Archive of Our Own

Walker thinks the tipping point is the day he makes Bob cry. Maybe it was a long-time coming; the breakpoint. But it’s Bob that gets him to step back and really think.

Maybe Olivia was right. Maybe it was for the best that he was alone.

——

John makes it about two months into their dumb ‘New Avengers’ gig before he sees his wife again.

Ex-wife. Whatever. 

He has to ask to see her. That’s the part that really pisses him off, because, seriously. Every one of their moves is being watched, and John’s not new to that sort of thing, but even when he was America’s brand new Captain, he was at least allowed to leave and enter his house as he damn pleased.

Now he lives with Yelena and the Thunderwears (trademark, he thought that one up all on his own), which means that he’s living in the Watchtower, which means the Tower is always watching him.

Great. Perfect. Love it.

To make matters worse, he has to go through Valentina to get clearance from the building for the day. John’s not stupid. He can see the way Valentina turns up her nose whenever he’s in her room. She’s watching him particularly, like he’s a ticking bomb that she’s just waiting to see explode.

It makes is skin crawl. Sometimes he feels like wiping that smirk right off her face, and then he realizes that that’s exactly what she’s waiting for.

Great. Perfect. Love it.

The others make it a little better. Bearable, at least. He finds that they have a patience with him that even he can’t truly comprehend. 

If he thinks about it too hard, he can see it’s a patience he probably doesn’t deserve.

So he doesn’t think too hard— problem solved. The ‘not thinking’ is what gets him out the door, in a cab, and at Olivia’s door.

He rings the doorbell, then steps back, adjusting the collar of the cheap button-up he’d bought to meet her. It’s tucked awkwardly into the too-tight belt holding up his trousers, and his combat boots are shoving the ends of the leg pants all the way up to his shins. He thinks he looks pretty damn sharp. 

In contrast, when Olivia opens the door, she’s still wearing the sweats she sleeps in, her hair hastily pulled behind her head, and there’s a cup of coffee in her hands. She looks like she hasn’t slept in ages with the circles under her eyes, and half-squints up at John when she sees him.

She might be the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

The grimace she gives him is enough for John to know she isn’t thinking anything similar about him.

“Hey, John.” She says quietly, keeping her voice low, “Mike’s sleeping.”

“Oh, right.” John says, lowering his one voice hastily. He flashes her a smile, mostly because he can’t help it. He hasn’t seen her in so long. Or at least, it’s felt that way. “Hi, Olivia.”

She doesn’t reflect his smile, looking at him, and then sighing a little, “Twenty minutes, alright?”

John’s smile dims a little, but he nods, “I’ll start a timer.”

She moves into the house, and after a deep breath, John follows her inside.

The house looks like it always has. The moment the door closes behind him, he catches the sight of the staircase leading up. If he looks close, he can see the dent above the second step that he’d made when he was moving the office chair up to Olivia’s room. He sees pieces of her clothing hanging from chairs scattered around the kitchen. His mug is still sitting at the corner of the table where he’d left it. 

Home, his mind supplies. He shuts the thought down pretty quick, but not quick enough to keep the ache from his chest.

Not anymore, he reminds himself.

Olivia leads them to a couple of chairs in the kitchen, and the timer starts. John is quick to explain to her— a script that Valentina had checked over beforehand— about the ‘New Avengers,’ and what was going on. Obviously, John didn’t stick to the script. Who did Valentina think he was? He told Olivia about Valentina’s ambush, about the Thunderbolts, and about Bob.

As his words slow down, Olivia’s expression grows pinched, confused. 

John trails off, and then nods, “And so, we’re staying in the tower for now. Just… keeping an eye on things, I guess.”

Olivia nods slowly, looking aside as her fingers pick at the sleeve of her shirt. After a moment of contemplation, she asks, “Why are you telling me all this?”

John twitches. That’s… not the question he expected. He opens his mouth the answer what seems obvious— You’re my wife— and then stops.

Oh.

“I— uh.” John stumbles, suddenly off-kilter. “I just thought you ought to know.”

“I… guess.” Olivia nods, looking uneasy, “None of this will get me in trouble, will it?”

“Of course not!” John hurries to assure, then pauses. He winces, “Maybe don’t mention the, uh, human experimentation stuff.”

“John.” Olivia pinches the bridge of her nose, and John gets the feeling he’s flubbing this hard.

“Seriously. You kept so many of my secrets back when I was… you know,” He shrugs, “I know you won’t tell anyone. I just thought, after everything, you deserved to know what was really happening.”

John doesn’t say how he wants her to know. He wants her to know that he didn’t just join another team so soon after their fallout. He wants her to know that the team is more than they seem to be on screen. Most of all…

He wants her to know that he’s trying to be good.

