context:

“I trust you,” said John carefully. “I don’t the Sentry and I don’t trust the Void.”

“I am the Sentry.” He’d phrased it badly. Of course he had. John wasn’t attempting to call them distinct from Bob, he was just expressing that nobody really understood what his powers were. “I am the Void. You don’t trust me.”

“Bob—”

“You’re supposed to love me, and you don’t even fucking trust me.”

John stepped forward hesitantly. He swallowed hard as he held a hand out toward Bob, trying to mend the gap they’d created. “I do love you, Bob. But you’re not in control yet and if you can’t admit that then I— you’re right. I can’t trust you when you’re using them.”

“How can you love me if you don’t trust me?” Bob’s voice was quiet but not sad so much as it was angry.

“I trust you here. I trust you as Bob. I don’t trust your powers. Even Valentina doesn’t understand what she did to you. Nobody knows how your powers work. Nobody. Not even you.”

“I know how they work.”

“No, you—”

“I can control it!”

All the ambient sounds in the room stopped for just a second. Then, in one loud snap, every lightbulb in the room shattered. John instantly knelt down and threw his arm over his head, protecting himself from the shards of glass and metal that rained over them.

His chest pounded hard, each breath scraping in his lungs. Somehow, the silence after the explosions rang even louder, his pulse thumping up to his ears. The room filled with the smell of burnt metal, abrasive and acrid. When he shifted on his knees, the carpet crunched as tiny, painful shards crumbled into his skin.

 When he finally felt safe enough to lift his head again, all he could see in dim light were Bob’s eyes—wide, filled with an indiscernible mix of emotions as they shone bright gold. For just a second, Bob stared at John, breath trembling. Then he stepped forward, slippers breaking more glass as he reached an arm toward John.

But John, still painfully tense, recoiled at the gesture. He flinched back against the wall, inhale caught in his throat. Bob froze where he stood, his shaking hand still outstretched but giving way to gravity as he swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Bob, voice cracked and broken, devoid of all the anger it held before. “I’m sorry. I didn’t— I didn’t mean to—”

That was exactly what John had been trying to tell him. Bob didn’t mean to do anything, but he still did. John’s knees and calves were bleeding because of him. Mentally, he wanted to tell Bob that it was okay, that it wouldn’t change anything between them.

Physically, he was fucking terrified. His body wouldn’t unclench, wouldn’t relax, wouldn’t stop staring at Bob like he was a threat. Bob’s hand dropped to his side as his shoulders sank, his entire body folding in on itself as the light in his eyes dimmed to almost nothing. He looked less like Sentry, more like Bob, but he was still goddamn terrifying.

John tried to remind himself that he wasn’t scary. That Bob wasn’t a god or a villain; he was John’s boyfriend. He was the sweet guy who stole chocolate chips from his pancake batter and woke him up at one in the morning when he went to bed late and decided he needed cuddles.

But his instincts still told him to move, to run, to get the hell away before Bob—or the Sentry or the Void—did something even worse.

Bob opened his mouth but didn’t say a word. His breath shook as his gaze fell to his own hands, his tremors so bad that his fingers were shaking a full inch back and forth. A sob caught in his throat when he swallowed, a gasp left in its wake.

John’s chest pounded. He wanted to say something, anything, just to let Bob know that he wasn’t a fucking monster, but all he could do was struggle to breathe. All he could think about were the shards stuck in his legs, the lines of blood staining his floor.

“I’m sorry,” Bob whispered again, this time completely himself. No Sentry. No Void. Just Bob—human, broken, vulnerable. “I’m sorry.”

The floor crunched beneath his feet as he ran the short distance across the room. He didn’t look back once when he opened the door, allowed the smallest sliver of light to highlight his exit before he closed it behind him.

John stayed where he was, curled against the wall, struggling to catch his breath. A tear dropped down his chin as he glanced at the blood seeping into his sweatpants, at the empty space Bob had left behind.

He tucked his knees up to his chest and took one long, slow, deep breath. John was a superhero. An Army man. He could calm himself down.

When Bob was a child, his mom’s silence had been a weapon. She’d refuse to talk to him for days, refused to crack until he fell to his knees and sobbed her forgiveness for whatever it was that he’d done. The worst part was that where sometimes it helped, sometimes it made it worse, made it stretch longer.

So, with John, Bob refused to crack first. For days, he let his chest tighten until it suffocated him, let John’s hurt stare burn into his. He stopped sneaking into John’s room at night, stopped shadowing him when he wanted attention. If he just waited, eventually, like Bob’s mom, John would crack.

But John didn’t crack.

Eventually, the silence changed into something not just painful but unbearable. Bob sat on the opposite side of the common area from John, watching as he folded laundry with military precision. He didn’t speak, didn’t whisper, didn’t even make the little jokes under his breath when he noticed garments were missing (having found their way into Bob’s hamper instead).

“Do you want to break up?” Bob asked, words fast and almost frantic. John froze, a jacket slung over his arm as he turned to look at Bob. “Stop staring and answer me.”

“No,” said John. Nothing more, nothing less. Just no.

“Then why won’t you talk to me?” He’d been convinced he was at the end of his episode with how much self-doubt he’d had since their argument. But John’s continued refusal to speak fueled his anger, reinvigorated that intense irritation. “John, just tell me why you won’t talk to me.”

“Because I can’t.”

“Why?” The silence stretched long enough for Bob to snap, “For fuck’s sake, answer me.”

John clicked his jaw as he set the jacket down on the cushion behind him. He took a deep breath, voice hoarse when he answered, “Because you told me not to.”

Bob blinked. It didn’t make sense as an answer. John was good at holding a grudge, but he wasn’t that petty. Especially when Bob was actively trying to talk things through.

But then he looked back on the last few days. He thought about his every interaction with John, and considered the times when John responded. It was true—he only spoke when Bob asked him to. Even around the others, he only spoke if Bob gave him permission first.

“This isn’t funny,” said Bob, unwilling to admit the horrifying truth. “I didn’t make you stop talking, you’re just doing it. Like how my mom would do it. You’re just— You’re punishing me. You can talk; you’re just punishing me.”

John shook his head, but he didn’t speak. He just stared at Bob, eyes wide and sad. He’d told the truth. Bob, somehow, had stripped him of his ability to speak. His heart pounded, breath caught in his throat as he stared at his hands like they were weapons.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, tears building in his eyes. Not out of sadness but of guilt, of fear. “What the fuck did I do to you?”

The only answer he got was a shrug. Because John hadn’t been given permission to speak so he couldn’t. He’d thought that John was withholding his words as a weapon, but he was being forced to keep them in. Bob was the one inflicting the punishment all along and he hadn’t even realized it.

At the very least, he could say his mom had never done that.

Bob jumped off the couch and walked over to John. He sat in front of him on the floor and took John’s hands into his, stared right into his eyes like it could somehow undo whatever he’d done.

“You can talk now,” said Bob, hands squeezing the life out of John’s. “You can talk. Please, John, talk to me. Just say something. Anything. I want you to talk. Please. Please, talk to me.”

“What do you want me to say?” The words were stiff, almost mechanical. They still weren’t John’s. They were waiting for a command, waiting to tell Bob what he wanted to hear.

“Fuck. No. No, no, no, I take it back. I didn’t mean that I— I was just mad. Just say something, please. You can talk again. You don’t need my permission. Please.” Nothing. No answer. Just John’s hands pulling away from his. Then they wrapped around his waist, pulled him into an embrace he didn’t deserve as he cried, “I didn’t mean to do this. I didn’t know I could— I want you to talk. You can talk. You can tell me you hate me, I don’t care. Just say something. Please.”