Chapter Text
The feeling of déjà vu has been filling the void from the moment Bobby took off his helmet.
The scenario is a little too familiar, and the ending is all too heartbreaking. The result is always the same.
A crack in his heart, and a space where a person should be.
A space where they would have been if they hadn’t been so selfless. Though he would have done what Bobby did in a second. Chim has a kid on the way, he has a family of people who care about him. Buck would have given him the cure instead of him in a second.
In that sense, Bobby and he are very much alike.
When it was Buck that needed saving, though, Coulson chose him. And Buck would never agree with that. He still could barely live with it. Even if it was eight years ago, sometimes it still felt like yesterday.
How could this have happened to him twice?
He knew as well. The second he turned around and saw Bobby standing there, unmoving, he knew. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he did.
Because, why is it happening again?
Why is another one of his dad’s dying to something they could have prevented?
And why does a small part of his mind think, as he is sliding down the wall of the lab, fumbling his helmet off, that at least it’s not him this time?
And another part of him thinks, as tears start flowing from the side of his eyes, he doesn’t want Chimney to have to go through what he did. He doesn’t want him to become a living reminder of someone who is gone.
Someone pure and good, like Bobby.
Someone who carried the team, like Coulson.
Because now the two are more similar than Chim might ever know. And he wishes that the feelings go away, that the despair and self-hatred dissipate over time, slowly becoming something akin to a weird nightmare, but they don’t.
They stay.
He’s lying on the floor of a smoke-filled lab, and his second good father figure has just died. In the same cruel way as the first.
It takes what feels like hours to get off the soot-ridden floor. His gear is spewed around the hallway, taken off in what was very obviously haste.
His lips taste like salt, unlike last time, the salt is tears, not blood.
There’s a roughness to his throat that wasn’t there ten minutes ago, and he doesn’t even remember screaming.
He doesn’t remember much about Coulson’s death. It’s not a surprise that he’s already forgetting Bobby’s.
His feet drag across the ground, his knees buckle every couple of steps, but as he walks through the clear plastic hall that leads him to the outside, there’s a numbness that settles over him.
It happened again.
He must be fucking curesed or something.
His foot lands on the outside, his lungs inhale air, and his heart is still beating. He wishes it wasn’t, he wishes it was him instead.
He wishes it were him eight years ago as well.
“Evan.” The voice, even though it’s right next to his ear, sounds muffled. His neck feels stiff as he turns to face Tommy. He looks worried, scared, and devastated. Why does Buck feel numb?
Tommy reaches a hand out, Buck pulls away. “I-” He pauses, trying to find the words. “I just can’t right now, Tommy.”
He probably needs someone, but that person can’t be Tommy. It can’t be anyone here. Anytime the team lost someone, he would go to Coulson. Anytime the house had a bad call, he would go to Bobby.
Or, well, sometimes he would go to Eddie.
Eddie, who isn’t here. Who still hasn’t been told what has happened, who has no idea that the 118 just lost their captain.
Someone has to tell him.
Oh God, someone has to tell him, and the only one used to this is Buck.
He looks around the half-set-up tents surrounding the lab. Ravi and Karen are in a deep conversation, tears visibly streaming down their faces. Ravi looks shell-shocked, but other than that, for someone who died for a second today, he looks physically alright.
Karen, on the other hand, anxiously scouted the area for Hen, her wife, whose lung had collapsed during the explosion.
Buck knew she was okay, he saw her being lifted on a backboard out of the lab.
Athena isn’t out yet.
Buck doesn’t think he’ll ever get the look in her eyes as she sees Bobby out of his mind. The devastation and anguish covered her entire body. She looked so much like May.
Life’s funny like that. Buck runs away from one May, right into the arms of another.
Athena and May would have gotten along. Especially now.
His eyes find Hen before Karen. She’s lying on some sort of chair, but she looks devastated. Her breathing is rough, and she’s clutching her side. Has anyone been checking on her? Her lung collapsed.