It’s selfish. It’s so incredibly selfish. He doesn’t know how else to be.

She must know that, from the way her shoulders settle, and this resigned look comes to her eye. 

“Alright, John. You know I won’t tell anyone.” She says, and there’s a flicker of something in her eyes as she looks at him. Something familiar, something warm, that now feels like a ghost on her. “Have… you been sleeping?”

John feels a swoop in his gut at the question. Ever since he served, his sleep had been riddled with nightmares and jolting awake in cold sweat. Then he was given the shield. Then he took the serum. Nothing ever settles in John’s world, and sleep was the one thing he sacrificed for some semblance of peace.

Olivia had always been there for him, in those days. She’d coax him to bed when he lost track of the time, or hold him when he awoke shuddering and shaking from some distant memory. She never treated it like the burden it was. She was patience and soft touches and even softer smiles.

Jesus Christ.

How had he ever taken her for granted?

John swallows past the lump in his throat, suddenly unable to meet her eyes, “I—“

He’s cut off by the sound of crying from the other room. Both of them jerk towards the sound on instinct, but it’s Olivia who gets up, gathering her cardigan closer around her.

“Is that…” John begins to ask, though he trails off because, of course, it's Michael. Who else would be making baby noises in their— her home?

“Yeah, gosh. I thought he’d sleep longer.” Olivia says looking ready to leave. John catches her wrist before she can run off, and she looks back at him, quizzical.

He freezes for a moment, before saying, “It hasn’t been twenty minutes.”

Olivia’s face pinches slightly. He knows how pathetic that sounds. Olivia just looks tired.

She rests a hand on his, and he slowly lets go of her wrist.

“John,” she says honestly, and she has every ounce of his attention. She smiles, but it’s sad, and he knows whatever she says next will bury itself deep in his heart like a metal spike. “I know you mean well, but I don’t think we should meet anymore.”

Even though he knew it was coming, it still feels like a punch to the gut. The wind gets knocked out of him, and he opens his mouth for no sound to come out.

Doesn’t phase Olivia. She keeps talking, squeezing his hand, “We’ve become such different people. I’m genuinely, truly happy that you’re doing better. I’m happy you’re not alone anymore. I need you to be happy for me, too.”

John can’t meet her eyes. He nods, slowly, and she releases his hand.

She smiles softly, “There will always be a part of me that loves you, John. You know that. It’s just… this is for the best. Alright?”

John closed his eyes. He nods again.

“Thank you.” She says softly, and then the sound of the crying picks up again. She shifts, “I should…”

John looks up, with one last attempt to hold onto the withering string between them, “Can I at least see Mike?”

Olivia hesitates, and his heart sinks. Her smile fades into a grimace.

He gets it. 

“Like I said,” She says quietly, and all hope is lost, “It’s for the best.”

———

And life moves on, because it always does. John returns to the tower with a heavy set of shoulders, and doesn’t look any of his team in the eye for the rest of the day.

He decides that there’s no use in dwelling on this. He’d already spiraled down this way before. He already knew Olivia was gone. His son was gone. He’d lost them, and he only had himself to blame. He was hopped up on some crazy delusion to even think going back to her house would change anything.

So he tells himself to get over it. Just like everything else in his damn life, it doesn’t go as planned.

The pain turns into anger. He starts to feel fidgety and wrong everywhere he is. He snaps at Yelena when she asks if he’s slept. He ignores Ava when she tells him he needs to pull it together. He avoids Bucky’s watching eyes, Alexei’s attempts to draw him back in, and worst of all—

He makes Bob cry.

Bob and John started off rough, and though they’ve made leaps and strides since the beginning where they couldn’t go a few moments without poking at each other, John knows he’s on thin ice. Nowadays, he knows it’s less because of John and more because of what John does. 

It’s his temper. Sometimes, John will get a little fired up, and he sees the way Bob tenses up. The way his eyes see a ghost of some asshole that John would very much like to punch, instead of John himself.

So John told himself to do better. Tone it down. Do as Bucky taught him— examine his emotions more often and catch the signs of an explosion before it can take out everyone in his vicinity. He’d never been one for self control. Choosing violence was always rewarded when he trained to serve, and the serum didn’t help those urges.

So. Needless to say, being good is easier said than done. 

Especially on days like these, when all John can feel is the flurry of frustration and anger and desperation in his gut. He can’t even bring himself to examine the mess in his head, let alone try to tame it.

And it comes out. On Bob.

