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John’s ears were ringing as he stumbled back, hit by that noxious gas developed by the Power Broker to weaponize against enhanced individuals (apparently they’re becoming a bit of a problem). He knew it was too late to fight back- it was too rapidly affecting him for his enhanced metabolism to fight off. Already his sense of reality was twisting like a snake, contorting, his vision changing, but he knew it was the right thing to do. There’d been only one dose of it, and he’d just pushed Alexei and Bucky out of the room so they wouldn’t have to fight their own demons.
He found that he thought it was a worthy sacrifice. They’d had it worse than him and were better people- if anyone deserved this, it was John.
Lemar stood in front of him, neck and spine twisted at awkward angles. ‘You’re a killer,’ he said.
Then it was the kid, Nico, the one that had cost John everything. ‘You are also a ghost. Your time is up and yet you refuse to move on.’
Olivia was next, cradling their son to her chest. ‘You have nothing to live for.’
‘You have everything to die for,’ his mother whispered, stretching out his hand. ‘You have a family beyond the veil, where the living cannot reach.’
A part of him knew deep down that Lemar, Nico, and John’s mother were dead, but the rest of him was swept up in his senses, locked in this nightmarish fantasy.
‘What is hell? As a soldier, you have already lived it,’ Bucky said, his face cold and smooth.
‘You have nothing to lose by dying,’ Bob told him, despite not having come on this goddamn mission, ‘and nothing to gain by living.’
‘You’re so tired,’ Ava sympathized, which sounded incredibly out of character for her. ‘Let go, John.’
‘Let go,’ repeated Olivia, their son still curled against her chest. ‘This world will never love you. It never has. The institution that broke you calls you a monster, your team does not love you, and your worth is measured only by what you give to the world. What do you have here that’s worth an eternity of spectating, watching as everyone else gets happy endings while you are always alone and untouched like a vampire watching the world age? Why do you still fight?’
She was right, John thought, the vestiges of his doubt vanishing. This couldn’t be in his imagination- in his imagination, Olivia still loved him, and Olivia’s words here seemed much like the cold and uncaring reality. He was a supersoldier on a team of two other supersoldiers, an ex-assassin, and two powerful victims of human experimentation. What did he bring to the table? Snark?
He was the sixth wheel, always unneeded and always unwanted and rarely built into the machine.
Olivia smiled cruelly. ‘That’s it, John. Let yourself die. You know you deserve to. You know no one will miss you.’
She was right. He softened, slumping as darkness crowded his vision. But then Lemar stepped out beside her and slapped John across the face.
‘Huh?’ John slurred, a bit more awake.
‘Stay awake,’ Lemar said sharply in a familiar voice John couldn’t quite place.
‘Don’t listen to him,’ John’s mother said, taking Olivia’s place. ‘He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know what you deserve.’
‘John, you can’t close your eyes,’ Not-Quite-Lemar snapped. ‘Don’t listen to it.’
Nico stepped out of the shadows. ‘Malysh,’ he said in a voice that was not his, ‘listen to him. You have to fight. Don’t let the light drown in shadow.’
‘You deserve to die,’ John’s mother insisted.
‘Come on, you stubborn idiot, pull through,’ insisted Not-quite-Lemar.
‘Who will be waiting for you if you do?’ John’s mother queried. ‘A team that hates you?’
‘Voyuyte, tovarishch,’ Not-Nico said. ‘We have your back.’
‘Damnit, John, you’re not a fucking asshole, now get your big head back here!’ Not-quite-Lemar yelled in frustration.
A feeling John hadn’t felt in years swept over him and he gasped, his heart feeling light in his chest. The shadows, his mother, Lemar, and Nico evaporated, and he found himself lying flat on his back in the jet. His uniform was ripped open and a defibrillator was pressed onto his bare flesh. He wondered how long it had been, if this was still just a dream, but then he saw a very worried looking Bob sitting next to him. Bob immediately brightened when he saw that John was awake.
‘He’s awake!’ He hollered. He smiled at John. ‘It was pretty hit and miss there for a while. Your heart stopped.’
John groaned and sat up. ‘What…where are we?’
