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The IED under the sand erupts. John’s world goes white-hot. He slams back into the ground, cracks his head on the dried pavement of the road, and lies there for a long moment to consider his mistake before his brain decides it’s time to die.
John gasps under the oxygen mask and bolts upright. Monitors beep rapidly, faster than any normal heart should. He trembles as his body and brain argue whether he should be dead or not. His body clearly wants to keep going, but his brain remembers dying in the explosion and is adamant that it should stay that way.
He rips off the mask—the sensors, probes, and IV needles. The techs know from past experience to give him a wide berth when he moves so suddenly after waking. Still dazed, John needs the cold floor under his heels, to press down and feel something solid push back.
Movement is delayed because of the sedation; the serum’s adrenaline is the only reason he’s awake at all. The world around him is languid, and he’d panic if he gave any thought to how vulnerable these drugs make him.
Val approaches. “Well?” She arches a brow.
John forcibly settles his breathing until his vitals follow. Despite the intense cooling required by Val’s machine, sweat drips from his hairline. He swallows and says, “I didn’t make it inside.”
“Jesus Christ, Walker. You did it before when you didn’t have the serum. Are you that shitty of a soldier now that you can’t do this simple task?”
He doesn’t look at her. “It’s a tight window to cross the road.”
“Clearly.” Val huffs. “Set him up again,” she tells her technicians.
John scowls, and the techs pause. “I have lunch with Bucky. So, if you want this little effort of yours to remain a secret—”
“Mel will handle your boyfriend.” Val dismisses him and waves at others to resume their work. She steps into his personal space. “Now, if you’d like to stop lying to Barnes, I’d recommend you stop dying on me, and finish the damn mission.”
He’s back in the Humvee. He tastes the dry air. Feels the sweat under his gear from the brutal heat. He can hear the way the engine rattles and the squeaky bounce of the vehicle’s suspension.
John licks his lips and closes his eyes and counts. He holds his rifle in his lap, tries to ignore the old chatter of long-dead comrades up front. The first IED will flip the Humvee soon, and his best attempts always start with him anticipating that attack.
Four. Five. Six… He braces himself when the explosion rolls the Humvee, then kicks the window out to free himself, scrambling down the sandy bank.
Across the barren road is the lone building with the sniper perched in the window. This memory focuses on that structure, blurring the rest of the world on the edges like a mirage.
John counts the sniper’s shots, flinching when he hears his friends die—like they did that day, like they always do. And no amount of time or exposure will numb him to his failure.
A pause in the shots. Now. John reaches up to the asphalt for purchase. He has four seconds to sprint and dive across the road while the sniper in the window reloads. Remember the IED buried on the other side—
John slips when he stands. He slips. And the sniper shoots him in the head.
Screaming machines. Frantic hands. He pushes them away. Rips at the wires without thinking. He doesn’t know where he is, why a migraine splits his skull and pressure crushes his chest.
Someone touches his shoulder. John opens his eyes and the blurred shapes of people and sterile lights come into focus.
Val’s voice comes over the intercom. “Again.”
Before he can remember what’s happening, something warm enters his veins, and he falls back asleep… back into the Humvee. Counting. Two. Three. Four…
Breathe. John grips the edge of his bathroom sink. Fucking breathe, John. It wasn’t real. But it felt real. It was real. It’s a memory Val is trying to exploit for information he once witnessed, but, unless he can get back into the building, it’s pointless.
It’s been three days of this experiment, hours each day. How many times has he died now? He’s lost track. But he thinks his body remembers. He jumps when the Tower’s HVAC turns on. Winces from the phantom pain of a gunshot or bomb shrapnel. It’s a miracle he hasn’t woken Bucky with the nightmares that have resurfaced.
John washes his face. He should eat something, only he hasn’t been able to keep food down. Apparently appetite and death don’t coexist. It wouldn’t be much of a problem for him, he knows how to persevere, but with the serum’s metabolism the undernourishment will be noticeable soon.
Bucky will ask questions.
John doesn’t know why that scares him so much. He’s not doing anything wrong; this information will be vital to undermining the rise of a new terrorist cell. His arms tremble without him realizing. Val told him this effort would help. It’s a mission; plain and simple, and John doesn’t give up on missions.
He hears Bucky enter their shared bedroom.
“John?”
“Yeah, in here.” He tries to sound normal. What does normal sound again? “Be out in a minute.”