Bob gives him this fragile, precious trust when he allows John to help train him. No sparring— John knows that’s off limits. He’d been the one to create the regime for Bob, all focusing on stamina and muscle training to help Bob feel stronger rather than cornered. But, even then, John fucks it up.

An hour before detonation, John wakes up clammy and alone, an unscratchable itch in his chest when he notices he’s taken all the blanket, and then remembers there’s nobody to be taking it from. He peels himself out of bed and gets dressed.

Forty minutes before detonation, John gets a text from Valentina’s goons detailing his ‘public opinion’ summary, or whatever the fuck she’s calling it, and they tell him he has to show up for some photo shoot or something. He tosses his phone aside, or at least he thought he tossed it, but it cracks on the way down. Whatever.

Thirty minutes before detonation, John forgoes breakfast and storms right to the training room. Bob’s already waiting for him there, and he suddenly remembers it’s Tuesday, and he’s supposed to help Bob with climbing. His plans to hit the punching bags till they fell off fly out the window.

Twenty minutes before detonation, John’s tightly commanding Bob to get more chalk before he attempts the wall again. He’s so caught up in his own head that he doesn’t notice the tenseness in Bob’s frame. The way Bob’s hunching in on himself, glancing at John every two seconds, or the way he hesitates a beat before turning his back on him.

Ten minutes before detonation, Bob slips and falls back on the mat again. He’s never this unfocused, and John’s patience is running thin, so he barks, “Again.” Like he would to his squad back in the day. Back then, his soldiers would stand up with a sharp, “Yes sir!” And get back to it. Now, Bob flinches, and quickly scrambles back up.

Minutes before detonation, Bob slips again, and when he falls, this time, the wind is knocked out of him. 

John sighs irritatedly, “Dammit, Bob, we aren’t even past warmup.”

Bob sucks in a breath, and Walker watches as the guy rolls to his side, bracing a hand on the mat and pushing up onto his side. His head hangs, hair in his face as he breaths. It’s taking too long for him to get up.

And for some reason, John still doesn’t notice, “Bob.”

Bob breathes raggedly, murmuring something under his breath that even John can’t catch. His irritation flares.

“Can’t hear you.” John says, and Bob jolts.

“Sorry.” Bob says louder, thought it sounds like a rasp between his heavy breaths. Why's he breathing so hard?

And why is he still on the ground?

John unfolds his arm, “Come on. We still have twenty minutes and we haven’t even gotten to level one.”

“I just need a minute.” Bob says, slightly strained. John frowns.

“I don’t have all day.” His own voice is strained, and Bob’s fingers curl.

“Okay.” Bob mutters, “Just give me—“

And maybe it’s because he still feels sweaty from his shitty sleep, or because his phone’s cracked for no reason, or because the pressure in his head and chest isn’t easing at all no matter what he does, but that’s it. 

Detonation. 

John snaps, “Godammit, Bob, just get up.” And makes the mistake of stepping forward, reaching down to grab at Bob’s arm to haul him up.

The moment his fingers even brush against Bob’s wrist, the other gasps and jerks back out of John’s grip so fast that John flinches back. Bob’s back smacks into the wall behind him, and he curls forward with a yelp.

“Wha—“ John begins, but stops when he sees Bob clutching his arms close to him and pressing back like he can disappear into the wall.

“Sorry! Sorry. Sorry, I— sorry.” Bob’s words come out fast and quick, and John’s anger depletes so fast it leaves him cold. 

“Oh, shit.” John whispers to himself, “I— shit.”

“I was just— I just— sorry. Sorry.” Bob keeps babbling, and John can see his face now because he’s actually trying to look. He sees how pale Bob’s gotten, and how his eyes are looking far away, and they shine unnaturally. Moist with honest-to-god tears.

He did that.

John did that.

He wasn’t paying attention. He was so frustrated he’d forgotten the goddamned reason he’d even offered to help train Bob. The training room was already an unsafe space for Bob— full of promises of fighting and punching and all the things Bob feared— and John’s fucked-up mood probably didn’t help. 

He was supposed to be helping Bob face those fears. He wasn’t supposed to be the thing he feared.

John leans down, hesitantly calling Bob’s name. He tries to reach out slowly, but when Bob’s words just come out faster and he shuts his eyes tight, John withdraws quickly.

In the end, John gets Yelena, who takes one look at Bob frozen at the foot of the climbing wall and rushes to his side. She sits in front of him and murmurs quietly, and John only waits long enough to see Bob’s shoulders slowly lose some tension before he makes himself scarce.

He shouldn’t be there, if he’s just going to scare Bob again. He shouldn’t be near anyone when he’s like this. Yeah. He gets it now, Olivia. He gets it. It was for the best.

John closes himself away, and it’s that last thought that really fucking gets him.

