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“I’m agoraphobic.”
Bob didn’t look at her when he said it. He stared down at his hands, still twisting in his lap like he could physically wring out his anxiety. Yelena set her garbage bag down with a handful of clinks, setting aside the evidence of her alcoholism for just long enough to give him her attention.
“Hm?” She’d heard what he said, but she wanted him to elaborate. She didn’t entirely understand what he was trying to communicate so she asked for clarification as a segue into elaboration. “What did you say?”
“I have agoraphobia,” Bob repeated, eyes barely blinking as they shifted to look at the floor. “That’s why I… yeah. I’m sorry.”
It bothered Yelena how much he apologized. They spent three days traveling from New York to her apartment in Ohio—a flight wasn’t an option given Bob had no ID—and he must’ve apologized a hundred times. She was kind about it, aware that it was probably a coping mechanism developed through his childhood abuse, but that didn’t make it any less sad. Especially because he hadn’t expressed that habit during their time in the vault or the Void and she didn’t understand what triggered it.
“That’s where you’re scared of open spaces?” asked Yelena. She had a vague understanding of the phobia, but she wanted to know what it meant for Bob.
“No, it’s— um— it’s an anxiety disorder.” Bob lifted his left thumb to his mouth, chewing on the end of his nail between thoughts. His hair fell in his face and Yelena carefully tucked it back behind his ear, not surprised to see that his cheeks were still pink from his last bout of anxiety half an hour before. “I guess it’s about open spaces but for me it feels more like… like I find a safe place that I don’t want to leave and if I leave it then I…”
“You have panic attacks. You don’t have to be sorry for that.”
Bob nodded. That was their biggest struggle and the reason it took them three days to make the trip. He had his first panic attack at the press conference. On stage he was fine but the moment they were in the crowd, being swarmed by reporters, he fell apart. He had his second panic attack on the bus, where he’d masked his anxiety symptoms for an hour before Yelena caught on and pulled him off at the soonest stop. There, she called Mel to get them a rental car instead.
He had his third panic attack at the mall when they stopped to get some new clothes. It was somewhat her fault that he was triggered there but she didn’t understand why yet. Not until his fourth panic attack at the pancake place that morning where she finally made the connection that Bob did not feel safe when he was alone. It didn’t matter that he was the Sentry, that he was physically invulnerable. Psychologically, he didn’t feel safe.
“I’m sorry because I feel like I should’ve told you but I didn’t—” Bob’s leg bounced beneath him, Yelena’s shitty second-hand couch creaking with the movement. “I don’t think I realized how bad it was, you know? I wasn’t— I was on meth and— and other shit. That made it so much easier and now that I’m clean, I can’t… I didn’t realize that it was this bad. I didn’t even really understand why they diagnosed me with it.”
“Are you diagnosed with anything else?” She wasn’t trying to pry, she just wanted to understand.
Bob shook his head quickly, only to wince and nod. “Panic disorder. But that’s it. They said everything else was probably the drugs.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
All she wanted was to help. It was hard to feel powerless but the more time she spent with Bob, the more she realized she really was. At least regarding his mental health. He would need to see someone when they got back to New York. Yelena worried enough about his depression after their conversation in the vault and her concern only deepened when she saw his panic attacks and the way he seemed to respond to things that weren’t there.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Bob quietly. Because no one had ever supported him with his anxiety before. No one had ever taught him any healthy coping mechanisms for how to calm down. “I’ll be fine. I just need a bit.”
“Okay.” Yelena slowly combed her fingers through Bob’s messy hair, then slid off the arm of the couch with a sigh. She wanted to talk to him, to comfort him, but she’d proven in the vault that she had no idea how to do that. Maybe because of how badly she still needed someone to comfort her too. The thought suddenly reminded her of the one comfort she’d found before the Thunderbolts. “Will you be okay if I step out for a minute?”
“How long is a minute?”
“Sixty seconds.”