It’s late. Bucky has been out with Sam for the evening catching up. “Sam still thinks fast food is acceptable cuisine.” Bucky says casually, opening drawers to get changed for bed.
John forces himself to snort in amusement. “He gives all us southern guys a bad name. You’d think his mama taught him better.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
John can hear Bucky’s smile. He washes again to try and mask the sweat in his hair.
Bucky asks, voice raised to reach him through the closed bathroom door. “You eat yet, John?”
“Yeah.” John’s voice strains when his stomach lurches at the thought. “Yeah. I uh, ate with Yelena.” He leaves the bathroom.
Bucky is halfway through sliding a soft cotton tee over his head. John watches. Usually this is where his eyes would trace over his boyfriend’s muscles, where his hands tingle with the urge to feel Bucky’s heat, grab him until he bruises. But there’s nothing. And that absence rings loud in him.
Bucky tugs the shirt down and smiles, approaching. His nose scrunches up from the sweat in blond hair—nothing gets by his sense of smell.
“Yelena and I ate, after the gym,” John explains.
“Okay.” Bucky’s face goes easy and neutral.
John watches him climb into bed and suddenly the idea of contact has his skin crawling. “How about I shower? I know you hate it when I smell.”
Bucky grins. “Seems a waste when I plan on getting you sweaty again.”
“Right.” John exhales with a poorly plastered smile on his face. He joins Bucky, the motion is familiar and led by muscle-memory. The moment of hesitation is trampled as he leans over him, straddles his waist, drifts fingers into long, brunette hair—refuses to flinch when Bucky's hands roam around his arched back.
John leans forward to kiss Bucky, letting the sound distract him as one hand wanders up his spine under the shirt, and the other teasing the waistband of his sweatpants. He tries so hard to summon something, anything. He kisses harder, sloppier. Tries to drown out the churning rumble of the Humvee with desperate lust. Lust he can’t feel but wants to so badly. Maybe he can trick his brain, make his body grind and groan until it takes over.
“John,”
John shifts so his chest flushes against Bucky’s, elbows digging into the mattress on either side of the other’s head.
“John.” Bucky pushes him away, gently. “You’re shaking.”
John breathes hard. “Oh. Worked out harder than I thought,” he says too quickly, trying to resume.
Bucky’s hand remains firm on his chest. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” But he doesn’t move, doesn’t blink as he locks eyes with Bucky, as if this makes him appear more normal.
Bucky isn’t convinced. He grunts and rolls free.
John scoffs despite not wanting the intimacy. “Fine.”
Bucky sits on the side of the bed, back to him, but John can read the judgment just fine. He gets under the covers and faces away. Shit. He’s shaking. Why is his stupid body like this? In the silence of the room, the ringing of the IED returns. The heat from the desert sun, and the crack of the sniper—
“I thought we were past this, John.” Bucky says, disappointed.
“What?”
“Did you even reach out to Raynor?”
Fear finds adrenaline so easy, John can’t stop himself from snapping. “Why the hell are you bringing therapy up?”
Bucky looks into his hands. “You don’t have to tell me what it is, but at least respect me enough not to lie to me.”
“Buck—“
Bucky stands and walks to the door without looking back. “I’m going to sleep in my room tonight.” The door clicks behind him.
John stares up at the dark ceiling. With nothing to hold, no breathing to sync with, his own goes haywire. Amped. On edge. Whatever he wants to call it. Whatever it is keeps him from sleeping. Memories of that road, that building—maybe he is sleeping. Maybe it’s just a memory. He can’t tell the difference.
John takes the elevator early the next morning. By six AM he’s on the thirtieth floor where the loaned memory machine has been installed. The techs that came with the device call it Kronos; John asked questions the first day they started this endeavor, but now he simply sits on the table and lets them apply probes and sensors. Nurses set his IV line, feeding sedatives and memory stimulants. One of the kind medics gently brushes the bruises inside his arm where he keeps tearing out the needles when he thrashes awake.
By the time Val shows up, he’s already lying down and taking deep, controlled breaths of the dry mixture of oxygen and secondary sedatives through the plastic mask. His eyelids droop as she approaches, and his hands twitch, reflexively trying to defend himself as she looms.
