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Peace in the Darkness (one-shot)

Synopsis: Bob knows Y/N isn't one to go back on her words. So when she doesn't show up to go through with their plans, he starts to worry. Luckily for him, Yelena knows how to break-and-enter. And doesn't mind invading her personal space.

Pairing: Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x fem!Reader (ex-Black Widow)

Genre: fluff, lil bit of angst

Warnings: sickness because I've been sick this past weekend and life sucked, swearing, Bob being an anxious little bean, alluding to violence, but nothing else, really :)

Word count: 6623

All characters belong to Marvel. Also - Bob has my heart

If Bob paced any more behind Y/N’s door, he was sure to wear a track into the concrete floor.

His hand had hovered over the panel separating him from whatever lay beyond, about twenty times in the past hour or so, yet just as his knuckles were about to meet it, he pulled back with a shake of his head and began his pacing once more.

“I should just knock,” the man muttered to himself, blue eyes warily watching the door, hoping it would creak open without his interference, but alas, it remained as immovable as it had always been. “She’s not gonna mind. You’ve woken her up in the middle of the night before, and she wasn’t angry then. She won’t be angry with you.”

And even still with those thoughts in his mind, Bob couldn’t get himself to do it, his anxiety overriding his motor skills.

It wasn’t that he was incapable of action. He was. It was more so getting to the action where he faltered. His therapist, someone Bucky had helped him find, had told him even two steps forward and one step back was still a step forward.

Like the first time he’d reached out for help after a nightmare, where he could feel the Void curling inside him, just waiting until his emotions reached a bubbling point so he could take over.

“What did you do?” the therapist, a take-no-bullshit kind of woman, had asked. “To stop the Void from emerging?”

Bob shrugged, knee bouncing up and down, not daring to make eye contact. “I uh – I went to Y/N. I just… I heard she was still awake and knew if the Void was gonna come out, someone had to… You know… be aware and take me – him – down.”

“And who is Y/N?”

Now that was a loaded question he wasn’t fully yet ready to answer, so he settled on the objective truth. “She’s my teammate. We live across the hall from one another.”

“And how did she help?”

“She…” Bob bit down on his lip. “She invited me inside her room and we just… talked. She had some music playing… I – I guess she helped me take my mind off it all and… stuff…”

The woman hummed. “And why was she the first person you thought to go to when things got bad?”

He wanted to say it was because she was the closest one to him, physically being right down the hall, that they were the only two people occupying the floor, but the truth spilt out before he could even contain it, “Because I knew she wouldn’t be mad at me. If – if I woke her up. She… she wouldn’t be upset I was there.” Because she was one of the few people who wasn’t afraid to touch him, despite his powers and the Void.

But just because she hadn’t been upset with him those few times he’d sought her out, didn’t mean she wouldn’t be angry with him that specific day. Otherwise, why hadn’t she stuck to her promise?

The previous week, right before Y/N had been shipped out to Malaga on a mission, she’d promised him that once she was back, the two would go to a bookstore together, Bob’s supply already dangerously low.

Now, though, three hours had passed from the time they’d set last night, and Y/N was nowhere to be seen.

He’d let the first hour pass by, thinking maybe she had to catch up on some paperwork the team had to file after a mission. When hour two had come and gone, Bob had started to become anxious, but still, he told himself she was probably just resting, no doubt exhausted by the mission, and he would never be one to take away time she could be using to heal. But as hour three had started to roll, Bob couldn’t help the nervousness entering his body, and that was how he ended up behind Y/N’s door.

Gently, he placed an ear against it, hoping to hear the slightest sound, maybe a soft movement of her feet padding against the carpeted floor, but the only noise invading the silence was the echo of his heartbeat.

Bob sighed, head hanging low and fingers plucking at the hem of one of his sleeves as he turned around, ready to go back and wallow in self-pity, when Yelena’s raspy voice made him look over his shoulder.

“Bobik? Everything alright?” she asked, the nickname Alexei had bestowed upon him, making warmth bloom in his chest. Not ‘Bobby’, a name that made him flinch, but a soft ‘Bobik’, a name that made him feel cherished.

