Chapter Text
There’s a sort of blankness wedged in the left side of his chest. Something gone, gone, gone, that fractured and dislodged itself after Lemar, after Olivia, after The Baby. Something that feels a lot like the warm cherry spray of blood against his face and the weight of a shield that isn’t his anymore and maybe never really was. A set of stars and stripes bastardised over the walking corpse of a man who should be long dead and instead killed everyone else to stay alive underneath it... Its bitter.
Bitter like the lager that now no longer has any effect on him, cool and dark, and glass or can sweating with condensation. God, he’s become his father. Michael would be ashamed of him.
But there’s lightness too. Sharp as a lightning strike, and just as sudden. He’s got a team again… The New Avengerz. Objectively a dumb thing to be named. Or, more favourably. The Thunderbolts. It’s a title that makes his heart ache less, one he can almost feel proud of. One he would be proud of, if not for Val and her scheming.
Beep – Beep – Bee-
The noise of the refrigerator alarm shocks him back to the present, cold air drifting past his face as he stares blankly into the shelves of scattered food items and the occasional fresh vegetable. John licks his lips and closes the door.
“What are you doing?” Ava asks from at the kitchen island, making him jump and turn on his heel to face her. She studies him for a moment, face set into that now familiar deadpan look that he can tell is her thinking he’s an idiot again. “Did you forget?”
“No. I did not forget. I just-“ she cut him off before he could finish
“No alcohol in the tower. Because half of us are apparently raging alcoholics.” Ava’s voice is dry; it echoes through the quiet kitchen like a gunshot.
“Yes. I know. We promised Yelena, we’d do it with her-“
“And you’re already cracking? Even Alexei isn’t drinking yet… Well not here, at least.”
“Ava.” He hisses at her.
“Oh. Come off it, Walker. You’re just as fucked up as the rest of us.”
Then she’s gone again, flickering out of sight. John scrubbed a hand over his beard with a sigh. The kitchen goes silent, and john can hear the faint hum of the air through the vents and the creak of footsteps rooms away. He presses the heel of his palm to his temple and turned again to make his way out of the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Walker jumped at the sight of Bob standing in the doorway.
“Why do you people keep doing that?!” John grumbled to himself before sighing again, “Nothing, Bobby. Just leaving.”
Bob shuffled to the side so there was room for him to pass, one hand tugging at the cuff of one of the various jumpers Yelena had bought for him using the card Val had given them ‘for emergencies’.
“that’s the third time now.”
“What?”
“The third time.” John sighed at Bob’s response and tried again.
“Yes, yeah, I got it. Third time doing what, Bob?”
Bob pauses like he’d not considered it wasn’t blatantly obvious, his frame growing taller as he straightened the length of his spine to properly look John in the eye, steadier. The whir of the refrigerator hums through the space between them, quiet and droning, like a distant siren. John reached up to scratch an ear idly, other palm flat against his thigh.
“You go spacey,” Bob huffed a laugh, head tilting to the side slightly. His eyes fixed in place unwavering. “You’ve done it before. Like at the elevator shaft-“
“That was the void.” John blinks at the bite in his tone, taking half a step backwards. Bob blinks too, a mirror.
“Yeah. It was the first time…” the response is low, hushed as if breaking the slow drone of the fridge is an unspoken crime. “You do it when you think no one is watching. Those ones aren’t me.”
John bristled, swallowing past the knot in his throat to bark out a response. “Nothing is wrong with me Bob,”
“But-“
“Leave it.” John snapped. Bob shrank back a little, eyes wide but focused. Bob’s hands relaxed in his sleeves and the man took a breath.
“What are you so afraid of?” The words came out smooth and honeyed, warm as if Bob was trying to comfort John. John shifted back on his feet, the hair on his arms prickling. Bob looked down to John’s feet, gaze cool and measured, studying the pause between them with a raised brow.
“You’re not afraid of… me, are you?”, John cursed under his breath, sighing.
“No, Bobby. Not of you. C’mon, let’s find Yelena.” John kept his voice steady, placing a hand on Bob’s shoulder to guide him back out of the kitchen doorway and into the hall that would spit them out into the living area. Bob stepped back out of the way of his hand, and John froze in place, drawing his hand back down to him slowly. “Bobb-“
“We don’t need Yelena for this.” Bob murmured to him, voice growing hushed. “We don’t need anyone else for this.”
“Don’t need Yelena for what?” John jumped as Yelena spoke, Bob turned to face her. She peered at the pair of them, eyeing John past Bob’s shoulder. Her voice was lilted, calm in appearance, though she had pursed her lips into a slight grimace. John opened his mouth to respond but before he could Bob cut in.
“Nothing that concerns you”, Yelena stilled.
“I see… Your eyes are gold, Bob.” She said bluntly. The silence stretched between the three of them. John bit back another curse. Yelena appraised them both again, gaze narrowing. “Walker, what did you do?”
“What!” John scoffed. Yelena tsked, gathering Bob towards her and ushering him away. “I did nothing-“
“Can it, Walker. I’ll deal with it.” She fired back.
John watched them leave, hands hanging loose by his side as the others swiftly disappeared down the hall away from him. He licks his lips with another sigh and turns back to the empty kitchen. Then he curses again, scrubs a hand over his jaw, and turns back down to the hall to leave through the living room to his bedroom. The hall is quiet. The walls are empty, a stark matte white paint that absorbs all the warmth from the area, cold and impersonal. Very Val, John muses as he reaches the end of it.
The living area is also empty. The couches littered with abandoned things suggesting only recently so. There’s book on the side table, face down creasing its pages. John stopped himself before he could fix it. It’s not his problem. He crossed the open-plan room quickly, keeping his eyes averted from the blanketed couches and the coffee-ringed side tables. The hallway to the bedrooms is dark in contrast to the living area, the lack of windows leaving the doorways shadowed.
John heads to his door, the furthest down the hall away from everyone else, and enters. Shutting the door behind him carefully, easing the mechanism in place so the soft click doesn't disturb the fragile peace of the empty room. Its four brisk paces from the doorway to his bed; Val had let them pick their own furniture for their rooms, so he’d picked the first decent one he’d seen and called it a day, lugging the bedside tables with him from the shitty bachelor pad he’d had in between what's now Olivia’s place and the Tower. He closes the distance and settles on the bed with a groan, exhaustion tugging him down till he rests his elbows on his knees in a huddle.