He really wouldn’t have been a good father, after all.

————

John can get real sick of himself, sometimes. 

But, like a cockroach, he just can’t seem to stay down.

John is restless in his room for a few days as he simmers in his frustration and dread. His cracked phone lights up a few times after he first runs off, and with a glance he can see Yelena’s number, followed by Bucky. He considers going back down, to see if Bob’s alright, but as soon as he gets to the door knob, he rethinks it. John’s probably the last person they want to see.

Not to mention, he doesn’t know if he’s good to go down there. What if he goes down to apologize, and that raging anger in his chest snatches the words before he can say them? What if he blows up on someone else who doesn’t deserve it? What if he thinks he’s okay, but all it takes is one thing going wrong, and he makes someone else feel so unsafe around him that they have a panic attack?

No. No, he can’t. He can’t do that.

But, after trying to keep locked up for a little while, John realizes he can’t stay here, either.

Blowing up on them doesn’t help anyone, but avoiding them all isn’t doing much better, either. By day three his phone is blown up by text messages he’s too afraid to respond to, as if he’s afraid he can’t even write a text without blanking out and sending something horrible. 

He can’t trust himself. And that’s what does it.

John Walker has been through a lot of things, but if there’s one goddamned thing he was supposed to be able to trust, it was himself. 

Back in the army, it was up to him to make decisions. He had to be ready to think under the pressure of shouting and running boots and bullets flying overhead. Dozens of eyes watched him and waited for their orders to keep themselves alive. They trusted him, and he had to trust himself or they’d all go down.

And he did. Through all the shit he’d gone through, through all the soldiers and people he’d lost, there was always one person who got him through it all. And that was himself. It was always a given that he would always make it out of whatever he got into, and circumstance-be-damned, he’d do it well.

Things started to slip out of control the moment he picked up that shield. Then the serum. Then Lemar. Then every other moment since then, it feels like he’s been losing control over whatever aspects of himself that he was so sure he could trust.

He doesn’t even know who he is anymore.

And that— 

That can’t keep happening.

Yes. John’s like a cockroach. He’s been blasted and shot at and changed to the very bones in his body, but he’s still here. He’s fucked up more times than he can count, and he’s stood at the edge of the building of life before, questioning if he should just let go.

But he’s not there anymore. He clawed his way out of that dark hole before. He knows he can do it again. He knows he has to do it again, if he doesn’t want to hurt the people he— that he—

John sees his phone light up again, and sees Bob’s number pop up. When he picks it up, he sees the short message Bob’s left. Just a quick, and simple, ‘I’m sorry’ that makes John shut his phone off and stand up.

He doesn’t want to hurt the people he cares about. He may be an asshole, a mess on a good day, but nowhere in any of his life had he trained himself to turn on his own men. 

Things have to change, and for that, John has to change.

John leaves the room.

————

John walks right into the common room, past the startled faces of his team, up to Bucky, and demands, “I want to do therapy.”

Bucky drops the remote he’d just picked up, blinking up blankly at John. Someone chokes on a cough behind him, but the room is entirely quiet for a moment, as if frozen in shock.

And then, as if a flip has been switched, everyone starts talking at once.

“What—“ Yelena begins.

“You’re here!” Alexei cuts in.

“Uh—“ Bob.

“Hold on—“ Ava.

And, “Therapy.” Bucky.

“Therapy.” John repeats. 

Bucky’s brow furrows. He slowly sets aside the remote, glancing at the others for a second before he focuses back on John, “And you’re… asking me… because…?”

John shifts on a foot, “You know all about it. You know, you’re the,” he gestures vaguely, words failing him, “The… therapy guy.”

Bucky’s expression flattens into a familiar slate of unimpressed, “Therapy guy.”

“Yes.” John reiterates, folding his arms over his chest, “So. How do I do it?”

Bucky blinks a few times, then shakes his head, “Okay, slow down. First off, what even brought this on?”

“You haven’t talked to us in days.” Yelena points out, and John finally turns to see where they’re all gathered at the kitchen counter, watching him with confusion. Yelena, though, seems to have a touch of concern on her face. She’s always been the best at expressing her concern like a normal person. John squirms a bit under it.

“I just… did some thinking.” John settles on, suddenly unsure of how much he should be saying with Bob standing right there. He doesn’t even want to meet Bob’s eyes, afraid of what he’ll see there. Anger? Contempt? Fear?

“Okay…” Yelena says carefully, looking doubtful. 

“About?” Ava urges, and her face looks more scrunched up. John sighs.

“Everything.”

“Oh, great.” Ava says, frowning, “So you throw a fit, and three days into solitary confinement, you decide you need to be thrown in the looney bin?”

