Archive of Our Own

Being the “New Avengers”, or… “New AvengerZ” (patent pending) did come with it’s perks. Given they were Valentina’s last chance of preventing her whole life coming crumbling down around her, it seemed she had wanted to make sure her valuable assets were kept as happy and comfortable as possible to be kept public ready and, well, threat ready.

So, to say their new home was a step up in luxury compared to what she’s had in the past would be an understatement. The best of technology and equipment, new and shiny uniforms, state of the art training centers and their own private quarters equipped with everything you could need to live a life of comfort in between missions.

And yet, not even the most expensive mattresses in the world could stop the nightmares from coming.

It had become a pattern. A routine. When you’re plagued by such visions when you’re meant to be in a time of rest, it’s only natural that your body starts trying to avoid it. Fighting sleep any chance it gets. The only time she sleeps is when her body hits its limits and forces her to, or when she’s at the bottom of a bottle. Or from a fist. Or a foot. Whatever.

Either way, no matter how she finds herself unconscious, the nightmares will follow. Always.

Tonight was no different. Another uncomfortable forced awakening. Heart pounding. Breath trembling. Skin covered in a sheen of cold sweat. A slight ache to her arms and legs from where she was no doubt thrashing in her sleep. Now here she lie, staring blankly at the ceiling above her as she tries her best to clear her mind of the images her mind had cruelly procured to torture her.

Her mouth was dry. Had she been screaming in her sleep again? Not surprising. Hopefully she hadn’t woken up the rest of her team. Sure, Valentina had spared no expense in the construction of this place, but there’s only so much soundproofing can do.

She’s still stuck in her own head during the walk to the kitchen, staring but not seeing into nothing as she fills a glass she grabbed with water. It’s on her way back to her room, passing by the various doors to her teammate’s own abode’s when she hears it, bringing her to a stop.

Crying.

It was quiet. So, so quiet. The kind of quiet that you wouldn’t be able to hear it unless you were looking for it. She has no idea how she picked up on it. But she did.

Then again, her mind always seems to hone in whenever she passed Bob’s door.

It’s that hidden crying. That almost silent, chest hitching, face buried in your hands kind of crying. The one no one else is meant to hear.

She raises her hand to knock. Then stops. Hesitates, for just a moment. Then she pushes the door open.

He’s not in his bed. Rather he’s sat on the floor next to it with his back against the wall, knees to his chest, face hidden within his knees. Not for long though, his head startling up the moment she pushes the door open, as if he could sense her. His eyes meet hers for a split second, and then he averts them down, unable to hold her gaze, as if ashamed she had caught him like this.

But Yelena doesn’t judge. She never does. Instead she heads over to him, bare feet padding softly against the carpeted floor. He doesn’t move in the slightest as she drops down next to him, legs crossed and glass still in hand as they sit in silence together. Most moments of silence she finds herself in with other people are the awkward kind. But not with Bob. With Bob there was an understanding. A sense of… comfort.

“Here.” Yelena breaks the silence with a single word, holding out the glass of water to take.

Bob sniffles to clear his nose as he shifts his position, mirroring Yelena’s cross-legged pose. “Uh… No… No, thanks. That’s yours.”

“Yes. And I’m giving it you.”

“But…” Bob’s eyes flicker nervously between Yelena and the outstretched glass of water between them. “But you must of got it for a reason-”

“Bob. Take it,” Yelena pushes the glass into his lap, forcing him to choose between awkwardly scrambling to grab hold of it or letting it spill all over his pyjama pants. He chooses the former. “You were crying. Crying dehydrates you. Drink.”

Bob relents with a quiet chuckle, taking a drink from the glass if only to appease her. He darts his tongue out to wet his lips, and Yelena finds her eyes following the movement, for a reason she does not know.

“Thanks.” Bob says, returning his gaze down to the glass of water in his lap. They return to their silence, Yelena allowing him to sit in his thoughts for a while.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Yelena offers.

“I, uh…” Bob shuffles awkwardly in his seated position, placing the glass of water carefully on the floor beside him. “I’m not sure if I can.”

“Okay.” Yelena says. And that’s it. No argument. No insistence. Just acceptance.