The blonde was decked out in her combat gear, clearly just having arrived from a mission, so the fact that one of her first instincts was to check in on him made his body flush. He was still trying to get used to the fact that people actually cared about him, not as an experimental subject, not as a wannabe superhero, but just about him. About Bob.

“Oh, yeah,” he stammered, giving Yelena a tight-lipped smile, but he couldn’t control the way his hands wrung together, betraying the anxiousness he was feeling. “Everything’s A-Okay.”

For a second neither of them moved or said anything, and just as Bob was about to venture down to his room, Yelena crossed her arms, cocking her hip to the side and raising a single brow.

All he could do was sigh. She was one of the few people it was hard to lie to, whom he didn’t even really want to lie to. “It’s just that… umm… Y/N and I were supposed to go to a bookstore a while ago, but she uh… well, I haven’t seen her all day… and when I asked around, nobody else has either. Ava even said she didn’t come up for breakfast, and she wasn’t in the kitchen for lunch, so…”

“That does not sound like her.” Yelena’s nose scrunched as she went closer and knocked against Y/N’s door, a motion that came so easily to her, yet Bob had struggled for ages to even lift his hand. “Lubov moya,” she sing-songed in Russian. “Are you in there?”

And once again, only silence responded. As the moment stretched, Bob slowly started to roll back and forth on his feet. God, why hadn’t he thought about how she could already have left the tower ages ago!

But no, it wouldn’t be like Y/N to just leave him hanging or not let at least one person know where she was.

Unless… unless she’d gone out to do something she didn’t want the others to know about… to tease her about… like maybe she’d gone on a date.

“It’s – it’s alright,” Bob let out a strangled chuckle, as thoughts whirled inside his head. “She just probably forgot about it, or something more important came up.”

But the ex-Widow just knocked again, ignoring Bob’s spiralling. “Legushka?” she called out, the nickname rolling off her tongue with a concerned yet teasing lilt.

There’d been this one time John had called Y/N that, snorting as Alexei had translated the meaning of the word (froggy or little frog), and where usually she’d respond with an eye roll to Yelena or their sort-of-kind-of adoptive father figure, Walker received a bloody nose and grade-two concussion.

Only Yelena had the privilege of calling her fellow ex-Red Room alumni such absurd names without any consequences. And, well, sometimes Bob could too, but he wrote it off on the fact that Y/N just tried to make him feel included, and no other reason…

“Snookums? My little pookie-wookie?” Now, Yelena was just making things up as she went, no doubt hoping to get at least some sort of a response from Y/N, but when even that didn’t accomplish anything, with a grumbled, “alright, fine, be that way,” she crouched down, pulling out a picking set from her boot.

Bob’s eyes widened in alarm, hissing at the woman, “What are you doing? Don’t do that!”

“Well, we have to get in somehow,” Yelena just shrugged, the noise of metal softly scraping against metal invading his senses.

“Not by breaking and entering Y/N’s room!”

The blonde let out a squeak of indignation. “I am not breaking and entering!” The lock clicked open. “For one – I didn’t break shit. And two – the door is open. Now it’s just entering.”

“She is going to kill us, and I will not be coming to your rescue.”

“Please,” Yelena replaced her picking tools back inside her boot. “We have too much history between us in the Red Room for her to decide this is the final drop. As for you…” Yelena smirked. “Let’s just say, I know things you don’t.”

“Wait, what? What do you know? What things?”

But she didn’t respond, only opened the door.

Bob wanted to protest, wanted to say they shouldn’t be invading Y/N’s private space like that, wanted to shake Yelena down for whatever information she might possess. If it had anything to do with feelings he hoped Y/N might have for him. That most likely, there was a reason she wasn’t answering, even if she was there, and that most likely, she just felt bad about not wanting to hang out with him, but didn’t want to hurt his feelings by saying so, which he was totally fine and cool with and –

Yelena poked her head inside, and where usually, Y/N’s place was brightly lit by the daylight, her curtains drawn back to allow it to be illuminated, pure darkness greeted them, as Bob, shame curling in his stomach at such invasion, peered over Yelena’s head to take a glance.

