“Look sharp,” Ava calls as John steps out of the elevator, “Your favourite person’s here.”

John rolls his shoulders, letting his gym bag drop to the floor. Besides the two of them, the living room is empty - although calling it the 'living room’ is admittedly a stretch. It’s just a common area off from the kitchen where they store the world’s suckiest couch. Whoever designed their living quarters had godawful taste in furniture. The closest thing they have to an actual living room, a cosy little movie room that Bob has piled high with blankets, is tucked away on the far side of the residential floor. Ava’s perched on the back of the Sofa From Hell, a mug of tea in her hands. Her tone already has John on edge. He does a quick mental run-through of the worst people who could gain access to the Watchtower and not set off a security alert.

It’s Valentina, he lands on with a grimace, She’s springing another pointless photo-shoot on us. He'd be washing industrial strength holding spray out of his hair for the next three days.

“Oh, goodie,” he drawls, coming up alongside Ava. “Why didn’t anyone tell me Val was coming?”

Ava huffs, not quite a proper laugh. “Not her, thank fuck. Wilson and Bucky are having it out in the conference room.”

That name hadn’t been on his list. Hadn’t even crossed his mind. Given how shaky things still were between them - his and Sam’s own personal shitshow for starters, and then all the ‘New Avengers’ crap that hadn’t even been their idea - it had seemed distinctly unlikely that the good captain would ever just pop by for a visit. A tight sort of discomfort creeps up under John’s skin, something disturbingly close to dread. ‘Having it out’ implied an argument. What was so important they couldn’t settle it over the phone?

A half-second thought, sharp and childish. What did I do now?

Stupid. Irrational. He shoves it down immediately.

It’s not always about you, John.

Ava’s still watching, so he swallows back the definitely-not-dread, tries to mask it with confusion. “Sam’s here? What does he want?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“You didn’t eavesdrop?”

“I’m offended by the suggestion,” she says drily. At John’s flat look, her lips twitch up into a smirk. “Bucky already warned me off. After that, it’s not worth the effort.”

“What’s not worth the effort?” Yelena strolls in from the kitchen, sipping from her own still-steaming mug. She nudges John’s bag with her foot on her way over. “You’re not going to leave that there, are you?”

He ignores the second bit. “Eavesdropping. Wilson’s here, apparently.”

“He is?” Yelena does an over-exaggerated pout. “What a pity. I thought you were really making progress.”

John's brow furrows. He can feel a scowl forming. “What are you talking about?”

“Whenever Bucky spends time with Captain America, his opinion of you drops.”

He blinks. The words are so blunt it actually takes him a moment to process what she’s said.

“You had a pretty good run this time,” she continues, taking another sip of her drink. “Worked him back to only mild disdain. Really beautiful stuff. Be a shame if you had to start over.”

Yep, there’s that scowl. “That’s bullshit.”

“It’s true,” says Ava, “The other night when you cooked dinner he only insulted you once. I’d almost call that a breakthrough.”

“We were all very impressed,” Yelena agrees. “But I doubt even your chicken risotto is enough to withstand Sam Wilson.”

They’re teasing him. He can see it in their eyes, in Ava’s smug little half-smile. But he’s not in the mood, quite frankly, and they’re treading dangerously close to some very real anxieties he’s been working very hard to ignore.

Because he's not stupid, alright? He knows he's never going to be Bucky's first choice teammate, but things between them are improving. Slowly. Really, really slowly, but they are improving. And John's been trying embarrassingly hard to keep that ball rolling.

But sometimes -

Three missions ago, a dodgy warehouse outside of DC, assholes stockpiling weapons and some sort of weird prototype body armour. Things turn into more of a scramble than they had expected. John takes on one of the armoured guys, but he needs to get scrappy. With a yell wrenched from his chest he manages to knock the fucker out cold with his shield. Breathing hard, he steps back and raises his head to find Bucky staring at him across the warehouse floor.

They don't talk about it, obviously. But the next week, when John walks in on one of Bucky's increasingly strained phone calls with Wilson, Barnes sends him that same look.

John pushes away the memory. He scoffs, plasters over his worry with annoyance. “Cool. Fine. Guess I can take myself off the cooking roster, then.”

“You wouldn’t,” says Yelena, “You enjoy it too much.”

“I’m perfectly happy cooking for myself.” He turns to walk away, heading for the kitchen. Yelena makes a noise of protest and pulls him back with her free hand.

“Can you not leave your gross gym stuff in the middle of the floor?”

Ava snorts. “Honestly, we have, like, three separate gyms in this building. It’s ridiculous. Why are you even going to a public gym?”

“Alexei keeps breaking all the punching bags,” he replies. It’s not a lie. Not really. There is a waist-high pile of broken equipment languishing in the corner of the main gym. But John started doing this long before that was a problem. Before their gyms were even fully refurbished.

He’s been going to the same place for maybe a month or so. It’s a fairly small establishment - family run, not a franchise. Walking distance from the Watchtower. Nobody there seems to have recognised him yet. They’re nice, they smile at him, they leave him be. He can’t exactly go all out and he’s using a fake name, but even so it’s been something of a relief. A tiny shred of normalcy he hasn’t felt since before his Medals of Honour.

Yelena looks like she’s going to physically block his way to the kitchen. “Didn’t the army teach you not to leave your shit everywhere?”

“I’m coming back for it?”

“It’s in the way!”

“I’m getting water, Jesus.”

“It never stops with this group, does it?”

They all turn as one like a bunch of sitcom characters. Bucky stands a few paces from the elevator, watching the doors slide shut like he might just hop right back in. Wilson's not with him.

Yelena sidesteps John, the bag forgotten. “Where’s Sam?”

Bucky throws Ava a look.

She shrugs at him. “You didn’t say it was a secret.”

Bucky sighs, making his way over to them. “He already left.”

The tension in John’s shoulders drops, the discomfort easing off a fraction. He hadn’t quite realised how unprepared he was to deal with Sam Wilson face to face until right now.

“The actual Captain America came all this way and you didn’t ask him to stay for dinner?” Yelena shakes her head. “Now we seem like bad hosts.”

“Believe it or not,” Bucky mutters, as John pointedly ignores Yelena’s little dig, “he had another engagement.”

“What did he want, anyway?” John can’t quite keep the irritation out of his voice. “Thought we were still on his shit-list.”

“His wing-man picked up some intel. Chemical weapons data, some sort of test run for potential buyers. Could be linked to that mission we did in Dallas a few weeks ago, so they’re throwing the info our way.”

Yelena’s brows lift. “Like a team-up?”

“Not -" Bucky grimaces slightly, “not exactly. Not yet, at least.”

“Does Valentina know about this?” Ava asks, “Because if she does you know she’s going to be calling it a team-up.” 

John rolls his eyes. “Oh, joy.” Looks like that photo-shoot's back on the cards.

“She doesn’t know,” Bucky grits out, “Sam’s just given me the heads up. We’re probably going to have to run it by her, but there’s no point making a fuss about it until we’ve actually looked into the lead.” 

His frown deepens, and he brings a hand up to rub the back of his neck. All of a sudden he looks very tired. 

“If it came to it - if we really needed the help, obviously he wouldn’t leave us in the lurch. But I’d rather not push it.”

There’s an awful few seconds of silence, thick and awkward and way too fucking long. They all know Bucky is still trying to patch things up with Sam. To say it’s a work in progress would be one hell of an understatement. Thing is, even after months of living together at the tower - after saving the world with a group hug of all things - they’re still figuring out where they all stand with each other, what comfort they can and cannot give. There’s a lot of tip-toeing, and a lot of awkward silences.

John’s never been good at either of those.

“If it is linked to the Dallas job,” he says, too dismissive, too loud, “I doubt we’re going to need Wilson’s help. Those guys were a joke, remember? Absolute amateur hour. We should be finished before ol' Sam even cracks his wings open.” He's pushing his luck, like he always does. He expects a dig, an insult, something he can bounce off of. 

Instead, Bucky just meets his gaze, and for a moment John can see the barest edge of that look from the warehouse behind his eyes. 

The tension crawls back in. 

What a pity. You had a pretty good run this time.

The moment flickers out, and then Bucky’s not looking at him at all. “Keep this to yourselves until we have more information,” he says, turning to leave. “Whatever you do, don't tell Alexei.” He keeps walking and doesn’t look back, heading off down the corridor that leads to their personal rooms. John watches him go. He can feel Ava and Yelena staring at him, knows their expressions without even turning back to them.

“You might want to stay on the cooking roster,” Yelena says, tone deceptively light. “I think you’re going to need the brownie points.”

Something too cold to be embarrassment settles low in John’s stomach. He can’t think of a proper comeback, can't make them believe he doesn't care, so he forces a scoff and stalks off towards the kitchen.

***

It’s not exactly the team-up Valentina was pushing for.

And boy, did she push. She’d begun to arrange three separate PR logistics meetings before Bucky had even finished explaining the lead. God knows how many video call invites Wilson must’ve had sent to his spam folder. The petty side of John might have found it funny, if the prospect of a joint mission with Captain America didn’t make his teeth clench.

“Obviously Walker’s shield is out,” Valentina had said, tossed over her shoulder to Mel like it was barely worth mentioning. “so we can scratch that from the inventory list.”

John’s head snaps up at the same time as Bucky’s. “What?”

“That’s not happening.”

“Oh, please, I’m sure you can manage one job without it. You really want that thing on show right next to the real deal? How’s that going to look?”

John feels himself go rigid, hackles rising like a dog.

“This isn’t some press junket,” Bucky says, frowning. It’s oddly gratifying to see he’s not having this either. “We’re expecting unidentified chemical weapons at play. He’s keeping the shield.”

Valentina eyes them both, and her smile goes tight. “We can discuss it once we have a clearer picture of things.” She’s out the door before either of them can reply, Mel trailing behind her.

None of it matters when the actual mission rolls around. They don’t get nearly as much notice as they anticipated, and the whole thing becomes something of a mad rush. Wilson isn't even around to help out, stuck on some undisclosed solo operation that takes priority. He sends Torres - the new Falcon, bright eyed and friendly in that way John doesn’t know what to do with anymore - to accompany them instead. Technically still a team-up, but far from the flashy photo op Val wanted. Honestly, John’s more relieved than he should be. They’re still on a time crunch, and he can’t say he’s thrilled with Torres tagging along, but at least he doesn’t have to work with Wilson. And besides, no Captain America means he gets to keep his shield, so it could be worse.

Could be a lot better, but it could also be worse.

The stupid part, as John very quickly realises, is that it wouldn’t have made for a good photo op anyway. Grimy stockyard, semi-abandoned, mostly just hired pricks with guns and a bunch of experimental weapons they clearly don’t know how to use. Those weapons - strange misshapen bombs in bright yellow casings - turn out to be temperamental as fuck, and they pack a decent punch despite their fairly small blast radius. By the time Ava’s located the makeshift data hub, hopefully before the people who actually know what they're doing can destroy the buyer information, the field is a smoking mess of shrapnel and fluorescent goo.

“Got to hand it to you, Torres,” John mutters, taking cover behind a badly dented crate. “You and Wilson send us to the nicest places.”

A slightly harried laugh crackles over the comms. “Sorry! Not many weapon smugglers working out of beach resorts, I guess.”

Yelena pipes up, somewhere further ahead of John. “We should make a formal demand to Valentina. No goop. Next two jobs, minimum.”

“Not sure how we get a guarantee on that.” Bucky’s voice is strained. “Ava? Status update?”

“Getting there,” Ava replies tersely. “But I think there’s a sniper on the next roof, so that’s fun.”

John stifles a groan. “Of course there is.”

“Ah, shit.” Torres sounds apologetic. “That’s on me. Hold on.” The whoosh of an engine flare sounds overhead, and John glances over to see the distinct shadow of wings arc around before changing direction.

"Wouldn't have thought a single lonely sniper would be any trouble for you, Starr. Off day, is it?"

"Piss off, Walker."

“Can you two save it for the ride home?" Bucky cuts in sharply. "The comms are crowded enough already. Alexei, watch your six!”

There’s a short spatter of gunfire, chased by laughter. “Much appreciated! Though is not so much the six I am worried about, more so the glowing yellow pool spreading over nine and ten.”

“Ugh. Make it three jobs minimum, wha - shit -”

A crunching sound, then a hard, heavy thud.

“Yelena!”

John’s stomach clenches. He lifts his head over the top of the crate just in time to see Yelena hit the deck. She lands in a heap, her pistol skittering off to the side. She doesn’t get up.

Bucky’s straight on the comms. “Yelena, you okay?”

No response.

John’s already jumped the crate. “I’m on it.” He’s at a sprint before any of the dickheads marking him can get a shot off. Shield up, keep running. There’s a choked off yelp to his left as one of the gunmen goes down. Another soon follows. Bucky’s handiwork, he’d bet. He weaves through the debris, ducking out of the way of some asshole brandishing a crowbar. The man comes at John twice before he stumbles and John swings back around, clocks him right on the temple with the butt of his gun and sets off again.

Yelena still hasn’t moved when he reaches her. It’s clearer what happened now - one of the already damaged crates nearby has crumbled in on itself. It must have given way beneath her, and that fucker with the crowbar took advantage of the momentum shift. John skids to a stop beside her, dropping down to one knee. Shield raised in case somebody tries to be clever.

“Yelena?” he calls, “You with me?” She’s sprawled on her side, eyes closed, dirt smeared across her cheek. Still breathing. He gets a hand under her neck before he carefully rolls her onto her back. The hit doesn’t seem to have broken the skin, at least. No cuts to the forehead, no blood in her hair. John’s no medic but it looks like it might have just clipped her.

“Lena!” Alexei’s shout rings in his ear, sharp and desperate like John remembers from New York, watching Yelena walk into the Void. He swallows, reels his focus back onto the injury assessment.

 “Alexei, don’t.” It’s Bucky, calm cut through with something on the edge of worry. “We’ve got to clear the floor. Walker’s got her.”

Torres chimes in, sounding concerned. “Should I swing back?”

“No, stick with Ava in case she needs back up.”

John skims a hand over Yelena’s forehead, pressing gently along the side of her head. “She’s out cold,” he says over the comm, mostly for Alexei’s benefit. “Bad head knock. Could’ve been a lot worse, though. No other obvious injuries.” Leaning forward, he shifts to support her neck and shoulders with his shield arm. “We almost done here, Barnes?”

A grunt, followed by two hard thumps. “Ask Ava.”

“Working on it!”

“Work faster,” John retorts. “Yelena’s got an all-expenses paid trip to the Medbay once we wrap this up.”

Alexei talks over their bickering. “Is she coming around yet?”

“Still down for the count. I’m going to move her somewhere with better cover.” Pulling his teammate towards him, John adjusts his grip so he can get his free arm under her knees, ready to lift her. “Hey, Yelena? Can you -”

“Walker, look out!”

He whips his head up just as the ugly yellow bomb soars into view.

There’s no time to dive for cover. He’s got two seconds tops before it lands maybe five feet to his right.

His shield is still bent. 

Shit. Yelena.

Moving on instinct, John hauls Yelena to his chest, twisting so none of her body is exposed. He gets the shield up over both of their heads, tucks himself in as tight as he can while keeping her covered.

There’s a strange sound, almost like an egg cracking.

And then the blast sends them both hurtling into the broken crates.

Chapter 2: Just a Scratch

For a long moment, John doesn’t move. Can't move, to be completely fucking honest. The ground barely feels real and his ears ring something fierce. He opens his eyes, finds only his shield. Something drips onto his leg, unpleasantly warm, but he can’t tell what it is. He’s almost pulled himself into a ball, still curled tight around something - around Yelena - Yelena - 

He gets halfway through the thought when the pain kicks in, that all-too-familiar ache of getting absolutely blasted into next week.

And underneath it, something sharper.

John winces, coughs. Runs through every swear word he knows in his mind. The ringing subsides, leaving an unsettling sort of dizziness in its place. Jesus fucking fuck. He tilts his head to try and check on Yelena, jostling her ever so slightly. No reaction. 

“Walker!” Bucky’s voice over the comm fucking hurts, Jesus. “John, do you copy? Are you alright?”

With a groan that scrapes at his throat, John rolls onto his knees, careful to keep a firm grip on Yelena. That sharp scratch of pain tugs with the movement, clawing up from his lower thigh. Something must’ve torn through his uniform. Shrapnel? Or maybe he snagged himself on one of the crates. Hopefully it’s just a superficial cut. He straightens up, body protesting all the way, and gingerly lowers the shield.

His lip curls in disgust. There’s yellow goo everywhere. Everything in their immediate vicinity, every crumpled piece of machinery and busted crate, is dripping with the stuff. He can see steam still rising from a puddle to his right. He scowls, holding his arm out and away so he can look down at the face of the shield.

Yep. Completely coated in it too. Fantastic.

“Walker? Is that a yes or a no?”

“I’m fine.” The words become a growl. “Just pissed off.”

A huff of breath. Bucky’s reply sounds a little less taut. “And Yelena?”

John glances down at her. She seems pretty much unscathed by the bomb, which given the state of their surroundings is honestly kind of insane. He can make out some dirt stains on her pants, a glob of yellow on her boot.

“She’s okay, but she’s still out.”

“You were careful of goop?” Alexei interjects, “You did not ingest any, did you?”

John rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, had our mouths wide open.”

“Walker.”

“We’re fine,” he snaps. “Shield took the brunt of it. Can we focus on getting the fuck out of here?”

“I’ve got the files!” Ava says. “Nobody even bothered trying to erase them, bloody amateurs. Torres and I are just cleaning up.”

“About time.”

“So glad you weren’t blown to bits, Walker.”

“I’ve already signaled our ride,” Bucky cuts in. At least he also sounds completely done with this mission. “We’re not staying any longer than we have to. Jet’s on its way to the rendezvous point, we can take the van back, meet them there.”

“If it isn’t drenched in this shit,” John grumbles, trying to shake the goop from his shield. It dribbles slowly to the floor like it’s mocking him.

“Walker, get Yelena to the car. We have the stragglers under control. Ava, Torres, work fast - sing out if you need back up.” 

John makes himself take a breath. He comes up off his calves, bracing Yelena against him, and brings himself back onto one knee. The pain in his thigh flares as he lifts it. Ah. Right. He nudges Yelena's legs out of the way and looks down. Sure enough, there’s a gash on the outer side of the thigh. So something did clip him. He can’t really inspect it with Yelena in his arms, but it’s fairly small, and it's not flirting with the femoral artery or anything like that. It can wait until he’s gotten her out of this shit-hole. With a grunt he makes it to his feet, shifting a bit so Yelena's head doesn’t fall at an awkward angle. She still hasn’t stirred.

“Jesus, Yelena,” He murmurs, “What’s it going to take, a goddamn marching band?”

He sets off at a jog, keeping as low to the ground as he can while carrying her. His leg does not appreciate it - why do the nicks always seem to hurt more than the proper shots? He breathes through the sting, pushes on. It’s quieter now, no shouted commands or bursts of gunfire. Bucky and Alexei must be nearly finished. God, he hopes so. He’s desperate for a shower.

They’re maybe halfway to the alley where the van is parked when Yelena resurfaces, groan muffled into John’s shoulder. 

“Fuuuck… Fuck my fucking…Walker?”

A rush of relief, stronger than he expects. “Morning, sunshine. You know you can get written up for sleeping on the job.”

Yelena blinks at him, frowning hard, before her brow smooths out. She sighs. “Oh no, just when I was on track for employee of the month.”

“Don’t give Val any ideas.”

They both wince as Alexei all but shrieks over the comms. “Is that Yelena? Tell her I am coming!”

