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The mission had gone to shit, and John wanted to make one thing clear: it was not his fault.
Had he (and Bucky) missed the extraction window? Sure, that was true. Were there extenuating circumstances? Hell yes, there were.
Exhibit A: the “handful” of operatives John had expected to encounter had been more akin to a small army. John was enhanced and had been an excellent soldier even before the serum, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t handle a couple dozen guys with shoddy marksmanship who were relying solely on their numbers and not skill. But it was unexpected, and it had taken John longer than they’d planned for him to work his way through them.
(No, he hadn’t needed backup. It was offensive that Yelena had even asked.)
Exhibit B: the knife in his shoulder. Related, perhaps, to the number of enemy combatants that he’d encountered, but not to his refusal of reinforcements. John doubted Bucky would have made it to him in time anyway; it wasn’t like he’d have a reason to hurry.
John had swept his taco-ed shield across an extremist’s chest, breaking the man’s hold on him, before kicking him across the room to join his fellows in a crumpled heap against the wall. He turned to meet the last remaining agent in the room and found the man driving a knife down toward his chest. He held his shield up, and it successfully deflected the knife from his heart, but the angle of the stab caused the knife to catch the shield on its bent curve. It scraped across the shield as the enemy agent drove his weight into the attack. A flash of white-hot pain flared in his right shoulder as the knife dug into flesh.
John hoped his surprised grunt of pain was lost in the chaos of the comms—it was embarrassing he’d let this agent get the drop on him. The man moved to twist the knife, and John lashed out to grab his wrist. He pried his hand from the knife’s handle, the resulting jerk causing the knife to quiver and sending a shock of pain radiating down John’s arm. He squeezed the wrist in his hold hard enough to feel the fragile bones crack under his grip, and his glare met the frightened eyes of the agent as the man exhaled a pained wheeze.
Swiveling, John cracked the edge of his shield against the man’s temple. He dropped like a light, unconscious. John stepped back from the man’s limp form and gave him a harsh shove with his boot for good measure. His eyes swept across the room, flicking between the plethora of downed extremists to ensure that had been the last one, before he turned his attention to his injury.
Shit, he thought as he considered the combat knife embedded in his right shoulder. The knife had stabbed in between his shield strap and shoulder guard—a lucky shot to have made it past his combat gear. It was far from any vital organs but damaging to the utility of his right arm and near the axillary artery. Pulling it out would be dangerous, but leaving it wasn’t an option.
John turned off his comms, cutting off Yelena and Ava yelling instructions about hacking something or another to each other, and gave his head a shake. His fingers curled around the handle of the knife. Not wasting another second, he yanked the knife free. The removal was quick and clean, but it still hurt like hell. John let out a string of curses and flung the wretched piece of metal and leather away from him. It clattered against stone as John slid his other hand free from the shield and pressed it to the wound. The gash bled freely but wasn’t spurting blood—a good sign that the axillary artery hadn’t been nicked. John took a moment to fasten his shield to his back (it fit awkwardly given its bent shape) before holding pressure on his shoulder.
He glanced about the room he was in, searching for anything that could pass as medical supplies. John and Bucky had been sent to clear the rogue faction’s basement level—the intention was to keep reinforcements from attacking Yelena and Ava. The two had split up to cover the area faster, and John had ended up in what appeared to be training barracks. It could explain the sheer number of agents he’d encountered if they’d interrupted in the middle of running drills.
It also, thankfully, explained the med kit that John spied affixed to one of the walls. He jogged through the (not dead, Valentina, he promised) bodies lying on the ground and kept his left hand pressed to his wound as he raised his right to flick the kit open. John winced as pain shot down his arm like pins and needles, quickly grabbing bandages from the kit and lowering his arm. He tore open a pack of gauze pads with his teeth and went about bandaging his shoulder as fast as he was able, using the strap for his shield to help secure the gauze and hold pressure. The bandages were hardly visible when he was done.
John frowned as red dotted through what he could see of the gauze. He would have to manage. The serum would start its accelerated healing process at any time, and the cut would clot off.
Realizing the world was too quiet, John turned back on his comms. His ears were met with frantic, raised voices. Which led him to—Exhibit C (the icing on the cake): the explosives.
“—ker, come in! Why the hell isn’t he answering his comms?” shouted a frazzled-sounding Ava.
“Had a situation, but it's handled,” John input sharply. “What’s going on?”
“Get the fuck out! They have the place rigged with mines, and we didn’t realize we triggered them when we accessed their mainframe. This whole place is about to go up in smoke!”
“Shit!” he swore as he dashed through the training room back out to the hallway. He disregarded the pain in his right arm as he rested his hand on his holster. Screw nonlethal.
“Bucky, what’s your status?” he asked.
“You’d know if you’d been on comms,” was Bucky’s disgruntled reply. There was a faint sound of metal creaking, then Bucky continued, “I’ll head back to the center stairwell and meet you there.”
They never had the chance.
John skidded to a halt as the ground rumbled, off-balance. There was a distant boom, and Yelena yelled, “Take cover, now!”
John wasted no time in following the command. He ducked into a room with an open door, slammed the door shut, and slid underneath a sturdy-looking metal desk. He grabbed his shield from his back—even bent as it was, it was better than nothing—and braced himself. The world trembled as a series of booms shook the air, steadily making their way nearer to John. The middle of the building must have been the epicenter. Fuck, he hoped Bucky wasn’t there.
