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Oh, to hell with this Bob kid, actually.
Bucky punches through the wall with enough force to send himself toppling onto the floor, falling down hard onto his hands and knees. Then he’s coming back up wheezing, the scent of blood underneath clinical sterility still clinging to his nose. Shit. Watching an unfamiliar version of himself isn't new, but it’s the first time it hasn’t been through a recording. It’s the first time he’s had to watch it ten feet in front of his face.
“Shit,” he says out loud, and gets to his feet slowly.
That isn’t him anymore, though. That… machine, that thing that he had watched plow through cars and innocent people without so much as blinking is in the past, and that’s the only comfort he can reach for right now. He runs both hands through his hair and then grips the very ends, eyes closed and grounding himself as he tips his head towards the ceiling. He’s not sure where he is now, and he’s not exactly keen on opening his eyes yet. Deep breaths in, deep breaths out.
He’s been through… three rooms now, he thinks, if the first one can even be called a room. Just falling through the air over and over, watching Steve turn into a speck in the distance before Bucky’s back smashes into the train again and it starts over. Over and over and over and over— and then the smoking, beaten down car in the second one—
Bucky squeezes the ends of his hair once more and then lets out a slow, even breath. This isn’t anything he’s not used to by now. This isn’t anything he can’t just push through and go back to later. He rolls his shoulders, rolls his neck, and then opens his eyes again. Walker had given them a rough rundown of what he’d seen when he’d gripped Bob’s hand, but Jesus. He hadn’t really painted the full picture of how the place is making Bucky feel: sheer grief and shame rumbling in the pit of his stomach like a disease.
There are shouts and screams in the distance of this new room, and Bucky turns his head in that direction with a start. He can’t quite tell where he is, but when he runs his hand across the walls—painted like some kind of Broadway set—he can at least tell what’s real and what’s just filling up the empty space.
He turns a corner and then another before he finds himself standing in front of a huge, murky window that leads into a warehouse. The recognition, when it comes to him, twists his face up into a grimace. Yeah, he knows this warehouse, and he knows what’s happening inside of it, too. It’s hard to forget.
The grime leaves a nasty film on his glove when he wipes it away, but he manages to peek in and sees someone inside, standing just a few meters away. It’s going to have to be good enough, since he’s not going back. He’d much rather go forward, no matter what forward brings. It can’t be worse than whatever he’s leaving behind.
Glass shatters in every direction as he kicks the window in, but the figure ahead of him barely even shifts. He already knows who it is just by the silhouette, though even still he’d be able to tell who it is he’s found in the Void. There’s only one person in their group besides himself who would come back to this warehouse; who would feel any type of shame being here.
“Why are you making me do this?” Walker snarls, but it’s not the Walker that Bucky had strolled into the Void with; not the one he’s approaching now. This other Walker is both familiar and completely different—dressed in shades of bright blue and red, his eyes wild and his teeth bared as he pushes against an equally familiar figure. “Why are you making me do this?”
“…hey,” Bucky says slowly, making sure Walker knows he’s there.
Walker doesn’t move, but his posture relaxes just slightly.
“Hi,” he says. His voice creaks a little. “You okay?”
Bucky grunts.
“Been better,” he mutters, and then watches himself fly through the air before the past Walker turns on Sam next. Bucky’d been a little dazed in those seconds, trying to get his wits together and get the dark spots out of his vision before he jumped back into the fight, so it’s… interesting to watch it now. He sees how his arm sparks and twitches from the electricity, and has to flex the fingers of his own just to get the phantom memory out.
“We should go,” he starts, but Walker shakes his head. Bucky frowns, reaching out to take his shoulder. “Walker. We shouldn’t—”
“No,” Walker says, carefully avoiding Bucky’s hand. “No, I just… I want to watch for a second.”
It’s not a good idea. Bucky knows it’s not a good idea. But he still steps back and leaves Walker be.
