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They all come into this mess with cutting barbs and sharp edges. At first, they’re all at each other’s throats, fighting over little things and constantly on guard. It’s how they’ve all been trained or how they’ve all learned to survive: Every man for himself. It’s hard to trust and even harder to make yourself into someone trustworthy. Yet somehow, little by little, John finds little moments of softness that give him hope that there’s still good left within them.
Within him.
1.
It starts with Yelena, because all things good seem to start with Yelena. Maybe it’s because she’d been the common thread with all of them, inexplicably binding them together whether they’d wanted to be connected to not. Or maybe it’s that the light inside of her glows more brightly than it does for any of the rest of them.
During their first weeks in the tower, Yelena is attached to Bob’s side. She claims to be making sure that he’s okay and that he’s adjusting well, which she is, but John sees how much she wants to take care of someone instead of destroy them. It’s a positive boomerang effect: Yelena makes sure that Bob eats regular meals, which means that she in turn eats regular meals. She wants to make him feel loved and included, so she organizes game nights with all of them, which keeps her from getting sucked into her phone. She constantly praises Bob for even the littlest things to keep his morale up, which in turn causes the others to do the same.
It's nice, and Yelena seems to be adjusting better than the rest of them. But John knows that she gets up way too early in the morning to go stare out at the city, losing herself in the morning mist. He sees the way that she looks out at the expanse, the way she grips the handrail. It’d be easy for her to jump over, to freefall down a hundred stories, to send herself into the next life via the pavement. He remembers staring down the elevator shaft in the vault, his feet perilously close to the edge. There had been a moment where he’d contemplated stepping into the abyss, sending himself careening into the floor below.
But she’d pulled him back then, and he’ll do his damnedest to pull her back now.
It’s a particularly chilly morning in New York, and John knows she must be freezing. He pulls a blanket out of the linen closet, one of those heavy ones meant for a cold winter’s day, and steps out onto the terrace next to her. Without saying a word, he drapes the blanket around her shoulders, tucking it around her so that she’s protected from the wind. He tries to be nonchalant about it all, but when she looks up at him, there are tears pricking at her eyes.
“Thanks, Walker,” she says.
“I didn’t want you to be—” he means to say cold, that he doesn’t want her to freeze to death outside, but instead the word that comes out of his mouth is “—alone.”
She gives him one sorrowful look and then shuffles forward until she’s leaning against him. He puts his arms around her and lets her nestle in close. In the quiet of the morning, he holds her as she cries and realizes that it’s the first time she’s been able to let her guard down since they got here.
It’s the first time she’s finally felt safe.
When she steps back, her nose and cheeks are flushed pink, but she gives him a smile anyways. “I needed that,” she says.
It’s the first time John’s felt needed in a long, long time, and her words warm him through to his toes.
2.
In some ways, it seems like they’ve all been tasked with keeping Bob safe, each in their own way. Everyone tries to connect with him, to encourage him, and to help him. John wants to be of help, really, but it seems that he and Bob have absolutely nothing in common. Bob loves to read, but John can’t sit still long enough to read a book for more than twenty minutes. John likes to cook, and Bob somehow manages to burn water. Bob finds a new obsession with cozy video games thanks to Yelena, but it isn’t John’s thing.
John realizes that he’s spent most of his life with people very similar to him: His teammates in high school, his frat brothers in college, his platoonmates in the Army. Sure, he and Olivia had been different people, but they’d grown up in the same town going to the same school practically sharing the same life.
Until, they hadn’t.
John’s in a funk, and the best cure is always keeping his hands busy. He’d spent the morning tidying up his quarters, not that there had been much to tidy. He’d never been a messy kid, and what untidiness his parents hadn’t disciplined out of him growing up, the Army had eradicated during boot camp. Once everything is in order, he realizes he’s still grouchy, so he pulls all the sheets off of his bed and tromps down to the laundry facilities. The indignancy of a hero having to do his own laundry would only bother him had he considered himself a hero, but John has no such thoughts.