John twitches at the words, heart stuttering a bit. His arms tighten, though he knows he probably deserves that. He hadn’t even apologized to Bob after what happened. But— he can’t. He doesn’t even know how to begin to explain what was happening to him, what was going on in his head, and that he so desperately needed help. 

Maybe that does make him crazy, but goddammit, he needs to fix that. John looks back at Bucky, a little desperate, with explanations on his tongue. He feels a need to defend himself in some way so Bucky doesn’t turn him away and—

To his surprise, Bucky’s expression goes dark, and his disapproval turns on Ava instead of John.

“Don’t call it that.” Bucky cuts sharply.

Ava pauses, surprise taking place, “Huh?”

Bucky stands, and when he moves to address the others, John finds himself behind the man’s form. It doesn’t hide the way Bucky’s fists flex with his frustration.

“If none of you have any helpful things to add, you can scram.” He crosses his arms, “John and I need to talk.”

John catches the others shifting awkwardly. He can’t fully see Ava, but after a moment, he sees a flash of blue, and notices she’s gone. Slowly following, Yelena takes Bob’s arm and Alexei leads them to the elevator. It takes a minute or so, but when they’re all gone, Bucky’s stance relaxes a bit.

He turns back to John, face still in that permanent scowl he always seems to have. John has the feeling that, for once, his frown isn’t at John. It might even be in John’s defense.

Wow. He… actually doesn’t mind being on this side of the conflict with Bucky.

“So.” Bucky says, “What’s this about therapy?”

———

John does his best to explain himself and his … predicament. And by his ‘best,’ he means that it comes out in a jumbled mess of awkward admissions and near-desperate attempts to prove that he needed this, and that he would do it well.

He said as much, to which Bucky had raised a brow, “Therapy isn’t a competition. You can’t win it.”

“I know that.” John says, a bit defensively, “I just— I’m just saying I won’t waste it. Really, Bucky, I know you might not think I— and before, I wasn’t always— but I want to—“

“John.” Bucky cuts in, and John quiets just at how gently Bucky says his name. John looks up to see Bucky’s firm expression, but there’s something almost reassuring in it. 

“I get it,” Bucky says, “You don’t have to prove that you need help.”

John doesn’t know how to handle that look, so he gives an awkward half-laugh, “I— I guess it’s pretty obvious, huh?”

“I’m saying,” Bucky shakes his head, “That if you need it, I’ll get you it.”

John pauses. Then, “Oh.”

John’s ensuing silence must make Bucky uncomfortable, because the other man shifts, gaze flicking away as his hands come together. Bucky chews on the inside of his cheek, clearly debating saying something.

In the end, he looks back at John, and says, “I’m glad you asked me.”

The words sound stilted, a little awkward on Bucky’s tongue, like he’s repeating words he’s heard somewhere else. But, surprisingly, it’s genuine. Earnest.

John blinks slowly, and Bucky continues, “We haven’t exactly been… best friends. But I get it— this. And I’m glad you trusted me to ask.” 

John feels all words leave him. Of all the things he expected, it wasn’t this. It wasn’t the awkward, yet determined look in Bucky’s eyes. It wasn’t the warm feeling that was spreading in his chest.

It wasn’t the way Bucky reaches out and clasps John’s shoulder, grip firm and strangely grounding as he says, “We’ll get through this.”

We. We, we, we.

John lets the word repeat in his head over and over, like a promise he so desperately needs to believe.

———

Then Valentina shuts him down. It’s a simple text after ages of Bucky and him figuring out how to approach it, how to ask her for the same resources that Bucky got with his therapist. 

They spend so much time and care with their request, and she responds with:

‘Therapy’s a no-go, Walker.’

John stares at the text for approximately thirty seconds before he turns it off and sits on the edge of his bed.

No-go. That’s it. That’s the end of all this?

John lowers his head into his hands and sighs through his teeth.

Ten minutes later, he hears the sound of of the air rippling in front of him. Then, soft footsteps stopping a few feet away from him.

He takes a breath. Lets it out. “What do you want, Ava?”

“I heard from Bucky.” Ava’s voice is slightly muffled. Probably the mask. John shakes his head a little.

“Does everyone know I failed to get myself thrown into the ‘looney bin’, or what?” He lets out a dry chuckle, but Ava doesn’t laugh. 

She’s quiet for too long. John’s brows scrunch, and he pulls his head up to squint up at her.

Ava’s standing a few feet ahead of him, mask down, like he’d thought. But her stance is hesitant, head looking away from him. He can see her fingers flexing by her sides slowly. Nerves.

John tilts his head a little, but before he can ask, Ava says, “I’m sorry.”

