vivi ᯓ★

you thought adrian didn't mean anything by it at first. it was hard making space in the restaurant booth anyway. it started with a small, gentle caress of his thumb along your thigh. he was unfazed by the motion, preoccupied by his banter with leota across the table. what seemed so unexpected to you was like muscle memory to him. adrian had always been so touch-keen; gentle pats on the shoulder to emelia, memories of long drunken hugs he bullied economos into. but with you? a cold palm now traced the skin, fidgeting hands driving you up the wall.

you succeed hiding your arousal well, but adrian was always a step ahead. he never laid a single eye on you and somehow had complete control. you reached for his hand with your own, losing to an fervorous grip at your wrist. adrian continued his journey, shifting himself to swim below the seam of your bottoms, towards your sopping cunt. his middle finger found a seat beneath the pooling mess he'd made. oh how easy adrian knew it was to toy with you this way, rubbing circles into the drenched fabric. the room became a whirling, fuzzy mist as you leaned into his torment. you relaxed against the cushion as the man exchanged the digit nestled against your core with messy circles around your eager clit. all while he rambles about the charm of 'penguin pebbling'.

it's when he finally, finally enters you that you lose yourself. a lump in your throat chokes you as he coaxes you open with a finger, curving himself inside. he's asking the table to quiz him on tools crows use. he slips another finger inside, working heavy thrusts into your warmth. somehow he's babbling about pokemon battles.

as always, the crew tuned him out. didn't really matter to adrian though—he knew you we're clinging to his every word.

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The floorboards creak under Bob’s feet in a shrill sound that precisely reminds him of that one spot with the loose plank in the attic of his parents house – it’s strange how some insignificant details can stick, how he will remember this specific thing when he can sometimes forget to eat when he’s too deep inside his own mind.

He stands awkwardly in your living room, if you can even call it that, the way really, it is your whole apartment there. 

The thing is cramped and a bit messy, but the exposed brick brings a certain charm to it, and the view is not that bad. The room smells of you, warm and familiar, and the trinkets and decoration make it look like you in a way that makes Bob feel safe even when he’s never been here before. 

“It’s nice here,” he remarks, looking around. His gaze catches at the collage of pictures up on the wall, pictures of you and your friends, some from Florida, some he doesn’t know the faces of.

You pinch your lips in a small smile. “It’s decent for the rent I’m paying”

He hums thoughtfully as he paces around, wondering how different your day to day life must be now that everything has changed, wondering if you’re happier the way you intended to be when you made the decision to leave.

“I took everything I had when I moved from Florida,” your voice pulls him out of his thoughts. “So I have boxes of your stuff” you say with a groan as you slide the cardboard boxes from the floor of your closet in an unpleasant sound against the wood. “Couldn’t give it back to your parents,” you mutter, voice quietening with the heaviness of the implication. “Couldn’t bring myself to throw it out.”

You push the boxes towards him and step back, palms resting and tapping at the sides of your thighs like you don’t really know what to do with your own body when he inspects the cardboard boxes labeled with his name, filled with stuff he had forgotten about – you might as well have thrown it all out and he wouldn’t have remembered a thing if he hadn’t seen it, but now that they’re in front of him, he would hate to see it all gone.

Seeing some of those things brings a smile to his face, memories of a different life all gathered here in boxes. 

He chuckles at the single faced rubik’s cube you had gifted him as a joke for his 28th birthday, heart warming a bit at the memory – his life under the influence had always been fragments of memories, but the birthdays spent with you had always been like a light through the haze. You had always given it importance, insisting on making the day special because you knew how much it used to suck back when he was a kid.

His heart aches with nostalgia when he briefly goes through what’s laying on the surface; his fingerless gloves, the notebook filled with tickets of shows you both went to, the silly, crooked clay creature he had made for you when you had attempted the activity (you had turned out to love and grow attached to the thing, but having to keep it and look at it hurt too much, especially the carving of Bob’s name with a heart at the back.)

“Oh, also” you say suddenly before you disappear to the bathroom, quickly coming back handing him a hoodie. “I forgot to pack it. I still wear it sometimes”

“Oh, keep it then” he says, glancing at it then at you with a shrug, giving you an easy smile before he gathers the boxes at his feet. 

“Oh no, I–”

“Really, keep it. That's okay” he nods. 

You find yourself destabilized, not knowing what to say or do. “Alright” you mutter as you look at the piece of clothing in your hands, thumb running along the fabric. “Thank you”

He gives you an earnest smile before he looks through another box.

He couldn’t say he didn’t think about texting you when he figured he was bound to be in New York for good. 

But his life had changed dramatically and he swore he wouldn’t go back to his old ways, and while you were one of the rare good aspects of his old life, he wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. And as a matter of fact, he wasn’t even sure you would have wanted to see him ever again. 

Because he was part of why you left Florida in the first place, right?

You had texted him when you heard he was in New York because he was now, for some reason, famous for being affiliated to the New Avengers in some mysterious way no one truly knew about despite the speculations of tabloids – had texted him figuring giving him his stuff back and officially erasing any and every trace of your life together would allow you to move on and turn the page for good.

It literally felt like seeing a ghost from the past when you caught a glimpse of him in the background of the public announcement of the New Avengers. It had been a punch to the gut, and you were pretty sure it was written all over your face, stripped of any expression and livid as your coworker held her phone to show you the video, a concerned frown over her face before she asked you if you were okay.

You’re not sure who you were trying to convince when you told her you were.

“I forgot about that,” Bob chuckles, holding up a green mug with a cheap, kitsch dog painted on that he had bought in a souvenir shop when you went to Tallahassee. 

“It’s so ugly” you whine playfully, face scrunching into a grimace, shaking your head in dismay.

