#boblena ao3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

like-sunshine-and-gunpowder · 1 month ago

Text

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65613298

though i burn (how could i fall)

Pairing: Bob Reynolds/Yelena Belova

Fandom: Thunderbolts (2015), Marvel Cinematic Universe

Word count: 5,440

Tags: Angst, Fluff, Character Study, Getting Together, First Kiss, Kissing

Summary: A quiet moment in the Watchtower, where a dream and a dance are shared between two teammates.

——————————————————————————————————

"If the wind turns, if I hit a squall, allow the ground to find it’s brutal way to me”

——————————————————————————————————

There truly was no reason for him to still be living at the Tower other than this: Robert Reynolds was a hazard. Or a liability. Whatever technical term you preferred. He’d even heard an operative call him “Yelena’s pet”.

That last one was almost endearing, if it wasn’t just a bit pathetic.

Bob tilted back another Lithium pill- the second one for the day- and got started on his tea. Pots clanking and echoing along the big empty living quarters, like a depressive reminder. The New Avengers were on a mission, investigating some new flying object that had just entered the atmosphere, saving the world, being useful. Not... well, being a bum on borrowed time.

God, he felt like he was back in Florida, playing the 'unemployed-friend-who-dropped-out-of-college' part, all over again. All that was missing were the copious amounts of Mountain Dew bottles and scary drug dealers at his door asking for their money back. At least the weather was nicer here, where he could wear his long sleeves most of the time.

There was a tremor on his left hand- it wasn’t withdrawal, couldn’t be withdrawal, it had been so long ago- and the sound of a kettle boiling.

His other, also shaking hand, flew to his wrist. Was it just his disturbed perception or was it getting darker? Bob froze. Out of fear, or guilt, as the kettle continued to scream at him for a while, like a continuous omen.

Maybe it was just the new medication. Because, Dr. Briones had already described that it was a known side effect, to-

“You should probably get that,” a familiar raspy voice warned him from behind.

He hadn’t even heard her coming, though her footsteps were loud and intentional.

Bob turned to see Yelena in her suit. Not bloodied, not stained, no scratches, no cuts, no visible bruises and the mere sight of her (safe, unwounded) felt like a weight immediately slid off his shoulders. World's fastest massage.

She continued to stare at him in her usual furrowed brow, blue under-eye makeup. They stayed there for a while until she cocked her head sideways, as if not wanting to speak up again and pointed to the stove with her thumb.

“Ah, hm,” as if electrocuted into action, Bob suddenly remembered how to move again. Turning off the heat, he tried grabbing onto the now-burning handles of a very hot kettle. His fault for wanting to do things the vintage way instead of opting for the automatic ones. “Shit.”

He drew his hands back quickly, looking for a trustworthy dishtowel. Or any cloth, really-

“Here,” Yelena sprung beside him like an apparition, in a way that nearly put Ava to shame. “Gloves,” she explained, naturally.

He chuckled. It was kind of weird how much humor she could pack into so little words.

Honestly, laughter came easy when it came to Yelena. But that was very, very dangerous. See, if Bob had learned anything from having to deal with his emotions it was that laughing too much was usually a bad sign. The first indicator of a trajectory towards the upper polarity of his mental disorder.

There’s a certain kind of melancholy about having to worry when you actually feel content, though.

It was kind of a miserable existence, to have to go in for mandated check-ins because you’re feeling good. He was sure most people didn’t have to go for late night visits with their doctor because they felt okay for once in their goddamned life- but, he remembered, that was always how it started anyways. The manic episodes, the illusions of grandeur, they all started with just... feeling a little better than usual. And were all promptly followed by drug benders, self-harm, near death experiences and immense credit card debt.

The thing about his illusions of grandeur were this: they used to be illusions and now they were not. (Now, he was just wasting time.)

Still, Yelena smiled at him too, with just the corners of her mouth, and for only the tiniest of seconds. But Bob noticed.