John blinks. “Huh?”

“For what I said.” Ava continues, mask turning to him briefly, before looking away again, “I was insensitive, and wrong.”

John’s brain is lagging. Ava is apologizing? For… what?

John hesitates, “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Dammit.” Ava mutters under her breath, and John expects her to turn around and phase away. Instead, Ava turns to him fully, and the mask on her face flips back to reveal her face.

Her expression is scrunched up again, but this time, John can see it more closely. Her brows are turned up, like she’s smelled something funny. But the way her eyes glint is telling. He knows that look better than anyone. 

Regret.

“Look,” Ava begins, “I won’t make any excuses, but you have to know I— I’ve never really… understood therapy.”

Oh. 

Ava looks down, shuffling her feet.

“Back when I— worked for SHIELD, there were people who’d come back from some missions all wrong. Ah, no.” She winces, backtracks, “Not wrong— just. Some of our missions got fucked up, yeah? That kinda thing could mess with your head. We weren’t exactly about community and team tactics over there, so you’d just have to hope you could figure it out by yourself.”

Ava looks at her hands, “If you didn’t, you’d have one of two choices. Quit, or get thrown into a correctional facility. Some people never really left those facilities, and so other agents started calling it shit like— like what I said. Looney bin, or whatever. That’s the place you go if you can’t handle the heat. It’s for the defective.”

She shakes her head quickly, “But I— I didn’t get it. I didn’t see it from the other side.” She looks at John, almost imploringly, “That they just needed help.”

John clasps his hands together, swallowing thickly. Honestly, he wasn’t even pissed at Ava, in the first place. Which is— wow. That’s new for him. 

But he thinks he gets it.

“I get it.” John echoes his thoughts, and gives a hesitant smile that probably looks more like a grimace than anything, “Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time. I’m still… getting the hang of it, I guess.”

“You’re learning.” Ava finishes for him, and then her eyes harden, “I admire that.”

“Admire…?”

“Yes.” Ava says, “And I should have said that earlier.”

Admire. The word sounds so wrong in this context. And yet, it fills him with some odd pride. He can’t place it.

It deflates quickly, though, as he remembers the text, and he sighs, “Well, doesn’t matter, now. Val’s decided to officially cockblock any of my attempts at redemption, so, that’s that.”

“Actually,” Ava starts, and John looks back at her tone. Ava gives a sheepish look, “That’s, what I was supposed to come here and tell you.”

John gives her a quizzical look, and she just says, “Bucky says he needs you down in the common room.”

“What?” John sits up, “Why?”

Ava takes a step back, shrugging, “He says he has it covered.” Then, she grins a little, “He looked ready for a fight, though. Just so you know.”

That sounds— concerning. Ava flips down her mask before he can ask, and steps back like she’s about to leave, so John speaks quickly.

“Ava.” She stops, turning to him. John hesitates, rubs the back of his neck, but offers, “Thanks.”

Her blank mask freezes. She gives a small, hesitant nod back to him. Then, she’s gone.

John braces himself and goes to find Bucky.

——

Turns out, Bucky asked him down to go to war. With Valentina. Something Bucky hasn’t dared to do until now, at least not outright.

Valentina pisses them off more often than not. She acts like she’s their keeper— like she owns them, like she’s made them. Most of them have worked for her before, so they know how that feels. But here, as a team, it’s different. In some ways, they’re trapped in her grip, and being trapped never seems to settle well for any of them.

Yelena reminds them how Valentina needs them as much as she uses them, but sometimes Valentina makes Yelena want to throw punches, too. John can tell. Bucky’s the one that ends up calming them down, reminding them of what’s really important. John guesses he got that patience somewhere in between losing everyone he loved and being tortured for seventy years. Yeah. Bucky knew how to keep his lid on straight.

Which is why it’s such a surprise when the lid blows off. 

John meets Bucky in the common room, and he immediately finds his shoulders straightening, legs bracing like he’s marching into battle, just by one look at Bucky’s flinty expression. Valentina’s standing there, looking annoyed and a little bored. Shit’s about the hit the fan, John has enough training to tell that.

He only wonders briefly if all of this is worth it. If therapy is worth this headache. 

(If he’s worth all this headache.)

But when Bucky turns to look at him, and when John sees the hidden anger in his eyes, John falls by his side like a reflex.

He thinks, well.

If Bucky thinks it’s worth fighting for— if Bucky thinks John is worth fighting for— it has got to mean something.

And so they face her.

——-

“The answer is no.” Valentina says for the third time in ten minutes. John has the vague feeling that this is going just about nowhere.