“That’s why I got it, I pitied him” he grins, looking at the thing from different angles. “He’s kinda alright if you look at it from afar”

You hold your hands up in surrender, huffing out a small laugh. “You do whatever you want with it, it’s not my problem anymore” you clear your throat lightly, moving to the kitchen area. “Do you want something to drink? Coffee? Cocoa? Tea? Water? You can drink it in that cursed mug” you offer to diffuse the tension, unsure how to move along, leaning against the counter when your hand settles at the cupboard handle.

Bob inhales thoughtfully and his mouth eventually pinches into an apologetic smile when he remembers Alexei is waiting down the building in his limo for the transportation of his stuff back to the Watchtower. “I would have loved to catch up with you but I gotta get going soon. Life has been crazy in ways you can’t even imagine.” he huffs out, head tilting to the side.

You nod in understanding, almost as curious as everyone else as to what his life looks like in the New Avengers Watchtower.

You figure it’s probably better for the both of you if you don’t dig deeper and just leave it at the surface of what you know about each other now.

And if you leave it at that and don’t see each other again.

—

I fucked up

Bob reads the notification when it lights up the homepage of his phone. 

The sound of the movie playing on the large screen of the Watchtower common area drowns out suddenly, and while it is reaching its climax and coming to an end, it doesn’t really matter anymore and he doesn’t think twice about it before he sends in his reply.

?

The frown over his face barely relaxes and the anxiety at the pit of his stomach hardly eases as he waits for you to text him back, restlessly shifting his position over the couch. He glances at the TV screen, back at his phone, repeat, again and again, like that cycle will somehow summon your reply, but no notification follows up. 

Every second without a text back feels like ages, until it actually starts feeling like ages when you still haven’t answered more than five minutes later. 

Bob excuses himself to the rest of the team when he leaves, the dial sound already ringing as he isolates himself further away and waits for you to pick up– “What’s going on? Are you okay?” he hurries to ask when you finally do, worried. 

“Hey Bobby,” your voice is slow, slurred, the vowels dragged out. 

His chest clenches as he hears the nickname, aching from the way you’d claimed it back from his father and he’d got to love it, aching from the way it hurt twice as much as before now.

“You uh– What was that text? Are you alright?” his face scrunches up into a frown as he tries to pay attention through the commotion on your side of the line, looking back at the group when he sees the movie credits roll and everyone starting to grab their stuff to head to bed.

“Yeah, sorry” you reply loudly, attempting to overlap the general noise around you. “My friend snatched my phone away before I could continue texting you but she had to leave with some guy she was flirting with so I got it back” you explain with a giggle. Bob is pretty sure he could smell the alcohol in your breath through the phone if he tried hard enough.

“So you're alone now? Where are you?” he asks, pacing around with a hand over his forehead.

“At a bar,” you answer too casually, like it’s supposed to convince him you’re alright. He knows you too well to know you shrugged saying this, and it kinda scares him that he could guess it.

“Which one? Why’d you call for?” he asks, not reassured in the slightest. Probably even more worried now.

“You called me, Bob” you correct, confused.

“Yeah, right, sorry” he huffs out a humorless laugh before you can continue, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He once again doesn’t think about it twice when you describe a bar that’s only two blocks away from the Watchtower, already rushing to grab his Converse even before either of you hangs up.

He’s there ten minutes later.

—

He insisted on bringing you over to the Watchtower. 

You were too drunk to argue, and your legs hurt too much to insist you could walk yourself home on the other side of the city, so you agreed. You could have gotten a cab, it would have been the most rational option, only rationality was far from being your priority. Neither of you said it out loud, but you both knew you would feel safer with him, and he would only feel relieved once he made sure you were in his sight.

“I hate bars” you groan, the sounds of the city almost seeming relaxing compared to the overwhelming ambience of the crowded bar you spent the last few hours at. It had been suffocating the first twenty minutes, then it had been relatively pleasant from the moment the drinks started kicking, but you realize now that you’re out of there how painful it really was.

Bob is supporting you so you don’t trip over your wobbly steps, your arm tightly wrapped around him to balance yourself.

He chuckles, a warm, familiar sound. “I know. Why’d you go?” 

You give him a small shrug in response. “Peer pressure. From one person. I’m weak minded”

He grins before it quickly vanishes, giving way to a light frown. “And so she left you there on your own?”

You shrug again like it’s not that big of a deal. “I told her to go. And it was okay so I don't blame her. She's gonna get laid” you scoff, giggling drunkenly. “Hasn’t happened to me since you”

Bob’s face heats up from the comment, a small chuckle leaving his mouth. “Yeah, okay” his laugh fades as quickly as it came when you start to lose trajectory. “God, you’ve had one too many” he grunts as he tries to stabilize your position. “Two too many actually.”

It takes longer than it normally should for you to reach the tower, since you kind of happen to be a dead weight.

Bob does his best to make as little noise as possible when you get there since everyone has already gone to bed – does his best to make you make as little noise as possible.

“I’ll leave you my bed” Bob declares when he makes you sit on it. “It’ll raise less questions if I’m the one they find sleeping on the couch.”

You let out a mocking scoff, like what he just said is of disconcerting absurdity. “We're adults. You can sleep in your own bed” you say, watching as he searches through his closet to give you something decent to sleep in. “It’s not like we never shared a bed before”

He shrugs, back turned to you, rummaging through the piles of clothes until he picks out an oversized, faded Radiohead shirt and a pair of sweatpants. “Just didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable.” 

He hands you the clothes and immediately turns around to act busy as he hears the rustle of your clothes when you start taking your jacket off, like he’s never seen you bare so many times before. 

