Chapter Text
Valentina stormed into the tower.
“Turn on the news!” She chirped, and when no one moved fast enough, seized the remote herself and poked at it. They all waited a moment as the weather wound down, baffled. John continued to make himself coffee in the background. Facing Val without it was beyond him. “We all need a media training refresher.”
“And in other news,” The presenter said, “A man from Latvia has claimed he saw two men beat up Captain America and that he filmed the whole thing-”
John dropped his mug.
“Well, our sources verified it. He finally sold it to our news outlet when John Walker and Congressman James Buchanan Barnes returned to public prominence following their defeat of the Void and announcement as New Avengers. We’ll play the whole thing for you now. Viewer discretion is advised.”
Bucky and John shared horrified looks.
“Turn it-”
“Sit the fuck down.” Valentina snapped. John briefly mimed taking his gun out again, but Bucky shook his head. The team sat on the sofa. John could already feel humiliation prickling in his chest, and fought the strange desire to cover his face with his hands. The entire world was gonna watch him get his ass kicked. Well, not the entire world. But it was hardly an unpopular station.
Oh god, Olivia would see it…
“Look at the shield-” The guy was muffled, perched behind a digger, a stack of crates, something. He was speaking Latvian, but they'd translated it for the American audience.
Another camera on him. John shuddered.
“I’m telling you, that’s the new Captain America. From the posters.”
He zoomed in on the blood on the shield, but then yanked it back out as John began to move. He paced back and forward, clutching his head, muttering to himself.
“Is he tweaking or something? Oh shit, oh shit-”
John’s voice rose in a yell, “Why didn’t I listen-!”
Then he staggered forward and screamed, guttural and raw- “WHY?!”
Yelena flinched, surprised. It seemed terribly wrong to her, to be broadcasting such a moment for the entire country to see. She tried to catch John’s eyes, but he was resolutely looking forward. She thought she could see unshed tears in his eyes, an echo of whatever he’d been feeling then. And it sounded like John felt responsible for whatever had happened.
Ava turned and snapped at Val, “We shouldn’t be watching this. It isn’t fair.”
John crumpled to his knees on the screen, his head bowed. Caught in the only sunlight of the room, it was almost cinematic. Yelena had done the same, against the cold stone of Natasha’s grave. There would be no comfort from the cold metal of the shield either.
Then- movement. The camera swivelled to catch Bucky and Sam Wilson. Sam’s face was carefully blank. Bucky looked tired, despite his claims otherwise.
“You were there?” Bob said, surprised. “Well, at least he wasn’t fighting alone.”
John turned his head round sharply to look at Bob, but realised that put his eyeline too close to accidentally looking at Bucky, and turned away with a huff.
Walker stood up and walked towards them both. They approached shoulder to shoulder, slowly, as if not to spook him.
“Walker.” Sam said.
“You guys should see a medic.” He said. “You don’t look so good.”
“You should have seen yourself.” Bucky said quietly.
“I was fine.” John said. Well, it was all a little blurry. Not so blurry now, though. Now it was all horribly clear.
Walker began to walk past them as if he expected them to follow.
“Stop, Walker.” Sam commanded.
Irritated, Walker turned sharply around, walked a few steps towards them.
“What?” He asked. “You saw what happened. You know what I had to do. I killed him because I had to!” He jabbed his hand at Sam as he said it.
“Ooh.” Valentina said. “That’s not gonna sound good to the public.”
“He killed Lemar!”
“Who was Lemar?” Yelena asked.
He turned to face her then, wearing a similar expression to the one he had when she’d learned his wife left him.
“My,” He cleared his throat, his voice faint- “He was my partner. My best friend. He’d just been killed, and I-I wasn’t myself.”
“I know.” Yelena whispered. “When Natasha died, part of me died with her. And it dies everyday she’s gone.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.
“He didn’t kill Lemar, John.” Bucky’s voice was as gentle as he could make it. Ava realised she hadn’t actually heard Bucky call John by his first name yet. Sky must really be falling.
Walker scoffed, turning away from him, as if he’d said something unbelievably stupid. But Bucky carried on, and he turned back.
“Don’t go down that road. Believe me, it doesn’t end well.”