He shoves the sheets into one industrial washing machine, the duvet cover and pillowcases into another, and the duvet itself into a third. He pours in the requisite amount of detergent, sets each washer for its particular load, and starts the cycles on all of them. He sets the timer on his watch to be sure to return promptly and screws the lid back on the detergent.
It’s then that Bob walks in, carrying the contents of his own bed and looking utterly confused. He sets the bedclothes on the ground next to the washer and stares at the machine as if it was an alien. John remembers the same look on the face of his freshman roommate when faced with laundry for the first time.
“Hey,” John says. “Need some help?”
Bob turns those big doe eyes to look up at him, and in a small voice he says, “Lena told me I should wash my sheets, but…”
John gestures to the now-spinning washing machines. “Great minds,” he says.
“What?” Bob asks.
“Never mind,” John says. “These washers are kind of funky. Let me show you how to work them.” He walks Bob through the mechanics of the machine, advising on which cycles for what. He helps Bob separate the loads and add each to a washing machine, grateful that the Watchtower had come stocked with a laundromat’s amount of machines. Bob reaches for the provided bottle of detergent, but John sets it back on the shelf.
“That stuff sucks,” he says. “Use this instead.” He pours the appropriate dosage into each machine and starts them.
“This is baby detergent,” Bob says, reading off the label.
John shrugs. “Started using it when my kid was born and haven’t used anything else since. The industrial stuff,” he gestures to the bottle placed back on the shelf, “gives me a rash.”
“Oh,” Bob says. “Thanks.” There’s a beat, and then he says, “I’m not too good with all this… housekeeping stuff. I didn’t even realize you had to wash your sheets. I thought they just… I don’t know.” He ducks his head, cheeks reddening at the confession.
John takes it all in stride. He’s heard Bob’s stories from the street, struggling to survive while constantly on the prowl for his next hit. He remembers growing up with a clean home, clean clothes, and clean sheets. Bob probably hadn’t had any of that.
In that moment, John realizes where he can help. “The first time I did my own laundry, I didn’t realize that you were supposed to measure out the detergent,” he says, holding up the bottle. “I dumped half the bottle in, and the washer overflowed with suds. It was like Armageddon but with laundry soap.” He laughs. “It was like something out of a bad comedy movie.”
Bob manages to crack a smile, and John takes it as a sign to continue with his tales of mishaps and woe. There’s the time he’d accidentally thrown a brand new pair of blue jeans in with his mother’s starched white dinner napkins, the time he’d used some weird detergent for his underwear and woken up with a rash all over his crotch, and the time he’d shrunk his own football jersey to an unfortunately tight level.
By the time their laundry is done, they’ve been camped out in the laundry room for a solid few hours, and John finally feels the cloud over him start to lift.
3.
Like many of the others, Ava hadn’t gotten time to just be a kid during her younger years. She spends their off time catching up on everything she’s missed. Sometimes the others join her, but sometimes even Yelena and Bob hit their limit for childhood pursuits. She doesn’t try to guilt them into joining her, but John can tell she’s craving company. There’s a reason people enjoy visiting the cinema: It’s more fun watching a film with a crowd.
The thing is though, she hasn’t quite figured out how to spend time with people without being too little or too much. She goes from one extreme to another: Extremely sarcastic to syrupy sweet, overly broody to garrulously chatty, standoffish and cold to overly affectionate and touchy. She’s trying to find the balance, but it’s straining everybody to deal with her. They care about her, of course, but they’ve all got their own issues to sort through.
But the thing with John is that he’s always been a fan of extremes. Lemar had been painfully quiet when they’d met, and yet John had glommed onto him like a barnacle on a shark. There had been something intriguing and endearing about his shyness, and over time, John had watched Lemar grow more confident and self-assured as he himself had become more thoughtful about his own words and actions. Olivia had been the life of the party, lighting up every room she’d ever been in. John had at first been intimidated by her sparkle, knowing he could never shine nearly as bright as she could. But soon, her warmth and radiance had spread to him too, something he hopes will be passed on to their son.