He always noticed.

“Do you, hm,” he started, already pouring her a cup of chamomile tea. It supposedly helps you with sleep. “Want… some?”

“Doesn’t feel like I had any saying in it but okay,” she took the white teacup from his hands, fingers briefly meeting. He instantly missed the warmth.

Her body moved away from his, from her place near the kitchen counter and sat down in the common area’s big lounger.

“What’s with the lights being turned off? Very…” Yelena pointed to the ceiling, seemingly searching for a word, finally settling on: “…Noir. Yes?”

Bob laughed again. Damn it. There she goes, with that dry effortless humor of hers. Truth be told, he hadn’t even realized that it was already dark outside, the late afternon sky was diffult to miss when most their walls were made of glass. But, look, time got kind of hard to keep up with when you had so much not to do.

“Uh, yeah. Thought it’d give off a romantic vibe for my late afternoon tea, you know?”

Yelena scoffed before taking a sip. White porcelain, hitting her lips in a movement that made it impossible to look away from.

(It was only after she gave him her characteristic ‘not-so-bad’ pout that Bob was able to let out the breath he hadn’t even noticed he was holding.)

“Well,” Yelena said flatly, kicking her boots off with intensity and crossing her legs on the sofa, “if you wanted to be romantic, there’s a candle on second drawer. Near the sink.”

There was no way that was true. Bob moved to check, rustled around and, to his surprise, found an old candle. Right next to a .45 caliber. Huh. Better not to question if it’s even loaded.

“Wow. One, singular, dusty candle,” Bob picked it up, curiously. “Do you want me to light that up then?”

He had asked without thinking. He didn’t mean to make it romantic for her. Well, maybe he meant to. But he didn’t mean for her to think that he wanted her to think that-

Yelena simply nodded.

Bob suppressed a shaking sigh and brought the old candle next to her. Sitting close, but also not that close. He feared he would never really get the distance right– perpetually afraid to fly too close to Sun with his wax-made wings. Whenever he was too close to Yelena Belova, it felt overly confident; his skin felt rough and his breathing got too out of control. But, when he sat too far away, it felt purposedly avoidant, and he would ache to go near, heart pounding too loud to hear her sometimes. Always a lose-lose situation with her, truly.

Her knees moved, then, accidentally touching his and sending tiny energizing shocks all over. She was reaching for his book, Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’, that laid forgotten underneath a couch cushion. She looked over the summary quickly, pulled his bookmark without care, and opened it up on a random page instead.

Her brow furrowed, and, without tearing her eyes from the book, she’d asked:

“So… are you going to light it?”

Ah. Shit. He’d gotten distracted by her again. It was a daily occurrence by now. Bob blamed it on the lack of stimuli around the house. Afterall there were only so many novels to read and so little blonde assassins to stare at, all day.

Sometimes, it felt as if, looking at her, it could maybe be the last time he'd ever get to. So he took his time, whenever he could, memorizing each line that graced the whole of her.

Sometimes, her face, to him, already looked like a memory.

“Oh, right,” Bob ran a hand through his hair. “It’s, hm, I don’t… have a lighter. Or- or a matchbook, for that matter.”

She clicked her tongue at him, in a way that almost sounded like when she spoke Russian with Alexei. He somehow knew she was holding back a joke about how a former meth addict didn't have a lighter on him.

In one swift move, Yelena pulled a lighter from one of her infinite pant-pockets and gently deposited it in his left hand. It was one of those tiny, red ones they used to sell in newsstands. Bob briefly wondered if it was even hers. If it had sentimental value or just strictly tactical purpose. He wondered if she used to smoke.

There were flashes, images of her flooding his psyche. Moments that he wasn’t sure were her memories, or that he had simply created right then and there. Yelena smoking a blunt alone in her apartment. Lighting up a cigarette as she cleaned up her gun. A bomb fuse sparkling along, all the way to a-

Bob took the small lighter then, before the images drowned him in. Between them, the now-lit candle spread its miniscule warmth, illuminating Yelena’s soft features. It made her eyes glisten in a way he’d never seen. It was… mesmerizing.