“Renting this thing is expensive. Not to mention the crap they’re pumping through you to knock out a super soldier. I honestly think it would be cheaper to euthenize elephants.” She glances at the lead technician who gives a thumbs up behind the safety glass. Val adds, “Don’t forget, the longer you take the more damage these terrorists will do. Your country needs you, Walker. Stop slacking.”
John is too tired to respond.
“Clear!”
She shocks John’s heart back into a stable rhythm. He leaps off the table, gasping. The nurse stands off to the side, paddles in hand, eyes darting between the rapid heart rhythm on the monitor and John who’s trembling on the floor.
“Anything?” Val asks from behind the glass.
John pulls the mask down and tries to speak. His head swims between the sterile room and the desert. He collapses against the table, blinking. “Almost,” he groans and rubs at his chest. “I can go again.”
He crosses the road. Avoid the second IED. And enters the decrepit building. John blindly charges for the stairs to get to the sniper’s perch. A hidden enemy capitalizes on his tunnel vision and stabs him five times, killing him with the sixth—John wakes up screaming and almost breaks the wrist of someone who gets too close to adjust a sensor. No one is allowed in his space for any iterations going forward. The test continues.
The sniper shoots his knee. John fires back with a handgun from where he lies on the burning asphalt. He’s shot two more times, non-lethal, and crawls back to the shattered and flipped Humvee for cover. A trail of blood snakes behind him. The sniper doesn’t let up. John decides, instead of bleeding out slowly, to shoot himself.
Colors bleed into rainbows as his mind rebuilds reality. He throws up after this round, and will continue to for all subsequent rounds; they keep a trash can in reach.
John storms through the Tower for a lunch break he doesn’t plan to eat. In the kitchen, Frankie keeps bugging him for things. He doesn’t know where the sodas are; he doesn’t even drink that crap. But she keeps asking because she needed that stuff to survive.
“John, you bought the groceries—“
“Jesus Christ, Frankie, I don’t know!” He shatters the bowl in the sink and spins around to—Frankie died. He realizes it when he sees Yelena’s face. John blinks. Frankie died in that Humvee. She keeps dying. He keeps dying.
“John.” Yelena snaps her fingers in front of his face. “You okay? You’re bleeding.”
They glance down together at the small cut on his hand.
John curls his fingers over it. “Fine.” He’s shaking again and can’t feel the sting of the cut. He didn’t cut himself before. He didn’t cut himself in that memory, so why is it here? He digs his nails harder until blood flows between his fingers. He didn’t die before. But he keeps dying—What changed?
The sound of shattered glass lingers and morphs into a sharp ringing. Then a pop of a sniper’s rifle makes him jump. John shoulders past Yelena, doesn’t hear her complaints or her worry.
Bucky comes back from the gym and goes into the kitchen. Yelena is there, angrily chewing cereal.
She asks, “What got up Walker’s butt?”
Bucky isn’t happy with how he handled Walker the other night. He didn’t know how to calmly discuss John’s insistent need to self-sabotage. And he was disturbed thinking he might have forced sex on someone who didn't want it had he not been aware enough to catch the signs. So, he had removed himself for his own well-being rather than stay and argue with John, but he’s not about to share this with Yelena. “I don’t know,” he grumbles with his head inside the fridge.
“Well, he’s acting weird.”
Bucky hums. He grabs a leftover sandwich. Passing the sink, he smells blood, and notices a tiny shard of glass stuck in the drain catcher. “Who broke something?”
“Your boyfriend,” Yelena says. “I cleaned it up for him too.”
Bucky sighs and puts the sandwich away.
Yelena squints at him. “Now you’re acting weird.”
“No.”
“What’s going on with John?”
Bucky turns and leaves. “I don’t know. But I’m going to figure it out.”
“Mel, where’s John?”
“Hmm?” Mel blinks, pressing her lips together to stifle panic.
“John. Where is he?”
“I, I don’t—”
“Val’s been having him do crap all week. My gut says he’s still with her.”
“He’s,” She bites her lip. “Uh.”
Bucky watches her emotions settle into conviction.
She says, “What has he told you?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem.”
“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “You didn’t hear this from me… but he’s been using this weird machine Val contracted. It’s supposed to help someone recapture old memories with heightened clarity, like you’re literally reliving and interacting with that memory.”
Bucky shifts his weight and crosses his arms. This is treading towards dangerous territory he has no patience for, and he’s infuriated at the thought of his boyfriend being a test subject, but he doesn’t mean to take that out on Mel.
