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The lights flickered once—then cut out completely.
John blinked against the sudden dark, switching his stance automatically. His boots scraped across debris as he shifted toward the far wall, shoulder brushing metal. “You didn’t say you were throwing it,” he hissed into the pitch-black hallway.
“I did ,” Bucky’s voice came back, distant but annoyed. “You weren’t listening.”
“Because I was mid-punch!”
John’s comm crackled once. Then nothing.
Dead silence.
“Hey,” he tapped his earpiece. “Barnes. Comm’s out.”
No response.
He took a step. A sharp, static jolt danced up his leg. “Ow. Shit.”
The next breath made his ribs twinge. That wasn’t from earlier. Something felt... off. His side burned, and not just in the normal post-scuffle way. Like he’d been hit with something.
EMP pulse. Right. He’d been standing too close. Didn’t even realize how hard it clipped him.
Another step. His knee buckled.
He caught himself on the wall with a grunt, hand slipping on what felt like shattered glass. “Cool,” he muttered. “Real tactical.”
He kept walking. Kind of.
More like a stumble-swerve-hop situation that he told himself looked tactical.
“Walker, where the hell are you?” Bucky’s voice snapped back over the line. Garbled. Stuttering. But finally back.
“South corridor. Still movin’. Took a little zap, maybe.”
Pause.
Then “Define ‘little.’”
John swallowed. Blinked hard against the wave of static behind his eyes. “I’m vertical. I’m fine.”
-
He made it another twenty feet before the hallway tilted.
The world spun once. Twice.
Then the floor was there.
Fast.
Pain cracked through his shoulder as he hit. He let out a sharp sound, more surprised than anything.
He tried to get up.
Didn’t.
“Walker?” Bucky’s voice again, sharper now. “John, respond.”
He fumbled for his comm. “Still... here,” he managed.
“Where is here?”
John squinted up at the blurry ceiling tiles. “Somewhere between corridor and your bad decision.”
“Stay down. I’m coming.”
-
Bucky found him exactly ninety seconds later, sprawled on his side in the shadows, legs tangled in dropped wires and shattered console glass. He was breathing fast. Too fast. One eye half-closed, and his hand twitching like he was still trying to stand.
“What the hell ,” Bucky said, crouching. “You didn’t think to mention you’d been knocked sideways by the damn grenade?”
“Didn’t wanna make a thing out of it.”
“You are literally lying in a pile of glass, Walker.”
“Yeah well. Glass is... comfy.”
“God.” Bucky exhaled hard and hooked an arm under his shoulders. “Come on. Can you walk?”
“Sure,” John said brightly.
He immediately collapsed the moment he tried.
Bucky caught him with a muttered curse. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re smoking , man.”
John blinked at him. “Like... hot?”
“Like the tech in your vest short-circuited and you’ve got sparks coming out of your gear.” He reached back, flicked off the ruined communicator. “How many fingers?”
John squinted. “...Two.”
“I didn’t hold any up.”
“Oh.”
Bucky stared. “We’re never letting you near explosives again.”
“That seems harsh.”
“You got zapped so hard you forgot how numbers work.”
—
He half-carried, half-dragged John through the rest of the corridor, grumbling the entire time.
“You owe me a coffee.”
“I saved your ass last op,” John slurred.
“And now I’m saving yours again.” Bucky tightened his grip as they turned a corner. “This is not a trend, by the way.”
“Sure it is,” John muttered, half-laughing into Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s called team bonding.”
“Pretty sure you have a concussion.”
“Pretty sure you still owe me a coffee.”
Extraction Point – 0345 hours
Walker: bruised, mildly concussed, and grinning like a shithead
Teamwork: questionable
Survival: 10/10
One of those dim, flickering fluorescents buzzed somewhere above John’s head, matching the slow throb behind his eyes. He winced and rolled onto his side—
Bad idea.
“Whoa. Hey. Don’t do that.”
A hand pressed gently to his shoulder before he could fall off the cot.
John blinked until the blur became Bucky, sitting on a stool beside him, looking like he hadn’t moved in hours. Or slept. Or blinked.
“You’re still here,” John croaked.
Bucky didn’t answer right away. He poured water into a plastic cup instead, then offered it without comment. “Sip.”
John took it. Tried not to wince when his arm shook. “I’m good.”
“You were unconscious for three hours.”
“I was resting. ”
“You face-planted into a pile of sparking wires.”
John let out a low groan and let his head fall back onto the pillow.
Silence stretched for a moment.
Then—
“I didn’t mean to mess up the mission.”
“You didn’t,” Bucky said. “You just messed yourself up. Again.”