“I’m not like you.” John said intensely. Bucky half-closed his eyes, looked at the ground. He knew he'd been reminded of an old shame. John Walker was nothing like Bucky, or Yelena, or Ava. They were all plagued with guilt for things that weren't their fault, while Walker felt no remorse for what he'd done. It was hard not to feel resentful about it.
Bucky had failed to reach him, so Sam took his moment.
“Look, it was the heat of the battle, okay?” He started to walk forward, “If you explain what happened-”
But something was happening to John. He stepped uneasily from foot to foot, agitated, lowering his head with his eyes squeezed shut as if he was in pain.
“They may consider your record.”
“He didn’t actually believe that, did he?” John said, “That it was a mistake.” He looked at Bucky. Bucky looked quietly back.
“Probably not. I know it wasn’t. You’ve made that clear.”
“He was right, though,” He admitted. “My record saved me from jail.”
“We don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“What’s with the head thing?” Ava said. “I’ve never seen you do anything like that.”
“I was in pain-”
“No,” Bucky said, “No, I saw you do it just before you went crashing in to get Karli, when you were thinking about whether to do what Sam told you to do or what you wanted, and again when it was between Karli or those senators-”
“It's just a- its just a thing, its nothing-” John said roughly.
On the screen, Bucky looked up again.
“John,” Sam said. “You gotta give me the shield, man.” His face was apprehensive…not quite scared, but close.
The man zoomed in on the bloody shield, Walker’s fingers, stained red.
Walker looked up at them both. His eyes flicked between them.
“Oh.” He said. And he smiled. It dropped quickly, “So that’s what this is. You almost got me.”
Bucky had seen John smile many times. Sometimes genuinely, sometimes just before he attacked, or taunted. But that had been a uniquely hollow, empty one.
Ava found herself leaning forward. She knew all too well how gut-wrenching that felt. To know the people looking at you didn’t see you, only what they could get out of you. To not truly be seen as a person.
Sam tried to get through to him for the last time, make him understand, “You made a mistake.”
He made a mistake, and it cost him everything. The shield. Family, his friend, his titles. But they couldn’t get through to him that he’d done anything wrong at all. He didn’t see it that way. It wasn’t even a mistake. He’d murdered someone. He blamed him for the death of his friend - and he was in part responsible, never mind the other things he’d done - and made the decision when he denied it to make him pay for that.
A life for a life. A friend for a friend. Except it wasn’t even. Not even close.
But John wasn’t even looking at Sam anymore. He was looking at him. Bucky. Then back. Like he couldn’t believe it.
“What- um, what is this?” Bob asked, putting his hand up.
John was still angry. Angry things hadn’t worked out between them in the beginning. He thought their reasons were bullshit. They were personal, whatever they tried to pretend. They didn’t like him because he had Steve’s title and Steve’s shield. But Steve was gone. He could give them a pass because they were grieving, and grief made him horrible and it made them insufferable. But he’d tried, alright. He’d tried to make it clear that he didn’t want to be Steve. He wanted to make the title new - not because he thought he was better, but because Steve was gone. He chose to go. Sam chose not to be Captain. So it was up to him…
Of course, he found Bucky irritating, that was part of it. His trust in Sam was unsettling. How was he not consumed every second by the idea that Sam could die, literally die, that all of them could die? How had he been so apathetic? Had he been a super-soldier so long he’d forgotten how easy it was for good men to die? John had seen so many killed in Afghanistan, for nothing. In a split second, all of that could be gone. Forever.
But in the end it meant nothing. The call was coming from inside the house.
Bucky was there for Sam, and John had failed Lemar. John had lost his own partner, so consumed with someone else’s. In the end, Bucky had been right.
Angry because in that moment, when Sam had saved him and Bucky in a mirror of him saving both of them when they’d first met, just off the back of him and Bucky operating like a unit, he knew he’d been right. If they’d worked together they could have brought the Flagsmashers down in an afternoon. Not that Sam wanted that. At the end of the day he’d tried to save someone John had to see dead.
“He wasn’t the Captain America I wanted.” Bucky said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
“You don’t want to do this.” John said.
“Hey,” Bob said, “You said that to me, too. Lot less menacing though because that guy…ooh.”
“Yeah, we do.” Bucky looked up again.