Walker’s eyes are silently tracking every motion his past self makes, and Bucky can see the difference between the two with a sudden and startling clarity. Whatever boyish charm and charisma Walker had once had is gone entirely, replaced by the Walker standing next to Bucky now. He’s older, and far more bitter. Broken and angry and full of so much regret that it’s coming off him in waves.
“Jesus,” Walker finally mutters, watching himself rip the wings off of Sam’s Falcon suit with a roar. Bucky’s seeing it all with a much clearer head too; it’s a little surreal. The three of them are fighting like the world will end if they don’t. “I didn’t realize it was so…”
He trails off slowly and quietly. Bucky clears his throat.
“Yeah, that was, uh… a lot,” he says carefully.
“I don’t actually remember most of this,” Walker continues, gesturing at the scene without turning away. “Like I do but I don’t? I dunno. I wasn’t… all there. Not really.”
Well, Bucky can relate to that even if the circumstances are different. He knows that the super serum had probably muddled Walker’s emotions and thoughts, built itself up on his misery and grief and anger and multiplied it tenfold. It’s not hard to imagine what it’d be like, having the worst day of your life while your body’s still trying to process the strange, alien thing that’s happening to it.
“But you’re ashamed of it,” Bucky says, not really a question. It makes sense, he supposes. It seems like this whole place has to do with guilt, and there’s so much in here that it’s suffocating.
Walker turns to look at him with his brow furrowed in clear agitation, tearing his eyes away from the fight at last.
“Yeah, I am,” he says, and his tone is accusatory. “What, did you think I wasn’t? I know I’m an asshole, Bucky, but believe it or not I actually do feel bad about losing my shit like that.”
There’s another scream of pain, another feral sound of wild anger, and they both snap their heads forward again. The past versions of themselves are both panting, staring at each other before as one they turn to stare at the Bucky and Walker of now instead. The imaginary version of Sam merely stands there, his expression unreadable as he stares at them, too.
“You deserved this,” the past Walker says, vicious and cruel. “You’re a stubborn asshole. You’re childish and arrogant and so fucking full of yourself. It’s amazing anyone ever made you Captain America. No wonder Sam and Bucky both hate your guts.”
Walker’s silent, but Bucky hears his throat working painfully.
“You deserved it,” the past Walker repeats, getting louder. “Lemar died because of you. They should’ve killed you instead. They were going to kill you, but Lemar saved your sorry ass—”
Walker takes an aborted step, like he’d been about to do something rash, but the past Bucky suddenly grabs the past Walker and throws a punch directly into his face. Bucky himself can hear the crack of knuckles against cheek and remembers the burn of it, the sting of his skin where he’d torn it open on Walker’s teeth. From next to him, Walker physically recoils, like his body remembers the blow and it’s trying to escape it again.
They’re fighting once more, with Sam joining in on the beating. Bucky doesn’t remember much of the fight, if only because he’d been driven by nothing but instinct and sheer rage, but when he and Sam pin Walker to the wall and tug his arm up against that corner—
Yeah, he remembers this part with perfect clarity.
The agonized wail the past Walker lets out alongside the snap of his arm makes Bucky wince. It’s a wet crunch of a sound combined with a near childlike misery and the buzz of Sam’s suit engines. And yes, even though Bucky’s heard worse, something about it still makes him upset. He’d been too vindicated and wild to process the look that had crossed over Walker’s face right before they’d bent his arm back until it cracked, though he’d seen it and grinned at it. But he knows it now.
It’d been fear. Just pure and raw terror at the realization of what they were about to do. Bucky had sworn he wouldn’t make people feel that way anymore, yet there he was. Here he is now.
Maybe John had deserved it, maybe he didn’t. That’s in the past, and there’s nothing either of them can do about it now. But Bucky wants to believe he won’t do that again. Not just to John, but to anyone. Even if it had felt good at the time. Even if it’d felt right.
He turns, taking a breath.
