ᜎᜓᜐᜒᜀ

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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It must've been the meds kicking in, lulled you to a nap, blunted your senses to this syrupy haze. The pain in your lower belly has dulled to a tolerable, constant ache rather than something sharp and crippling. When you sit up, the crocheted blanket—handmade and gifted by Penelope a few years ago—slips from your shoulders and pools over your waist.

Meanwhile, pandemonium seems to happening in your kitchen.

You can hear your daughter giggling wildly. Spencer's groans are muffled, and a suffocating, smoky scent finally wafts to the living room and reaches you from your position on the couch.

You squint at the clock on the far end of the room and huff when it stays blurry. And then, footsteps, light and quick, followed by a delighted gasp.

"Mommy wakey!" she announces loudly—probably for her father's sake.

Beatrice.

Your daughter hurls herself on your lap before you even see her, but your arms band around her tiny form in reflex. A soft oof leaves your lips from the impact. Somehow, some part of you still expects her to weigh the same as she did when she was still a crawling baby. Like the way she's growing hasn't registered completely, or perhaps it's the speed at which she's growing that's throwing you off.

She used to be so tiny.

Now, you're convinced she would have knocked your glasses off, had you been wearing them.

"Hi, honeybee," you press your nose into her halo of rumbled curls, the exact same texture as Spencer's. She smells like smoke and baby powder, "What have you been up to?"

"Cooking!" she says proudly, her hands resting on your chest. Right over your heart, which feels close to bursting when her face scrunches seriously, an expression that doesn't seem to fit her chubby-cheeked loveliness. "Mommy feel better?"

"Yes, mommy feels better now, thank you."

"No more blood?"

You wince, remembering her panic earlier when you'd bled through your dress after lunch. Her only conscious experiences with blood have so far been limited to skinned knees, so Beatrice had thought you'd gotten a scrape on your butt somehow.

"Well, there's still some blood. But mommy's better."

"Daddy says you—you peeing blood."

You have to bite your lip to stifle a laugh. "Did he now?"

"Yes," your daughter nods gravely, settling herself on your lap. She places a sticky hand to your cheek in a vaguely reassuring way. It's a gesture she'd learned from watching Spencer. "Daddy says you peeing blood and I have to be good so you rest."

Maybe it's her matter-of-fact tone, or the way the words stumble from her lips in her clear, lightly lisping voice, but your mouth finally curls into a grin. You tuck her to your chest so you can have a moment to silently giggle without her thinking she's being laughed at, and reach forward for your glasses.

They're sitting neatly on the coffee table, folded and completely free of any stains. Spencer must have cleaned them when you fell asleep, just as he'd covered you in the blanket.

"What else has daddy said?" you ask, slipping your glasses on.

The world sharpens into focus. The bookshelves lining the sage walls, now home to multiple children's books and framed pictures—you and Spencer had moved your joint collection in the newly refurbished basement not long after Beatrice had been born. There's a TV that rarely gets used, and an open chest of toys.

In the heart of it all, you and your daughter, on the couch, perfectly content.

"It's every… every month. And it hurt." Beatrice says, brows furrowing in focus as she recalls her own version of Spencer's explanation.

"I pee blood every month, huh?"

"I did not say you pee blood!" comes Spencer's flustered voice. He pads from the kitchen with his own glasses so low on his nose you're afraid they'll slip right off. Sweat gleams from his forehead, beading down his temples.

"Did too!" Beatrice exclaims.

You laugh, reaching a hand out to him. "It's okay, it's a pretty close approximation."

Spencer is pink as he holds your outstretched palm, though you're not sure if it's from the stress or from embarrassment. He settles on the couch beside you, tucking your hand to his chest.

"I'm sorry, I didn't really expect her to start asking about that and had to improvise."

Of course, neither of you had anticipated it. Beatrice is a little too young to be having the talk, but she's also… Beatrice. Daughter of two professors who, at their core, have lived for the pursuit of knowledge their whole lives. If anything, it's naive on you and Spencer's part to have been unprepared for this.

You're still grinning, holding Beatrice to your chest with one arm, cheek resting on the crown of her head. "You didn't expect our daughter, with our combined genes, to start asking questions?"

"You're right," Spencer admits with a sheepish laugh, "She's got the curious instincts of researchers and scholars."

