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Seventy-two hours had passed since the fight with Sentry, and Ava was still shaken up about it.
Not even because of how the fight had gone. She'd fought plenty of other times, and lost plenty of other times, too. She was still alive, which was pretty much the marker of a successful fight at this point, so. Point to Starr.
The aftermath wasn’t the issue, either, even if that aftermath had pushed her into a maze of horrible rooms filled with scenes pulled straight out of her fucked-up head. That was whatever. She could compartmentalize just fine; she'd been doing it for years.
And it wasn't even because of the aftermath of that, and being introduced to the world as a New Avenger, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Seemed like just another one of Val's many (many) tactics to cover her own arse, which Ava had no comment on, partially because three of her new teammates (Yelena, Bucky, and Alexei) had comments enough for all of them. Alexei wanted free reign to deal with Val in whatever way he saw fit (re: violence), Bucky was on the phone more often than not, attempting to do damage control (with whom, Ava had no idea), and Yelena had a lot of loud, insistent ideas about how things should be now that they were living in the Watchtower together and, apparently, were a team.
Walker (John, Ava forced herself to remember; she wanted to stay on good terms with him, or at least try) seemed content to ride out whatever weirdness they were all caught up in. Ever since Bucky had dropped the bombshell of his divorce in that dusty, abandoned desert shack, Ava had looked at him a little differently. It was a façade, mostly, all his swagger and aggression. It was fascinating. Made him seem real. Less of a shithead, too, but not by much.
The other one, Bob (Sentry, Void) was just happy to be included.
And Ava? She kept her distance.
Now that the threat was gone (or at least smothered for now), things had begun to sink in. She'd been able to sit, alone, away from the craziness, and think, and what she'd come up with wasn't good in the least.
Because, during the fight, Sentry (Void, Bob) had been able to touch her. He'd been able to stop her. And most importantly, he'd been able to keep her from phasing.
And here she was, still shaken up about it.
Hadn't been able to stop thinking about it, really. Her defense mechanism, the thing that ruined her life but saved it countless times since, was completely useless around something like Sentry, whatever he was. And, what, she was supposed to live with him now? Share kitchen space, pass him in the gym, exist knowing the fact that that, a few doors down from her shiny new room, was someone with the innate ability to… What? Neutralize her? Make her useless? Because if she was useless, what damn reason would anyone have for keeping her around?
But it was so much more than that, because, in the deepest, most shameful part of her, Ava knew that she'd gone limp under the granite-cold grip of Sentry's fist. Not because she was hurt, or because she couldn't phase, but because it was a relief. The cancelling out of her powers forced every cell in her body to pull together for the first time in years, and she felt whole. Painless, in a way she could barely remember but held onto like a lifeline.
When he finally released her, when air flowed back into her lungs and she sprawled on the floor where she'd been thrown, there were tears in her eyes. Not because of the physical pain of being beaten by some god-creature, but because it came back. All of it. Her powers, the thing keeping her alive, and the aching deep in her bones caused by it. The cost of living. She'd been given a taste of what it was like to live without paying for it, and now was expected to live ten feet away from the source of that relief and…
And, what? Ask for it? Not ask for it?
Either option was unbearable.
Not because Bob wasn't kind, but maybe because he was. Maybe because he spent the seventy-two hours since the Sentry fight (and subsequent Voiding) apologizing for it, if not with his words than with the quiet way he spoke, with the defensive curl of his shoulders like he was afraid of being hit, with his wide disbelieving eyes every time any of the others addressed him. He reminded Ava of a beat dog; unbelievable strength in his teeth and claws, used and abused until he didn't know what to do with that strength or even that it existed in him anymore.
Flashes of the person she'd seen in the Vault came through, sure, but they were few and far between. He’d left the Watchtower once, but it wasn’t long before he’d come back (of his own volition, which was nice). He sometimes gave Yelena a soft little smile, but those usually came after long sessions of poking and prodding and John asking if she was offering therapy for the rest of the group, too. He sat next to Alexei when they ate their first meal together at the wide table in their common area's dining room, takeout boxes that Yelena had procured from some Thai place that was actually pretty good. He used chopsticks like a champ, and spent a few agonizing minutes trying to teach Alexei how to use his own. For someone proficient in so many different types of weaponry, Alexei could not figure out chopsticks.
But other than that, Bob cowered and hid. Avoided Bucky, barely spoke two words to John, didn't give Ava the time of day at all, really. In her own special way, Ava figured she was doing her own brand of cowering and hiding, too, so she couldn't fault him too much for that.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
It was a hunger, a fire stoked deep inside her gut. Now that she’d felt it, what it would be like to live without pain, brushed her fingers against it, been choke-slammed by it, honestly (thanks, Sentry), she wanted it more than anything.
If not for good, then just for a moment. One more time.
As she perched herself on the arm of the couch Bob was currently occupying, watching some long-winded American sports thing that Ava had no idea about and didn’t care to learn, she gave herself a very stern talking-to.
Hey, Starr? You there? It’s me, your fucking brain. You’re acting like a creep.