“Walker—”
“That’s how you broke your arm?” Ava asks from behind them, sounding aghast. Walker jumps and looks over at her, but she’s got her hands on her hips and she’s squinting at Bucky instead. “Good god, Barnes, were you trying to be an unrepentant prick?”
“…maybe,” Bucky admits after a beat.
“You made it,” Walker says to her, but he seems more relieved than surprised. He’s staring at Ava like he doesn’t quite know what to make of her concern. But there’s a friendliness there, or maybe even a camaraderie.
”I didn’t very much enjoy reliving some of the worst moments of my life, so yes,” Ava replies, picking some imaginary lint off of her hood uncomfortably. “I take it you’re in the same boat.”
“Yeah, but I deserved this,” Walker says, shrugging and waving a hand at the fight. “I was being a huge asshole.”
Still, there’s almost a grin on his face, and Bucky watches as Ava looks Walker up and down with an appraising eye. There’s something there, an inside joke he’s not picking up on. Two people he never would’ve expected to have any kind of connection, and yet there they both are.
“Hm. I can believe that,” she says after a moment, smirking, and to Bucky’s surprise the grin travels to Walker’s eyes too as she continues. “Well, come on, then. We’ve got things to do, and I’m not particularly fond of this place.”
“No,” Bucky agrees, and starts to stalk towards the nearest wall. “I’m sick of it, too. Come on, Walker.”
After a pause, Walker follows. He still seems unsure, like he wants to stay. But Bucky can hear his boots against the floor, and the way Walker smashes through the strange fake walls with his bent shield looks like it feels pretty damn satisfying.
-
They save New York City, which is pretty par for the course for whatever weird superhero work they’ve apparently signed up for. The “New Avengers” title, on the other hand, isn’t. And Valentina may be their own personal leverage now, but that doesn’t mean she can’t still get them to do things—like go to a hospital to have their various wounds looked at, apparently.
“And yes,” she said sweetly, looking over at Bucky, Walker, and Alexei, “even the super soldiers. Just because your freakish bones knit themselves back together faster than a regular human being doesn’t mean I’m risking your health. Not when we’ve just started this fun new venture of ours.”
“I still want to kill her,” Alexei had muttered, which for him was more like a slightly above average volume. Bucky silently agreed anyway.
The hospital isn’t bad, though. Bucky’s been in plenty, whether it was during the war or more recently, and this one seems better than a gritty level 4 trauma center somewhere in the boroughs. The nurses he was assigned seem a bit wary of him at first but once it’s clear he’s not going to go on a bloodthirsty, brainwashed rampage through the halls, they warm up considerably. Maybe even a little too much, if their excited tittering amongst themselves is any indication.
Valentina’s confiscated all of their phones for the time being. That means that Bucky’s not sure what’s going on with the rest of the team—and how odd is that, they’re a team now—so he finally takes it upon himself to wander around until he can track someone down. It’d probably be some kind of violation to ask where everyone else is, but more than that he doesn’t want to draw any attention to his search. They might tell him to fuck off and go back to his room.
So yeah. He wanders, and it’s kind of nice to be by himself.
There’s an interactive holomap near one of the lobbies on his floor, and he gives it a once over curiously. He’s up to date on technology, of course he is, but it still blows his mind sometimes when he gets to fiddle around with it. The hospital’s got a café on the main floor that probably sells chain coffee and overpriced pastries, but he keeps in mind anyway. Maybe he can add it to the bill.
No one tries to stop him, and he takes advantage of that as he starts meandering around again. They seem to be in some kind of emergency unit, though with a lower need for critical care. Probably got added when alien invasions or whatever started getting popular, if he had to guess. The part of his brain still dedicated to tactics tells him they’d probably be trying to keep them all relatively close to each other, so he stays in the same unit until he comes across the first name that’s familiar.
And then sighs under his breath.
Walker, John F.
Of course.
Bucky stares at it with a critical eye, trying to decide if this is what he wants to do. He could keep going and find Yelena, who is the much better option at the moment. But knowing her, she’s probably doing the same thing he is, so she wouldn’t be in her room anyway.
