John wiped down the bar counter for the third time that hour. The wood was old and scarred, the kind that had absorbed decades of spilled drinks and bad decisions. It was a slow Tuesday afternoon, only a handful of regulars scattered throughout The Departed, nursing beers and watching a game on the mounted TV.
He'd been working here for almost a week now. The routine was simple—show up at three, help Frank prep, serve drinks, clean glasses, take out trash, close up around midnight. His ribs still ached when he moved wrong, and there was a persistent ringing in his left ear that hadn't gone away, but he was functional. That was enough.
The puppy, who Frank had started calling Duke, spent most days sleeping in the back office or begging scraps from customers. John still wasn't sure why the dog had attached itself to him, but he'd stopped questioning it.
"Hey, turn that up!" one of the regulars called out.
Frank grabbed the remote and increased the volume. John glanced at the screen, expecting sports highlights or news. Instead, he saw footage of a man in red and gold armor flying through the air, shooting what looked like repulsor beams at some kind of robot.
"It's Iron Man!," another customer said, seemingly thrilled as he watched the screen with a grin on his face. "This is the third time he's appeared this month"
John froze, still holding the cloth in hand.
Iron Man?
He had heard the name before, in the passing week, from customers talking. But seeing a man in a mechanized suit flying through Manhattan was something ridiculous that John thought he would never see.
"Do you think the Avengers will show up?" the first regular asked.
"Nah, Iron Man's got it. It's just one of those Hammer drones. Small potatoes."
The Avengers.
John set down the cloth carefully and watched the screen. The footage cut to a reporter standing in front of Stark Tower, talking about response times and property damage. The Stark Tower. He knew that building, or thought he did, but in his memory it had been something else entirely.
"You alright, John?" Frank was standing next to him, giving him an odd look.
"Yeah. I'm fine." John picked up the cloth again and went back to wiping the counter.
But he wasn't fine.
Over the next few hours, John paid closer attention to the conversations around him. The regulars talked about the usual things—work, sports, relationships—but woven throughout were references that made no sense. Captain America was mentioned like he was a current public figure, not a World War II relic. Someone complained about Spider-Man webbing up their car in Queens. Two women debated whether Thor was actually a god or just an alien.
John had heard about all of these names before from comic books, movies and fiction. But here, people talked about them like they were real. Like they were just part of everyday life.
He must have hit his head harder than he thought and had some kind of brain damage, hallucinations brought on by trauma. That was the only logical explanation he could think of.
Except the pain in his ribs was real. The weight of the glass in his hand was real. And Frank was definitely real, solid and present and completely unbothered by any of this.
"Frank," John said during a lull, keeping his voice casual. "Have you ever met any of them? The Avengers I mean"
Frank snorted. "Do I look like I run in those circles? Nah I've only seen Captain America once from a distance, during that thing in Midtown a couple years back. The one with the aliens."
"Aliens," John repeated.
"The Chitauri invasion. You really did hit your head, huh?" Frank gave him a concerned look. "That was all over the news for months. They came through some portal in the sky, tried to invade. The Avengers stopped them."
John nodded slowly, like this made perfect sense. "Right. The Chitauri."
He had never heard of the Chitauri nor had he heard of any of this.
That night, after they closed up, John went upstairs to the small room Frank had given him—basically a storage closet with a mattress on the floor. Duke followed him up and settled on the mattress while John sat on the floor, back against the wall, thinking.
The High Table. The Continental. His entire life as an assassin. All of it existed in a world that made sense, that followed certain rules. Brutal, bloody rules, but rules nonetheless. A world of crime and consequences, not flying men and alien invasions.
Either he'd lost his mind, or he wasn't in that world anymore.
John had spent his entire adult life dealing with impossible situations, and he had survived by accepting reality as it was, not as he wanted it to be. Fighting against facts got you killed. So he went through what he knew, methodically, the way he'd analyze any mission.
Fact one: He should be dead.
Fact two: He had woken up in an alley with no explanation of how he got there.
Fact three: This world had superheroes. Not fictional ones, but actual people with powers, flying around, fighting robots and aliens.
Fact four: Nobody seemed to know who he was. In his world, John Wick couldn't show his face freely because the high table had people placed all over the world yet here he was.
The simplest explanation was that he wasn't in his world anymore. Somehow, dying or nearly dying, had brought him somewhere else. Probably another world or another version of Earth.
It sounded impossible to John but it was the only explanation that fit the facts.
John ran a hand through his hair and winced as his fingers brushed against a still-healing cut on his scalp. Duke's tail thumped against the mattress, sensing his tension.
"What do you think?" John asked the puppy. "Am I crazy?"
Duke just stared at him with those big brown eyes.
John had survived impossible odds before. He'd fought his way out of situations that should have killed him a hundred times over. This was just another impossible situation. Different, but not fundamentally different.
Maybe this time he could just live a normal life and relax, continue with his bar tending job and ignore the world of violence.
If this world had superheroes, it probably had supervillains too. And if his experience with the underworld had taught him anything, it was that where there was power, there was always someone trying to control it, profit from it, or destroy it.
John stood up and looked out the small window at the Manhattan skyline. Somewhere out there, people were flying. Fighting. Saving the world or trying to end it.
And he was washing glasses in a bar, living a simple life.
Maybe he didn't need to do anything or stress himself out he could just live the simple life he always wanted.
John didn't care if he was wrong for wanting one but he had been in the life of crime and violence so much he just wanted a normal life.
Duke jumped off the mattress and pressed against John's leg. John reached down and scratched the puppy's head.
"Guess we're both a long way from home," he said quietly.
Outside, a siren wailed past. Not an ambulance or police car, but something else something with a strange, oscillating pitch he'd never heard before. John watched as a streak of red and gold shot across the night sky, heading east toward what looked like a fire on the waterfront.
He didn't know what it was, Maybe Iron Man?
John turned away from the window and lay down on the mattress. Duke curled up against his chest, already half asleep.
A world with superheroes. A world where aliens invaded and gods walked the streets.
John Wick had survived the impossible before.
He could do it again.