Romantic, even. One might say.

With annoyingly shaking hands, Bob moved his knitting gear out of the way and carefully placed the candle on the center table near them. Using a few drops of wax and a Chinese takeout box as a makeshift candleholder, Bob sat back and admired his work for a bit.

He turned to Yelena then, who was staring at him sideways. Studying him in the way she constantly did everything. Different from the way everybody else studied him, he mused, but still. Where everybody else always looked at him as if questioning when he was about to explode, Lena’s eyes always fell on him with a certain type of care that made it hard to even accept. Maybe she was just questioning when that timebomb timer would go off, just like the rest. But God, she did it much more nicely. As if she was tracing back every single layer of him whenever bright green eyes found dark blue. As if she wasn’t disgusted by what she found in her search.

He wasn’t sure what to say in these moments. Bob wasn’t sure of what to say most of the time – except when he was absolutely sure of what to say, which was “usually a problem”, or so his psychiatrists said. Fair enough, he supposed.

Still, he forced himself to make small talk.

“Where’s the rest of the team?”

“Oh,” she tore her examining eyes away from him and back to the book. “Doing clean up, they will probably be out for a while.”

He should ask what exactly was being cleaned up. Why she, of all people, looked remarkably clean today. Hell, he should ask why she was suddenly so interested in Sylvia Plath instead of the potential aliens they might encounter. Instead, Bob just let out a simple:

“Ah… I see.”

And let silence fall upon the two of them again, with a disturbing lack of something to do with his hands.

He couldn’t particularly continue to read his book anymore; it belonged to Yelena’s gloved hands now. To be fair, everything he had, truly, belonged to her. He owed his heart, his mind, his peace to the 5’3” blonde sitting by his side (even if she did lie to everybody, saying she was 5’5”). The one person whose short legs, he didn’t mind finding, were about to find their comfortable way into his lap.

His breath picked up as she laid down on the couch with a low grunt, book still in hands.

He was staring again. Trying to cool down his racing mind and even faster heartbeat. God, maybe he should find something to do. Perhaps a job.

She just looked so- grown, every so often. Bob knew she was technically five years older than she looked due to being Snapped, (“So, does that mean Bobby’s into older women?" Walker had openly asked around the breakfast table once, and Bob had wanted to properly drown into his bowl of Wheaties in response) but there’s also an air of maturity for her that couldn’t simply be chalked up to chronological age.

“Yelena?”

The blonde looked up in acknowledgement, no other movements or sounds needed to let him know that she was listening.

There was clearly no need to be nervous, you know. It was just a simple request. Just out of boredom, really. And he was, essentially, trapped against the couch by an assassin, at the moment.

Bob cleared his throat before speaking up again.

“Can you, uh… read out loud for me?”

Yelena obliged. He didn’t know why, but she would always indulge him like that.

——————————————————————————————————

He didn’t particularly notice when exactly he dozed off. But Bob did realize he was now asleep- dreaming, even.

(It was a skill he had developed long ago, back in the good ol’ substance abuse days, to realize when he wasn’t entirely awake.)

In the near distance, though still in a somewhat distorted version of the Watchtower, Yelena was wearing his favorite Joy Division shirt, three sizes too big for her, humming a symphony he’d never heard before as she stirred something in a boiling pot. The T-shirt looked enormous on her, almost as big as a dress, while, at the same time, being perfectly tailored to her curves.

In the fake kitchen, she smiled at him much easier. A smile far wider than he had ever seen in real life, far brighter than he deserved. Perhaps that’s why he clocked in so fast that it had to be imaginary.

There was a mess of pans, tomato sauce and off-brand brandy along the counter, a container of milk and now, the mysterious big pot. What were they even supposed to be making in there?