Fuck it, he thinks, and raps on the threshold with his knuckles as a courtesy before strolling in.
To his surprise, Walker’s sitting on one of the chairs, a book Bucky can’t identify open on his lap. He hadn’t taken Walker for the reading type—nor did he take Walker for the type to see him, recognize him, and then smile. It’s a bit careful, granted, but it’s a smile nonetheless.
“Well, shit,” he says, and closes the book before setting it aside. “You’re actually visiting me? Color me surprised.”
“We’re all patients here,” Bucky says sourly, though he makes his way across the room and thumps down onto the side of the bed. “And I was sick of seeing the same three nurses. You’re just the first person I stumbled onto, so don’t get too excited.”
Walker huffs out a laugh, though it does sound a bit muted. It’s like he’s not sure how to react next now that the danger’s been taken care of. They’ve got him in a room not too different from Bucky’s, with big windows and a bench underneath them wide enough for a guest to sleep on if they needed to. There are a few flowers in a vase next to the bed, and Bucky raises a curious eyebrow at them.
“Oh,” Walker says once he follows Bucky’s gaze. “Uh, yeah. Those are, um, from… from Lemar’s family. I guess they were watching the news and the livestreams and everything, so… yeah.”
He ends the stunted explanation with a vague gesture and then looks away, tapping his fingers on his knee. He’s dressed down the same way Bucky is, just in a t-shirt and sweatpants—it might be the first time they’ve actually seen each other in anything besides their suits or uniforms at the same time. There’s a weird intimacy to it, the same sort of familiarity that matches what Walker and Ava had shared in the Void.
“How’re you doing?” Walker finally asks after the brief, awkward pause. He’s not quite looking at Bucky, but rather just off to the side. “I know Bob’s supergod alter ego fucked your arm up a little.”
Bucky shakes his head, flexing the fingers of his vibranium arm. He can feel the whir of them up and into his shoulder, a strangely comfortable sensation like the buzz of an engine. It’s still very good work, even if its origins were the unfortunate subject of one of his rooms. He knows Walker’s watching, so he takes that hand and pats the bed next to him.
“C’mere,” he says, and after a brief glance of confusion, Walker sighs. Bucky can hear the crack and pop of joints as Walker stretches like a cat, arms towards the ceiling. It pulls his shirt up a little, showing off a little bit of skin, but Bucky keeps his gaze firmly on John’s face.
The bed lets out a gentle creak as Walker takes a seat next to him, and then they’re sitting in silence. They both have catheters in the inside of their elbows if they need to be hooked back up to an IV, but Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if they’ll have to be taken out soon. The super serum’s already probably healing up the skin around the needle. Though that reminds him—
“How’s your shoulder?” he asks.
Walker blinks and looks over at him.
“Hm?”
Bucky waves a hand in the vague direction of where the shard of metal had sunk straight through Walker’s chest and out the other side. It hadn’t looked very pleasant, nor had the moment where Walker ripped it out with his bare hand, either. But it doesn’t seem to be bothering him now.
“Oh,” Walker says, realization dawning on his face. “Yeah, it’s like it never happened. Guess it was a weird Void thing. Not even a scratch.”
He pulls aside the t-shirt to show where his skin is still intact, but it also shows off the various bruises and the distracting splash of moles and freckles across his skin. Still, there’s zero evidence of that gruesome injury, so Bucky has to count it as a win.
“Looked pretty bad,” he says. “I kind of can’t believe there’s nothing there.”
“It’s a little sore,” Walker admits, rotating his shoulder and then cricking his neck a bit. “But my whole body’s sore. So it’s whatever. Probably just psychosomatic.”
“Yeah,” Bucky says, and figures he may as well take the plunge he’s been teetering on the edge of since they revisited the warehouse. “Listen, Walker, I—”
“Oh. Oh no.” Walker’s eyes widen and he suddenly looks mortified, like Bucky just suggested they strip naked and skip down the halls of the hospital together. “We’re not doing that, are we?”