Dust poured in underneath the closed door, and the metal door groaned and bent inward. There was a blast to John’s left, and he raised his shield in front of his eyes just in time for chunks of broken concrete to clang against it. Bits of rock ricocheted off the shield’s odd angle, and John’s torso and legs were pelted with the projectiles. His shoulder pulsed with each hit, but he remained tensed in a defensive position throughout the onslaught. Soon, but not soon enough, the world had stopped rumbling.
John hesitantly lowered the shield. He squinted through the dust-filled room and coughed harshly as he inhaled plaster. His ears rang from the explosions, and he could only make out static through the comms. The lights were flickering.
Slotting his shield back into its holster, John stood slowly. The room he’d sheltered in—some kind of office—had held up surprisingly well. The bent door remained on its hinges, but John could see a ruined hallway beyond its misshapen form. The wall and ceiling across from the room’s entrance were missing chunks of concrete. One sizable piece had landed on the desk John had hidden under—he was glad it had held up.
Pressing his mouth into the crook of his left arm in an attempt to calm his coughing and shield his airways from more dust, John strode toward the door. Rubble littered the corridor, and a section had collapsed between John and the training room he’d come from. At least any surviving extremists would be cut off from pursuit.
His comm crackled to life with Yelena’s shaky voice.
“—opy? Bucky, Walker, sound off!”
“Not dead,” John managed to respond before descending back into a series of hacking coughs.
“Also not dead,” grumbled Bucky. “It’s dusty down here. How are things up top?”
“Glad to hear your voices, friends,” Alexei answered. “But we have slight problem at helicopter.”
“We’re under fire,” Ava added tersely. John could hear the faint sounds of gunfire behind her and Alexei’s voices. She grunted and said, “Yelena just made it to the chopper. Is it a good time to mention our planned extraction time was two minutes ago?”
“Yes, very helpful, Ava,” John snarked, having caught his breath again. “If we could just borrow your phasing for a second, we’ll be right there.”
Bucky ignored John’s sarcastic jab. “Yelena, do you have the data?”
“I do,” she answered, tone breathless yet reluctant. “Do not say what I think you’re going to.”
“You three need to leave,” Bucky directed, and Yelena’s frustrated sigh was audible through the comms. “Walker and I can work our way out. I spotted a vehicle bay down here—they have to be getting them topside somehow. We’ll commandeer something and rendezvous with the rest of you after.”
“We’ll lose contact with you when the comms are out of range,” Yelena countered. “This is a terrible–”
“Is it just me, or does that look like a missile launcher?” Ava interjected frantically.
“That is a missile launcher,” Alexei confirmed, deadpan.
“Shit!” Yelena swore. There were more faint gunshots. “Fine, we’re going. Alexei, take off! Bucky, Walker, I will find a way to resurrect you so I can kill you myself if you die so stupidly.”
“Gee, thanks,” John muttered at the same time as Bucky asserted, “We’ll be fine.”
John listened intently as the sounds on the comms grew gradually more incomprehensible as static took over. From what he’d heard, it sounded like the three in the chopper had been able to take off and avoid being blown up by any missiles, though it seemed a near miss. John knew they had to leave to avoid being blown to smithereens, but there was a part of him that felt…hurt at being left behind. At least they’d left Bucky, too—they would have to come back for both of them.
The static faded, and Bucky’s voice came through clearly. “Walker, where are you down here?”
“Far west. I found their training barracks, and the fight took longer than expected.”
“That why you weren’t answering comms?”
John hesitated, deliberating. He had turned his comms off when removing the knife because the team didn’t need to know he was injured—it was hardly a pinprick. Besides, he doubted Bucky would care. John held no illusion that Bucky worked with him because he wanted to and not because he was forced to. Most days, he still couldn’t believe that Bucky had even rolled with Valentina declaring them a team and giving them the New Avengers moniker in the first place. He supposed that the former Winter Soldier could relate to Yelena, Ava, and Bob’s struggles. He served as something of a mentor to them, alongside Alexei, and John figured Bucky felt as responsible for Bob as the rest of them after New York.
But John and Bucky? They avoided each other. It was difficult, given that the team all lived in the Watchtower, but the two men did their utmost to avoid proximity or ever being the only two in a room. The others had picked up on the tension, but they knew the history between them, and none of them had dared to broach the subject. It had only gotten worse about a week before their current mission. Bucky had a run-in with Sam Wilson that had involved arguing over the creation of their team and the use of the Avengers name. Afterwards, Bucky seemed to exist in a state of perpetual annoyance, and it was worse whenever John involved himself.
No, John concluded, Bucky wouldn’t care. He would only consider the injury a weakness, and John couldn’t allow that. Not when they needed to work together to get out of the SNAFU of a mission they’d landed in without “dying so stupidly,” as Yelena had said.
He could picture the news headings now: “War Hero and Former Congressman James Barnes Killed on Mission with Disgraced Former Captain America.” They would conveniently leave out Bucky’s past as a brainwashed assassin or the fact that John was also a war hero (and a three-time recipient of the Medal of Honor, at that). But who cared? He’d be the villain in the narrative, as was customary. John had gotten used to it.
