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John Walker figured this was a pretty damn stupid way to die.
Not under enemy fire with boots on the ground. Not saving someone in dire need. Not even in some valiant last stand that would’ve looked good on the History Channel rerun years later.
Nope.
He was high in the early afternoon sky, dangling over some tiny town in upstate New York, just two hours away from the city, clinging for dear life to the side of a flying rectangle made of metallic nightmares.
His ribs ached. His head was woozy from one too many jolts against unforgiving steel, and every nerve in his body screamed that he should not—absolutely should not—be this far above the ground without a cockpit around him. He’d been higher before, sure, but safely buckled into a Black Hawk.
But this? This was just him, chilling air biting at his skin, dangling from the tips of his fingertips and boots on some… thing. He wasn’t even sure what to call it.
It wasn’t a drone, wasn’t a tank, wasn’t a plane. It was some Frankenstein’s monster of steel plating and wire sinew, nearly as big as half a city block. And someone, somewhere, thought it was a bright idea to bolt weaponry to its sides and a bomb bay in its belly.
“Walker!” Yelena’s voice cut through the chaos. Perfect. She was irritated. Like she was always one breath away from deciding he was more hassle than he was worth.
She was a dozen feet away, hanging off a jagged lip of metal, far more secure than he was. Her agility and flexibility skills were light years beyond what John was capable of. But she was also a lot smaller, so she had the upper hand. Her short knives were wedged into some plating that John had loosened while they were still on the blessed ground. She was prying it open with the kind of feral determination that left him both grateful and unsettled.
“A little help would be nice!” she shouted, static crackling in his earpiece.
But then, of all things, a machine gun emerged from an opening and pointed directly at him.
John grit his teeth, braced his grips, and raised his shield. It had seen better days. Bob had tried his best to unbend it, but the end result looked less like a proud emblem of justice and more like a piece of scrap art. Wavy, uneven, warped like an oval. Still, it did the job. At least until Val got him that new vibranium shield she promised.
Heavy rounds slammed against it in a vicious rattle. The shock ran up his arms, rattling teeth, numbing his fingers. He angled the shield carefully, deflecting the storm of bullets away from Yelena. Sparks flared and scattered like dying stars.
“What do you think I’m doing?!” he snapped against the rush of wind.
Truth be told, he was pissed. This should’ve never been on just the two of them. If even one more of their so-called team had been available, this nightmare might’ve been manageable. Another super soldier, Bucky or Alexei, and they could’ve forced their way into the plating and torn the thing open at one of the joint weak points. Or Ava could’ve phased inside, shredding the mechanics from within.
But no. Everyone else had been conveniently busy. Val had split them like chess pieces, sending the others on some other “urgent” mission. John had wanted to go with them, had voiced as much too, but Bucky shot it down flat. Just like that. No vote, no discussion. Since when had Barnes decided he was team captain?
John had clicked his tongue, bit down his frustration when Bob looked anxiously between them, but the sour taste lingered even now. Might’ve been what stunted his ability to think more rationally when the goddamned thing started to take off into the air.
And here they were: just him and Yelena, the worst pairing for this sort of scenario, slamming themselves uselessly against a flying tank. Every punch and every kick from his enhanced limbs barely dented the monstrous plating. All their sweat and blood amounted to nothing but keeping themselves from being hurled off into open sky.
Maybe, John thought bitterly, that was the whole point. Maybe Val wanted them gone. It’s been a little over a year now and maybe she needed some new narratives. Put the least-usable pairing on an impossible mission and wait for the inevitable. Failure, casualty, martyrdom. She’d weep crocodile tears at the funeral, then spin it into a nice clean PR win: the brave sacrifices of her team, proof of their commitment to America. Maybe it’d even earn them the rights to the “Avengers” name.
He could almost hear it now.
Made him want to throw up.
Beneath them, far below, a sleepy little town sprawled across the valley. John had glimpsed it when they were first dragged skyward—rows of houses with peeling paint, a schoolyard, a church steeple. A main street with shops. Harmless, ordinary. He’d grown up in a town like that with faded murals and rusted stop signs. Places where people wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Or to just get the hell out.
But under one of those bland little storefronts apparently lay something less harmless. A secret military lab, Mel had explained to them on Valentina’s behalf, hidden in plain sight. Highly classified, scrubbed from every record. If the tank-drone thing he clung to reached its designated coordinates, it would release its payload. And wipe the lab and the whole damn town off the map.