So when it comes to Ava, John can handle the extremes. He doesn’t mind when she smacks his side repeatedly while they’re watching a comedy film he remembers from growing up that she never got to see as a kid. She’ll laugh loudly and cover her mouth immediately when she thinks she’s being too loud, but John always gently pulls her hand away.
“It’s a comedy,” he says encouragingly. “You’re supposed to laugh.”
He tries to engage her when she’s being too quiet as well, asking her questions and trying to draw her into the conversation. It takes her a while to find the words sometimes, but John always waits patiently. He knows what it’s like to muster up the proper words. After years of biting his tongue in order to not talk back to his superiors, he’d found the adjustment to speaking his mind interesting to say the least.
Over time, Ava finds her balance. She’s quick with a joke that makes the others chuckle, easy to chat with when someone needs to talk something out, and appropriate with her affection with the others. The tension seems to lift, and they all find their balance.
But there are still the extremes, and John lives for the extremes. He’s perched on the edge of the couch watching the Falcons battle the Titans. He hasn’t sat back against the couch since the first quarter, and the game is tied. Without realizing it, he finds himself yelling at the television and pacing between plays. He remembers watching the game with his dad growing up, both of them hooting and hollering at the television like the team could hear them through the screen. That’s what had lead John first to play football, and he’d never seen his father smile more brightly than he had when John was on the field.
The others don’t particularly care for football and leave him be during games. All except for Ava. After his first explosive display during the first game of the season, she’d taken to watching the games with him. She hadn’t understood any of it, not having seen any football ever in her life, and John had taken the time to explain some of the game through the commercial breaks.
And now, she’s yelling at the television right along with him.
“Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?” she yells, jumping to her feet when the referee throws a yellow flag. “That was totally in bounds!”
“I know!” John yells back. “You’re blind, ref!”
It all comes to a head when the Falcons manage a last-second field goal that wins the game. Both John and Ava leap to their feet, cheering loudly. Ava jumps into John’s arms, and he catches her, swinging them both around as they celebrate.
“I haven’t had this much fun in a long time,” she says as he gently sets her back down. “Thanks for letting me be loud with you.”
John gives her a genuine grin. “Any time you want to watch football with me, you’re more than welcome. But there’s one condition.”
Her face drops a little and she asks warily, “What?”
“You can never under any circumstances cheer for the New Orleans Saints.”
Her face breaks into a grin. “Deal.”
4.
Technically, Bucky is the oldest of all of them, having been born in 1917, but Alexei seems like the oldest. Maybe it’s because he’s sort of Yelena’s dad, and maybe it’s because he’s been around for the latter half of the twentieth century while the others were either under ice or barely children. Either way, he struggles to fit in with the others despite wanting that connection so badly.
He makes off-color jokes that don’t always land, uses references that nobody really understands, and misuses slang terms in such a way that makes the younger kids groan. It’s like they have two groups: There’s Ava, Bob, and Yelena, “the kids,” who have formed their own little trio, bonded together like a pack of siblings more than anything else; and then there’s the super soldier triad, which consists of the three grumpy old men. John bristles at first about being lumped in with the other two until the kids start laughing at some internet video that he absolutely does not understand. They seem to have limitless energy for entertainment, and John simply does not.
But what the kids don’t really have time for is all of Alexei’s old war stories that John finds absolutely captivating. Maybe it’s because he spent so much time in a war zone himself, strategizing and executing, or maybe it’s because it’s something that he can understand. He’s sure some of Alexei’s stories are exaggerated, if not completely made up, but he doesn’t particularly care.
They’re up late drinking, not that the alcohol really affects either of them with the serum, and swapping stories. John finds himself telling Alexei about Afghanistan, things he’d never really told anyone else. Alexei listens earnestly, asking John questions and adding his own stories. It reminds John of being deployed, sitting around the fire with the guys in his unit. They’d been brothers then, and too many of them hadn’t come home.
“Do you ever regret taking the serum?” John asks before lifting the bottle of beer to his lips.