(He hadn’t.)
They weren’t going to die, and Bucky didn’t need to know.
“Yeah,” John lied, resolved. “Good news is the hall collapsed between me and the barracks. Anyone still there can’t get to us. Where are you?”
“Southeast. I was headed to you when you weren’t answering comms.”
John rolled his eyes. “My hero.”
Bucky let out an exasperated breath. “It would be you that I ended up stuck in a collapsed building with.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” John retorted, belligerent.
“God, nothing. We need to get out of here, and that’s all that matters.”
The end of his sentence was punctuated by a pop, and the lights went dead. The world fell pitch-black, and John inhaled a shallow breath, releasing it shakily as he attempted to contain his irritation.
“That’s perfect,” he ground out.
“Hang tight. I grabbed some gear from the storage rooms down here,” Bucky said. “I’ll head your way. Try not to breathe in too much dust and choke to death.”
John snorted but didn’t reply. He reached out and trailed his hand across the room’s door, finding the wall. He felt blindly along it until he found the corner of the room and stood with his back to it. John could barely see a thing; the world was a mess of fuzzy black and grey shapes. The serum had, unfortunately, not afforded him night vision, and he settled for listening intently to the sounds from the hall. There were distant groans and creaks. Disconcerting, but not a source of imminent worry.
The footsteps and hushed voices, though? Slightly more problematic.
“Bucky,” John whispered, “I’m assuming you didn’t find a friend to roam the halls with?”
“...no,” Bucky confirmed. “Shit. I’m moving as fast as I can. Don’t get shot.”
“Great advice,” John muttered. His fingers twitched at his holster, but he didn’t draw his gun. He couldn’t risk shooting blind when Bucky could be in the line of fire. John huffed and grabbed his shield instead.
The footsteps had grown closer, and John could make out some of what the extremists were saying. He suppressed an annoyed sigh as they agreed to clear the rooms off the hall. As they moved from one room to the next, John inched closer to the door, crouching behind it to provide himself with what would have to pass for cover.
He tensed as the two men stopped outside his room. A red laser shown on the far wall, and it was all the warning John received before the bent door was kicked inward. He caught it with his injured arm, and a stab of pain shot through his shoulder. John gritted his teeth and forced the door back. He met little resistance, the agent caught surprised and his strength unevenly matched against John’s. The agent cried out as what John assumed was his arm was caught between the slamming door and the wall. Bone crunched, and something clattered to the floor—the man’s gun, hopefully.
“Shit!” yelled the second agent. “Get down!”
John scrambled back from the door a breath before it was riddled with bullets. He stood and wielded his shield, taco-ed as it was, and flicked his eyes between the laser dot flashing through the room and the door. He used it as a guide as the door was thrown open again. John was able to track the laser back to a mobile fuzzy shape, and the smaller fuzzy shape it wielded. He rushed forward as the agent turned around the door, sweeping his shield upward. The semi-automatic was wrenched upwards, muzzle flashing as the agent fired off desperate shots. John blinked past the flares of light; it was only blinding him and making his vision worse. He pushed forward, shoving the extremist toward the wall. The shots silenced as the man hit the wall with a wheeze. John drove the straight edge of his shield forward, aiming for what he hoped was the man’s shoulder. The impact felt too soft for his aim to have been true. Nonetheless, the gun fell to the ground, and John kicked it further into the room.
Two shots fired in rapid succession, and John startled as a spray of warm blood misted across his face. The extremist he was holding went limp, falling to the floor as John released his hold.
“I said, don’t get shot at!” Bucky complained. His voice sounded off, muffled.
John turned toward the sound and was able to make out a vaguely Bucky-shaped form striding forward through the hall. He holstered his shield and countered, “Don’t get shot. There was no ‘at.’” He gestured vaguely around him. “Didn’t Valentina instruct us that this mission was to have minimal casualties? Those sounded like kill shots to me.”
“Yeah, well, they blew up their base. They’ve done more damage to themselves than I have.”
Something was pressed into John’s hands. It seemed to be goggles affixed to a cloth mask.
“Put that on,” Bucky instructed. “Night vision, and it’s doing at least a little something for the dust.”
“Thanks,” John grumbled as he felt over the mask and figured out how to put it on. After removing his helmet, he secured it over his face and turned on the night vision. The world was lit with greens and blacks. John relaxed a fraction as his vision was restored.
(The sharp stabs of pain in his shoulder as he used his right arm were nothing to be concerned about. John was used to it by this point; it was fine.)
John considered the fallen extremists for a moment, not finding himself sorry that they were dead, before turning back to Bucky. Bucky appeared no worse for wear, though it was difficult to tell with the night vision and his dark uniform if he was bleeding anywhere.
“Where’s this hangar?”
“East,” Bucky answered as he reloaded his gun. “I didn’t come across anyone else making my way here, but I didn’t clear the hangar before everything went down. It’ll be a fight.”
“Always is,” John quipped. He motioned forward. “Lead the way. The sooner we’re out of this basement, the better.”
Bucky sounded an agreement before heading back into the hall. The two kept their guns at the ready as they moved, striding carefully through the rubble-strewn corridors. The trip was remarkably uneventful, given their circumstances. Bucky had found a path that avoided any completely collapsed halls, and they were able to slip through any partial collapses with relative ease.
