. He leaned over his bed and dry heaved, ignoring how it twisted the pain in his gut. He felt another wave of cold sweat pass over his body, his hands trembling again.
Walker sinks back into the truck, glancing back at Munro. He’s broken out into a cold sweat, barely able to stay awake. His entire pant leg is soaked. Lemar looks at John, pale on his own right.
“He needs a—”
“—doctor.” Yelena's voice cut through the darkness, and he became aware that he was on his back again, eyes too heavy to keep open for long.
“I’m pretty sure it’s just the drugs,” says Ava.
Yelena: “I’ll get him, just to be safe.”
Then, as soon as she says it, she’s gone—and Bucky isn’t by the door anymore, he’s standing beside Ava.
“Go to sleep. You need it.” Bucky patted Ava’s shoulder. “He woke up. It’s unlikely—”
“Well, what if he flatlines again?” Ava shot back, face a distant blur of anger and fear and concern, but mostly anger. Bucky sighed.
“I’ll take over for the night,” Bucky’s voice grew distant. “It’s my turn, anyw…”
Walker squeezes Munro’s hand as Lemar keeps the cloth secured tightly over the wound in his upper leg. Munro continues to moan, eyes darting frantically beneath his eyelids. The entire truck smells of blood and dust and dirt and sweat. Kaminsky is gone.
Every day is like this.
* * *
When John next woke up, the door in front of him was open, and the rays of sunlight caught thousands of small swirls of dust. John turned his head to see Bucky in Ava’s chair, fast asleep with the small pillow lodged between his head and shoulder. His arms were crossed, and the rise and fall of his chest steady. Maybe it was the daylight that made this feel more real than it had before, or maybe they were starting to wean him off the drugs. He became more aware of his body—the IV in his arm, the tightness of the bandage wrapped around his waist. His side was no longer shrouded in a blanket of warmth—the discomfort was a lot stronger now, and when he breathed too deeply, he could feel the stitches strain. Gently, he propped himself up on his elbows, then slowly adjusted him so he was sitting up, back resting on the headboard. Lifting the blanket, he stared at himself.
The bandage around him was white, except for some minor discoloration right above where his wound would have been. His eyes drifted to the rest of himself—little scars from shrapnel, bullets, burns… he covered his body with the blanket again, returning his gaze to Bucky. Then, quietly, he moved out from underneath the covers again—he was draped in a standard medical gown—and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The tiles were cold as he pressed his feet onto the floor, and they sent goosebumps up his legs.
John yanked the IV tube from his arm and winced, a small prick of blood blooming. It clattered against the ground, still connected to the bag hanging beside his bed. Steeling himself, John held one hand against his bandage, and with the other, he pushed up off the bed. He stumbled, nearly falling, but caught himself on the footboard. John stood hunched over, because if he didn’t he could feel the stitches pulling on his skin.
Ok, he was up. That was good. Now what? This was his chance, Bucky was asleep. But where could he go? What could he do? It was too late now—everyone knew that… John shut his eyes, forcing himself to breathe deeply against the fog of discomfort. He took a step forward—when he did so, he felt the movement pull at his stitches. He ignored it, taking another, and was almost at the door when—
“I take it you’re feeling better?”
John dropped his head, and felt a laugh bubble up. He turned to face Bucky, grinning wearily.
“Yeah, well,” John replied. “‘Better’ is relative.”
Bucky chuckled, then looked down at something in his hands. John’s eyes followed. He was holding a tiny card, which Bucky held up.
“Guess who it’s from,” he said, then cleared his throat: “ Get better soon, Walker. The U.S. needs their agent. Yours… ”
“Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.” John took half a step closer, then outstretched his hand, the other one still supporting him on the bed. Bucky passed off the card—John took one look and scrunched it into a ball, tossing it into the bin by the door. “That’s not even her handwriting.”
The U.S. needs their agent.
Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the encouragement, anonymous secretary.
Bucky must have noticed the change. He adjusted himself, rolling back his shoulders and keeping his gaze on John. “You wanna sit down?” he jerked his head towards the bed, eyes briefly darting down to the dribble of blood from where the IV used to be. “You look tired.”
“I’m not, actually,” John replied, mouth forming a thin smile. “I’ve been sleeping for a while, or so I hear.”
“Sleeping and drugged are two different things. Trust me.”
Pause.
“Sorry about what I said, before.” John squinted, trying to remember. “I feel like I said something really mean.”
Bucky shrugged. “You weren’t exactly you.”
“Still. Sorry.” John stared at the bed again. Yeah, no. That wasn’t happening. “I’m fine, for the record.” John cleared his throat, looking away from the white covers. The minute he lay down, he’d sleep. The minute he slept, he’d dream. The minute he dreamt… John scrunched his eyes shut, giving his head a small shake. When he opened them, Bucky was standing. “I don’t need all this. Really, man,” John insisted, taking a step back. “I feel fine.”
Bucky held up his hands. “I know you think that. But I also know that you almost died instead letting any of us help, so pardon me for being worried about you ripping out your IV and—”
“Okay, well, I was just going to the window. I mean, where else would I even go? You seriously think I can… what, run? What would I do?” John shot back. “I’d go out onto the street? Catch a taxi someplace? Lock myself in my room? You’d find me eventually. Drag me back here and act like I’m some broken…”
Bucky came closer. “The doctor said you weren’t supposed to be walking until—”
“The doctor Valentina sent?” John flung out his arms, ignoring the pain. “Up until a month ago, Valentina had been using us, and then she sent us to kill us! ”
“And now, we’re the best asset she has.”
“How do you know that?” John stepped back again—more like stumbled. He didn’t feel like himself—he felt clumsy and heavy and like he only knew what he was going to say after he already said it.
“Is that why you didn’t—”
John closed his eyes again. No. Maybe? Maybe Val would realize he wasn’t good enough for… this. Maybe she’d get the doctor to take him out discreetly, like she’d tried to do in that vault. Maybe that’s why his hazy, unstable mind had decided to lock himself in the washroom. Maybe it’s what he deserved. “Jesus, Bucky, you can be so fucking annoy—”
Bucky took another hasty step forward—at first, John didn’t understand why, but then he noticed the world was spinning. He reached out, grabbing onto one of the machines beside the bed. Something on it—some kind of small, heavy metal medical device—fell to the floor with a deafening—
—BANG!
John sucks in a breath, the air momentarily pulled from his lungs. Little pieces of shrapnel rain down from the sky, alongside dust, smoke, and other debris. Maybe even bits of a person. He tightens his grip on his gun, curling in on himself as he waits for the air to clear. Someone nudges him—Lemar, eyes asking if he is ok. John nods, then shakes himself off, little bits of dirt falling from his helmet. He turns, kneeling, and pokes his head up from the piece of rubble…
…looking out from behind the desk, the bank appears alive with fear. He sees Yelena and Bucky in the corner of his vision. Yelena goats him on. Bucky watches passively. The gunman stands in the centre of the room, shooting generously in all directions. He has nothing to lose anymore. He’s already going to jail for a very long time, so he might as well go out with a—
Pain rocketed up from the wound, and John gasped as he caught himself against the wall, but the damage had been done. The corner of the bedframe had jabbed right into the center of his bandage. Bucky was by his side, making sure he didn’t fall and ruin his stitches even more. He glanced down—great. The stain had grown more than was safe.
“Hey,” Bucky helped him back to the bed, but John didn’t lie down—he stayed sitting on the side, one hand bracing himself on his knee, the other against his bandage. Now that it had started to hurt, it kept hurting, even through the drugs. John’s eyes locked onto what had fallen—his mind still a flutter with images and sounds and… and he closed his eyes again, taking another slow breath. “You okay?”
The drugs were making this worse. The drugs were making memories feel worse than memories. Bucky settled his left hand on John’s shoulder, the force keeping him planted on the bed yet, at the same time, not feeling controlling or forceful. John glanced at his arm… maybe taking out the IV hadn’t been such a good idea. As much as he hated the thought of one of Val’s people putting some mysterious substance into his blood, the drugs had been helpful. After all, that had been the only thing holding off the pain—pain which was now quickly returning. And since his head didn’t feel clearer… going cold turkey probably wasn’t smart.
“Yes,” John sighed, rubbing his temple. Then he realized something, and looked over at the chair Bucky had been sitting in. The same blanket lay crumpled beside it, and the pillow was again on the floor. He stared. Ava had been there, hadn’t she? Whatever conversation he’d had before was foggy, but he remembered that much. “Have you guys been taking shifts?”
“Yeah.” Bucky followed his eyes to the chair, then took his hand off John’s shoulder, sure that he wasn’t going to topple over again. He turned to the door. “I should get the doctor.”
John reached out, grabbing Bucky’s wrist. “Don’t.”
Bucky glanced back, curious. “Why not?”
John’s mouth hung agape. That was a very good question, for which there were too many answers. Suspicion was a big one—distrust. Resentment towards de Fontaine was big, too. The spiteful desire not to cooperate just because he could. But he didn’t need all… this. Doctors and hospital rooms and shit. The heavy-duty pain meds were nice, but the other stuff made him seem… weak.
It made John feel weak. He was not weak.
And feeling weak was one thing, he’d always felt weak, but this broadcasted it to everyone who walked past. But he couldn’t exactly say any of that to Bucky.
“I know what you think of me,” John said quietly, a snide, unhappy look on his face. He let go of Bucky’s arm, who didn’t have to say anything.
“What do I think of you?” Ah, so he was playing dumb.
“‘Doesn’t matter.” John shook his head, looking down at his feet, planted firmly on the white tiles. “You can stop the shifts. I won’t flatline in my sleep.”
The image of them sitting beside his bed, worrying… It made him sick. Vulnerable. Back in the war, vulnerable meant… well, vulnerable meant running across an open stretch of road with the enemy to your left and the nearest thing to hide behind impossibly far away. Vulnerable meant a bullet through the chest, or one in the leg. Vulnerable meant bleeding out in the back of a tactical truck when one friend held your hand and the other pressed a cloth to your leg.
John clenched his jaw, rolled his neck, and stared down at his feet.
That’s what it was, he realized, as Bucky lingered in front of him. That’s why he’d locked himself in the washroom and tried to sew himself up.
He was still in combat, even now. Even though the enemy hadn’t yet shown itself, it would. And when it did, he had to be ready.
Not drugged up. Not here.
Bucky scratched the back of his neck. “We’re worried.”
“Worried?” John snapped, flashing his teeth. “We hardly know each other."
Bucky considered the statement. “You think so?”
“Yeah,” John looked away again. “And don’t pretend like you’re some wiser, better person. You know just as much as I do that…” He shook his head. What was he saying? He didn’t hate the others. He was just tired and angry and hated this room and this feeling and—
“Look, I’ve gotta get the doctor. You’re bleeding.” Bucky just shrugged, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “But we can probably tell him to lighten up on the painkillers, if that’s what you want.”
John bit his tongue. It was better than nothing. He half-shrugged, but kept his feet planted. “Fine.”
“Good,” Bucky nodded again, backing away towards the door. “You’re not here when I get back, we’re going to have a problem. Okay?”
“Yep,” John sighed, dropping his head into his hands. His vision moved from his feet to the weird device that had made such a loud noise. “Comprehendo.”
He closed his eyes, his head warm. The rest of him, on the other hand, was freezing. This place was cold—he wouldn’t be surprised if they’d cut the facilities in some of these lesser-used parts of the tower to conserve energy. He rubbed his palms into his eyes, feeling a tangle of frustration starting to form in his chest.
He hated sitting here. He hated waiting. He hated knowing that the others were out, helping people. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of this—the public scrutiny, the divorce, and now he was part of the Avengers? It’s not like he deserved to be.
Head still in his hands, he clenched his fists, pulling some hair in the process.
His voice was barely more than a whisper. “They deserve—”
“—better.” Walker stares at Munro, who went quiet a few moments ago. His hand hangs limply by his side. Lemar pressed two fingers against Munro’s neck, his other hand holding the man’s wrist, checking for his pulse. By the look on his face… Walker feels anger bloom in his chest. “Do we not have a tourniquet?”
Lemar sighs, shaking his head. “It hit an artery, man. Besides, it’s too close to his hip—there’s nowhere to put it. I doubt even the doctors could—”
“That’s bullshit!” Walker slams the palm of his hand against the metal seat, and the sound reverberates through the metal skeleton. Then the car is silent. Night is falling, the evening sun beginning to disappear over the horizon. Temperatures drop, though not by much. “That’s—that’s bullshit.” Walker wipes his nose. “He deserved better.”
“You keep saying that,” Lemar sighs, wiping Munro’s blood off on another rag, then placing it morosely beside him. “But I think Munro had it pretty good. Nice wife, good kids. He died for his country, and isn’t that something he always talked about?” Lemar’s words are heavy. “He didn’t die alone.”
“Not like Kaminsky.” Walker finds himself smiling even though there is nothing funny about anything. “One minute, she’s here… then, she’s just…” Gone. Nothing. “Dead.” Walker meets Lemar’s eyes. “I mean, what even is that? What kind of life is that?”
Lemar reaches out, putting a hand on Walker’s knee. “You can’t let this—”
“I was in charge of this operation.” Walker sinks his head into his hands. “This will—”
“Technically,” Lemar chews his lip, like he’s not sure he likes what he’s about to say. “Technically Kaminsky was in charge. On paper. The switch, the new orders… Those were never recorded, John. This goes down as one of hers, not yours.”
Walker looks up at him. Lemar stares back, eyes wide. They look at Munro, whose eyes stare forward, glossy and lifeless. In the front of the van, Whittaker can’t hear them.
Maybe it had been Kaminsky’s idea to run across instead of coming up with an alternative escape plan.
Kaminsky had always put others in front of herself. She is gone now—why let her death go to waste?
Walker nods and Lemar nods back, neither able to give voice to what they think. Then Lemar turns back towards Munro, gently closing the soldier’s eyes, like their little exchange never happened.
A pit settles in Walker’s stomach. Later, he writes his report. Lemar writes his own. Then, independently, they send them to their Commanding Officers. There is no mention of new orders, no mention of Walker’s decision, and no mention of his conversation with Lemar. All that’s left are two coffins and a deep, ever-growing pit of dread.
