Chapter Text
Robert Reynolds is eight years old again.
Or maybe twenty-eight.
He can’t remember the last birthday he celebrated—or if he ever had one at all.
The world around him isn’t real either. Not fully. It wears the skin of a place he once knew.
A place he left behind long ago.
And yet, here it is.
The sky above is red—too red. It bleeds across the clouds like a distorted watercolor painting. The sun hangs unnaturally still, a swollen, pulsing orb of orange, massive and unmoving. It hums—not with warmth, but with the sound of fluorescent lights buzzing too long in a silent room. Gravity tilts sideways. Shards of glass float alongside old bicycle wheels and backyard toys. The debris of childhood caught in a storm that never ends.
The suburban pavement is cracked and overgrown with weeds, sprouting through like veins beneath skin. It warps subtly under his steps, soft in places, uneven in others—as if the ground is breathing. But the grass beside it remains untouched, stiff and plastic, refusing to bend beneath his feet. Even the earth here has decided not to remember him it seems.
But the house that lies before him wants him.
He steps inside.
It’s rotting from the inside out. Mold blooms like flowers in slow motion. Old wallpaper curls like shedding skin and the couches in the living room are split open, bleeding stuffing. In the kitchen, a radio buzzes with static—an old preacher’s voice fades in and out:
“Salvation… your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit…”
Something thuds, wet and heavy, behind a closed bathroom door. He doesn’t investigate the noise as he steps over old cigarette burns in the carpet. The hallway is longer than it should be and at the end waits for a ladder.
Wooden. Familiar. The rungs stretched upward into shadow, a brittle tongue unfurling from the throat of the house, eager to swallow him whole. They led to the only place that he had ever felt safe.
The attic.
He climbs. Dust thickens the air, sharp and dry, with the bite of scorched paper. The ceiling droops low, oppressive, as if sagging under the weight of all it’s seen. Insulation peels in long, brittle curls, twitching faintly in the lazy churn of the overhead fan. It turns just enough to disturb the stillness, casting a few tired moths with weary wings adrift to circle without purpose.
His mattress sits where he left it. Lumpy, faded and caved in from years of curling into himself. A Rubik’s cube sits atop it, frozen mid-solve, its colours dulled and nearby, a few recklessly discarded plastic alphabet blocks spell out nothing at all. Half-peeled stickers droop from the walls. Faded cartoon planets orbit a warped space shuttle poster water-stained beyond recognition. Crayon wax streaks the floor in glossy trails. Star charts hang overhead, their constellations obscured by years of accumulated dust. The nightlight in the corner sputters, golden and sickly.
This was meant to be a refuge… but something beneath the floor still writhes and throttles, trying to reach him.
The sounds begin:
Thud.
Thud.
Shatter.
Scream.
They don't only echo endlessly—they spread. Seeping into the floorboards, threading through bone, sinking deep into the cage of his ribs. The sound leaves behind more than memory. It carves scars into the mind, scars that never quite stop bleeding.
His father is here—his voice a cracked furnace, still burning.
His mother sobs from some backlit place he can’t reach.
And the child-version of himself pleads again, futile, forgotten.
“You trying to be a hero Bobby?”
“Stop it! You’re hurting her!”
“You useless boy...You’re just making things worse, You always make things worse.”
He tries to recall his mother’s face, but it never stays still. Sometimes it’s hollow-cheeked and weeping. Sometimes turned away, walking out the front door without a word. Sometimes it’s blurred entirely.
His father’s voice cuts through clearer than anything—always louder, always waiting, a thundercloud.
There’s a sense of déjà vu crawling beneath Bob’s skin. He’s been here before recently but how and when and why? The details slip like fog through fingers. Only the ache remains.
And then—he’s already on the mattress.
There is no transition. No in-between. He doesn’t recall lying down. One moment he was standing, the next his knees are pulled to his chest, arms wrapped around himself, staring up at the attic ceiling like it might split open and the sky would take him away. That’s what he used to do as a child. Pretend the ceiling was a gateway. A portal to anywhere but here.
That’s still what he does most days. In bed. In thought. Waiting for some invisible hand to carry him somewhere else.
Below the floorboards, the loop of noises begins again.
Thud. Crash.
"You trying to be a hero Bobby?”
“You always make things worse.”