“It’s probably best you’re hearing about this.” She steels herself. “There’s a new terrorist cell on the CIA’s radar, so it’s on Val’s, and all of our sources say John accidentally encountered them when he was deployed in the Middle East almost a decade ago.”
“Val has him going into memories to get information on them.”
“Just one, really. That’s the problem.”
“Explain.”
“John’s been going into this memory for days now, because he keeps dying in it.”
“He’s dying?”
“Not physically.” Mel flinches. “The machine’s engineers say it’s like dying in a dream where you just wake up.”
“But you said the person is reliving this memory, so you’re telling me John’s been mentally dying over and over again?”
“I…” Mel doesn’t try to hide her guilt for the part she plays in Val’s cruelty. “Yes. There are nurses and techs there to help the process.”
Bucky takes a deep breath. “Where is this happening?”
Floor 30. Right under his feet, this whole time. When Bucky steps out of the elevator, a guard turns to reprimand before seeing who it is; Bucky intercepts his hand and forces him back with his gaze alone. He steps farther into the room, noticing too much, fast: a mainframe-like machine tended by technicians, thick cables running to a smaller interface, a mess of wires attached to sensors… attached to his boyfriend, who’s unconscious on a cold medical table behind glass like some specimen, and even more eyes watching this spectacle while checking monitors and vitals and—
“Val!” Bucky scares the room. He doesn’t care, very little holds him back from tearing this place apart.
“Barnes, welcome.”
“I’m shutting this off.”
She cocks her head. “I wouldn’t recommend that while your boyfriend is ten layers deep in sedation.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He tries to focus on her and not the chilling sight of John completely still, chest bare and probed on that table. It’s not Hydra, but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
“Don’t think you can intimidate me, Barnes. I’m doing what it takes to stop terrorists.”
“Looks like John is doing all of the work.”
“And yet he’s given me zero results, shame.”
Bucky jumps when the monitors go off. John wakes like he’s coming back from drowning. He’s about to rush into the space when nurses beat him to it; he watches through the glass as they keep their distance, let John fall off the table to his knees, gasping, before stepping closer. One holds a bin, anticipating John’s stomach retching. Another counts his heart rate against his neck. A third carefully checks pupil reactions with their light.
Bucky doesn’t fight to become another set of hands on John’s body. He waits until they’re done and his boyfriend appears more present. “John?” He kneels.
John blinks slowly, breathing hard. “…Buck? What are you…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I…” He doesn’t know. His mouth goes dry. “I didn’t think you’d approve.”
“Smart. I don’t.”
John scoffs and shakes his head but much of his tough tone is lost in the visible trembling.
Bucky looks him up and down. How did he not notice before? John’s pale. Beard unkempt. Shadows under his eyes. Leaner, only in ways Bucky’s eyes could catch—bones sharper under his skin, softness hollowed out. Bucky asks softly, “Did you think you couldn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t see a point.” John doesn’t look at him.
“Either we’re honest or not.” Bucky says.
John groans and drops his head. “Well, you found out.”
“What’s the hold up, Walker?” Val calls out. “Boyfriend distracting you?”
Bucky growls, “God, she’s such a…”
“Bitch?” John chuckles when he can’t seem to think of the word. “I know you’re not that much of a gentleman.”
“I was actually going to say something worse.” Bucky watches John stand shakily with the assistance of the table. “Hey, easy. Do you even know what kind of crap they’re putting into your body?” He holds his elbow.
John hides sudden dizziness by sitting on the table’s edge and closing his eyes. “They need to put a super soldier to sleep somehow.”
“No, they don’t. Because you don’t need to do this.”
“I can help, Buck. I know there’s something in that building.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you care?”
John opens his eyes. They’re bloodshot. “It’s not like I’m actually dying.”
“John,"
Val interjects, “Walker.”
John sighs and glances at the nurses and techs, silent permission for them to reset the many leads. Bucky reaches out and touches the purple bruises on John’s veins.
As if reading his mind, John affirms, “I survived that stretch of road once. I can do it again.”
Bucky sits across from John with firm, endless patience while John stares down the bowl of oatmeal before him. After watching him endure two more attempts, listening to him scream and cry out from whatever death shocked him awake, Bucky stepped in and stopped the experiment.