Bob cautiously made his way closer and closer to Yelena, who continued to almost sing.

She then, wordlessly took the wooden spoon in her hands, blew at it for a few seconds and fed it directly into his mouth. Like he was a baby or something.

But to be fair, whatever food it was- was delicious. It tasted like sautéed beef and sour cream and– was it stroganoff? It didn’t taste like the very few stroganoffs he had ever had in his life, there was something about it that made it different.

“Ah!”

He must’ve made some type of face because she immediately burst out in laughter. God, he wanted to see that someday. Actually, truly, see that.

Yelena turned away from the stove then, hands against the counter, body towards him. An ache took hold of his heart at the sight, for whatever reason.

“Очень вкусно, да?” Yelena asked him, matter-of-factly. And she looked up at him like he understood it, too. “Папин Строгонафф все же лучше. Не говори ему.”

Bob’s head was spinning. What was she saying? There was a word there he was sure he'd heard before. Actually he had to have heard all those words before in order to dream like this, no?

So, what was-

Her cold hands moved from the counter, choosing to be placed against his neck. Bob tensed up, because she then inched her whole waist against him. That’s how some of his dreams went, he wasn't going to lie. But there was something about her grip- something about her eyes that looked and felt very different.

It was still her, but it was much less distorted. Much more concrete. The air going into his lungs felt conscious and- and heavy.

The light emanating from her skin felt almost scorching to the touch.

“Расслабься, Боб,” she ordered. That was his name there. She said his name.

What was she saying? What was she saying? What was she saying?

Why was he dreaming of her speaking in Russian like that? I mean, it was endearing and all. But still, something about it was almost overwhelming.

In between spinning stars and neurons firing up, dream-Yelena confidently placed her head against his shoulder and began to sing what sounded like a lullaby.

His body moving on his own, Bob carefully let his large hands hover against her waist, before finally deciding to rest them there. In a few seconds more they were swaying, in a clumsy rhythm, imperfectly tailored to him. Her hips swung against him with the expectation of the ballerina he knew her to be, and he struggled to match it.

He could get lost in it, if he allowed himself - it was just REM sleep, after all, even he was apparently region-locked in Russia for any reason. Bob allowed himself to touch her round cheek, slightly forcing her head up to look at him. There was something in those forest green eyes, something Bob couldn’t quite place, couldn’t read.

An alarm went off inside him, screaming that giving in would be a bad idea. If you put water in 300-degree heat, you later find it boiling. You give Robert Reynolds hope, you later find the Void.

But it was fine, this was just play pretend.

She touched her forehead to his and closed her eyes then. Her grip on him tightened, like she thought he would disappear- which was very funny considering she was the one who wasn’t real, she was the one about to disappear from him. Bob wanted to drink the moment in; wanted to forget it was all inside his head. Maybe he should allow himself to get lost in it, just this one time. Maybe.

“Вот это романтично,” she’d stopped singing to speak. Absolutely no idea what it meant though.

But there was her scent there, that intoxicating mixture of sweat and the Salonpas gel patches she always had on. There was her hair, with her roots, growing from dark red, to blonde to almost fried platinum. There was the fabric of his shirt– her shirt now, he supposed– a bit wrinkly, yet soft to the touch. And there was her tender grin, (so real so real so real), who grew when she approached.

His breath was wavering, too close to hers. The heat emanating from her was that of a million exploding suns.

He wanted to kiss her. He always did. Except, in that moment there was an unmistakable clarity: she wanted him to.

But, still, he should ask this version of Yelena first, anyways, since it was the polite thing to do. Or, at the very least, make conversation. Ask her about the dinner they were supposedly making, or whatever.

“Aren’t we about to burn up the kitchen, Yelena?”