“Good.” Valentina said. “Now no one can argue against them being the aggressors. Now, if you have a good lawyer, and I know a few-”
“Wait, what? You were fighting?” Bob pressed his hands to his face, and shot a nervous look at John. John just smiled sadly at him. He hadn't really expected it either…but he sort of had.
They ran at each other. Sam reached him first but missed, and an echoing clang ran out as Bucky’s vibranium arm slammed against the shield. Walker got the first good hit against Sam, sending him flying off his feet with a well-placed kick. He tried to kick at Bucky too, but Bucky dodged-
He grabbed the shield and swung John round, trying to pull him off his feet, yanking Walker off balance and going for his waist.
Ava frowned, baffled for a moment.
Walker elbowed Bucky in the face.
“Ooh, dirty move.” Alexei said. He offered Valentina some of his popcorn. She took it after a moment’s hesitation.
“Good response for someone reaching below the belt.” Yelena chuckled, eating gummy worms.
In the second he was dazed, Walker punched Bucky square in the face and threw him off his feet. Walker’s gun clattered away over the floor, useless. As Bucky turned back around his eyes went wide as Walker pulled the shield back to hit him again-
But they could see Sam was there. He did a cool fiip kick, knocking the shield up and away from Bucky, landing it perfectly. He opened his wings and twirled around, building momentum, a hard blow that Walker unfortunately had plenty of time to block. Good effort, though. And Sam’s work was done- Walker was focused on him, the shield knocked out with his arms splayed, his guard shattered-
That did, unfortunately, mean that Walker had a long time to build up power in his swing when he whacked Sam away from him. He barely had time to block when Bucky leapt on him from behind, his elbow raised in retaliation. It slammed onto the shield.
Sam tried to kick him, but misjudged the distance. Walker slammed the shield down onto his ribs, knocking him down again.
“Oh, that had to hurt.” Ava murmured.
Clearly, Bucky agreed, because he stepped it right up. Walker lost ground, pushed backwards as Bucky slammed his fists into the shield again and again. Only when his back hit a pillar did Walker try and fight back.
Bucky grabbed the shield again instead. For a good few moments nothing happened except them trying to rip it out of each other’s hands. The exertion was clear on both of their faces.
“It’s like watching toddlers fight over a fucking toy.” Valentina said.
But Walker broke the grapple, slamming the shield downwards.
A huge risk, Yelena noted. She’d be extremely hesitant to move her defence down below her head and all her vital organs, especially with a vibranium arm less than a foot away, but Walker apparently had no choice.
Not only did Walker do it, he pulled off yanking it down and swinging it back over his head to slam Bucky backwards.
What a moron! Almost as bad as Sam with his fancy kicks. Though, she supposed, necessary to bring down a super-soldier as an ordinary man.
Bucky elbowed straight through a metal pole, but Walker had dropped abruptly downwards, and it missed.
“Jesus.” John said. “That would have been the end of my spine.”
From the ground he saw Sam, sneaking up on them. He did his own stupid posey spin-kick, and nailed Sam in the face. He’d have one hell of a concussion after that.
“Everytime Sam Wilson even gets close to the fight, Walker just puts him down again.” Ava said. “No wonder Scott beat him.”
Sam dealt with again, Walker whipped back around to Bucky, and with a bellow of effort, threw the shield at him.
It knocked him clean off his feet and threw him backwards against a forklift. He slammed onto his front.
“You idiot!” Ava yelled. “You’ve just given him the shield! Not- not that I’m on your side. I’m just enjoying watching you struggle.”
Alexei jumped to his feet, spilling popcorn everywhere. He jabbed a finger at Walker. “You knocked the Winter Soldier off his feet! You are officially my new favourite super-soldier- the US Agent- we workshop the name- America is not great-”
“Well, technically not the Winter Soldier, well, not at all- um- the White Wolf, so not as cool. Um, sorry Bucky, you’re still cool.”
“You’re blocking the screen, Dad!” Yelena threw a pillow at him.
Walker didn’t waste a second. He ran at Bucky as he stood again. Bucky put the shield between them, but Walker slammed carelessly into both him and the shield, which he grabbed, and shoved them both back into the forklift. Bucky cried out, but managed to put some distance between it as he shoved him away. Walker yanked them both round and shoved him into the machine again. Their positions were reversed, Bucky trying to hang onto it with all his might and Walker trying to pull it away.
“Why are you making me do this?” His voice cracked. “Why are you making me do this?”