All these years later, it’s only gotten bigger.
Chapter 2
John couldn’t stand any of it. The visit from the doctor, the way he had to let the stranger prod at him till his stitches were fixed. Bucky hadn’t listened to him, either, about the whole ‘I-don’t-need-a-minder’ thing. After he left, Alexei had taken his place, with stern orders to make sure John stayed in bed this time. Taking his orders dutifully, Alexei didn’t sleep or eat or even read a fucking book. He just stared, sitting back, neck disappearing into his shoulders. Hands clasped in his lap, he watched. It was a painful, silent few hours, marked only by the sound of breathing. John found his mind too foggy to do anything, but too nervous to sleep, so he ended up staring at the ceiling, trying to think about anything other than those dark places his mind kept going. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt the bullet ripping into his skin—sometimes it was his side, other times it skimmed his shoulder or it was shrapnel lodging into his arm or a bullet ricocheting into his thigh back when he first joined the army. Doctor after doctor after doctor smiling and saying how lucky he was. He didn’t feel lucky. ‘Lucky’ would be going quickly, ‘lucky’ would be painless—death before the comprehension of death. Lucky is Kaminsky.
Finally, a timer on Alexei’s watch went off, and he broke into a smile and jumped to his feet.
“That was good,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “You are good person to watch. Easy, almost defeated, in a way.”
John smiled tightly. “Glad you enjoyed yourself.”
Someone knocked at the door—Yelena, carrying a tray. Upon the sight of food, John realized just how hungry he was. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything other than those gross protein-filled drinks the doctor had forced him to have. She smiled a little, and looked more rested than the last time he’d seen her. At least, it looked like she’d showered this time. Her blond-ish hair was pulled back in as much of a ponytail as she could manage, and still looked damp.
“Ah, there you are,” Alexei grinned.
“I am here, and I bear food.”
Alexei reached out for the plate, but Yelena pulled it away. “ You eat after the meeting. It’s Walker’s turn now.”
Alexei couldn’t hide his disappointment and sulked out of the hospital room. Yelena set down the tray on the side table. “The doctor says you can start trying to eat real food. Maybe. He said there may be some vomiting if you’re not careful. Apparently the painkillers bring nausea.”
It was true—the nausea had been worse than the pain. So far, at least.
John sat up. “Meeting?”
“Oh, yeah.” Yelena shrugged, lowering herself into the chair and kicking her feet onto his bed. She sat just like Alexei, hands clasped in her lap, head back. Like father like daughter became more and more true the more he got to know Alexei and Yelena. “Some PR thing with Val about branding or public image or suits or something boring. I told her you were still in critical condition and needed someone with you. She was unhappy, but hey.” She shrugged. “Valentina can join the club.”
John shifted, looking out the window over Yelena’s shoulder. It was midday. Lunch. Must be, since it was too light out for this to be dinner. Time had become a relic of the past—sometimes, he didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep till he looked around and realized he was in a warzone, or at home with Olivia, or back at the bank, or laughing with Lemar. Or making one of his many mistakes.
Regardless, it couldn’t yet have been a week since the bank. Six days was stretching it.
A new fear bloomed in him—would Valentina bring up his absence to the press? What if there was some kind of conference and he wasn’t there? A public-facing mission where his absence would be noticed? Would she tell everyone why? Make an excuse?
The world hated him enough as it was, and he hardly needed their disappointment, too. Their anger had done enough damage.
John wrung his hands, the food suddenly very unappetising.
Yelena was still studying him, just as Alexei had been doing, only there seemed to be intention behind her intense stare. John pursed his lips, staring back awkwardly. Eventually, amidst the new silence, Yelena peered at the tray and pointed.
“Are you going to eat that?”
He looked at it again. Beige soup and light toast. He felt his stomach churn and shook his head. Yelena took the bread for herself.
“Thanks,” she said, chewing with her mouth open. But she only took a few bites before putting it back. “I’ll leave you some, in case…”
John stared at the half-eaten toast, then back at Yelena. “I’m not going to eat that.”
She shrugged. “The doctor might be suspicious if it’s all gone. It’s more believable this way.”
John stared at her, and she kept staring back. Expectant.
“Sorry,” John found himself saying, “But do you want something?”
“No. Just thinking.” Yelena kept staring, eyes narrowing just a touch. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” Liar. “What're you thinking about?”
She shrugged. “Nothing.”
John smiled. Liar. Silence, as Yelena kept studying him with a distant, almost knowing look.
“So, are we going to talk about it?” Yelena steepled her hands, finally breaking the quiet. John stopped smiling. “I mean, I love a good lie as much as the next person, but not when it’s about something like this.”
“Something like this?” John shifted, the motion reminding him of the pain he’d almost forgotten.
“Something like almost dying alone in a washroom covered in your own blood because…” She opened her hands. “...because what?”
Once again, John settled his gaze to the window across from his bed, out beyond his door. He would kill for some fresh air. Then he glanced back down at the IV in his arm—he was still being drip-fed pain relief. John was tired of it, tired of the pleasant fuzz around his head. Ever since he woke up on this bed, he’d felt how different he was. His thoughts sounded incoherent. He hated it—it was making him weak.
John bit his lip and looked away, then shaking himself off, glared back.
“I’m fine,” John grumbled, starting to get pissed off. Just a bit. “I’m not critical. I won’t bleed out. I don’t understand why you guys keep trying to keep me here like a prisoner.”
“That’s not what we’re trying to do, John.” Something changed in her eyes. Yelena leaned in, just a bit. “I mean, look at this from our point of view. You get shot. You tell nobody, and almost die trying to deal with it yourself. Now you won’t tell us why, you won’t tell us the truth, and you won’t even cooperate with the doctor. If I didn’t know you, I’d think you had a death wish.” Yelena shrugged, her face screaming: ‘I don’t know what else to say.’ “Heck, maybe that is what I think. It’s certainly coming off that way.”
“I don’t—” John scoffed, fingers absent-mindedly returning to the IV in his arm. “I don’t… I don’t have a death wish. That’s not what this is.”
“Then enlighten me.”
John studied her, a sardonic smile stretching over his face. “Why do you care so much? I thought I was some piece of trash whose family—”
Yelena rubbed her palms down her face. “Oh my God, I said sorry for that like five times already. Also, if you haven’t noticed, we are kind of a bit more of a team now and we are also just a little bit in charge of each other's well being.”
“Okay, well… I renounce your responsibili—”
“You can’t renounce something that we —”
“But I am, though, so—”
“No, you can’t. Only the person doing something can renounce—”
“I don’t think you know what the word—”
“Jesus Christ, John!” Yelena snapped. “Are you being for real right now?”
“Yes. Yes!” He flung out his arms, accenting every other word with a small nod of his head. “Yes, I’m being for real. I’m fine. I don’t need you guys to tip toe around me and take shifts and bring food and shit. I’m fine.” Yelena crossed her arms. “I’m totally fine .”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look fine.”
“How do I not—” He scoffed again, rolling his eyes. “You know what, Yelena, you’re such—”
“Such a concerned, well-meaning friend?” She silenced him. Friend. The last ‘friend’ John had ended up with his head… John looked away from her. Yelena sighed, some of her own annoyance leaving her face. “Look, John, I know how hard it is to let people in, okay? I do. The suspicion, the anxiety.” Pause. “The insecurity.”
He snapped his gaze back to her. “I am not—”
“I’m not saying you are!” Yelena raised her hands defensively. “I’m just listing many emotions that a person could maybe relate to. Not you in particular, but just… a person. But even if you were —”
“I’m not insecure.” John grumbled, looking away again. “Frankly, it’s insane you’d even… say that.”
“Okay… Understood. You’re very secure.” Yelena cleared her throat, tucking some of her loose hair behind her ear. She noticed the food again. “Do you want to try to eat something?”
John looked between her and the warm soup. “I thought this was an interrogation.”
Yelena couldn’t help the small smirk from growing. “Call it a tactic. Or, a genuine offer. Whatever will make you eat.”
John looked back at the soup, his stomach conflicted. On one hand, he was starving. On the other, even looking at it made him feel sick. He frowned.
“Yeah. Fine.” Vomiting would be a break from the hazy monotony. Maybe the convulsion would aggravate his stitches, and some pain would peak through the drugs. It was better than spending one more moment in this cloying warmth. Yelena seemed pleased with herself, and helped him move the tray onto his lap, where he stared down at the beige muck. “What… what is it?”
“Soup,” Yelena replied.
“Yeah, but…” John had to look away. “What is it?”
She frowned. “Soup.”
“Thanks.” John smiled tightly. “That clears things up.”
“Whatever.” Yelena waved her hand dismissively. “It’s warm food, that’s all that matters.”
John stared down at it again. Warm food. At one point in time, he’d dreamt about real, warm, non-military pre-packaged-bullshit food. The spoon felt heavy in his hands.
“I’d kill for a hotdog,” Lemar wipes the sweat from his brow. “That or pizza. Cake. A burger—a good, shitty, processed burger.”
The car rattles. The six of them have been sitting in silence for the first stretch of the trip, but Lemar is Lemar and so now they’ve been laughing for the past fifteen minutes.
From beside Lemar, Elroy speaks up, her southern drawl loud over the rumbling of the car. She’s blond and has distinct eyebrows that are almost as expressive as her voice:
“My ma’ makes the best soup. Any soup, all soup. Chicken noodle, butternut squash. The soup-shit they give us here’s closer to the waste we’d give the pigs. You’ve never tasted good soup unless you’ve tasted hers; she’s got a way with broth.”
McNabb, cramped between Elroy and Walker, elbows him, his grin lopsided. He’s young.
“What’s the last thing you ate that wasn’t military grade crap?” He asks playfully. “My mom made pancakes the morning before I was shipped out.”
Walker’s smile is tight.
“I dunno, some Arabic thing I probably can’t pronounce.” He turns away, staring into the desert through the dusty glass window, and listens to the others. The novelty of this place has worn off. There’s a sort of energy in the air when you’re first deployed, but after a while, it’s replaced by grim reality. Of course the desire to do good—to win—is ever present, but now it feels more necessary. You’re not trying to win—you need to. Because if you don’t, what was any of it for?
In other words, it’s personal now.
But Walker has felt this way before—it ended with a Medal of Honour, so it wasn’t as difficult to find moments to smile and joke around as it had been the first time around. Someone touches his shoulder—he looks away from the window. Lemar is leaning over from the seat in front of him, arm draped over the back. He offers a smile, tilting his head.
“You okay?”
Walker stares at him. “Yeah,” he says. It’s true. He is.
John put down his spoon, all traces of an appetite gone.
“I don’t think I can,” was all he said, mouth dry. Yelena looked at him curiously.
“You okay?”
John stared at her.
Lemar cracks a smile, nudging McNabb and speaking to the rest of the car. “First thing we’re all gonna do when we get home is grab some drinks. I’m thinking—“
It’s funny how quickly an explosive can flip a car upside-down.
“Yeah,” he swallowed, unable to look at the soup. He can’t look at anything without… thinking. Seeing. He closed his eyes. Maybe all this would be easier if he did have a death wish—nice and simple. No conflict, no bullshit. Just a good old-fashioned goal.
“Are you sure you’re—“
Something trilled, and John’s eyes darted open. He’d recognize that sound anywhere—Yelena glanced down at her watch.
“That’s Val,” he said, though he didn’t need to. They both knew the sound meant she had a mission for them. He moved the tray and was halfway out the bed when he felt Yelena’s firm hand on his chest, pushing him back with a smile.
“Oh no you don’t,” She clipped. “You’re still on bed rest.”
“I renounce bedrest,” John spat back. “You can’t seriously expect me to—“
“Yes,” she said, firmer than before. “I can and I do. I renounce your renouncement.”
He could hardly renounce her renouncement of his renouncement, as much as he wanted to. But her hand couldn’t stop him from standing—even in this state, he was still a super soldier. So what if the doctor told him he’d already aggravated his wound enough for one day? The world wasn’t about to wait for his doctor to clear him for duty before sending some world-ending threat. And who knew—maybe that’s why Val was calling them.
“So, what, you guys are just going to leave me here?” John stepped towards her.
“You’re kidding, right?” Yelena shook her head as her grin returned. “Look at yourself, John, you can hardly—”
“I feel better already. Clearer.” He rolled his shoulders, and Yelena’s hand fell away. “I can hold my own.”
Yelena just scoffed—it was all she could do. That and step between him and the door, give him a knowing look, and say, “You know none of us are going to let that happen. Do you seriously want me to get Bucky or Alexei? Because trust me when I say they will hold you down and jab you with needles till you’re delirious enough to stay put. I mean, I’d shock you with these things—” Yelena held up her wrist, where her little electrocuting device of pain was still on from sparring earlier that day, “—but you’re supposed to be healing, not getting more hurt.”
John glared at her. “This is—”
Bucky leaned into the room, rapping his knuckles against the open doorframe.
“You got Val’s message, right?” he asked, clearing his throat. “She just called off the meeting. There’s some disturbance down on…” He looked between them, and realized he was interrupting something. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”
Yelena sighed. “Can you please explain to him why he can’t come?”
“That’s bullshit,” John tried to move towards Bucky and winced when he was reminded of the pain. “I can—”
Bucky stepped into the room, hand leaving the doorframe. He crossed his arms.
“You’re staying here.”
“No I’m not,” John insisted. They really saw him as weak, didn’t they? The weak link with the bootleg super soldier serum, with the bent shield and the— “What, so, you’re just gonna go without me? In public? Don’t you think people might start to wonder why—”
Yelena shrugged. “Who cares what people wonder?”
“Well, don’t you think it’s a bit weird to debut with a team then, a month later, show up with one missing? It’ll mess with our image—and we’re a team for a reason. We can’t be a man down, it’s dangerous.”
Yelena and Bucky both stared at him blankly, then looked at each other. He realized how weak his arguments sounded, but once again… he couldn’t exactly tell them why he was so eager to get out there. If he did, they’d try to have a supportive, sappy conversation that the mere idea of made John want to gouge out his eyes.