"Exactly. This won't be the first she pursues a topic through rigorous questioning, right Bea?"

Beatrice nods, even though she looks a little lost from the adult conversation.

You smile and kiss her brow. "You're a smart girl, Bea."

She giggles, tickled by the compliment. "Like you?"

Spencer's free hand ruffles her hair. "Exactly. Smart, just like mommy."

The words land somewhere unexpectedly tender. It would've been so easy to claim that for himself; he's the genius between the two of you, after all. But he doesn't. Didn't even insert himself and say like mommy and daddy, which would have been objectively true.

You look up with the softest exhale, eyes misting. He grins, lifts your hand to brush his lips over your knuckles. A soft, warm look settles on his face, as reassuring as it is loving.

"You're feeling better now? Do you need more meds?" he asks, casual and sweet and perfect, as if he hadn't just undone you only moments ago.

"No, no, I'm all right." you scoot closer to him. Spencer lets go of your hand to wrap an arm over your shoulder, tugging you gently until you're tucked to his side. On your lap, Beatrice yawns and blinks at the two of you.

For a moment, it's silent. A perfect snapshot of peace. Your chest tightens a little more, some invisible force strangling your throat.

"You could've woken me up, you know, to help with dinner." you murmur.

"I can handle it."

Your brows raise, head tilting up so you can pin him with an incredulous glare. "It still smells burnt in here, Spence."

"It's not that bad."

"Really? What are we having, then? Char with a side of chicken?"

"Daddy burn the oven." Beatrice supplies seriously.

Spencer shakes with laughter. "No, the chicken just burned inside the oven, honeybee."

Beatrice pouts as she considers, dimples on her cheeks deepening. She's got your coloring, but the most noticeable features are Spencer's—messy curls, massive hazel eyes, a collection of dimples exactly in the same spots as his.

"But dinner," you say with a groan, "I'll go see—"

"You don't have to cook, darling," he interrupts, his arm around you tightening to prevent you from moving, "I've already ordered takeout. Lo mein for you, of course."

You swear you've lost the ability to breathe. It never quite settles, this realization that he knows you to the bone. Well enough to anticipate your needs, to provide without being asked. That he'll keep doing them without expectation or prompting.

"And extra wontons!" Beatrice adds enthusiastically, "because mommy likes them, even when she says she don't."

Oh. Now there's two of them.

You don't think the twisting in your chest will ever stop, but at least now you know it's not a bad feeling. It never was, even in those early days, before Beatrice, before building a life together.

You recognize it for what it is now.

You laugh. It's a thin, watery sound. Spencer pulls you even closer, warm lips pressed to your temple.

"You stay right here," he whispers, nosing a line down your cheek, "With us."

"Only if we keep getting snuggles."

Spencer squeezes his arms around the two of you playfully in response, tight enough that Beatrice is overcome with giggles, not loosening until you wheeze a laugh yourself.

In his arms, with your daughter in your lap, the period cramps feel like a distant memory.

"Bob? Are you awake?" Bucky's voice came from behind the door with some hesitation. After everything that had happened, Valentina's manipulation, the failed attempt to control a man as powerful as a God, and the birth of an entity that… that was almost the Devil himself, things were strange.

Living in the Tower with someone as powerful, and as… unstable as Bob, was quite an experience, to say the least.

Bucky couldn't remember how many times Bob had accidentally braced the walls, letting his hands pierce through the concrete as if it were wet paper. Or how many doors Bob had thrown out, breaking them in half with his shoulders slamming against the wood. And let's not even mention the appliances, the cups, forks, knives… It was proving costly to keep the tower "alive" with Bob unable to control his powers.

And if it were just about the materials, everything would be fine. Bucky knows that now they belong to the government, if there was someone who could buy the cups every time Bob tried to drink coffee and made the ceramic crumble under his fingers. But that was the problem. It wasn't just material possessions that were broken.

Bob should never have received the powers he did. That's obvious. He was a guinea pig, a guinea pig that would receive a dose of steroids and the scientists would observe what would happen. That was Bob. But, whether by carelessness, destinies, or… a joke. Bob became more than a guinea pig.

He became powerful.

Too powerful.

Imagine it was like taking a broken car engine. With its days numbered. Rust staining every part, the metal crumbling at the slightest touch. Now, take that engine, put it in a high-powered car, a rocket even. Do the necessary repairs, make the engine new again. It will work, but it will still be a broken engine inside a rocket… It won't work.

