Captain Watson
John looked around their flat with wide eyes. The wizards had teleported home and the Avengers had left for their hotel after an intense - and at times unbelievably surreal - meeting the other night, but traces of their presence still lingered: a few glasses and tea cups standing around an empty whiskey bottle, Barton's boot prints on the top book shelf, the hole in the wall that Captain America's - Call me Steve - fist had left after Iron Man - genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist - had teased him about his crush on the Winter Soldier. Steve had apologized and offered to pay for the repairs, of course, but Sherlock had just waved him off and asked him more questions about James Buchanan Barnes.
To John's immense confusion (and secret gratification), everyone had accepted that he be their official leader just on the word of Tony Stark and one Harry Potter. It was eerie. But he felt he'd done a fairly good job of managing the discussion and keeping them on topic - well, admittedly, more like dragged them back on point after the discussion had left it to go careening off on tangents to Siberia one time, John F. Kennedy the next, and Stark's AI a third.
That's also where the surreality came in. Stark had switched on a speaker in his wrist watch and suddenly 'JARVIS' was participating in the discussion like a regular person (if the term 'regular person' could be applied to a mind as brilliant and efficient as Sherlock and Stark combined). It had gotten even weirder when Potter got permission from his superior to allow these American superhumans in on the secret of magic and the Black Widow had just raised an eyebrow and calmly asked: "What secret?"
Parts of the discussion had been ridiculous, while others had been frighteningly intense. It appeared that several people on the Avengers' team had very strong opinions concerning the Winter Soldier - very strong, diametrically opposed opinions. By the time they left for their hotel, they had at least agreed to a non-lethal yet cautious approach, which was more than John had dared to hope for, going in.
He'd fallen into bed and slept like a stone until late this morning. This was an unusual luxury on a regular Wednesday. But Mycroft had made it very clear that for the time being, John was on his payroll and not allowed to go 'play nurse' - the condescending, smug arse. So John got to sleep in, and wake up questioning his sanity and the veracity of his memories of the previous night. But no sooner had he entered their living room than he already found proof: strands of long, blond hair on the couch cushions, scattered notes and diagrams on the coffee table and... the turtle that Potter had transformed their ashtray into.
Huh.
After two cups of coffee, John felt better equipped to deal with the day. He fixed himself a light breakfast, fed the turtle some lettuce and sat down in front of his laptop to type up his notes and work on a strategy that would prevent Stark from killing Barnes even while Rogers was hugging the stuffing out of the man, never mind the previous night's compromise both men had grudgingly agreed to. It had been a tad bit too grudging on both their parts for John's peace of mind.
Of course, just when John had settled in and gotten ready to be really productive, a noise from Sherlock's room distracted him. A moment later, the man himself came staggering out, holding out his phone to John with a look of utter distaste. "It's for you," he said curtly before retreating to his bedroom again and slamming the door.
"Hello?" John said, nonplussed.
"John," Mycroft's voice greeted him. Ah, that explained Sherlock's annoyance - in addition to the fact that the call had probably woken him up, despite it already being 11 a.m.
"I have a confirmed sighting of the Winter Soldier," Mycroft said and John immediately sat at attention, fingers poised over his keyboard.
Twenty minutes later, John was treated to the utterly foreign sight of a quinjet alighting in the little park down the road. "You sure you don't want to come?" he'd asked Sherlock's door on the way out. A muffled sound of denial had answered him. "Your loss," John had said and left the flat. Now he climbed into the quinjet and tried not to feel like a hobbit going on a great adventure with a bunch of muscular beings each of whom stood at least head and shoulders taller than him.
Running around with Sherlock chasing criminals all over London had gotten him into all manner of unusual situations - The Woman and Buckingham Palace came to mind -, not to mention he'd ridden in all kinds of aircraft while in the army; but this time, he was going on the hunt for a superhuman assassin with a team of enhanced humans and a couple of magic users. And he was supposed to be their leader?
Weird did not quite cover it.
John was distracted from his nervous anticipation by the rising volume of Steve Rogers's phone call.
"...drunk already this early in the day?!" the man was shouting. "Jesus, Thor, did you even stop to sleep since we left you at the bar last night or have you just continued binging straight through until morning?"
John was mildly entertained and a lot disturbed by Thor's vicious reply, the god's voice loud enough that John could make out the words on the other side of their transport.
"Do not mock my grief, Steven," Thor's voice boomed out of the tiny phone in the Captain's large hand. "Had the serum not neutered your joy in alcohol, I have no doubt you would have put my drinking to shame when you were first recovered from the ice, even though you dropped your mate off a cliff decades ago while I have only just lost my brother!" His voice turned very heavy on the last word.
John saw Steve visibly struggle not to throw his phone against the wall. "Just see that you catch up to us before Scotland." He hung up.
While Rogers was still trying to calm his harsh, angry breathing, a knock sounded from the back of the plane. Moments later, a rather ripe god of thunder entered the plane mid-flight, only to immediately collapse on the floor and start snoring.
"We do work well as a team in battle," Romanoff offered apologetically. John looked at her, stunned. He'd have expected Rogers to make excuses for his team mate, but not the cold and deadly Black Widow.
He became thoughtful. Maybe they did make a good team, after all.
"Sobrietus," Potter whispered to his right, then: "Scourgify."
Thor shuddered as though touched by a cold wind, then gave a tiny whimper. The snoring stopped as he turned around and fell into a deeper sleep.
John looked at Potter. "What did you do?"
"Sobering spell. Eh," he blushed, "and something to take the edge off the, you know -" he gestured vaguely towards the prone Norse god - "the odour."
John cautiously took a deeper breath of air, then sighed in relief. "You have my fucking sincere thanks," John said, heartfelt.
"So where exactly are we going?" Potter asked him. "We didn't actually get a briefing."
"Huh," John said. "Does that go for everyone?"
"No," Bruce Banner said from his other side, "I believe we at least know what you do, Doctor Watson." Leaning forward to address Potter around John, he explained: "The Winter Soldier - Barnes," he amended with a look at a still seething Steve Rogers - "was sighted somewhere up in Scotland. Apparently, he's been quickly walking up and slowly coming back down the same road all day, growing more agitated with every iteration. The behaviour was startling enough that the locals eventually took note, especially since that particular road doesn't even lead anywhere."
"That is odd," Potter agreed, a hint of curiosity in his voice.
They rode in silence for a while before Barton brought the quinjet down in a field at the coordinates Mycroft had given John.
It was immediately apparent that the Winter Soldier was gone. It also became clear very quickly that Potter and Weasley had been here before; the moment the men set foot out of the plane and saw some castle ruins in the distance, they started laughing uncontrollably, choking out something that sounded like "hogwash" and … hog's meat?
John shrugged. "Well, let's move it, folks. Stark, can you fly around a bit and see if you find anything? Rogers, you got any idea why your friend might have acted as weird as he did?"
Potter and Weasley cracked up again at his words.
John sighed. It was going to be one of those days.