#bob mcu

Bucky thought for a second, crossing his metal arm over the other. “I think they’ll go for another week before they come clean.” 

She snorted. “Like they’ll keep it up that long.” 

Bucky raised a brow. 

“What? It isn’t like Mr. Shadow is great at subtlety and Y/N is trying so hard to hide it, she doesn’t even realize she’s giving away all her cards.”

“Showing her cards,” Bucky corrected. 

Yelena ignored him. “Should we let them know that we know?”

“Absolutely not.” 

Now it was her turn to raise her brows. 

Bucky frowned. “Do you have any idea how little entertainment I get?” He shook his head. “No. I want to see how this plays out.” 

The two watched you storm out onto the balcony and grip the railing like it was keeping you from going over. Oh yeah. You had it bad. 

“Twenty bucks says three days,” Yelena said. 

Bucky held out his good hand. “Deal.”

Alexi walked behind the bar to make himself a drink and bent down. “Hey, look, free toothbrush!” 

-

You retreated to your room when you couldn’t stand the sound of Walker and Alexi bickering over something you didn’t care enough to listen to. Yours was on the second level of the penthouse and gave you a view that faced the Hudson. 

“Are you ready for your swimming lesson?” 

You flinched and quickly looked away, drawing the curtain over the window and casting the room into shadow, including the far corner by your closet. 

“Hey.”

“Jesus Christ, Bob!”

You switched on your lamp, and he leaned forward so he was in the light, giving you a sheepish smile. 

“Sorry.” 

You sat on the edge of your bed and ran your fingers through your hair, wincing at the soreness still in your arm.

“Walker is such an asshole,” you muttered, rolling your shoulder to ease some of the ache. Walker’s grip had shifted your sleeve up. White-pink marks blared back at you against your skin. You tugged your shirt sleeve back down and kept stretching. “So are you talking to me now?” 

“I wasn’t,” he shrank back, “not talking to you.”

“Liar.” You shot him a teasing smirk. Pulling your arm across you, you felt your muscles ease a bit. “Do you see why now?”

Bob glanced down at his hands, fingers interlocking and releasing. “Not really.”

“Because they suck!” You exclaimed. Shifting to sit across from him, you reached out, pulling his hands to your lap, lacing your fingers through his instead. “Believe me, my hesitation has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the people we unfortunately call our friends.” 

Not to mention Valentina. You were not about to become a poster couple for her stupid campaign. She was insufferable enough as it was. You could see it now. Valentina’s Valentine Cards, featuring The New Avengers’ Blue Fire and… Bob. 

No. You’d spent enough of your life under a magnifying glass. You weren’t going to do that to the best thing that had happened to you in, well, ever. The thought alone made your hands tingle with the power that burned in your body. 

“Are you okay?” Bob asked softly. 

You calmed down and held his hands a little tighter. Your eyes met those deep blues, and you smiled. “Yeah. Always.” 

His fingers moved from yours to your wrists, tracing the skin up under your sleeves. Your breathing hitched, but you didn’t pull away. Bob stood, shifting so he was beside you. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, wrapping his arms around your middle. 

“I’m sorry Walker was an asshole.” 

You snorted. “It’s not your fault. I think they put it in the serum.” You embraced him in turn, curling your body into his. Sometimes it felt like the only place in the world where you fit. You felt his arms tighten a little around you. His lashes tickled your skin as he screwed his eyes shut. 

“Ren?” You pulled back just enough to get a look at him. “Ren, what’s wrong?”

“I’m trying,” he gasped out, “I can’t-” Those dark blue eyes met yours in panic and apology. 

And you both vanished. 

“Are you ready for your first swimming lesson?” 

Two hands came down hard on your back, knocking the wind out of you and pushing you into the frigid waters. Only it wasn’t you. You could still feel the harshness of his palms on your shoulder blades, but it wasn’t happening to you. At least, not you you. 

But the little girl in front of you, whose head went under the water and came up coughing, begging her daddy to help her, was you once. She had your hair, though shorter, your eyes, though less haunted. 

You flinched as your little arms splashed against the water, desperate to keep afloat. Gurgled screams echoed through your head. 

With your feet still planted on the dock, you stared at him, with his cold, calculating eyes. The hard set of his jaw and the tense, disappointed way he crossed his arms. 

Your father. 

“No,” you hissed under your breath and dove into the water. 