Yelena briefly glanced at Bucky again, then back at John. “You going is dangerous. Firstly, you were shot, so that’s a whole thing. Secondly, the medication is clearly messing with you because those are the stupidest—”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Look, I’ll prove it to you when we’re out there. Let’s just—” John reached for the IV in his wrist, but Bucky caught his arm.
“Come on, man,” Bucky sighed, resigned, like he knew the direction this interaction was bound to go in. “Let’s just go back to bed and—.”
“I don’t answer to you.” John frowned, trying unsuccessfully to pull his hand away from Bucky’s. He blamed the medicine for making everything harder than it should have been. He’d held his own against Bucky and Sam—yet now, somehow, he could hardly wriggle out of Bucky’s grip. Definitely the drugs. “Besides, if something’s going on, we don’t have time to argue about this.”
“You’re right.” Bucky looked at Yelena, then jerked his head towards the door. “Maybe you want to go make sure everyone’s ready, I’ll join up with you guys in a second.”
Yelena didn’t move, glancing at Bucky. “You sure?”
“No!” John really did laugh. “Hello? I’m standing right here. Don’t treat me like I’m a child.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t acting like one,” Bucky replied, unable to hide his annoyance. He kept hold of John’s arm tightly. No matter how hard John strained, he was nowhere near freeing himself.
“You’re being an asshole.” John used his other hand to pry at Bucky’s grip.
“No, I’m being reasonable.”
“Then let go and let me—”
“Yelena and I need to go, John, because innocent people might be getting hurt. I need to know I don’t have to worry.”
“Worry?” John scowled. “You don’t. That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m fine. I can help.”
“Forgive me if I’m a bit hesitant to be out in the field with you when you’re not exactly ‘in your right mind’, because last time that happened—”
“That was different, Buck,” John hissed, jerking his arm away again but only making his shoulder ache. At least this time Bucky seemed to actually expend some energy trying to maintain his hold.
“And when the stitches break and you start to bleed out?” Yelena arched her brows at him. “It might mean we have to choose between saving you and saving a civilian.”
“That won’t—”
Bucky picked his words carefully. “If you’re half as good a person as I hope you are—as you think you are—then you won’t do the selfish thing here.”
“I’m not—” John kept struggling, his wrist—encased in Bucky’s hand—didn’t move. Maybe if his head wasn’t pounding and his inhibitions weren’t clouded by fog, he might’ve listened. Instead, he did something really stupid. Frustrated and fed-up, he recoiled his arm, first clenched, and— “I said let go!”
—and Bucky caught that arm, too. The only remaining shred of dignity he had left was the fact that Bucky’s seemed to be expending a lot of effort to make sure John didn’t break free. At least he was actually putting up a fight. There was a brief push and pull—for a second, John thought he was going to win—rather, free himself. That’s all this was about. But then he realized he couldn’t see Yelena anymore.
When Bucky suddenly got a whole lot stronger, and it felt like his feet were seeping into the floor, and that familiar warm haze descended upon him, he realized his mistake.
Shit.
John looked over his shoulder, where Yelena stood with one finger still pressing the drip control of his IV. It was remarkable how quickly everything changed. The floor and walls were far away—the ground beneath his feet feeling like he was walking on a mattress. Then the walls did a funny sort of spin, and before he knew it, he was only standing thanks to Bucky’s help.
When takes his next breath, he’s upside down, car seat digging into his lap. He sticks out his hands, feeling the roof of the car where the ground should be. He looks to his left—McNabb isn’t there. Elroy stares back—wide, glossy eyes. Blood drips from where her head smashed against her window hard enough to…
John felt for the bed, where he lowered himself down—Bucky, who’d gone from grappling him to supporting him, helped.
“I think I gave him too much.” Came a distant voice. His eyes were closed—when had his eyes… he opened them and saw he was staring up at the ceiling, lying on his back.
Walker brings clumsy fingers to his seatbelt—he tucks his neck to his chest, curling in on himself as he drops from the seat, wincing as pain shoots up—rather, down —his back. That’s when the ringing in his ears gives way to the silence. He pulls himself onto his stomach, kicks the shattered glass from the window, and crawls into the blazing desert. Glass slices one of his palms as he pushes himself to his feet. He stumbles and catches himself on one of the wheels of the upturned truck.
“Lemar?”
Bucky’s face came in and out of the fog, frowning, worried. John considered fighting back, trying to sit up… but he couldn’t quite find the energy anymore. The bed was so warm, and his eyelids were so heavy…
“Lemar?” that was Yelena’s voice, maybe. Or… or was that Elroy? Was she okay—no, no. Elroy is dead.
“John’ll tell you about it later, maybe,” said Bucky. Maybe Bucky. Maybe…
He breathes rapidly as he turns on his heel, surveying the land. Endless desert in every direction, except for the thin, rarely-used road they’re following. He looks back the way they came and sees it—One crumpled military suit, thrown out of the windshield, no doubt. From the dusty hair, he thinks it must be McNabb. The kid never did wear a seatbelt.
John dragged open his eyes somehow. Yelena’s eyes swam with… John closed his eyes again. It was easier. “I’ll make sure the doctor knows to check on him.”
Pause, for so long that John thought they’d left him in this dreamy haze, his mind neither here nor there.
“That was a dirty move,” eventually came a voice, the frown audible—Bucky.
“We are the last group of people to fight clean.”
“Still. You’ll have hell to pay for when he wakes up.”
Bucky, the asshole with the metal hand who thought he was a… who saw him as weak and impulsive and… and…
Further away from the car stands another—not Lemar, so it must be Price, who was driving. She stands unsteadily, staring down at what he recognizes as the remains of a landmine. She turns, and he meets her sunken eyes.
“It looks old,” her voice is hollow. “I don’t think this is an ambush. I think this…” she trails off, eyes staring through him. She looks back at the crumpled piece of metal. “Nobody planned this.”
Walker drops to a crouch, returning to the broken windows of the truck. In the front hangs Lemar, upside down. He stares back at Walker, and for a moment, he thinks his friend is dead.
Mean, teasing, mocking, laughter. Laughing at all of them, at him. They should. It’s what he deserves. He’s a joke. Yelena sneered, her face contorting, and she said something in response to Bucky that John had sunk too deep into the sea of clouds to register.
Lemar smiles, and a laugh bubbles up, and pretty soon they’re both in tears. Lemar wipes his eyes, still grinning madly. But there is no joy. There is shock, fear, relief, and excitement, but none of it is happy.
They laugh the laugh of the dead, because every moment is a gamble. All they have is luck.
“Never a dull day, huh?” More than anything, he sounds relieved. Unbuckling and crawling onto his back just like Walker did, Lemar sticks out a hand. To his right, Elroy still hangs, unmoving. “Can I get a hand?”
Maybe he’s dead, too. Maybe they’re all dead.
That would explain things. That would explain why Olivia’s crying. He’s eating peas—peas and meatloaf. Fish. Casserole. Beef. Ham. With parsnips and carrots and potatoes and brussel sprouts. Olivia sits across from him and she’s crying like she’s always crying. Never crying—the baby’s crying. Olivia only cried once, when she told him… she never tells him anything. She just cries.
He picks at the peas, which run away from his fork. The baby is crying. Olivia is staring at him. She’s a fighter. She doesn’t cry.
“What?” There are peas in his mouth. On the floor and table. He stares at her.
“I want a divorce,” she states plainly.
“That’s not how it happened,” John frowns, puts down the fork, and swallows—but his mouth is empty. He tastes metal. He looks at his plate.
He sees his feet sinking in mud made from sand and blood and beige soup and people are yelling orders and bullets poke holes into his abdomen until he’s swiss cheese and everything is—
He looks back at Olivia, but she’s gone, and the baby isn’t crying anymore. In her place sits Lemar, eating her meatloaf. He looks up at John and smiles and there’s beer in his hand. He toasts.
“Technically Kaminsky was in charge.” He grins wider, sips from the beer, then winks. “On paper. The switch, the new orders… Those were never recorded, John. This goes down as one of hers,” he starts to laugh, “not yours.”
Kaminsky sits beside him, drinking, chatting with Elroy and McNabb.
“You’re too young to drink,” says John, taking the young man’s beer. “You’re—”
“I’m dead, Walker!” McNabb chortles, taking back to drink. It sloshes onto the stone plaza floor. “Who cares what I do?”
“I do,” Lemar grins, nudging him. “But maybe that’s ‘cause I’m dead too.”
Dead. Lemar is dead. He lies with his eyes closed, slumped against the pillar.
“Lemar?” John shakes his friend's shoulder. “Lemar!”
Lemar opens his eyes, twinkling with life. “What’re you yelling about, John? I was just catching some shut eye.”
Lemar isn’t Lemar, he’s the kid. The terrorist. John brings the shield down once. Twice. Thr—
A gun is being fired, again and again. He’s holding a baby… who’s baby is this?
“Who’s…” The crowd of people shove past him, paying him no mind. He calls after Kaminsky, but her back is to him. She’s gone. “Who’s baby is this?”
Munro ignores him.
McNabb darts out of the way, arm linked with Elroy.
Price is the only one who glances at him, with her hollow eyes, but then she moves on. John pushes through the crowd, holding the baby to his chest. Price isn’t dead. Price will—
She stops, turns, and speaks, but her voice isn’t hers.
“He’s your son, too, John,” Olivia says, rocking the baby quietly. The nursery shines with evening sunlight, catching dust swirling in the air in its rays. He scoffs, putting down his phone.
“God, Olivia, I’m kind of—”
“Kind of what? What could possibly be more important than your family?”
“Maybe my reputation?” He gets to his feet. He’s shouting. Why is he shouting? He loves her. “Maybe my life? Maybe my—”
“Are we not your life?”
“You’re seriously asking me that?” Yes, you are my life. “Fuck off, Olivia. Seriously. Do you have any idea what it’s like for the entire world to hate you?”
“Yes, I do, actually. Most people aren’t happy I’m still married to a—”
“Don’t you dare—”
Why is he saying these things? He doesn’t mean them. He loves her, he tries to say. I love you.
“No.” Lemar is standing in the doorway. He’s laughing. He’s bleeding. “You only love your—”
* * *
John gasped for air. He slumped back and sank into his pillow, chest heaving.
“Olivia?” He needed to tell her he loved her. He had to tell her— ”Olivia!”
But… but he was in the makeshift hospital room. He was on the white bed. Olivia wasn’t there. Nobody was. The only sound was the humming of the fan, and the whirring of medical devices.
John realized he was damp, the thin sheet tangled between his legs, halfway off the bed. He expected to feel unclear, but apart from a bit of drowsiness… for the first time in days, there was pain. Clear, sobering pain. He breathed deep and relished in it, in the reminder that he was alive. He sat up, then went to adjust the blanket, when something stopped his arms. He stared for a moment, not understanding.
Then he remembered everything, and the rage came back. They’d drugged him—and now his wrists were restrained by two white straps to the little railing beside the bed. The doctor must have done this when he was out of it—that stupid, untrustworthy asshole. There was some slack—enough so he could sit up comfortably—but far from enough to reach over and try to undo the opposite straps. He tried to get a sense of the time by looking outside, but the door was shut.
He felt his hands curl into fists. It was official. He was going to kill someone. Did they seriously think restraints would hold him? John pulled his arms up, straining against the fabric restraints.
Nothing happened.
Groaning, he slumped back onto the bed. Either they’d given him some drug that was messing with his muscular system, or the straps were laced with something like vibranium.
He turned his head to the side, staring at the empty chair that… might not have been empty for long. The blanket was messy on the floor, and there were food wrappers on the side table that weren’t there before, alongside a worn comic book. Didn’t take much to guess who’d been watching him this time.
John forced himself to take a deep, filling breath, holding it and feeling the tension pull at his stitches. Then he released it, casting his mind over the past few days. What he found was a mix of strikingly clear memories—his discussion with Bucky, Yelena’s offer of soup… others, not so much. Like the specifics regarding how he ended up drugged and restrained, and what exactly happened after he locked himself in that washroom.
He stared up at the ceiling, listening to the silence. And then the silence turned into footsteps.
John sat up, composing himself as well as he could. Thinking about all the ways he was going to make Bucky and Yelena regret—the door creaked open, and a certain mop-haired individual poked his head into the room. He made eye contact with John, reddened, and stepped fully inside.
“Oh, hey, I was just…” Bob swallowed, looking like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He pointed to the chair “I felt bad about leaving you here alone, so…”
“Yeah?” John raised an eyebrow. He would have crossed his arms, but didn’t want Bob to see the exact circumstances of his confinement here. As if he hadn’t already… the man was probably in the room when the doctor’d done it.
“Yeah. I thought I’d make sure you’re okay.”
“What, did they say I wasn’t?”
“They said you…” Bob shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck, “...were maybe having a tough time.”
John laughed, unable to look Bob in the eye.
“Great. Yeah. No. I’m having a wonderful time, actually. I love being—” John stopped himself, shaking his head. “How long since they left?”
Bob thought for a moment, and John noticed he was carrying a hot chocolate with about an inch of whipped cream on. Bob slumped back into the chair, careful not to spill anything from his lavish mug. “Uh, maybe four, five hours? Yeah, it’s a whole thing. Apparently the thing Val had called them for’s a bit more complicated than your typical, uh, smash and bash.”
“Smash and bash?”
“Yeah. You know.” Bob raised the cup to his lips, and it left a little smear of whipped cream under his nose. “Smash the bad guys, bash the villains. Typical hero mission.”
John stared at the mug. “It’s the middle of summer.”
“Yeah. I know. But it’s really cold in here.” he swallowed, glancing at the mug, too. He set it down on the table. “I was kind of proud of—I finally figured out… well, uh, I guess it is a little—”
“No, don’t let my assholery ruin it for you,” John said. That was candid. Maybe he was still a bit loopy. But it got Bob to smile—John had to admit, it was a nice change from butting heads with Ava and Yelena and Bucky and the many figments of his imagination. “I’m just pissed off, and I’m taking it out on you even though none of this is your fault,” he added. Candid and self-aware. Either sedatives made him a better person, or stupid.
