Chapter Text
After all his effort to avoid everyone that day, it's Bob who finally tracks him down.
It's well after dinner, which he skipped. He's drenched in sweat and disheveled, the result of an intense, prolonged session of calisthenics.
Most people push themselves for forty minutes, maybe ninety at most if they're a navy SEAL, before their muscles scream and their hearts pound uncontrollably. But John's long past that point, having lost count of his lunges, squats, planks, and burpees.
He'd abandoned any set routine, moving from one exercise to the next, relentlessly pushing his body to the brink of collapse. His sole aim was to silence the tumultuous storm of thoughts in his mind, to achieve an empty mental state through sheer exhaustion.
And he thought he could achieve that by prolonged and non-stop physical exertion, but here he is, dissociating from his overtaxed body and his overloaded mind, eyes unfocused and hearing muffled, with no sign of letting up or stopping, even as Bob stands directly in front of him, waving a hand to his face.
When he doesn't make a move to acknowledge Bob, the man frowns, and then his eyes go hard and he presses his lips together. The next second, he's right in front of John, unleashing a low, guttural scream that sounds straight out of a dinosaur movie.
"RAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
The loud sound sweeps the floor from under John, jolting him out of his fugue state. He tumbles backward, landing on his backside, and gawks comically at Bob's face as things snap back into focus. Sounds rush in. It's as if he'd been astral projecting this whole time, and his soul just slammed back into his body.
And then the sharp, aching pain introduces itself, as if it had been siphoned away only to be violently reinjected. He wipes out on the floor, the back of his head connecting with the mat in a dull thud, and a rough, drawn-out groan escapes him.
"Shit. Sorry. Are you okay?" Bob looms over him, expression panicked.
He takes a moment to pull himself together, staring up at the ceiling, struggling to catch his breath and drawing lungfuls. The air stings like cold needles in his throat.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you. I didn't know what to do. You weren't responding. It got a little ... scary," Bob explains in a rush.
After a minute or two of heavy breathing and light shaking, John looks sharply at Bob, which he turns down a notch when Bob winces. Oh, right. Don't be a dick.
He's been coming to terms with the fact that he has resting jerk face, and needs to dial it down when talking to Bob, because unlike Yelena and Bucky and the rest of them, Bob is easily affected by his attitude.
"We haven't seen you all day," Bob pushes through. "And I'm pretty sure you haven't eaten at all. I ... I never saw you anywhere near the kitchen."
"I'm just ..." John smacks his dry lips, swallowing hard. He draws a blank, unable to articulate that the mere sight of anyone's face today wracks him with guilt and unearths a torrent of painful memories and regrets, and he doesn't know why.
He sits up, elbows on his knees, and cradles his head on his knuckles.
Bob looks like he doesn't know what to do, like he's frazzled from worry, so he sits down on the mat, cross-legged next to John, watching him intently.
"I'm just peachy," John tries to say evenly. It comes out as shaky and breathless. His chest continues to go up and down, his shirt soaked through.
"Oh, peachy." Bob nods sagely.
A beat. "... Yeah."
"What else?" Bob probes.
John slowly looks up and gives the guy a deadpan stare.
Bob stares back.
"What else? What do you mean, what else?" John asks, defensive.
Bob blinks, and then shrugs. "I don't know. It just seems like there's something else."
"Well, there's not."
"Oh. Okay." Bob shifts on the mat, looking unconvinced, but doesn't say anything for a while, making a few aborted motions to speak. His expression vacillates between hesitant and determined.
Eventually, he settles on the latter. His back straightens and he huffs out a breath to psyche himself up.
"I don't know what food you like," Bob says suddenly.
It throws John off-kilter, makes him blink several times. And even though he heard Bob clearly, he still asks:
"What?"
Bob looks stunned at himself for a moment, and then doubles down. Looks into John's eyes with a look of pure earnest.
"I don't know what food you like to eat. I asked the others, but it's either you haven't told anyone or you have several, wildly different preferences. So I figured I'd ask you."
"You figured you'd ask ... me," John says blankly.
"Well, yeah," Bob slowly intones, mimicking him. "It's kind of unfair that you know our favorites but we don't know yours. And I know you know them. You update the grocery list when you learn something new." Bob looks satisfied with himself. "It's not luck. It's planned. I noticed you always make our favorites when we've had a bad day."
There was one time back when they were renovating when Alexei fell down a hole when a weakened part of the floor in one of the rooms caved under him.
He was carrying Yelena's bedframe, mixing up the rooms and entering one that hadn't been checked and reinforced yet. The floor broke and the bed exploded the next level down, and Yelena went ballistic on him.
That night, John had prepared some mac and cheese made with monterey jack and the sharpest, cheesiest cheddar, and some thick sirloin steaks. Mac and cheese is rich, creamy, and carb-heavy, so the steak complemented it by offering a different texture, balancing the richness, and adding a savory counterpoint.