You snort a laugh at his reaction even though it’s a bit endearing that he’s that careful not to make you uncomfortable. “Bob, I don’t care”

“Yeah, well. Different circumstances” he mutters before he disappears through the adjoined bathroom to get into his own sleeping clothes, coming back with a glass of water in hand. He sets it down on the nightstand carefully, eyes deliberately avoiding you as though even just a glance might cross a line.

“I’m done,” you tease, voice rough but softer now with the tiredness that is starting to settle in. “You can look.”

He sits on the bed with a soft sigh, looking over at you where you’re letting your legs slide under the covers. It’s obvious the exhaustion is catching up on you, he can see it on your face, and he knows you too well to know when it starts hitting you. “You good?”

You hum positively, bringing your knees to your chest as it burns from all the drinks you’ve had. “That’s weird,” you remark. “You’re the sober one now. And we’re in the same bed again”

He gives you a weak, somewhat amused smile. If it wasn’t for everything that has changed, on the surface it would look like any other night back then with him in your apartment in Florida. “So,” Bob starts, lightly clearing his throat, trying to get his mind elsewhere, anywhere else from the nostalgic thought. “Where were you going with that text”

Your head shakes, tiredly rubbing over your eyes. “That’s stupid.”

His head tilts in curiosity, and even after everything that has happened between you, you can’t deny him anything. Not when he’s looking at you with that obvious want to draw the answer out of you.

“A guy hit on me and I wasn’t in the mood so I apologized and said I had a boyfriend. You never know what could go through men’s heads when you reject them and I knew he wouldn’t leave it at that if I said I wasn’t interested” you explain with a shrug. “And it eventually got me thinking about you.”

You take in a breath that shudders on the way out. “I loved you.” you nod, voice thick with the influence of alcohol and sincerity. “And as much as I hate to think about it, leaving you was simultaneously the best and worst decision of my life”

His head shakes almost instantly. “I don’t blame you for doing it” he declares in earnest. “I never did.”

You nod, because you know. As hard as it had been, it had been the best decision for the both of you, and you both knew that. 

“I miss you sometimes” you admit. “Like I’ve adjusted, but sometimes I take a step back and it’s all so strange not having you around and something about it feels hollow.”

“In fact I think it’s because I'm still in love with you” you chuckle, more out of self mockery than real amusement. You run a hand over your face, desperately knowing saying this is probably something you will regret tomorrow, but you mean it either way.

Bob’s expression falters, softens before it hardens like he’s confused as to how to react. “Come on,” he says, chuckling in disbelief, voice low, pleading. “Don’t do that. You’re drunk. Don't say stuff like that” 

You shrug with a weak smile, gaze falling to your lap now that you’re doing everything to avoid his, a hand running over your forehead while you pick up the glass of water and drink it in hopes to soften the blow tomorrow.

He swallows thickly, looking around his own bedroom like it will give him answers. 

You remain silent in fear that saying anything more will worsen your situation and push you to the brink of tears, and you don’t want him to feel like he has to console you for something you decided – which is definitely what is going to happen if you burst into tears, because that’s who Bob is. Kind, empathetic, and you would feel worse if he did, feeling like you have somehow played with him and his feelings like he’s just your personal puppet.

“You should get some rest” Bob eventually declares, his voice quiet. You nod, fully sliding under the sheets. “You’re sure you’re alright with me sleeping here?”

You turn so you can face him, your cheek sinking into the pillow, bringing the sheets up to your chin. You hum tiredly and your eyes close under the weight of everything. “Don’t be stupid.”

—

“Bob has someone in his room” Ava declares with a careless sigh when she sits at the table, where the team is having breakfast, except for Bucky who is gone running errands and for Bob who sometimes tends to linger in bed – and probably has a real reason to now, she guesses.

“What,” Yelena deadpans looking up at her with an eyebrow raised, still too asleep for the information to properly sink in.

“You heard that.” Ava shrugs. “I couldn’t sleep because I ached so bad last night. And I heard noise” she explains, then grimacing to the disgusted face Walker gives her. “Not that kind of noise. You’re fucked up” she spits accusingly, frowning at him. 

“Don’t phrase things that way” he chuckles derisively, a bitter expression painted onto his face when she rolls her eyes at him, fed up by his mere presence. Alexei huffs out a gravelly laugh until Ava sends a death glare his way too.

“That is none of our business anyway” Yelena declares, mouth full of cereal. 

“You got to admit that’s surprising” Walker remarks with a condescending tone. 

Ava snaps at him again without hesitation. “What’s not surprising is you taking any and every opportunity to be an asshole”

“I don’t see why Bob wouldn’t pull more bitches than you” Yelena declares in unison with her.

“Jesus,” Walker huffs out, taking the wise decision of simply not saying more knowing each of his words could and will irrevocably be used against him.

Yelena shakes her head, continuing to chew on her cereal while Walker busies himself with making coffee.

Luckily, you remember exactly where you are when your eyes open, the memories of last night still fresh and clear. 

Your skull feels as heavy as your stomach, your limbs feel sore, your eyes and mouth feel dry and the light feels too bright when it shines through the large windows, but at least Bob got you breakfast in his room so you wouldn’t have to face all the strangers living there while being hungover.

You groan with the effort of sitting up in bed, fingers desperately attempting to rub away the ache in your face. 

Bob is looking at you with an empathetic smile, pushing the breakfast tray in your direction. “Morning”

“Morning” you croak out, voice heavy with the remnants of yesterday. You lightly clear your throat before you speak again, looking at the tray with a repulsed expression. “Thank you, but I can’t eat all of this, just looking at it makes me want to puke” 

“You should eat just a little, or drink at the very least” he advises with a concerned, slight frown, nudging the tray closer until it bumps your knee.