Bob shrugged, sitting on his hands. “And it’s not yours, either, you know. I did some crazy shit when I was on, uh,” a crease formed between his eyebrows, like his words were a discovery he hadn’t meant to make, “meth. The chicken sign thing was just the tip of the iceberg.”
“I don’t doubt it.” John let his eyes wander and realized the soup was still sitting beside his bed, cold by now. Then he felt his stomach growl—heard it, too. Whatever nausea-summoning painkillers he’d been on before were a lot lighter now, and he actually felt like he could eat something. Bob arched his eyebrows, jerking a thumb to the hot chocolate.
“You want some? I can make—“
The past four days had been Hell, and he could use a lavish hot chocolate. Instead of accepting the offer, though, he raised his hands, only for them to be stopped by the restraints. He smiled at the situation. As much as he’d love to eat something, he hardly wanted to be fed. That would cross the line.
“Couldn’t, even if I wanted to.” Bob stared, then he met John’s eyes cautiously. John just sighed. “Yeah, I might’ve given Yelena and Bucky the impression I was a flight risk. Which I am, but…”
Bob smiled, if you could call it that. “Been there. You’re not an addict if you haven’t been forced to stay in a hospital at least once.” Then he frowned, the crease between his eyes returning. “That‘s not true. I mean, I have, but it’s not a universal thing for… people.”
John splayed open his hands—awkward, given their positions. “Well, hey. It’s the second thing we’ve got in common.”
Bob looked confused. “What’s the first?”
John opened his mouth, but paused. Maybe he really was still loopy.
“I don’t know,” he realized, smiling thinly. “I was going to say something. I don’t know.” He went to run the tiredness from his eyes, but remembered the restraints a touch too late. Ok, it was really getting annoying. “How do you do it?” He asked after a burst of silence filled with nothing but Bob’s slurping. “Sit here. While we… smash and bash.”
Bob put down the chocolate and shrugged. “Well, I mean, I don’t exactly wan t to join you guys all the time. Cause, you know, the whole…” he gestured to his head. “Sentry/Void thing. It’s like a landslide, I guess. One wrong step and you backslide and then it’s ten times as hard to pull yourself up again. Kind of like a physical wound. Like how picking at a scab just makes it bleed more and more.”
John scoffed. “Yelena tell you to say that?”
Bob shook his head, his awkward smile growing. “No, I—I, uh, came up with that one myself.”
“Sounds like something Yoda would say.” John nodded, impressed, resting his head against the wall and staring up at the ceiling. Then he summoned his best impression. “ Pick at scars, Jedi must not—for from irritated skin, the dark side bleeds…” he cleared his throat. “...or some shit.”
Bob chuckled, and John felt a little less stupid. He supposed he had an excuse, though, for making a fool of himself.
“Are you sure you’re not hungry? You should eat,” Bob said. “Now, that really is something Yelena told me to say.” Then he pointed to John’s hands. “Plus, it would give me an excuse to take those off you.”
John stared at the restraints, considering it. Then his stomach growled and made the choice for him.
* * *
Nearly an hour passed until Yelena, Ava, Alexei and Bucky trudged back into the Watchtower, doused in sweat. Bob and John had spent most of that hour—after Bob stayed true to his word by grabbing the lightest foods from the fridge he could find and freeing John’s hands—quietly doing their own things. Of course a large part of John had been very tempted to get up and do something stupid, but whenever he tried to narrow down what ‘something stupid’ might be, he found a dead end. How could he prove something to people he had no way of tracking down? He’d missed his chance, and now they’d think they were right to leave him and Bob. So after Bob had talked John out of grabbing a book himself, and instead lending him one of his comics, they read through the quiet evening.
John would admit, it was a little nice. A little. At least he wasn’t being stared at by Alexei, interrogated by Yelena, bullied by Ava or made guilty by Bucky. He’d admit that each of those was mostly his own fault, but still. He’d even managed to keep down the toast and applesauce Bob had scrounged up.
More than a few times, the pain in his side would flare up again. Instead of clenching his teeth and riding it through—which was probably the smart move—he’d use his newfound freedom to reach over and up the drip factor on his IV. Of course he still had absolutely no idea what the substance he was being given actually was, but it worked. That was all he cared to know. After Bob had helped find another blanket to replace the damp one, all reminders of his hazy, drug-induced nightmare were gone, replaced by worn out comic book superheroes from Bob’s childhood. They were probably some of the best parts.
So the scene Yelena, Bucky, Ava, and Alexei walked into after their return was actually something close to pleasant.
“Oh, what’s this?” Ava asked, waltzing in with her hands in her pockets, but her smile seemed genuine—it shone through her mocking tone. “I’d actually call this cute if I didn’t know the context.”
The context? Right. Bob’s ‘context’. John’s ‘context’. Context soured everything. John put down the comic book he was halfway through—truth be told, he’d never really been all that into comics. G.I. Joe, bicycles, the great outdoors… those had always been more his childhood. Bucky came in next, Yelena on his heel and Alexei on hers. He eyed John’s very non-restrained hands, then met his eyes. Bucky looked the most worst for wear. His hair was slick and stuck to his face, and he was even wetter. It looked like he’d been swimming. John considered asking him about it, but realized he didn’t care to know.
“How’re you feelin’?” Bucky asked.
John remembered his anger. “How am I feeling about the fact that you drugged and tied me to my bed? Or how am I feeling about the bullet wound? Because let me tell you, one of those things hurts more than the other, and it’s not the one you think.”
Bucky sighed. “Yeah. Look, we didn’t mean to—”
“I’d’ve seriously thought, out of everyone here, that I might be able to count on you two not to pump me full of drugs I never agreed on, but I guess I was wrong, huh?”
Yelena raised her hands defensively. “Maybe you’ll be happy to know that no civilians died.”
“No, just friendships.”
That made Ava chortle, but then she went back to brooding pretty fast. Yelena glanced at his IV and chuckled to herself, shaking her head.
“Well, by the looks of that number,” she said, “I’d say you didn’t mind all that much.” Discreetly, she lowered his dose.
“I’m in pain,” he rolled his eyes.
“So you admit it!” Yelena stabbed the air, immediately breaking out into a wide smile. “You admit that—”
“Pain and uselessness are two different things. Case and point, Ava.”
Ava frowned. “Don’t drag me into this.” Then she considered it and looked at Yelena. “But he does have a—”
“Oh, no.” Yelena held up a finger. “Uh, uh, uh. This is us versus him, not a little civil war.”
“Your case and Ava's case is very different thing,” Alexei chimed in, still lingering in the doorway. He nodded between John and Ava. “When person is screwed up from birth—or from very young age—it becomes power. But when person is middle-age divorced man, it is not power, but very bad detriment.”
John scowled. “Gee, thanks. That’s really kind.”
Alexei looked surprised. “Really? I not meaning it to be.”
“Wow, okay.” John scoffed, splaying out his hands. “You guys are really great friends.”
“Speaking of being great friends,” Yelena clapped her hands together, moving the discussion along and away from John’s anger, “It’s Friday.”
“Already?” Friday. It had been a week. It didn’t feel like a week. How long had he been in various forms of unconsciousness? Evidently, a week.
“We all know what that means,” Yelena grinned, opening her arms. “Game night!”
John perked up. He wasn’t the greatest fan of Friday nights, but this might be an excuse to get out of this room!
“We’ll bring some chairs, dim the lights, grab some snacks…” Yelena put her hands on her hips. “We’ll do it here. It’ll be fun. But maybe we’ll just play cards or something. You know. Nothing too crazy.” Then she smiled at John—a real, honest smile. His face fell.
Great. More time trapped in here, surrounded by people seeing him for what he was: a weakling.
He really did have such great friends.
Chapter 3
About twenty minutes later, everyone was back in his tiny room, showered and changed out of their sweaty uniforms. Bob and Ava had taken charge of prettying up the place—dimming the fluorescent lights so they were easier on the eyes, bringing in one of those little heaters, some blankets and a tray of snacks. Just because it was summer didn’t mean this building wasn’t freezing. Of course, they’d insisted John stay put and watch as they did… well, everything. Once the little room was turned into something cozier, Alexei came in with the big box of games. He was grinning ear-to-ear.
“I ready to demolish someone in backgammon.”
Ava groaned, setting down the small speaker that started to play some song John had never heard before.
“I am never playing that again. Not after what happened last time.” She sunk into a chair, crossing her arms. John noticed as Bucky shot her a look that asked ‘are you okay?’ Ava rolled her eyes at him, then the strange little exchange was over.
Yelena plopped at the foot of John’s bed, and he forgot about Ava’s mood. They’d—minus John, who they’d sidelined to watching from his bed—assembled the chairs around the table in front of Yelena into a little circle. Alexei dropped the massive box onto the ground near the foot of John’s bed and began to dig through it.
In his lap, John wrung his hands. He knew he had a choice between embracing tonight and returning to his sulking, but he wasn’t quite sure which he was leaning towards. Bob had primed him for having fun—at least, Bob hadn’t annoyed or bothered him—but he wasn’t quite ready to let go of his anger. After all, this whole thing felt like one big violation. Smiles and laughter and fun games wouldn’t change that.
“Oh!” Yelena reached over Alexei and pulled out a small, worn-out deck of cards. “Here we go. Any ideas?”
Yet again, John spoke honestly and without meaning to. His words were more to himself than to the others. “Hearts used to be a staple in my house. Olivia was crazy at it—she beat Lemar and I every time.”
John tried to ignore their looks of surprise. He wasn’t one to just volunteer information about his life like that. But the words had just sort of slipped out.
Yelena took the cards out, starting to shuffle them.
“How do you play?” she asked, looking at him with an encouraging smile. God, she was so hopeful it was almost sickening.
John shook his head. “It’s with four players. Last I counted, there are six of us.”
“I don’t mind watching,” Ava said, her chair screeching along the linoleum floor as she scooted back her chair. She glanced at Bob, who was in his comic book again. “I’m not really a fan of card games, and something tells me he’s off in his own world. That leaves you with four.”
John stared at her, then Yelena, unable to say he’d really rather not and he regretted bringing it up and he really didn’t want to give another passing thought to, well, anything . Instead, he stuck out his hand, which Yelena dropped the cards into and started to explain the rules.
Lemar deals the first round. Lemar always deals the very first round. That’s what happens when you’re so bad at a game—people take pity, and you get to deal first. They’re in John’s living room, more than a few drinks into the evening. Olivia’s cradling her glass of wine—one of her first since giving birth—like it’s something sacred. Upstairs, Olivia’s mom looks after the baby. She’d said her daughter deserved a break, and had made the suggestion of coming by tonight. They each pass three cards to the left—John looks at what Olivia’d given him. Two of clubs, three of diamonds, four of diamonds. He met her eyes and she shrugged, a smile on her face.
“I wonder what on earth your game plan could be.” John smiled back, tossing down the two of clubs. Olivia shushed him.
“No table talk!”
“Seems… simple,” Yelena frowned, picking up the cards John had dealt. Hearts seemed complicated at first, but once you got the hang of it, it was easy. Each heart is worth one point, with the Queen of Spades being worth thirteen. The goal of the game was to have the least amount of points when someone else reached one-hundred points following a series of rounds. But, if you gather all twenty-six points in one round—the queen and every heart card—you get ‘control’, and all the other players get twenty-six points each while you get nothing. Big risk, big reward. Olivia had always tried going for control—unless her hand was really shitty, that was. Then she’d fly under the radar and end the round with no points. That was Liv for you.
They went around, each throwing down a club following the two of clubs, which always starts a round. Yelena finished with a king and took the whole trick. Then she tossed down an eight of spades and looked at John.
“Am I doing it right?” she asks.
“Yeah,” John scans his own cards. “Yeah that’s—”
“Fine.” He chuckles at Olivia. He tosses down a club as Olivia takes a sip from her glass, savouring the taste. She sinks back into the couch, eyes blissfully closed.
“Oh, yeah, I needed this.” She takes a deep breath. John nudges her with his foot.
“Your turn.” Lemar had thrown down a ten of clubs while she’d been distracted. Without missing a beat, she tosses a three. Lemar takes the three cards, and she shares a conspiratorial smile with John.
“Wanna know a secret?” She says. He raises both eyebrows and, stage whispering, Olivia replies: “I’m totally going for control. Again.”
John threw down a card, shifting in his seat. At least they didn’t complain when he’d shuffled beside Yelena, draping his legs over the side. It was a little less humiliating this way. Although, the movement had spurred another jolt of pain that was surprisingly sharp—then he remembered Yelena had fiddled the painkillers down to a lower setting. No wonder the wound was aching again. He leaned to the side, face contorting with pain, and pressed his finger on the up arrow. After watching the number increase, he pulled away.
It only took a moment till he felt the rush of bliss pass over him.
Someone said his name and he turned back to the game. There were new cards on the table—they were all looking at him expectantly.
“Sorry,” he said, flicking down another one.
They played. The game was surprisingly tense, and they settled into thoughtful, strategic silence. John found himself drifting, needing to be reminded more than once to take or place a card. Everything was just so familiar, and the drugs really were messing with him—maybe she’d been right to turn down the machine. Before, it had been easy to think the opposite, when the pain wasn’t sharp and ever-present. But not after he’d had a taste of the painful sober experience. Maybe this game hadn’t been such a good idea to suggest—he was already having problems with his head, with his memory, and this was just making it worse.
John rubbed the grit from his eyes, fighting off a yawn. How the hell was he so tired? All he’d been doing was sleeping! Well, he supposed those sleeps/dreams/dazes/memories hadn’t exactly been the most restful. Yelena spoke up, watching him.
“You seem awfully tired for someone who spent all day in bed.”
Bucky glared at her—even if it was meant as an observation, it still came off as accusatory. Teasing. Something judgemental that didn’t have to be said.
“I’m not tired,” He looked at his hand and decided what to play. No good options—he doubted he was winning this game, not in the state he was in. “I’m… bored.”
“Oh, you’re bored?” Ava mocked, and Bucky turned his glare to her. She half-shrugged at him, then turned back to John. She’d been watching quietly the whole time, leaning back in her chair, eyes alert. Everyone looked at her, but she didn’t shrink away from the attention. If anything, she relished in it. “Sorry, I just highly doubt you’re bored because the game you suggested isn’t fun—”
“—not fun when you win every round.” Lemar whines, taking the last three hearts thanks to Olivia’s trickery. She rolls her eyes, but gives in.
