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em1i2a3 · 21 days ago

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Fire For You

Pairing: Bob/Robert Reynolds/The Sentry/The Void x Thunderbolts!Fem!Reader!

Summary: Bob has been head over heels for you ever since he met you, but he has never admitted it. Sentry is getting sick and tired of him dancing around the subject, so he goes to extreme measures to get Bob to confess.

Warnings: No warnings in particular, Sentry is an absolute menace in this though, and there is Fluff, but yeah that’s pretty much it :)

Author’s Note: I really enjoyed writing this little blurb, and the concept was cute as shit lol. Thank you @sol-lol for the request! Hope y’all enjoy! <3

Word Count: 3,801

Afternoon sunlight filtered through the high-paneled windows, casting long, golden streaks over the hardwood floors. Even the ever-present hum of the compound's security system felt muted–as if the entire building had exhaled, grateful for the rare stillness. Most of the team had shipped out at dawn, leaving only Bob and you behind, sentenced to stay and grind through mountains of post-mission paperwork.

You were across the hall in your room, with the door cracked, and music playing low. It was barely audible, but you were humming along out of tune. That little sound though had tugged at Bob like a thread caught in his chest. From his room he could see yours, and his eyes lingered there for a second too long before he turned away, running a hand through his dripping wet hair, closing his own door and padding barefoot across the hardwood floors of his bedroom.

He bent slightly, grabbing his black sweatpants from where they hung off the end of the bed, faintly warm from the sun that was beaming into his bedroom. Just as he was about to step into them–

“You should go into her room and tell her how you feel Robert.” The voice hit him like a low rumble in his chest, reverberating off the inside of his skull. Deep and rich, with that molten smoothness that made it impossible to ignore. It was a voice meant for command. Worship. Destruction. Right now, though, he sounded supremely annoyed. Bob groaned under his breath and pulled the soft cotton up his legs with an aggressive tug.

”I can’t te-tell her. It’s plain and simple, Sentry. How can you not understand that?” He hissed, keeping his voice low, casting a glance towards his door. The last thing he needed was for you to hear him arguing with himself like an exasperated older sibling. He crossed the room to his wooden dresser, pulling open the top drawer and grabbing a clean white t-shirt, yanking it over his dripping hair with more force than necessary.

“This is the perfect opportunity to confess your feelings…I’m getting sick and tired of watching your pathetic little mating dance. My patience is wearing thin.” Bob let out a small laugh under his breath–dry and crackly–shaking his head.

”Your patience?” He muttered, pacing towards his mirror, seeing the soft golden hue shimmering over the oceanic blue of his irises, “I’ve been waiting for these feelings to go away for six months, and we’re ta-talking about your patience?” The silence that followed was heavy, and for a split second, Bob thought that maybe he had stunned the sun god into temporary retreat. Only for him to come back swinging.

“You’ve been making yourself look like an absolute fool, and I’ve been allowing it thinking that you’d eventually grow a spine and do something about it. But I guess I was wrong. Guess you’ll just keep pining for your teammate in silence until the both of you die from mutual emotional constipation.” Bob pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, rubbing at them in frustration.

”Don’t try to pull that reverse psychology crap on me. I’m not that st-stupid.” He muttered. Sentry scoffed loudly, like a clap echoing through his head.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Sentry shot back, “Only an idiot treats telling someone they love them like it’s the end of the world.”

“Wow…Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” Bob snipped, turning slightly to reach for his forest-green crewneck–the soft one with faint bleach stains, and frayed cuffs. He held it in both hands for a moment, running his thumbs over the texture as if it could soothe himself before tugging it over his head.

”Y’know, if you ac-actually thought about the consequences, I think you wouldn’t be encouraging me to do it.” He added, adjusting the hem of the sweater so it covered him properly. That earned him a sudden jolt in shoulder. Not pain, exactly–but a violent reminder of who he was arguing with. The Sentry rarely used force on Bob, but he always knew how to make his point felt.

“You’re not defusing a goddamn bomb, Robert. You’re just being honest. What kind of consequences are you building up in that overthinking brain of yours?” Bob paused, leaving on the edge of his desk, staring blankly at the sight of himself.

”If she doesn’t like me back…” He started slowly, “Then we’ll have to work together. We still have to live under the same roof, train in the same gym, eat at the same goddamn table. Do you have any idea how aw-awkward that would be?” For a long moment, there was no reply. Then came the laughter. Not mocking, but indulgent. Low and syrupy, warm like something dripping from heaven, curling through his spine like a lit fuse.

“It is painfully obvious that she likes you back. I have seen her through your eyes. I have watched how she looks at you when she thinks you're not watching. It’s not exactly subtle.” Bob snorted and shoved a hand through his hair again, tugging it slightly, his cheeks going hot at the thought of you sneaking quick glances at him. He never noticed and it was quite possible Sentry was just making it up to push him.

“Oh yeah? So why doesn’t she say anything then, huh?” Sentry let out a long groan that vibrated through Bob’s ribcage. It was almost like he was bored of the conversation, or he was sick of the predictability of his host and his line of thought.

“She doesn’t say anything because she’s a woman, Robert. You’re supposed to make the first move.” Bob let out a sharp laugh.

”Well that’s just not fa-fair,” He said, arms thrown wide for no one to see, he felt like he was going crazy in his own room–technically he was–but he couldn’t give in, “I’m not going to put myself in that position just to ruin our friendship, and that’s final.” He went to reach for his mini notebook, about to slide it into the pocket of his sweatpants, when Sentry’s voice changed.

Dropping into a lower, colder tone.

“…I guess I’ll have to resort to some extreme measures then.” Bob froze in his spot, as he slowly looked up, and glanced over at the mirror.

”…What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He asked warily, but there was silence, like a phone line being cut off midway through a call.

”Se-Sentry?” He whispered, taking a cautious step backward from the mirror, feeling his heart rate pick up. He didn’t understand what extreme measures meant, and he truly didn’t want to know, but he wasn’t going to go and admit something so sensitive like this. There was too much risk involved and he cared about you too deeply to put his feelings ahead of yours, because that’s just how Bob was with you.

Then a knock on the door made him jump up in the air.

”Bob, I’m making some iced latte’s, do you want one?” You asked. Bob pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, trying to will the fluttering in his chest to slow down. His pulse thudded hard in his ears–too loud for the quietness in his room. It felt like Sentry’s absence was a weighted pressure now, not a relief. Like something had just coiled back instead of vanishing. He turned toward the door, voice soft and strained.

“Um…Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice. I’ll be out in a se-second, thank you.” You didn’t reply, but he heard your footsteps padding gently down the hallway, the distant clatter of ice cubes being dropped into a glass, the hiss of the espresso machine warming up. He let out a long breath, fingers dragging down his face. He turned back toward the mirror above his dresser, stepping in close, peering into his own eyes. Blue. Clear. Normal. No trace of gold, and that only made it worse.

There was no way Sentry would just slink off like that without more sarcasm, more threats, more “divine push”–especially not after uttering a line like “I guess I’ll have to resort to some extreme measures.” Bob leaned closer, as if looking hard enough would summon the god back to taunt him.

“Wh-Where the hell did you go?” He muttered. “You never shut up this fast…” But there was nothing. No response. No flicker. No warmth in his bones. Just his own reflection staring back at him: flushed cheeks, frizzy damp hair, and a nervous tension coiled through his jaw.

He sighed and stood up straight, tugging down the hem of his forest-green sweater, smoothing it out even though it still sagged a little too loose at the collar. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to flatten it–pointless, really, but it gave him something to do.

Then he stepped out of his room.

The hallway smelled faintly like citrus cleaner and your perfume–orange peel and peach, you had told him happily when he had asked. The sunlight slanted in lower now, catching motes of dust that danced lazily in the air. The door to your room was still cracked, music still playing just because you wanted to keep listening to it even though it was faint–but you weren’t humming anymore.

He followed the sound of clinking glass and the gurgle of the espresso machine down the hall to the kitchen.

You were standing at the counter in a loose t-shirt and bike shorts, back to him, scooping ice into two mason jars. You had your hair pushed out of your face, and the late afternoon light that was pouring through the window kissed your bare legs, making you look like you belonged in a painting more than the compound's kitchen. You were a work of art to him, and he could admire you for hours if he could go unnoticed doing so. Bob swallowed thickly, and he could feel his stomach turn, a wave of nausea floating over him.

You turned when you heard his footsteps and gave him a small smile–soft and easy, like the two of you hadn’t been alone all day with miles of tension simmering between you. He watched as you poured a little bit of liquid sugar into the cup before adding a shot of espresso and some milk with the rest of it. You shoved a straw into the drink and mixed it around quickly.

”Here you go,” You said, handing him the jar, “Made yours a bit sweeter this time, cause you always make a face when it’s too bitter.” You added. Bob blinked down at the glass for a moment and cleared his throat.

”Oh. Th-Thanks.” He replied, wrapping both hands around the chilled jar, grateful that he was able to keep his hands occupied. The cold bit into his palms, but it grounded him enough to distract him from worrying about Sentry. You leaned casually against the edge of the counter, crafting your own drink with a soft rattle of ice against glass, throwing little glances his way. You didn’t seem to notice how stiff Bob had gone, shoulders locked and jaw tight as he lifted the straw to his lips.

The first sip helped. The sweetness, the cold. It settled like a stone in his stomach and gave his trembling hands something to focus on.

But it didn’t last.

A warmth bloomed beneath his skin–subtle at first. Then stronger. Not the warmth of sunlight or embarrassment. It was internal. Like standing too close to a furnace. Bob blinked, shifted on his feet.

And then–a bead of sweat slid from his temple, down his cheekbone. He wiped it away absently.

Then another.

And another.

He gulped loudly, his eyes flicking up to you nervously.

”Hey…Is it getting hot in here, or is it ju-just me?” You looked up from your drink, brows furrowing slightly at the question.

”They’ve got the AC on full blast…Can’t you feel it?” You asked, your voice laced with concern. Bob blinked slowly, almost like he was dazed. The cool air licked at his damp forehead, but it felt like nothing. His skin felt tight, hot, wrong.

“…I’m…I’m getting really ho-hot actually.” He mumbled, setting his glass down carefully on the countertop so it didn’t slip from his sweaty palms. With a clumsy, shaky tug, he peeled the forest-green sweater over his head, tossing it onto a nearby chair. You caught the brief glimpse of his bare waist as the hem rose–taut, pale skin, a soft line of hair trailing down below the waistband of his sweatpants–but you forced your eyes back up before he could notice. Your heart began to skip anyways. Bob ran the back of his wrist across his forehead, strands of damp hair sticking to his temples.

“Jesus,” He breathed, trying to shake the feeling off, fanning himself with one hand, “It really feels like I’m burning up.” He added, almost breathlessly.

“Bob,” You said slowly, eyes narrowing with concern, “Are you getting a fever or something?” He shook his head immediately, rubbing at the back of his neck, which was now slick with sweat.

”I was fine before. I-I don’t know what’s going on, I–“

“If you don’t tell her, I’m going to boil your insides until you’re a puddle of skin and blood.” Sentry said, his voice cracking like lightning inside his skull. Bob stiffened even more at the words.

And then–everything ignited.

It felt like his blood had caught fire.

One second he was upright, trying to breathe through the heat crawling up his spine, and the next–it was everywhere. Searing pain radiated out from his chest, licking through every vein like liquid metal. His nerves flared, his muscles seized, and his vision blurred at the edges with violent, pulsing white.

It was like being cooked alive from the inside out.

“Holy…Ho-Holy fuck,” Bob whispered, his voice barely audible through the rising static in his ears. His eyes darted around the kitchen like they couldn’t hold still, couldn’t focus. His pulse was hammering too fast in his neck. You stared at him, wide-eyed. His white t-shirt was plastered to his chest, soaked through as if he’d stepped into a shower fully clothed. Sweat dripped from his temples in heavy rivulets and the waistband of his sweatpants was already damp.

”Bob, what the hell is happening?!” You asked sharply, your drink completely forgotten behind you. He tried to answer, but his mouth opened–and nothing came out. Only a shallow, panicked gasp.

Then–his knees gave out.

“Shit-” You gasped, rushing forward and catching him before he hit the tile. Your arms looped beneath his, bracing his full weight as he sagged against you like a ragdoll. His head dropped forward, thudding against your shoulder with enough force to make you stumble. He was the weight of a boulder compared to you, but the angle you were able to catch him at really helped with your leverage. You eased both of you down onto the cold floor, your knees scraping the tile as you cradled him in your lap. His head lolled slightly, sweat-soaked curls sticking to you, seeping into the cotton of your shirt. He felt like he was steaming. Your hand flew to his forehead.

“Jesus Christ, Bob,” You breathed, barely holding back the shake in your voice. “You’re boiling hot–what is this? What’s happening to you?” His skin radiated heat like a furnace. Not fever-warm. Inferno-warm. Unnatural. You’d been around him enough to know what a post-mission stress spike looked like–what adrenaline did, what panic attacks did. This was something else. His skin was flushed, his breathing fast and shallow, like he was suffocating inside his own body.

“Bob,” You whispered, pressing both hands to either side of his face. He was slick with sweat, taking in shallow, desperate breaths, like all he was doing was inhaling thick humidity, “Look at me. Please, you gotta tell me what’s going on so I can help you.”

“Tell her or I’m going to keep going.” Sentry snapped. The pressure climbed again, cruel and sharp, curling beneath his ribs like a vice.

”St-Stop,” Bob gasped, voice hoarse, shaking his head against you, “Stop, please…I can’t, I can’t.” You froze at his begging.

”Who are you talking to?” He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t move. His hands were limp in his lap. His eyes fluttered closed, lashes clinging with sweat. His whole body trembled with the effort of not screaming. It felt like his bones were melting. You brushed his soaked hair back with shaking fingers.

“I’m not–“ He tried, letting out a groan of pain, arching his back and writhing a bit. You thought he was being possessed, like somehow a demon got into him, because that would be more plausible than him just going through this at random, “I’m not…Strong enough to fight him wh-when he’s like this…” You paused, breath catching in your throat.

”…Sentry,” You said under your breath. Bob didn’t nod for you to get full confirmation of this, because you could feel it now–something else lurking beneath his skin. Something immense and ancient and merciless. The pressure in the room had changed, the air grown heavier. You felt the way the light dimmed, like it was being pulled inward, like the very shadows in the corners of the kitchen were watching.

“Why is he doing this to you?” You whispered, stroking his cheek with your thumb. “Why would he hurt you? He’s never done this before.” Bob’s eyes opened, barely. There was no gold in them, it was as if Sentry was camouflaging himself–but you could see the panic, the regret, and longing even.

”…It’s be-because I won’t tell you the truth.” He croaked, shivering a bit, twitching against you.

”What truth?” You asked, confused.

“Now, Robert. Say it, or I’ll peel your consciousness apart piece by piece and make you feel every single moment of it.” Bob winced at his words, as he let out another grunt of pain, his stomach aching, his lungs burning.

”Stop. Pl-Please stop.” He begged, his breath hitching in his throat. You moved fast, gripping his cheeks again, forcing him to look at you.

“Bob,” You started, voice breaking, “Whatever it is, just tell me. I’m right here. If it makes him stop, just tell me for god sake!” He stared at you. Pupils blown wide, almost eating the familiar blue he always sported. Sweat dripping down his neck in steady streams, wetting your legs beneath him. The heat had reached his ears, his fingertips. He felt like he was dissolving–turning into a puddle in your arms.

And finally, with his lips trembling and his body shaking in your arms, he whispered “…I’m in lo-love with you.” You stayed just where you were, cradling his burning cheeks, the sweat from his skin soaking into your palms. Your legs were going numb beneath him, but none of that mattered now. His chest heaved with shallow, uneven breaths. His eyes were wide and desperate, waiting for impact.

But your expression didn’t change.

“That’s it?” You asked softly.

Bob blinked. “Wh-What?”

“That’s the truth that was going to kill you?” You shook your head a little, almost in disbelief. “You’re burning alive from the inside out because you didn’t want to admit you loved me?” He nodded. Quickly. Frantic. The heat still trembled beneath his skin like something half-released.

“I’ve–I’ve loved yo-you since I first saw you,” He stammered, words tangling into little balls of misunderstandings. “I thought it would go away, I tried, I really tried, but it just…It just got worse and I didn’t know how to…I’m so sorry.” You stared at him for another beat, your thumbs brushing instinctively along the damp skin beneath his eyes. He was flushed and shaking and somehow still apologizing. A soft laugh slipped from you.

“Only you would apologize about loving someone.” Bob groaned, like his body had finally started to come down, the tension bleeding slowly from his frame. His breathing began to even out, though he still looked like he’d run a marathon through a thunderstorm.

“Ye-yeah…” He muttered, eyes fluttering closed for a second. “Because I have a god inside me who wants to kill me and have me ruin all my friendships in th-the process.” He tried to breathe through the humiliation, through the cool air finally creeping back in. He was regaining himself, physically. But emotionally, he was trying to retreat, blinking away from your eyes, gaze dropping down to your chin, then your lips, then the floor. You leaned in slightly. The space between your mouths thinned. You could feel his breath–still hitched, still hot–against your lips. You didn’t blink.

“Who said the friendship was ruined?” You whispered. Bob’s eyes flicked up. He blinked at you, lashes damp and heavy.

“…Well…” He rasped, “Yo-You don’t…You don’t like me like that…” You raised your eyebrows, a dry laugh slipping from your throat.

“Who told you that?” You shot back, a smirk coming up on your lips. He swallowed hard.

“…My-Myself.” He replied, voice breaking around the answer. You let out a breath through your nose, equal parts amusement and affection.

“Then I guess you’re wrong.” That confused look passed over his face like a ripple in water–eyebrows scrunching together, lips parting just slightly like he was about to ask–

And then you leaned in, your lips finding his before he could finish the thought.

It wasn’t a rushed, breathless kiss like the kind that usually came after a confession. It was slow. Sure. A quiet answer. Your lips moved against his in steady rhythm, grounding him more than the cold tile, more than the sweat that was now cooling on his skin. His breath caught in his throat again, but this time not from pain–just pure shock.

He kissed you back like he was afraid he was imagining it.

Like he couldn’t believe he hadn’t melted for nothing.

When you pulled back, just slightly, his eyes were glassy again–but softer now.

“…You kissed me,” he whispered, stunned.

You grinned. “Yeah. I noticed.”

“…Can you do it again?”

You laughed.

And then you did.

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webslinger-holland · 1 month ago

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The Color of Sin | Bob Reynolds from Thunderbolts*

Summary: This is Bob’s first field mission, tasked with going undercover alongside you at a high-profile party. The objective is simple: blend in, retrieve intel, and stay invisible. But when the mission forces you into close quarters—and even closer excuses—the lines between cover and craving blur fast.

Warning: NSFW 18+ minors DNI, loads of sexual tension, swearing, explicit sexual content (it's smut), dirty talk, suggestive content, intrusive thoughts, unprotected penetrative piv sex, yearning, mutual pining

Pairing: Bob Reynolds x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 5.3k

Type: Oneshot

Standing in front of a long gilded mirror, Bob stood awkwardly, wearing an expensive tuxedo and with his hair slicked back. He reflected a man who didn’t quite fit the suit—too stiff in the shoulders, too self-conscious in the cut of the jacket, like someone dressed for a life that didn’t belong to him. The bow tie tugged at his throat, and no matter how many times he adjusted the cuffs, he couldn't get them just right.

Valentina circled behind him like a lioness, heels clicking with the sharp, deliberate rhythm of someone who had better things to do. She gave a quick once-over, unimpressed.

“Jesus, Bob,” Valentine muttered, fixing his bow tie. “You’re built like a Greek god and still manage to look like a nervous teenage boy on prom night."

He didn’t argue. Just glanced down at his shoes, which gleamed too much, like he was trying to disappear into the shine.

"You need to loosen up. I know you're nervous with it being your first mission—" Valentina encouraged him.

His head snapped up. “I’m not nervous."

Val raises an unimpressed brow. “You’re sweating through Armani.”

Before either is able to get another word in, the door behind them opens. His eyes lifted on instinct and his shoulders stiffen at the sight. You step in and the room stops. His eyes find you and stay there.

The red dress clung to you like it had been poured directly onto your skin, silk catching the light with every movement, the slit along your thigh threatening to give more away with each step. The lipstick—same shade—made your mouth look like a secret waiting to be confessed. And yet, it was the way you held yourself—elegant, poised, utterly unaware of the fire you were walking into—that unmade him.

Valentina smirked devilishly. “Ah. There she is.”

You stepped inside slowly, running a hand down your hip as if adjusting the fabric, but you didn’t need to. The dress wasn't made to wrinkle.

“Too much?” you asked, smoothing a hand along the curve of your waist.

Bob shook his head slowly, not trusting his voice. “No. Not enough.” He immediately caught himself. “I mean—it’s… perfect. It’s fine. You look…” His voice cracked slightly. “…you look incredible.”

“Red is the color of sin. The color that makes powerful men stupid." Val gave a smug little smile; her eyes still on her tablet. She finally glanced at Bob who stood beside her and took in his dumbfound look. “Case in point.”

"Remind me again why I can't take any of the others with me instead?" You wondered, not taking your eyes off him. He swallowed thickly. He fiddled with his cufflink for the fifth time in under a minute.

“Well, Walker and Bucky are too recognizable—neither of them can step foot into a room full of politicians without someone clenching their teeth. Yelena got burned on a recent operative and Ava nearly shorted out the last comm set just walking into a building. And let’s not even talk about Alexei," Valentina said cooly.

Your shoulders slouched visibly, not from disappointment but more so from the nerves. This was going to be Bob's first field mission: a simple intel retrieval with low steaks meant to ease him into the line of work.

“Mr. Reynolds is a blank slate,” Val said, tapping her temple. “Most of the world doesn’t know whether he’s dead, missing, or a myth. That makes him useful.”

Bob stood a little straighter at that, like the praise caught him off guard.

“And you,” Val continued, turning to you with a half-smirk, “are the only operative I trust to handle both intel and attention.”

You arched a brow. “That’s reassuring.”

Bob swallows but nods slowly in agreement. You catch a flicker of something like pride flash in his expression—just a flicker—before he glances back at you.

Valentina reached into the inner pocket of her tailored blazer and handed you each a slim, nearly invisible earpiece. Both of you stuff the piece into your ear so it sits just right.

Val’s tone softens, just barely. “The others are on standby. We’ll be watching from the safehouse—cams, audio, thermal, the works. So keep your flirting subtle unless you want Bucky and John to start placing bets.”

You arched a brow. “They’re watching?”

“They’re bored,” Val said with a shrug, already back to typing something on her tablet. "So do me a favor and don't give them too big of a show. Otherwise, I'll never hear the end of it."

The two of you shifted to stand in front of her; your shoulders just barely brushing the other. She gave both of you one final once over, nodding in approval.

"Alright. Your car's out front. Don't mess this up," Val sent you a pointed look of warning. "It's time to steal some expensive intel."

The city lights shimmered below the rooftop terrace, glass railings framing a ballroom bathed in warm golden light. Soft jazz floated through the air from hidden speakers, its sultry rhythms weaving between conversations and clinking glasses. Diamonds sparkled on elegant necks like tiny stars come to earth, and champagne glistened in slender flutes, catching the glow from ornate chandeliers.

The ballroom was a sea of smiles and whispered secrets, but your eyes scanned for the unspoken paths—the staff corridors, the service stairways, anything that would lead you to the hallway Val had mentioned.

The two of you moved carefully through the crowd, trying best to blend in with your surroundings. You effortlessly snatched a champagne glass of a waiter's tray and raised it to your lips.

"Earpiece working?” You muttered under your breath so only he could hear you.

"Loud and clear," Bob confirmed. His voice was velvet. He leaned closer, his hand warm at the small of your back, pulling you in as you slipped through the crowd.

Heading up a short staircase, you slipped past clusters of laughing socialites, nodding politely. With Bob trailing behind you, his gaze flickering nervously from one suited guard to another. You began heading towards a much quieter hallway.

“This has to be it,” you recognized the hallway image from the intel in the debrief. "Follow me."

Bob nodded, swallowing hard and nervously looking over his shoulder half expecting to see someone following. Together, the pair continued heading down the quiet corridor that led towards the private suites, leaving behind the golden glow and champaign glasses.

You tapped your earpiece once. "Yelena, walk me through this."

“The intel’s not just anywhere— it’s in the host’s private suite, third floor, fourth door on the left. You’ll need to bypass the hallway security to get there. There’s a guard rotation every fifteen minutes; timing will be tight.” Yelena repeated through your earpiece.

You glanced at Bob, who nodded stiffly beside you. “Got it. Thanks.”

“Oh, look—" Yelena eagerly pointed to one of the monitors after spotting you. "Hi! I see you.”

"How's the crew doing tonight?" You wonder with a growing smile on your face.

Back at the safe house, the entire team crowded around five monitors that broadcast the live camera feed of the mansion. With Yelena and Ava wearing headsets, their fingers were poised over keyboards. Their eyes sharp and alert.

Behind them, John and Bucky stood with arms crossed, still watching the feeds for any sign of trouble or an unexpected complication.

Alexei, ever the thoughtful one, had brought an elaborate arrangement of snacks and drinks. The faint rustle of wrappers occasionally echoed softly through the comms, prompting a few light teasing remarks.

With a quick glance down at his watch, Bob predicted they were right on time. The guards were expected to be switching positions soon, which meant there would be a small amount of time where the bypass would be left unguarded.

"Next patrol should be coming in two minutes," Yelena's voice echoed calmly through your earpiece. "Your window of opportunity is now."

"Hang on," Bucky leaned over the back of her chair, eyes narrowing at the screen. He pointed to one of the guards leaving his post and heading their way. "We've got an early bird. I predict less than a minute out."

"What?" You froze in your place, suddenly panic spiking.

Yelena’s fingers paused over her keyboard. “That’s not in the schedule.”

"You guys have to get out of there," Ava repeated urgently over the comms. "That guard’s coming straight toward you.”

Not only was there very little time to think of something, there was also nowhere to turn to. The narrow hallway offered no covering, no escape, and no options.

"Shit—" you looked around desperately. You looked to him. "What do we do?"

With eyes locked, and in one impulsive motion, Bob grabbed you and backed you into a nearby wall. Before you even had the chance to react, Bob closed the distance between you. His lips found yours in a sudden, heated kiss—bold, unexpected, and impossible to ignore.

You gasped against his mouth, and he took advantage of it, deepening the kiss, angling his head until he completely blocked your face from view. You grabbed the lapels of his jacket, desperately trying to pull him closer.

His body pressed you flush against the wall, slotting one of his thighs between your legs to keep you in place. The guards’ footsteps slowed, hesitation audible as they passed just behind you—too surprised, too caught off guard to react.

His hands didn’t wander, but held you firmly, anchoring you in place as the moment stretched. His lips moved against yours with a deliberate, demanding softness—first a gentle press, testing the reaction, then sliding with slow, confident strokes that melted hesitation away.

Caught in the moment, a soft involuntary moan slipped from your throat—just enough to remind him, to tether the heat to the reality of the mission. He reluctantly pulled away from you: his face flush, breath mingling, and eyes searching yours.

Back in the surveillance room, the rest of the team fell silent as they watched the entire thing unfold on the cameras. Everyone had leaned in a little too close to the screens, jaws slack, eyes wide, not one of them pretending to look away.