Yelena’s eyes snapped open. Her entire frame froze, she blinked once, then twice- and with her sudden shift, so did the entire room. Everything around them completely stopped still. The crumpling of the fire on the stove, the ticking of the clock against the wall; all agonizingly silent.

This, Bob realized, wasn’t his creation. He was an intruder.

"Bob...?"

It wasn’t his dream, after all.

——————————————————————————————————

Long ago, Bob had been told that with each unmedicated manic episode, parts of his brain would be getting fried to a point of no return. He used to think that it meant, little by little, someday he wouldn’t be able to tell what was real and what wasn’t.

Well, now he wondered if his entire brain had effectively melted beyond repair.

They both had woken up with a start, simultaneously, as if the realization had grabbed them by the shoulders and shouted. Their previously intertwined fingers separating in the quickest instant.

Yelena jumped backwards, up from the couch and landed perfectly on her feet, just as Bob was only able to put his hands up in surrender.

It felt worse than walking in on her trauma rooms, somehow. God, it even felt worse than that time he accidently walked in on her and Ava changing uniforms.

“I- I didn’t mean to,” he flinched, not able to look at her directly.

She didn’t dignify that with an answer. Bob’s leg started stimming, prompting him to jump upwards. He should try harder.

“It’s… um, it’s probably because of the whole…” Bob didn’t want to say it, but he pointed towards his temple. “…Thing, you know? I swear it wasn’t on purpose, or anything.”

Yelena’s face contorted in quiet shame. He knew that look by now– it was the exact same as when Alexei showed him her high school pictures last week. Oh, Bob fucked up.

He fucked up big time.

He shouldn’t have acknowledged it. Now the cat was out of the bag and roaming around the uncomfortable silence freely.

“I’m sorry, Yelena.”

He wanted to physically slap himself. Shut up, shut up, shut up-

“It’s… okay.”

Was all she offered him, before turning on her heels and heading for the elevator. Leaving Bob alone in the very real Watchtower, fifty-one stories high in the sky, his copy of ‘The Bell Jar’ left forgotten on the floor and a blown-out candle dying out in the middle of his heart.

——————————————————————————————————

It was midnight and Robert couldn’t sleep.

Perhaps due to the leftover adrenaline of earlier, still finding its way around his bloodstream, or perhaps because he had, in fact, taken a nap a few hours before.

He’d paced around his room aimlessly, searched for beef stroganoff recipes and reviews on YouTube, took his 3mg of Zolpidem, stared at the ceiling, tried meditating.

It was 1 A.M. and Robert couldn’t sleep.

He couldn’t go back to his book anymore; every word on it would be tainted with… that whole thing. Yeah, no, he shouldn’t. He started at the ceiling some more. Put on white noise. Counted sheep.

Looked back at the clock and it was still 2 A.M. Oh, so now time decided to slow down for him, yeah?

Bob sighed heavily, irritably pushing himself out of bed. He knew the whole insomnia drill by now, better to admit defeat already. Better to go and do something useful, instead of getting swallowed up by the closing walls of his bedroom.

After trading his pajamas for workout gear (careful not to even look at the Joy Division T-shirt thrown in the drawer), he went down the elevator and into the training grounds. He had hoped working out would get him tired enough to go back to sleep eventually. Or, at the very least, stop his mind from wandering back to dyed blonde hair and sweet foreign melodies.

The elevator dinged loudly, pulling him back to the present and out into the fitness center. Though, just as Bob stepped out, yawning mechanically, he could hear it. Just as his eyes landed on her figure.

She’d already spotted him by then, straightening out the fighting posture she held against the poor exercise mannequin.

So, not only had he invaded her very private subconscious- now he was invading her personal gym time too. Greeeeat. What an awesome guy he was.

The doors closed behind him, as his brain struggled to come up with what to do. Would it be more or less awkward to just moonwalk back into his floor?

More, he thought with certainty. Definitely more.