He expects Alexei to respond quickly, asking him how he could possibly ask such a thing, but Alexei surprises him. He takes a moment to think and then, after taking a long drink of his own beer, says, “Sometimes.”
John doesn’t say anything but instead waits patiently for Alexei to continue.
“When I see Yelena, sometimes I think about all the pain that she endured and how I was part of it. We came to America to serve the state, but we ended up… We ended up becoming a family,” his voice quiets with the last sentence. “I wish we could’ve stayed in Ohio, just the four of us. None of this super soldier spy business. But…” his voice trails off.
“Yeah,” John says. “I’m sure my son will wish I’d never taken the serum… that I’d never been Captain America.” A heaviness settles over him as he finds himself speaking the dark thoughts he’d never once said out loud.
They sit in silence for a moment, both contemplating their own failures as fathers. John wonders what his son is doing. He’s probably asleep in his crib with Olivia watching on the monitor. She’d always been a little overprotective, but John can’t really blame her anymore. He’s seen the horrors the world has to offer. If she wants to fuss over their boy a little longer, he thinks she’s allowed.
“We do what we think is right,” Alexei says, breaking the silence. “Even if it turns out to be wrong in the end.”
“Yeah,” John says, “but there’s still time to make amends. You’re already making it up to Yelena. I can tell.”
A smile spreads across Alexei’s face, and he reaches out to pull John against him in a crushing embrace. “Thank you, my friend,” he says. “We will try our best. Together.”
Yeah, John thinks. Together.
5.
When John can’t sleep, he finds little chores to do around the Watchtower, which is why he’s up emptying the dishwasher at odd hours of the night. He tries his best to put the dishes away quietly as to not disturb the others, even though he needn’t bother. Each person’s private quarters are sealed tightly against noise, but he practices the habit anyways.
Tonight, he pulls open the dishwasher to find the night dinner dishes, a few errant glasses, a storage container that is definitely not dishwasher-safe, and… Bucky’s vibranium arm. He sets the dishes back in their appropriate cupboards before pulling out the prosthetic and setting it on the counter. He’s never really gotten time to examine the Wakandans’ handiwork and looks around furtively to ensure Bucky won’t materialize out of thin air and catch him with the arm. Once he’s sure that Bucky is tucked into his quarters, he holds the arm up to the light to marvel at the Wakandans’ ingenuity.
He'd known more than a few guys who had been sent home from the Middle East missing limbs, and while technology had progressed significantly since the beginning of the century, many were still left wanting with their prosthetics. He’d accompanied a few of the guys from his unit to the VA for their appointments and had watched them learn to walk again or be told they never would. It had been one of the more sobering realities, and John had gone home after every appointment in a dark mood.
If only they’d had access to technology like this…
John notices though that the dishwasher capsules have left a chalky residue across the prosthetic and wonders if his arm truly is meant for the dishwasher. He grabs a kitchen sponge, debates, and then disappears into the supply closet for an unused toothbrush. He sets Bucky’s arm out on a towel and, with a bowl of soap water, gently scrubs off the dishwasher tablet residue. It’s slow going, but he makes decent progress. It keeps his mind off the ghosts that await to haunt him in his dreams, so he doesn’t mind the tedium.
“What are you doing?” a voice asks, breaking through his reverie.
John jumps and turns to see Bucky standing in the corridor in his pajamas. John scurries off the stool and fumbles for an explanation. “I—uh—was emptying the—uh—dishwasher and found your—uh—uh—arm, and I noticed it was still—uh—dirty—and—”
Bucky walks over to the prosthetic and examines it. There’s a clear demarcation between the dishwasher’s work and John’s, and Bucky lowers his guard as he realizes what John had been doing. “You don’t need to do that,” he says.
John shrugs. “I couldn’t sleep and it needed to be done so…” he shrugs again.
Bucky nods and opens one of the cabinets. He pulls out one of the freshly washed mugs and sets it on the counter. “I’m making some tea. Do you want some?”