Unless he and Yelena did something now.
If he got to the top, maybe there was a top-load opening, like most tanks he’d seen before. He dug his boot into a bent seam of plating, tightened his grip on his warped shield, and pulled himself higher. His muscles screamed in protest. His head still spun from the altitude, the air thin. Each breath clawed at his lungs, burned in his chest. But he hauled himself up anyway.
Because if they didn’t stop this, no one would.
Yelena’s voice tore through his earpiece, “We’re almost over the town! If we don’t do something—!”
She was panicking. The same woman who could flip a knife into someone’s throat without blinking. She was usually so calm and collected, like she could play cards with the devil and walk away with his wallet. But the longer she did this hero kind of work, the more her tells bled through. Civilian lives directly depending on her wasn’t something she was used to.
John knew that pressure. All the way down to the marrow of his bones.
No casualties. Save everyone. No failure.
That was what he wanted to offer his nation, what drove him until his soul felt hollow. But every time, it seemed, he came back limping. Or worse… didn’t come back with what they wanted. Headlines tearing him apart. Commentators carving open his failures like vultures on a carcass.
Being Captain America’s shadow had been bad enough. Now, he couldn’t even claw his way out of being the New Avengers’ blunt instrument. That was his brand, Val nonchalantly said to him a few months ago while typing an email on her phone.
Swing him like a hammer. Hope he didn’t crack on impact.
He was supposed to be the soldier people could count on, a ray of hope in a dark time. But right now, staring down the siding of this monstrosity, he was starting to feel like dead weight.
The flying slab of metal bellowed. A grinding, almost-animal roar that rattled his ribs. His lungs seized.
Oh no. Was that the bomb bay opening?
No more time to think.
Shoulders tight, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached, John started punching the steel siding as hard as he could. Over and over and over. Bone to metal. Skin tearing, knuckles cracking open. His breath ragged in his throat. Faster. Harder. A dent spread, groaning, the plating started to bend under his strikes. He slammed again, and the first sliver of steel sheared away, sharp edges catching his bloodied hand. Desperate hope flared in his chest. Maybe he could break through.
He pounded again and again, the sound of bashing metal louder than whatever Yelena was yelling to him over their comms. The steel cracked, and the side gun jolted awake. The clatter of gears locking in.
Oh, shit.
He couldn’t block. Not with his shield arm holding him to the tank, muscles locked, fingers curled in a death grip on the lip. He grunted and kept hammering with his free fist. The barrel stuttered, jolted by John’s punches, and gunfire roared. Rounds ricocheted past him and off the walls of its own siding. One grazed his ribs, another tore into his thigh. Lines of hot pain ripped across his arms, his back, every shot missing the heart of him, but shredding pieces away. It seemed every hit rattled the tank, throwing the gun’s aim off.
He slammed harder. The dent deepened, sharp edges biting into his already bloodied hand. It looked like he was going to make it through. No time. Keep hitting. Even as his own blood slicked his grip, spraying across his face. He blinked against it and kept going.
If he could just—
John paused.
The sound of something moving fast. Air whistling in the far distance.
He glanced downward and then the world split open with light.
Clean. Precise. A stroke of gold shot straight up through the belly of the fortress and burst through the top, too fast to follow, like a beam of sun thrust from earth to sky. For a breathless second, the tank looked untouched. As if the light passed through without leaving a mark.
John whipped his head to his right.
Yelena was gone.
Then came a ripple. A seam glowing red-hot carved across its belly from the bottom up, as neat as a scalpel slicing open flesh. The metal John clutched to lurched.
The tank split, cracking wide with a sound like thunder roaring through the skies. An explosive shockwave. His ears rang. His eyes filled with white light and ash. Heat blasted across his skin, prickling the fine hairs on his arms and searing the edges of his uniform. He jerked his shield up on instinct, bracing it in front of his head.
And suddenly there was nothing under him.
The world spun, flipping endlessly. He couldn’t tell which way was up and which was down. His body tumbled in the open air. He was falling. He could tell that much by the pull of gravity. Weightless, the cold air alternating between slamming his chest and ripping across his back as he spun.