I’m not doing anything, she argued back as she began to slide down the arm of the couch, heading towards the cushion. At the end of it. About as far away from Bob as she could get while sitting on the same couch. See? Completely regular. Normal. Right as rain.
Internally, she rolled her eyes. At herself. Because she was normal. What did I just say? A right fucking freak, you are.
Bob flinched, shaking himself out of his own internal monologue, maybe, and looked over. As soon as he clocked it was Ava, he gave her a small, crooked smile.
“Hey,” he said in that trademark quiet I-promise-not-to-Void-you-again voice he’d been rocking for the past few days, “didn’t figure you for much of a football fan.”
“If that’s what we’re all watching,” she said, gesturing to the rest of the room. They’d never once all hung out in the same room together, but now, on a random Sunday night with an American football game on TV, everyone was present and accounted for. Her and Bob on the couch, Yelena on the floor with her freshly-showered hair drying in spikes, Bucky and John in opposing easy chairs, Alexei with his back to the coffee table in front of Bob’s feet.
And that’s where they all stayed, even as the night grew long and the football game turned into a group of people around a wide desk after the football game, still talking about what had occurred during said game. Ava wasn’t really paying attention. She was thinking about how the pain was worse than yesterday, which had been worse than the day before. She was thinking about how her fingernails felt like they were going to vibrate off of her hands. She was thinking about the headache crackling deep in the base of her neck, twisted right around her spine.
She was thinking about how Bob was barely a yard away.
She was thinking about how she didn’t even know if it would work.
It had to work. He was still Sentry, even if he was keeping it bottled up to avoid, well, the other guy. The powers that made up Sentry were still alive and kicking in Bob, including…
Including whatever made the pain stop. Including whatever kept her whole and solid and alive in her own body for the first time in years. Including whatever felt so goddamn good, even in the middle of a firefight. Imagine how good it would feel here, in the calmness of this dark room?
Ava hadn’t had a solid night’s sleep in, well, ever. Even the concept of falling asleep without pain was foreign, unthinkable.
She scooted closer to Bob. No one noticed, no one batted an eye. Yelena scrolled on her phone, John’s head lolled back, and Bob didn’t even look over. If she just… Reached over a tiny bit… The remote was right next to Bob’s hand. She snagged it, ghosting her pinkie finger across his.
The relief was immediate. It zigzagged through her veins like a lightning strike, only for a moment, only for the time she was in contact with his bare skin. Pain? Gone. She felt stable. She felt real.
“Jesus,” she breathed out. Bob looked over.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” she said hurriedly, and, to keep up the ruse, changed the channel. Up one, it was some late-night cooking show. John flinched awake in his easy chair.
“Who changed it?”
“C’mon, Walker, it was boring as hell anyway,” Bob said as John glared at Ava, who still had the remote in her hand. The pain was seeping back in, not held off in the slightest now that she wasn’t near Bob. “You were snoring over there.”
“Yeah, it’s about that time.” Yelena rolled onto her back and stretched both arms over her head. Silent as the grave, Bucky vacated his easy chair and left, heading down the far hallway that held his room, Alexei’s, and Bob’s. Alexei followed after ruffling Yelena’s hair and dodging a hit in return, and she went down the other hallway (the one that held her room, Ava’s, and John’s) after putting her popcorn bowl in the sink. John, still muttering something about the game he’d apparently still been watching even though it had been over for an hour, wasn’t far behind her.
And then, it was only Ava and Bob.
She held out the remote.
“You can put on whatever you want,” she said. He shook his head.
“This is fine, I’ve always wanted to learn what the hell paella is.”
“Okay,” she said, and tucked her legs up underneath her. Furtively, she glanced over. He was already looking at her, those wide blue eyes under his mop of hair. “What?”
“What yourself,” he said. She shook her head like she was dislodging something from her ear and focused back on the TV. “Ava.”
“Bob.” She didn’t look back over at him.
“No one’s here,” he said, but he was keeping his voice low like he didn’t quite believe himself. “If you want to keep it a secret from all of them, I don’t care, but…”
“Keep what a secret?”
“But I’m here,” he pushed through anyway. “That’s all I wanted to say. I’m here for you, whatever you need.”
“What are you talking about, Reynolds?” She felt her hackles raise at the softness in his voice, despite herself, despite everything. She didn’t need. She didn’t want. She dealt with what she had to deal with. She survived.
“I know,” Bob said. “I know all of it. Well, as much as I can, I guess. I felt it during the fight.”
“What did you feel?”
“You,” he said simply. “When I grabbed you, or when Sentry grabbed you, or whatever. I felt you stabilize in my hands, but before that, I felt what it was like when you weren’t. It hurt, Ava— is that what it’s like all the time?”
“It’s constant,” she said, and before she could stop herself, before she could quash it, a sob bubbled up from somewhere deep in her chest. She tried to gulp it down, but it was a shaking, quivering thing, and it gasped out of her throat as she buried her face in her hands. “Jesus, it never stops.”
The couch dipped and shifted as Bob moved closer to her, and before she could register what was going on, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
She was a piece of chocolate on the hood of a hot car. She was ice on a stove, she was candy floss in water. In Bob’s embrace, she melted, and so did the pain, so did the stress, so did the muscle spasms and cramps and twitches. She leaned her head against his chest and breathed out until her lungs were empty.