Instead, she does something Bob was not expecting in the slightest. She shuffles just a little closer to him, almost hip to hip, and then she leans into him, the side of her head resting within the dip of his shoulder. Bob had expected himself to tense up the touch, maybe even shy away from it. And yet, it’s the opposite. The tension in his body almost seems to drain away, his swirling, racing thoughts silencing the moment he feels the warmth of her cheek bleeding through his shirt. He let’s his eyes fall closed, savoring this moment of peace his mind so rarely affords him.

He wants to stay in this forever. But that persistent part of him that tells him he doesn’t deserve it rears its ugly head, forcing that cold, heavy weight of guilt to build within him.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Bob speaks to the quietness of the room.

“I know,” Yelena answers, her head remaining cushioned upon his shoulder. “I want to.”

“Oh,” There’s nothing else Bob can really think of to say to that. Yelena… wants to? The concept of someone actually wanting to be sat here in his company was so unfathomable, let alone that someone being Yelena.

So, he does something that takes him a lot of courage and arguing in his head to do, and rests his head atop hers. Her hair is soft against his cheek, scented with that shampoo she uses that seems to breathe calm into him. She doesn’t move away from him, or tell him to get off like his brain was trying to convince him would happen. Instead she sighs softly, as if she craved his touch as much as he did hers. Yelena looks to the hand he had loosely placed on his leg, and before she can even think about it she finds her own hand inching towards his, fingers lightly brushing against his as if asking for permission. He gives a slight flinch of his fingers, more surprised at the touch than finding it unwelcome, and when she slides her hand into his, she finds no resistance as his fingers return their gentle hold on hers.

“Yelena?”

“Hmm?”

“Why do you guys keep me around?”

Yelena pulled her head off Bob’s shoulder at that, shooting him a perplexed look. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean…” Bob gave a sad sounding huff of laughter. “You guys are all like… superheros, you know? And I’m just… Bob. I can’t be Sentry without being that guy, so it’s not like I can be of any help.”

“Okay, first of all? ‘Superhero’s’ a stretch. I’m still just a regular human-”

Bob cut her off with another laugh - a sarcastic one this time. “Just a human? Right. Just a human that’s highly trained, mastered in all manner of skills and combat abilities. I mean, remember when we were in the vault? I’d like to see a ‘regular’ human do a split-kick mid air to take out two armed swat guys with another guy tied to her back-”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Yelena cut him off. “What I’m trying to say is… Like I’m not ‘just a human’, you’re not ‘just Bob’, okay? Enough with the ‘just’ talk. You’re Bob. You’re our Bob. You’re here because you’re one of us.”

Bob shook his head at her statement, averting his gaze downwards one again, which Yelena wasn’t having in the slightest.

“Hey, look at me.” She brought her hand up to his face, palm caressing his cheek as she forced his gaze to hers. “You’re not just enough. You’re more than enough. We need you here, Bob. I…” She fell silent, eyes boring into his, pleading for him to believe her. “I need you. You’re my person.”

Bob’s eyes softened at those words, such words he could never imagine to hear, let alone let himself believe were true. And yet, coming from Yelena, he believed them. Which is why it was easy for him to respond with, “You’re my person, too.”

Yelena smiled at that, soft and gentle, and Bob found himself mirroring that smile without even realizing it. “Now come on. My butt is going numb.” Yelena eloquently put, getting a chuckle out of Bob, pulling him up with her as she got to her feet.

“Get some sleep. It’s a big day tomorrow.” Yelena ordered.

“It is?” Bob questioned.

“I don’t know. That’s just what people say,” Yelena shrugged her shoulders. “But you need sleep, so sleep.”

Bob smiled, conceding to her commands with a weak, mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good,” Yelena made her way to the door, pausing in the door frame as she turned back to face him. “And Bob?”

“...Yeah?” Bob said, still awkwardly stood by his bed.

“I’m here to talk, whenever you need it. I mean that, okay? Anytime.”

Bob nodded, that soft look crossing his face again. “I know.”

Yelena nodded in response, looking him over one more time before she pulled herself away. “Goodnight, Bob.”

“Goodnight.” Bob uttered almost in a whisper, watching as her silhouette disappears into the darkness of the hallway.

