Chapter Text
It had been three and a half months since The Incident .
Three and a half months since the so-called New Avengers were stitched together, part PR stunt, part desperation. All thanks to Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
They weren’t quite a team. Not like the old guard. They were a collection of damaged weapons, rebranded and repackaged, with just enough shine to pass for something heroic.
They worked together. They saved lives. But what held them together wasn’t camaraderie—it was surveillance, trauma, and a mutual understanding that none of them had anywhere else to go. They were something of a family now, even if broken.
But John Walker had never quite fit in.
He lingered at the edges—close enough to be counted, never close enough to belong. After a while, he stopped trying. There was a quiet rhythm to the exclusion. He convinced himself he preferred it that way.
Sometimes he wondered if the discomfort others felt around him had less to do with what he had done—and more to do with the fact that he never quite acted right. Too angry. Too stiff.
Sometimes, when the others shared private jokes in the elevator, or when Yelena leaned her head against Ava’s shoulder during movie night—it hit him like shrapnel to the chest.
Olivia would’ve told him to just say something.
“You’re not charming enough to coast on silence,” she’d said once, amused, cupping his face like he wasn’t a man unraveling.
He’d told her he didn’t care what people thought. She’d laughed at that.
He went on the missions. Followed orders. Kept his mouth shut, mostly. Valentina’s team had even managed to drag his approval ratings out of red—briefly. It felt like progress. Like maybe, maybe the public was beginning to forget.
Then the video came back.
It started with a whisper. A shift in the way people looked at him. Strangers who had once asked for selfies now crossed the street. Parents pulled their kids behind them. A waitress handed him his coffee with a flinch she clearly hadn’t meant to show.
He noticed. Of course he noticed.
He’d been trained not to care what people thought. That hadn’t changed.
But it still got under his skin. Especially when the headlines came crawling out of the grave:
“U.S. Agent or U.S. Threat?”
“Execution or Assassination?”
“Does This Look Like a Hero to You?”
The footage played on loop. Over and over. The blood. The shield. The way John had stood, chest heaving, red dripping from white and blue like a wound across a flag.
Murderer.
Disgrace.
Monster.
He’d tried to bury that man. Had clawed himself into something new, something better. He’d paid for it—his title, his family, his peace. But none of that mattered now. Not to the public. Not to the cameras. Not to the goddamn algorithms.
And maybe, some part of him whispered, not even to himself.
So he watched, witnessed his second public downfall for the same goddamn reason as before. He scrolled mindlessly through lists and lists of articles he’d already read. Wondered mildly how deep into the red his approval rating was now.
And then he saw something.
“Is Bob Reynolds Hiding Something?"
And, oh. That caught his attention. John knew where he stood on the team, knew his place. Knew he was disliked, not really trusted. Knew his reputation stood on thin ice. But Bob?
Everyone loved Bob. He was impossibly kind. Considerate of others. Checked in on people. Noticed when something was off. And he meant it. All of it. Something about that pissed John off.
Valentina had covered his tracks, erased any connection he should have had to The Void, the whole Incident. The team had ensured there weren’t any more incidents, had done everything to keep him outside of public scrutiny. Everything to protect him, even if John couldn’t fully grasp why they were so fiercely protective.
So how had this connection been drawn? Why now?
John didn’t let himself care enough to consider that question too much.
The article was anonymous. Not just opinion, not just hearsay. It cited classified reports that should have been scrubbed. Incident logs. Witness statements. There were redacted names that John still recognized. The headline was clickbait, but the content wasn’t.
The Void never left. It was just sleeping.
The view counter was rising exponentially, comments on the article increasing steadily. People were scared. Not of Bob Reynolds—the man who apologized when he sneezed too loud. No, they were scared of what was inside him. Of what he might become again. And fear was louder than facts. Louder than anything.
John knew that.
He knew what fear could do. How fast it could twist the truth into something unrecognizable.
And now it was circling Bob. Like vultures.
He closed the tab. Leaned back against his headboard.
The room was too quiet.
Somewhere deep inside the base, the ventilation system hummed. Faint footsteps echoed through the corridors nearby. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been sitting there, locked into the glow of the screen. Hours, maybe.
He stood slowly. His legs were stiff.
Across the room, the window threw light onto the floor in long stripes. The sky outside had already begun to pale, the city smeared in shades of grey and orange.
He pulled himself into his clothes, dragged himself to the door.
The hallway was colder than he remembered. Quieter too.
Usually someone was sparring or stress-baking or watching something too loud in the team common area. But now, nothing. Just muted shoes and locked doors and that humming that only came from something bad.
When he reached the common area, he didn’t bother turning on the lights. He shut the door behind him, locked it, and leaned against the cool wood for a moment like it might hold him upright.
He ran a hand over his face, walked over to the kitchen. Poured himself a cup of leftover coffee from yesterday. He realized he wasn’t alone. Bucky stood by the dining room table, looking solemn.
“Meeting room. Now.”
John followed without a word.
Ava, Yelena, Alexei, and Bob were seated around the briefing table, arms crossed or clasped or just dead silent. Yelena rapped her fingers. Bob looked like he was trying to vanish into the wall.
John’s gut tensed.
“What is this?”
After a beat, Valentina strolled in from the hallway as though she was late for brunch, Mel in tow. She smiled like a dagger, hair perfect, tablet in hand.
“Congratulations, boys,” she said, all sugar and arsenic. “You’re married.”
John blinked.
The room stilled.
He looked around the room, half-expecting a laugh, a punchline. None came. Bob’s knuckles were white around a printed copy of something, his eyes locked to the table. Yelena stopped tapping. Bucky sighed.
“I’m sorry,” John said flatly. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Valentina tapped a few times and turned the tablet to face him.
It was already up. Everywhere. News banners, Tweets. Carefully filtered photos. A press release from the company. A quote from Bob about “starting a new chapter.”
It was all fake, of course. But it was already true.
“There was no wedding,” John growled.
“There didn’t need to be,” Valentina said, ripping the tablet from his sight. “You were legally joined this morning at 8:34 a.m. Your signatures were retroactively authorized. It’s airtight.”
Bob made a small sound. Not a word. Just a breath that caught in his throat.
John turned to him.
“You knew about this?”
Bob didn’t answer.
“No,” Yelena said instead. “He didn’t.”
John’s jaw flexed.
Valentina kept talking like this was a weather report. “The optics are ideal. The public loves a redemption arc. And now they’ve got two—an emotionally reformed ex-soldier and a formerly unstable god demonstrating mutual trust, vulnerability, and growth. The narrative practically writes itself.”
“This is fucking insane,” John said. “You can’t just—”
“We can,” she said, “and we did.”
Alexei muttered something in Russian that sounded like a curse. Ava didn’t speak at all, but the glare she gave Valentina could’ve seared metal.
John looked at Bob. He looked small, folded into himself. Not from fear—at least not just that. Shame. Embarrassment. The kind of humiliation that couldn’t be laughed off or forgotten.
Mel spoke up. “There will be press conferences. Interviews. Public sightings. All of you will have to play along.”
And John felt it hit him. Not all at once, more like he was watching the rage rise in slow motion. Not at the headlines. Not even at Valentina or Mel.
At himself. For thinking it would ever be different.
They’d made him a weapon again. Just like before. Just like always.
And now, apparently, he was married.