“Doing what?” Bucky snaps, immediately on the defensive.
Walker gestures between the two of them with a loose hand.
“This whole thing. You. Apologizing.”
“Well, don’t make it sound so excruciating,” Bucky says dryly. “Maybe I do want to apologize, John. What we saw in the Void—”
“Is over and done with,” Walker interrupts, and scrubs a hand down his face. He looks exhausted, and even with the cuts on his face already nearly healed it’s clear the last few days have taken their toll. He’s still just sitting on the bed, legs dangling and hands loose between his knees.
He’s already voiced his regrets and moved on, it seems like. They’d stood there, watching the scene, and Walker had stared at himself being thrown around and snarling like an animal with a look that Bucky couldn’t place. It was only when Ava broke that spell that he’d seemed to come back to himself.
But it didn’t feel like enough then and it doesn’t feel like enough now. It had been one thing to punch Walker with his vibranium arm while he was angry and stressed and mean. It had been another entirely to watch himself do it. It made him reevaluate a lot of things, and he’s not sure he likes them.
“I want to apologize,” Bucky finally repeats. “I do, John.”
Walker shrugs.
“It happened a while ago," he says quietly. It’s the same look of weary sadness that he’d had in that old auto garage. “It’s okay, Bucky.”
“I don’t think it is.”
It’s an admission he’d never thought he’d make. He hasn’t seen Walker in a good minute before this, granted, but time heals all wounds as they say. He’s far enough removed from everything that happened to see where they had all reacted poorly, and he’s seen what Walker’s capable of when he doesn’t have a mantle to inherit and live up to. When all that matters is saving someone, not trying to step into the shoes of a man who could never possibly be emulated. Maybe not all the wounds have been healed, but at least some of them have been stitched up.
“Look,” Walker says after the silence ends up being a little too stifling, “it was… that was a bad day, okay? And I’m not trying to… I don’t know, to downplay what I did, because I know what I did. Trust me, I know. It’s all over the internet, all the damn time, and it’s always thrown in my face and I just—” He growls impatiently then, reaching up to ruffle at his own hair. “It’s just… a lot. It’s a lot.”
“I know,” Bucky says. “I know it was a bad day, John.”
Walker stares down at his own hands, twisting them around each other a few times like he’s not sure what to do now. He always seems like he’s most talkative when he’s nervous, trying to fill up the silence with awkward conversation or trying to impose a sort of superiority to feel more in control. That’s what makes this strange, quiet version of Walker all the more confusing. But he waits patiently anyway.
Finally, Walker lets out a sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he says, fingers curling inwards. “Not just for rambling. For… for all of it. Everything.”
Bucky considers that.
“Huh,” he says thoughtfully. “You’re right. The apologizing thing is weird.”
That gets a real laugh out of Walker this time, even if he still seems far too lost in his own thoughts. When he’d described what he’d seen in the vault, there had been a weariness to the explanation that Bucky hadn’t really understood at the time. But Ava had listened closely, and Bucky had seen her eyebrows furrow when Walker spoke of suddenly coming back into himself, like he hadn’t known where he’d gone. She hadn’t said anything, though. Bucky might have to pick her brain on it later.
“It’s in the past, like you said,” Bucky continues, and puts a careful hand on Walker’s shoulder. “You and I… we can try to start fresh. Try being the keyword here. We can put all of it behind us and just… be friends. Teammates. Get to know each other.”
To his surprise, Walker turns away.
“Not much else to know,” he mutters bitterly. “Just check my Wikipedia page. Should be right under the ‘controversies’ tab.”
“Winter Soldier,” Bucky says dryly, pointing at himself. “And congressman. And a hundred years old. My Wiki is probably twice as long as yours.”
Walker lets out that strange laugh-scoff again.