“We can play something else. Go on, John.”
He smiles at her, arm slung over her shoulders. “Why’re you making me choose? I hate choosing.”
“Well,” Olivia shrugs, “If we’re celebrating you, shouldn’t you choose?”
Lemar perks up, glancing between them with wide eyes, like she’d just reminded him why they were there. “Yeah. Did the big bosses tell you about the promotion yet?”
John shakes his head. “Nope. The meeting’s first thing tomorrow morning.”
Olivia whistles, then wraps her arms around him, resting against his shoulder.
“I’m married to the most decorated man in American history,” she murmurs.
“I’m not—”
“Three medals of honour,” She grins widens, “in case you’ve forgotten. The promotion must be big. Or, it sounds like it. What do you think, Mr Hero?”
John kisses her forehead. “I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
“I have been in this room for a week. Of course I’m bored.” John proved Ava right—It wasn’t because of the game. He tossed a card, and it slid across the table. Alexei had to stop it from falling off the other end.
“Well,” Bucky talks before Ava can. “Not without reason. You almost—”
“That’s not—” John dropped his head into his hands, dragging his palms down his face. “I didn’t almost anything. ”
Ava stared at him. “You’ve got to be—”
“I would’ve been fine if—”
“I actually can’t listen to this!” Ava stood, laughing. “I mean, I’m not the crazy one, right? Did I imagine the fact that he was almost dead?” She turned back to John. “I’ve never met a more stubborn assh—”
“Woah, woah, woah. Ava.” Bucky interjected. “What’s the problem?”
She hesitated, but the look in her eyes didn’t change—neither did the venom in her voice. John could do little but occasionally chuckle at her accusations and try not to let them cut too deeply.
“She’s just being pissy,” John heard himself say, looking back down at his cards. It was his turn. “Like always.”
“I know what it feels like to be in pain.” She jabbed a finger at herself, scowling at John and throwing her cards onto the table. “You’d have a way through it if you just shut up and did as you were told. It’s not that easy for some of us.”
John scoffed. “Ok, well, that sucks for you, but I don’t exactly see what—”
“It’s infuriating to even be near you. You’re infuriating!” She groaned. “You have no fucking idea how lucky you are to actually be able to do something real about your shitty situation. Which, for the record, is—in the case of the bullet—temporary, and in the case of your shitty home life, your — ”
“—fault, John! All of it is, and I’m sick of you acting like it isn’t,” Olivia raises her voice over the baby’s wailing. “You don’t pay any attention to us anymore, and when you do, you always make everything about you. You need to be told that you did nothing wrong, you need me to tell you that what happened to you is unfair, and you didn’t deserve any of it, and you did the right thing but… but I can’t anymore. Maybe I could when I thought it was temporary, when I thought you’d hear the words enough to move on, but—”
“That’s such bullshit!” John smacks his palm against the wall, the sound reverberating through the cold hallway. The baby continues to cry.
“I’m warning you, John,” her voice gets low. Dangerous. “One day, you’re going to wake up, and I’m not going to be beside you, and our son won’t be in his crib.”
He laughs. Olivia doesn’t.
“Ava!” Yelena got to her feet, voice followed by silence. She takes a breath, one that’s being held by the rest of the room. “I understand you’re frustrated, but it doesn’t warrant cruelty. Let’s talk about this.”
“Talk about what? The bruised ego he’s refusing to let go of?” Ava scoffed, not looking back at John. “Have fun with the pity party, you guys, but I’ve had a long day. I’m—”
Yelena tried to stop her. “Wait, stop. Talking is good. Didn’t we discover that after the whole Bob situation?”
Bob looked up from his comic book, tuning back into the world. “Did someone say my name?”
Alexei stuck out his hand, silencing Bob’s follow-up question. He momentarily broke from devouring snack after snack, watching the scene like a movie. “Shhh. Watch. Is getting good.”
Ava just shook her head. “Ask him to talk, maybe he’ll have some crazy therapeutic breakthrough about his whole ‘confidence’ issue and lighten up. Thanks for trying to mediate, but I’m getting some air.” She glanced at John, just for a second. “Do us all a favour and grow up.”
Then Ava was gone, phased off somewhere deeper into the tower, leaving nothing but—
—quiet without Olivia. The hallways seem too big. John feels strange, taking up space, like it’s not yet his to take. It’s still hers. He expects Olivia will round the corner any minute, step into the living room, and laugh. But she never does. The baby isn’t crying, either. Yet he still doesn’t sleep. Maybe the crying wasn’t what kept him awake.
Every little sound becomes louder, every creak and rattle that used to be sounds of life—footsteps in another room, the baby hurling something across his nursery, muted laughter, clashing dishes, echoing conversations—are now taunts from a life that no longer existed. It’s all he can do not to—
“Everything okay?”
For a second, he had no idea why Yelena asked him that. Then he looked over his shoulder and realized he was reaching for the toggle on his IV again, finger hovering over the up button. Funny. He didn’t actually feel all that much pain—the warm fuzz of the current setting was enough. But something in his head must be telling him there was pain worth soothing. He cleared his throat, recoiling—not before clicking it once or twice.
“Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Just sore.” He glanced down at his cards. Just the look of them made him sick. He trails off, feeling his mind begin to go somewhere else. Again . “I guess the game’s over, then…”
John sits and stares at his phone. It’s dark outside. His house is quiet—well, except for the cable TV he’s got in the background—a rerun of a long-since-over sitcom. Someone’s telling a joke. A cacophony of phoney laughs intrudes upon the shell of his home.
At least they’re finding something funny.
In one hand, he swirls a glass of whisky. Whenever he thinks of Olivia, he drinks. Then he refills the glass. She’s got to call. She must call. He feels his eyelids start to droop, not for the first time. His fingers leave the glass, the darkness spreads and…
He jolts awake. The phone is ringing. The darkness has only grown, seeping into the crevasses of his life. It’s everywhere, even in the whispers of dawn that start to creep up the horizon. He fumbles the phone to his ear, not bothering to check the caller ID.
“Hey, Walker. You up for a job?”
He smiles. She called.
“Are we going to keep sitting in silence?” Alexei asked, chewing loudly. “Because if not, there is game of backgammon waiting to be won by—”
“Sure. I’m down.” John stood and started towards the box—Alexei would decimate him. Good. He deserved to lose at a lot more than just backgammon. Yelena put a hand on his arm.
“So we are seriously going to act like none of that just happened?” She tried to guide him back to bed. He couldn’t stand to have her treat him like that, unable to stop glaring at her hand—she was leading him like a lost, stupid kid. It was humiliating. He glanced around the room—Bob was still reading his comic, completely engrossed. Alexei was still watching, but looked slightly more distracted now that the ‘juicy’ part was over. Bucky was watching quietly. Yelena was still staring. He shoved her off.
“Ok, fine. Let's talk about it. Ava’s pissed at her own shitty life, and she’s taking it out on me. How’s it my fault she can’t fix herself? How is me being secure and confident in my ability—knowing that one fucking bullet hasn’t effected me in the way you all seem to think it has—a hissy fit? How is that insecurity?” John took a step towards Yelena, the IV in his arm pulling as he got further from the bag. Now that he’d started, stopping seemed laughable. “Sorry a bullet might take her down, or you down, but it’s different for me. I’m not—I’m not like you, I can’t be. I’m a super soldier, I was Captain America, I was America’s last line of defence. I mean, this whole thing is so stupid! I—” He pressed his hands onto his chest— “am fine! I held my own against you and Sam—remember that, Bucky? Cause I do! I jumped up that elevator shaft without breaking a sweat, I picked up a goddamn truck, I won three fucking medals of honour and, and I’ve served in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen—I have been shot before, I’ve almost died before—every soldier has! But that was before—before any of this, when I was a normal person. Of course I got hurt, I was—” John shook his head. “That was before. I don’t get hurt like this—I shouldn’t, not after I became Captain America. Not after I took that serum. I…” He swallowed, the anger finally fizzling out and leaving him alone under their wide-eyed gazes and not exactly sure what he was trying to say. “I am fine. Okay? I am.”
Bucky sighed, letting silence fill the room. Then he cleared his throat, glancing at the others. “Maybe you guys want to give us—”
“Yep.” Alexei stood immediately. The fun was over now that this was no longer enjoyably dramatic but sad-dramatic. “I think we should go, yes? Yes.”
He high-tailed it out of there, closely followed by Yelena (who didn’t leave after a second confirmation from Bucky) and Bob behind, who had—up until John’s rant—been tuned out of the conversation. The door closed behind them, and John finally exhaled.
Shit.
Bucky just stared at him, arching his brows.
“What was that?”
John shook his head again. “Nothing.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothings—”
Bucky actually laughed. “I’m pretty inclined to believe Ava right now, so you’d better do a hell of a better job than ‘nothing’.”
John scoffed, shrugging, throwing up his hands. As much as he felt like he wanted to, he didn’t sit. He wouldn’t have this discussion like that. “I’m not insecure.”
“Then why’d you take the serum?”
John found himself smiling the smile of someone whose mind was moving so fast he had no idea what thoughts to say and what thoughts to ignore. “What… what does that have—that has nothing to do with any of this.”
“I get why you did it. No one can live up to Steve,” Bucky admitted, “And it must be scary, powerless in a world full of supersoldiers. You only stop being afraid of guys with knives once you get one. But then someone shows up with a gun, and it’s the first time you feel vulnerable, but it’s so much worse now because you’re facing down a gun. No wonder you’d feel anxious. ”
John wavered, but didn’t give in to gravity. “Poetic.”
“Considering our world has aliens, robots, and wizards… being human makes you weak, John, but most people are. That’s not something to be ashamed of.”
“Says the Winter Soldier.”
“I’m nothing compared to Gods… wizards with rings that open holes in space and time. Alien races… I rank closer to the bottom of the list.”
“With John Walker even lower.”
“Maybe. So what?” Bucky sighed again, crossing his arms. “Look, John, you’re never gonna be the guy who brings down Thanos. Most people aren’t. Yelena isn’t. I won’t. Maybe Bob’s the type, but…”
“But Bob’s Bob.”
“Yeah. He’s a tank. The rest of us are soldiers. We’re the guys with guns and grenades and everything on the line who they send out to deal with other soldiers. We do our job and they do theirs. Nothing you’re not used to, just with a different coat of paint.” Bucky looked at John, one soldier to another. “Shame should come from doing nothing, not from trying and failing. Who cares if you got shot, John? That’s just part of the job. It doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that it happened.”
He stared at Bucky. “That would’ve been a good pep talk if it was something I actually needed to hear—which I don’t. I’m fine. Seriously.”
“Come on, John—”
“Like I said: nice words, Buck.” John snapped. “But I didn’t ask for them, so maybe go chase up Ava. I bet she could use some unsolicited advice about whatever she was bitching about this time.”
“You’re being unfair. Ava’s got perfectly valid reasons for—”
“Why should I care? Even after all this time, she’s still treating me like an enemy.”
Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. His voice came out strained, doing a poor job at hiding his annoyance. “Because you’ve been treating her that way. Believe it or not, she’s actually pretty nice if you put in the effort into getting to know her. Let me ask you this—you were with her when you first woke up. Before Yelena and Alexei and I came in, was she nice? Because the way I remember it, she was just as worried as the rest of us. She sat by your bed and asked about you just as often as us, but you’re still treating her unfairly because… why? Because she’s calling you out?”
“ Calling me out ?” John scoffed. “Oh, please. She’s accusing me of—”
“Having faults and insecurities. Which I do, and she does, and Yelena and Bob and Alexei do.”
“She thinks I’m weak!”
“No, she just wants you to…” Bucky searched for the words, shrugging as the right ones didn’t come. “...look on the bright side. All this is temporary—that’s what she wants you to realize. It’ll be temporary if you let yourself—”
“Look on the bright side?” John let gravity overcome the weakness in his knees and lowered on to the edge of the bed, stared at Bucky. “Read the fucking room, Bucky.”
“It’s true.” Bucky shrugged, not knowing what else to say. “She’s right. You’re wallowing.”
“Don’cha think I deserve to wallow a bit?” John flung out his arms, finding another sardonic laugh bubble up. “My shit happened, like, a year ago. My life is freshly fucked up. After yours got fucked, you had years to wallow— decades . So did everyone else. I deserve some wallow-time!” He sighed, dropping his head into his hands. Maybe Yelena was right to lower his dosage—that familiar fog was back, making everything heavier and his mouth harder to move. “Whatever.”
John was too tired to focus on what Bucky did, but he thought he heard the man move closer.
“Maybe just try to—”
“Look, I’m tired, kay?” Every word Bucky said made him more angry, and he’d already burnt enough bridges for one night. It might be nice to go to bed with at least one person not totally hating his guts. Plus, he was tired. A little bit. “It’s late. I kind of just want to shut off my mind and sleep for twelve hours.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You keep insisting I rest, so this is me resting.”
Bucky tried again. “Ok, well, we’re still doing shifts. I’ll—” He was reaching for the blanket on the floor when John interrupted.
“You’ll nothing!” He exclaimed. “I’m not critical and I’m not bleeding out and I’m not so drugged up that I need a minder. I can survive a night on my own.” Bucky seemed to consider it, briefly, but John could tell by the look on his face that changing his mind would take more than that. So he pressed a hand over his heart, and held the other one up. “I swear on my mother’s life that I will stay in bed, keep my IV in, and actually try to get some sleep. At no point will I do anything—”
“—obnoxious, self-destructive, impulsive, stup—”
— id, stupid, stupid. He’s going to kill Lemar—that is, unless Lemar is already dead. Walker kicks through the rubble, holding a wet rag to his face to ward away the smoke. The rest of his team has taken cover as the buildings fell, brought down by explosives. Not Lemar. Lemar, the humanitarian idiot, said something about ‘the girl at the corner’ before darting away.
Then the explosions started.
Walker drops to a crouch, picking up a scrap of fabric. Maybe it belongs to Lemar, maybe one of the city’s innocents. Maybe—
“Ah, fuck.”