Bob had no control over his strength.

He had no control over his mental manipulation. He had no control over time manipulation, his flight, his speed, his intangibility, his astral projection, his… God, Bob had so many powers and no control over any of them.

Bucky had lost count of how many times they had to escape the Void in the middle of the night because of Bob's nightmares. Or how many times he had to expel the boy from his mind.

That's why he decided enough is enough. Bob needed to be trained, for his own good and for the good of his colleagues.

"Mr. Barnes? I mean, Sergeant Barnes. No, Congressman Barnes. No,"

"Bucky, you can call me Bucky, I already said that" Bucky interrupted his nervous speech. He noticed how Bob always avoided looking him in the eyes, how he was afraid of quick movements, or very loud noises. And knowing Bob's past (being inside the boy's head, and also the documents he read about the past and the experiments they did on him), he expected nothing less.

One traumatized person recognizes another.

Maybe that should be the group's slogan.

"How can I help… BU-Bucky? " Bob barely closed his bedroom door, trying to keep Bucky from seeing the mess inside. But he didn't need to see, he heard the furniture flying and hitting the walls in the middle of the night.

"Come with me" Bucky didn't want to give Bob a choice, because if he did… He wouldn't accept.

"W-where to?" Bob stammered with some apprehension.

"Let's train," Bucky said.

"Train? No! No… Better not! I…"

Bucky sighed, running a hand over his face.

"Bob," his voice sounded more tired than he intended. "I know you don't want to. But it's not a request."

Bob hesitated for a long moment. His eyes, blue as the blue of a raging storm, blinked several times as he clearly thought of twenty-three different excuses at once. In the end, he just lowered his head and followed Bucky down the hallway.

The first few days were exactly as Bucky had imagined.

Bob couldn't stay still. He couldn't stay calm. Every noise in the gym, the creaking of a pipe, the wind hitting the poorly closed window, even the sound of Bucky's breathing, made the boy jump like a frightened rabbit. He looked at his own hands as if he expected them to explode at any moment.

"Breathe," Bucky said, sitting on the yoga mat, his metal prosthesis leaning against the wall beside him. He was wearing only a tank top and sweatpants, the scars on his shoulder exposed where the metal met the flesh. "Inhale. Hold. Exhale."

Bob tried. Copying Bucky's position, but it seemed like his bones weren't aligned. His clothes were uncomfortable. The carpet had a strange texture…

"Bob? Breathe." Bucky said, without opening his own eyes, as if he knew Bob was spiraling. "Close your eyes and… Breathe."

But when he closed his eyes, his eyelids trembled. His fingers scratched the carpet as if trying to grip something solid. Every five minutes, he let out an "I'm sorry" for no apparent reason, as if apologizing for existing.

"Stop apologizing" Bucky said for the third time, opening his eyes and failing at his own meditation.

"Sorry."

Bucky closed his eyes and counted to ten.

Yoga didn't work. Meditation was a complete disaster. Bob tripped over his own foot on the mat, fell face-first to the floor, and in the process of trying to get up, accidentally sank his hand into the concrete floor as if it were quicksand. He lay there, his arm buried up to his elbow, looking at Bucky with genuine panic.

"I break everything…" Bob whispered, as Bucky finally pulled him out of the hole. "Everything I touch…"

"You don't break everything." Bucky picked up a water bottle and offered it. Bob hesitated before accepting, holding the plastic like it was dynamite.

"I do break things." Bob's voice was small. Diminished. "I broke the team. I broke the Tower. I broke… My mother… I broke myself…" Bucky said nothing, just pulled Bob into a tight hug. He wanted to be able to help, but maybe he needed someone different.

"Do you know anyone?" Bucky asked, against the phone. It was night, most of the tower was dark, but Bucky wouldn't sleep without talking to Sam. Not even if Sam was in Japan, forcing Bucky to stay up late to talk to him. "Someone who… can take the heat. Literally."

"Take the heat? What kind of heat? " Sam asked from the other end of the line. Bucky could hear noises, but couldn't identify what they were. Maybe Joaquin yelling somewhere.

"The kind that can train Bob without dying." Bucky ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. " I can't train him the way he needs to be trained, Sam… I need someone he won't… be afraid of."