“Whoa—what the fuck—wow.” Yelena sat upright. She looked over her shoulder to see everyone else looking just as stunned as she was. Her lips curved into a slow grin before she let out a bright, disbelieving laugh. "Okay, that is fucking insane."

“Wow! In the middle of a mission?” Alexei said, taking a swig from his beer. “Pretty ballsy.”

Bucky’s jaw ticked. His arms crossed tight. “What the hell is he doing?”

John leaned in beside him, his expression a mix of confusion, disgust, and reluctant awe. “I didn’t know Bobby had it in him.”

“He doesn’t,” Ava cut in smoothly, her eyes sharp as she pointed to one of the camera angles. “Look how red he is.”

They all leaned forward again and squinted, narrowing their eyes toward the feed.

“Oh yeah,” Yelena confirmed, laughing again. “Look at that neck. Bright red.”

Back to the corridor, Bob was still trying to catch his breath. The heat of the kiss lingered on his lips and your perfume was still caught in his lungs. His pulse thundered in his ears.

You were still staring up at him with wide, bright eyes, your chest rising and falling in shallow bursts as you tried to reclaim the air the moment had stolen.

“I—I think we’re clear now,” you said softly, your voice not as steady as you probably meant it to be.

He gave a tight, wordless nod. "Right. Clear."

“Come on, Romeo. Snap out of it,” Yelena’s voice crackled in his ear, full of teasing bite. He blinked once, instantly snapping back to reality. He took a step away from you.

You adjusted your dress, squared your shoulders, and gave him a glance that was unreadable. You kept walking down the corridor, knowing he was quickly in tow.

"Wow," Yelena’s voice purred in your earpiece. You just knew she was smirking on the other end. "Bet you liked that. That was some kiss."

“Shut up,” you grumbled, heat rising to your face

Following the team's direction, the two of you navigated deeper through the corridor, moving swiftly now that the hallway was clear again. It wasn't long before you located the host’s private suite where the intel was being secretly stashed.

You knelt without hesitation, picking the lock with practiced hands. The mechanism gave with a satisfying click and the door creaked open slowly on well-oiled hinges.

Stepping inside, you were immediately struck by the shift in atmosphere. The suite was lavish but sterile, all expensive materials and little personality—dark wood floors, tall bookshelves, a marble minibar. There were signs someone had been here recently: a half-drunk glass of scotch, a coat tossed carelessly on the bed, a laptop glowing softly on the desk.

"I'm not seeing a safe," you observed. You cautiously stepped into the room, surveying your surroundings. Your eyes scanned the space with practiced precision—bookshelf, minibar, side table, bathroom door slightly ajar.

Behind you, Bob quietly shut the door with a soft click and remained near it. He stood rigid, back straight, as if expecting the handle to turn at any moment. His eyes tracked you—every step, every movement, every brush of your hand against the edge of the desk.

You rifled through every drawer, moved books aside to look for hidden panels in the walls, and felt the undercarriage of furniture for buttons. You knew you were running out of time; those guards were going to be coming back any moment now.

"Yelena," you pressed a finger to your earpiece. "It's not here."

"It has to be," Yelena insisted. She flipped through some papers to confirm. "This is the room."

The sound of footsteps could be heard coming down the hallway, along with sounds of people talking. Naturally, Bob's whole body stiffened. His eyes blown wide.

“They’re coming.” Bob whisper yelled in slight panic.

A brief flare of panic arose in your chest. Your eyes scanned the room and landed on the half open door that led to the bathroom. Both of you swiftly moved towards the bathroom, slipping inside the tiled room silently.

You heard the door of the suite twisting from the short distance. Without thinking, you roughly grabbed Bob by the front of his suit and pushed him into the bathtub. He landed with a muffled grunt, arms flailing slightly. One leg hooking clumsily over the edge before he managed to fold himself in.

You climbed in after him, nearly slipping in your heels, and fell into the space between his legs, your front pressing into his chest as you yanked the curtain closed behind you. The suite door creaked open and the voices grew louder upon approach.

Bob made a soft “oof” as your knee jabbed into his ribs, but you covered his mouth before he complained more. You held a finger up to your own lips in the dim light, your message clear: Don’t say a word. Don’t even breathe.

You were practically on top of him—your knees bent awkwardly on either side of him. He wrapped one arm around your lower back without thinking, more instinct than invitation, holding you still as you both sank lower, trying to disappear into the porcelain.

You didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare speak. Didn’t dare acknowledge the way your heart was slamming against your chest.

Both of you listened carefully; your hand instinctively slid away from his mouth. The voices grew louder, closer. The sound of a chair dragging. Some footsteps pacing the suite. Low chatter over their radio.

You leaned in lower without thinking, trying to make yourselves smaller. Bob’s breath ghosted across your cheek. His other hand had pressed lightly to your waist to steady you, but the contact was starting to burn through your dress. You flattened your hands to his chest.

"Secure room’s empty.”

“You sure? That motion detector lit up.” Your eyes grew wide in realization.

“Check the bathroom.”

You barely had time to breathe before he pulled you down flat against him, chest to chest, nose to nose, curled in the narrow porcelain basin. You braced for the moment you'd be caught by the guards.

You held your breath, face pressed to Bob’s throat, barely daring to move. His hand slipped between your shoulders, shielding you like a human shield, his body tense beneath you.

A shadow passed behind the curtain. A guard stood right there.

You felt Bob’s breath warm at your ear, the rhythm of it slowing as he deliberately calmed his pulse. He was like a wall beneath you, steady and solid, even as your entire body practically molded to his.

The guard stood for a moment longer, and then turned.

“Nothing here. Room’s clean.” The door clicked shut.

You stayed still for five long seconds before exhaling shakily. Your fingers were still twisted in Bob’s jacket.

“That was close” you whispered, finally lifting your head.

“You good?” Bob asked, face inches from yours.

You nodded then looked up. Above his shoulder, just behind his head, was a tile in the wall with a faint seam. It was a little odd looking; if you looked too long, it would appear out of place. You froze in realization.

“There it is.” You smiled to yourself.

"What?” Bob tried to crane his head to see what you were looking at.

“This tile in the wall. I bet the hard drive is hidden there. I need—” you braced a hand on his chest to steady yourself, “—I need to get on top of you.”

He swallowed. “Wait! You’re gonna…”

"Stop moving—" you cut him off. "I need to get higher."

Bob blinked once. “Okay. Yeah. Right. I’m listening.”

You rolled your eyes. “Not like that. Shut up.”

You carefully shifted, awkwardly climbing further up his torso, knees on either side of him as you leaned toward the hidden panel just behind the tub. Your dress rode up your thighs, and your balance shifted as you reached over his head, arm stretching to pry the tile free.

He swallowed hard as you leaned over him, the line of your back arched, the soft weight of your thighs braced on either side of his ribs. Bob stayed completely still, only his eyes moving—flicking once down, then forcibly away when he caught a glimpse of lace under your dress.

Bob made a sound deep in his throat—one you could feel more than hear.

“Not looking,” Bob muttered.

"Don't lie," you replied without looking at him. Your fingers scrabbled against the tile. “Almost got it…”

Bob squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled hard through his nose, as if physically blowing the thoughts out of his head. "I’m really not trying to—think about this.”

“I know,” you whispered, voice soft and maddeningly sweet. Your fingers brushed his chest again as you shifted higher. “You’re doing so good.”

“Please,” he whispered. “Don’t say it like that.”

His hands gripping the porcelain on either side of him so tightly his knuckles had gone white.

The tile finally gave way with a soft pop, and your hand darted in to grab the small flash drive. He peeked an eye open.

Without thinking, you strategically placed the flash drive down the front of your dress for safe keeping. It would be tucked securely into the inner band of your bra, flush against your skin.

All the while, Bob watched the movement with wide eyes. His throat went dry and he squeezed his eyes shut again to block his thoughts.

You glanced down at him—still beneath you, eyes dark, breathing uneven. His eyes were closed, brows drawn in painful concentration, like he was trying to slow his breathing through sheer force of will.

“Alright” you said softly. “We got it.”

"Great," Bob commented. Neither of you made any plans to move.

“I should move,” you announced.

“Probably,” Bob rasped, nodding.

Finally, somewhat reluctantly, you finally slipped off of him and climbed out of the bathtub. He exhaled like he hadn’t breathed since you climbed on top of him, then sat up slowly, trying to pretend he wasn’t completely wrecked inside. He climbed out after you.

“You good?” you asked again, smoothing your dress like nothing had happened.

"Yeah. I'm fine," Bob sent you the smallest smile of reassurance. When your back was turned to him, Bob dutifully adjusted himself in his pants and mumbled a complaint under his breath about his pants being too tight now.

The air in the hallway was cooler than the bathroom, but it did nothing to settle the heat beneath your skin.

He kept close behind you—still flushed, still rattled—but focused enough to watch your six as you navigated back through the hallway. The guard rotation had cycled clean, just like Yelena promised, and within two minutes you both reached the service elevator at the end of the corridor.

You hit the call button and exhaled only when the doors slid open.

Inside, the air was stale and dimly lit. The doors closed behind you with a mechanical hiss. Finally, there was a long stretch of silence between you as you stood on opposite sides.

“We can’t pass the checkpoint with it on you,” Bob said quietly, watching you from just a foot away. “They’ll scan.”

You nodded. Your fingers hovered over your chest for a moment, just under your collarbone, unsure how to do this delicately. But there was no time for delicacy.

You reached inside.

The silk of your dress shifted as you slid your hand down, fingertips grazing the edge of your bra. The drive was pressed between fabric and skin, nestled against your sternum, and you could feel Bob watching.

His eyes were locked to your hand, his jaw tight, chest rising slightly faster. He looked like he wanted to look away—but he didn’t.

His voice was low when he spoke. “I can turn around.”

You pulled the drive free with a small gasp of relief. “Don’t.”

He stilled. You looked up at him. His eyes were still right there. Not on the drive. Not on your hand. On the skin of your chest.

Your voice was light, teasing—but your heart was pounding. "Eyes up here, Reynolds."

His lips parted slightly. His gaze lifted, slow and guilty and just a little dazed. Like he wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring. His ears tinted red just slightly.

He swallowed hard. “Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

You handed the little piece of metal to him, fingers delicately brushing against his enough to make his breath catch once again. He stuffed it carefully into the pocket of his suit.

The feeling of the elevator halting and the prompt ding sound of arrival meant there was little time to linger. It didn't take much effort to slip back into the crowd and make a hasty escape.

The engine purred beneath the dark silence of the night. With Bob driving, he kept one hand steady on the wheel and the other was flexing uselessly against his thigh. The glittering skyline was shrinking behind you, reflected briefly in the mirrors before being swallowed by the hills.

You sat in the passenger seat, arms propped against the window ledge and eyes fixed out the window. Neither of you said a word since the elevator.

He stole a quick glance at you before redirecting his eyes to the road ahead of him. "You okay?" He asked.

“Fine,” you said quickly, too quickly.

“I meant… back there. With the kiss. With the whole…” Bob gestured vaguely with one hand. “Everything.”

You didn’t look at him. Just kept your eyes on the passing trees. “You did what you had to do.”

“I didn’t have to kiss you,” he muttered, barely above a whisper.

That made you turn slowly. You narrowed your eyes at him, searching for some hidden meaning behind those words.

His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. His jaw clenched, brow furrowed. The tip of his ear was turning red.

“Is that your way of saying you wanted to?” you asked.

He let out a breath through his nose, somewhere between frustrated and helpless. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I just know my heart hasn’t stopped racing since.”

You didn't know what to say either. He glanced at you—just once, then back to the road.

“I don’t… do this. I’m not good at it.” Bob ran a hand over his face in frustration. You weren't sure what he was specifically referring to: the mission or his relationships.

You let the silence hang there for a few seconds, watching the way his hands gripped the wheel like it was the only solid thing in the world.

"You could... get better at it." You suggested loosely. Bob’s hand twitched on the gearshift.

That was all the encouragement he needed to slow the car down and direct it off the main road. He turned down a quiet side road that dipped into the dark edge of the countryside. The gravel crunching under the tires until the car came to a full stop.

He put it in park and stared ahead, jaw tight. He reached over, fingers brushing yours as he finally turned toward you. His voice was low, rough with something like need.

"Are you sure you want this?" Bob asked, needing the honest truth form you before anything else.

"More than anything," you confessed.

Reaching down, Bob removed his seatbelt and leaned over the console between you. His hand cupped the side of your face, drawing you closer until your lips met in a heated kiss. You gasped against him and he deepened the kiss immediately, one hand tangling into your hair, the other gripping your waist like he’d been starving for it—starving for you.

Somehow, the two of you managed to climb into the backseat together in a tangle of limbs and gasped breaths. The doors stayed locked, the windows fogging over with each passing second. The world outside no longer mattered.

The air was thick with heat and barely-muffled desire. Bob pulled you into his lap like he needed you there to breathe, hands roaming over your dress, along your back, gripping your thighs as you straddled him.

His mouth found your throat, open and warm, as you arched against him. You let your fingers tangle into his hair, tugging when his teeth grazed the sensitive spot beneath your jaw. He groaned low, the sound vibrating against your skin, making your whole body hum.

“You don’t know...” he rasped against your neck, “...how long I’ve wanted to do this.”

“Then shut up and do it.” You challenged.

His hands fumbled at your thighs, hiking your dress higher and roughly dragging your hips again his pants. Your nails scraped down his chest through his shirt, yanking his tie loose, popping buttons with little care for subtlety.

Clothes weren’t fully shed—just pushed aside where it mattered most. Your hands slid down to his belt, fumbling the clasp until the soft clink of metal echoed in the quiet car. He struggled briefly with his fly and zipper, hips lifting to help slide his pants down just enough to free himself.

Your lips were still pressed to Bob’s when a familiar voice crackled softly in your earpiece.

“Everything okay? The car is stopped—” Yelena’s tone was light but teasing, perfectly timed to snap you both out of your heated haze.

You pulled back, breath shaky, eyes wide in realization. His cheeks flamed a deep red, and he tried to pull his hand from under your dress, but you grabbed his wrist to stop him.

"Don't you dare," you sent him a look of warning. You yanked the earpiece out first, the tiny device nearly cracking in your grip.

Bob followed suit a beat later, ripping his out and tossing it somewhere on the floor of the car like it might burn him.

You kissed him again. His breath hitched as your fingers closed around him, thick and hard beneath your touch, every movement driving a fierce heat straight through both of you. His hips jerked slightly, the friction teasing, unbearable and addictive all at once.

Neither of you noticed the small green light blinking to life on the dashboard. And neither of you heard the faint pop of the car’s built-in comms reconnecting. The team tuning in again unbeknownst to you.

All that mattered to you right now was him.

So you didn’t hesitate. Guiding him, you carefully lined him up with your entrance. The slick heat pooling low between your thighs was a fierce invitation you could no longer resist. Slow at first, Bob slid inside you, filling you completely, every inch stretching and burning deliciously.

A sharp breathy gasp escaped your lips, your nails digging into his shoulders as he held you steady against him. He moved with a torturous slowness, drawing out the moment, letting the tension coil tighter and tighter.

His hands found your waist, fingers pressing hard enough to leave bruises but gentle enough to promise he wouldn’t let go. He guided your movements with precision, hips rising just enough to meet you, watching every flicker of pleasure flash across your face. His eyes never left you—not your mouth, not the way your brows knit together, not the way you gasped each time you sank down on him.

You moved in sync, finding a rhythm that was both tender and urgent, every thrust a raw confession of need.

Then Bob started thrusting up into you—controlled, relentless, deeper. His hands dragged you down onto him in time with each pulse of his hips, and the pace shifted from steady to greedy.

The car rocked gently beneath you, the windows fogged with your breath, the interior thick with heat, sweat, and slick friction. Your gasps mingled with his low groans, the wet sound of your bodies meeting again and again filling the space around you.

His mouth claimed yours again, teeth grazing your lower lip in a tantalizing tease as he deepened his thrusts, driving you closer to the edge.

“You feel so fucking good,” he rasped against your skin, voice cracked and hungry. “So perfect.”

You matched him—grinding, rolling your hips, desperately trying to reach your peak. Your hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer until the world narrowed down to the heat between your bodies.

Your breath hitched, your muscles tensing as the waves of pleasure began to build, coiling tighter and tighter.

“Bob…” you whispered, voice trembling and body falling apart.

He groaned low, voice rough with need. “Come for me. I've got you.”

And you did—your body shuddering in release, breath ragged, fingers clawing at his back as you trembled against him. You cried out into his mouth as your muscles clenched around him, riding it through, pulsing and shaking in his lap.

He held you tight, grinding up into you once, twice—then with a guttural, broken growl, he came, hips snapping up hard as he spilled inside you, forehead pressed against your collarbone.

For long moments, you both stayed like that—entwined, hearts pounding, bodies spent but connected, the silence between you soft and full of promise. You held each other through the waves of aftershocks.

Neither of you moved for a long time. Just the sound of your breathing, the sweat cooling between you, your bodies still locked together. You leaned against his chest to catch your breath.

His arms stayed wrapped around your back, hands smoothing over your spine. You could feel the way his chest still rose and fell beneath yours, how tightly he held you even now. He tried to brush some of his loose curls out of his face.

Finally, softly—his voice barely more than breath:

"Fuck. I think I’m in trouble.”

You smiled weakly against his shoulder. “That was… practice?”

He laughed once—hoarse, warm. “Apparently, I’m a fast learner.”

You pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, flushed and shining in the dim light.

“Then I guess you better keep showing up for lessons.” You brushed your nose against his teasingly, releasing the softest gasp when you felt him twitch inside you again.

His lips curved slowly, fingers tightening around your waist.

“Deal.”

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flowersforbucky · 2 months ago

Text

you drew stars around my scars

bob reynolds x reader

summary: you show bob that he doesn’t need to be insecure about anything with you.

word count: 1k

warnings/tags: 18+ only, mentions of past drug use, descriptions of scars from drug use, insecurities, hurt/comfort, kissing and suggestiveness, implied smut, no use of y/n, some angst, fluff

author's note: i fully believe the sentry project would have gotten rid of any scars but i couldn't get this idea out of my head so.. just pretend with me.

please do not read this if any of the warnings could be triggering for you. you are responsible for your own media consumption, take care of yourself ♡

“Honey,” you breathe. He plants a trail of kisses from your jaw down to the pulse point of your throat, where he begins to bite and suckle.

He knows that it's your weakness.

Normally, you'd melt into it – let him take his time peppering you with love bites.

But right now, you're seeking something else. He knows it, too. It's the reason he's trying his hardest to distract you.

The second that your hands crept under his shirt and began easing the fabric up his back, he broke the heated kiss you’d been lost in, moving his lips to your throat, instead.

And then to your collarbones, and then the peaks of your breasts, and your sternum, and so on – until he’s so far down your body that you have no choice but to let your hands fall away from where they’d been resting under his shirt.

A blissful distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.

“Honey,” you repeat when he gets to the waistband of your panties. He pauses before he can pull them down, looking up at you with an expression of hesitation and uncertainty.

“What’s wrong, baby?” He asks, concern etched in his voice. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Well, no,” you laugh. “I don’t. I just…”

You trail off, looking up at the ceiling. You’d been planning how to go about this conversation in your head for days, but now that it’s actually time to string the words together to formulate what should be a relatively straight forward question, your brain is drawing blanks.

“What is it?” He asks gently. He sits up on his knees, placing a comforting hand on your thigh. “You can talk to me.”

There's a part of you that wants to drop it entirely. The last thing you want is to be embarrass him, or pressure him, but you also need him to know that you want to touch him, feel him, see him completely and fully.

Mostly, you want to understand why.

Why doesn’t he want you to take his shirt off? Why is he insistent on wearing long sleeves when it’s the middle of summer? Why is it that when he does take his shirt off during sex, it’s only at night when all of the lights are turned off?

It hurts you to think that he may not see himself the way you see him. All you want is to assure him that he never has to hide any part of himself – not from you.

“You know I love you, right?” You sit up, eye-level with him. His brows crease, in the endearing way they usually do when he’s confused or in deep thought. “All of you?”

He drops his gaze, as if realizing the direction this conversation is heading. He nods. “Of course I do.”

You place a handle beneath his chin, gently tilting his head back up so that he's looking you in the eye once more. “Can I see all of you, then?”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to see me,” he murmurs. “I’m just afraid that you’ll look at me differently once you do.”

“Bob,” you breathe, stroking the side of his face with your thumb. “There’s nothing in this world that could make me love you less. You’re perfect to me, no matter what.”

He gives you a small, hesitant smile before he grabs the hem of his Henley and slowly pulls it over his head. At first, your eyes go to the muscles of his chest. You have caught glimpses of them and have felt them from beneath his clothing on many occasions, so you’re not surprised by the defined planes of his abdomen, but you still can’t help but ogle.

As many times as you’ve tried to picture what he'd look like without the baggy shirts, you're now realizing that your imagination failed you.

Then, he extends his arms. Your eyes follow his to his inner elbows, and that’s when you realize that his insecurity was never about his physique.

You know what you’re looking at without him having to explain. Though it isn’t something he talks about often, his history with drug addiction is not a secret. You're still surprised to see the slightly raised, discolored lines in the bends of his arms, however. Mostly because you didn’t think it was possible for him to have scars anymore.

There’s a couple on each arm, some more noticeable than others.

“All of the others faded a long time ago,” he says meekly, staring down at the marks. “But these got infected, so they scarred worse. I had hoped that the serum they gave me in Malaysia would take care of them, but I guess it doesn’t really help older scars, ‘cause they’re still here.”

You scoot closer to him, once again tilting his face to look up at you. He gulps, blinking quickly to keep unshed tears at bay. Leaning forward, you slate your lips over his. He kisses you back, practically sighing against your lips with relief.

You pull his right arm to you, leaning down to press your lips to the more prominent of the two dark lines in a series of feather-light kisses. Bob’s posture relaxes, and you hear the faintest hum of contentment emanate from his chest. When you've kissed both scars, you move to his left arm and do the same.

“I love you,” you whisper when you pull away. “I think you’re beautiful, Bob. I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to hide any part of yourself from me.”

“I love you, too. More than you know.” He smiles, no longer looking ashamed or embarrassed. He maneuvers you back down against the mattress, hovering above you. There’s a playful look on his face as he smirks down at you, eyes roaming down your chest and to where his fingers once again toy with the band of your underwear.

“Now that we have that conversation out of the way, maybe I could get back to what I was trying to do a few minutes ago? If that’s.. if that’s okay with you?”

You snort a laugh, pushing away the locks of his hair that fall down over his face. "Of course."

******

thank you so much for reading!! as always, comments and reblogs are very appreciated <3

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rhettrosunsets · 1 month ago

Text

Rainy Day Naps - Robert Reynolds X Fem!Reader

Pairing: Robert Reynolds X Fem!Reader

Category: Fluff!

Summary: It's a stormy day at the tower, and when you walk out to see your boyfriend laying cozily on the couch with a book in his hand, you have one mission. To join him and take the best nap you've ever had.

Masterlist

Warnings: Reader wears Bob's hoodie and it is described as being oversized and going to her thigh. No description of reader outside of the hoodie mention. No use of Y/N. Bob calls the reader petnames such as sweetheart.

Notes: This is super short and fluffy. I get super tired when it rains and I just wanted to do a cute rainy day drabble where Bob reads to reader. I just know his voice would be so soothing to fall asleep to.

Edited ✅

The sky outside was a darkened gray.

Thunder violently rolled in the distance, it's loud booms clear as day as they echoed throughout the tower. It had been storming all day, the loud patter of rain present since the early morning.

The storm didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon, as flashes of lightning flashed across the afternoon sky. You wandered into the living room of the tower. Your feet were clad in some fuzzy socks that Bob had gotten you, and your oversized hoodie that you stole from Bob brushing your thighs as the sleeves swayed with each step you took.

Bob was laying on the couch, one arm tucked behind his head, a book propped in the other. The desk light on next to him making everything look softer. The room was a soft yellow and he looked so warm, and so inviting. You were on a mission now.

You padded over silently and climbed onto the couch without a word being muttered. You pressed yourself into the space between Bob and the couch cushions, trying to get as close as possible. His arm immediately shifted from behind his head moving to curl around your waist and pulling you in as if he’d been waiting for you.

He held you close to him, a soft sigh escaping him as you settled. You pressed your face into the soft cotton of his sweater, breathing in the soft smell of detergent and his cologne.

“Hey, sweetheart. Is everything okay?” he murmured softly, his voice filled with gentle concern as he kissed the top of your head.

“You looked comfy. Wanted to join you, the rains making me tired.” you whispered against his chest causing him to laugh softly, knowing how tired the storms can get you.

He grabbed the blanket draped over the back of the couch and pulled it around the two of you, softly tucking it around your shoulders. Rain pattered loudly against the window, the thunder still booming loudly outside the tower.

Bob’s fingers softly stroked up and down your spine, his hand sneaking under the hoodie you stole from him, his touch slow and soothing and his hand warm against your cool skin. While his other hand still held the book he had been reading before you joined him.

“Do you want me to read to you, Sweetheart?” he asked softly, making sure to keep his voice low and steady, as you seem so relaxed.

You nod against his chest eagerly, but too comfortable to speak. Bob reading to you is one of your favorite things in the world, his voice always soothing and comforting. It’s like he could stop all your worries with just the soft rumble of his voice and his hands on your back.

His voice rumbled, a soft sound as you lay on his chest while he reads to you. You don’t catch every word, your brain a little fuzzy from how safe and peaceful you feel in your boyfriend's arms.

The sound of his voice enough to make you slowly doze off as the rain kept its angry tempo, while the thunder kept rolling in every few minutes creating the perfect atmosphere for your nap.

Between paragraphs he kissed your forehead while his fingers softly traced along your arm and up your back. His touch was so gentle and made you feel treasured as he held you in his arms.

You tilted your chin up tiredly, your eyes closed and he smiled knowingly that you wanted a kiss, before bending his neck to press the sweetest kiss to your lips.

“I love rainy days with you” you murmured, your voice thick with exhaustion. He nuzzled your head gently, keeping his voice at a soft whisper “Me too, sweetheart.”

Outside, the storm continued to rage on. But inside the tower it was nothing but warmth and safety as the gentle sound of Bob’s heart beneath your ear lulled you into the best sleep you’ve ever had.

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brookghaib-blog · 2 months ago

Text

The Dying Love of a Super-Soldier

Pairing: Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x reader

Summary: After moving to Florida to live a normal life, Y/N had managed to achieve everything she wanted. Even after Bob and her being a complete failure that made her rot from the inside, leaving her heartbroken and unable to fully recover. Only a new, unexpected event would make her snap.

Warning: Very angst, depressive thoughts, heartbreak, betrayal, alcoholism, drug addiction, attempt murder, toxic behaviour, past-trauma, toxic relationship, bipolar disorder

Word count: 19,1k

Note: Based on this request!

Florida smelled like salt, oranges, and artificial calm — and that’s exactly why she chose it. A place where nobody knew her name. A place where the ghosts might stop clawing at the inside of her skull long enough to let her breathe.

She had a house now. Small. Quiet. White walls, cold tile floors, and a porch that faced the water. She never turned the TV on. Her phone stayed in a drawer. And every morning, like clockwork, she sat with her coffee in trembling hands, watching the sunrise like it might one day burn her clean.