He associated Y/N’s room with peace.

Cream colored walls, dark brown curtains with a plush carpet, emerald settees resting atop it and a large bookshelf taking up a whole wall with softly glowing nightlights in the shape of sprouting mushrooms would be plugged in during the night, and plastic glow-in-the-dark stars creating real and made-up constellations on the ceiling – that was the space he considered his true home.

Every free inch was covered in some knick-knack or a souvenir, as she had a tendency to collect small things, but she also had a tendency to gift them to others.

She was kind. Caring. Thoughtful. She was Bob’s safe place.

Yet now it was pitch black inside.

Yelena was clearly just as worried as he was, because when she looked up from her still crouched position, confusion marred her face.

“Malishka?” she called out as she stood, slowly entering the room, Bob following as their eyes adjusted to the lack of lighting.

He shifted his gaze around only to settle on a large moving mound on the bed, so with Yelena as the lead, they moved towards it, when finally a voice rasped from somewhere beneath the ungodly amount of blankets. “Malishka is dead. Come back tomorrow with a warrant. Or a casket.”

Every single doubt that’d permeated Bob’s mind vanished at the realisation of what was really going on.

Y/N hadn’t forgotten about the plans they’d made. She hadn’t found something better to do with her time or decided he was simply not worth her while.

Y/N was sick.

And by the sound of it, badly.

Bob’s heart clenched at the thought. They all seemed so indestructible, but it was moments like those, where he was reminded that some of them, especially Yelena and Y/N – the two people he’d grown to care most about in the weird little team he was a part of – were simply humans. And humans could get ill.

Gently, Yelena sat down on the side of the bed, her fingers rooting around the coverings before an opening was made, a pair of Y/E/C eyes squinting at the intruders. “Can you please close the door? My eyeballs hurt.”

“Oh, shit!” Bob cursed softly, padding to the door and closing it, once again plunging the room into complete darkness. “Sorry.”

He wanted to rebel against the black that now surrounded them, he wanted to panic and spiral, to have at least one of those nightlights be turned on, but somehow, through a sheer sense of will, he steeled himself against the rising tide. Whether it was because he knew light would hurt Y/N, or whether it was because he felt safe with the two women, despite not really being able to see anything that wasn’t an inch away from his face, Bob couldn’t tell. Well… he could, but he wasn’t going to say it out loud, because that would make things real…

“Can you please breathe quieter, Lena?” Y/N groaned from her cocoon. “My head’s pounding as is.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Yelena cooed, placing the back of her hand against the other woman’s forehead to feel for her temperature. “I think you might have the flu, huh?”

Y/N sniffled. “I dunno what I have, but whatever it is, I blame Walker.”

Bob looked at Yelena, the man still hovering by the bedside table, not wanting to invade the space between the two. “Has John been sick?”

“Not that I’m aware.” Yelena ghosted her hand over Y/N’s cheek before standing up and going to what he knew to be the bathroom. After a quick second, she returned with a wet cloth, laying it over her friend’s forehead. “But we can always blame him.”

A delirious smile appeared on Y/N’s face. “We can, can’t we?”

“Of course.” Yelena nodded. “Would it make you feel better if I went and beat him up?”

“I think it would, yeah… Can you stab him too?” Y/N asked as an afterthought.

“Anything for you, legushka moya.” Yelena brushed a sweaty Y/H/C strand from where it’d plastered itself down against her cheek. Bob’s heart ached at the tender motion, fingers twitching at his side with the want to do the same, but he restrained himself. “But tell you what, before I go and seek revenge on Walker, how about I go and make you some soup, and Bob will keep you company. Sound okay?”

Instantly, it was like someone had turned the light switch off, Y/N’s smile dropped, and she harrumphed. “Bob can stay, but no soup.”

“Soup always makes everything better! Besides, Bob said you didn’t go to breakfast or lunch. You have to get something in you,” Yelena scolded the woman. Despite them being barely a month apart, she acted like an older sister to Y/N.

The sick girl just whined. “I’m not hungry. I’m achy and icky and gross, and I just wanna rot away in my bed.”