He didn’t demand, he simply walked up to John and said we’re leaving. If Val had been there, he knows there would have been more resistance. Bucky kept his composure, but John didn’t say a word or fight back, and that terrified him. He gently removed any lingering sensors; a nurse silently helped with the IV lines. Then Bucky dressed John in his T-shirt and led him to the elevator.
“Eat.”
“Not hungry.”
“Fine. Then you’re going to sit here until you are.”
His stomach drops watching John’s eyes go unfocused. Eventually, John ends up with his head bowed into his hands, fingers tense in hair. Bucky counts each perfectly controlled inhale and exhale until he’s certain John isn’t fully here.
“Hey.” He gently nudges John under the table until he gets an annoyed twitch out of him. “Put your hands like this.” He mirrors with his own hands, guiding John to the warm bowl of oatmeal. “Just hold this.” Feel it’s heat.
John complies.
Bucky wants to yell. The care he feels for the man across from him wants to rip itself from his chest and shake John until he listens. But, more than anything, Bucky just wants this to be over. And he knows John. He asks, “Where is the mission getting you?”
“Huh?” John glances up, genuinely confused.
Bucky tries not to react despite his heart twisting up at the sight of John looking so lost, still holding that oatmeal. He says again, “Explain to me what your mission is.”
“Our vehicle hit an IED. We escaped the crash, but a sniper was already positioned across the street.”
“You weren’t alone.”
“No.” John’s fingers tense around the warm glass bowl. “Frankie and Jordan were up front, talking about the new dog Jordan’s wife adopted. Sniper shot and killed them before they could make it into cover. I think I just got lucky and picked the right side of the vehicle to crawl out of.”
Bucky notes how blank John’s eyes are, like he’s reading from a prompter. He asks gently, “What did you do after that?”
“I didn’t know they were dead yet. They were quiet, but… all I did know was I didn’t have clear line of sight to the window. I think it was stupid of me…”
“But you crossed the street to take out the shooter.”
“I did.” He blinks. “I think I did… but I remember not making it…” His fingers curl against the bowl. “No. I entered the building. There was another gunman on the first floor. I took out the sniper too.” His breathing quickens. “I thought I did. He had this map on him…”
“You did, John. You’re really brave.”
“I don’t know why I can’t do it again.”
“You’re thinking too much.” Bucky knows John is going to try that machine again. Short of tying him down, Bucky isn’t going to stop him. “You know all of the ways things can go wrong now, so you’re trying to be perfect. Sometimes you just need to act.”
“But I don’t want to keep failing them.”
“You won’t. You just need to trust yourself.” Bucky sighs. “And you need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Just do it for me, okay?”
John looks down and really thinks. “Fine.”
Val arrives on the thirtieth floor to find her test subject missing. The lead engineer explains the break Bucky enforced. She clicks her tongue and taps her cell into her palm.
“Of course. That man thinks he’s such a saint now. Listen, this needs to be wrapped up soon, so we need to eliminate wastes of time where we can.” She includes her lead nurse and anesthesiology in the conversation. “I’m over this dramatic freak out Walker does every time he messes up. No more costly resets.”
“You want him deeper in sedation?”
“I want him working the problem until it’s fixed. Put him to sleep for a full session like we originally planned.”
“It’s more complicated than flipping a switch.”
“Do whatever you need to do.”
Bucky walks John back to the table when they return. He stays beside him through the entire prep and helps him lie back.
“I’ll be right here.”
John is already too drugged to respond, but his eyes focus on Bucky until they fall shut.
“You should step behind the glass,” the medics tell him.
“I’m fine right here.”
“He—“
“He won’t hurt me.” Bucky says, refusing to argue further. So they bring him a chair.
Thirty minutes in, Bucky begins to suspect something. Normally John would’ve waken up by now but instead his fingers twitch then relax or his heart skips on the monitor before returning to its steady, slow rhythm.
Another thirty minutes pass.
He glances at those running the experiment; they avoid his gaze and focus on the work.
Another thirty.
He leans forward and simply holds his boyfriend’s hand, hoping to pass his promise through the contact—he’s not leaving. Bucky rubs his thumb over the callouses on John’s palm and then counts the knuckles, each one sharp from undereating.
A small alarm goes off on the other side of the glass.
Bucky’s heart skips a beat when even Val looks worried.
“What is that for?” she asks.
The anesthesiologist answers after triple checking the time, “That’s a full sedation session. He should start waking up slowly on his own.”