Sam was silent for a moment.

"Punching bag" he said, finally.

"What?"

"Punching bag. You know her. We know her. The woman Hydra used as" Sam grimaced. "As human training equipment. The one who doesn't die."

Bucky froze. He remembered.

"Punching bag" wasn't a name she chose. It was a given name. Given by scientists who threw her in the cell with new super-soldiers as if she were a walking punching bag… Which, technically, she was.

As far as Bucky knew, she had been kidnapped. She was supposed to be like Bob, a guinea pig where they tested the super-soldier serum before giving it to the individuals they really wanted. But something went wrong.

The serum had done something strange to her.

Different.

Bucky remembered breaking her arms the first week. He remembered hearing the "crack" of the bones, the silence, and then… the wet sound of everything fitting together again. She would get up, and the guards would yell: again. And Bucky would do it.

"Is she alive?" Bucky asked, surprised at himself for never having asked before.

"Yeah. Living in the middle of nowhere… Raising goats." Sam shouted something in Japanese. " Goats, Bucky. She has a goat Instagram. It's bizarre. You two should be friends."

Three days later, Punching bag was at the Tower's door.

She was shorter than Bucky remembered. Skin marked by scars that should have disappeared decades ago but stubbornly remained, perhaps because some wounds never truly healed, not even with serum.

She didn't have the same face Bucky remembered. Maybe now she had more… life.

She held a jar of homemade jam in her hands.

"Sergeant Barnes" she smiled as if seeing an old friend and not someone who broke her neck on commands. "Nice arm… The gold suits your eyes better."

"Thank you." he said awkwardly. "I… I'm sorry,"

"No need. " she interrupted. "Seriously, I'm fine. What happened was awful but… At least now you're both free. It's okay, Sergeant Barnes."

"You can just call me Bucky." He then realized he never knew her name. "What's your name?"

"The real one? I don't know… There's no way to know." she said with a slight regret. "But now my name is Yn. A friend chose it."

"It's beautiful. Better than Punching bag." he said with a smile and she copied it.

Bob was sitting on the living room sofa when Bucky introduced him. The boy practically shrank into the upholstery, trying to take up less space, as if he wanted to apologize for existing only with his body language.

"Bob, this is Yn. She's going to help you with your training."

"Help?" Bob blinked. "But… you're the one who…"

"She'll be better. Believe me," Bucky responded to his nervousness. "Besides, you don't even like yoga."

"I do!" Bob lied. Badly. His nose grew about three centimeters there. "I… love yoga. It's very… calming. And relaxing. And… there are those positions that…"

"Bob."

"Okay, I hate yoga," he collapsed. "I'm sorry."

She observed the entire interaction with a calmness that bordered on frightening. She sat on the sofa next to Bob, not too close, but not too far, and placed the jar of jam on the coffee table.

"Do you know how to make jam?" she asked, without preamble.

Bob blinked.

"What?"

"Jam. Strawberry, blackberry, raspberry. Do you know how to make it?"

"Me… no?" Bob seemed genuinely confused. "I know how to blow someone's head off with my thoughts? Not that I want to! I don't want to! God, I never want to again…"

"Calm down." Her voice was low. Not a whisper, but close to it. The kind of voice that forces you to be silent to listen. "I'm not asking you to make jam. I'm asking if you know how to make it. Because I do. And I think you'd like it. It's so peaceful, you know? Just sitting there, stirring the pot, watching the fruit break down…"

Bob was silent for a while.

"You… aren't going to ask me to break anything?" he finally asked.

"No." She crossed her legs. "Let's take it easy. Breaking is easy. We'll learn other things first."

Bucky watched, arms crossed. He saw the tension in Bob's shoulders lessen a few millimeters. Not much. But enough.

In the following weeks, yn was a constant presence.

She didn't pressure him. She didn't force him. She didn't make Bob feel like a monster for being who he was. Instead, she showed up every day at seven in the morning and stayed in the kitchen making coffee. Bob started showing up around seven fifteen, first hesitant, then curious, then almost anxious.

She taught him how to make jam.

Bob broke three pans and two stoves in the process. The first time this happened, he froze, his face pale, expecting a scolding or perhaps something worse. She just grabbed another pan, transferred the still-good fruit, and said:

"Stainless steel is more resistant. Try this one."

Gradually, Bob began to relax.