“Well, you need to get food in you,” the ex-Widow countered, hands on her hips. “Do not move. I will be right back. Bob, please keep an eye on her.”

“As if I could go anywhere,” Y/N scoffed, but it fell only on Bob’s ears, as Yelena had already made her exit.

On instinct, his fingers started fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, a nervousness taking over his body. After a moment of unsurety of what exactly he was supposed to do, a croaky voice whispered, “You should go, Bob. I know Lena said to stay, but I don’t want you to catch whatever wasting disease I have."

An involuntary smile blossomed on his lips at her care about his well-being, despite being so sick herself. “I uh, I don’t think I can get sick anymore, so no worries there.”

He noted the small frown on Y/N’s lips as she eyed him up and down. “Show off,” she muttered, but didn’t tell him to leave again, rather said, “ ‘M sorry about today, by the way. Should’ve at least gotten out of bed and told you I wasn’t fit to walk in civilised society. I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“No!” he said, trying to quell her guilt, sitting down onto the bed, and to his own surprise, brushing a finger down her cheek without even thinking. “No, no, no… you’re not feeling well, so don’t even worry about me. I’m just glad that, you know, you’re not bleeding out on the bathroom floor or something.”

Bob’s whole being lit up when, despite Y/N being evidently unwell, she snorted, no doubt remembering how about a month prior when she’d returned to the Watchtower after a mission, she’d pretty much traumatized both Bob and John, as they’d found her half-dead on the kitchen floor, munching on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, blood pooling around her at a rapid pace.

“Seriously!?” John had scoffed as he helped Bob lift Y/N up from the floor, the two men supporting as much of her weight as possible as they dragged her to the elevator and then to the med-floor. “PB&J? That was gonna be your last meal?”

“Hey!” Y/N protested. “It was the only thing I could manage to make before the wooziness set in. You know, from having been turned into a walking-talking shishkabob.” She chuckled deliriously, looking at the man who had the biggest crush on her in the world, yet she didn’t even know about it, and now she could potentially die. “Huh. Shish-ka-Bob.” Then she booped his nose and promptly passed out.

Safe to say, he’d spent the next few days hovering in the med-bay, and when Y/N had been discharged, off-missions for a while, but allowed to rest in her room, he’d hovered in the hallway behind her door, just to make sure the things he saw during his nightmares, the images that the Void tried to tell him were real, actually weren’t.

But Y/N didn’t know that.

She didn’t know the true extent of what went on inside Bob’s mind or heart, didn’t know the real depth of the feelings he had for her.

She didn’t know how much the nights she allowed him to spend in her room meant to him.

She didn’t know how much the little trinkets she brought back for him as a souvenir from whichever corner of the world she’d been sent to, mattered.

She didn’t know that if the tower suddenly caught on fire and he could only save three things, he’d rush inside the flames to take the three little cat figurines sitting on his shelf.

It had been after she’d returned from a solo mission in Japan, Bob having pretty much worried himself sick, only to have her bound up to him, still dirt-covered and bloodied, but the smile on her face was as bright as the morning sun. “Look!” She presented the white, red and gold porcelain cats. “It’s the three of us! Me, you and Lena! They’re so cute!”

That night, he’d fallen asleep with the three little waving felines looking over him, golden night-light illuminating the statuettes.

So, in a moment like this, where Y/N was the one who needed support, he could only hope and pray, she felt it from him.

Gently, Bob brushed a palm against her forehead, taking off the wet towel that’d now warmed up to her skin temperature. But he hadn’t anticipated that, despite being bogged down by most likely the flu, her reflexes were still Black-Widow-quick, as her hand shot out from underneath the blankets, grabbing onto his wrist and pressing his hand against the skin of her neck. “Oh, you are so warm,” she sighed, cuddling the appendage.

“S-so are you!” Bob didn’t necessarily know what to do. “Alarmingly so, actually.”

“Yeah,” Y/N puffed a breath, still not releasing the death-grip she had on his hand. “That’s probably the 103 fever I have going on.”

Instantly, his anxiety skyrocketed.