But nothing ever did.

Y/N Ivanov— or whatever name the world gave her now — had once been the Red Room’s most perfected weapon. A ghost in combat boots. Better than Natasha. Sharper than Yelena. Not because she wanted to be — because she had no choice.

They stole her childhood before she could understand what having one meant. And then, when she was still just fourteen, they gave her something else: the serum. A gift, they called it. A reward for her "obedience." She remembered the needles — thick, cold, and shoved deep into her spine. She remembered screaming.

Then… she remembered nothing.

They had taken her memories. Cleaned her mind like a chalkboard. All traces of laughter with Natasha. The warmth of Yelena’s arms after a nightmare. Gone.

In their place, they inserted lies. They told her that Natasha was a traitor. That Yelena had abandoned her. That they had left her to rot. They gave her a mission: kill the defectors. The ones who had run from the cause. And Y/N did what she was told. Not out of hatred — but because she didn’t know any better. Her hands moved like machines. Her eyes didn’t blink. She was their prize soldier. Their wolf in the skin of a girl. But wolves remember.

She wasn’t sure when it started — flashes at first. A laugh she couldn’t place. The scent of blackberries in a dream. Then faces. Yelena’s face when she was seven, scolding her for scraping her knees on the training mat. Natasha holding her after her first kill, whispering “You’re still human.”

She broke the programming the same way she’d always survived: with rage. The Red Room called her a miracle. But miracles don’t scream until their throats bleed or wake up choking from dreams of blood-soaked hands and crying children.

When she escaped — truly escaped — it was with Natasha and Yelena beside her. Not as enemies, but sisters again. Family again. She wept in their arms like the world had ended. Maybe, in some ways, it had.

Natasha died not long after. Y/N still hadn’t forgiven the world for that.

Yelena tried to help her heal. They’d cook together. Laugh sometimes. But it wasn’t long before Y/N realized she was unraveling inside. Every mission was a trigger. Every news broadcast a reminder of how many people she’d hurt. How many she couldn’t remember. So she told Yelena she was done.

“I can’t fight anymore,” she said. “I don’t know who I am when I’m not fighting… but I need to try.”

So Yelena hugged her. Told her she understood. That she loved her.

And Y/N left.

Now she lived by the ocean, where the water could swallow her guilt a little at a time.

But the silence wasn’t kind. It was cruel. Every quiet night was filled with the hum of old nightmares. Her hands still shook when she washed the blood that wasn’t there. She kept a box under her bed: photos of Natasha, a letter from Yelena she couldn’t bring herself to read, and a bullet she had pulled from her own thigh in a mission she couldn’t forget.

She never went to therapy. She didn’t think anyone could fix a brokenness this deep.

Sometimes, on cold nights, she whispered apologies into the wind. To the children she’d left behind. The mothers she’d scared. The sisters she betrayed when she was nothing more than a weapon in someone else’s hands.

And sometimes — when the sun dipped just right over the horizon and everything glowed red — she thought she saw Natasha. Leaning in the doorway. Arms crossed. Smirking.

"You're still human."

Y/N would close her eyes and let the wind sting her cheeks.

Maybe, in another life, she could have believed that.

Florida nights could feel like nothingness — humid, slow, like the air itself refused to move forward. Y/N had started drinking again after three months sober. It wasn’t a dramatic fall. Just one glass of cheap whiskey after too many nights spent listening to the waves and her own thoughts crawling like insects under her skin. Then two. Then four. Then not bothering to count anymore.

That night, she didn’t plan to go to the bar. She never did. It just happened, like most things in her life now — accidental, numbing, slow suicide disguised as routine. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror had barely blinked before she slid on jeans, a worn tank top, and pulled her hair back. No makeup. No purpose. Just the quiet ache of needing to be somewhere that wasn’t her own head.

The bar was local. Ugly. Dim. Neon lights humming above tired faces. It smelled like sweat and spilled beer, with just enough silence between the country songs to remind you of how alone you really were. That’s what she liked about it.

She’d taken a booth in the corner. Sat sideways, one leg bent beneath her, the other stretched out like she owned the place. Nobody bothered her. Nobody ever did. Maybe it was the look in her eye — that flat, glassy nothingness she had perfected in the Red Room. The kind that told people not to try.

She had her second drink when she noticed him.

At first, he didn’t look like much. Just a man nursing a beer at the bar, hunched over like the world had cracked his back. Hair a mess, knuckles raw, jeans dirty like he hadn’t cared in a while. But there was something in the way he sat — still, deliberate, as if staying upright took every ounce of energy.

She didn’t remember who looked first. Or who crossed the space between them. It didn’t matter. They were pulled together by something beyond logic — two stars already collapsed, orbiting the same black hole.

He smelled like rain and ash. His voice was quiet. Gentle in a way that didn’t make sense for a man with hands like those — scarred, twitchy, like they wanted to tear something apart.

She didn’t ask for his name.

He didn’t ask for hers.

He said something stupid. She laughed too hard. Slurred her words, then covered her mouth, embarrassed. But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t judge. Just looked at her with eyes so sad she felt like someone had cracked open her ribs.

And for the first time in forever, she didn’t feel watched. She didn’t feel analyzed. She just felt seen.

They didn’t talk about their pasts. People like them didn’t need to. It was all there — in the way they held their drinks too tightly. In the haunted pauses between words. In the way their eyes never stayed in one place for long.

She leaned her head on his shoulder eventually. He let her. His shoulder was strong, but it trembled slightly. She didn’t ask why. She could smell the meth on him — sour, chemical, ugly. But she didn’t flinch. She knew addiction. Knew what it meant to crave something that hurt you more than it helped.

She wasn’t sober either. Her blood was warm and slow, her head swimming. The room tilted. But his arm came around her waist and anchored her. Gently. Like she was something precious. That scared her more than anything.

They ended up back at her place. Not for sex. Not for anything people like to call “normal.” Just... because they didn’t want the night to end. They sat on the porch. Shared a bottle of something she didn’t remember buying. Talked in slurred pieces — about the stars. About what music sounded like when you were high. About what it felt like to lose yourself.

At some point, she turned to him. Really looked at him.

He was beautiful. Not in a clean-cut way. Not like the men she used to seduce and kill on missions. But in a ruined way. Like a statue cracked down the middle but still standing. His smile was sad. His eyes were oceans she didn’t know how to swim.

“You’re a wave,” she murmured.

He blinked. “What?”

“A wave. You came in and just... washed over me. And I didn’t know how much I needed that.”

His smile faltered. “Waves don’t stay.”

She didn’t say anything. She knew that better than anyone.

They fell asleep on the floor. Her curled into his side, like a child. His arm draped over her protectively. She didn’t dream. For the first time in years.

In the morning, he was still there. Hair messier. Shirt crumpled. She found a half-eaten granola bar in his pocket when he dozed off again on the couch. She ate it. It made her laugh.

And then the fear crept in.

She wasn’t supposed to feel this. Not comfort. Not connection. Especially not with someone like him. Someone whose hands shook more than hers. Someone with veins that pulsed with poison and guilt. Someone who looked at her like she was soft — when she knew there was nothing left inside her but steel and scar tissue.

But Bob — that was his name, she learned later — didn’t ask her to be soft. He didn’t ask her to be anything. He just was. A presence. A silence she could rest in. A broken thing that didn’t try to fix her.

And in a world that demanded she keep proving she was worth saving, that was the kindest thing anyone had ever done.

They weren’t lovers. Not then. They were strangers clinging to the same wreckage. Addicted to the quiet between them. Two ruined people who didn’t know what life was supposed to be — only that they didn’t want to spend it alone anymore.

And maybe that’s what made it so dangerous.

She’d built walls her whole life. Bob didn’t knock them down. He just leaned against them with his soft smile and tired eyes, and made her want to open the door.

She didn’t know then what he really was. That he wasn’t just broken — he was shattered beyond human comprehension. That his mind carried monsters. That one day, he’d vanish just like every other good thing.

But that night? That night was theirs.

They never meant for it to happen. Love wasn’t in the cards for people like them — not when your hands remembered blood more than touch, not when your mind was more familiar with silence than comfort. But it happened anyway. Quietly. Slowly. Like water soaking into cracked soil.

It started with the mornings.

Bob stayed over more often. At first, it was an unspoken agreement — neither of them wanted to be alone. Then it became routine. He’d make coffee while she watched him from the couch, her head heavy on the pillow, eyes tracing the curve of his shoulders in the morning light.

“Milk or sugar?” he asked once.

She blinked at him. “Do I look like a sugar-in-coffee kind of girl?”

He chuckled. “You look like someone who’d throw the mug at me if I asked again.”

She smirked. “You’d deserve it.”

There was always something playful in their mornings. Something soft. But beneath it was this ache — a knowing that the warmth they were building had to be temporary. Nothing good ever stayed for people like them. They were waiting for the storm, even when the sky was clear.

Still, they tried.

They went on walks — strange, meandering ones through Florida’s weather-worn streets. Bob would hold her hand, but only when she let him. Y/N wasn’t used to touch that didn’t hurt. But with him, she began to crave it — the grounding warmth of his fingers, the way his thumb would brush against hers without meaning to. Or maybe he meant to. She never asked.

There was a night in late October — humid, still, full of stars. They were lying on a blanket in the back of Bob’s truck. She had snuck a bottle of wine from the gas station. He’d brought a melted bag of marshmallows he found in the pantry.

They didn’t talk much. Just looked up.

“You ever wonder what it would’ve been like… if we were normal?” she asked.

Bob turned his head toward her, slow and careful, like even moving too fast might scare her away. “Yeah. Every day.”

She swallowed. “Do you think… we’d still find each other?”

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes were so blue, even in the dark. Then: “I don’t think anyone else could understand me like you do.”

Her chest ached. He said things like that without knowing what they did to her — how they broke her open in places still healing.

They kissed that night. Not urgent. Not desperate. Just… full. Heavy with everything they couldn’t say. Her hands in his hair. His hands on her waist, holding her like he thought she might disappear. She almost did.

He whispered her name like a prayer. She let herself fall.

They moved in together two months later.

It wasn’t planned. Bob just… stopped leaving. His toothbrush ended up in her bathroom. His T-shirt in her laundry. He never said he was staying. He just stayed. And she never told him to leave.

They made a home out of chaos. Patching each other up in ways neither of them understood. When Bob had bad nights — when the trembling got worse and the shadows in his mind whispered things he wouldn’t repeat — Y/N would sit on the bathroom floor with him, her legs wrapped around his, whispering back until the voices got tired.

“You’re here,” she’d say. “You’re safe. I’m not going anywhere.”

When she woke up from a nightmare — soaked in sweat, heart racing like she was still dodging bullets in the Red Room — Bob would pull her into his chest, rock her gently, and hum. He wasn’t a good singer. But she never told him to stop.

They were addicted to each other. Not in the toxic, burning way — but in that slow suffocation kind of way. Like if one of them left, the other would forget how to breathe.

Bob started calling her “angel.” Soft, reverent, like she was something divine. Y/N never corrected him, though she knew she was far from it. Every time he said it, she almost believed him.

“You’re the only thing that makes sense,” he told her once, his voice cracking, his pupils blown wide from the edge of another high.

She held his face in her hands. “Then stay with me. Stay clean. Stay here.”

He tried. He tried so hard.

She started cooking. Badly. Burnt eggs. Undercooked pasta. But Bob would eat everything with a grin and a wink. They danced once in the kitchen, barefoot on the cold tile, her hair in a messy bun, his T-shirt hanging off her shoulder.

“I’m gonna marry you one day,” he whispered against her temple.

She laughed. She didn’t believe in marriage. But she believed in him. And that was terrifying enough.

But with love came the cracks.

Bob had dark days — days he’d vanish, or stare at the wall for hours, mumbling about voices, about the Void, about not feeling real. Y/N would shake him sometimes. Cry. Scream. But he’d just look at her, hollowed out, and say, “I don’t know how to stop it.”

She understood. She’d been there too.

There were nights they fought. Nights where the house felt too small and the world too loud. Y/N would slam doors. Bob would disappear down the block with clenched fists and red-rimmed eyes. But they always came back to each other. Always.

One time, after the worst of their fights, Bob returned at 3 a.m., barefoot, shivering, clothes soaked in rain. He collapsed at her doorstep.

“I don’t want to be without you,” he said, voice cracking like porcelain.

She dropped to her knees and kissed his forehead, tasting salt and desperation. “Then don’t be.”

It was beautiful, that was the worst part.

Because from the outside, it looked like love. The kind of love you saw in movies where two broken people found comfort in each other, where hands shook but still reached, where silence didn’t mean distance. The kind of love that people romanticized because they didn’t know any better.

But it wasn’t a movie. It wasn’t a poem or a love song or a neatly tied ending.

It was real. And real love — love soaked in addiction — was ugly.

Y/N had been drinking again. Not just the occasional buzz. Not just the glass of wine after dinner.

This was deeper. Darker.

It started with a bottle left on the counter. Then one hidden in the bathroom. Then one in the car, tucked under the seat, clinking when she made a sharp turn. She didn’t mean to spiral. But the mornings came heavier. The days got colder. And Bob…

Bob wasn’t getting better.

He was losing.

Some days, he’d try. He’d sit in front of her and cry, eyes wide and helpless, begging her to hide his stash. “Flush it,” he’d whisper. “Please… please… I don’t want to be this anymore.”

And she would. God, she would. She’d sit with him for hours, cold compress against his burning forehead, whispering stories from her past to distract him from the voices. She’d sing, she’d read, she’d cry with him — do anything just to keep him grounded.

But then there were other days.

Days when he’d vanish for hours. Days when he’d come back shaking, eyes dilated and teeth grinding, too fast, too angry, too loud. He would slam doors. Break plates. Scream into pillows. One night, he punched the wall so hard the plaster caved in and blood ran down his wrist like war paint.

Y/N patched it up with trembling hands.

“You can’t keep doing this,” she whispered, voice hoarse with exhaustion. “You’re killing yourself, Bob.”

He looked at her like a stranger. “You think I don’t know that?”

Then he walked out.

She didn’t follow. Not that time.

Their fights weren’t the kind you could write off. They were wars.

Things were said. Terrible things. Things that clung to the walls like smoke, long after the shouting stopped.

“Maybe you want me to die. That way you don’t have to carry me anymore.”

“Don’t you dare make this about me. You think I like watching you disappear?! I am doing everything I can to keep you here!”

“Then why are you always drunk?!”

Silence. Cold. Crushing. Because he was right, she was slipping, too. And she hated him for noticing.

She had always been the strong one. The weapon. The one who didn’t cry, didn’t break. But Bob unraveled her. Not by hurting her — but by needing her. All the time. Too much. And she was running out of things to give.

Still, she couldn’t let go.

She told herself it was love. That’s what love meant — enduring. Fighting. Staying.

But in truth?

She was scared.

Scared that if she left him, he’d die. And if he died, then she’d have to live knowing she didn’t save him.

She had failed before — failed to stop the Red Room, failed to save the girls who screamed in their cells, failed to run soon enough when her own memories were stolen. She couldn’t fail this, too.

Even if it meant drowning with him.

There was a night — one of the worst — when Bob came home high out of his mind, twitching, muttering nonsense about the Void, eyes unfocused. He looked haunted. Like something inside him had died.

Y/N tried to touch him. He flinched.

“Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re disappointed.”

She didn’t answer. Her hand fell back to her side.

That was all it took.

He stormed past her, knocking a chair to the floor. “You don’t get it,” he snapped. “You never got it. You look at me like I’m this project. Like I’m someone you can fix. But I’m not.”

She followed. “I know you’re not. You think I’m not broken, too? You think I wanted this?”

“You chose this,” he spat. “You stayed.”

That one hit. Hard. She froze.

Bob’s chest was heaving, face red with rage. But even in that moment, she saw it — the way his hands trembled, the shame underneath the fury, the way his mouth quivered like he was about to break down. He hated himself. And she couldn’t save someone who hated themselves more than they loved her.

So, she walked away. This time, she was the one who slammed the door. But they always came back.

No matter how bad the fight. No matter how ugly the words. The mornings still came, and with them came the apologies.

“I didn’t mean it,” he whispered into her hair one morning, voice raw. “I was scared.”

She was still crying. “So was I.”

He kissed her. They held each other. And for a few minutes, they could pretend it would be different this time.

That they wouldn’t fight again, that love would be enough. But it wasn’t. Because the addiction was always louder.

So, she isolated. Drank more. Cried in the shower. Hid bruises — not from violence, but from where Bob had grabbed her too tightly during one of his spirals. He never meant to hurt her. He never knew what she was, he didn't know how she could crush his skull with one kick because no matter how bad she was, Bob was her everything, she would kill herself if it meant he would live safe and happy, and never let her state overtake her to the point of ever hurting him physically. His apologies always came with tears. And she believed him.

Because she had done things she didn’t mean, too. Said things. Chosen the bottle over him.

They were a mess. A beautiful, tragic mess.

They loved each other so much. But that love lived in a house full of ghosts — and they couldn’t keep pretending it wasn’t haunted. Sometimes she looked at him — really looked — and wondered what would’ve happened if they’d met in another life. If Bob had never touched meth. If she had never been turned into a weapon. If they’d both been whole.

Would they have had a house with white curtains and sunflowers in the windowsill? Would she have come home from work to find him reading on the couch, glasses slipping down his nose, telling her about some science article he’d found fascinating? Would she have worn a ring? Would he have remembered her birthday without her having to remind him? Would they have been safe?

But that wasn’t their life.

Their life was stained bedsheets and empty bottles. Screaming matches and shattered plates. Apologies written on sticky notes. Hugs that felt like lifelines. Eyes that couldn’t hide the truth.

Their love was real. But it wasn’t enough.

The decision didn’t come like a lightning strike. It wasn’t some grand moment of clarity or a dramatic vow shouted into the night.

It was quieter than that. Softer.

It came one morning, when the apartment was still and heavy, when the sun crept in through the slats in the blinds and painted Bob’s sleeping face in gold. His chest rose and fell slowly. Peacefully.

He looked young when he slept. Gentle. Not the man he’d become — all tremors and tension and muttered voices in the dark — but the man she knew was still in there. The man who used to read to her in bed. Who would trace patterns on her back until she fell asleep. Who told her she made the world feel a little less heavy.

She watched him sleep that morning, her head aching from the night before, and her body screaming for another drink, and she whispered something barely audible to herself.

“I want to stay.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d said it. But it was the first time she meant it like this. She wanted to stay. To be here. To build something. To be better — not just for herself, but for him. For them.

And for the first time in years, she realized she didn’t want to just survive. She wanted a future. A real one.

She wanted to be his wife. She wanted to be the mother of his children. She wanted to build a home that didn’t feel like walking on glass. She wanted morning coffee on the porch and pottery in the backyard. She wanted to live.

And she was ready to try.

The first few days were brutal.

Her body rebelled in every possible way. The migraines were endless. The shakes were unbearable. The craving whispered to her every second, like a ghost wrapped around her spine.

“Just one drink,” it would hiss. “Just to take the edge off.”

But she didn’t.

She journaled instead.

Pages and pages of pain and guilt and hope and anger. She wrote until her fingers cramped, until the ink bled through the pages, until the crying stopped and the silence settled.

She made a list.

Things That Make Me Feel Alive Without Drinking:

The sound of Bob breathing when he sleeps.

Warm coffee in the morning.

Pottery videos on YouTube.

The smell of fresh soap.

The idea of painting a mural in the bedroom.

Buying gifts for Bob. Even small ones.

Imagining a future where we are both okay.

She stuck the list on the fridge with a magnet shaped like a tomato.

She started pottery first.

It was messy and frustrating and humbling. The first bowl she made collapsed like wet tissue. But the second one held. And the third one had a little curve, a personality. She started keeping them on the windowsill.

Bob noticed.

“You’re making things,” he said one day, tracing the edge of a misshapen cup with his finger. “Like… actually making things.”

She smiled. “I’m trying.”

He kissed her then. Long. Slow. Like he was proud of her, even if he didn’t know how to say it.

That made her cry in the bathroom later. Not from sadness, but from how good it felt to be seen again.

Whenever she felt herself spiraling, she’d leave the house.

It didn’t matter where she went — a bookstore, the pier, the dusty art supply store run by an old woman named Marta who talked too much but always smiled.

She would walk. Breathe. Touch walls. Smell flowers.

And then she’d come back.

Always with something for Bob.

A pair of socks with Saturns on them. A tiny notebook with gold edges. A cracked keychain in the shape of a star. A ceramic frog that looked so ugly it made her laugh.

Bob collected the gifts without question. He put them all on the bookshelf beside his science journals. He never said “You shouldn’t have.” He never asked why.

He just kissed her on the forehead and told her, “Thank you for coming home.”

There were relapses.

One night, after three weeks clean, she had a panic attack so severe she couldn’t breathe. Her hands shook as she unscrewed the bottle of vodka she’d hidden in a sock drawer weeks ago, “just in case.”

She poured it into a cup and stared at it, dumping it down the sink. Then she curled up on the bathroom floor and cried until Bob found her. He didn’t say anything. Just held her. Rubbed her back. Pressed kisses to her neck like prayers. They didn’t talk about it the next day.

But she knew he knew what she’d almost done. And that he was proud she didn’t.

She painted, too, nothing professional, nothing good, but it helped. The colors. The control. The freedom.

She painted skies. Hands. Faces. Things she didn’t remember seeing, but had probably dreamed about. Once, she painted them — her and Bob — in a field full of red poppies. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt right.

She hung it above the bed.

Bob stared at it for a long time. “Do you think that’s where we go when we’re okay?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she whispered. “Maybe we’re already there in another life.”

He didn’t respond. Just squeezed her hand.

She started cooking.

Burned rice. Under-seasoned chicken. Exploding eggs. But there were a lot of improvements.

But she laughed through it all. And Bob, to his credit, always ate whatever she made.

They started having “dinner dates” in the living room with a blanket on the floor and candles in mugs. Sometimes they would pretend they were strangers meeting for the first time.

“Hi, I’m Y/N,” she’d say, extending her hand like they hadn’t kissed that morning.

Bob would take her hand. “Hi, I’m Bob. God, do angels just walk around on earth now?”

They’d laugh. But it always ended with tears.

Because underneath it all, they both knew how fragile it was.

And yet… there was peace. Little moments.

Bob planting lavender in a pot on the balcony. Y/N making playlists called “Songs for When We’re Better.” Them dancing slowly to music no one else could hear. Falling asleep with limbs tangled, dreams soft and quiet.

She was doing it.

Not perfectly, but honestly she was staying sober, becoming someone new.

Not for the world. Not for redemption. Not even for her sisters. But for him. Because she wanted to be the woman he could count on. The woman who wouldn’t disappear. The woman who could love him without losing herself. She was becoming better.

And for the first time in her life — really, truly — she believed that maybe, just maybe…

She deserved to be. And so did he.

He didn’t know when the cracks started to show again. Maybe they’d never fully healed.

Maybe he was never meant to be whole in the first place.

There were good days. God, there were good days. Days when Y/N came home with paint on her fingers and bright eyes, holding some little treasure in her hand — a rock shaped like a heart, a used book with notes in the margins, a stupid mug that said “World’s Okayest Boyfriend.” Days when she laughed freely, without the weight of yesterday clinging to her voice.

She was healing.

He could see it in the way she carried herself. She was lighter. Braver. Trying.

But he was still stuck in the mud.

Still shackled to the same rot in his brain. Still battling the shadows in the corners of the room. Still waking up sweating and shaking, teeth grinding in his sleep, dreams full of static and whispers and himself — distorted and screaming and hollow.

Bob hadn’t been clean. Not really. He lied. Told her he was “tapering.” Told himself he just needed one more hit to stay steady, one more to keep the void quiet, one more to function.

But the truth was cruel: he was using. Still.

Every few days. Some nights when she was at pottery. Or reading. Or watching the rain through the window like it could forgive her.

He'd stash it in the back of the toilet. Under a floorboard in the closet. In an old book jacket he knew she’d never touch. He wanted to stop. But he didn’t know how to be okay without it. He didn’t know who he was without the numb. The day it all fell apart started like any other.

He woke up before her. Watched her sleep. Touched the edge of her shoulder like a prayer. She looked peaceful — almost girlish in the early morning light. She mumbled something in her sleep and rolled toward him. He smiled. Almost.

But there was a tremor in his jaw. His teeth ached. His skin felt like it didn’t fit. He needed it.

He told himself he’d just take a little. Just enough to stop the noise in his head.

Just enough to get through the day.

So while she made breakfast — humming to herself in the kitchen, the scent of burnt toast curling through the air — he excused himself and went to the closet.

Floorboard. Right corner. Fingernail crack. The pipe was still there. Still calling. And he smoked.

And for a while, everything was quiet.

But the thing about a high is that it ends.

And when it crashes, it burns.

That night, they were watching a movie on the couch. She leaned her head on his shoulder, a blanket tucked around them, her fingers playing with the hem of his shirt.

“You smell like smoke,” she said softly.

He froze, tried to play it off. “Must’ve been from outside.”

But she sat up, looking him in the eye.

“Bob,” she whispered. “Are you using again? You told me that you hadn't use it in weeks.”

And something in him — something small and mean and scared — lashed out.

“I said it was from outside,” he snapped. “Can you back off for one fucking second?”

She blinked. Hurt flaring in her eyes like a matchstick.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” she said, quieter now. “You don’t have to pretend.”

“I’m not pretending!” he barked. He was on his feet now, pacing, hands running through his hair. “Why do you always think I’m lying? Why do you—why do you always look at me like I’m broken?!”

Her voice cracked. “Because you are.”

Silence.

The words hung in the room like a knife between them.

She hadn’t meant it like that. He knew she hadn’t. But it didn’t matter. It had been said. And it landed exactly where it hurt the most.

Bob stormed out of the apartment that night.

He didn’t take his wallet. Just his keys and the leftover rage boiling under his skin.

The street was cold. Empty. The kind of lonely that echoes in your bones.

He ended up in a bathroom stall of a gas station off the highway, shivering, crying, using again — harder this time. Deeper. Hoping it would shut everything off.

He didn’t want to feel.

Didn’t want to remember the look on her face. The way her mouth trembled. The tears that welled but never fell.

He hated himself. He hated his addiction.

He hated how he could never be enough for her — not really. Not clean. Not good. Not stable.

She was trying so damn hard. And he was ruining it. Again.

The come-down was a nightmare.

He stumbled home past 3 a.m. — pale, sweating, his hands shaking like leaves in the wind. Y/N was asleep on the couch, phone in her lap, her eyes swollen and red. She’d waited up. Of course she had.

He sat on the floor beside her, and didn’t say a word. He just cried. Ugly, broken sobs that racked his chest, his fingers clutching the hem of her pajama pants like a child begging for forgiveness.

She woke up. Reached for him, pulling him into her lap. “Bob,” she whispered, over and over, like saying his name might save him.

“I’m sorry,” he choked. “I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know who I am without it. I—I’m ruining this. I’m ruining you.”

She kissed his hair, “I’m not ruined. I’m choosing to stay,” she said.

“But why?” he asked, eyes swollen. “Why the hell would you stay with someone like me?”

She didn’t answer right away.