“You didn’t have to do all of that”

He gives you a shrug. “No one was in the kitchen when I woke up so I figured I could make you something nice”

Your teeth sink into your bottom lip before you take a sip of the orange juice. It feels like being born again, having a new skin, or something of that kind. “Thank you. For having my back” you declare as you set the glass back over the tray with a sound that rings through the room, a bit ashamed. “Last night was so embarrassing, I’m sorry” 

You were used to being around him in a past life and you know he would never judge you, but this is awful for a somewhat second-first-impression. 

“Come on” he chuckles lightly. “How many times have you taken care of me back when I was using”

“I’m not just talking about the drunk part. I’m sorry about the things I said. You’re sober and you’re doing great and that was unfair of me to spill my feelings onto you” you apologize, avoiding his gaze. You’re not sure you can take the weight of it, not after the things you said last night.

His mouth twists with the uncertainty of what to say and how to react – he didn’t think you would remember, didn’t even think you meant it in the first place. “You uh… That’s fine. That’s okay” he nervously scratches his forehead, unsure what to do with his hands afterwards. “I uh– I’ll go greet the team, you can stay in bed longer if you want to. Feel free to use the shower”

You nod, watch as he hesitates once again before he exits the room. You know he’s coming back, but you can’t help the strange feeling blooming inside your chest at the sight of him leaving, and you wonder how painful it must have been for him to watch you leave when you decided to call it quits. 

—

“Hey guys” Bob says with a small smile when he joins the team in the kitchen area. All heads suddenly perk up and turn towards his direction in an almost scary synced motion.

“Who’s in your room?” Alexei wantonly asks, immediately causing Yelena to nudge him in the ribs, her teeth clenched. “What?” he frowns at her, offended. “Asking the question everyone wants the answer to” he shrugs, picking up the box of cereal from the counter to dig his hand in.

Bob chuckles nervously, “Wha– How’d you–?” Walker gives him an impressed expression, eyebrows raised in earned respect. “Oh, that’s not…” Bob snorts, quietly laughing to himself. “No,” he shakes his head. “That’s just… an old friend. Sort of. Kinda. Back from Florida” Yelena’s brow furrow, her face hardening, but she barely has time to question it before Bob suddenly rears up with defensiveness. “Sorry, I didn’t know we had to register whoever visits, but I’ll make sure to fill out and give you guys the document next time” he chuckles ironically before he snatches a pastry from the common plate on the table, taking a bite out of it before he leaves like he’s never been there in the first place.

“What has gotten into him,” Ava mutters when he’s out of sight, turning to her teammates.

“Maybe it’s one of those phases” Walker comments with a small shrug, the ghost of Bob’s presence weighing in the room.

It gets Yelena to ponder about it. 

—

Being trained into a skilled assassin teaches you a thing or two, and experience has made her competent in stalking people.

She had left the front door gaping on purpose. It was perfectly calculated. She had done it just so you would expect something to be out of place when you came home from work, just to scare you a little. 

So she doesn’t lose her temper when you grab a kitchen knife. She’s used to it from trained people, she knows the average person is unlikely to use it, and she knows how to dodge attacks anyway, if you happen to be tougher than expected. 

You’re holding it up, hand slightly trembling, but fiercely pointing it at her with a certain determination in your gaze.

You keep your distance but your body language tells her that you could move either way if anything happened.

“Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing here” you question with all the confidence you can gather, doing your best to hide the fear that has bloomed inside your chest and grabbed you by the throat.

“Good evening to you too,” she ironically says with a strong russian accent and a smile, head tilting to the side in a way that would seem charming if it wasn’t for the current situation. “You can drop that. I have a gun in my pocket, so”

Your eyes trail down to the pocket of her jacket then quickly back to her face when she adjusts her position over the chair she’s sitting on. “What do you want from me,” you don’t falter, don’t lower the knife even for an inch. “Have you seen the size of my place, I don’t have any money to give you” you chuckle humorlessly. 

“Oh no, I’m not here about the money” she stands up, causing you to react and blindly step back a little more at each step she takes. “I’m here for a friend. To tell you to step the fuck away from him” she declares in a casual way that still remains scarily menacing. Your brows furrow and you finally get it. Why she seems so familiar. “You know who I’m talking about. He’s been sober for a while and he’s finally acclimating to it so the last thing he needs is someone to try and get him back into drugs” she smiles in that same chilling way as earlier. Your mouth gapes with the need to defend yourself and your motives and explain the situation, but she acts and steps closer before you can get a word out. “That’s just a warning, but if you don’t,” she looks you up and down now that you’re face to face, your grip over the kitchen knife tightening. “I know where you live.”

She gives you one last smile before she walks past you, disappearing through the door in front of your eyes. 

You let the knife fall out of your hand onto the floor with a clattering sound, and you rush to push the door closed and put on every lock.

—

The next time knuckles rattle against your door in a series of knocks, your heart leaps inside your chest in a slight panic, and you make sure to take a look through the peephole before you open – just a precaution following your last visitor. 

“Bob” you frown as you swing the door open, confused. He’s standing there, hands buried inside the pockets of his jacket, a bright smile over his face that makes your stomach clench with a hollow feeling. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t like how we left things off last time. How I left things off.” he specifies. 

Truth is, since you parted ways the other day and he had to watch you leave again without the promise of ever seeing you again, he couldn’t fight the impression that he let you slip through his fingers again because he couldn’t do the right thing, couldn’t be the right thing for you once more. 

His brain had screamed at him to run and catch you while he still could, to give it one more try because he knew he couldn’t fight what he felt – not when he longed for your presence so relentlessly to the point where you haunted his every dream and where he wished you could be lying beside him when he woke up like you were just a few nights ago.

You blink at him like you’re a clueless fish inside a pet shop tank, and he gazes at you with an expectant look, silently asking if he can make his way in to have a proper conversation. 