The first real workouts were almost playful. She didn't pull up a yoga mat or try to teach meditation. She just talked. She was walking with Bob through the Tower's garden. She asked him about his days. She told him stories about goats.

"Do they have names?" Bob asked one rainy afternoon, while water trickled down the balcony windows.

"Of course they do!" she smiled. "There's Goatee, Fence-Jumper, Beeeeetâny, Goatzart, Vincent Goat, Scapegoat, World Destroyer…"

Bob's eyes widened.

"World Destroyer?" he asked, surprised.

"That's right… She has malice in her eyes. I'm afraid of her."

Bob laughed.

It was the first time Bucky had heard him truly laugh. Not that nervous, automatic, defensive laugh. A genuine, light, almost childlike laugh. He remembered how young Bob was. How he should never have been in any of those labs. How he was just a broken boy trying to pick up the pieces of himself with hands that pierced concrete.

One night, Bucky found Yn in the kitchen, drinking tea. It was late, or early, depending on your perspective, and the Tower was silent.

"He's getting better," Bucky said, sitting on the marble counter beside her.

"He's feeling safe," she said, taking a sip of her tea. "Those are different things."

"Do you think he can handle it? Control it?"

She hesitated before answering. When she did, it was with a frankness only someone who had broken every bone in their body multiple times could possess.

"He's going to have nightmares for the rest of his life. He's going to break things accidentally. He's going to hate himself for things he did and things he didn't even do but think he did." She placed the cup on the table. " But yes. I think he can do it. If we teach him the right way."

"What's the right way?" she looked at Bucky as if she should already know the answer.

"Show him that he doesn't need to be afraid of himself."

It was on a Tuesday that things reached a turning point.

She started gently, as always. Bob was in the center of the gym, his arms limp at his sides, his gaze fixed on some distant point that only he could see. She walked around him slowly, like an animal studying another.

"Show me what you can do, Bob."

"I can't do anything" The answer came automatically, almost rehearsed.

"Come on…." her voice had a light, almost affectionate, teasing tone. "You can do something. Without calling the other guy… No offense."

Bob frowned, thinking. His face, which normally alternated between anxiety, fear, and guilt, suddenly lit up with a flash of something close to… pride?

"Oh! I can touch my nose with my tongue!"

He did.

There, in the Tower's gym, surrounded by state-of-the-art training equipment and walls that had witnessed interdimensional battles, Bob, the most powerful being on the planet, a scientific error bordering on divinity, touched the tip of his own nose with his tongue and seemed genuinely pleased with himself.

She looked at Bucky.

Bucky shrugged.

"Cool," she said finally. "I can work with that."

The following weeks were… strange. Good, but strange.

She turned nose-and-tongue into an exercise. "Can you do this with your eyes closed?" she asked. Bob could. "Can you do this balancing on one leg?" Bob almost fell, but he managed. "Can you do this while making the lights flicker?"

Bob hesitated. He closed his eyes. The tip of his tongue touched his nose, and the gym lights flickered. Just once. It was faint. Almost imperceptible. But it happened.

Bucky, watching from a corner with his arms crossed, felt a chill down his spine. Not from fear. From hope.

Day after day, she expanded Bob's limits without him realizing it. The training was never about brute force. It was about presence. About body awareness. About feeling his own power before it exploded.

"You don't control your strength because you don't know it's there until it's too late," she explained one afternoon when they were both sitting on the mat, Bob chewing on a jelly sandwich he had made himself. "It's like… You know when you're walking and you bump into a table?"

"I break the table" Bob said, his mouth full.

"You break the table because you didn't feel you were going to bump into it. We're going to work on that. You're going to learn to feel the world around you. The walls. The doors. The cups. They're going to stop being surprises."

Bob chewed silently.

"And if I can't?"

"Then we'll try again."

"And if I can't again?"

"Again".

Bob looked at the sandwich in his hands. It wasn't broken. It wasn't disintegrated. It was whole. It was the first time he realized this, that he had held something fragile long enough to eat it without destroying it.

His eyes welled up with tears.

"I didn't destroy the sandwich… " he whispered, as if it were a miracle.

"You didn't destroy it." she agreed, giving him a small squeeze on the hand. Celebrating the small steps. "Tomorrow we'll try with a cup."