As John stood straight after ducking under a piece of rebar, his head swam, and he briefly lost balance. He caught himself on the wall, not able to silence a pained huff as his shoulder hit concrete. Bucky turned back to him sharply.
“I tripped. Calm down,” John assuaged. He hadn’t tripped; he was dizzy. Dizziness meant blood loss, and blood loss meant his shoulder wound might be a touch worse than what he’d imagined. Shit.
Bucky was silent for a moment. “Are you injured?”
“I’m fine.”
“Walker–”
Whatever Bucky was going to say was lost as John reached out to grab his arm, maneuvering them both to the wall. He’d heard voices ahead and held a finger over his lips before pointing it forward. Bucky gave a sharp nod of acknowledgement. He peered slowly around the rubble they were hidden behind and whispered, “We’re at the vehicle bay.”
John looked over Bucky’s shoulder to get an angle on what lay ahead. The double doors to the hangar were thrown open, and John could see a few extremists milling about inside. Some of them appeared to be injured but the hangar itself was relatively intact. John spotted a couple of armored trucks and snowmobiles, and there was a large door on the opposite wall that John hoped would lead to a ramp headed outside. It appeared the explosions hadn’t done much damage to the room—a good sign.
“Might be easier to get the snowmobiles,” Bucky noted, keeping his voice hushed. John winced. The idea of driving was…unpleasant. Shit.
“I don’t know if me driving is the best idea,” he forced himself to say.
“You are injured.”
“I’m fine,” John repeated his earlier assertion.
“I swear—” Bucky cut himself off with a frustrated sigh. He gestured between the two of them. “We’re a team. I need to know if you’re injured so I can account for it.”
Right. It was as John thought. Bucky did consider the injury a weakness, a hinderance to himself, and that was all. John supposed he couldn’t even fault him for it. The stab wound was making their escape more difficult.
“Took a knife to the right shoulder,” John reported clinically. “I bandaged it, so it’s fine, but driving a mobile…” He finished his sentence with a half-shrug.
John couldn’t see Bucky’s face but he could imagine his annoyed expression.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “New plan, then. We get a truck, and I drive.”
“Should’ve taken the uniforms off those guys you killed,” John noted. He was reminded of a different escape from a different facility: the event that had kickstarted the unexpected path his life had taken.
“And leave our stuff behind? Valentina would lose it.”
John could imagine her prattling on about limited funding due to their lack of public appeal. It was an unpleasant visualization.
“Fair enough.”
“We have the element of surprise,” Bucky said. “I counted six of them, and we can take out at least half of that before they know what’s happening. Can you shoot?”
“Yes, I can shoot.”
“Good. You go right, and I’ll go left. We move quickly. Once they’re down, we figure out how to open the door and get the hell out of here.”
“Let’s stop wasting time then,” John agreed as he drew his gun and shield. If Valentina bitched about the mission turning lethal, John would blame Bucky. He’d shot to kill first. Bucky also held the unofficial position of “Thunderbolt-with-the-most-leeway,” given he was the only one of them that held favorable public opinion before the formation of their team—Valentina had less room to be pissed at him in any meaningful way.
Bucky readied his weapon, and they shared a nod before moving forward. They crept toward the door, with John trailing behind Bucky. They stopped outside the room, hidden behind the wall, before Bucky raised his gun and moved around the corner. He fired two shots, and exclamations of surprise sounded from the hangar. John swiftly followed, training his gun on an extremist. The enemy fell a moment later, two bullets through the chest.
John ducked behind a stack of crates on the right side of the room, using them for cover as the firefight raged on. Wood splintered as rounds littered the boxes, and John quickly pivoted around the opposite side. He spotted his assailant and fired, and with a single well-aimed shot they were one more enemy down.
Across the room, Bucky had felled an extremist and was slipping through the storage containers as he worked his way through the room. John followed suit. He’d lost track of the last extremist on the right—the man must have taken cover somewhere. John cautiously moved forward, dodging between the armored trucks.
“Grenade!” Bucky yelled, and John sharply turned toward his voice. Bucky fired, John tracking the shot back to a now dead extremist. He then spied the grenade in the air—it was headed toward him. More importantly, it was headed toward their modus of escape. John dashed forward. He didn’t have his helmet to use to suppress the blast, so he would need to intercept it in the air. He swept his shield at it, hitting the grenade with the flattened curve, and the grenade richoteted away from the trucks. It exploded moments later. Not close enough to burn him, but the heat of it swept over him as he was sent skidding back.
John was forced to duck and roll moments later as a gun fired behind him. He stopped with his back at the hood of one of the armored trucks, catching his breath as more shots sounded behind him. Fuck. Why was he so winded?
John spotted Bucky at the wall across him, grabbing something from a desk—keys, he imagined. An extremist was creeping to his left, gun raised. John fired, taking him out before he had a chance to shoot at Bucky.
Bucky responded in kind, swiveling to direct his attention to the extremist behind John. He threw a knife through the air, the blade arcing elegantly across John’s vision. There was a gurgling sound as the knife found its target, and a thump a moment later. John counted two bodies in addition to the three he’d taken out and the one behind him—that had to have been the last of them.
John took the spare moment to breathe. His head felt light, and he stood slowly. He wondered if the black edges to his vision were from the goggles.
“—ey, Walker. You hearing me?”