And as she left, he mourned that sliver of peace he let himself fall into depart with her, and he knew it was more than ‘just Bob’ that found themselves yearning for her back at his side, the blankets he tucked himself back into doing nothing to replace the anchoring presence she had on him.

But little did he know, as Yelena too buried herself back under the covers, did she find herself feeling the same way, two night souls reaching out for the other between two closed doors.

* * *

It wasn’t that sleep didn’t come easy for Bob. It was staying asleep that was the hard part.

When you’re mind was always racing, it tended to spill over into your dreams. Ha. ‘Dreams’. He hadn’t had a ‘dream’ since… He cant even remember.

Yet another night he found himself awake at some ungodly hour, wishing for the morning to come and the night to be over with. Maybe a walk around the Watchtower would help distract his mind enough to fall back asleep.

He doesn’t get far in his walk. No more than a few meters pace, in fact, when he hears a sound that turns his blood cold. Yelena, screaming. Her voice laced with so much fear, pain and anguish that he’s bursting through her door before his brain has even caught up with him.

“Yelena!” He’s at her side in a heartbeat, his own heart pounding in his chest as he sees her thrashing in her bed, face contorted in terror. “Yelena, wake up!”

He couldn’t have been shaking her shoulders for more than a few seconds before her eyes popped open, and he only had a split second to register that fact before she was up in a flash, legs wrapped around his waist, then she’s bringing him to the ground with surprising force, the air knocked out of his lungs as his back hits the floor, the weight of her atop him with her fist raised, ready to strike.

“Yelena, it’s me!” Bob yelped, hands raised to cover his face. “It’s me! It’s Bob!”

“...Bob?” The confused haze faded from Yelena’s eyes, recognition swiftly followed by horror as the realization of what was happening struck her. “Oh my God, Bob-”

“It’s okay, it’s okay-” Bob tries to reassure her, lowering his hands from his face.

“No, it’s not okay,” Yelena insists, grabbing hold of one his hands to pull him up with her. Immediately her hands are on his face, concern etched deep into her feature. “Are you hurt? Did I…”

“No! No, I’m fine. It’s my fault, I wasn’t thinking-”

“No, it’s not your fault, it’s mine. I should have…” Yelena shook her head furiously, hands falling away from his face to bury her own in them. “…locked the door or something, I…”

Bob huffed at that. “Well, given the way you were screaming, I probably would have broke the door down to reach you, so…”

“Jesus, I’m so sorry…” Yelena’s muffled reply came from her hands, voice still tinged with guilt.

“Hey-” Bob’s hands curled around her wrist, pulling her hands away from her face and her gaze to his. “You stopped. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I woke you up-”

Bob shook his head. “I was already awake. I, uh… Don’t tend to sleep through the night. And besides, I… I know what it’s like, you know? To be trapped inside the worst parts of your mind. You rescued me from that. I figured it was time to return the favor.”

Yelena smiled, a slightly sad smile that Bob had seen many times in the mirror. She closed her eyes, taking a seat on the side of the bed. Bob went to release his hold on her wrist as she sat, but Yelena stopped that by grabbing hold of his hand, giving his arm a gentle pull. “Come. Sit.” She offers, and Bob follows, hesitantly taking a seat next to her. Their hands still intertwined.

“We’re pretty messed up, aren’t we, Bob?”

Bob chuckles, taken aback by the matter of fact statement. “Are you just figuring this out?”

Yelena hums, giving his hand a gentle squeeze at the sound of his laughter. You could hear her smile through her hum. “Well… At least we found each other.”

“Yeah,” Bob said softly, returning the squeeze of her hand. “Pretty sure you’re the only good thing that’s happened in my life.”

Yelena goes quiet.

There are probably things she could say to that. Something sarcastic, preferably. Something about his incredibly low standards. Instead, her thumb brushed slowly over the back of his hand.

“That is very sad, Bob.”

He laughs again, quieter this time. She waits until it fades.

Then, she leans into his side.

“But… you are a pretty good thing in mine, too.”

In the dark of the room, looking forward, she misses the little smile that pulls at his lips.

“Nightmares suck, huh?” Bob says.

“They sure do.” Yelena states bluntly.

“Do you, uh… wanna talk about it?”

Yelena chuckles, jabbing a playful elbow into his side. “You copying me, Bob?”

