Chapter 3
A heat wave rolls across the city at the beginning of October, bringing with it triple-digit temperatures and humidity low enough to make Jack’s skin ache. He managed to get through the summer with lightweight long sleeve hiking shirts from REI and carrying a stick of deodorant everywhere with him. It also helps that the ARS is climate controlled; Jack moves his desk inside the storage bay until the temperature drops back below ‘hellish.’
He’s not sure what to do about going to class, though. It’s usually mild enough in the mornings and evenings when he’s commuting that long sleeves aren’t a problem. But this term, his programming class starts at 1:25, and he genuinely doesn’t know how he’s going to make it to the Computer Engineering building without melting into a puddle of sweat.
He settles for stuffing one of his clean shirts into his bag and heading out early enough that he can put on some fresh deodorant and change his shirt out in the bathroom before class.
Cassie looks about as wilted as he feels when he sits down.
“Thought you hated iced coffee,” Jack teases, pulling his notebook out and digging in his bag for his pencil.
“In this weather, I’m willing to call a truce temporarily.” She picks up the sweating plastic cup and presses it against her forehead. “You’re making me get heat stroke just looking at you, man. How are you still wearing pants and long sleeves right now? Boots, too? Shit.”
“Irish skin. You either turn red like a lobster, or roast like one.”
The professor starts class before Jack gets too worried about her realizing he deflected her question.
Two days later, though, and the heat wave only gets worse. The parking lot reeks of hot tires, so Jack starts skirting around it when he’s walking between the bus stop and the library. He spends a few minutes gazing longingly at the huge swimming pool; the gym staff pulled out the lane lines and somehow managed to get their hands on deck umbrellas.
All it takes is one look in the mirror, though, and he’s reminded why that’s not an option for him. So, he spends as much time as possible indoors or in the shade, and spends most of his discretionary income on Gatorade from the cold case in the cafeteria.
Ryan blows way too much money on a huge carton of gelato and brings it to their usual lunch spot with enough spoons for everyone. Once Cassie's carved out her portion, she just puts her textbook over her face and tries to take a nap. Halfway through lunch, though, the breeze dies down and Jack finds himself absolutely miserable.
Anxiety knots heavy in his stomach and his hands shake more than usual as he decides he’d rather deal with whatever earth-shaking consequences come from showing off his tattoos than suffer one more moment like this. He undoes the buttons on his shirt, only fumbles once or twice, then shrugs it off, trying desperately to appear nonchalant about it all. His undershirt is stuck to him in places, but it’ll dry quickly in the heat.
Cassie lifts up the textbook to stare at him.
“What?” Jack asks, and he can’t help it that it comes out a little defensively.
Kevin looks up from his phone and grimaces. “Dude, you had a shirt on under that?”
That’s… not the reaction Jack was expecting. He blinks owlishly and pushes his glasses back up his nose.
“Nice ink,” Cassie says before she puts the textbook back down and, to all outward appearances, goes back to sleep.
Dragging a hand through his hair, Ryan looks up at Jack. “Any chance you know how to physics?”
“How to… what?” Jack tilts his head to the side so he can see Ryan’s homework better. “Thought you guys took kinematics in high school nowadays.”
“You’re assuming I remember high school, old man.”
Scooting around so he can sit next to Ryan, Jack laughs. “Hey, I don’t remember last Christmas, so we’re even. Let’s see if physics escaped the Swiss cheese effect.”
It doesn’t fix how he feels about the tattoos, not by a long shot. But that night, he wears short sleeves after he gets home.
Kevin spreads out his Arabic homework on the lunch table one day a few weeks later, and that’s how Jack learns he’s fluent.
That leads him to a question, then another, and another, and Jack spends the first few hours after his lunch break spiralling down a pit of fascination and mild panic when he uses his work computer to discover how many fucking languages he can read.
Really, it’s a disturbing number. And, judging by the assortment, he spent most of his deployment time in some pretty delicate parts of the world.
That night, he dreams.