The thrill of the fight faded like they'd all been doused with cold water. Suddenly they remembered who was fighting. Walker. Grieving. Desperate. Against two opponents he did not want to fight, after possibly the worst day of his life.
John buried his face in his hands.
Yelena remembered her own fight with Clint Barton, out of her mind with grief and rage. All she’d wanted to do was hurt him, and she hadn’t believed it when he’d said he was innocent. In fact, it made her angrier. If she had killed him, and one of the other Avengers had to go after her…or Clint, grieving Natasha, having to fend her off, but still understanding. Still being as kind as he could have been. Walker didn't get that.
Bob had seen much worse. When he'd been homeless, scrounging for anything to take the edge off, he'd seen men kill over space, over ratty clothes, over nothing at all. He'd seen men crazy, he'd seen men feral, out of their heads, fighting for their lives over much less than a vibranium frisbee that dangled between ideologies. It hadn't hurt him then, high as he'd been, but it hurt him now. He dreamed of it. All the people he'd seen die. Did he dream of it? The men in Afghanistan? This… Lemar? The man he killed?
They had to do it.
That wasn't to say Bucky didn't feel guilty. Guilt was an old friend.
But it was more complex than that. He knew it wasn't his fault. The few good therapists he'd had - unfortunately the minority - had assured him that he had nothing to feel guilty about. In fact he'd gotten in the habit of dropping therapists when they started sounding like the Winter Soldier was his fault. Sam had taught him some good habits. It was torture or compliance, and they'd tortured him long enough that his body - an animal he was only partly in control of - had taken the choice away. He obeyed.
Walker would have killed Karli. Perhaps more. Done what he was told - done what he wanted. It was frankly bizarre to see a man so unravelled, so aware he was completely unravelled, yet so unphased by what he'd done. He put himself behind his mission, but he also had no reason to hide.
And Bucky knew better than anyone that death haunted a person. Even if Walker - if John - felt justified in the moment, it'd get him eventually. A man like him - flawed, yes, unstable, yes, unable to deal with losing control, yes - had to save people.
But yeah, he felt guilty. He'd wanted to jump the man since they'd met - perhaps with more zeal than he'd actually earned. Bucky had interpreted his every word in the worst way he could. But when it came down to it…
It wasn't satisfying at all.
Especially seeing what Walker had been like before they came in. Before he'd pulled himself up. Probably the only thing holding him upright was grit, military discipline, and a desire to see things through.
The shield gave him that. No wonder he clung to it so hard.
Alexei didn't like to think of the day Dreykov betrayed him. Dumped him in prison. He'd hadn't been able to fight long - though he had fought. Fought until they shocked him into submission and then drugged him. He’d woken up in the cell.
Then he spent weeks in solitary confinement turning over every conversation he could remember from the last year. Every action. Looking for something he did wrong. Imagining what he could have done differently to prevent it, to fix things. But he never found an answer.
Yeah, he'd suited prison. And he hadn’t exactly been cut off from the outside world. Basically a miniature city. And like Russia, at least, though not as good.
But still.
He knew this madness.
Walker swung Bucky around, lifting him off his feet again with a burst of hysterical strength. Bucky lost his grip and slammed into another pillar. Broken wires fizzed, zapping through his vibranium arm, and he slumped, unmoving.
“So, let me get this straight.” Yelena turned a shit-eating grin to Bucky. He eyed her warily. “You wanted the shield. He threw the shield at you. You got it. He then runs at you and tears it back again.”
“Embarrassing.” Ava said.
He rolled his eyes.
“I got it in the end.”
The camera caught Sam flying at Walker, his legs out to kick him.
Bucky cringed. Walker had been on his fucking case all the time, a frankly weird tic, about keeping Sam safe. Now Bucky was out and Sam was alone with a deranged super-soldier, after all.
Ironic.
John had warned them. Really. Sam had reckoned he could negotiate with Karli in her moment of vulnerability after she lost her mother. But reasoning with Walker when he'd lost Lemar?
Yeah, that hadn't worked out.
It was a railway, so whatever those wires were conducting, it was a lot of volts. Even when he’d woken up again and it had faded, it had taken him a moment to remember he wasn’t strapped to Hydra’s chair, and longer still to fix whatever had been fried in the arm.
