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Usually, in the Avengers Tower, John doesn’t take up the task of making dinner. It’s not like he couldn’t cook; they just trusted Ava to make better food or Yelena when they needed mac and cheese. Alexei never; he’s not even allowed in the kitchen. Bucky and Bob are a grey area. They could cook if they tried, but they usually just resorted to helping cut the vegetables.
Ava didn’t feel like cooking today and just forced John to do it. He complained but he ultimately gave in anyway. Bob offered to help, which was nice. John decided the best thing he could cook was probably what he always made for Olivia. That was literally just Curry. He couldn’t think of anything else and they had the ingredients so why not?
”Bob? Can you cut the onion for me?” He threw an onion at him. Bob caught it, “sure,”
John himself got started on cutting the chicken in even blocks like his wife always told him. He took the sharpest knife he could find and started chopping the chicken up. While he cutting up the chicken, he thought about what his ex-wife always used to tell him; Be careful with your hands, don’t want to eat bloody chicken later.
Maybe he should’ve stayed fucking focused, and not thought about his ex. Because John suddenly felt a weird stinging sensation in his hand. When he shifted his gaze to his left hand, he sharply inhaled. That’s a lot of blood, and it’s was getting all over the cutting board.
John had slid his knife over at least half his hand, with pressure too. He thought it was still chicken, well— it was clearly his hand. Shit— that’s a deep wound.
“Oh— fuck,” He quickly reached over to the paper towels and started frantically wrapping paper around his wound. It was a deep one, the blood soaked through at least five layers immediately.
John sucked in another deep breath. Bob looked away from his onion and saw all the blood on John’s cutting board. “Jesus, John,” Bob abandoned his cutting work and rushed over to his side. He saw John frantically grab more paper towels.
That’s not gonna suppress it, Bob thought. He grabbed an actual kitchen towel. “John, go sit,” he ordered John to sit on a bar stool. “That’s fucking deep cut, John where was your head?” He removed all the paper towels and pressed the kitchen towel on it instead.
“I fucked it, the chicken…” He hissed at the pressure Bob was applying against the cut on his hand.
Bob gave him a confused look, “You’re bleeding and you care about dinner?” He couldn’t help but laugh a bit. That’s very out of character for John, when did ever care about something like that?
John sharply inhaled again as he saw the blood get through the towel. “Don’t worry it’ll stop in a second,” He kept pressing it against John’s hand. “But seriously John, what was— that?”
”How— how do you know when it's gonna stop?” John was weirdly freaked out that Bob even knew what to do. John had gotten hurt before of course, but he was in gear— that suppressed pain.
Bob sighed, “I was and am depressed,” He admitted. “I think you can put together what I used to do as a teenager without antidepressants,” His focus is still on stopping the bleeding.
John looked up at him, “Are you— did you stop?” He cringed at his words, but he was in pain and couldn’t think straight.
“Yeah, I don’t do that anymore.” He said with honesty in his voice, “I think we should be more worried about you,” Bob met his gaze.
What the fuck does he mean by that, John originally thought. “Are you being serious? I’m fine.” He rolled his eyes at him. He is not the biggest fan of confrontation. Is he seriously asking that because he accidentally cut himself? It was just a slip of the hand.
“I’m just concerned about you. I have seen you be very… dissociative lately,” He muttered the last part. Bob felt weird that he had been observing John, but whatever— he had to make sure he wasn’t having a psychotic break anytime soon.
John swallowed a bit, “Uh… I’m good, got it under control.” He looked away, and Bob’s eyes followed. He sucked in another deep breath, feeling stared at.
Bob didn’t want to let it go. He wanted to dig deeper, but he knew John probably wouldn’t want that. Bob also realized he hadn’t even gotten an answer to his question about what happened. “If you say so..” he mumbled. “We gotta get some bandages on you, and wound closer strips.”
John nodded, Bob kept pressing the towel against his wound and somehow guided him to the bathroom. He instructed John to sit on the edge of the bathtub and hold the towel himself for a second. Bob rummaged through the cabinets that were full of random stuff from the others.
”I can do it myself you know…” John muttered under his breath. He held his bleeding hand against the blood-soaked towel.
Bob laughed, “Don’t be funny with me,” He finally got some wound closers, and hunched down in front of John. “You’ve been so different lately, you don’t even act like yourself anymore,” He said.
John felt a big pang in his heart. “That’s not… true is it?” He stumbled over his words.
“Kind of… what’s eating you up, man?” Bob removed the bleeding towel from his hands, looking at the pretty nasty cut he had given himself just now.
”… It’s okay, I’m fine,” John again defended himself. It was getting annoying. Why wouldn’t he just say what was wrong? He knew he could trust him— right? Bob wanted to make everyone feel trusted.
When Bob was applying the wound closers on his hand, he suddenly thought about something from his past. “You know… when my school counselor used to take me out of class…” Bob took a deep breath, to compose himself. “I used to say my bruises were an accident. I made up plenty of lies and they believed me.” He said softly.
”Bob— I swear, this was an actual accident..” He firmly told the boy in front of him.
Bob sighed, “I wasn’t done.” He started unrolling the bandages. “The point is— I would always lie, to protect my peace. I said I was fine when I was really not.… That’s why I started doing drugs, to try and help my pain,”
John stayed silent and didn’t try to intervene. “I just want you to tell me what’s wrong— so you don’t cope in a wrong way.” Bob tightly wraps John’s hand up.
“I… don’t know, okay?” He said quietly as if he was embarrassed. Bob kissed his hand, “Okay… that’s progress…” Bob looked at him with concern.
John looked at his hands, “I’m afraid… that I’ll do something bad again…” He said to Bob. His hand still pulsing with pressure under the bandages. He felt like shit and he was paranoid.
”You won’t okay? We’ll protect you— from yourself if needed,” Bob stood up, now planting a kiss on the top of his head. John collapsed into his torso with his head. It was almost like he got defeated. He muttered something incoherent against his stomach.
Bob held the back of his head, rubbing his thumb in his hair. “I trust you…” he whispered. John let out an involuntary whine against his torso. He probably sounded so pathetic.
John slowly got up, now he was face to face with Bob. “Trust…. you too,” he wrapped his arms around him.
Yelena walked past the bathroom, “who’s blood is th— oh, uhm… doordash?” She saw the situation in front of her.
“Unless you want bloody chicken,” Bob laughed.
Yelena frowned, “John okay?” She asked.
“Will be,” Yelena nodded and walked off to order something online, cause John wasn’t going back into the kitchen.
Bob lifted John’s jaw and gave him a quick kiss. “You feel a little better?”
”Mhm, yeah,”