John, not particularly a tea-enjoyer, says yes anyways, not wanting to refuse Bucky’s hospitality. He watches as Bucky gets another mug out of the cabinet, sets it down, and then shuts the door. He picks up both mugs with one hand and sets them out. He sets the kettle in the sink before turning on the faucet. There’s something about the simple motion that makes John realize the reason why Bucky puts his prosthetic in the dishwasher.
It's hard to wash it with just one hand.
He’s sure he could shower with it. If it’s dishwasher-safe, surely it must be shower-safe, but after John had taken the prosthetic out, he’d realized just how heavy it was.
How heavy it must be for Bucky to wear daily. There’s the physical weight, the adjusting his balance for a lopsided limb, but there’s also the psychological weight. Every day, he’s faced with the reality that he’d lost his arm and that HYDRA had turned him into a machine. Suddenly, John starts tending to the prosthetic with more care and precision than he had before.
The tea steeps, and Bucky pushes the mug towards John. He leans down and inhales deeply, letting the steam rise into his nose. It’s restorative, and John wonders if maybe he could learn to like tea.
They sip together in silence, Bucky leaning against the cabinets, and John sitting at the counter, still meticulously scrubbing away at Bucky’s arm. He feels Bucky’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t look up.
“I bet you know a lot of guys who needed prosthetics in the service,” Bucky says, his voice soft. “I know Sam met a lot when he was working at the VA.”
“Yeah,” John says. “Too many.”
“As far as prosthetics go, this one is pretty nice. Still not the same, but I never have trouble opening jars anymore.” Bucky offers John a pathetic half-smile, and John realizes that he’s trying to make a connection.
“That’s a helpful feature,” John says.
It’s Bucky who brings up the Wakandans. “I told Shuri that we need to start a program for researching better prosthetics. I know she’s always looking for people to try her designs, so if you know anyone who’d be up for it…” he lets his voice trail off.
“I’ll think about it,” John says. “I’m sure I know some people.” A pause. “Thanks.”
John finishes up with the last of the fingers on Bucky’s arm then gives it the once over before setting down the toothbrush. “All ready for inspection,” he says.
Bucky sets down his mug and walks over. He turns the prosthetic over and gives it a cursory glance before picking it up to attach onto the socket on his shoulder. The mechanics whir as they lock, and Bucky rotates his arm once to ensure alignment. “Looks great,” he says. “Thanks, John.”
John grunts in response and gathers up the towel and cleaning supplies. He dumps the bowl of soapy water into the sink and hangs the towel over the faucet to dry. He reaches over for his mug and takes another sip, letting the now tepid liquid linger in his mouth.
Bucky looks like he wants to say something else, but he just gives John a half-smile and turns to go. Before he can leave the kitchen, John calls out after him, “You know, you don’t have to put your arm in the dishwasher. I can take care of it.”
Bucky turns. “I couldn’t ask you to do that,” he says.
John shrugs. “You don’t have to ask. I’m offering.”
Bucky gives him a silent nod of acceptance. “Goodnight, Walker,” he says softly.
“Goodnight, Bucky.”
+1
Lemar’s birthday always seems to arrive unexpectedly, despite falling on the same day every year, and this year is no exception. John’s brushing his teeth and staring in the mirror when he suddenly realizes the date. He spits into the sink and turns on the faucet, staring into the bowl as the water swirls down the drain. He’d meant to send flowers to Lemar’s mother like he does every year, and he wonders if his regular florist had remembered even if he hadn’t. He scrambles around for his phone, only to find it dead. He curses under his breath and rummages around for the charger.
He'd meant to go to the cemetery, to talk with his old friend. He’d meant to call Lemar’s parents to express his sympathies and ask about their health. He’d meant to mark the day with more reverence and importance than he can currently afford, and he curses himself for not being able to do any of it. His phone lights up with a charge, and John grabs it off the charger. His eyes are blurring with tears, and before he can stop himself, he grips the phone so tightly that it cracks and dies.
FUCK.