He knew he ran warm. He pretty much always had the AC on in his room, especially at night, as he was a complete contradiction of a human – he was abysmally hot all the time, mainly thanks to the Sentry serum, but he was most comfortable in a sweater and sweatpants while swaddled up like a burrito in a blanket.

His heart thudded in his chest as Y/N snuggled closer to his touch, while he worried he was doing her harm. Yes, a fever was the body’s natural way of fighting off viruses or infections and whatnot, but a too high a fever was also dangerous, and he'd never forgive himself if he made it worse.

“Y/N, you’re really burning up.” Bob chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Can you please let me go? Just for a second,” he added on, as she whined when he tried to slip his hand away. “I’m just gonna get you a new cold compress. Please…”

“But I don’t want you to leave!”

“I’m – I’m not gonna leave,” he whispered, terrified that if his voice was any louder, any clearer, she might pick up on the emotion he was trying to suppress. “I promise, it’ll be just a second. I won’t even go outside the room.”

For a moment, Y/N’s grip tightened on Bob, holding him closer than ever, but then, with a sigh of defeat, she released him.

He was quick, just like he said he would. Even in pure darkness, his eyes having adjusted to the lack of light now, probably thanks to the Sentry serum, he dampened the cloth with cold water and wrung out the excess, getting back to her, in the time it took for Y/N to shift from lying on her side to being on her back.

She’d somewhat untangled herself from the cocoon of blankets, and Bob had to stop mid-step as he noted what she was wearing.

It was his sweater. Well, one of the many he had, but it was something of his nonetheless.

And he could physically feel how something broken and cracked inside him got stitched together. Some deep, still-hurting part of Bob, that always managed to whisper a negative thought, how he didn’t matter, how washing the dishes and doing the chores was nothing compared to what everyone else in the tower did, fused back together, the Void’s incessant noise quietening. With just a simple glance at Y/N, who had found comfort in something of his when she was feeling bad, Bob felt a part of him heal.

He didn’t comment on it, though, half-terrified if he did, she might think he was mad about it, when in reality it was the complete opposite. And an insatiable need had now settled somewhere in his chest, a want to see her in all of his clothes. And maybe nothing as well…

“H-here,” Bob stammered out, before taking a deep breath and sinking down next to Y/N on the bed. Gently, he placed the towel along her forehead, and he couldn’t help himself as his thumb brushed along her jawline, tracing a small scar, no doubt from some mission. She leaned into his touch like a sunflower leaned towards the sun. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“No,” she shook her head, and this time, when her hand met his, she intertwined their fingers, as if afraid he might disappear. “Just stay, please.”

“Always.”

And there really wasn’t anywhere else Bob wanted to be.

The thought of spending the day at a bookstore, some ungodly sweet concoction that resembled a coffee only in spirit, in his hand, was only appealing because he would be going with Y/N there.

“We’ll go when I get better, I promise,” she muttered, as if having read his mind while snuggling closer to the palm he’d placed on her cheek.

“Books can wait.” Bob hoped his voice was low and soothing as he spoke, blue eyes still trained on the sweater that covered her body, his own feeling all fuzzy at the image. “Just rest.”

When he didn’t get a response or even a little hum of acknowledgement, he looked up only to find Y/N’s features slack with sleep, her chest rising in slow and steady breaths.

Bob wanted to curl up next to her, to have his hands wrap around her waist, and have her head rest on his chest as he buried his nose into her hair, because this was the highest degree of trust anyone could have in him. For Y/N to find peace and safety with him while she was in such a vulnerable state, catapulted Bob onto Cloud Nine. He knew darkness would always try to press in, try to find the cracks and strike when he was unawares, but this time he wasn’t afraid of what might be lurking in the shadows. Not when he knew he would have to be the one to step up, if only to protect the one he loved most in the world.

He sat there like that, entranced with the sleeping beauty on the bed, a thumb softly grazing her cheek, making sure Y/N was as comfortable as possible. He was so attuned to her and her sleeping form, that when the door cracked open, he was startled by Yelena coming in, a tray in her hands as she blew on a steaming bowl of soup.

“Okay,” once more the blonde sing-songed as she walked inside the room. “I have chicken-noodle soup for our little sick-bug.”