It was every bit as cold as you remembered, freezing your skin at first touch. You clenched your teeth to keep them from chattering. The muscles of your arms and legs seized up in the icy water, but you pushed on, eyes searching for that small, scared little girl. All you found, though, was the dark. 

A hand latched onto your wrist, keeping you from going any deeper. You fought against it, but it was stronger. He was stronger. 

Bob pulled you to him, and when you opened your eyes again, trying to blink back that terrible water, you were back in your room. His arms clung to you, but when he realized you were both back, he recoiled. 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I try to stop-”

Still feeling like you were holding your breath, you held up a hand. “It’s okay.” 

“Y/N, I-”

“Ren, really.” You inhaled. You exhaled. “I’m fine.” You motioned to the room around you. “See? We’re back. We’re fine.”

“But what you saw…” He trailed off, grimacing.

You took his face in your hands. “It’s nothing I don’t see already, okay?” If your words couldn’t convince him, your lips might, pressing against his gently, reassuring. “You brought me back.” 

It was enough to make him smile, at least a little. 

“You brought yourself back,” he said. He kept kissing you anyway. 

It was one of the things that worried him the most about you. He could never get enough. The more time he spent with you, touching you, the more risk there was of his powers taking over. 

“I’m starving,” you said, resting your forehead against his. “Think you can fly us to a pizza place or something?” With your arms draped around his neck, you could feel his laugh even before you heard it.

“I don’t think Valentina would like that idea.”

“Well, Valentina is a bitch.” You pouted your lips and tilted your head. “Please please please please.”

“I will walk with you to the nearest place,” Bob said. 

You rolled your eyes. “Boring, but fine.” Drawing a finger over his cheek, you let your thumb land on his lips. “But only if we get extra cheese.” 

“I can live with that.” 

Bob drew you back to him for another long, sweet kiss. He let his hands settle at the small of your back, making sure to only touch the fabric of your sweatshirt. Still, he held you as close as he could without fear of hurting you. But in the back of his mind, he was thinking of you lost in that dark water, swimming after something you’d never catch. 

-

Bob didn’t consider himself to be a brave person. He was always scared all the time. Sure, back at the compound, he’d run after Valentina’s men so that the others could get away, but he didn’t consider that courage. 

Bravery and the willingness to die weren’t exactly the same thing. 

But he wondered if there wasn’t something to be said for doing something that scared him every single day. Did that make him brave? Because being with you scared him more than almost anything. 

He watched the light streaming through the window touch your skin. The sun glittered against your bare shoulder. His fingers hovered just over the spot, not quite touching you, not quite sure. 

How could something scare him so much and yet feel like the first right thing in his entire life?

You stirred, turning just enough that you bumped into his touch. 

Bob scurried away and screwed his eyes shut tight. 

You sighed out a tired sound. “Are you doing that thing where you pretend you weren’t watching me?” 

He opened one eye and found you smiling at him. “No.” 

You fully rolled over so you could lay your hand on his cheek. 

He opened the other eye too. 

“Morning,” he mumbled. 

“How’d you sleep?”

He shrugged. “Better.” 

He always slept better when he was next to you. You were like a dreamcatcher for whatever this thing inside him was. You caught it all and stored it away. He just worried about what it was doing to you instead. 

You tucked a brown wave behind his ear and kissed him slowly, sweetly. 

“Good.”

“What, um,” he stammered, “what about you? Did you, uh… sleep?”

You wondered if he could tell. Could he sense a nightmare even if he wasn’t part of it? That wasn’t entirely true, of course. He was there. Most of your nightmares involved him, locked away in your childhood home, hidden in a box by your father so he could use him as a weapon against the impending end of the world. 

Not far off from Valentina’s original plans, it seemed. 

“Like a rock,” you plastered a smile on your face and kissed him again. 

There, lying there while his arms wrapped around you and gently tugged you to his chest, that’s where you needed to be. That’s all you needed. 

You breathed him in, not realizing how much you were shaking against him. 

“Hey,” he said, “are you cold?” He pulled the blankets tighter around you and rubbed his hands up and down your arms.

“I’m fine, Ren.”

A little smile teased his lips the way it always did when you used his nickname. It was his turn to pull your lips to his, kissing both corners, then your jaw, then up to the spot by your ear. His giggle rumbled through you. 

“We have to get up.”

“Why? Do you have plans I don’t know about?”

You laughed, his hands falling to your hips, fingers tickling. “No. I’ve got a hot date with Bucky.” 