“Guess I am,” Bob says with his own chuckle. “But, uh, seriously. If you wanna talk, you know. I’m here, too.”

Bob had assumed that the silence that followed afterwards was Yelena’s answer as to whether she wanted to talk. Instead, she had been mulling over it, building up the courage to speak.

“I dreamed about my sister. I usually do, most nights…”

“Your sister?”

“Mm-Hm. Her name was Natasha,” Yelena sighed deeply. “You probably know her as The Black Widow, though.”

“The Black…? Oh. Oh. That… makes sense. The way you fight, it seemed similar.”

“We grew up together. Trained together. Suffered together. We’re not biological sisters, but sisters in all the ways that matters. Like many other girls, we were both taken from our actual families, and raised to be Black Widows.”

“You all have the name of Black Widows?” Bob asks.

“Yes. But… Natasha was The Black Widow.” 

“You looked up to her.” Bob phrased it as a statement, not a question. Yelena would say she hates how well he can read her.

She doesn’t.

“She was my big sister,” Yelena says, the pain seeping into her voice. “I miss her more than I can say.”

Bob turns his head to look at her, taking in the clenched jaw, the eyes glossed over with what he knows must be many a fond memories - and many painful ones, too.

“Tell me about her.”

“What?” Yelena turns her head, meeting his curious gaze.

“Tell me about your sister. Not ‘The Black Widow’. Tell me about Natasha.”

Yelena smiled, and there was a thought in the back of Bob’s head that he needed to do everything he could to see that from her as much as possible. “That… could take a while.” she warns him.

Bob returns her smile, and the squeeze of his hand tells her what he’s going to say before he even says it. “That’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

Yelena couldn’t tell you how long she talked for. Or how long Bob had patiently listened with rapt undivided attention. Nor could she tell you at what point they fell asleep. But what she can tell you is when she woke up to find herself curled into Bob’s side, with his arm encircling her, it had been the most peaceful night of sleep she had had in a good long while.

And judging by the contented look on Bob’s face as he slept, she could only assume it was the same for him.

* * *

It had become their new routine.

Whenever a night was particularly difficult, or sleep simply wouldn’t come, it became a thing to find themselves wandering over to the other’s room. For Yelena to anticipate the knock on her door, to open it to find Bob stood in her doorway, and with a simple question of, “A bad one?”, she would usher him into the room.

Sometimes they found themselves sleeping in the others beds. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes a talk was enough, or even simply existing in their presence for a while.

Sometimes the conversations were surprisingly light-hearted. Other times… they weren’t. Bob had a tenancy to just blurt out stuff at times like he was asking about the weather.

Tonight was one such nights.

“Yelena?”

“Hmmm?” She hadn’t yet bothered to look up from her book yet, not expecting the question that was to follow.

“When I… When the Void took over, and was consuming the city… Why did you walk into it?”

Yelena loses track of where she was in the book in an instant, looking at Bob over her book. He had that same usual earnest gaze, but she also saw what she thought was some worry there, too.

She closes the book, placing it on the bedside next to her. “There were… a couple reasons.”

Bob nods, encouraging her to continue.

“When we met… I think it was safe to say we were both in a bad place. No matter what hell the Red Room put me through, I at least had my sisters. Then… that was gone. Then Natasha, then Alexei all but disappeared and… I just felt like I was existing to exist, you know? Just… me. Alone. And then… I met you. I met the team. I saw myself in you and I whilst I knew I couldn’t help myself, I could try and help you. But then… Valentina got to you. Manipulated you like everyone else, and…”

“And then came Sentry,” Bob finished for her, looking to her with regret.

“I felt like I had lost you. I tried my best, but it still wasn’t enough. So when you became the void, and I saw the world slipping away into the darkness, I figured… Well, what’s the worse that could happen? I was already so far into my own darkness that worst case scenario, it would all be over.”

“Yelena-” Bob tried to speak, but Yelena shook her head, stopping him in his tracks.

“But more than that, when I looked at you,into the eyes buried within that darkness… I just saw you. Deep, deep down, but I knew you were in there somewhere. Trapped in that pain just as I was. And there was no way in hell I was leaving you in there. No matter what it took, I was going to drag you out there myself.”