It hit him that he was gonna see what happened between them when he was unconscious. He leaned forward, glancing at Walker. His shoulders were hunched. He was breathing hard. Yelena had her hand on his shoulder, circling gently with her thumb.
Something bad, then. Dread curled in his stomach.
Walker dodged, and slammed the shield into Sam’s chest as he sailed past. He collapsed on his back from the force of it, and Walker, with a scream of effort, swung the shield back to hit him again. Sam rolled and dodged, and extended his wings. Walker rolled over them, but was knocked off his feet as Sam flew away.
“He’s just a normal human, right?” Yelena said. “That would have put him in the hospital if it landed, if not the morgue!”
Sam landed across, and turned around, retracting his wings. He faced Walker and put his hands out placatingly.
“This isn’t you, John.”
“Isn’t it?” John said listlessly. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Hey, they attacked you.” Yelena said, “I’m basically the expert at not being able to tell whether I want to hurt people anymore, because, weird chemicals. You didn’t want to do this.”
But John just shook his head.
“Keep watching.”
Walker smiled, and said, almost wistfully, “We could have been a team.”
“And now you are. Kind of.” Ava said. “Once Sam is on board with this whole thing. Sickening.”
Bucky did think about it, sometimes. Walker had tried to be nice at the beginning, but neither him nor Sam had wanted to fucking hear it. Mostly him. Or at least, as nice as he could be, because John got unpleasant pretty fast. Of course, he was mad at Sam, too, for giving up the shield, and he’d still managed to work with him. And of course, if they hadn’t been that way towards him, he might not have been so paranoid by the end, and the fight could have been avoided.
He’d kept an eye on Walker even after Sam was well cemented as Captain, and US Agent disappeared into black ops work. For practical reasons, yes - bad things happened when super-soldiers disappeared. But also because he hated him a lot less.
Maybe the fight had been a good thing, to get all the feelings out.
Sam flew at Walker again, but switched tactics, surprising him. He attached a line to the shield, and flew away, yanking Walker off his feet but not the shield from his hands. He changed direction and yanked him over the concrete.
But Walker hooked his feet around another forklift, braced them. They froze in a stalemate - the serum versus the jets. And Bucky knew how that one went, having yanked Sam out of the sky once. Took him a lot less effort than it took Walker, though.
He did it though, one swift yank, and Sam jerked forward and slammed into the ground.
But when Walker fell too, the momentum lost, he dropped the shield.
They were both sprawled, the shield between them.
Sam looked at it. Walker looked at it. They both charged. Sam went for the shield.
Walker went for him.
Walker got there first, barrelling him over and landing on top. This must be it, Bucky thought, this must be just before he woke up and tackled Walker. But Sam activated his wings - smart move - and shot out from underneath him. But Walker still had hold of him. He flipped him up, over his head, and slammed him into the concrete on the other side.
“Why’d you take your helmet off?” Yelena said. “Seems like a pretty dumb move?”
“It was hot, I think. Or claustrophobic. Equally possible I wanted my face to be the last thing Sam saw. I’m joking about that last one. I think I just couldn’t stand the feel of it anymore. Fighting someone is hot.”
Yelena turned round to look at him. Then she sighed and shook her head.
“At least I know why you liked it.” She said. “It was lucky. The second you took it off you started losing.”
“The second I took it off,” John said, “I became susceptible to head injuries.”
They watched Walker and Sam kind of grapple with each other. Sam shoved uselessly at Walker’s chest and arms, teeth bared, but he couldn’t move him, couldn’t even phase him. Of course not. Sam was just a man. He could do nothing as Walker reached for his wings.
The camera zoomed in on Walker’s face. The kind of face that probably still haunted Sam’s nightmares. His eyes were wide, unseeing - looking forward, rather than at his opponent. His teeth were clenched in fury, his hair slicked back with sweat. Sam clawed frantically at his arms.
It was deeply unsettling to watch. But Bucky wasn't surprised he'd fallen over some kind of edge. What with…everything.
Walker had lost it, that much was clear. Whatever humanity or sanity he’d had at the start of the fight, it was gone. All that vicious directed at Sam. He’d been sorry to fight Bucky. But fighting Sam seemed to bring out the worst in him.
It was downright weird. Bucky had been against Walker from the moment they met, and they’d done their share of sniping at each other.