Bob nipped your ear. 

“Very funny.” 

“I’m serious.” You curled a light-brown strand around your finger. “I have a thing for super soldier serum, I guess. Walker is next on my list.” 

For a split second, that familiar little ring of cold circled his captivating blue irises. But only for a second. Then, your Bob was back, pouting. 

“It is too early for you to be this mean to me.” 

“I’m sorry,” you snickered. “Do you want me to kiss it to make it better?”

The gold returned in a circled sliver, accompanied by a fierce blush overtaking his cheeks. God, you couldn’t get enough of him. 

“I…um…” Flustered, he cleared his throat, which made him actually cough, which started a coughing fit that you could only laugh at. 

“I’m going to get some coffee,” you said, reaching for your clothes beside the bed.

 In the flicker of movement, Bob caught a glimpse of the scar on your arm, thigh, and back of the neck. You’d never told him what they were from. He never asked, of course, but he’d wondered. He knew self-harm. And he knew better than most what needle marks looked like. These weren’t either. He had a feeling. A bad one. 

“Stay a little longer?” He asked, his voice so sweet and tired that you had to look back with a smile. He tugged on your hand. 

“What’s up with you this morning?”

Bob shrugged. “I just like it when we stay in here. Nothing else can touch us in here.” 

Out there, he was always worried about doing the wrong thing or letting too much of his power loose. When he could lie here, holding you, it anchored him to this reality. You kept the shadows away, as well as the blinding light that came with the other side of him. Everyone saw him as split in two. The Sentry and The Void. Sometimes it felt like you were the only one who saw him. 

“Okay.” You layed back down, allowing him to quickly snuggle back beside you, tucking your head under his chin. 

It all felt so right. More right than he’d ever been. No matter what he’d done, he’d always been wrong. With his family, with the world, as The Sentry. But then you stepped into his shadows, and you saw him for all that he could be. Not in the way Valentina did, but in a way he wanted to aspire to. He wanted to be the person you saw in him. 

And isn’t that was love was?

“I love you,” Bob whispered.

You stiffened in his arms. 

“What?”

Gathering his confidence, he said it a little louder. “I love you, Y/N.”

Suddenly, his arms felt very hot, like he was holding onto a space heater. It wasn’t until he saw the slight blue glow that he released you. Your body lit up with the neon color, just like the weapons you’d described to him. 

Blue Flame.

He’d only seen it once before- when you were helping him escape the vault before Valentina burned you all away. Even then, you hadn’t looked this scared. 

“I think I should go,” you said, voice cracking. 

Bob’s face fell. 

You started toward the door.

“Y/N, wait,” he pleaded, reaching for you. When he grabbed your hand, it felt like he’d been struck by lightning. 

He couldn’t stop it after that. 

The two of you tumbled into the dark, but water wasn’t what you found. It was blood. 

You knew where you were before you heard the screaming. Before you saw the sad trail of blood leading to the table where your younger self tried to get free of your restraints. Your leg and arm were already opened up, small slits bleeding all over the floor. He’d tied you facedown to the table

“They figured it out,” your father muttered. “They know. They know and they’re trying to turn you against me.”

“Dad, please,” you begged. 

“I have to get the chip out. Then, things will go back to how they were.” He dug his scalpel into the back of your neck. 

Bob stood beside you in the corner of the room, watching you watching yourself. You were both frozen in place, whether by the force of your memory or the fear running like ice through your veins. All he could do was stand there.

He couldn't remember ever seeing you really cry before. Not like this.

Your face crumpled, and you had to bring a hand up to your lips to muffle your sob. 

When your father was finished, satisfied that there was nothing hiding beneath your skin, he turned to the other table.

“Leave him alone,” you growled, both in the past and as you stood there watching. 

Your little brother, barely eighteen, sat up, willing and waiting. He held out his arm. 

“Find it, Dad,” Cam said. The hard set of his jaw was betrayed by the welling terror in his eyes. “I believe you.”

Your father sneered back at your younger self, but you felt like he was staring right through you. It rattled you worse than any hit you’d taken. You wanted to hide or run, but there was nowhere to go. 

Bob almost reached for you, but he didn’t. 

You walked toward the tables. 

“I said, leave him alone!” Younger you shouted. 

The scalpel hovered over your brother’s wrist.

Brightness took over your vision, as blinding as it was in all of your nightmares. You could feel the terrible burn in your skin. It made your vision blur even more until all you could see was that light. The power forced into your veins with the technology that almost destroyed New York. 

