the long run
bob reynolds x reader
summary: it was supposed to be simple – you only had to water Bob's plants and feed his fish while he was gone. you weren't supposed to find a ring in one of his drawers.
cw: fluff, kind of a character study, sweet and caring bob, absolutely whipped boyfriend bob, talks of marriage and views on it, light angst, relationship and commitment talk, both parts are on the same wavelength, it's more fluffy than those tags make it look I swear, implied intercourse, domesticity
a/n: ough this one. loverboy bob yesss. jumping head first into things yessss. marriage was a though subject to tackle especially with bob imo but I really wanted to try it out!
word count: 3.3k
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Bob drops his bags to his feet and hugs you tight before he leaves. Tight and suffocating, the way he would if he was leaving for six months. You wonder how intense he would have made it if it had actually been six months.
It’s only a matter of a couple of weeks – it’s not much for what the mission involves, but for codependent, emotionally attached Bob, it feels like the most challenging thing he has ever had to do, and he’s more afraid of being away from you than he is for the actual mission, he’s pretty sure.
He leaves you one of his hoodies and promises he will do his best to find the time to call you.
The second day, he calls you at eleven in the evening. You stay on the phone for almost three hours, listening as he tells you about every single detail of the trip and about the so-called “classified” mission plans he’s not supposed to tell anyone about. He complains about how demanding and overbearing Valentina is for a good quarter of the call, and tells you how much he misses you already for half of it.
You tell him how chaotic being in the Watchtower feels without his calming presence around, tell him how nothing changes the fact that John and Ava can't stop fighting.
You hear it in his voice when he starts to feel tired, too familiar with how softly honest he gets when the exhaustion starts to weigh on him. It takes him a few tries to explain what he means, repeating his words with a warm chuckle when he stumbles over them and makes a mess of the syllables.
He doesn’t fight it when you advise him to hang up and get some sleep.
His lucidity resurfaces when he remembers he forgot to ask you to water the few plants he has managed to keep alive, and to feed the fish he got after his psychiatrist told him having an animal to take care of could help him care for himself at the same time. Like two sides of the same coin – take back what you’ve been given, treat others the way you would like to be treated or something.
So you have a mission of your own, and you take it very seriously – you take pictures and research his plants to know how often you should water them, and you carefully read the instructions of the fish food to know how much is enough and how much is too much. It becomes a routine as the days pass, and you take a picture of the fish to send to Bob, snapping when it opens its mouth to eat the particles before they reach the bottom of the aquarium.
Bob usually texts back asking how you’re doing, and when he doesn’t have the time to, he responds with an assortment of emojis; a smiley face, a fish, a thumbs up and a heart. Which you’re sure, looking for the emojis just takes as long as a full conversation.
It feels weird not having him around the Watchtower, but as long as you’re kept busy, the days pass and don’t seem to drag, and if your schedules match, he’s just a video call away. It is at night that it particularly hurts, when you get in bed and he never joins you, when you wake up in the middle of the night and he’s not here to cling to. Instead, you hug and bury your face into his hoodie, or sleep in his bed when you happen to miss him too much.
On the tenth day, the fish food runs out. Only a few specks fall out of the holes, and the fish hurries and catches them in no time, swimming around afterward like he’s expecting more. “I hope there’s more somewhere or we’re both fucked, buddy” you mutter to the fish, letting the empty container rest beside the aquarium. If there is any logic behind this and Bob has backup food somewhere, it shouldn’t be far from the aquarium.
You try the first drawer. It’s a mess. Tangled cords and cables, crumpled takeout menus, a pair of broken headphones, a bag of your favorite candies that he offers you when you’re feeling down. It makes you smile and your heart aches a little.
There is loose change at the bottom of the drawer, buttons, and things you can’t even comprehend. But there’s nothing that resembles the fish food, so this drawer is out.
The second drawer is more organized. Notebooks, the console controller he’s been meaning to try to fix for ages, a stack of papers that look like past prescriptions, painkillers, and a small, forest green velvet box tucked in the corner. The fish food still isn’t there and you’re about to close the drawer, until you freeze when your gaze rests over the corner of the drawer again when the information hits the right place in your brain. You know you shouldn’t or you will ruin something, you know what it is even before you reach for it, but your hand runs faster than your brain and you have to make sure, and you’re not sure you’re even truly processing the information. You stare at the box for a while as it rests in your hand.
Unopened, neat and pretty, the velvet soft.
And you know it should remain like this.
You try reasoning yourself, try to come up with reasonable reasons why a box like this would be there except for the obvious reason, telling yourself not to open it, like it’s a forbidden artifact holding an ancient curse. But everything leads back to reality, and once you lift the lid, you know it was everything you expected – it couldn’t have ever been anything else and it was stupid to think otherwise in the first place.
Bob bought a ring.
You close the box just as soon as you open it, like it’s suddenly burning your hands, putting it back right where it was.
You forget to feed the fish.