“It’s really not that big an ask,” John grumbles, though his will is dwindling. “Lord knows you have enough money. You’ve spent more on coordinating outfits than this. Don’t bullshit me.”

Beside him, Bucky crosses his arms, silently nodding. If the Winter Soldier’s glare gets through to Valentina, she doesn’t let it show, only rolling her eyes.

“Don’t insult me, of course I can afford it,” She snorts, “That’s chump change compared to what I paid to get you guys in Times.”

“Then what’s the problem?” John throws his hands up, exasperated.

“I can’t just send you to therapy, what will the press think? What will the people think when their strong, reliable heroes have to go to a shrink every week to fix their— whatever there is,” she waves a dismissive hand at John, and a muscle flickers in his jaw, his hands tighten to fists. Valentina turns, seemingly done with this conversation, “I don’t have time for this. How about this? I’ll put in an order for ten— twenty self-help books, you all do your little group hugs, and everything will be just fine.”

John opens his mouth, but Bucky says first, “I go to therapy. Nobody bats an eye at that.”

Valentina fishes out her phone, rolling her eyes, “Yes, well, it’s hard to bat an eye when everyone knows your story and your therapy is government-mandated. If anyone had an issue with Sergeant Barnes, the tortured war hero, going to therapy, well, they’d just be an asshole.”

“Pull your strings,” Bucky doesn’t even blink twice at her words, “Make his government-mandated, or whatever you need. I know you can.”

Val stops tapping her phone. She looks up at them, assessing. For a second, John almost thinks she sees reason, but when her eyes land on him, she sighs, closes her phone, and her gaze goes stony cold.

“Let me put it in layman's terms for you men,” Valentina says, voice measured and unfeeling, “John Walker has been known amongst news outlets almost exclusively as the failed Captain America, until now. He had his five minutes of fame, which was unceremoniously crashed after he beat a man to death in front of hundreds of witnesses. He was dishonorably discharged from his station, his wife left him, and then, finally, he started fading away from public scrutiny.”

John feels himself go pale. His fists drop, and he looks down. Everything Valentina said was true, and many of those things were results of his own mistakes. He tries not to wilt as his greatest shames are thrown out there like old trash.

“We’ve put hard work into erasing your actions, Walker,” Valentina continues, “When someone like James Buchanan Barnes goes to therapy, people feel sympathy for a brainwashed P.O.W. When someone like you goes to therapy?” 

John backs down. Bucky’s hands go to fists.

Valentina shrugs, lifting her phone again, “People start wondering what’s fucked up in your head—“

Bucky takes one stride towards her, grabs her by the shoulder, “This is where you stop talking.”

John’s head whips up, eyes wide. Valentina, to her credit, doesn’t flinch. She goes quiet, though, eyes going to where Bucky’s metal arm is holding her shoulder, firm. She assesses, then looks up at Barnes.

She opens her mouth, but Bucky raises his eyebrows at her. She closes it again. Bucky must see John tense up from the corner of his eye, because he turns his ear slightly.

“Bucky,” John begins, a warning, but Bucky just glances back at him. They hold each other’s gaze for a moment, and surprisingly, John finds himself just raising both palms and backs off.

John can just see the satisfaction in Bucky’s eyes, as if they’re saying, Good. This will only take a moment.

Bucky turns back to Val, and leans in, “You seem to keep forgetting something about this little setup of ours.” He plucks the phone from her grip with his other hand, “You can pretend all you want, Val, but you don’t call the shots here.”

“Don’t I?” Valentina responds smoothly, “I’ve been doing it so far and, from what I’ve seen, Congressman Barnes, you’ve all been content to follow orders.”

“We’ve been playing your game, but you know we can blow everything up in your face with just one step out of place.”

“Is that a threat?” Valentina raises a brow, unimpressed, “You’re all stuck under the limelight, too, now. You fuck things up for me, you fuck things up for you.”

“S’that so.” Bucky muses lowly, “You ever been at the end of a vibranium arm?”

Both Valentina’s brows shoot up at that, she laughs a little, “Speaking of threats—”

“I could show you,” Bucky continues, ignoring her, “It would be quick, just one jab and you’re down. Then, when it’s over, you can pick yourself up and consider your options; One, you go and tattle to your Big Bad handlers in the government, they bust in and take me to the darkest holding cell in the country, and all the headlines for the next few months will be about Valentina’s failed Avengers. Or, two, you go get yourself patched up and you stay quiet, because at the end of the day, there’s nothing we can do to you that you could ever tell anyone about without losing everything you built until now. And if I know anything about you, Valentina, it’s that you hate to lose.”

Valentina’s face is relaxed, but he can see her eye twitch, her hand curl.