He tried to tighten up, muscle memory taking over. Curl in. Shield under. Angle the body. Count the seconds. But training didn’t mean much when the ground was miles away, and he was freefalling without a parachute.
Even with the serum in his blood, he knew the math. From this altitude, hitting earth would turn him into paste.
A soldier’s brain knew when to stop lying.
Then arms clamped around John’s chest like a harness, strong as a vice, yanking the breath from his lungs.
The plummet lurched. His wild freefall snapped into a brutal drag, his body wrenched into a new angle. The scream of descent slowed to a whistle. His stomach bottomed out, but at least his spine didn’t snap.
It took a moment for John’s brain to catch up, to separate gravity from his direction, to tell which way the ground was. He forced his chin up to see what was happening, vision rattling in his skull, and he caught sight of the underside of Bob.
The guy who apologized when he breathed too loud. Who looked like he’d break into pieces if you shoved him wrong. And that Bob just cut a sky-tank in half with only his body.
Not in the gleaming blue-and-gold outfit that Val’s PR department designed for their disgusting idea of a perfect superhero. Loose dark blue jeans, sides scorched and singed. Sneakers that looked like they’d been used past their prime. A dark green sweater stretched crooked at the collar, stretched out likely from his speed of flight, hanging awkwardly large on his shoulders.
And around his face—
John squinted. Was that… their bathroom hand towel? Tied across his face like the world’s cheapest mask, threads fraying at the edges, flapping in the wind.
John didn’t think he’d ever get used to seeing Bob use his powers. He hadn’t seen Bob cut loose since the Void incident. Not once. The guy treated his powers like they were radioactive, something to keep locked up and only touched with lead gloves.
John and Ava had both tried, here and there, to nudge him into training. Bob would humor them up to a point, moving a coffee mug across the table with that glow in his eyes, or levitating a dumbbell an inch off the mat. But the second it started to feel like anything more? He’d shut it down. Too anxious.
Ava had more patience with him Bob than John did. She’d sit there, calm, anchoring, and explained her process—how she got a handle on her powers by testing the edges, little by little, until she wasn’t scared of herself anymore. John overheard enough of their conversations to know Bob respected her, looked up to her. But when it came down to it, he always said no to testing his limits.
John eventually gave up. Fine. If Bob didn’t want to train with what made him useful, John could at least keep him sharp with what might protect him in a pinch. He’d drag him down to the Watchtower’s training room, teach him how to throw a punch that didn’t break his wrist, how to take a hit without folding. It was something to pass the time on nights when John couldn’t sleep and needed to hit something. And when Bob couldn’t sleep and needed to feel something.
Now here they were, Bob glowing ever so slightly like the sun, catching John out of freefall like he weighed nothing. Bob’s gaze stayed locked forward, watching the landscape tilt beneath them, but then his eyes slid down. For half a second John’s blood went cold.
Bob’s irises were burning gold. Then, like flipping a switch, they softened back to blue.
Underneath the flapping towel, Bob’s mouth pulled into a crooked, awkward smile, his chestnut hair whipping across his forehead in the wind. John’s body eased slightly. He hated that it did. Hated that Bob’s sickly-sweet, stupid smile worked better on his nerves than all his combat training. Not that he’d ever admit it.
“You okay, Walker?” Bob asked, raising his voice over the wind. His grip shifted, loosening just enough around John’s chest so his lungs had room to expand.
Something about being asked if he was “okay” while a fireball was still chewing up the sky above them pissed him off. And yet he couldn’t deny his sense of gratitude. He was about to snap back a gruff “yeah” when panic flared instead.
“Wait, where’s Yelena?”
“Oh, uh, over there.” Bob nudged his chin up and to the left.
John craned his neck. Sure enough, there she was, drifting down on a black parachute like she was out for a Sunday skydive, looking like she was saying something he couldn’t hear through his blown-out earpiece.
His mouth dropped open. “She had a chute? She had a damn chute this whole time and I didn’t?”
Bob gave an apologetic little shrug.
“Unbelievable. And how’d you decide to fly right through it?” John rolled his eyes. “Lookin’ for a spectacle? Valentina’s gonna lay into you for that.”
Bob stammered, “I-I’m sorry, I just—when I saw the bottom of the thing start to open, I panicked. If that bomb dropped, the whole town… I didn’t know what to do.”