Then she said, “Because I know what it’s like to be poison and still want to be loved. And you loved me through it. Now I’ll love you through this.”

The next morning, she made coffee. They didn’t speak much.

But they sat side by side on the couch, his head on her shoulder, her hand on his knee.

He told her everything.

The stash. The closet. The lies.

She didn’t cry. She just listened. And when he was done, she said, “Let’s start again.”

It had been a long day.

The kind of day that crawled under her skin and stayed there, heavy and slow. Y/N had come home in a haze — work had been exhausting, her shoulders stiff, her hair tangled from the wind, the sleeves of her jacket damp from an afternoon rain. All she wanted was to curl into Bob’s chest and fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat — warm and steady, that sacred rhythm she could always trust to be there, even when nothing else was.

She unlocked the door, expecting him.

Expecting to see the flicker of the living room lamp he always forgot to turn off. Expecting his shoes by the couch, that old hoodie of his thrown over the backrest. Maybe he’d be cooking — not well, but trying — or maybe he’d be sprawled out watching some stupid late-night special.

But the house was quiet. Too quiet. No lights. No soft hum of music. No smell of his cologne. Just the tick of the wall clock and the creak of the floor under her shoes.

“Bob?” she called gently, half-smiling, slipping off her coat. “You home?”

No answer.

She wasn’t worried at first. Maybe he went out. Maybe he was grabbing groceries or air or that soda he couldn’t live without. It wasn’t like him to not text, but... he was impulsive. Messy. Chaotic in a way that sometimes made her laugh, sometimes made her sigh. Still, she wasn’t alarmed. Not yet.

She walked to the kitchen.

His mug was gone, the one with the cracked rim that he swore made coffee taste better.

She opened the fridge. His leftovers were missing. So were the beers he said he’d quit.

The couch looked... untouched. Neat. Wrong.

Her stomach tensed.

She moved faster now — checking the bathroom. The closet. The bedroom. It hit her when she opened the dresser. His clothes were gone. All of them. The top drawer that used to overflow with wrinkled t-shirts and rolled-up socks was empty. The hangers that held his jackets were bare. Even the drawer where he kept old receipts and crumpled paper sketches of her face — all gone. Every trace of him, erased.

And then she saw it.

A piece of folded paper, sitting on the center of the bed like a coffin lid.

Y/N’s fingers trembled as she reached for it. Her name was written on the front in his handwriting.

Y/N,

I’m sorry.

God, I’m sorry.

I don’t even know how to write this right. I’ve been trying for days. I rewrite it and burn it and start again and it still doesn’t feel like it says enough. Or maybe it says too much.

I love you. That’s not the lie here. Please don’t ever think it was. I’ve never loved anything the way I love you. Not a person. Not a place. Nothing. You’re the only thing in my whole life that’s ever made me feel like maybe I could be better. Like maybe I could be good.

But I’m not good.

I keep waking up waiting for the moment you realize it. The moment you look at me and see what I see — this thing I keep trying to hide under the smiles and the kisses and the breakfasts in bed. This hole inside me that you can’t fill, no matter how hard you try.

I can’t keep letting you bleed yourself dry trying to fix me.

You deserve a life. A real one. Not one where you have to keep looking over your shoulder to make sure I’m still breathing. Not one where you keep sacrificing your sobriety to catch me when I fall. Not one where love feels like walking on glass.

So I’m leaving.

I don’t want to do this to you anymore.

I don’t have a good reason that’ll make it hurt less. I’m not leaving for someone else. I’m not leaving because I stopped loving you. I’m leaving because you were starting to believe in me more than I ever could. And I was going to drag you down with me.

Please don’t look for me. Don’t waste your time hating me or chasing ghosts. Just live. Please. For both of us.

You were the only light I ever knew. But I wasn’t meant to stay in the light.

I love you.

-Bob

She didn’t move for a long time.

The letter lay in her lap, her fingers frozen around the edges, smudging the ink. Her eyes didn’t even water — not yet. They just stared, blank and aching, like they were trying to make sense of the words over and over again, hoping they might rearrange themselves into something else.

Something kinder.

But they didn’t.

Bob was gone. He’d really gone.

She checked the apartment again — tore it apart, heart thudding, breath ragged. Opened drawers, looked under the bed, clawed through the trash.

Nothing.

Every trace of him — gone. Even the damn mug. Even the sketches.Even the tiny doodle he’d once made on the inside of the pantry door. A stick-figure of the two of them with “Home” written under it.

She crumpled to the floor of the bedroom and screamed.

A sound so broken, so primal, it echoed off the walls and bounced back into her chest like shrapnel.

This was abandonment. Not the kind that slammed doors and yelled cruel things in parting. The quiet kind. The cruelest kind. The kind that left without letting you say please stay.

She lay on the bed that night, curled into herself, clutching his pillow to her chest like it could still hold his warmth. Her eyes stayed open. Her heart beat slower. Numbness began to settle in her limbs.

All those nights she’d held him while he cried. All those mornings she packed his cigarettes with tiny notes to remind him she loved him. All the books she read to understand addiction. All the therapy. The hobbies. The art. The sobriety. All the hope. And he left. No fight. No goodbye. No explanation she could hold onto. Just a letter and a void.

The days blurred together.

She didn’t remember what day he left. Thursday? Saturday? It didn’t matter anymore. The clock ticked just the same — relentlessly, mercilessly — dragging her through morning after morning without him.

The letter stayed on the bedside table, folded and unfolding like a wound she couldn’t close. She tried to put it in a drawer once. It felt like betrayal. She brought it back out after twenty minutes and held it again until her hands went numb.

That first night, she didn’t sleep.

She just sat on the bedroom floor, leaning against the nightstand, surrounded by a silence so thick it pressed into her chest like water. It felt like drowning in the dark. She played one of his old voicemails over and over — one where he was teasing her about some movie she hated. He was laughing.

She hadn’t realized how much she missed the sound of his laugh until it was gone.

She told herself she’d be fine. She’d get through it. She had before — through blood, through pain, through war. She was trained for survival. She could take this. She had to.

But heartbreak wasn’t something you could outfight.

It crawled in through the cracks and rotted everything from the inside out.

The second day, she couldn’t get out of bed.

Not because she was tired, but because it felt like she didn’t deserve to move.

What was the point?

She lay there staring at the ceiling, still in her work clothes from the day before, still wearing the necklace he’d given her — the one with the tiny gold charm shaped like a moon.

He used to call her that.

“Moonlight,” he’d whisper, high and trembling and soft in the aftermath of another breakdown. “You’re the only thing that makes the night less scary.”

She ripped it off.

Threw it across the room.

It hit the wall with a dull clink and fell behind the dresser.

By day four, her stomach had shrunk. Nothing stayed down. The coffee turned cold in her hand, untouched. The groceries in the fridge started to rot. She avoided the kitchen entirely. That’s where he used to wrap his arms around her waist and mumble about breakfast even when he didn’t know how to cook.

Everything reminded her of him.

The arm of the couch still had the dent where he’d sit. The bathroom mirror was still streaked from when he shaved in a rush. One of his long hairs was still caught in the corner of her pillow.

She couldn’t breathe.

It felt like he was everywhere — except here.

She started writing him letters.

One a day.

Long, angry, sobbing letters that never got mailed. She’d rip them up afterward, throw the pieces in the trash, only to dig them out again because she couldn’t bear to let go of his name in her handwriting.

"You lied to me." "You promised you’d never leave." "I was getting better for you. I was trying." "Was I not enough?" "Was loving you not enough?"

The worst part was not knowing. Not knowing why. Not knowing if he was safe. If he was even alive. If he still thought of her or if he was high somewhere with someone new, forgetting her name with every hit.

Sobriety became a razor’s edge. She clung to it with bleeding hands. Not because she wanted to — not at first — but because she had to. If she didn’t, she’d fall, and if she fell, there’d be no one left to catch her. Not anymore.

The first real temptation came on a Tuesday. She’d been up for 48 hours, her hands shaking, her head pounding, her eyes so swollen from crying she could barely see. She found an old bottle of wine at the back of the pantry — a gift from a neighbor she never drank. She held it for thirty minutes. Sat on the floor in front of it like it was a bomb she didn’t know how to defuse, her fingers trembled on the cap. Then she screamed. A scream so loud the windows rattled. She hurled it against the wall. Glass exploded. Red liquid ran down the white paint like blood. She collapsed. Sobbing. Screaming. Hating herself. Hating him. Hating this. But she didn’t drink.

She made lists.

Things To Do Instead of Drinking:

Go for a walk

Break something (cheap)

Write a letter you won’t send

Watch the sun set and pretend he’s under the same sky

Count the days you were successful

She found herself doing everything and nothing. She tried pottery again but broke the first three bowls. She picked up painting — made a portrait of him in charcoal, then tore it apart.

She went to a meeting. Once. Sat in the back with her hood up and didn’t speak. She didn’t want pity. She didn’t want advice. She wanted him. And he was gone.

Nights were the worst. Nights stretched like endless black highways — full of memories, full of shadows.

She lay in bed clutching the side where he used to sleep, remembering the way he curled around her like armor. The way he’d breathe out her name like a prayer. The way their broken pieces had once fit like something sacred.

They weren’t perfect. But they were theirs. Now she was just herself.

Just one half of something that would never be whole again.

She passed a man on the street once who had his build — tall, messy hair, broad shoulders — and her heart stopped. She chased him for two blocks before realizing it wasn’t him. She sat on the curb and cried.

People passed. No one stopped.

Three weeks passed. Four.

She started eating again. Lightly. She cleaned the apartment. She threw out the broken glass. She even took down the photos of them on the fridge — not because she wanted to forget him, but because she couldn’t look at them without shattering all over again.

She told herself: This is survival. Not healing. Not moving on. Just surviving. Breathing. Drinking water. Fighting the urge to slip. Some days she still screamed into pillows. Some days she stared at the door hoping he'd walk in and say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I’m home.”

But he didn’t. And she didn’t drink. Not once.

It had been months since he left.

Time moved like molasses — slow, bitter, sticky. Some mornings were quiet victories: brushing her hair, taking a walk, even smiling at a dog on the street. Others were brutal. Violent. Not in action, but in feeling — the kind of ache that settled behind the ribs and refused to loosen, no matter how much she screamed into her pillow or held herself under scalding water just to feel something different.

She was still sober. Barely. But she was not okay. Every day was a fight. Every night, she’d imagine him walking through the door again. Sometimes she hated him in those fantasies. Other times she fell into his arms, crying, as if nothing had ever gone wrong. That’s what love does when it turns into grief. It confuses you. It colors even your delusions in half-truths and memory. She’d built a life around surviving. Small steps. Walks through downtown. Coffee shops. New routines. She spoke to no one. She was a ghost in a city that never asked questions — which suited her just fine.

Then it happened.

She was standing in front of a bakery window — watching a cake being frosted with delicate roses — when the TV in the corner caught her attention.

The headline read: "America's Newest Avengers — Thunderbolts or Traitors?"

At first, she didn’t care. Heroes. Politics. Marketing. It was always noise in the background.

Until they said his name.

Bob Reynolds.

And then the camera panned. And she froze.

There he was. On TV. Smiling — a smile she hadn’t seen in so long she forgot it had dimples. His hair was shorter. Cleaner. His posture straighter. His arms folded in a suit that looked expensive. He was standing beside a group: U.S. Agent, Ghost, Red Guardian—

And Yelena. Her sister.

Y/N stumbled backward like she’d been shot.

The display behind her toppled, glass shattering across the sidewalk. The bakery staff shouted. A stranger tried to help her stand. She couldn’t even answer. Her ears rang. Her stomach twisted. Her hands trembled so violently she dropped her phone twice before calling a car. She didn’t stop shaking until she was back in her home. And then, she started digging. The internet gave her more than she asked for. Too much, really, there were interviews. Clips. Montage videos with dramatic music posted by fans. Fan edits. Titles like “Yelena x Bob | teammates to lovers” with slow-motion stares and soft lighting. Tweets speculating about their chemistry. Rumors. Jokes. Whole Reddit threads. TikToks.

“I ship them so hard.” “They’re perfect together.” “That smirk Bob gives her in the press tour? Yeah, they’re screwing.”

Y/N wanted to throw up.

Bob — her Bob — the same Bob who once cried in her lap, who carved her name into a tree, who promised he’d marry her someday even if it was in a junkyard — was now being shipped with her sister.

Her. Own. Sister.

The words blurred on the screen as tears burned down her face. She clicked faster. Her heart beat louder. Her breathing grew shallow. She couldn’t stop. She needed to understand. She needed a reason. A why.

Yelena never knew about Bob. That was the most soul-shattering part. Y/N had shut herself off the moment she moved to Florida. She wanted peace. Distance. Space to fall apart in private. She didn’t tell Alexei or Yelena about Bob — not because she didn’t trust them, but because it felt like hers. Like her only thing. Her only secret not born from blood or war. She thought she had time. Time to explain. Time to introduce him one day. Time to tell Yelena about the man who saw her not as an assassin or a weapon, but a woman with bruised knuckles and soft eyes who brought him strawberries when he couldn’t get out of bed.

But now? Now Bob was hers too. Now he smiled beside Yelena at press events. Now fans talked about them like they were the next power couple. Now they shared jokes and missions and inside glances. And Y/N was nothing. Not even a footnote.

She stared at a photo on her screen: Bob and Yelena laughing during an interview. He had his arm around her chair.

That was the moment something in Y/N cracked. Something deep. Something she’d been holding together with tape and whispered promises — the idea that maybe he loved her, that maybe he left because he was sick, or scared, or broken, but not because he didn’t care.

That lie was all she had. And it had just been ripped away.

She didn’t eat for three days.

She sat on the floor of her living room, surrounded by old polaroids, ripped letters, a broken pottery bowl she’d made for him. She stared into space. Sometimes she’d laugh. Sometimes she’d sob until her lungs gave out.

She picked up a bottle of vodka in the back of her cabinet and held it to her lips. It smelled like everything she had fought so hard to kill inside herself. She didn't drink it. But it stayed next to her on the floor. Like a threat.

She wrote Yelena a message. Deleted it. Wrote another. Deleted it. She didn’t know what to say. How do you tell your sister — the one you fought to find again, the one you used to braid hair with on missions, the one you loved with a kind of loyalty deeper than blood — that she was sleeping beside the man who once whispered I’ll never leave you and left you shattered on the floor? How do you tell her, without falling apart?

Y/N crawled back into bed wearing one of Bob’s old shirts. It didn’t smell like him anymore.

She curled into a ball, eyes red, throat sore from silence. Outside her window, the world kept moving. People cheered for Bob Reynolds. They speculated about his romance with the blonde Widow. They painted him as a hero. As a survivor. No one remembered the girl he left behind. No one saw the battlefield she lived on every morning. No one knew what he meant. Not even her sister.

Rage was the only thing keeping her alive.

It came in flashes. In silence. In screams so guttural her throat bled. In the shattered plates she forgot she threw. In the heavy breathing she couldn’t calm. In the red-hot visions of Bob — of Yelena — of the life they now shared while she drowned under the weight of their silence.

Y/N had been abandoned before. But this? This wasn’t just abandonment.

This was betrayal.

She paced her apartment like a caged wolf. Fists clenched. Skin slick with sweat. Her heart always pounding — too fast, too loud — like it was trying to break out of her chest.

“I’ll never leave you,” Bob had once whispered.

“You’re my calm,” he said, forehead to hers, one hand over her heart.

Now she couldn’t even touch that part of her chest without feeling a hollow ache.

Every time she thought it couldn’t hurt more, it did. Every day, it hurt differently.

Some days, it was missing the way he used to wake her up with lazy morning kisses and coffee brewed too strong. Other days, it was seeing his name trend on social media beside Yelena’s. Sometimes, it was hearing a stranger laugh the way he used to.

But the worst pain? The worst was not knowing why.

She kept rereading the letter. It was still under her pillow — tear-stained, creased, weak from the number of times her fingers had grasped it in the middle of the night. There was no closure. No reason. Just half-hearted apologies and the kind of love that pretends to be noble.

He left because he loved her? Then why didn’t he say goodbye? Why didn’t he give her the truth?

She screamed into towels until her throat went raw. She hit the walls until her knuckles split open. She sobbed into her bathtub fully clothed, over and over again, the cold porcelain hugging her like a coffin. The world outside kept moving. She didn't. The anger was venomous. It infected everything.

Y/N saw red when she looked at photos of Yelena on missions beside Bob. Red when she heard Alexei talking about how proud he was of the Thunderbolts. Red when she saw their names trending, their faces smiling, their victories applauded.

She ignored their calls. Their messages. Their attempts to reconnect. She blocked Yelena’s number. Left Alexei on read. She couldn’t speak to them. Not without trying to tear their throats out. She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to go back to the assassin she used to be — the version of herself that didn’t care, that could slip into a room and kill without blinking. That girl would’ve handled this.

But that girl died the day she fell in love with Bob. Now she was just... broken. She talked to no one. But in the dark, when the sun dipped below the horizon and the silence crawled in, she whispered to him. To the ghost of him. To the memory.

“Why’d you leave me?” “Was I not enough?” “Did you love me at all?”

Sometimes, she begged. “Please come back.”

Other times, she threatened. “I’ll kill you if I ever see you again.”

And sometimes — most nights — she lay still in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering how many pills it would take. How fast it would be. If it would feel like floating or falling.

The alcohol bottle still sat in the cabinet. Unopened. But it whispered to her like an old friend. Every time she passed it. Every time she survived another day. She didn’t touch it. But she wanted to. There was a moment — one afternoon — when she caught her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t recognize the woman staring back. Hollow cheeks. Red eyes. A face carved in fury. Her fists were clenched so tightly her nails dug into her palms. It terrified her.

She whispered, “I want to kill him.” Then she said it louder. “I want to kill him.” Then, “I want to kill all of them.” She wasn’t even crying. She felt numb. There was no shame in her chest. Only fire.

A small part of her wondered what would happen if she let that version of herself loose again — the one trained to kill, bred to obey, sculpted by the Red Room to be vengeance incarnate. She could do it. She knew she could. No hesitation. But another part of her — the part Bob once touched, the part that still remembered what love was supposed to feel like — that part sobbed in the silence.

Because she didn’t want to be this person again. But no one else gave her a choice. She wanted to scream at Yelena. How could you? You’re my sister. You knew I was alone. You saw me go quiet. Did you ever ask why? Did you care?

And Bob? Bob who once held her when her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Bob who used to whisper dreams of marriage and kids and building a life away from the darkness.

He walked away. He joined a team. He built a new life. And he chose Yelena.

She never hated her sister before.

Not even during the Red Room years, not when they were pitted against each other like bloodstained chess pieces moved by men who didn’t know their names. Not even when Yelena went to the Avengers and Y/N ran to Florida, trying to disappear into some version of normal.

But now? Now she hated her with every cell in her body. With every scar she’d ever hidden. With every soft part of her heart that used to beat for Bob.

It was irrational. She knew that. Yelena didn’t know. She didn’t do this on purpose. But logic didn’t matter when you were staring down the barrel of your stolen future.

The dreams started as mercy. She would close her eyes and there it was — her life. A house with a wraparound porch, white with green shutters. Flowers spilling from window boxes. Wind chimes dancing in the breeze. The smell of summer and clean laundry. She stood barefoot in the grass, wearing a soft, cream-colored dress. One hand shielding her eyes from the sun, the other holding a baby — their baby. A little boy with his nose. Her eyes. His curls.

And there he was. Bob. Not broken Bob. Not high Bob. Not trembling-in-a-dark-room Bob. But healthy Bob. Sober Bob. Bob in a button-up shirt, sleeves rolled, a tie around his neck, briefcase in hand, laughing as he walked up the driveway.

He kissed her. Kissed their son. Whispered something about traffic, groceries, how he missed her all day. The kind of life they used to whisper about at 2 a.m. when the drugs wore off and the lies were too tired to keep going. She could feel it in the dream. The warmth. The love. The way it was supposed to be.

But right before she woke up — right before the memory could settle in her heart — the image twisted. His face blurred. The baby vanished. And in the mirror hanging by the front door…

Yelena’s reflection stared back at her. Wearing her dress. Holding her son. With Bob kissing her like Y/N had never even existed.

She would wake up drenched in sweat, sheets twisted around her legs like restraints. Her chest would heave. Her nails would dig into the mattress, into her palms, into herself, trying to scrape the image out of her brain. But it never left. It was seared into her.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her dream being lived by someone else. And it broke her.

Because that was the hardest part. Not that he left. Not that he didn’t explain. Not even that he was on TV now, celebrated, loved, powerful.

No. The hardest part was that the Bob she had suffered for — the one she stayed sober for, built a life around, waited up for while he disappeared for nights on end — that Bob was finally better. Just not with her. He was someone else’s now. He became everything she prayed he would be… just too late for her to have him. And it made her sick.

Y/N started to believe something was wrong with her. Truly wrong. Like her soul had rotted somewhere along the way and no one had noticed.

She looked in the mirror and asked herself:

“What is it about me that makes people leave?”, “Why do I only ever get the broken version of things?”,“Why wasn’t I enough?”

She had endured the screaming. The addiction. The hunger. The withdrawals. The nights she held his face and told him he was still human. Still worth saving. She stayed when no one else did. She chose him when he didn’t even choose himself.

And for what? To be replaced. To be erased. To be the ghost haunting the edges of someone else’s happily ever after.

There was a knock at the door. It was soft, hesitant — like whoever was on the other side wasn’t sure if they should be there. Y/N barely registered it at first, her thoughts tangled in the thick fog of the day. Her apartment was dark, the curtains drawn tight against the world, and she was still in the oversized hoodie she’d worn three days in a row, curled up on the couch like a bruise that wouldn’t heal.

The knock came again. Slower this time. Careful.

She blinked, staring at the door, her heartbeat stalling. No one came here. No one knocked. She’d made sure of that — avoided neighbors, blocked every number that mattered. No visitors. No reminders.

So who the hell—?

She stood, hesitant, dragging herself up with the weight of a hundred sleepless nights clinging to her spine. Her hands trembled slightly as she reached for the door. Her nails were bitten down to the quick. Her eyes were hollow. She opened it.

And the last person she ever expected to see was standing there in the hallway.

Yelena.

Y/N didn’t speak. Her throat closed up like a trap.

Yelena smiled gently. “Hey,” she said, her voice light, like this was normal. “Can I come in?”

Y/N blinked. She wasn’t sure if she was dreaming. If her mind had finally cracked under the pressure and this was some sick hallucination. Yelena? Now?

“…What are you doing here?” Her voice was sharp. Dry. She didn’t move.

Yelena’s expression faltered a little. “I… you weren’t answering. Calls, texts. Alexei’s worried. I’m worried. It’s been months, and I thought— I don’t know. I thought maybe you could use some company.”

Y/N stared.

Company. After everything. After everything.

She slowly stepped aside without a word, letting her sister pass into the apartment. Yelena glanced around as she entered — the dishes in the sink, the scattered clothes, the half-empty bottles of energy drinks and untouched food. There was a smell. Not foul, but stale. Like time had stopped moving in here.

“Jesus,” Yelena murmured under her breath, eyes scanning the space. “You’ve really— been hiding, huh?”

Y/N shut the door. And locked it. The click of the deadbolt echoed like a warning. They sat in the silence for a long moment. Yelena took the armchair, her fingers laced nervously in her lap. Y/N sat across from her on the couch, arms crossed, back rigid. The air between them was heavy — not just with time lost, but with something else. Something much darker.

“So,” Yelena said carefully. “How’ve you been?”

Y/N scoffed. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

Yelena blinked. “I just— I don’t know. Trying to start somewhere.”

“You think this is a fucking catch-up?” Her voice cracked at the edges, brittle like glass. “After all this time?”

“I thought you needed space—”

“I didn’t need space, Yelena,” she snapped, sitting forward. “I needed my life. My family. But I guess you were busy on TV, weren’t you? With him.”

Yelena frowned, confused. “With… who?”

“Oh, don’t fucking do that.” Y/N stood now, pacing. Her hands ran through her hair, erratic. “Don’t play dumb. Bob. Sentry. Whatever name he’s going by now.”

Yelena looked taken aback. “You mean— Bob? What about him?”

“You know exactly what,” Y/N hissed.

“I don’t—”

“Don’t lie to me!” she screamed suddenly, turning on her. “Do you think I haven’t seen it? The videos? The interviews? The little side glances, the smiles, the fucking flirting? You think I don’t know how this goes?”

Yelena stood too now, defensive. “Whoa, what the hell are you talking about? I barely know him!”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying!”

“You always do!” Y/N’s voice was feral now, eyes wide with rage and hurt and something so much more raw it didn’t have a name. “You always take. That’s what you do. You take. I got out. I made it out of that hellhole. I found something. Someone. I built a life, Yelena. And then— and then you. You come along, and you fucking take it. Just like everything else.”

Yelena’s expression was horrified. “Wait— you and Bob? You two— you were—?”

Y/N laughed. It was a broken sound. Hysterical. “Of course you didn’t know. Why would you? No one ever sees me. They only see you.”

“Y/N…”

“Don’t Y/N me.” Her voice dropped now, a low growl. “You know what I see every night when I close my eyes? I see the life I should have had. I see a home. A family. Him. And our son. And then right before I wake up, every time, I see you. In my place. Wearing my dress. Holding my baby. With him.”

Yelena was speechless.

“You have everything now,” Y/N whispered, her voice trembling. “Dad’s proud of you. The world loves you. Bob loves you. And I’m nothing. I’m the ghost you all stepped over to get to your perfect little lives.”

“I don’t love him. I don’t— I swear to God, I didn’t know, I didn’t—” Yelena was panicking now, trying to reach her sister through the crackling wildfire of delusion and grief.

But Y/N was too far gone.

“GET OUT,” she screamed. Yelena flinched.

“Get the fuck out of my house. Out of my life. Go back to your team. Go back to him. Just— don’t you dare pity me, Yelena. Don’t you dare.”

Y/N stood in the wreckage of her own living room, chest heaving, knuckles bleeding, rage boiling beneath her skin like lava. The silence after her outburst should have been final—should have signaled the end of this nightmare. But when she turned, Yelena was still there.

She hadn’t left.

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat.

Yelena stood in the doorway, rain-slick light washing over her, a tremble in her voice as she stepped forward, slow and cautious.

“I’m not leaving you like this,” Yelena said softly. “You’re not well. I didn’t know about you and Bob—I swear I didn’t. But if it hurts you, I’ll fix it. Just let me fix it.”

“Fix it?” Y/N’s voice cracked, her laugh manic. “You can’t fix me, Yelena. You broke me.”

“That’s not fair—”

“Fair?” Her head snapped toward her sister, expression twisted. “Fair is for people who didn’t get turned into weapons when they were kids. You think you know what the Red Room did to us? You don’t. I was made into something worse. Something even you couldn’t understand.”

Yelena’s face softened with something like fear now. “I know what they did. We survived it together—”

“No. You survived it.” Y/N took a step forward. “I’m still living in it.”

Something inside her was unraveling.

The rage she’d tried to bury, the grief that rotted her insides—it was rising now, a tsunami crashing past the last crumbling walls of her sanity. And Yelena, standing there in her self-righteous glow, trying to save her like she was some stray animal—

It only made her hate her more.

“You came here to help?” Y/N’s voice dropped low, a growl. “You want to save me? The way you saved Natasha? The way you saved yourself?”