“My earpiece still works, Alexei, thank you,” Yelena mutters, scrubbing a hand over her face. “Fuck me.”

John snorts. “Careful. I’d say you’re due the headache of the century.”

“No kidding.” Yelena looks up at him, a touch hesitant. “So, obviously I remember what happened, but why don’t you tell me your version so we can compare notes?”

“I wasn’t watching, but I think you took a crowbar to the head.”

She grimaces. “Shit. Yeah, that’s ringing an obnoxiously loud bell. Dammit.”

“Happens to the best of us,” he says, adjusting his pace slightly. The pain in his leg is getting annoyingly hard to block out. He shortens his steps, tries to put less weight on it as he walks.

Yelena squirms a little in his arms. “Thanks for the princess carry, I guess. You can let me down now.”

“When we get to the van, sure.”

She glares at him. It would be more effective if she didn’t look like she might throw up. “Walker.”

“Yelena,” he shoots back. “Look, it’s not even that far.”

“Then I can walk it!”

“Or you could just -”

“Lena!”

Yelena presses a hand over her eyes. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

John turns to see Alexei hurtling towards them at full pelt, helmet clutched in his hand. There’s no sign of Bucky behind him.

“Where’s Bucky?” John calls, leaning on his good leg.

“I ran ahead! Lena, you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” says Yelena, “This is silly. Tell Walker I can manage on my own.”

“You should take it easy, Yelena, do not push yourself.” Alexei glances at John. “Though perhaps you should go easy, too. You must still be reeling from goop explosion, yes?”

Yelena looks confused. “What goop explosion? Did we set off another bomb? Is that why your shield is dripping?”

John huffs, but Alexei beats him to answering.

“It landed very close to you,” he says, surprisingly serious. “John was there, gave you cover.”

“You’re welcome,” John's too sore to be properly snide. Yelena frowns at him anyway.

“You took an explosive for me? And what, you’re just going to walk it off?”

“I’m literally a super soldier.”

She swats at his arm weakly. “That’s stupid, Walker. Why are you still carrying me?”

“Because you were out cold five minutes ago!”

“I’m awake now!” 

She starts wriggling in earnest. John almost yelps, staggering slightly in surprise. His thigh protests sharply.

“Shit, what are you, five?” She ignores him. “Can you not - Yelena - okay! Jesus!” He relents, lets her clamber out of his hold before he loses his own balance. That sudden jolt of pain has left him feeling slightly queasy. Yelena stumbles a little, a millisecond of regret showing on her face, but Alexei is quick to steady her.

“Right,” she says, carefully controlled like she’s not swaying on her feet. “I take it we’re pretty much -“

A rumbling boom from the direction of the data hub cuts her off.

Goddammit.

“Ava?” Bucky’s voice comes over the comms. “Ava, Torres, do you copy?”

There’s a second of very strained silence before Ava responds. “Shit!”

John shoves back the spike of worry. He is so done with today. “What now?”

“Torres is down,” Ava explains urgently. “Another bomb went off, regular explosive. We weren’t inside but his wing got clipped by the blast, sent him spiraling. He’s unconscious. Right leg looks rough, too.” A shuddering creak echoes in the distance. “And I don’t like my chances of dragging him out of here before something else explodes.”

“I’m on my way,” says Bucky. “Sit tight.”

John flicks a look at Alexei. “You’ve got her?”

“Walker, I swear to - "

Alexei nods. “I’ve got her.”

“Heads up, Buck. Be with you shortly.”

“Don’t call me that.”

John breathes out, rolls his neck from one side to the other. It’s embarrassing to admit that he has to work himself up to running on this stupid leg again. “Get to the van,” he tells Alexei, “And be ready to hightail it out of here. Hope Valentina’s lackeys restocked our Medbay - we’re going to be fully booked.”

“Seems like it,” says Yelena, unimpressed. “So there’s not going to be any room for you if you keel over.”

“Good thing that’s not happening.” 

He’s off before either of them can reply. He forces himself to run normally, not to limp or shift his weight. The sting in his thigh burns with the pressure. When he’s far enough away from his teammates he slows down slightly, tries to recenter himself. His breath is coming short, and he can feel sweat forming on the back of his neck.

It’s just a nick. Hurts worse than it is. He needs to pull it together.

He hears Bucky before he sees him, the sounds of a struggle and the telltale whir of the metal arm. He picks up his pace, rounding a corner to find Bucky in a three-on-one match up, driving some guy with an assault rifle face first into the dirt. One of his buddies tries to take a swing from behind and John powers forward, knocks the fucker out before he can get close. The third soldier seems to re-evaluate their odds. They turn to make a hasty retreat, but Bucky’s already sprung up from the ground. He yanks them back by the body armour, drops them in two seconds flat.

He straightens, glancing briefly at John. “You come out of that hit okay? No head knock, nothing broken?”

“Just my sunny disposition.” John’s lip twists up in a play-pretend smile. Bucky barely reacts to it.

“Hub’s just ahead,” he says instead. “You can see the smoke.” He rolls his shoulder once like a reset and then he’s off and running. John quickly moves to follow. He comes up alongside Bucky, his jaw tight. It’s taking a lot more effort now to mask the limp.

“Remind me why we brought this guy again?”

That gets him a withering glare. “Gee, Walker, maybe because he got us the intel and our team has no air support?”

There’s a quiet little laugh from Yelena on the comms. “Point and shoot.”

John sighs. “Point and shoot.”

Bucky blinks at him, brow furrowed. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Means Yelena has a head injury, that’s all.”

“You had to be there, Bucky,” Ava says flatly. “Do you think you boys could speed things along? Torres is still out.”

“We’re almost at the hub, north or south entrance?”

“Just outside north, or what’s left of it, I guess. Saw a couple pricks making a run for it, but I can’t leave Torres. Watch yourselves.”

“Yeah, we met them already,” Bucky says tiredly. “It’s handled. There.” He points ahead, just as the roughshod building that must have been the hub comes into view. Tucked off to the side, worryingly close to a teetering pile of rubble, is Ava - helmet off, kneeling by an unconscious Torres. Bucky takes off, switching to a sprint, and John -

John can’t match it.

He just - can’t. His body flat out refuses. The pain isn’t so bad now, the burn gradually starting to ease off, but it doesn’t feel like that’s a good thing. It’s like his thigh is locking up, going numb. There’s nothing he can do, he has to slow to a walk. 

A mote of panic begins to surface, the shaky, muddled thought that this might be worse than a simple nick.

Okay. It’s fine, he can handle this. Torres takes priority - they’ve got to get him to safety, and then John can properly check himself over, figure out what’s happened. He’s still on his feet, so he’s fine.

Bucky’s already side-to-side with Ava. John swallows, pushes on. God, he’s so damn slow. He tries to make his steps appear unhurried, tries to keep the concern off his face. He’s a little worried he just looks blank.

“Oh, do take your time, Walker,” Ava drawls as he finally, finally reaches them, “Don’t let us rush you.” There’s dust in her hair, a small cut on her cheek. She’s got Torres’ head in her lap. To her left, John can see the edge of the extremely worse-for-wear-looking Falcon wing-pack. That’s definitely not going to polish out. Bucky’s crouched by Torres’ legs, finishing off what looks like a makeshift splint. He doesn’t even glance up.

John shrugs, as casually as he can. “Not like he’s going anywhere,” he mutters. Ava just rolls her eyes. She returns her attention to Torres, and John hovers over Bucky, clears his throat. “You, uh, you need a hand with that?”

“Nope,” Bucky answers brusquely. “Almost done.” It’s taken him no time at all to set the splint - way faster than John could’ve done it, and with fuck-all actual gear, too. It’s impressive and irritating at the same time. John backs up a little, hand on his gun, and settles on being their lookout.

After a handful of minutes Bucky pulls back, runs a hand through his hair. “That’s about as good as we can do for him out here,” he says. “The rest is going to have to wait. We need to get him back to the van, hopefully without causing any more damage to the leg.”

John nods, suppresses a sigh. “Starr, can you carry what’s left of the wings?”

“Think so,” she says, helmet slipping back over her head.

“Then lets get moving.” He picks his way over the debris scattered at their feet, across to the other side of Torres. Bucky doesn’t need any further instruction, he’s already got his arm underneath Torres’ shoulder blades. He lifts him carefully, bracing so John can meet them halfway. John’s pathetically grateful for it. He’s not sure how far his knee can actually bend right now, and he’s not particularly eager to test the limit. He leans forward, ignoring the sharp flare of discomfort, and gets a hold around Torres’ waist so the man’s arm hooks over his shoulder. Bucky’s quick to do the same. There’s an awkward few seconds of adjustment before they both straighten up, Torres supported between them, his head lolling.

John grits his teeth, tries to focus on his own breath. The weight shouldn’t be any trouble, especially not with Bucky’s help, but right now Torres is twice as heavy as he should be. 

A sudden flash of dizziness takes him by surprise. His legs wobble beneath him, and for a second he thinks he’s going to lose his grip on Torres. He feels Bucky tense up across from him, shifting to take up his slack, and it’s the jolt he needs to pull himself together. He tightens his hold, planting his feet as solidly as he can until his head clears. Shit. They haven’t even started walking yet. When he looks back up, the world is still sort of blurry at the edges, and Bucky’s glaring daggers at him.

A knot of embarrassment coils tight in his stomach.

“Whoops."

Bucky stares at him, obviously unimpressed, but there’s a flicker of something else that John’s too distracted to make sense of. 

“You sure you’re good?” he asks, a little accusatory. John’s jaw clenches.

He lifts his chin. “I’m fine. I’m not the one drooling on your shoulder.”

“Walker, if there’s something -”

“Can we get this show on the road?" John cuts him off harshly. "At this rate, fucking Wilson's going to have time to show up. Bit of a bad look, seeing as we've just dented his sidekick. Not exactly going to help you get out of the doghouse, is it?"

It’s not his smartest jab, not by a long shot, but it does the trick. Bucky’s glare hardens. He holds John’s gaze a moment longer before turning back to face the front.

“Fine,” he growls, “Watch his leg. No rushing, we take this slow.”

John almost wants to laugh. Good. That’s all I can do.

They take it slow. Boy, do they take it slow. They hobble back through the stockyard with hardly a word said between them - Bucky’s not in the mood and John can’t spare the energy. Torres groans once or twice but he doesn’t stir, and Ava takes up the rear, alert for any remaining hostiles. And for any more goddamn bombs.

John thinks he might be losing time. It’s strange, disconcerting. He’s hyper-aware of every step, but sometimes he blinks and it’s like they’ve been zapped thirty metres ahead of where he thought they were. The longer they walk the worse it gets. His grip on Torres’s chest-plate helps ground him somewhat, but it’s not enough. He’s starting to feel frighteningly off-balance. His whole thigh has gone numb at this point, but it still takes his weight without buckling. He studies their surroundings, smoke and rubble and steaming puddles of goo. It’s all becoming a bit of a struggle to recognise.

“Alexei, Yelena,” Bucky says suddenly, and John startles. “We’re coming up on the alley. Make sure we’re ready to go as soon as we reach you.”

Relief bleeds into confusion. Have they reached the others already? John had thought they were taking too long, but now he doesn’t know how they got here. Alexei’s answer has him wincing, a lance through the fog in his mind, but he can’t follow what’s being said. It’s hard to make out the words - it’s like the comm is buzzing. 

He blinks hard. His eyes feel gritty, like he’s pulled an all-nighter, and the edges are beginning to blur again. He’s supposed to check his leg when they get to the jet. Does he still need to do that? It doesn’t hurt much at all now. 

Hazily, he thinks that might be a bad thing.

“Walker?”

He flinches, turns his head. Bucky's staring at him like he’s waiting for something.

John swallows thickly. “What?”

“Alexei, on the comms.” He says it like it’s an explanation.

John blinks at him.

“Yelena’s not doing so good,” Ava fills in. John hadn’t even noticed she’d come up alongside them. Her helmet’s off again, when did she do that? “Can you take Alexei's seat up front so he can watch her?”

John blinks. Swallows. “Can I -”

Bucky frowns at him, scans his face. “What’s wrong?”

Nothing’s wrong. Is something wrong? Everything’s starting to drift, just a little. But it's fine. He's fine, he's handling it. He can wait. He’s supposed to be taking Torres back to the van, is that what they’re asking him?

He breathes in shakily, tries to meet Bucky’s eyes. “I can - yeah, I can do that.”

Bucky’s looking at him too closely. It’s weird. His scowl is different, somehow - it’s not how Bucky usually looks at him. “I knew it. Walker, where are you hurt? We need to -”

“I can take him.” He needs to get Torres to the van. That takes priority. That should be what they want. But Bucky and Ava are looking at him strangely, and suddenly John’s not sure he has the right question.

Something touches his arm. He flinches again, and the dizziness swoops in before he can look to see what it was.

"John?"

The buzzing of the comms is getting louder.

"John, stop. Let Bucky take Torres, you’re not -”

 “I - no, I -”  His voice sounds wrong. The alleyway is tilting sharply. “I need to -”

His leg buckles, and the world slips away entirely.

Chapter 3: Seventeen Cups of Hospital Coffee

When he wakes, John would say he feels distantly awful. Weak, and faintly sore, but the pain is almost a background ache. Like maybe he fell down the stairs three weeks ago. There’s a fair bit of noise, footsteps and voices and short, repetitive beeping. Most of it is muffled. This isn’t the Medbay. Or - okay, he doesn’t think it’s the Medbay. The Medbay blankets are nowhere near this soft. He blinks up at an eggshell-white ceiling, tries the gauge how bad an idea sitting up would be.

Probably not his worst, all things considered.

He shifts somewhat gingerly, hands braced on the mattress. There's an odd sort of tug at his arm. He blinks, glances down. The realisation that he's hooked up to a drip comes a little slower than he'd like to admit. He stares down at his arm for far too long, awkwardly goes to lift it.

“Don’t even think about it.”

John startles, turns his head. Takes in his surroundings properly. He’s in a tiny room - white walls, a bed, a bunch of scary-looking machines. Bucky sits in a chair by the door, his phone on the armrest and a roughly folded blanket of some sort tucked under his elbow. He looks terrible, quite frankly. Rumpled sweatshirt, his hair tugged back in a rubber band, the strands coming loose on one side.

John lowers his arm. “Where - ”

“Hospital. Still in Dallas. Been here three days, just about. You woke up once before, but it went badly. You nearly pulled out your IV.” Bucky grimaces a little. “Please don’t do that again.”

John frowns. He doesn’t remember that. Or maybe he does? His head still feels kind of foggy. Even recalling how he got here is proving to be a struggle. They were on a mission, he knows that. Some sort of stockyard. There were explosions involved.

“Hospital?” he manages to say, and the words are rough as fucking sandpaper. “Not - not the tower?”

“You wouldn’t have made it to the tower.”

His brow furrows. That’s - grim. Bucky means it, too. His eyes are hard, unflinchingly serious. John’s not quite awake enough to know how to handle it. He takes a breath, tries to swallow - and is saved from having to reply by an almighty coughing fit, wincing as it tears through his too-dry throat. There’s a solid few seconds of agony before John feels a hand on his shoulder, carefully guiding him to sit up and propping up his back against the pillows. His body protests lightly, the dull ache in his hips and legs flaring up until he’s resettled. A glass is held to his lips, and John is too grateful to feel embarrassed by the indignity of it. He takes long, desperate sips of water, drains half of it before the glass is pulled away.

“Ah, awake again, are we?” a cheerful voice sounds from the door. “Hopefully a bit more lucid this time.”

“Seems to be,” says Bucky, stepping away from the bed. Somehow it’s only then that John realises who must have helped him - which is a little alarming, because who else could it have been? Wake the fuck up, John.

The man at the door - a nurse, by the uniform - gives Bucky a nod. He crosses the room to inspect one of the machines. “Good, good. How are we feeling, Mr Walker?”

John wipes at his mouth with his free hand. “Never better,” he mutters, decidedly not looking at Bucky.

“That so?” John can hear the wry amusement in his voice. “All good if I check a few things, just to be sure?”

“Knock yourself out.”

He runs through a few tests, marks answers down on a little clipboard on the wall. Heart rate, blood pressure, can you tell me your full name and date of birth? Bucky retreats back to the chair, watches without interrupting. John does his best to ignore him. His nurse doesn’t seem put off by the tension, or at least doesn’t feel the need to fill the silences. He pulls back the sheet across John’s legs, his hands gentle, and John can see a patch of clean white gauze taped across his lower thigh.

He stares down at the bandage. The fog in his head is clearing, the mission coming into focus bit by bit. 

Just a nick. Hurts worse than it is.

Right. That might have been a miscalculation.

“Doesn’t look like we need to change it yet,” says the nurse, dragging him back to the present. “Any pain?”

“Not really.” Nothing he couldn’t handle. “I’m guessing you’ve got me on enough drugs for three people.”

“I’d say that’s a conservative estimate.” He covers John with the sheet again. “The doctor should take another look at it before the next shift rotation. Your patient notes said it was healing nicely, though - that super serum sure works wonders!” The man smiles at him, bright and easy in a way that kind of reminds him of Torres.

Oh, shit. Torres. 

Shit, Yelena.

His nurse finishes up, scribbling something else on his clipboard. “No food just yet, but try to drink a bit more water if you can. Give us a holler if the pain gets any worse.” He directs that part to Bucky. They share a look that John can’t get a read on before the man heads out of the room, closing the door behind him.

John’s gaze snaps to Bucky. The drowsiness is fading, anxiety already worming its way back to the surface. “Yelena, Torres?”

“They’re both going to be fine," says Bucky. "Torres actually has his own room on the next floor up. Few broken bones and the mother of all concussions, but he’s doing alright.”

“And Yelena?”

“Giving Torres a run for his money in the head knock department, but she’s okay. She’s back at the Watchtower. Alexei’s keeping an eye on her, making sure she doesn't overdo it.”

John lets out a breath, allows himself a sliver of relief. They’re fine. They’re okay. “Bet that’s been fun. I give it a week before she tries to do a runner.” No reply. John coughs, gaze dropping to his lap. Of course. Even laid up in hospital, he still can’t get Barnes to humour him. “The mission?”

Bucky huffs, almost a laugh - or maybe closer to a scoff. “Wrapped up for now. Ava’s already sent the buyer info through to one of Sam’s contacts. He’s keeping us posted.”

“Good. Yay team.”

Back to nothing. John glances nervously at Bucky, who stares straight back at him, expression shuttered. On a better day, John would just bulldoze through it, find another stupid thing to say, bounce back lines until something got a response. Shockingly enough, he's not feeling up to that shit right now, so he tries to leave it in Bucky’s court. 

Barnes stays silent.

A scrap of memory, scowls and barbed words and the low rumble of the car engine. Does he always just stare like that?

The moment drifts. Staggers. Lemar's face surfaces unbidden, his steady gaze at John's shoulder, his smile as he skids along the road. 

John shoves the memory away before it can settle.

The silence is starting to press down on the room, and Bucky's barely moved. John runs his free hand through his hair, gives in when the too-soft bed sheets start to itch. “Cool, yeah. Nice awkward silence. You’re always so good at those.”

“Just wondering if you’re going to show any interest in your own condition.”

“I mean, I’m clearly on the mend,” he says, tugging his lip into the half-smile he knows Bucky finds annoying. “And I figured you were still working up to that. Didn’t want to ask too early, mess up your flow.”

Bucky frowns, leaning forward in his chair. “The shrapnel wound in your leg,” he says flatly. “You know, the one you didn’t tell any of us about. The fragment that clipped you was coated in residue from the explosive. I can list out what was in it if you want, your toxicology report's an absolute horror show. The serum’s the only reason you didn’t drop after five minutes.”