Things are really intense for you right now, aren’t they?
This must all be so easy for you, all that serum running through your veins…
He would have been more angry with Walker at that comment if Sam hadn’t said to his face that he wished that he’d taken the serum, just like Bucky and Steve had. He was starting to think he needed to pencil both of them in to read his museum exhibit again. He’d had no choice in the matter, and at least Sam should have known that.
And yeah, Bucky knew he should have made more of an effort. He’d seen himself in John, seen the way something in his mind wasn’t right in a way that was terribly familiar. He should have warned him what Karli was planning. He should have chased after him after Lemar’s death, for all John would have tried to kill him for it. Should have, should have. John should have called in the army once he found out where Karli was. It would have gone terribly, and soldiers would have died, and Karli probably would have escaped again because they had no element of surprise, but Lemar would have lived. The one time he needed John to make a different bullheaded decision, he hadn’t. What was the point of being a government-appointed dog if he couldn’t throw the US army at his many problems?
But Sam had been…closer, to civil. At least he’d let John down more gently. It wasn’t gonna happen. Yeah, John was out of line for his “wingmen” comment, but he was also a fanboy with no idea what he was talking about. Why John was being so nasty to Sam made little sense. Wasn’t because he was weaker, because Bucky was down - John could have stomped across the warehouse and put that shield through his neck.
He paused after every word, drawing them out as he spat in Sam’s face-
“I am Captain America.”
Ah.
In almost one smooth movement, they all turned to look at John, identical expressions of disgust on all of their faces. It was kind of disturbing to see him so violent, so spiteful, so lost.
“He needed reminding.” John said stiffly. “He gave that fucking shield up. He gave it away. It was nothing to him! So how dare he treat me like crap and try to beat me up after I got given it? It was my shield then, not his, and he had no right to take it from me.”
Walker screamed, and their necks snapped back to the screen as he ripped Falcon’s wings from his back, snapping metal and wire, and tossed them apart. Sam was grounded, without a weapon - unless redwing made a miraculous appearance - and Walker had rolled them close to the shield. He lifted it above his head, and with a howl of rage, and went to kill Sam.
With the shield.
Jesus, him killing that Flagsmasher wasn’t an accident. He’d done a super-soldier in with four hits. His hands had been up, too, so . Sam probably wouldn’t survive one. An unarmed Flagsmasher could kill a man in a single hit - an enraged Walker could definitely do the same.
Bucky shut his eyes. He couldn’t imagine what that would have been like. Another friend, dead, killed with all he had left of Steve. The kind of bitter irony that made his teeth hurt.
But Bucky slammed into Walker, back in the fight, sending them both flying. Walker ran at him again, and both began to trade punches. It was clear they were reaching the end, both exhausted, hurt, and tired. Walker wasn’t really trying to block, and neither was Bucky. Both of them were punching much more weakly than when they’d started, every blow connecting like neither of them cared anymore.
Finally, Bucky knocked Walker off his feet. Yelena was kind of praying it would be over soon. John was clearly on a negative trajectory now - defensive, exhausted, and once again fighting both. She rubbed her hands over her eyes. Not wanting to see John hurt was a very strange feeling for her, but it was horrible now.
Bucky slammed on the shield, but John jabbed underneath it, and he collapsed on one knee. Walker grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed his head down on the edge of the shield. Pretty amazing that it didn’t knock him out again. Bucky felt that one - actually, he felt the whole fight - for days afterwards.
“How do you have teeth.” Ava murmured.
Bucky fell. Walker shoved the shield downwards, but Bucky caught it in his hands. They grabbed again, metal creaking as vibranium ground against vibranium.
Walker gasped, a miserable, exhausted breath.
Sam ran over with a cry, and punched Walker in the head. It dislodged him well enough for Sam to grab the shield and begin to yank it off Walker’s arm, the blasters of his broken jetpack giving him the thrust. Bucky surged forward and held Walker down with all of the strength he had left. Walker’s face contorted in pain.
Bucky stared into Walker’s eyes. Sam and Bucky had won, that much was clear.
“It’s my fault.” John said. “I never should have let them back me into a corner like that.”
The shield came free suddenly, yanking Walker’s arm round the side of the forklift, and he screamed as the bone broke. It was a sound Yelena hoped never to hear again, but one she might, if he was such a baby he cried over a broken bone.