“And if he recovered the information from the memory?” Val asks.
The engineer says, “He’ll have to tell us that when he wakes up.”
Bucky listens, then squeezes John’s hand. “Why was he asleep so long?”
When none of the medical staff speak up, Val rolls her eyes. “Cowards... We upped his dosage, Barnes, that way he gets more time under, and we don’t have to keep resetting.”
“You what?”
“We all want results. Results mean this can be over. It’s why you brought him back personally, isn’t it? Get it over with.”
Bucky tenses and scowls. “You’re done with him after this. Results or not.”
“Right. We’ll see what your boyfriend has to say about that.”
Bucky settles back into the chair, stiff. It no longer matters what John says; if they’re going to change the experiment without his consent Bucky is making the call for him. He mentally prepares himself for the inevitable argument. Waits for the drugs to taper off. Only, John doesn’t wake up.
Minutes pass.
And soon John’s heart rate has slowed by such a degree even Bucky’s untrained ear notices. He looks wide-eyed at the nurses who finally enter to check. They manually count his pulse, observe his pupils. Remove the mask and IV. Call his name and rub a knuckle into his sternum, anything to get a response.
“What’s wrong with him?” Bucky stands, never releasing John’s hand.
“He’s not waking up.”
“I can see that!” Bucky glares back at Val who remains professionally stoic. “John?” He shouts now. “John!”
John is tired. Lost. He closes his eyes against the sun and waits.
He doesn’t see the world melting away at the edges or know the sun is dying and rotting black in the sky.
His body dips heavily into the ground. The taste in the air shifts from dirt to metal.
When he does open his eyes again, it’s nighttime. His brain screams that something’s wrong. He shouldn’t smell smoke. Shouldn’t see the fiery streaks of artillery slicing the sky. But he doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t care.
He got into the building. Thought he found the information Val wanted. He thought he did what they wanted, what was right, and yet he’s still here. Wherever here is.
He shifts and hears the clinking of metal. What he thought was sand beneath him turns out to be spent shell casings. Every grain a bullet.
He should move. He should care.
John manages to get himself to his hands and knees, sinking up to wrists and ankles into the metal bones.
It’s hard to breathe. It’s effort to draw each breath. A reminder to his body, which only slows more. Pressure crushing him from all sides. Distant bombings brighten the air and flash to reveal the dried blood on the casings.
Another explosion, muffled through the pressure in his ears, and then the rattling of a name—his name. He knows that voice. Bucky? But his mouth can’t form the sound. He pushes himself to his feet. Stumbles. Darkness encroaches.
“John.” Bucky’s voice is far away. Thin. “Wake up.”
John takes a step and sinks up to his knee.
“Wake up.”
John doesn’t know what that means or what to do. What is he doing wrong?
“John!”
John falls to his knees, unable to will himself to move. A warm, chemical stench rolls over him on the heatwave of another bomb. He wishes Bucky were here.
Are all of these his? He turns his palms up and watches the bullets run through his fingers like water.
He doesn’t think he should be here, but he doesn’t know where to go. If only Bucky would tell him, but that voice sounds like it’s calling from the sky. He stumbles again trying to look up.
Thick, heavy darkness circles
John falls forward. When his hand pushes into the pile, his fingers hook a small chain, and he pulls out an old dog tag: Jordan’s. They’re under here, aren’t they? He starts digging—Lemar’s tags come next.
Tears streak down his face. His fingers bleed now as he claws through the sharp metal, and he sinks deeper.
Darker.
He can’t breathe down here, but neither can they. He feels someone’s icy hand and starts to pull. His vision shrinks into a pinprick of light. Heat evaporates. Chill burns over his fingers and up his arm, but he refuses to fail again. And he doesn’t let go.
Bucky’s fingers dig into John’s shoulders and shake him. “John! Wake up!”
“Step away.” A nurse tries to pull him off.
“Don’t do this, John!”
“Sir!” The nurse yanks as another charges paddles.
“Clear!”
He releases John and tenses when John’s body lurches then falls flat.
Bucky can’t breathe.
Again. “Clear!”
John gasps, every muscle flexes, shaking.
The nurses order Bucky to keep him awake.
John heaves for air as Bucky grabs his face.
“Hey, hey you need to keep looking at me.”
“What happened…” John’s body starts to fall limp again.
