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Yelena was safe. She was open and kind and never once made Bob feel like a freak for how he was. It was jarring at first, uncomfortable. The sudden, abrasive compassion that threatened to spill his emotions all onto the floor. She would reach for him, hold his head or his cheek or his arm, and the warmth would spread delightfully through Bob’s arms in ways he forgot good could spread. When Sentry appeared, he hadn’t expected her stubbornness. Her pleading voice, quiet and distant to his mind as if she was under miles and miles of water and not right in front of him.
They assume he has nightmares about Void, and they’re not wrong. Void is easy to dream about. He’s the worst of everything Bob ever was or is. When Bucky asks him in the late night, a small overhead stove light flickers faintly. Bob says he dreams about that day in New York, the absence of it. When he dreams, he wonders if his brain is imagining the worst outcome of that day or reminding him what actually happened. The shadows, the screams, how empty he felt, and the warmth in his knuckles as they beat against something hard and repeatedly.
It comes easy enough to Bob to have a nightmare, he’s had them his whole life. It’s the shame that eats at him, not the fear. When he sees blonde hair and gold in the night, his stomach twists. The Sentry Project was supposed to make the patients better, stronger. It was supposed to fix everything about him. He was supposed to be good, but when he dreams of Sentry it's anything but. Yelena’s scared expression, John’s anger, Ava’s judgement, and Alexei’s confusion… he was unrecognizable.
It was a double-edged sword that Bucky understood what it was like to become someone much worse than yourself, indistinguishable from a monster to others.
Bob never knows if he wants the others to tell him what happened that day in the New York streets or not. (What did he look like to everyone else? Who did he hurt?) Or what happened in the shame rooms. Sometimes he wakes up choking, other times in sweat, breathless or in the middle of a panic attack, the fear coursing through his body for no discernible reason. That's how the routine starts.
❦
His bed felt too big, the watchtower felt too quiet, and the hallways welcomed him. In Bob’s good dreams, he remembers comfort, warmth, and an embrace in a time he can’t remember. Bob missed a lot of time, but he knows for sure this feeling was from that day, there was no way it was from anytime else. He pads through the halls of the watchtower, one hand bunched into the bottom of his shirt, thumbing at the hem of his top, the other brushing over the cool flat grey of the walls. Their rooms were all on the same floor, although Bob, along with Bucky, and Alexei, had requested spaces separated from the rest. Bob wondered what that said about him, that he was in the same boat as two super-soldier ex-military weapons. Bob simply didn’t want to wake the rest of them up with his screaming fits, and if he wanted to cry in peace that's nobody's business but his own.
Yelena’s door was cracked open, a cool breeze rushing through the small space. They all kept odd hours, but he doubted Yelena would be angry if he woke her up. With that in mind, he toes the door open with his socked foot. Yelena had seemingly pushed a pile of clothes against the door to keep it from opening fully while also keeping it cracked, other than that, her room was clean, organized, which only drew his eyes to her bed quicker. The blankets were kicked haphazardly, some twisting over her body in a way that would suffocate anybody else, and her pillows were either entirely away from her or half off the bed trapped under her head and arm. Bob smiled.
“Yelena…” He whispers.
She groans on the bed, twisting until she flipped onto her other side, her nose almost pressed against the nightstand. Bob shifts closer, poking a finger on the skin of her leg, just where her sweatpants had rolled up to her knee.
“Uh?” Yelena turns onto her back, trying to yank the impossible blankets… somewhere with little success. “Eh, Bob?” She mumbles, rubbing her eyes and wiping any (if any) dried drool off her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Um… I…” He swallows, “I can’t really… sleep.”
She pats her hand on the bed, nodding. “Ah, nightmare. Well, come on.” Bob’s eyes widen slowly but he remains frozen at the foot of her bed. This only makes Yelena hit the bed faster. He looks at the door for a split second before he follows the movement of her hand, crawling onto the bed. He shifts and turns and twists until he's looking up at the ceiling and isn’t being trapped by Yelena’s blanket.
