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Bob quickly had to learn to understand that being the Sentry meant he was much stronger than he was before, even when he was just Bob. Undoubtedly, he was much stronger when Sentry or the Void were in control (which he refused to let happen to the best of his ability, leading to a lot of panicked, sleepless nights when he felt their presence looming in his conscience) but Bob himself wasn’t exactly weak either.
For most of his adult life, Bob had been the total stereotype of a junkie. There wasn’t a moment he wasn’t high except for when he was in jail, which had made him incredibly physically weak. His limbs were devoid of any muscle and the skin on his torso looked like it was being pulled back against his ribs because of how skinny he was.
In that state, Bob couldn’t lift a wad of cash to his dealer without trembling with the effort. However, after taking part in Valentina’s experiment in Malaysia, it appeared that he had simply woken up with abs and muscles that could put any hardworking gym bro to shame.
Not that he liked it. Far from it, actually. Bob despised his new body because it simply didn’t feel like his. Showering was hard, because it meant seeing his bare body in the mirror: his body which was nothing but a reminder of what Valentina did to him. He was an experiment. A lab rat. Expendable.
He’d gotten into the habit of wearing the baggiest clothes he could find to try and hide his physique. Long, warm and comfortable clothes that swamped him, disguising him as the pathetic drug addict that the New Avengers kept as their pet in the tower. He was exaggerating, he knew that, because nobody in the tower thought of him that way. He was their friend who they all cared about very deeply, plus he had nowhere else to go. Regardless, Bob would rather be a pet than an all-powerful monster with a god complex.
Since Bob was so unused to his own strength, it has become a common occurrence for Bob to accidentally break things around the tower. Countless times had Bob forgotten that he needed to hold glasses gently or else they’d smash. He used to panic when he broke things, but now it happened so often that Bob realised there was no point in freaking out about it. Nobody was ever mad at him. They weren’t like his dad, and his dad was long gone.
Possibly the worst part of his new powers was that he now had some sort of superhuman regeneration. He was like Walker, only even faster. Tiny cuts would heal in mere moments, bigger ones would only take a couple of hours to reseal. As well as that, his skin was tough. It took a lot to pierce his skin, which would’ve sucked if he was still a drug addict. He wasn’t, though. Thankfully, Bob didn’t feel any withdrawal symptoms despite having been without any meth for what was almost a year. He also hardly left the tower, so it wasn’t like he’d have the opportunity to buy from someone.
No. Bob’s impenetrable, quick-healing skin was terrible for another reason: something that he couldn’t exactly talk to his roommates about.
Cutting was so much harder now.
Back before the Sentry project, it was so easy after a rough day for Bob to just slice his wrist open and let it bleed for a bit. It let out all the tension and it never failed to relax him, even if just a little. The scars all the way down his forearms and on his thighs were reminders of what a failure he was, but he needed that. He needed a reason to hate himself, and those disgusting scars justified that he was a lost cause and made him feel less guilty about ruining himself with drugs and more cuts and booze and one night stands that he rarely wanted but let happen anyway.
But now he couldn’t do that. The first time he tried to cut himself in the tower, he’d swiped the sharpest knife in the kitchen and drawn it in a vertical line down his wrist. After surprisingly failing to break the skin, he had tried again and pressed down harder. That time, blood had sprung satisfyingly from the long incision, but Bob’s soft smile of satisfaction was quickly replaced with a grimace as the cut sealed itself up almost instantly.
The rest of the night had been like watching a butcher at work as Bob tried and failed to make a lasting mark, even switching to his thighs at one point in hopes that the skin there was weaker. Although he eventually made a mark that didn’t fade instantly, by the morning it was gone.
And so Bob got into the habit of using razors. He didn’t cut himself every night, but he rarely tried to stop himself if he was feeling depressed or anxious. He switched to razors because they were sharper and easier to explain the disappearance of than a kitchen knife. The only benefit of Bob’s new strength was that no one else could possibly find out about the cutting because, no matter how much he hacked at his superhuman skin in the night, the cuts were always gone by morning. Other than that, the muted pain and the sheer effort he needed to make a lasting cut made his misery worse every time he went to self harm.