There was some grumbling from Y/N as she was brought out from her slumber, but despite all her protests, she rose into a sitting position, Bob’s hand on her back a steady help. She eyed the bowl with suspicion. “Who made it?”

“Do not worry, Dad was nowhere near the pot. He might be lurking for the leftovers now, but this!” She lifted the bowl above her head like it was a diamond, “is all from yours truly.”

Y/N sniffed the air. “Well, I guess it smells edible… not that I can smell much.”

“Then this is exactly what you need.” Yelena slid the tray to rest on Y/N’s knees while Bob helped her adjust against the backboard of the bed and was rewarded with the most gorgeous smile ever. “Here you go, legushka. Now, I’ll go get some paracetamol and VapoRub, and by the time I get back, I expect that bowl to be empty. It will do wonders for your sinuses, trust me.”

She didn’t argue, just let out a resigned sigh and nodded, taking the spoon in her hand. “You know, back in the Red Room, Mistress Vera said the best kind of medicine is a good beating. Will get you right back on your feet.”

“Yes, well, that is why Mistress Vera is six feet under.” Yelena fluffed up a pillow behind Y/N before nudging her chin up with a finger. “As is the whole of Red Room.”

“I mean right now, I think I’d rather get a good beat-“

“Eat,” Yelena interrupted whatever she was about to say.

“Fine, fine, Jesus…. You’re worse than Mistress Vera…”

Slowly, without moving her gaze from Y/N, Yelena stood to hover over her. Even Bob could feel the menacing aura she exuded – an older sister ready to torment her younger one. “And if you don’t eat every single noodle, every single piece of carrot and celery and chicken, you will be wishing Mistress Vera were here. Understood? Legushka moya?”

Though Y/N was bleary and tired, she was unwavering as the two Black Widows engaged in a stare-off. Unfortunately for her, though, she was the first one to break, as she rubbed at her teary eyes, probably because of the light that was filtering into the room from the open doorway.

“Damn it, Lena, fine! I’ll eat the stupid soup!”

“Good.” The blonde straightened out, a self-satisfied smile on her face. “Because Bob will tell me if you don’t. Won’t you, Bobik?”

His eyes turned so wide he was afraid they might fall out of his head.

God.

Oh god no.

He was stuck between a rock and a hard place as Y/N glowered from below her lashes, sniffling, while Yelena cocked her head to the side.

Ultimately, though, his loyalty to the blonde and wanting nothing but the best for the well-being of the woman he was in love with, no matter what she might say to counter the effectiveness of the soup, won out. “Yeah. I – I will.”

Y/N scoffed, turning her head away from him as Yelena pressed a triumphant kiss to the top of her hair before leaving.

“Traitor,” she muttered.

Bob looked down at his hands, which he had resting in his lap as he worried the inside of his cheek. “I just want you to get better, Y/N…”

“And I just wanna lie down and die, but neither of you is letting me.”

“But who’s gonna go to the bookstore with me if you die?” He gave her a small smile, hoping to elevate her sour mood.

“I dunno, John?”

Bob gave her a look, their gazes meeting. “You actually think John can read?”

If Y/N had been eating the soup, no doubt she would’ve choked with how she threw her head back in a loud laugh, as Bob tried to steady the tray, the broth sloshing a bit out of the bowl.

“I’m sorry,” she chuckled, their fingers brushing as she held the platter and pulled it closer. “Didn’t mean to make a mess.”

“Don’t be.” The smile on his face was probably ridiculous, wide enough to make his cheeks hurt. “Laughter’s the best medicine or uh… something along those lines.”

“You should tell Mistress Vera that. Might have to use a OUIJA board though.” Y/N winced as the hot liquid slid down her sore throat, slowly chewing on a piece of noodle.

Admittedly, Bob didn’t know much about her time in the Red Room. He’d seen her shame rooms, just like he’d been privy to Yelena’s and the rest of the Thunderbolts’, as she’d been there when the Void had attacked New York, but once he came out of it, once they told him what he’d done, the feeling of having violated their privacy… he never asked either of them to talk about their time there.