“So, I’ll ask again,” Bucky squeezes her shoulder, letting the vibranium in his arm whir next to her ears, “Pull your strings. Cover it up. Do whatever shady bullshit I know you’re good at, and make it so that I don’t give the press something worse to talk about than an Avenger in therapy.”

There’s a heavy silence for a beat. Valentina stares over Bucky’s shoulders, takes a breath, closes her eyes, and then frowns.

“You’ve made yourself very clear, Barnes,” She says, distasteful, “You can let go now. And drop the menacing assassin act. It’s so last-decade.”

Bucky lets go and steps back. Valentina smooths out her clothes, her hair, and snatches her phone back. John watches her huff and lift her phone. She taps a few buttons, and drags the silence on. Probably on purpose. Something about control.

Finally, Valentina looks straight up at Walker and lifts her chin, “Next week, Thursday, two p.m.,” John’s eyes widen in surprise, and Valentina just keeps going, “A black car will be waiting for you at the tower. You wear a disguise and you don’t take off the disguise until you’re safely back on floor forty-wherever-we-are so not a single camera sees you. If I get even a half-blurry snap of you in my notifications, you’re done. Are we clear?”

“Yeah— yes. Yes.” John says quickly, heart hammering in his chest, “I’ll be— careful. Yes.”

Val just rolls her eyes, mutters something about serum freaks, above my payroll, and turns to leave, “Just try not to fuck it up.”

Before she goes, she levels her glare on Bucky, “Oh, and Barnes?” Bucky raises a brow, “Next time, lay off the threats and just tell me it’s non-negotiable. I’m a big girl, I can fill in the blank spaces. Lord knows I have better things to do that watch you men swing your dicks around. Jesus.”

“Thank you.” Bucky calls dryly as Valentina walks away. She just gives them a mocking wave from behind, gets in the elevator, and disappears.

For a moment, John is speechless. He stares at where Valentina had just walked off, and thinks, Holy shit. It didn’t blow up in my face.

John was going to go to therapy.

It felt like such a small, insignificant thing when he said it like that, but he knew it was more than that. Maybe, it was only that big to himself. Maybe he’s the only one who feels like, after so long under the dirt, he’s finally stood up and dusted himself off. There’s a long path in front of him, but he’s finally standing on two feet. All he needs to do is take a step, and another, and another, and one day, maybe, he’ll be home.

Maybe he’s the only one who feels that way. But, when Bucky turns back to him, a slightly smug look on his lips but a light in his eyes, John thinks that he’s not alone.

“Told you.” Bucky says, like he’s bragging about guessing the weather and not for pulling John out of miles of choking mud. Like he didn’t just go to battle for him.

It sort of clicks for John, then. The realization that the people around him would take up arms for him, and he’d do the same for them.

Team, his mind supplies. Brothers, safety, family, his heart whispers back.

John can’t help the way his head ducks, a smile breaking onto his face, “Yeah, you— fuckin’ hell, you told me.” He laughs softly, around the lump in his throat, “For a second there, I really thought it was all going down the drain.”

Bucky goes all stiff and awkward under John’s praise, as he always does when someone actually shows their appreciation for him. John makes a mental goal to do it more often.

“Yeah,” Bucky nods, clearing his throat a bit, “Well, Val tends to make things like that.” 

“None of this is going to be easy, is it?” Walker says quietly, but it isn’t with the despair that he’s gotten used to. There’s something harder in his voice. Determined.

“No.” Bucky agrees, “But—“

“I do it anyway.” John nods. Then, to Bucky’s clear surprise, John looks up and smiles at him. Not a mean-spirited smile, or a smirk, or any of the tight-lipped, tense things he’s used to giving the Winter Soldier. It was a small, but real and grateful smile.

“Thank you, Bucky.” Walker says honestly, “You and I… we never really saw eye-to-eye, but you still… for me… Just, thanks.”

Bucky looks at him, the tense awkwardness in his shoulders fading a bit. Slowly, he smiles as well. It’s a touch bashful, yeah, but it feels something like hope, anyways.

“We’re a team,” Bucky says, and it feels more like an invariable truth every time he says it, “It’s what we do.”

John’s lips twitch upwards, “Now you’re sounding like Alexei.”

Bucky shrugs as he moves back towards the bar, “Alexei can be right now and then.”

“Hey, by the way, were you actually going to punch Valentina?” 

Bucky pauses, “… No.”

“Because I sorta would’ve paid to see that—“

“No comment.“

“— Maybe another time, just a little—“

“This is why we’re going to therapy, John.”

“I— wow. Wow. Too soon, Barnes, too soon.”

Yeah. It’s nice not to be alone.