He didn’t stop, though. Some pain was better than no pain, and it would have to do until he found something that hurt worse.
—
“Lena?! Come help your dad with team laundry!” Alexei bellowed down the hall towards Yelena’s room.
Yelena rolled over in bed and buried her face in a pillow to muffle a loud groan. She wasn’t in the mood to help with laundry, but she knew that if she didn’t, Bob would volunteer.
It had become an unspoken rule in the compound that chores were a team effort. Never say no to a chore, otherwise Bob would insist on doing it instead. And, since Bob was cherished by everyone in the tower, nobody was willing to let him do extra work.
“Coming.” She murmured as she slid out of bed and pulled on the clothes she had left on her chair the day before. She wasn’t going anywhere today, so she honestly didn’t care.
The Thunderbolts (she refused to acknowledge the second-hand team name that Valentina had pushed onto them) had definitely become something of a family, and this strangely domestic setting was something Yelena hadn’t experienced since she was a young child. Although she would never admit it, she did love her new life, not because of the fame or the money, but because she finally had people to care about and people who cared about her in return. What more could she ask for?
Yelena slinked into the laundry room to see Alexei, who was wearing a dressing gown and what appeared to be nothing else (though she prayed he had the sense and dignity to wear at least underwear underneath it). “What?”
“I take white washing out of dryer. You load coloured washing into wash machine.” Alexei commanded with a grin. “Double speed.”
Yelena rolled her eyes, but obliged and began reluctantly tossing the laundry into the washing machine. Amongst the heaps of sweaty workout shirts that made her cringe in disgust, Yelena came along one of Bob’s many sweaters, this one being his favourite blue one. She was thankful that he was letting it be washed for once, because he usually refused to take it off even in sleep.
About to throw it into the washing machine too, Yelena stopped when she caught sight of a stain on the cuff. Internally, she let out another groan at the sight of the stain, opening her mouth to complain that Bob’s favourite sweater might be ruined, and that would be difficult news to break to him. But she paused. The stain was red, like blood. How on earth did Bob get blood on his sleeve?
“Alexei? Is this blood, do you think?” Yelena handed the sweater over to her father, pointing at the stain.
Alexei mused over the crimson splat for a moment before passing it back. “Could be ketchup.” He suggested.
“Bob doesn’t like ketchup.”
“Then pasta sauce. Or salsa or—”
Yelena cut him off. “No. Alexei, I really think it’s…” She trailed off and glanced towards the door, holding the sweater tightly to her chest. “…I’m gonna go ask Bob.” She concluded, leaving the laundry room and taking the sweater with her.
“Come back to finish laundry after!” Alexei called after her, which only made her huff in irritation.
Bob’s room was thankfully on the same floor as her room, since Bob didn’t want to be too far away from her in the event of a nightmare. Despite this, whenever he did have a nightmare, he was usually too embarrassed to wake Yelena up. Occasionally, though, she’d wake up at the sound of his scream or rapid breathing and make her way to his room to calm him down and invite him to sleep over with her for the night.
With a soft few successive knocks at Bob’s door, Yelena pushed the door open and slipped into the room. The lights were dimmed and Bob’s figure was cozily coiled up on the bed. Yelena was about to leave until Bob spoke up.
“‘M awake.” His voice was laced with sleep, and it was clear he hadn’t been awake for long. He was well aware of the next unspoken rule surrounding himself: don’t wake up Bob. Bob sleeping was a scarce event in itself, and if anyone dared to disturb that then there were many people in the tower who would gladly kill them for it.
“Oh, sorry.” Yelena murmured, perching on the edge of his bed and continuing to study the stain on Bob’s sweater. The darkness only made the stain look more like blood. “Did you sleep well?”
“Mm.” It wasn’t exactly an affirmative or a denial, but Yelena knew that the lack of an answer more often than not meant that, no, Bob didn’t sleep well. “Did you want something?”
Yelena didn’t interrogate Bob immediately. He was still tired and, if the stain really was something serious, she was concerned that having this conversation would upset him. With the gentleness of a mother, or maybe more of an older sister, Yelena started to stroke Bob’s hair. “Do I need a reason to want to check up on you?” She asked with a teasing smile.