‘Ten hours out from New York,’ Bob explained. ‘Yelena and Bucky’re driving. Ava is asleep. I don’t know where Alexei is, but I’m sure he’s awake, ‘cause he and Bucky had to do CPR on you and they both walked out of here looking haunted.’
John felt a pang of guilt. ‘Fuck. I should go apologize-‘
He moved the defilibrator and tried to stand up. His head spun and his knees gave out. Bob reached out, but wasn’t quick enough to catch him. Thankfully, Bucky had just stepped into the doorway, and he managed to grab John before he hit the ground.
‘How about no,’ the other super soldier suggested. ‘Sit your ass down, Walker. You almost died.’
John wanted to argue but Bucky’s face suggested doing otherwise, so he sat back down on the medical cot. Also, he’d had plenty of experience in arguing with the former Winter Soldier, and it was not pleasant.
‘So, John,’ Bob said calmly, ‘how are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine,’ John lied.
His chest hurt like hell, his head ached, and he felt as weak as a newborn lamb. All in all, he wasn’t fine, but they didn’t need to know that. No need in worrying them, and it wasn’t like John was a particularly useful member of the team.
‘Tell the truth,’ Bucky said, his voice dangerously soft.
John sighed. ‘I feel like shit. What, is that better?’
‘More honest,’ Bucky corrected. ‘And you and I need to talk.’
Oh, great, how had John fucked up this time? Bob sat down next to John and gave him a reassuring smile. John did not feel reassured in the slightest, though that was not necessarily Bob’s fault. Hope was practically nonexistent when one was John Walker.
‘Shoot,’ John said after a moment of silence.
‘First off, I know you thought you were conversing with other people, but the gas was hallucinogenic, showing you the people you think you failed in some way,’ Bucky explained. ‘But…you were talking out loud. You were on the ground, eyes open, talking to yourself, but your heart rate was going in an entirely wrong direction. We tried to get back to the plane as soon as possible, but there were complications. Somehow, you went into cardiac arrest- you flatlined for a couple of minutes while we were transporting you. As soon as we got in the jet, we managed to get you back to a normal rhythm…but we still heard what you said.’
John turned as white as a ghost. That meant they’d heard all of his thoughts, the way he thought about himself. Oh, no, they were going to kick him off the team- his sole purpose now and the closest thing to a family- and he closed his eyes, bracing for rejection. Everyone rejected him, so this was inevitable.
But instead he was faced by something entirely different.
‘Walker,’ Bucky sounded angry, ‘where the hell did you get the idea that we hated you?’
Oh.
‘He what?’ Bob gasped.
John pictured the kid staring at him in horror and sure enough when he opened his eyes Bob was staring at him in shock.
‘Okay, so you’re an asshole sometimes,’ Bucky conceded. ‘So are all of us. So you’ve done some bad things- but honestly, you have a far cleaner ledger than the rest of us, who’ve killed dozens of innocent people. And yeah, there’s three super soldiers on the team, but that doesn’t make you expendable.’
‘To the military I was,’ John corrected. ‘To the entire country, I was. To literally every important group in my life I was a tool to be used that could be thrown away afterwards.’
‘Not anymore,’ Bucky said. ‘We’re a team. A bunch of fucking misfits, yeah-’
‘-We’re like the Island of Misfit Superheroes,’ Bob chimed in, interrupting.
‘-but we have each other’s backs,’ Bucky finished. ‘I’m sorry that we’ve made you feel alone. We didn’t mean to. We were just…’
‘...responding to your snarky comments and tough love, assuming that you were perfectly fine,’ Bob finished, surprisingly the emotionally knowledgeable one in the group for once. ‘But you aren’t.’
‘No,’ John agreed. ‘I never went to therapy, but the last few years I have definitely been depressed, and the PTSD is just common knowledge at this point.’
He didn’t mention the suicidal thoughts. He didn’t want to trigger Bob, and he knew Buck knew about them anyways, what with what went down with the gas-caused hallucinations.
Bucky gave him a sympathetic glance. ‘We’re all a bit fucked, John.’
The use of his first name sent a jolt down John’s spine. It wasn’t unpleasant, just a new sensation.
‘But we’re going to be there for you from now on,’ Bucky promised.
Bob smiled, and John believed them.