John couldn’t fault Bob for panicking like that. The guy wasn’t really combat-trained. He noted that that was another thing to train him on.
John exhaled hard, eyes dragging back up toward where Yelena was floating. Bob must’ve pulled her clear before the tank went up.
“You couldn’t’ve grabbed me too before the whole thing blew? Maybe spared me from catching shrapnel with my face?”
Bob faltered, then tried again. Somewhat confident. “I knew you could make it through the blast. But Yelena wouldn’t have.”
John shut his mouth, biting down on the instinct to bitch more. Huh. There was something about hearing Bob say out loud that he’d trusted John to survive what Yelena couldn’t that set a small, undeniable heat in John’s chest. Pride, whether he wanted it or not.
The fields below stretched wide and flat, an empty expanse of farmland just southeast of the town. No civilians. No mess. A clean place to land. And a clear place for the pieces of the tank to land, too.
“How’d you even know to show up?” John asked as the ground rushed closer.
“Yelena messaged me,” Bob answered, eyes flicking down again. “About five minutes ago. She, uh… she seemed really nervous.”
John frowned. Nervous enough to call Bob for backup. Nervous enough that she didn’t think he could handle it. Nervous enough to bring in someone who hadn’t seen any combat at all.
He said nothing, jaw grinding as the thought chewed on him. Maybe she was right. Maybe people really were going to die if Bob hadn’t shown up. That stung worse than the shrapnel burning through his uniform.
Bob finally let go, his iron grip loosening until his arms slid away from John’s chest and back, leaving John standing on his own again. His boots pressed solid against the ground, blessedly unmoving. His ribs were sore where Bob’s muscles had been clamped, skin still tingling hot with how hard he’d been held.
“Thanks, Bobby,” John said, brushing himself off and stretching out his shoulders.
“It’s no problem,” Bob replied, his own landing soft and quiet, pulling off the towel around his head. “I just wish I’d been faster. You’re all…” He paused, awkward. “You’re cut up. Worse than Yelena.”
John looked down at himself. His uniform was shredded in places, blood soaking through where shrapnel or bullets had nicked him. Nothing fatal. Nothing new. But the sight still made his throat tighten with old, bitter anger. He prodded at one of the cuts on his forearm, felt the sting flare hot, and let it hang there. The physical pain was just a reminder; too weak. Always too weak. Every rip, every burn, every cut meant that he hadn’t been fast enough. Strong enough. Smart enough.
Hadn’t been enough.
His mind flashed to Lemar. Lemar, who’d trusted him to be faster, stronger. Lemar who paid the price when he wasn’t. His best friend, gone because John couldn’t hold the line. He could still hear the crack, the finality of it, and it gnawed at him even now.
Every day since, if John was being honest.
Being with the New Avengers was supposed to be the clean slate. His second chance to be the man people saluted, not the one they whispered about in shame. Serve his country, serve the team, be worth something again. A good man. That was the idea, anyway. But standing there cut to ribbons while Bob came out of nowhere to save the day? It didn’t feel like worthiness. It felt like he was still running ten steps behind the man he wanted to be.
“Shit,” John cursed under his breath. He forced a sigh, and waved his hand as if to bat the whole thing away. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse. We should probably—”
He stopped.
Bob wasn’t moving. He stood like a statue left out in a storm. Eyes blown wide, shoulders caved in, hands twitching as though every nerve was misfiring. His breath came shallow, ragged. Like he’d just had to run as long and as hard on the treadmill as John ordered him to.
Bob was scared. No...
Terrified.
And then John saw it: a creeping blackness raising around Bob’s ankles like he were sinking into an oil pit. Not shadow. Not dirt. The sky was bright, the sun was burning overhead, and yet the darkness clung to him like a shadow.
John’s throat tightened. He almost laughed, some bitter bark of disbelief, because of course the day could still get worse.
“Bobby?” he tried, stepping forward like he would approach a spooked animal.
Bob jolted at the sound of his name, stumbled back a step like he’d been struck, then collapsed to his knees in the brittle grass. The blackness reached his hips. He folded over himself, hands clawing into his hair, pulling tight until the veins in his arms stood out where his sweater’s sleeves slipped down. His lips moved fast, speaking in fragments. Choked “no’s,” broken whispers, words John couldn’t piece together.