Jesus. John can't even get tipsy anymore. How strong was this shit, if a single scratch still had him down for the count?

A dull twinge of pain, just below the gauze. He pretends he doesn’t feel it.

“You were barely breathing when we got you here,” Bucky continues. There's an edge to his voice that makes John tense up. “If we’d been any slower - ” he doesn’t finish the thought, just shakes his head slightly.

Another pause, heavier than before. Bucky’s glare doesn’t shift. John swallows, fists clenched as he resists the urge to fidget.

God, he's had it with these fucking silences.

He tilts his head, screws the half-smile back in place. “Good thing it was just me then, huh?”

The glare sharpens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve got the serum, right? If it had been one of the others, they would’ve been toast. At least I can brush it off.” It’s not a lie. If Ava, Yelena or Torres had taken a hit like that, things could’ve gotten nasty. Better it was him, or Bucky or Alexei.

He’s not lying. It is what he means.

It’s mostly what he means.

Bucky looks unimpressed. “This is you 'brushing it off’, is it?”

“I mean, I wouldn't call this the ideal outcome - ”

“You’re in hospital.”

The smile feels like it’s slipping. “I’m alive, aren't I?”

“You barely made it here.”

“Then Ava or Yelena would’ve had no chance!” 

“That’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point, Bucky?” He doesn’t get why Barnes is making such a big deal of this. Alright, John miscalculated - he still pulled through, didn’t he? He didn’t endanger the mission. He did his part, got the job done. Isn't that enough?

Bucky’s jaw is tight. His eyes seem to study John, hard and scrutinising, and John tries to cover the flash of defensiveness that sparks in his chest. He straightens up as best he can against the pillows. He knows he looks weak like this and he hates it. Eventually Bucky sighs, drags a hand through his hair. More strands come loose with the movement.

“We’re not doing this here,” he says tersely. “But once we’re back at the Tower, we need to have a talk.”

John scoffs. “Okay, Dad. Not sure what else there is to talk about.”

For a second Bucky looks like he’s going to change his mind, have it out right here and now - but then the phone at his side starts to buzz. He glances at the ID before he grabs it and gets to his feet, bringing it up to his ear. The crumpled blanket falls to the floor in a heap.

“Hey,” he murmurs, turning to pace - as much as anyone can pace in a hospital room. “Sorry, I haven’t had the chance to text you. He's awake.” 

John watches him, brows raised.

“Yeah, just now. Nurse checked him over, said the doctor still needs to take a look at him.” A pause, as Bucky glances up at John. “Better. He seems more with it this time. Can actually hold a conversation.” He pulls the phone back, presses it to his shoulder. “Think you could handle a visitor?”

They’re in Dallas. Who's even here to visit? “Uh, sure?”

Bucky addresses the phone again. “He’s up for it, let me clear it with the nurses.” There’s a beat, and for a second his lips twitch. “Alright, let me clear that, too. See you in a bit.” He pockets the phone, bending down to swipe up the blanket and toss it onto the chair. “Ava’s coming by, if the nurses allow it.”

Ava’s here? “I thought you said the team was back at the tower.”

“Yelena and Alexei are at the tower.” Bucky says, “Ava and I stayed at the hospital. Bob wanted to come out to see you, but we weren’t sure that was a good idea. He’s better off helping Alexei wrangle Yelena.”

“Right,” John nods, a little thrown. He wouldn’t have expected anyone else to have stuck around. Not much point, is there? Not when he’s been unconscious for three days.

“I’m going to check that she’s okay to visit,” Bucky turns to him, looks him over. “You alright by yourself until I get back?”

John pulls a face. That rings a little too close to actual concern. “Yeah, I’m just going to pull my IV out while you’re gone.”

Bucky shoots him another glare, and he’s out the door.

When he returns, John has to admit he's actually kind of relieved. He’s never liked hospitals. On his own, the walls of his room feel like they’re shrinking in on him, and the quiet starts to grate just that little bit more. His head whips up as the door cracks open. Bucky steps inside, a slightly disheveled-looking Ava in tow. She’s got her hair tied in a rough braid and her hands tucked behind her back. She smiles at John, a little more tired than her usual smirk.

“Look who decided to rejoin us. Wow, you look like shit.”

John rolls his eyes. “I’m in hospital, what’s your excuse?”

“Camping out in said hospital’s waiting room, for starters. Made a break for the exit yet?”

“If I do Bucky might actually crash-tackle me. So yeah, no thanks.”

“Bugger. Guess I stayed for nothing.” She crosses to the bed, brings her hands up to reveal a slightly wilted bouquet of blue and yellow flowers. “These are from Bob. He told me to choose the nicest ones they had.”

John eyes the flowers skeptically. “Slim pickings?”

“Very. But it’s the thought that counts, so if you could tell him they were lovely and made your day, that would be appreciated.”

He snorts, and the coil of nerves in his chest loosens a touch.

“They don’t want to crowd him too much,” says Bucky, watching from the door. “So I should head out for a bit. Make sure he finishes that water.”

“Where would I be without you, Barnes?” John drawls.

“Don’t test me, Walker.” Bucky looks to Ava again. “Tell the nurse if his pain kicks up. I’m going to find Sam.”

“He was still with Joaquín when I left,” Ava says over her shoulder.

Just like that, John feels the tension crawl back in. Great. Sam’s here. Of course he is.

What if he came by when I was out? What if he saw me like this?

He cuts off the thought before it can spiral. So what? He’s already seen you at your worst. They both have.

The door clicks shut, and John reels his focus back to Ava as she haphazardly props up Bob’s bouquet on the side table.

“Now, now,” she says, wiping her hands on her pants. “No need to pout. Sam's here for Torres, not you.”

“I’m not pouting.”

“I don’t think he’s even set foot on your floor. Been busy pestering Joaquín. Too patient for his own good, that one.”

“You went to see Torres before visiting me?” He asked, mildly indignant.

 Ava answers without hesitation. “Obviously."

“Figures.”

“To be fair,” she says, “He woke up before you. And your doctors weren’t keen on visitors - except for Bucky, but I think that was in case they needed to restrain you.”

“Restrain me?”

“As a precaution. They had you on a lot of drugs for a while there, really quite the cocktail. They weren’t sure how you'd react to it.” She picks up his water from the table, brings it over to him. John holds it on his own this time, and if his hand shakes a little, Ava doesn’t comment on it. “You did wake up once, early yesterday morning. I was going to try to see you then, but it wasn’t a good time.”

“Yeah, Bucky said.” He takes a sip, somehow manages to not spill it all over himself. “He didn’t actually have to crash-tackle me, did he? That was a joke.”

“No,” Ava replies, but John can see her hesitating. “Nothing like that. But it - it was rough. You were...upset, I think. And really out of it - you nearly pulled out your drip. Bucky’s not told me much more than that. I think it spooked him a bit.”

John looks at her, disbelieving. “Spooked Bucky? What, did I start floating like The Exorcist?”

Ava's eyes narrow. "Guessing that's a movie reference?"

"Uh. Yeah. God, I don't know if you should add The Exorcist to your watchlist."

"Team movie night?"

"That sounds like a nightmare."

“Forget it. Whatever happened, you'd have to ask Bucky.” Ava takes his water from him before he can drop it. “But maybe not straight away - let him have a nap first, or something."

"Super soldiers don't need naps."

"He should take one anyway. He’s barely slept the whole time we've been here.” She stifles a yawn with the back of her hand. “Not that I’m one to talk. Those waiting room chairs really don’t do your spine any favours.”

“No kidding. Why’d you stick around so long?”

She levels a flat stare at him. “Gee. I wonder why.”

John shrugs, eyes dipping to his hands before he drags them back up. Don’t squirm, that’s embarrassing.

“Hey, John,” Ava says, putting his glass back on the table. She perches carefully on the edge of the bed near his good leg. “Real talk for a second.”

It’s always super weird when Ava calls him John. “Um, okay?”

“Don’t ever pull that shit again.” 

He blinks. She holds his gaze, and John expects anger, or that hard glare Bucky’s been giving him. Instead, he finds he can’t read her at all. It’s unsettling, makes him feel cornered.

He forces himself to speak. “Look, it’s not like I’m thrilled to be in here. But we finished the mission, and it all turned out fine.”

“Walker, I cannot stress to you enough how much this was not fine.”

“It was just a scratch. I didn’t know about the residue stuff.”

“You knew it was starting to get worse, though, right?”

He tries not to grit his teeth. “Nicks like that always feel worse than they actually are.” Ava’s brows twitch up, and John swallows, looks away. “Yelena and Torres were the priority. I thought it could wait until we got to the jet.”

There’s a pause, before Ava sighs. “I’m not going to hound you on this,” she says, surprisingly gentle, “At least not right now, because you really do look like shit and my nerves are shot as it is. But I need you to tell me we’re not going to be back here in another six months.”

He frowns. “I can’t tell you that.”

“You can tell me you’re not going to hide injuries anymore.”

“I didn’t hide -”

She cuts over the top of him. “You can tell me you’re going to say something when you’re hurt, however small you think it is. You can trust that the team has your back.” She tilts her head, waits for him to look at her. It feels vaguely patronising. “Reckon you can do all that?”

Now he really is squirming. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.”

“John.”

“I said okay, didn’t I? God, everyone in this group has to make things weird.”

Ava’s lip quirks up at the corner. “Don’t give us a reason to, then. Now, if you’re not too tuckered out -”

“I’m not a toddler.”

“- we should message Bob to thank him for the flowers. Remember, they were everything you ever dreamed of.”

“What if he wants to see a picture?”

“We tell him the hospital WiFi is trash and change the subject.”

***

It’s another three days before he’s discharged from the hospital, sooner than any of the doctors could have predicted. The residual effects of his Toxicology Report From Hell have already waned, and the shrapnel wound is healing without any trouble. He's still on a hefty dosage of pain meds, but apart from a few sharp twinges - and generally still feeling a bit like shit - he’s doing far better than anyone expected. The cut shouldn't even leave much of a scar.

That super serum sure works wonders. He’s had two separate nurses tell him the exact same thing. It bothers him more than it should.

They make him stay in until midday as an extra precaution, and while he understands why, it’s still mildly infuriating. His dislike of hospitals hasn’t improved over his stay - after days in the same tiny room with Bucky as his main conversation partner, it's actually gotten worse. He doesn’t even have his phone to distract himself. It’s back in New York, having been left behind on the jet when the team brought him to the hospital.

“What, none of you thought to grab it on the way out?” He’d grouched to Bucky, who’d just sent him that same tired glare.

“We had other priorities.”

Ava had been equally unsympathetic. “There’s a newsagent across the street. You want me to pick you up a colouring book?”

“Piss off, Ava.”

“Just a thought.”

By the time he’s actually allowed to leave, John’s restraining himself from sprinting for the doors. He’s been dressed for hours, civilian clothes dropped off by Ava earlier that morning. God knows where his uniform is. He sits on the edge of his bed, resisting the urge to bounce his leg.

A quiet knock at the door, and Bucky strides in. He’s changed his clothes, new jeans and a t-shirt both in black. It makes John feel weirdly self-conscious in his loose shirt and basketball shorts. He pulls himself up off the bed, too antsy to hide his impatience.

“We good to go?”

“Quick thing first,” Bucky says, “Torres wanted to see you before you left, but they’re not letting him leave his ward yet.”

John frowns. Torres wants to see him? He barely knows the guy. They’d never even met before this near-disaster of a team-up.

The barest flicker of dread, tight under his skin. Wilson’s been with Torres all week.

“That’s a shame,” he replies, tone forcibly light.

Bucky gives him a look. “Sam’s not here,” he says, and fucking hell, John hates how obvious he is. “He left yesterday. We drop in on Torres, then we can go. ”

John scowls at him half-heartedly, gets nothing back. Bucky's not going to let him get out of this.

God, John just wants to go home.

He huffs, gestures towards the door. “Fine. Quick.”

He lets Bucky guide him through the corridor, across to the elevator up to Torres’ floor.  They take it annoyingly slow, and John can feel Bucky hovering closer than necessary, poised to steady him if he stumbles. He clenches his jaw and leans away, lengthens his stride as much as he can manage. His leg complains a little at the stretch. Eventually Bucky steers him towards a bustling reception desk, where a harried-looking nurse waves them on without a word. They come to a stop outside another single room, slightly bigger than John’s - typical - with muffled, upbeat music playing softly beyond the open door.

Bucky knocks on the wall, sticks his head in. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“Not at all!” Torres’ voice is practically chipper. The music cuts off. “Just checking out this playlist Sam gave me in case he decides to quiz me on it. What’s up?”

Bucky moves further into the room. “You’ve got a visitor,” he says, glancing pointedly back at John. Get in here.

John stifles a sigh, shuffles in after Bucky. He glances around yet another eggshell-white room, airier than his own, with slightly less terrifying machines. His eyes fall on Torres, the first time he's seen him properly since the stockyard. Jesus, he looks rough. Propped up against his pillows, one leg in a thick cast, the other heavily bandaged at the knee. Another set of bandages wrap securely around his left arm. There’s a stitched up cut on his chin, and bruises dotted at his temple, disappearing back into his hair. Even on hospital-grade pain meds, he must feel like shit.

And yet when he sees John, his eyes light up.

“Walker!” He grins at him, that too-easy smile. “Hey, man, it’s good to see you. The docs wouldn’t let me visit. Not quite travel-ready yet, apparently.”

“Yeah, no shit, Torres.” John steps up to the bed. “You look like garbage.”

Torres goes a little sheepish. He gives a one-shoulder shrug. “Could’ve been worse. Honestly, I’m more embarrassed than anything. What about you? They said your wound was pretty gnarly.”

Gnarly. John’s lip twitches. Sure, that’s one word for it. “Eh. Could’ve been worse.” 

He can feel Bucky’s eye roll from his place at the wall.

Torres laughs on an exhale. “Not by much, from what I heard,” he says, “You’d never guess that now, though. That serum is something else.”

“So I’ve been told.”

There’s a pause, before the humour seems to drain out of Torres. His expression turns abruptly serious. “I, uh, I understand your situation went pretty downhill when you came to pull me out.”

John’s brow furrows. “I mean, yeah. Technically. But it would’ve done that anyway.”

“Still, if I’d found more information on what kind of weapons we were dealing with, we’d have known to be more careful. You put yourself in a lot of danger coming to help me.” Torres meets his gaze, and John can see the guilt behind his eyes. “I’m sorry for that.”

The apology is entirely misplaced, and John doesn’t really know what to do with it. He wonders if this is part of why Bucky wanted him to visit Torres - because the guy’s been blaming himself all week, and they both know this one falls squarely with John.

He frowns, crosses his arms. “That’s not on you, Torres. We work with what we’ve got. I made the call to head back out there, and it went south. That’s just how the job goes sometimes.” He sighs, lets mock-annoyance colour his voice. “Besides, as everyone keeps pointing out to me, I’d have keeled over regardless. So, you know. You’re not special.”

Torres blinks at him in surprise.

“Walker,” Bucky says wearily. John ignores him, keeps his focus on Torres.

Another beat of quiet. Then, Torres smiles, ever so slightly.

“Suppose that's fair." he concedes, "But I’m grateful, anyway.” He lifts his good arm, hand open for John to shake.

John stares at it for a second, strangely taken aback. He shouldn’t be. It’s not a big deal.

It’s just - unexpected.

He’s making it weird. Stop making it weird.

He collects himself and leans forward. He grips the offered hand, and Torres' smile widens, bright and boyish.

John can't bring himself to meet it, but he settles on a nod in return.

Chapter 4: Home Sweet Home

“You,” Yelena says, her voice muffled against his neck, “are so lucky, and so, so stupid.”

John shifts on his feet. He’s got one arm wrapped awkwardly around Yelena, the other stiff at his side. “Am I supposed to say thank you?” The words come slightly strangled.

“Yelena, the man does need to breathe,” Ava calls from behind the kitchen counter, somewhere to his right. There’s the sound of something being poured into a mug. She’d spent a solid third of the trip back to New York complaining about how shit hospital coffee is, he supposes he can’t blame her for heading straight for the proper stuff. Bucky’s already disappeared down the corridor towards their personal rooms - to make a call, he’d said. No further details, but John finds he doesn’t really care. He’s just glad to be free of Barnes’ hovering for a few minutes.

“Tough,” Yelena snaps. “He should have thought about that before he had us all worried out of our minds.” Her grip does loosen, though, and she comes down off her tip-toes to meet his gaze. She's got a bruise to rival Torres' blooming just below her temple, though the worst of it is hidden by her hair.

John drops his own arm from her back with a somewhat depressing measure of relief. Discounting their Group Hug That Saved The World, Yelena’s hugged him maybe once before, and she’d been absolutely hammered at the time. Man, that had been a weird night.

Yelena grasps him firmly by the shoulders. “If you ever pull a stunt like that again - ”

“I know, I know,” John cuts in before she can get worked up, “I’ve already had this script from Ava.”

“You had the abridged version,” Ava says lightly, “I could have berated you a lot more.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m in awe of your restraint.”

“I’m not kidding around, Walker.” Yelena frowns up at him. She still holds him in place. “Don’t do that again.”

He shoots an impatient look at the ceiling, mostly to avoid the eye contact. His entire team is determined to make this a bigger deal than it should be. He doesn’t know how to shake off their concern, and his careful nonchalance is starting to wear thin.

“I know, Yelena, I get it,” he says. “But I promise I’m fine. Ease up, yeah? You’re going to stress yourself into another week of bed-rest.”

At that, it’s her turn to roll her eyes. “Don’t go there.”

“Where’s your mother hen, anyway? Does he know you’re up and about? Did you actually do a runner like I said you would?”

“I can tell you're deflecting the conversation, Walker, you’re not -”

“Walker!”

John turns to see Alexei striding towards him, a bright grin on his face.

“Bucky said you had returned! Excellent! You look good!” He reaches them before John can reply, pats him hard on the back twice, then a third time. John barely staggers, but his leg gives a murmur of complaint regardless.

Yelena splutters. “Alexei, he just got out of hospital!” She takes a half-step closer to John, arm out as if she might try to steady him. He waves her away.

“It’s fine, Yelena.”

“He’s okay, see?” Alexei nods, still smiling. “He is good. He is strong. Pulled through like I told you he would.” The hand on John's back comes up to clasp his shoulder briefly. “It's good to have you back. We're glad you are home.”

John blinks, a little taken aback. “Right,” he says, slightly stilted. “Uh, thanks, Alexei.” He hears Ava stifle a laugh into her coffee, and it annoys him enough to pull himself together. “Now, which of you assholes has my phone?”

“Oh, yes! I found it in the jet, brought it back here for safekeeping.” Alexei pauses, his brow furrowing. “Where did I put it, again?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It's here somewhere! I must have - ”

“I, um, I put it in your room.”

Bob lingers in the kitchen doorway - John hadn’t even noticed he’d snuck in. He’s in that faded yellow sweater he likes, his hair a little mussed on one side.

“It was on the floor in the living room, I didn’t want it to get lost.” He wrings his hands together. “I hope you don’t mind.”

John’s tone softens a smidge. “Yeah, whatever, It’s all good. Hi, Bob.”

Bob smiles at him, and the warmth takes John by surprise. “Hey, Walker. How's your leg?”

“Still attached,” he says, shrugging. “Cut's basically healed at this point. Couple more days of pain meds and we're good to go.” His doctor actually prescribed a full two weeks worth of tablets, but John highly doubts he's going to need them for that long.