“No…” Bob admitted, his muscles seeming to liquify at the touch. “But you normally do.”
The Russian chuckled and she cupped his face. “Ahh, you got me there.”
Anyone else in the world might’ve mistaken the pair for a couple, but their relationship was far from anything romantic. They were close through their shared traumatic childhoods. Their trauma was very different to each other’s, but it felt somewhat shared nonetheless. In addition to that, Bob and Yelena simply found a mutual comfort in each other. Yelena provided Bob with the affection and care that his parents never gave him, and caring for Bob made Yelena feel like she was doing Natasha proud.
“Can you just look at this for me, Bob?” Yelena held the sleeve of the sweater so the stain was visible to Bob when he opened his eyes. “What’s that stain?”
Bob’s eyelids flickered open and his eyes, so deeply blue they looked almost brown, zoned in on the stain. Yelena noticed the shift in his body language instantly. His shoulders, which were flaccid and relaxed moments ago, tensed suddenly. “I… don’t know.”
His uncertain response didn’t convince Yelena one bit. “You sure?”
Hastily, he nodded and pulled the covers tighter around himself. “Yeah. I’m just gonna nap this morning. I need to catch up on sleep, so—”
“It’s blood, isn’t it?” Yelena concluded with a sigh. The covers were pulled up to Bob’s ears, but not high enough to conceal the hauntedness in his gaze. “Bob, I need you to talk to me, okay?”
Bob scrunched his eyes shut, clearly knowing they’d give away that he was lying. “I didn’t know, Yelena. I didn’t notice.”
“You expect me to believe that the one time you let me wash this sweater is coincidentally when there’s a blood stain on it?” Truthfully, Yelena hadn’t meant to come off that harshly, but she really needed the truth from Bob.
Bob did not like to tell the truth.
“L-look, ‘Lena.” Bob let out a long sigh before submerging his head in his bed’s pile of blankets. Yelena knew for a fact that two of those blankets were weighted, and she humoured herself for a moment by pondering if Bob could even breathe from within his den of covers. “I… broke another glass last night when I went to get water. It’s nothing. I just cut myself while cleaning it up: no big deal.”
At his explanation, Yelena relaxed a little. “Why didn’t you just tell me? You know I don’t mind.”
Bob writhed under the covers. “B-because I keep fucking up, Yelena. I just want to prove that I can do things by myself.”
“You don’t need to do things by yourself.”
“But I want to!” He snapped, sitting upright all of a sudden. “Is that such a bad thing? Sorry I don’t want to depend on you like a fucking child.”
“Easy, Bob.” Yelena soothed, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it in between her own. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just worried because you hurt yourself and I didn’t know about it.”
Bob visibly flinched and stared at her, going ghostly pale. “I… I didn’t hurt myself.” He said firmly. “I got hurt. Big difference.”
Not wanting to pick an argument, Yelena shrugged and picked the sweater back up. “Alright. I’ll do my best to get the stain out, ‘kay? You gonna nap now?”
Bob was silent for a moment, as if considering her words. Then, he settled back down into his blankets. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m being rude. I’m just tired.”
“I know, Bob. Stay in bed as long as you need.” She told him, not willing to negotiate. With a final ruffle to his curls, Yelena stood up and left the room, closing the door behind her.
—
That same evening, the Thunderbolts were having a barbecue on the roof of the Avengers’ Tower, overlooking a vast, seemingly infinite New York City skyline. John was manning the barbecue, considering he was the only one that the team collectively trusted not to give everyone food poisoning.
Despite having a rough morning, Bob was more sociable than usual. He loved bonding with the team because it satisfied his need to be a part of something. He joked with Alexei, listened to Bucky’s ranting about Sam not returning his calls and, towards the end of the night, let Ava nap on his shoulder to recharge mentally.
Yelena was still being careful around Bob today. The last thing she wanted to do was make him feel stressed or anxious when he seemed to be so happy, so she left him alone for most of the evening and occupied herself with criticising John’s barbecuing techniques. However, as she studied Bob and pondered over what she had found earlier, her worry only grew. What if something was really wrong and she was just letting it happen? She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if something happened to Bob that she could have stopped.