“You can’t be here” you eventually state, voice quiet with the heaviness of going against everything you would want if you didn’t have a hypothetical gun held against your temple. 

Bob chuckles softly, slightly confused. “Why can’t I”

You huff out a small sigh, a hand coming to rub along your face in dread of what you’re about to say, but you happen to want to keep living, and if you really had to choose, you wouldn’t go out shot in the head by some blonde scary russian woman. You hate to have to do this, but you have to, and in some way, it’s partially true. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t think we can be friends”

“Oh,” his face goes blank, devoid of color. “Okay. But–”

“I’m sorry, Bob. It just hurts too much”

“No, I get it” he shakes his head with a small, understanding pout. He reflects on it for a second, weighed down by the heaviness of the silence between you. He’s not going to force it. “I just want you to be happy and if it means we need to be apart... then so be it” he nods.

Swallow your pride, he tells himself. Just one more thing not going your way. It’s almost part of the routine at this point.

He hesitates, looking at you one last time. He wants to remember, wants to memorize the features of your face if it’s the last time he sees it. He knows he will see you again in his dreams, but it pains him to know that it will only have to be a figment of his imagination, a trap from his own brain. 

He wants to say it, wants to tell you how much he has missed and will miss you, how much he has loved you and will probably continue to despite his own will like he has for the past year.

But he doesn’t want it to have to be any more painful, doesn’t want to hurt you even more, so he bites the inside of his cheek and gives you a weak, bittersweet smile that he hopes conveys at least half of what he feels before he turns and leaves for good.

An uneasiness grabs at your throat and squeezes when you have to push the door once he’s truly gone and you can’t hear his steps in the stairs anymore, your forehead pressing against it when you hear the clicking as it closes fully.

You could have never seen him again and maybe it would have been alright. 

Having him come here with the intention of making things better was a cruel equivalent of torture, of furiously rubbing salt in the wound.

—

The sun peeks behind the clouds as it sets and casts a yellowish glow through the wide windows of the Watchtower, the faint rays of sunshine hitting Bob’s locks in golden hues that almost make his hair look blonde where he’s lounging over the couch. 

Some cartoon he used to watch for fun whenever he got high is playing in the background, but he’s not really paying attention, more busy being lost inside his own head than watching, and the show has some uncomfortable feeling to it now that it reminds him of some unpleasant period of his life anyway.

“What is that?” Yelena asks when she joins him and sits beside him, trying to get him out of his bubble, pointing at the clay figure he’s absent mindedly fiddling with. 

She has noticed he has been acting distant lately and has been spending more time alone in his room, forcing his smiles whenever the whole team was gathered during dinner, so she couldn’t help but worry about it creeping up the surface, about the Void potentially threatening to take a hold of him again.

“Some clay thing I made for my ex back then,” he holds it up so she can see it, lips pinched into something that should look like a smile but doesn’t.

“How come you have it if it was for your ex?” she asks, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“She gave me back boxes of my stuff when she heard I was in town and it was in there, guess she didn’t want to have to look at it anymore” Bob explains with a shrug, head tilting to the side as his thumb brushes along the curves of the figure in contemplation.

“Is that where Alexei drove you the other day?” Yelena asks, faintly remembering something her father had mentioned in the middle of one of his endless rants she barely knew how to keep up with.

Bob nods, and a frown draws onto her face. “Wait, Bob–” she adjusts her position over the couch so she can face him. “Is that who you had over the other day?”

“Yeah” he admits. It’s no use denying it and he has no reason to. “It wasn’t like that– we’re not back together” he declares, feeling the need to justify himself. “I thought I could do something but it’s over for good, even now that I’m sober” he snorts a laugh. “That's pretty ironic”

Even now that I’m sober. 

So you weren’t an addict. And Bob’s drug problem was probably the reason you called it quits in the first place. 

Yelena properly decomposes, all color washing out of her face when she pieces it all together and realizes.

Realizes how badly she managed to fuck up. 

“Oh my god,” she jumps from the couch to stand in front of Bob, the palm of her hands covering her eyes as she grimaces in crazed realization. “Bob, I’m such an idiot”

A simple background check on you could have prevented that, but Yelena had dived headfirst into this, utterly convinced of your motives. 

She knew how fragile recovery was, she knew how easy it was to relapse, so she didn’t second guess it even just for a minute, too determined to try to keep Bob away from temptation and the risk of falling back into that hole. 

So Bob had been confused, then mad at her when she first explained it all, how she got it all wrong. 

Had told her it was none of her business and she shouldn’t have stuck her nose in. 

Then he couldn’t help but feel that he had been unfair to her, because she was only trying to help and keep him safe, so he had apologized for being rude. 

After the atmosphere had lightened and he finally came back to his senses, it was clear to him that he couldn’t leave it like that with you, couldn’t let you slip away once more. 

Clouds had been quick to spread and cover the sky of New York into a thick, menacing dark layer, and had been even quicker to take Bob by surprise. Your apartment was just a little more than five minutes away from the subway, but it had been enough for Bob to end up as soaked as if he had taken a dive into a lake by the time he reached your building, barely able to see five meters forward as he walked from how hard the rain was beating down onto the pavement, pooling at his feet.

So when you open your door to him soaking wet and shoulders curled in as he’s shivering, damp clothes dripping onto the floor and wet hair sticking to his forehead, you don’t question his presence and immediately let him come inside, hastily helping him out of his jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair so it can dry. 

“Jesus, Bob” you breathe out, half reprimanding and half worried. His teeth clatter as a shiver runs down his spine, lashes heavy and wet. “You’re gonna get sick”

“I really needed to see you” he says, voice hoarse from the effort of dragging himself up the stairs in that state. At this point, it feels like the cold is lodged in his bones, limbs numb and frozen.