He throws the useless device across the room, barely missing Bob as he opens the door and peeks his head in. Bob looks at him, a momentary flash of fear flitting across his face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Is now a bad time?”
“Sorry,” John says. “That wasn’t meant for you. It’s just this stupid phone isn’t fucking working and I need it and—”
“You can use mine,” Bob offers, pulling his own phone out of his pocket. He holds it out to John and gives him a supportive look.
“Thanks,” John mumbles. He reaches for the phone and pulls up the search engine to find the number of the florist down in Georgia. As he places the call, Bob turns to leave, muttering something about giving John his privacy.
“You don’t have to leave, Bob. This will only take a minute,” John says right as the shop answers. “Hi yes, I’d like to make a last-minute order.”
He places the order for the flowers and gives them his credit card number, grateful that they’re able to make the delivery the same day. It’ll cost him, but he doesn’t care. He’d already lost Lemar. What’s a few more dollars?
He hangs up and hands the phone back to Bob who’s perched on the edge of his bed. “What was that about?” he asks, and then immediately backtracks. “Sorry, that’s being nosy.”
“No, it’s okay,” John says. “Had to order flowers for… a friend’s mom.”
“Lemar?”
John looks up at him in surprise. His first reaction is to be defensive until he realizes that Bob had seen the worst of them, the worst of him, in the Void. He’d seen John’s failures as a parent when he’d grabbed his hand in the vault, he’d seen John’s fall from grace when they’d been in the maze of chaos, he’d seen the life drain from Lemar’s eyes when he’d held John’s hand one dark night in the Watchtower.
He'd seen it all, and yet, here he is, trying his best to offer support.
“Yeah,” John says. “Today is Lemar’s birthday. I always try to send his mom flowers but with everything going on lately, I’d just forgotten.”
Bob nods. “That’s kind of you.”
John shrugs. “It’s not much,” he says. He takes a deep breath and tries to shake the dark clouds away. “Did you need something?”
“Oh,” Bob says, remembering why he’d come to John’s room in the first place. “We’re about to play Sorry! and wanted to invite you to play with us.”
It’s kind, and on any other day, John would feel touched to be included, but today he feels too heavy to cavort with the rest of them. He thanks Bob for the invite but declines. Bob nods and leaves, but not before looking back at John. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“For what?” John asks.
“For Lemar,” Bob replies. “Seems like you really loved him.”
“Yeah,” John says, his voice quiet and melancholy. “I really did.”
After the door closes behind Bob, John flops back on his bed and stares up at the ceiling. Something akin to a highlight reel plays through his mind of all the moments he and Lemar had together. From their first meeting to their triumphs on the football field to the day they’d enlisted together. They’d spent nearly every day together for years to the point that it had felt like their very souls had intertwined. Lemar had been there for him through everything, and when John had been named Captain America, Lemar hadn’t shown one modicum of jealousy. He’d shaken John’s hand with the proudest smile and had said, “I’ll follow you anywhere, Cap.”
And look where that had led him.
The dark cloud hanging over John’s head only intensifies as the day goes on. He should go out and try to cheer up or at least interact with the others, but he can’t find the will to leave his room. He thinks about all the times he and Lemar had talked about their future, about what had seemed like endless possibilities. They’d planned to buy houses next to each other, to raise their kids together, to conquer the world together. It had all been within their reach, until it hadn’t.
It's nearly dark when John hears a quiet knock on his door. He tries to ignore it, but when the knocking doesn’t stop, he tells whoever it is to go away. There’s a moment of silence before he hears an all-too-familiar buzzing sound.
Ava appears, having phased through the wall. “Hey,” he says.
“I thought I said go away,” John replies, giving her a scowl.
“You did,” she says, “but clearly, I ignored you.”
“Clearly.” A beat. “What do you want?”
“We have something for you,” she says. “Dinner.”
“I’m not hungry,” he says, even as his stomach growls at her words.