“Um…” Bob mumbled, trying to look at anywhere else, but at her direction. Somehow looking at her gaze now felt like staring straight into the Sun. And he was sure his face was just bright red and embarrassingly numb as an entire day without sunscreen too.

There was another beat, and then Yelena offered, like an olive branch to his nerves:

“Want to spar?”

They had done it before, of course, every Thursday, 8 P.M. sharp. No delays tolerated ("10 push-ups for each minute you're late, yes?"). She always kicked his ass brutally into the ground, and he knew she was still massively holding back.

(“Why are we even doing this? It can’t be useful to you,” Bob had wondered once. She chuckled ironically, already posing for another round. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Bob.”)

“It’s still Wednesday,” he tried, though he hesitantly took a few advancing small steps. Her gravity was already pulling him without much effort.

“Technically,” she started, picking up and moving the dummy out from the training arena. “It is already Thursday.”

Well, he knew she hated tardiness, but this was something else. Yelena cleaned her hands against one other, clapped once and motioned for him to 'come closer'. Her neck moving from side to side, in stretching and preparation.

She waited approximately one second before she landed her first punch. Bob actually managed to block the second attack, his head brutally hitting the floor after the fourth.

Round two was even quicker.

Round three shouldn’t even be able to count, Yelena hadn’t even waited for him to put his guard up, already having him by the legs and down on the hard pad in a single motion.

“Come on, Bob. Pay attention.”

He did. He tried to.

Round five had a bit more of an attempt. Now, he managed to land a kick against her ribcage- which turned to be a bad idea, in the end. Since she used his airborne leg to throw him up and away from her. Very, very bad idea.

“No distracting,” she cautioned, in a low tone.

Round seven started by her circling around him, like a lioness. He blocked her when she launched at him and she smirked momentarily, turning to try and trip him. He dodged it miraculously, trying to go for a punch- only to find her left hand closing in on his fist and twisting it. Bob felt a blow to the right side of his abdomen, then another. And another. His forearm moved to block it, his feet losing their stance momentarily.

No, he recognized it too late.

Yelena had both her hands on his shoulder, swinging him like a ragdoll. Bob blinked and her whole body had thrown him backwards into the familiar ground. Still, from that angle he saw something he had never seen before: an opening. A misplaced stance.

It was probably testing him, but he took the bait- and successfully took her down by the ankles, sweeping her off her feet in the most literal sense. A loud thud landing beside him.

If she was surprised by it, she didn’t show it. Already moving to be on top of him in a millisecond, with both thighs connecting him at the hip, holding his wrists against the hard training cushion.

“That was a dirty move, Bob,” and he almost apologized before she continued. “Good job.”

The grip hurt so much it could probably draw blood. His back was killing him. His head was pulsating from the previous falls. His breathing was jacked, but then again, he noticed- so was hers.

The Salonpas and sweat hit his nostrils from close proximity. She rendered him immobile promptly, straddling him with ease, but it’s not like he wished to move either way. Part of him wanted to stay there, soaking in as much of her as he could. Part of him wanted to escape, though.

Most of him worried about it all; about the instability that came with this; whatever this was even supposed to be. A shiver went along his spine.

Neither of them budged, though. And neither of them spoke.

There was a single bead of sweat running down Yelena’s forehead, Bob noticed. His eyes traced the water down until it hit her neck and eventually splashed against his ribcage, looking up towards her lips then her reflecting eyes. She was reading him again; he could almost see gears turning around and smoke coming from her ears, searching for something within him with intensity and focus.

Her grip on him tightened and he shifted reluctantly. There was not much else to do, he was at her mercy. Just as he had always been, ever since the day they met.

The instant he laid eyes on her, all those months ago, she already had him on the palm of her hand. He was hers to do as she pleased – to throw around, to protect, to neglect or to keep. And, in another reality, to dance with.

He was staring, pleading; she stared back. An immense dialog having just taken place in the small interaction.