All Bob knew was that Mistress Vera had been Y/N’s handler, as she’d been trained separately from Yelena and her sister Natasha. Only after the original Avenger had broken her out of the trance induced by the mind-control serum used to keep the Black Widows under the Red Room spell, did Y/N join the two in helping them take down the organisation.

“Oh… oh shit, I’m sorry,” her words of apology brought him back to the present, away from the thoughts of what she’d had to go through as a child, where a sore throat wouldn’t have been healed by a gentle touch, but a brutal beating.

His brows furrowed as he looked around, thinking she might’ve spilt the soup, but there wasn’t anything there. “Whatever for?”

“The dark!” she said, like it was a crime she’d committed. “Bob, you can put in some of the nightlights. They’re by the plugs.”

“Oh, that’s…” He shook his head, for once happy to be surrounded by mostly shadows because that meant Y/N couldn’t see the furious blush covering his face, while his longish hair obscured his smiling features as he glanced down at his hands. “It’s okay. I don’t mind actually.”

“But you don’t like the dark…?” The sentence was more of a question than the solid statement it used to be.

Bob shrugged, pulling down the sleeves of his sweater. “This isn’t that bad… and if it helps you feel better, your eyes to not hurt, I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want you to ‘not mind’ things. Bob, if you’re uncomfortable, you should put in at least one nightlight. Seriously. They’re not gonna boil out of my skull or something.”

“My comfort isn’t as important as your health right now.” He shifted on the bed.

“Of course it is!” The offended squeak Y/N let out would have made him smile, had it not turned into a violent coughing fit.

After she was done hacking her lungs up, Bob’s hand running up and down her spine, hoping to at least somewhat soothe the ache, he lifted the warm bowl of soup closer to her. “Eat. Or I will tell on you to Yelena.”

“Stukach,” Y/N mumbled in Russian, glaring at him as best as she could. Alexei and Yelena had introduced him enough to the language (mostly swearwords, which they said were the most important words) for him to understand she’d called him a snitch, but if being a snitch would motivate her to eat and get better, so be it.

With a fond gaze, he watched as she finally got some food into her, and once she was done, he took the tray away, placing it on the nightstand, a hand of his acting on its own accord as he brushed a finger along her cheek. “Better?”

“Yes. But don’t tell Lena that. She’ll just be insufferably smug about it.”

Shaking his head, Bob helped Y/N settle back into bed, tucking the blanket under her chin, but before he could even move a foot, her hand shot out, curling around his wrist once more.

“Bob?”

“Yeah?” He looked where the woman lay against the plush pillows, head slowly sinking deeper into the down.

“Could you… umm… and that is only if you really can’t get sick… could you maybe stay with me? Just until I fall asleep…”

He was sure his heart had skipped a beat. Or maybe it’d done a full-blown gymnastics routine, somersaults and all, because it definitely wasn’t beating in its normal rhythm in his chest.

“Y-yeah, of course, if that’s what you want.” Bob swallowed hard, nodding. “Just, uh… let me bring the tray to the kitchen, and then I’ll be right back.”

And with a small “okay” from Y/N as his dismissal, Bob scurried out of the room like lightning.

The hallway light was blinding compared to the darkness of the room he’d just spent about an hour in, but for the first time in his life, he craved it. Because in that darkness was safety and peace. In that darkness lay a body, curled up on a bed, covered in his sweater, waiting for him, hoping he’d help her get better.

He barely acknowledged Ava or Bucky, who called out to him, asking if he was alright, as he grabbed a couple of water bottles from the fridge and some of the pretzels Alexei had stashed behind pots and pans, hoping to hide his hoard. He wouldn’t mind, Bob reasoned. Y/N was like another daughter to him, and if she’d eaten the soup, despite all her protesting, maybe her appetite was gonna be coming back sooner rather than later, and he wanted to be stocked up on snacks. Besides, he could just blame Walker if needed.

When he returned, he was instantly enveloped by Y/N’s scent as if it were its own form of blanket.

“Hey,” Bob whispered, not wanting to break the settled peace. “I’m – I’m back.”

He mostly heard rather than saw shuffling on the bed, but as his eyes adjusted, he noted Y/N had moved to the side furthest from the door, opening up some space on the bed.