Walker nearly topples over as he spins around to the voice. Lemar, stumbling out from the gaping doorway of what used to be a house.
Walker lunges. “You idiot! What the hell were you thinking? You have a goddamn death wish?”
Lemar’s not one to do stuff like this—to break away from the group in an impulsive, self-destructive decision. They all know as much.
Lemar’s face grows dark, and he coughs, the smoke and dust making his breath wheezy.
“I saw a girl. She saw me,” he says, looking over Walker’s shoulder at what used to be a road. His voice hushes. “I couldn’t let her die like that, John. Staring at someone who chose not to help.”
Walker brushes off Lemar’s shoulders—his friend’s eyes are hollow. He only spares a glance around them—no girl. He doesn’t need to think too hard to come to the conclusion that… He slings an arm over Lemar’s shoulder, pulling him close and starting back towards the others.
“Come on, Lemar. Shake yourself off.” He looks forward, vision tunneling, blocking out the rubble and fire and death. Cries begin to rise from the destruction, now that the explosions have stopped. Wails.
“This’ll be over soon, right?” asks Lemar, his eyes darting over the houses and the faces and the smoke and fire. Walker keeps his eyes forward.
“Yeah, Lemar.” Liar. “It w—”
“John?” Bucky’s voice cut through… whatever that was. John brought his eyes to Bucky, whose face was a mix of curiosity, concern, and suspicion. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, yeah, fine.” John closed his eyes, doing all he could to ignore the images Bucky unintentionally conjured. Part of him was curious how a few short words strung together could dredge up such vividness—so vivid it felt like he was there—but he was too exhausted to entertain the idea for too long.
“Did you go somewhere?” Bucky asked in a very cryptic, very Bucky way. John just rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, great question, man. No. I’ve been sitting here, talking to you, in case you haven't noticed. But yeah. I won’t be any of those things—obnoxious, stupid, etcetera. Just, please. Get out.”
Bucky was quiet again, mulling it over. Then he drew away from the mess of tables, chairs, and the big box of games. Miraculously, he relented.
“Ok. But if anything— anything —happens, you call me. No matter how small it seems.”
“What, like if I get shot again?” John chortled. “Sure thing. I’ll keep that in mind, boss.”
Bucky shot one last hesitant glance over the messy room, then gestured at it all wearily. “I’ll, uh, help clean this up in the morning.” He raised his eyebrows at John. “You’re sure— ”
“Shit, yes—God.” John was already tucking himself back into bed, ignoring the uncomfortable warmth when he moved too quickly. “I pinkie swear, promise, blah, blah, blah. I’m absolutely fine—or I would be, if you’d just… screw off already.”
Bucky sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow.” He thought of something and smiled. “You’re lucky you almost died—otherwise, I’d still be hounding you right now.”
“Dead-man’s brownie points, huh?” John flashed a smile of his own, almost forgetting the anger. “Bet you’re more grateful to have me in your life now, huh? Maybe I should get shot more often.”
“It still won’t get you out of owing Ava an apology.”
“For what?”
“For generally being an asshole, John,” Bucky said, moving towards the door. “Frankly, in that regard, you owe all of us one.”
Then he was gone, leaving the door open just enough for a thin stream of moonlight to cast shallow shadows over one corner of the room. John lay back, staring once again at the ceiling. Moments ago, sleep had been winning the battle against his mind. But now, in the darkness… alone, quiet, searching out sleep, grasping at it with desperate hands… The idea of getting any rest at all seemed very, very unlikely.
* * *
He still hadn’t slept. He must’ve been lying for hours, listening to nothing but the ambient sounds of an empty room. But even in his sleepless haze, he managed to see and hear things he thought were reserved for his dreams—it went without saying that Lemar’s voice would occasionally cry out from somewhere far away, calling for him or laughing. Olivia’s kind smile would materialize in the darkness, her hands reaching for him, only to pull away at the last second. Bullets grazed his skin, making him jerk away from a threat that wasn’t there—like he was falling. He’d finally begin to drift, only to be awoken by a crying baby, whose voice grew silent before he could pinpoint whether it was real or just another figment. At the time, his promise to Bucky had been genuine—no walking, roaming, or pacing. But at the moment, restlessness trumped integrity.
Eyes long since adjusted to the dark, John sat up, winced and brought his hand to his side. He’d almost been able to forget about the whole bullet thing, lying stationary. The pain made him more awake—on one hand, it meant all the faces and voices got a little more distant. On the other, sleep became even more unlikely.
He managed to stand without losing his balance. Taking the rollable IV stand in one hand, he groped his way through the darkness, managing to clear a path through the chairs and table without falling over or breaking his stitches again—small victories. Stepping out into the hallway that was even quieter than his room, he breathed new air for the first time in a week. He stared in front of him, at the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over New York. The city was humming, the bright lights an intrusion upon the darkness that was his room.
It was stunning.
He’s still amazed by how big the sky is. How dark and all-consuming. It’s everywhere he looks. But there’s something remarkable about a night like this in a place like the desert.
Walker trails behind Lemar and the rest of the squad, his eyes glued to the sky. It’s a rare moment when his guard is down—if the enemy were to pounce, he’d be dead in a second. This isn’t like him to do, but it’s been a long day, and they’ve been walking for what felt like forever.
The remarkable thing is how bright the moon is, so bright it casts shadows over the cooling sand. Yet the brightness of each star doesn’t suffer beneath the glow of the moon. They remind him of city lights—cars and bedrooms and offices and planes. The smell brought by a fresh, chilling breeze makes Walker stop. He inhales, letting the desert’s warm, sandy air settle his lungs, and the pounding anxiety in his throat. He…
…exhaled, the weight of the day leaving his shoulders. For someone who couldn’t sleep, he felt strangely tired. Still holding firm onto the IV stand, he walked to his left. Lemar would have been sitting outside the room, ignoring John’s promise, if he were here. He would have been trailing behind John right now, hands in his pockets, asking what was on his mind. In that way, Bucky was like Lemar. Neither minded their businesses.
And what would John say to Lemar? Would he be more honest than he was to Bucky? Part of him thought so. Part of him thought he would admit to what Ava had accused him of—feeling weak, being insecure. Even if it wasn’t necessarily true, he might’ve said it just to get the man off his back. Say how often he thought that everyone saw him as inferior. How often he wondered if they were righ—
John closed his eyes, taking another deep breath. The ground was cold. He focused on that instead of the gnawing thoughts that kept floating to the surface of the ugly sea in his head. Not for the first time, he felt his hand return to the bandage wrapped around his torso. The wound didn’t feel half as bad as it did the first time he’d woken up, when the world was still a mushy jumble of faces and voices and things that didn’t make sense. When he was saying stuff he didn’t mean and reacting to things he wasn’t really understanding. Of course, it had all seemed like it made sense at the time, but every moment that passed he felt more and more like himself—and less and less in need of all this… shit.
John continued forward, intending on doing a lap of the perimeter. This hallway stretched the entire outside of the Watchtower, with the window to his right and doors into other rooms and hallways to his left.
He turned the corner, eyes focused on an intersection far below whose light had just turned ‘green’ and—
“Oh, great.”
The voice made him jump, his stitches screaming in protest. John winced, taking a step back and clamping his hand over his side. Someone stood in the hallway, staring out the window in front of the elevator. John sighed, squinting in the dark. The city lights illuminated his companion’s face.
“Lucky me,” said Ava. “You’re up.”
John rubbed his eyes, leaning against the wall. “Yeah, I am.” His voice was hoarse. “What are you doing here?”
She turned to face him. “What’re you doing here?”
“This is my floor, kind of. I have the right to be roaming it.”
“This tower’s mine, too. So do I.”
“Kay.” John nodded. “Fair enough.”
Uncomfortable silence descended.
“Okay, well,” Ava jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “This is weird, so I’m going to—”
“Wait,” John groaned. He couldn’t believe he was about to do this. “Why’re you really here? I doubt it’s out of concern for the guy you hate. So, like, are you okay and… and stuff?”
“Am I ‘okay and stuff?’” He thought the light picked up the glint of a smirk. He didn’t know why he kept thinking about what Bucky had told him—about him not really giving her a chance, about owing her an apology—but he did. John nodded, wavering a bit.
“Yeah, that.”
“In which case, yes, I’m okay and stuff.” She looked back out over the city.
“Ok, so then… what’re you doing?”
Ava paused. “The mid levels like this one are the best for roaming. Besides, staying up there runs the risk of running into Bucky or Yelena and having to sit through them trying to pick my brain.” She frowned. “I mean, what is with their obsession with fixing people?”
“They’re probably just…” John approached, jostling the IV stand along with him. He stopped a few steps from Ava, then peered outside. “Projecting or something.”
“Yeah.” She backed up and leant against the wall sullenly, arms crossed. “Can they project a bit further away from us?”
John cleared his throat, his back to her as he watched a taxi swerve dangerously close to the curb, stop jarringly, and eject a stumbling, drunk-looking man. “Are you still pissed?”
The answer was immediate, some of the lightheartedness in her tone now lost. “Yep. Are you still wallowing?”
“Again with the wallowing!” First Bucky, now Ava? “No. And I never was. Am not.”
“So what do you call it, then? Brooding? Pouting? Denial?”
“I don’t know!” John snapped, surprised at the bite in his words. He paused for a moment, reigning himself in and looking back out over the city. “I don’t know. But not those.”
“More like contemplating, is it? Something more pensive. Reflecting on your life.” John watched a group of pigeons maneuver between two buildings, down into the crack of a dark alley. “No wonder it’d make you so pissy and annoying. If I were stuck with nothing to do but think about my shitty life for a week straight, I’d lose it.”
John soured, turning back to her. “Can you not be mean for, like, thirty seconds?”
Her scowl deepened. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re mean all the time, too.”
“Yeah?” He shrugged. “It’s ‘cause I’m injured. Wait—is that it?” The words just kind of fell out. “You don’t like the fact that someone else is in more pain than you."
Yikes. That was harsh, even for him.
All Ava could do was stare. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
John looked away again, out the window.
“Yeah, I didn’t—”
He stumbled forward, catching himself against the glass—not before banging his elbow against the IV stand and sending the thing crashing to the ground, yanking the tube connected to his wrist and sending chills up his arm. He’d been shoved enough times to know when someone was pulling their punches. He turned and pushed her back—she must not have been expecting it, because rather than phasing into the wall, she almost lost her footing and banged into the wall.
Then she smiled, just a little bit. “Dick.”
“Bitch.”
Her eyes darted down. “Did that mess up your stitches?”
“I don’t think so. Try harder next time."
Her smile grew. "I might."
John picked up the IV stand and adjusted the thing in his arm. The silence, surprisingly, wasn’t uncomfortable.
“So are you still pissed? Or did the physical violence against an injured man make you feel better?”
“I might have been a bit snippy, before.” Ava hummed. “But you pushed me back, so we’re not even. Yet.”
Apologize, buzzed Bucky’s voice in his ear. He was too tired to ignore it, which left one option.
John sighed, opening his arms.
“If I let you push me again, will you count that as an apology?”
“For?” She raised an eyebrow. He rolled his eyes.
“For offending you or whatever.” She just stared, and he sighed again. “God, fine. For being insensitive.”
“And?”
“ And? ” John bit his tongue, trying to ignore Bucky’s echoing voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut up already. “And being a dick when I’m on pain medication. And being an asshole.”
“Be more specific.”
“For God’s sake, I’m already letting you push me! Isn’t that apology en—”
—He’s forced onto his back, the wind knocked from his lungs. He scrambles, fingers clawing at the sand for purchase—he finds very little. He feels like he’s sinking. The man has a grip on the front of Walker’s tactical vest, his other hand is raised above his head, tightly gripping the curved blade.
Of course he fights back, lashing out with fists and nails, and of course he does a little damage—but not enough to stop the enemy from bringing down the knife, straight over John’s heart. The only thing he can do is raise his own hand right into the path of the knife—it doesn’t go through his palm. Instead, the blade hits bone and skims to the slide, leaving a long, dark gash from the bottom of his palm to past his wrist. All the air is pulled from his lungs again.
It hurts. It hurts so much more than he thought something could.
The man raises the knife again, almost in slow motion. The sand is hot beneath Walker. Around him, people fight. Nobody will get to him in time. This is it. He’s dead. Bullets and explosions and shouts and cries—where’s the room for him in all that?
Then the knife comes down and it’s going to skewer his heart and—
John cradled his bloody hand. Even if he didn’t die out there, it would surely get infected. A doctor would have to pick out each grain with a—
“What happened?” Ava’s voice was filled with panic—she… Ava was here? What was—Walker opened his arms, staring down at his hand. No blood. Just a faded, almost invisible scar. He looked up at Ava with fearful eyes. She had pushed him again. That’s all it was. A push. She looked pale in the moonlight. “Oh, shit, did that mess up your stitches?”
“No, uh, sorry.” He blinked a few times, but the feeling stayed. “I’m fine. We’re even now, right?”
Ava didn’t back off, still staring at him. “Are you sure you’re—”
“—okay. Are you listening to me, John?” Lemar, where the man used to be, places a cold hand on Walker’s cheek. “You’re okay.”
John starts breathing again, eyes darting around till they settle at the man lying on his side, a bullet going through one of his eyes.
“Did he…” Lemar finally notices his hand. “Shit. You’re going to be fine John, it’s…”
“It’s nothing,” says Walker’s voice, and he stands with the help of Lemar. They’re in another little town in another war-torn country fighting another misguided people. Maybe this is an ambush, maybe an attack, maybe a mission gone wrong. His blood drips onto the sand. John stares at it. Lemar pushes him down, and they both collapse and become a crumpled pile of—
It was another explosion—Lemar must have seen it first. The sand was so hot, it was practically all he could focus on. That and the pure noise of things. That was the thing that had taken the longest for him to get used to—the noise of it all. That was one thing that he still heard. When the silence got to be too much, his mind would conjure the noise of—
“ John.” Her hand gripped one of his shoulders, and he looked at Ava again, and her next words were a strange mix of authoritative and kind. “Hey, look at me.”