“Y/N—please.”

“You think you’re a hero now, huh?” Her hands were shaking with the need to lash out. “You stole my life. My love. My fucking future. And now you’re here, acting like you’re innocent. You’re not innocent.”

Her eyes locked on Yelena’s, and something ancient and broken ignited behind them.

“You’re dead.” Without warning, Y/N lunged.

Y/N’s fist came like lightning—brutal, fast. It clipped Yelena in the jaw, sending her stumbling back, crashing into a bookshelf. Before Yelena could react, Y/N was on her again, slamming her through drywall like a battering ram.

Yelena rolled as a fist cratered the floor where her head had been.

She barely got her footing before Y/N was there again—she moved like a ghost, faster than Yelena remembered. Her Red Room training hadn’t prepared her for this level of strength.

Y/N had super soldier strength.

Yelena countered with a textbook leg sweep—Y/N leapt over it, caught her mid-spin, and hurled her across the living room into the kitchen counter. Dishes shattered. Yelena groaned, back arching in pain.

“You wanna fix me?” Y/N snarled. “Then bleed for me sister!”

She grabbed a serrated kitchen knife and lunged again.

Yelena blocked with a stool, snapping it in half under Y/N’s force. She ducked the next blow and kicked her sister back into the wall—but it was like trying to stop a freight train with a paper shield.

Y/N’s hand snapped forward, catching Yelena by the throat. She slammed her hard against the window.

Glass cracked.

“Every dream I had,” Y/N whispered, face inches from hers, “You infected it.”

Yelena elbowed her, kicked, used every trick she’d learned from Natasha—but nothing was working. Her sister was stronger. Angrier.

Y/N wasn’t fighting to disable.

She was fighting to kill.

Yelena’s lip bled. “This isn’t you,” she gasped. “You’re not like this.”

“I was always like this,” Y/N hissed. “You just never looked hard enough.”

She headbutted Yelena, then flung her across the apartment. Yelena landed with a crash, coughing, vision blurry. She reached for her belt—threw a flashbang.

Y/N shielded her eyes too late.

Yelena scrambled for the window, kicking it open as rain poured in. She turned back, breath ragged.

“I loved you,” she shouted.

Y/N roared, rage bursting like wildfire, lunging through the smoke and wreckage.

Yelena jumped.

She hit the fire escape, barely catching herself. Her leg twisted on impact, but she moved. Fast. Down the stairs, through the alley, into the night.

Behind her, Y/N stood at the broken window, staring down at her fleeing sister.

Her face was wild. Her knuckles bloody. Her breathing fast and erratic. And yet—tears spilled down her cheeks.

Somewhere, deep down beneath the violence, the child who once idolized Yelena screamed.

But no one heard her.

Yelena collapsed behind a dumpster, heart thundering in her chest.

She wiped blood from her lip. Looked down at her trembling hands.

She’d faced monsters. Gods. She’d survived the Red Room.

But nothing in the world had prepared her for the moment her own sister tried to kill her.

Tried to murder her.

She looked up at the rain, swallowed the lump in her throat, and whispered—

“What did they do to you?”

Y/N sat alone on the shoreline, salt drying on her cheeks. Not from the sea—she hadn’t been in the water.

She hadn’t been in anything lately.

Just skin and bone. Just barely enough of a person to keep breathing.

Her knees were pulled up to her chest. Bare feet dug into the cold sand. The wind tangled her hair as the tide clawed closer. The sky above her was bruised with clouds, gold and violet smudges painting the horizon, stars trying to pierce through the thick dusk.

Her fingers fidgeted with a small, sharp shell—pressing it into her palm again and again until the skin broke.

Tiny, invisible punishment. Something to make her feel.

Because feeling had become harder than hurting.

"I know you’re not here," she whispered.

The sea answered with a howl.

"Or maybe you are," she said to no one. Her voice was so small. "I see you in my dreams, Nat. You always look so... peaceful."

She pressed the shell deeper. Blood bloomed in her palm, slow and warm.

"I’m not okay," she said to the waves, to her dead sister, to the ghost she could only summon through pain and memory. "You knew how to live through the pain. How to stand. I don’t. I don’t know who I am without it. And now I just want it to stop."

She looked up to the darkening sky. The wind picked up.

“I tried,” she whispered. “I really tried. I stayed clean. I made a life. I fell in love.” Her voice cracked. “And he left me.”

Tears streamed down her face. Her body shook, her chest hiccupping with emotion too big to contain.

“I tried to be good. I really did.”

She hugged her knees tighter, curling into herself.

“And now I dream of a family that’s not mine. A house I’ll never have. A child I won’t get to hold.”

A beat.

Then a whisper.

“Take me with you, Nat.”

A sob escaped.

“I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to be me anymore.”

The wind howled louder, like something answering.

And then—

A voice.

“Y/N.”

It was rough. Deep. Familiar.

Her heart stopped.

She didn’t even need to look.

She already knew who it was.

She turned slowly, her face stained with salt and blood and sand.

There stood Alexei.

He looked older. Tired. His eyes softened when he saw her, broken and small on the shore. He took a step forward, boots crunching the shells.

“I’m here to help you, dochka,” he said gently.

The word snapped something in her.

She stood.

Suddenly very still.

Very silent.

Her fists clenched.

"You’re here to help me?" she said, her voice eerily calm. “Now?”

Alexei hesitated. “Yelena told me what happened. We didn’t know about Bob. About how much he meant to you. We didn’t know he left you.”

She flinched like he slapped her.

“You. Didn’t. Know.” Her laugh was cold, sharp. “You all didn’t know because you never asked. Because I was the broken one, right? I was the one you kept tucked away like a dirty little secret while you raised your other daughter to be a hero.”

Alexei’s face fell. “That’s not true.”

“It is true!” she screamed, her voice breaking. “You all wanted me gone. Out of sight. Away. You wanted peace, so you sent me away to rot while you played family with Yelena and wore your stupid suit and smiled for interviews.”

He stepped forward again. “I thought you wanted peace—”

“NO!” she roared. “I wanted a life! I wanted someone to love me. And Bob—he was it. He was everything. But now? Now he’s a goddamn Avenger and you’re all just playing pretend like I never existed.”

Her hands were trembling.

“I was there, Dad. I built something real. And you all took it away from me. And now you come here. Acting like you care.”

“I do care—”

“You should’ve cared then!” she shrieked. “You should’ve cared when I was waking up in cold sweats, screaming from the Red Room memories. You should’ve cared when I begged you not to let them inject me. You should’ve cared when I held Bob’s letter and wanted to die.”

Her eyes locked on his. Wild. Ferocious.

“But you didn’t. And you won’t. So now—” she took a breath, trembling “—I’m gonna make you feel what I feel.”

Y/N charged like a shadow breaking free from the night, faster than Alexei expected. Her fist slammed into his gut, lifting him off the ground and sending him crashing into the sand dune behind them.

He groaned. Spit blood.

She was on him again in seconds.

Fists collided. Sand erupted with every hit. Alexei blocked, countered, tried to reason—but she didn’t want to talk.

She wanted to punish.

“You left me to rot!” she screamed between punches.

“You were strong enough!” he shouted back.

“No, I wasn’t!!”

They tumbled toward the shoreline, their silhouettes locked in a dance of blood and violence. Y/N swept his legs, slammed her knee into his chest. Alexei tried to grapple her, but she elbowed him hard—once, twice—broke free.

“You made me a killer,” she seethed. “And then punished me for being one.”

He staggered back, clutching his ribs.

“You’re not a killer,” he said breathlessly. “You’re my daughter.”

Tears mixed with blood on her face. “Then why didn’t you love me like one?”

She rushed him one last time.

He didn’t fight back.

He just stood there, arms half-raised, breathing ragged.

Her fist cracked across his jaw—and he dropped to his knees.

Rain began to fall.

And she just stood there.

Above him.

Hands shaking.

Chest heaving.

Staring down at the man who helped make her, and never came to save her.

Alexei looked up at her, lip bleeding.

“I didn’t know how,” he whispered. “To love you the way you needed. But I do love you.”

Something inside her broke.

She collapsed into the sand, knees buckling.

And screamed.

Screamed until her throat was raw.

The sound of waves crashing was no longer calming.

Not when her heart was screaming louder.

Y/N’s chest heaved from exertion. Blood caked her hands, her knuckles bruised and raw from striking the man who once called her his little girl. She barely felt the cold rain anymore. It soaked her hair, clung to her lashes, blurred the red on her skin as if it could wash away the damage she’d done—but it couldn’t.

Nothing could.

She stared at Alexei crumpled in the sand, breathing but unmoving. Her own father. Another person she’d broken.

She’d barely noticed the shift in air behind her until it was too late.

Footsteps.

Boots, soft on the sand.

She froze.

They were here.

The new team. Valentina’s soldiers. She could sense it in the way the atmosphere tensed. Like the air itself had held its breath. She didn’t turn at first. Her fists clenched, her breath uneven, eyes still on her father. She thought: Of course Yelena brought them. Of course she did.

She imagined them standing behind her, watching like spectators. Come to see the last broken piece of the Red Room project tear herself apart. Maybe they thought it would be entertaining—put her down like a wild animal if needed.

Maybe they came because they didn’t think she could be saved.

Her jaw clenched.

Then—

A voice.

Soft. Familiar.

Shattered.

“Y/N…”

She turned.

Slowly. Hesitantly.

And when she saw him—

Her heart almost stopped.

Bob.

Her Bob.

Her whole world, standing in the rain, drenched like a ghost.

He was dressed in civilian clothes, not the shining uniform of a weapon. He looked nothing like the being of light and power she once saw hovering above the world.

He looked like a man. A broken man.

His eyes were red, tears tracing down his face like rainwater. His lips parted, like he had a hundred things to say but couldn’t force a single one of them past the lump in his throat.

Time stopped.

The beach, the wind, the world—faded.

It was just them.

Two people with shattered dreams and bleeding hearts.

Her arms twitched—part of her wanted to run to him. Bury herself in his chest. Ask him if any of it was real. Ask him why he left. Ask him if he knew how hard she fought to live through it.

But she didn’t move.

Because the rest of her wanted to kill him.

She hated him. She loved him. She hated how much she still loved him.

Her face crumpled. She blinked back tears, every emotion she had shoved down for months roaring back to the surface.

Then she saw the others.

Bucky. Yelena. Walker. Ava.

Weapons.

All ready.

All watching.

She was the target.

Yelena stood behind Bob, her arms at her sides, tense and afraid. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.

The message was clear: They weren’t here to help her. They were here to stop her.

She laughed bitterly, her voice hoarse from crying, from screaming.

“So this is what it takes to get you all to care,” she said, not looking at anyone but Bob. “One broken girl on a beach, and now you all show up to ‘fix’ me.”

Bob took a step forward.

“Y/N—”

“Don’t,” she snapped, voice cold. “Don’t say my name like it still belongs to you.”

He flinched. His throat bobbed.

"I—I didn’t know how to come back," he said quietly. "I didn’t know how to look at you after what I did."

Tears welled up in her eyes again.

“You shouldn’t have come back at all,” she whispered. “Not like this. Not with them.”

She took a trembling step toward Alexei’s limp body in the sand. Her fingers curled into fists.

“I should end it here,” she murmured, barely audible over the wind. “End all of this. You, him, me.”

Bob’s eyes widened. “Y/N, please…”

She crouched and pulled the sidearm from Alexei’s holster. Her hands shook as she held it.

Every fiber of her being screamed against what she was doing—but the storm in her chest was stronger. Her tears blinded her, but the hatred lit her up from the inside like wildfire.

“Put it down,” Bucky warned gently. “You don’t want to do this.”

She didn’t even look at him.

“I didn’t want any of this.”

Her eyes stayed locked on Bob. Tears ran freely now. She looked like a woman drowning on dry land.

“I just wanted a life. You know? A stupid little house. A baby. A partner. That’s it. And you took it all away and gave it to her instead.”

Bob shook his head. “Yelena isn’t—”

“SHUT UP!” she screamed, voice cracked and raw. “You think I care what’s true? You think it makes a difference?!”

The grief in her voice silenced them all.

She turned the weapon toward Alexei—arms trembling.

Her finger brushed the trigger.

Then—

They moved.

Bucky lunged. Silent, fast, skilled.

He was on her in an instant, arms wrapping around her from behind like iron.

She screamed, thrashed wildly, her strength unnatural. But Bucky was strong too. Too strong. It was like a cage slamming shut.

“No—NO—LET ME GO!!” she wailed, her voice pure panic now.

She twisted, elbowed him hard—but he didn’t loosen. She could barely breathe. Her eyes locked on Bob’s—desperate and furious.

“HOW DARE YOU COME HERE!” she cried. “YOU DON’T GET TO WATCH ME BREAK!”

Then she felt the sharp sting in her neck.

She froze.

Her pupils dilated.

Bucky held her tighter as the tranquilizer entered her bloodstream.

“No—no—no, no please—please—not again,” she begged, sobbing, her voice cracking into childlike pleas.

Her limbs weakened.

Her legs collapsed.

And the world began to spin.

Bob stepped forward—arms instinctively outstretched—but Bucky held her protectively, shaking his head.

Y/N blinked up at Bob one last time, her vision blurring.

“You were supposed to love me,” she whispered.

Then her eyes rolled back.

Her body went limp in Bucky’s arms.

Warm light painted the ceiling above her in soft amber tones, the kind of light that tried too hard to feel like daylight. It flickered gently with the subtle hum of the old overhead fixture, barely audible above the quiet in the room. The air was cool, sterile but not cruel. Soft linen cradled her aching body, and for the first time in what felt like centuries, she didn’t feel the weight of sand, or blood, or rage on her skin. But she felt everything else.

Her eyes fluttered open, lids heavy, lashes damp from sleep or tears—she wasn’t sure. She didn’t move. Just… stared at the ceiling, letting herself breathe in the unfamiliar quiet.

Then it hit her.

Where was she?

Her heart stuttered. Her fingers twitched. She tried to shift, to sit up—but—

She couldn’t. Her wrists were gently restrained. Not tight. Not cruel. The soft fabric cuffs were secured to the bedframe. She wasn’t a guest here. She was a threat.

And then she remembered.

The screaming. The gun. Bob. Yelena. Alexei. Pain speared through her chest as the memory flooded her in a single crushing wave. Her own voice screaming in her ears. The look in Bob’s eyes when she crumbled. The way Yelena flinched. The way Alexei bled into the sand.

“Oh God,” she whispered, her voice cracked and barely recognizable.

Tears stung her eyes, hot and shameful. She let them fall, unable to lift a hand to wipe them away. She had snapped. No—that wasn’t strong enough. She had descended. The side of her that had been carved in the dark halls of the Red Room—the ghost of the girl she used to be—had won. She had become every nightmare she fought so hard to rise from. I’m a monster. She didn’t notice the faint movement at first, the soft rustle of fabric.

Then—

A quiet, theatrical cough. Not aggressive. Not angry. Just… a little awkward.

Yelena.

She sat quietly at the end of the bed, legs crossed at the ankle, arms loosely wrapped around herself. Her green eyes were bloodshot, her face pale and raw. There were faint bruises around her temple—bruises Y/N had left. One eye still a little swollen. But she smiled, slow and tired and heartbreakingly gentle.

“I was wondering when you’d wake up,” Yelena said, her voice hoarse but calm. “You sleep like a rock. That part hasn’t changed.”

Y/N’s eyes widened. Her lips parted in shock. Her breath hitched in her throat, and the words tumbled out before she could stop them—choked, frantic, ashamed. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “Yelena—I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to—I didn’t want to hurt you—I didn’t—God, I’m so sorry—”

Yelena stood and leaned forward, her hands coming to gently cradle her sister’s face, ignoring the restraints, ignoring the tears, ignoring the bruises Y/N had left behind. “No,” Yelena whispered, pulling her into a slow, careful hug.

Y/N froze, her body stiff with guilt, her breath shallow and frantic. She tried to pull back, tried to protest, but Yelena just held her tighter. “No more apologies.”

“I almost killed you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I wanted to,” Y/N cried. “I—I was going to—”

“But you didn’t,” Yelena said again, firm this time. “And I know that wasn’t you. Not the real you.”

Y/N finally broke. Her head dropped forward, her body trembling as she sobbed uncontrollably into her sister’s shoulder.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” she choked. “I don’t know how to come back from this. I don’t know if I can.”

Yelena pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes.

“You’re my sister,” she said. “That’s who you are. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Y/N’s eyes burned. Her lips trembled. “I’m dangerous.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.”

Yelena smiled, even through her own tears. “Maybe. But I’m not.”

There was a beat of silence. A moment where the weight of everything—the past, the pain, the blood between them—hung in the air like a ghost. Y/N stared at her hands. Her wrists still bound, like some poetic punishment for the sins she couldn’t undo.

“I don’t deserve this,” she whispered. “Your kindness. Your love. After what I did… after what I became…”

“You became someone who was hurting,” Yelena said gently. “Someone who had everything stolen from her. Again. And again. And again.”

She wiped a tear from Y/N’s cheek.

“You don’t need to deserve my love, Y/N. You already have it.”

Y/N let out a small, broken noise. The kind that wasn’t quite a sob, wasn’t quite a laugh. Just pain, raw and unfiltered.

The sisters stayed there like that, wrapped in a fragile embrace, one restrained but free for the first time in years, and the other covered in bruises but stronger than anyone had given her credit for.

Y/N whispered, “I thought I lost you.”

“You didn’t,” Yelena said. “And now we’re going to fix this. Together.”

She reached for the restraints. Y/N flinched. But Yelena just unbuckled one cuff. Then the other. Slowly. Gently. Like she was undoing chains made of more than just fabric. Y/N’s arms fell to her sides, limp. She didn’t move. She didn’t run. She just let the silence settle again.

The door creaked open gently.

Bob stood in the frame like a ghost afraid to enter its own home, shoulders slouched, hands trembling at his sides. His eyes were bloodshot, not from lack of sleep, but from the weight of sorrow. He didn’t speak right away. He looked at her like she was a piece of glass cracked in too many places to count—terrified that even breathing wrong would shatter her completely. Y/N didn’t look at him.

She sat up in bed slowly, spine hunched, fingers tangled in the bedsheets like she was holding herself together. Her eyes stayed down, unable to meet his. Her chest was heavy with guilt, shame, heartbreak. The silence stretched between them like a bridge they were both too afraid to walk.

“…Can I come in?” Bob finally asked, his voice rough, barely above a whisper.

Yelena, who had been sitting quietly at the edge of the room, glanced at Y/N. Y/N nodded faintly. Yelena stood, gently brushing a hand over her sister’s shoulder before leaving the room without a word. She paused just long enough at Bob’s side to give him one final look — one that said: Please, don’t break her again.

And then it was just them. The door clicked shut behind him.

He stepped forward slowly, like every movement hurt. Like every step was a prayer.

“I’ve been out there,” he said, eyes flicking to the door. “Since they brought you in. I didn’t leave.”

Y/N’s voice was a ghost, barely audible. “Why?”

His breath caught. She finally lifted her eyes to him — and he saw it. The wreckage. The ruin. The pain. All of it, etched into her face, bleeding out of her eyes like ink across fragile paper.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said, voice cracking.

She blinked.

“Okay?” she repeated, a bitter laugh curling into her tone. “You think I’m okay?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he asked, “Can I… hug you?”

For a moment, she just stared at him. Silent. He could see the fight in her. The war. The part of her that wanted to scream, and the part of her that wanted to collapse.

She nodded. Just once. He moved forward slowly, like approaching a wounded animal, and then—he knelt at her side. His arms wrapped around her carefully at first, but then tighter. And tighter. Like he needed to physically hold her together. Like he was trying to keep her from vanishing. Like he had been waiting lifetimes just to feel her heartbeat again. She didn’t move. Then—her body began to tremble. And she broke. A sob ripped through her, raw and sharp and desperate. And then another. And another. She clung to him with everything she had left, burying her face into his shoulder like it was the only place she could hide from the world. He held her through it. Tighter. Always tighter.

“I’m so sorry,” Bob whispered, voice cracking like glass. “Y/N… I’m so sorry. For everything. For leaving. For not asking. For not knowing. For making you go through all of this alone.”

“Why?” she cried. “Why did you leave me?”

His hands were shaking against her back.

“Why did you give up on me?” she sobbed. “I needed you. I needed you to fight for me, Bob…”

“I know.”

“I needed you to love me.”

“I did!” he cried, his voice breaking completely. “I do! I never stopped, not for one second. But I was broken—I was so broken and I didn’t want to take you down with me.”

“You already did,” she whispered, her voice like ashes.

Silence.

She pulled back just enough to look at him, her hands curled in the collar of his shirt, her face wet with tears. “I would’ve taken every hit. Every storm. Every goddamn explosion if it meant we got to live that life together. The one I dreamed of. You. Me. A life. That’s all I ever wanted.”

Bob cupped her face like she was the most fragile thing in the universe. “You were everything. I looked at you and saw something pure. Someone good. You had your life together. You had purpose. You had a job, a name, a home. You—” His voice caught again. “You were the kind of person who made people believe in something better.”

“And I loved you. God, I loved you.”

He rested his forehead against hers, both of them shaking now.

“But me?” he whispered. “I was a drug. I was a monster. I was this… this parasite, wrapped in skin and lies. And every day I looked at you, I wondered how long it would take before I ruined you.”

She shook her head.

“No,” she whispered. “You were sick, Bob. You were in pain. I knew that. I stayed because I loved you. And you—you let me love you—and then you ran.”

“I thought I was protecting you,” he whispered. “But I was just protecting myself. From the guilt. From the shame of watching the best thing in my life waste away because of me.”

“I did waste away!” she snapped, crying harder. “I begged for you. I screamed for you. I built a future around a man who disappeared before I could even show him what he meant to me. And you never came back.”

His thumbs brushed her cheeks, catching the tears that wouldn’t stop.

“You deserved someone who could stay,” he said. “And I was still chasing my next high. My escape. You got clean—for me. You faced your demons. But I—” He swallowed. “I let mine eat me alive. I let them turn me into something violent. Something ugly. I would scream. Break things. Scare you. I remember the way you used to flinch and it kills me.”

“I never stopped waiting for you,” she whispered. “Even when I hated you. Even when I blamed you. Even when I hurt everyone because of you.”

He rested his head on her shoulder.

“I’m not the man you deserve.”

“You’re the only man I’ve ever wanted.”

Silence. Only their breathing, tangled and shaky.

“I’m sorry,” Bob whispered again. “I was a burden. A mistake. A nobody.”

She pulled his face up to look at her. “No. You were everything.”

And just like that, they sat together, two broken people clinging to the pieces, sobbing into each other’s arms. No future plans. No promises. Just pain. Just honesty. Just them. And for the first time in what felt like eternity, Y/N wasn’t crying alone. The quiet after the storm hung heavy. Bob hadn’t moved. Not really. His arms still wrapped around her like a shield. As if he thought letting go would mean losing her again. He held her like a man who knew he didn’t deserve to—grateful, reverent, afraid. Y/N’s tears had long since soaked through his shirt. Her voice was hoarse from sobbing. Her body, exhausted. But neither of them could stop holding on. She rested her head against his chest, hearing that familiar heartbeat—steady, slow, alive. Proof that he was really here. That after everything, he was here.

Bob took a breath. Shaky. Hesitant. Then another, deeper one. And then, finally:

“Y/N…” he whispered, voice trembling. “Can I ask you something?”

She nodded against his chest.

His hand gently, shakily brushed through her hair. “Can you ever forgive me?”

She stiffened just slightly—not out of anger, but out of the weight of the question.

“I thought…” he said, voice breaking again, “I thought I was doing you a favor. Letting you go. I thought if I disappeared, I’d… free you from me. From the burden. From my addiction. My anger. Everything.”

He leaned back, just enough to look into her eyes. His were red and swollen, glistening with tears that hadn’t fallen yet.

“I was never good enough for you. Not before. Not during. Not after. You gave me your heart and I… I broke it. I left it bleeding on the floor. You were the only light I had, and I left you in the dark.”

She was quiet, watching him, jaw trembling slightly.

“I never truly understood,” he said, voice raw, “how someone like you… someone strong, brilliant, good… could love someone like me. I always thought there had to be something wrong with you for wanting me.”

Her throat tightened.

“But there wasn’t. God, there wasn’t. You were just kind. And I was a coward.”

He dropped his head, shame rippling off him like heat. “I didn’t realize how much I needed you until you were gone. And even then, I told myself I was doing the right thing. That staying away was noble. That I was protecting you.”

He laughed bitterly. “What bullshit. All I was doing was hiding. And hurting you in the process.”

Y/N blinked hard, her eyes stinging again. But she didn’t cry. Not yet.

She reached out slowly, placing her hand on his cheek. He leaned into it like it was a lifeline.

“I don’t need you to be perfect,” she whispered. “I just need you to stay.”

He nodded, eyes closing under her touch. “I won’t go. Not again. I swear it.”

Her voice cracked. “Don’t let me go.”

“I won’t.”

“Just… hold me. For as long as you can. Just—don’t let me feel alone again.”

“I’m here,” he whispered fiercely. “I’m here. I’ll stay. Always.”

She hesitated. Then: “Can I ask you something now?”

His eyes met hers again, frightened but open. “Anything.”

Her lips parted, voice softer than before. “Were you ever with her?”

He blinked. “Who?”

“…Yelena.”

A silence fell between them. He understood what she meant. Not just with in proximity. But with. As in—did you love her? Did you think of her when you should’ve been thinking of me?

He answered without hesitation.

“No,” he said. “God, no. Never.”

She nodded slightly, swallowing, but the pain was still there.

“Did you ever think about it?” she asked.

He sighed. “Y/N, I thought about you. Every. Day. Every time I woke up. Every time I hit bottom again. Every time I looked at the sky. I never stopped thinking about you.”

“Then why didn’t you come back?”

His voice broke. “Because I didn’t feel like I deserved to. Not after what I did. After what I put you through. I thought… if I came back, it’d be unfair. Like I was asking you to relive all of it. To open those wounds again.”

“But you were all I wanted,” she whispered. “Even when I hated you for leaving. Even when I cursed your name. You were still… home.”

He shook his head, tears finally falling. “I was a monster.”

“You were sick,” she said. “You were hurting.”

“I was dangerous.”

She leaned closer.

“I never wanted safe,” she said. “I wanted you. All of you. Even the broken parts.”

He looked at her, disbelief and awe mingling in his expression. “I only ever loved you, Y/N. I always will.”

Their foreheads came together, slow, breathless. They just stayed like that for a moment. Breathing the same air. Holding the same silence. Two hearts syncing again after too long apart. She looked up at him, her eyes swollen, red, and full of something unspoken.

And then—she kissed him. It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t frantic. It was slow. Soft. Gentle.

But underneath it—ache. A deep ache. Like a wound finally closing. Like years of longing finally being answered. Like two souls that had fought wars just to find their way back to each other.

His hands cradled her face. Her fingers clutched his shirt. They kissed like survivors. Like people who’d come too close to the edge and were still afraid of falling.

And when they pulled away, they didn’t speak.

They didn’t have to.

Because that kiss said everything.

They lay there, still wrapped around one another, letting the storm of the past finally settle in the quiet.

His breathing had slowed, but his hands trembled faintly, like the weight of memory refused to leave his bones.

