Bob Headcanons But I Acknowledge That He’s Not Just Silly UwU Babygirl, He Was A METH ADDICT And That’s Important To Me
Those Two Things Are Not Mutually Exclusive :( Y’all Just Don’t Get Him Like I Do <3
Also get ready to READ, I got caught up in Bob being left to his devices in NYC and that's MY Shayla in MY emotional support city so this is long af
This bitch has a criminal record. he has spent time in jail. Maybe not PRISON but certainly jail. And not just for drug possession either. “Oh no but he’s too small and cute for jail 🥺” he attacked the gang with a metal sign wearing a chicken costume. depression and being babygirl isn’t a get out of jail free card. That man has run from the cops on several occasions.
Methhead lore you wouldn’t BELIEVE. Like true “Okay. Just be careful you don’t end up naked and jacking it in San Diego.” “…what the hell does that mean?” Type shit. Every time he drops the lore, the group has to take like a full business day to recover. And it’s not like overtly tragic or depressing stuff. It’s just genuinely so bewildering and out of left field. Example: Ava joined a fight club in Azerbaijan? Okay. Alexei started a gang in prison called the Russian Revolutionary? Yeah sure. Bob gave rabies to a raccoon? Wtf Bob
THE MOST type B person you’ve ever met. This mf hopped around the world for years, completely alone, pennies to his name, maybe a backpack’s worth of gear, heavily addicted to drugs, and he did not have a color-coded itinerary with him. He was hopping on buses he could not pronounce the destination of and showing up to airports 10 minutes before boarding doors closed. He was making choices purely on VIBES and METHAMPHETAMINE and SELF-DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCIES
The sentence “milk doesn’t really expire, it just turns to cheese, right?” are actual words he’s said before. Just trust me on this one.
Won't defend himself but he will be the hero for literally anyone he has ever had a single conversation with. (See: sacrificing himself so the Thunderbolts could escape Valentina.) HOWEVER he's not the "she said no pickles" kind of guy. He will instead buy another burger with his own money until they get it right to avoid the confrontation. Stupid? Expensive? A convoluted way of fixing the problem? Yes, but it's fine :) he wasn't going to spend that money anyway (lie)
Once he lives in the tower, Bob routinely gives out lunch to homeless people ESPECIALLY the ones that are clearly battling addiction. It would be an understatement to say that NYC isn’t very kind to its homeless population, and there is a big drug problem within that. Bob used to be in that situation, and he understands the shame of being looked down upon for it. So whenever he is alone during lunch, he’ll go out and give some food to the homeless guys in the subway, maybe eat with them, maybe chat with them too. (This is all on Valentina’s card obv) The others can tell when he does this because he comes back smelling like the 7 train.
Once he actually got in trouble with the cops for talking with one homeless guy beneath grand central station. The guy was super twitchy (withdrawal symptoms) and freaking out some other people nearby so the cops tried to kick him out, but Bob was like “hey no we’re talking. He’s not doing anything wrong. He’s my friend” and ended up getting in the cop’s face like what he did with Valentina, and the cops were all laughing at him and like “okay buddy don’t try to be a hero. This bum’s not worth a trip to the station” so anyways Bob punched a cop :) Bucky had to bail him out. Everyone else gave him a high five
A REALLY fast typer. Like his words-per-minute is phenomenal. It's his favorite stim at home. He was obsessed with his typing classes as a kid, and he loved the computer lab. It was quiet, and the typing noises in the background were so fun. Typing gives his brain the good tingles.
Feels so out of place whenever they’re in public. Not because people recognize him or he doesn’t like the city or anything. He’s just treated like a normal person now. He’s not that weird, twitchy, red-eyed guy people cross the street to avoid anymore. He’s just there. If someone bumps into him in line at a store, they say “excuse me” instead of muttering some insults. He can go to a library or a coffee shop, and the staff won’t hover over him like he’s going to steal something or squat there. He’s perfectly invisible, but he is nonetheless awarded a respect he didn’t previously have. (On good days, he feels free. On bad days, it makes him feel sick.)
At one point in life, Bob was actually a dishwasher for some restaurant/crime front for a gang that peddled drugs. Bob got some cash under the table for his work, drugs for keeping it hush hush, and something to do that made him feel useful :) he mostly did it for the drugs though ngl
He’s got that “oh I guess we’re doing this now” energy where he just goes with whatever the situation is to save himself the stress of fixing it. Once he got on the wrong subway train and just stayed the whole ride. Could have gotten off at any time and just taken the train back, but No. He was stuck there now. That was the new plan. He had to live with his consequences. (And he’d never been to Coney Island before. Who knows? Maybe it would be fun. (It was. Ava and Alexei joined him as well. They really liked the Cyclone.))