“Yeah. That’s fair.” He fidgets again, and Bucky takes a closer look at his arms. There are old wounds there, undoubtedly from his time in the service, and plenty more nasty bruises and cuts from the last few days. But there are also tons of freckles, a dusting of strawberry-blond hair, a few more birthmarks and moles like constellations on skin he’s never actually seen before. How many times has he even seen Walker in civilian clothing at all? Has he?
“I already forgave you, you know,” Walker says quietly to his hands. Bucky startles a little, lifting his gaze up.
“What?”
“I already forgave you,” Walker repeats, and looks up at him with a reserved expression. “A while ago, actually. I mean, I wasn’t joking when I said I deserved to get the shit kicked out of me like that. You and Sam just… you were trying to get the shield back, and I was—”
“John,” Bucky says loudly, “stop.”
“But I—”
“Stop.”
Walker clicks his tongue angrily.
“You’re not listening—”
“I am,” Bucky insists, pushing down whatever exasperation is trying to bubble up and out. “I’m listening, John. And I’m telling you to stop. You don’t need to forgive someone for beating the crap out of you.”
“I could have just given you the shield,” Walker says, still clearly wanting to argue. Well, that’s nothing new. “I didn’t have to fight for it. It wasn’t mine anymore. I just… didn’t want to accept that.”
And while that’s partially true, Bucky can feel his own admission on the tip of his tongue: that Sam had wanted to try and talk to Walker first, but Bucky had just wanted to jump in and take it. He hadn’t wanted to listen to whatever Walker had to say, whatever excuse he came up with. Bucky had still been pissed at Steve, still betrayed at being left behind, and Walker was a damn good target for all of those nasty feelings.
Why are you making me do this? Walker had pleaded, like he’d never wanted to fight in the first place despite everything to the contrary. But Bucky had been so high on what he felt was justified rage over that he hadn’t considered the question anything but an excuse. And it hadn’t just been the memory of Walker that had said it; the real John Walker’s been begging for an answer, too. They’d all been so angry and miserable in that warehouse, and Bucky can still feel those emotions in the back of his throat.
John made mistakes. But so has Bucky. So have all of them. Carrying the weight of it by themselves doesn’t have to be something they always have to do. They can learn to shoulder it together, if that makes it even a little easier.
“You don’t have to explain yourself,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. “We watched it together, John. It was kind of awkward, yeah, but we were both there in the warehouse, both times.”
“But that day, I wasn’t… that wasn’t me,” Walker mutters. He sounds heartbroken. “At least not back then. It’s not who I thought I was. Maybe it is now, I dunno. But it wasn’t then.”
Bucky stares at him, that exasperation he’d been trying to avoid starting to come back up anyway.
“That’s not who you are now, either,” he says slowly.
Again, Walker scoffs.
“Isn’t it?”
Well, Bucky hadn’t really planned on this whole therapy session, but then it’s not like he hasn’t needed his fair share in the past. Maybe he can return the favor by being a shoulder to lean on, like so many others have done for him.
“Why is your body sore, John?” he asks, aware of how intense his expression must be.
Sure enough, Walker looks over at him with his nose wrinkled in confusion, squinting at Bucky like he’s not sure if it’s a trick question or not. He looks Bucky up and down, trying to see if he can find the correct answer, but Bucky knows Walker well enough to know that it’s not going to come easily.
“Uh, because we all got the shit kicked out of us by Bob?” Walker says, in a tone that makes it clear he’s going for ‘duh?’ “Including him methed out in a chicken suit?”
“Yeah,” Bucky agrees. “And because you held up a chunk of a building. By yourself. Why’d you do that?”
This time Walker looks at him like he’s gone mad. And maybe he has, quite frankly, but that’s a discussion for another day. He just raises his eyebrows and waits for Walker to answer.
“…because that lady was going to be crushed,” Walker says slowly. “What kind of question is that?”
“But why did you do that?” Bucky persists, trying to get him there.