She’d done so before during the nights his mind had been restless, but somehow this felt much more intimate than when insomnia forbade him from sleeping.

Slowly, as if afraid this moment would be ripped from him if he moved any quicker, Bob placed the waters and pretzels on the ground, sliding in next to her, turning to face Y/N with one hand under his cheek, the other on the mattress between them.

“Thank you,” she muttered, the ghost of a smile on her face as her hand slid from below the blankets and rested atop his. “For taking care of me.”

“I–I mean, I didn’t –“

“You did,” she interrupted his stammering, tightening the grip she had on him. Gently, he flipped it palm up so that her fingers could slide between his. “And you still are. So thank you.”

And once again, like he’d said before, he simply replied, “Always.”

With that single word spoken, Bob watched as Y/N’s eyes drooped closed, her breathing evened out, and once again she was deeply asleep. Yet even when in dreamland, her hold on him never wavered. Not when she twisted out from the cocoon and scooted closer to him, not as chills overtook her body and Bob held her through them, not as the fever broke and a small sigh of relief escaped, her body slowly returning to a normal temperature.

For the first time in his life, Bob had found peace in the darkness, all because of the woman lying in his arms. And when it came to claim him too, he gladly fell, knowing that when he awoke, she would be there, much like she’d be in his dreams.

***

BONUS

“Oh my god! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, this is so cute!”

It was a harsh whisper-yell that brought Bob out of his slumber.

He peeked an eye open, noting the unmistakable shape of Y/N’s form in his arms. She was still sound asleep, her body curled around his like that of a koala’s, head tucked below his chin, while one of her arms had a death-grip on his waist, a leg thrown over his hip.

One of his own arms was underneath her, completely numb. From the feeling of it, it’d probably been there for ages, but if this position meant she was comfortable and could have a good sleep, he’d deal with the pins-and-needles a hundred times over if necessary.

Turning to look over his shoulder, Bob found the culprit or rather culprits of the noise as he was met with the faces of Yelena, Alexei, Bucky, Ava and John all looking at them through a gap in the door, the Red Guardian with a phone in his hand, no doubt taking pictures of the two cuddling.

“You guys,” he mumbled, a blush of embarrassment crawling its way all over his body. “Can you pipe it down? Y/N’s asleep.”

“How is Legushka?” Yelena whispered into the room. “Did the fever break?”

“Yes!” Bob hissed, turning away from the team and curling tighter around the body he had in his hold. “Now, can you all please leave? You’ll wake her up.”

“Sorry.” Bucky raised his hands in apology. “I told them not to disturb you. Come on! Out, everyone!”

Obviously, he more than Y/N, would get mercilessly teased about it, but he could take it, if it meant a bit more time with her in his arms, but just when he thought he’d gotten away with it, Walker just had to shout a loud, “Yeah, fucking get it, Bobik!”, making Y/N spring up.

She took a confused glance around at the room before her eyes settled onto Bob who was on her bed, red-faced and mortified.

“The toad did it,” Y/N said, her tone serious as a heart attack.

Bob blinked once. Twice. “What?”

“I swear the toad did it,” she mumbled, evidently delirious from sleep and the flu, but slowly moving back to lay down next to him, curling into the man’s body like it was where she belonged. “The toad ate the last strawberry. Damn thieving amphibian…”

Come morning, he would ask about the toad and the strawberry and if it had anything to do with Yelena’s nickname for her, but for now, Bob just pressed a light kiss against Y/N’s forehead, eyes slipping closed, listening to the melody of her breathing.

One day, he would tell her how he really felt.

One day, he would give his heart to her.

One day, he hoped, she would trust him with her own.

But for then and there, Bob was content with his present. With the peace he’d found in the darkness.

Tags: Marvel tags: @nerissa98 @asguardiansoftheavengers @crazybutconfidentaf @pizzarollpatrol @desir-ae A/N: we are so back baby, Tower fics incoming! Bob, my love, my life... you bet your ass I'm probably gonna write something where OG Avengers are still alive and living in the tower with Thunderbolts*!!! The chaos that would ensue is giving me life Tags are always open