Ava snorts. “Bit more than a simple cut, wasn't it, Walker?”

“Don't start.”

“You look better,” Bob chimes in before Ava can make a retort. “I mean, I know I didn't - obviously I wasn't there, but, uh, you know. It was a rough few days. I'm glad you're okay.”

“We all are,” Yelena says quietly, her hand on his arm.

Jesus Christ. John really needs everyone to stop being so fucking sincere.

He forces a scoff. “God, is this what it takes to get a little respect around here? I cook twice as much as anyone else on that damn roster, and I get nothing. But one stint in hospital and suddenly everyone’s all nice.” The word nice is almost a sneer - he can’t get it out otherwise.

“It’s almost as if you scared the shit out of everybody.” Ava shifts to lean her hip against the kitchen counter.

“So I gathered. But it’s sorted now, isn’t it? I’m fine.”

Bob’s smile turns sad. “Yeah,” he says, and he sounds oddly hesitant. “You said that.”

John doesn’t know how to reply to that, so he doesn’t. “Right. If we’re all done being weird, I need to check how many messages came through while I was losing my mind with boredom in Dallas.”

“Oh, please,” Ava mutters, “It wasn’t even a week.”

“When you’re stuck counting the loose threads on your blanket for entertainment, then you can talk.” With that, he pulls away from them, sidestepping Bob at the door and exiting the kitchen.

“He does do a great deal of cooking,” he hears Alexei ponder as he heads for the main corridor. “We should redistribute his slots until he is mended!”

John sighs to himself, turns onto the hall. His room is the second on the left. He’d never admit it, but he’s grateful he doesn’t have to trek any further down. It's been a long day, and every so often his leg likes to remind him that it hates his guts. His phone sits on the edge of his bed when he enters, and he sees it’s been plugged into his charger by the wall. John’s lip twitches up before he can stop it. Alright, fuck. He should thank Bob for that at some point. He picks it up, presses his thumb to the home button.

There’s a text from Olivia, along with two unanswered calls.

John feels his stomach clench. He swipes open the message, something sharp and staticky prickling in his chest.

Olivia, sent 5 days ago, 11:29am:

Hey, John. Saw the article this morning. You don’t have to call me back, but maybe just let me know how you’re doing when you get this, or whenever you can. I hope you’re okay.

He swallows, breath tight in his throat. He crosses to his phone’s search bar, fingers fumbling through his name on the news tag. There’s a whole page of articles now. He can’t tell which one she would’ve read, but they all spell out the same thing. 

John Walker rushed to hospital following covert operation gone wrong

Former Captain America hospitalised, condition unknown

Source reveals New Avenger John Walker yet to be released from hospital

Guilt hits him like a sucker punch. He’d been stuck in that hospital room for days, and he hadn’t thought of her once. How was that possible? How had he not even remembered to ask if she’d been told?

Fucking hell, she found out from a tabloid.

“Knock, knock.” 

Ava’s voice comes out of nowhere, and John is yanked back to the present.

“Do us a favour, would you?” She’s behind him, she must have stopped in his doorway. “Alexei wants us to make a big group dinner tomorrow, since it’s supposed to be your night to cook. Yelena reckons we should just get take out. You’ve been given the deciding vote. For my sake, please choose take out.”

He turns to look at her, sees the smirk drop as she takes in his expression.

“Did anyone contact Olivia?”

Ava’s eyes widen. John faces her fully, taking a step towards the door.

“She tried to call me twice.” The words are brittle on his tongue. “Her text says she ‘saw the article’. Didn’t anybody tell her what happened?”

Ava makes a noise of disgust. “Bloody reporters. They don’t waste a second, do they?” She glances over her shoulder, backing up from his door to address someone in the hall. “Olivia texted. Did we tell her about Walker?”

There’s a pause before Bucky comes up alongside her. John can sense his unease.

“We didn’t,” he says carefully, “But I think Mel reached out to her a few days in, when we had more information on your condition.”

John’s hand tightens around the phone. A few days. Days of nothing but clickbait and speculation, and then a bare minimum update from some random PA named Mel.

“That’s just great.” His voice comes flat and hard. “So she got a bunch of condescending corpo-speak after days of radio silence. Fantastic.”

Bucky’s frown deepens. He shakes his head slightly. “Mel isn’t like that, she would’ve - ”

“Whatever,” John cuts over the top of him, scowling. “Next time, someone check my fucking phone.” He grabs the door, swings it shut in their faces.

“Oi!” Ava calls out. “Walker, come on.”

Bucky's voice stops her. “Don’t, just leave it.”

A frustrated sigh, before John hears them shuffle away from the door. The cold burst of anger dulls. He scrubs a hand over his face, drags it back through his hair roughly. The phone feels heavier than before. 

He crosses to the bed, sits and stares at Olivia’s contact icon on his phone screen. He needs to apologise. Needs to give her a better explanation. It’s already taken him too long, he knows that, but he also knows it’s going to be just so horribly awkward. He’s not even sure how to go about it. She said he didn’t have to call, does that mean she doesn’t want him to? They don’t really talk anymore unless it’s about their son, and that’s usually through gritted teeth even on a good day. He doesn’t want to overstep.

God, he’d really like to hear her voice right now, though.

It’s stupid and inappropriate, and given how things are between them it’s also unfair to Olivia. But he’s been on edge for days, stuck in that fucking hospital, tense and in pain and constantly fending off everyone’s concern. It's getting harder to pretend he’s not exhausted by it all. He doesn't like to acknowledge the mask, but he can feel it threatening to crack. He never used to need a mask with her. Back in the early years, when he was just a regular army grunt doing his best to stave off burnout, there were times when simply being in her presence was a relief. 

Those days are very much over, but he can’t pretend they didn't exist.

He hits the call button before he can properly think it through. Shit. Okay. He raises the phone to his ear, ignoring the rush of nerves that crashes over him.

The first ring cuts out in the middle, like the other person’s phone is off, or maybe the line is busy. 

“Hi, you’ve reached Olivia - ”

Fuck.

“- answer the phone right now, but please - ”

He goes to stop the call, panics over the disconnect button - he’s already called her, she’s going to see that, should he just text her now instead? Is that weird? Why didn’t he just text in the first place, what is he even - before he hears the quiet beep that signals the voicemail is recording. He's taken too long. With a sharp breath, he pulls the phone back up.

“Hey, Liv.” 

He stutters, winces. Fucking force of habit. 

“Shit, sorry. It’s, uh, it’s just me. I’m so sorry this took so long, I only got back to New York today, didn’t have my phone. I’m just - ” he swallows, clears his throat. “I’m just calling to let you know - I’m not sure what the others told you, but I’m okay. Obviously voicemail’s not the best place to go into it, but, um. Yeah. Leg took a bad hit. It’s almost fully healed now, though, so I’m fine.”

He hesitates for half a second, but makes himself continue.

“Sorry you found out the way you did. That - that was shitty. And thanks for reaching out. If there’s anything you need - or, not need, but like, if there’s anything I can tell you, you have my number. But no pressure. Obviously. I just, you know.” He presses a hand to his eyes, grimacing. For fuck’s sake, stop talking. “Yeah. Okay, I shouldn’t have called. Sorry. Thanks again.” He shakes his head, shutting off the voicemail. He resists the urge to throw the phone across the room.

A weight settles low and heavy in his chest. Even now, he's still making her worry. Still making things harder for her.

For everyone, really.

The shadow of a thought, a barely-there graze. If he'd just stayed down...

He lets it dissipate, doesn't chase it. Whiny, pointless moping, that's all it is. There's more important shit to deal with.

***

Despite John’s best efforts, he can’t even manage to avoid Bucky for a full twenty-four hours. 

He doesn't hear back from Olivia. Doesn't know if he really expected to, but the guilt presses down on him all the same. He spends that first night and much of the next morning hiding out in his room, only surfacing for food and meds. He pushes back his dose a bit to get around the breakfast rush. It's a choice his leg doesn’t exactly thank him for, but it does work. Apart from a quiet offer of hot chocolate from Bob - doctor’s orders, no coffee until he’s off the medication - he gets through to midday without much notice or fuss.

Until he goes to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen, and makes the mistake of not scurrying back to his room with it immediately.

“Walker.”

John barely holds back a sigh. He sips his drink, not looking up. “Barnes.”

“Conference room. Now.”

“But my performance review isn’t for another month.”

Bucky’s tone flattens. “Now.” John glances over in time to see him duck back out of the kitchen without another word. 

He rolls his eyes. Great. Looks like they're making good on Bucky’s threat of a chat. He downs his water in one gulp and pulls himself up from the counter, making his way from the kitchen as slowly as possible. Bucky’s already waiting by the elevator.

John sidles up beside him, ignores the twist of dread in his gut. “This is stupid.”

“Sorry you feel that way.”

“We really doing this in the conference room? What, did you double-book me with the annual investors meeting?”

The doors slide open. Bucky steps inside, punches in the floor number. “If you’d rather we just do this out in the living room, that’s also an option.”

“So my choices are stuffy board room or the Sofa From Hell.” John slouches against the back wall of the elevator. “Wonderful.”

By the time they reach the conference room, the dread has coiled into a knot in John’s stomach. He clenches and unclenches his fists, pushing back a wave of nervous energy. The lights flick on automatically as they enter, and he makes a beeline for one of the wheelie chairs, flopping into it with a groan.

“Alright,” he says, drifting lazily across the floor. “Lets make this quick, before we accidentally summon Valentina and this really does become a performance review.”

Bucky watches him, jaw working. He crosses the room stiffly, rests his hip against the edge of the glossy wooden table and settles there. He looks just as out of his depth as John, like he’s not actually sure where they go from here. Like maybe he’s regretting the room choice.

“So,” he says eventually, “why’d you lie about your leg?”

John feels his shoulders tense. Straight to the fucking point, apparently. “I didn’t lie.”

“You said you were fine.”

“I thought I was!”

“You knew you’d taken a hit, knew it was getting worse, and you kept it to yourself.” Bucky’s head tilts slightly. “That’s stupidly reckless. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

John glowers at him. “I know you weren’t present for our heartwarming team reunion yesterday, but like I told Yelena, Ava already gave me this lecture.”

“Ava didn’t want to push you, because at the time you looked like too big of an argument might put you back under. Clearly she should have pushed harder, because the message still hasn’t sunk in.”

“You want me to do a presentation on it?” John sneers, “Write it out thirty times on a blackboard like we’re in grade school?”

Bucky keeps talking like John hasn’t spoken. “When I told you what happened, you didn’t even seem to grasp that there was a problem with what you did. You were just glad it was you and not someone else. You only started going along with what we said so we’d stop pressing you about it.”

“What do you want me to say? I made a mistake. Is that what you want to hear?”

“I just want to know why you thought keeping a serious injury like that hidden was a good plan.”

John throws an arm out in frustration. “I didn’t know it was that bad! I thought it was a scratch, for Christ’s sake!”

Bucky shakes his head, dismissive. It prickles under John's skin.

“You were down to a walk when we got to Torres,” Bucky says flatly. “Didn't say anything then. You nearly fell over when we lifted him. I asked if you were good, you said you were.”

John scowls, grips his chair a fraction too tight. “Torres crashed into a building.”

Bucky’s brow furrows. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“He was out cold. You had to splint his leg.”

“Okay? And?”

“And that took priority!” John snaps, rising to his feet. He’s starting to get real tired of looking up at Barnes. “Getting him and Yelena to safety had to come first. My shit could wait.”

Something in Bucky’s expression shifts. His focus seems to sharpen, eyes still fixed on John. All he’s done for days is stare. John’s fucking sick of it.

A humourless smile twists his mouth. “Solved the mystery, did we? Walker did his actual job, who would have thought?”

Bucky pulls away from the table. “Your job isn’t to push through until you drop, John.” 

God, John almost laughs in his face.

Isn’t it? he thinks, a little hysterically, Are you sure?

“The whole point of a team is to lean on each other,” Bucky continues, like he can’t believe he has to explain this, “So that nobody has to push until they drop. Because you know you can trust the people around you to have your back.”

John scoffs. There's a tight pressure building in his chest. “I’m guessing you and Ava brainstormed this little speech together, huh? Think I liked her version better. Less cheesy sports movie vibes, you know?”

Bucky’s eyes flash with annoyance. “How do you still not get it?”

“What is there to get?”

“Do you not realise how insanely lucky you were?”

“Right, of course. I’m so lucky, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. You are. You shouldn’t have made it to the hospital.”

No. I shouldn’t have.

Bucky takes a step towards him. “We’re a team, Walker. That goes both ways. If you’re hurt, we need to know. Because if you keep leaving us out of the loop, one day you’re going to take a hit and you’re not going to get back up.”

The pressure buckles, cracks.

“Then I don’t get back up,” John bursts out. “So what?”

Bucky blinks at him, confusion not quite replacing anger. “What do you mean, ‘so what?’”

“I mean, what does it even matter, Bucky? If I get the job done, who fucking cares if I get back up?”

That pulls Bucky up short. “John - ”

“Oh, go ahead, Barnes,” John snarls, “Lecture me on self-preservation. Tell me my life means something, lets see how long we can both keep a straight face.”

“John - ”

“No, see, this is the deal, alright?” The words burn in his throat. He's vaguely aware his hands are shaking. “This is my job. It's what I signed up for, and it’s the one damn thing I’m good at. If I go down in the process, so what?”

Bucky’s right in front of him now. There’s an edge to his posture, something sharp behind his eyes. “So what about everyone else, huh?”

“If I don't fuck up then everyone else is fine!”

“Right, we lose you and that’s fine, is it?” Bucky's voice comes harsh. “We just shrug it off and move on?”

John falters, freezes in place. 

All at once the force of his emotion stutters, because his mind is screaming yes, obviously, but some desperate scrap of sanity knows he absolutely cannot say that out loud. It’s only a moment’s hesitation, but it’s just long enough for him to realise what the fuck he’s been saying. 

Panic, cold and cloying, starts to crawl up to the surface.

The silence stretches. Bucky is staring at him. For a second, it’s like he too is frozen.

Then, to John’s horror, his gaze begins to soften. He shifts his weight, like he’s going to reach out. “John.”

John looks away, eyes on the woodgrain of the table. His nails dig hard into his palms. Fuck no, they’re not doing this. He shoves the panic down, way down, until all that’s left of it is the cold.

“We’re done here,” he grits out, starts for the exit. “Good talk, Buck.”

“John, wait.” Bucky’s words are rushed, almost frantic. He’s between John and the door, and he snags him by the wrist as he tries to escape. John flinches, shakes him off. Bucky quickly lifts his hands in a placating gesture.

“Look, you don’t - I'm not - ” he stops, seeming to struggle for the words. John makes to leave again but Bucky blocks his path.

“Fuck off, Barnes.”

“Just listen to me for a second.” Bucky takes a breath, schools his expression. John wonders, perhaps a little cruelly, if he’s trying to channel Christina Raynor. “This conversation spiraled a little. I get that, and I’m sorry. Maybe now isn't the best time, but I really think we need to take a minute, talk about this properly.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Clearly there is, because what you said just now, that’s - that’s not - ”

Not healthy. Not normal.

Not good enough.

The panic is clawing its way back up. “Oh, spare me, would you?” he snaps, and his voice cracks traitorously. He can feel his chest squeezing, his throat going tight. I need to get out of here. This time, when Bucky moves to stop him he just pushes straight through.

“John - ”

“Drop it, Barnes.” 

He storms from the room before he can make any more of a fool of himself.

Chapter 5: It's a Long Way Down

John can't remember the journey up to the roof. He’d all but sprinted for the elevator, he knows that much. But the steps are a blur, hazy with barely-contained panic. He doesn't remember stepping inside the lift. Doesn't remember punching any buttons, or pressing back against the wall, or waiting for the doors to release him.

He remembers Bucky staring at him.

After everything they've been through - every barbed exchange, every fist thrown, Bucky’s front row seat to the worst day of John’s entire life - the one thing he didn’t think he’d ever get from Barnes was pity.

He’s pulled himself up to sit on the wrong side of the railing, legs dangling over the rooftop’s edge. The sky is smothered with thick, dark clouds, heavy with the threat of rain. It's supposed to storm tonight. John looks out across the city, fingers curled at his sides. He forces himself to breathe, in for four, hold for four, out for four. In for four, hold for four -

- what you said just now, that's - that's not - 

His counting wobbles slightly. The air feels thick, like he’s still in the conference room.

In for four, hold - hold for four…

His gaze dips, and he leans forward just enough to look down over the drop.

There’s a sound behind him, someone else stepping out onto the roof. John tenses immediately. Great, Bucky’s fucking followed him. He turns his head just far enough to glance over his shoulder, venom rising hot on his tongue.

It’s not Bucky. It’s Bob.

John blinks, swallows back the burst of anger as Bob halts his approach. He’s dressed the same as he was this morning - sweatshirt and flannel pants, like he never changed out of his pyjamas. Their eyes meet, and John sees the split-second evaluation cross Bob’s face before he shoots John a smile.

“Hey, man.” The tone is surprisingly light. “Getting kind of cold out here, huh?” 

Is it? John can barely tell. He still feels stuck about ten floors down. 

Bob joins him at the railing, though he doesn’t attempt to climb over. He leans his arms on the barrier to John’s left and tilts his head. “You sure you don’t want a jacket or something?”

John frowns up at him, keeps his own words carefully flat. “I take it Bucky sent you, since I’m less likely to throw you over the railing.”

“Oh.” Bob’s eyebrows twitch up. “Ah, no, actually. That’s nice to hear, though.”

John huffs, turning his gaze back to the city.

“But no, uh, Bucky didn’t send me. Sorry. I just noticed someone had taken the elevator up to the roof. It's kind of nice up here, when the weather's not so grim. It's not a bad place to clear your head.” 

John can’t tell if that’s pointed or not. From anyone else it would be, but from Bob it just sounds like an observation. A simple acknowledgement of his own experience, with no expectation of anything in return. Still, the quiet that follows feels like a trap. There's no response that doesn't give too much away, so John keeps his mouth shut, and they fall into the kind of silence that makes him want to sink into the floor. Bob doesn't seem to notice the awkwardness, or at least he feels no need to address it, which only serves to make everything that much worse.

In for four, hold for four...

He just needs Bob to leave so he can pull himself together. So he can stare off the edge of the tower until the knot in his chest loosens, and then he can go back inside and somehow get to his room without having to talk to anyone. Without having to talk to Bucky.

“I was thinking,” Bob says eventually, and John finds himself torn between annoyance and overwhelming gratitude. “It might be cool to start a rooftop garden up here. Wouldn’t have to be anything flash. Just, like, a few flowers. Some herbs for cooking, maybe. I know that’s not really what the space is meant for, but hey. Could be a fun project. Brighten up the place a bit.”

John doesn’t reply, but that doesn’t deter Bob in the slightest.

“When I first tried to move out of home, my roommate kept all these ferns on our tiny balcony. It was the nicest spot in the whole apartment. In our whole block of apartments, even.” His voice turns a touch sheepish. “I accidentally knocked one over the side once, she didn’t speak to me for three days.”

“Not that this isn’t riveting stuff, Bob,” John cuts in, reverting back to a sneer and hating himself for it, “But I came out here to be alone.”

There’s a pause, and John flicks a look back up at Bob. He expects disappointment, maybe even hurt, given the tone. After everything they saw in the Void, a crestfallen Bob never fails to make John feel like a prick. No point trying to dodge that feeling now. But Bob’s expression is clear, unfazed. Like he was waiting for John to turn around.