A weight settles on his ears.
Not suddenly. Not heavy. Just… present.
He stiffens. Reaches up. His old pair of headphones were clamped gently over his skull. The worn foam pads are threadbare, fraying slightly at the seams. He didn’t put them on. He didn’t reach for them. But they’re there.
~ In my eyes… indisposed…In disguises no one knows… ~
He blinks, slightly disoriented yet comforted by the unexpected music, and turns toward the dim corner by his bedside. There, half-buried in a tangle of dusty boxes and frayed cords, an old portable CD player glowed faintly. Its scratched disc spins with a low, hypnotic whir, nestled beside a cracked flashlight.
The label, in faded Sharpie:
Songs to Disappear To.
He doesn’t remember digging it out. Doesn’t remember pressing play. But now the song is in him. Around him.
~ Hides the face…Lies the snake…In the sun in my disgrace… ~
Bob’s fingers tremble.
This was a more desperate measure he used to cling to. When he couldn’t fully drown out his father’s voice and his mother vanished behind locked doors and a haze of pills and smoke. In those times, he’d press the headphones tight, shut his eyes, and crank the volume high enough to drown in the music.
~ Boiling heat, summer stench…'Neath the black, the sky looks dead … ~
The room grows colder. The fan above him stops spinning. Black threads of shadow drag themselves forward along the walls though nothing casts them. But another presence was certainly in the room with him. It didn’t announce itself bombastically. It never did. It simply was.
~ Call my name through the cream … And I'll hear you scream again ~
A tall, faceless shadow too formless to hold a true shape. It shifts between silhouettes, something inhuman and hollow. Sometimes a man. Sometimes a monster. Sometimes his own face, distorted by grief.
“Still love that old song, huh?”
The voice glides through the attic—low and seemingly close to him, like breath against a mirror. Bob curls tighter on the mattress and pulls the blanket over his head, just like he did when he was young—when the believed monsters under his bed would simply cease to exist as long as he didn’t give them attention and remained out of sight but they rarely left him alone and now, a cold hand pressed against his chest where his heart was. Not to hurt. Just to remind him it was there.
Then—with sudden, inhuman violence—the blanket is ripped off with another hand in one fluid motion. The headphones too are torn from his ears. The cord yanks free. The CD player crashes to the floor.
Plastic splits. A wire sparks.
~ Black hole sun, won’t you come… ~
But the music plays on—warped, distant, still loud, still inside —though it lies shattered on the other side of the room.
~ …and wash away the rain…~
The Void leans over him now, face indistinct and far too close.
~ Black hole sun, won’t you come…won’t you come…~
Bob’s breath caught in his throat. His hands twitched, aching to strike, to flee, to hold.
“Hello Bobby.” the Void greeted him, mock-cheerful, with a tilt of the head no human neck should make, “Did you miss me?”
“Why are you here?” Bob croaks out. “I didn’t use my powers. I didn’t let you out.”
“I don’t need permission to enter your dreams, Even before that fateful day, I’ve been by your side ever since you were a lonely and broken boy. I just never spoke back then. Your father destroyed everything he touched, including you. And when you traveled to the other end of the world to find help, to be fixed, you ended up in a lab and torn apart further. Come to think of it: You’re not just broken, Bobby. You’re already finished”.
Bob shakes his head. “Please… not today. I don’t want you here. Leave”.
“Oh but I never got to wrap up our conversation before you started beating me up. Tell me, if you really didn’t want me here, then why did you sign up for Project Sentry?”
“What do you mean?”
The Void laughs, “You thought gaining strength would change you for the better? That it would fill the hole? Give you a greater purpose? Becoming a great saviour—that was the lie you desperately clung to, wasn’t it? But in truth the drug didn’t change you. It just gave me a name, voice and a means to lash out".
The room rumbles, causing the CD to skip slightly before continuing.
~ Hang my head
Drown my fear
Till you all just disappear
Black hole sun… won’t you come… ~
The Void smiles, soft and venomous, showing a row of all too sharp and white teeth.
“You were lucky, Bob. Your new friends pulled you back before we could fully become one. But don’t count on them next time I’m let loose”.
It leans closer, almost tender, pushing a stray lock of hair from his face.
“They’ll leave you. Or worse—they’ll decide we’re too dangerous to keep alive”.