-hands holding a grenade; he releases the lever, waits a few seconds, then lobs it under an oncoming Jeep. The driver flies out of the car, Jack tracks the path with the crosshairs on his rifle, the stock kicks back into his shoulder-
He lays in bed on his side, panting harshly into the silence of the early morning. He’s covered in sweat and his whole body aches; even a soothing shower does nothing to help the migraine pressing at his eyes.
He ends up clocking in to work several hours early, so that he can go home early that day and rest. Judging by the look his boss gives him, he looks about like he feels.
Cassie offers to bring him some soup for lunch, in the group text.
That evening, after some quality time with his couch, a pill, and a glass of water, Jack tries to rub away the last remnants of his headache. They’ve been less frequently lately, but more severe when he gets them, and keeping a logbook hasn’t helped identify any patterns. Maybe he should schedule an appointment with the neurologist soon; he’s not due to go back until next month.
It’s a toss-up, though, whether he wants to go through the relative torture (and isn’t that a thought, because Jack has a combat record saying he has been tortured) of listening to the doctor natter on about psychosomatic transient aphasia, conversion disorder, and a number of other long complicated words that make Jack’s eyeballs go numb. While it may be worth alerting the neurologist about this… ugh. Just ugh.
The pain doesn’t come back, but the postdrome, the migraine hangover, lasts days. Every time he tries to sleep without swallowing one of those white, grape-sized tablets that put him out like a light, he remembers things.
-frantic chatter over the radio, gravity suddenly lurching to the side as the helicopter lists. Sickening pain in his shoulder, running the mission anyway. Dull shock as he stares at the lifeless eyes of- someone. Someone important. The mission target-
-terror and relief as he and- and his- his Commander? As they stare down the hole carved through the bottom of the transport van. An unconscious soldier slumps to the floor on the far end. Blood, on the wall, shoulder height. There should be a second soldier, and three hostiles-
-staring at screens, eyelids pried open, hands restrained. A voice talks. And talks. And talks. Asks a question, and Jack can’t not answer. The screens are… it’s impossible to look away. Floating, falling-
When Jack sits down at lunch wearing sunglasses indoors and nursing a large travel mug of tea, Kevin digs into his bag for a few pieces of chocolate and pushes them over to Jack. His shoulders gradually relax over the course of the next hour, and he can’t put into words how thankful he is that these kids just let him exist for a bit when he most needs it.
Doctor Carrick has an empathetic look on his face as he writes on his notepad. “Still no luck with finding the key to the mental filing cabinet, then.”
It’s easy enough to lie about it, mask the body language tells that would give him away, and give the impression of honesty. Jack tries not to think too hard about how he knows how to do that. “I’m not sure I want to, to be honest,” he says quietly, eyes downcast. “From what has come back, STRIKE’s Lieutenant Commander Rollins isn’t someone I want to get to know.”
Christmas comes and goes. It’s a quiet affair, with his college-age friends home with their families. Still, there was a gift exchange before they all left. Jack has some new tea to try, a lumpy hand-knit scarf and matching hat, and Ryan’s old boxy TV. He rings in the new year with his friends on Skype, flipping them the bird as they joke about him being an old man. They all know he can’t drink with his medications, but it’s still nice to be teased about drinking sparkling cider instead of champagne.
By the time he makes it a year in his new life, Jack’s actually considering taking some more classes and going for a degree. His file says he went to college in California the first time around, but he’ll be damned if he can remember anything from it.
Maybe that’s why there’s faded, long-healed marks from piercings on his face and ears. Apparently teenage Jack Rollins was a bit of a punk.
Still, he’s getting comfortable, his migraines are significantly better, and his SHIELD handlers are pleased with how well he’s settled in. His boss at the library is thrilled with how well the ARS is running, especially since they’ve had to call in repairs to the manufacturer all of twice in the past six months. He’s getting more comfortable during his group sessions at the VA, and his hair’s finally long enough to scrape back into a short ponytail.
He’s walking home after a long day fixing a hydraulic fluid leak on Fido; he missed the last bus and the next one’s not for another hour so he just saves himself the time and walks. There’s some leftovers in the fridge he can reheat, and his grocery shopping can wait until the weekend, so Jack just pops his collar up around his neck, stuffs his hands in his pockets, and lets himself drift as he walks the few miles back to his apartment.