“Yeah,” he says, and his lip tugs up at the corner, almost apologetic. “I sort of figured. Thing is, I don’t really think you should be on your own right now.”

John goes rigid. He stares at Bob, his chest tight. Bob just holds his gaze calmly.

Shame quickly overtakes panic, bubbling up under his skin.

“Good thing I don't care what you think,” he snaps, but the words come cracked and hollow. It’s humiliating. He wants to scream at himself. He wants to scream at Bob. No. No, he doesn’t want that, he doesn’t - it’s not Bob’s fault. He just - he doesn’t know what he wants.

He doesn’t want to be seen like this.

Bob’s sad little half-smile drops, his brow creasing slightly. It’s not shock, or even pity, but rather something softer than that. Something like recognition. He looks out across the skyline then, and John feels a wave of relief at no longer having to meet his eyes. 

“You know,” Bob says, careful, but without hesitation, “A few years back, before I headed to Malaysia, I was staying in this over-packed hostel outside of Pittsburgh. It got so loud sometimes you couldn’t hear yourself think, so I’d go on these long walks around the neighbourhood. There were these crazy big trucks traveling in and out of the city at all hours. Like, bulk transport or something. They’d be hurtling down the road at top speed, wouldn’t slow down for anything.” He lets out a breath, halfway to a laugh. “It was a little scary, honestly.”

John stays silent. He can’t bring himself to interrupt.

“I wasn’t in a good place. I mean, you already know that, obviously, but back then it was even worse. I don't remember all of it, but what I do remember..." He swallows, shifts on his feet slightly. "I was so lost. I had no idea what I was doing with my life, it felt like I’d wasted every opportunity I’d ever had, every chance at something better. Everything took so much energy, all the time. I didn't know what to do, how to fix it.”

His focus drifts, down to the streets below them. “And I’d look at these trucks, right?”

Dread coils in John’s chest, sharp and suffocating.

“I never planned on doing anything,” Bob says quietly. “I wasn’t going to jump in front of one, or anything like that. But I’d wonder, sometimes, if there was an accident… if one of them ever swerved to hit me…” He gives a loose one-shoulder shrug. “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

Cold, pinprick eyes. A shadow stretched too far. Bob's arm shaking in his grip, frame wracked with sobs.

John can’t hold back his flinch. 

Bob threads his hands together over the railing. That strange half-smile flickers back into place. “Always told myself it was no big deal. I wasn’t going to do anything, wasn’t sure I even wanted to do anything, so the thoughts didn’t count. But looking back…” he sighs, shakes his head. “I don’t know, man, it wasn’t good. It really wasn’t good.”

“I’m sorry,” John's voice is barely more than a whisper, snagged and stolen by the wind.

Bob glances over at him. For a moment, the smile fills out. 

“I’m doing much better now," he says. "I, uh, I’ve come a long way, I think. And I have you guys, so, you know. Things are better. Thanks, though."

There’s a sudden beat of stillness, too careful, too close. 

Bob's smile wavers. “I don’t really talk about that time of my life much. Like, how bad it got. Yelena knows a little, but, um. That’s kind of it, I guess." He seems to hesitate, just for a moment. "It’s a bit awkward to bring up. You can’t be certain the other person’s going to get it.”

The article blurs before his eyes. His son is crying. Olivia barely looks at him anymore.

His boots brush the edge of the elevator shaft.

“I get it.” The words feel like they might choke him, breath stuck high in his throat. He screws his eyes shut. “I get it.”

The quiet stretches. A siren rings out somewhere in the city. Another starts up soon after, echoes chasing each other through the streets. John grips the ledge with trembling fingers. When he opens his eyes, Bob’s somehow shifted closer, hovering right at his shoulder. There’s a steadiness to his gaze - that sense of recognition, clearer than it was before.

“It’s a hard thing to admit,” he says. His voice is soft, and far too kind. “Really hard. Even just to yourself.”

This time, John just manages to stifle the flinch. Panic trickles back in. What are you doing shut up shut up you’re fine you’re a fucking soldier for Christ’s sake -

“Bob,” he gets out, “I can’t talk about this.”

It’s an absolute cop out after everything Bob’s shared with him, but Bob just nods. 

“Okay,” he says gently. “You don’t have to. We can just sit.” He glances back behind them. “Though maybe we could sit inside somewhere? I’m down to jump the railing, but I think I just felt a raindrop on my neck, and I’m not all that keen on us climbing back over in the middle of a storm.”

John tenses. It isn’t fair to make Bob stay out in the rain, and there’s no chance of convincing him to leave John on his own now. But if they run into Bucky…

Bob reads his hesitation. “We can hide out in my room if you want. Or we could call dibs on the movie room, chuck something low-stakes on the TV. I’ve actually been getting really into The Great British Bake Off.”

John huffs, a shallow sort of laugh that takes him by surprise. Of course Bob’s getting into fucking Bake Off.

Bob flashes him a smile, warm at the edges. “I could even make us hot chocolate,” he adds on, and if John didn’t know any better he’d think the tone was almost sly.

“Didn’t you have one this morning?” he asks. His voice still feels wrong, but at least the words come a little easier.

Bob straightens up. “Yeah, but that was hours ago.”

“You’re going to crash at like nine pm.”

“Then I can just have another hot chocolate.”

Despite everything, John’s lip twitches. He carefully pulls himself to his feet, hand tight on the railing in case his shaking legs decide to betray him.

Bob inhales sharply. “Oh, do you - ”

“I’m good.”

“No, okay, you’re good, that’s - good. I’m here anyway, if you - I’m just here.”

It’s admittedly a harder job climbing back off the ledge. Bob was right, doing this in the rain would’ve been a stupidly bad call. The scar on John’s thigh tugs sharply as he clambers over the barrier, a quick twist of pain he grits his teeth through and ignores. He gets his boots planted back on the right side, and looks up to see Bob with his arms out wide like a safety net, expression taut with worry. It relaxes a little once John’s moved away from the railing.

“Okay,” Bob says, more to himself than John. He runs a hand through his hair. “Good. We’re good.” 

John rubs at his neck, tries to stretch out his bad leg without making it obvious. His whole body feels stiff, muscles held too tight for too long. A drop of rain hits the back of his hand. The wind is starting to pick up now - no doubts about that storm tonight. John glances at Bob, waits to follow his lead back towards the main lift.

Only, Bob doesn’t head for the lift. He rocks back on his heels, and John can see him wavering on something, hands knotted together like he’s suddenly nervous.

“Um, can I - ” Bob frowns, his brow pinched. “Sorry, you can shove me off if I’m overstepping, I just - ” He stutters, cuts himself off with a sigh.

Then, he takes two careful steps forward and wraps his arms around John’s shoulders.

John sucks in a breath, arms frozen at his sides. It’s barely three seconds of contact. Bob’s hold on him is deliberately loose, like he’s expecting to be pushed away. John feels himself tensing up again - or is he shaking? Jesus, what is wrong with him? - and for half a beat he feels the arms around him tighten before Bob pulls back in a hurry.

“Sorry,” he says, wincing like he’s scared John’s going to bolt. “I should have asked properly first, I’m really sorry.”

John swallows, shakes his head. There’s something hard and jagged lodged high in his chest, something he’s terrified might be a sob. He forces it down. He’s not fucking crying today, fuck that.

“It’s fine,” he chokes out, and if he can’t quite meet Bob’s eyes, so fucking what at this point? “Let’s just go back inside before we get soaked.”

Bob nods, a little too quickly. “Yeah. Oh, yeah, it’s fully raining now, isn’t it? Shit, man, you should really have a jacket on out here.”

“Bob.”

“Right, yep, sorry. We're going, let's go.”

***

He doesn’t mean to drift off. He really doesn’t, but the movie room is warm and dark, lit solely by whichever Bake Off rerun Bob’s got up on the TV. There’s at least twelve more pillows in here than John remembers, and the sofa - the good sofa, the one actually designed to accommodate human spines - holds about five of them. John doesn’t know when Bob decided the coziness of the room was his responsibility, but it’s fair to say he’s outdone himself.

Bob makes them both hot chocolates as promised, rushing off to the kitchen while John stays perched among the pillows and waits. He watches the door, hands clenched tight in his lap, but Bob returns in record time, that smug little smile John’s only seen a handful of times coming through as he places two obscenely overfull mugs on the coffee table.

“Found the whipped cream,” he says simply, as if John couldn’t tell.

They scroll through to Bob’s current season of Bake Off, and John sits back and sips his drink, and it’s - nice. And weird, and really, really awkward. But nice. Bob doesn’t push, doesn’t try to bring up what happened on the roof. He just sits quietly to John’s left, occasionally comments on a cake batter or a contestant’s brightly-coloured shirt. He doesn't expect a smart reply, and for once John doesn't feel the need to find one. It's a bigger relief than he dares to admit.  After a while, he can feel the sharp knot of tension he’s been holding for what feels like hours finally start to loosen.

He doesn’t know when he drops out. At some point the episode challenges start to blur together, and then he can barely keep his eyes open. Eventually he stops trying, falling into something close to a doze, half-drunk hot chocolate forgotten on the armrest. His awareness fades in and out, fragments of sound and sensation pushing through the haze, but he’s too exhausted to latch onto any of them.

A gentle tug, something pulled from his grip.

“…lovely rise on that, you’ve really…”

The rustle of fabric, a weight across his legs, then his shoulders.

“Did something happen…”

“…if he’s up to it, yeah.”

It’s his leg that rouses him fully, the dull throb just bad enough to drag him back to consciousness. He blinks slowly, deliberately. It’s still dark in the movie room. He’s wound up on his side, and somebody’s pulled one of the blankets over him. It starts to slip as he tries to move his leg. The TV is still playing Bake Off, but the sound has been turned down several notches, more of a quiet hum in the background.

John watches the screen without truly comprehending anything. The absolute embarrassment of today lingers at the back of his mind, kept at bay only by his residual grogginess and the warmth of the room. He resists the urge to prod at the memory. Tries very hard not to think at all, just for five more minutes. Five minutes of nothing, before he has to sit up and deal with reality again.

There’s a soft knock from the doorway behind him, followed by a careful shifting sound, someone getting up from the mess of pillows.

“Hey, Bucky.” Bob’s hushed voice, moving towards the door. “Now’s not the best time.”

Bucky’s here?

“Yeah, I, uh, I know.” 

Fuck me, Bucky’s here. 

John stares blankly at the coffee table. All the tension he’d lost immediately starts to crawl back in. He curls up on his side tighter than before, grips the corner of the blanket before it falls. He wants to hide his face in the pillows like a child. He wants to go back to sleep.

Bucky clears his throat. “Look, I just - ”

“I think he really needs the rest.” Bob’s words are still kind, but there’s an edge to them, a quiet sort of adamance John’s never heard from him before. He can’t even think of another time Bob cut someone off on purpose like that.

A pause. Bucky sighs.

“He was supposed to take his pain meds at three. I figured he hasn’t.”

John wants to be annoyed, or even just mildly surprised that Barnes knows his medication schedule. But who is he kidding? Bucky’s been watching him like a fucking hawk since the hospital. Chances are he knows John’s doctor’s instructions better than John does.

“Oh, shit.” He can hear the guilt creep into Bob’s voice. “I didn’t realise.”

“The serum likes to throw a wrench in that side of things anyway. A lot of the typical drug advice tends to go out the window.” A shorter pause, the slightest hesitation. “I just don’t trust him not to skip a dose entirely, try to push through without it.”

John grits his teeth. The hot flash of indignance would admittedly feel more justified if his thigh wasn’t currently aching.

“Does he need to take them with food?” Bob asks. “I know Yelena wants to order dinner before the storm hits. His choice, if he’s feeling up to it. Can it wait until then?”

“If his leg isn’t bothering him, I’d say it should be fine. Just make sure he actually takes it.”

“Of course, yeah.”

The silence holds longer this time, long enough that John starts to think Bucky must have left, but then -

“How is he?”

Fucking hell.

After a long moment, Bob answers.

“Tired,” he says, tone careful. 

“Was he…”

“He’s not doing great, Bucky,” Bob says gently, “Let’s just say that. It’s not my place to go into it, and hounding him for answers right now isn’t going to help.”

“I know, I just - I know.” Bucky falters on the words. Another, heavier sigh. “Can you stick close for a while, keep an eye on him? Don’t think he’d appreciate me doing it.” There’s a weariness to his voice, and a softer note John doesn’t want to put a name to. 

He scowls down at his pillow, his hand still tight around the blanket. He doesn’t need a minder, thanks all the same. He needs none of this to ever be spoken about ever again.

Bob’s reply is solemn, but warm. “Yeah, man. You don’t have to ask.”

John doesn’t pick up any reply. Bucky must actually leave then, because eventually there’s the sound of movement near the far side of the sofa, the adjustment and readjustment of too many pillows. John lifts his head to look. Bob’s settled on the carpet by his feet, tugging cushions and blankets into a haphazard sort of nest as quietly as he can.

He glances back towards John, tosses him an easy smile. “Sorry if we woke you.”

John shakes his head. “I was awake.” His voice comes rougher than he expects.

“I thought you might’ve been.” Bob murmurs. “You went very still at the knock.”

John rolls onto his back gingerly. He pulls himself up to lean against the arm of the sofa, blanket slipping to his waist. He gets a hard twinge of pain for his trouble.

“Thank you,” he says, words tight in his throat. “For getting rid of Bucky.”

 For not making me speak to him.

“I mean, I wasn’t lying,” Bob says with a shrug. “I do think you need the rest. How’s your leg?”

Another twinge, duller this time. “It’s fine.”

“Okay.” Bob’s expression turns hesitant. “If, uh, if you're - ”

“It’s fine, Bob,” he mutters, because it is fine. Bucky doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Bob nods hurriedly. “Yeah, no, all good! Just let me know if that changes.” He grabs his phone from the sofa behind him, skims over the screen. “It’s still a little early, but Yelena should be in here before too long to pester you about dinner. You up for take out?”

“I guess. Who’s going to get it? Or are we relying on some poor sodden delivery driver?”

“Alexei volunteered, although I think he’s still sort of rooting for a group cooking night.”

“Yeah, I’m not doing that shit.”

A quiet laugh. “That’s fair.”

John sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. The vaguely pleasant fog of sleep has very much dissipated at this point. Reality is already closing back in again. What, did you think you could just curl up and pretend it never happened? Nice try. He shifts to sit a little straighter, and his eyes fall back on Bob, still perched among the blankets by the coffee table.

“Why are you on the floor?”

“Oh.” Bob glances down at his pillow-nest. “I didn’t want to disturb you, in case you weren’t actually awake yet.”

He says it so casually, like it’s barely worth mentioning, and yet for some fucking reason John has to shove down a wave of emotion. Jesus Christ. Sometimes Bob is just too damn nice.

Or maybe John's just fucking losing it.

He pretends to roll his eyes, tucking his legs up to make room. “Come on,” he says gruffly, “that’s got to be so bad for your back it’s not even funny.”

Bob blinks at him for a second. Then, his smile brightens.

“It’s actually pretty comfy,” he replies, though he still climbs to his feet, a too-big pillow clutched to his chest. He flops down beside John on the sofa, and John tosses the opposite edge of his blanket towards him.

Bob grabs the corner and pulls it closer, tugging it over his knees. “More Bake Off, yes or no?” He starts dredging up the remote from between the cushions. 

No interrogation yet, then. John's relief is staggering.

He shrugs, like he's not clinging desperately to the scraps of his composure. “I don’t really remember where we’re up to. Did that guy’s strawberry tarts turn out?”

“Oh, yeah! He was Star Baker and everything. I can fill you in as we go.”

Chapter 6: Gladly Shoot the Messenger

“Yelena,” Bucky calls from the kitchen doorway, “Briefing room in ten.”

John keeps his eyes on the toast crumbs on his plate, ignoring the urge to immediately push up from the counter. It’s a fun little dance they've been doing all week, a classic game of chicken: How long can they stay in the same room before one of them makes a run for it? Bucky almost always caves first, something John might take a bit too much vindictive pride in.

He can admit that it's childish. In truth, it's been a long fucking week. They've barely spoken since the conference room, and that's somehow both a relief and a weight around his neck. He can feel all the work he'd put into improving things between him and Bucky unraveling by the minute. Of course, seeing as he'd rather go ten rounds with The Sentry than talk to Barnes about his feelings, knowing that it's all going to shit doesn't mean he's actually going to do anything about it.

He sits next to Bob at dinner. The kitchen is warm, crowded. The counter is strewn with slightly soggy pizza boxes - Alexei hadn't quite managed to beat the storm. Bob slides John a glass of water before he can attempt to dry-swallow his pills. His gaze is still kind, but it doesn't linger, shifting to Yelena as she hands out mismatched plates.

John can feel Bucky's eyes on him. He doesn't turn to look.

He gets a text from Olivia halfway through the meal, withdraws to the semi-privacy of the corridor to answer. She's been run off her feet, hasn't had the chance to reply, but she's grateful for the update. She doesn't offer to call, and he doesn't really expect her too. The fact that she even got back to him is enough. John rests his head against the wall, allows himself two whole minutes to collect himself before returning to the kitchen. Alexei's mid-spiel when he enters, some overly long story Yelena keeps derailing with her attempts to refute it. John ducks around a snickering Ava and settles back into his seat, his phone tucked away in his pocket.

He leans forward to grab his plate, and accidentally locks eyes with Bucky, still fucking watching him from across the counter. Bucky's jaw goes tight.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

There's a carefulness to it that makes John want to scream. “Yep,” he grits out, static prickling under his skin.

A quiet voice to his right snatches back his focus.

“Did you want more pepperoni?” Bob has a hand on his shoulder. “I can swipe you one, save you getting up again.”

John blinks, but quickly jerks a nod. “Thanks.”

Bob smiles, nods back. He rises from his chair, reaching for the boxes, and even though John knows he shouldn't he risks another glance over the counter. For once Bucky's turned his attention elsewhere, frowning at something Yelena's said.

John's not going to push his luck.

Yelena doesn't look up from her coffee. She's taken the seat to John's left, a worn-looking hoodie slipping from one shoulder. Her hair is still mussed from sleep.

“Good morning to you, too, Bucky,” she mutters over the rim of her mug. “In the future, could you perhaps schedule our meetings for after breakfast? Might be better for group morale, I don’t know.”

Bucky skirts around the other side of the counter. John lifts his gaze, watches him reach into one of the cupboards. He grabs a mug for himself and straightens up, avoids looking at John entirely.

“Not my schedule. You want to keep Valentina waiting, that’s fine by me.”

Disdain drips from Yelena's voice. “Val’s here?”

“Video call.”

“Oh, then I’m absolutely finishing this first. Or you could send a cardboard cutout in my place. Doubt she’d realise, since she can’t even be bothered to turn up in person.”

“She'd notice you weren't mouthing off enough.”

“I can record a few of my best lines if you want. She barely listens when we talk anyway.”

“Tell me we’re not talking about Valentina.” Ava shuffles into the kitchen, tying her hair in a lopsided bun as she goes. “She's not here, is she? Fuck me, it’s barely seven-thirty.”

“Video call,” Yelena and Bucky say at the same time.

“Ugh. Can we all just pretend her screen's frozen and ditch?”

“It's about our next job, so no.” Bucky pours himself a coffee, then goes to refill the machine for Ava. “Briefing room, ten minutes.”

John sips his own coffee - technically still off-limits, but he's already come off the medication so who even cares at this point - and takes a carefully controlled breath. He's not an idiot, whatever the others might think. He can tell he’s being spoken around. Can tell it’s deliberate. 

When he speaks, his voice comes flat. “Do we all get personal invitations, or just the ladies?”