Going into midnight, everyone else had gone to bed except Bob and Yelena, which opened up the perfect opportunity for Yelena to reapproach their earlier topic of conversation.
“You look like you had a good day.” She smiled at him, causing him to shyly turn away. He was always so embarrassed to be caught being vulnerable.
“I-I… I just felt better today, I guess.” He murmured, laughing nervously and carding a shaky hand through his hair. The switch-up from being so relaxed to being paranoid and antisocial was jarring, but Yelena would be lying if she said she hadn’t expected it.
Despite sensing that Bob was already experiencing heightened anxiety, Yelena knew if she left without confronting him now, Bob would make sure she didn’t get the opportunity again. He was unbelievably good at avoiding people.
“Bob? Can I talk to you about something?” She asked quietly, watching closely for his response.
Bob stayed very still, trying not to give anything away through his guarded stance. “Go ahead.” He whispered.
Yelena winced at Bob’s blatant discomfort, but she had to go on. “What glass did you break last night, Bob?”
The man pouted and avoided eye contact: a common occurrence when Bob was avoiding an uncomfortable truth. “Why does it matter?”
“Because there are still six glasses. They’re all out here.” She pointed out, gesturing to the table in the centre of the roof terrace that was, true to her word, occupied by six unremarkable glasses. “So I’m curious which glass you broke.”
Bob stared in what looked almost like fear at the table holding the incriminating glasses. His gaze flickered back to Yelena for only a moment before he diverted his eyes back to the ground. “Umm… it was a wine glass.”
“You broke a wine glass while getting water in the night?”
Bob remained silent, refusing to say anything more that could be used against him. He didn’t need to say anything, though. Yelena was there first.
“Tell me the truth, Bob. Why are you lying to me about this and why is there blood on your sweater?” Yelena demanded, though she tried to keep her tone warm with concern rather than hot with anger. The last thing she wanted was for Bob to see her in the same light as his monster of a father.
Initially, she thought Bob was going to stay silent. Maybe he’d retreat to his room and never come back out. He didn’t, though.
Bob also didn’t like to lie.
“I-I— I’m s-sorry! I didn’t want t-to worry a-a-anyone, but I c-couldn’t—” The gasps and sobs came quickly and he clamped a hand over his mouth to forcefully slow his breathing and muffle his cries.
Without a moment’s delay, Yelena was at his side, holding his free hand and easing him through his breathing. “Hey, hey… we’re always worried about you, Bob. We get more worried when you don’t tell us things.”
“I know, but you’ll be so upset!” He exclaimed, curling up against Yelena’s side and clinging to her shirt.
With a frown of concern, Yelena pulled Bob into her arms. “Why would I be upset? I’d never be upset with you.”
Bob vehemently shook his head. “N-no, I mean it’ll just make you upset!”
“Why? What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Yelena was getting more confused and concerned with every word that came out of Bob’s mouth.
“No! N-nothing happened! I-I-I’m just stupid and useless!” He shouted, moving to scratch his forearm to distract himself, but Yelena knowingly held his hand fast.
“That’s not true, Bob. I don’t understand what you mean.” She tried to explain calmly to him. “I just need you to tell me what’s going on as simply as you can, alright?”
With an indecipherable sound of frustration, Bob suddenly got to his feet and pulled Yelena with him as he strided towards the stairwell going inside. He hurried down the stairs, sniffling back tears and pausing every so often as if he were reevaluating his decision. As she was hauled down the compound hallways, Yelena’s mind raced with all the horrific possibilities of what could be troubling Bob so intensely. It wasn’t like Bob to lie straight to her face. Avoid the truth? Sure. But blatant lies? That wasn’t Bob.
Eventually, they arrived at Bob’s room, which Yelena didn’t even have time to process before Bob kicked the door open and fell to his knees by his bed, and dragged a cardboard box out from under his bed.
Much to Bob’s surprise, however, Yelena paid no mind to it. She was more concerned with Bob, who was very clearly overwhelmed. She nudged the box to the side with her foot and took hold of Bob by his shoulders, steering him onto his bed.
“Alright, Bob. You’re okay. Do you want me to look in that box?” A nod and a teary gasp for air. “And that’s what you were scared to show me?” Another nod. “Okay. Thank you for being honest, yeah? I’m proud of you.”