“Nothing’s—sorry.” He shook his head. The pain in his hand was gone—just a memory, he told himself. Somehow, he summoned a weary laugh. “I’m just tired. I think I’ll—”
He started to step away from her, but her grip on his arm stopped him. Once again, he felt weaker than he ought to. Her eyes drilled into him.
“You’re lying,” she said, eyes narrowing. John scoffed, trying and failing to shake off her grip. “You’re totally freaking—”
“No!” He said louder than he’d intended to, snapping back to reality. He tried to focus on the ground beneath his feet, to stay here, but it was hard. “No, I’m not.”
He could practically see the cogs turning in Ava’s head as she mulled it over—then stepped away from him, sighing. “I’m going to wake up Yele—”
“No. You said it yourself, they’re obsessed with fixing people. Which is obviously really infuriating considering there’s nothing wrong in the first place. I’m fine. If I really was ‘freaking out’ or something I’d say yeah, whatever, why not, but—” He clenched his jaw shut, putting an end to the racing train of thought. Choosing his words carefully, he hesitantly opened his mouth again. “But I’m totally fine.”
“You’ve been saying that ever since you woke up.” Ava frowned. “And I still don't believe you.”
John managed to pull himself from her icy grip and, dragging the IV stand with him, put some distance between them. He held up his hands.
“Look, I’m fine now.” It felt true— now felt clearer. Ava’s face, though still shrouded in darkness and cast aglow by the moon's dim light, was distinctly hers—not Lemar’s or anyone else's. “And—and my stitches are fine. And now we’re even now, right? I’ll be less… complain-y, or whatever about my shitty situation.”
Ava shook her head. “No, wai—”
“ I’m going back to my room. Goodnight.”
Her hand was on his wrist again, keeping him in place.
“I’m giving you an opportunity here,” she insisted, the moonlight glinting in her eyes. “You can’t keep this up.”
“Keep what up?” He pulled his arm away from her on the first try. She put up less resistance, maybe accepting his choice, maybe giving up. “It’s the truth, I’m being honest.”
“You prick.” There it was, the quiet anger so synonymous with Ava. “I thought you just said you’d stop wallowing.”
“Uh, yeah. This isn’t wallowing. I’m doing the opposite of wallowing.”
“Nah,” She chuckled, letting him back away without reaching out to stop him, or insist he listen. “Not wallowing would be opening up and letting people actually try to help and fix whatever’s going on. It would be talking.”
“'What's going on?'”
“Oh my God!” She laughed full-out, turning from him. “You really are so infuriating.”
“Yeah, okay. Nice to know how you feel about me, but I really am tired, so…” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, nearing the corner he’d come from.
Ava just rolled her eyes, waving a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go get your beauty sleep.”
That’s what he did, rounding the corner, disappearing into the darkness. As soon as he was alone, he slumped against the wall, dragging a hand down his face. He felt the cold tiles beneath his feet.
“Not sand,” he whispered, walking forward and resting his forehead on the glass. He opened his eyes, staring at the lights far below. “New York. Not Afghanistan.” Yemen, Syria, Kenya, Iraq, Pakistan… they all blurred into one big, ugly mess.
Down below, a group of drunks stumbled down the sidewalk, stopping briefly outside the tower and pointing up, smiles visible even this far away. He could practically hear their laughter, their drunk awe at America’s beloved protectors.
You don’t belong here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. John straightened up, grabbed the IV stand, and went back to bed.
* * *
John awoke to the sound of chewing. Oh, good. That meant he’d actually fallen asleep at some point. He groaned, sitting up and darting his hand to his side, expecting to feel more ugly pain. He was pleasantly surprised—even had to glance at the number on the IV display. He didn’t feel half bad, considering the little amount of pain meds being fed into his bloodstream. Of course there was still a warm ache when he moved, but it felt like any other cut—just spread out across more room.
Then he noticed the origin of the chewing—Yelena sat on that same chair, feet propped up on his bed, staring at the phone she held in one hand—the other hand was in the midst of scooping steaming Chinese food from a takeaway box precariously balanced on the arm of the chair. Around her, the remnants of their game night had been pushed to the corner of the room. Something told John no one would get around to actually cleaning it for a long time. He stared at Yelena for a moment as she slurped up another mouthful, but then she noticed him.
“Oh, hey.” She barely looked away from her phone. “Bucky came by but I fought him off. You need your beauty sleep, after all.”
“Thanks.” John grimaced, staring at the takeaway. Had he slept till lunch? Dinner ? “What time is it?”
She spoke with her mouth full, put down the fork and brandished the box at John. “Breakfast. Want some?”
“Since when was this breakfast food?” He asked, accepting the box and poking at the noodles with her fork. He was starving—he regretted barely touching the soup and bread from yesterday. But once again, soon as he held the Chinese food, he felt his stomach drop. “It’s not, but somehow we’re out of milk and eggs and bread and any other breakfast-adjacent thing.” He kept staring at the food, and Yelena gave the bed a nudge with her foot. “ Eat. You’re off whatever nutritional fluid crap the doctor had you on so if you don’t want to starve to death, you need real food.”
“I don’t think this qualifies as ‘real food’.” John frowned, taking a hesitant bite and swallowing. When nausea didn’t steal the food from his stomach, he took a relieved breath and took a more generous bite. “I thought Val hired people to do that sort of thing—get groceries and stuff.”
Yelena shrugged. “I called her and apparently the regular grocery guy’s on leave till next Friday, and the replacement’s sick or pregnant or dead or something, and the other one’s doing whatever. So Alexei and Ava went to that little place on the corner and grabbed some breakfast. And lunch. And dinner.” She watched him scarf down another forkful and raised an eyebrow. “Glad you like it, it’s what we’ll be eating till the food guy gets back.”
He paused. “Or we could go to the store. Like normal people.”
Yelena groaned. “Yes but that is so much work, and takeaway is so good.”
“I’d go.” He said, his fork pausing over the box. Maybe he shouldn’t have eaten so quickly—the nausea was back. She was quiet, so John looked up, setting down the box. “Seriously. I’ll get dressed, go out—just to the place across the street. I’ll get a cart and—”
“No,” Yelena laughed, shaking her head. “No, no. You’re—”
“I feel better. Like I’m actually getting better. But it’s been a week—I’m pretty sure I can walk without bleeding out now. I don’t even need this anymore!” He held up his arm, the IV tube hanging in an upside-down arch. “Ibuprofin’ll probably do the trick.”
“Yeah?” Yelena looked at him, her laugh dying away. “Ok, well, walking is one thing. But you shouldn’t go outside.”
“Why? I’m not—”
“Just on this one thing, don’t fight me.” Yelena held up a hand. If he really thought about it, he understood her point. Going out into New York , surrounded by chaos and people and cars and unpredictability? Maybe she was right to shut down this line of protest.
He relented, looking down at his hands. After having a moment to think, he looked at her again. “I can’t spend another day sitting here and staring at the ceiling.”
Yelena sighed, crossing her arms. “You should pick up a hobby.”
John nearly laughed. “A hobby? Please. If I start knitting, then cut me off the drugs.”
“No, like, reading. Or painting, embroidery—sketching, maybe. Or journaling. Or magic tricks, fortune telling, dog whispering...”
“Yeah, I’d rather not.”
“Oh, come on.” She sat up, shrugging like her ideas weren’t absolutely humiliating. “I can run to the Dollar Tree and grab some good pencils, maybe a sketchbook, some—”
“Jesus, Yelena!” John snapped, sucking some of the humour from the room. He cleared his throat as Yelena stared at him, taken aback. “Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“I think you’re right.” She stood, rolling back her shoulders and cracking her neck. “You’ve been stuffed in here too long. Come on, let's go for a walk.”
John blinked at her. “You mean—”
“ Indoors. ” She clarified, waggling a finger.
John got to his feet—on one hand, he was still being treated like a child. On the other, at least he was being given a bit more freedom. He looked down at himself and realized he was still clothed in only the hospital gown—luckily, it wasn’t one of those ones with no back to it. If he’d’ve had to go through the past week half-naked, then he was doubtful he’d’ve made it through alive. He cleared his throat awkwardly. It was still a bit too vulnerable for his liking. He was about to ask if there was anything he could toss on, but Yelena was halfway through taking off her ratty cardigan, and only then did he realize just how garish it was. He frowned as she tossed it at him.
“It was a gift from Alexei,” she explained, tucking a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “He said it was really ugly, and it reminded him of me, but then he realized that that sounded like he thought I was ugly.” Yelena smiled a little. “It was very funny. But he is right. It is a very ugly sweater.”
John held the thing up—brown and orange and olive green wool interwoven in strange, almost hypnotic patterns.
“I see what you mean. It does remind me of you.” He put it on and scowled—how could something be so itchy? Yelena rolled her eyes, moving towards the door. She turned, expecting John to be on her tail, and cocked her head at him when he was still standing beside the bed. He held up his arm with the IV tube. “I don’t have to drag the stand around with me, do I?”
Yelena ‘hmmed’ to herself, then waved a dismissive hand. “Bah, whatever. You said it yourself, you hardly need it. Just take the thing out. Worst case scenario the doctor puts it back later.”
It was with great pleasure that John tugged the thing from his wrist, leaving nothing but a small dribble of blood and some tape residue.
So that’s what it was at first—a jaunt around the tower. Slowly, though, thanks to Yelena’s not-so-thinly-veiled concern. She took her time walking, yet made sure she was always about a step in front of him, and looked back frequently. She’d often stop outside a window and point something out about the world, no doubt in an attempt to get them to stop and take a breath. John wanted to be annoyed by it, he really did, but part of him was grateful. He was getting short of breath awfully fast. It was pathetic, he thought, as Yelena jammed her finger against the elevator button. The doors dinged, closed, and started the quick journey to a higher floor.
“Seriously?” He watched the number roll up steadily. “I don’t want them to see me like this.“
“Like what? Proving them wrong?” She raised an eyebrow—probably hadn’t been expecting that level of honesty. “I thought this sort of thing is what you wanted, for everyone to see you up and walking and not half dead.”
“Yeah, but… you know, this is hardly the image of someone who…” deserves to be here? Isn’t weak, isn’t—
“Oh, we are not having this conversation.”
“What conversation?”
“ This one!” She batted his arm. “About you being humiliated. Me needing to reassure you that you deserve to be here and things happen and nobody cares if you’re in a hospital gown or not. Ok? Understand?”
“Uh,” John sputtered. “No, not—”
“Yes you do.” The elevator levelled, then the doors dinged open. She nodded forward. “Go ahead, Mr Got-Your-Shit-Together. Unless maybe you’re a bit tired and want me to grab a wheelchair?”
“No,” John huffed, stepping out onto the main floor. The elevator immediately opened into the large living room, the couch to his right. He puffed out his chest and readied himself—Bob and Ava looked up from their respective tasks. Bob was reading a book—a real one this time, not a comic, and Ava was scrolling on her phone. More of those Chinese takeout boxes sat on the coffee table, brushed aside by Ava’s feet. Yelena smirked, arching a brow.
“Productive day? Hey, Bob.”
Bob smiled and waved. “Hey.”
Ava made a face, not looking up. “Yeah, yeah. Last I checked, the world was safe right now.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Yelena hummed, then tilted her head to John. “We’re on a walk. Seen Bucky?”
Now why on earth would—
“Sparring. With Alexei.”
“It was pretty cool,” Bob chimed in, smiling sullenly. “Before Alexei took his shirt off.”
John cringed—of course Alexei would pull a move like that. And of course, when Yelena looked back at him, he understood that the horrorshow he was imagining was exactly where they were off to next.
* * *
“Ahah! I have got y—”
Alexei was slammed onto his back, left there groaning with a smile. How the man could enjoy getting beat up by Bucky so bad was amazing—John wouldn't have been able to stand it. Bucky offered a hand and helped the sweaty, shirtless lump to his feet.
“Nice try,” said Bucky, wiping the slick from his brow with his metal hand. “Almost had me there.”
They’d been at this for a long time, going by the smears of the mat and the redness in both of their faces. John rested against the doorframe, allowing himself a moment to sag now that Yelena’s attention was elsewhere.
He was exhausted. And he’d hardly walked at all. He watched her watching them—maybe this was her goal with all this. Make him realize that he did need to rest. Well, he wouldn’t be so tired in the first place if they’d listened from the start and let him walk days earlier. He patted the bandage beneath the itchy cardigan—at least the stitches didn’t break. But he definitely felt the absence of the painkillers.
Whatever. Grow up. He’d been in worse pain before, and made it through fine then. Had he really grown that relaxed as to—
“—John?”
He snapped back, stepping away from the doorway. “Uh, sorry.” He blinked at Bucky.
“How’re you feeling?” He repeated, crossing his arms after the damp wife-beater.
John tried for a smile and didn’t do half bad. “Better. A lot better.”
“Ah, good to hear! Just in body, or mind, also?” Alexei panted, face a few shades darker than Bucky’s.
John shrugged. “Uh, both, I guess.”
“Great! I was starting be worried you would wallow fore—” A sharp elbow from Bucky shut him up real quick—not quickly enough to stop John from groaning.
“Again with this? I am not—”
“Yes, no, that is not what I—” Alexei held up both hands defensively, stopping another elbow jab from Bucky. “I only mean, yay, is fantastic.” he gave a toothy smile of his own. “You look much less like dead.”
Bucky nodded, eyes returning to Yelena’s. “Wanna tap in?”
Yelena cracked her neck. “Sure, I could go a couple rounds.”
Which is how John found himself sitting on the bench beside a very sweaty, very red Red Guardian, watching Yelena and Bucky take turns pinning each other on the damp mat. It was the most excitement he’d felt in a week. Yelena had already shed her cardigan, and from here, he could take in both their collections of scars that told countless stories. Alexei, too. John shifted, averting his gaze as Yelena got Bucky in a headlock and sent them both tumbling onto their backs.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew that they’d all been in his shoes at one point. He knew they were… sometimes, they were partially correct about… him. But it was still hard to believe it—he still didn’t want to listen to them. Why?