As if she’d heard it, she cocks her head at him and opens her mouth, ready with a quick comeback. She must think better of it, because she relaxes her stance and comes to sit next to him on the bed. She puts her hand on his leg and says, “C’mon,” she says. “The others have prepared a meal for you, and they’re really excited about it.” When he doesn’t say anything, she continues. “Bob told us about today being important. I’m sorry that we didn’t know.”
John takes a few deep breaths to steady himself before turning to look at her. “You said something about dinner?” he says, trying his best to be polite.
Ava gives him a smile and stands up. She holds her hands out to him and he takes them, letting her pull him to his feet. They walk together out of his room and down to the kitchen. The others are waiting there, all gathered around the table. Alexei pulls out a chair and gestures for John to sit down, and Ava takes her place next to Yelena. There are a few dishes on the table, each only looking somewhat edible. There’s macaroni and cheese, somewhat burnt; chopped fruits, none in uniform pieces; what may be dinosaur nuggets, misshapen; and the centerpiece, an attempt at a layer cake that leans precariously towards one side.
But what gets John’s attention most is the name written on the cake. In shaking handwriting, the letters L-E-M-A-R are iced on the cake’s top layer. A single candle sits above, waiting to be lit.
“You’re always cooking for us,” Bob says. “We wanted to return the favor.”
“We didn’t want you to be alone,” Yelena says. “Not today.”
“Tell us about Lemar,” Bucky says. He picks up the pan of macaroni and cheese and passes it to Ava.
John swallows the lump in his throat and nods. He takes a deep breath and then says, “Lemar was the best man I’ve ever known,” John says, his voice soft. “If you’d known him, you would agree.”
John tells them all about Lemar, from his first meeting to their last mission together. They laugh at the story of Lemar dragging John out of the sorority house in his underwear, and they cheer at the story of Lemar pranking John at his bachelor party. John tells them about Lemar’s bravery, about his loyalty, about his humor, about his kindness. In between bites of mushy fruit, John recounts the story of Lemar saving his life in Afghanistan. He feels tears prick at his eyes as he tells about Lemar not even hesitating to put himself in harm’s way to save John’s life.
“I wish you could have met him,” he says, his voice low. “There was never anybody quite like Lemar.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then Bob says, “Yes, there is.”
The others all turn to him quizzically, and John sees Yelena swat at Bob’s arm. He ignores her and continues, “I never met Lemar, but I’ve met you. You put yourself in harm’s way to save me.”
The others nod, and one by one they share their own stories of John’s kindness towards them. How he’d cared for them, how he’d saved them, how he’d encouraged them, how he’d comforted them. In the end, it’s Bucky who places his vibranium hand on John’s arm and says, “The best of Lemar lives on through you, John.”
The others agree with raucous accord, and suddenly everyone is hugging him. Only then, does the dark cloud haunting John finally start to disperse. Somebody fetches a lighter and lights the candle on the cake, and they all break out into a horribly off-tune rendition of “Happy Birthday.” John looks around as the others sing, their faces shining as they look at him with more love and affection than he has felt in a long time.
The song finishes, and they urge him to blow out the candle. “Make a wish!” somebody calls.
John leans forward and closes his eyes, thinking for a good long minute. His wish secured, he opens his eyes and blows out the candle with one breath. The others cheer, and Bucky whisks the cake away to cut. John sits back in his chair and thinks about his wish.
Lemar, I wish that you’d be proud of me.
When Lemar’s mother calls later to thank him for the flowers, she bids him goodbye with the words she always says. “It was Lemar’s greatest honor to be your partner, John. He was never happier than when he was with you.”
John hangs up the phone and looks out at the others all clustered in the common room, waiting for him to return so they can finish the movie. He realizes that he’s been missing a piece of himself ever since he’d lost Lemar. The others can’t replace him, but they can fill the holes in his heart in a different way.
After all, that’s what Lemar had done for him all those years ago, and it’s how he intends to carry on Lemar’s legacy. Lemar was the embodiment of everything good in the world: He’s going to do his best to be that good for the ones who stand by him today. For Yelena, for Bob, for Ava, for Alexei, for Bucky.
For the Thunderbolts.