John’s chest tightened. That darkness was too familiar. That day in New York over a year ago… the mass hallucinations, when the whole damn city almost drowned in its own trauma nightmares.
Yelena. He needed Yelena. John’s eyes darted across the field. He couldn’t do this by himself. Where the hell was—
There. A black parachute collapsed in the grass from what looked like four hundred yards away, and Yelena jogged the last few steps onto solid ground. It looked like she was grinning, pumping a fist at them like they’d just won a game at slots.
John tapped his earpiece. “Y-Yelena,” his voice stammered. “Can you hear me? Yelena.”
Nothing but static. He tore it out of his ear with a curse, flicked it away. He looked back at Bob. The darkness had crawled up to his hips. John’s stomach dropped.
Couldn't yell. No sudden moves. That’d only shove him further off the edge.
John waved his arms towards Yelena, frantic but quiet. Desperate motions to cry come here, now, hurry up.
Yelena only waved back, cupping her hands around her mouth, shouting something cheerful.
“No, come on, you—” John bit the words off, hissed them between clenched teeth. Sweat stung John’s eyes as he glanced back at Bob, still trembling, kneeling in the dead grass as the darkness kept climbing.
Bob looked so small, curled in on himself. John hovered there, heart pounding. His hands twitched uselessly at his sides, itching to help but locked by fear. The fear of making it worse, fear of touching him the wrong way and sending himself spiraling into that same abyss Bob was trapped in.
The mumbling that spilled out of Bob finally cut through clear enough for John to understand. His voice cracked and raw, breaking apart into a weak sob, “I’m sorry…”
The words hit John harder than the blast had. The way Bob said it… It didn’t sound like it was addressed to anyone in particular. It was an apology shaped like resignation, like a prayer no one would ever answer. He hated hearing that kind of defeat in Bob's voice. The guy didn’t owe the world an apology. Didn’t owe anyone an apology. Not after everything he’d been through.
Over the last year, he had come to know Bob in fits and starts. John liked cooking for the team. It was structure, a service he understood. He remembered nights when chili simmered on the stove while the others drifted into the kitchen. Yelena flicked peppers into Alexei’s bowl when she thought he wasn’t looking. Ava ate fast, pretending she hadn’t been hungry at all. Bucky was thankful, but was usually pretty quiet while eating. Bob always smiled after the first bite of hot food. Not the weak, distracted smile he wore when he was putting on a façade, but a real one. Sincere, grateful. It fluttered onto John’s chest like a warm blanket. Heartbreakingly, achingly familiar.
Because that was how Lemar had smiled at him too. Like John had done something right.
There had been nights when the Watchtower’s power failed because the construction was still ongoing. Rain drumming on the roof, thunder in the distance, the team gathered in the common room with only flashlights and candles. Yelena dealt out cards, Alexei cheated so poorly it wasn’t even funny, and Bob laughed along anyway, awkward and earnest. In those dim hours, John caught himself feeling steadier just having Bob in the room.
He’d grown quietly protective over the guy. And that scared John. It was different from how he felt about the others, who he cared for in their own ways. Maybe because Bob was more innocent. Pure of heart. Never ill-intentioned. He could be devious, electric, emotional, unpredictable, and still something about him pulled at John’s instincts like a tether. Maybe it was Bob’s lack of combat experience that drew out John’s need to protect him, a fragile sense of guardianship. But that explanation felt thin. The guy was technically the most powerful person in the Watchtower. Probably indestructible. Logically, John knew it didn’t make sense. In the end, none of it mattered.
Now, kneeling beside him, John’s hand twitched again toward Bob’s shoulder, then his wrist. He wanted to touch him—anything to prove to Bob that he was there. A support he could lean on. But the memory of the Void’s pull stopped him cold.
But Bob had been practicing. Ever since the incident, he’d tried to manage small points of contact without dragging people into their own personal hells. Once, Alexei insisted Bob try giving a proper handshake.
“You must grip like strong man,” Alexei had said, puffing his chest, planting his feet like he was preparing for a duel. “Good practice, da? You cannot send me to Void if you shake like this. Nyet, impossible.”