“What do you mean why?” John demands, clearly agitated. He’s so close to getting it, his hackles raised and his eyes flickering with the justified anger that Bucky wants him to feel. “She was a civilian, I’m a soldier, of course I’m going to—”
“Why, John?”
“Because she would’ve died!” John explodes, getting to his feet and moving backwards once he turns around to face Bucky head-on. “Jesus, Bucky, do you really think I would’ve just let that happen? Do you really think that little of me?”
“No,” Bucky says simply, watching him. “I would have bet everything on you doing it if I’d known it was going to happen. But you would’ve died instead. Right? It was too heavy for you to hold by yourself and you knew that when you did it.”
Like a bullet, the meaning of Bucky’s question finally hits, and he watches it happen in real time. John’s eyes widen in realization before he looks away, mouth tightening. Even exhausted and beaten to shit, the powerful cut of his profile stands out. Bucky can’t help but notice how handsome John is. It’s not the first time he’s acknowledged John’s attractiveness, granted, but it is the first time it’s not bitter recognition of a perfect golden boy trying to live up to something he’s not. Instead, it’s closer to appreciation, something nice to look at. He files that away, though. That’s not the conversation they’re having.
The conversation they’re having is that no man who acted the way John had back in that warehouse would have been ready to sacrifice himself the way he did in New York. Right before Ava had jumped in to help with the debris, John must have known he was about to die. He hadn’t given up, hadn’t stopped fighting, but he’d probably accepted that it might have been the end. Maybe it would’ve even been a relief.
Yet he still hadn’t hesitated for even a moment to jump in and save that woman. He’d still held on. And for some reason, he doesn’t seem to realize how admirable that is.
Like jumping on a grenade.
“Okay, well, I’m here and not pancaked,” John finally says, still not looking at him. “And you guys all helped me anyway, so who cares?”
“Maybe I care,” Bucky replies, thinking of how it’d felt to sprint towards the debris before it had crushed John, Ava, and Yelena. It’d been fear, more than anything. Fear of yet more death to bear, the deaths of people far too young. “Maybe I care whether or not you know that too.”
John starts picking at the dry skin of his cuticles, fidgety and nervous. He doesn’t remember John ever having a tic like that before, but he reaches out and stops him when he sees blood welling up on John’s thumb. That gets John to look at him, though it takes a second and he still looks unsure about it.
“Whoever that was in your memory,” Bucky says gently, “that’s not who you really are. We may not get along, and maybe that’s my fault, but I still know that much. You want to help people. That’s who you are. You were just… angry. And grieving. I should have recognized that.”
It’s the kindest he’s ever been to John, and he knows it. He knows how strange it must feel, and how John must not know what to do with it. How he probably doesn’t know what to do with kindness in general after the misery he seems to have been living in before the rest of the team came along. And even then, it’s probably something they all have to get used to. They’ve all been living alone in misery of some kind, and maybe that’s why they get along.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues, and reaches out to pull John back towards the bed by the wrist. John follows, but hesitantly. “You’re annoying. You’re cocky, and full of yourself sometimes. You don’t know when to shut up. Honestly? You can make it very hard to like you.”
“Gee,” John says dryly. “Thanks.”
“But,” Bucky says over him, ignoring the comment, “you’re also brave, and you’ve got a good heart, John. Better than most. You care. I can see it, and the others can see it. Maybe you should try and let that part out more, instead of being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole.”
“...I don’t try to be an asshole,” John defends a bit weakly, sitting back down on the bed. “It just kinda… comes out.”
Well, a defense mechanism is a defense mechanism, Bucky supposes. It’s hard to blame him for that. There are plenty of people Bucky knows—and knew—that did the exact same thing. He can tolerate it if it means they get along easier. As long as John’s not too annoying, anyway.
“Well, then maybe try not to be an asshole instead,” Bucky offers, watching John side-eye him. “Can’t be that hard.”
“I’m not the only one.”
”You’re the only one that successfully irritates everyone he meets.”
“Not true,” John says instantly, looking put out. “Alexei likes me.”