Sam rolled, over and over, but he had it. He had the shield. Bucky staggered up, and spat blood.
Jesus, it did not seem worth it.
Walker got up again.
“It’s mine.” He said.
John peered through his fingers. “It totally was mine, but this is so embarrassing. If I never see that fucking thing again it’ll be too soon.”
“It’s over, John.” Sam said.
“Well, that was dramatic, then melodramatic, then scary, then sad.” Yelena picked up the remote. “I don’t know why you made us watch this, Valentina. Unless it was to make sure we have zero cameras on us when we beat people up and steal their shit. We know that already.”
“I suppose you were right about having guts.” Valentina muttered. “Unfortunately, its way less impressive to keep standing up if you just get floored again. Then it’s just pitiful.”
Walker tried to throw a punch again, but he was unsteady. Bucky lifted him up and swung him around, to collide with Sam’s legs as he flew forward with the jets. The impact knocked all three of them over, but it knocked Walker all the way out.
Ava laughed out loud.
“Sorry.” She said.
John looked at Alexei.
“You know.” He said. “I wonder, if you swung me by my ankles, how far could you throw me?”
“A good way! I am very strong, we have to try this new tactic out, get you into high places.”
Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m pretty sure both of you could just jump - oh, this is going to end with one of you dead-”
Bucky got up first. He picked up the shield, and walked between where both of them lay. He dropped it by Sam, angrily, as if he blamed him too.
Then he turned, and left.
Sam got up next, slowly, laboured, and tried to wipe some of the blood off the shield with his gloves. Walker still lay prone, but he began to move. Slowly, he sat up, and peered around.
He looked at Sam. Sam looked at him.
“Walker.” Sam said. “You gonna attack me again?”
Walker laughed miserably.
“I’m done. God. He hits like a truck.”
“You hit like a truck, man.”
Walker got up on his knees, panting, shielding his arm close to his body. He put one foot down, and stood, swaying. They listened to the sound of sirens, far off.
“It has to be me.” Sam said. “The government picked once, and you were their best choice. Their second might be worse.”
“Well,” Bob said, “From one unstable almost-symbol superhero who failed their first mission to another - they sure do know how to pick ‘em.”
John smiled, hesitantly, but the feeling real, “Thank you, Bob. But it’s different. You had things rough. I had everything perfect, and there’s still something…wrong with me.”
“Do they know what?” Bucky said. “I know the army doesn’t like to bring that stuff up, but you’ve been out for a while, so…”
John held up his hands. “They don’t know. I get- like, I can’t control my own thoughts. I think of everything that could go wrong so vividly its like I’m watching it happen. I get overwhelmed, everything gets blurry, and then I get violent. I never know when it’s going to happen. Lemar- Lemar could help, sometimes, but he’s gone now…”
“Well, we can watch out for that.” Yelena said. “We can manage that.”
“Come on, come- here.” Sam looped Walker’s good arm around his. They staggered out of the warehouse together, and the filming stopped.
The TV switched back to the presenter, and she drew in a breath.
“Of course, Sam Wilson as Captain America prevented war with Japan and turned the Red Hulk from a rampage across the country. Does his violent reclaimation of the shield matter in the face of that? It’s documented that this fight did nothing to quell John Walker’s desire to see vengeance - he’s spotted in the last fight against the organised Flagsmashers with a homemade shield, engaging their leader, Karli Morganthau, who confesses to the murder of Lemar Hoskins-”
She pressed a button, and audio played, a little muffled.
“-Let’s finish this!”
“I didn’t mean to kill your friend.” She said. “I don’t want to hurt people who don’t matter.”
A pause.
“You don’t think Lemar’s life mattered?”
“Not to my fight.”
Then they heard John’s cry of rage as he engaged her.
“Bitch.” Ava muttered.
“As well as killing three and injuring ten others in a bombing attack and her group’s attempt to coerce and then kill many high-ranking members of the now-defunct GRC.”
“Didn’t Sam Wilson say they weren’t terrorists?” Ava asked. “I’m pretty sure using violence to influence politics is literally the definition of terrorism.”