“I… could definitely picture you dragging me out by the collar of my shirt or something.”

“If that’s what it took,” Yelena replied confidently. “Would have been nice payback for you, you know, squashing me against the ceiling.”

Bob winced at that, looking away as the shame overtook him.

“Hey, look- Heat of the moment, I get it. You got people coming at you, and instincts take over.”

“Please, don’t – don’t try and make excuses for me. I let Valentina’s words get to my head and my ego took over. I didn’t need to do that to you guys.”

“Well… You didn’t kill us. So there’s that.” Yelena awkwardly offered.

As expected, that didn’t make Bob feel in the slightest bit better. “Talk about bare minimum…”

“I mean… Most people who fight me are trying to kill me, so… I’ll take it. Especially given how stupidly strong you are. I mean, you just took Bucky’s arm and you–” Yelena mimicked the movement of the fight. “Took it right off. And then you bitch-slapped him with it. His own arm.”

“Yeah, I’m… Not exactly proud of that–”

“And Walker! I have been hit by that shield before. It’s no joke. And you turned it into a taco. A taco, Bob”

That at least managed to get a laugh out of Bob, tilting his head in acceptance. “I think Walker’s still pretty pissed about that.”

“Well of course he is. It’s still Taco-fied.”

Yelena is only able to hold her serious expression for a few seconds before she cracks, pushed over the top by Bob’s incredulous look, who then breaks upon her breaking, their laughter filling the quiet night of the Watch Tower. Funny, how quickly she went from worrying about waking people from her screams to waking people from their laughter.

“Oh! I have a question!” Yelena suddenly outburst, interrupting their laughing fit. “Were you always ripped?”

“What?” Bob asked through his laughter.

“You. Your abs,” Yelena clarifies, poking at said abs through his shirt. “Like, did you have a workout regime or…?”

“Yelena, I was a drugged out dude wandering through South East Asia trying to find myself. Or more drugs. You think I had a workout regime?”

“So they just… appeared?” Yelena asked in disbelief.

“I guess so, yeah. I woke up in that vault with you guys and there they were.”

“Unbelievable,” Yelena groans, flopping down onto the bed. “You know how hard I have to work to keep this figure? And yours just appear? No fair. That’s it, I want some serum.”

Bob can’t help but laugh at her dramatic despair. “If it makes you feel any better, I think your figure looks pretty good.”

Yelena’s head pops up at that to look at him, and take in the wide eyed, panic filled expression on his face at what he had just said. “Oh, uh, not like that– I meant that you know, how good you look with how much work you put in comparative to how I look with it just happening by itself, and – uh – I’ll shut up now…”

Yelena stares at him for a moment, immensely enjoying watching him dig himself deeper. “So you think I look good?”

Bob closed his eyes. He knew he wasn’t getting off the hook that easy. “Please don’t.”

“No, no. I am just making sure I understood you correctly.”

More silence.

“You understood.”

Yelena hummed happily. “Good.”

The smile in her voice is so evident that Bob can see it through his closed eyelids.

“You’re… not going to let me let this down, are you?” Bob asked, peeking one eye open at her to see her responding grin.

“Never.”

Bob groaned, rubbing a hand across his face and adding to Yelena’s endless amusement. “I, uh… I should probably get back to my room. Stop taking up your time…”

“Oh.” Yelena surprises herself with the disappointment in her tone. She sits up from her laid position, only to find herself unexpectedly close to Bob now, sat opposite one another, faces mere inches from one another. And yet, her usual instinct to pull away does not appear. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I…” Bob falters. His eyes meet hers, and they don’t drop away like they usually do.

There’s something there, something she doesn’t quite know or understand, but her body does. Her chest tightens, heart beat feeling strangely noticeable as her pulse quickens, the sound of her blood roaring past her ears drowning out her thoughts and replacing them with pure instincts, a desire to lean closer she’s not even conscious of. His eyes… Those normally grey-blue rings of colour that was surprisingly easy to get lost into had morphed, overtaken by a darkness oh so familiar and yet different. This wasn’t the usual darkness of despair and loneliness, it was the opposite, a darkness of yearning and hunger that she was running out of excuses not to give into–

A sudden pounding on the door has the two of them damn near flying off the bed, Yelena’s already racing heart picking up a notch at the intrusion, so taken aback that she’s unable to even respond to the knocking.