You hit your knees as it faded. 

“Y/N,” Bob exclaimed, finally breaking himself out of his trance to rush to your side. 

“It works,” your father gasped. A wide, awful grin spread across his face. “It works!” 

The you of the past leveled your hard, glowing gaze on your father. You raised your hand. 

“Don’t!” Cam pleaded.

“Is this what you wanted, daddy?” You hissed. The blue intensified again, spreading across the lines of your palm and creeping up your veins. It settled in your eyes, turning them to ice. “Is this what you wanted!” 

Dad held up his hands in front of him, face softening to that false paternal smile that made your stomach roll. “Don’t you see, sweetheart? Don’t you see the power I’ve given you? They won’t be able to hurt us.” His voice faltered, trying to hide his fear. “Nothing will hurt you again.”

“No.” You let the power flow through you and launch itself forward. “Nothing will.” 

A beam of cerulean light rammed into your father’s chest. The smell of burning cloth and meat filled your lungs. 

You could still taste it in the air as you knelt on the lab floor. It choked you like thick, black smoke. You tried to breathe through it, but your throat constricted, your sobs warbling into gasps for air. 

The hole in your father’s chest might as well have been yours, leaving nothing but charred, emptiness. 

He slumped forward, face still watching you with a proud, grotesque smile. 

Cam struggled against his restraints, screaming. 

You stepped toward him. 

You reached for him from your place on the floor. 

He turned a burning glare on you. Not the you from the past, but you. The one crying on the ground, trying to breathe. 

“How could you?” He hissed. 

“Cam, please,” the younger you begged. You took another step and turned to dust. 

You watched yourself drift away into the dark and everything else blurred around you.

A hand landed on your shoulder and you were back in your bedroom. You were on the ground, shaking hands braced against the floor to keep yourself from crumbling completely. 

Five years. You’d gotten a second to grieve everything you’d lost while the rest of the world got five years to move on. 

“Y/N, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t touch me.” You recoiled from Bob’s touch. You could feel it rising in you again, the power. You worried what it would do to him if you didn’t get away. 

Bob knelt beside you and let his hands fall to his lap. He watched tears fall down your face and couldn’t stop his own from clouding his vision. He wiped them away quickly, but they kept coming. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said softly. 

Your eyes snapped to his. “What?”

Bob’s lip trembled and he reached for you again, only to let his hand linger there in the air between you. Forever held out to you. 

You didn’t take it. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated, voice cracking. 

You’d never told him- told anyone, really. The only one who had some semblance of an idea was Valentina and that was only because your father worked for her. She gave him the resources to make you what you were and you worked for her anyway.

“You don’t know,” you said in a low voice. The smoke and smell of your father’s burning heart still felt like they were wrapped around the inside of your throat, blocking any breath. “I killed him.”

“You were protecting your brother-”

“Who killed himself two years later!” You finally found your voice in a scream. It was all crashing down on you and the only way you could see out of it was anger. You scrambled to your feet and backed away, trying not to notice the brokenness in Bob’s eyes. “You don’t get it, Robert.”

His full name made him flinch. 

Your fists clenched at your sides. “Some of us didn’t sign up for this.” 

You stormed out of the room so you didn’t have to see the hurt settle in his face. You caught enough of a glimpse, though, that made your stomach ache, like you’d swallowed acid and it was eating you from the inside out. 

Bob sat on the floor where you’d both fallen, legs folded beneath him. He buried his face in his hands. He could feel it- the darkness. It seeped in from the corners of his mind. 

Did you hear her? You chose this. She’ll never forgive you.

“Stop it,” he cried, tugging his hair between his fingers. “Shut up. Shut up.”

You hurt her. You made it worse. You always make it worse. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Bob whispered. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to.”

-

Valentina didn’t like it when you climbed up on the roof, but all of you did anyway. She said her security team always lost track of you because the cameras tended to malfunction. What she didn’t know was that you and Walker had come up here when you first moved in and messed them up so you’d have a place she couldn't watch you. Any time she sent someone to fix them, one of you would break the lens or tape a picture of Iron Man or something like that, so eventually she just gave up. 

You sat with your legs hanging off the edge. The clouds were low tonight, heavy with rain. It made you feel like you were sitting in the middle of the storm. You sent a blue flash into the grey to mimic the lightning that hadn’t come quite yet. 