You move to pick up a couple of towels, setting one over your bed to protect the sheets before you grab him by the arm and make him sit there, letting you guide him down like he doesn’t trust his body to stay upright on his own. You hand him the smaller towel so he can try to dry his hair at least a little, watching him struggle to run it over the dripping strands with fingers stiff from the cold, so you take over and do it yourself. “This late and in this weather?”

He hums in confirmation, low and quiet like even speaking drains the little strength he has left, his jaw trembling. You toss the hair towel aside and sit beside him when you wrap a blanket around his shoulders, hand rubbing along his back in hopes to warm him up a little. 

Your gaze hardens with concern. He looks so much like the man you used to know, the one who used to come to you after bad nights or whenever he was having a hard comedown and needed to be taken care of, and god, did he used to hate it, hate that it felt so right having you tend to him when he knew how much it cost you.

You shiver when the back of your hand presses against his cheek, cold and taking the imprint of your fingers when you pull away. “You can’t stay like that” your head shakes in bewilderment. “Go take a shower and change, I’ll give you some clothes”

He doesn’t answer right away, just blinks at you through heavy lashes, his chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. For a second, you think he might argue, might diminish his problems and pretend that he’s okay the same way he always did, but he eventually nods faintly.

You help him up on his feet, his body heavier than it should be against your side as you guide him towards the bathroom. It pains him to have to let go of the blanket tightly wrapped around himself, afraid that the cold will swallow him whole. 

You can’t help but think how this all parallels the way your relationship used to be as you prepare clean and warm clothes for him to slip in – but this is different, you remind yourself. He’s different now, or at least trying to be, and it’s just as painful, but in a different kind of way.

Steam from the bathroom mixes into the ambient air of the rest of the apartment when Bob reemerges, his damp hair clinging to his forehead in soft curls, his skin flushed from the hot water, wearing the hoodie he had insisted you keep.

“Better?” you ask handing him the hot cocoa cup you prepared for him. He takes it from your hands with a grateful smile, giving you a small nod before he thanks you, and you invite him to sit down over the bed again.

You set the blanket over his shoulders again, watching as he sips from the mug, warming up from the inside out. You notice his shoulders relaxing, the tension wearing off, the wet strands of his hair falling over and framing his face in a graceful way, the lines of his face softer than they were when he came in.

“Sorry you have to do this again” he says, giving you an apologetic smile that disappears when he brings the mug to his mouth.

“Do what?”

“Take care of me”

You remain silent, unsure what to say. That you don’t mind, that he knows you always would, that there’s no situation where you wouldn’t do this for him.

The sound of the rain beating down against the windows fills the space between you like a much needed distraction, but even that loud muffled sound is not nearly enough to ignore the loud thumping inside your ribcage. 

“You’re making it harder, you know. Coming back here” you remark after a while, voice quiet, heavy with the weight of your words.

He looks at you, nodding with a quiet hum before he moves to set the mug down over the closest surface. “That’s why I’m here. To make it harder” he declares. 

He can read the slight confusion over your face when he turns back to you, can see how fragile your gaze is as it flickers over his face when he scoots closer to you, filled with the need to understand.

His hand reaches for yours, palm covering it, and before you can even begin to question it, his lips are over yours, fragile and tentative like he’s kissing you for the first time again, quiet and gentle like the faintest touch might shatter you. And at this point, it just might, but you still close your eyes and let it happen.

His tongue runs over his bottom lip after he pulls away just a little, eyes still closed, remaining close enough that you can feel his breath. 

“What are you doing,” you murmur, voice hushed like a confession, the tip of your fingers lightly brushing against the side of his face, pushing away the wet strands of his hair. He knows you’re not asking this because you think it’s wrong, you are because you think he might have gone out of his mind.

And you shouldn’t even think about it. Every rational part of you tells you that you shouldn’t. 

But with the force of internal contradiction, your hand slides up into his damp hair, anchoring into him just slightly to draw him closer, and you kiss him back.

It’s more hurried than it was the first time, more needy, shattering months of estrangement and weeks of surface awkwardness, and his hands come up to cradle your jaw, your neck, like he’s terrified you’ll vanish if he doesn’t hold you right here.

His breath is ragged when he parts from your lips, only to drag his mouth down the line of your jaw, soft and desperate against your skin.

Your fingers tangle into his hair like a reflex despite you desperately trying to ground yourself against the panic of how much you want it though you know you shouldn’t.

“We shouldn’t,” you murmur reluctantly, like the words are coming out of someone else’s mouth, sounding weak and more like a warning to yourself that you don’t intend to follow than a command.

“Tell me to stop,” he breathes in earnest, not as a cocky expected proof that he’s sure that’s what you want. His voice is low and raspy against your throat, the words vibrating against your skin as his lips brush over the sensitive curve of your neck. He presses another kiss there, slow and deliberate, and you feel his smile against you when you don’t answer back, your silence speaking for itself.

It’s enough for him to pull you closer, his hand sliding to your back, pressing you flush against him as he kisses you again, deeper this time, with urgency that erases his earlier sheepishness, the blanket slipping from his shoulders and falling down the bed just to lay forgotten on the floor when you both shift backwards, bringing him down with you without even thinking about it. 

The mattress dips beneath your weight as you ease down, still tangled together, your mouths never breaking apart for long, his body hovering over yours, breathing heavy when he pulls back to look at you, to remind himself how much he’s missed having you like this, beneath him, breath heavy. 

His lips return to yours, then trail lower, moving along your chin, your jaw, your throat, as though he can’t stop himself.

When his forehead presses against yours again, he exhales like he’s been holding his breath for months, the both of you trembling with the weight of what you’ve just unleashed.