“If that’s true, we’re all terrorists.” Yelena muttered. “Except Bob.”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, “But she was doing it to get food and medicine to those displaced when the GRC handed property back to those blipped, and kicked those who lived there during the blip out into camps. And then promptly ignored them. Karli began as a revolutionary but she became steadily more violent-”
“She began with armed robbery-”
“And you began as a military grunt defending the interests of a corporation allowed to seize and redistribute any resource in the fucking world, Walker. Your first move as Captain America was to attack a group trying to bring medicine to refugees. You were not the good guy there!”
“Sorry, didn’t I also see you at the Devil’s Sacrament?”
“Only because they were robbing banks that were already on the brink of collapse, and only keeping afloat by being absolutely ruthless. And they had some kind of dangerous help.”
“Well, if you can’t get a bank loan, thats one way to do it.”
Bucky glared at him.
“You should never have followed Karli into Europe. You should have stayed in America. I don’t know why the government sent you overseas. I don’t know why the government even cared that some European revolutionary was running around.”
“Why did they send me? Captain America? After a group of anti-nationalist communists with a slogan that sounded an awful lot like Hydra reborn? Bucky. You know how it works.”
“Yeah, I know how it works.” He said, coldly. “But we need to-”
“Do better, yeah. How do I do better, Bucky? Why did you hate me? You hated me before you even met me. You hated me before I did anything wrong. You were so out of line towards me that Sam actually had to step in. I stuck my neck out for you twice. I tried to be nice. I saved your life. And still you hated me. Even more than Sam, who wanted that shield destroyed. Why? What did I do? It wasn’t my behaviour, because I told you we were going after people who sheltered Morganthau, and you didn’t even blink. So what was so wrong with me? And it wasn’t because I was with the government, because Sam worked with the government, so that’s bullshit. You know what would have brought this broken country together quicker than him working with ex-president Ross? You, me, him. But you just…you were so nasty, and I looked up to you so much. Heroes are supposed to help people. Why not me? And yeah, I fucked up the mission in Riga-”
“You antagonised the Dora Milaje-”
“Like Hell I did-”
“You called their spears pointy sticks! You told us to stay out of your way and then got in ours-”
“That one's true.”
“You threatened Sam.”
“He was between me and Zemo!”
Bucky breathed out, slowly. He was staring again. He stared for a while.
“Steve didn’t pick you.” He said, finally.
“Even you can’t be that much of a prick.” John huffed. He gestured at Bucky, but when he said nothing else, threw himself back against the sofa, irritated.
“I can’t imagine you being nice.” Yelena remarked. “Being a dickhead suits you better. All that brooding in the black suit. Emo aggressive.”
“Thanks, Yelena, I feel way better.”
“At least the hat's better.” She said.
“What was so wrong with the helmet?” He spluttered. “Yeah, it's not great from a downward angle, but nothing is.”
“You didn't like it.” Yelena said.
That wasn't an answer he was expecting. He knew others didn't like it, but he figured that was because he was wearing it. People didn't seem to like him all that much.
“Why would that matter? They just sort of gave me the suit, I didn't…”
“The first thing I did when I got free was buy myself a jacket.” She said. “It had so many pockets. I loved it, but Natasha hated it. But it didn't matter what she thought. It only matters what we like. And you don't like the helmet, because now you've got that beret thing, and now you're happier.”
“Oh.” He said, quietly. “I thought you were being mean to me.”
She moved her hands up and down in a so-so position. “It's how I show love.”
John stared at her, his mouth slightly open, his eyes a little wide, completely unsure what to say. “You…”
“It’s because you reminded me of myself.” Bucky said suddenly.
“...How?”
“Well, Red Guardian is Russia’s answer to Captain America. You felt like America’s answer to the Winter Soldier. I saw the same…issues, in you, that I had, though I didn’t know what caused them. The same violence. The same mindless obedience, the same commitment to the cause, though they’d traded the espionage and assassination and silence of the cold war for black trucks and dragging people away. Trotted out in the red,white and blue - with the red star on the arm. And I couldn’t be that close to it. Not when I was still in that nightmare.”
“Listen.” He said. “I can, now. I’ve…now, I see all of you, and I still see myself. But now I need to give you all the second chance that I got. The life that I got. That’s why I’m here, and not begging Sam’s forgiveness. Because this is important to me.”
“None of us are just soldiers anymore.” He looked at each of them. “None of us are pawns. We're all free.”