Chapter Text
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“It’s this,” Bob blows smoke into the New York City skyline as Walker moves to stand next to him. He’s not in his uniform and his bent shield is nowhere to be seen. It’s just the two of them above the city and against the light polluted sky, “Or meth.”
“Cigarettes definitely sound like the better option.” Walker’s voice is dry and Bob can feel an odd anxiety settling heavy into his stomach. They’re all new to this domesticity. There’s nothing normal yet. This whole thing feels like an odd collection of one off meetings. Bob half expects some sardonic comment about drug abuse from Walker considering the man’s usual personality default of asshole. But, instead the super soldier does something he didn’t expect.
“Got a light?”
Walker grins at him, barely showing teeth as he flashes his own carton of contraband. For a man who had once been dragged by the hair through the most invasive media circus known to man, it’s safe to say John Walker still had his secrets.
He hadn’t expected that. They’d been in this tower a little less than a week and so far the only bad habits beside the alcohol were Alexei’s attempts to cook and not set the kitchen ablaze. Bob had sticky fingers for lighters since he was a teenager - so maybe that’s another bad habit, add it to the list! - and he knew that none of Valentina’s security detail would miss it. But, he has no doubt the neon pink of the cheap thing is a sore sight against the muted colors of his clothes and the smoggy sky.
Walker leans close to Bob’s fingers, breath ghosting over his knuckles and merely grunts his thanks as Bob lights the cigarette. This is the closest they’ve been without Walker putting his hands on him.
It feels surprisingly nice.
For a while at least.
This is the part Bob isn’t good at. The socializing. The one-on-one. The conversations. In a group he can float along with it, but he’s awkward. He stutters and his thoughts muddle into too many things to ever keep a straight conversation. Short and sweet. He can do that.
This is…not that.
Walker leans against the railing of the balcony, forearms pressing against the glass that stops him from taking a plunge. He looks as if a weight has been pressing down on him above, stealing his energy and his bite. It’s a cold night for the late spring weather but neither of them shiver. Both of them run hot.
“Ever since the serum,” Walker breathes smoke and talks like there is a direction to his words. There isn’t, “One doesn’t do it for me anymore.”
“Me too.” Bob agrees with a nod.
This last week had been giving Bob the medical lab rat run around. Valentina had shoved them all into this tower with a political smile and then had ended up back in even hotter Washington water. They hadn’t seen her in days, not that Bob was mad. He didn’t know what she did to him, but she stared after him as if he held the answers to more questions. As if he could tell her about why he had to be the one that worked and what that ring of bruises on her swan-like neck meant. He couldn’t.
But, despite her absence, Bob has still found himself getting poked and prodded with more needles than should be possible. Everyone had agreed to physicals and health screenings considering Valentina was now footing the bill for everything they could think of. But, agreement and petty vengeance doesn’t mean he had to like it.
Each needle brought back the ghost of something. He couldn’t remember the lab, but something in him did. He twitched the whole time and sitting on a gurney in a pale room with doctors on either side of him made something behind his eyes hiss . He hadn't been alone, the team saw to that. At least he could call it group bonding in the end.
“These were a bad habit,” Walker continues, pulling Bob from his thoughts, “Lamar hated the smell and my wife…she hated the, uh, cancer. But, after everything…” Everything is a loaded statement for anyone who lives in this tower. No one’s everything is the same, “The doctors said it looked like I’d never had a cigarette in my life.”
In their New Avengers, there is an over abundance of super soldiers. Over the past few days it became more and more obvious. Even in their eggshell-laden steps, the signs were there. The impossible weights in the gym and the sheer amount of food ordered was enough of a hint to anyone that no one normal lived in this tower.
Bob is no stranger to serum-induced oddities.
“My teeth grew back.”
Walker chokes on the inhale. It’s a rough sound and he turns towards Bob with concern and confusion meeting in the middle in the furrow of his brow and the gape of his jaw. It’s an interesting expression to say the least.
“Uh, sorry. I just–”
“No, no,” Walker has been quick to correct his words ever since they had all moved in. He hadn’t told Bob exactly why. The aggression in his tone disappeared just as quickly as the ‘Bobby’ nickname, “What do you mean? Your teeth?”
“Some of the back ones, uh, you know?”
And based on his expression, Walker did not, in fact, know. Bob frowns, taking a long drag of his cigarette to get that acidic taste of anxiety off his tongue. He blows a ring of smoke, an old party trick, before he fiddles with what’s left of the cigarette. The heat is nothing to him anymore. Such a difference from the now-gone trails of white circular scars on his hands and arms.
The serum took just as much as it gave.
“The drugs had started to rot some of my teeth out. A guy in Malaysia had taken two of them out with his pliers. But, um. They grew back.”
Walker could only nod along, taking a long drag as if it could banish the empathy-induced shiver of imagining pliers finding a tooth and pulling . Bob can’t stop the half smile. His stories always end up with reactions like that. He always had a talent for saying the saddest things casually.
“It’s all good,” Bob’s smoke joins Walker’s and it dissipates into the light polluted sky, “I barely remember it. Opioids tend to…uh, do that.”