Bucky tenses. John knows his answer before he even turns around. The mood in the kitchen drops, a low hum of apprehension in the air, and he can feel Yelena go still beside him. He lifts his chin anyway, makes Bucky meet his eyes. Makes him say the words right to his face.

“You’re not going. You’re staying behind with Bob.”

Knowing what’s coming does nothing to curb his frustration. “You’re benching me?” 

“If that’s how you want to look at it.”

“Why?”

There’s a flash of discomfort across Bucky’s features, but he masks it quickly. “You’re not ready to return to the field.”

John grits his teeth. He puts his mug down so he doesn’t risk cracking it in his grip. “That’s bullshit. Yelena’s going.”

“Yelena didn’t spend a week in hospital.”

“Yelena is sitting right here,” Yelena cuts in, and John can hear the slightest hint of nerves in her voice.

There’s a sigh from Ava by the sink. “Maybe you boys want to do this somewhere else? Somewhere that isn’t the communal kitchen?”

John draws himself up straighter in his chair. “I’ve been off the meds since Friday,” he says tightly, “I'm already working out again, my stamina's back to normal, I can run on the damn thing just fine. There’s barely even a scar left, what more do you want?”

“That's not the point. You’re on extended medical leave.”

“'Extended medical leave'?” He shakes his head, tone dipping into disbelief. “Did Mel come up with that for you?”

Yelena tries to interject. “Walker -”

“We're supposed to be The Avengers, for Christ's sake. What the fuck does that even mean?”

Bucky glares at him over the counter. “Means you’re staying put until further notice. Valentina signed off on it yesterday.”

John barks out a hard laugh. “Valentina tried to incinerate me, like, not even six months ago. She couldn’t care less about extended medical leave.”

“She cares about optics,” Bucky retorts. “Your injury didn't exactly go unnoticed by the press.”

“I’m a super soldier. I had every nurse in that hospital stopping by to tell me what a godsend the serum was. I don’t think the concept of accelerated healing is that hard to grasp.”

“And if you keel over again because we sent you back out too early?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

A split-second beat, before Bucky breaks eye contact. He leans across to pick up his coffee, gaze dipping to the countertop. “It’s still not a risk Valentina can afford to take.”

And that - fuck, that’s such a fucking joke.

“Come off it, Barnes,” he growls, rising to his feet. Bucky’s focus snaps back up, darting briefly to Yelena before returning to John.

“Hey.” Yelena's hand is on John’s arm. “Hey, come on, let’s just - ”

He shakes her off, doesn’t even spare her a glance. “Cut the crap already. This has nothing to do with Valentina.” Because it doesn’t. Bucky can throw her name around all he wants, but he can’t honestly expect John to just play along. They both know this was his decision, not Valentina’s.

And they both know why.

John’s mind jolts back to the conference room, to that rush of panic locking him in place. He sees the shock in Bucky’s eyes, sees it soften into concern. Into pity.  Obviously nothing's changed. It’s still there, at the edge of his expression. He thinks John is damaged, weak. A liability. Shame trickles back in, attempts to settle in his chest, but he shoves it down. The anger feels safer by far.

“This is your bullshit call,” He snarls, hands shaking at his sides. “What, you're not even going to own it? You'd rather pretend you're just the fucking messenger?”

Yelena huffs. “Walker.”

“You want to harp on and on about what happened in Dallas when I’m perfectly fine, and yet you’re really going to send the team out there a man down, just because you -”

“You’re not coming, Walker.” Bucky’s voice cuts across John's. The words are an order, hard and final. “It’s not up for discussion.”

John stiffens, his fists clenched tight. Bucky doesn't move. John can see the hard set of his shoulders, the tension in his jaw. 

He doesn’t trust me. He never has. Now he can’t even rely on me in the field.

I’ve made everything worse.

It’s Yelena who breaks the horrible stretch of silence. She’s pulled herself to her feet, hovering close to John like she thinks he might try to jump the counter.

“Look, this is all very dramatic,” she says carefully, hand on his arm again, “but lets not have an actual brawl in the kitchen. Bob just cleaned the bench tops.”

“Really, lads.” Ava rifles through the cutlery draw without looking up. “It’s too early for a punch-up. Move it to the living room, at least. Destroy the World's Worst Couch while you’re at it.”

John forces in a breath. There are words trapped in his throat, sharp and splintered. He can't say any of them. Fury burns in his chest, but he can feel it sinking, smothered by something far more jagged and cold. Barnes is still staring - of course he's still staring, that's all he fucking does - and eventually John has to look away. He pulls free from Yelena, stepping back before she can try to keep a hold of him.

“Whatever,” he somehow gets out, half-choked and hollow. He turns away, heading for the door, and to his relief nobody tries to stop him.

***

John prods at the burst punching bag with his foot, scowling. Even with three super soldiers in residence, the rate at which they’re going through gym equipment is fucking ridiculous. The discard pile is somehow even bigger than he remembers, spilling out from the corner of the room into their actual workout space. He’d hoped to try and salvage a couple, jerry-rig them into something he could go to town on for an hour or so, but he’s got absolutely nothing to work with.

He growls on an exhale, kicks at the bag half-heartedly. It flops to the side with a sad, deflated thud.

“Don’t think you’re going to get very far with that one.”

John tenses, but doesn’t turn around. “Can you tell your dad to stop destroying our equipment?”

Yelena comes up beside him, gives the bag a reluctant nudge of her own. “Thought you’d been going to a public gym.”

“Can’t exactly let loose there,” John says flatly. “Not unless I want to wreck their gear.” 

“Might be for the best. For another week or so, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mel said there’s been a few paparazzi staking out the tower.”

Fuck’s sake. That gym is one of the few places he still gets to feel like a normal person. He’s not going to risk leading the tabloid vultures right to it.

“Great,” he mutters, “That’s just great.”

Yelena lets out a hum. “I'm surprised they're still here, to be honest. You'd think they’d be bored of you by now.”

John says nothing. He grabs the broken bag by one of its fastening cords, drags it back towards the bulk of the pile. The material threatens to tear in his grip.

“We could try to fix one of the less exploded ones,” Yelena offers, as John drops the bag onto the heap. “We've got duct tape, surely.”

“Shouldn’t you be at the briefing?”

“Got an early mark.” Her voice turns sly. “I had a head injury, you know. I really shouldn’t spend too much time looking at screens.”

Something sour crawls up John’s throat. And yet you’re still on the team. She’s just trying to make a joke, and it’s not her he’s mad at, so for once he manages to keep the barb to himself. 

“The others still in there?” He asks instead.

She does her best to cover it, but John can see the hesitation in Yelena’s eyes before she answers. “Just Bucky.”

Yep. What a surprise.

He should ask Yelena about the job. Find out when and where they’re going, their potential targets, do whatever limited research he can on his own. Benched or not, he’s still a Thunderbolt, and he needs to know the basic specs in case something happens - in case something goes wrong. Right now, though, he feels too keyed up to even ask. If he can’t separate his anger from the work itself then there’s no point in looking for information.

Yelena's moved to lean against one of the weight benches. “You could try the training room on the west corridor,” she says. “Valentina sent a team over to fix it up while we were in Dallas, mend that fist-sized hole in the wall. I don’t think Alexei’s realised they’ve finished.”

John gives her a look. The west corridor means crossing by the briefing room. “Yeah. No thanks.”

“Or we could always spar.”

“You really don’t want to spar with me right now.”

“You don't have to pull your punches. I'm not seeing double anymore, you should be much easier to hit.” She’s really trying, John has to give her that, but they can both tell the laid-back tone is slipping. John’s not in the mood to humour her. He turns away, setting out for another busted bag at the edge of the sparring mat.

“Some other time.”

Yelena sighs, drops the pretence.  “Look, what happened at breakfast - ”

“Don’t.”

“I get it, alright? I know - ”

“Don’t, Yelena. We’re not doing this.”

“It sucks you’re off the team for this one,” she pushes on, ignoring his scoff. “And that shouldn't have been how you found out. I'm sorry.”

Annoyance swells in his chest. “Cool. Thanks for the sympathy. That's not at all condescending.”

“Oh, for - that's not what I meant, you dick. You’re right, we’re going in a man down and for this op that’s not going to be fun. I know I’d feel better if you were there to have our backs.” Her voice dips, becomes a mutter. “Though I guess that’s what started this mess in the first place.”

John stops, glancing back over his shoulder. “What?”

Yelena hesitates. A flicker of regret crosses her face. “If I’d stayed on my feet you wouldn’t have had to come rescue me. Maybe you wouldn’t have been hit.” Embarrassment colours her tone, and all of a sudden John’s back in the hospital room with Torres. Why are so many of them trying to claim his fuck-ups as their fault?

He turns to face her fully, frowning like she’s said something stupid, which she has. “Yelena, someone hit you with a crowbar.”

“I still -”

“Yelena, someone hit you with a crowbar.”

“And you wound up in hospital,” she snaps, and the force of it takes John by surprise. She’s more upset about this than he’d realised. He knew she’d been worried, and obviously she was as unimpressed with his so-called ‘stunt’ as Ava and Bucky had been. This doesn’t feel quite the same, though. She’s angry, but it’s not directed at him, not really.

How long has she been beating herself up over this?

“You know that’s not on you,” he says, the words clumsy, awkward. He should be gentler about this, he knows that, but the swerve of the conversation has left him entirely wrong-footed.

Yelena gives a stubborn sort of shrug, her gaze dropping to the floor. “Doesn’t mean I don’t feel like shit about it.”

John crosses his arms, takes a deliberate step towards her. “Okay,” he says, still too harsh, “so you manage to dodge the swing, and I don’t have to scrape you up off the deck. Sure. Maybe we’re both fine after that. Maybe we grab Torres no problem and the rest of us get out of there scot-free.”

Yelena goes tense. She glances up at him, and John locks eyes with her, holds her stare so she doesn’t look away.

“Or maybe the bomb hits you. Just you, since I’m not there to cover your ass. And then maybe you’re the one we’re rushing to the hospital. No offence, but speaking from firsthand experience, I’m backing my odds over yours any day of the week.”

Her expression twitches, a sharp flash of emotion quickly smothered before John can get a read on it. She says nothing. John makes himself take a breath.

He pushes himself forward, coming to a stop at her side. Go easy, you prick. 

“I don’t regret it, Yelena. I’m glad we rolled on my dice and not yours.” He flicks a look to the ceiling, gets the next words out somewhat begrudgingly. “Pushing through to get to Torres, alright, maybe that wasn’t my best call - ”

“It was a stupid call,” Yelena says firmly. “Very, very stupid.”

“But I’d take that hit again if I had to. That’s the job. And, like, the whole point of the shield. Even knowing the outcome, I’d still take it.” 

Yelena’s eyes are tired. “I know you would,” she murmurs, warmer than John expects. Is she going to try to hug him again? He’s not sure he can handle that after the morning he’s had.

“Right,” he says, a small stumble before he regains his momentum. “So. Cut that shit out. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done, and you know that.”

The silence returns, and for a moment Yelena just looks at him. John tries not to shift on his feet.

Eventually, she sighs. “Nice speech,” she says wearily, dropping down to sit on the bench. “You rehearse that or what?”

“Just reworked the one I gave Torres in Dallas.”

Her brow creases. “It wasn’t his fault - ”

“Mhmm.” He gives her a look. “I know.”

“Yeah, yeah. Point made, asshole. Don’t be smug.”

“Oh, please. God knows how many lectures I’ve had to sit through from you lot, about time I got to give one of my own. Figures you’d just try to shrug it off.”

She tilts her head. “Annoying, isn’t it? When someone can’t seem to grasp what you're trying to tell them? When they refuse to take it seriously?”

John rolls his eyes. “Now who’s smug?”

Yelena shakes her head, and her mouth tugs up at the corner, the shadow of a smile. John would almost call it fond. He doesn't reciprocate, but he feels his shoulders start to loosen, ever so slightly. Yelena leans back, rests a hand behind her on the bench. The other comes up to brush her hair from her forehead, and John's gaze drifts to her temple, to the fading bruises still visible at her hairline.

The tension returns before it had even fully dissipated. He should be going on this stupid op. He should be there to watch her back.

“Listen,” he says, and suddenly he’s the one who can’t meet her eyes. “This job - ”

“Are you about to tell me not to push too hard? Because I might actually laugh you out of the room.”

John pulls a face. “Just watch yourself. Stick to cover, if you can.” His words turn bitter. “I can’t drag you out of danger this time.”

“I know.” Yelena seems to argue with herself for a moment. “Look, you can tell me to mind my own business - ”

“Mind your own business.”

“I think you should talk to Bucky. Let him explain himself without an audience.”

John lets out a harsh breath, too sharp to be a laugh. “Right. Sure.”

“I don't know what happened - ”

“Nothing happened.”

“Walker, come on. We’ve all been walking on eggshells around the two of you for days. Ava said you guys weren’t nearly this bad in Dallas, so there’s obviously something going on - ”

“What’s going on,” John cuts in, halfway to a sneer, “is that Barnes thinks I’m a liability. He doesn’t trust me not to fuck up again, and he can’t kick me off the team himself, so he’s hiding behind Valentina to get his way.”

“That’s not - ” Yelena huffs, starts again. “Alright, yes, the Val Card is awfully convenient.”

“I can think of a few better words for it.”

“But it’s not a punishment, Walker, he’s not like that. He’s clearly doing it out of concern.”

Bucky staring at him, blocking his escape. Eyes wide, words careful, what you said just now, that’s - that’s not - 

“I don’t need his concern,” John snaps. His nails press too hard into his palms. “And I don't need his fucking pity.”

Yelena blinks, like he’s thrown her off somehow. “Pity? Why would - ”

“He doesn’t know jack shit about me. About any of it. But somehow he gets to decide if I’m ‘field-ready’ or whatever the fuck? Give me a break.”

John spins on his heel, heading for the exit. All the anger from this morning is quickly bubbling back up, and if he doesn’t leave now he’s going to have to punch something. In the absence of functional equipment there’s a high risk that’s going to be a fucking wall.

The door has already slid open when Yelena calls after him.

“When we finally reached the hospital,” she says, stopping John in his tracks, “they rushed you in with barely a word to us. Somebody called ahead, I guess, let them know we were coming. I couldn’t wait with the others - I mean, Torres and I weren’t exactly at our best. But every time I asked about you the staff would fob me off. Alexei was running back and forth between my little curtained off corner and the waiting room, but there wasn’t any news there either. The only one allowed in to see you was Bucky.”

John stiffly turns back to face her, forcing his fists to uncurl. She hasn't moved from the bench.

“Once Alexei and I left for New York, we were relying on Ava for updates. At least by that point the doctors were actually telling us stuff. She said Barnes had barely left your bedside since they let him through, but she'd managed to coax him into taking a break after we’d gone.” She smiles without much humour. “Mostly because he’d heard Wilson was on his way, but you know. You take what you can get.”

The smile drops away. “And then something happened, and from then on he wouldn’t leave your room at all. Not even when Sam arrived - Ava had to bring him up to speed.”

John scowls, resists the urge to look away. He thinks back to Bucky watching him at the hospital, his hair and clothes a mess, the crumpled blanket on the chair. Ava’s slight hesitance when John asked about what had gone down. He still doesn't remember it, waking up that first time. Not properly, anyway. It's all just fog. Whatever scraps have surfaced are all out of focus, a bleary mess of shadows and sounds he can't make sense of.

It's starting to feel like maybe that's a good thing.

Yelena lets out a breath, dragging him back to the present. She pulls herself up from the bench and moves towards the door. John hears it open again with a hiss - he hadn't even noticed it had closed. Yelena comes up alongside him, her eyes on his own. There's something in her gaze that unsettles him, an intensity that makes him want to shy away from her.

“You might not need his concern,” she says, and the words are quiet, “But to be honest, John, I’m not sure I can blame him.” 

John swallows, racks his mind for a way to redirect this awful fucking shift in the conversation. He doesn't get the chance. She's out of the room before he can even try to speak.

The door slides shut behind her, like John isn't even there.

Chapter 7: Resting Your Dough

“Wow,” Bob says, “I never would have taken you for a stress baker.”

John scowls at the bag of flour in his hands. “I’m not.”

“I’m not making fun or anything. It’s actually pretty impressive. I’m rubbish at baking even on a good day, I can’t imagine trying to do it when I’m already stressed.”

“I’m not stressed.”

Bob’s expression falls into a wince, like he doesn’t want to say that’s one of the most obvious lies he's ever heard, but doesn’t really know how else to respond to it.

John drops his gaze. “I need to get this in the fridge,” he mutters, stirring in flour with more force than strictly necessary. He hasn’t made cookies from scratch in close to a decade, and he’s almost messed up about three separate steps already.

Bob leans his elbows on the counter. “Can I help? Or is that, like, interfering with the process, or - ”

“You can stop bothering me.”

“Right, sorry. Shutting up.”

John sighs. Goddamn crestfallen Bob. “I’m almost done. Once you get the consistency right, you let it sit in the fridge overnight before you roll it out.”

Bob bounces right back. “Cool. I didn’t know you're supposed to refrigerate your dough. You’d think with all the Bake Off I’ve been watching I’d have picked up a few things.”

“You don’t have to. It just makes it nicer.” In theory, anyway. It really has been a long time, and these aren’t going to be his magnum opus, not by any stretch. He pinches out a glob of dough and rolls it lightly in his palm. Still too wet. He drops it back in the bowl, adds a touch more flour.

They’ve been gone for three hours. No jet, just the car. A potential HYDRA reformation attempt on the outskirts of Boston - no need to fly out to Dallas this time around. Still, Bob and John aren’t expecting them back until early tomorrow morning.

They should be almost at the compound by now. John’s trying really hard not to think about it.

“You two behave yourselves, yes?” Alexei grins at John, like it’s all a big joke. “Regular bedtimes, no wild rooftop parties.”

Uh huh. Because him and Bob are just rolling in friends.

He sees Lemar smiling under the lights of their old high school football field, waving proudly from beneath the stage.

John mentally recoils, pushing the memory aside. He fixes Alexei with a glare. “How about you try taking this a little more seriously, huh? Actually focus on the job for once.”

Alexei, to his credit, seems to realise he’s tread on something a little out of his depth. His smile dims, and he carefully reaches out to not-so-carefully thump John on the back. “Is good to have a break,” he says, gentler than before. “Plenty more jobs where this one came from. Don’t let the time off discourage you.”

John pulls away, shoulders creeping up towards his ears. “Yeah,” he says flatly, “Great. Thanks for that.” He stalks off before Alexei can try to bestow any more 'fatherly advice'. It's not like the team need him to wave them off or whatever. And he’d really rather not be here when Bucky shows up. Things are still pretty fucking awful on that front - Bucky's preferred mode of communication is still staring, and John still locks up whenever they cross paths in the hallways. 

He makes a beeline for the elevator, and Ava falls into step beside him out of nowhere, already in full gear. John covers his surprise through sheer spite alone. 

She drops the helmet as she walks. “Do try to be in a better mood when we get back.”

“Gee, since you asked so nicely.”

“I mean it, Walker. Run a couple dozen miles on the treadmill. Watch more of Bob’s sappy baking show.” She gives a shrug. “Whatever. Just don’t spend the next twelve hours fretting. That’s not going to help anyone.”

“Here’s a crazy idea, Starr. Why don’t you worry about these HYDRA copycats instead of fussing over me? Just a thought, feel free to ignore it like you usually do.”

Ava rolls her eyes. “Don’t know why I bother. God help us if Bucky’s as wound up as you are. Comms are going to be a blast.”