“Jesus Christ, I know you guys are like each other's therapy dogs or whatever, but can we chill with the laughter?” Walker’s booming voice came from the other side of the door. “It is three. Goddamn. AM. Enough, alright?”

“Sorry, Walker!” Bob managed to get out through his dry mouth about the same time Yelena managed to recover enough to respond with “You sound jealous, John. Do you need a therapy dog, too?”

The beat of silence from the hallway made Yelena think John had walked away for a second.

She was mistaken.

“Go fuck yourself, Belova”

“Oh, I will, thank you! Goodnight!” Yelena’s chipper voice echoed through the room, followed by the sounds of footsteps swiftly retreating from the door. “You know, Bucky has golden retriever energy hidden under that tough exterior. We could always ask him to cuddle you!” Yelena adds on.

“I can still hear you!” Comes Walker’s fading voice from beyond the door.

“You were meant to! That’s why I yelled it!” Yelena yelled in response, looking over to see Bob with his head in his hands, shoulders shaking with what could either be laughter or exasperated crying. Both were equally as plausible.

“I, uh… Think that is my cue to leave.” Bob says when he pulls his head out of his hands, looking with slight embarrassment to the door. “I doubt Walker’s the only one that’s pissed…”

“Yeah…” Yelena concedes, getting to her feet as Bob too stands from the bed, the sting of disappointment returning and making itself known. Bob gives her somewhat of a sad smile – something that seemed to hint he was feeling that very same sting.

“So, uh… Goodnight.” Bob awkwardly gets out, heading towards the door.

“Goodnight. Sweet dreams.” Yelena softly responds, getting one last sad smile out of Bob before he’s gone, gently closing the door behind him. Yelena stares at the door for a while, unable to will herself to move. She needed to get back to bed. To sleep. But something felt missing.

She needed it.

She needed him.

She needed Bob.

She crosses her room in a few strides, moving before she can let her doubts catch up to her and swings the door open. She was prepared to march down the hallway, only to find herself coming to a halt at the sight of Bob on the other side of the door, startling at the sudden opening, hand raised as if he was about to knock on her door.

“Oh.” Bob blurts out, hand dropping back to his side. “I came back to, uh… I wanted to… I thought…”

He stops talking. Yelena doesn’t speak, either. They’re just stood there, the two of them in the doorway. Searching for something, anything to say.

He kisses her first.

It’s quick, but soft. Tender. A hesitancy lying there in the kiss, but with the intention of wanting more. He pulls away faster than she can truly register it, that familiar panicked look returning to his face.

“I-I-I’m sorry. I probably read that wrong. Just… pretend that didn’t happen–”

He goes silent as he feels Yelena’s hand on his neck, sliding up until her fingers are buried in his hair, her other hand grasping at the front collar of his shirt, pulling him towards her and swallowing any more words of doubt with her lips. The uncertain tension all but melts away from his body, the muscles of his chest going soft under the touch of her hand. It wasn’t just that his mind was calmed, rather everything replaced. The smell of her, the softness of her lips pressed against his, the warmth of her hand against his chest, the shiver running down his spine as her fingers tighten and grasp at the locks of his hair. It was just… her. Everything was replaced with her.

Yelena tugs at his shirt as steps back, pulling him further into the room to which he willingly obeys, his legs doing the work without much thought whilst his brain remains focused on keeping his mouth on hers. He’s somewhat aware of Yelena throwing out a hand to swing the door closed, her hand just as quickly back in his hair as it had left it. His knees damn near give out at the soft sigh she makes against his mouth, opting to place his hands on her waist to stop himself from collapsing entirely.

For as much as the serum gave him, he still, reluctantly, needs to breathe, his brain seriously contemplating whether oxygen was worth it to stop kissing her. Especially when he takes in the heat in her eyes once they part, making him wonder what his own eyes must look like right about now.

“Are you sure?” He can’t help to ask, the heat in her eyes briefly being replaced with confusion. “Are you sure you want this? Want… me?”

The look she gives him in response made quite the picture.

“Walker was right. You do ask stupid questions, Bob.”

If that didn’t convince him, her pulling him into bed right after that statement sure did.