Yelena’s muffled voice breaks through the room. “Come…” Yelena twists, shimmying herself closer to his side, moving the pillow with some effort until it's brushing against his cheek. “...here. You are not going to lay there stiff as a board, then I won't be able to sleep.”
Bob turns his head, blinking at her when she shoves the pillow closer, he finally gets the idea to actually put his head on it, turning onto his side and in on himself. Yelena doesn’t hesitate when she kicks a leg over his hip and yanks the blankets up over them.
“‘M sorry.” He whispers, quickly and quietly into the fabric of the pillow. He can almost press his forehead into hers, so he catches her furrowed brow when he speaks.
Bob almost wants to cry when she places her hand on the side of his face. “Don’t be sorry. You’re okay, Bob.” She says, her thumb running back and forth over the shell of his ear. He moves closer, chasing the memory of that lost embrace from his dreams. His hands fold up to his chest and his forehead rests against Yelena’s collar bone. She presses her cheek to the top of his head and cups the back of his hair carefully. Her voice is thick with sleep and exhaustion when she breathes out.
“You are allowed to take up space, Bob, you’re allowed to be—” she yawns, “—selfish… and want things for yourself. Mm?” She yawns again and rubs circles into the nape of his neck.
The truth was, Bob had never slept so well in his life, warm and safe, embraced in the arms of (ironically) an (ex)-assassin. So, when he has another nightmare, he heads straight to Yelena’s room. Again, and again, and again. Sometimes she’s already fully asleep, and he doesn’t wake her up, just lays there with the tip of his fingers pressed against hers until his eyes grow heavy in the knowledge he’s not alone. Other times Bob finds her sitting in the middle of her bed, rubbing her eyes, clearly struggling to sleep herself. Those nights Yelena practically pulls him into the blankets, smothering them both with their foreheads pressed together and Bob feels his chest tighten and his eyes wet, never thinking that he could help others like he had been.
❦
He still tries to sleep on his own some nights. Yelena shouldn’t have to share her bed every time he opens his eyes at 3 a.m. Those nights Bob lays on his back, and tries everything he knows to fall asleep, counting sheep, warm milk, reciting the alphabet backwards. He’s sure he could win an award for that last one now. When it doesn’t work, he just forces himself to stay in bed, thinking and thinking and thinking, until he hears the birds outside and watches his clock flick to 6 a.m.
Some nights he wakes up and he can’t feel anything at all. He’s sure he had a nightmare, but there's no fear, no tears, and he can breathe just fine. Bob reasons that those are the worst. If he wakes up in tears, at least he’s accompanied by his own whines and coughs, but when it's silent… it feels so… alone. Waking up like that leaves him with no other conclusion than something being horribly wrong with him, something so terrible that leaves his body unable to sleep even on the calmest of nights. He rolls over on those nights and buries his face into the pillow, trying to mimic the way Yelena would pull the blanket up to his ears. Sometimes he holds his own hand, the soft ebb of his own warmth fighting to be enough.
When Valentina sends handfuls of them on missions, usually in pairs or trios, Bob does anything he can and more to keep busy, dishes, laundry, cleaning everyone's bedroom in a way that they won't get mad at him, running laps again and again in the gym until his body gets tired (never.) Lately he’s found himself watching old Soviet war movies with Alexei or playing cards with Bucky. Most times they’re all back in the watchtower before he’s lying in bed. Tonight, they weren’t, or at least Yelena wasn’t. She had gone off with Alexei and Ava on a mission that he hadn’t got the details on. A new rule Valentina thought of. If he didn’t know what the missions were about, then he couldn’t worry, and if he couldn’t worry then he couldn’t freak out again. She had proposed it as mercy, but it felt more like a punishment to Bob.
Yelena had given him a hug before she left, and Bob was doing his best right now to try and remember how warm her hands felt on his back. His eyes were squeezed shut and his hands were pressing anywhere she touched, his arms, his neck. He was practically hugging himself when his eyes glanced at the clock where 2:13 a.m. flashed back at him. Fingers dragged over his face, once, then again. It didn’t take long until he was sweating and uncomfortable under the covers, bruises no doubt forming and disappearing just as fast as his fingers pressed into his biceps. Reciting the alphabet was just as useless as the sheep, only working to irritate him, so he roamed the halls, like some kind of touch-deprived ghost.
