“What are we doing?” he asks softly. He tilts his head to rest it on your shoulder.

“Storm watching,” you reply. A few stray droplets of rain tinkle against the windows; the rain hasn’t quite made it to you yet. “I couldn't sleep, so this is my solution.”

Bob hums softly. “It’s nice.”

He smells like fabric softener and mint. It clings to his skin and clothes, pressing into you everywhere he touches. You take another, much longer sip of your drink. It’s heavy in your throat when you swallow. You wonder how nice Bob must be to hug, sweet-smelling and warm.

The rain picks up from a drizzle to a heavy pour. Bob pulls a blanket off the back of the couch and drapes it across your laps. There is nothing but the rush of rain and the burning heat where he leans against you.

The clouds outside are purple, bruised. Aching and full, spitting torrents over New York. You think of the stray bruise on your hip from hitting a table corner, skin tender. You think of darkly sucked hickies, mottling the skin like a painting.

Bob’s fingers ghost over your shirt sleeve, dipping under it just enough to wrap his thin fingers around your wrist. Your pulse jumps and sputters, trembling anew beneath his touch. He says nothing, but you know he can fel it.

There is longing wedged between your teeth, spilling bitter juice across your tongue. Your jaw tenses; it bursts like downy fruit into your mouth. It tastes like sunburns and sex.

—

Bacon sizzles in a pan on the stovetop. Your head rests limply against your palm. You never returned to your bed to sleep last night, staying up hours past Bob bidding you goodnight with a quiet whisper in your ear.

John, who wakes up rigidly at five am still, slides the bacon onto a paper towel-covered plate. He sets it on the breakfast bar in front of you, amidst a horde of other breakfast foods: toast, eggs, waffles, sausage, microwavable pancakes, biscuits and jam, croissants, cereal boxes.

He leaves with a “be back later,” off to do something he neglects to mention. You gather yourself some food but pick through it slowly, sleep deprivation making you both starving and nauseous.

It’s a while later before you see Bob again.

Yelena comes through, commenting on how she could hear Ava snoring through the walls. You laugh; she smiles. It’s easy enough, even as an ache blossoms in your chest, the beat of your heart reoriented to repeat Bob Bob Bob over and over.

He leaves his room after noon. You’ve moved yourself to the nook in the living room, into a pillowed chair hidden behind bookcases. Bob wanders over soon enough, plate of food in hand. He stops abruptly when he sees you, eyes a bit wide.

“Did you need me to move?” you ask awkwardly when he hasn’t said anything.

He quickly shakes his head, cheeks flushing a brilliant rosy color. “No, no. Sorry. Uhm. I just didn’t think you’d be up.”

He takes a seat on the floor in front of you, plate balanced precariously on his knee.

“Haven’t slept,” you admit. Bob’s brows furrow. His care for others is a lake, wide, care for himself barely a puddle. You wish you could crawl between his ribs and stitch together all the wounds that hurt him.

“How long have you been awake?”

You count off on your fingers. “Thirty…thirty-six hours, I believe?”

“You need some sleep.” His cheeks still carry a lingering blush, his eyes all doe-like and concerned. His hair curls messily around his ears. “That’s not healthy.”

“I’ll have a nap later,” you say, mostly to appease his worry. You don’t sleep very well, anymore. You usually wait until the point of absolute exhaustion, unable to keep your eyes open, borderline hallucinating, to finally settle down.

Bob eats quickly, swift and dainty bites that make him look princely. He offers you a bit, grinning sweetly. You take it, the knowledge of his mouth being the last thing to touch the fork heavy in your mind.

“We can nap together,” Bob says eventually. He plucks at a string on his shirt. “If you want?”

He looks a bit like an angel, you think. Soft skin and glowing eyes. A gentle demeanor that can easily get intense on both sides of the scale. A sweet voice and delicate bones.

“Yes,” you breathe out. His smile is like the sun.

You end up in his bed, curled like parenthesis, facing one another with restless eyes. The curtains are pulled shut, the room dim, a soft glow emanating from a lamp. The room is warm and smells like vanilla, sweet and strong. Everything feels soft and close, safe, like nothing can touch you from outside this little bubble.