“Yes, I hear you Bucky,” John said, annoyed. He may not have heard the first part but whatever.
The beat of silence conveyed Bucky’s disbelief. The other man must have decided to move past it and instructed, “Get the door. Anyone else left would have heard that. I’ll get the ramp door open, then we’re out of here.”
John gave a mock salute with his left hand and shield. “Copy that.”
He holstered his shield and moved quickly but carefully back to the hangar entrance, snagging a stray piece of rebar on the way. John closed the doors and slotted the rebar through it’s handles. He shook his arms out before grabbing the rebar on either side and bending it inward. It gave underneath his enhanced strength, but John gasped as his right arm spasmed with pain. He leaned forward and took several steadying breaths. Behind him, he heard the groan of metal as Bucky pried open their escape route.
He straightened and headed back to the trucks. He was fine. They were almost out.
John paused as raised voices and a parade of footsteps sounded from the corridor. He called, “Bucky, company is on the way!”
Bucky swore as he threw open the sliding door. It remained propped open, and Bucky gave it a satisfied nod before hurrying back to the armored trucks. He produced a set of keys and shrugged.
“Hopefully these work.”
“Hurry up and try it!” John complained. He had his gun trained on the corridor entrance. It banged, opening slightly as the men outside pounded at it. The rebar held, and the door snapped shut again. Behind him, Bucky tried the keys on the first truck with no success and moved to the next.
A beeping sounded from the hall—another explosive.
“Bucky!” John shouted urgently.
His response came in the form of the truck starting, and John clamored into the passenger seat. Bucky hit the gas a moment later, the truck surging forward right as an explosive blew the metal door to the hall off its hinges.
Bucky pressed two grenades into John’s hands and yelled, “Cut them off!”
John wasted no words on replying, instead rolling down his window and turning around. He pulled the pin of one grenade and tossed it toward the line of trucks. John ducked back into their truck as it exploded, watching from the rear view mirror as it went off on the ground between the two remaining trucks. One was flipped over but the other remained upright. John hoped he had at least gotten its tires with the shrapnel.
Bucky drove onto the ramp outside, and John instructed, “Drive fast!” before pulling the pin of the second grenade. He leaned out the window and tossed it upwards. Even in using his non-dominant hand, his aim was true and the grenade exploded at the ceiling just above the ramp entrance. Concrete and rubble rained down, and the sliding door creaked and bent before sliding partially shut.
As he slid back into the truck, John braced himself against the open window. He couldn’t excuse his shuddering breath or blurred vision as anything but signs of a dangerous level of blood loss. But he couldn’t have lost that much blood, could he? A knife to the shoulder would be a stupid way to die. At least the news reports of his failure might be slightly more favorable since John had helped ensure Bucky’s escape.
“Shit,” Bucky muttered, and John turned his muted attention ahead. They were nearing the end of the ramp and another closed door awaited them. Bucky shook his head slightly. “Brace yourself.”
It was all the warning John received before Bucky tore off his mask and goggles and slammed on the gas. John lurched, his head swimming, and clumsily removed his own mask before bracing his left arm on the dash.
The truck collided with the door, and John’s senses were overwhelmed. Metal creaked as the door was ripped from its hinges and thrown aside, and bright white light from the snowy exterior blinded him. He jolted with the impact, not able to stop himself from colliding with the door to his right. His already marred vision went completely white for a moment with the pain. John blinked it away, squinting at their blurry surroundings. The snowy mountain became clearer with each blink. Bucky steered the truck onto the road leading away from the facility, and a glance backward confirmed they weren’t being followed.
As Bucky tore across the road, John took a moment to look at his throbbing shoulder. He winced as he pried his shield strap aside. The gauze he’d used was soaked through, and John was dumbfounded. Why hadn’t it stopped bleeding? He’d had worse injuries before that had not bled this much. Something was off about the injury, but John’s muddled thoughts couldn’t sort out a reason.
“What the hell, Walker!” Bucky chastised. John observed as his eyes flicked between the stab wound and the road. “That isn’t fine!”
“Could you just drive and not argue with me right now?”
Bucky gave him a sharp look and muttered something indiscernible. His knuckles whitened as his grip on the wheel tensed. The truck seemed to move a touch faster.
The world blurred as Bucky maneuvered them through the remote, snowy wilderness. John rifled through the truck’s glove box. He found another medkit and pressed the gauze from it to his shoulder—John imagined it wasn’t doing much, but at least he felt like he was doing something. He set his shield at his feet so he could lean back. His eyes closed.
John started as static met his ear.
“—ell me that truck is you.” That was Yelena’s voice.
“It’s us,” Bucky confirmed. “You need to land now. Walker needs medical attention.”
“I’m fine,” he grumbled.
“If you say you’re fine, one more time, I am going to lo—”
“Jesus, what do you even care?” John retorted.
“What.” was Bucky’s sharp response, more of a statement than a question.
“We land in clearing,” said Alexei after a few tense moments of silence. “You see it?”
Bucky huffed but responded, “Yeah, I see it. Heading there now.” He jabbed a finger at John. “You. Stay awake. No passing out again.”
Again? John thought, confused. Losing time was yet another…not great sign.