His hand pressed to the door of Yelena’s room, revealing her perfectly made bed, empty and cold as it was when she left for the mission. Bob found himself moving to each room, as if to confirm that tonight was truly real. Alexei’s was empty, as was Ava’s. When he pushed into Bucky’s room and spotted blankets bunched up on the floor, he knew the man must’ve left the watchtower altogether. It wasn’t unusual for Bucky to go missing hours at a time, and it wasn’t that Bob was expecting open arms from the man. As nice as their chats were, he wasn’t sure that he could bring himself to bother Bucky into sharing his room—he was dealing with his own issues.
That left Walker’s room. The door was wedged open with a shoe, but there was no sound coming from inside, no light, or… any sign of life, really. Yelena’s words echoed in the back of his mind. He was allowed to be selfish, to ask for help, to take up space… he only wondered if Walker would share the same sentiment or throw the matching shoe at his head. No doubt he had as many issues as the rest of them, but Bob reasoned that it was either this or laying stock still in his own bed facing the ceiling throughout the night.
He slowly pushes into the room, the sole of the shoe scraping the floor as it's moved away. Bob’s eyes immediately found Walker in the room: face down into a pillow, head propped up by his arm just enough to breathe, shirt optional.
“Walker.” Bob tried, sneaking towards his bed. “Walker.” He said a little louder. The super-soldier, for all his skills and training, didn’t react at all. Maybe his body somehow sensed it was Bob and didn’t consider him a danger? Whatever the reason, it left Bob standing by the door awkwardly staring at the bed. He moves along the side of the bed, feeling worse and more embarrassed by the second. Leaning down just enough to poke Walker on his shoulder, he risks irritating the soldier and presses hard, once.
It's enough, and Bob sighs, looking over the man as he shifts. Soon, Walker’s face is contorting, and his lips are pulling in all sorts of directions, his body waking up to the world around him. A hand comes up to scratch the back of his neck and he yawns looking up.
“What… ‘s it, Bobby?” He sounded more put-out than angry, even if the use of his childhood name made Bob’s nose scrunch up. For a moment Bob weighs the embarrassment of being rejected by Walker with the isolation of his own room. “Bob.” Walker urges, turning onto his side and squinting at him.
“Yelena’s not…” Bob starts, and Walker’s confused expression only evolves, “Um, she’s not back and I’m… worried,” he says.
Walker scoffs, sitting up and crossing his arms over his knees. “You’re worried… about Yelena?” Bob deflates. He could agree that it was an absurd line of thinking. Bob had seen Walker follow Yelena’s lead before, and heard about it even more, trusting that she could hold her own and admitting that Yelena was the one that others should be worried about, well… it eased a little bit of Bob’s worry.
“Yeah, I- I know. It's stupid. I just… I… can’t sleep,” Bob says. “And she usually— she lets me stay in her room and she’s… not…” he trails off. There wasn’t really a non-awkward way to ask if Walker would let him sleep in bed with him. Bob swallows and folds his arms, pressing his fingers into the places Yelena had held earlier that day.
“Yeah,” Walker says. “Okay. Come on.” He waves once with his hand before laying back down on his pillow. Bob froze, eyes wide.
“You’re… you’re letting me… stay?”
Walker buried his face into the pillow without another word, and, for once, Bob wasn’t about to overthink this. He quickly moved to the other side of the bed, crawling to the pillow and shifting until he had the blankets pulled up to his waist and his shoulders square with Walker’s back. The bed was warm, which was already better than his own, and it wasn’t quiet, not with Walker breathing next to him, but his hands itched, and he missed the way Yelena would wrap herself around him, silencing his senses to everything else, forcing him to know he was safe.
“Walker?” Bob whispered after a moment. “John?” Beside him, Walker just shifted. Bob risked it, needing more. He pressed his fingers lightly against Walker’s spine. It felt like begging; it felt like shame. His voice died in his throat, too small to ask again. The only mercy was the lack of reaction from the other man to his fingertips against his skin.
