Chapter Text
Fuck, if Olivia wasn’t going to kill him for accidentally insulting one of his friends, she was definitely going to kill him for accidentally sending him into a depressive episode that threatened the entirety of New York. Possibly farther. They had gotten incredibly lucky, stopping the Void as early as they did last time.
Double fuck. If Olivia didn’t kill him, Yelena definitely would. Or Ava, since she was more conveniently nearby. Or Bucky. He seemed like he had been itching to put John in the ground since he took on the stars and stripes.
Okay. Little to real there.
His tapping against the glass pane of the pod had turned into pounding against it with his fist, trying to get Bob to open his eyes, to look up, to anything. The familiar inky black was slowly making its way up his legs, entwining with itself and pulling Bob deeper and deeper into the Void.
“Barton!” He backed away from the glass unsurely, torn between running to find someone who could open this stupid fucking restraint pod and staying here with Bob. Abandoning his friend versus being utterly useless. What exciting decisions his life had led to.
What he wouldn’t give for his old super strength.
Cursing, John stumbled away from the glass and turned into a run, bursting through the doors outside.
There were guards stationed outside. Figures. He grabbed the nearest one’s shoulders. “You need to get the Avengers. Now.”
The guard attempted to shrug off John’s white-knuckled grip, but wasn’t very successful. “Sir, please calm down-”
“No,” he snarled. “The whole thing I’m here to prevent is happening and Bob needs help, now.”
The other guard shifted his pistol into a more active position. “The prisoner is becoming a threat?”
“No, he’s not a- Sure! Yes! Whatever will get an Avenger here faster, or someone else who can unlock that pod!”
“If he’s becoming a threat, they won’t free him.” The guard he was holding on to brought up nervously.
“Forget that,” the other snapped, turning to push the door open in an all-too-familiar barrel-first move. “Protocol states us as the first line of defense-”
In a blink, he was disarmed. He hadn’t planned for melee, seemingly having counted John out as a threat with Bob’s superpowers in the mix. His hold on the gun was light from having just changed stance, and John easily grabbed the barrel and jerked it up and away, stepping into his space. He twisted, taking the guard’s arm with him until it was overextended and pinned underneath his own arm. He pressed down, watching the guard’s hand shake in an attempt to keep his grip, before the pistol clattered to the floor. John released him, and he stumbled backwards, cradling his arm where John had gotten a bit too close to breaking it.
“Stand down!” The other guard yelped, fumbling his own firearm into position.
Too slow.
John only had to take a step to be within armsreach of the modified machine gun, grabbing hold of the stock and yanking it out of the other guard’s grip. The guard stumbled forward with the momentum, and John took advantage of it to elbow strike him across the jaw. His neck snapped to the side- not enough for lasting damage, but enough to disorient- and John followed it up with a quick knee to the torso and kick at his leg. The second guard went down, and John spun to hit the other guard on the head with the butt of the machine gun before he could retaliate.
For a moment he just stood there, staring at the guards. Shit. This probably made him an official enemy of the state.
Well, what else is new.
He took a quick moment to discard the clip from both guns before casting all the weapons aside and rushing forwards, trying to remember the path Barton had taken him on to meet with the other Avengers in the interrogation room. He wasn’t entirely confident that any of them would still be there, but it was his best lead.
Luckily, he didn’t need to go far. It only took two more turns before he was confronted with Widow Bites in his face. Thor was standing behind Black Widow, his hammer at the ready, and behind both was a nervous-looking Bruce Banner.
“Stand. Down.” Romanov said coldly.
John’s hands were up in surrender immediately. He knew better than to try to fight a Widow. Yelena had kicked his ass in sparring often enough for that lesson to sink in. “Fine, that’s fine. I’m not trying to- Can one of you open the pod?”
“That your super-powered friend is in?” Romanov raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”
“Look, you brought me here to be his emotional stabilizer, right?” He hissed. “I need to emotionally stabilize him. But he’s not responding to my voice, I need to touch him before he goes full Void.”
“What is this ‘Void’, exactly?” Thor spoke up, swinging his hammer perhaps a bit too casually for the situation.
“That’s the lows, right?” Romanov hesitantly lowered her Widow Bites, but John didn’t lower his own hands. Her weapons didn’t need to be right in front of his face for her to take him out in seconds. “Show us.”
John took it for what it was. He turned, retracing his steps as quickly as possible while also keeping his body language as non-threatening as possible. He could think about how embarrassing this was later, for now he needed to get Bob out of his head- preferably before the entire city goes down again.
Banner gave him a judgemental eyebrow raise at the sight of the two guards, still lying prone outside the door, but John just shook his head. He could explain later, for now-
He opened the door, and immediately stumbled back.
Bob was gone.
The entire room was pitch black, the darkness slowly creeping towards the doorway as if eating the last bits of light cast on the ground from the hallway.
“What the hell,” Romanov muttered, her hand resting on the holster at her side. She made to step forward, but John threw an arm out to stop her.
“Bob?” He called into the room. His voice was wavering a bit. He couldn’t bring himself to care.
“No,” a low voice echoed from the room. Romanov’s gun was officially out. Thor had settled back into a defensive stance, hammer at the ready. Banner was nervously twisting his hands, the smallest bits of green tinging his neck. “He’s not here right now.”
The barest bit of light appeared deep in the darkness of the room. John took another step back, recognizing the glint of the Void’s eyes.
“He was… alone. Like always. But aren’t we all?”
The Void spilled out of the doorway, seeping across the floor to them. It seemed quicker than it had been the first time. Maybe it remembered him.
He looked back at Romanov, Thor, and Banner. They were too close to the doorway. So was he. “Sorry,” he offered weakly. “Too late. We’ll get you out.”
“Get us out-? Wait!” Romanov reached forward, probably to get more answers from him, but John had already shifted forward and fallen into the Void.