She turns to split away from him as they come up on the elevator. Before he can stop himself, John snags her wrist.

“Wait.”

Ava looks back at him pointedly. 

John hesitates. “I don’t know your team allocations, but if you could…just…” he sighs, shakes his head. “Keep tabs on Yelena, if you can.”

Ava’s expression softens a fraction.

She inclines her head, glancing back to where Alexei must still be waiting. “I think we’ve got that covered.”

John nods, but doesn’t follow her gaze. “And watch yourself out there,” he adds, gruffer than he means to be. “You’re still a man down. Don’t give them any freebies.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” she says dryly. “Any other handy little tips?”

John shoots her a scowl before turning to summon the elevator. “Yeah. Don’t fuck up. I’m not going to be there to clean up the mess.”

“What a shame. You're always such a pleasure to work with.”

John frowns down at the mixture, scoops another ball of dough to test. He had thought trying his hand at baking again would be a good enough distraction. Give him something to do with his hands, at least, something to stop him pacing the length of the hall. It hasn’t worked. The tension is still there, it’s just been pushed a little further down. He can feel it prickling at the back of his mind every time he tries to think through his next step.

Bob puts his chin on his hands. “Are cookies your go-to? I know you can cook a whole bunch of stuff, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you bake.”

“I don’t have a go-to.” John prods the dough lightly with his thumb. “This is just what we had the ingredients for.” He rolls it over once more before tearing off a small piece to taste. He nods to himself, more pleased with it than he really should be. Everything else in his life has gone to shit, but at least he remembers how to make a decent fucking cookie. If he doesn’t mess up the actual baking part, that is. He glances up at Bob, still watching from across the counter, and holds out the other half of the dough for him to take. 

Bob smiles, accepts the offering with something close to a laugh. “I didn’t know if it was rude to ask.”

“It does have raw egg in it, so, you know. Don’t go ham or whatever.”

“Oh, yeah, no. Roger that.” Bob pops the dough in his mouth. His brows twitch up in surprise. “Holy shit.”

Tense as he is, John actually stifles a smile of his own. He gives the mixture another stir before scraping most of the excess back into the bowl.

“You see where the others stashed the cling-wrap?” He waves the spoon at Bob, who takes it eagerly. “It’s never in the right place.”

Bob’s more focused on the spoon. “Top shelf, maybe? Walker, this is dangerously good.”

“Hard to go wrong with cookie dough. Now, hands off the rest. I need enough to make the actual cookies.”

The wrap is on the second shelf, tucked behind a jar of dubious-looking protein powder none of them have admitted to buying. John covers the brim of the bowl with two wide sheets and carefully lifts it from the counter. Bob scurries around to grab the fridge door for him, and they manage to get it in without any soul-crushing disasters.

“Sweet,” says Bob, as John starts to put away his supplies. “I was going to watch some more Bake Off tonight, if you’re up for it. Or is that too much baking for one day? We could always do a movie instead.”

John shoots him a hard look. He’s not stupid. “You don’t need to babysit me.”

Bob’s eyes go wide. “Oh, no, I wasn’t - ”

“Course you weren’t.”

“No, I - ” Bob falters, starts again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean - I wasn’t trying to keep watch. I just thought you might appreciate the company.”

John stacks the measuring cups beside the sink without looking up. “I’m not a dog,” he mutters. “I’m not going to destroy the living room because you left me alone for too long.”

“I’m sorry.” Bob’s voice is small. “That’s not what I meant.”

Goddammit. 

John scrubs a hand over his face. “Look, you’re fine, alright?” He grits out after a moment, not quite an apology, but perhaps on the edge of one. “It’s not you.”

Bob seems to hesitate. 

“I know,” he says quietly, “I know you’re worried.”

A warning glare. “Bob.”

“I’m not trying to baby you or anything. I’m really not. I just…I know that things have been - ”

“I know you know, Bob,” John cuts in, because of course Bob knows, he knows better than any of them, but they haven’t talked about it properly since that day on the roof and John cannot get into that now.

“And I know how easy it can be to get stuck in your head,” Bob pushes on, wringing his hands, “To start thinking you have to handle everything on your own again. You don’t have to do that, man. I know talking about it feels like it's going to tear you apart sometimes, but it’s better than trying to bury it. Take it from me.”

John struggles not to tense. His eyes flick from Bob to the countertop, then back to Bob again. Bob just waits, doesn't try to coax out an answer. It's kind of awful, to be honest. John doesn’t know what to do with this much patience.

Eventually, he has to say something. “Is this what it’s like?”

Bob blinks at him. “Sorry?”

“For you. When we go on jobs. When you’re left here by yourself.” John cringes, looks away. Forces the words out. “I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.”

“Oh.” There’s a strange note to Bob’s voice, and John stiffens. His gaze snaps back up, expecting pity, but instead Bob just looks thoughtful.

“I don't think it's quite the same for me,” he says, soft smile tinged sad around his eyes. “I’m not actually on the team, you know? I wouldn't be much help to you out there.” The smile flickers, flattens out into a wince of embarrassment. “Or, um, at least we can’t really trust my help. Too much risk of making things way worse. I’ve accepted that, for the most part. But I do worry. I still get nervous when you all leave. The tower’s pretty big for one person, and when the only thing to do is wait for news, it can get a little, uh, lets say overwhelming.” 

He meets John’s eyes again, and his expression warms. The smile curls back into place. 

“But that’s the gig, right? I mean, you guys are heroes. You saved my life - you saved the whole world. This is what you do.”

It doesn’t sit right anymore, being called a hero. Hasn't done for a long time. Fair number of people out there would argue that he’s not, and while others might say the words, the belief doesn’t always reach their eyes. All that meaningless talk about a clean slate, a chance to make up for his many, many mistakes, and John mostly still feels like he’s kidding himself.  

Bob means it, though. He says it with full sincerity, not a hint of mockery or doubt. Coming from him, the title doesn’t chafe as much.

“I guess that's not really helpful for you, though.” Bob shrugs, a little sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Don’t. Don’t apologise.” John clears his throat, turning to wash his hands so he doesn’t have to hold eye contact. “And you don’t have to be a field operative to be a Thunderbolt.”

There’s a pause, before Bob laughs, half on an exhale.

“Right,” he says, and John can hear the smile in his voice. “Thanks, Walker.”

John nods, short and sharp. He’s still staring down at the sink. 

A second, slightly more awkward pause starts to stretch out, and Bob seems far more tentative to break it. “Um, so about Bake Off?  No pressure, I get it if you've, like, reached your baking limit for the day. But it was a genuine offer.”

John sighs, drying his hands on a towel. “Someone's going to make the exact same cookies, and we're both going to realise just how rusty I am.”

“We can fast-forward through it, I don't mind.”

“My hero.”

***

The team gets back around noon, halfway through the Bake Off season finale. John tamps down on his frankly embarrassing rush of relief as best he can. He’s been on the edge of hounding Valentina for a status update for hours. If it weren't for the frustratingly uninformative text he’d received from Ava - held up outside ny. still alive. dont freak if we arent back on time - he’d be climbing the fucking walls by now. 

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Bob murmurs, as John inspects the cookies laid out on the cooling rack. “Maybe they stopped for breakfast somewhere.”

John bends down to scrounge up a plastic container from one of the cupboards. His voice comes flat. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Alexei’s always saying he thinks you guys should unwind together after work.”

“Hmm.”

“And Ava’s been wanting to try IHOP for ages.”

John tugs the rack closer, begins packing the biscuits into the container. For a moment, he imagines Bucky waiting in line at an IHOP, scowl firmly in place. It doesn’t improve his mood, but the thought is mildly entertaining.

“They look great, man.” Bob motions to the cookies, and it’s such an obvious change of topic John almost has to laugh. “Really. Like, straight off the cover of a recipe book.”

John shrugs. “Not bad for the first time in a decade.” Bob’s right, they do look good. It’s just hard to be enthusiastic about it when the whole baking-as-distraction thing has been a complete bust.

“Oh, yeah,” Bob says, nodding a little too vigorously. “Not bad at all.”

John huffs, stacking the next row on top of the others. It’s a bit of a tight fit - he should have grabbed a bigger container - and he’s left with one lonely cookie on the rack. He hesitates, then quickly thinks 'fuck it' and tears the biscuit in half. 

He holds the bigger piece out towards Bob, like he’d done with the dough. “Here. Bakers get first dibs.”

Bob blinks at him. “But I didn’t bake them.”

“You picked the cutter shapes. That’s good enough.”

Bob’s smile crinkles at his eyes. “If you say so, Chef.”

John heads down the corridor towards the elevators, Bob following a few paces behind him. There hasn't been any tower-wide alerts, so it doesn’t seem like anyone’s wound up in the Medbay, at the very least. He turns the corner before pulling up short. He’d been expecting to meet them at the equipment lockers, but it turns out they’ve already stumbled into the living room, skipping the storage bay entirely by the looks of it. Yelena’s got one boot off, tugging at the other with a grimace, while Ava’s sprawled upside down on the Sofa From Hell with her hair splayed across the cushions. No Alexei or Bucky, but John spies a battered-looking helmet underneath the coffee table. With all the fake-nonchalance he can muster he makes his way over to the sofa, coming to a stop beside the armrest.

Ava blinks up at him coolly. He raises an eyebrow at her.

“Still alive, huh.”

She smirks. “Got my text, then?”

“Oh, yeah. Very reassuring.”

“I thought so.”

“No bickering until I’ve had a decent cup of coffee,” Yelena grumbles, flinging her shoe across the room.

John turns, leans his hip against the armrest. He flicks a sly look at the discarded boots. “Not going to leave those there, are you?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Hi, Bob.”

“Hey, guys.” Bob gives a wave. “Walker made cookies while you were gone. They’re really good.”

Ava hums a vague approval. “Maybe we should leave him behind more often.”

“Ava,” Yelena half-hisses, but John just rolls his eyes.

“I take it from all the wisecracks nothing catastrophic happened.” He does his best to keep his words flippant, unconcerned.

“No catastrophes,” Yelena agrees, her tone easing slightly. John pretends not to notice. “Everyone’s fine.”

“Could’ve gone a little smoother, but we’ve had worse,” Ava chimes in, “Few close calls. Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

John frowns. “What kind of close calls?”

“Nope. Uh-uh.” Yelena cuts him off, shuffling towards the kitchen in her socks. “You want a play-by-play, you’re going to have to wait until after coffee. Come along, Bob.”

“Oh, right. Sure.”

“Don’t suppose you’d bring mine out to me, would you?” Ava calls after them. “Think I might've found the one comfy position on this couch.”

John snorts. “You sure it's not just the blood rushing to your head?”

Ava ignores him. “Yelena? Yes, no? Maybe?”

“No.”

She sighs. “Typical.” She clambers down off the cushions, landing awkwardly on the floor. John straightens up, offers Ava his hand with minimal smugness.

“Careful. Don't want to get dizzy.”

She smiles, then flips him off. John withdraws his hand with a shrug. Ava rises to her feet, smoothing strands of hair back from her face, and her attention drifts to something over John's shoulder. 

“Oi, Barnes. There's coffee going if you want some.”

It's fucking comical, how fast John tenses up.

A pause, then - “Be there in a sec.”

Ava follows after the others, sidling by John with barely a glance. Too tired to stick around for their game of chicken, it seems. Or maybe she’s just bored of it by now. John can't really blame her for that. He turns around to find Bucky halfway between him and the elevators. Unlike the girls, he’s at least taken the time to change his shirt. There’s a long, still healing gash below his eye, slicing almost to his ear, and what looks like a stick-on gauze patch on his forearm.

John’s brow creases. Looks like he was wrong, someone had stopped by the Medbay after all. “What happened to you?”

Bucky gives an awkward sort of shrug. “The job happened.”

Jesus Christ. John can think of about fifteen different retorts to that.

To his own surprise, however, concern briefly outweighs pettiness. He takes a few cautious steps towards Bucky.

“That one of the close calls?”

“What?”

“Ava said the op could’ve gone smoother. Said you had some ‘close calls’.”

Bucky lets out a quiet huff. “The op went fine. This is on me. I lost focus, that’s all.”

John scans Bucky’s face, takes in the angry red of the cut, the hint of bruises already fading at his jaw. That pained, tired flicker behind his eyes. John knows that look. He's seen it a hundred times over since he first joined the army.

He presses his lips together. “Do they need stitches?” With the serum there’s usually not much point, but that gash might be nasty enough to warrant them.

Bucky meets John’s stare for half a second before his gaze shifts away. “Should be fine by tomorrow.”

John taps his cheek. “You sure about that one?”

“It looks worse than it is.”

Something in the words makes John’s chest constrict. He feels himself twitch, not quite a flinch, but disconcertingly close to one. 

When he speaks, his words come too harsh. “Don’t say I didn’t offer.” He goes to head down the corridor towards their rooms. Bucky takes a halting step forward, but doesn’t come close enough to touch - they’ve both learned that lesson already.

“John, wait,” he says, and the hesitance is so strange on him that John actually does stop in place. “Can we talk?”

The tension seems to shudder. So, they've finally cut the game short. John almost can't believe Bucky's the one to break it - there's a part of him that thought Barnes would be content to glare at him from across the room for the rest of time.

Like you can talk. Whose fault is this whole mess, exactly?

He allows himself a breath, before he lifts his eyes to Bucky’s. “Depends. You going to let me back on the team?”

Bucky shakes his head, frowning. “You’re not off the team - ”

“You know what I meant. Are you going to let me back out in the field? Are you going to let me do my job?”

The moment stretches, silence pulled taut between them, and John has his answer.

“Look.” Bucky swallows, straightening his shoulders - oh great, Doctor Raynor's back. “I think - there's some things you and I should talk about, before - ”

John’s lip curls, the bitter imitation of a smile. It feels wrong, like it’s threatening to tear. “So that's a no?”

“Walker - ”

“Then we don’t have anything to talk about.”

Bucky’s expression falters, that frantic flash of panic from the conference room. “John - ”

“Um, hey. Sorry to, uh. Interrupt.”

Bob’s leaning out from the kitchen doorway. He gnaws at his lower lip, eyes darting between John and Bucky like he’s walked in on a punch-up and can’t decide who he should be more worried about. 

Eventually, he settles on John. “I’m making coffee for the others, I didn’t know if you wanted one.”

Bucky clears his throat. “Bob, could you, uh, could you give us a second - ”

“I'm good,” John cuts in, not looking at Bucky. “I can sort myself out when you’re done.”

Bob’s brows draw together. The worry sharpens. “If you’re sure.”

Guilt snakes up from John’s chest, but he squashes it down. He sends Bob that same tacked-on smile and makes for the corridor without a second glance at either of them. 

This time, Bucky doesn’t try to stop him.

***

He jolts awake, a half-choked gasp still lodged in his throat. 

The dream fades quickly, some run-of-the-mill nightmare he’s had a dozen times before. Even before his stint with the shield he’d stocked up quite the collection, and the new horrors don’t replace the old ones. They just join the rotation. He’s left with only his shaking hands and the distorted impression of a scream. John sits up, roughly cards his fingers back through his hair. The room is still dark, the red glow of the alarm clock he never bothers to set blinking in and out. The time clicks over right as he looks up to read it -  two twenty-two am.

He puffs out a breath, his grip shifting to tug at the roots. The air is still, heavy. It presses in around him like the room itself is shrinking. John lets his hands slip to his neck, waits for his heart to stop pounding. It doesn’t normally take this long. For some reason that scream still flickers at the back of his mind, a warped, fractured echo that sets his teeth on edge. 

Maybe the dream hadn't been as run-of-the-mill as he'd thought.

He throws aside his bed-sheets, swinging around to rest his feet flat on the floor. Tight, burning adrenaline thrums under his skin. He's got absolutely no chance of getting back to sleep like this. He needs to work through some of this energy - needs to shake off that scream - if he wants to function like a halfway-normal person today. A few rounds with the gym room punching bags would be pretty fucking ideal right about now, thanks, Alexei. They really need to start bombarding Valentina with maintenance requests.

His thoughts snag on something Yelena had said, before her and the others left for Boston. The smaller training room on the west corridor had been fixed up, hadn’t it? She'd said Valentina had it repaired before they all returned from Dallas. It would be a little more private, if someone else decides to hit the gym at ass o'clock at night. He doesn't really expect that to be a problem, though. Most of them are still rung out from the job two days ago, and even the resident insomniacs have been tapping out early. As far as he recalls there’s only the one bag in that room, but that’s fine. If he paces himself, doesn’t get carried away - Alexei - there’s no reason he can’t make it work.

The scream rebounds again, scraping hard against his nerves.

Yeah, fuck it. He’s making it work.

He gets changed in the dark, strangely anxious at the thought of turning on the bedside lamp. John steps out into the hallway and glances down the line of rooms. The overhead lights in the corridor have been dimmed, and a faint trail of safety lights lead the way back up towards the common areas. 

As odd as it is to say about their flashy skyscraper of a base, he’s always found the Watchtower to be kind of eerie at this time of night. The quiet seems to hollow out the building, and though the space is never fully dark, in John’s experience that just makes the shadows stretch that much further. He follows the lights down the hallway, pulling off from the main room to stop by the kitchen. He downs a glass of water in three gulps before filling a bottle from the tap, carrying it loosely by his side as he heads for the west corridor.

He turns the corner, then abruptly stops. There’s light spilling out from the door to the briefing room.

John stares ahead, holding himself very still. Who the fuck is in the briefing room at this hour? Straight off the bat his mind jumps to Bucky, but what would he even be doing? Not talking to Valentina, surely. The woman must sleep at some point.

John’s grip on the water bottle tightens. He is not getting into another argument with Barnes, not at two in the fucking morning. There's no universe where that leads anywhere but disaster. He should turn around. Make do with one of the treadmills in the gym, or just go back to his room and pretend to sleep until the sun rises.

His fingers twitch. The scream still lingers.

He shakes his head, scowls for no one but himself. What, is he really going to be such a coward? Turn tail and run in the other direction? That’s all he ever seems to do anymore. And hell, it might not even be Bucky. For all John knows, Bob's streaming a movie in there just for shits and giggles. Whoever it is, he can slip by the door quickly and without a fuss, and if he does have to tell someone to piss off, so be it.

He edges further down the corridor, trying not to feel like a child sneaking around after curfew. He doesn’t quite hug the wall, but he sticks fairly close to the side, keeping his shadow out of view. His steps slow as he nears the briefing room, and sound drifts out from beyond the doorway, low and muffled - the quiet murmur of conversation. He picks out Bucky’s voice before he can even make out the words. Look’s like he’d been right, then. God, fucking spare me.

Barnes speaks softly, but there’s a strange edge to his tone, something almost like desperation. “…know what I'm doing. All I’ve done is make things worse.”

“And you think getting me involved is going to help?”

A sharp rush of dread hits John at full force.

That's Sam's voice.

Chapter 8: Conversations

“Seriously, Buck. Walk me through the thought process here. Because it feels like you might have overlooked a few things.”

John stares straight ahead, locked in place beside the door. There’s no question that the voice belongs to Sam. He sounds tense, weary - exactly like Bucky sounds whenever they talk on the phone these days. There’s a grit beneath the weariness too, a strained sort of discomfort. Not hard to guess why. John can't imagine B-Vengers HQ is particularly high on Wilson's list of places to visit.

So then why the fuck is he here at two-thirty in the morning?

You know, his mind answers, the words sharp and sour, You heard what he said. You know why.

He swallows hard. A small, trembling spark of anger flickers to life in his chest.

Bucky’s voice is tinged bitter. “Believe me, you can’t mess this up any worse than I have.”