“You’re lying!” Bob snaps.
The air crackles. Somewhere deep below the floorboards, the memory loops again—his mother, broken and breathless, whispering “you always make things worse”—and Bob feels himself slipping.
The Void rose and drifted over to the shattered CD player. It crouched beside it, head tilting with unnatural curiosity as the disc continued to spin in place.
“I never understood this song,” the Void muses, pulling the disc out. “The singer wanted the Black Hole to come. Thought it would cleanse him. Poor man never learned—when a sun collapses, it doesn’t heal anything. It devours. Leaves nothing”.
It turns towards Bob once more, its small, glowing pinprick eyes ironically feeling wide and endless.
“But you know that already. Don’t you, Bob?”
“I can’t do this anymore.” Bob’s voice cracked, “Let me rest”
“I know, that’s why I will take over. If not today then, eventually…”
The attic ceiling splits down the middle in the way he always dreamed it would but not in the way he wanted. Light pours in—but it’s not gold. It’s cold and white. That sterile white that hurts the eyes. Hospital white. Lab white.
The peeling insulation above him melted into sterile panels. The scent of dust and mildew was ripped away, replaced by bleach, cold metal.
Bob's body floats as the mattress below vanishes and suddenly he’s strapped to a metallic table.
He remembers this part. Or does he?
A man’s voice, disembodied:
“Vitals stable. Begin next phase.”
The voices promised they would make him stronger. They promised purpose.
There was a needle. The pain. Golden light bloomed in his veins then swallowed by heat. His ruined body which was frail from years of drug abuse and neglect responded. Slowly at first. A flicker of warmth in his chest. A steadying in his breath. Then muscle, once wasted, began to pull taut against his bones. Ligaments thickened. His pulse surged.
For a few seconds, it was euphoric. He felt whole. Strong. Repaired.
Until it wasn’t.
Until the light turned to ache.
Until the heat began to burn.
Until his bones felt too full.
A scream—his own—breaks from his throat—too loud, too long stretching and stretching until it rips.
And deep inside that brilliance—
A darkness blooms.
Something else wakes up inside him.
Something else is screaming too.
And it kept screaming after he stopped.
Bob’s body convulses. The restraints break. Shadows around him distort. Sirens wail.
“Subject destabilizing!”
“Shut it down—!”
He sees flashes. Two figures in front of him burst into black powder against the walls before they can scream.
He falls.
The world broke apart. Gold and black bled together. He fell into the gaping black hole of an exploding sun.
The digital clock glared 6:17 A.M. in cold blue light.
Bob woke up slowly, sweat-damp pajamas clinging to his skin, the sheets tangled around his legs. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. The air wasn’t heavy with mold. The shadows didn’t belong to his childhood.
He took a deep breath and heard the city hummed beneath him—low and endless.
Oh, that’s right. He was in his own quarters in the Watchtower. A building of great importance. It was higher than most lives. He was higher than he'd ever deserved to be.
Bob groggily slid off the edge of his bed and wandered barefoot into the hallway, hair a tangled mess, the sweat at his nape turning cold. The walls here were glass—clear, clean, unreal. The world below stretched out in luminous patterns: A net of circuitry and blinking lights.
He paused, hand against the window, and stared down.
Down there, everything kept moving. Taxis, lives, mistakes.
And it would be so easy.
One push of the window. One step forward.
A slip through glass.
Fall fast enough, and there wouldn’t be time to regret it. No need to scream.
The city wouldn’t hear him. Not from here.
But the sky above was beautifully clear—full of fading stars hinting at dawn already on the horizon. Bob stared upward, wistful.
His friends/teammates, The New Avengers, had told him what happened. What he did. About how, after sacrificing himself to help them escape from that Vault, he suddenly gained the ability to fly and soared past the clouds, floating there in the sky like a star before abruptly crashing back down to the earth.
Later, they said, he spared them. And for a moment, however brief, he became something the world could point to and call a Superhero…Before the Other Guy ruined that too.
Those memories were gone though. Sealed off by his mind. He vaguely remembers the gunshots. The pain. And then—it all went dark for him. Next thing he knew, there was a sudden press conference in the middle of New York he was christened as one of them.
An Avenger.
