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John knew something was off with Bob.
There was no way that a random civilian just happened to be down there with the rest of them, though he’d done a good job at appearing harmless enough, except for the way his eyes had gone golden when John had confronted him. There had to be something more to him, but Bob isn’t forthcoming with showing off exactly what that might be. Honestly, he looks a bit pathetic grappling with that final bit of the elevator shaft, and John offers a hand to help him the rest of the way, with how he’s clearly struggling.
“Guess you missed arm, leg, and chest day, huh?”
Bob glares up mutinously at him, but still takes John’s offered hand.
John straightens, pulling Bob up to solid ground.
And the world melts away.
His heart sinks right to his stomach.
He’s back in Latvia, amidst the Flag Smashers.
He’s watching himself fail to break out of a hold.
He’s watching Morgenthau run at him with a knife.
He’s watching Lemar, Lemar, Lemar, no, no, no, please—
But his partner is already rushing forward to intercept with the belief that John’s life is worth such a sacrifice, and John can do nothing but stare at the face that he’s not seen in years, except in photographs and dreams and the aching fragments of memory that his mind can never stop dredging up. His face is set in determination, and he is moving with the same protective fury that John remembers so perfectly in the moments before it had ended.
Lemar is a sight to behold, and gone just as quick.
That devastating crack renders the room silent.
He watches himself from years ago scramble towards Lemar, and remembers exactly how he’d felt then, because he still feels it now. He is pleading desperately for Lemar to wake up. But of course, of course, he would not. He could not. John is trapped inside this nightmare, and it is not new, and it would never end. What happened could not be undone, no matter how many times he replayed it in his mind. If there was a way to prevent this loss, it was far too late to enact it. He can see that realization strike himself in the moment, the terror slipping into devastation into rage.
The scene pulls back, rewinding until—
Lemar is there again, saving John’s life at the cost of his own.
John had died that day, despite the sacrifice, because of the sacrifice.
What life was left in a world without his heart, his soul, his home?
The guilt had been worse than the grief, though that had been awful too. Grief had been the ache of his love with nowhere to go, the hollow place where Lemar should have been, the instinct to turn towards where no one is left. But guilt had been the terrible certainty that Lemar’s death belonged to him. That he should have been faster, stronger, protected him better. That he should have done something, anything, to keep the man he loves alive.
That loss, that absence, was on him.
But Lemar is right there, right now, almost within reach.
John takes a helpless step towards him—
—and his stomach drops with a sudden vertigo.
The scene twists, the fight smearing into streaks of color.
John is reaching for Lemar, though he knows he cannot reach him.
And the bleak reality crashes back into place.
Lemar has been gone for years now.
There is only the metal walls that he’d slammed into.
There is only the wire around his leg and the darkness below.
John blinks a few times, trying to make sense of the scene. He stepped forward. He’d stepped off the edge of the elevator shaft, though he hadn’t intended to. He hadn’t realized he was still at the edge, honestly. Too caught up in seeing his partner that he missed so dearly. Too devastated watching the man who meant everything be lost once more. He couldn’t do anything then, or now, except watch.
He stares into the would-be fall, and only feels disappointment.
Then, John is moving upward.
The pull is abrupt enough to snap him out of his thoughts, his body dragging against the wall of the elevator shaft as he’s hauled back towards solid ground. For a few seconds, he lets himself be pulled without resistance. They’d caught him before the fall. The Red Room Widow, or the infamous Ghost, or the mysterious Bob had made the effort to catch him. Not that there was a reason for any of them to do so.
Hell, they’d tried to kill each other mere hours before.
There was no reason to care if he’d plummeted down.
They shouldn’t have bothered to save him.
John almost wishes that they hadn’t.
Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d let the fall consume him. Maybe if there had been nothing to do but surrender to that expansive drop, he could let it finally be over. Maybe, afterward, he would open his eyes somewhere else, somewhere without pain, somewhere without the endless weight of waking up every morning and trying to push forward with the gaping hole in his heart.
Maybe he’d find himself in a kinder afterlife.
Maybe Lemar would be there, too.
No, John thinks, and shakes the idea away.
He could never be that fortunate.
John closes his eyes, trying to will away the stinging tears.
He has spent years wishing he could see Lemar again, and often, that wish is so powerful that it feels like a knife between his ribs, the blow that Morgenthau intended striking in a different way. It aches with the knowledge that there is an entire lifetime of things John wants to share with Lemar, but cannot, and the wanting is becoming unbearable.
But wishes are useless, and death is not a guarantee.
With his particular brand of misfortune, John might have survived the fall anyway. The serum could have kept him alive through the impact, left him broken and bleeding but still breathing. He might have opened his eyes to pain and darkness and found himself in the same empty world he has been waking up to for years, still trapped on this side of the veil separating life from death, himself from his love.
John has always hated that phrase.
It makes the distance sound so simple.
A veil is something that can be pulled aside, something thin and delicate and temporary, something a person might reach through if they tried hard enough. It suggests that Lemar is so close, that maybe there is only a barrier between them and John simply has to find the right way through it. But there is nothing thin about the space between them. John is here, Lemar is there, and the distance is absolute.
He can stand at Lemar’s grave, clutching onto photographs of who he wishes was still here. He can close his eyes and try to hold onto the exact shape of Lemar’s smile, the sound of his laugh, the warmth of his body. He can dream about him so vividly that waking feels like another death, because in those fleeting moments, Lemar is alive again, and then John opens his eyes and remembers that he is not.
John is hauled over the edge with a final tug of the wire.
Hands grab him by the arms to drag him onto solid ground.
He gets his feet beneath him before he raises his head.
John finds three pairs of eyes staring at him.
It takes all of his self-control not to flinch beneath their attention. In his mind, John is back in front of that crowd, with blood on the shield and a body at his feet, surrounded by so many eyes, having his grief and fury broadcast for the world to dissect. He remembers the noise, all those murmured words overlapping, in horror and disgust and fear.
But that is not what he’s facing now.
Ava and Bob are looking at him with sympathy bordering on pity.
Yelena approaches him with fury. “Why did you do that?”
She pokes him in the chest. She jabs him in the heart.
She is demanding: What would push you to that point?
The answer is bleeding beneath his ribs.
The answer is buried beneath the soil.
John deflects. “Why do you care?”
Yelena makes a frustrated sound, almost a growl.
He does not relent, and does not elaborate.
He does not want to talk about Lemar.
He does want to see him again.
The distinction matters.
John thinks about what would have happened if the vault had been different.
If they hadn’t found a way out. If the fire had actually consumed him. If he had been able to burn, and burn, and burn, until there was nothing left to pull from the wreckage. He might have welcomed it. Maybe being reduced to nothing would have been easier than continuing to carry this enormous, unbearable absence inside him.
But since he had not died down there, twice over now, John decides he can stick it out for a little bit longer. He can do it to protect the three that he’s bound in alliance with. They had cared enough about his life to save him, and no matter his feelings on that rescue, he owes it to them to keep them safe in turn.
There will not be another death on his watch.
Time to go to work, Lemar tells him.
“We need to get going,” John agrees.
Yelena looks at him for a long moment.
She nods once, then brushes past him without a word.
He falls into step, ready to be a shield.
He’ll get these three home free.
After that’s done, after they go their separate ways—
Maybe, he thinks, as he considers the dog tags over his heart.
Maybe, he thinks, as he considers the gun at his belt.
Maybe John will find his way home too.