Bob didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so instead he remained silent and grabbed hold of his weighted blanket (pink and green checkered because he was in his Wicked phase when he bought it) cocooning himself in its warmth.
Yelena continued. “You comfy? Able to calm down?” Bob nodded in affirmation, so Yelena reached for the ominous cardboard box and pried it open.
An assortment of razors, bloodstained wipes and a bottle of rubbing alcohol stared back at Yelena. The evidence before her was so damning that Yelena condemned herself for not noticing this sooner. She wanted to explode. She wanted to question Bob on every detail. She wanted to lock him in a twenty four hour surveillance room just to keep him safe. But she knew none of that would help, so she swallowed every emotion burning in her throat down into her stomach and spoke as steadily as she could.
“You’ve been cutting yourself?” She concluded.
The words only seemed to set Bob off further. He balled up his fists and hugged his knees, eventually nodding just once in response.
At his confirmation, Yelena set herself down on the bed and gently took Bob’s arm, pushing up his sleeve. She was expecting to see scars or recent cuts, but was surprised to see his skin was completely clear. “Have you… not been cutting on your wrists? You’ve been cutting somewhere else?”
Bob retracted his arm and wiped his eyes. “That’s the problem, Lena.” He whimpered, tracing lines on his wrist where he’d slit himself open countless times. “My stupid powers mean the cuts heal overnight, no matter how deep. I have nothing to show for everything I’ve done to myself.”
Yelena began to understand, albeit slowly. She felt a little less guilty for not noticing, but she still couldn’t forgive herself for sitting idly by as Bob was suffering this badly with his own mind. “And… that’s a problem?”
“Yeah.” He murmured sheepishly. “I— when I used to cut myself when I was a teenager, and I guess the scars made me feel… good? Like I was successfully punishing myself. I don’t know.” He briefly wiped a tear from his eye before continuing shakily. “But now I have nothing to show for it, s-so it feels like I’m not doing enough to hurt myself.” He glanced up at Yelena, eyes widening as he saw her horrified expression. “It sounds worse than it is! It’s just a bad habit. B-besides, like I said, it doesn’t hurt me, so it’s not actually a big deal.” He laughed a little nervously, then sprung off the bed to kick the box back under it. “But… I would appreciate you not telling the others, please?”
Mortified, Yelena stared at Bob for a few more seconds before whispering. “It is a big deal, Bob. You know it’s a big deal.”
Bob seemed to be preoccupied with fiddling with his shirt sleeve all of a sudden, avoiding acknowledging Yelena’s very true statement. He knew Yelena wasn’t stupid, but he hoped he could play this whole situation off without making himself look more mentally unstable than he already appeared. God, he was already regretting telling Yelena. He was so stupid and selfish to bother her with his ridiculous self-harm addiction. “It hardly hurts…”
“If it doesn’t hurt, why do you keep doing it?” Yelena countered, gently tugging Bob back onto the bed beside her. Reluctantly, he obliged and slumped down onto the mattress, shoulders hunched.
He shrugged wordlessly. “I don’t know. I keep trying to find ways to make it hurt, but it’s never enough.” He gripped his thighs as if it were the only thing keeping his body from collapsing into dust. “I, uh, tried rubbing alcohol. It made it sting, but the pain never really lived up to how it used to be.” He recalled, stealing a glance at Yelena before continuing to evade her gaze. “It’s not that bad, though.”
“Bob.” Yelena said with an almost stern tone to it, which caused Bob to promptly apologise and shut his mouth. “This is… beyond what I can help you with, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. She really had to call him sweetheart: the pet name that made him teary-eyed with the feeling of being loved for once in his life. He knew it meant Yelena was only calling him sweetheart right now to soften the blow of whatever she was about to say next, but it still worked. His mind still went fuzzy and all he could think was that he was Yelena’s ‘sweetheart’.
“W-what do you mean?” Bob managed to ask, pushing through the haze over his mind.
Almost in slow motion, he saw Yelena’s lips moving and the sound of her voice catching up. “You know me, Bucky and Walker go to therapy, right?”
Oh no.