Bucky jerks him. “John, keep your eyes open.” He exhales. “There you go, just like that, just until these drugs are out of your system.”
“What happened.” His voice scratches.
“I’ll tell you later, but right just focus on me.”
John’s brow furrows. “…I remember something…”
Bucky brushes back sweaty hair. “Don’t worry about that.”
“…my chest hurts.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
John swallows and winces. “…and my hands...”
Nurses check. Bucky looks at them then back to John. “They’re okay. You’re okay.”
“Bleeding.”
“No blood—John, keep looking at me.”
John keeps mumbling but doesn’t open his eyes. “Buck, are there things you regret?”
“All the time.” Panic bleeds through. “And if you don’t look at me you’re going to add something to that list. So please.”
John’s eyes slowly open.
Val’s sharp footsteps join them.
Bucky holds him closer to his chest and all but bares his teeth at her.
“Walker, anything to report?” she asks.
“Val, I swear to God.” Bucky breathes hard.
“Yes.” John swallows.
“Wonderful. When you’re done being a vegetable, I’ll expect my report.” She smirks at Bucky like a victory lap before leaving them and moving on to her next cruel agenda.
Bucky lowers his head. “Jesus, John, you don’t have to obey her.”
“I don’t…” He starts to slip. All Bucky has to do it hold his jaw, and John brings himself back. “…sorry.”
“You almost killed yourself doing this. Your heart stopped.”
“Oh. Well, not like dying is new anymore.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Also not new.”
Bucky has to let John go and pace before he hits something. He rubs his face. “I can’t watch you slowly kill yourself.”
John tries to shift to make himself comfortable back on the table, but he doesn’t have the strength yet. “No need. I completed the mission.”
“I’m talking about you, John. Not the mission. You. You can’t expect me to stick around if you don’t care about me enough to even try!”
John stares at the ceiling. “You think I’m suicidal?”
“I’m not trying to psychoanalyze you. That’s what therapy is supposed to do.”
“Therapy is stupid. Doesn’t work.”
“No. It sucks. And it makes you feel like shit. But at least it means you’re trying.” Desperation warps his face. “Right? You’re literally willing to kill yourself over and over for this mission, and yet you won’t even call her? I just asked you to call her, John. That’s it! Because I need something, anything—at this point, I will take any sign that you care. I mean, were you really going to let me fuck you when ten minutes prior you died? You really think you can pretend with me? You think I expect normalcy?”
John watches him without blinking, but he doesn’t answer.
“Are you scared?” Bucky asks.
John’s lips part, and he sucks in a sharp breath.
Bucky pauses. “Is that it?” He exhales a single laugh. “John, how? You sprint towards snipers. You jump in front of bullets for us. Throw yourself at monsters and aliens…” Bucky slows; he and John realize the truth at the same time. It’s painful. Bucky almost cries.
John does. “I don’t want her to tell me the truth.”
“Yeah.” Bucky bites his lip and nods. “Yeah.”
Maybe it’s not just bravery. Not anymore.
John wipes at his eyes, remembers the techs and nurses in the room. They try not to eavesdrop; some stare at him with mixed empathy. If he could leave he would, but his body refuses to move. He presses his palms into his eyes and wishes back the darkness when a chair scratches. John looks. Bucky sits at his bedside, arms crossed, not facing John but not facing away either.
“Do you have her number?” John asks after a long minute.
Bucky sighs. “You don’t—“
“I think I knew I was dying, and I didn’t care. I… I thought I was helping them or I thought helping them made not caring okay.” He tries to breathe evenly, but his chest hurts. “I did hear you, though. And I wanted you to be there so badly. I wanted you to tell me what to do.”
“Why?”
“Because I trust you, Buck. And… shit, I don’t know.” He sniffles and wipes his eyes again. “Because I care about you… just not myself.”
“Trust me when I tell you those can’t coexist.” He types in Raynor’s number. “You don’t have to do this now just to prove something.” Bucky sounds exhausted, as if he were the one nearly sedated to death.
“I’m just going to call her.” John says, voice tight with fear.
Bucky puts the cell phone into John’s hand and helps his fingers curl around it. “I was scared too when I started talking to her.”
John responds, something between a scoff and a sob, “Yeah. Sure you were.” He licks his lips while the phone rings, looking at the ceiling.
Bucky doesn’t snap. He does put a hand on John’s shoulder, because he refuses to let John fail, and doesn’t let go.