A shelf of books sits in the corner, stacked with Bob’s favorites and paperbacks he’s been gifted. A candle sputters away on the top shelf, flicking shadows around. His bed sheets and blankets are soft, a variety of smooth and simple textures to not overstimulate his sensitive skin.

You think you could live here forever, so long as he stayed too.

“Your hair sticks up here,” you murmur. You thumb at a curl that pokes out from behind his ear. His hair is smooth and soft, kinked to never lay flat. Your palm brushes his cheek accidentally and he lets out a shaky sigh at the contact. His eyes remain open, fixated on yours, lids lowered, giving him a sleepy, pleased look.

“You have a freckle here,” he says. His fingers, warm, draw down along your neck. You shiver.

The two of you go back and forth like that, trading you haves as an excuse to touch, running fingers along the other’s skin. His palm rests against your neck, thumb curling to brush your collar bone. You put your hands against his chest.

You lie close enough to trade breaths now. His fans over your face sweetly. He brushed his teeth after eating; more mint. Your nose brushes his, lips only the barest bit apart.

You want him to kiss you. You want him to devour you raw.

He doesn’t.

His eyes rest on your lips, plump and soft, but he doesn’t move. You wonder if he tastes like mint, too.

You fall asleep there, hungering and aching.

—

His sheets are warm. They tangle around your legs. You come to slowly, blinking open your eyes and pushing back your tangled hair. It takes you a moment to realize Bob is gone.

With a soft groan, you shove yourself up and reach out to his side of the bed. Still warm. He’d gotten up for breakfast, or the bathroom.

You pad through the house, sleep-clumsy, narrowly avoiding doorways. The air conditioning is running; you shiver in your shorts and long sleeve tee. Bob isn’t in the bathroom—Ava is showering, loudly having proclaimed that when you’d knocked. He isn’t in the kitchen either, where Bucky and Yelena are arguing about breakfast.

“We should have crepes, yes?” Yelena demands, questioning you. She shoots a glare at Bucky. “Not eggs on toast.”

“Crepes,” you agree, though you don’t even register saying it. Bucky throws his arms up in defeat. “Where’s Bob?”

“He said something about fruit,” Yelena answers. She throws a questioning glance at Bucky.

“Wasn’t very clear,” Bucky elaborates. “He rushed out, some kind of strawberry emergency.”

Your eyebrows furrow in confusion but you only take a seat at one of the island’s stools.

Bob comes back two hours later, distinctly fruit-free.

You don’t talk about it.

—

The shower spray runs loud in your ears as you wrench through another knot in your hair. Water trickles into the drain and you try to not think of heat running down, down down.

Your mouth tastes like ash, bitter and sharp on the tongue. There’s something to be said about longing, the way it eats at you like rot until you’re suffocating, but anything that can be said already has been.

The ache in your ribs is not new; the way you hunger to touch every bit of his skin has been felt before; the images flashing through your head at night, your hand between your thighs, are a recreation of billions of loves before.

You know now that Bob tastes like hot tea spiced with cinnamon; mint on the days he chews gum. That he runs cold, always wrapping himself in warm layers. That a hug from him slows your breath and heart rate, oxytocin levels surging.

He feels like a dream, hazy and blurred at the edges, too good to stay for longer than a few hours. But the solidness of the way he feels beneath you, the rough of his palms and the chapped skin of his lips are more earthly perhaps than anything else.

You switch off the water and climb out of the tub, dripping onto the smooth floor. You wrap in a towel, gray and fraying at the edges. A swipe of the steam covering the mirror reveals your too-large pupils and flushed skin.

Sometimes you dream of Bob and the stars.

Other times you dream of gasps falling from his lips, sweeter than honey.

—

An oversized pot of soup bubbles away on the stovetop, the scent slowly creeping throughout the floor. You stir it slowly, watching the way it bubbles. Most of the team had gone off on a mission earlier, soon to return, leaving you, Bob, and Bucky in the Tower.