The instruction, though, was pointless. John thought it would be impossible not to keep conscious as Bucky off-roaded the truck and the resulting bumps sent stabbing flares of pain to his shoulder. He hissed and pressed his left hand fruitlessly to the wound, doubling forward. John closed his eyes and breathed through the experience, letting out a relieved sigh when Bucky rolled the truck to a stop.
There was a hand at his left shoulder, and John glanced to his left to find Bucky considering him with something akin to concern in his eyes.
“You good?”
“Fine.”
Bucky’s mouth tightened into a thin line. He withdrew his hand from John’s shoulder and leaned forward to look up. He commented, “They’re landing. We’re taking a look at that the second we’re on board.”
John didn’t reply verbally, offering Bucky a thumbs up as a form of response.
Bucky glanced at the gesture before sharply turning around. His eyes narrowed, and he muttered, “Shit!”
John went to look, but was stilled by Bucky’s hand returning to his shoulder.
“You stay in the truck!” he instructed, his tone leaving no room for question.
Bucky exited out the driver’s side, gun drawn, moments later. John had no intention of heeding his instruction but was forced to as the world spun dangerously the moment he attempted to straighten. He gritted his teeth as it became clear past the sounds of the landing helicopter that there were shots being exchanged.
These fuckers didn’t give up, did they?
John huffed. He couldn’t sit in the truck and do nothing. Injury be damned, he could help his team. He needed to be useful.
John braced his left hand against the dash and pushed himself upright, blinking away the fuzziness in his vision as he focused on what he could see through the rearview mirrors. Another truck had caught up to them—it had either followed John and Bucky or the helicopter. John reasoned it had been the helicopter, given the man with the missile launcher that John clocked moments later.
He swore and rolled down his window. Wishing he had another grenade, John settled for grabbing his .45 with his left hand.
“Missile launcher’s back!” he called before steeling himself and maneuvering out the window. His teammates responded with various exclamations but John blocked them out as he focused on his target. The man crouched atop the other truck, raising the launcher toward the helicopter. John was seeing double of him and closed one eye in a bid to help his aim. The two figures became a fraction less fuzzy. It would have to do.
John took a breath and emptied what remained of his clip. He grinned in satisfaction as the man slumped forward, the missile launcher falling from his hands. Knowing that would be the absolute limit of his continued contribution, John slipped back into the truck and rolled the window up before again holding pressure to his shoulder. Bucky would have to handle any other extremists that might go after the missile launcher.
An unknown amount of time passed before the gunshots and shouts over the comms ceased. A knock sounded at John’s side of the truck, and John noted Bucky outside. He looked no worse than he had before leaving the truck—good. John fumbled for the handle, his left hand slippery with blood. When the door opened, John had to lean back to prevent himself from falling out.
“I said not to leave the truck!” Bucky chastised immediately. His voice, though, was without venom. That was worry there. Huh.
John gestured vaguely. “I’m in the truck.”
Bucky ran a hand across his face, dusting away the fine layer of plaster. His tone was long-suffering. “I’m not even going to bother yelling at you right now. Let me help you to the helicopter.”
John wanted to deny the help but even with the amount of blood he’d apparently lost he wasn’t delusional enough to think that a) he didn’t need it and b) Bucky would let him decline. So, John didn’t say anything further when Bucky helped support his weight as he dropped to the snowy ground. Beads of crimson blood marred the bright white, dripping from John’s right hand. He stumbled on the powdery surface, and Bucky was the only thing that kept him from falling. Bucky reached into the truck to grab John’s shield before directing them toward the helicopter.
The helicopter was in front and to the left of the truck, blades still sluggishly spinning and prepared for a fast takeoff. Bucky guided John over to it with quick but careful steps. Two hazy forms waited for them inside—Yelena and Ava, John observed as they drew nearer. Both reached out to help John step into the aircraft once he was close enough.
“You look like shit,” Ava observed as her form of greeting.
John shot her a sarcastic smile as he was guided into a seat. “Thanks.”
“Alexei, we’re on board! You can take off!” Yelena called toward the front of the chopper. Her attention turned back to John as the helicopter lifted smoothly into the air, and she worried at her bottom lip. “That is a lot of blood.”
“Yeah,” John agreed gruffly. As they talked, John worked the holster for his shield off his left arm, and Ava helped him pull it away from his right. It slid off easily. John’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. He’d dealt with enough gunshot wounds, grazes, and otherwise to know that it should have been hell to peel the strap away from the wound. Either he had gone numb to the pain or something was off about it.
Ava expressed John’s concern aloud. “The blood hasn’t clotted at all. What were you hit with?”
“A knife,” Bucky responded for him. He had secured the helicopter door shut before procuring the medkit they’d brought on board.
Ava again helped John free his right arm from his suit. His black undershirt was soaked through with blood, but the shirt shifted across skin easily. It was as Ava said—the blood was thin. Given the time since he’d been stabbed, it should have coagulated and sealed the wound shut.
Yelena swore in Russian as she peered at the wound from behind Ava’s shoulder. She switched back to English to propose, “A knife doused in anticoagulant, maybe. How long ago were you hit?”
Huh, John thought. An anticoagulant would make sense. The man who had stabbed him had been the last remaining in the room—he would have had time to recognize that John was a super soldier and account for it when selecting a weapon. But really, a poisoned knife? John supposed they’d dealt with things far more absurd in their line of work but it was…well, absurd.