If only Lemar were here. Lemar’d be able to tell him—Lemar’d be able to dissect every interaction he’d had since passing out in that washroom. Lemar’d—But Lemar wasn’t there, was he? It’s understated, just how annoying it is to be both self-aware and stubborn. That’s the sort of thing John would say, only for Lemar to laugh and poke holes in it.
“Self-aware?” Lemar grinned, raising the steaming coffee to his lips. “You’re the least self-aware person I—”
It was true. That wasn’t a word he’d use to describe himself since after Lemar died. Still. It did ring true.
Sitting there, feeling his body ache and his mind drift, John knew that Yelena and Bucky and the rest of them were right. What he needed was rest. What he needed was—He shut his eyes and took a very deep breath. So what? Why did any of that matter? He still had a name to uphold, an image. Both to the world, and to himself. He couldn’t just—
A nudge pulled him back to reality. Alexei was looking at him expectantly—so were Bucky and Yelena, only they were frowning.
“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. What, uh, did you—”
“Come on!” Alexei jumped to his feet. “You and me, supersoldier versus supersoldier. It will be—”
“Stupid, dangerous, and completely idiotic!” Yelena intervened, frown only growing. Alexei made a face, looking back at John.
“I am not idiot, Yelena. Obviously we will go easy, obviously it will be very unexciting. I do not plan on sending John Walker back to hospital bed.” He raised an eyebrow. “And only if he agrees, of course.”
Bucky hissed out a breath. “I’m with Yelena. You’ve only just started to—”
“No, hey,” John stood. “I’m down.”
“No way!” Yelena stepped between them. “You will completely destroy your stitches! God, I knew I shouldn’t have—”
Bucky’s hand on her arm shut her up fast. They looked at eachother, having some kind of quiet conversation with their eyes. Then, finally, Bucky said, “Maybe it’ll be good.” Then his eyes met John’s. “Might help.”
“Oh, really?” She gave him ‘a look’, and he did better than most men did—Bucky didn’t shrink aware from the whithering glare, just shrugged it off.
“Yeah. Might learn something.”
Ah, so that was it—Bucky wanted John to mess up his wound again. Then he’d ‘learn his lesson’ and stay put. Yelena seemed to realize what he meant, too, and scoffed.
“That has got to be that worst idea—”
Bucky just patted her arm, then took a seat on the bench in Alexei’s puddle of sweat, then grimaced. “If John’s down for it, then what can we do to stop him?”
Yelena seemed to consider fighting back, but eventually decided it was a lost cause. Flinging out her arms, she sighed, then plopped down beside Bucky. “Fine. Break your stitches and bleed out and kill yourself—I don’t care.”
“Love the confidence,” John murmured, stepping onto the mat and rolling up the cardigan sleeves to the crooks of his elbows. Opposite him on the mat, Alexei squared up, and suddenly looked a lot less like a blubbering old Russian and a lot more like the Red Guardian. John swallowed his nerves—the man would go easy on him. Yelena was wrong—he wouldn’t break his stitches and bleed out. This would be good for him, to break up the monotony of that goddamn hospital room. Besides, Alexei was—as much as he’d never admit it—out of his prime, and out of shape. John, on the other hand… he shouldn’t lose this fight, even in his condition. If he did, then he didn’t deserve a place on—
Alexei lunged, letting out a mad battle cry. So much for ‘going easy’, then. John steadied himself and—and stumbled back. Tried to retreat? Why?
Why the Hell did he—
Alexei made contact and the Earth was yanked from—
—All the air is gone from his lungs, replaced by nothing but the need for it. He gasps, and gasps, and—and the ground is hot and soft on his back, and somewhere along the way he can breathe again, and he feels the weight pushing him down. Lemar, curling in on himself, protecting his head from… then is when he realizes all he hears is ringing, and everything is hot and—and something exploded, didn’t it? But… but where is this? Afghanistan? No, no—maybe this is Syria. But he’s—he was already—Yemen? Or—or—
He pushed back against Lemar—Err, Alexei—and made a maneuver of his own, momentarily trapping the man before Alexei twisted his arm and tossed John onto his back again. The adrenaline drowned out the sharp pain in his—
—side, pressing his hands tight against the wound that just kept pouring. But, no—he hasn’t been shot in the side yet, he wasn’t when he was still serving—skimmed in the leg, the arm, shot in the shoulder once but never the side. So why was he bleeding? Where was the—something to his left explodes in a shower of dirt and sand and little scraps of shrapnel. He blinks—he’s surrounded by fighting and panic and—and where the hell is all this blood coming fr—
—He fought back against the soldier. Life or death. The air is humid, just like Afghanistan—sticking to his throat, just like—Alexei made a sound awfully close to a growl before pushing against Walker again, who was sent stumbling back, the wound in his side screaming in protest. He was about to lunge at the enemy when a leg swept at him and—
—A knife, in the chaos, glinting and angry and hot, straight for his side, slicing into flesh and cutting and pulling life from—
— The enemy smiled, sweat dripping from his forehead, grappling his arms beside his head.
“Wow!” He laughed, taunting before the kill. “You really are putting up fight. I am impr—”
John jerked up a knee, catching the man in his groin and—
— Not going to die. Not like this. Not here. He is not going to—to—to be buried out here, in a mass grave, remembered by nothing but a plaque in a museum fifty years from now. The soldier groans, clutching himself, and Walker rolls on top of him with ease. He’s not going to die like this. Not here. Not like this. It’s kill or be killed out here—it’s kill or—
— Hands pull him off the enemy, Walker’s grip on his throat broken. He should’ve been paying attention to his surroundings, he should’ve been—
— Dragged to his death. This is it. He can feel their knives in his side, stabbing, drawing blood. It hurts—and it hurts so, so much and… and… and he won’t go like this—he clenches his fist and slams it into the soldier’s nose and wraps his hands around—
“Hey! Enough!” A voice echoed. The hands on his shoulders left and the soldier sat up, a hand coming to his throat, eyes wide and shocked like he didn’t expect Walker to fight for his life, like he thought he’d let himself be killed quietly, passively, like he—
“John?” Someone blurry crouches in front of him, a hand squeezing his shoulder. How do they know his name? How do—
“How do you know my name?” The words just sort of slipped out, between the ragged breaths. There was no response but a look of infuriating confusion—he spat out the words, fists clenching against the hot sand. “How do you know my name!”
And the soldier looks like she’s going to laugh—like it’s not a perfectly reasonable question to be asking under the circumstances.
“John.” Her grip on his shoulder eases. “It’s—”
“—me.” He tries to drag himself away, but the pain in his side stops him. So they’d gotten him—the knife. He’s bleeding out. He’s going to—he blinks and she’s shuffling to the side, making room for another soldier. Why didn’t they do it already? Why didn’t they just twist the knife and get it over with and—and a far away, deep voice stabs through the noise of the explosions and the screaming and the bullets.
“What is happening?”
“Maybe give us some space, Alexei.” The woman.
“I did not mean to—he tried to—”
“Look at me, you OK?” The man.
“Yes, I am—”
“Not you.”
—John scrunches his eyes shut. No, no, that’s—Alexei. And he knows these voices, and they’re good people. Not—not—He struggles for another breath, lungs contracting too quickly, and the blood isn’t pouring as quickly as it used to. He opens his eyes and he knows the face he’s staring at. It’s—
“Yelena?”
“Yes.” Her face flooded with relief, the pressure returning to his shoulder.
“But—” He gave his head a good shake. No, this makes no sense. This… he’s not in the desert. There’s no sand under his hands, but something cold and slick and soft. Like a plastic mattress. And the air is sticky, but not hot. There are only echoes of… of all the noise. But his side is hurting—but he’s not bleeding out. In fact, there’s no blood at all, except for what’s smeared on the back of his fist. “This isn’t—” Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. “Shit!”
He pulls up his knees and drags his weary hands down his face, gulping down another mouthful of air. Sparring. Sparring—this is sparring. He’s in the tower, he’s—
“Hey, John, Breathe,” Yelena’s hand left his shoulder, and he peeked through the crack in his fingers—she and Bucky were crouching in front of him, faces the images of concern. Behind them, a few feet away, stands Alexei, holding a hand to his nose. A trickle of blood runs down to his chin.
“I am breathing!” He snapped back, not sure exactly what he was angry at. “It’s the stupid air that’s—” Ok, ok, that’s enough. He forces his eyes shut, his lungs to fill, then empty, and fill again. If he focuses, the task is doable, and becomes easier. He peels another eye open, glaring at Bucky. “Suppose you wanna say ‘I told you so’.”
Bucky half-shrugged, but the concern didn’t leave his eyes. “Your stitches didn’t break.”
“No,” chimed in Alexei, voice a touch nasally. “But he totally freaked—”
“ —out!” Walker hisses, batting away Olivia’s worried hands.
“I didn’t say you were, John, I just asked if everything was alright.”
Another beautiful fourth of July. They’re staying with Olivia’s family for the weekend. Right now, the two of them are alone on the patio. The rest of Olivia’s family are down by the lake, along with the brand-new addition to John and Olivia’s hopefully growing family.
Of course there are fireworks—there are always fireworks.
“I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again,” John sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. “I’m just a bit jumpy, but I’m fine. Really. It’s not helpful for you to be—”
“Right.” Olivia holds up her hands defensively. “I forgot. Sorry. Asking just makes it worse.”
“Yeah,” he answers curtly, resting against the banister. He stares down at the lake where her family gathers. There’s silence. The next one will come up any— BANG !
His heart skips a beat as colour bits of fire rain from the dark sky.
“Wanna go inside?”
Olivia’s hand comes back to—
— his arm, and her eyes were worried again.
“Hello?” Yelena asked, frown deepening. John met her gaze with his own wide eyes, then let out a long, slow hiss of air, rubbing his eyes again. “What’s going on, John?”
“Nothing’s…” Yeah, no way were they believing a word out of his mouth now. “I just get a bit confused, with the painkillers. And I’m exhausted, so it’s like… I’m half-dreaming, sometimes. Feels like it, at least. So I’ll…” He tried to get to his feet, but was offered no help from Yelena and Bucky, who, if anything, looked like they wanted him to stay down. He decided they were right, and stopped trying as the world did a small somersault. “...I’ll be clearer once it’s all out of my system. Once I—”
“Hey, Yelena, maybe you want to go make sure Alexei’s nose is fine? Help him patch it up or stop the bleeding?” Bucky asked, and she didn’t argue this time, silently nodding and leading Alexei out against his protests. Bucky, with a skeptical look, sighed and sat down across from John.
“Let’s talk.”
John shrunk away. “No, really, I just need—”
“—To talk,” Bucky stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “What’d you see?”
John chewed his lip, then looked away. “You can guess. War. Lemar. Olivia. My shitty life.”
Bucky let the quiet sit, before filling it with a loaded question. “And it’s just because of the medicine?”
“Yeah,” he said too quickly, then shook his head. “Er, it’s worse, I guess. You never really come back from war. But I don’t need to tell you about it.”
“How do you feel?”
Well, his side was hurting a bit less now, and but he was still slick with sweat, and the sleeves of the itchy cardigan had fallen from his elbows down to his wrists. And he had down enough moving for a lifetime, and his lungs were sore, and… “Sore, tired, shitty, in pain.”
Bucky cracked a smile, then started to get to his feet. “Yeah. Well, you feel ok enough to walk?”
John groaned. “No, please, don’t make me walk all the way back to that fucking—”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to crash on the couch.” Bucky offered a hand. “We could talk there. I’ll kick the others out, tell them you’re migrating there from that dingy room. And we’ll just talk about whatever you want to.” Sounded like a pretty good deal, John had to admit…
He stared at the offered hand—Bucky’s real one, not the metal arm. What he really wanted to do was sit and try to forget about what just happened. He chuckled despite himself.
“You must feel pretty…” he didn’t exactly know what he was accusing Bucky of feeling. Embarrassed for John? Disappointed in him? Angry? Worried? Worried about the next time they set foot in battle? “I mean, if I were you, I’d—I’d feel pretty—”
“Believe it or not, John, I don’t think less of you,” he said, hand still midair. “None of us do. But let's talk about it somewhere less… sweaty.”
At that, John let himself laugh. It was true—the whole place reeked.
He looked at Bucky’s offered hand. Part of him wanted to tell Bucky to fuck off, to leave him there. He’d find his way back on his own, and they could both forget this happened, and he could pretend he was OK and didn’t get shot and they could keep… Or, John could just shut up and take the goddamn hand. Even stubbornness got exhausting after a while. That’s what he did, and pretty soon, he was on his feet.
“Can’t say I didn't think you’d curse me out instead,” Bucky quipped, helping John steady himself, who rolled his eyes.
“Trust me, I was thinking about it.”
Bucky nodded towards the door. “After you.”
John took a step and winced. He’d definitely need that IV again. And then something occurred to him, and he turned back to Bucky. “Hey, by the way, I’m sorry about…” Could he apologize for ‘anything’? It’s not like he had the clearest memory of the things he’d said while drugged up or dreaming or—
“I think it’s Alexei you owe the apology to,” Bucky mused.
“Shit. Right. Is he—”
“He’ll be fine. It’s Alexei. You hardly dented him.”
Pause. John cleared his throat.
“I—I don’t really know how to do this.”
Bucky tilted his head like a dog admiring a squirrel. “Do what?”
All he could do was shrug, gesturing around them. “This. I mean, Avengers? I fucked it as Captain America, and now I’m supposed to… what? Do it again, but—but—I mean, what if I mess up again? What if, this time, it's worse?” There it was. The big ‘what-if’. What if he fucks up again but it's so much worse and this isn't really rock bottom and things get a whole lot worse in ways he couldn't even imagine. What if the world saw through him? What if he lost everything?
To his horror, Bucky smiled, and…
…and all the wallowing and ruminating and worrying suddenly felt so silly, and so small, because Bucky was smiling.
“You won’t. I know because, firstly, you’re not doing it alone this time. And secondly,” Bucky gave his shoulder a friendly jab, then started to lead him towards the door. “It’s not like you can screw it up any more than you already did. There’s only one way to go from here.”
John nodded, letting himself be led. He looked at the doorway and felt the beginnings of a smile spread over his face. Maybe Bucky had a point.
Maybe ‘Up’ was closer than he'd thought.
End.
Context