Bob hadn’t spoken for several minutes. He just watched her face. Her swollen eyes. Her tired but steady breaths. The way her lashes fluttered when she blinked, like she was still scared she might wake up and find none of this real.

But then he asked it.

His voice was soft. Almost broken. The kind of question someone asks after holding it back for too long.

“…Why didn’t you stop me?”

Y/N stirred. “What do you mean?”

He sat up slightly, supporting himself on one elbow, and looked at her with a vulnerability that split him wide open.

“All those times,” he said, almost afraid to speak the words. “Back then. When I was sick. When I… when I shouted. When I punched the wall an inch from your head. When I—” He choked. “When I was someone else.”

She didn’t look away. Her eyes softened.

“You just… took it,” he whispered. “You stood there and took it. You never fought back. Not once. You could’ve. You should’ve.”

He swallowed hard. “And today… I saw what you can do. I saw you fight Alexei. You nearly killed him. You could’ve crushed me like I was nothing. You were stronger than me all along.”

He looked down at their intertwined hands, her fingers relaxed against his palm.

“So why didn’t you?”

There was no judgment in his tone. Just pain. Just shame. Just disbelief.

Y/N sat up slowly, pulling her knees to her chest as her gaze drifted upward—past the ceiling, past the walls. Like she was remembering a thousand moments all at once.

“I could’ve,” she said quietly.

“I know,” he whispered.

“But I didn’t.”

“Why?” he asked again, desperate this time.

She took a breath, long and slow.

“Because if I used it… if I let myself use that strength, I knew I wouldn’t stop,” she said. “I knew I could hurt you. Maybe kill you.”

Her voice trembled. “And no matter how much you hurt me… I never wanted to hurt you.”

Bob broke.

The words hit like bullets, each one sharper than the last. His shoulders curled inward. His hands covered his face. And for the first time since the injections, since the lab, since the Void, since everything—he sobbed.

Ugly, gut-wrenching sobs that came from the very center of who he was. He collapsed forward, arms wrapping around her waist, face buried into her lap like a child seeking comfort.

She didn’t flinch. She didn’t pull away. She just cradled his head, fingers gently stroking his hair as he cried like a man grieving a version of himself that could’ve loved her better.

“You should’ve run,” he said into her skin. “You should’ve left me. I was… I was horrible to you.”

She didn’t speak.

“I pushed you away. I threw things. I screamed at you. And you—God, Y/N, you stayed. You stayed and loved me when I was poison.”

She closed her eyes, holding back tears of her own.

“I was so weak,” he whispered.

“No,” she said softly, firm. “You were sick.”

“I was a monster.”

“You were lost,” she corrected. “And I loved you. I never stopped.”

He looked up at her, broken, tear-streaked, eyes desperate. “You loved me when I didn’t deserve it.”

“I still do.”

He let out a cry at that—soft, ragged.

And then, as if the truth was finally bursting from inside him, he grabbed both her hands and clutched them to his chest.

“I have so much to tell you,” he said, his voice urgent. “So much I need you to understand. I know it doesn’t erase what happened. I know it doesn’t make me innocent. But I need you to hear it. Everything. Why I disappeared. What I thought I was doing. What I really did. How scared I was. How much I missed you. How I imagined your voice when I was breaking down. How I saw you in every dream and every nightmare.”

She was silent, watching him come undone.

He breathed out, shaky. “I want to start over. With you. With all of it. I want to be the man who’s strong because of you, not in spite of you. I want sobriety, real sobriety, with you by my side. I want the Watchtower to be ours. I want to see you wake up in the morning and smile and know you’re safe. I want a new life. A real life. With you.”

Her throat closed around the lump rising there.

“I need you,” he said. “Not just want. Need. Like breath. Like light.”

He leaned in, his forehead pressed to her chest now.

“I need you to believe I can be better.”

She gently tilted his chin up, her eyes meeting his. Her own expression trembling from holding in her emotion.

“I already do,” she whispered.

He stared at her like she was the sun, like she was the reason he hadn’t disappeared completely.

Then she leaned in, pressing her lips to his temple. A kiss of forgiveness. Of memory. Of salvation.

“I’ll stay,” she murmured. “But you have to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t give up. Not on me. Not on yourself. Not ever again.”

He nodded fervently, tears still falling. “I won’t. I swear, I won’t.”

“And if you slip—”

“I’ll tell you.”

“If you hurt—”

“I’ll let you hold me.”

She smiled sadly. “Then I’ll stay.”

He kissed her then. Gentle, slow. A thank you. A lifeline.

And when they pulled back, he held her tighter than ever, whispering into the quiet.

“I’ll never let you go again.”

The Watchtower Common Room – Three Weeks Later

The sun dipped lazily through the tall windows of the communal living room, casting a golden haze over the couch, the mismatched furniture, and the scattered takeout containers from what had turned into a very chaotic brunch-slash-strategy meeting-slash-Alexei-having-an-identity-crisis.

Y/N sat curled into the corner of the oversized couch, practically glued to Bob’s side. Her legs were draped over his lap, arms wrapped around his chest like a koala bear, her head tucked into the crook of his shoulder.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

And, judging by the peaceful look on her face, neither was her need to be close to him at every moment of every day.

Bob, for his part, looked a little... wilted. In a good way. The kind of wilted that comes with someone who’s been deeply loved on all day by a clingy, affectionate, newly-healed girlfriend who had absolutely zero shame about PDA in front of their makeshift team.

He was red in the face. Again.

“I don’t get it,” Alexei grumbled from the floor, half-buried under sketchbooks, empty energy drink cans, and three poorly-sewn prototypes of what might’ve been uniforms. “We’re technically Avengers now, yes? We saved a facility. We stopped a Void. We got a Bob. We have matching trauma. That is qualification.”

Yelena, seated on the arm of the couch, rolled her eyes. “No one said we’re not. But it’s not ‘Avengerz.’ With a Z.”

“But the Z is modern. Youthful,” Alexei insisted, holding up a tattered piece of paper with what looked like a lightning bolt... stabbing a bear. “You have to think branding.”

Y/N snorted into Bob’s chest. He felt it before he heard it—her nose pressed to his shoulder as she tried to muffle the laughter.

Bob glanced around the room, looking mildly panicked. “Can I take back my resurrection and go die again real quick?”

“No,” Y/N said without hesitation, arms tightening around his middle. “I just got you back. You’re not going anywhere.”

He glanced down at her, lips twitching. “Can I at least breathe?”

“Nope.”

Yelena laughed under her breath. “Honestly? You’re lucky. This is the happiest she’s been in years.”

“I can tell,” Bob muttered, turning even redder as Y/N unabashedly kissed his jaw in front of everyone. “She hasn’t let go of me in like, six hours.”

Y/N looked up, mock-offended. “Wow. I cuddle you once for six hours and suddenly I’m clingy?”

He gave her a flat look. “You’ve followed me into the bathroom.”

“I missed you.”

“I was in there for three minutes.”

“Three long, heartbreaking minutes.”

The room burst into laughter—except Alexei, who was too busy measuring Bucky’s shoulders with a tape measure and mumbling about “proportions for aesthetic justice.”

Bucky swatted at him half-heartedly. “Get that thing away from me.”

“You want to be symmetrical or not, soldier boy?”

Y/N giggled and turned her face back into Bob’s neck, inhaling deeply. “You still smell like coffee.”

“Because I made coffee an hour ago.”

“I love coffee.”

“You love me.”

“I do.”

Bob sighed, defeated, though there was nothing in his expression but soft, dazed affection. He leaned back, letting her cling to him like a warm, stubborn barnacle.

“You’re like a weighted blanket,” he muttered. “But emotionally terrifying.”

“Thank you,” she replied proudly.

Across the room, Ghost (Ava) snorted into her drink. “It’s like watching a golden retriever try to date a feral cat.”

“Except the cat’s ex-Red Room and could snap my spine if she wanted,” Walker said, not looking up from polishing his gun.

Y/N’s gaze lifted then, her eyes drifting to Alexei—who was, inexplicably, wearing one of his own design sketches pinned to his chest like a Girl Scout badge.

She hesitated. Then smiled. After everything… after almost killing him, after breaking down in the sand, after being held down by Bucky with a syringe while screaming her regrets—Alexei had forgiven her.

No. He’d understood her. She didn’t have to say anything to him. Not really. Because when he met her gaze, he gave her a single proud nod. Not smug. Not goofy. Just real. Like he knew how hard it had been to unlearn the Red Room. Like he saw her—his daughter—not as what she’d done but what she’d survived. And honestly he was kinda proud of her for beating him so easily. He could brag about it.

She blinked away tears and turned back into Bob’s chest, hiding her face.

“Y’know,” Alexei said suddenly, sitting up straighter, “Y/N would look amazing in one of these suits. Maybe dark red. Gold. With like... a phoenix on the back.”

“No,” Y/N groaned into Bob’s shirt. “I want a normal life. I want grocery shopping and bad TV and laundry and staying in bed.”

“You live in a flying tower with six weapons of mass destruction.”

“And I can where an expensive robe walking around it, with a sexy husband, that's as normal as I can get.”

“Please,” Alexei begged, flopping toward her on his knees. “I will make you leather gloves. Like the ones from Blade!”

“No.”

“A grappling hook arm!”

“Alexei—”

“A grappling bear!”

Yelena chucked a pillow at his face.

“Can we not push her into vigilante work while she’s literally snuggling the man she almost died for?” she said dryly.

“I’m fine,” Bob mumbled, caught between arousal, humiliation, and existential peace. “I’m... warm.”

“You look like she’s draining your soul through osmosis,” Walker muttered.

“She is,” Bob agreed. “Lovingly.”

Y/N pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m happy.” And she meant it.

451 notes · View notes

scarletmika · 2 months ago

Text

The White Witch pt. 3 : ̗̀➛ Robert "Bob" Reynolds x Reader

PART ONE - PART TWO - PART THREE

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Reynolds/Sentry x Avenger!Witch!Reader

Summary: Bob knew who the Avengers were, who you were; he grew up watching them save the world time and time again. Now, he was one, but none of that could prepare him for what it would be like to meet you, or the instant connection that seemed to flow between you both.

Warnings: soulmate trope, language, fluff, tiny tiny bit of angst, slight mental illness talk kind of, SPOILERS I guess for Thunderbolts* and like the rest of the MCU honestly, feminine description of reader, FINAL PART WOO

Word Count: 5,327 words

Requests are open! : ̗̀➛ Find my masterlist here

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧

“Alright, I want you losers all on your best behavior tonight. The majority of the world already refuses to call you The Avengers, I don’t need you embarrassing yourselves in front of Wilson himself,”

“Please, Valentina, we will be the perfect models of righteousness and heroism! We shall laugh in the face of danger, and anyone who dares to speak ill of us-”

“Yeah, okay. Yelena, please keep your father away from the bar tonight,”

The former Widow simply hummed in response to Valentina’s request, muttering something about ‘not making any promises’ before returning her attention back to the mirror in her handheld compact. With another mutter of ‘unbelievable’ from Valentina, that she definitely intended for the group to hear, she was dragging Mel back into the elevator to abandon her team to suffer through this night alone.

Well, not everyone was going to suffer. Bob certainly was, especially with the way the collar of the dress shirt under his suit jacket was scratching at his neck.

The gala, the celebration of Earth’s Mighiest Heroes - The Exhibition finally opening, was just an hour away, and The New Avengers had all been invited to attend. Well, Bucky had been invited to attend, which came with an honorary invitation to the rest of his new team. Valentina had accepted on their behalf, stating that a public appearance such as this, especially in the same room as Sam Wilson, would surely garner them better favor with the public.

“So, whose ready to schmooze it up with politicians and Sam Wilson himself tonight?” Ava asked the group, stalking across the room as she dug through the small purse she’d chosen for tonight. O.X.E. had been able to design her a relatively less bulky suit, something to allow her to still have control over her phasing while still being able to dress the part for events such as this. It gave just enough space for her to be able to don a full-length black gown with longer sleeves, made fully of velvet.

“I think the main question is if Bucky is prepared for that,” Yelena joked lowly, almost completely under her breath, standing up and using her father’s shoulder as leverage to wedge herself into the small heels that Valentina had insisted upon. “Sam Wilson, your maybe-former, still kind-of friend, and a bunch of politicians you worked with for, what, less than half a term?”

“Ha ha, you’re so funny, Belova,” Bucky muttered, stepping up to Bob to help him adjust the color of his dress shirt that was clearly bothering him. “Walker should be the one scared shitless for tonight. Things left off pretty rocky with Sam, and I’m pretty sure Ivory has made her feelings toward you very clear.”

Ivory. Your nickname, one that Bucky had said Steve had given to you years ago. He was glad you weren’t here, for once, instead you were somewhere across town with Sam Wilson and the new Falcon who you’d mentioned from time to time. Even the mention of you had red crawling up Bob’s skin, and he knew for a fact that Bucky noticed. He did everything he could to not look the super soldier in the eyes.

“You’d think Ivory would’ve gotten over it by now,” John scoffed from across the room, redoing the cufflinks on the blue suit he was wearing for the night. “And Wilson…yes, maybe we didn’t leave off on the best of terms, but I’m a changed man. He knows this, I’m sure.”

That devolved into a whole offshoot conversation between John and Ava, debating on whether or not John really was some ‘changed man.’ Bob watched with an amused smile on his face until a voice cleared directly next to him.

“You doing okay?”

Bob finally looked Bucky in the eyes, the man in question just finishing tucking the collar of Bob’s dress shirt down so that it didn’t scratch at his neck awkwardly, and he put on the most confident smile he could muster.

“Who, me? Oh, yeah, y-yeah, I’m totally doing great. Absolutely,”

“Uh huh. No tie tonight?”

“Tried, it uh…it kind of felt suffocating,”

“Fair enough,” Bucky took a step back, adjusting his own black tie before folding his arms over his chest, a smirk lighting up his face. “Nervous?”

Bob groaned, shaking his head immediately as he looked anywhere but at Bucky.

“Nervous? N-No, I’m not nervous-”

“Why does Bob need to be nervous?”

Yelena had slid into the conversation, standing between the pair and glancing back on forth. Bucky’s smirk seemed to grow even wider.

“Because Bob’s finally going to grow a pair tonight and tell little Miss Ivory how he feels,”

Bob hung his head with another groan, burying his face in his hands. Great, now Bucky had really started it.

“Ah, young love! Reminds me so much of my Melina and I, even though our relationship started as a ploy of the Red Room,” Alexei’s boisterous voice rang out through the room as he sighed fondly at the memories. His arm, clad in the red suit he’d chosen for the night, fell over Bob’s shoulders as he pulled him in, affectionately, into a pseudo-headlock. “We have all seen this coming since the day you two met. You go together perfectly, like those birds who choose a mate for life and form the little heart with their heads and necks!”

“That would be called a swan, Alexei,” Ava commented as her and John joined the conversation, the entire group essentially surrounding Bob now as her pointed look turned to him. “About time you did something about it, though, Bob. I think we were all dying seeing how cute you two were. Reading together, cooking in the kitchen, movie nights, whatever other cliche and disgusting rom-com meet-cute moment you can think of.”

“For the record, I just want to say that I taught Bob everything he knows-”

“No you didn’t,” the entire group cut in together, ending the conversation John tried to initiate before it had even truly begun.

Bob glanced around at his team, his friends, cheeks blazing red, but they ended up landing on Yelena and Bucky, glancing between them both.

“What if…w-what if she doesn’t feel the same?”

“Bob,” Yelena deadpanned, unamused at his comment. “You described it to me as soulmates, that you two are quite literally soulmates, how could she not feel the same?”

“Yeah, isn’t that the whole thing with soulmates? That they’re, like, destined to be in love?” John questioned. Bob shook his head, running a hand down his face.

“No, at least n-not always,” Bob tried to explain to them again, trying to remember exactly how you’d phrased it to him. “It just means that-that we’re d-destined to…do life together? To be in each other’s lives. As f-friends or…or something more.”

Alexei moved to talk, but Bucky interjected, simply raising his hand up to stop the man. Bob looked to him, and Bucky gave him the easiest smile he could muster.

“I’ve known her awhile, Bob. You’re leaving out the last thing she told you in that moment: ‘We’re whatever we decide we’re going to be.’ She left it in your hands, Bob, it’s your choice what it is. But if you want our opinion, she’s definitely hoping you want it to be something more,”

“More than definitely, she does,” Yelena cut in, shaking her head with a laugh. “Hell, you two were practically cuddling on the couch the one night watching Romeo and Juliet. The 1968 Romeo and Juliet movie, Bob, there’s nothing more romantic than that.”

“Just be you, and tell her the truth. It’s gotten you this far,” Bucky said simply with a grin, before it dropped into his signature scowl immediately. “And because I’m sick of you showing up at my door in the middle of the night like a lost puppy complaining about being in love. You might actually be worse than Steve.”

Be himself, and confess. That was the mantra Bob kept chanting to himself the entire limo ride to the museum. Just be himself; it had gotten him this far. You were his soulmate, whatever he wanted that to mean. You’d be by his side forever, no matter what, because you were destined to be. That made him smile, just the tiniest bit.

Bob was terrified of ending up alone again one day. But now, he had someone essentially destined to walk life with him, to always be there. And that person was you…there was no one else he’d rather it be.

When they’d stepped out of the limo in front of the museum, his anxiety came crawling back into his throat. Journalists lined the stairs to the front door, security making a narrow passageway for them all. Lights flashed, hot and bright, and questions were hurled toward the entire group as they quickly tried to get inside, almost flanking Bob like his own personal security detail.

“Barnes! What’s it like to be part of The Avengers again?”

“Bucky, are you and Sam Wilson on speaking terms?”

“Alexei and Yelena, do you have anything to say about reports that the Red Room is back?”

“John! Have you moved on from the incident overseas? Do you want to reclaim the title of Captain America?”

Vultures. That’s what you’d called them once when recounting stories to Bob of your days with your old family. How the press at events like this were like vultures. They’d say anything they could, dig up anything they could, all to get a reaction.

Bob’s fingernails were pressed into the palm of his hand as the team guided him up the stairs as far away from the reporters as they could, throwing open the doors of the museum as if they couldn’t get inside fast enough. His anxiety was clawing at him, clawing it’s way up his throat, trying to suffocate him, and in that moment all he really wanted was you-

And there you were. A picture of perfection, dressed to the nines and standing right beyond the front doors, like you’d been waiting. And the second you locked eyes with Bob, the second he could see the smile on your lips, that familiar sense of calm washed over him. That feeling of you washed over him, seeped into his bones, and dispelled his anxiety in a flash.

The rest of the team said hello to you, complimenting you, before saying they’d talk later as they moved further into the room, heading in the direction of the party that was held in the exhibition hall. You stayed in place, watching Bob, who was frozen in his spot, simply looking you up and down and drinking in the sight of you.

A one-shouldered, floor-length gown. Just barely off-white, almost the same shade as the suit you wore in the field. It hugged every part of you as if it were made for you. The slit in the bottom of the dress ran up your leg, stopping right at your mid-tight, and Bob had to quickly turn his gaze back to your face to keep the thoughts he wanted to bury in the back of his head down.

“Y-You were waiting,” was the only thing he could think to say. You just nodded, smiling at him as you took a few steps toward him.

“I could feel you. Figured you needed me,”

“You…you look beautiful,” Bob’s voice got softer as he said it, looking at you with such genuine affection in his eyes. And by the way you brightened, he knew you could feel it. There was a bloom of something in his soul, something that you were feeling, but he couldn’t place it.

With one perfectly manicured hand resting on his cheek, you leaned in, pressing your lips gently to his other cheek, before sliding your hand into his. Bob’s eyes never left you, only fluttered for a moment as you kissed him, and he squeezed your hand like a lifeline.

“You look incredibly handsome yourself, Bob. Let’s go enjoy the night,”

He’d never say no to you.

Hands still clasped together, fingers intertwined, your other hand came to rest just on his bicep, practically clinging to him as you both walked into the exhibition hall. His anxiety came back for just a moment, the number of people and the volume of conversations growing, but you squeezed his hand. As long as you didn’t let go, Bob was sure he’d be fine.

It was like a timeline, walking by the walls. The Battle of New York, photos collected from journalists and survivors alike. Washington D.C. and the realization that HYDRA had compromised SHIELD. Sokovia, Lagos, Germany, and then…Thanos. A tribute to the lost years, to the Blip, and those who died so that others could live.

He’d heard so many stories from you over the last two months. When Tony had dragged you all out for shawarma after taking down Loki. When you first met Sam Wilson, and elected to call him ‘bird man’ for the next few weeks following. When you met Wanda, found someone just like you for the first time, found a best friend.

Bob had even heard the worst of it. In the nights in the tower, after you’d confessed you knew what tied you both together. He remembered the first night like it was yesterday. He wasn’t sure he’d ever forget it.

Bob woke with a start, his phone on the nightstand shining a bright ‘3:00 a.m.’ up at him when it noticed his movement. But that was the least of his worries.

Bob’s chest was heavy, as if someone was stepping on it, constricting his airway. He couldn’t breathe; he felt as if he was about to hyperventilate. A panic attack, that’s what this was. It had been so long since he’d had one, but he remembered the feeling. But this one felt inherently different, in every way. It didn’t feel like him.

It wasn’t him. It was you.

Bob was out of his bed in seconds, limbs failing as he rushed to the door of his room. When he’d thrown it open, there you stood: hair a mess, tear stains running down your cheeks. And without a second of hesitation, you threw yourself into Bob’s arms.

He wasn’t sure what to do for a second, but the moment you were in his arms, he felt that little ache soothe just slightly. So, he held you tightly. He sank to the floor, right there in his doorway, with you in his arms. And he didn’t say a word. He simply held you, let you cry into his chest, as he stared ahead at the wall before him, and let you cry.

“I was there. I was back in Europe, back on that stupid mountain,” Bob had never seen you cry. You’d talked to the team before, telling stories about Tony, telling Yelena any story she wanted to hear about Natasha, but you had never cried. You’d smiled, told the story, and laughed when the others did. “It kept playing over and over, n-nothing I did could change it. Every time, she…she threw me off the mountain, and she just…she just let herself die. I didn’t want her to die.”

Bob had shushed you then, relying on everything Bucky and Yelena had done for him since they’d met. Thinking back on every time they’d rushed to his room, awoken him from his own nightmares, and calmed him until it was all in the past.

“Y-you’re not there. It’s just a nightmare,” he’d whispered, holding you tighter. He hated that achy feeling in his chest, that you were feeling like this. Bob would’ve done anything to make it disappear. “It’s okay. I-I get them too.”

That was the first time you’d come to him in a moment like that, and it wasn’t the last. The story of Wundagore, the moment you’d blipped back into the world just to watch Tony die, to learn Natasha had sacrificed herself. You came to him through every nightmare, sneaking him out as if your body needed Bob in order to breathe again. And he did the same, recounting every dark moment of his life that haunted him.

It was as if, after finally speaking into existence what that golden thread was that strung you both together, it was sealed. There was no going back: you needed each other, and you always would.

“Did I mention how good you look in this?” your question broke him from his thoughts. Bob glanced over at you, away from the photos that hung on the wall before him, and gave you a shy smile.

“O-Once, but it is nice to hear,” Bob stole a glance down at himself. “I don’t dress like this much.”

You hummed, unraveling yourself from Bob’s side to stand in front of him, adjusting his dress shirt as it had shifted awkwardly beneath the weight of his suit jacket. Your eyes never left his, and his never left yours. Bob didn’t even think about the number of cameras that were probably in the room covering this event, that were probably taking photos right now that the public would see. If anything, they’d probably make Valentina happy. ‘Good optics’ or whatever is she usually said.

“I think I might prefer you in the sweatshirts, though,” you teased, getting a slight laugh out of Bob.

“Me too. E-Except, you did steal my favorite one…”

“Oh I did,” once his shirt was properly adjusted, you’d fit yourself right back into his side, hand resting on his shoulder. When Bob hesitated for just a second, you laughed, taking his arm and resting it around your waist, a promise in your eyes that it was okay. “You aren’t getting that one back, by the way. Smells like you, it’s nice for when I’m not around you.”

There it was again, that feeling in his soul. Whatever this was you were feeling, that he was feeling now, was something he couldn’t place. It was different from anything else, different from the way he felt your joy and laughter deep within his bones. He felt this in his soul, in his heart, in his very being. It engulfed it, set him at ease, and whatever it was had his feelings dangling right at the edge of his lips.

“Hey, I-I wanted to ask you about, uh, about the-”

“Wow! Is this the infamous Bob you don’t shut up about on every single FaceTime call? Damn, I didn’t think he’d be this tall,”

Bob had seen this guy before, in photos that you’d shown him. Joaquín Torres, the new Falcon. Maybe only a year or two younger than Bob, with an infectious personality. He donned an army green suit, one that matched his flight suit that he typically wore, and he carried himself with a confidence that Bob could only wish he had.

“Quin-”

“Sorry, was I not supposed to mention the way you gush about him?”

Bob could only watch, slightly nervous but with an amused smile anyway, as you unwrapped yourself from his side again, swatting your friend and teammate on the shoulder with what he knew was a partially real exasperated look on your face.

“You promised you’d be nice,”

“I am being nice! Not every day you meet your friend’s âme sœur,” the man quickly dodged the next slap from you with a laugh, instead reaching his hand out for Bob’s with a friendly grin. “Nice to finally meet you, Bob.”

Bob hesitated, just for a moment. Touching the team was one thing, touching you was one thing. He was no longer terrified that the Void wasn’t somehow just lurking on the edges of him, that he wouldn’t bleed into the mind of his team and the woman he loved and make them see the most horrendous moments of their lives. Someone new…that was something different entirely.

But you gave him a small, encouraging smile, one that screamed ‘you got this,’ and he took Joaquín’s hand firmly.

“N-Nice to meet you, too. She’s told me a lot about you,”

“About my charming good looks and about how I’m a kick ass Falcon?” his gaze drifted to you for a moment, ‘tsking’ at the unimpressed look on your face. “Oh come on, I’m a kick ass Falcon!”

“I-I’ve seen videos,” Bob chimed back in, nodding his head with a tiny grin. “You are. That stuff in the air…it’s pretty cool.”

Joaquín grinned, snapping his fingers as he pointed toward Bob, glancing back at you with a smirk.

“See? He gets it. I’m going to steal him from you, make him my new best friend-”

“Joaquín, I thought I told you to leave them alone for a bit,”

This was a face that Bob could easily recognize. Sam Wilson, standing in all his glory between both you and Joaquín, adorning a dark blue suit. Bob swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to stand just slightly taller in the presence of the Captain America himself.

“I was just introducing myself!”

“He was being a pest,” you deadpanned, an unimpressed look on your face as Joaquín pointed a finger in your direction.

“I’m your favorite pest, don’t forget that-”

“You both are adults, why do you act like children?”

“Because little Miss Magic over here disappeared to the city for two months, I’ve missed her!”

Even witnessing this brief conversation, Bob relaxed slightly. This was your family. Just as Bucky and the others were his, these two were yours. They were your team, the people you trusted with your life, and yet you argued just like his own family did. It made him smile, seeing yet another side of you that had his heart bursting with affection, and judging by the side look you shot him and the grin quirking up on your lips, you’d felt it too.