John cracked a weak smile. “Still a win.”
Bucky didn’t smile back.
Instead, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, looking down at his hands. “You should’ve told me sooner. When the comms went dead. When your legs gave out. Before you hit the floor.”
John shifted uncomfortably. “Didn’t want to slow you down.”
Bucky looked up at that. Sharp. Quiet. Angry in a different way now. “You think I care about that more than you bleeding out in a hallway somewhere?”
John didn’t have an answer.
He looked away.
Bucky sighed. Not harsh this time. Just tired. “You’re not a mission report. You’re a person. You get to say ‘I’m not okay.’ You get to ask for help.”
“…I don’t like doing that.”
“I know.”
Another beat passed.
Then Bucky stood, reached into his duffel, and tossed something onto the edge of the bed.
John squinted.
“…Is that a muffin?”
“You said I owe you a coffee,” Bucky muttered. “I got the muffin instead. Coffee’s banned until you’re not seeing double.”
John picked it up, poked it suspiciously. “Is this… blueberry?”
“Be grateful, Walker.”
“I am ,” John said, and his voice came out too soft. Caught even himself off guard.
Bucky stilled. Then slowly sat back down.
“…You scared me, man.”
John didn’t say anything to that. He just picked at the muffin until his fingers stopped trembling.
-
Later, when the lights were off and the base had gone quiet, John opened one eye and whispered, “Still there?”
Bucky’s voice came from the chair, low and steady in the dark.
“Not going anywhere.”
Bucky starts noticing the patterns. The cover-ups. The pain John hides behind jokes. And once you start seeing it—you can’t unsee it.
It started small.
Or maybe it had always been there, and Bucky just hadn’t been paying attention.
-
First time:
John winced when he pulled his vest off after a training spar. Just a flicker—barely a breath.
Bucky caught it in the mirror.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” John said easily. “Just sore. You hit like a freight train.”
They laughed it off.
Two days later, Bucky found the discarded med wrap in the trash. His ribs had been taped.
-
Second time:
They were mid-mission, rooftop scramble, smoke in their eyes and alarms blaring in their ears. John vaulted a ledge, landed hard on one leg, and went still for just a second too long.
“You tweak your knee?”
“Nope.”
But that night he was limping. Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to favor one side when he thought no one was looking.
Except Bucky was.
-
Third time:
John showed up late to briefing. Jacket zipped too high. Movements stiff.
Yelena smacked the back of his head for being late, then squinted. “Are you… limping
again?
”
John grinned. “I’m just dramatic.”
But when he reached for the datapad, he used his left hand. Carefully.
“Let me see your shoulder,” Bucky said.
“I’m fine.”
“Let me—”
“I said I’m fine. ”
He left the room before anyone could press him.
-
Bucky didn’t sleep much that night.
He kept seeing every scrape John had brushed off. Every muffled grunt. Every half-hidden grimace.
The way he always got up first. Always laughed off concern. Always acted like pain was
just part of the job.
And Bucky thought:
How long has he been doing this?
How many injuries had they never known about?
How often had John pushed through when someone should’ve told him it was okay to stop?
The next mission sealed it.
Intel run. Quiet op. No combat expected. John tripped a silent alarm and took a round to the vest.
Bucky was the only one who saw him stumble. Only one who noticed the hesitation before John got back up.
“You hit?”
“Vest caught it.”
“Still hurts.”
John shrugged. “Pain’s not lethal.”
They got out clean.
An hour later, Bucky found him in the locker room, peeling his shirt off with slow, painful movements.
A deep purple bruise was already spreading across his ribs, and there was a raw scrape just above his collarbone.
John didn’t see him.
Just stood in front of the mirror, staring at the mark. Breathing carefully.
Bucky stepped forward. “You didn’t tell anyone.”
John jumped. Visibly.
“I was gonna ice it—”
“That’s not the point.”
John didn’t answer.
“You didn’t say anything, again. ” Bucky’s voice was low now. Not angry. Just quiet. “Why?”
“…Because I didn’t want anyone to look at me like I was fragile,” John finally muttered. “Like I can’t handle it. Like I don’t deserve to be here.”
Bucky stared at him for a long time.
Then, gently, he tossed a folded med wrap on the bench.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” he said. “You’re already here.”
John didn’t look at him. Just nodded once. Slow.
Then sat down.
Let Bucky tape him up in silence.
-
The first time Bucky pulled the kit out of his backpack, John blinked at it like it had appeared out of thin air.
“…You brought supplies?”
“I always bring supplies.”
“No, you bring a knife, five protein bars, and a half-charged burner phone.”