Bucky has to shake you out of your thoughts during dinner that evening. When the rest of the team asks how Bob is doing, you respond briefly and don’t elaborate the way you usually would, too shaken by your discovery, standing somewhere between excitement and dread, turning it all around your head. You chew on your food while John’s voice drowns into your ears, only imagining Bob going to the jewelry store, dawned by the responsibility to take a decision on which ring to pick. Wondering how long it has been in this drawer, how he plans on doing it all. Hearing his voice in your head already, stumbling over the proposal because he’s talking too fast, face flushed red while he tries to explain how much he loves you. Wondering if you’re even ready for something this big.
You love him; of course you do, but you hadn’t even begun to think about this aspect of the relationship.
You stray away from contacting Bob too much the next day; you stick to texts only, because you know you will struggle pretending that there isn’t something gnawing at your brain if you hear his voice, or worse, if he sees your face.
You get a text while you’re out shopping for the fish food with Yelena, and when you see it pop up onto your screen with Bob’s name, you don’t bother opening it, immediately shoving your phone into your pocket with a small sigh. When you glance back at Yelena, you know by the look on her face that she knows something’s not right.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, putting back the can of food she had been holding.
You consider pushing it away, but you’re pretty sure you need friendly advice on this. “Do you think Bob is thinking about marriage?”
She makes a face like she had been expecting everything except this. “Wow. Like, eventually, or right now?”
You give her a light shrug and tear your gaze away from her, pretending to look through the different varieties of fish food though you’ve been knowing which to pick for a while already. “I don’t know”
She doesn’t follow right away, like she’s thinking about it.
“I mean, if you proposed to him, he would say yes right off the bat without even thinking about what it implies.” she declares, knowing how deep he’s in for you. She had been suffering from his heartache before he gathered the courage to confess his feelings for you, after all. “I’m not sure about the real thing. I mean, maybe not right now. Too much commitment for him, especially with what he has gone through and his life at the moment”
You nod. It aligns with your train of thought.
“But eventually, definitely” she affirms. “I’ve never seen someone so lovesick, it kinda disgusts me sometimes” she grins, only meaning to tease you. You grin back at her and give her a playful nudge of your elbow, shaking your head with a laugh when you pick up the fish food from the shelves.
When you’re in line for checkout, you open Bob’s texts.
I got those crispy fried stuff you like at lunch today
I miss you
It makes you stupidly smile, and you send in your response before it’s your turn on paying.
I miss you too, babe
Your conversation with Yelena somehow eases your worries for the next few days; it makes the apprehension of Bob coming back less daunting, and your excitement grows with each day that passes.
He comes back on the fifteenth day – sooner than expected, by two days, because the mission got wrapped up sooner than planned, and he’s relieved; because he gets to go home, and because he knows he would have ended up hurting Valentina if he had to spend those extra days with her.
You figured he would talk a lot; about the trip, the mission in itself, the environment, his progress on using his powers. It’s usually when you want to kiss him most, when he’s proud of himself and when he goes on about something that excites him, but this time, he doesn’t bother with words when you close the door to his bedroom behind you. He kisses you, gentle and slow, like he’s savoring what he’s been deprived of for weeks, hands resting over your hips when he backs you up against the door and comes even closer. Your arms wrap around his neck, hand in his hair, and the snowball rolls and you end up under him in his bed while he kisses you like he wants to consume you whole, his hand trailing down your body until it slips under your clothes.
You kiss along his jawline when he lies back beside you when you’re done, his face prettily flushed, his breathing still uneven while he stares at the ceiling with that dazed, blissed out expression you love bringing on his face.
“Missed that too, right?” you ask with a teasing grin, hand resting over his throat while you kiss his cheek a couple more times.
His eyes close with contentment, an internal laugh running through him. “Oh yeah.”
Your fingers brush away the hair sticking to his face, and he smiles when he watches you, kissing you one last time before he reluctantly pulls himself upright, quickly rearranging the clothes he had barely shed, too eager earlier to bother taking them off.
You do the same before getting comfortable still lying on his bed, cheek resting over his pillow, listening as he tells you about his last day on the mission and about the trip back home while you watch as he starts unpacking his travelling bag – he knows if he leaves it in a corner of his room he will let it rot and won’t touch it for weeks, and he’s been working on this kind of stuff in therapy – facing problems instead of running away from them.
It gets you thinking. About your own personal current problem. Bob still has no idea you know about the ring, and you feel like you’re lying to him by not letting him know.
Lying to the man who sleeps wrapped around you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear in the night. Lying to the man who loves so desperately and honestly that sometimes it scares you only because you don’t know how someone can feel something that deeply and handle it.
It feels unfair to hide it from him and to think about pretending to be shocked when the time eventually comes and he proposes; you know you will feel awful knowing you hid this from him.
You stop him before you get lost in his words and stop listening to him altogether. “I need to talk to you about something”
Bob perks up, his narrative already dropped. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?” he puts the shirt he’s holding back in the bag, walking back to the bed when he sees the look on your face, sitting in front of you.