Buck’s head turns around to find the paramedics on scene, and that’s when he spots him, Chimney.
He’s on the phone with someone, and tears are streaming down his face. He’s also surrounded by plastic, quarantined. Buck remembers what that feels like. He remembers what all of this feels like.
He want’s to go and talk to them, comfort Chim, hug Hen, tell Ravi that none of this his fault. He really wants Athena to leave the lab, he wants to be there for her, like he couldn’t be for May.
The only difference between Bobby’s death and Coulson’s is the fact that it was only Bobby who died today. He wants to throw up just thinking about the fact that in the depths of his mind, he’s grateful. Grateful that no one else was hurt. Grateful that, unlike last time, he doesn’t have to hear about two of his family members dying.
Grateful that he doesn’t have to hear about Ravi or Hen or Chim dying from something that could also be chalked down to his fault.
Because maybe both Fitz and Coulson died because of him that day. It was he who caused the quake after all, caused the ceiling to collapse onto Fitz’s legs, cutting the bottom half of his body clean off. He didn’t even stand a chance.
He doesn’t remember getting dropped off at Eddie’s house. He doesn’t remember calling the Uber or saying goodbye to anyone. The world feels as if it’s moving in slow motion and speeding up at the same time.
Buck still feels numb.
And there’s been a weird phantom pain in his neck for the last couple of hours.
His feet feel sluggish as he opens the door and walks into the house. His shoes come off his feet, and a weight feels like it’s been lifted off his shoulders.
The phone in his hand now bears all the weight in the world. Because he has to be the one to tell Eddie. He doesn’t want to think about how this feels like Simmons telling Fitz about Coulson. Because it’s not, it can’t be like that. It’s not allowed to be like that.
If it is. Well.
There are already too many parallels in his new life compared to his old one.
His phone screen lights up with two missed texts from Eddie asking if he could call.
Was Eddie’s day boring again? Did he just need someone to talk to? Was there an issue? Did something happen over in Texas?
It doesn’t matter now, Buck guesses.
Nothing matters now.
He opens his phone, and a photo of him and Chris faces him. The call button is sitting in the corner of the screen. He sucks in a breath. He can’t do this, but he has to.
Would Eddie even be awake? It’s been dark for hours. Texas is an hour ahead as well. Should he wait till morning?
No, he has to do this now, while his mind is still in tack. He feels the breakdown coming, and he doesn’t want it to happen with Eddie on the phone.
He hits the call button.
Eddie answers instantly.
“Hello? Buck?”
Shit, he wasn’t expecting him to answer. Buck sucks in a suprise breath. It must be audible over the phone because Eddie asks again.
“Buck?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”
There’s the sound of blankets moving over the phone as Eddie turns over in his bed. “It’s three in the morning? What are you calling me for? I should have realized you were on call earlier, I was just bored; nothing important happened.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
“Buck?”
He still remembers what Fitz looked like when they told him Coulson had died. He can see, in the back of his mind, May, blinking back tears as she walks into the Lighthouse a week after they dropped the two of them off in Tahiti. The feeling of his hands on the memorial plaque on the Zephyr.
“Sorry, um. There was a call today, a lab, someone started a fire.”
Not an earthquake, not this time.
“Buck? Are you calling me about a fire?”
“No, no. Um, there was a virus in the lab when the fire was started.”
“Ok?”
“Eddie, Bobby was infected.”
He hears more movement on Eddie’s end of the call. Then footsteps.
“So, is there a cure? Or are the effects only temporary?”
“Eddie.”
All movement on the other side of the phone stops. He can almost hear Simmons say: ‘he was sick for a long time.’ Fitz’s gasp. His stutter when tears gather around his eyes. The feeling of everything being too much.
“No. No, he can’t be.”
“The sickness worked quickly, the strand was sped up for testing.”
“That’s- That’s too much.”
Oh. Everything in his life is just one big fucking circle then.
The call goes silent. Buck looks down at his phone.
Eddie hung up.