Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Georgia sun is slanting low, throwing gold over the highway.

Olivia sits in the passenger seat, half-turned toward the backseats. “Would you love me if I was a worm?”

John groans, exaggerated. “Again with the worm thing?”

It’s the same teasing question that’s been going around since high school, each time with variations, each time with more ridiculous stakes. Some days it was about whether he’d hold her if she was a worm, other days about whether he’d let her crawl on him, or what kind of arrangement he’d have set up. There were debates about worm hygiene, worm mobility, and the hypothetical social consequences if only one of them turned. Every iteration ended in laughter, arguments about fairness, and John swearing he’d never take such hypotheticals seriously—except, inevitably, they always do.

“It’s important,” she says, mock-serious. “I have to know.”

Lemar echoes from the driver’s seat, “She has to know.”

“Does she really?” John asks, trying to sound put-upon while fighting a smile. “How many times have I already answered this?”

“I think he’s dodging the question, Livy.”

John protests, “I’m not dodging the question!”

“You don’t love me anymore,” Olivia accuses, playful. “I see how it is.”

“Oh, c’mon, I never—I didn’t say that!”

Lemar laughs, “You implied it, man.”

“I did not,” John repeats.

“I just don’t know…” Olivia lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Can we even stay together if the love isn’t there anymore?”

“Fine, yes! I would love you as a worm,” John says. “And we can live out our little worm lives together in the compost bin in Hoskins Family Flowers. Jesus, happy?

Olivia pretends to consider this. “Hmm…okay, but what if you were a bird instead?”

John asks, “Are you a bird, too? Or are you still a worm?”

“Does it matter?” Lemar counters. “Early bird gets the worm.”

Olivia snorts. “I’m not going to be bird food.”

“I wouldn’t eat you, Liv.”

“Aw!”

“Mostly because worms don’t taste good, but still.”

“Oh…”

“You telling on yourself, John?” Lemar asks. “You’ve eaten worms before?”

John throws his hands up defensively. “What? No! I said—”

Then, Lemar disintegrates.

One heartbeat, and he’s gone—dust spiraling where he’d just been.

The driver’s seat is empty.

The car swerves. Olivia screams.

John snaps out of his shock. “The wheel!”

Olivia hastily leans over to grab it and—

—the car jerks sideways—

—tires screeching against the road—

—there’s a truck skidding towards them—

—impact—

—metal crushes—

—glass explodes—

—the car flips—

—wind screams through the cabin—

—his head hits the roof—

—the world is spinning—

—dust and smoke—

—pain blooming everywhere—

—he groans, barely conscious, ears ringing—

—it all goes quiet.

Chapter Text

Bob doesn’t cry when his father comes back.

He hadn’t cried when his father had been Dusted either, except maybe a little in relief. He’d been high out of his mind at the time, smoking with a couple of guys he couldn’t really call buddies, except in the sense that they could be around each other while lighting it up. He’d thought he was hallucinating when they’d vanished before his eyes, thinking he’d maybe hit something laced too hard. But then neighbors were screaming, cars were crashing, and the streets were chaos.

It wasn’t just him.

Half the world had vanished, and there was nothing to do but laugh at the absurdity of it all, because when he stumbled back to his parents’ place—this nice, neat suburban box he hadn’t stepped foot in for a year—there was no one there. No shouting, no Richard Reynolds and his suffocating presence that Bob strayed from. The house was empty, and Bob laughed until he couldn’t breathe. Laughed until he was on the kitchen floor, coughing on linoleum, because the universe had handed him something he never thought he’d get: peace.

And he’d gotten five years of it.

Peace didn’t necessarily fix his entire life, because Bob had many more problems beyond his shitty parents, but having a steady place to crash certainly didn’t make it worse. The mortgage was paid off, but the world was fucked enough that it probably wouldn’t have mattered if it hadn’t been, which meant house was his.

He got five years of eating what he wanted, sleeping when he wanted, walking through his father’s house like he owned the place. Because he did. For five years he was free. And then the Blip reversed, and the chains slammed right back on his wrists.

Richard Reynolds was back like he’d never been gone.

His mom too, fluttering around in her passivity and casting the blame, but it was his dad that sank its claws in. Something about the man made Bob feel like he was twelve-years-old again, hunched in the corner, trying to make himself small like that would make him less of a target. An adult everywhere else, sure, but in that house—under that roof—Bob was just a kid waiting to get beat.

He left before the dust of their return even settled.