“Careful. Someone is going to think that’s a UFO.” Bucky’s heavy steps stomped across the concrete of the rooftop, his hair slicked back from a shower and his arm recently polished. 

“Good.” You glanced briefly back at him and turned back to the clouds. “Maybe that will give them something to talk about other than us.” You sent out another flash and he sat down next to you, metal fingers clinging against the edge. 

“Were you here?” He asked. You raised a brow, so he clarified. “During the attack on New York?” 

You flexed your hands out in front of you. Blue fizzled in between your fingertips. 

“I was on a school trip upstate. Senior year of high school,” you said. “My parents were here, though. My mom got killed.”

He nodded, eyes almost as blue as the power in your palm. “Is that what made your dad…”

“Turn into a mad scientist doomsday prepper who mutilated his children and turned one into a monster using the same weapons that killed his wife?” You finished for him. You shrugged, leaning back with your arms resting behind you. “I mean, he was always an asshole who thought he could prepare us for the big terrible world by being even bigger and more terrible, but… yeah. I’d say that was the last straw.” 

Bucky didn’t mutter any apologies or give you any pitiful glances, which you were grateful for. 

“You stayed with him all that time?” 

“Didn’t have a reason not to.” 

“But you had a reason to stay.” His question was clear. 

You kicked your leg out, then let it fall. Out and fall. Out and fall. “My kid brother idolized him. And when mom died… well, he really thought my dad was going to save the world by changing the two of us into something that couldn’t be taken from him.”

“He wanted to turn you into superheroes.” Bucky hummed thoughtfully. “Sounds familiar.” 

“Yeah and he screwed up. He didn’t make me a hero, he made me-” You cut yourself off, anger buzzing through you with a power not from earth. A power that once tried to destroy the city you sat over. “That sound familiar too?” 

Bucky didn’t say anything, but the look in his piercing eyes was enough for you to know he understood. He understood more than you needed to explain. He knew. You didn’t know how, but he did. 

“You know,” he inhaled sharply, “I really hated Valentina for a long time after she kind of forced us into a team.” 

“Really?” You scoffed. “None of us could tell.”

He nudged you with his metal elbow. “But after a while, I realized it was good. For all of us.” Those blue eyes softened. “We fit together. Don’t ask me how, but we do.” Bucky turned back to the skyline, breathing in the clouds. “Nobody fits better than the two of you.”

Your shoulders slumped forward, head angled down so you could just see the specks of people beneath you. 

“How am I supposed to let him see all of me?” You asked, voice barely a whisper. “When I still can’t look in the mirror for too long?” Holding your arm out in front of you, you stared at the scar where your father had dug a blade into your flesh, searching for something that would justify his paranoia. 

Bucky held his hand out beside yours. The silver glinted in the light next to your skin. He took your hand in a gentle, but firm grip.

“That’s the cost, isn’t it?” 

He let go, letting his arm fall back to his side. Yours stayed there, though, hovering in the air like you were reaching for something. Maybe you were. 

“Now, thanks to you, I owe Yelena twenty bucks,” he huffed, climbing back off of the ledge. 

“What were you-” You started, then it hit you. “Oh, you’re an asshole.”

Bucky just clicked his tongue and waved back to you as he left. 

Downstairs, Yelena felt the hallway growing dark, and a deep dread settled in her stomach. Her knock was light. She entered the room without waiting for a response. 

He was sitting on his bed, facing a wall, and the shadows of the room seemed to collect around him. 

“Hey, Bob,” she said, taking a step forward. “You feeling okay?”

“I can control it.” He tilted his head to acknowledge her presence, but he didn’t move. “I can. I promise.”

Yelena held up a hand, like she was approaching a frightened deer. “I know you can.” She eyed a particularly angry-looking dark spot. If dark spots could be angry. “But for the sake of curiosity, why are you going all, you know… scary dark shame loop?” 

“I didn’t- she hates me because I couldn’t- I scared her and now I-”

“Bob.” Her voice sharpened. It forced him to look up at her. “What happened?” 

-

You spent the rest of the afternoon walking. It didn’t matter where. It didn’t matter once the sky started to get dark. You walked around the city, looking at everything that, not so long ago, had been utterly destroyed. And it was all through the power that now haunted your veins like a virus that was slowly eating away from the inside out. 

Bucky’s words rang through your head for the entirety of your walk.

That’s the cost.