But there was still a barrier. Bucky could see it. Bob was learning to control the small powers; his breathing, his presence, his spatial awareness, but when it came to real strength, the kind of strength capable of reducing a building to dust with a sneeze, he refused to touch it. Literally and figuratively.

He held back.

She noticed. Of course she noticed. She'd been trained for decades to read supersoldiers, to know when they were going easy, when they were holding back, when they were afraid of breaking the toy.

Bob was the most fragile toy she'd ever seen. Only the opposite.

"How about… using your super strength?" she asked one day, with the casualness of someone suggesting changing the TV channel.

Bob froze.

"What?"

"Super strength. You have it. I saw the reports. Bucky told me about the wall. About the door. About the car once, in the parking lot."

"The car was an accident!" Bob's voice rose. "The steering wheel just… and I just… I'm sorry."

"I know it was an accident. That's why we're going to train on purpose. With control. With awareness."

Bob shook his head, taking a step back.

"No. No, no, no. I'm not going to. I hurt people."

"Normal people, yes." She took a step forward. "But I'm not a normal person."

"You don't understand!" The gym lights flickered. Bob took a deep breath, trying to control himself, and the lights returned to normal. But his eyes were shining, not with power, but with despair. "I ripped a man in half, Yn. With my bare hands. I saw his face while it happened. I felt…"

"Bob."

"I don't want to feel that again. Never again. " His voice broke. " I'd rather never use anything again. I'd rather be… weak. Useless. I'd rather…"

"I won't break" she said with absolute calm. "You can try with all your might. You can throw me against the wall. You can break every bone in my body. In three seconds, I'll be standing again." she moved closer. "You can't really hurt me, Bob."

Bob blinked. A tear rolled down his cheek.

"Come on" she opened her arms, like a target. "Let's fight. You and me. Let's go!"

Bob shook his head, backing up until he hit the wall, his shoulders sinking into the concrete as if it were styrofoam. He pulled himself out of the hole with an awkward tug.

"No! I'm going to hurt you!"

"Puff!" she laughed, a genuine and encouraging laugh. "No way! Come on!"

She moved forward.

It wasn't a violent attack. It was more of a push, a deliberate imbalance. She placed her hands on Bob's shoulders and applied pressure, not enough to hurt anyone, but enough to throw him off balance.

Bob stumbled.

And, in the process of trying to regain his balance, he reached out.

It happened too fast for anyone there (including Bob) to process. It was a reactive, unconscious movement. Bob's hand found her chest and pushed her.

It wasn't a normal push.

It was a push from someone who could lift a truck without feeling its weight. It was a push from someone who had never, not for a second, understood their own strength.

Yn flew.

Literally flew.

She slid across the gym like a rag doll, arms outstretched, her face a genuine expression of surprise. She hit the back wall with a wet, terrible sound. A "crack" that echoed through the empty space. Then silence. And then the sound of bones disintegrating, of flesh settling into an angle no body should have.

She fell to the floor like a pile of rags.

Bob stood paralyzed.

His hands trembled. His eyes were wide open, too bulging, too glazed.

"No," he whispered. "No. No. No no no no no…"

Her body was wrong. Her neck twisted at an impossible angle. Her chest wouldn't rise. It wouldn't fall. It wouldn't do anything. Her eyes were open, still, empty.

"Yn?" Bob said, his voice a hiss. He fell to his knees on the mat, his hands clutching his hair. "Yn, no. No, no, no. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. Please, no. Not again. Not again, please, God, take this away from me, take this away from me, I don't want this, I didn't ask for this, I…"

His world was crumbling.

Bucky started to run, but he knew he wouldn't make it in time. He knew that nothing he did could stop what was about to happen, Bob's panic unleashing a psychic storm, the entire Tower being sucked into the Void, once again, another lost dawn, more nightmares, more…

And that's when Yn's neck snapped back into place.

It was a horrible sound. Wet. Mechanical. The kind of sound you hear in nightmares. But what came next was worse and better at the same time: her chest rose. Her eyes, previously empty, blinked. Yn moved.

She sat up.

"Wow…" her voice came out a little hoarse, as if she were waking from a very deep sleep. "I needed that!"

Bob looked up. His face was red, smeared with tears and snot, the expression of someone who had just witnessed their own capacity for destruction once again. But there was something different there. It wasn't just horror. It was… confusion. Hesitant hope.