Bob told himself it was his choice to leave. He told himself he needed that space so he could go make something matter again. The truth was uglier: Bob couldn’t stand the way his father’s voice made him shrink. He couldn’t stand feeling small when he’d finally gotten a taste of freedom. So, he’d left, drifting through alleys and bars, sleeping in borrowed corners of other people’s apartments, walking until his feet hurt and then walking more.

He wasn’t looking for a cause, but a cause found him anyway.

They were being called revolutionaries.

They called themselves the Flag Smashers.

They talked about borders when the Blip had been undone. They talked about people being pushed aside. They understood him. Or maybe he understood them. He’d felt his life had been better when the world had been half-empty, and they agreed. So many people agreed. The Blip might not have been a good time, but it had certainly felt like a kinder time.

They sounded like heroes of the displaced.

Bob had always wanted to be a hero.

Chapter Text

Bob isn’t sure how he ended up in Madripoor.

One night blurred into the next, and he travelled from one city to another, to the next state, the next country, the next wherever he could stay for just this next while, and somehow it had landed him there. But what he does remember is the first time he saw Karli Morgenthau. She was younger than he expected, fire in her voice sharper than the edges of her words. Nineteen and already leading, stood in a crowded room like she had no doubt she belonged there, like the world couldn’t tell her otherwise.

Bob had never been that sure of anything.

Not back at nineteen, not even now at twenty-nine.

He wished he’d had her steel back then, wished he could have looked his own life in the eye and said, no, this isn’t good enough. Instead he’d stumbled, hidden, fumbling around with a half-baked dream of being somebody, anybody, while mostly just trying not to sink. So he’d showed up again the next night, and the night after that. Sometimes buzzing with too much energy, words tumbling over each other as he promised he could help, he could do something, and he was welcomed.

Karli gathered people like that: strays, wanderers, kids who’d lost everything when the Blip reversed and were still clawing at the empty air where their futures had been. She pulled them into her orbit, into a kind of family that didn’t need blood to bind it. Bob hadn’t realized how starved he was for that until he found himself sitting on a floor with a dozen others, eating cheap food and laughing like he belonged.

They painted masks with red, marked with hands of hope.

Their support had steadily grown over the months.

It was nearly half a year after the Blipped had been returned when Karli asked if he wanted to do more. He wasn’t alone in that moment, but it was within a small circle, the ones who’d been there from close to the beginning, the ones she trusted. He didn’t hesitate; saying yes was easy. It was the first time in years that anything felt easy.

“One world, one people,” says Karli, and shares what she has.

Bob takes the blue vial, and echoes her words back.

Chapter Text

It all happened so quickly.

One moment is all it takes for John to be caught off guard as Morgenthau rushes forward to kill him. One moment is all it takes for Lemar to intervene to save his life. One moment is all it takes for Lemar to lose his own. One crack, and the world suddenly very, very far away. No, no, no. He can’t do this again. He hears himself say Lemar’s name; once, twice, then again. It sounds wrong, too distant, too muffled, like the word is getting swallowed before it leaves his mouth. He repeats it louder, though he still barely hears it.

“Hey,” John says, or tries to. The word breaks halfway out. “Hey, man, come on. You’re okay. You’re okay. Lemar. Lemar.”

You can’t do this to me. You can’t.

You’re fine. You have to be fine.

You need to wake up. Get up. Get up!

He’s on his knees before he realizes he’s fallen. Blood rushing in his ears, drowning everything else out, turning it all to static in his mind, meaningless noise scraping against the walls of his skull. His body won’t listen to him. His breath won’t come right. The air feels thick—too thick to breathe, too heavy to move through—and his fingers are pressed into the concrete beside Lemar, fight forgotten because Lemar is lying so, so still.

Oh, god. Lemar isn’t moving.

John reaches for his partner’s shoulder. His hand doesn’t feel like his own. His glove presses into fabric that’s still warm, and his breath catches in his throat. Still warm means still alive, right? He thinks so. He has to think so. His mouth is dry, his heart beating somewhere far away, slow and muffled, like it’s happening in someone else’s body. He pulls back to cup Lemar’s face, but his hand ends up hovering uselessly over his jaw, afraid to touch, terrified to confirm what he already knows.

Don’t leave me alone again.

Please. I only just got you back.

Who do I have left without you?

His partner’s head is tilted at an angle that can’t be right. He stares at his Lemar’s chest, waiting for it to rise, to do something. Anything. Anything at all, please. Please. His chest still isn’t rising. John’s brain, desperate and terrified, refuses to process that, keeps stalling out before it gets there. It is all too bright and disorienting. The floor feels unsteady beneath him, though he’s not even sure he’s kneeling anymore. There’s a roaring in his ears that he half-recognizes as panic, half-convinces himself must be the world collapsing around him. His hand curls into a fist, then unclenches, trembles, presses against the ground again.