Only then, a hand appeared, making its way over Walker’s waist, fingers pressing to the back of Bob’s, and it made him freeze again. He moved for more, shifting to his side to better lace his fingers into Walker’s.
Neither said anything for a long time, just companionable silence as the night stretched on and on, embarrassment fleeting and shame dying where it laid in Bob’s stomach. The clock ticked on the wall and the window was cracked just enough to billow the curtains into Bob’s peripherals.
“’s not weird.” Walker mumbled.
Bob swallowed “What?”
Walker’s voice was barely noticeable through his sleep, but Bob strained his ears to listen. “I… couldn’t sleep… for a long time back… then, ‘s not weird. 's ‘kay.” Walker shifted onto his back, changing hands to finally hold Bob’s properly with his right and scratch his facial hair with his left. His eyes were closed, and he was probably half-asleep, but it felt like he just told Bob something very important. Bob smiled.
“Thanks, Walker.”
❦
That's how the routine changes.
If he asked, Yelena would say that Bob was never unwanted in her room, but he could see the way she would slump in the kitchen in the early mornings, hands pressed to a warm mug, worn out from her own demons. Bob understood space, he knew that not everyone wanted to be smothered 24/7 and that, sometimes, they just needed to be alone. So, even if it wasn’t his doing, he gave Yelena time to herself and he never once took it personally.
Instead, he would show up at Walker’s room at night and find a million different ways to ask if they could hold hands for the night. Bob wasn’t sure when exactly Walker had warmed up to him enough to let this thing between them just be, of course, he had felt safe with Yelena from the start, so seeking her out after his night terrors never once felt like a change of pace. It was different with Walker, but he was grateful for them both every time he fell asleep.
There were times where his weeks would even out, when he wouldn’t wake up distressed. There were even times where he would get a full night's sleep. Of course, there were times when he wouldn’t even try to sleep in his own bed to begin with, shaky throughout the day, knowing it was going to be a bad night from the start. They stopped questioning it; Yelena sooner than Walker, they both let it be. Sure, there was the occasional tease whenever Ava phased into Yelena’s room and found her sleeping on top of Bob, or whenever Bob trailed behind Walker, hair stuck to both of their faces with drool, but it was good. Bob even felt like maybe it was helping them both too.
Tonight was like that, Bob’s body awkwardly bent to hold onto Walker’s hand, the super-soldier’s ankle resting over his (that was new.) Bob can’t remember the last time he actually saw Walker using the whole bed to sleep, or Yelena for that matter. At first it worried him, made him overthink and consider pulling away because what right did he have to push himself into places he wasn’t made for? Now, it made him feel real, because he realized they did it for him, he never asked for the space—that is, Bob thinks he would’ve slept on the floor if they asked him to on those first nights. But they hadn’t, they accepted him without questioning it.
The door creaks and Bob’s eye squints open, quick enough to spot Yelena in an oversized t-shirt (his, Bob thought) right before she crashes into the center of them. It made Walker jolt and instantly push at Yelena’s shoulder.
“No…” Walker groaned. “Yelena, what the…”
“You took Bob.” Yelena yawned, shoving her hand into John’s face. “It was my night.”
“We don’t–” John rolled his eyes and shifted enough that she finally slotted between them in a way that didn’t crush either of them. “We don’t have nights.” He scolded. Yelena wasn’t listening.
“Well, then don’t…” she shifted, Bob almost laughed when he caught John grimacing. “Don’t be so, Captain Cuddly then.” She said, curling towards Bob’s chest, back facing Walker.
“You’re a monster.” John sighed, rolling back onto his back, his shoulders brushing the top of Yelena’s spine. His hand raised, catching Bob’s attention where it reached out for his over Yelena’s hip. She didn’t seem to care when they finally met in the middle, only stretched her arm over Bob’s shoulder and buried her face in his neck, yawning.
Yelena mumbled. “Mm, wha… ever.”
“Sorry.” Bob whispered when he saw Walker move to adjust on the bed again. He shook his head, and squeezed Bob’s hand, moving his right arm to cover his eyes.
“Goodnight, Bob.” John mumbled. “Yelena.”
“Goodnight.” They both replied.
❦