Chapter Text
“Ok… I say let's go,” John commands, looking around the corner from the alley he, and the remaining Thunderbolts, are hiding in. What are they hiding from? Oh, just an inky black shadow encasing New York City in its unforgiving darkness. Yelena walked into it, chin up. So why can't he? He tilts his head up slightly to see Bob, or Sentry, or whoever that guy is, floating menacingly through the sky. The shadow he drew around him was growing bigger and bigger, beginning to cross in front of where the team was huddled. It's now or never.
John follows Bucky as he enters The Void first. The tip of his booted foot touches the blackness, and then, everything shifts. A streaky silhouette, with an oblong shape marking John's broken shield, stains the pavement before being swallowed by the shadow.
John actually knew what to expect, to some extent, when he entered this new realm. When Bob had touched his hand earlier, he was transported to a nightmare, or maybe that's not the right word, because it wasn't a dream, it was real. John couldn't bring himself to call it a memory, though. It was warped in some way, right? He didn't act like that. It was The Void playing him.
His environment around him transforms from a cloudy, dark nothingness, into an abandoned building. He knows which one. He can't help but roll his eyes a bit. A little on the nose, The Void. He's alone at first, for just a few seconds. Within those seconds, his eyes train onto the column where he knows his best friend will be thrown into. Then it happens. Lemar is launched into the scene and immediately hits the column. He was alone one second, and now he's accompanied by his best friend’s corpse.
“That's not how it happened,” John says to himself.
Then the scene restarts. He stands alone, in a silent, still room, then Lemar’s body is thrown across the expanse and into the column. His head droops down shortly after impact as he takes his last breath. John’s eyes widen with horror as he stands frozen in place, watching his friend’s body go limp time and time again. After what seems like a thousand loops, it stops. Lemar just lies there without a repeat.
John cautiously approaches his body, with slow steps, but someone else beats him to it. It's himself.
John blinks and suddenly his past self is kneeled over him, in a bluer uniform, and grasping onto Captain America's shield with a white-knuckle intensity. His past self, calls Lemar's name in exclamation, and in inquiry, as his current self stares up, sitting, slumped, in Lemar's place.
“My face… did I really look like that?” he says.
Then, there is silence. Lemar's name no longer leaves his mouth and his past self stares ahead, seemingly looking through the foundation of the building. It's a look of silent rage. To the layman's eye, his face bears no expression, just a statuesque emptiness. But it's really like the eye of a hurricane. It's still, it's quiet, it's even peaceful. People open their doors in the eye of a hurricane, they peak out of their windows, but that just invites the storm in.
John blinks again and he's running. He looks down at his legs as they pump in front of him, propelling him forward through the stone alleyways.
“Where is she?” a man bellows behind him.
John turns around to see himself again, chasing him.
“This isn't real,” John says to himself, but he can't stop running.
He doesn't know if that's just The Void working, or if he really doesn't want to stop running. He knows what happens if he gets caught.
“I'm not afraid of you,” John proclaims, and he stops and turns around, but his past self just runs right through him, chasing Nico into the town square.
John's past self launches the shield at Nico, knocking him to the ground. Nico pleas for his life, for some understanding. John blinks again and relives the moment where he repeatedly bludgeons Nico's chest with the shield. Blood splatters onto his uniform, darkening it. He tries to stop but his arms are stuck in the movement like a windup toy.
He blinks and suddenly it's not Nico. It's Lemar.
He blinks again and it's not Lemar. It's his wife, Olivia.
He blinks again, and it's himself.
He blinks again and it's The Void. “You can't kill us, we will always be there.” It’s voice is a mix of his own, Lemar's, Olivia's, and Nico's.
John finally stops his assault. Drenched in blood, he drops the shield and falls to the ground. His breaths are labored and come in short bursts. He kicks Captain America's shield away, it scrapes across the ground as it fades into a blurry red line in his peripheral vision.
He takes his own shield, gripping the bent edges with both hands, and slams it into the ground in front of him. The taco shape actually helps to shovel the stone away. Rubble flies out from the impact point as a small crater begins to form.
“Bobby, c'mon buddy I know you're here somewhere,” he yells down into the stone, before quieting his voice, “I'll dig forever if I have to.”
After what feels like forever, an opening starts to form where he can see a dim light peeking through. A triumphant smile forms onto John's face as his energy increases. He shovels into the rubble again until the opening is big enough to fit through and he jumps in.
The environment flips ninety degrees, so he falls on his face into the hallway of a home. Nothing he recognizes; he must have done it. He hears a commotion at the top of the stairs and looks up - Bucky is there, knocking the door down. John has never been so happy to see Bucky. He quickly scrambles to his feet and rushes through the busted doorway. Just before he enters, he takes a brief look back to where he came from. The hole is gone.