When he rounds the corner, he glances up and stops dead in his tracks.
One of the windows is open.
Not wide open, just a few inches. Not even enough that most people would notice, but Jack still has vestigial habits from training he doesn’t remember. He swallows, starts walking again, and shifts his hand around in his pocket until he has it around the handle of his knife.
The Benchmade is heavy and cold in his hand, and Jack wishes half-heartedly that it was a gun instead.
He tries to keep his footsteps even and normal as he walks up the stairs to his door, and even jingles the keys a bit as he pulls them out of his other pocket. Whatever’s waiting for him, it’s had plenty of warning now. Hopefully if there’s someone inside, they’ll rabbit back out through the window before Jack has to do anything drastic.
The back of his neck itches unbearably as he turns the knob to open the door. It’s dark inside, like it usually is when he gets home this late, and (not for the first time) Jack makes a mental note to put a light on a timer for himself. He steps in, closes the door behind him, and locks it.
It’s silent in the apartment, too, but then Jack hears the barely-there shuff of a shoe sliding on the carpet. He can see the whole apartment from where he’s standing, even with the meager light filtering in from the street lamps, and it takes him a fraction of a second to home in on the dense shadow next to his couch.
A heady rush of adrenaline flows through him, and he whips his arm back to throw his knife at the intruder.
The knife slams into the wall with a hollow thok when the intruder sways out of the way. Jack crosses the distance between them in three huge strides, knocks the gun out of the intruder’s hand, and uses his own momentum to push the other man into the wall. He puts one forearm across the man’s neck and leans against it, not enough to cut off air but enough to make a point.
The intruder wheezes, coughs, and then laughs. It’s a bitter, ugly sound.
“Of all the fuckin’ faces,” he growls in a light, raspy tenor, his shark-like grin barely visible in the shadows of his hood. “Of all the fuckin’ faces you could have stolen, it had to be his.”
Jack doesn’t have time to do much more than frown in confusion before the intruder’s knee slams into his nuts. His right knee yields as it’s kicked out from under him, and Jack collapses to the ground in an untidy mess of limbs.
“Don’t suppose SHIELD would give me a pardon if I tracked down their missing Skrull, would they?” The man steps over Jack and leans down to pick up his gun, pressing it firmly against Jack’s forehead when he tries to sit up. “No, no, don’t get up on my account, really.”
“What do you want?” Jack grits out, eyes crossing as he stares at the gun barrel against his head. “Seriously, if you’re here to rob the place, just take the fuckin’ Macbook and get on with it.”
Snarling, the intruder leans in close enough that Jack can see scar tissue pulling at the skin on his face. “I want my husband back, you son of a bitch.” He flips the gun around and raises his arm with a universal, unmistakable intent.
Jack reflexively brings his own arm up to protect his head and braces himself for a blow that he knows is going to hurt. Searing heat rips through his arm, then- fades. Rapidly.
Visible through several layers of clothing, Jack’s arm is glowing.
He scrapes his sleeve up, and the white tattoos flicker like live embers. When panic rushes through him, they flash white. Jack skitters backward a few feet, staring at his hands, and it’s only when the intruder lets out a broken, choked-off sound that Jack looks up at him.
The man is sprawled in a similar position to Jack, one hand on the coffee table and his hood halfway off his head. He stares at Jack with wide, deep-set eyes just this side of bloodshot. An unruly mess of black hair covers the top of his head, and the light from the street lamp outside shines on the misshapen mess of his left ear.
Silence stretches between them for several breaths, long enough for the chaotic swirls of light dancing over Jack’s skin to fade into a gentler, subtle glow.
“Jack?” the other man asks in a small, broken voice.
For lack of anything better to do, Jack just nods.
“They- they told me you were dead.” The man’s eyes tighten and he presses a hand to his mouth. “I saw the autopsy pictures. They told me you were dead.”
It’s impossible to miss the resemblance between the man in front of him, and the faces Jack drew in his notebook almost a year ago.
“Who did?” Jack asks, but a sick, sinking feeling takes hold in his stomach; he already knows what the answer’s going to be.
“SHIELD.”