The title he’d gained still felt unreal. For years, he’d believed he was destined to be little more than a washed-up dropout from Sarasota Springs: Addicted, aimless, always running. Yet somehow, he’d ended up here, in a role greater than anything he’d ever dared to imagine.
He tried again to summon the memory of the first time he flew: The wind in his ears. The rush of air. The weightlessness. The freedom he’d experienced that night. But the memory refused to surface. Only a hollow space answered back.
And what’s more, the Void was waiting patiently between the silence of his thoughts as well. If he tried to fly again, that awful part of him would fly too. He couldn't risk that. For now at least.
He swallowed the ache in his chest as he turned away from the window.
“No flying or jumping out of windows,” he muttered to himself, walking toward the kitchen area, “Just need something to eat...”
The kitchen area was dimly lit, humming faintly with machine breath. Stainless steel counters glinted dully in the early grey light. Bob stood there for a moment, motionless, gazing at the row of cupboards, unsure what to reach for.
He should eat breakfast since it was already morning. Cereal, maybe. Toast. Something easy.
But his body moved before his mind caught up—hands reaching for the fridge door, fishing out a bruised banana and a half-empty carton of milk. A tub of cocoa powder followed. No protein powder, no measuring spoons. Just whatever was in reach.
The blender roared to life, a low mechanical growl that filled the room for a few seconds. Then—
“You know that’s gonna taste disgusting, right?”
Bob flinched and turned, expecting the Void again although he only existed in dreams but it was just Yelena, perched on the counter like she’d always been part of the room. Blonde hair tangled. Her eyes appeared sharp despite the hour but she also looked like she hadn’t slept much either.
Bob offered a faint, crooked smirk. “Eh, it’s worth a shot”.
She raised a brow, tilting her head at the blender’s sludge. “Banana. Cocoa. Milk. Let me guess… milkshake?”
He nodded.
Yelena snorted, then dropped lightly to the floor, “Mind if I try it?”
He stopped the blender and poured her a cup. It had the quality and texture of wet clay.
Yelena took a sip. Grimaced. “Yeah…it’s horrible.”
“I’d say it’s tolerable,” Bob chuckled, “Perhaps I’ll improve on it one day”.
“Did you have a nightmare?” she asked, “that why you’re awake at this hour?”
He blinked. “Yeah. It was…stuff about people I used to know, blurry memories…”.
They stood in silence for a minute. She didn’t press on what it was about. Smart of her. He wasn’t sure he could talk about it either.
Yelena took a sip of her milkshake, gazing off toward nothing.
“I have dreams like that too,” she said. “Sometimes I see my sister. Natasha. Not a ghost or anything. Just... the version of her I never really knew. Or never got the chance to know.”
She paused, then added, softer, “I regret not spending more time with her before I got blipped for five years and she gave herself up to bring everyone back. Including me.”
Bob’s voice was quiet, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Yelena gave a small shrug. Not dismissive—just tired.
“I thought there’d be time. Time to make up for everything. I was wrong.”
Bob took a long drink of his own. The shake was warm now, the ice fully melted into milk and cocoa. It would’ve felt awkward if he didn’t say anything—so he did.
“In my nightmares,” he said finally, “I see my parents. But mostly… I see myself.”
Yelena nodded slowly and steadily, “The part you hate.”
He glanced over, surprised by the bluntness. But she didn’t meet his gaze. She kept picking at a frayed edge in the countertop, as if it gave her something safe to focus on.
Bob stared down into his cup, “After I woke up, I saw the city on the way here. Thought maybe I could just… float out of the window. Just for a moment. Be light again. Perhaps even fly…”
He glanced at her, gauging her reaction. She didn’t flinch.
“But you didn’t.” she said simply.
“No I didn’t,” he took another sip, “I backed away because…if I tried to do something like that, the Other Guy might come back too. And that wouldn’t be good for anyone. But I do wish I could at least remember being a part of that sky above. It must have been amazing”.
Yelena gave him a long look of both pity and understanding.
They stood in silence for a while together, enveloped in a stillness that said more than either of them needed to.
Far below them, people were living lives Bob could barely imagine and above, the sky was beginning to lighten with the stars blinking out one by one.
Yelena raised her cup. “To surviving.”
“Yeah.” Bob clinked his cup against hers.
And in the stillness that followed, something akin to peace passed between them.
Not forever. Not perfect.
But enough for now.