“Okay, Bob and I are going to go enjoy our night,” you finally cut in to the bickering of the two men, wrapping yourself back around Bob’s arm and sliding your fingers back through his. You sent a pointed look Sam’s way. “Have you talked to Bucky yet?”

Sam sighed, rubbing at his temple as Joaquín clapped him on the shoulder.

“Nope, he’s being a chicken about it. Thinks it’s going to be awkward-”

“We’re going to go find and talk to him right now,” Sam cut in through gritted teeth, grabbing his Falcon by the back of his suit and dragging him slightly backward. Sam’s eyes shot to Bob, softening just for a second as he gave him a nod. “Nice to meet you, Bob. Sorry you had to witness this one’s extrovertedness.”

Bob hadn’t even gotten to reply before Sam had dragged Joaquín away like a scolded child. The second they were out of earshot, your head dropped to Bob’s shoulder with a groan that shifted into a laugh.

“God, I’m so sorry about those two. Frankly, they’re embarrassing sometimes,”

“I-It’s okay,” Bob laughed with you, eyes locked with yours as you finally stood back up. “They’re your family.”

“They are, as painful as they are,” you watched him for a moment, something dancing in your eyes, as you stood a bit straighter. “Before they interuppted…there was something you wanted to talk about?”

Bob’s ears burned red as he quickly looked away, shaking his head and clearing his throat.

“Oh, that. Uh…no, i-it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,”

Bob knew better, he knew you better. He could feel you, and you could feel him. And with the thought of anxiety rushing through him, it was clear that he was lying.

Your hand only squeezed his in response, a soft smile on your lips when he finally turned back to you, as you nodded your head down a hallway.

“Come with me,”

He’d follow you anywhere, that much Bob was sure of.

With the main exhibition long behind you, you guided Bob by the hand through the rest of the museum like a woman on a mission, and he was just along for the ride. Every door you’d come across, you’d peek inside, before muttering something about it ‘not being good enough’ and dragging Bob further through the dark museum, the party long forgotten.

Floors above that party is when you’d finally found a room that worked, and pulled Bob inside and shut the door. It was one of the offices, that much was clear by the many desks and the way the room was simply illuminated by the glow of the desktops on each desk. And when Bob turned his attention back to you, you were waiting expectantly with a smile.

“W-What are we doing up here?”

“I want to bring you somewhere,” your voice was soft as you held out your hands. “I just need you to trust me.”

He did. Bob trusted you more than anyone, and by the way your smile grew he knew you could feel it. He placed his hands in yours, glancing down at them, and when he’d looked back up, your eyes had gone entirely white, something he’d only seen in old video clips from battle.

The room instantly lit up as tendrils of white magic seeped through the room. They covered everything: the walls, the floors, each and every desk. But they left you both untouched; they simply moved until they’d coated the entire room. And the second the white left your eyes, the white of the room left, too, but you were no longer in the office room you’d been in before.

Bob stood on a dock, right by the railing overlooking the lake before him. The water rippled lightly as fish swam through, the trees surrounding the dock and just across the lake rustled in the wind that he could feel on his skin. And when he’d turned around, Bob’s breath caught.

“The…t-this is the Avengers Compound,” Bob’s eyes were wide in wonder, looking out over the building that stood as a testament to all the heroes that had dedicated their lives to saving the world. When his gaze drifted to you, he tilted his head in confusion. “But…didn’t it get destroyed?”

“It did. We’re in a hex,” to show him, you joined him at the railing, reaching out your hand. Just a few inches over the railing, your hand fell flat in midair, a shimmering white wall of magic stopping you from reaching any further. “Don’t worry, it’s contained to just this room, we’re the only ones in it. It’s all real, technically just a little warped reality. This used to be my happy place, where I’d come to think, to just put my crazy life behind me for a minute. I always felt safe here.”

Bob mimicked you, leaning against the railing beside you. He reached his hand out, feeling the faint hum of your magic as it stopped his hand from reaching further.

“W-Why bring me here?”

“Because there’s something you’ve been wanting to tell me, to talk to me about. I can feel it,” you’d told him simply. “And I wanted you to have somewhere safe to tell me. Somewhere Sam wouldn’t interrupt, or John and Ava wouldn’t start an argument, or a room full of reporters and politicians wouldn’t be listening. I just wanted you to feel safe enough to talk to me.”

This was it, the chance to be honest, to confess. But somewhere, deep in the back of his head, he could feel The Void. He could feel it taunting him, telling him you didn’t want him. Why would you want him? You could have anyone in the world; the only reason you wanted him was because destiny had tied you together. Surely, if you had the chance, you’d pick anyone else. You were a hero; the world looked to you as a savior; he was just a broken man, lucky enough to be attached to you.

Those anxieties clouded his mind, and they seeped over into you. So you put your hand over his, and his mind unclouded just enough to start the conversation.

“Y-You told me…that we’re whatever we decided we want to be,”

“I did,”

“So,” he turned his head just slightly, to see that you were already looking at him. “W-What do you want to be?”

“I’ll tell you, when you answer one question,” you took your hand off of his, cupping his cheek, and Bob leaned into the warm feeling against his skin. “When we’re reading, or walking around town, or even the nights I’m crying in your arms…I feel it in me: that warmth, that adoration. Tell me, Bob, is that just affection? Or…is it love?”

His breath caught just for a moment, and somewhere in the back of his head, he could hear Bucky yelling at him once again. So, he straightened himself and nodded his head.

“Love…it’s love. Because I-I love you,” the second the words left him, it was like a weight had lifted off his shoulders, just like the one that lifted off yours. “I knew it that day, when you t-told me about this. I think I knew it before then, too, but uh…I’ve never felt like that before. I’ve never loved s-someone, not like you. I love the quiet moments, when y-you’re reading a book with me. Or when you pull me down on the couch and make me watch a movie. I-I knew the first time I saw you cry, and knew I never wanted to see that again. A-And I know we, uh, we aren’t forced to feel like this. We can choose, but…but it doesn’t feel like I can. I-It feels like I’m supposed to, like I was made to love you…”

Bob finally took a breath, word-vomiting every single thing he’d thought since the night he realized he loved you, and all you did was smile. Your hand left his cheek, trailing down his chest and resting right above his heart, and you took a small step closer.

“I know. Because I can feel it. In my soul, in my heart, in the very fabric of my being,” his breath hitched at the way you described that feeling, and your grin widened. “You know the feeling, because you get it too. When I look at you, when I’m around you…they feel the same, because it’s love, Bob. I love you, too. Maybe we get to choose what we are to each other, but you’re right, it doesn’t feel like a choice. Because whatever cosmic force designed us and split us apart…it made us lovers, that much I know for sure.”

That was like the breaking of the dam. If the acknowledgement of the soulmate tie was the crack, every moment after had just grown that crack inch by inch. But those three little words, they broke the dam: I love you.

Bob didn’t know what came over him, what shot of pure confidence shot through him when his hands reached out and cupped your cheeks. All he knew was he loved you, you loved him, and he needed you more than he needed air.

Bob takes the first step and presses his lips to yours, and it’s as if everything in the universe finally makes sense again. It’s foreign, but familiar at the same time. You’d never kissed one another, but the second your lips touched, it felt right, like you’d done it a thousand times before.

It’s desperate, it’s passionate, but so gentle and loving in a balance that somehow only Bob Reynolds can achieve. Unspoken longing and desperation mixed with pure love and adoration, a clash of lips moving feverishly against one another as if there’s nothing else needed in the world but this moment, this kiss.

There, shrouded from the world together in your own little moment physically made of magic, it’s as if the universe itself is celebrating that its broken star has finally been made whole again.

TAGLIST: @cypherpt5fttaehyung @dark-silhouette @greenbean-4ever @qardasngan @one17 @nutellajade @etheralponygirl @spencerreidswifexd @alexwinchester23 @am1525 @artistadistrada2002 @blackoutdays13 @roseeatta @foreverchangingmind @thecraziestcrayon

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ilovejb · 2 months ago

Note

hi I saw your requests were open!! Could you write hurt/comfort for lewis pullman? maybe they met as costars doing top gun maverick and with his recent fame people don’t like her so she comforts her? Thank you!

| A little too much |

Pairings : Lewis Pullman x female!reader

Summary : When the world refuses to see her worth, she learns to hold her head high—with a little help from the one person who always believed in her.

Warnings : Online harassment (mentions of hate comments, cyberbullying) Insecurity/self-worth struggles,hurt/comfort themes. Use of y/n. Fluffy ending though don’t worry !!

Authors note : Writing this was hard because every time I thought of Lewis Pullman I blacked out for 3–5 business days.

You hadn’t expected Top Gun: Maverick to change your life.

You were cast as Lieutenant Emily “Echo” Reynolds—one of the new recruits in the Top Gun program. Small role. One that barely skimmed the surface of the final cut, but enough to land you a seat at the premieres, a few lines of dialogue, and a credit you’d clung to in the years after like it meant more than it did. You’d done your job. Clean, professional. Not memorable, not Oscar-worthy—but you’d shown up, hit your marks, delivered your lines.

And you’d met Lewis.

He was warm. Funny. Kind in the way not many actors were, especially the ones with last names like Pullman and eyes that saw more than they let on. You didn’t expect him to talk to you much. You weren’t Glen or Miles or Monica—you weren’t the inner circle.

But he did. He talked to you. At lunch, on set, at wrap parties. You shared trailers when the sun was too hot and shade was a luxury. He shared chips with you once when you forgot to eat. You didn’t call it fate. You weren’t that romantic.

But two months later, when he called you to ask if you wanted to get dinner when you were both back in L.A.—you started to think maybe something bigger had been at play.

Now, two years later, he was famous. Not “Top Gun” famous. Not “I think I recognize him” famous. But everywhere. Talk shows, GQ spreads, Dior campaigns, dramatic indie films and tentpole blockbusters alike.

And you? You were his girlfriend.

Only… no one seemed to like that.

At first, it was little things. Tweets that said “How did she bag Lewis Pullman??” or “Y/N wasn’t even a main character lol she’s just riding the Top Gun clout.”

Then came the Instagram DMs. Pages with profile pictures of teenage girls or anonymous blank circles.

“You’re literally just a nobody.”

“He could do SO much better.”

“Why would someone as sweet as Lewis date someone as average as you?”

“Hope you know he’s going to cheat eventually. You’re just the practice run.”

“You must be amazing in bed to keep him around. Because it’s definitely not the face.”

You tried not to read them. You turned off comments. You blocked. Reported. Ignored.

But they kept coming.

And one day, one of them found your old audition tape.

They posted it to Twitter. The caption said: “Y’all remember when Lewis Pullman had to act with THIS?”

The video had 72K likes in 6 hours.

You called your agent crying. She told you to stay off socials.

You told Lewis nothing.

Because he had enough to deal with.

Because he was finally getting the recognition he deserved.

Because you didn’t want to be that girlfriend—the one who couldn’t take the heat.

You kept your mouth shut. Even when the hate turned from cruel to cutting.

Even when it bled into Reddit threads and fan forums.

“I bet she’s using him for clout.”

“She’s so mid.”

“He could date an actual actress, not some glorified extra.”

“Y/N? Seriously?”

“God, she’s just not pretty enough for him.”

You looked in the mirror and saw it too.

You weren’t model-thin. Your jawline wasn’t sharp. You had soft cheeks and skin that broke out when you were stressed. Your hair was never the perfect amount of messy and styled. Your outfits were practical, not paparazzi-worthy. You didn’t know how to pose at events. You smiled too wide. You stood with your legs too close together. You said dumb things in interviews and forgot to look into the right camera.

You were a mess.

And now, the whole internet saw it too.

The worst part?

Lewis had no idea.

You were quiet when he came home that night. His keys jingled in the bowl by the door. You were curled up on the couch, hoodie pulled over your knees, blue light from your phone casting shadows under your eyes.

He dropped a kiss on your head like he always did and then paused.

“You okay?” he asked gently, brushing your hair behind your ear.

You flinched before you could stop yourself. “Yeah,” you lied, trying to smile. “Just tired.”

Lewis looked at you like he didn’t believe you. “Long day?”

You nodded, swallowing hard. “You could say that.”

He sat beside you, slinging an arm around your shoulder. You stiffened again. You hated it. You hated that his warmth, the thing you used to crave, felt like acid now—like a spotlight. Like everyone could see you didn’t deserve it.

He squeezed your arm. “Babe.”

You blinked too hard, and your phone slipped from your hands. He caught a glimpse of the screen before it fell face-down onto the carpet. You moved fast to grab it.

Too late.

“Y/N,” he said softly.

You didn’t look at him.

He reached down, picked up the phone. You reached for it, but he held it out of reach. “Hey, what’s—” He opened the app. Froze. Read one comment. Then another.

You felt your stomach drop. “Lewis—”

“Is this why you’ve been quiet all week?” His voice was sharp. Not angry. But something close. Something wounded.

You turned away.

He stared at the screen, scrolling through DM after DM. “Jesus.”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” you whispered.

Lewis looked at you like you’d said the most absurd thing in the world. “You didn’t want to bother me? Y/N, people are harassing you.”

“They’re just stupid fans,” you said quickly, eyes stinging. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

You didn’t know how to explain that. That some part of you felt like you deserved it. Like all those people were just saying what everyone else was thinking.

You bit your lip. “I didn’t want to make it about me. Your career is exploding. I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Lewis sat back like the words physically knocked the wind out of him. “You think this isn’t about us?”

You stayed silent.

He threw the phone onto the couch and turned fully to you. His voice was low now. Hurt. “Y/N, you were the best thing to come out of that set for me. You still are. The fact that you’re hurting and I didn’t know? That’s what makes me sick.”

Your eyes brimmed over, the tears hot and fast.

“And I don’t care what anyone on the internet says,” he continued, voice cracking a little. “They don’t know you. They don’t know what it was like to see you in costume, chewing gum between takes and mouthing everyone else’s lines because you were so damn prepared. They don’t know how you pulled me aside after I forgot my cue and whispered the right one like it was a secret. Or how you stood next to me at the wrap party and let me vent about how nervous I was to live up to my dad’s name.”

You blinked hard.

“They don’t know how you came to my mom’s birthday party even though you were terrified of meeting my family, and won over every single person in the room because you’re funny and real and kind.”

“Lewis—”

“They don’t know how you fall asleep with your mouth open and then wake up embarrassed and cover it like it makes you unlovable.” He shook his head, voice soft now. “They don’t know what I know.”

You were crying full now. Hands shaking. Voice cracked. “It just—it got in my head.”

“I know.” He reached for you, arms wrapping tight around your frame. “I know, baby. I’m so sorry I didn’t see it.”

You clung to him like you were drowning. He held you tighter.

And for the first time in weeks, you felt like maybe—just maybe—you could breathe.

You didn’t leave the house for five days.

Not for coffee. Not for groceries. Not for air.

You canceled your lunch with your old Top Gun castmates—the few who still remembered you. You ignored text after text from your friends, all of them asking if you were okay in that soft, guilt-laced way people use when they’ve just realized how long it’s been since they checked in.

You stayed in Lewis’s oversized hoodie, the one with the tiny burn hole on the sleeve from when he tried to make you crème brûlée at 2 a.m. and nearly torched the entire kitchen.

It still smelled like him. Like cinnamon and cedar and that stupid overpriced hair gel he swore he didn’t use.

You hated that it comforted you.

Lewis didn’t push you to leave. Not once.

He cooked breakfast without asking if you wanted it. Left little Post-it notes on your mirror—drink water / you are loved / they’re wrong about you. He took every interview request and promo obligation and moved it. Cleared the week. For you.

And still, you barely spoke.

You couldn’t. Because talking meant thinking, and thinking meant reliving, and reliving meant scrolling.

You knew better. You knew not to check the tags. Not to search your name. Not to read the comments on his latest GQ cover where you were only mentioned in passing but still managed to become a target.

“She’s dragging him down.”

“PR relationship. Has to be.”

“Can someone please explain to me how Lewis Pullman went from rising star to babysitting his insecure little groupie of a girlfriend?”

“Her eyes are dead in every photo. It’s giving boring.”

“She’s so lucky he doesn’t have better taste.”

You wanted to disappear. To melt into the hardwood floor and never be seen again. You wondered if there was a way to shrink yourself small enough to fit into his pocket and never come out.

On day six, you finally said something.

“I think I want to delete everything.”

Lewis was on the couch reading a script. He looked up slowly.

“Everything?”

You nodded. “Instagram. Twitter. My website. My reels. All of it.”

He set the script down. “Babe, are you sure?”

You tried to smile. Failed. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to keep it.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. Then, he reached across the coffee table, his fingers wrapping around yours.

“You are. You’re the strongest person I know.”

He paused. “But if it’s breaking you right now, we’ll take it down.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

You breathed for the first time in days. He squeezed your hand.

You deleted it all.

One by one.

Photos from set. Gone.

Thirst traps that never made you feel sexy. Gone.

The tweet where you made a dumb joke about Tom Cruise being shorter than expected. Gone.

You cried when it was over.

Lewis didn’t say I told you so. He just wrapped you in a blanket and held you so long your leg fell asleep.

And then it got worse.

Paparazzi photos surfaced. Ones from a month ago, outside a gas station, when you’d worn your pajama bottoms in public and hadn’t realized someone was watching. You were with Lewis. He was holding your hand.

The headline read: “New It Boy Lewis Pullman Settling Down with Mediocre Nobody?”

The article wasn’t even subtle.

“She’s forgettable at best, unprofessional at worst.”

“No major roles since Maverick, which frankly wasn’t a major role to begin with.”

“Sources say Lewis’s team isn’t thrilled about the relationship.”

“She’s been described as clingy, emotionally volatile, and embarrassingly jealous.”

Your ears rang. Your chest caved in.

There weren’t any sources. That was the worst part. They just made it up. Invented a version of you the world could hate, and then handed you over to the wolves.

When Lewis found you, you were shaking.

“I’m not clingy,” you said as he walked in.

His face twisted in confusion. “What?”

“I’m not. I give you space. I don’t make everything about me. I let you work. I don’t even go to half the premieres with you because I know people will talk.”

His heart dropped to his knees. “Hey, hey—where is this coming from?”

You turned your phone toward him. Let him see the headline. The photos. The bolded words you couldn’t unread.

He paled. Sat beside you in silence.

You wiped at your eyes. “Do you think they’re right?”

Lewis’s mouth parted. “What—what the hell kind of question is that?”

“Do you regret this?” Your voice cracked. “Being with me?”

Something in him shattered.

He reached for your face, thumbs brushing tears from your cheeks like it would change the world.

“No,” he whispered. “God, no. You are the only thing that keeps me grounded. Do you know what fame feels like most days? It feels like everyone wants a piece of me except the people who actually see me. But you—you see me. You always have.”

You wanted to believe it. You really did.

But the internet was louder. The world was louder.

And you were so, so tired.

“I just don’t want to make your life harder.”

He leaned forward, forehead pressed to yours. “You make my life worth it.”

And for a minute, the noise faded.

The next day, Lewis went live on Instagram. He almost never did that. His fans were used to curated posts and PR campaigns. But this wasn’t that.

It was his living room. No filter. No lighting. Just him.

He looked into the camera, tired and soft and real.

“I’m only gonna say this once,” he began. “Because I don’t want to give hate more airtime than it deserves.”

Your heart stopped.

“If you think it’s okay to attack my girlfriend for existing, for loving me, for not meeting some standard you made up in your head—then you can go ahead and unfollow me right now.”

You froze.

“She’s brilliant. And kind. And stronger than anyone I know. She’s been dealing with so much of your bullshit while still showing up every day, still taking care of me, still making me laugh even when she’s hurting. And if you can’t respect her, then you don’t respect me.”

He paused. Let the silence hang like a gavel.

“I don’t care if I lose followers. I care if I lose her.”

Then he ended the stream.

Your phone blew up. DMs of love. Comments from strangers. Messages from co-stars who hadn’t texted in months. Your name trending—for the right reason, this time.

But none of it mattered.

What mattered was Lewis. Who came into the room ten minutes later, unsure if he’d overstepped, scared he’d made it worse.

And you? You ran into his arms like you hadn’t already collapsed there a thousand times before.

You buried your face in his chest and whispered, “Thank you.”

He kissed your temple. “Always.”

The audition wasn’t even supposed to happen.

Your agent called last minute. Some massive director was looking to cast the lead in a dark psychological drama—“female-led, intense, emotionally layered.” The kind of role people gave awards for.

The kind of role no one thought of you for.

You almost didn’t go.

But Lewis sat you down that morning, cupped your face in his hands, and said, “This is yours. Whether they see it or not, you show them.”

So you went.

No makeup. Just messy hair, a threadbare sweater, and the kind of performance that burned like salt in an open wound.

They didn’t even finish the auditions.

You got a call two hours later.

“You booked it,” your agent said, stunned. “They’re not even seeing anyone else.”

The press rollout was immediate. It was the most buzz you’d had since Top Gun, and even then, you’d barely been a footnote. This was different.

You weren’t Lewis’s girlfriend this time.

You weren’t the girl from the background.

You were the headline.

“Breakout Star Lands Role in Cannes-Contending Thriller”

“Underdog No More: Her Rise Is Our Revenge”

“Internet Favorite to Industry Force—She’s Just Getting Started”

Your name trended. But this time, there was no pit in your stomach. No acid in your throat. The hate still existed, sure—it always would—but it was drowned out by something bigger now.

Respect.

You were finally being seen.

Lewis surprised you with champagne and takeout the night the news dropped. You walked in to find candles, confetti, and a massive “YOU DID IT” banner sloppily taped to the ceiling. It was crooked. The tape peeled on one side. You cried anyway.

He grabbed your face and kissed you so hard your knees went weak.

“You knew this would happen,” you whispered.

He grinned. “No. I hoped. But you made it happen.”

You laughed into his neck, your fingers curling into his hoodie like you were anchoring yourself to the moment. Because for once, you weren’t drowning.

You were floating.

The filming process was brutal—in the best way.

Sixteen-hour days. Crying scenes that left your throat raw. Close-ups where your only job was to break. And you did. Over and over again. In front of cameras. In front of strangers.

You gave everything.

And people noticed.

The director—usually stone-faced and impossible to impress—started calling you “The Hurricane.” Not because you were chaotic, but because you destroyed expectations. Wiped the floor with them.

Critics got early footage and lost their minds.

“Where has she been hiding?”

“A performance that breaks you and rebuilds you in the same breath.”

“She carries the entire film on her back—and doesn’t flinch once.”

Even your old castmates reached out. The ones who’d forgotten your name at wrap parties. The ones who’d watched your rise without clapping. Suddenly, they remembered.

“I always knew you had it in you,” one texted.

You didn’t respond. But you screenshotted it. Just to remember how far you’d come.

Awards buzz came faster than you expected.

There were whispers. Rumors. One anonymous source told Variety, “She’s not just a contender—she’s the frontrunner.”

You got invited to every premiere. Every party. Designers who once ignored your stylist now begged to dress you. And you? You walked the carpets with Lewis on your arm, head high, smiling like a woman who’d been broken, stitched herself back together, and still managed to glow.

He was so proud.

He told you every day. In the quiet. In the chaos. In bed at 3 a.m. when you couldn’t sleep because the world finally liked you and somehow that scared you even more.

“Don’t let them tell you who you are,” he said, tracing circles on your back. “You’ve always been this. Even when they couldn’t see it.”

You turned toward him, eyes full, voice soft. “Thank you for waiting for them to catch up.”

He kissed you like an answer.

Then came the premiere.

Red carpet. Paparazzi. Flashbulbs so bright you could barely see.

You wore custom Chanel. Something sharp and soft all at once. Like you. Lewis stood beside you, dapper and wide-eyed like he’d just met you for the first time and couldn’t believe his luck.

The interviewers swarmed.

“Is it surreal seeing her success after everything she’s been through?” one asked Lewis.

He smiled—proud and unbothered. “She’s always been this good. The rest of you were just slow.”

You laughed. He winked.

Another reporter turned to you.

“What would you say to the people who doubted you?”

You paused. Let the camera linger. Let the world lean in.

“I’d say thank you,” you said. “Because it forced me to believe in myself louder than they disbelieved. And now—”

You looked at Lewis. Then back at the camera. “Now I get to prove them wrong by just existing.”

The internet exploded.

The clip went viral within an hour. Your follower count doubled. Fans made edits of you, side by side with scenes from Top Gun, then your new film, then candids of you and Lewis looking like the literal blueprint for “power couple energy.”

Your DMs flooded.

Not just with praise.

With apologies.

From strangers who’d left hate comments.

From girls who’d once written Twitter threads about how “mid” you were.

From influencers who now called you an “inspiration.”

You didn’t respond to any of them.

Because you didn’t need to.

You had nothing to prove anymore.

That night, back at your place, you kicked off your heels and collapsed into the couch. Lewis brought you a glass of wine and sat beside you like he always had. Not as your fan. Not as your shadow. But as your home.

“You did it,” he whispered.

You looked over at him. Exhausted. Radiant. Changed.

“We did.”

He smiled.

You set the wine down and crawled into his lap, arms around his neck.

“Hey,” you said softly.

“Yeah?”

You leaned your forehead against his. “Thank you for never treating me like I was hard to love.”

He exhaled. Shaky. Like he’d been holding that breath for months.

“You were the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “Loving you.”

And maybe it wasn’t loud. Maybe it wasn’t cinematic or sparkly or viral.

But in that moment—pressed against him, wrapped in his hoodie, laughter tangled between kisses—it was everything.

You weren’t too much anymore.

You were just enough.

#female!reader #bob reynolds smut #lewis pullman #lewis pullman imagine #lewis pullman smut #lewis pullman x reader #lewis pullman one shot #bob reynolds one shot #bob reynolds imagines #bob reynolds x reader #bob thunderbolts #bob floyd #bob floyd x reader #bob reynolds

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outtathisworld-imagines · 2 months ago

Text

Runs warm

——⚡️——☀️——⚡️——☀️——

Pairing: Bob Reynolds x Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Warning: Here we go againnnnnnn! Smut! MDNI 18+. Just pure filth. Unprotected sex, Oral (M&F rec), threesome (MMF), cum-swapping, Bob is a lil slutty submissive mess, and of course he has a praise kink, dirty talk, double penetration, teasing, eating out, swearing, overstimulation. You name it, it’s probably got it. Not proofread!

A.N: A continuation of this fic! Two of our faves again, just as filthy as the first part 🥲 Happy reading!

Please let me know what else you guys would like! I do have a few other fics on the back-burner (for now!) that I'll start to post soon and just let me know if you'd liked to be tagged in further works too ✨

——☀️——⚡️——☀️——⚡️——

Bob almost came in front of everyone in the living room when you and Bucky walked past.

Dressed in tight tactical gear, the two of you in deep conversation meant you didn’t notice. Bob swallowed hard seeing the outfits perfectly cling to all the curves of your bodies that he practically begged over a week ago. How the zippers came up to your necks that he kissed, and how tight the material was over your breasts that he moaned into.

The pair of you looking like goddamn models who could kill more with their looks than their knives and guns.

“We’re going to practice in the training room guys,” Bucky spoke up.

“Thanks for warning in advance!” Yelena called out. Everyone knew what training meant for the two of you.

“Yeah, and remember to clean up after yourselves after your ‘training’.” John chuckled, using his fingers as quotation marks. You rolled your eyes at his sly dig of a comment.