That earned her a little laugh. Bob nodded slowly, still chewing on his thumbnail through his small grin. Yelena grabbed her apartment keys and stepped outside. She walked just a few feet to her left, the next apartment over. Her neighbor was a sweet old woman who lived alone. They didn’t know each other well, but she was always friendly to Yelena when they crossed paths. Yelena wouldn’t have trusted her with a secret, but she trusted her with a pet.
She had to endure about five minutes of small talk to get her guinea pig back, but it was worth it. Even if she did have to lie about her nonexistent vacation and insist that the woman on TV was not her. Yelena felt a little bad about that, but she couldn’t risk paparazzi swarming them when Bob was just starting to calm down. Maybe she could tell her neighbor the truth before they left for good.
Bob made a face when Yelena walked back in the door with a whole guinea pig cage, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes followed her as she carried it over to the coffee table and set it down, the door facing her. She opened the cage and carefully lifted the guinea pig into her hands, then shuffled around the coffee table and held him out toward Bob. He stared at the guinea pig but didn’t take him.
“Here,” said Yelena, shifting the guinea pig forward just a little, hoping to encourage him to take it. It occurred to her late that Bob might have genuinely not understood what she was trying to communicate. “Hold him for a minute. I need to spot clean his cage.”
When she first set the guinea pig in his hands, Bob was stiff. He stared down at it, fingers just barely shaking like he was terrified of dropping it. For a second, Yelena worried that she’d made the wrong call. She assumed that Bob liked animals because he’d stopped to pet five dogs while they were in Manhattan but maybe he only liked dogs. Maybe she should have picked up Fanny from Kate’s instead of waiting until they got back. Bob seemed like someone who could benefit from an emotional support dog.
Her fears were alleviated within minutes. Yelena stepped into the kitchen to get the things to clean the cage and when she came back, the tension in Bob’s shoulders had dropped. His hands were still shaking a little but his lips were curling upward, his right hand having shifted to pet the guinea pig on the head. Yelena smiled, finally softening at the sight of it. She knelt in front of the coffee table and set her cleaning supplies to the side of the cage.
“What’s his name?” asked Bob, his tone noticeably lighter.
His name. Huh. Somehow, Yelena hadn’t actually thought about naming him. In her defense, a lot had happened since she brought him home. “He doesn’t have one yet.”
“Oh.” Bob fell silent, brow furrowed thoughtfully. His mouth opened and closed twice and each time, Yelena expected him to suggest a name. When he finally spoke, it turned out he wasn’t thinking about what to name it at all. “There were guinea pigs in the lab. The O.X.E. lab, I mean. In Malaysia.”
“That’s where I found him. I took him with me before I blew it up.”
“What about the others?”
“There weren’t any others.”
Bob’s face fell. His fingers gently massaged the guinea pig’s fur, empathy radiating from his gaze. Yelena thought back to the lab, wondered whether she’d seen any other guinea pigs that she’d forgotten, but no. No other guinea pigs in her memory. If there had been any other guinea pigs in the lab, they were gone before she got there. It pained her to think about what might have happened to them.
So, she tried not to. Yelena picked up her little broom and dustpan and got to work cleaning up the guinea pig’s cage. He really did need a name. Maybe something to honor the Thunderbolts? The day she met that guinea pig was the day that started her on the path to meeting the team. To meeting Bob.
“I guess we’re kind of the same, then,” Bob mumbled. He wasn’t talking to Yelena but to the guinea pig. Or maybe just himself. His tone sounded similar to the one he used when he started rambling under his breath. “The only guinea pig that survived the Sentry Project and the only human. Do you have powers? Or were you lucky enough they didn’t get to you yet?”
He kept on talking but not all of it reached Yelena’s ears. She’d gotten used to his passive voice during their drive. Bob wasn’t lying in the vault when he told her that talking to himself was a normal thing that he did. Apparently, he was even more talkative when he had a little creature to direct his words to.
