Chapter Text
He has to work quickly, or thousands will die.
Johnny is used to high pressure situations. He has used nothing but security cameras and his sense of timing to guide a panicked civilian through an embassy overrun with gunmen. He’s crept between buildings on a rainy night in Mexico with no more than the clothes on his back, fashioning distractions and weapons out of whatever he could find. And most recently, he’s fought his way through the Channel Tunnel to find one of the largest bombs he’s ever encountered as a demo specialist.
There’s nothing for it – Johnny gets to work.
It is difficult to tune out the chaos happening around him, the tattoo of gunfire, the shouted commands and the wheezing of the injured. But the moment calls for otherworldly focus. One wrong twitch of his finger, an instruction given to his captain too hastily, and it’s all over
About halfway through the procedure, he takes a bullet to the side. His Kevlar dulls the brunt of it, but he has a bitch of a time fighting the reflex to clutch at the throbbing pain.
Fortunately, his team is quick to dispatch his assailant and the fresh wave of Konni reinforcements as Johnny regains his bearings. At worst the bullet’s impact cracked a rib, and at best he’ll have a bruise all the colors of the rainbow tomorrow. Neither scenario is more pressing than keeping his attention on the bomb. He calls for Price to get back on the snakecam and promises himself the stiffest of drinks when this is over.
He zeroes in on the wires and serial numbers he’s looking for, mouthing instructions to himself and occasionally giving directions to his partner. He’s calm, locked in. Exactly like in training.
When footsteps battering the concrete behind him grow louder, he forces himself not to react. He has to have faith that his team will gun down any threats so he can keep his attention on the wiring. But then they are right behind him, he has to look, and he is barely able to register Makarov before there’s a blinding flash of light and an impossible pain explodes below his shoulder.
He hits the ground, hard. Never has he taken a bullet at such close range. For a few seconds he is too disoriented to comprehend anything beyond the ringing in his ears. And then he hears Makarov say something about seeing the captain in hell.
His fingers scrabble for the knife tucked into his tac vest. Running on nothing but adrenaline, Johnny launches himself upward, his muscles stretching the fresh pectoral wound, and sinks the knife into Makarov’s shoulder. He does not seriously consider himself capable of taking down their target with a blade and the injury he’s sporting – he only hopes to buy Price a few seconds to grab a gun.
In a split second, the knife skitters across the floor and Makarov is twisting Johnny’s arm to bring him to his knees. From this angle, he can see his captain flat on his back and struggling to grab a weapon. Hope spikes in his heart as he realizes his distraction worked.
Then Price takes a boot to the jaw, and Johnny panics.
He tugs his arm violently but doesn’t manage to break Makarov’s hold. Whipping his head around, he wonders if he can snatch something out of the vest, or maybe wrestle the gun away—
And that’s the instant John MacTavish dies.