Bob opened his mouth, then closed it. Not sure if he would even be able to produce coherent wording. But he should probably say something, right? Not outright confess he loved her but, like, tell her how much he liked her blue eyeliner. Or how much he liked her hoarse voice and the way her accent made every word flow into another with intensity. Or how much he liked her brutal honesty and how she kept everybody on their toes. Or how much he liked her weirdly frank peptalks, whenever he or anybody in the team was feeling down. Or how much he liked her kindness and how easy it came to her, sometimes to a martyr degree, other times from a place of sincere self-preservation. Or how much he liked that she always lit up a room whenever she walked in. The light inside her could even be blinding and oh, how he would gladly go blind for it.

(He would always be hers to blind, to break.)

Yelena slowly released the hands pinned to the side of his ears, moving backwards, triggering Bob to involuntarily reach for her, supporting himself with his elbows. She was still on top of him, however, and still breathing heavy.

Mouth as dry as the Sahara Desert, he had to lick his lips.

“…Lena, I-”

There was so much to say, so little distance between them. Distance that was abruptly closed by Yelena grabbing at his collar and crashing her lips hard into his. Bob swallowed the shock at record speed, closing his eyes and letting the weight of her fall against him.

And no sooner had it begun, it was already over.

That first kiss, at least.

Because soon Yelena angled forward again, this time positioning herself better against his mouth and deepening the kiss. She tasted like alcohol and chamomile, and he wanted to drink her whole, if she let him. Hands trembling (from exercise, from Lithium, from nervousness), he grabbed at the sides of her neck, his thumbs caressing her cheek, body no longer his own. It was all hers. And it was all her.

All the love he felt for her and the fear of ever causing her any harm again, the feelings clashing and converging paradoxically. Cascading into a river, the meeting of clear and muddy waters.

“Yelena…” Bob whispered, not sure if he wanted to say anything beyond her name.

Either way, she cut him off with finality, running her tongue against his own until he could only produce the most primal of sounds. Yelena kissed as if it was a combat– with brute force and a need for something greater. Though the toughness of her intent contrasted with the smoothness of her lips. Bob wasn't interested in winning any battles, just happy to be kissing her at all.

There was no drug more intoxicating, and that was no exaggeration or hyperbole – it was a fact. Simply so strong and so intense, you couldn’t compare it to any other kind of high.

He felt a pang of electricity running through every spot touched by her, when she ran her way his hair, his neck, his shoulders, his arm… Leaving a painfully wonderful sensation along her trail, as if he was constantly being stung by Black Widow Bites.

Her nails dig into the flesh of his upper arm like a knife and, God, he hoped she stabbed at him deeper. His muscles longed for her in ways he couldn’t particularly understand. He wanted her to cut him open and consume him in like she were a feast.

Man, there was no way it was all his actual life.

(Actually, being completely honest here, he wasn’t entirely too convinced this wasn’t all just pure psychosis, his brain playing tricks on him once more.)

If there was such a thing as true happiness, this was it. Her mouth, her tongue against his teeth, on the insides of his cheek. Icarus melting over and over and over again- and falling with a smile on his face.

No high, no neuron-frying manic episode ever brought him this, Bob gathered. This was tangible. This was his entire world, on his fingertips, feeling heat and sweat and everything in between.

This was Yelena Belova. And she was the woman of his dreams.

And, for now, he would allow himself this happiness as it was.

——————————————————————————————————

"If I should fall on that day, I only pray, don't fall away from me"

#thunderbolts #boblena #bob reynolds #or idk #robert reynolds #yelena belova #sentrylight #fic tag #tw: mentions of bipolar disorder symptoms and medication #tw: mentions of past substance abuse #yeah i just really needed to get these two off my chest bc they’re CONSUMING me y’all don’t understand #haven’t felt like this since the avengers movie #posting this here bc i edited the shit out of ot after i posted it on ao3 #mcu fandom #how i missed ya

47 notes · View notes