Bob had looked uneasy, then stretched out his hand. For a moment, it seemed fine. Then John saw Alexei’s face lose all color, saw Bob’s gaze glaze over. Yelena, sharp-eyed, darted forward and wrenched their hands apart. Alexei collapsed to his knees, panting, pounding his fist on the floor, overly dramatic. “I have lived through gulags, through Soviet bread lines, through marriage! But I forgot Soviet remake of Grease! It still haunts me… Danny wore tracksuit!” Yelena snorted. Bob mumbled an apology. John stood there torn between laughter and unease.
The other time had been less funny. John had forced Bob and Ava into watching one of his favorite war-time movies, The Dirty Dozen. A classic. Upbeat, in its way, about grit, sacrifice, camaraderie. They sat on the couch together, and at some point in the long runtime, Ava had slumped against Bob’s shoulder, asleep. But then she started screaming, phased forward, and smashed into the TV, knocking it clean off its stand. Bob jolted, trembling. John had leapt to his feet, blurting, “The movie isn’t that bad!” But Ava bolted for her room without another word. Bob stayed there, head in his hands, looking stricken.
John didn’t understand until the next morning, when Ava explained what had happened. John remembered Bob’s shame that morning most of all.
And now, with Bob kneeling at his side, John’s hand still hovered useless in the air. He had to trust Bob. Had to believe the guy wasn’t gone yet. He wanted to prove to Bob that he wasn’t untouchable. Wasn’t helpless to what was happening to him. And to show that, John had to show him that he wasn’t helpless either.
“Bob?” he said, voice low and steady. He swallowed hard, and set a careful hand on Bob’s trembling shoulder. No sudden flashes, no visions of his own regrets dragging him under. The soft green sweater felt warm with stress heat.
Bob’s head lifted by degrees. He looked at John like he was seeing a ghost—and maybe he had been.
“Hey,” John tried again. “It’s me. You’re alright.”
But Bob shook his head in tiny, frantic jerks. His breathing hitched, air rasping against the back of his throat. The darkness crawled up his forearms, rising like a tide. Panic flared in John’s chest, making it harder to draw his own breath.
He needed to get him to focus, so he gently took Bob’s wrists in both hands—careful to stay away from the Void—prying his fingers from his head. Surprised, Bob looked him in the eyes, but couldn’t sustain it for more than a couple seconds at a time.
“Listen to me, you can beat this. You’re stronger than that guy. Just… push back. Fight it.”
Bob flinched like the words hit him.. “C-Can’t… can’t… I—” His voice cracked sharp with panic. The darkness didn’t slow. It climbed higher, now brushing the base of Bob’s biceps.
“Don’t say that. You can. Dig deeper. You did it before, right?” Truth be told, John still wasn’t sure what forced the Void to back off the first time.
The words landed wrong. Bob’s chest seized, his head shaking harder, arms twitching like he wanted to claw at his own skin. His breath tore free in shallow bursts. “T-too weak,” he sputtered. “I’m always too weak—I always mess things up. I only wanted to help… but you got… th-the town almost…”
This is what I just thought about myself.
He told himself he was too weak. Too slow. Every wound a sign of failure. If he couldn’t protect himself, he wasn’t going to be able to protect anyone else. Always the soldier. Never the nurse. It made way more sense with who John was…
... right?
But now Bob—sweet, broken Bob—was choking on the same poison. And it couldn’t be further from the truth. So, then, what was reality? What was John’s truth?
He leaned in close, pressing one hand flat against Bob’s chest, and the other braced on his shoulder. Straightening him slightly, holding him up. Holding him together.
“Bob.” John’s voice was nearly a whisper. Intimate. Sincere. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let his voice sound so soft, so careful. So tender. “You’re not weak.”
John moved his hand to Bob’s shoulder, away from the darkness that crawled to Bob’s clavicle.
“You know… you don’t have to… I mean—Shit.” He grimaced and pushed the side of his fist against his forehead, frustrated at himself. John really didn’t know what the hell to say. His throat bobbed, trying to work out what to say that actually meant something.
Maybe the only way to mean something, to truly make a connection, was to pull from himself. From his own experiences. From his own wounds. From his own soul. To strip himself down to what he hated most. And to share that with another.
Lo and behold, that was horrifying. The thought damn near paralyzed him.
So, John did the only thing he could think of. He dragged in a long, deep breath. Filling his lungs…
… and exhaled long and slow.
“Listen, man, I guess I’m wrong,” John muttered gruffly, shrugging. “I guess fighting it… fighting these feelings about ourselves, fighting the… the void—it doesn’t work. Maybe that’s what Buck meant back then.”