The food made Yelena and Alexei so happy that they started reminiscing about eating the same food with Natasha Romanoff back in the day, when they were all younger.
"Uh, hello?" Bob waves a hand over John's face.
There was another time when Bucky stopped by before dawn even broke, looking pissed as hell. It seemed that some of the things that needed working on outside were more complicated than anticipated, and John could tell that it was weighing on the man.
The pancakes topped with syrup and plums were still hot by the time Bucky finished discussing things that morning with Bob. John never knew what they discussed, but he did notice Bucky looking a bit less murderous afterwards. How he knew that Bucky liked plum pancakes was easy. All he had to do was ask Christina Raynor, Bucky's therapist.
And Bob, of course, liked anything loaded with sugar.
"Oh no, is it happening again?"
He didn't think anyone noticed when he used food to diffuse tension in the Tower. It wasn't even something he did to ingratiate himself with them. He just didn't like it when they were at odds. They were a team, all of them, and team dynamics fell apart when unresolved issues were brought to the field. It was something he'd learned in the army, something that he and Lemar took seriously.
Yelena and Alexei are family. Bucky, like it or not, will always be a fixture in their lives. Not flesh and blood, but something more, forged by adversity and hardship. People need to take care of family, when they can.
And Bob of all people noticed. Has Bob been watching him this whole time? Not once did he feel like he was being observed. Did he write Bob off because he isn't a mercenary and therefore posed no threat, or is it because he was more focused on gathering intel, and he's gathered enough about Bob that he paid less attention to him?
Bob has become a pretty open person lately. He doesn't hide things from them anymore and willingly offers answers to any of their questions unless it's sensitive. There are still things he doesn't openly talk about, like his mental state and his time as a drug addict, but everything else, he divulges.
Bob's eyebrows knit together, already kneeling closer. "I'm gonna yell at you again okay? Here goes ..."
John holds a hand up, making Bob freeze.
"Stop. I'm just thinking. Don't do that again. It's disturbing," John implores him.
"Thinking? Oh, is it your favorite food?" Bob perks up.
"Uh, no?" John shakes his head, trying to clear the questions piling up in his brain. What is it with Bob's sudden curiosity over food? What does he even plan to do with the information? Is he planning to make whatever food he says is his favorite? He's never even seen Bob work a kitchen.
Bob deflates. "Then what were you thinking about?" he prods him. He's getting a lot bolder as more time passes, like he's bolstered by John's lack of hostility. Has he always been curious? Has Bob been asking everyone questions all this time, and skipping John because he thought he was an asshole?
"A lot of things—look, Bobby, I—" he pushes himself up to stand. "I'll think about it, all right? I need a shower, fresh clothes, and a drink."
And for that matter, does he even have a favorite? He hasn't thought about it in a long time. Ever since the serum, it has always been just about eating things that could fill him up and sate the endless pangs of hunger and emptiness. He hasn't thought about liking what he eats. He just eats them.
He stumbles shakily to his feet, feeling like his thighs are about to split open. He tries to not let it show, that he really did just do a number to his body. How many burpees did he even do?
But Bob follows along and stands, too. The man still keeps looking at him that way, a far cry from his observation method of staying as distant as possible without drawing attention to his presence.
When John monitors someone, it's like using a telescope or binoculars to see a faraway object. But Bob, he's finding out, is all about getting up close, like he's a scientist with a specimen under a microscope, poking and prodding.
John makes a move to leave, but is stopped by Bob's words.
"You do that a lot. Thinking," Bob notes with a quiet certainty, like he's been watching John for a long time. "I can see it in your face. It goes all scrunchy and you, like, physically disconnect. Sometimes, when you think no one's there, you mutter things under your breath, too."
It sends a jolt down John's spine.
Is it discomfort? Is it a survival response? What is it about Bob asking him all these questions and making various conclusions about him that's making him feel anxious and on edge?
It's like he's Alex Trebek this time, and Bob is the contestant. Except, he doesn't have the answers, or rather, he knows the answers, but refuses to reveal them. It's not how the game works. It's a scenario where John has no stake in winning.
Something clicks, and John realizes.
He doesn't like it. He doesn't like being scrutinized. Because scrutiny leads to judgment. And he doesn't like being judged, because people never ask the right questions, and so never form the right conclusions.
"John," Bob says softly, and he's never heard Bob say his first name before. It was always 'Walker'.
"Why were you avoiding us? And why were you wearing yourself out?"
Don't ask. You're not supposed to be the one asking the questions.
But John's mind tries to fill in the gap, to complete the questions with answers, because that's how Jeopardy! works. When you ask the right questions, you win something. And Bob buzzed in right.
I'm going stir-crazy here, Bobby, he thinks miserably, his head reeling. It's like cabin fever or something. There's nothing to do, no updates from outside, and this damn serum ... it's like a bad batch or something. I can't seem to shut off. I can't stop thinking.
I can't stop thinking.
But John makes his escape instead, turning tail and not looking back.