“Jesus.”
The question of what the serum did to Bob had begun to haunt the team for days. There was no playbook. There was no set of expectations. The other super soldiers had that. Bob did not. Valentina had destroyed most of the records and evidence. If Bob hadn’t crawled out of that box, then the Sentry Project would have never come to life.
You’re lying , Bob can’t stop the shudder that grabs his spine like an unforgiving father. The hair on his arm stands on end, You would have lived. Burning and buried under a mile of rock. You would have lived. How long would it take to dig–
“Bob,” Walker nudges him with an elbow to the ribs, soft and grounding and unable to ever bruise him, “Don’t wander off.”
Wandering off. That was a good phrase for it. Bob nods, running his tongue across his chapped lips, “Sorry. I was just-uh, sorry.”
“No issue. You don’t have to be sorry,” Walker flicks the remaining bit of his cigarette to the balcony floor and crushes it beneath a boot. He doesn’t immediately light the replacement as he fiddles with the box, “But, you didn’t notice your teeth coming back?”
“Slipped my mind.”
Things always do. It's been that way for years. His memories are hole punched and messy. He still barely remembers meeting this group and what came after is just a…void. His memory is atrocious. He can’t remember passwords and he can’t remember grocery lists. He can remember how to change the oil in a car and every word of Malay he picked up during his travels. But, things about himself, important things. Now those never stick around long.
It’s the trauma, his therapist had said.
It’s the years of drug abuse, his doctor had said.
“It’s okay,” John Walker says to the busy city and its still upper air, “We all forget things sometimes.”
The remains of Bob’s cigarette join Walker’s in being crushed underfoot. Valentina can bitch all she wants. It’s nice to twist her arm. And twist her neck- Bob blinks the thought away with a grimace. He fishes out his next cigarette without the fanfare.
“Is that why you came out here?”
Walker grinds his gears; he's an asshole. But, then again, so is Bob. They’ve locked horns ever since they met. Bob appreciates it. He likes the fight. It feels real. It makes this whole thing feel better. It makes it feel like they’re not walking on eggshells. It makes him feel like a person and not a…liability.
Walker nods without fanfare, jaw tight, “It was mine and Olivia’s anniversary today. I just got off the phone with her.”
It’s late. Terrifyingly late. Too late for well wishes. Nothing good happens after the sun goes down. Bob’s lived long enough to know that fact well.
“How is she?”
“She wants to meet up. You know?” Walker nearly crushes the box of cigarettes in his hand as he gestures to nothing except the New York skyline. It's Bob's turn to, in fact, not know, “Talk.”
“It doesn’t sound like a bad start.”
Bob is honest. He thinks that’s why Walker came out here. Ava’s quips have excellent comedic timing, but they’re barbed and snag something deeper than skin. Yelena is observant and she always knows, but her gallows humor is what betrays her own issues. Alexei is…Alexei.
Bucky and Walker go back, way back. It’s a nonstarter. It’s aggression and conversations yet to be had. Neither of them want to start. Between the too-personal jabs and loud silences that follow, it’s obvious to everyone.
So, somehow, someway, that leaves Bob. Brutally honest and barely hanging on Bob. He’s the best Walker is going to get here. For now? For always? There’s no telling. He must have been truly desperate to come out here.
“I think she’s going to have me served.”
Separated, not divorced. Walker had corrected Ava with no heat. Ava had been trying to get a rise out of him for hours, but the way he had replied had shut her up in an instant. Ava likes the fight because it’s something she can control. But, that? Oh, that wasn’t a fight at all.
Contrary to popular belief, Bob isn’t stupid. His memory is shit and he dropped out of high school, but that doesn’t mean anything. He sees people. It was the only thing that kept him alive this long. A slammed set of keys on the kitchen counter meant his dad was in a fists first kind of mood. Something too cheap and too experimental meant his dealer cut his usual with something different and dangerous. Messy hair and blown pupils in the mirror meant mania for days to come and a void to follow.
And Walker? Walker’s voice dips into something soft when he talks about Olivia and his son. The hard set of his jaw relaxes just a bit and the anger at himself for fucking it up burns bone deep enough to shake his hands. He still loves them enough to hurt.
“I’m sorry.”
“And here I thought you’d make fun of me.” His laugh is more a huff of air and a sad smile than anything humorous, “Nothing? Not even calling me an asshole?”
“No. You already know you’re one.” Bob grins around the cigarette between his lips.
Walker rolls his eyes and leans in. They lean in close, cigarettes almost touching and breathing each other’s air as Bob lights their cigarettes with his atrociously pink lighter. Firelight warms their features for just a moment in a wash of gold. Bob can taste Walker’s smoke when he pulls away. He knows Walker can taste his.
“Funny, you jackass,” Walker says back. There’s no bite to his insult. He says it casually, like an insult is the softest way to say someone’s name, “Kicking a man while he’s down.”
“Don’t make it so easy.”
There’s no argument. This is going through the motions. There’s no child proofing. They don’t mean it. And that’s the fun part.