Bucky just stares at him instead of answering, and John finally sighs. He’s looking at his hands again, like maybe he can somehow grab all of the toxic emotions and drag them out into the open, throw them somewhere where he never has to deal with again. But it seems like all of them are pretty good at burying the things they don’t want to talk about, and that makes Bucky feel like he ought to finally address the other elephant in the room.
“So why the warehouse?” he asks carefully, studying John’s reactions. “Why not…”
He trails off, not knowing quite how to say it, but John understands. Bucky had a feeling he would.
“I relive that moment all the time anyway,” John says, shrugging again, but there’s so much weight in the words that it’s a genuine shock he can even lift his shoulders at all. “Didn’t have to been in Bob’s weird, fucked up shame rooms to remember it. It’s always there. The shield, the Flag Smashers… Lemar.”
The rest had come out steady enough, but Bucky can hear how John’s voice trembles when he says Lemar’s name. The grief there is so absolute that Bucky can almost feel it in his own chest.
“John…”
“God, I was so angry,” John whispers, his head slowly falling against his chest and his eyes squeezing shut. There’s a growing cloud of misery that’s coming off him in waves. “I was so fucking angry, Bucky, and it doesn’t matter. He’s still dead, and it’s my fault, and there’s nothing I can ever do about it—”
Before he quite knows what he’s doing, Bucky reaches out with his flesh hand and takes John by the chin. It’s an unconscious motion, one that he probably wouldn’t have done with anyone else. Hell, before the last couple of days he certainly wouldn’t have done it with John of all people. But he knows a spiral when he sees one, and he needs to stop it in its tracks.
“Listen to me,” Bucky says softly, lifting John’s chin up and then over to him. He looks upset, but he still allows the touch. Still lets Bucky direct him. “We both made mistakes. You’ve been trying to own yours. I can see that. Now let the others see it, too.”
“But I—”
“It’s okay, John.” Bucky shakes John’s head very lightly with the hand on his chin. “Just let me be nice to you. Alright? It doesn’t happen all that often. You should savor the moment.”
John’s eyes flick back and forth between Bucky’s, like he’s trying to find any scrap of dishonesty. Like he’s waiting for Bucky to say just kidding! and leave him in the dust again. His eyes are a little bright, a little wet, but there are no tears.
“You don’t have to be,” he finally says carefully, having apparently found whatever it was he was looking for. “I’ve been a real dick.”
“So have I,” Bucky says. His fingers are still gently cupping John’s chin, and neither of them has moved away from it. “Takes one to know one.”
“…why are you being so nice to me?” John asks, and he still has that look in his eyes. He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. It occurs to Bucky that this is a private display of John’s anxiety and self-consciousness; of everything he can’t show the rest of their strange little team or risk losing the new balance they’ve all been searching for lately. But he trusts Bucky with it for some reason he can’t parse out.
It’s probably a bad idea, what he’s about to do. But he doesn’t care.
Bucky slides his fingers on John’s chin to the back of his head, pulling him over gently and tilting his head down. It’s enough that he can press a chaste kiss to the top of his forehead, just at his hairline. It’s far from intimate, or… romantic, really, if that’s the word he wants to use. But there’s a promise in it somewhere that hadn’t been there before. It’s an affection that wasn’t there, an understanding that they’ll try something new.
“Just let it happen, John,” he says into soft, messy hair.
There’s a pause, and then John sighs. It’s a quiet, relieved sound.
The air in the room feels lighter, as if a weight’s been lifted. A shift in dynamic, in how they view each other. Bucky couldn’t see John the way he used to if he tried. There’s just this new John in front of him, battle-worn and weary but still pushing forward. Still abrasive and annoying and yet courageous to a fault. Still trying to do good.
He could learn to really like this new John. If anything, he at least owes him that.
“You know,” John says, pulling away after a few quiet seconds, “there’s a café in the lobby. I bet Valentina’s gonna foot the bill, so…”
Bucky grins.