“Hey, hey,” he said, and she listened to the words rumbling under her ear pressed to his thin shirt. “You’re all right, Ava. You’re okay.”
For the first time in a very, very long time, maybe the first in her life, she believed it.
“Thank you,” she managed to get out. Bob kicked his feet up on the coffee table and she moved with him, curling as close as she could get. Now that the initial contact had been made, she wanted it more than she cared about her dignity. Bob’s arm around her shoulders and her cheek on his chest and her knees all tucked up against his side felt more stable and real than anything she could remember.
“Don’t thank me,” Bob said. “Might as well get some good out of this whole situation, huh? Makes me feel a little better for selling my soul to get the next hit.”
“Feels so nice,” she slurred, and he laughed a little, rubbing a thumb in circles on her shoulder.
“Never thought I’d hear that from a woman before. I’m not mad about it.”
“You’ve never taken a woman to bed?” she said into his chest, trying to remember how she felt at that exact moment. Floaty and grounded, all at once. Drunk and sober, all at once. Bob shifted, and she looked up to meet his eyes, so deep and blue with the warm lights of the common area reflected in them, laugh lines crinkling as he grinned down at her.
“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” he said. “Ava Starr, can I cordially invite you over to mine for a platonic cuddle that’ll confuse the rest of our teammates in the morning?”
She wanted to make some quip back, something about how Bob wasn’t exactly her best idea of a one night stand, either, but she was too busy trying to keep herself from drooling all over his shirt. She shifted her cheek and hit a damp patch, anyway. Shit.
Whatever was happening with her, body-wise, was absolutely out of control at this point. She was barely conscious as it was. Instead of anything witty, anything she’d usually say to alleviate tension and make herself the most standoffish, untouchable one in the room, she mumbled right into Bob’s chest that yes, she’d like that very much.
Or something like that. He got the general idea.
“Don’t hate me for this,” he said, and before she could even think about asking for what, he scooped her into his arms, knocking her head against his shoulder as he hefted her close and stood. Normal Ava —pain-filled Ava— would’ve given him hell about it. She wouldn’t have even let it happen; he never would have gotten close enough.
But what she would’ve done didn’t matter. All that mattered was what she was doing now, and how being carried in Bob’s arms felt like floating, and how, maybe, it was okay that he’d gotten close enough.
Maybe close enough wasn’t all that bad.
She didn’t realize they had made it all the way down the far hall to Bob’s room until she was set, gently, on a plush surface she figured was his bed. They all had the same one, a generic queen with a set of generic sheets and a generic comforter. Comfortable enough, she figured, even though she hadn’t slept in hers yet. The whole group had spent both nights so far in the Tower on the floor in the common area, but even so, Ava was usually so uncomfortable in her own skin that she never really noticed or cared about that kind of stuff outside of herself.
Now, she noticed. She noticed the enveloping softness of the bed, the non-generic knit blanket that Bob tugged over both of them, the pillow under her that she rejected in order to lay her head on Bob’s chest instead. He wrapped his arms around her again, under the blanket, and rested his cheek on the top of her head.
“You okay?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
She murmured something back, enough, hopefully, to convey how okay she was. More than okay. Miles and miles and miles more.
He breathed out a tiny little laugh as he rubbed circles on her shoulder with his thumb. Shifting closer, she nosed into the warm hollow of his neck, where everything smelled like the piney scent of his aftershave and the soap they all used in the locker room showers.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as her eyes burned. She was half-hoping the words wouldn’t even reach his ears, but those ears were, unfortunately, superhuman. Bob curled over her, his soft brown curls flopping into his eyes as he squinted down.
“You never have to apologize to me,” he said. “I mean… I’m not going to tell you what to do, but you don’t, like, have to. Or I’ll apologize to you, and that’ll start a whole thing, and we’ll never stop.”
“Apologize to me?”
“You saved my goddamn life,” Bob said. “Back in the Void. I grabbed you by the throat and threw you across a room and you still came for me. I know what you saw in there, Ava, and—”
She choked down another sob, twice in a day, some kind of shitty world record, and Bob bent even lower, far enough that his nose pressed to her temple. He sniffled, and she felt a tear roll down her nose onto her cheek.
“Jesus.” His voice rumbled through his chest. “See? Don’t start something you can’t finish, Starr.”
She leaned back to wipe his eyes with her thumb and allowed him to curl his arms around her and pull her close again. It never got old, the waves and waves of relief that washed over her, banishing the pain, making her feel real and whole.
Bob’s voice was a rumble underneath her cheek as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “We’re still good?”
“The best,” she murmured, tucking her head underneath his chin and smiling to herself, a soft, gentle thing that still felt foreign. It wasn’t like her, but none of this was. Maybe that would hurt less than she thought it would. Maybe she could lean into it, let someone else in, allow them to see her in a real, vulnerable way for the first time in… Well, ever.
Maybe that was a problem for the morning, though.
As her eyes drifted shut, she breathed in, breathed out, and let the steady beat of Bob’s heart lull her into a floating, painless sleep.