The elevator doors closed around you and the numbness faded. It was a wall you’d built around you since you came back from The Blip. What a stupid name for it. Too simple, too sweet. Half of the world vanished and when they came back, everything had changed. You’d lost everything and they told you that you were lucky to be back. 

You weren’t sure when you started crying, but once it started, you couldn't stop. Your whole body shook from the force of it, like it was breaking you apart piece by piece. The wall crumbled. 

That’s the cost.

When you reached the penthouse, you pulled yourself off the elevator floor, unsure of when you sank down to your knees. You knew you probably looked crazy. You stepped out anyway. 

The living room was empty and quiet. Someone had made coffee, despite the late hour. You breathed in the scent of it to ground yourself. 

Yelena emerged from the hallway. Trailing behind her was Bob, his eyes sullen and shoulders slumped. 

When he saw you, the guilt struck him all over again like a thousand bullets. You’d been crying. More than that, he could see the toll of everything in the way you held yourself, like the structure that held you up had crumbled. You were still crying. Tears pooled in your pretty eyes and rolled down your cheeks. He never meant to make you cry. He didn’t mean to-

His thoughts stopped when you bolted across the room and wrapped your arms around him. 

You knocked the air out of his chest and brought him back to himself, all of the shadows threatening to consume him chased away by your touch. You buried your face in his chest, your tears wetting his shirt but he didn’t care. 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered into the fabric. “I didn’t mean what I said.”

“Y/N, I-” He started, but he didn’t know what to say, so he just kept apologizing. “I’m so sorry.”

You pulled back, looking up at him with more vulnerability than you thought you were capable anymore. His blue eyes softened you, melted you into someone you used to be. Someone you wanted to be again. 

“Can we talk?” 

Bob let his hands fall to the small of your back, pulling you as close as he could. He nodded, leaning down to nuzzle into your neck. 

“I’ll just…” Yelena didn’t finish, she just stalked off, giving the two of you one last glance before heading toward her room. 

You tugged Bob out onto the balcony. Years ago, Tony Stark fought a god on this balcony. Steve Rogers and Thor. Heroes. People you’d heard about your whole life, from your father trying to make you one of them, from the world that turned them into idols. Now, you couldn’t help but wonder if they were just people, too. 

“I know it wasn’t your fault,” you said, wanting to get that out of the way. “And I don’t blame you.” You paced in front of the glass barriers keeping you from tumbling over the edge. “I’m tired. I’m tired of being scared.”

“I know.” Bob shook his head, the guilt still lingering in his gaze. “I keep making you relive the worst parts of your life. The more I try to stop it, the more I keep hurting you and I don’t want to hurt you anymore-” 

“Bob, stop.” You took his face in your hands and took a deep breath. “I can face the worst of me because I am the best of myself when I’m with you.” Grasping his hand, you placed it over the scar on your arm. “I want to show you all of me. I want you to see the parts of myself that I could never face alone. Because I’m not alone anymore. Sometimes I just need to remember that.” Another breath. “I love you, Robert.” With those words, all of the air left your body. You had to say them again just to inhale. “I love you. And yes, that scares me because of- well everything to be honest and-”

It’s his turn to interrupt you, lips catching your words and breathing life back into you. His hand cups the back of your neck gently but his movements are steady and determined. You know without him breaking away that this is him saying it back. He does anyway.

“I love you too.” His fingers grazed the scar on your hip while his other hand tangled in your hair. “A-and I’m going to get better. I can control it. I am going to work every day to make sure you never have to go through something like that again.” 

“And I am going to remind you every day something bad happens, because it will, that it isn’t your fault,” you promised. His blue sweater was warm against your skin and the growing chill of the evening. “The point isn’t to make sure nothing happens, Bob. It’s to make sure we can go through it together.”

That’s the cost. 

You hated how right that old soldier was. 

“So…” Bob glanced at the windows to the balcony, where the entirety of your team was now standing. “Does this mean we’re okay telling everybody?” He shrank away from their stares, his sheepishness making you smile. 

“Yeah.” You turned his face back to yours. “I guess it does.” 

Looking at you made him forget all of it, the panic, the pain, the slight fear of Walker’s annoyed glare. You pulled his lips down to yours and it all went away. You knew it would still be there. All of that anguish lingering in both of you like a disease. But maybe it was a little easier to face together than alone. To have someone there, leaving the light on for when you were ready to come out of the darkness. 

Inside, Yelena held out her hand.