He looked away from Bob, down the grassy plain of upstate New York. A breeze carried soft over the field, brushing against the tall, untamed grass and nudging the far-off trees until their branches swayed. Scattered everywhere around them were the torn-apart husks and innards of the drone tank, the wreckage still smoking faintly, stinking of oil and steel. But he breathed deep again, and shifted his focus.
The way the early afternoon sun pressed warm against his skin.
The smell of morning dew still clinging to the air, fresh and clean.
The faint chorus of birdsong drifting from the woods beyond.
He already started to feel better. Everything seemed more manageable. And maybe that was the answer.
The darkness reached the base of Bob’s neck now. John’s leaned forward and his hand moved without thinking. Sliding it to the back of Bob’s neck, cradling it, purposefully touching the Void.
Risking it all.
It was icy cold where the darkness met John’s calloused and rough hands. It sank deep. So deep that he felt his core hollowing out. Trying to sweep his legs. Fogging his brain.
Bob’s gaze flicked upward, catching him only halfway before slipping off again, blurred and unfocused. Both numb and in sharp emotional pain.
John knew that look. He’d seen it a hundred times before in Olivia, back when she stopped bothering to argue with him, back when she’d learned there was no moving a mountain. That look had been the start of the end. She carried it more often right before the divorce papers came.
And then, there she was. Clear as glass behind Bob, rocking their baby in her arms, looking unfairly beautiful in the afternoon light. Smile brighter than the sun. His chest compressed, his heart tightened. With a strength he didn’t know he had, John tore his gaze away from them, squeezed his eyes shut, and swallowed hard. When he opened his eyes again, they were gone.
It was agonizing either way.
He kept his eyes locked on Bob’s, refusing to let him sink away.
“Don’t fight it,” John acknowledged, the realization hitting him in real time. “It’s okay to have those feelings. Maybe it’s okay that I have them, too. It just pisses me off, but I guess it also makes me…” he searched for the word. And tried to avoid it. “… scared. Scared that I can’t serve my country, my—my home… Or that I can’t protect everyone. And if I can’t protect everyone… then why am I even here?”
John was anxious. Jesus, he overshared, didn’t he? He glanced down at Bob, half-expecting him to look away or crumble further. But he didn’t. He stared up through wet lashes, his whole body shaking, but there was a focus in his eyes. An actual connection, grounded and raw, tethering them in place.
It was bullshit that to reach anyone in a way that mattered, you had to peel yourself open and bare your goddamn soul.
Bob held his gaze, and John couldn’t read his expression. Usually Bob was an open book.
“W-Walker—” Bob started shakily, all deep baritone.
John shot his hand up, exclaiming, “No! No, you don’t have to say anything. Don’t try to make me feel better. You’re the one who—!” He cut himself short. “Haa… Just stay here. With me. That’s it. Just… be here.”
Bob’s lips trembled. His chest heaved in short, frantic bursts. “What if… I c-can’t hold it?”
“You don’t have to hold it alone,” John assured, the corners of his lips tugging up despite himself. “I’m not going anywhere. No matter what happens, I’m gonna be sitting right here with you.”
The dark line wavered. It didn’t sink back, but its climb slowed, halting just under Bob’s jaw.
John pulled him closer, wrapping an arm halfway around him, pressing his palm flat to between Bob’s shoulder blades. “You’re not why I got hurt. That was on me. Not you,” he explained firmly. “You hear me, Bobby? We all have our own shit that we all deal with together. You’re not a burden. You’re not broken.”
Bob shuddered. His tears fell hot against John’s sleeve as his head slumped forward, leaning into the contact. John pressed his cheek against the side of Bob’s head without thinking, eyes shut tight.
John wasn’t much of a hugger. Never had been. Especially with another man? He was in uncharted waters. Their closeness made his skin prickle. Too warm. Too close. He felt boxed in. Uncomfortable. But he stayed. He let the discomfort crawl across his skin and settle in his stomach. Maybe, if he did it enough times, it’d wear down and stop feeling like a saw grating into his upper back. Maybe he’d get used to it.
If the Void was going to swallow him up at this distance, then so be it. He didn’t have the perfect words. He barely had words at all. But he had this. He could stay with him. And if it steadied Bob, if it gave him even a second of comfort in the hell that was his mind, then John could live with it.