Out loud, John answered Yelena’s question reluctantly, “Before I turned off comms.”
He received three flat stares in response, and John returned them as defiantly as he was able in his current condition. The edge of his vision was fuzzy, his teammates all slightly blurred. No words were exchanged as Ava shuffled back to a seat across the way as Bucky shifted closer with the medkit. It was Bucky who broke the silence.
“We’ll unpack that later. Right now, I need to stitch this so you don’t bleed out before we reach base.”
Bucky brandished a pair of forceps and surgical thread. John grimaced but nodded in assent before shrugging his right arm out of his undershirt to allow Bucky to get at the stab wound. It was John’s first time seeing it clearly, and he figured the gash was a little over an inch and a half long. A lot of trouble for such a small thing.
There was a fine coating of dust from the explosions covering his person but the bandaging John had done had at least ensured the wound itself was relatively clean and free of any debris. Still, it would need to be sterilized prior to stitching. Yelena had reached the same conclusion, it seemed, given the sterile wipes she had rifled through the medkit to find.
She raised her brows at John in a silent question, and he motioned flippantly with his left hand.
“Jesus, just get it over with.”
Yelena rolled her eyes but there was something fond in the upward tilt of her lips. She sat on his left side and ripped open a few packages of wipes, cleaning her own hands before reaching across him. John tensed in preparation for what was bound to be an unpleasant experience.
“Okay, this is going to suck. Like a lot. Sorry,” she apologized before swiping the wipes across the open wound.
John bit his bottom lip to suppress the hiss of pain that fought to slip through his teeth. His shoulder was not numb, that was sure as shit. The black encroaching on the edges of his vision expanded rapidly as Yelena’s ministrations spread pain like fire across his skin. His eyes closed involuntarily in a bid to blink away the distortion, but John found he wasn’t able to open them again. Head feeling heavy, he slumped left into blissful unawareness.
“Bob, I’m not going to collapse the moment I’m out of your sight,” John complained with a glance backward toward the man who had become his shadow.
Bob fidgeted nervously at the entrance to the kitchen. “Maybe I just wanted a snack?”
John quirked a brow in disbelief but beckoned Bob forward. “Then come get a snack.”
As Bob padded quietly across the tiled floor, John went about pouring the glass of water he’d entered the kitchen to seek. He settled at a stool by the kitchen’s island as Bob milled about the room, clearly trying to look like he had a snack in mind but failing to do so. In the end, he settled on spooning some yogurt into two bowls and topping them with fruit and granola.
He placed one in front of John and said, “You should have something too.”
John hadn’t intended to eat anything but he knew that Bob wanted to feel useful. He accepted the bowl with a nod and agreed, “Sure. Thanks.”
They were silent for a few moments as they both picked at the yogurt. Bob remained standing across from him. His eyes were vacant as he looked down at his bowl.
“Sorry,” he apologized quietly. “I hate when any of you get injured. It sucks to not know what’s happening, and I always end up assuming the worst.”
“It’s fine, Bob. You’re not bothering me,” John assuaged, and he even meant it. It was…nice. To have someone that cared. It reminded him a bit of Lemar.
Besides, it wasn’t unexpected. Bob had done the same thing—lingering near a recently wounded teammate—when Yelena had been injured on a mission about a month prior. She’d taken a bullet to the stomach and had been on restricted activity for a couple weeks. John’s injury, in comparison, was far less severe.
Sure, he had needed transfusions of blood and clotting factors and had delayed their return to the Watchtower by a day, but he was fine now. The stitches had already been removed.
(He had the serum to thank for the fact that he hadn’t bled out, considering that his axillary artery had been nicked. In combination with the poison, a non-super soldier would have lost far more blood. John didn’t spend much time reflecting on the matter. What was done was done.)
John focused back on Bob, who was chewing at his bottom lip.
“Maybe we can figure out a way to loop you into the comms, if you want,” John offered. The team had decided while John was stuck in medical that they needed to revamp their communications. They didn’t want a repeat of half of them being unable to communicate in the middle of a mission. The simple solution was that they’d modify their suits to include a secure pocket for their phones as backup, but they wanted to broaden the range of their comms as well.
Bob mulled over John’s words for a moment.
“I’m not sure if that would be better or worse. Hearing what’s happening but not being able to do anything as me would be…hard,” he finally responded, voice hesitant.
It was a fair point. John knew he would hate that feeling of helplessness, and for Bob, it was only made worse by the…Sentry of it all. Because by all means, Bob wouldn’t be helpless. None of them knew the limits to Sentry’s powers but maybe it was better, for now, to not put themselves in situations that could test them.
“Mind if I join you?” asked a voice from the doorway. John and Bob turned to find Bucky leaning against the frame.
“You don’t have to ask permission,” John replied in a matter-of-fact tone. He frowned as he spooned at his yogurt. He had a feeling he knew where the conversation was headed.
Bucky strode forward, and Bob looked anxiously between him and John. He seemed uncertain if he should remain in the room but appeared to resolve himself to stay as his shoulders set.
“How do you feel?” Bucky questioned as he settled next to Bob, resting on the counter behind him with his arms crossed.
“Fine,” John answered tersely.
“You know, I’m starting to think that’s your favorite word.”
“Maybe it is.”