“Can’t help it if training gets us all hot and bothered, Walker.” You shot back at him but your eyes were locked onto Bob who was practically drooling at this point. “Knock before you enter next time.” You smirked and his face contorted before a shudder took over his body remembering the sight he saw the first time he accidently walked in.

Bob’s nostrils flared in jealously that John got to witness that.

He watched as the two of you walked away, perfectly synchronised with the most perfect view of that tight suit showing off the curve of your asses as you disappeared down the hall.

“You got that boy wrapped around your little finger, baby.” Bucky squeezed your hip, pulling you close. “Goddamn world, if we weren’t so busy with being sent out onto the field-“

You cupped his cheek “Don’t worry sweetie, we’ll have him again soon. We’ve got a few break days, and the party too.” You kissed him gently “We’ll have our fun with him again.” Bucky held onto the hope you had as the two of you reached the training room.

You grabbed a couple of pieces from the training equipment cabinet, your back facing Bucky. He mischievously smirked, twisting his fingers over the handle of his mock training knife and threw it at you. You quickly turned and caught it, surprising him. “You shouldn’t have turned your back,” he finally said in a teasing tone.

You walked towards him with a small frown on your face, reaching it out to hand him it back. “You shouldn’t have done that.” Your eyes were sad but the rest of you was begging for trouble. Bucky took the knife from you and as soon as he did, your calf met his neck and he fell to the floor with a groan. You lowly chuckled and walked away, not before he grabbed both your ankles and you hit the ground. “So this is how it’s gonna be today…” you huffed out and wound the rope you grabbed over your hand and between your fingers. “Game on, Barnes.”

Bob played his cool for at least 30 minutes.

Even then it was 30 minutes too long for him.

He made an excuse of going for an afternoon nap to get him out of the shared living space and then made his way to the training room. He watched from the door the two of you throw each other about, flipping the other to the ground, how one of you sat on top before being expertly pushed off and then pinned down. It was like he was watching foreplay but with more fly kicks.

“Hey cutie,” his ears pricked up at the mention of his nickname you had given him. He peered in a little more and saw you on one side of the room with Bucky on the other, both of you panting laboured breaths and stars of sweat droplets scattered over your foreheads. “What’s up?”

He cleared his throat, his fingers twitching against each other, something he always did when he was nervous. “Can I train with you guys?”

You and Bucky shared a glance. “Train or watch?” Bucky asked licking is his lips as if Bob was his next meal, slowly approaching him.

“Watch…” he lowly breathed out with a nervy smile.

Bucky pulled him into the room and shut the door. “You hear that, Y/N. He wants to watch.” Bucky’s hands found Bob’s shoulders and rubbed them “You like watching us?” He nodded with a gulp “I know how much you love it when we give you a show.” He kissed his cheek and you approached the two men twirling a mock-knife which somehow turned Bob on even more watching your slender fingers in action. “We’ve missed you.”

“So much,” you added. “Missed having my boys,” you squeezed yourself in the middle between them both, your free hand moving up and down Bob’s side whereas your other pressed the fake knife to Bucky’s neck, reminding him your little session wasn’t over until someone won. The two men gasped seeing you remain so composed but so willing at the same time. “Excuse us, Bob. We have a show to perform.” Bucky grabbed your arm and flung you to the middle of the training mat, remarkably landing on your feet. “Now he’s just showboating!” You told Bob, teasing Bucky who playfully growled.

He ran towards you and you leaped into the air, your legs wrapping around his torso as you spun and flipped him to the floor. You let out a laugh and Bob didn’t know what to do so clapped instead of what he wanted to do which was whipping off his sweats and touching himself at the scene unfolding before him. “Fuck!” Bucky groaned and tried standing back up but you turned him over and grabbed your rope. He knew he had lost now. You placed his hands behind his back and Bob watched in awe effortlessly you bound Bucky.

And just how much he would have loved that.

“I win,” you rolled Bucky back over and stuck your tongue out at him, your legs strangling his waist.

However, Bucky wasn’t backing down quite yet and thrusted his hips up making you moan in surprise and suddenly you were now on your back with him on top. He smirked, shooting a wink to Bob before taking your zipper that was near your neck between his teeth and slowly dragging it down beyond your cleavage and to your bellybutton. Showing enough skin to really rile both them up.

Bob thought the show in the kitchen you gave him was hot, but this was like he was thrown into a pool of lava.

You darkly laughed at the two of them and then used your strength in your legs to flip him back over. You left your suit unopened “Nuh uh, I always come out on top.” You were now straddling his chest. “You hear that Bob. Always on top.”

“Sometimes you cum on the bottom,” Bucky added and you smirked knowing that could be one of two options.

“Or in between…” Bob said which caught you both off guard.

You looked up to Bob “Well, since I’ve won, how do you think I should celebrate, Cutie?”

Bob looked between you and Bucky, a newfound, almost authoritative confidence surging through his veins.

“I think you should sit on his face.”

His straight to the point answer made both you and Bucky gawk.

“You heard me. Take off that hot as fuck suit and sit that pussy on his face.” He practically commanded. You quickly and wobbly stood up and removed your suit and underwear, both men groaning in pleasure at the sight. You felt very exposed especially with the two of them still fully dressed but a wave of excitement crashed over you.

You did as Bob asked as sat your pussy over Bucky’s eagerly awaiting opened mouth. You moaned feeling his hot tongue explore every inch of your wet folds. Your hands found his hair as you gripped onto him, he tried to free his own hands but with no luck from your tightly wound bound. “Oh fuck,” you groaned.

“That’s it, Bucky. Eat her out.” Bob stepped forward a little. “Ride his face, Y/N, rub that pussy all over his face. Get it nice and wet for me.” You were on the verge of cumming already from Bob’s words and Bucky’s talent.

You moved a little, doing a 180 turn to hold onto Bucky’s sides. Bucky’s mouth gasping for air at the opportunity. “Are you joining us or not?” He asked before you sat on him once more.

“Sor-sorry for watching. Again.” He near enough skipped forward, his palms sweating and being reminded that he always ran warm, even more so now.

“You like watching us, Bob?” You asked, toying with your breasts for him.

He let out a choke disguised as a laugh. “Can’t you tell…? Got a fucking boner from you guys just fighting. Anything you both do is hot as fuck.”

You giggled, his authoritative mask slipping a little to reveal the slutty little mess you both got to enjoy the week before. “Well you wanna practice fighting still or you wanna fuck? Although I think your dick has spoken for you.” You nodded towards his crotch with a smile.

He came over and kissed you, his hands roaming all over your body, his fingertips gently pinching your nipples and making you moan into his mouth. His lips trailed down your chest, his tongue now replacing his fingertips as it swirled over your nipples, leaving sloppy kisses in his path. You felt Bucky struggle under you, how much he wanted his arms to be free to embrace the pair of you. You saw the struggle his cock had too against the tight material. When your eyes locked onto it, Bob’s gaze then followed.

“You should give him a hand…or a mouth.” You grinned between moans.

Bob gulped and nodded, moving down Bucky’s body, his shaky hands undid his belt and with a deep breath, pulled down his tactical gear to his knees. “Fuck…” he breathed out. No matter how many times he saw you both, you were as fucking gorgeous as the last.

You saw him hesitating. “Cutie?” You called out for him. “Everything alright?” You and Bucky both slowed too, wanting to make sure he was okay.

He lowly laughed and ran his hand through his hair. “It’s just…I’ve never sucked anyone off before.” He shrugged.

His innocent inexperience made your heart burst. “Aww,” you cupped his cheek and stroked your thumb over his skin. “That’s alright! Bucky loves a first timer, don’t you sweetie?”

“I sure fucking do, honey.” He said once you moved allowing him to answer and catch his breath. “Don’t worry Bob, she’ll tell you everything I love. There’s no wrong, just wanna feel your mouth on me.”

Bob felt the nerves ease, something he now realised the two of you always effortlessly did. You moved from Bucky’s mouth and Bob watched as you hovered over him. “Don’t worry, Bob, I’ll get him warmed him up for you.” Your lips met his as you sat yourself on Bucky’s cock. The two of you moaning at the sensation. You didn’t move, you kissed Bob as Bucky’s cock twitched inside you. “Oh he’s so excited for you,” you moaned against his lips and then moved off him, taking your rightful place on a throne otherwise known as Bucky’s mouth.

Bob bent down, his lips meeting Bucky’s head before biting the bullet and almost swallowing him whole. He moaned tasting the remains of you on him mixed with his salty pre-cum. “Fuck! Fucking fuck!” Bucky roared into your folds which made you cry out in pleasure.

“Just like that Bob, use your tongue to lick him too, he loves that so much.” He responded to your guidance, moaning against Bucky’s cock and feeling it hit the back of his throat when it twitched with pleasure. Bob gagged and you both let out a gruff at the gorgeous noise, you could feel yourself about to cum on Bucky’s face, that tightening coil in your stomach only wound more from the sight of Bob pleasuring Bucky with his mouth and continuing to gag on his cock. Bob looked up to you through his eyelashes and that was enough to send you over the edge. You came with an almighty scream, Bucky frantically eating you to the point where you had to roll off from sheer overstimulation. You lay on the floor catching your breath before finding enough strength to crawl to Bob.

Bucky’s head fell back, his jaw tight and his eyes closed, Bob’s pace quickened, eager to please him all while mentally wishing he had done this sooner. Your trembling fingers reached to the waistband of his sweats and you reached in, pulling them down as you did before finding his hardened cock and stroking it. Bob moaned against Bucky and the vibration that ran through his body made him groan loudly, cumming in Bob’s mouth. “Sh-shit! Oh god, yes! Fucking yes!” He yelled as he came.

“Swallow, as much as you can, Bob” you practically begged on Bucky’s behalf. “He loves it. He’ll always give you such a big load.” You watched as Bob’s Adams apple moved as he did as you asked, moaning loudly at the taste of Bucky and the fact you were touching him. “Good boy,” you praised and he let out a whimper from his lungs. “Such a good boy for us. You wanna cum on Bucky’s cock? Huh?” You asked batting your eyelashes. “When do we can both lick it all up and let him taste.” Bob struggled to nod.

“Y-y-yeah. Want that so much,” he struggled to speak even more than nodding.

You smiled watching him become undone by your hand, white ribbons of his cum decorated Bucky’s cock. The winter soldier found enough strength to moan again at the feeling. When Bob finished you both licked Bucky clean with your tongues before both going to his mouth and decanting a mixture of spit and Bob’s cum into his open mouth.

The three of you lay panting and catching your breaths on the floor, the boys keeping your naked frame warm with their bodies wrapped around it.

“You sure you never done that before?” Bucky tiredly chuckled asking Bob.

He breathlessly laughed. “Never. But fuck, I can’t wait to do it to you again.” He groaned.

You stood with a smile, pulling on your tactical gear again and helping Bob up when he reached out his hand. “Well after all that fun and excitement, I’m starved and in dire need of a shower.” You turned to Bob “You should join the team soon so they don’t get too suspicious,” you pecked his cheek.

“Uh what about-“ Bob looked to Bucky, still tied up on the floor with his pants to his knees.

“Nope!” You cut him off. “I won so he needs to figure his own way out of this very big, sweaty, cum soaked mess before anyone else comes in here…” you laughed walking away, leaving him struggling. Bucky looked at Bob pleadingly and he went to bend down to help, just having the chance to pull up his tactical gear and cover him more modestly before you came back, grabbed him by the neck of his sweatshirt and pulling him away. “I told you I won.”

Bucky groaned “I yield Y/N! I yield!”

—•—

“I hate these things.” You complained, trying to fasten your necklace.

“The necklace or the party…?” Bucky laughed and helped your struggling hands, his own brushing against the back of your neck. “There you go,” he kissed the spot above the clasp.

“The party, so pointless, just a bunch of people flaunting about how influential they are- pisses me off.” You huffed, now organising your clutch.

Bucky breathily chuckled “You’re so hot when you’re pissed.” You swatted away his flirty tone, he came up and hugged you from behind, kissing your exposed shoulder and melting away the stresses inside you. “I don’t like them either but seeing you like this always makes them better, doll.”

Bucky walked away to grab his suit jacket, you had stopped fidgeting with your bag and blinked at the nickname. It was one you hadn’t heard in years.

“What?” You quietly said.

“What do you mean what?”

“You called me doll again.”

The room fell silent, a ghost of a smile appearing and then vanishing over his face. “Huh, guess I did.” He left the room before you could further question it, both of you unsure of what just happened.

You made your way to meet up with the rest of the team who were all gawking and gushing over outfits. Then all eyes fell to you and soft gasps filled the room, Bucky looked at you with a proud smile, Bob’s jaw dropped to the floor and your lover subtly nudged him to ensure he kept his cool around your other teammates. You looked him up and down, his crooked bow tie and his converse peeking out under the hem of his suit pants. He was a far cry from Bucky, but that’s what you liked.

“Hoo boy!” Alexei yelled whilst clapping. “Our lineup is beautifully complete with stunning Y/N!” You playfully rolled your eyes and lightly pushed his arm before twirling in your black, one shoulder dress with a cut exposing your leg to the world. “Let’s go! The red chariot awaits!”

You raised a brow “Will we all fit in the limo?” Alexei looked at you as if to say of course. “I mean between the half bottle of vodka and the Cheeto packets I’m sure we will all be as snug as bugs.” Bucky chuckled.

“There will be plenty of room!” He insisted.

“There will be if we all sat on top of each other,” Bucky quickly added. You and the two men you had your way with the day before sent each other a glance, holding back a smile.

“What else do you suggest we do? We all ride Bob?” John joked.

“Hmm could you imagine riding Bob? What a funny thought...” Bucky said in a dry tone looking at you and causing your face to become stoic.

Alexei waved his arms dramatically, not noticing the bubbling tension. “Ah she is robust enough to handle all of us!”

You laughed “As much as I’d love the limo, I’ll drive some of us in my car.”

Bobs hand flew up “I’ll go with Y/N.”

Bucky smirked “Going to have to change your shoes first, bud. Pretty sure they won’t let you in with converse on. He can ride with us, guys. You can go ahead, we will meet you there.”

Bob lightly jogged to fetch his smarter shoes, Alexei pleading with him. He turned around, still keeping his pace and using his hands to weigh up options. “Hmm….Sexy sports car versus a red limo with bullet holes in it…yeah. Sports car it is. Sorry Alexei! Besides my nights are never boring.” He winked to the group and everyone looked at him shocked. You and Bucky sent a side-eye glance to one another wondering just what you had unlocked within him.

You met with Bob in the garage, you and Bucky greeting him with a smile. You fixed his tie, straightening it out for him. “Ready?” You asked and he nodded, jumping in the back of the car as Bucky opened your door and then made his way to the passenger side.

“GPS says seven minutes away,” you started pulling out from the basement of the watchtower.

“Seven minutes in heaven…?” Bucky suggestively said while feeling up your exposed leg, Bob watching the two of you interact from the back seat, his palms already becoming clammy at the sight.

“You wish,” you mumbled under your breath, concentrating on the road. You looked to Bob in your rearview mirror, noticing he now had a book in his hand which he was engrossed in. “Whatcha reading, cutie?”

“Kama Sutra.”

You almost crashed the car at his nonchalant tone combined with his admission. Bucky choked on thin air.

Bob laughed “I’m kidding! I’m kidding you guys.” He mischievously giggled. “It’s just a booklet about the gala party we are going to tonight.” You tried to catch your breath and haphazardly laughed along with Bucky at his little prank. “Although I should probably read it. Might come in handy with the two of you.” His voice suddenly turned dark.

Your hands tightened around the steering wheel, trying to focus and concentrate on the streets of New York.

“We did it right where you’re sitting.” Bucky’s voice broke the silence.

Bob groaned, his hands feeling the soft leather that surrounded him, picturing your softer bodies there. “Fuck. That’s fucking hot. Can the two of you do me back here?”

You and Bucky both smirked “Anything you want, Bobby.” He replied.

When you arrived to the party Bucky helped you out of the car, supporting you by linking your arm in his. Bob walked behind you both intently watching as your hips perfectly swayed up the stairs. You glanced behind your shoulder noticing Bob’s eyes fixated on you both and whispered to Bucky who then looked too, smiling to himself noticing Bob’s entranced stare.

The team mingled with others throughout the evening, you found yourself on your own at one point looking at all the information plates that were tied to your past. You walked up to one, Steve’s original suit and sighed, your fingers discreetly touching the glass. “I still miss him too.” Bucky’s voice snapped you back to reality. “We can’t change the past.”

“Why’d you call me ‘doll’ again?” You quietly asked. “It’s been so long I almost forgot it,” you dryly laughed, not an ounce of humour in it. The nickname still played on your mind, one that he only dedicated to using around you with Steve all those years ago.

You watched as he tried to search for the right answer, his mouth gaping and then shutting. “I suppose I��m just really happy again.” He said reaching for your hand “I was always really happy before, with you, I always am. But having someone like Bob for us…I dunno feels like those old times that I didn’t know how much I missed until it happened.” His soft confessions in the quiet corner of the room made your heart swell.

“Bob reminds me of Steve in lots of ways.” You said, looking at the suit again.

“Hmm, me too.” He smiled to himself. “You okay?” He asked, always wanting to check in with you. You nodded your head and he placed a gentle kiss to your forehead. “You wanna go home?” You nodded again. Bucky looked up, seeing Bob there. “Think someone wants to go home with us too…” you turned and saw him, you could see him mentally picturing you both with him again already.

“I think we should try something on him tonight. I noticed him get very excited when I used the ropes.” Bucky raised a brow at what you had said. “Maybe since he likes watching so much we tease him with that too…” your plan was vocally coming alive. “You up for that sweetie?” You asked Bucky in an angelic voice. He responded by practically dragging you and Bob back to the car.

The second the three of you arrived back to the tower and into your room your mouths were latched onto one another. Arms everywhere as you all tried to remove your clothing as quickly as possible.

“You both looked so fucking sexy tonight,” Bob moaned against Bucky’s lips.

“So did you, cutie. We just couldn’t wait to get you home.” You said with a smile, slipping out of your dress. “Fuck you senseless.” He loudly moaned into the air at your words. “We wanna play a little game with you tonight if you’re up for it?”

He nodded, willing to agree to anything, he just wanted to have you both again. Not even meth got him this high. “Everything, told you guys I wanted to do everything.”

You climbed off the bed and fished around in the drawer while the two men kissed and groped one another on the bed, shedding their clothes with each kiss until they were just in their underwear like you. You faced the bed, Bucky directing Bob’s attention to you. He saw you twisting a rope in your hand “I saw how much it got you excited. We wanna tie you up and have some fun with you.”

Bob was fairly certain he already came at your words with the noise he made. He usually ran warm, but he felt like he was on fire. “You done this before?” Bucky asked and he shook his head no. You and Bucky shared a look one of excited arousal and concern. “Let’s make a safe word, just incase.” He pecked his lips. You and Bob both agreed and pondered until he came up with one.

“Cucumber?” He said and you and Bucky chuckled.

“Cucumber it is,” you said wrapping the rope even tighter around your hand and throwing yourself on the bed. Bucky brought Bob’s arms to the bed frame and you wrapped the rope around his hands and wrists, tying him to the bed.

“Fuck…” he groaned as Bucky removed his underwear and then his own along with yours. You and Bucky lay either side of him and kissed every inch of his body before meeting at his cock. The two of you dragged your tongues across either side of his shaft, his hips involuntary jolting and rising up at the sensation. Bucky smirked and held them back down again, his tongue brushing against your own every so often as Bob’s moans reached the walls of your room. Bucky’s mouth surrounded his cock as you moved to Bob’s face.

“Open wide, cutie,” you demanded and his tongue eagerly awaited your dripping pussy. His arms shook, almost forgetting what state he was in. He just wanted to grab you both, hold you both, but the denial you had bestowed upon him was settling in. “Oh, oh fuck, Bob.” You moaned, Bucky’s eyes looking up and catching you sitting on Bob’s face.

“So fucking hot,” he moaned against Bob’s cock, now using his hand along with his mouth.

“He takes it like such a good boy doesn’t he, Buck?” You whined, jutting your hips against his head. “Such a good boy, Bob.” He moaned against you, always being so willing and eager to please. His throat became hoarse as he felt a rush through his body. “Shit, Buck he’s gonna cum already.”

Bucky pulled back with a gasp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand while Bob practically screamed into your pussy as the sensation was suddenly taken away from him. You and Bucky laughed “Not that quick, Bobby.” Bucky warned “We want to play with you more.”

Bucky pulled you from his mouth and kissed you, Bob struggled against the rope. “You guys,” he whined “Please, please! Fuck!” He cried out as you and Bucky made out in front of him, your hands roaming all over each other suddenly making him feel a little left out. “Fuck me, god, please!” He begged.

“So needy,” you teased “So desperate to cum for us are you?” You and Bucky moved to either side of him and peppered kisses all over his face. Bob tried his best not to burst into tears from the fact he was about to burst in another way any moment now. “Hey Bucky?”

“Yes honey?”

Bob didn’t like the sound of this.

It was the sound of your plotting coming to its crescendo. “Since Bob loves watching us so much, let’s make him watch us fuck. Leave him on the bed, we’ll fuck over the top of him.”

Bucky wickedly smirked “Sure thing, doll.” He winked and your heart skipped a beat at the nickname again.

“Y/N please don’t do this! I’ve been so good! Do whatever you want but just do me right now too!” He pleaded, fully submitting himself to you both. You ignored him as you got on all fours above him. “Bucky! I’ll let you give me a facial or whatever you want! Just don’t listen to her! Just fucking touch me!”

Bucky barked out a laugh. “What makes you think I won’t do that anyway?” He said “Gonna fuck my Y/N and then coat you in my cum, let her clean it up.”

You pressed a kiss to Bobs lips as Bucky brought his hips forward, fucking you from behind. “Oh god! Fuck! So good. So. Fucking. Good!” You moaned, Bob struggled under you both. “You love watching us don’t you, cutie? Bet you wish it was you doing or getting this.” He frantically nodded “Bucky might even fuck you soon if you’re a good boy and if that’s what you want. You gotta prove that to him though. Takes him a little while to warm up to someone,” he forcefully spanked your ass. “FUCK!” The slapping of your two bodies almost made a tear slip from Bob’s eye. He wanted to break free from your bounds and reach you both. His hips levitated off the bed and you giggled at the sight of him being so desperate.

“Gonna cum so- shit! So fucking soon!” Bucky panted out, hands firmly gripping your hips. “Love having you on all fours for me, baby, so fucking hot! Ain’t she Bobby?”

“Fuck!” He let out a gritty scream “I’m gonna cum just like this,” he was on the verge of imploding, especially watching you cum above him, your eyes shutting, swears dripping from your lips and then your mouth forming the most perfect smile after you did.

“Shit, I’m gonna fucking cum too.” Bucky gently pushed you to the side, you placed your face with your tongue out beside Bob’s desperately wincing one as Bucky came over the two of you. “God, so fucking stunning with my cum on your faces. Clean him up Y/N.” You dragged your tongue over Bob’s features, licking up and savouring every last drop. Bob watched as Bucky licked yours, then hovering over him commanding that he opened his mouth which allowed him to spit his cum down Bobs throat. “Let’s finish him off together, Y/N. He’s gonna cum before we even touch him again.” You both chuckled at the sight of him wriggling and writhing with his arms above his head.

You and Bucky both brought your hands around his cock and watched him bathe in relieved pleasure. “Thank you so, so much,” he cried out “Oh god I’m gonna cum so fucking fast because of you guys.”

“Then be a good boy and cum,” your sultry tone made him release a feral moan.

“And then when you do, we won’t stop until we make you cum again. Gonna milk you dry, Bob.” Bucky darkly laughed as he watched the man on the bed let out a loud roar, his body almost fully lifted off the bed as he finally came over your hands. His cum lubricated your hands more, making a slick noise that filled the room between his moans.

His chest pulsating as you both kept pumping, his hands frantically trying to untie the rope. “Guys, I don’t know if I can again!” His voice was starting to pitch.

“Not with that attitude you won’t,” Bucky said, intently watching Bob’s twitching cock.

“Yeah, cutie, thought you wanted to cum for us so badly…” your sweet voice sent Bob over the edge again, his cock suddenly spilling out again as tears of pure pleasure slipped from his eyes. “Good boy!” You praised “Let’s get him all cleaned up, Buck.”

You unraveled his hands, his arms having no strength to move as he desperately caught his breath again. Bucky brought a wet flannel to cool him down. Bob was shaking as shockwaves of pleasure continued pulsating throughout his body. “The two of you…something else. Something…so fucking perfect.” He said with each breath.

You gently placed back on his underwear before you grabbed yours and Bucky’s, crawling into the bed together with Bob. “You okay, doll?” He asked you and you nodded with a smile, asking him the same and getting a nod and wink in response.

The three of you closed your eyes, limbs lazily draped over each other as Bob enjoyed being sandwiched between you both as the three of you caught your composure again. “What are we?” Bob suddenly asked you and Bucky.

Your eyes met with Bucky’s and you blinked, not ever being asked that question before. “What do you mean?” Bucky asked.

“The three of us.” Bob replied.

You turned, looking up to him and resting your chin on his shoulder. “What would you like us to be?”

“I like this. I like all of us. I like you both.” He softly admitted.

Bucky mirrored your actions. “Then that’s what we’ll be.” He said “It will be us three.”

—•—

It was raining in New York, a dreary wet day with no sign of clearing up.

Everyone was lazing about in the living room, you were reading with a cover tossed over you, Yelena was on her phone, Bucky and John were arguing about something, Ava and Bob engrossed in a conversation about New York’s best pizza and Alexei was on his tablet, trying to get bookings for his limo service.

“Maybe we should all go on vacation?” Yelena suggested out of the blue. Your ears all perked up and smiles dashed across your faces.

“That sounds good!” You sat up a little more “Somewhere warm.”

“With a pool!” Ava requested.

“All you can eat buffet!” Alexei added. You all looked at him with a raised brow.

“Vacation sounds nice.” Bob spoke up, his fingers twiddling together, it made you and Bucky smile. He was wearing one of Bucky’s tight black tops which you were on the verge of ripping off, seeing the two boys matching. You had a feeling they planned that just for you.

“Is anyone bringing anyone along?” John asked “I could maybe ask Olivia and she can bring the baby. Could be my chance to reconnect and get another opportunity with them again.”

“Sure, why not?” Alexei said before smiling to himself. “Maybe I can bring one of my many fancy lady friends…”

You rolled your eyes with a smirk “Any number times zero is still zero…” you playfully jibed and Alexei sent you a deadpanned glare before standing up and rushing towards you, throwing you over his shoulder causing you to scream and laugh in response. “Put me down!” You giggled and he tossed your back on the sofa as the others laughed with you both.

Ava turned to Bob again. “Who would you take Bob?” She asked and he shrugged a shoulder. “Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Any friend?”

He nervously smiled and played with the hem of his gifted top. “You guys are my friends. I’ll go with you guys, wouldn’t want to go with anyone else.” He said, eyes darting between you and Bucky. The team felt a rush of content at his kind words.

You and Bucky felt something different entirely.

Bucky bit down on his lip and suddenly stood up, looking at both you and Bob. “Well, I’ll start looking out my speedos.”

—•—

PART 3- ‘cumming’ soon 😉

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