Bucky didn’t look up from disinfecting a cut on John’s forearm. “And now I bring this.”
John frowned. “Is that a mini freezer pack? ”
“For swelling.”
“Bandages labeled with dates?”
“So I know when I packed them.”
“…Did you organize this?”
Bucky paused. Gave him a look . “Your ribs were purple last time and you called it a ‘light bruise.’ I am no longer taking chances.”
John opened his mouth to argue. Closed it again.
-
The second time, it was after a warehouse brawl.
John sat on a crate, shirt slashed, cheekbone blooming red.
He was halfway through muttering, “I’ll deal with it later,” when Bucky dropped a cold compress in his lap and said, “No, you’ll sit there and shut up.”
John did.
After that, it just became normal.
Small pouch clipped to Bucky’s belt. A wrap here. An ice pack there. At one point, John got tagged in the shoulder mid-mission and Bucky had the gauze on him before the blood even started soaking through.
“Did you pack this just for me?” John teased.
“No.”
“Right. Of course. You bring gauze in my exact shoulder size for fun. ”
Bucky didn’t answer. Just tightened the wrap and muttered, “Hold still.”
Then there was the time they were off-duty. Just grabbing intel at a contact drop.
John slipped on loose gravel and scraped both palms open like a toddler on a playground.
He laughed it off, but the moment he turned, Bucky was already pulling something out of his coat.
John stared. “Did you bring a med kit to a coffee meeting? ”
“Are you bleeding?”
“I—”
“Then shut up and give me your hands.”
John did.
Bucky cleaned the cuts carefully. Fingers sure and weirdly gentle. Neither of them said much.
“…You’re really bad at pretending you don’t care,” John said finally.
Bucky didn’t stop working. “And you’re bad at staying alive.”
Later, when they got back to the safehouse, John found a small pouch labeled “WALKER: STOP TOUCHING THIS” in the top drawer of his gear case.
Inside:
– pre-cut gauze
– extra-strength painkillers
– a pack of chocolate-covered protein chews
– one tiny note, written in Bucky’s jagged scrawl:
“USE THIS INSTEAD OF YOUR STUPID TACTICAL TAPE. I MEAN IT.”
John didn’t say anything about it.
But the next time he bled on the field, he didn’t try to hide it.
He just walked over to Bucky, held up one hand, and said:
“…So. You got anything for this?”
Bucky sighed like it was the worst inconvenience in the world.
Then handed him a wipe, a patch, and a quiet:
“Yeah. C’mere.”
-
Yelena’s got her boots up on the table. Ava’s quietly fixing a cracked comm. Bob is passing out protein bars.
John wanders in with a bruised temple and a smile like nothing’s wrong.
Bucky trails behind him, already pulling out the kit.
Yelena narrows her eyes. “Third mission in a row.”
Ava doesn’t look up. “Fourth.”
John hops up onto the bench. “Felt a little dizzy. Nothing serious.”
Bucky, kneeling in front of him, is already dabbing his forehead. “It’s a mild concussion.”
Bob raises a brow. “Do we have a unit medic now? Or is this, like, a very niche boyfriend thing?”
Bucky glares. “I’m not his boyfriend.”
“You did bring a labeled cold pack,” Ava adds. “It says ‘Walker – head trauma’ in Sharpie.”
John squints at the pack. “...You labeled them now?”
Yelena grins like a shark. “He labeled them last week. ”
“I like to be prepared.”
“For him, ” Bob points out. “It’s not even a general kit anymore. You’ve got snacks, caffeine chews, and a goddamn heat wrap with ‘WALKER’S BACK’ written on it.”
“Because he pulled a muscle!”
“He pulls muscles every mission! ”
“Exactly!”
Yelena leans forward, hands steepled like she’s hosting a reality show intervention. “Do you tuck him in, too?”
John smirks. “Once. It was very professional.”
“It was not professional—”
“Oh my god,” Ava says dryly. “You’re in a one-sided caretaker relationship with a man who can’t go 48 hours without falling down stairs.”
“I don’t fall—” John starts.
“You fell out of a helicopter last week,” Bucky says without thinking.
The room goes silent.
Yelena looks at Bob. “You heard that too, right?”
Bob nods. “And I’m filing it under ‘in love but dumb about it.’”
“I AM NOT—” Bucky starts, but he’s already being handed a new Sharpie by Ava.
“Label the next one,” she says. “Maybe something cute. ‘Walker’s Boo-Boo Box.’”
“I’m burning this base down,” Bucky mutters.
John grins. “But you’re still bringing the kit, right?”
Bucky doesn’t answer.
He does pack extra gauze before their next mission.