"You…" Bob choked. "You were dead."

"I was." She stood up with a fluidity that didn't match the noise her bones had made seconds before. She stretched her neck, turned her shoulders, and everything creaked into place. "Cool, isn't it?"

"COOL?" Bob practically shouted. "YOU WERE DEAD!"

“I get like this sometimes. It passes.” She approached, her steps firm. She crouched in front of Bob, getting to his eye level. “Hey. Look at me.”

Bob trembled. But he looked.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Her voice was firm, but gentle. “You can’t kill me. You can try all day. You can try all week. You can throw me off a building, run me over with a tank, blow me up with dynamite. It doesn’t matter. I’ll come back.” She placed her hand on Bob’s shoulder, carefully, with the care of someone who knows they’re handling a loaded weapon. “You’re not alone in this, Bob. You don’t have to carry this alone.”

Bob sobbed.

It was an ugly, uncontrolled sob, that came from the depths of a chest that had spent too long holding everything together alone. He threw himself forward, his arms wrapping around her in an awkward, overly tight hug.

She didn’t break. Of course not. She was made not to break.

But for a second, just for a second, Bob felt her touch, solid, real, alive, and something inside him crumbled. He cried like a child, his face buried in her t-shirt, his shoulders shaking.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"It's okay," she murmured, patting his back. "It's okay. I'm here."

Bucky watched from the gym doorway, the cold metal prosthesis against his chest. He didn't interrupt. He didn't say anything. He just stood there, watching Yn do what he had never been able to: hold Bob without fear.

After a long time, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, Bob's crying began to subside. He was still sobbing, still trembling, but the acute agony had passed. Only exhaustion remained. A deep exhaustion, the kind that goes to the bone.

She gently pulled him away, looked at his swollen, red face.

"I think today was good, wasn't it?" She smiled. It wasn't a triumphant or condescending smile. It was a warm, human smile. "Want some ice cream?"

Bob blinked.

The question was so absurd, so profoundly out of place, that it took him a few seconds to process.

"Ice cream?"

"Ice cream," she stood up, extending her hand to him. "There's a tub of chocolate chip in the fridge. I saw it when I got here. We can eat it and watch something silly. Cartoons. Something light."

Bob looked at her outstretched hand.

The hand he had used to throw a human body against a wall. The hand that had already split people in two. The hand he feared more than anything else in the world.

"I'm so dirty," he said, his voice low.

"We'll shower later."

"I…" He hesitated. "I'm still shaking."

"Then we'll eat ice cream while shaking."

Bob looked at his own fingers. They were shaking, yes. But they weren't undoing anything. They weren't piercing anything. They just… trembled. Like normal fingers. Like human fingers.

He accepted her hand.

She pulled him up with an ease that didn't make sense; after all, he weighed the same as an ordinary man, but his density was something else entirely. But Yn was a force to be reckoned with. She had pulled supersoldiers off the ground more times than she could count.

On the way to the kitchen, Bob still sobbed occasionally. His nose was running. His eyes were swollen. He looked terrible. Awful. “I’m sorry,” he said again, as she opened the refrigerator.

“I already said it’s okay.”

“Just one more time.”

“No.”

“Sorry.” She turned and looked at him with an expression that was 50% affection and 50% threat. Bob closed his mouth.

She took out the tub of ice cream, two spoons, and sat on the kitchen floor, leaning against the cupboard. Bob sat beside her, keeping a respectful distance.

“Come closer, I don’t bite,” she said.

He came closer.

His shoulder touched hers. Solid. Firm. She didn’t crumble. Didn’t break. Didn’t turn to dust.

Bob allowed himself to rest his weight against her for a moment.

She offered him the tub. He stuck the spoon in.

“Chocolate chip…” he murmured, his mouth full. “It’s my favorite.”

It was the first time anyone had heard Bob say he had a favorite.

Bucky, who had followed the two through the tower and watched everything with his arms crossed, felt something warm in his chest. It was… relief. Like after a storm. Like the silence after the thunder finally passes.

He turned and left. He left the two on the kitchen floor, eating chocolate chip ice cream at three in the afternoon, Bob still trembling a little, Yn telling some story about one of her goats that had learned to open the gate by itself.

"And then she ran away," she said, laughing. "Three kilometers. We found her at the city market, eating produce from the fair… That's why she's called Runaway."