BIG people pleaser, BIG wanderer off. If they’re ever in Times Square together and they can’t see Bob, he either got roped into taking one of those CD handouts (this is parallel to how he got into drugs) OR he joined a conga line and subsequently got kidnapped. The group chat now threatens to buy him one of those leash backpacks whenever he disappears into a crowd.
Yk how people with anxiety tend to be the coolest under pressure? Well, when every single conversation feels like a gun to your head, and then one day, you do actually have a gun to your head, CONGRATS! You're already partially desensitized :D That is exactly how Bob survives every single encounter of having a gun to his head. (It happens frequently. Both before and after being Sentry. Like WAY too frequently.)
Got kidnapped like a month or two in because some guys thought he’d be an easy target to lure the “New Avengers.” they were right with the 'luring the New Avengers' thing, but they were NOT RIGHT in thinking he’d be an easy target. He’s one slippery mf and he’s got street smarts. (Btw I do not forgive y’all for forgetting Bob had the idea to get up the elevator shaft by linking arms or whatever. He’s still babygirl, but he does have brain cells.) The Thunderbolts/New Avengers/Avengerz/Name Pending arrive to see the bad guys have all somehow locked themselves in the room they intended to lock Bob up in, and Bob is just stimming in a swivel chair off to the side acting like he inconvenienced the kidnappers. "The room was too stuffy. I didn't like it anymore :/"
Definitely allergic to something but didn’t know until someone on the team was like “hey want some apple pie?” And he said “yeah sure but just a bit :) I can’t stand when you have too much apple and your throat gets all itchy, you know?” And everyone looked at him like “no Bob we do not know 👁️👄👁️”
Cannot keep a straight face to save his life. Maybe he can lie super well or make up a believable story, but you know he’s lying about something. (Honestly a good things he doesn't join them on missions.) The only reason he was able to keep stuff from the Thunderbolts when they first met him was because they just met him, but even then, they knew he was hiding shit. They just didn’t know what and they had other priorities.
Additionally, Bob is banned from being in the general vicinity of Valentina during press events because he CANNOT hide his utter loathing towards her. Just like the memory of getting his powers, Bob eventually remembers most of the whole Sentry debacle, including Valentina lying to him, trying to control him like a pet, making him fight everyone, then trying to use the kill switch. (But ESPECIALLY being mean as shit to Yelena.) Thus he is not allowed near Valentina in ANY promotional material, otherwise he will stare her down like he wants to pummel her. He doesn’t even mean to. But after they told him to fix his face for the cameras, he decided he also doesn’t care to stop. Sorry Valentina XX
Sometimes Bob gets really frustrated when one of the others won’t take care of themselves, like they won’t shower or brush their hair or eat. It isn’t because he’s judging them but because he’s judging himself. He kind of puts them on this pedestal and relies on them to set a good example, yk? (Is that healthy? Ofc not.) But if they can’t do the basic stuff sometimes, then how is he supposed to? It’s rare for these feelings to bubble up to that point, and it’s unfair to the others, and he knows that, but he can’t stop it sometimes. So instead of taking it out on them, he takes a breather somewhere else until he can articulate his feelings.
Bob was in the sentry box for almost a year (I know this probably makes zero sense but idc) so it surprised him when he saw the date on a calendar after they moved into the tower. At first, he didn’t care. In his own self-deprecating fashion, he figured a few months without him wasn’t the end of the world, maybe even for the better because he wouldn't have met his new friends otherwise...but the more he thought about it, the worse he felt. He had to spend a lot of extra sessions with their therapist to unpack that.
Let me know if you liked these! I didn't want to repeat all the cute ones that are being bounced around already like "he brings in strays" or "he likes wearing oversized clothes" (which btw are both real and valid, and I agree.) I just wanted to go in a different direction, almost like a character study actually.
I just love thinking about Bob's quirks that reflect his past in a way that isn't just cute and sad, yk? I like to think of the ones that are also annoying and inconvenient, the ones that directly reflect his difficult past where he made all those bad decisions and wrong turns. And the resulting traits are endearing sometimes, yes, but not always.
That's the message that got to me the most in the movie, accepting a person's annoyances or issues and still loving them. Not despite them but alongside them. Their good quirks and their bad quirks are what make up the whole person, and you need to acknowledge both sides to truly love someone, even if that person is yourself :(
These headcanons and all of the cute silly ones can coexist!! It's what makes a good character great, and it's what I love the most about Bob :)