Bucky sighed and unfolded his arms. “I don’t want to argue. I think we both know we need to debrief after the mission, and it’s better to do it sooner rather than later.”
Debrief. John figured the word choice was a deliberate one by Bucky. It made it sound like the conversation was something routine, a part of any mission, and not the abnormality that it was.
”What’s there to talk about?” John asked sardonically.
Bucky forged past the attempted dismissal. “Why didn’t you tell us you’d been stabbed?”
“What does it matter? I was fine.”
Bucky raised both brows, the expression on his face carefully devoid of frustration. Beside him, Bob’s worried eyes were flicking between Bucky and John as if he was watching an intense match of tennis. His eyes settled on John as the conversation lulled. Bob was never good at hiding his emotions, and the blatant concern John found there made him fidget uncomfortably.
Fuck. Having this conversation with Bob present had to have been another decisive move by Bucky.
John slowly elaborated, “Fine…ish. It’s not like I knew the thing was poisoned.”
“Even before you knew it was poisoned, you said something in the truck,” Bucky replied. He paused, his unreadable expression tightening into something almost…pained as his eyebrows furrowed. His next words seemed difficult for him to say. “You implied I wouldn’t care that you’d been stabbed.”
John wanted to shoot back a sarcastic response but the words died on his lips. He found it wasn’t Bob alone that caused them to—Bucky seemed genuine. In the scarce months that they had been a team, this was the closest to a real conversation that the two of them—plus Bob as a bystander—had attempted. John supposed he owed it to the other man to make some sort of effort.
“Don’t read too much into it,” John answered. “What I said—I had lost a lot of blood at that point. Before that, I honestly didn’t think it was that serious. It was a knife to the shoulder, we’ve had worse.”
It may not have been the whole truth but it was a start. Bucky seemed to see through part of his lie.
“That’s a good excuse, the blood loss. But you still said it, which means that you thought it,” Bucky countered without any heat. He sighed and rubbed at his brow.
“Look, John—“ John, not Walker. Things were serious. “—I know we have our history but it’s just that—history. We’re a team now. I think we all know I could have chosen to leave at any time. Hell, Sam has already asked me to.”
John’s nostrils flared at the mention of the current Captain America, and Bob grimaced. Bucky waved a hand as if to brush off the comment.
“Sorry, that's besides the point. What I meant is that I don’t want to leave,” Bucky clarified. He again fell silent and appeared to carefully consider what he wanted to say. “I’ve felt more at home as a part of this team than I have in years. That’s not…in spite of you, or anyone else. It’s because of all six of us. Everyone, every Thunderbolt, I can understand, and you can understand me. Sam…and Steve, they could try but there was always a barrier. I was grateful they didn’t truly know but I’m grateful now too, to have people that do.”
His voice trailed off, and he looked away. His shoulders were stiff, uncomfortable, after the vulnerability he’d just shown. Bucky rarely talked about Sam, and it was rarer, still, for him to mention Steve Rogers.
And what he’d talked about? John got it. They all had a darkness to them, each Thunderbolt. Steve Rogers, on the contrary, had been a shining example of goodness, honesty, truth—all that mushy shit that John understood the value of but questioned how any soldier could uphold in any genuine fashion. He’d failed trying. Sam Wilson, with all his talk of fairness and reform, seemed to be doing a much better job. John could see how it could be stifling for Bucky to be around.
“Yeah, that’s…” John cleared his throat awkwardly. “I get what you’re saying.”
Bucky turned back to consider him and gave a curt nod. They shared a look, and John decided that what happened three years ago didn’t matter. It was history, just as Bucky had said. Even if they never talked about it, John could make peace with that. The Bucky from then, who had been all derision and snark, was different from the Bucky in front of him now—just as John was different from the entitled hothead he’d been.
“No more hiding injuries on missions, then?” Bob input nervously.
“Right,” John affirmed. He then shrugged. “It was stupid of me, anyway. I’d be pissed if anyone else did the same.”
“At least you’re self-aware sometimes,” Bucky joked.
The tension in the room had calmed, and John wasn’t offended by the comment. He offered Bucky a wan smile before standing from his stool. John maneuvered around the counter to set his bowl in the sink and bumped Bob on the shoulder as he passed.
“We shouldn’t waste the day. Just because I’m not allowed to shoot doesn’t mean we can’t work on your aim, Bob. What do you say, Bucky?”
“Uh, shouldn’t I be the one you’re asking?” Bob asked. His voice quieted to a mutter. “I hate marksmanship practice.”
Bucky gave him a bemused look. “Which is why you need more of it. We can head down, and I’m sure the others will meet us.”
Bob, resigned to his fate, sighed and placed his bowl next to John’s in the sink. Yelena would be pissed at them for leaving dishes to do but that was a problem for later John to worry about.
“Maybe this time I’ll manage to hit the target with a whole clip,” Bob said hopefully as they trailed toward the elevators.
John and Bucky shared a grimace. That would be a vast improvement over the two shots Bob had landed—neither of them close to a bullseye—the last time they’d worked on his marksmanship. Maybe things would go better if they (and Yelena) didn’t bicker over their pointers from the sidelines. John had a feeling there would be less arguments throughout the Watchtower in general after the conversation they’d just had; a change for the better. But still—
“…let’s not get too ambitious.”