Your head shakes and you give him a small smile. “No, everything’s fine. It’s just– I ran out of fish food the other day” Bob’s head turns towards the tank like he’s expecting you to tell him the fish is dead. “He’s okay,” you grin, seeing the soft relief over his face when he looks back at you. “But it’s– I figured you’d have more somewhere and I looked through your stuff, and…” you trail off, but there’s no use beating around the bush. “I found the ring.”
His soft, worried frown turns into an expression you can’t quite decipher. Then, his mouth gapes just slightly, and you witness every stage of his thought process hit him in real time. Confusion, questioning, realization, horror. His mouth moves, no sound coming out as he searches for his words, unable to get anything intelligible out.
“Oh my god,” he eventually whispers as he turns around and gets up from the bed again, a hand covering his face as he paces around processing the information, rubbing over his eyes.
You get off the bed and join him, carefully resting a hand over his arm, trying to quiet his frantic desperation. “It’s okay, Bob.”
“It’s not even–” he gestures around aimlessly, his gaze everywhere but on you, still looking for his words. “Fuck”
He lets out a small, frustrated sigh. “It’s– I was manic when I bought it. I felt like I was doing so great, I was finally starting to have control over my powers and things were so good between us and– and I guess I got carried away, you know how it gets” he explains frantically, brow furrowed. The words settle and still between you, and suddenly, it all makes sense.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything, I just… it’s crazy, I know” he huffs out humorlessly. “I mean, I’d want to marry you, I know it, but we haven’t been dating for that long and I don’t even know if you would wanna get married, and I don’t want to trap you into this or something, or pressure you into something you don’t want” he rants, a nervous laugh punctuating it, his eyes squeezing shut as he pinches the bridge of his nose like an ache has developed there suddenly. He doesn’t say anything for a few, the room getting awfully quiet suddenly, but you know there’s more, it’s obvious over his face, so you let it sit.
“I don’t even know if I want to, really. Or if I’ll ever be in the right place to” he admits in a small chuckle, voice softer in confession. “It just went so great with my parents, so,” he scoffs, voice pained with sarcasm, his hands falling to his sides again.
You take a hold of them, and for the first time since you dropped the bomb, Bob’s gaze meets yours, like your touch is steadying him. His eyes are filled with worry and apprehension of your reaction, explaining why he felt the need to justify himself this intensely.
“It’s okay,” you nod. “We don’t have to think about this right now. We have all the time in the world to figure it out and to know what we want for sure.” his eyes set to where your hands are holding his, his gaze softening with vulnerability, and his hand squeezes around your fingers softly. “We can love each other the same even if we never get married. It’s… really, it’s just a formality”
He nods, gaze still down. One of your hands slides away from his to brush beneath his chin and have him look back at you. “I love you and I’m happy with you either way, you know that, right?” his mouth pinches into a sheepish smile, and he nods, eventually reciprocating the grin over your face.
A sense of relief washes over his face, and he brings you closer to hug you to his chest. “I love you too” he murmurs, the tension in his limbs easing a bit, the thumping of his ribcage still frenzied against your ear.
You sit together over the edge of his bed when you pull apart, grabbing his travelling bags to help him unpack. There’s a soft expression over his face, gratitude hitting him as he watches you move and neatly fold his clothes before you pass them over to him so he can sort them into piles to put away later. You both move in comfortable silence, until something hits Bob suddenly.
“Are you disappointed?”
You look back at him, a confused expression etched over your face. “Of what?”
He shrugs lightly, busying himself by digging through his toiletry bag. “You could have been expecting me to propose and now you’re disappointed that I can’t do it”
“Oh– no, Bob” you assure him immediately, hand resting above his. He gazes back at you, uncertainty masking his face again. “I don’t think it’s something I’d want right now. I’m not opposed to it eventually, but it’s not an absolute necessity either. Our happiness doesn’t have to depend on that, I’d love you the same whatever we decide to do”
Your words lodge themselves somewhere beneath the panic and self-consciousness and all the ugly little fears he carries in his brain, those about being difficult to love, even more on a long term aspect, and those about being abandoned.
You can see him trying to believe you, trying to let the reassurance sink in instead of immediately searching for hidden disappointment behind it.
“Yeah?” he asks quietly after a moment, like he needs to hear it again to be sure.
Your thumb strokes over the back of his hand. “Yeah.”
His gaze lingers on your face, studying you carefully, looking for any hint of hesitation or disappointment.
There’s none.
You kiss his cheek before you get up from the bed and take the pile of shirts to put it away in his closet, and he progressively visibly relaxes, more at ease now that this whole thing isn’t dawning on the both of you anymore.
“Hey, uh… do you like the ring at least?” Bob asks gingerly, though with less nervosity than if he had asked earlier, a faint grin over his face. “I had such a hard time making a decision. I mean, now that you know, we can get it changed if we ever decide to get married one day”
You break into a soft laugh and nod. There’s a gentle beaming smile over Bob’s face when your hand slides into his hair. “I love it. It’s really pretty. And very careful of what I like”
He nods, a sheepish, proud smile over his face.
It’s his first time turning a rushed decision into something right, at least.
And now his fear of the future isn’t as clouded as it used to be.
—
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