You’re fairly sure Bucky is passed out in his room, exhausted from helping with a variety of things. Bob, however, sits at the breakfast bar, sketching away in a small journal.

You think he might be drawing you.

But that’s probably just your heart hoping.

“Do I get the first bowl?” Bob asks with a smirk. He knows the other will arrive in a matter of minutes; they’ll be exhausted and falling upon the food with tongues lolling.

You shoot him a look. “If you want to fight off a hungry Yelena, be my guest.”

Everyone knows better than to get between the Widow and her food. Especially after a mission, where she often collapses until she garners the strength to shower off the job.

When Ava, John, and Yelena arrive ten minutes later, you and Bob hand them wide bowls filled to the brim with a mix of vegetables and chicken swimming in broth. You manage to grab your own bowls, quietly sipping away while sitting on the kitchen floor, not wanting to disturb the others who have spread themselves across the living room.

Bob grins at you over the rim of his bowl. A bit of carrot sticks to his upper lip as he takes another sip of broth.

“This is really good,” he says. “My compliments to the chef.”

You grin back and lean forward, close enough for your chest to bump his dish. His pupils go wide, a blush spreading across his cheeks. You scoop the bit of carrot off his lip with your index finger and slide it into your own mouth with a grin.

“The chef says thank you very much.”

“That’s—what—that wasn’t fair,” Bob stutters. “It’s bad form to make someone think you’re about to kiss them and then not.”

You raise a teasing eyebrow. “Oh? Are you interested in a kiss then, Mr. Reynolds?”

His blush darkens, spreading to the tips of his ears, but his gaze remains firmly on yours. “Yes, I am, in fact.”

You carefully take his bowl from him and set it aside on the polished wood floor. His breath shakes as you lean in close again, resting your hands against his knees.

“I like you,” you whisper softly, grinning like a little kid.

“I like you too,” he responds, breathless. You laugh and lean in, lips meeting sweetly, a rush of rightness and satisfaction flooding over you.

—

Sunlight curls around the room, puddles on the wooden floor. Everything is quiet. There’s only the hum of the air conditioner and the rustle of book pages from Bob. You tilt your head back to look at him, the soft scrunch of his brows and the twist at the corner of his mouth.

You think: He’s not made for Earth. He’s something else entirely, pure and holy in a way a person could never be.

You know of his past, heard spoken in hushed confession under the blanket of night, curled with covers pulled over your heads like a confessional. Bare skin against bare skin, trembling, overwarm, sore.

I don’t deserve this, he’d said.

You had traced a finger over the line of his nose, skin warm and damp, flowers at dawn, bending together in wait of the sun.

Stay anyways, you’d replied.

You push yourself up from your spot on the floor.

“What book is this?” The cover faces you; you trail a finger along the top of the pages. Your eyes on Bob’s. He looks up. His breath hitches for a moment before he clears his throat and looks down.

“It’s, um. It’s Moby-Dick.”

”Any good?” The skin of his neck is soft. You want to sink your teeth in and hold.

You see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. His eyes flit to yours and back away again.

”I like it so far,” he says. His voice is quieter now. His gaze hooks on your lips. Your canines poke out just a bit, digging into your bottom lip.

For a long moment, there is nothing but your breaths mingling. Your hand curls around his on the book, slowly lowering it to his lap.

“What are we doing?” you murmur. “One moment I think we’re the most in love anyone has ever been and the next we’re tip-toeing around each other like we just had an affair.”

Bob winces. His eyes cast downwards. “I’m not very good with feelings.”

“You don’t have to be,” you say softly. “Just let me know if we can be a thing, or if friends are a better option for us.”

“I want to be a thing,” Bob rushes out. His cheeks go red with blush. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed if I can’t handle things sometimes, or most times.”

You brush his hair off his forehead and press a gentle kiss there. “You could never disappoint me. Not like that.”

He offers you a watery smile and you grin back, ignoring the tears pricking your eyes.

“Partners?” you ask, holding your hand out. Bob chuckles and grabs your hand.

“Partners,” he agrees.