His words hit Yelena hard, though. Even more so knowing how much Bob was mentally struggling. She knew that O.X.E. was bad, that Valentina was bad, but that was something else. The scientists in that lab didn’t even view Bob as human. They’d treated him the same way they’d treated a guinea pig. They killed numerous animals and who knew how many humans like any of them deserved it, like they were all disposable.
It hurt to think about it while she was looking at him. Yelena just kept remembering everything from the past three days. All the dry jokes Bob made throughout their travels and the way he forced himself to smile; his insistence on finding the perfect audiobook for their drive only to zone out during half of it; how he stayed close to her in crowds, even reaching for her hand at the times his anxiety spiked the highest.
For some reason, she just kept looping back to the last place they’d gone that morning before her apartment. The diner. Bob wanted blueberries in his pancakes and he felt bad because it cost ninety-nine cents more. How could O.X.E. care so little about killing someone who was so kind that he felt guilty about spending a millionaire’s ninety-nine cents? Someone who was diagnosed with agoraphobia and was still brave enough to travel around the world alone?
“I always wanted a pet,” said Bob, louder than his rambles. Yelena still wasn’t sure whether he was talking to her, but she tuned back in just in case. “I know a puppy is pretty cliché but I always— I always wanted a puppy. But I never even asked because I felt like any pet wouldn’t be safe in my house, you know? My dad…”
“I’m sorry.” Yelena set the broom and dustpan beside the cage and sat back on her knees. Bob looked up at her, gaze slightly narrowed like he didn’t understand what she meant. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel safe as a child. You didn’t deserve that.”
Bob shrugged. “It’s fine. It— I— I don’t really know what happened to you, but I know you didn’t either. You didn’t deserve what happened to you.”
“I know. I think.” Sometimes she felt like she did deserve it but then she remembered how small she was. How small Natasha was. If she said that she deserved it, she said that Natasha deserved it, and she didn’t believe that one bit. “But I am glad to be here right now anyway.”
It was a strange kind of contradiction. If Yelena could have gone back and undone her childhood, she would have. She would have unwritten every horrible thing she had to do in a heartbeat. But at the same time, she didn’t want to trade what she had. Yes, she suffered, but all her suffering led her to Bob. It led her to the promise of a team when she returned to New York. To real friends for the first time in her life.
More than that, she had the opportunity to make a difference. There was a time when Yelena believed that she could never atone for what she’d done. She didn’t believe that anymore. Not when Bob and the guinea pig were seated right in front of her, living proof that she’d done something right. Without her, Bob would have stayed behind in the vault. Without her, the Void would have taken over the world. Yelena saved Bob and by saving Bob, she saved everybody.
The Thunderbolts saved everybody.
Only then did it hit her that part of everybody was her. In meeting the Thunderbolts and saving Bob, Yelena saved herself. She wasn’t all better, but she didn’t want to die anymore. She wanted to live. For Bob, for her team, for herself.
“Here.” Bob held out the guinea pig, gentle but with a small sense of urgency. Yelena took him into her hands and helped him into the newly swept cage, then smirked when muffled a sneeze in his armpit. He sniffed only to immediately snort in amusement at the look on Yelena’s face. “What are you laughing at?”
“You didn’t say cucumber,” she joked.
“That’s only for emergencies. That wasn’t an emergency.”
“You could have dropped… my guinea pig.”
Bob laughed at her pause and probably how her nose scrunched. “You really need to pick a name for him.”
“Maybe I’ll call him Bob.” Yelena grinned and Bob started to laugh only to cut himself off with a second sneeze. Hm. That could be interesting. “Or Cucumber.”
“You want to name the guinea pig Cucumber?”
It sounded silly but it felt perfect. It seemed right that the guinea pig was named for Bob since they were connected in a special way. And the word “cucumber” would forever remind her of the day that she met her team. Her friends. People often talked about having a “before” and an “after” in their lives and she liked the idea of her moment being one of pride and not tragedy.
“Yes,” said Yelena, smiling at her friend. Her best friend. “His name is Cucumber.”