“You’re sure?” Bob asks, voice hoarse like you’ve taken his every breath, eyes gentle with concern as his gaze bores into yours.

You nod with no forethought, all sense of restraint abandoned, and he gives you a longing smile before your arm wraps around his neck to bring him closer again. 

His hands roam over you, getting antsy and sliding beneath your shirt, the pads of his fingers tracing over your skin like he’s learning you all over again. He helps you out of your clothes slowly, carefully, saving your underwear for last, the heels of your feet lifting to help him shrug it off your hips and peel it down before he tosses it to the side, the piece of clothing forgotten, his breath catching when he finally has you bare beneath him again. It feels strangely vulnerable to be fully exposed when he’s still fully clothed, a hint of nervousness catching in your throat as his gaze travels over the expanse of your body, even when he’s seen you like this so many times before.

“You’re still…” he trails off, shaking his head with a faint, self-deprecating laugh, lowering his mouth to kiss your shoulder. “God, I missed you.”

The weight of his words makes your heart tighten, almost makes you sick in some kind of way, heart heavy with a feeling much deeper than desire alone.

You watch with anticipation as his mouth wanders lower, kisses trailing a path down your chest, your stomach, down to your thigh, so close to where you need him, and a faint whimper escapes you when his hand spreads over your stomach to anchor you, the other sliding to the inside of your thigh to ease you open.

His blood warms from the sound alone, buzzes with the need to coax more out of you. He wants to hear you whine his name the same way you used to whenever he used his tongue on you, wants to show you he’s still got it even without the chemical confidence, wants to prove he’s just as eager to make you crumble on his mouth now, if not more given the situation.

And he feels fulfilled at the sound that leaves your mouth, the back of your head sinking into the soft cushion of your bed when he starts working on you with a slow drag of his tongue.

Your breath catches when he moves through you again, even slower this time, savoring the taste of you like he’s been starving for it. He adjusts his grip onto your thigh, hand caressing along the length of it in an affectionate way that makes your stomach sink.

“Bob,” your voice breaks, half a plea, half disbelief at how good it feels, how easy it is to fall back into this with him. He hums against you, the vibration shooting through your core and making your hips jerk, and you feel the curve of his mouth, a faint, knowing grin against you. 

He doesn’t stop, doesn’t want to for anything in the world, would spend the night between your thighs if he could.

If anything, he doubles down, his tongue flicking against you before sliding deeper, slow and delicate like he has all the time in the world to pleasure you, to make you clutch at the sheets like you are, your other hand sliding into his hair and fingers threading through his damp curls, tugging whenever the pressure grows too much and not enough all at once. 

He groans at the pull, the sound low and rough, like your need only fuels his own, and the vibration makes you gasp again, makes your grip tighten into his hair again, makes you choke on hushed expletives, thighs trembling around his head as he circles your clit with the tip of his tongue with passionate precision, alternating between deep, languid strokes and quick, teasing flicks, each one drawing desperate breaths from your throat.

You had forgotten how quickly and how easily he was able to unravel you – he has always been exceptionally good with his tongue after all, always intensely focused and particularly eager to please you this way. Almost like it was satisfying him just as much, moaning into you like he was the one being taken care of.

As a matter of fact, it had happened a few times that he had spilled into his boxers, untouched, getting off just from eating you out, cheeks flushed as he nuzzled against your thigh when he was done.

The thought gets you even more worked up, your chest heaving, your hips rolling helplessly into his mouth. Each pass of his tongue on you feels like it’s pulling you closer to the edge, your heartbeat hammering inside your ribcage, your whole body going so limp it feels like you’re melting into the mattress. 

The familiar sight of him between your thighs, the desperation in the way he devours you like you’re the only thing that’s ever mattered and the gentle caress of his hands are maddening in all the best ways, and yet, beneath the pleasure, there’s a deeper ache gnawing at you, a craving for something more – for the connection you’d missed even more than the physical release in itself.

You want him. All of him, close, pressed flush against you, buried deep inside, where you can feel every inch and every ounce of his need against yours. The realization bursts out of you before you can even think to stop it. “Bob, wait”

His head perks up from between your legs, mouth wet and glistening in the warm lighting, the glint of lust in his eyes shifting to concern. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, not at all. That’s the thing” your voice is breathless and unsteady, your head spinning as your fingers rake into his progressively drying hair, hand moving back down to cup his cheek, his lashes fluttering when he leans into your touch. “I want you inside”

His mouth curves into a satisfied smile, licking his lips clean before he leaves a gentle kiss at the inside of your thigh. “Okay”

You’re pulling him into another kiss by the time he crawls back to you and meets you again, tasting yourself on his tongue and feeling the press of his arousal against you when your leg hooks around his waist to bring him closer – it’s obvious even through the fabric of his clothes, and a shiver runs through you both at the friction like you’re some inexperienced horny couple so thrilled to feel each other's touch.

His lips part from yours just long enough to whisper, “Let me–” but the rest of the sentence dies in his throat when you nod quickly, fingers already slipping under his hoodie and shedding the clothes you’d offered him not so long ago.

His face hardens with confusion when you halt, and he looks down at his own body to see where your gaze is stuck – onto the chiseled plane of his abs, rendering you speechless. He tends to forget sometimes – he didn’t work for it, not really, it was all the serum’s doing, which is also why it must seem so shocking to you too when you knew his physique and when he hadn’t been the type to work out at all when you were dating since he was more busy burying himself under the weight of drugs than caring about what his body looked like. 

He chuckles a faint laugh at the obvious surprised expression stuck onto your face, a soft frown hardening your features when your fingers graze along his stomach to make sure you’re not hallucinating it. “There's a lot we need to catch up on” 

Your answer is a nod followed by another kiss, softer, your leg tightening around his waist as your hips lift to press against him. You feel how hard he is, how much he wants you, and the knowledge makes your stomach flutter and your pulse race in a way that could almost be worrying.