A scoff. “I beg to differ.”

“I'm running out of options, Sam. I have to fix this somehow. You were a counsellor  - ”

“And that means Walker’s just going to pour his heart out to me, does it?”

The water bottle in John’s hand threatens to crack under his grip. Shame roils hot in his stomach, begins to claw its way up his throat. Of all the fucking people Barnes could tell - 

Who is he kidding? Of course he told Sam. John should've seen this coming a mile off, from the moment he made such an idiot of himself in the conference room. Jesus Christ, he's so fucking stupid. 

How much does he know? A new wave of dread crests the surface. What did Bucky tell him? What did he say?

“Look, man,” The grit leaves Sam’s tone, just for a moment, “I’m not trying to be an asshole. But I don't think you should be coming to me with this. I’ve got a few friends that work for the VA, if that’s a path you want to look into I can give you their names - ”

“He’s not going to go for that.”

“Can't know for sure unless you ask.”

“He'd laugh in my face.”

“You really think I've got a better shot?” Sam sounds entirely disbelieving. “If it can't come from you, get one of your teammates to bring it up. There’s got to be someone on your grab bag of a roster that he listens to.”

There's a dip in Bucky's voice, a shade of uncertainty. “He'd know I was involved. He'd think we were talking about him behind his back.”

“You’re doing that right now.” A sigh. “You know a pretty key part of being a counsellor is trust, right? If Walker really is struggling, how thrilled do you think he’s going to be that you told me any of this?”

The anger surges, tangling with embarrassment until they are one and the same. John’s jaw clenches. Whatever it was that held him frozen starts to melt away, and now a vicious part of him wants to storm right in, claws out and snarling. Come on, Wilson. You know Bucky and I don’t do trust. The briefing room has gone quiet, and John’s just about worked himself up to step forward by the time Bucky answers.

“He's going to hate it,” he says, barely above a murmur. “But I don’t know what else to do. Sam, please. I have to fix this. I have to try.”

John blinks, holds back from the door. That edge of desperation is back, and Bucky's voice almost seems to shake with it.

Sam’s reply comes a fraction softer. “Do you even know what you’re trying to fix?”

“I messed up. I keep messing up, over and over again. I’m - ” A broken pause, something close to a stutter. “I’m worried. I can't send him back out there until we've talked, and I can't get him to talk to me.”

It can’t be more than a handful of seconds, but it feels like an eternity before Sam speaks.

“After our first run in with Karli,” he says, “When Walker picked us up on the road. You asked him if he’d ever jumped on a grenade. You remember?”

John looks up, brow furrowing.

A shallow sort of exhale. “I remember he started going on about his helmet.”

Sam huffs, not quite a laugh. “Right. I don’t think he got the point of your question. But if he had, would you have cared what his answer was?”

Bucky seems to hesitate. “No. Not back then.”

“Because you were angry, and because Walker had the shield, and Walker wasn’t Steve. Whatever he’d said, it wouldn’t have made a difference. And since the man can’t read the room to save his damn life, the real answer didn’t matter anyway.” A muffled sound, someone shifting position. “Maybe that's on us. Maybe it should have mattered.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“I’m just wondering if this is something Steve and John actually had in common,” Sam answers gently, “And if maybe that’s why it’s getting to you so much.”

John cannot follow this swerve of the conversation. It’s been made abundantly clear to him that he’s nothing like Rogers, and nobody has made that clearer than Sam. They haven’t even seen each other properly since Wilson's speech to the GRC. He hasn't exactly been around to witness some great change in John's character, and even as a Thunderbolt John's reputation is still just as stained as ever. He was never going to live up to that shield, he knows that. Everyone fucking knows that.

“This isn’t about Steve,” Bucky says after a moment.

“It can be about both, you know. Doesn't make the concern any less genuine.”

“It's not the same thing.” Bucky sounds impossibly tired. “Steve was prepared to sacrifice himself, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to live.”

Sam stumbles, like the response has thrown him. “And - and you think Walker - ”

“I'm not sure he cares one way or the other.”

John recoils away from the words. He should have cut this conversation short when he had the chance. He should have never left his room. He should have just let Barnes lecture him in the conference room and kept his fucking mouth shut.

There’s a heavy silence before Sam responds. “Bucky, that’s - ”

“I know.”

“You said the argument was bad.” Something’s changed within the room, a shift John can’t get a proper read on from voice alone. “How bad are we talking?”

“Bad.”

“But this is a passive thing, right? You don't think he’s an active risk.”

For a horrible moment, Bucky seems to falter. “I…”

John can feel his hands shaking. He wants to hurl his water bottle at the wall.

“Bucky. Do you think he’s an active risk?”

“No,” Bucky says quickly, but it comes out stilted and small, “No, I - I don’t think so.”

Sam’s voice edges on stern. “There’s something else, isn’t there? Besides the argument.” A moment, then  - “That.”

“What?”

“Whatever you just thought of. Don’t bullshit me, man, it just flashed across your face like a neon sign. Something else is worrying you.”

Silence stretches, and that cold, crawling dread starts to return. It…it couldn’t be the elevator shaft, could it? Bucky hadn’t even been there, and John's never told the others, not properly. That day in New York, before they’d raced into the Void to find Bob and Yelena, he’d been as vague as the circumstances would allow. Enough detail that they’d believe him - believe Yelena still had a chance - but no more than that. Nothing overly suspicious, and nothing that would raise questions. The only one with any real idea would be Bob, and he's managed to keep John's shit to himself so far. It can’t be that. It can’t be.

But if it's not that, then...

“We were at the hospital, back in Dallas.”

Bucky’s words snap John out of his spiral.

“We’d been there a day and a half, maybe. They'd had him sedated, but he started coming around a few hours before you showed up. It went - ” Bucky’s voice hitches. “It went badly.”

“Starr said you were practically chained to his bedside.” Sam’s tone is careful, but John can make out the question behind it. “She said they weren’t letting anyone else near him.”

A long pause. “Do you know what happened after Latvia?”

John’s stomach drops.

Oh.

Sam hesitates. “You mean - ”

“When we took the shield back. I didn’t stick around for the aftermath, but when I left Walker was out cold. Next I saw of him was the press coverage of the hearing. Do you know what happened once the medics showed up?”

“Not really. I saw them load him onto a stretcher - they weren’t particularly keen to chuck us in the same ambulance. By the time they were finished with me, he was gone. No one mentioned which hospital. I, uh, I think there were a lot of urgent phone calls we weren't privy to.” Another pause. “Why? You think something happened when they took him in?”

 “I - yeah,” Bucky gets out. “I think so. And whatever it was...when he woke up in Dallas, I-I think he thought he was back there.”

A bolt of electricity shoots down John’s spine.

The world is a blur, everything over-bright and tilting. Something rings above his head. He cringes, tries to turn away. The noise just gets louder, becomes a siren, becomes a scream. A weight presses down on his shoulder but he shoves it off. He’s going to throw up. He's going to rip the world to pieces. He’s going to hurl himself out onto the road…

Oh, it’s so much worse than the vault.

Bucky is still speaking. “He was scared. He didn't seem to know who I was. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know. If he’d recognised me it might have made things even worse.”

“You're sure it was Latvia?”

“He said Lemar’s name more than once.”

Lemar is gone. 

The ringing has stopped, and the world is finally still. He tries to curl onto his side but something pins his ankles in place. It hurts to swallow. It hurts to breathe. He sobs, feels the sting of it high in his chest. His body aches, and his head is splitting in two, and he can’t lift his arms to his face but it doesn’t matter because Lemar is gone. He's gone, he’s gone and John wasn’t fast enough he still wasn’t fast enough what the fuck was the point -

It should’ve been him it should've been him it should've been -

John's breath sticks in his throat. He stares forward, rigid against the wall.

Bucky’s tone turns to gravel, as if that might mask the emotion behind it. “He was a wreck, Sam. I’ve never seen him like that before. I couldn’t get him to calm down, he - he was devastated. And then he went for his IV.” A hard exhale, short and controlled. “They knocked him out again after that. I had to convince them not to put him in soft restraints. Don't think anything they had would’ve actually worked, but I - I didn’t want him waking up to that. If he’d still been out of it - ”

“Who knows how he might have reacted.” Sam finishes for him. He sounds just as tired as Bucky. “You reckon the hospital in Latvia had him restrained?”

“With how long it took him to realise his arms were free, I’d say so.”

John can feel it, the weight at his ankles, the cold tug at his wrist. He shivers, free hand tightening to a fist. The memory burns like a brand against his skin.

“Jesus,” Sam murmurs, “You think he lost it at the staff? Or were they reacting to what happened on the street?”

“I don't know. Either way, he - he obviously wasn't in a good place. God, Sam, some of the things he was saying. I can't - ”

“Walker?”

John flinches. The water bottle slips from his grasp, clattering across the floor. 

Bucky’s words stumble to a halt.

John whips around, his awareness wrenched back to the hallway with a jolt. He looks up to find Yelena at the top of the corridor, still dressed in her pyjamas, a mug cradled in her hands. Her wide eyes meet his, then flick to the doorway behind him.

Humiliation breaks over John like a wave.

There’s a muffled noise from the briefing room, a chair being pushed aside. “Aw, hell…”

A sharp swell of fear rises in his chest. He can’t do this. He can’t fucking do this, no no no no no he needs to get the fuck out of here now - 

He lurches forward. The world tips in and out of focus as he barrels down the corridor, his momentum steered solely by desperation. He pushes by Yelena without stopping, sees her stagger backwards out of the corner of his eye. 

“Walker!” She moves to follow him, and he feels her hand graze his arm. “Walker - John, hold on! What’s - ”

“John, wait!” Bucky’s voice, too close behind him, “I didn’t - ”

He rips away from Yelena like the touch burns his skin. He wants to be angry, wants to bare his teeth and snarl - don’t talk to me, don’t fucking talk to me, step the fuck off - but the panic clogs his throat, strangles the words into little more than a whimper. He bites back the sound before it can escape and sprints for the main room.

“What happened?” He hears Yelena snap as he turns the corner. “What did you do?”

“Yelena - ”

“Why is he here?”

John skids to a stop by the elevators, hitting the 'down' button repeatedly. The doors open maybe six presses in, and he rushes inside without looking back.

“John!”

John jams the button for the ground floor until the doors slide shut.

***

He makes it out to the road without being stopped. Most of the reporters that had set up outside the tower gave up days ago, so there's no one to snap his picture. Even the one sorry prick still lurking around seems to have tapped out for the night, thank fuck - John's not in any state to dodge a tail, even if it is just a tabloid hound. He gets maybe a block away from the tower before some level of common sense resurfaces, and the threat of a panic attack is overtaken by his desire to not be hit by a fucking car. Slowing to a stop, he pulls himself against the wall of an empty shopfront, waits for his body to calm the fuck down.

The pressure is still there. The bond around his wrist, the sling pressed tight to his chest. He feels like he's going to heave his lungs up onto the concrete.

Deep breaths. Don't even go there. Don't.

Something flickers at the back of his mind, and the scream from his nightmare tries to join the party. He shoves the broken memory aside, brings his hands up to card through his hair. You're fine. You can lift them, see? Now buck up and get a grip, for Christ's sake. 

In for four, hold for four, out for four…

A sharp gust of wind drags him back to reality, the cold cutting through his workout clothes. John presses his palms to his eyes before dragging them down his cheeks. It’s still dark out. The streets are as empty as New York streets ever manage to get, and he no longer has a clear sense of what time it is. He doesn’t even have his phone with him to check. He tips his head back, sucking in another breath. The inside of his wrist prickles faintly, and John shakes it out with a growl.

Alright, he's had his little freak out. He should head back to the tower before someone comes looking for him. With the complete and utter mess he’s made of things, he wouldn’t be shocked if the others send a whole damn search party after him. He could do without that extra helping of embarrassment. He’s already hit his limit for the day and the sun’s not even up yet.

But if he goes back now, and Sam's still there...

John grits his teeth, and sets off in the opposite direction.

He walks. Running would be better, might actually stop the buzzing under his skin, but he doesn’t trust himself not to slam into someone. Still, he manages to fall into a rhythm. Loops the block once, moves along and loops the next one. He lets his steps run on autopilot, tries not to read the street signs or attempt to track the time. He does his best not to think at all. It’s hard to say how long he walks for - it's too early for sunrise, though that doesn't mean much in New York - but it quickly becomes clear that he’s being followed. Even with his focus holding on by a thread, John's knows how to spot the tells. 

He rolls his eyes. Gee, I wonder who that could be.

He’s not about to kid himself. If he’s noticed Barnes is tailing him it’s because he’s let John notice. He's being sloppy on purpose, trying to get him to make the first move in the most annoyingly Bucky way possible. It shouldn't even be a surprise at this point - they're just playing chicken all over again.

John ups his pace and keeps on walking.

He's about to turn down an alley when someone calls out ahead of him. “Oh, hey! Tyler, isn’t it?”

John blinks, freezing in place. A youngish man in a dark coat approaches from the other direction. He gives John a wave, jogging up to meet him. Oh. It's someone from his gym. One of the owner’s sons, the taller one who mans the front desk. John thinks his name might be Liam.

He blinks again, tries to plaster on a weak smile. “Hey, man.”

“I thought it was you! How are you doing? Sorry if I startled you.”

“No, uh, you’re fine. Good to see you.”

“You too, it's been a while.” 

A nervous laugh bubbles up from nowhere. John cringes through it. “Yeah, I guess it has.”

Maybe-Liam seems to take in John’s clothes, frowning slightly. “You’re not headed in now, are you? We’re not technically open yet. I’m just coming in early to check on a maintenance problem, I’m not supposed to let anyone in until five.”

John falters, flicks a look across the street. Oh, shit. He knows this place. He’s wound up barely five minutes from the gym, how did he not realise that? Fucking hell, John. Pull yourself together.

“Oh - no, I’m not,” he rushes to say, “I’m just, ah, I’m just taking a walk.”

The man's eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, yeah? Wow, you’re keen.”

John’s smile edges on a grimace. He gives a tight shrug. “Can’t sleep, so. You know.”

“Ah, right. Been there.”

John severely doubts that, but he tamps down on the urge to snark. It’s not Pretty-Sure-It's-Liam’s fault his life is such a mess.

Yeah-Let's-Go-With-Liam shifts on his feet a little, and John realises the silence has stretched a few seconds too long. 

He clears his throat. “I’d better let you get on.”

“Right, yeah. Duty calls.” Liam flashes a smile, awkward but genuine, and John does his best to return it. “All the best, man! Hopefully see you when you’re next in!” He hurries off down the street, tugging at his coat zipper as he goes. John stares after him until he disappears around a corner.

A familiar voice comes from behind him. “Tyler?”

Looks like we’ve given up on leaving the ball in John’s court. 

“Better than being spat on in the locker room,” he says flatly. It’s a mild exaggeration. He's only been spat at once, a handful of weeks after the hearing. They hadn’t even managed to hit him.

There’s no reply. John sighs, squares his shoulders. He still feels wrong - his hands are shaking, and his breath comes a fraction too tight - but the prickling buzz of energy is starting to wane. With great reluctance he turns around, fists clenched at his sides. Bucky's left a careful distance between them. He holds himself very still, framed by the fading light of a badly busted streetlamp. John meets his gaze as coldly as he can manage.

He waits, then glances around pointedly. “What, no Sam?”

Bucky's mouth twists down. “No Sam.”

“Flown home, has he?”

“He’s with the others back at the tower.”

Of course he is. 

“You should’ve brought him along.” The words dip into a sneer. “You two do seem to get on better when you’re bonding over my fuck-ups.”

Bucky swallows. His eyes dart to the side, a quick scan of the street, before he pulls his focus back to John.

“I owe you an apology.”

John snorts, but says nothing.

“I shouldn’t have gotten Sam involved without asking you first,” Bucky continues, “Obviously things are still...tense on that front. I know that better than anyone. You’ve got every right to be upset - ”

“Oh, good,” John cuts in, “Something we actually agree on. But if it's all the same to you, I think I can do without your little speech." A razor-wire smile. "Sorry. I'm sure you and Wilson worked really hard on it.”

Bucky’s tone wavers. “Look, I’ve handled this all wrong, but I’m trying - ”

“Whatever you’re trying to do, forget it. It's none of your fucking business.”

“Walker - ”

“Jesus, Barnes, I get it.” John stalks forward, heat at the back of his throat. “I know I made a fool of myself. I don't need a lecture on it. I don’t need the whole team babying me because of one stupid mistake, I don’t need you pretending to give a shit -”

Something hard flashes behind Bucky’s eyes. “I’m not pretending - ”

“- And I really don’t need you dragging in Wilson because you think I’m going to throw myself off the tower.” John’s voice threatens to crack, but he ploughs on anyway. “Just drop it, yeah? You clearly hate this as much as I do, so do us both a favour and - ”

“I messed up, alright?”

John breaks off with a start.

Bucky's breath comes harsh. He glares at John, and there's a terrible weight to it, too hollow to be anger. “We almost lost you in Dallas. For a minute there, I actually thought we had. I sat in that room, worried out of my fucking mind, and then when you woke up, I -” he falters, and his gaze drops away. “I didn't know what to do.”

John can only stare at him, half-frozen on the pavement.

The words turn strained. “I'm not good at any of this, I know that. I made every wrong call I could possibly make. But you were barely talking to me, and I just - I didn’t know who else to ask. I’m sorry.”

Silence holds, thick and tense and awful. Someone shuffles by them on the sidewalk, muttering over the phone, or perhaps to themselves. John barely notices. Bucky's voice from the briefing room plays on loop in his head - the raw edge of worry, the tremor he hadn't quite managed to cover.

I have to fix this. I have to try. 

He's never heard Bucky talk like that before.

A car-horn blares further down the street, snapping through the quiet. Bucky heaves a sigh.

“Look, John,” he says, exhaustion creeping into his voice, “We can’t keep doing this. I know tonight's already a mess, but can we please go somewhere and talk? I'm not trying to lecture you, and I'm not pretending to give a shit. We just - we can't tiptoe around each other anymore. And I don't want to. I want to work this out. Please.”

John struggles not to squirm. Dread coils in his stomach, the same tight knot of panic from the rooftop. It's a joke, really. He's a trained soldier, he's survived fucking war-zones, and yet this conversation has him ready to bolt. The worst part is that Bucky's right, they can't avoid each other forever. It's been a complete shitshow, right from the start, and the rest of the team is still on edge. He can't keep making it worse. Something has to give - they need to straighten this out, one way or another.

But Christ, if the thought of it doesn't make him want to crawl into a fucking hole.

How many more times can I humiliate myself? He already thinks I'm weak. And now Sam knows...

“I’m not going back to the tower if Wilson's there,” he grits out, and it sounds so childish he can barely stop himself from cringing.

To his surprise, Bucky just nods. “Doesn’t have to be the tower. Just somewhere quiet.” He pulls a face, tugging a hand back through his hair. “Hopefully with decent heating.” He looks wrung out, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, the shadows under his eyes drawn deeper beneath the streetlight.

With the way John's hands haven't stopped trembling, he can’t imagine he looks much better.

“And coffee,” he adds, for both their sakes. Despite everything, Bucky’s lip twitches.

“And coffee,” he agrees, before he seems to decide on something. “I know a place. It’s only a couple blocks over.” He looks at John hesitantly, his expression closer to pleading than either of them would like to admit.

God, I'm going to regret this.

John huffs, trying to mask his nerves with a scowl. “We're going to wind up in the tabloids again.”

Bucky gives a halfhearted shrug. “We've both had worse headlines.”

TBC