Bob knew a guy like that, a long time ago. They insulted each other and would aim for each other’s shins when they walked past each other. They’d get so high that nothing mattered except what they called each other. It was fun while it lasted. He died in his living room from experimenting with something different than their usual. And that had been that.
Walker tilts his head back to look for stars that he knows aren’t there, “I can’t believe all I have is you to talk to.”
It’s not an insult. He has the same sly grin he gets when he finds out someone saved him a plate for dinner.
“You’re no better. Talking to me. What part of ‘unstable’ didn’t you get?”
That had been a morning to walk into. The others had been hunched over what files about The Sentry Project Valentina had been using. They were…detailed to say the least. Nothing like hearing your friends call you unstable, even if they were reading from a half-baked file that had ‘mysteriously’ turned up. Nothing like hearing their shock and surprise at the criminal record. Nothing like them knowing him and all of his dirty secrets. Nothing like them seeing his autopsy before whichever scientist put him in the box.
Valentina had left it for them. They may own her, apparently, but she still has her ways to play dirty. Her agreeing to be forthcoming about information was a double-edged sword that everyone was splitting their hands open on.
“Val is full of shit.” Walker’s anger is contained in those five words. It’s white hot. And it’s gone just as fast as it appeared.
An involuntary reaction. As instantaneous as blocking with his shield. How odd, to be a part of someone’s muscle memory.
Bob blinks slowly. He’s still getting used to that. People caring for him. People being angry for him. People seeing him. He can’t remember the last time this happened, if it ever happened at all.
“Is she?”
She has her uses. She’a terrifyingly good at her job. She can magic situations away and conjure hoards of reporters with nothing but a phone call. She plays for keeps and hides her schemes from too much daylight. Valentina Allegra De Fontaine might just be the worst and most useful thing to happen to them.
“Yeah,” Walker insists, blowing smoke, “She is. She wanted us to send you away, did you know that?”
“No. But, it’s understandable.”
Another elbow finds his ribs. Bob elbows back and Walker aims for his shins with a kick. Their scuffle is half lived and half hearted, but meaningful all the same. Walker isn’t soft with his words most of the time, but he only pulls his punches when it comes to this. Yelena had snapped at Walker the first time they had descended into whatever this is, but had realized it was useless when Bob had laughed - giggled, really - and hit him back.
It’s their normal.
It works in the same way an old truck lives twenty years past its scrap by date. But, it works.
“Nope. She wanted to send you back to Utah. Fucking Utah. There’s nothing out there,” Walker says with finality, cigarette in the side of his mouth as he wrangles Bob under his arm, knuckles raking across Bob’s hair as his hostage laughs, “If I was going to ship you somewhere, it would be relaxing. The Maldives. Aruba. Somewhere that isn’t fucking Utah!”
Sending him back was a fancy way of putting him back in the box. Apparently, that had been Valentina’s plan for ‘Long Term Storage’. Knock him out, put him back in the box, and take him out when they have a suitable leash for him. Like he was some sort of doll. Bad plan for Bob. Good plan for everyone and everything else.
Some days, Bob doesn’t know why they didn’t just do that route instead of all this .
But, then there’s some days like this. Some days where he chain smokes off the balcony and scuffles with Walker. Some days where he cooks and Ava pretends not to watch with interest. Some days where he actually listens to Alexei’s stories.
There’s no way of telling what day is going to be what. Bob lost the ability to be frustrated by it years ago.
But, eventually, their scuffle ends. Walker releases him even though Bob could have broken free at any time. It’s nice not being handled like he’s going to break. It’s nice getting used to touch. Their cigarettes are halfway finished and that nervous energy that had been building between the two of them is fully finished.
“I don’t know shit about Utah,” Bob glances at Walker, moving back to lean against the glass panels of the railing, “But, I think you have a fighting chance.”
Walker is silent. All the fight left him once his hands left the body next to him. Bob can really see him now. Someone else would see some golden haired super solider lit by the mistake that is NYC and think him a hero, but Bob? He hasn’t been a part of that crowd of someone elses for years.
“You still love ‘em,” Bob shrugs. He’ll be honest until it kills him, “She’ll hear you out.”
“You don’t know her.”
“I know you.”
Walker frowns as if he’s been hit. Bob couldn’t tell anyone Walker’s hometown or his favorite color or his favorite movie, but Walker does what matters to him. And he does it without apology. He’s ferocious in his anger and his kindness. He killed a man in broad daylight, sure. But, he also hadn’t hesitated to hold Bob’s fist back from cracking into the worst parts of himself. Two things are true at once.
“You’re full of shit, Bob,” Walker grins something sad and just shy of hopeful, tossing his cigarette off the balcony. Bob follows it with his eyes before it disappears into the void of the city. But, Walker only reaches over, a hand pressing onto Bob’s shoulder. A gesture worth a thousand words, “You know that, right?”
Talking isn’t the easy part, but maybe, just this once, it could be.
“Every day of my life.”
“She’ll be here on Saturday.”
“That’s good. Oh, that’s nice.”