His fingers pull and fumble with the waistband of the sweatpants you had given him earlier, hands clumsy from impatience, a tremble shuddering through his body once he rids himself of all his clothes. 

“Are you warm enough?” you let your hand run along his arm, feeling the temperature of his skin under your palm.

“I’m fine” he’s quick to give you a nod to reassure you. “Just want you”

You quickly get settled – Bob is too worked up himself to make either of you wait any longer, too impatient to even think about drawing this out forever, and a soft grunt slips from his mouth when he pushes inside you and starts gently thrusting, finally buried in the familiar comfort of your body.

A quiet gasp escapes you, fingers pressing into his biceps as your body readjusts to the rhythm of him, remembering this closeness that never truly left. Bob’s forehead drops to yours, breath mingling with your own as his hips find a slow, careful pace, each thrust deliberate like he wants to savor you rather than rush.

You reach for his face and frame it with your hands, his eyes fluttering shut when you pepper kisses all over his face – cheeks, forehead, nose. “I missed you so much” you murmur, drawing a quiet, flustered chuckle out of him before he kisses you again in response, one hand cupping your cheek while the other is planted beside your head.

It feels so natural yet so out of place being here like this with him considering how radically different your lives are now, but you couldn’t care less how odd it somehow feels – not when he’s holding you like he wants to crawl inside you, the press of his skin against yours so warm despite him freezing from the rain not that long ago, his cock dragging inside you with a desperation that makes your stomach ache in a pleasant way, his thrusts stuttering when you moan his name.

He wants to give it all to you, wants to show you he means all of it, wants to grab onto this and not let go until he’s sure it is real, making sure he hasn’t let you slip between his fingers again – and it translates into the way his gaze is boring into yours with a tenderness that tells you everything you need to know, without the need of a single word to be uttered. 

“Are you gonna tell me what the hell happened for you to end up here with those people” you murmur inquisitively, fingers gently pushing back the hair falling over his face.

“I’ll tell you everything, anything you wanna know” Bob nods, teeth sunk into his bottom lip in focus. “Just not– not right now”

You don’t push, it can wait. Anything else can when his body is pressed so tightly to yours, when his breath stutters against your lips, when his eyes say more than he ever could begin to articulate. Instead, you pull him closer, your hand buried in his hair, tugging gently until he groans into your mouth, your naked bodies laced and moving together, your fingers tangled into his hair that glows golden brown from the warm, dim lighting of your place.

He feels each shift of muscle beneath your skin when you eventually fall apart, can sense every single breath of yours fanning against his own, your body heat seeping into him like he’s been cold for months and finally found warmth again, the feeling of your fingers gently scraping against his scalp grounding as you cling to him, as though letting go might undo everything you’ve just gotten back.

Bob’s rhythm grows unsteady, desperation seeping through every thrust, every kiss when he tries to meet you there. His forehead presses to yours, damp curls sticking to his temple, his jaw clenched when his breaths become shallow and when his body tenses, the low sound in his throat breaking into something raw as he comes undone, shuddering above you. Your hand buries itself at the nape of his neck, fingers playing with the hair there, soothing him while the wave crashes over him.

When it’s over, he collapses gently onto you, careful not to crush you, his nose brushing your collarbone, lips leaving absentminded kisses against your skin like he can’t quite stop.

It’s all so suddenly quiet as you hold each other while your breaths steady, feeling his heart hammering against your chest before it gradually slows, evening out and into a stable rhythm.

It takes so much will to, but after a while of not moving and just laying there, you eventually help each other out of bed with all the strength it requires to move to the bathroom. 

Bob feels it deep in the pit of his stomach when your gazes meet through the mirror and you both take a look at each other and smile. Not saying anything, not needing to. 

It’s when Bob’s head lies over your chest that you talk again. For hours on end, time going by so fast as you remain laying tangled together until the early hours of the morning, the storm outside reduced to a faint drumming against your windows as Bob tells you everything that has happened those past few months. 

The drugs, the procedure, the serum, the vault, the new friends, the sobriety, the new life. You listen, your hand never leaving his, thumb brushing over his knuckles whenever he falters, whenever it gets harder to explain.

You do it again between two deep conversations, and again like you’re trying to make the most of it as if it all could be over and you would fade away like smoke once the sun rises. It’s intimate in a way you would have never expected to experience again with him – somehow even more than it had ever been in your previous life together, and you talk again, and make love again, in a cycle that only breaks when sleep eventually gets a hold of you.

It’s just as soft when you wake up the next morning – it’s really just been a few hours, a timid sunlight filtering through the curtains, painting your bed in pale gold. Bob stirs awake beside you, turning to press the kind of kiss to your lips that feels like he’s been longing for your breath, burying his face in the crook of your neck as you doze on and off until it’s almost noon.

And it’s only when his phone dings with a worried text from Yelena that he remembers why he’s really here, beyond the need to find you again – the whole Yelena misunderstanding, the unfair threats to your life as she thought you wanted to loop him back into drugs when really, drugs were the reason you had given up on your relationship in the first place.

He awaits your reaction with a heavy heart after explaining it all, an anxiety dwelling in his stomach like this could somehow ruin everything – your expression is stuck on a frown as you process it before you sigh, then letting out a laugh that’s a mix of lingering confusion and true relief at the perspective that your life is not at risk anymore. Bob laughs too, grinning when your head shakes in despair, leaning to kiss your cheek. 

He knows you’ll laugh about it more easily eventually, maybe even joke about it in a few weeks, but for now, the fact that you’re laughing at all is enough, seeing you smile again is enough.

—

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