Bob’s breathing began to shift. Less frantic gasps, more of the uneven, shaky pulls of air that actually reached his lungs. He felt the way Bob’s chest hitched against his arm, the tiny tremors still working through him, and the damp heat of breath against his collar.
When John finally cracked his eyes open, he saw that the Void was no longer pressing at Bob’s throat. Slowly, steadily, it slid back down, like water draining from a basin. Receding down his arms, his chest, his legs, vanishing the way it came.
Bob’s head shifted slightly, and when John glanced down, their eyes caught. Bob’s gaze was still glassy, but there was recognition there now. Awareness. He wasn’t trapped inside anymore. The slate blue of his eyes were clear as the autumn sky, and sparkled like stars.
They stayed like that for just a second too long, the silence thick between them. John’s face and back lit up in hot discomfort.
Ok, that’s enough.
He cleared his throat and gave Bob’s shoulder a couple of firm pats—practical, no-nonsense. Exactly the sort of gesture he knew to give after someone kicked a successful field goal. Then he forced himself to stand, his knees aching and his body protesting every inch of movement.
The lacerations all over his body flared as he straightened, pulling a wince across his face. His body reminded him in no uncertain terms that he was still a mess of bruises, cuts, and burns. Still, he extended a hand and hauled Bob up with him.
“You did good,” John praised. He gave Bob’s arm a squeeze once the man was upright. “Real good.”
Bob swayed a little, but nodded. His voice came out timid, quiet enough John almost missed it. “You’re not weak, either, you know.”
John blinked, brows pulling tight. “What?”
Bob stood straighter. More back-to-normal. “W-Well, you think you got hurt because you’re weak.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” John frowned, a humorless huff escaping him, strapping his shield to his back. “I didn’t say I was weak.” His tone was sharper than he intended, but his pride stung.
Bob’s hands fidgeted with each other as he broke eye contact. “I—I didn’t mean to. But, you know, sometimes when someone touches me, I feel them too. A little. Their memories and thoughts. And I just… I felt that you…” He hesitated. “… you think you’re weak.”
John froze. He stared half horrified, half furious, and too aware of how exposed he suddenly felt. Does that mean Bob saw his memory of Olivia in the vault? Was that why Bob made that face at him? It was pity?
“You’re telling me that even when you’re not sucking people into those shame rooms, you can still poke around in people’s heads?”
Bob flinched, his hands going up in a defensive position. “Not—not on purpose. It just… happens sometimes.”
John dragged a hand down his face and groaned. “Great. Fantastic.”
Bob’s lips twitched like he might’ve smiled if he weren’t so wrung out.
“You don’t get to rifle through my personal baggage like it’s a goddamn filing cabinet if we just happen to brush shoulders,” John announced. “That’s off-limits. Strictly off-limits, got it?”
Bob gave the smallest shrug and managed to bring back the subject John wanted to avoid. “If it’s not my fault for being late, or… for not being stable enough to help whenever you need me, then it’s not weakness for you to get hurt. Sometimes things just happen. Things we can’t control. I think maybe it’s how we handle them after that matters most.”
Bob’s words hung heavy in the air. John stared at him for a beat, chewing the inside of his cheek. He wanted to argue, but what Bob said sat uncomfortably close to home. His jaw worked.
Then he exhaled, scoffing just enough to cover the edge of admission. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Bob smiled lightly. John rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the ache there, and turned his attention down the field. Yelena had slowed her pace, walking now, still too far to have noticed the details of what happened. She was maybe a hundred yards out now.
“Alright,” John muttered, more to himself than anything. He took a few steps, then stopped and swung back around, finger stabbing the air toward Bob. “But you need to stop that mind-reading shit. Seriously. We need to spend more time training you. The longer you avoid it, the bigger the problem gets. Pretty sure Ava would kill you if she knew you saw into her past. Alexei might like it, though.”
Bob blinked, then let out a weak, breathy chuckle. It wasn’t much, but it was more alive than he’d looked minutes ago.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” John grumbled, spinning back toward Yelena and setting off at a stiff pace. She had the keys to the truck that they drove here in.
John kept his eyes fixed ahead, but the sound of Bob’s footsteps trailing closely behind him eased something deep in his chest.
He didn’t have to look back to know someone was there with him.