Instantaneously, Bob was shaking his head. “No. I don’t like therapy, Yelena.” He stated firmly. So much for ‘sweetheart’ softening the blow.
Yelena sighed in a way that told Bob she wasn’t surprised at his refusal. She probably knew his history with therapy wasn’t a particularly good one, since everyone in the tower seemed to know everything about his history thanks to Valentina.
Truthfully, Bob knew it was partially his own fault that therapy went so badly for him. He shouldn’t have reacted so badly to the therapist who was just doing her job by telling him that he should stop doing meth. Sure, she was right about that, but snitching on him to the cops when he refused? He was never going to trust a therapist again.
“How else can I help you, then?” Yelena inquired, gently rubbing circles on Bob’s back with her thumb. “Because I won’t be able to leave you alone if I know you’re going to hurt yourself.”
Bob bowed his head in guilt. He hated making Yelena worry, but she was honestly right to be worried. That didn’t mean he wanted her help. Not at all. It was almost like Bob was only just realising that confessing his self-harming habits to Yelena would result in her trying to stop it.
Maybe he hadn’t thought this through.
“Yes, I’m gonna take this box, alright? You don’t have any more razors anywhere, do you?” She asked as she pulled the box back out from under the bed. “How about you come sleep in my room for a couple of weeks until the urge goes away?”
“It’s not that simple.” Bob argued, lunging to put himself between Yelena and the box. “I can’t just stop! I don’t want to stop!”
The pity in Yelena’s eyes made Bob feel nauseous. “Bob, do you see that what you’re doing isn’t good for you? This is like your drug addiction.”
A surge of frustration went through Bob at the mention of his drug addiction. “This is nothing like that!” He snapped, snatching the cardboard box full of his supplies and setting it in his lap as he sat down. He was starting to feel a faint dizziness clouding the back of his mind, but he ignored it.
“It’s similar. It’s an addiction that’s really bad for you, both physically and mentally.” Yelena explained, though she was aware that Bob wasn’t giving her his full attention. “Bob. This is serious. I’m not going to let you—” She stopped herself, her eyes fixating on Bob’s trembling hands. His fingertips were staining blacker than shadows. “…Bob?”
Bob was about to shout back again, refusing to acknowledge his own mental issues. However, the tinge of fear in her tone encouraged him to follow her gaze down to his darkening hands. Instantly, his eyes widened and he let go of the box, scrambling to the back of the bed. “Shit, shit, shit—”
Taking the opportunity to kick the box away, Yelena pounced on the bed and gently drew Bob back into her arms. “You’re okay… you’re okay. Don’t panic.” She took hold of his hands and started to massage each of his palms with her thumbs in an effort to make the Void ease back. “I’m here.”
Bob closed his eyes tightly to focus on breathing. He let the tears fall freely, trying his best to ignore them. The harsh in and out of his breaths eventually settled into somewhat even breathing again and the darkness in his hands receded, so he opened his eyes to allow more tears to cascade. “…sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry.” Yelena apologised, gently brushing his tears away. “I was pushing too hard. I’m so proud of you for telling me this.” She praised, nodding towards the box. “You don’t have to go to therapy if that’s something you’re anxious about, but it works for me. If you ever change your mind, just let me know, okay?”
Bob nodded only once. Maybe therapy wasn’t all as bad as he remembered. After all, he wasn’t a drug addict anymore. If Yelena went to therapy, and Bucky and John went to therapy, maybe he should too? He shook the thought from his mind for now, not wanting to think too deeply about it. “Sure.”
Yelena gave a soft smile and ruffled his hair again. “I know you’re trying. We’re gonna get through this as a team. Just remember you’ve got me to come to, now. And if I’m not here, you can talk about this to anyone else. If you feel like you want to cut, come and find me, okay? If I’m not here, find someone else. Just sit in a room with the others. Don’t isolate yourself. Can you do that for me, Bob?”
Bob could lie. He could smile and agree and then go back to cutting himself. But, for some reason, he didn’t want to. He felt like Yelena’s offer was lifting a boulder off of his back. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
“…I’ll try.” He murmured, snuggling down into his bed before clinging onto her arm. “Stay tonight. Please?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Yelena hugged Bob again and settled down beside him. “Of course. I’m here.”