He can’t feel it.

He should be feeling something.

His vision tunnels until all he can see is Lemar’s face, still and unresponsive. There’s a roaring in his ears that might be his pulse, or adrenaline, or maybe it’s just everything breaking open at once. He blinks and the light shifts, too bright and then too dim. His mind snags on a loop—he’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay—like if he repeats it enough, it’ll make sense, it’ll make it true.

Except, it’s not true.

Because Lemar is dead.

And Olivia had died too, and John’s been so alone—

No, no, John thinks, that can’t be right. Lemar is just unconscious. They’ll get a medic. He’s fine. Lemar’s always fine. Lemar’s supposed to be fine. But the silence doesn’t break. The world doesn’t right itself. He blinks once, twice, trying to will the world into proper order, where Lemar is laughing at something stupid John said, and Olivia piping in to tease him too, and he wants that scene to be real so badly that, for a second, he’s almost able to sink into that moment and believe it.

Ha, okay. I see how it is.

You telling on yourself, Johnny?

Grab the wheel!

He snaps out of the past, into an equally bleak present.

His surroundings hold nothing but dust and concrete and Lemar is still lying motionless before him. His body starts to shake. If only he’d had the serum, if only Zemo hadn’t shattered them all, maybe John would have been strong enough to keep Lemar safe, maybe Lemar would have been strong enough to not be injured at all. He is distantly aware of the sounds of pursuit getting further away, but his brain refuses to return from the far off place it had escaped to, refusing to process what had happened, refusing to catch up to the reality that—

Lemar is gone, again.

Olivia has been gone.

It feels like his heart had left with them.

Chapter Text

John takes another pull from his drink.

It might be his third bottle, or maybe his fourth, but he had no intention of stopping, so hadn’t bothered to keep count. The liquor burns on the way down, but that’s the point. John wants it to hurt. He wants that ache overtake the ache in his chest, to dull the noise in his head keeping him from sleep. The bottle in his hand is half-empty now, or half-full, depending on how he chooses to lie to himself tonight. He tips it back again, swallows another mouthful, chases that bitter amber fire like it’s a salvation instead of a slow bleed. The room tilts around him, fuzzy at the edges, and still it’s not enough.

He’s still coherent enough to think of Lemar.

Dead for a second time, and John lets out a laugh at how badly he’d had to fuck up to lose someone twice. The first time, the Blip had ripped Lemar out of the world without warning, but that had been a tragedy that no one could have stopped. But this time? That was all on him. John Walker, Captain America for all of five minutes, dragging his partner into a fight that he hadn’t a chance to understand because Lemar hadn’t been around for those in-between years.

He drinks again, clumsy and careless.

Liquor spills down the corner of his mouth, warm against his skin. He doesn’t bother wiping it away. The bottle’s lighter now, the world heavier. He stares at the ceiling, and the crack of Lemar’s body as it strikes the pillar echoes over and over again, like a drumbeat in his skull. His own voice had felt so far away. All his training, all his medals, even the shield was worthless, as he’d searched for a pulse that wasn’t there.

He lays there, staring at nothing, and the nothing stares back.

He remembers how the Hoskins house smelled like cinnamon and flowers in the summer, how Lottie used to shove plates of food at him without asking questions. He remembers what it felt like to lose them all to the Blip, and then to get them back only to hand their son a folded flag six months later. He remembers how Leona looked at him when he’d come to offer his condolences over her brother after John had failed to protect him.

Olivia would know what to do, he’s sure.

Sometimes, John thinks he can hear an echo of her voice, can almost see her with him, trying to set him back on the right path. She’d have rolled her eyes, taken the bottle out of his hand, told him he was being an idiot in that patient, steady way of hers. Exasperated, but still kind. She would have touched his face, anchored him back down to the world, reminded him that there was something left to fight for. She always had a way of making everything feel less unbearable.

Her voice isn’t real, though, and John drinks until it quiets.

He almost wishes the bottle could finish what he can’t bring himself to do. That it could burn through him clean, scorch everything hollow until there’s nothing left to ache. No more waking, no more breathing through the quiet that presses like a hand against his throat. But it never does. Instead, he wakes the next morning, or afternoon, or night, with his skull that feels ready to split open with every heartbeat, and drags himself upright. He’s got enough tucked away to survive, savings meant for a family that doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s all been left to him alone.