Bob laughed. It was a weak laugh, stained with recent tears.

But it was a laugh.

Bob’s forehead drops to your shoulder, his whole body going limp over yours; its warmth seeps into you seemingly even more intensely than it did before, and you can feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest as it’s tightly pressed against your own when you both silently fall into that comfortable matched rhythm.

You feel hazy, fingers mindlessly curling around the hair at the back of his neck when he nuzzles the juncture between your shoulder and neck, warm breath fanning over your cooling skin, soft curls tickling it. 

You stay like this for a little while, light and comfortably quiet – you wouldn’t ever want to move in moments like this, would let him cling to you like a second skin forever if you could, if your body didn’t eventually have to remind you it has needs outside of him. You know that if you don't get up, the idea of having to do it is only going to get worse. 

Your hand slides down against his back, mouth gently pressing against his cheek as a preemptive apology before you have to break it to him; “C’mon, ‘gotta use the bathroom” you mutter softly, to which he responds with a soft, tired noise before he reluctantly slides himself off of you in order to let you go from the cage of his own limbs. 

He flops back onto the mattress with a sigh, one arm lazily flung over his eyes while you quickly shift to grab a tshirt and an underwear to wear before you head towards the bathroom linked to his room. 

When you come back, you find Bob sitting at the edge of his side of the bed, still shirtless, turned away from you, shoulder sagging. You crawl back over the bed and settle behind him, fingers running along his bicep, tracing lines down his arm as you press soft kisses against his bare shoulder. “You okay?” you murmur, nuzzling into his hair. 

You feel him nod, but it is small, barely convincing, so you’re quick to sense something is wrong. Your intuition is easily confirmed when you push the hair covering the side of his face to take a look at him. “Bob–”

“I’m sorry,” he quietly breathes out when he looks at you, soft eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t even know,” his head shakes, and he turns away from you as he tries to hold it back, to not have you see him like this. 

“Hey,” you softly call. Your hand comes to cup the back of his head, fingers threading gently into his hair. “That’s okay”

He nods like he’s trying to convince himself of it, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand. “It’s not you. It’s not anything you did,” he hurries to explain, voice hoarse. “It’s just– I don’t know,” he shrugs, finally turning back to look at you. “A release of tension I think. But it’s so much, and so fast, and I don’t know what to do with it” he chuckles, the ghost of a smile appearing over his face for a second before he brushes it off by rubbing a hand over his face. 

You don’t say anything, just watch as he tries to steady himself. You try to make it easier for him, more comfortable, your thumb soothingly running back and forth at the nape of his neck. It’s quiet for a while – you let him cry, let it soak, because you know it’s the good kind of cry, the kind that will make him feel lighter afterwards, the kind that he needs to move forward. You hold him like you know how much it costs him to feel this much, this intensely.

Bob eventually turns to look at you after a while, deep blue eyes gentle, breath trembling as it leaves him. “It just– It feels a lot. How you make me feel safe. Loved.”

Your heart leaps inside your chest, stomach fluttering in a way you can’t explain, blooming with an overwhelming warmth at his words. You could almost cry too; the deepness, the softness in his glassy eyes, the sincerity and the vulnerability of it all as he looks at you. 

“Maybe that’s why your body lets go” you nod, grinning softly as you reach to take his hand in yours. “It just has to get used to it.”

He lets out a breath that sounds like half a laugh, half a sigh. “I guess that makes it sounds a little less pathetic” 

You smile, leaning forward to press a kiss just beneath his ear. “It’s not pathetic,” you say. “It's honest and a little sweet, if you ask me” you smile, reaching to wipe away the remaining trails of tears over his cheeks. 

He chuckles and sniffles quietly, head leaning to settle at your shoulder, hand letting your fingers intertwine, tightening around yours, gently squeezing in silent affection. He sighs softly when the hand that is not holding his buries into his dark locks, and again, you remain like this for a while, dwelling in that floating atmosphere, time stilling while it all quiets down, while you hold him until his breath gets even again.

“So I'm gonna have to make you get used to it, huh?”

You feel him smile against the fabric of your shirt. “Guess so,” he grins as he looks up at you, a glint of playfulness shining inside his eyes beyond the sheen of remaining tears. 

Everything in that gaze alone makes you want to try your hardest.

—

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